My Hero Academia: Son of Justice

by Jayme F. Midorikawa

The son of the disgraced former greatest Hero of The Soviet Union is extended a chance at a new life by the Symbol of Peace, All Might. After having lived so long resenting Heroes and Villains, and being scared to death of his own Quirk, will he be able to step forward and become the Hero he once dreamed of, and will he be able to find new purpose through friendship, or even love?

145. Team-Up Arc Part 2 - A Chance

Hello again, everyone. I'm sorry for the prolonged delay in getting September's worth of chapters out to you all. This month has put some considerable hindrances in my way, namely the fact I'm going to on-site classes for college for the first time in the last couple years, and on days where I still have to work as well. Naturally, this cuts the free-time I would have to write considerably.

However, now that I'm starting to get into the groove of things finally, I'm hoping that by the end of October, I can at least give you all the remainder of the Team-Up Missions Arc. November is going to be dedicated to doing the last School Briefs spinoff, and maybe even a prologue chapter for the upcoming Paranormal Liberation Front (or Paranormal War) Arc. I've come to figure beginning that arc would be a good way to ring in the New Year, you know?

I hope this couple of chapters proves to be worth the wait for you all, as I still really, really appreciate all your continued patronage in reading my story each day, even after the manga itself has officially ended. It's been impossible for me to avoid hearing many of the divisive opinions on that ending, so I'm hoping, when I get to that point, I can be able to improve on some of the bigger aspects of it, and help make this whole overall experience ultimately that much more fulfilling where the original may have felt rushed or fallen flat altogether. I am currently having some custom manga pages made right now to include on my DA account as part of this story's take on the epilogue, so when that time comes, I hope you'll all check those out.

My Hero Academia belongs to Kouhei Horikoshi and Shonen Jump. I only own my original characters, and the original scenarios surrounding them.

A/N: ] indicates characters are contextually speaking Russian.

Chapter 145

A Chance

(Шанс)

Sunday, February 1st

No matter how much Maja knew she should have been excited to be traveling through the vast cityscape of Tokyo on this, her most anticipated of days since first coming to Yuuei Academy, she couldn't stop her stomach from feeling like it was tying itself in knots, feeling as though her scalp was on fire beneath her dried wax-like hair, and clutching her backpack tight to her chest like a life preserver.

It had only been a couple days ago that the announcement had been made that all Hero school students who did not yet possess their own Provisional Hero Licenses were to come to this one location at the beginning of February for what was being called a compensatory exam. Since then, Maja had been silently, slowly and surely counting down the hours, even despite the fact her classmates in both classes were never failing to remind her of what was coming; their excitement almost physically permeating the air.

When this morning had finally come, Maja couldn't even have forced herself to be surprised when she'd been met by the sight of her friends across the Hero course having all helped prepare her with both a veritable banquet of a breakfast, and a multitude of good luck charms, or even simply written tokens of best wishes and confident support; all of which they helpfully attached to her backpack before she'd had to leave, and they had to embark on their own assigned Team-Up Missions in kind.

Now, sitting on this bus with the astronaut-suited Pro Hero teacher Thirteen serving as her chaperone, Maja instinctively began looking through the intricately folded or twisted strips of paper adorning her backpack, both as a means of trying to get her mind off her own anxiety, and in the hopes that seeing all her friends' heartfelt words would be enough to instill her with the same confidence she knew deep down she needed more than ever.

As she looked especially intently at the notes written for her by Nikolay, Tetsutetsu, Eijirou and virtually all the girls between classes; Maja didn't realize how obvious her body language was, as Thirteen observed her knowingly through the impenetrable tint of their helmet. Only when the moment felt truly right did they finally speak up, snapping the young Polish girl out of her daze: "It's perfectly okay to be nervous, Kieslowska-chan."

Maja flinched and turned red with embarrassment upon hearing the teacher addressing her. "Oh, sorry, Thirteen-sensei! Was I really that obvious?"

If Thirteen was nodding in confirmation, their suit made it impossible for Maja to tell before they continued: "Well, yes, but that's okay. Everyone is nervous when they get their shot at the license exams. I know I definitely was. However, it's not like you're going into this without an ounce of experience under your belt, you know. You've been giving your best in both training and your studies, and in the rare instances you've been forced to act, you've done so with the kind of gusto and consideration that Heroes are expected to have. That's all anyone can ask of you, so if you just go into this with that same kind of energy and focus, I'm just about certain you'll succeed here, too."

As grateful as Maja was for her teacher's confidence, it still didn't hold a candle to her overwhelming nervousness when the bus had finally arrived at the exam grounds: a massive circular open air stadium on the northern outskirts of Tokyo, where a whole lineup of other busses were standing in a waiting convoy for their respective student and teacher passengers' return upon the exam's conclusion. To see so many of these vehicles helped cement just how many other totally brand new and strange faces she could expect to meet once inside, and that made poor Maja's feet feel like they were weighed down by cement, no matter how much she had to try and force herself to take one step after another.

Fortunately, Thirteen never lost patience with her, even when they'd finally crossed the threshold of the front entrance. "I have to go up to the bleachers with the rest of the chaperones and officials, Kieslowska-chan. Go into the nearest girls' room, go change into your costume, and the attendants will help guide you to where the rest of the other examinees are. I'll be keeping an eye on you the whole time, so if anything should go wrong, I'll be there, okay? But until then, just know that you've got this."

Maja could barely manage a "Yes, Sensei" before Thirteen had to take their leave, thus leaving her to get changed into what portable pieces of her costume she actually had, using her Quirk to don the majority of it over her skin. Once she'd affixed the more floral-looking brass heating coils to her ankles, soles, forearms and shoulders, donned her utility belt and clasped the small golden brooch to her hair, she took a weighty-feeling breath to steady herself, feeling like a puppet pulled by invisible strings as she stepped out and followed the guidance of the multiple identical-suited attendants filling the stadium grounds.

Upon her arrival to the rather spacious waiting room, Maja took stock of the several dozen other Hero school students already here. She found herself feeling somewhat conflicted. Clearly, despite the number of busses outside, there were a lot less examinees here than she had been expecting, after all the stories her friends had told her of theirs. Then again, considering this was essentially a makeup exam after the previous official makeup exam, it ultimately wasn't too surprising there wouldn't even be a hundred people here. In that way, she actually felt a pang of relief.

However, when she really saw the air of grim determination and laser-sighted focus they were all exhibiting whilst waiting for the exam to start, it immediately filled her with apprehension as well. If they were going to be dealing with something like an elimination challenge this time around, she could just tell she was going to have to be more on her toes than she'd ever been before.

Key among these fellow examinees were:

A girl with short hair of both black and white, dressed in a skintight bodysuit that looked to have a pattern resembling camera film. Alongside her was a young man in a black-and-white-striped trench coat with shaggy black hair and shifty yet exhausted-looking eyes; a tall young man with a shaved head and square jaw who was dressed in what looked like the leotard of an old-timey circus strong man, alongside bracelets on his wrists that resembled classic lifting weights, and a smaller and more slender young man dressed in the goggles and bomber jacket of a WWII-era ace fighter pilot with what looked like the wings and tailfins of a tiny plane protruding from his legs.

Across the room, the only other group that really caught Maja's eye was clearly headed by a petite girl with semi-long pale periwinkle blue hair worn in a clip with one long bang hanging at the left side of her face, whose hero costume consisted of a red visor over her eyes, a skintight navy blue turtleneck bodysuit with two thick bluish lines running parallel down her torso that got thinner as they progressed down, with two similar lines running around her thighs, pale blue shoulder pads bearing the letter 'S' in red upon her upper arms, red gloves, what looked like thick wrist-guards with screens upon them affixed to her forearms, with the one on her left looking significantly bigger than the one on her right, and bluish thigh-high high-heel boots with peculiar lips protruding out forward from just above her feet.

Beside her were two boys and one other girl:

One boy with de-saturated bluish-grey short hair which hung messily spiked over the right side of his face. Even from this distance, he had no eyebrows that she could see, bug-wide eyes with beady pupils, a nose flat enough to appear as nothing more than two slit-like nostrils, and a wide mouth with overly visible straightened teeth. His costume consisted of a large high-collared black double-breasted coat that ran even below his knees with thick cuffs around his wrists, which had a series of wires and nozzles running from around his waist, ankles and down the length of his arms; what looked like a translucent purple mask hanging around his neck for him to pull up over his face, black gloves and pointed dress shoes and tight-looking pinstriped pants.

Another, much shorter boy; although Maja could only guess at that, since his Hero costume was so bulky to the point it was probably lifting him right off the ground. From what little she could make out of the student himself, he had light chestnut hair swept up in a diagonal cowlick protruding from atop his head, a small round nose, tiny black dot-like eyes, although his left eye was obscured under what looked like a circular radar protruding from inside his costume. As for the suit itself, it was absolutely robot-like in design; being made up of multiple different-colored plates of metal; with the shoulders being yellow, the torso green, the legs blue, and the hands being red. There were holes upon the knees, chest and lower torso that looked a lot like the mouths of cannons, and the elbows and shoulder blades had what looked a lot like thrusters. Considering how cumbersome and heavy the costume looked, Maja wouldn't have been surprised if those were simply to help the poor guy move around in it at all.

And lastly, the only other girl among them had the body of a human girl, but her head and neck were that of a grey-patterned snake with piercing yellow eyes, topped with a large bright red spiky head of shoulder-length hair. Her Hero costume consisted of two yellow-tinted visors affixed to the sides of her head over her eyes, a bright blue bodysuit with a high collar and attached high-heel shoes, a snake pattern running along her arms, darker blue straps around her shoulders, her torso bearing a pattern similar to the stomach of a snake, and a long piece of yellow cloth tied securely around her waist.

Taking in all these new faces, Maja sucked in a shaky breath through her teeth. No matter how this exam was going to unfold, she knew she would at least have a better chance if she started this whole thing as open-minded as possible. And so, with a chill running up and down her spine, she made her way towards her fellow examinees, and without really making established eye contact with any one person in particular, spoke up in an attempt to try and break the ice:

"So, pretty exciting day, huh? Any of you guys feeling fired up?"

The utter silence that fell upon the whole room, and the sensation of all the eyes falling on her, made Maja immediately want to take back every word and retreat out of sight entirely. While not all gazes were what she would call hostile; those that were more than made up for everyone else, especially that of the white-black-haired girl with the film-design suit. "Best you save your breath. We're not here to make friends, got it? I lost my rightful shot the first time cause of those damn Yuuei braggarts; I'm not going through that again."

By the end, she was basically muttering in bitterness to herself, while Maja could overhear from the other group, the grey-blue-haired boy in the large coat mutter coldly to his apparent teammates: "That girl's got the right idea. It won't serve us well getting friendly with anyone else here. This is what all our hard work and slip-ups have been leading for, so don't any of you do anything that could screw it up again."

But the girl with the red visor and clipped hair simply rolled her eyes and actually began approaching Maja directly. "Oh, come on, Fujimi-san; for all we know, they could be expecting us to work together once the exam starts, so putting up walls from everyone else won't help us then."

True to her words, she immediately met Maja with a friendly bow; prompting her other two teammates to hurriedly do the same, while the boy she called Fujimi stubbornly kept standing straight, while she herself finally looked Maja in the eye with a properly courteous smile: "Hello. My apologies for my classmate's…less than sociable demeanor. Allow me to introduce myself: I'm Sekigai Kashiko, representative for Class Alpha of Isamu Academy High School, Musutafu City."

Following their identified president's example, the visibly timid boy in the bulky robot armor could barely be heard as he stuttered out his own introduction: "Um…h-hello. T-T-Tadan Dadan…n-nice to m-meet you."

The snake-headed girl, while clearly not as withdrawn as the boy called Dadan, was likewise not as used to being so sociable as to not let her shyness be known when she spoke up: "Mongoose Habuko…nice to meet you as well. I hope we can get along."

"Fujimi Romero." This was the only sound to come out of the Fujimi boy, as he stubbornly kept his arms crossed over his chest upon seeing his classmates completely ignore his so-called advice and introduce themselves to the strange young girl in their midst.

But his abrasive demeanor thankfully didn't put Maja off entirely, as she still managed a friendly smile of her own as she bowed to her four new acquaintances. "It's nice to meet you all. I'm Maja Kieslowska…but you can just call me Maja if it's easier for you while we're here…also, did you say your school is actually in Musutafu City, Sekigai-san? Because mine is, too. I'm surprised nobody in my classes has mentioned it before…or any teachers for that matter."

However, Maja saw a glint of realization flash across not only the eyes of the four students before her, but also everyone else across the room, as she immediately felt those piercing stares all over herself once again, before Kashiko finally broke the silence: "Wait…but the only other Hero school in Musutafu City is Yuuei Academy…so…you're a Yuuei student, Maja-san? I thought they only had two students in total who didn't get their licenses the first time around."

But before any of her classmates or even Maja herself could follow that up, the venomous-sounding voice of the black-white-haired girl spoke up as she made a beeline for the Polish girl, looking her up and down like a predator to its prey. "Yeah, and I don't remember seeing you among that Class 1-A lot even once back then, and I don't remember hearing anything about Yuuei getting another foreigner for a student…which means you must be brand-spanking new!"

Maja, desperate to get rid of the feeling like she was a lamb in a room full of wolves, continued to stand tall as she addressed everyone's gazes: "Yeah, that's true, I only got accepted into Yuuei barely more than a couple months ago, but that's no reason for any hostilities here, right? Like Sekigai-san said, we could just as easily end up needing to work together as we could end up having to face each other, so why not try and start off on a better foot, right?"

Maja wouldn't even have a chance to know if her call for a cease to the hostilities was even getting through to anyone, as the lights to the room suddenly went dark, and a bright projection lit up the opposite wall, revealing an exhausted-looking man with messy light hair in an official black suit who was a total stranger to her, but very familiar to the exam veterans.

"Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our newly instated Residual Provincial License Exam. Our ordinary Remedial Exam may have come and gone, but this is a true last chance for those of you who, for one reason or another, have had no luck thus far, before entering your second years, and the normal chance that would bring if you didn't make it the first time."

It was clear that such a jumbling of words in order to try and get Yokumiru Mera's point across didn't sound any clearer to himself than it did to the examinees; something he himself definitely blamed on just how much sleep he was losing as a result of having to supervise this third makeup-exam when he'd least expected it. Shaking his head in frustration in order to give himself back even just a pinch of energy, he continued:

"Because this new exam is meant to elevate the very last remains of the nation's Hero school first years to the potential of license-ownership, especially this late into your first years, it stands to reason you've all had all that time you need to not only get a great deal of Hero training under your belts, but also to have mastered the necessary lessons to be able to handle yourselves in actual field work, both in action and in how you interact with the public and your teammates. Thusly, we will not be subjecting the relative few of you there are to a multi-challenge process-of-elimination exam like we usually would. Instead, this exam will force you all right into what would be a live day of Hero field action, in order to gauge just how prepared you all are in every aspect; very much like the Pro Hero License exams we prepare for those graduated from their Hero schools and ready to put themselves out there full-time."

With the push of a button off-screen, the wall behind the projector screen suddenly slid down, momentarily blinding the examinees with the morning sunlight, before their eyes adapted and widened with what they saw: a vast life-size cityscape filling the open air field of the stadium, with countless civilians traveling about as if this were an actual town on any given day. As the examinees instinctively stepped out to get a feel for their apparent exam ground, Mera's voice continued over the loudspeakers:

"All of the people you see out here are volunteers from a multitude of official services dedicated to helping young Hero students in their training. This exam has a multitude of potential scenarios that could be activated at any given point in time at any point in the grounds, and it will be your job to show how adaptable and professional you can be when in a situation you're either perfectly prepared for or not. Even the best Pro Heroes don't know what any given day has in store for them, and the sooner you absorb that fact, the better prepared you will be to follow in their footsteps. Just like your original exams, you will be scored on a point system, depending on how well you do. Over the next three hours, you will be working to resolve as many incidents, big and small, as you can, and any and all examinees who manage to score one-hundred points or higher will finally receive their Provincial Hero Licenses, starting…now."

The examinees didn't even need a starting gun or an alarm to set them in motion into the depths of the cityscape. Just Mera's word was enough, as with his explanation of just what was expected of them on this day, they could all feel their respective licenses that much closer in their grasp than they had ever been before.

As numerous other colorful examinees took off in all directions and even into the skies, Maja knew she needed to keep her eyes peeled and her ears wide open for the first sign of anyone in need of help. Luckily, she didn't need to go searching for very long, as within the first minute she came across a markedly slow elderly citizen in a crosswalk, with a driverless truck speeding down the road towards them, it's driver hopelessly running after it and calling out for anyone to get out of the way.

To her own astonishment, Maja didn't miss a single step as she came dashing onto the scene. Remembering what Melissa Shield, Mei Hatsume and the assigned Shiketsu High Support Course student Kaikou Bando had all told her, she turned the hidden dial built into the buckle piece of her utility belt. Just like they had said, the brass vambraces on her arms immediately began to heat up the moment she did so. Once she felt the Wax of her arms start to soften, she immediately threw them both in spread out directions. Just as her left hand grabbed onto the senior citizen and hurriedly pulled them back to the curb, so too did her right hand throw a quickly building ball of molten wax onto the street; the resulting splash catching onto the wheels of the runaway truck, and just as quickly drying in order to cause them to seize up and bring the vehicle to a less smooth stop than she would've liked.

Thankfully, the truck driver just looked relieved that nobody had gotten hurt. On the other hand, in her haste to get the old civilian out of harm's way, she had pulled a measure too hard, subsequently pulling one of their muscles. So with one incident avoided, Maja still found herself with no points like before.

Thankfully, once a few other examinees came onto the scene to undo the bodily and mechanical damage she had unintentionally caused; Maja heard another call for help from further down a nearby street. With a series of hurriedly apologetic bows, she quickly took her leave and soon came across a couple of small children gathered at the foot of a small tree, within which was perched a visibly frightened white cat.

Maja didn't even need to be told what the problem was in order to know what she needed to do. Not wanting a repeat of her recent faux pas, she arrived on the scene with just enough haste, keeping a reassuring smile on her face as she began to climb the tree and reach for the visibly nervous feline. "No need to worry, you little cutie. I'm gonna get you back to your owners safe and sou-*ACHOO!"

But the moment she was within arm's reach of the cat, Maja found herself suddenly overcome with a more intense need to sneeze repeatedly than she had ever experienced before. As she barely kept her grip on the tree, she couldn't bring herself to stop, even as she took a handful of her costume wax and smeared it over her nose and mouth to make a mask. By then, her eyes had even started to itch and ultimately tear up, to the point she could barely even see out of them.

It was only through pure dumb luck that her reaching hand ultimately managed to grab onto the cat by the nape of its neck and hand it back down to the kids still patiently waiting below. By the time she felt the animal get taken out of her hand, Maja finally released her grip and practically collapsed onto the sidewalk, still sneezing repeatedly while she apologized on instinct and hurriedly took her leave once again.

By the time she was far enough away that she was finally able to actually take a breath and recollect her bearings, it quickly became all too clear to Maja just what was going on that she had never had the past experience with which to know ahead of time: "You've…got to be kidding me…of all the things in the world…it has to be cats, the cutest things ever, I have allergies from?!"

But before she could lament this unfortunate discovery of herself any further while wiping the tears from her thankfully now less itchy eyes; she heard the unmistakable sound of a store alarm ringing just around a corner. Shaking her head in order to get her focus back, she hurried onto the scene, rounding the corner just in time to see a clear petty thief running for all he was worth right for her, with a sack of either stolen goods or stolen money slung over his shoulder.

Seeing he wasn't about to stop, Maja hurriedly channeled another current of her heated melting Wax into the palm of her hand, ready to throw it down low so it could stick his foot to the sidewalk. But just when she flicked her wrist in order to throw it, she saw he had suddenly gone completely still where he stood, as if he'd gotten paralyzed. This, of course, caused her shot to go just a little too short, and instead splatter harmlessly just before his feet.

"Sorry, Maja-san, but you're just a second too late!" The voice of the snake-headed girl, Habuko Mongoose, suddenly called out from behind Maja's back, before the girl herself suddenly came flying onto the scene, using the yellow cloth that had been around her waist as a makeshift whip to grab onto a nearby streetlight and swing from it, before just as masterfully whipping it forward and snatching onto the thief himself, just as he regained mobility, only to get tackled to the ground and subsequently tied up, just in time for a passing police car to come to a stop.

Maja could only watch on, stepping onto the puddle of her wasted wax so it could reabsorb into her costume, while the police took the thief off Habuko's hands and bring him in. With their thanks, they were off, leaving the two female Hero students to themselves in an awkward silence.

Finally, Maja just sighed, hoping her eyes hadn't gotten too red by now from her little misfortune with rescuing the cat, before finally speaking: "So…I guess that brief little paralysis was you? I don't think we're supposed to call each other by our real names if this is supposed to be like a simulation, so maybe you could just call me Candelabra. What should I call you?"

Scratching the back of her head in awkwardness of her own; Habuko answered: "Mongoose works fine. I'm honestly still figuring it out, myself…and yeah, that was me. It only lasts for three seconds so far, but if it's just one target, I typically do okay."

Before Maja could answer, a sudden bright flash of light flickered in the corner of her eye. Looking, she found yet more flashes from just over the rooftops of the next city block. There didn't sound to be any chaos unfolding, but she wasn't about to take that on good faith. "Well, since we're already here, you think we should check it out?"

But, to her surprise, Habuko just shook her head. "There's no need, I know those flashes pretty well by now. That's Dadan-kun's Quirk in action. His sweat can ignite like a Flash Bang. It's actually worked really well against groups during our training where I fall short."

Looking to the snake-headed girl, Maja just sighed before silently nudging her head in a silent offer for her fellow examinee to come patrolling with her; an offer Habuko was surprisingly eager to accept. "It sounds like your teammates really know how to get around just when they're needed, huh?"

With an enthusiastic nod, Habuko continued: "Oh, that's all thanks to Kashiko-chan. Her Quirk is like Radar, and her suit helps make it so that she can share what she sees with the rest of us and even direct us where any one of us can help the quickest. That's the whole reason I was able to answer to that robbery event so fast, though you were really quick, too. Sorry for snatching those points from you, by the way."

For someone who had exhibited such confidence in taking action mere seconds ago, the fact that Habuko could still be so shy couldn't help but make Maja smile in appreciation for the fact she wasn't the only one feeling this way. "Don't worry about it. We've still got a long ways to go, I'm sure we can both nab enough points by the time this is over. So…since you said what Dadan-san and Sekigai-san can do, I guess I have to ask now…what exactly does that ball of sunshine Fujimi-san do?"

To her surprise, Habuko shuddered from head to toe. "Between you and me, Ma—I mean, Candelabra-chan, it's better for all of us if Fujimi-san doesn't have a reason to use his Quirk. It'd just make things a lot more difficult for everybody."

With that kind of response, Maja felt a twisting in her gut that practically said she'd be better off not actually knowing. However, this left the two of them patrolling in that darn awkward silence for a good minute, which thankfully gave the two of them an opportunity to intervene in a pick-pocketing scenario which this time allowed both examinees to take some action, and thus finally secure Maja some hopeful points of her own.

Once that was done, however, Habuko suddenly spoke up: "So, Candelabra-chan, I hope you don't mind me asking this, but…if you're really from Yuuei Academy, and you're taking this exam…does that mean you're in their Hero Course?"

"Yeah, that's right." Maja asked. The moment she did, she was surprised to see her fellow examinee's reptilian eyes practically light up in excitement. "Are you in Class 1-A by any chance?"

Maja figured it would be for her own good to spare her temporary partner the gritty details of her circumstances, and instead simply nodded. "Yeah, I am. Why do you ask?"

She hadn't ever been sure before whether it was possible for snakes to visibly blush, but the way Habuko did when she realized how strong she was coming on, was something Maja couldn't help but describe initially as adorable before she finally answered: "Oh, I-I'm sorry. It's just that…well, one of my best friends in the whole world is going to Yuuei Academy as well, and we keep in touch with emails, texts and phone calls a lot, but we haven't really had a chance at all to hang out together since we graduated from our middle school, even though our new schools are in the exact same city. Maybe you know her; Asui Tsuyu-chan? She'd mentioned someone like you before, but I wasn't sure, and I didn't want to be rude and ask you outright in case I was wrong."

However, the way Maja's pink-blue eyes lit up with recognition gave Habuko all the reassurance she needed to know she was on the right track even before she answered. "Oh, Asui-chan, yeah, I know her! Maybe not as well as you, she doesn't really talk a whole lot about herself."

BKOOOM!

Before either of the girls could say another word, a shockwave of explosive sound suddenly rippled through the whole of the cityscape, snapping all Hero examinees and civilian volunteers' attention to a large plume of dust that had erupted from out of the ground in the middle of a large open air shopping quarter.

What emerged from the massive hole that had been blown out from under the surface was what anyone who had ever played an RPG before would have described as a tank: a hulking behemoth of a heavily armored mechanical suit of black steel, with an almost comically small head of an older pale-skinned bald man protruding from out the comparatively massive collar. His dark blue eyes seemed to practically burn as he took in his surroundings, especially the numerous young Hero students who had all come rushing onto the scene of disturbance he had created. At the same time, even the onlooking teachers and Commission officials were watching this unfold with rapt attention.

With all eyes on him, the older man in the massive armor grinned with a fierce confidence before he finally called out, his voice bellowing as the mechanics of his suit amplified it vastly: "BEHOLD, HEROES OF THE NEW GENERATION! YOUR DOOM HAS FINALLY COME! I AM THE MASTER OF SYNCHOPATION, WHIPLASH, AND YOUR JOURNEY TO BECOMING PRO HEROES HAS COME TO ITS ULTIMATE END!"

To emphasize his boisterous point, the man calling himself Whiplash's armor suddenly began to spark and glow with numerous arcs of energy surging through it; an effect that left more than a handful of the young examinees visibly intimidated, but no less eager to take this new challenge on.

Up from his observation platform overlooking the whole cityscape, even Mera didn't look completely thrown off. In fact, he was actually managing the faintest of smiles. "Ah, I was wondering when this exam's Villain volunteer was gonna show up and how. Good on them for keeping the details for their entrance a secret; makes it that much more convincing. Would've made more sense if they'd showed up much later once those kids get complacent, but we gave them free reign for when to make their move, so whatever. Time to give the announcement."

Before the examinees could make their first move, the sound of the stadium intercoms suddenly rang out, catching everyone by surprise, before Mera's voice came echoing out:

"All right, everyone, now we come to the crux of your exam: to see how you all hold yourselves up when faced against a big-time Villain. However, here's the rub: the one of you that manages to land the decisive blow that ends the battle, will automatically be guaranteed your Provisional License, regardless of ultimate score by the end."

The air reverberated with a sheer tidal wave of excited outcries; the examinees almost all entirely charging en masse for Whiplash, while the man himself simply took in the oncoming assault with momentary bewilderment. "You children all still think this is some kind of game?! You're all several decades too early to have any hope of getting past me and my Quirk! BEHOLD: SYNCHRONIZATION!"

From the outside, none of the examinees saw any notable change in their target…but inside, everything went silent, as Whiplash could soon hear nothing more than all of their collective heartbeats, all beating in near perfect unison as their adrenaline had all collectively spiked…all permanently timed to beat between each one of his own, which allowed him just the perfect timing as his real hands hurriedly hit a collective of buttons and switches from inside the gauntlets of his armor.

With an inhuman swiftness and precision, Whiplash's armor suddenly opened up a series of plates from all over, from which fired a multitude of different projectiles, ranging from flashes of blinding light to disorient all those with eye-based Quirks, devastatingly powerful sound waves, tiny explosives and even lasers and arcs of lightning, all perfectly aimed to blast aside or swat away every single one of the Hero students charging at him; with follow-up projectile attacks even taking care of those with the reflexes to dodge the initial attacks sent their way.

And for those that had just been close enough to actually close the distance beforehand, his bulky form suddenly spun and leapt out of their range with a speed and grace that such armor should have made impossible, thus causing their attempts to attack or grapple meet nothing but empty air, before they too were just as expertly smashed aside, leaving Whiplash standing triumphant and unscathed among them as they all tried to get back to their feet.

"HAHAHAHA! You brats are no match for the likes of me! You have no grasp of what it is to truly master how to fight against a foe with perfect rhythm like me! You'll never ascend to Pro Hero-level if I have anything to say about it!"

As Whiplash continued to boast while using his armor's seemingly endless arsenal to keep batting his young opponents away; up on a nearby rooftop, the black-white-haired girl from before was slowly but surely making her way to the edge, until she could look down into the courtyard, while the Villain player had his back to her. She smiled cockily as soon as it was apparent he hadn't noticed her presence. "Yeah, keep talking, you big lummox. Makes it all the more satisfying for me."

But just before she could blink and use her Quirk upon him, she was suddenly met with a persistent blinding light emanating from out a panel in the back of Whiplash's armor, forcing her to reel back, her eyes burning with a myriad of flashing colors after what had felt like staring directly into the sun for a full minute.

But even the respite of just getting away from the light couldn't last, as she soon felt the ground start to give way from under her feet, as Whiplash had followed up this counter with a follow-up laser blast from out his left elbow plate, slicing straight through the corner of the building she was standing on, sending it sliding off and collapsing to the unforgiving ground below.

"I've got you, Satsuei-san!"

It was only by a miracle that she had been spotted among the falling debris, and was subsequently caught just in the nick of time by the examinee in the pilot costume, whose legs had by now changed into small jet turbines to help him fly at incredible speed.

By now, Maja was standing back behind cover, watching in disbelief as Whiplash kept redirecting, countering and dodging every possible feint maneuver and attack her fellow examinees were throwing at him. Even Habuko's Paralysis Quirk had proven ineffective, thanks to his continuous flash bangs and glaring lights continuously blinding her and leaving her wide open. It was as though he'd meticulously researched every single one of their Quirks and had designed that armor to protect him from all of them. It was too thick for any of her Wax Spikes to penetrate, and it was even equipped with powerful enough flamethrowers to render any molten Wax attacks she had thrown at him completely useless.

But despite such overwhelming force, she knew she needed to keep trying. Surely there had to be some kind of an opening she or the others could exploit.

As her mind raced trying to find out, whilst at the same time being kept constantly on the move in order to get the civilians on the scene out of the crossfire, she glimpsed something from one of the other rooftops: what she quickly recognized to be the boy she now knew as Romero Fujimi, his face now half-obscured by the purple mask around his neck, bearing the design of a pointed and sinister grin, as he suddenly leapt down to the street below, a pale pink gas quickly emanating from out multiple different points of his costume all the while as he defiantly stated: "You're certainly a clever one, but let's see how well you hold up once those facilities are gone!"

He certainly sounded confident enough, but the first thing Maja noticed was how even his own teammates now on the scene only had looks of horrified shock on their faces at what he was doing, just before Kashiko Sekigai exclaimed: "STOP, FUJIMI-SAN, NOT WHEN WE'RE ALL CROWDED HERE LIKE THIS!"

But whether Romero was simply ignoring his representative's warning or just hadn't heard, it was clearly already too late, as the air was soon filled with the sound of most of the other examinees coughing uncontrollably…before that too started dying down, and began to be replaced with a grisly, skin-chilling collective of inhuman groans and moans.

Maja had thankfully had the caution to once more apply a mask of her own Wax over her mouth and nose to keep herself from breathing in Romero's gas, and once it began to clear, she was stricken with incredible relief that she had, for before her eyes, she saw nearly all her fellow examinees; Kashiko, Habuko and Tadan included; now had empty and lifeless eyes, their skin as pale as corpses, and their posture's slouched, and their movements shambling but driven, as their arms outstretched before themselves at the sight of her, Romero and Whiplash alike; the armored tank of a man visibly wearing a respirator from his armor already as well, as she could hear his filtered laughter.

Romero's Quirk was apparently one that could turn whoever breathed it in into essentially zombies, and it looked as though they didn't care who was before them, friend or foe; they were coming in for the attack regardless, with some of them even looking to still be able to use their Quirks in this state, as she soon found herself having to flee in order to avoid getting blasted. Even as Romero tried to simultaneously order them to attack Whiplash and run for his own safety, Maja could see the similar look of momentary panic in his eyes, clearly having not thought his plan through.

Now having Whiplash and Romero's zombie horde to worry about, Maja felt her heart catching in her throat while racing desperately. Her eyes began darting everywhere she could look for some avenue of escape, while still needing to think about the bigger picture.

Keeping that in mind, she instinctively turned her belt dial and threw her left arm out, grabbing onto the sleeve of Romero's costume before taking off into a slide with her Wax, pulling him along while that which quickly dried managed to ensnare the feet of several of the pursuing zombies in the process.

As the two examinees fled for a nearby alley, Maja spotted a momentary shadow in the sky, and upon looking up, she could see it was the pilot-looking examinee, with the foul-tempered Satsuei still in his arms as they flew for a nearby rooftop. Thankfully, he spotted the two of them as well, as he just as quickly after dropping her off on the roof, took off into a dive-bombing maneuver, grabbing Maja's free outstretched hand, and subsequently lifting her and Romero up along with him, and subsequently taking them to the same roof where Satsuei was waiting and fuming.

"Man, that was way too close. You all aren't hurt, are you?" The pilot examinee asked as soon as he'd finished catching his breath; Satsuei and Romero both stubbornly brushing off his concerns, while Maja was hunched over, similarly gasping for breath while still nodding her head. "I-I think so…thanks for the save. Hey, Fujimi-san, is that…Zombie Virus Quirk of yours going to wear off soon?"

"Not for a good several minutes…and my Zombies can do a lot of damage in even that short amount of time."

Romero was already looking down at the advancing mob, which were currently in the middle of chasing after both the civilians and the remaining examinees that hadn't been nearby for his Quirk to turn them as well. Worst of all, though, was that Whiplash was taking full advantage of the chaos, rampaging around with nobody to stop him.

But he wasn't deaf to his unconventional fellows' words, especially Satsuei's scathing criticisms as she snapped: "What the hell were you thinking, you idiot? That cueball was giving us enough trouble, and you decided to just give him a helping hand?! How are we supposed to take him down and keep all the civilians safe when there're barely a dozen of us still able-bodied enough to think and fight?"

Maja and the pilot examinee were both by now watching the unfolding events below alongside Romero, just as a sizeable enough bunch of their infected fellows were jumping Whiplash from behind, trying to futilely bite through his armor, but at least managing to weigh his maneuverability down in the process. Seeing this struck them all with what they didn't realize then was the same idea, as the pilot stated: "If this Quirk of yours has a temporary time of affect, then that at least confirms they aren't actually dead, which would mean they're still just as much in danger as the civilians."

Nodding in agreement, Maja followed up: "Yeah, so we have to try and save them too, find some way to isolate them enough so that Fujimi-san's Quirk will run its course and they'll turn back to normal. We could at least take advantage of the time they're buying us to try and gather up the majority before Whiplash tries to take them out."

"But given the abilities of his armor, that won't give us very much time at all." Romero pointed out. "We'll want to save the gathering of the ones that are still free to someone with the most speed, and we'll need to find a way to further stall Whiplash so the rest of us can grab those that are trying to attack him without him just immediately taking us all out at once the moment he's mobile again."

Looking between the four of them, the examinees all nodded resolutely, as they all instinctively knew which part of the job they were best suited for, as Satsuei cracked her knuckles and stated authoritatively, pointing at Maja, the pilot and Romero respectively as she addressed them: "Right. Me and Candle Girl here can take care of immobilizing Whiplash and even some more of the infected to make it easier for others to gather them up. Sora-kun, you and the dumbass can take care of swiftly gathering up and luring the rest across the grounds. I saw a pretty sizeable subway entrance not too far from here, I even checked it out earlier during patrol and saw it doesn't actually lead anywhere; being just part of a replica. We could drop the infected all off in there and seal off the entrance, at least for a time. That way we can wait out the remainder of the virus' time, and then clear it up so they can get out once it's done. Then we can actually put together a real plan to take that big metal lug down once and for all."

Maja wasn't about to express annoyance that Satsuei didn't even bother to ask her Hero name or anything of the like. Right now she was simply grateful they had something resembling a plan. Thankfully Romero and the now-identified pilot examinee known as Sora were of the same mind. So, with a unified nod, the four of them quickly set off from the rooftop, all of them knowing time was of the absolute essence for everyone's sake.

As Romero used himself as a piece of live bait to draw his infected hordes away from the other clean examinees and civilians, Sora made expert use of his aerodynamic abilities to pluck others off the ground like an eagle against a worm, keeping the location Satsuei had mentioned at the forefront of his mind as he flew back and forth from there to several other parts of the cityscape to drop them off into, whilst on several occasions needing to grab Romero along the way so he wouldn't get encircled and overwhelmed.

At the same time, Maja acted the moment Satsuei gave her the go-ahead, using her Quirk to completely freeze Whiplash in place while the Polish girl shot numerous extending webs of her melting Wax from her thrusting forearms, whereupon once they grappled onto the infected clinging onto the Villain target, she just as quickly wrangled them off like livestock, before then taking off into another slide upon her feet, pulling them along the whole way. Upon reaching the subway entrance, where Sora and Romero had likewise just finished dropping off their last respective batch of the infected inside, Maja brought her slide to a stop whilst throwing her right leg out in a sweeping kick, sending a splashing wave of melted Wax out in a sweeping arc with it, causing it to rapidly dry and form a slide over the steps of the entrance down which she proceeded to throw her haul down without risking them any potential harm.

"Alright, that's all of them, now seal up the entrance before they have a chance of climbing out!" Romero practically ordered, but Maja was fortunately quick on the reaction, as she threw her arms in several splashing sweeping strikes, rapidly building up a quick-drying barrier over the entrance with the Wax flying from her limbs. Within less than ten seconds, the whole thing was effectively sealed up. Either the infected inside had grown too weak to use their Quirks to try and smash through, or their mental facilities were really so dulled down that they couldn't even think to do so. Either way, it had bought the remaining examinees some breathing room.

"Alright, Whiplash isn't going to just stand by and do nothing while we wait this out, so we need to come up with a plan to keep him busy. You got any suggestions?" Maja asked, specifically with Satsuei in mind. However, she was met with nothing but silence. Looking back, she finally realized that Satsuei wasn't with them. Before any of them could even ask, the air shook with the sound of another powerful blast, right from where Whiplash had previously been frozen in place.

All at once did it become clear to the trio just what was happening, as Romero's eyes reflected a disbelieving anger. "Oh, that opportunistic little-!"

Like a shot the three of them were off, arriving at the courtyard in record time, just in time to see Satsuei get swatted out of the air like a fly from one of Whiplash's massive armored hands, crashing through the cobblestones to the feet of her impromptu teammates.

Just as soon as the three young Heroes saw what had happened, their enemy's eyes fell on them in kind, as a grin of arrogant assuredness spread across his face. "You all must understand by now, surely. No clever little tricks you could come up with can outwit me! I am the master of reading the human body in all its subtleties! Every subversive little tactic you can think of is betrayed by the music of your own hearts! I read them all as easily as one reads a children's book! I can predict and time a response to everything you could possibly think to do, before the thought even crosses your mind! You're up against the next supreme Villain of the nation! You little guppies don't stand a chance!"

With overwhelming intimidation and frustration alike running through them, the trio hurriedly snatched up Satsuei before she could try anything else that came to mind, and hurriedly made their escape, just as Whiplash unleashed a massive volley of several of his projectiles in their direction, leaving a deep gouging, smoking crater in the ground where they had once stood. Luckily for their sakes, a handful of the remaining examinees had by then arrived at last, and had decided to try and tackle him all at once, thus keeping him busy.

In the meantime, Maja and her three peers had quickly ducked away into the further corner of a nearby parking structure. Once it had become apparent that Whiplash wasn't pursuing them, they all let out a collective sigh of heavy relief…before just as quickly letting their respective anger come rushing back, as Maja exclaimed: "What the hell, I thought you were right behind me! I thought that was the plan!" "Yeah, do you have any idea how many close calls Flyboy here and I had by trying to lure the whole lot of them into that hole in the ground? I thought you would've reconnected with us and helped!" "Yeah, Satsuei-san, I thought we were a team going into this! You must've known he would be too much for you alone, even with your Freeze Frame!"

Satsuei stubbornly got back to her feet, breathing in exasperation through her teeth as she began to make a beeline for the exit, but when Maja and Sora both tried to grab her, she furiously threw her hands their way to get them to back off; her eyes wide and her pupils constricted with desperation and anger. "We might've been forced to work together, but if you think I'm gonna surrender my shot at that license for any of you, then you're dead wrong! I can't lose my shot again; I can't take that embarrassment a second time!"

Maja immediately planted herself between Satsuei and the exit, her mask by now melted away back into her costume so the stubborn girl could see how angry she now was. "Are you serious? You're ready to get us all flattened and failing this exam out of pride?! How is it you're not the only person I've met since coming to a Hero school who has that problem? What kind of Hero could you or him possibly be planning to be with an attitude like that?!"

"You're not in a position to scold anybody for pride, Yuuei-girl," Romero suddenly spoke out, rendering Maja silent as he glared subtle daggers at her. "Ever since I wanted to become a Hero, all I ever heard about was just how great a pinnacle Yuuei Academy was, how everybody who gets there is virtually guaranteed to become a top level Pro Hero. So I tried my luck at the entrance exam, and take a wild guess where I ended up. Yeah, near the bottom rung of the Hero school ladder by comparison; pretty much nobody I knew before has even heard of Isamu Academy. But I didn't wanna let that bring me down. In fact, I've been working my ass off ever since, trying to make it to a point where me and my classmates could become Heroes Yuuei could only dream of producing, themselves! If there's the slightest chance I can get that license with my own hands, and without any help from a Yuuei snob, then you better believe I'll go for it."

Maja looked downright incredulous at what she was hearing, shaking her head before Satsuei spoke up, this time with her voice much lower and bitterer: "My family has had commendable Pro Heroes in its line with every generation. My aunt was forced out of semi-retirement after getting hospitalized because of what a bunch of Villains were doing up near her place in Hokkaido in some foreigner town. If I hadn't screwed up and gotten my license the first time when I was supposed to, maybe I could've been there to help stop that from happening! I'm not about to let it slip out through my fingers and risk someone else I care about getting hurt like that again, if not worse. Now get the hell out of my way before one of the others out there gets the lucky hit in!"

As Satsuei was about to shoulder-check Maja out of her way, the Polish girl instead firmly grabbed her by the shoulder. However, rather than the aggressive face ready for a fight that Satsuei had been expecting to flip over, she was instead met with Maja looking utterly shaken. "Wait, what exactly is your aunt's name?"

"Everybody knows her as the Overlay Hero, Chiaroscuro, but why do you care?" Satsuei immediately spat back, as Maja released her hold and took a step back, her eyes wide with disbelief.

"Oh my God, Chiaroscuro…it was my hometown that she was trying to save back then."

This revelation of a most unexpected connection finally caused Satsuei to pause in mid-step, looking at Maja skeptically. Nevertheless, the young Wax Hero student continued: "It's true; I was part of the reason she ended up like that to begin with…and it's strictly because of her, her colleagues and a bunch of Yuuei students that my home, my family, my friends and I were all saved, in more ways than one."

For but a moment, Satsuei looked like she was about to flat-out punch Maja in the face for admitting her apparent involvement in her aunt's hospitalization. But despite such visible hostility, Maja wouldn't let herself be stopped: "That's a big part of why I'm even here right now, so I can repay them for all they did for me, even when they had no reason to trust me…and so I can make up for the wrongs I did before.

But even for as firm as Maja tried to keep speaking; her eyes slowly began to lower. "Despite all that, though, I still wonder if I really have what it takes, even after the things I've experienced already; all the time, actually. Heck, even today I wasn't sure, even if all my friends at Yuuei were. This is the first time I've ever really had to try and do the kind of Hero work you've all been training for by myself, without a single familiar face…but I won't let that stop me from still trying."

Romero and Satsuei both looked reasonably skeptical still, while Sora was subtly nodding in recognition of exactly the kind of feelings Maja was expressing right now as she continued: "I'm not going to just walk away from a chance to see for myself if I really have what it takes, but I've been through enough to know too well that I can't tackle everything by myself, anymore than you guys can. The fact is that real Heroes help pull each other up and help them keep going forward, just as much as they help regular civilians when times get tough…and maybe, if we were to just take a chance and act on that ourselves…well, maybe it can help us all get what we want that much easier."

"GYAAH!" Romero suddenly exclaimed, clutching a hand to one of his ears as he doubled over. This quickly snapped the other three examinees to attention, before he hurriedly waved his hands to motion them to give him some space. "I'm fine, I'm fine! My teammates and I have our own little earpieces to keep in contact if we get separated, and…well, good news is the virus has worn off finally. My classmates are all real pissed, though."

That was all the heads up they needed, as they hurried back to the still-sealed off subway entrance. As soon as Maja put her hands to the layer of dried Wax and allow it all to melt and absorb back into her body and costume, the whole of the once infected examinees came flocking back out, with Sekigai wasting no time before flicking Romero hard on his forehead the moment she saw him. "Next time, how about we actually confirm each step of our plan before you go letting that Quirk run loose when we're all exposed, Fujimi-kun?"

Of course, not everyone else could get the chance to similarly scold Romero, as the sounds of distant battle still hadn't abated since it had started, which clued them all in to the fact that Whiplash was still a very viable threat to be dealt with.

Realizing this with a grim acceptance, Maja was momentarily stirred when she felt Satsuei lightly elbow her in the arm, avoiding eye contact while puffing her cheeks in a mild pout. "Well, everyone's back to normal…so if you were serious about that whole working together thing being enough to get us our win…I'm open to suggestions."

Maja felt a great weight upon her shoulders at those words, as her gaze passed over all her fellow recovered examinees, some of whom were looking to her as though she was the one with the answers.

A notion she was very quick to dismiss, though: "Hey, I'm not some kind of super-strategist here. I think if we're going to have a real chance at winning here, then we all need to make our voices heard, see what we can work with…but also do it quickly before he gets the better of whoever's still fighting him, or a civilian ends up getting caught in the crossfire."

…

Maja's worries were far from unfounded. It had frankly been a miracle that the dozen examinees not out of commission for the past several minutes had managed to stay in their fight against Whiplash for this long, as well as keeping what civilians were still in the immediate area out of danger. But just like all their peers before them, they could only hold their own against the Villain target and his armor's arsenal for so long. Now that their energy was starting to dwindle, he was starting to systematically swat them down one by one. It would be a godsend if the lot of them were able to last for another two minutes at this rate, let alone five.

But as Whiplash recognized his impending victory and was thusly starting to turn his attention to his surroundings and the civilians unlucky enough to end up in his sights, he was seemingly unaware of all the now-recovered examinees closing in on his position from all directions like a well-trained tactical unit.

This was thanks in no small part to Sekigai Kashiko and her Radar Quirk, as she was keeping herself well hidden and masterfully directing every one of her fellow examinees through her classmates, as they echoed her directions through their respective ear pieces.

However, the key players in making sure this patchwork strategy of theirs would have any chance of success, was Maja, Satsuei and Sora, as the Freeze Frame girl was carefully traversing the rooftops in order to get a birds-eye vantage over Whiplash, while Sora was carrying Maja from under her arms, flying high in the sky just enough to avoid any possibility of their target glimpsing a shadow against the sun. It was only once they would be in the right position, based on Maja's judgment that they would finally be able to act.

As she kept her eyes focused on the behemoth below, she gave Sora two quick pats on the arm, the agreed upon signal for him to start descending so she could finally make her move. As they closed distance, she ran her train of thought past herself one last time, if for no other reason than to just amp herself up for this do-or-die moment:

'Everybody else at school has shown they can adapt like crazy when things don't go to plan, so how can I hope to stand beside them if I can't manage the same? This guy says he's the master of rhythm, that he can hear our heartbeats and use that to predict our moves…well, let's see if that's just as much a weakness as it is a strength for him!'

Having mentally counted down as agreed, Sora finally released his grip on Maja, allowing her to freefall, all the while hating the fact he couldn't risk Whiplash hearing them by wishing her the best of luck.

Maja fought hard to ignore the way her heart seized with fright the moment she felt gravity take her; choosing instead to keep focusing both on Whiplash's incoming form, and channeling her Wax just the way she needed it to be channeled, now more than ever.

And just in time, all of the other examinees that had decided to approach from the ground level had arrived at their designated positions, releasing a barrage of all their multitudinous and varied Quirks at Whiplash all at once, forcing his armor to practically explode in a variety of reflective mirrors and countering projectiles launchers…

…and the moment he did so was exactly the moment Maja was counting on, as she suddenly threw her right arm out, the melting Wax stretching it so she could slam a quick-drying glob over her hand to the side of a building in order to help her grapple on, before just as quickly reeling her arm back so she could meet the building with the rest of her body. The moment she was perched securely, she proceeded to throw her left arm out, this time throwing another large globe of Wax from her palm, whereupon it immediately splattered over the right side of Whiplash's exposed head, before just as quickly drying and encasing itself to him.

The moment she heard the roaring shout of surprise from her opponent, Maja proceeded to spring herself off the side of the building, sending herself flipping through the air over his head and quickly throwing another glob from her right hand down his way, this time splattering against the left side of his head and drying just as fast.

As Maja barely managed to stick the landing onto the ground, she could only spare a moment to look; stricken with relief when she saw her most hopeful assumption was proving true: with his body so deeply entombed within that bulky set of super-armor, with his ears now encased in her Wax, he couldn't maneuver his arms or even get his real arms out in order to try and tear the stuff away and get his super-sharp heartbeat-hearing back.

At least, this was what she could only hope. She could only assume this would be enough to affect his hearing of her and the other examinees, if at all, and while he was certainly still able to fight, it would just be a matter of seeing if it would be nearly as effectively and overwhelmingly as before.

"NOW!"

As soon as Maja gave the signal that she had put the first step of the plan into action, the rest of her fellow examinees proceeded to follow through as had ultimately been agreed; starting with Tadan Dadan diving out from one of the side entrances to the courtyard and launching a projectile from the hole in the chest of his colorful armor, which immediately ignited in a blinding Flash Bang, this time finally managing to stun Whiplash himself, as his blocked ears couldn't pick up the young Hero's incoming rushing heartbeat.

"GAAAH! YOU LITTLE TERMITES THINK BLOCKING MY HEARING IS ENOUGH?! YOUR MOVEMENTS ARE CRUDE ENOUGH AS IT IS! YOU WON'T GET THE BETTER OF ME! I STILL HAVE MY MECHANICAL GENIUS TO TAKE YOU ALL OUT!"

With the burning of his eyes serving only to fuel his rage, Whiplash bellowed out in defiance as his armor unleashed another barrage of lasers, electricity arcs and explosives, forcing the incoming examinees to once again scatter, especially to get the last remaining civilians to safety who hadn't had the opportunity to thus far. Maja had to practically slide for her life faster than she ever had to slide with her melting Wax before.

As the blinding spotlights, lasers and electrical arcs flew through the air, forcing the examinees on the other rooftops to keep their heads down, Satsuei remained unperturbed, as she instead looked to her two classmates on the roof across the courtyard from her: Sora and the tall strongman-looking examinee, both of whom had a multitude of hardened balls of Maja's Wax in their hands, courtesy of the young Yuuei student before they had put this grand plan into action.

As soon as the strongman-looking student used his Quirk to susbstantially increase the weight of the sphere in their grasps, the two of them proceeded to throw them like there was no tomorrow; each impact leaving a deafening ringing against Whiplash's armor as they exploded into liquid and just as quickly dried up, specifically building around the joints that allowed his armored self to move with such swiftness and dexterity. He may not have been completely immobilized, but he was certainly slowing down. However, it was his realizing this that only made his astonishingly plentiful projectile arsenal to fire with that much more speed and intensity, thus preventing Satsuei from being able to get the line of sight she needed to freeze him completely.

Down on the ground, though, Habuko Mongoose was able to make up for what Satsuei lacked in swiftness of her own, as the snake-headed girl dashed to and fro between Whiplash's attacks like her animal mutation-sake, just waiting for the perfect window of opportunity to look him in the eye and use her Quirk to paralyze him for just the three seconds Romero would need to bring him down; her male classmate waiting in patience silence just above the man's head.

But just before Habuko could close the rest of that distance and Romero could make his move; Whiplash had likewise come to understand the tight spot he was now in, and had thus proceeded to pull an ace from his sleeve; coming in the form of him violently moving his jaw in a way that allowed him to crack open one of his molars and bite down as hard as he could, for inside that broken tooth was a painstakingly implanted and microscopic little button.

FWOOOSH!

From out of nowhere, the chest of Whiplash's powered suit opened wide, releasing a super-enlarged flash bang of his own that lit up with the intensity of a point blank nuclear explosion, and the deafening sonic boom of an erupting volcano right up against all the examinees' eardrums, forcing them all flying back and curling to the ground in sensory overwhelm.

As the cannon within proceeded to load up another round, the servos in Whiplash's armor began to squeal with greater power than he had exhibited thus far, as the joints to his suit began to flex centimeter by centimeter, systematically breaking away the dried on Wax that had been slowing him down. All the while, the fact he couldn't even properly hear himself thanks to his ears still being encased was driving him utterly mad; furiously spitting out at the ensemble of young Heroes: "You all must think you're so clever, relying on simply overwhelming one target all at once! Well I won't give you brats the satisfaction! Your journeys all end here!"

As soon as he pressed another button within one of his gauntlets, two armor plates upon his back suddenly shot outward, revealing twin racks of further cannon barrels, from which shot out over two dozen unmistakable mini-rockets all at once, all immediately proceeding to turn and descend into the courtyard, ready to lay the entire place to rubble, and the examinees along with it.

"GROUP SHOT!"

Whiplash obviously couldn't hear the sound of Satsuei's voice crying out at the top of her lungs from above, but the rest of her fellow Hero students did, as at the moment they'd all instinctively braced themselves to get blown away, they were met with nothing. Looking up, they all saw, with astonishment on their faces without exception, the sight of those same little rockets all hanging motionless in the air just before impact; the result of her finally putting the Special Move she'd painstakingly been training towards since the first license exam into action for the first time.

But that didn't mean it didn't take a lot out of her to do so, as she anxiously called down: "If anyone's got an idea to get rid of this problem, now's the time to do it!"

Thankfully, Maja had her eyes not on the rockets, but on the great deluge of melted Wax she'd spread all across the courtyard in her previous attempt to escape, which her right hand was still thankfully resting in the moment she heard Satsuei's call for assistance. "I've got this…POLE WŁÓCZNI (Field of Spears)!"

SHHKSHHKSHHK! BKOOOOOM!

At Maja's command, all of the puddles and spatters of her Wax upon the ground erupted into a multitude of high-reaching spikes, forcing all the other nearby examinees to leap back, while the spikes proceeded to cleanly skewer through every single one of the suspended rockets, swiftly lifting them along higher and higher and higher into the air until they were well enough above the cityscape that they would be rendered harmless, even when Satsuei finally deactivated her Quirk, and they all proceeded to explode all together, leaving nothing but a rain of smoking, finely granulated Wax dust in their wake.

Having had to disperse so much of the Wax she'd stored up in herself in order to pull this off had left Maja feeling especially weakened. Unfortunately, Whiplash didn't have that same problem. His momentary shock at his most surefire attack having been thwarted had quickly turned into a pure blind rage; the servos of his armor practically screaming as he began to take off into an accelerated charge, smashing the roots of the Wax spikes like they were nothing; making a beeline for the grounded female Hero student.

But a blur of movement out the corner of his eye drew just enough of his attention, as he was suddenly confronted by a male examinee in a striped coat, shaggy dark hair and tired eyes, who proceeded to gesture his hands the moment they made eye contact like he was a magician on stage. However, the moment he pulled his hands apart, a blinding laser beam suddenly shot out from the thin air between, as if he'd just opened a dimensional pocket or an invisible void with which to fire back one of the behemoth's previous attacks right back at him. Of course, he had been lucky enough for this to have been the case near the beginning of the fight, using his Void Quirk to absorb the laser beam attack that otherwise would've taken him down and finally redirect it; but he honestly didn't see the harm in keeping Whiplash guessing as to how he was doing this.

The power of the laser against his armor was enough to force Whiplash to take a couple steps back, for of course that beam couldn't go on forever, as proven when it dissipated within just a few more seconds. As the Void-user stood like a deer in headlights, Whiplash suddenly felt his armored getting weighed down yet further. Looking to his shoulders, he was furious to see but a handful of the same zombies he had been fighting against earlier, all stubbornly clutching onto his joints in order to try and further slow him down.

Watching all this from above, Romero was silently grateful to the handful of other examinees who, upon their grand plan being put together and recognizing the potential usefulness of his Quirk when applied carefully, reluctantly decided to let him use it on them in the minutes beforehand, so long as he made sure they were put in the right direction once he did so they wouldn't run the risk of another breakout horde situation.

Whiplash was nearly rabid with frustration with these kids, his final nerve having finally been snapped as he kept trying to fight against the weight of all the zombified examinees clutching onto him so stubbornly, even as the servos continued to scream as he tried to brute force his way out of their grappling so he could break into another devastating charge.

But before he could proceed to charge, he threw his head up to the sky and let out an earth-shaking amplified battlecry, only to find himself looking into the eyes of Habuko Mongoose from over the edge of the roof overhead; immediately after which he suddenly realized his entire body had become paralyzed where he stood, armor and all. Even as the zombified examinees had by then finally returned to normal and released their hold on him, he was as still as stone.

"WE GOT HIM! NOW'S OUR CHANCE, EVERYONE!" The strongman examinee called out desperately to his fellow examinees. Not a single one of them needed to even ask for the details, they all instinctively knew it. And so, picking up their weakened partners so they could get into the final charge right alongside them, they all proceeded to storm unto Whiplash's immobilized hulking form like a human tidal wave; every single one of them managing to get in at just the right angle to deliver a single resonating finishing punch of several dozen balled up fists to his face; the sound of impact echoing as crisply as a perfectly executed homerun, with the tremor-inducing boom of his armored body finally collapsing to the ground being the perfect way to pronounce this battle well and truly over, as the examinees all collapsed around him, anxious to try and catch their breath, Maja especially.

…

All the while, up in his observation platform, Yokumiru Mera felt a trembling go up and down his back, but not out of any kind of worry. The moment it had become clear that the students had all emerged victorious, he felt himself being overcome with excitement to a degree he hadn't been expecting today. "Well, I'd say that certainly earns them all their fair share of points. It doesn't look like any of the civilians on-scene were injured in the process, either. Good thing; that guy's entrance was way too over-the-top for just playing Villain for an exam. I'll need to have a word with him about that once this is done."

The sound of the door behind his back suddenly opening drew Mera's attention, and his anticipation was quickly turned to confusion when he was greeted by a couple of police officers, with one man standing between them who looked like a mummified wolf-man in a black vampire-like cape. "Yokumiru Mera-san?"

He hurriedly bowed the moment one of the officers asked for confirmation. "That's right, officers…but who is your associate here?"

This time, the man in the middle was the one who looked confused: "I'm Nightmare; the Villain role-play volunteer from the organization your department called. I'm supposed to play the part for this spare Provisional Hero License Exam you're conducting. They told me I was given free rein to just walk right in and do my thing, but I thought it would help to just run it by you, see what would work best, but these officers were just ahead of me by the time I'd arrived here."

Mera's normally tired eyes widened with shock at what he was hearing, as he repeatedly shifted his gaze from his surprise visitors to the scene of battle below…before it finally all connected in his head, and he had to grab his control panel to keep his knees from giving out. "Wait…if you're the guy who was supposed to be here…then that man down there was…oh, Hell…he was the real thing?!"

The officers both stepped forward, the younger between them nodding in confirmation as he handed a slip of paper to Mera, baring Whiplash's face. "That's why we came here, to give you forewarning, though it appears we're more than a little late. This man calling himself 'Whiplash', he was actually a recently fired senior engineer at one of the top Support Companies in the area, Gozaburo Orejiki. Questionable sanity, delusions of grandeur, that kind of thing."

"That's right. We're not sure yet how he found out about this exam of yours being held here, but someone from his work who knew him well enough decided to check up on him at his residence after a fair amount of prototype equipment from his former employer had gone missing. He'd already split, but they found all his written plans to attack this event and take out a whole bunch of the next generation of Heroes in order to make a name for himself, I guess. That's when we got the call."

Mera could feel himself growing dizzy with each passing second that he realized they'd experienced a genuine Villain attack without even realizing it. The information regarding this impromptu exam was only shared between the Commission and the Hero schools with students that applied. How in the world did some random Villain wannabe get access to it, and how did they not pick up on such a breach the moment of?

If word got out to the press about something like this, it would be a mark of incompetence and shame the Hero Public Safety Commission would never be able to fully wash off. However, as he dreaded all of the hypotheticals, the two police officers were now looking down onto the scene of the cityscape, where several of the examinees had finally regained enough of their strength to get back up and start helping their teammates, and attending to the damages wrought to the area whilst also managing the civilians.

With an impressed-sounding whistle, the older of the police officers spoke out: "Well, it actually looks like those kids down there were more than a match for him, after all." "Yeah, that looks like proof positive they've all got what it takes, if I ever needed to see proof for myself."

Just like that, it was as though a light had cleared away all the encroaching dark thoughts of panic that were in Mera's head, as he too once more turned his attention to the scene below. If Whiplash was indeed trying to be a legitimate Villain, and the examinees were all the while unaware of the real threat they had been faced with, they still pulled out all the stops and managed to take him down, and all without getting any of the civilians around injured. Even in a fully controlled and simulated exam like before, such a success rate was a one-in-a-million result.

And ultimately, such results were exactly what these exams were all about. He couldn't ask for a better example than this.

And so, with a smile starting to tug at the corners of his mouth, he put his hand to the button that activated the stadium intercoms. "Excellent work, examinees. I apologize for this sudden change in plans, but you've all given everything we were hoping to see from you today, so the exam is officially concluded. Please report back to the conference room you all originally started in so we can give you your results."

…

The air within the conference room was virtually abuzz with nervous and excited chatter alike, as the examinees all took those precious few minutes of waiting to attend to their own and their teammates' collective scratches and bruises, or to at least replenish themselves with the food and drinks that had been provided before and after the exam. With how lightheaded and unsteady Maja was still feeling after using up so much of her Wax, that was the one thing she needed most.

But when Mera and his fellow Commission agents finally entered the room and took their places at the podium before the students, they all fell silent as he tactfully straightened out the large stack of papers in his hands as he looked them all over. None of them needed more than one guess as to just what those had to be, and that made the atmosphere downright electric.

"Now, before I bring up all of your results, it is imperative I inform you all that the exam detail I shared, about the one landing the final blow on the Villain being guaranteed their license, was a bluff, intended to fire you all up into giving your absolute all, instead of simply standing to the sidelines and banking on accumulating low-levels of points from standard patrol and situation resolving."

As many of the other examinees starting chattering in indignant disbelief at their having been essentially lied to, Maja could only barely suppress a shudder, unable to help but imagine which teacher of hers had slipped that suggestion to these organizers.

"However, the overall point of this exam was not to simply defeat a Villain or ensure a peaceful day. It was much deeper than that. You see, your Hero schools informed us beforehand of what they perceived to be a shortcoming between many if not all of you; namely, a distinct inability of working well with others, or a pronounced sense of ego or self-importance; all elements that can be detrimental to the establishment of potentially great Hero teams, and a lack of priority when in situations involving civilians or potential teammates you are unfamiliar with. Of course, this is to say nothing of those of you who may not have had such issues, and simply found yourselves with a notable lesser amount of accumulated experience compared to your peers.

"This exam was to see once and for all if you had what it took to at least begin overcoming these personality hurdles when those schoolmates and partners of yours you were most familiar with weren't there to help bail you out…and, while there were indeed some of you that had a shaky performance at best for much of the exam's time, I am still very pleased to say that I saw virtually all of you rise up to the challenge you didn't even know was presented to you, and performed as well as we could have ever hoped, especially when finding yourselves pitted against the unfortunate and unforeseen involvement of a genuine Villain."

Before the shock of the actual danger they had all been facing could fully set in among the universally blindsided students, Mera continued: "Working together for the sake of saving people and protecting the core values of our peace-loving society for future generations is the most essential duty of Heroes, and you all managed to showcase your abilities to do exactly that; which is why I'm very pleased to present each and every one of you, at long last, with your officially confirmed Provisional Hero Licenses. Congratulations to all of you, for you've all well and truly earned them."

As Mera's colleagues proceeded to march out into the crowd of examinees to personally hand them their licenses, what little shock there had been of facing an actual Villain had completely vanished, as the ecstatic cheers and chatter humming all around was quickly devolving into the most overwhelming tears of joy any one of them had experienced in their lives. After what had felt like an eternity of nonstop struggling, and more than a few moments where it felt like a pipe dream, these young, hopeful and idealistic students that had once been left behind, twice even, were finally receiving that which had goaded them on for all this time: their confirmation and identification as genuine working Heroes.

As Maja finally received hers, looking at her photo upon this little piece of plastic that one could have easily mistaken for a driver's license at a brief glance, she felt her eyes stinging and her vision blurring as her tears simply could not be contained nor stopped.

The twisting sensation that was gripping tight at her hammering heart would have once left her feeling deeply frightened as to what was happening, but in this moment, she couldn't even delude herself into not knowing just what it was she was feeling, as it just felt purely natural alongside her tears of happiness.

For the first time since she had stepped onto Yuuei Academy's grounds, if not since her friends in Gagaringrad had resigned themselves to serve out their sentences and wish her luck, thus leaving her well and truly alone for the first time in her life; Maja Kieslowska felt like she well and truly belonged there, standing at the side of all the amazing friends she had made since then. She could already just envision the celebration that was to come the moment she would show them all what she had finally managed to accomplish. That was to say nothing for just how proud her parents and everyone in Gagaringrad itself were bound to be once she would give them the news.

…

Everyone was just about in the exact same rush when they'd all gone to change back into their uniforms and return to their homes or respective schools and finally show their licenses to their families, friends and peers. Maja was just the same, practically skipping along her way out of the girls' changing room to meet back up with Thirteen so they could be on their way. But just as she was out the door, Habuko Mongoose's voice suddenly called out from her side to her: "Maja-chan, wait!"

Skidding to a halt just before the steps, Maja turned to find Habuko and her classmates approaching her, all but Romero smiling brightly as they kept their licenses close to their chests. It was hard to tell if Habuko herself was smiling with her snake head, but the peppiness of her voice made that all too clear: "We didn't want you to leave without thanking you first."

Kashiko, nodding in agreement, added on: "Yes, you really came through for all of us today, getting Fujimi-kun and that Satsuei girl to work together with you while we were…indisposed. And your plan worked better than I could've expected."

As Tadan nervously nudged Romero with his elbow to get him to mutter a barely audible "Thanks a lot" her way; Maja's whole face turned bright red, urgently waving her hand in a gesture of deflection. "Oh, come on, this was nowhere near just me getting things done, you guys. It was all our plan. We all made this possible. If it weren't for all you guys and your awesome Quirks, there wouldn't have been anything I could've done to save any of us. I should honestly be thanking all of you way more. Maybe if we get a chance to work together while this whole Team-Up Mission thing is going on, I can do just that."

She didn't even need to ask what was going through Romero's head when she saw his normally judgmental eyes visibly widen with surprise. He clearly hadn't expected a Yuuei student like her to actually express such humility. Smiling in satisfaction, she could only just hope this would give him something to think about regarding judging people at a glance.

Habuko suddenly fished out her cellphone from her uniform pocket. "Would you be okay if we exchanged numbers, Maja-chan? I'm gonna call Tsu once I get back and let her know—"Oh, Maja, hello. You already got out of your…Habuko, is that you-kero?"

The sound of Tsuyu's unmistakable nasally voice rendered Habuko dead silent, as Maja turned back to find the froggy girl standing mere feet away down the sidewalk, looking at her two friends in clear surprise, even if the rest of her face reflected no different emotion than she normally did.

"TSU!" Habuko practically cried out at the sight of her first ever friend, before she came bounding down in ecstatic joy, scooping Tsuyu up in a tight embrace without so much as missing a step. Thankfully, Kashiko had the good grace to motion her fellow classmates to just stay back and let their friend have this moment.

"Oh Tsu, I can't believe it took this long for us to see each other again! I'm so sorry, I should've tried to arrange a time we could visit so much sooner! Are you here on work?"

As soon as Habuko finally set Tsuyu down, she nodded with a more pronounced smile as she finally took the opportunity to hug her reptilian friend in return. "That's right; I got assigned here for my Team-Up Mission for the day-kero. I didn't think I'd run into you this far from Musutafu, though, and with Maja of all people. I knew she had her chance at the…provisional exam today, and…wait, Habuko, if you're here with her today, then does that mean you…?"

To Maja's surprise, Habuko's reaction wasn't the overwhelming energetic glee she'd been expecting, but rather a very telling embarrassment, as she finally revealed her license to Tsuyu; whose observing eyes were just as unrevealing of her feelings as ever. "That's right, I…I only just finally got my license today, Tsu…all of us did."

With her empty black pupils lifting to meet Maja's eyes and then Habuko's once the Polish girl nodded in confirmation, Tsuyu said: "I don't understand why you didn't just tell me you hadn't gotten your license yet yourself, Habuko-kero. When I'd gotten mine, I just naturally assumed you'd managed as well. You know you could've just told me at any time through all our calls and texts."

Habuko's eyes began to glisten with the beginning of ashamed tears as she tucked her license away. "I know that, Tsu, of course I know that. I just…when you'd managed to get into such a prestigious school as Yuuei, and then I didn't get my license when you did, I felt like I was being left behind, or that you'd somehow think less of or pity me, and I don't ever want to feel like that with you."

Without even a moment of her typical visible contemplation, Tsuyu immediately replied: "But I could never look down on or think less of you, Habuko. You're one of my dearest friends and you always will be, no matter what-kero. And anyway, it doesn't make much difference now, since you have your license just the same as me. Maybe now, we could end up working together one day, and finally be able to really catch up like we should have."

Such selflessness and compassion was simply par for the course for a girl like Tsuyu Asui, and that reminder had Habuko frantically trying to wipe the tears from her eyes in relief, while Tsuyu chanced a glance at one of the nearby clocks atop one of the streetlights. "I really wish I could stick around so we could keep talking, Habuko, Maja, but my teammates are going to be wondering where I am by now. But let's all get in a group call later tonight, so you can both tell me everything that happened today, okay-kero?"

Habuko and Maja both happily nodded in acceptance of that plan. Having now all gotten the chance to meet with her out here in the wake of such a monumental achievement, there was an unspoken feeling that they had formed a truly special triangular friendship between themselves, and it was the kind of feeling Maja wouldn't have traded for anything, just like all the friendships she had made today, all the days before, and all the days she could just feel were bound to come from now on.

…

"CONGRATULATIONS, MAJA-CHAN!"

No amount of preparation time could have properly braced Maja for the celebration that was to essentially erupt from among her eagerly awaiting Class A and B compatriots the moment she had returned to Yuuei and presented them with her license, live in the plastic itself.

Tears aplenty were shed from herself and her friends alike, as both classes partook in an evening and night of ecstatic chatter, music, dancing, feasting and all other manner of fun and games to be had that wouldn't draw the ire of either of their homeroom teachers. Granted, there was no question that Aizawa and Vlad King were equally proud of her achievement on this day, especially considering how little time she'd truly had attending this school and learning the lessons it had to teach. One could have easily called this the world's grandest fluke, but when seeing just how happy she and her classmates were as they danced the hours away, there was simply no point in saying as much. She had given her all, including by Thirteen's own witness, and that was all there was to it.

Of course, whereas the teachers were all more than happy to be humble of the fact that now every one of their Hero Course students was licensed; Neito Monoma was far from that, all too happy to rub in the face of his Class A rivals that now Class B was at its fullest strength, regardless of Tenya's reliable tendency to point out Maja's place as being just as much a part of Class A as well.

Maja felt as though she were practically floating as she danced all of her ecstatic happiness away like never before. Even for as much as her tears flew from her brightly beaming smiling face, it was still quite surprising just how emotional Nikolay, Tetsutetsu, Eijirou and all the girls from both her classes were in their congratulations for her now being able to work with them all in the field.

So emotional, in fact, that the moment he'd had the opening to do so, Eijirou and Tetsutetsu instinctively lifted Maja up by her sides, holding her high up above the rest of the students, who all proceeded to join in helping her to practically crowd surf over all of them like a bona fide rock star. In fact, amongst the cacophony of cheers, she could swear she even heard the spiky redhead call her just as much.

Of course, for as much as Maja appreciated everyone pulling out all the stops to celebrate for her like this, there was only so much time that could go by before being the center of attention was getting to be more than a little embarrassing for her. Luckily, everyone had their own amazing stories to share of just what the Team-Up Mission program had given them to do today.

For starters, Shoto had been assigned with none other than Shiketsu High's own Inasa Yoarashi and Seiji Shishikura, to learn under an apparent veteran Pro Hero known as Gantetsu, only for the three of them to inadvertently end up working under and ultimately helping out an elderly soba noodle maker who just happened to have the exact same name, thus causing them to miss their appointment entirely and land themselves in some hot water.

Afterwards, Eijirou and Class B's Kojiro Bondo eagerly shared the story of their team-up with Bakugo and Camie Utsushimi of Shiketsu High, wherein they were assigned to help out a struggling amusement park by participating in one of those scripted plays such places were so well known for, only to have to improvise said story over and over again when they'd been forced to split up in order to save the park from a sabotage attempt by some industrious little crooks from the neighboring theme park. It was only natural Eijirou and Kojiro could share such an awkward story with such enthusiasm, but Bakugo looked utterly humiliated and furious just thinking about it.

Afterwards was Izuku's story of teaming up with Fumikage and Class B's Shihai Kuroiro to learn from a dark and mysterious Pro Hero called Third Eye who was apparently able to pry out the most embarrassing secrets of anyone he focused on (a notion that naturally got Mina, Tooru and Pony especially eager to hear what possibly could have been said) only for said Third Eye to ultimately have his gothic persona completely dismantled as a gimmick and nothing more, while Fumikage simply rebuffed everyone's questions with the grim assurance that he had no secrets to hide. Only the most eagle-eyed of his classmates would have noticed how Dark Shadow had started to emerge looking like it was about to say something to the contrary, only for a stern sideways glare from Fumikage to make it surrender.

Afterwards, Mina was practically bouncing all over the place as she, Kyouka and Itsuka shared their tale of learning under Mt. Lady today; the most standout moment of which involved the apparently insecure Pro Hero challenging Itsuka to an arm-wrestling match while grown to her biggest size yet, thus forcing the Class B representative to push her hand-growing Quirk to its limit and kind, only to still ultimately come out the victor through means even she was still admittedly trying to wrap her head around.

But the final story to be shared was one that ended up changing all of the collective cheers and chatter of the party into howls of good-natured laughter, as Rikido was all too happy to share how he had been teamed up with Nikolay, Yuga and Kinoko Komori to learn under a Pro Hero that sounded downright tailor-made for the talented baker of Class A especially: The Pastry Chef Hero Sweet Tooth, who had essentially taken it upon himself to test all of their capabilities at creating delectable confections that could put smiles on even those in the most down of times when it would come time for them to do recovery and aid work…as well as to refine their abilities to conduct themselves when on-camera before the public, as this was all done through the medium of his personal baking show on TV.

And that was where the laughter had all begun, as the students had all been treated to watching the recorded episode through one of their laptops, projecting the video onto one of the walls for all to see. From there, they all watched as a rotund and jolly-looking man in pastry chef's apparel with a white beard that looked more like cake icing, proceeded to guide the four young Heroes through every step of making all their respective treats; or at least tried to when it came to Nikolay and Yuga, who both kept freezing up with comical degrees of stage fright whenever they felt the cameras focusing on them specifically, no matter how confident they both tried to sound when discussing just what they were trying to make beforehand.

All the while, Rikido and Kinoko were simply a delight the entire time through, and by the end of it all, Sweet Tooth made it impossible to misinterpret his opinions of his temporary pupils' confectionary efforts, as they all ended up passing with flying colors, even despite Nikolay and Yuga barely managing to make a peep when asked for their own closing comments.

In fact, by the time the video was finally over, everyone proceeded to laugh and applaud all at once for the four television stars for the day. Rikido looked utterly moved to tears, as though he'd found the Pro Hero mentor of his dreams at last, while Kinoko was giggling sweetly as all her classmates lauded her with how cute she and her food alike were on-camera.

All the while, Mina was naturally cuddled up lovingly with Nikolay as they watched, and by the end had almost been salivating when she said: "Try not to be too embarrassed, Kolya-kun. At least he still liked that powdery tall cake thing you made. What did you call it again?"

"Kulich. Normally we only eat it during Easter back home, but it was the first thing that came to mind," Nikolay answered.

"That's okay; it still looked really tasty, just like everything else you guys made. Maybe we'll all get to try it when the holiday comes." Mina said with a sweet giggle; a glimmer of great anticipation in her eyes.

To her surprise, though, all Nikolay could do was shudder as he whispered to himself: "I could have gone my entire life without knowing what chocolate-covered mushrooms tasted like and died happy. So, as long as that's not on the menu come Easter, then consider it done."

Naturally, such a comment couldn't but get Mina and Kinoko especially to laugh that much harder; Mina softly kissing Nikolay on both cheeks repeatedly in a playful show of affection, which he quickly began to reciprocate all-too-happily.

All the while Maja simply took in so much of the incredible happy energy from all of her friends in this moment, and just felt all that much more grateful for it all.

Right now, the only thing Maja Kieslowska; now officially the licensed and recognized Wax Hero Candelabra; could possibly have to wish for anymore, was that she would now be able to form and share such unbelievably awesome stories and experiences like this with all her friends that much more often now. Such was now her dream.