Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Astrid looked around at the other kids getting ready for the practical exam to get into U.A. They looked… confident. They all looked like they felt ready. She wondered how many of them actually were.

The fifteen year old speedster couldn’t manage to calm her nerves enough to stop using her quirk, which had the unenviable side effect of slowing her perception of time down. So her quirk, among other things, made waiting for anything a fucking nightmare.

It really couldn’t have been that long standing in the sun, waiting for the gate to open, at least not for the other kids. But she would just have to suffer. The thought crossed her mind to go for a quick run to try to calm down.

She could check out the campus. Maybe grab a crepe from one of the stands in this part of the city? 

Might look disrespectful to be eating when the test is starting though. She also wondered if that was a thing she was being scored on. 

They scored her on everything at the facility, she couldn’t imagine why U.A. would be any different. 

The tall blue haired kid with the pipes coming out of his legs looked like he was reprimanding the short green haired kid. 

A strawberry crepe would–

“ RIGHT! Let’s start! There are no countdowns in real–”

Astrid ran, cursing herself for the hesitation. She berated herself internally. ‘He almost finished the fucking sentance before you were moving. This is what happens when you don’t pay attention. How many people could have died if I had hesitated like that somewhere else? Fuck, Astrid.’

Eventually the words had caused enough pain in her chest for her to feel sufficiently punished for her half second of hesitation, luckily she was pretty fast at that part too.

She found the first robot, a three pointer. A tank looking thing with a number of missile ports. To say it was moving in slow motion was an understatement.

Astrid ran forward and hopped up onto one of the barely moving treds. She put her face in front of one of the missile ports to see what kind of heat these things were packing.

She couldn’t quite make anything out, so she pulled out her phone and swiped it open. She sighed and tapped her foot while waiting for the device to boot up.

The techs at the facility would laugh at her, but at the speeds her brain was moving, the one point two seconds it takes the phone to unlock can be seriously inconvenient.

Eventually the phone opened and she turned on her flashlight. She leaned back over the missile port and shined the light inside.

The missile head was made of what looked like paper.

So just the powder charges, most likely non fatal amounts at most ranges.

The robot finally picked up on the fact that she had entered its fifty meter sensor range a few seconds ago and decided to fire. It assumed she was at a pretty massive distance, presumably it wasn’t calibrated for her speed.

So when she noticed the powder igniting, she actually had to react fast.

She ran behind it as it fired one cannon. 

She looked at the bolts and screws holding the robot together and took a few mental notes.

Astrid tapped her foot at the hardware store a mile from the campus, looking over the power drills. She didn’t have time for extension cords, so she would need a battery operated one. But she’d probably need to take one that an employee was using, they don’t normally come charged.

She borrowed everything she needed from the hardware store, put it together, and made it back before the robot had fired a second shot.

She did her thing, setting to work on the large machine. Bolt after bolt came off, and a second later, when it fired its cannon, it fell apart.

Astrid forced herself to stop moving at top speed and wave at a camera she’d noticed while dismantling the robot. She wanted to make sure she actually got her points.

Luckily all the robots used the same bolts, so the next part was easy.

Run around, find a robot, take it apart, wave to the camera, repeat.

By the time the first seven minutes or so of the exam had passed, she had racked up a total of seventy four points.

That had to be enough, right? She ran back to the hardware store and returned the drill before checking in on some of her classmates.

The ground shifted under her feet.

Astrid tripped, while going mach 17.

For anyone who has ever tripped while jogging, yeah, you have no fucking clue what this was like.

She did as she was taught and protected her head, but her elbows still ended up hitting the ground first. Both of them broke upon impact.

Astrid remained braced as she soared through the air above the pavement.

She skipped like a stone, the second impact ripped the muscle by her shoulder mostly off.

She skipped down the long street again, her quirk allowing her to enjoy every awful millisecond of the crash. Including the third impact shattering her hip.

Mr. Darmon was not going to be happy, she could hear it coming already.

She skipped again, damaging the same hip even more.

She caught a glimpse in front of her, a large concrete wall was about to stop her delightful romp down the street.

She closed her eyes, and she was moving fast enough that even Astrid didn’t have quite long enough to let herself finish her last conscious thought before she hit the wall.

‘Maybe this time, I’ll–’

Chapter Text

A ravenous hunger woke Astrid up from her heinous nap. Her stomach felt like it had receded. Her body, by all counts, felt as though she had not eaten anything in ten years.

Her eyes managed to open, despite the severe lack of calories.

She looked around the room. It was unfamiliar. It smelled like antiseptic, and curtains were blocking her view of anything more than two feet away from her bed.

Her head hurt. Hunger pains racked her body.

The curtain moved, and a girl about her age came over to her bed. She had long black hair and a plumper build. “Hey, look who’s awake.” She gave Astid what the speedster assumed was a warm smile. She had never been good at discerning what faces mean.

Astrid opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off by the girl handing her a plate of rice and curry. 

Astrid took the plate as fast as she could without her quirk. She began scarfing down the meal immediately.

The other girl sat down on the edge of the bed, and Astrid didn’t have the energy back yet to stop her or scooch away, but she did tense up. The girl smiled at the hungry speedster. “My name is Yaoyorozu, I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Astrid looked up and narrowed her eyes at the girl, but didn’t stop eating. “Hungry.” She said between and around bites of rice.

Yaoyorozu nodded. “My quirk uses up my body fat too. Wait here, I’ll get you something else.” She left, closing the curtain behind her.

Astrid set the empty plate on the side table. She moved the blanket off of herself. 

Most of her wounds were healed, but she could see her ribs. She had only had to heal this much at once a few times, and it almost always took days before she felt anything like a person again.

She swung her legs off of the side of the bed and prepared to get up. She slid slowly, carefully off the edge of the mattress. Her feet touched the cold tile, and her knees gave out instantly. “Fuck–” she cursed as she crumpled to the ground. “God damnit.”

She heard footsteps coming toward her. The curtain opened and the rice and curry girl was back.

“I asked you to wait less than a minute ago!” She didn’t necessarily sound angry, more surprised.

“I, uh…” Astrid had no idea why she hadn’t simply waited. 

The girl reached out to Astrid.

The speedster flinched and her quirk kicked in. She saw Yaoyorozu moving her hand toward her in slow motion. Astrid’s brain was screaming at her to stop the attack. She grabbed the girl’s wrist and– “Ah!” Astrid let go of her attacker and crumpled the rest of the way into a prone position. She did not have the energy to use her quirk yet, not even with a short burst.

Yaoyorozu looked at her confused. “I’m sorry, I should have asked.” The girl stepped back a few steps and smiled at Astrid again. “May I help you up?”

Astrid looked at the girl a bit suspiciously, but she wasn’t going to be able to get up by herself and she knew it. The speedster nodded and held out her hand.

Yaoyorozu Took her hand. “Thank you.” She put her other hand on Astrid’s waist, and luckily the speedster was too tired to flinch. She helped the red headed and emaciated girl back into her hospital bed.

Astrid laid her head back on the pillow. “So what do you need me to do?”

She’d been doing the speedster thing long enough, she knew if someone was checking on her when she was hurt, it was to see when she would be ready for her next task.

“I’m sorry?” Yaoyorozu scrunched her brow in confusion.

Astrid held her gaze. “What do you need me to do? When I’m up and about again?” She figured it would have been a teacher, but maybe the students self-govern partially?

Yaoyorozu giggled. “How about we start by just making sure you eat enough. And since I clearly can’t leave you alone, I’m just going to ask the nurse to call down to the cafeteria.” She turned around before closing the curtain. “Can I trust you to stay in the bed for thirty seconds?”

Astrid rolled her eyes, but nodded.

“Thank you!” Yaoyorozu, true to her word, was back a moment later.

The speedster forgot how fast thirty seconds went when she was too tired to use her quirk.

When she came back she gave Astrid that stupid, pretty smile again. “Lunch Rush is sending up a three course carbo loading special. I’ve had it once, you’re going to love it!” She didn’t step very far into the curtained area this time, she just waited a few feet away.

“What are you doing?” Astrid eyed her up and down, looking for any aggressive tells in her posture.

“Waiting.” Yaoyorozu shrugged. “You seemed a little… stressed?”

Astrid was fully lost.

Yaoyorozu shut the curtain behind her and slowly turned to her future classmate. “May I sit down?” She gestured to the edge of the bed.

Astrid forced herself to take a deep breath. “If you want to.”

The dark haired girl nodded, and sat down. She spoke in a calm monotone that the speedster found reassuring. “You never told me your name.”

Astrid really wasn’t sure why the question put her on the defensive. Hell, it wasn’t even a question. “Why do you want to know it?” Even Astrid knew she wasn’t being very normal, but she was hungry, and tired, and confused.

“Because I think it’s going to put a real strain on our friendship if I don’t know your name.” She laughed.

Astrid liked the sound of the laugh. Friendship? She understood it in theory, but what the fuck did it mean in practice? She wasn’t sure if she wanted whatever this was. And she didn’t have her quirk right now to give her the time she needed to think. She had probably already waited way too long to say anything. What if she did want to be Yaoyorozu’s friend but she was blowing it already?

Yaoyorozu cleared her throat. “So?”

“So?”

“Your name?”

“Right, sorry. My name is… Astrid.”

Chapter Text

Astrid stood on the roof of the U.A. main building. She enjoyed the fresh air, and being in high places tended to calm her nerves. She looked down at the other students filing into the building.

She had read all the info she was sent by the school a couple of times, but it had included nothing about her classmates. She wasn’t fond of the idea that she didn’t know who she would be going to class with.

She didn’t imagine digging through their bags and lockers on day one would tell her much. You don’t bring incriminating things to orientation.

She could snoop around online, since her phone actually was connected to the internet now. But she wouldn’t actually know where to start, she didn’t even know most of their names.

She figured she would have to wait until everyone was in the classroom to know which of the hundreds of students were actually in her class. 

It took a couple days to get her speed back after the last hit, and her hip still felt weird. 

At least she knew what teacher to expect, Aizawa. She had found the name and personnel file in the school's record room an hour ago. She had decided not to mess with the computers, they were a little slow for her tastes. But the paper files were easy.

She was absolutely not going to go sit in an empty classroom and wait. She was going to get some breakfast, and just keep an eye on where that Aizawa guy was so she could get to class before him. Easy enough.

The bell wouldn’t ring for homeroom for another five minutes of real time. She checked her watch and rolled her eyes, that gave her roughly three days of relative time if she couldn’t calm down.

The eternal question. Attempt to emotionally regulate and bring this waiting to an end, or use the time?

Well, calming down felt a bit out of the question. So she figured she would do what she did best and snoop.

She snuck her way back into the U.A. filing office. After an hour or so of digging around, she managed to find her class roster. And luckily, addresses were attached. 

She decided to go down the list. First up was Yuga Aoama. He lived a little further from the city than the others. A big house with beautiful gardens, and a ton of butlers and maids. His parents seemed normal enough. Bags under their eyes a little deeper than most. But their kid was joining the hero program, so that was understandable.

Aoama had perfumes, and more clothes than Astrid thought a single person could wear in a lifetime. Astrid dug around, tried a few things on, ate some of the fancy finger foods the kitchen staff were preparing downstairs, and played a game of ping pong against herself in the game room.

She pulled the borrowed list out of her pocket. Next up was Mina Ashido. Her apartment was listed as only being half a prefecture away from the school.

Astrid arrived at what looked to be a normal if slightly smaller apartment in the city. Ashido’s parents didn’t look much like her, the mom had bluish skin and the dad had spikes on his back. They were talking about bills, Astrid presumed, based on the bill one of them was holding for a utility company.

Ashido’s bedroom was comfortably decorated. Plush carpet, big gaming PC and what looked to be an extensive hip hop collection she still had stored on CDs for some reason.

Astrid shrugged, and checked the list. Tsuyu Asui lived in a house along the river. It was a three bedroom. One seemed to be shared between her younger siblings, one for her parents, and one for her.

Her parents room looked largely unused, Astrid found this odd. But even more odd was that the kid’s room seemed to be only lightly used. Asui’s room however seemed to be the most used. Her siblings toys littered her lilypad shaped bed. Drawers were open, half eaten kid’s snacks were covering papers on the desk.

Astrid wanted to get a better look at the room, but couldn’t with all the garbage in the way. She took a moment to clean up the garbage and toys, make the bed, and organize the papers. She didn’t learn much, but the cleaning was a nice distraction.

Astrid ran back to U.A. for a moment, ran up the side of the building, and peeked in the high window to see if her teacher had made it to class yet. Nope.

She ran to the shade of a nearby try and checked her list. Tenya Ida. He didn’t live very far from U.A. either. 

His house was big, but half of it was a super advanced garage. She noticed pipes just like his leg pipes mounted with attached parts and other versions. A few blood stains showed her what else she needed to know. 

In large part his quirk needs medical and engineering work to function. That sounded like a nightmare to her. The rest of the house was immaculate, especially Ida’s room. It was clean, almost sterile. Except for a number of Ingenium posters. She gathered that it was his older brother, and that Ida held him in very high regard. Boring.

Next, Ochaco Uraraka.

The apartment was small, but well cared for. Dishes in the sink from breakfast, clothes piled by the machines, it all implied to her that the family was just generally busy.

Uraraka’s room was plain and functional. She had a number of stuffed animals, and a game console, but the games looked largely unused, and the bedding looked like she’d owned it most of her life. Astrid found nothing interesting beyond that.

Next, Mashirao Ojiro.

His home was modest, but seemed designed only to appear so. The training facilities in his basement were top notch. There were Judo trophies all over the place from him and his parents, as well as tons of pictures of him with his family.

His room looked like it was imitating eighteen hundreds Japan. She kinda liked it. It seemed… peaceful.

He did also have a hotspring out back, when Astrid saw that, she took off her clothes and grabbed a few towels. She ended up spending a few real seconds longer than she wanted to soaking in the spring, the relaxing warm water almost turned her quirk off if she let her mind go for too long.

She decided that it was time to move on. She dried off and got dressed again. Next up on the list was… Denki Kaminari.

His home was pretty normal. Average cleanliness, but a larger than average collection of electrical equipment. She looked through a few things in the attic, bored by the rest of the house. She found rubber kid’s clothes, empty first aid boxes held all kinds of miscellaneous things now that their contents had been used. Astrid wondered how difficult it must have been raising an electric toddler.

She did manage to find some snacks in the fridge at least, so the house wasn’t a total bust.

Next up on the list was Eijiro Kirishima. She found the apartment strange. It was cluttered, but exceptionally clean. The furniture seemed pretty heavy duty, especially in Kirishima’s room. But nick nacks and various home tools littered the kitchen and living room.

Kirishima had posters of the pro hero Crimson Riot. She wondered for a moment if the two were related, seeing as how they looked so similar. Especially the hair.

The room had workout equipment stashed everywhere, and the weight’s were impressively large, and clearly were getting a lot of use. It told her this was not the young man to fist fight.

Next up was, Koji Koda.

Astrid did not stay here long. Most of the house as normal, pleasant, well kept, warm, but Koda’s room was awful. Terrariums stacked on top of terrariums held dozens of different species of bugs.

“Nope. Nope. Nope.” Astrid ran.

She checked the list while on the run. Her next stop was Rikido Sato. This one was one of the more pleasant visits. His family seemed to live on top of a bakery they owned. His Dad’s seemed to be baking and dealing with customers.

Astrid sampled most of the various baked goods. Which was fantastic, because subjectively, she hadn’t eaten in four hours.

After she’d eaten her fill, she ran up to the bakery roof to check her list. 

Mezo Shoji lived in a modern, minimalistic house. No one was home, but various ninja weapons were displayed on the walls. Other than that though, average food in the kitchen, simple bedding and decorations in the rooms. The only notable feature was that there was a lot of black fabric and upholstery.

Astrid sighed, this was definitely boring, but better than sitting in a classroom tapping her foot for three relative days.

Next up was Kyoka Jiro.

Her household would have been very interesting had Astrid had more time. It was full of music. Instruments, recording area’s, a server full of music, and a ton of records.  But it would take too long to download the music and set it to the speed she needed. And she would have to run at subsonic speeds to hear it, and she wasn’t sure she could slow down that far right then if she tried.

She made a few mental notes about Jiro’s music taste and punk rock aesthetic, and ran back to U.A. to see where Aizawa was.

A quick peek in the window revealed he was still not standing in front of the full classroom. She didn’t get why all the kids were sitting quietly without the teacher being there, but it really wasn’t her problem.

Next up, Hanta Sero.

Normal apartment, two bedrooms, family pictures. He had a rather crazy amount of dungeons and dragons stuff. Dice, miniatures, books, wall decor, the whole nine yards.

Astrid had never played a game like dnd before. She didn’t actually understand how it all worked. But from the looks of it, Sero seemed to play with their parents a lot. Papers were scattered about the dining table, as were a load of dice. Astrid grabbed one and examined it closely. She liked the sparkles on the resin.

She absentmindedly stuck it in her pocket by accident while she was pulling out the list to find the next house.

Fumikage Tokoyami.

His house was a study in contrast. The house was done up in bright colors everywhere but his room. The walls had sunflowers painted on them to make the kitchen seem open and warm.

But Tokoyami’s bedroom was all black. The walls were painted black, the bedspread was black, the desk and computer were black, and there were skulls and dark symbols everywhere there was enough light to see.

She wondered what kind of person enjoyed such an insane amount of darkness. Also, the family pictures helped prep her for the fact that he's a bird. Not the most common quirk, she found it fascinating.

A peak at the list told her that her next stop was an upscale home in the middle of Tokyo proper. The home of one, Shoto Todoroki.

The place was littered with family pictures with almost everyone but Todoroki smiling. His room was less nice than his siblings, and had a ton more training equipment in it, but none of it looked used.

His space was filled with ramen cups, and bottled water.

Astrid began to wonder why he didn’t seem to like being out of his room when he was home. At least that is the impression she got looking at, and smelling his room.

Next stop, Toru Hagakure.

By far the strangest of the ‘normal’ rooms was Hagakure. Her quirk was easy enough to figure out. All of the family pictures included a set of girl clothes with no one in them. 

Astrid wondered if her quirk had anything to do with the multitude of small, ready-to-be-hidden cameras.

Caramel wrappers seemed to litter most of her room, and her bed seemed to be unkept. Astrid ate a few of the candies, and cleaned up all of the wrappers. She didn’t want to forget they were there and trip on one of them if she came back here.

The speedster let out a sigh and flopped onto Hagakure’s bed. She lazily pulled the list out of her pocket and checked for the next name.

Katsuki Bakugo. 

Astrid yawned and took off for U.A. She ran up to peek in the window again. Still no teacher. He had to be there soon. The students in their desks were looking slightly more anxious in their frozen expressions.

She ran off toward Bakugo’s home and found another very average apartment in the nearby prefecture.

The pictures in the house were of a happy family, though the mom and Bakugo looked enraged in a few snapshots on the mantle.

Bakugo’s mom wasn’t home, but their dad was. He was working at a desk in a room that was dimly lit, save for the desk lamps. Astrid looked over what he was working on. 

He seemed to be editing a fashion magazine. Deciding the layout for articles, which images to display where, etc.

Astrid liked clothes. They were fun most of the time. 

She wondered what some of the designs would feel like to wear.

And then something caught her eye as she snooped through the papers he was working on. It was about her…

The headline read: What will be the debut look for U.A.’s first ever speedster!

Astrid shuddered. The idea of her face in a magazine scared her a little bit, though she supposed she would have to get used to it going to U.A.

Being the cheeky speedster that she is, Astrid wrote something down a sticky note, put it on the page, and put the page back where it was.

She plopped down in a chair a few feet away from Masaru Bakugo and pulled out her list.

Next up was Izuku Midoriya. 

Astrid said goodbye to Bakugo’s dad and was off to the next house, which was relatively nearby.

Midoriya’s house wasn’t much different from Bakugo’s. His mom was home and was cleaning up some dishes from breakfast. She looked tired.

Astrid finished the dishes for her and placed a glass of juice in the woman’s hand before exploring the rest of the house.

Midoriya’s bedroom was a shrine to All Might. It was an absolutely astonishing amount of memorabilia. Bed cover, posters, action figures, comic books, she could keep listing for hours.

She made the mental note that he was a major fanboy and decided to go outside to the street to check her list.

Minoru Mineta lived in a little house just outside of the city. Astrid learned everything she needed to about him almost immediately. And she intended to interact with him as little as humanly possible. 

She left quickly, deciding to read the next name on the move, for fear of touching anything the little grape headed boy had touched.

Momo Yaoyorozu… Astrid hesitated. The curry and rice girl. For some reason the idea of snooping through her house felt… wrong?

This was a new feeling for the young speedster.

Her chest began to tighten slightly, and her quirk began to kick into overdrive. She could almost feel her atoms buzzing. She needed to slow down… her heart couldn’t sustain this pace. She could feel herself getting warmer.

She forced herself to breathe as deeply as she could. More oxygen, more common sense.

She didn’t have time for these feelings. She needed to move.

Next name on the list.

Kazue Kazuto.

Astrid found a large but modest home outside of the city. It had an olympic sized Judo ring in the basement, and even more trophies than Ojiro.

So she would be going to school with at least two Judo champions.

She scoured his room, but nothing else was forthcoming. Whatever he was like, he kept a very tidy room.

Annoyed at the lack of information, she checked her list and got ready to move on.

Sora Tanaka had a wildly concerning room. It was stacked floor to ceiling with wires, scrap metal, and what she was certain were explosive substances.

Astrid looked for any explosives and didn’t find anything that looked ready to detonate, so she decided to move on.

The last name on the list was Suna Fean.

Astrid found the room of a girl with the most generic tastes possible. The latest pop culture trends, nothing unique, her room looked like it was an etsy set.

Stashed in a vent though, Astrid found a knife, a couple bloody rags, and some cleaning alcohol.

She didn’t quite know what to make of that… the feeling that she was doing something wrong hit her again. Some vague sense that she shouldn’t be holding the object she was holding. It felt almost radioactive.

Astrid decided she had probably burned at least most of the time before class would start.

Astrid ran back into the classroom and sat at her desk. 

Her atoms were still buzzing around mach 10. She would probably have to take a little nap to get her quirk to shut down long enough to tell the teacher she was here when he eventually called her name.

Something was wrong. That is the only thought Astrid had time for before she yelled in surprise. “What the hell?!”

The air had been ripped from her lungs, she felt sick and confused, there was a buzz of whispering around her. A bird tweeted in the distance and it felt way too loud. Everything was wrong.

Her senses were on fire. She was perceiving too much, and her mind didn’t feel capable of processing it at all.

A couple real… and relative seconds passed, and she became aware very abruptly that she was experiencing normal time.

A deep and tired voice came from the front of the room. “Nice of you to finally join us, Miss Takioka.”

Astrid looked up, baring her teeth like a cornered dog. She couldn’t manage any words in her surprise, so the sound she made was like a cross between a hiss and a growl.

A few members of the class began whispering, others were laughing to themselves.

Astrid looked at the teacher. His hair was floating like it was under zero gravity, and his eyes had a slight red glow to them.

Aizawa let out a tired sigh, and his next words were steeped in sarcasm. “I expected the fastest girl in the world , to be on time for class. But I guess I was told I should expect disappointment from you.”

Astrid was seeing red, and her cheeks were getting hot. “I’ll kill you!” She shouted in a blind rage. She urged everything in her body to move. She tried to push her quirk harder than she ever had.

But there was nothing to push.

“Yeah, they said you were unstable.”

Astrid felt like he had dumped a bucket of ice water over her.

She felt exposed, humiliated…

When she lost her speed she lost her cool so quickly, and everyone had seen it.

It hit her that she hadn’t seen him when she had been coming back to check because he had been laying on the ground, so he was obscured from the window. What kind of teacher does that?

Astrid practically crawled back into her seat. Even when Aizawa stopped erasing her quirk, her speed seemed to be failing her.

She looked around the room at her classmates, and now, they could see her looking. 

And judge her right back.

Some faces were mocking, some were full of pity.

She knew what they saw. A wild animal. An unhinged monster… she knew she sounded like a villain, but he had just… how could he just…

She didn’t have the brain speed she needed to calm down.

She needed to run, but the pit in her stomach was keeping her stuck in this moment.

She glanced at the clock. Mr. Aizawa was right, she had missed the homeroom bell by a full ninety seconds. 

She couldn’t remember where in her adventures she had lost that time, and it didn’t really matter now.

For now, she just wanted to disappear.

She had been a student at U.A. for less than two minutes, and already she was a laughing stock. 

Astrid looked over at Yaoyorozu, worried about her opinion in particular, though the dysregulated speedster didn’t really know why.

Yaoyorozu was apparently in the ‘full-of-pity’ category…

This was Astrid’s nightmare.

At least Astrid’s general incompetence meant she probably wouldn’t get to stay at the prestigious school for long.

She just had to survive until she got kicked out.

“With that interruption out of the way…” The teacher began again.

Astrid put her head on her desk and tried in vain to listen to the rest of Mr. Aizawa’s start of the year speech about duty, honor, perseverance… 

She wondered how many of the kids listening would end up in the seven percent before their careers were done. 

Astrid drifted off to sleep.

Chapter Text

Astrid held herself as still as she could. She hated the way the gym uniform felt against her skin. She could tell it wouldn’t even stand up to mach two before the material shredded itself. Keeping this still made her neck hurt, but she didn’t want to destroy the uniform and have to run and steal another one naked before anyone found out.

Aizawa had been walking from the main campus to the field ten meters away for what felt like hours.

Astrid tapped her foot impatiently. She wanted to stop using her quirk for a minute. Just get this class stuff over with.

The other students were in the same uniform she was in. She didn’t like it. Reminded her too much of testing at the facility with the other speedsters of similar rank.

But at least those uniforms had fit. And were friction resis–

“Fuck!” Astrid yelled as her knees gave out and the headache from the day before returned with a vengeance. Whispering, birds, wind, kids in the distance, cars going by and honking on the main road some distance away. Her brain tried to process all of it at once.

She looked up from her place on the ground. Her classmates were all staring at her.

Yaoyorozu ran over to her and reached out a hand. “Are you okay?”

Astrid fought the urge to hiss or flinch away. She instead chose to stand up on her own. “I’m fine.”

Yaoyorozu backed off a step, her expression falling a bit.

 Aizawa had his red eyes trained on the speedster. “Nice of you to be on time today.”

Astrid glared at the teacher and crossed her arms. Her cheeks started flushing as she thought about her classmates watching her. She hated being noticed, and this was two days in a row he had made a spectacle of her.

Aizawa continued. “When you were in middle school, you were told not to use your quirks.” He stopped erasing Astrid’s quirk and began examining his class. “Today is going to be a little different.”

Even when her teacher stopped using his quirk on her, her speed wouldn’t return instantly. It felt like her body needed to do a full reboot every time he did that. She looked around, panic welling up in her.

The other students were staring.

Astrid looked at her feet to avoid any accidental eye contact.

Aizawa continued his speech. “You were taught that you shouldn’t excel because your peers can’t keep up. Everyone is still acting like everyone is equal. It’s foolish and naive.”

Some students were mumbling their disagreement, but others were foaming at the mouth to be let loose with their quirks.

“So today, you are going to retake your basic fitness exam from school last year. But this time, I want to see what you can really do.” Aizawa pointed his clipboard at the spikey haired blond boy. “Bakugo. You can demonstrate. We’re starting with the ball toss.” He handed the boy a ball with an electric distance reader on it.

Astrid looked up just enough to watch him walk into the chalk circle and prepare to throw. Looked like he had decent form, but she wasn’t really the best judge.

Bakugo cracked his neck. “Alright. You asked for it.” He pulled back, and the smell of burning sugar and cinnamon nipped at Astrid’s nostrils.

The young man threw the ball like normal, but at the last second he generated an explosion between the ball and his palm.

There was a loud crack, and then nothing. No smoke, no injury to anyone, just a loud bang.

Astrid clutched her ears with a grunt. “Ah.” She whimpered before catching herself and putting her hands down.

Aizawa turned his touch screen to the class and it displayed the readout for how far he had managed to throw the ball: 705.2 meters.

The students whispered excitedly to each other, but Astrid’s ears were still ringing too much to make anything out.

“Takioka. You’re next.” He tossed a ball to Astrid, which she didn’t manage to catch.

A few students laughed at her as she fumbled around to pick it up. Luckily she felt her speed returning a little. The anxiety helped.

Astrid stood in the circle and held the ball in her hand. If she could run in this circle, she could reach… she examined the radius, at least mach two before she threw. That would show the loud kid with the bombs for hands.

She took in a deep breath to prepare for the sprint and throw, and– 

Her speed left her body in a rush and she face planted. The ball rolled a few centimeters out of the circle and beeped.

Astrid looked up from the ground at her teacher, furious. “Stop doing that!” She demanded, her voice sharp.

Aizawa kept his eyes trained on her. “I forgot to mention, you won’t be using your quirk today.” He turned to the class and Astrid felt his quirk stop pressing down on her. “And whoever does the worst on this fitness exam today, will be expelled from U.A.”

The others all began murmuring to each other, confused, and some looked scared half to death.

Astrid bared her teeth at the teacher. “How DARE you! You’re just trying to get rid of me!” She jumped to her feet. Quirk or not, she was going to kill him.

Aizawa walked up to the circle and looked down at the dusty and enraged fifteen year old who was still clenching her fists. “Unlike them,” He pointed a thumb back at her class, “you’ve been using your quirk non stop since you got it. You have a much different lesson to learn here.”

Astrid had gone a shade paler. “How much did they tell you…?”

Aizawa held her gaze. “Enough.”

Astrid, against her better judgement, examined the class that was watching her.

Everyone was staring, most just in anticipation of what she or Aizawa would do next. But some of the other faces were notably different.

The kid with the pipes in his legs looked genuinely confused by the situation, or possibly by her in general.

The redheaded boy was watching her with a serious expression and a fist clenched.

And the girl with the aux cords for ear lobes was… smiling? Astrid didn’t love that the girl was clearly enjoying the show, at the speedsters expense.

“Well?” Aizawa interrupted her thoughts. “Do you want to leave now, or after you fail today?”

He wasn’t the first man to try to break her in front of her peers. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. 

Astrid tried to ignore the rest of the class, and she worked hard not to look at Yaoyorozu at all. 

She took her place in the circle with the ball.

She reeled back and threw it with all her might, and it didn’t do her still healing shoulder any favors. She grunted with the effort, and the ball landed not too far away with a thud.

Aizawa showed her the readout, while shaking his head in disappointment 10.7 meters. He sighed and then turned back to the class. “Yaoyorozu, you’re next.”

Astrid trudged out of the circle and back to her class. Aizawa’s quirk had quite the effect on her. After getting hit with it twice in a row, her speed felt hesitant to return. And he kept glancing at her and re-erasing it.

She really hated feeling like–

“Don’t let him get in your head. Quirk or no quirk, you got this.” Someone spoke from beside Astrid. 

Asrid looked up to find the pink girl with the horns. “Uh, thanks.”

The pink girl reached out her hand for a handshake. “I’m Ashido. Mina Ashido.”

The speedster looked down at the girl’s outstretched hand. She looked back at Ashido, who was smiling expectantly. “Takioka.” Astrid eventually shook her hand.

The pink girl… Ashido. Stood beside her for the rest of the ball throw event. She would comment occasionally on someone’s score, but for the most part didn’t expect Astrid to respond.

Astrid’s gut was sinking, and she felt so watched while she was in real time.

Even the people who’s quirks didn’t help with the throwing did better than her. Without her quirk… she really wasn’t anything. She didn’t want… 

She didn’t know what she didn’t want….

Didn’t want to be here? Didn’t want to get kicked out? Didn’t want Ashido to keep standing next to her? Didn’t want her to go away?

One kid grunted in pain after his throw, and Astrid looked up at him. It was the shorter green haired boy. He was clutching his wrist, and his finger looked messed up. The boy addressed the teacher. “See Mr. Aizawa? I’m still standing.”

Astrid looked back at their teacher, and he looked impressed. But he didn’t show it beyond his eyes widening and pausing for a moment. 

Astrid looked back at the injured boy. Why would he hurt himself? And why did he look so happy? She wanted to understand him.

“He’s pretty cute huh? In a like, stray-dog kinda way.” Ashido elbowed Astrid.

Astrid looked at Ashido in surprise. “What?” She looked down where her elbow had touched her, the contact had sent a jolt through the speedster.

Ashido shrugged. “What?” She crossed her arms and looked at the injured green haired boy. “I saw you checking him out. I wanted to agree with you. I think he’s kinda cute.”

Astrid looked back at the boy. Cute? She didn’t think much about it. His hair looked messy and fluffy, like it would be fun to ruffle if she had her speed and could get away with it.

And his satisfied expression as he walked back toward the class was… interesting. 

And… since she could see him moving in real time, he did seem to move with an assuredness she found… admirable.

But does that make him cute? Does she think people are cute? Bunnies are cute. Puppies are cute. Are people cute? She didn’t know.

The green haired boy was walking away. He looked a little too muscular for their age. She wondered what he spent his free time doing.

“Yo, lets go.” Ashido was pulling Astrid’s arm. The speedster hadn’t even noticed the girl grab her. How could she not notice?

Aizawa was halfway through explaining the fifty meter dash and the students were walking to the track. She hadn’t noticed that either? Or the whole class walking away?

She decided what the green haired boy was. Dangerous. And she needed to focus.

Aizawa pointed to her. “You’re starting us off Takioka.” 

Astrid sneered at the teacher as she made her way to the starting line. She looked back to her teacher after she got to the line. “No quirk?”

Aizawa’s eyes flashed red. “No quirk.”

Astrid sighed and her face got red again. She hated this, that she was sure of.

“Go.” Aizawa yelled.

Astrid took a breath, before remembering she didn’t have time to do that without her speed. She shook her head and then ran. Her knees and ankles hated moving at this speed. Everything felt too heavy, and too weak.

She could tell the sand she was kicking up was landing on the ground before she took her next step. She felt like she was moving through tar.

Eventually she crossed the chalk line.

She turned to Aizawa, hoping he would just wave her away. Instead he showed her the readout with another disappointed look. 9.9 seconds.

Most elementary school students could beat that…

Astrid didn’t want to see what everyone thought this time. She kept her eyes fixed on the ground fully as she made her way back to the class. She heard Aizawa call the next person, but not who it was.

“How are you holding up?” A new voice came from beside her.

She glanced over. It was him, the boy who broke his finger. Her face got hot and she quickly looked back down.

“I’m not holding anything.” She looked up at him, and tried to not immediately look away.

The green hair boy laughed.

Astrid’s eyes widened and for some reason they felt wet.

The boy’s expression changed and he stopped laughing abruptly. “No! I wasn’t laughing at you! Aw man, I am sorry.” He bowed apologetically. “I just found the answer a little funny. You’re not from around here, are you?”

Astrid had to look down again. “I… don’t really know how to answer that.”

“I mean, you could just tell me what country you’re from. Is it Japan?” The boy was standing close enough that she could smell him. He smelled a little like body spray.

Astrid crinkled her nose. “That isn’t an easy answer either.” She sighed.

The boy looked thoughtful for a moment. “Okay. Well, what about your favorite flavor crepe. Can you tell me that?”

Astrid blinked. “Strawberry?” She looked the boy up and down. “Why would you want to know that?”

The boy shrugged. “Didn’t seem like you could answer much else. And I saw you eating one at the opening ceremonies.”

Astrid scuffed the ground with the toe of her sneaker. She didn’t like when people noticed her. “What’s uh…” She looked at his eyes, they were a really intense shade of green. Like, really green. She realized she was in real time and coughed. “Uh, um, yours. Your crepe favorite?” She sighed. She was accustomed to having time to stare at things without being seen.

The boy didn’t seem put off by her awkwardness though. “I’m a big fan of the triple berry.” He smiled at her. His eyes nearly shut when his smile was full. Astrid found it interesting.

“Midoriya. You’re up.” Aizawa called.

“Be right there sir!”

Astrid watched after him, and whispered what she’d heard under her breath, committing it to memory. “Midoria…”

The next event came quickly with Aizawa intermittently erasing her quirk.

Astrid trudged over to the grip strength test. 17.3kg. Well below average. She was going home today and she knew it.

It didn’t feel fai– Astrid flinched. She wouldn’t finish that word, not even in her mind. Asking for fair treatment was one of the cardinal sins at the facility.

But this definitely wasn’t right. And she was getting more and more frustrated by the moment. Moments that were passing far too quickly for her liking.

Next was the standing long jump. She scored miserably. Her legs just didn’t like exerting themselves without her quirk. They hadn’t ever let her not use her quirk at the facility. She was her quirk. She didn’t understand why her teacher was doing this.

But she needed to figure it out.

Next up was the repeated side steps. 

Astrid slumped down in the dirt after publicly humiliating herself on another part of the test.

Everything was so loud in real time, and after the bomb boy did his repeated side steps her ears were ringing again. God he was getting to her.

And it was the same exploding bomb boy that came over and sat next to her in the dirt. She tried not to scooch away for fear of offending him and him using that violently loud quirk of his.

“What were you talking about with Deku?” He spoke just a little bit too loud, and not just by her standards.

Astrid got nervous. He sounded suspicious of something, though she couldn’t imagine what. But suspicion and anger she was good at identifying, and he was dripping with both. “Who’s Deku?”

He pointed at the shorter green haired boy she’d been talking to. “The nerd.”

Astrid thought that was weird. She’d been in this kid’s house. His school work and room were meticulously well kept. Both of them had a bunch of All Might merch, bomb boy’s was just stored (and stashed) away. So as far as she was concerned, they were both nerds. 

“Well?” He asked impatiently, raising his already loud voice.

It occurred to Astrid she needed to start answering faster. She didn’t have her usual relative time to think. “We didn’t talk about anything. Hard to talk after you blew out my eardrums.”

He narrowed his gaze at her.

The two sat in silence for about twenty seconds before the blond boy spoke again. “It was pretty twisted, threatening to a kill a teacher on day one.”

“I didn’t– Oh. In home room.” she kept her eyes down. That felt like it was so long ago.

He shrugged and made a non committal noise. “It was pretty cool.” 

She looked up in surprise. “Cool?”

“Yeah.” He let out an exasperated sigh. “People are too nice all the time. They don’t care about anything other than looking like heroes.”

“Come on, that’s a little harsh.” A new voice joined them. The boy with red hair plopped down on the other side of the blond boy, but leaned forward so he and Astrid could see each other. He looked at the speedster. “This guy givin’ ya trouble?” He pointed his thumb at bomb boy.

Astrid shook her head, but before she could say anything the blonde boy interjected.

“Shut it hair-for-brains!” He shoved the boy, but the red head didn’t move very far. “Of course I’m not. I got class!” He growled at the other boy.

The redhead who had joined them rolled his eyes before reaching across bomb boy to shake Astrid’s hand. “Name’s Eijiro Kirishima. And you’re Takioka, right?”

Astrid was getting used to shaking hands, or at least trying to. She shook Kirishima’s and nodded. “Yeah, I’m uh, I’m Astrid Takioka.”

Kirishima frowned and addressed the speedster. “By the way, I think it’s bullshit what Aizawa is doing to you. It isn’t fair.”

Astrid’s breath caught at hearing the word. Even when someone else said it it raised alarm bells in her brain. “Nothing is fair.” She corrected him.

“That doesn’t mean it isn’t bullshit.” The blond boy said, seemingly to no one in particular.

Astrid shrugged. “It was nice while it lasted.”

“It’s been a day!” Kirishima argued. “What are you going to do if you get expelled? Like, this is the best program in the world.”

‘Be dead within twelve hours of being expelled.’ She kept that little detail to herself though. “I… really don’t know.” She lied, but it wasn’t a total lie.

The blond boy scoffed. “For what it’s worth, I hope Deku gets kicked out instead.” He sneered at the green haired boy across the field while getting up and walking away. He tossed a small plastic bag in Astrid’s lap as he left.

“Don’t mind Bakugo. He can be a little intense, but he means well.” The red haired boy said as he stood up and began dusting himself off as well.

Astrid stood up as well. She didn’t know what to say, and she didn’t know why other students kept approaching her. They clearly already had friends.

Kirishima jerked his head toward the track. “Come on. We gotta do the distance run next.”

The speedster nodded and followed him. She looked down at what Bakugo had thrown her.

They were disposable ear plugs…

She smiled and put them in quickly. The ringing wasn’t gone, but all the other noise was far away and muffled if she heard it at all. It was such a relief she felt her quirk start to buzz.

Aizawa caught on a few moments later and erased her quirk again.

Astrid sighed and trudged along with the rest of the class. The pace she was stuck at without her quirk made her feel like the walking dead.

Aizawa addressed the class. “Alright, this one you all do together. Everyone on the starting line.” She heard most of the words, and saw the class walking up to the track starting line.

Everyone took their places and got ready to run. Astrid didn’t even know how to prepare to run without her quirk. So she just stood awkwardly at the starting line.

Aizawa yelled start, and all twenty four students took off running. Astrid was left in the back of the pack almost instantly.

Her lungs were burning. Her body simply didn’t know how to function like this. Running… this was all she knew how to do, all she ever did, and she couldn’t do it. Not like this.

Her heart was thundering, her whole circulatory system felt like it was confused.

She was out of breath completely as she got to the halfway point. She couldn’t imagine what her class must think of her.

“What are you doing?!” She heard Bakugo yell, even through the ear plugs.

She was scared she had upset him, but when she looked up, she saw he was talking to the red haired boy, Kirishima. 

Kirishima was slowing down to a stop before the finish line. He crossed his arms. He said something but she couldn’t hear it at all.

Astrid kept running.

Aizawa shouted at the boy, and that made it partially through the ear plugs. “Scoring… …future…  …won’t change her score!”

Everyone but Kirishima and Astrid were across the line. Kirishima looked back to make sure Astrid was still running, and she was doing her best. 

She pulled an earplug out, as badly as she wanted to block everything out, she wanted to know what was going on more.

Kirishima turned to face their teacher. “Respectfully sir, it just wouldn’t be manly to leave my classmate behind when they're struggling.”

No one really knew how to respond to that apparently. 

About ten seconds later, Astrid crossed the finish line, followed shortly after by Kirishima, who came in last.

She wanted to thank him, if for nothing else, for the fact that everyone was looking at and whispering about Kirishima now instead of her. But she was far too out of breath. The speedster was doubled over and gasping.

The rest of the class began heading back to the indoor gymnasium for the remaining two parts of the exam. All except for Kirishima and, seemingly begrudgingly, Bakugo.

“You guys, can go.” Astrid gasped out, still doubled over.

“Yeah, I know.” Kirishima said with a smile. “But you’re our classmate.”

Bakugo scoffed, but didn’t say anything to argue. “Classmate or not, Aizawa is going to disqualify us if we don’t get in there. And I’m not getting a shit score for either of you losers.”

“The manly thing to do–” Kirishima was interrupted before they could explain.

“Then just pick her up and let’s go!” Bakugo rolled his eyes and began walking.

Kirishima shrugged and scooped her up like she weighed nothing.

“Hey!” What little breath she had regained left her. She felt her quirk returning on instinct. His arm under her legs keeping her feet off the ground freaked her out. The only people that touched her legs were the technicians at the facility. And there were always so many needles involved.

He froze, “Oh, I’m sorry.” He held her out away from himself a few inches, dangling her in the air. He looked strong, and was apparently stronger than he looked. “I should have asked first.” He shifted like he would set her down if she asked. “May I carry you?”

Astrid’s quirk kicked in. Sound was no longer reaching her one ear plugless ear properly, and the birds in the sky were moving in slow motion.

She took a deep breath, and thought about his question. What could it hurt? Her lungs were feeling better by the millisecond. She took a few minutes to catch her breath and ground herself.

She let time slowly come closer to real time, close enough for her to answer. “Yeah, that’s uh… that’s okay.”

Kirishima smiled. “Cool!” He then began jogging to the gym.

Predictably, she didn’t do well at seated toe touch, or the sit ups.

Aizawa kept her quirk off even when they all met up outside ten minutes later to get their scores.

Astrid looked around at her classmates, and her heart began to pound as Aizawa walked out to meet them.

She knew what was about to happen…

Something clicked in Astrid’s mind, so much so that she gasped and needed to force air back into her lungs.

She knew something she didn’t want! 

She didn’t want to leave.

But it was too late… there was no fighting left to do. All that was left was sentencing.

The holographic display popped up in the air displaying their scores.

Everyone looked for their scores, but Astrid’s name had been in the first place she had checked.

Last.

The students all went quiet as Aizawa walked up to Astrid. He looked down at her, seemingly feeling nothing. “Go empty your locker, and go home.”

No one spoke for a long moment, and Astrid didn’t move.

Aizawa spoke again. “You heard me, Takioka. Leave.”

Astrid clenched her fists. Her quirk was returning, but she forced it down. She needed to stay in this moment.

Lightning flashed in her eyes. Her very being wanted to smash him into a wall so hard his grandkids would get concussions. And he wasn’t erasing her.

Astrid took a long, slow breath, and forced her quirk into submission. She managed to stay in real time to answer him.

Astrid had her eyes locked on the ground. “No, sir.” Her voice was confident, and calmer than the class had ever heard. Possibly calmer than she’d ever spoken.

“Excuse me?” Aizawa sounded angry.

“I’m sorry, sir. But I can’t leave.” She forced air all the way into her lungs to force her anxiety into submission in what little way she could.

“I saw it on the entrance exam, that speed. I think you are more than capable of running away. Isn’t that what you do?” Aizawa’s voice was cold and sharp. It reminded her of Father in the worst way.

She forced another deep breath. “I misspoke, sir. I meant, I won’t leave.” She clenched her fists and quelled her anger. If she was going to be heard here, she needed to stay calm. “There is good to be done with my quirk, and I am not letting you, or anyone else get in my way.” She looked up and held his intense glare with her own. “I’m sorry, sir. But I am staying.”

The world went silent. At first she thought she had started using her quirk accidentally, but no. Everyone was just a bit stunned.

Aizawa’s intensity faded almost instantly and he flashed her a wide smile. “Glad to hear it. I’ll see you in class tomorrow. On time, please.” He began walking away. “Class dismissed.”

A student called after him. “Wait! Sir, does that mean no one is getting kicked out?”

Yaoyorozu crossed her arms. “Did you guys really think he would kick someone out? He was obviously just trying to push us.” She shrugged. “Sorry, if I’d known you all were so scared I would have said something.”

The class grumbled in both annoyance and relief. Astrid collapsed to her knees. Standing up to Aizawa had been the single scariest moment of her life, and she had had some moments.

Astrid saw her tears hitting the dusty ground. She tried to force it down, but she began crying softly. The idea of staying, the relief, the fear, the disbelief, it was all so much. She forgot her classmates were even there.

She was just crying, unaware of the world. Had she cried before? Surely she had cried before. But she couldn’t remember it.

She couldn’t stop it either. She just… cried.

What felt like forever later, and what must have been some amount of time, because the sun had moved a little across the sky. But that was the second thing she noticed.

The first was that a few of her classmates were still there on the field. “What are you all doing here?” She asked none of them in particular.

The three that had waited were Deku Midoriya, Yaoyorozu, and Kirishima.

It was Yaoyorozu who answered though. “We didn’t want to leave you all alone. You seemed really upset.”

Deku walked over and reached a hand down to her. 

Astrid took it hesitantly, and let him help her up.

Kirishima spoke up with a smile. “And if we go now we’ll still have time for lunch!”

Astrid nodded. “I’ll follow you guys.”

Kirishima and Yaoyorozu led the way together, with Astrid and Midoriya walking next to each other behind them.

Astrid’s quirk was working its way up. She felt strange, like she could almost calm down enough to get to real time, but something was in her way.

Her friend’s moved into slow motion, and then stopped moving in any perceptible way at all.

“Damnit.” Astrid cursed. She paced around her frozen friends. 

She inhaled deeply and exhaled. Then she repeated that a few dozen times in an effort to calm down. It didn’t work.

Boredom took over and she remembered something. She stood in front of Deku and ruffled his fluffy green hair with both hands.

She’d been expecting it to make her smile, but surprised herself when she realized her ears were getting warm.

She sighed and then plopped down onto the ground.

“Deep breaths Astrid.” She tried her breathing exercises, she tried scaring herself into stopping, she tried remembering all the ways she had successfully stopped moving before… her mind began to wander. 

It wandered to how soft and strong Deku looked. She thought about his shoulders, and what it might feel like to rest her hands on–

Deku hit Astrid in the head with his knee, causing both of them to shout in pained, unisoned surprise. “Ah!” Deku then tripped over the speedster that was now, unexpectedly seated in the hallway in front of him where he was walking.

The two rolled and Deku tried to catch himself, but what he grabbed happened to be Yaoyarozu’s gym shirt.

Which, in a chain of events fit for a three stooges episode, caused her to grab onto Kirishima’s arm.

This caused all four of them to go tumbling in a pile down the hallway a few feet.

Sadly for the hope-to-be heroes, that few feet they traveled brought them to a junction in the hallway, which as fate would have it, the principal was just emerging from on his own way to the lunch room.

The five of them all ended up in a large pile in the center of the hallway.

Astrid was face to face in the pile of grunting people with a… gerbil? Dog? …man? With white fur and a dapper little suit that she did indeed find adorable. 

The half buried gerbil spoke. “Hello, Miss Takioka. I’m principal Nezu. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.

The half buried speedster smiled awkwardly, embarrassment flushing her cheeks. “It’s uh… nice to meet you sir.”

—

Astrid sat in front of Nezu on one of the couches in his office. She examined the very plain looking room and began to wonder what this principal’s deal was.

She tried to force her quirk to calm, but it wouldn’t. So she decided to have a little look around while she waited for the principal to finish his sip of tea.

She ran over to the desk and decided to see if he had a file of his own about her. She grabbed the drawer to see if it was locked, and then she felt something latch around her wrist.

The drawer had been rigged with a cuff?? She thrashed and tried to fight her way out but couldn’t. And she had never phased successfully. She looked around the room in a panic.

A small video screen moved into position in front of her. It must have been moving at extreme speeds if it was still moving. A video appeared on the screen a few relative minutes later.

Principal Nezu, sitting at his desk, smiled at the camera. “Hello, Miss Takioka. If you are seeing this, you tried to break into my desk. Now, students are not allowed to go digging through confidential files.” Video Nezu took a sip of tea. “But I recognize it may be an uncomfortably long time for you to be cuffed to my desk before I notice you and let you out. So I have prepared something for you in case you need it. If you look under the desk, you’ll find a syringe taped to the bottom of it. This is a sedative that should be more than strong enough to return you to normal time.”

“How does he know how I experience time?” Her brain was running furiously. She felt like a caged animal again.

“But,” The video continued. “As I understand it you metabolize things differently depending on your current speed. If the screen is red when I’m done speaking, use the whole vial. If it is blue, half the vial, and if it is green, only go to the first notch. We don’t want you falling asleep on us. I’m looking forward to continuing our tea time soon.”

Astrid sat cuffed to the desk for a relative hour. The screen was red, so she must be maxing out. Though she had no idea how he would be tracking that.

Frustration eventually got the better of her and she loaded the syringe.

With a sigh she jabbed it into her leg and injected the sedative.

Sounds got louder, smells more intense, her breathing slowed dramatically.

Astrid yawned.

“Ah, my apologies, my dear.” Nezu hopped off the couch and walked over. He pulled a key out of his pocket and unlocked her. “I see you found my little project.”

Astrid felt a bit drowsy, but still fully functional. “Project?” She was too sleepy to be scared, and the gerbil had a calming aura. “What was in that shot?” She mumbled to herself.

Nezu smiled. “A concoction of my own making. I’m glad to see it is producing the desired effects.”

“You drugged me.” Astrid narrowed her gaze.

“Technically Miss Takioka, you drugged you.” He handed her a warm cup of tea and she took it.

Astrid was mad that she was having trouble being mad. If that syringe was doing this to her, it would have killed anyone else. She plopped onto the couch and sipped her tea.

“And yes, it was merely a project. Learning more about you and your kin has become a bit of a hobby of mine.” He walked over to the drawer she had tried to break into looking for her file, and he pulled her file out of it. “But I assure you, Miss Takioka.” He set the file down on the table in front of her. “I am not your enemy.”

She looked down at the file skeptically. When he made no move to stop her, she opened it.

It was a complete file. That wasn’t supposed to exist, at least not outside of the facility.

It had everything… training regimens, quirk assessments, psych evals, diet… even her drawings from when she was a child. No detail was spared…

She looked up at Nezu. “How did you get this?” Whatever this gerbil was, he meant business.

Nezu scampered up onto the couch and grabbed his own tea off the table. “I have my ways.”

“So what did you want to see me about?” Astrid tried to focus through the grogginess. 

“To see if you were settling in well. I recognize the first half of a day is a long time for you, or can be at least, so I moved up your check in. Perhaps too early, but we can always talk again. Perhaps it will become routine.”

Astrid looked down at the table. “Some of the other kids are nice.”

Nezu smiled. “I was hoping our promising young students would help you feel welcome.”

Astrid sighed. “I don’t uh… I don’t think Aizawa wants me here though.” She gasped at her outburst. That drug combo was making her talky. “I’m not complaining, sir! I’ll just work harder! I– I just… I’m sorry.” She wilted.

Nezu looked confused, cocking his head to the side. “Well, he requested you for his class. Odd thing to do if he thought you shouldn’t be here, don’t you think?”

Astrid met the principal’s gaze. “He what?”

Nezu nodded. “Indeed. He said something about you– that becoming a hero was going to be a challenging path for you, and he wanted to make sure you had the guidance you needed.”

Astrid sat back and looked up at the ceiling. “This school is weird.”

Nezu laughed. “And doesn’t that sound like fun?”

And for one of the first times in a long time, Astrid laughed. Just a little. But she hadn’t done that in real time in so long.

“Yes, sir. Sounds fun.” She said honestly.

Chapter Text

Between the sedative, and the knowledge of the extra dose Nezu let her take with her for emergencies keeping her calm, the remainder of the day passed without incident. 

Astrid walked out of the front gate of the main school building, and watched as students waved goodbye to each other or walked off together.

Astrid wished–

“Hey! Takioka!” The shorter green haired boy ran to catch up with her from the main building. “Wait up!” 

Astrid stopped and turned around.

Midoriya caught up and smiled at her. “I know you couldn’t say much about where you’re from, but I figured that at least means you aren’t from around here.”

Astrid looked around, suspicious. “And?”

Midoriya looked nervous. “...and,” he dragged out the word, “I was thinking, I could walk you home.”

Astrid was looking at the boy’s eyes again. That intense green was so interesting. It shifted into lighter shades in the sunlight, which highlighted the darker parts. When he tilted his head just–

Deku cleared his throat. “Would that uh… would that be cool?”

He was blushing now. Which made the green of his eyes even more intense with the contrast. She wondered if–

“Takioka?”

“Oh my god I’m not answering!” She realized, and shouted her realization out loud.

“Oh. I uh… okay.” Deku seemed crushed, obviously assuming what she shouted was an answer to his question. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m sorry, uh… I guess I’ll just… go?” He started walking away. “I’ll see you later I guess.” 

“No!” Astrid shouted, desperate to fix the misunderstanding.

This did not seem to help. Deku seemed even more upset.

Astrid grunted and looked around in a panic. When she found no solutions, she decided she just needed to try to explain. But… not here. There were way too many people here.

The anxiety had jump started her quirk and burned through the remainder of the sedative.

Where could she take him to talk for a minute that wouldn’t freak him out?

Her dorm room here on campus? No, that might… imply things.

The park? No, still kinda public.

The woods? No. 

“Oh, I got it!” She picked him up and ran at roughly mach seven. Between the drug still working its way out of her and picking up the surprisingly densely packed boy, it was as fast as she could go.

But eventually she made it somewhere that might help him not feel so freaked out but would also give her a minute in private to talk to him.

She set him down on his own bed in a seated position. Then she tried to breathe to calm down, but couldn’t manage it. 

Astrid didn’t want to wait and forget what she needed to explain, so she pulled out the pack with the needle in it, gave herself the smallest drip of an injection, and put it away.

She took slow deep breaths.

Eventually things began to funnel back into her perception. She could get used to that little concoction.

She looked at Deku and enjoyed the moment of looking at his eyes before she slowed enough and felt relaxed enough to finish their conversation. “That isn’t what I meant, okay?” She explained.

“What the hell?!” Deku jumped up off the bed and then promptly tumbled onto the floor. “What happened?” He was looking around the room. “Are we in my room?! Oh my god I feel sick…”

“I didn’t mean to yell at you back at school. I was thinking about something else. I think it might be really nice to have you walk me home.” She mustered up the courage to say.

Deku stood up and looked around. He took a moment to catch his breath, and then smiled at Astrid. “Did you run me all the way here?”

“Yeah, I…” She looked at his amused face. “Is that not okay?”

He laughed. “I don’t really know how to answer that. How uh… how did you know where I live?” 

An older, feminine voice came from the other room. “Izuku, sweetie? Are you home early?”

Deku looked at the door. “Uh, yeah mom! I’m in my uh… I’m in my room!”

The two kids heard footsteps coming towards them. 

The semi drugged speedster was smiling happily on the bed, completely oblivious to the fact that a girl (other than her) had never been in this room before. 

The doorknob turned and the nice lady Astrid saw here the other day came in. She had similarly green hair to her son. Astrid could see the resemblance.

“Oh!” The woman yelped. “I didn’t know we had company.” She gave Deku a withering look. “May I speak with you in private for one moment, young man?”

Deku gulped. “Sure, mom.” He followed her out.

Astrid shrugged and flopped onto the bed. The All Might blankets and sheets were surprisingly high quality. Very comfy.

Astrid decided not to sleep. Just to rest her eyes for a moment until Deku came back.

Astrid fell asleep.

Astrid woke up what felt like a few seconds later to Deku’s mom (who called him Izuku earlier for some reason) called Astrid’s name. 

She groggily sat up and rubbed her eyes. Maybe a droplet from the syringe was too much? The speedster rubbed her eyes and moved a blanket off of herself. When did that get there?

Astrid stood up and looked for the door through blurry eyes. When she exited Deku’s room, the lights seemed a little too bright, but she figured she would adjust as she woke up more.

“Hello!” His mom ran over and helped Astrid to a chair at the table. “Dinner is just about ready. I hope you like pork cutlets.”

Deku walked over to the table and sat next to her. “You feeling okay?”

She rubbed her eyes and tried to look up at him. But the lights were too bright. “How long was I out?”

“Like three hours.”

“What?!” Astrid tried to jump up. “I have to–” She cut herself off, realizing she didn’t actually know what she had to do. Every moment of every day at the facility had been planned for her, accounting for her relative time too. But… classes didn’t resume until the next day.

“What you have to do is sit down and have some dinner. You look positively starved!” Deku’s mom sat down across from the two of them after setting the last bowl of delicious smelling food on the table.

“I’m sorry,” Astrid began. “I didn’t uh…” she knew she was doing something wrong. She had to be.

Deku’s mom sighed. “It broke my heart when I called the school and they said you are staying by yourself in the dorms?”

Astrid didn’t want to answer, the woman sounded worried about her, and the unfamiliarity of that was enough to unsettle the speedster. “It’s a nice dorm.”

Mrs. Midoriya was loading three cutlets and a large helping of rice onto her plate. “Nice as it may be, a girl your age should not be living alone.”

Deku stepped in so Astrid wouldn’t have to figure out how to answer that. “I’m sure they take really good care of her there. U.A. is one of the safest places in the world.” He tried to comfort his mother.

Mrs. Midoriya shook her head. “Safe or not, it isn’t healthy.”

Astrid felt like she was being reprimanded, but couldn’t figure out what she was supposed to have done differently. She didn’t have parents or family. She’d just been grateful the school had taken her in.

Deku spoke up. “Maybe I could check on you before I come home after school? Just to make sure you don’t need anything.” He asked Astrid.

Before the speedster could answer, Mrs. Midoriya cut in. “No need. I already talked to the principal. Deku, you’ll be staying in the dorms this school year.”

“What?” Both kids nearly shouted.

His mom looked genuinely apologetic. “I’m sorry I did this without asking either of you, but a girl Takioka’s age shouldn’t be fending for herself.” The woman shrugged, “If you are unhappy, we will figure something else out. But that something else is going to include someone there to at least make sure you eat.” Her voice didn’t leave much room for argument. “And you can stay here for the night.”

Deku was turning into a stuttering, blushing mess next to her. 

Astrid felt her chest ache… but in a new way. She wasn’t sure what it was, but it felt like an emotional response. Her lip was quivering slightly. She’d never slept over at a friend’s house.

Mostly because she never had friends.

Or a house.

She had no idea what Mrs. Midoriya was hoping to gain from this, but she decided that going back to her dorm alone to eat ramen and take out sounded worse than being at Deku’s house for the night.

“Thank you… ma’am.” Astrid couldn’t resist the food smells anymore. She dug right into everything and was grabbing seconds less than two minutes later.

Deku’s mom began laughing. “So that’s why Nezu said he would help pay for the food while you were visiting.” She said as Astrid tore through her fifth pork cutlet and second large bowl of rice.

After she ate she felt her quirk slowly return, but she kept her breathing steady to stay in real time as best she could.

When everyone was done, Deku started collecting plates. “I’ll get the dishes tonight.” He said happily. He seemed to have recovered from the news that Astrid would be staying for the evening, and that he would be moving tomorrow.

Mrs. Midoriya sat back in her chair and smiled at Astrid. “So sweetie, do you need us to drive to the school to get anything for you to stay the night?”

Astrid ran back to the dorm, collected her stuff and returned, setting her suitcase by the table. “No thank you, I got it.”

“Oh wow!” Mrs. Midoriya exclaimed. “That’s quite the quirk you have there! Izuku told me you were fast, but that was, just… wow.”

Astrid looked away but couldn’t keep the grin off her face. Compliments on her speed were things she had never gotten much of growing up. “Thank you.”

Mrs. Midoriya told Astrid she wasn’t allowed to do the dishes because it was Deku’s turn and her first night in the apartment.

So she waited. With her quirk back she took the opportunity to examine his eyes in relative time, in an attempt to get her fill of looking at the various shades of green. This took a while.

Eventually he was pretty much done with the dishes, but she still couldn’t slow down enough for them to see her.

She tapped her foot impatiently, did some breathing, did some meditating, but every attempt to calm her mind only made it race more out of rebellion.

She took a run around the city to try to burn off some energy, but only ended up feeling even more jazzed up.

Astrid stopped in front of the house after her hundredth lap around the prefecture.

The hair on the back of Astrid’s neck pricked up.

She smelled tachyons in the air, which meant they weren’t coming from her.

Who had they sent?

She stopped in the middle of the busy street. She clenched her fists and forced her quirk to burn at its fullest. She burned off the sedative remnants and fatigue in no time. The large meal had helped massively.

She felt her body and mind buzz all the way up to mach… not quite thirty. She couldn’t tell exactly by how much, but she knew she wasn’t at her peak.

The cars on the street were basically frozen, the whole city was.

She still felt the hairs prickling, her nose scrunched involuntarily.

Astrid saw a streak of dark blue light rush across her vision. At her top speed she could make out the other speedsters movement at least, even if she couldn’t react to it.

And if she could spot him–

“Good evening, Takioka .” Mr. Darmon said from behind her.

She whipped around to face him, but he was still behind her, whispering in her ear. “What do you think you’re doing off of the campus?”

Astrid swallowed. “I was just…” She clenched her fists tighter, digging her nails into her palms. “I was having dinner at a friend’s house.” 

“What part was I unclear on?” His voice was cold, and it reverberated as he used his speed to disguise it.

Astrid had spent so much of the last twelve hours feeling trapped. First by Aizawa, then by Nezu, and now her handler. She was getting sick of this feeling. She knew he wasn’t going to say anything else until she answered.

“I didn’t do this.” She couldn’t keep the bite out of her words.

Mr. Darmon grabbed her by the throat and rushed her to the top of the Tokyo Skytree. The night air was cooler up here. He held her by the throat out over the three hundred meter drop down to the pavement. “I’m so sorry. I don’t think I heard you right.”

She knew better than to struggle. She just held onto his hand, pulling her body up, trying to get enough space between his fingers and her windpipe to get a gasp of air. “I’m– sorry–” She choked out.

“One more time?” He said and squeezed her neck tighter.

“I’m sorry– sir–” She gasped and saw her vision beginning to go black.

He rushed her back to the street in front of Deku’s house and tossed her onto the sidewalk. “Next time you decide to have a slumber party, make sure you don’t value the lives of who you stay with.”

There was a whooshing sound, and the hair on the back of her neck settled. The stench of tachyons no longer offended her nose.

He was gone.

The sun had set not long ago.

Astrid lay on her back, looking up at the street light Mr. Darmon had tossed her under.

The last hour had been… amazing.

Somehow that only made it feel worse.

Was one hour of a semi-normal life all she could get away with?

She wanted to stay in this second forever.

In this one second, she could still pretend she was heading upstairs for a normal sleepover, with the warm food, and nice people.

But the adrenaline of the death threat was already draining her, as were the dark thoughts setting in.

She let out a breath and her speed dimmed. 

The buzz of the light above her informed her that time had resumed, whether or not she was ready for it to.

A minute passed before she heard yelling. “Takioka?” Deku and his mom were calling for her. “Where’d you go?”

Astrid picked herself up off the ground with a sigh.

It was nice while it lasted.

She walked to the door and hit the buzzer. “Hey, it’s me. I’m downstairs. Sorry.”

The door was buzzed open and Astrid walked back upstairs, savoring every step, wishing she could draw this out. Her stomach started to grumble. Near mach thirty she just burned too much too fast.

She opened the door and took off her shoes, she walked back into the living/dining room.

“Sweetie, what’s wrong?” Mrs. Midoriya yelled in a panic as she rushed over to Astrid.

She heard Mr. Darmon’s voice in her what he would do the next time she did this. 

But then Mrs. Midoriya hugged her. “Oh sweetie you look as pale as death!”

And something inside Astrid broke.

Something load bearing. 

In relative years, Astrid was pretty sure she’d be celebrating her four hundredth birthday soon. 

But whatever wall inside Astrid that hug broke wasn’t four hundred years old. It wasn’t even fifteen. What broke belonged to a small child that existed over a decade ago.

And it let something out that Astrid didn’t know existed anymore.

A very scared, and very lonely little girl.

She hugged Mrs. Midoriya back. 

She sobbed into the woman’s shirt.

“There there sweetie.” She stroked Astrid’s hair and spoke in a soft, soothing voice. “Whatever it is, we’ll take care of it.”

Astrid didn’t get to answer. The scared and lonely little girl she’d been keeping locked in the darkest parts of her mind, that hadn’t ever been permitted to speak before, got to answer. 

“Thank you…” 

Chapter Text

Astrid sat at her desk, she’d managed to stay under mach 2 most of the day, so she wasn’t feeling too exhausted by the time their first hero basic training class arrived.

She wondered who would be teaching them as she remembered the previous night.

She hated breaking down in front of people… 

Midoriya had been really sweet to sit with her until she fell asleep. She couldn’t even imagine what had happened to his opinion of her after seeing her like that.

She tried not to think about it and instead her mind wandered to Mr. Darmon. She looked out the window, wondering if she’d see it coming. Probably not. She simply put her head down and tried to zone out so her quirk might ease up to something akin to real time. 

She wasn’t sure if the footsteps she heard coming down the hall were real or part of her dream, but her eyes flicked open and her head snapped up regardless. 

“I am here! Coming through the door like a hero!” Their teacher’s voice echoed  through the room.

Astrid’s breath caught.

There he was. The man from a thousand hypotheticals. The example target for almost every drill at the facility. The man she had been preparing to, and hoping to, take the life of for years. All Might.

The other students were whispering. Astrid decided she was going to get a closer look. She was having a slow day, but Mach seven should be more than enough.

Time slowed to a crawl and she stood up from her desk to walk over to him.

All Might turned to look her in the eyes and wagged his finger in a ‘don’t you do it’ motion.

Astrid was so stunned she sat  back down and normal time began kicking in.

‘He looked right at me…’ The thought made her shudder.

“Today I will be leading you future heroes in a bit of combat training!” He continued.

Astrid was barely listening. Her thoughts were consumed by the fact that he had clocked her in milliseconds. His kind of reaction time wasn’t just beyond other heroes, it was beyond biological law.

She watched him intently as he got to the end of his explanation.

“And one of the most important parts about being a hero is looking the part! So it’s time to suit up, children!” All Might said in his overly loud and overly confident way.

Lockers opened on the sidewall of the room to reveal briefcases with each student's number on it.

Astrid had been dreading this moment. When they sent the forms for requests, hers had been intercepted by her handler. Mr. Darmon told her she would be getting a standard black running suit like she wore at the facility.

She waited before opening the case. She looked around the room at her classmates, everyone seemed so happy. She wasn’t sure she even had a comparable for how excited these kids looked opening up their costumes.

She sighed and flicked open the latch on her case.

Astrid stared at the contents of the case, eyes wide and mouth agape. “What the hell?” She mumbled to herself.

Yaoyorozu turned around in her seat and peeked into Astrid’s case. “Oh that looks so nice! Very fitting.” She then turned to some of the nearby students to comment on their costumes as well.

Astrid reached into the case and reverently pulled out the red, padded, friction-proof suit. She stared at the insignia in the middle of the chest; a single yellow lightning bolt inside of a yellow circle. She ran her fingers over the bolt, trying to understand how this had happened.

Her childhood drawings in the office file… had Nezu done this?

She was far too excited to do the next part any slower than mach ten. She ran to the locker room and swapped her uniform for the suit.

She looked at herself in the mirror.

The suit was a perfect fit without being too tight. Her range of movement was excellent. The suit felt durable. And the padding was something she’d never been permitted at the facility. The instructions in the case said it was a super shock absorbent material. Crazily enough, she felt like she couldn’t wait to crash into something wearing this thing.

It came with a cowl that would cover most of her face, but not her mouth. The opposite of the facility masks.

She ran to the area where she was supposed to meet up with her class once everyone was dressed for combat training.

She tried to calm down so it wouldn’t take so long, but her excitement got the better of her.

Astrid’s quirk spiked, and she found herself buzzing around mach twenty. It would be days before everyone was changed and ready to go at this rate.

She thought about the sedative in her backpack, but then she’d be fucked for the training.

She could run it off, but that hadn’t gone well the previous night.

She could try talking to Deku. Just being near him seemed to calm her mind somewhat.

She ran into the boy’s locker room and saw he was still in his school uniform. She rolled her eyes at his turtle-esque pace, and decided to head to the roof.

She sat on the edge of the U.A. roof, kicking her legs over the side.

The afternoon sun was bright, and the clouds were a bit sparse. All in all, not her favorite time to sit on the roof. Too bright.

She ran to a local crepe stand and made herself her favorite, with extra strawberries. 

Astrid sat under one of the trees outside the dorm building.

She monched on her crepe and wondered how long it would be before Mr. Darmon checked in again and found something else to be mad about.

Oh well. She decided she would burn that bridge when she got to it.

The crepe calmed her down slightly, and she felt her perception slowing down, so she ran back to where she needed to wait for the class.

Only one student was there, Iida. He was covered head to toe in armor, but she saw the pipes protruding from his calves.

Next up she saw bomb-boy. Of course his arms were grenades. Astrid rolled her eyes.

“Your suit is quite fitting for you, Takioka!” Iida said, sounding echoey in the metal suit. 

Astrid hadn’t realized she’d gotten back to real time. “Oh.” She looked down at herself. “Yeah, uh, Yaoyorozu said the same thing.” She looked him up and down. “Is that hard to run in? It looks heavy.”

Iida nearly started bouncing. “Actually, it is massively helpful! Our legs are powerful machines. If there isn’t enough weight pressing down, we can't reach our top speeds. All of the Ingenium heroes in my family wear this armor!” He sounded very proud. 

She saw the Uraraka girl. The way she was pulling at the fabric of her pink uniform made her look uncomfortable.

Yaoyorozu was wearing a red, black, and gold suit with cargo pants and large zippers in the front and on the thighs. Astrid thought she looked pretty in the practical uniform.

The boy that was made half out of ice joined them. He couldn’t be comfortable like that.

Soon enough Deku appeared. 

Astrid giggled.

He was in a very plain suit, with a mesh mask and a green bunny hood. He looked so… cuddleable? No. She already thought about him too much in the last two days. She was not entertaining that thought.

“You look great!” Uraraka said to Deku. 

The gravity girl was still talking to him, but Astrid wasn’t hearing the words. She was distracted by an ache in her chest and a flush in her cheeks. The feeling was unfamiliar, but it was definitely coming from the Uraraka girl talking to Deku.

“Don’t you think so, Takioka?” Astrid blinked and looked up to see Uraraka waiting on an answer from her.

Astrid blinked. “What?”

Uraraka’s nose scrunched for a second. “Don’t you think Deku’s outfit is totally retro?”

Astrid narrowed her eyes. “Retro?”

Uraraka cleared her throat. “Well… anyway–”

All Might interrupted by bursting forward and addressing the class. “Hello students!” He scanned the class and began to tear up. “You all look so cool!”

The students all puffed their chests out and stood a little taller. Astrid rolled her eyes. She couldn’t help but watch All Might like a hawk.

He could kill every one of them with the flick of a wrist. He might even be fast enough to kill her.

“Today we’re going to do a little combat training!” He cheerfully informed them. He was so fucking loud. Astrid rubbed her ears for a second. “I’ll be pairing you into teams of two and you will face off against each other, with one team defending a bomb, and the other trying to secure it. You’ll be playing Heroes and Villains today!”

All the students began asking questions at once. Astrid’s anxiety started rising, her perception of time began slowing. Everyone stopped moving. At least the sound was muffled by her going faster than the sound waves.

Astrid took a deep breath. Back to her initial question. To use her sedative, or not to use her sedative. 

The speedster looked around nervously. She knew one thing that might help, she just didn’t fucking like it. It was stupid, and humiliating.

But she couldn’t spend two days here waiting for the lesson to start. The speedster rolled her eyes. She checked to make sure All Might wasn’t looking.

Astrid sighed, her throat was tight, and her hands felt unsteady. She walked over to Deku. The touch-starved future-hero wrapped her arms around Deku’s waist, and rested her head on his back.

She immediately felt her heart rate slow. And that pissed her off, which caused her heart rate to speed up. But annoyingly, her anger couldn’t overpower the calm that being in close proximity to Deku caused. She felt so stupid. 

Time began to slow down to normal. Astrid rushed back to her spot so no one would see what she had been doing.

All Might finished explaining that they would draw lots for their opponents. And soon enough (Thanks to Deku) it was time to decide who would face who.

Astrid and Deku

Vs

Bakugo and Todoroki

Astrid wasn’t worried. Whoever she faced, it was going to be a quick match. She was on the Hero team, all she had to do was touch the fake bomb. It would be over before the starting buzzer was finished echoing.

Bomb boy walked over to her. “Yo, Takioka.” He threw something at her.

Astrid grabbed it out of the air. It was a small plastic package. She examined it closer. It was another pair of disposable ear plugs. He was worried about his quirk’s effect on her? She looked up to say something, but he had already walked away.

Deku walked up to her. “I guess we’re partnered up. So I was thinking about a plan–”

“We don’t need a plan.” Astrid explained. “Neither of them is going to be able to stop me.”

“I know you’re fast, Takioka, but we shouldn’t underestimate–” Deku was interrupted again.

“I don’t think you know how fast I am.” She told him. 

“Yeah, but Kachan and Todoroki might–”

Astrid sighed impatiently. “You worry too much, Deku.”

“Why have you been calling me that?” Deku’s tone changed slightly.

Astrid froze. Had she done something wrong? 

“Takioka?” He prodded gently.

“I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have assumed I could use your first name.” Astrid was looking down at the ground. “I’m sorry for–”

“What? No, please, calm down. Deku isn’t my first name.” He chuckled. “It’s uh, it’s what Kachan calls me to make fun of me.”

Astrid’s eyes went wider. “Ohhhh. I’m sorry!” She felt her face getting hot. “I won’t call you that anymore. I don’t–”

“Actually.” Midoriya rubbed the back of his head. “I kinda like when you say it. It uh… it sounds different.”

Astrid looked at Deku, confusion plastered on her face. “Sounds different?”

Deku smiled. “Yeah….”

—

Ten minutes later, Deku and Astrid were standing outside of a ten story building, waiting for All Might to tell them to begin.

“Astrid, please, I really think we need to take it slow and talk about–”

“Start!” All Might yelled over the loud speakers.

Astrid ran. She was at the top floor of the building just in time to see that she had made a mistake.

She was moving around mach 15, so this revelation came at her in stages.

Stage one was realizing her breath was creating ice crystals in the air when she exhaled.

Stage two was finding out that her foot had slipped on the newly formed ice on the ground.

Stage three was slamming into a nearby wall.

“What–” She thudded against the concrete.

She looked up and saw Todoroki walking towards her, cold rolling off of him in waves. She needed to go. 

Astrid hesitated, she likely just broke– Nothing. The suit had done its job!

Todoroki was speaking as he reached his hand forward. “Pathe–”

The speedster bolted before she could find out what more cold would do to her.

She was standing back out on the street with Deku. The speedster sighed while rubbing her shoulder. “So uh… Deku. What was that you were saying about a plan?”

As she said this the entire building in front of them iced over.

Chapter Text

Deku was looking up at the ice covered building. “Todoroki’s quirk really is amazing…”

Astrid was rolling her shoulder. “So what the hell do we do?” 

“Deku!” Bakugo shouted as he stepped out of the building. His arms had frost melting off of them, and they could see his breath.

“They're not working together.” Deku realized out loud. “Astrid,” He whispered. “I’ve got a plan. But I don’t have time to explain.”

Astrid grabbed her teammate and ran.

Deku and Astrid were standing on a nearby rooftop. 

Deku looked a little worse for wear, but he seemed to be getting used to moving places at speed. He took a couple breaths. “Okay, since Kachan has gone rogue, we can keep them separated.”

“So which one is mine?” Astrid felt her blood boiling. Her quirk was nearly topping out. 

Deku was completely frozen.

She was going to have to figure out the next move on her own. Standard procedure when your partner can’t keep up. That’s what she needed, to count on her training.

Okay, Deku wouldn’t send her after Todoroki, he was the one that stopped her the first time.

So he must have been intending for her to take on bomb-boy. She could do that. He seemed tough, but nothing she couldn’t handle at her speed.

She was at mach 30. Time was as slow as it ever got for her.

Astrid ran down the side of the building and got in front of Bakugo. She looked him up and down. He was… Astrid shook her head. A stupid boy. 

She looked at the earplugs in her hand. There was no real need, he wasn’t going to get a shot off with her moving this fast. But it really was considerate of him…

She didn’t want to make him look bad.

Astrid took an hour or so in relative time to find and destroy the cameras outside of the ice covered building. It was an annoying task, the school apparently really liked its surveillance.

Astrid smirked. Now she could kick his ass privately.

The speedster ran back down to the street and stood in front of bomb-boy. “Sorry, buddy.” She shrugged and grabbed a hold of his arm.

She carried him up to the top of a building about a block away to give Deku as much space as she could.

She tossed him on the rooftop. Astrid didn't know exactly what to do now. She didn’t want to just beat the snot out of him. It just didn’t seem fair. Then she remembered where she was.

“Oh, I just need to use the tape.” Astrid pulled out the capture tape and began walking over to him.

Strangely, light seemed to be emanating from him. Not all of him… his hands. Astrid saw the tell tale signs that a shockwave was forming. It looked wrong though; at her speed it should be way slower.

Her eyes widened. Astrid ran to the edge of the building right before the area lit up.

Bakugo’s hands were facing down. He was destroying the building. 

Astrid was only a step or two down when the structure lost all stability, starting from the roof.

Astrid saw chunks of building moving out and away from her. One went past her head weirdly fast. 

This wasn’t right. 

She’d done this before, but the detonation was too fast this time. If she hadn’t been maxing out she might not have even seen it.

Astrid tried to outrun the building’s destruction. She set her foot down on a piece of rubble that was moving through the air, then another, then another.

The explosion was speeding up faster than she could adjust for. The confused thoughts distracted her. When she set her foot down on a block, it was at the wrong angle.

Astrid tumbled through the exploding rubble, then she was fully falling through the explosion. She couldn’t do anything about it, so she just tucked into a ball and held her arms over her face and head.

The force of the blast sent her skidding down the street like a stone over water, just like the entrance exam. The suit was a work of art though, as all of the meat stayed on her body this time. 

When she rolled to a stop, the speedster flopped onto her back.

Even if the suit had saved her, she still tasted blood. She was looking up at the sky, her head was swimming. She saw a bird fly overhead. “Shit…”

Astrid heard explosions in the distance. She struggled to her feet. He may have gotten the drop on her with a lucky explosion, but she wouldn’t be caught on her back.

The explosions got louder and louder until Bakugo used one to land next to her. “Try that again you damn brat!” He shouted at her.

Astrid flinched at the noise.

Confusion flashed across Bakugo’s face.

Astrid took the opening and forced her quirk into action. She rushed forward at mach 3, attempting to tackle him into a nearby wall.

She made it less than two meters before he detonated again. Astrid didn’t even have the chance to respond, let alone get away.

The shockwave compressed her chest and knocked the wind out of her. She got tossed further down the street. 

She struggled to her hands and knees. Blood was dripping from somewhere on her head down to the pavement she was looking at.

Her ears were ringing, and her head felt too full and too hollow at the same time. She couldn’t shake it off, so something was definitely wrong.

Bakugo walked calmly down the street. When he was close enough to be heard he shouted. “Where’s your partner? The damn nerd.” His capture tape was untouched on his belt.

Bakugo was fighting to a submission.

Luckily, that was the only kind of fight Astrid had ever done. She spat blood onto the pavement to clear out her mouth. “Knowing him, capturing the bomb.” She chuckled.

“Kachan!” Deku shouted from the street.

Bakugo whipped around. 

That was the opening Astrid needed. She ran forward and punched Bakugo in the back at mach 4.

“Ah!” Bomb-boy shouted as he went flying forward end over end. He rolled to his feet and turned to face the speedster. “Okay you little brat. You first.” He said to Astrid as he flexed his back in pain.

Astrid was smirking and looking him in the eye. She forced her quirk higher, but her healing was having trouble keeping up with the damage she’d sustained. “Bring it, bomb-boy.” She narrowed her gaze.

Bakugo gritted his teeth, and a vein was popping out of his neck. He faced his palms behind himself and blasted the air to launch himself forward.

Astrid put her arms up to guard, but four times the speed of sound didn’t have shit on his detonation velocity. The blast hit her not in the arms and head, but in the legs. Her feet went out from under her and she toppled forward, her arms slammed into the ground, and her head slammed into her arms. “Fuck…”

Before the speedster could recover and get back to relative time, Bakugo grabbed her by the back of her uniform and put one hand out to the side to explode in an arc. He used this angular momentum to throw her across the street into a wall.

She wondered how much the suit could actually take.

All Might’s voice came through the intercom. “What is going on out there!? None of the camera’s are working!”

Bakugo laughed. “So you mean I get to kick the brat’s ass in private?” He glared at her.

“Young Bakugo!” Their teacher pleaded. “You only need to capture your opponent.”

The explosive boy scoffed. “She’ll be real easy to capture when she stops moving!”

Astrid staggered to her feet, but Bakugo wasn’t going to give her the chance to run.

He used his explosive leap to get to her and shoulder check her into the same wall he just threw her at.

Astrid coughed, sending blood spattering over Bakugo’s face.

The wall couldn’t handle the second impact and the two of them went tumbling through it into a pile of concrete blocks.

Astrid struggled, but Bakugo pinned her down to the ground with his body. The more she fought, the more he secured his grip. She just wasn’t built for this kind of fight. Bomb-boy clearly was. She tried again to buck him off of her. “Get off m–”

Bakugo slapped his hand over her mouth while pinning her wrists above her. 

The cement he was forcing her into hurt, but not as bad as her pride was hurting. 

Bakugo leaned in and spoke in a threatening whisper. “Say another word, and I will blast your jaw off.” 

The two students locked eyes.

He was daring her to do it. And she wanted to. She hated being this helpless. It was… infuriating. She was seeing red.

Bakugo looked at her ears. “You damn brat! Why aren’t you wearing–” He rolled his eyes and removed his hand from her mouth. He pulled out his capture tape and wrapped it around her wrists. Then he stood up and walked slowly out of the hole in the wall he had created with her body.

Astrid didn’t know what to say or do.

She heard Bakugo yelling as he walked away. “Come out, come out wherever you are, Deku!”

After a few minutes, medical bots came over and helped Astrid up onto a stretcher. She tried to get up to see how the rest of the match was going, but she could see nothing as she was taken off the field.

“He beat me…” Astrid spoke to herself in disbelief. She felt as if the world was falling out from under her.

She got beat by some first year hero trainee? She let out a deep sigh and tears welled up in her eyes. “I guess that’s why I washed out…”

—

Astrid needed a few hours and recovery girl’s help to get back on her feet. She had missed everyone else's combat training, but at least she would be making it back for the in-class review.

She walked slowly down the empty hallways toward her classroom. Her steps echoed in the large halls.

Bakugo was at his locker mumbling something to himself.

Astrid stepped closer. “Bomb-boy?”

He turned to her, his eyes were filled with rage, his breathing was short and ragged. “What do you want, you damn brat?”

“How’d the uh… the match–”

“How do you think it ended?” He scoffed, seemingly annoyed. “After YOU wasted all my damn time!”

“What? I–”

“I didn’t need to win that way. Deku was the one not playing by the rules. That damn nerd!” Bakugo was talking more to himself than Astrid.

Astrid began to step past him, but he put a hand out and stopped her.

“Bakugo?” Astrid’s brow scrunched in worry. 

Katsuki didn’t say anything. The two of them stood there in the hallway without saying a word. Bakugo dropped his arm so she could pass. “Whatever.” And then he walked off, not in the direction of their class.

Astrid watched after him for a few seconds, but decided she didn’t know enough to figure out what his deal was. So she just walked back to class.

They were watching a video of Uraraka fighting Iida in hand-to-hand combat, and holding her own decently well.

Astrid tried to slip in mostly unnoticed, but with her quirk so fully drained, that felt impossible. She could feel everyone’s eyes on her. 

When she made it to her desk in the back of the class, Kazue leaned over. “Glad to see you’re on your feet. But like, should you be?” His voice was weirdly worried, but she couldn’t imagine what he was worried about.

“The nurse said I was okay.” Astrid whispered back.

“Did she?” He sounded skeptical. He ran a hand through his green and black hair with a grin. “Sorry, guess it’s not my business.”

Astrid hadn’t thought much about the green haired Judo-boy. He kept to himself most of the time. She decided she needed to know more. His costume was a black sleeveless gi, but that told her practically nothing. “No, it isn’t.” She said after far too long a pause.

The boy shrugged and returned his attention forward.

‘Why did I say that?’ Astrid felt like she was being rude… but something about Kazue set her on the defensive.

Astrid felt her cheeks getting warm. She felt far too perceived.

All Might shut off the video. “Allright kids! Next up, let’s examine how teams one and two did!” 

Astrid swallowed. Everyone was glancing back at her, Todoroki and Midoriya. Bakugo coming up with a reason to excuse himself from class suddenly made a lot more sense.

“Let’s take a look!” All Might pointed to the T.V.

It occurred to Astrid in this moment, she’d never seen herself recorded on normal cameras. She wondered what her speed seemed like to other people.

The screen started playing. 

Astrid vanished. The building covered itself in ice. Astrid was outside with Deku.

She and Deku were talking, then she and Deku were on a roof. Bakugo was looking for them on the street.

The cameras outside of the buildings all cut out.

All Might cleared his throat. “Yes, um, well. So it appears we had some uh, some difficulties with the cameras at this point.”

The whole class turned to look at Astrid. The speedster could feel her face flushing. She put her head down. 

All Might got the class's attention. “Yes, well, let’s focus on the indoor cameras.” Todoroki was pumping his quirk into the building nonstop, dropping the temperature further and further.

Deku entered the building about two minutes later. 

Then the cold broke the cameras inside the building.

Only one camera remained active. It was filming an empty room in a random building. It was another minute before it showed everyone what it had seen.

The block wall to the left of the camera broke. Astrid fell into the room in the rubble on her back. Bakugo fell on top of her and restrained the speedster. The camera could see that Bakugo had covered her mouth and spoke, but not what he said.

He wrapped the tape around her wrists, and Astrid was carried off.

Then the camera’s caught nothing for the remaining eleven minutes and fifteen seconds.

All Might turned off the T.V. “So, we have some of you here. Why don’t we explain what happened to the class. Which of you would like to start?”

Todoroki and Takioka both looked away.

Deku raised his hand. 

“Yes, Midoriya!”

Deku cleared his throat and hesitantly stood up. “I wrapped some cloth around my shoes to help with the ice before I went into the building. Then I uh… I went  looking for Todoroki.”

Todoroki interrupted. “I overestimated the speedster.”

“What?” Astrid asked him. 

He was sitting diagonally from her and turned to face her. “I thought I needed to push the cold further than I did. Turns out all I needed was an icy floor.”

“You got lucky.” Astrid narrowed her gaze. She didn’t understand this Todoroki boy, but she could hear a challenge in someone's tone. “Maybe we should go again.”

Todoroki scoffed and looked away, saying nothing.

That pissed Astrid off more. “What? Scared of a rematch?” She pushed.

Todoroki ignored her.

“Say something!” Astrid shouted.

“Takioka.” All Might said in a loud voice. “Do you need a moment?”

Astrid could hear the challenge in her teacher’s voice too. “No. Sir.” Astrid turned to look out the window.

After a few minutes of very tense silence, All Might spoke again. “Well then, young Midoriya, please continue.”

Deku seemed nervous to speak, but continued anyway. “So when I uh… when I found Todoroki, he was on the ground, and was showing signs of hypothermia.”

Astrid looked back at the red and white haired boy. He still wasn’t saying anything.

Deku continued. “When I saw that, I decided to focus on first aid and keeping Todoroki as warm as I could. He wasn’t uh… he wasn’t responding.” Deku looked over at Bakugo’s empty desk and took a deep breath. “And when Ka– I uh, I mean, when Bakugo came back, I heard him searching for me downstairs. I guess he assumed I wouldn’t be with the weapon and Todoroki and not finish the drill. So I guess it was the last place he thought to look for me. He didn’t get there until right before the match was called in he and Todoroki’s favor.”

All Might nodded. “So knowing all of that. Who do you think is our MVP in this match?”

Before the class could say anything though, the door opened. 

Bakugo entered, looked at the class, and scoffed. “What are you extras looking at?” He stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked over to his desk and slumped into his chair. Another awkward pause followed. 

Yaoyorozu raised her hand and All Might called on her. “Sir, it’s a little hard to pick an MVP when all four participants failed to demonstrate even basic understanding of the drill.” When the four students said nothing, Yaoyorozu continued. “Todoroki was completely unprepared for the backlash of using his power so recklessly. Midoriya completely ignored the drill. He could have touched the bomb and ended it and then administered first aid. Saving three seconds is a poor excuse to not succeed in such a high stakes program. Bakugo let his anger and personal grudge against Midoriya prevent him from checking in with his teammate. And Takioka, well, she damaged school property and denied her instructors the chance to evaluate her, and on top of that she didn’t work with her teammate at all.”

Astrid buried her head in her arms. She didn’t want to be here. She thought Yaoyarozu liked her… she should have known.

“Very uh… Very good!” All Might said. “So, next we will be talking about minimizing damage as a hero!” He tried to excitedly move the kids to the next topic.

Astrid tried to just disappear. She fucked so many things up, she just… she just wanted to go home.

Where was that? Her dorm? She’s going to be kicked out within a week at this rate.

She could run.

Mr. Darmon would catch her. What would he do? Where would he take her? 

A very tall building…

Why didn’t she just… Astrid sighed. She was so goddamn tired.

Eventually the day ended and Astrid was finally allowed to leave. She decided she didn’t need to explain to Deku where she went. He was smart, he knew she was dangerous and that she couldn't stay.

She decided her dorm was the safest place for now. Maybe she could just sleep until they decided to do something else with her.

Astrid got to her mostly empty dorm room. 

She flopped onto the mattress and tried to get some sleep.

NOTE: For those of you keeping up with our comic book heroes in the making! Here are the other class match ups and their results! As a great hero once said, Excelsior!

Uraraka and Asui - Hero team (Losers)

Iida and Tokoyami - Villain team (Winners)

Kirishima and Mineta - Hero team (Losers)

Shouji and Aoyama - Villain team (Winners) 

Ashido and Yaoyorozu - Hero team (Winners) 

Ojiro and Jiro - Villain team (Losers) 

Kouda and Satou - Hero Team (Losers) 

Tanaka and Sero - Villain team (Winners)

Hagakure and Kazue - Hero team (Winners) 

Kaminari and Fean - Villain team (Losers)

Chapter Text

Astrid was awoken to Deku’s voice. “Takioka? Are you here?” He was out in the hallway. Before she could decide whether or not to jump out of the window, he had opened the door. “Takioka! What are you doing in bed?”

“I…” Astrid had no earthly idea what to say. She couldn’t fathom how he could be mad that she was being less of a problem. “I didn’t know…” She looked around the room. The sun was still coming through the window, but the angle had definitely changed. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

Deku looked crestfallen for a moment. He took a deep breath and the expression was gone as quickly as it had arrived. He walked over to the bed, slowly. She could tell he was treating her like a skittish animal. 

Then it occurred to her she was about to jump out the window before he walked in. Maybe he was being reasonable.

The fluffy haired boy smiled at her. “We can do whatever you want.” He sounded… weirdly calm.

Astrid wasn’t sure exactly why, but she was pretty sure he was supposed to be mad at her. She couldn’t keep track of all the reasons people should hate her. “I just… after the way I acted in class…”

Deku waited for her to continue.

Astrid swallowed. “After the way I acted, I didn’t think you would feel safe around me. So… I figured I would just get out of everyone’s hair.” She admitted.

Deku shook his head. “Takioka, I don’t know what you’ve been through. Or what you are going to go through if I’m being honest.” He looked up and met her eyes with a patient smile. “But this part, this part you don’t have to do alone.”

Astrid couldn’t look away. The green of his eyes was too soothing to look at. She didn’t know when she started crying, but tears were definitely falling. “Why?”

“I mean, it’s what heroes do, right?” He laughed. “Not that we’re anywhere near being heroes yet.”

“What do you mean, ‘It’s what heroes do?’” Astrid had scooched closer to him without thinking.

Deku seemed nervous suddenly. “I was just meaning… we are learning to help people in need. And you, well–”

“You think I need you?” There was nothing accusatory in her voice. She just had never thought about herself that way. The fact that Deku did think that was confusing to say the least.

Deku was shaking his head and waving his hands. “No! I mean, you just seem like you’re having a hard time, ya know?” He rubbed the back of his head.

Astrid thought for a second. “A hard time? I don’t… I don’t think that’s true.”

Deku looked apologetic. “It’s none of my business.”

Astrid shrugged. “I mean, I don’t mind you asking about it I guess.”

He smiled. “Well, there is a huge TV in the common area downstairs.”

Astrid shook her head. “I don’t think we can watch T.V. together.”

“Why not?”

“Well, what speed do you watch stuff?”

Deku looked confused. “Normal speed?”

“My point exactly.” Astrid reached over him and grabbed her laptop. She smelled his usual bodyspay, but also something she couldn’t identify. Something uniquely Deku. She pulled up a streaming site on her laptop. “Take a look at my library.”

Deku looked at the list of movies Astrid had downloaded. “Why do they all say about ten seconds?”

“Because on a slow day I can watch a two hour movie in about ten seconds. To be able to watch them I have to speed it up by like seven hundred times.” Astrid explained her extensive watched list.

Deku looked at her with his eyes wide. “So your quirk can speed up your perception of time while you still maintain a full understanding of things happening at that speed? Without running? If your speed isn’t based on actually running like Iida’s, then isn’t it closer to time manipulation? But only in one direction? If it feels like you’re moving at one static speed but the application of your quirk changes that speed relative to the world around you–”

“Deku.” Astrid poked his cheek.

Deku blinked and looked at her. “Sorry, I just, your quirk is fascinating.”

Astrid shrugged. “I’m actually one of the slower–”

Her blood went cold. She could feel the color drain from her face. She wasn’t supposed to say that. Her being the first speedster was the cover…

She couldn’t move. She couldn’t look at her friend. She could practically feel Mr Darmon’s phased hand sliding into her chest to stop her heart.

She blew it.

Deku smiled. “Your quirk is really fascinating. Are you sure there is no way for us to watch movies together?”

Astrid’s ears were ringing. Was he ignoring it? Could she be that lucky? “What?”

“Do you think there is any way for you and me to watch TV together?” He sounded normal, but like, overly normal. 

Had he caught it and just wasn’t saying anything? Astrid shook her head. “I uh… there's one thing I could try, but it knocks me out sometimes.” Astrid’s hands were shaking as she pulled out the box with the syringe.

“Are you supposed to have that?” Deku sounded a little concerned.

Astrid nodded. “It’s just a sedative. Nezu gave it to me for emergencies. It’s pretty strong though.”

Deku picked up the needle. 

There was a whoosh, the needle was back in the box. “Careful!” Astrid said. “This stuff could kill someone without my quirk!”

Deku put up his hands. “Did you use this stuff to fall asleep last night at my house?”

Astrid shook her head. “No I… well–” Astrid cut herself off. She could feel her ears getting red.

“Well, what helped then?”

Astrid was looking away and spoke so softly even she couldn’t hear herself. “You…”

Deku leaned in. “What was that?”

Astrid repeated herself not much louder.

Deku shook his head. “I’m so sorry, I still couldn’t hear–”

Astrid sighed loudly. “You, okay?!”

Deku jumped back, but when the words hit him he smiled. “Well, you know we can sit together on the couches, right?”

The two of them were downstairs in the common area.

Deku fell over from being rushed downstairs.

Astrid wasn’t looking at him, she was gesturing to the wrap around couches made for upwards of twenty students. “See? There is so much room. Why wouldn’t we spread out?”

Deku stood up laughing. He moved to the front of the speedster and grabbed her hand. He pulled her over to the couch and motioned for her to sit. He grabbed the remote and then sat close enough to Astrid that their shoulders were touching. He clicked the TV on. He spoke without looking over at her. “See, is this so bad?”

Astrid answered without looking at him. “Shut up.”

After much arguing about what constitutes good sci-fi, the pair of friends had picked a movie.

Astrid was only able to sit up straight for about ten minutes before some external law of the universe (completely out of her control of course) forced her head down to rest on Deku’s shoulder for the majority of a movie.

His presence did indeed have the desired effect of keeping her in real time.

—

Aizawa and Nezu sat in the faculty office looking at the security camera for the girl’s dormitory common area. They could see two students resting on the couch and watching what looked to be a decades old sci-fi film.

Aizawa spoke first. “I still think this is a bad idea. Letting the boy stay in the dorms too.”

Nezu sipped his tea. “I agree with Ms. Midoriya. It isn’t good for an adolescent to spend so much time in isolation.”

“Running rampant and unsupervised in a co-ed environment also isn’t good for them.” Aizawa argued.

Nezu gestured to the screen. “Is that what you call running rampant?”

The tired looking man shrugged. “Not yet.”

Nezu set his tea down on the table with a gentle klink. “In fact, the only time I have seen her stop running is when she is with her peers.”

Aizawa said nothing.

Nezu looked down sadly. “Mr. Aizawa, how much do you know about the facility our Miss Takioka came from?”

“The basics.” He stood up and began walking to the window to look at the student dorms in the distance.

The principal nodded. “There is little difference in Miss Takioka’s upbringing and my own. How much do you know about being raised in a laboratory?”

Aizawa said nothing.

Nezu continued. “The first thing that is taken from you are any ‘unnecessary’ freedoms. And then you are given none, and taught to be thankful for the ones they pretend to give you. Very basic freedoms.”

“I understand that she has had a difficult life.”

“It has been more than difficult, Mr. Aizawa. It has been non-existent.”

The teacher made a questioning noise as he turned to his boss.

Nezu stood up to go look out the window with Mr. Aizawa. “When I first escaped the lab, do you know what I did?”

“No.” Aizawa was surprised. Nezu didn’t normally talk about their past.

“And you never will. But the second thing I did was go to a local tea shop.” He walked over to the coffee table and recovered his tea then rejoined Aizawa at the window.  “I ordered a black tea with no sugar.” Nezu sipped their tea and sighed contentedly. “It was the worst cup of tea I have had in my life to date, and the best thing I had ever tasted up to that point.”

“That’s uh… lovely, sir.” This was clearly out of Aizawa’s comfort zone.

“You see, at the lab, the scientists all drank tea and coffee. But I was simply an experiment. And you don’t offer tea to things that aren’t human. Certainly things you are doing painful experiments on. You don’t offer tea to something that can’t want, or feel, or… think.” Nezu was losing his thread and brought himself back. “But I digress. You see, I wasn’t sure I was free when I had escaped. I had been worried about underestimating the intelligence of the scientists. Was it all a trick? Was me ‘getting out’ just another test to see how I would respond?”

“Sir, I–”

“So, I needed to prove to myself I was free. So I went to the closest place I could smell tea wafting through the air, and I ordered a cup with some money I had stolen. I was eloquent enough that they simply assumed I was a human with a peculiar quirk and sold the drink to me.”

“Sir, what does this have to do with Takioka?” Aizawa was visibly uncomfortable.

Nezu continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “That drink was my proof. I was safe, because now , I was the one drinking tea.” Nezu took a long sip. “Every sip I take is a reminder of the blood that was shed to get here. Every sip of tea I let dance across my taste buds in ever increasingly delicious brews, is my rebellion. My ‘running rampant’.” Nezu walked over to the screen and gestured to the image of Astrid, asleep, leaning on Midoriya. 

Young Midoriya did not seem to know what to do about the situation and opted to try sleeping sitting up so he would not have to wake the speedster.

Nezu smiled. “She has a friend, Mr. Aizawa. One she likely does not know how to have on normal terms. That may be her rebellion. And if someone has been raised so gruesomely that friendship is rebellion, they need allies in that rebellion. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Aizawa looked at the screen and didn’t see anything worrying. “I guess.”

Nezu nodded wisely. “Also I have done the calculations for trying to keep her and Midoriya apart with that quirk of hers allowing her to go anywhere at any time and take him with her. I did not like the numbers.”

Aizawa scoffed. “Seriously? So was any of the kinship-with-my-fellow-lab-rat stuff true at all?”

Nezu took another sip of tea.

Chapter Text

Astrid stood on top of the dorm building. She didn’t know exactly what loving something was supposed to feel like. But she was pretty sure she loved the sunrise. She had a firm answer to the philosopher talking about shadows and caves. Sunlight was better.

She sat on the edge of the building and kicked her legs over the side. She knew it would likely be a little while before Deku would be awake. So she decided– 

Something caught her eye. There was someone running the path around the two dorm buildings. Astrid pursed her lips to one side, curiosity got the better of her. She ran down the side of the dorm building to find out who was up so early, and what they were doing at her and Deku's dorm.

When she got closer she saw the green hair and cargo shorts. Astrid ran up behind him and forced her way back down to normal time. It wasn’t difficult when she was this close to him. “Good Morning Deku!”

Deku continued his jog.

Astrid noticed the headphones in his ears. She rolled her eyes and ran a little way down the path before breathing her way back to normal time again. She waved.

Deku saw her and skidded to a stop before running into her. He took out his ear buds. “Takioka? What are you doing out here?”

Astrid crossed her arms. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

Deku chuckled. “I like to get a few miles in before I start my day. It clears my head.”

Astrid looked down at his hands. “While carrying weights?”

Deku shrugged, he didn’t even seem out of breath. “I have a lot of catching up to do, ya know?”

Astrid shook her head.

Deku began walking the path to cool down, Astrid fell into step beside him.

It was a long moment before he spoke. “My body isn’t… equipped for my quirk.” When the speedster said nothing, he continued. “If I use too much of it, I break something.”

“Like at the apprehension test?”

“Yeah.”

“And lifting weights helps?” Astrid could feel her lungs straining a bit from the brisk walking pace.

Deku smirked. “Well, it’s supposed to. Gotta keep trying to find out though.”

The two walked in comfortable silence for a few minutes, but Astrid’s breathing had gotten heavier.

Deku switched his weights to one hand and pulled a bottle of water off its clip on his belt. “Are you okay? Do you need a drink?”

Astrid looked at him like he was crazy. “I’m fine.”

“Okay,” Deku accepted the answer to his first question. “But do you want a drink?”

Astrid rolled her eyes. “I’m a speed hero, I can handle a walk back to the dorm. It’s like two more minutes.”

Deku tried not to look at her too intensely. “I didn’t say you couldn’t, just asked if you were thirsty.” He said plainly and dropped the topic.

A moment later a (definitely not winded) Astrid took the bottle from Midoriya’s belt without asking and drank half of it. “Ah.” She said, satisfied. 

Midoriya laughed a little. “Hey, do you want to sit with me at lunch?”

Astrid pursed her lips to the side. “Why?”

Deku took a moment, seemingly unsure how to answer that at first. “Well, I saw you ate alone the first day.”

Astrid shrugged. “It was… normal, where I’m from.”

“Well, it’s normal here to eat with your friends. So, will you?” They made it back to the door and Astrid held it open so Deku could carry his weights in easier.

He set the weights down by the stairs. 

Astrid thought for a moment. “Yeah, that… sounds nice.”

Deku smiled widely. “Awesome!” He grabbed a towel he’d clearly placed on a stool earlier. He dabbed the sweat off his brow and arms. “I’m gonna hit the shower before classes. Do you just want to meet in homeroom?”

Astrid looked around nervously. “I uh… if– so I think—”

Deku interrupted. “We can walk to class together after my shower.”

Astrid couldn’t look at him. “Thanks.”

Astrid sat at her desk and tapped her foot impatiently as everyone wrote down their votes for class rep. Her perception of time was about mach twelve if she had to guess. So this whole process of voting was (in scientific terms) taking way too fucking long!

Astrid wondered who everyone was voting for. She stood up and began walking around the classroom. She didn’t have to worry about Aizawa erasing her, he was asleep on the floor.

Most of her classmates (unsurprisingly) voted for themselves.

There were a few exceptions. Uraraka voted for Deku, and so did Iida. It didn’t surprise her. Deku’s great.

The other exception was Yaoyorozu getting two additional votes from Todoroki and Fean. She wondered why the split haired boy didn’t vote for himself.

Astrid shrugged. She wanted to vote for Yaoyorozu at first, but she dressed her and Deku down so thoroughly the other day that the speedster felt weird about voting for her.

She decided staying under the radar was safest. Astrid wrote her own name, knowing she was safe to do so as no one else had voted for her.

Then Astrid caught sight of Kazue’s paper beside her. “Why the hell are you voting for me?!” Astrid was so annoyed that she changed her vote to Deku so she would still be at one vote just like everyone else. “Asshole.” She glared at Kazue.

Astrid sat back in her desk. Now all she had to do was wait a gazillion years for her classmates to catch up to her. The bored and impatient speedster let her head fall to the desk.

The speedster shut her eyes and tried to take a little nap.

She managed to fall asleep. 

She woke up to Deku gently shaking her, presumably some time later. “Takioka?”

Astrid sat up and rubbed her eyes. “Voting is finally done? Congratulations, Deku. You deserve it.”

“What?” Deku furrowed his brow.

“I read the votes before they got tallied. I was bored.” Astrid shrugged. She knew Deku wouldn’t care.

And in that second, the part of Astrid’s brain that understood where she was turned back on. She looked around the room with bleary eyes. A number of students were looking at her.

They still had their voting papers in front of them.

She must have only been asleep for ten, maybe fifteen seconds.

A few people began changing their votes before they submitted them.

“Oh...” Astrid looked at Deku, her ears turning read from embarrassment. “I’m sorry, Deku.”

Astrid sat at the lunch table Next to Deku. Across from them were Iida and Uraraka.

Deku waved off Astrid’s twenty-seventh apology. “Honestly, I think Yaoyarozu is going to make a way better rep than I would have.”

“I don’t think you give yourself enough credit, Midoriya.” Iida said in the very confident way he does.

Astrid was chowing down on the five-times-as-large lunch portion Lunchrush had made for her. Nezu had updated her dietary needs with the school, and she was thriving. She ate like a woman possessed.

“Wow! You go, Takioka! Gotta fuel up for whatever our next test might be!” Uraraka cheered and then began eating as fast as she could to catch up with Astrid.

The speedster enjoyed the challenge, even if it wasn’t quite fair.

Astrid didn’t notice that bomb-boy had walked up to the table until he spoke. 

“Hey nerd. Meet me outside.” He was clearly talking to Deku. The explosive hero trainee walked off with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders slouched.

Deku followed without a word.

Astrid slowed her eating to nearly a human speed. “What do you think that’s about?”

Iida shook his head. “Knowing Bakugo? Nothing good.”

Astrid went to stand up.

“I think they might need a little privacy.” Uraraka said before Astrid could bolt away.

The speedster sat back down, reluctantly. She didn’t know much about this friendship stuff, but Deku liked these two, they had to know what they were talking about. And she didn’t want to do anything that might upset Deku.  “Okay.”

Iida was glancing out the door the two boys had walked out of. “I’m certain Bakugo would do anything as brazen as harming Midoriya.”

“Yeah…” Uraraka drew out the word.

Astrid forced herself not to think about it. But the stress of not knowing was definitely making her hungrier. She pointed to Deku’s rice. “You think he’s gonna be back in time to finish that?” Astrid grabbed the bowl without waiting for an answer.

Astrid looked at her classmates, she spoke with a mouthful of food. “So why did you guys vote for D– um, why did you guys vote for Midoriya?”

Iida seemed happy to answer. “He is clearly a leader. His performance on the practical exam was incredible. He truly behaved like a hero.”

Uraraka smiled and looked away. “He kinda saved me.”

Astrid nodded. “Yeah… he does that.” She looked at Iida. “Why didn’t you vote for yourself though?”

“Well,” He adjusted his glasses. “Wanting a job and being suited for it are two different things. And I just… I think it would be unethical to vote for anyone other than who I thought was the best choice to lead our class.”

Astrid nodded. “I mean I guess that makes sense, but–”

A loud ringing sounded through the loudspeakers, along with a robotic voice recording. “Warning. Level three security breach. All students, please evacuate the building in an orderly fashion.”

“What’s a level three security breach?” Iida asked a nearby upperclassman.

Astrid’s eyes went wide. 

Deku was outside.

The speedster ran.

Astrid made it outside the building and began scanning the area for signs of Deku.

She smelled tachyons. The speedster clenched her fists despite her chest tightening in fear. “Not now, not now.” 

The scent was gone. Had she imagined it? Astrid scanned the area again, and she saw Deku and Bakugo nearby. “Thank god.” She ran over and grabbed Deku.

She dropped him off at his dorm and went back for Bakugo. Astrid felt her quirk burning high, but Bakugo still couldn’t be moved too far without fighting her. She moved him just out to the sidewalk in front of the school.

Astrid noticed that the front of the school was packed with reporters. That couldn’t be what tripped the alarm, could it? She ran over to Aizawa. 

Her teacher was in front of the reporters. Astrid needed to get back to normal time in a hurry. She pulled out her syringe and administered a relatively high dose. 

She blinked slowly, her perception returned to normal. She could hear the reporters yelling, now some of them were yelling about her. She ignored them, despite the noise. “Mr. Aizawa, is this what the alarm is about?”

“Oh. Takioka.” Her teacher sighed. “Yes, it’s just the reporters. Can you go tell the others?”

Astrid nodded. “Yes sir.” She walked back into the building. Her legs felt like jello. She might have gone a little hard on the sedative. She giggled and looked above a crowd of students. “What’s Iida doing up there?”

He managed to calm everyone down and get them to return to class. Astrid smiled, relieved of the responsibility. She then began walking back to class with everyone else.

She felt like she was forgetting something, but her brain was too fuzzy to remember what it was.

Chapter Text

Astrid Takioka 1:12 pm

The speedster stepped onto the bus. She’d never actually rode one before. She scanned the seats and saw Deku had already sat down. He waved her over.

Astrid walked over and sat down next to her friend. “Hey.”

“Hey. How are you doing?”

Astrid tried to shake off the remnants of the sedative she took to talk to Mr. Aizawa earlier. “I think… I’m okay. Just a little tired.” The sleepy speedster almost let her head rest on her friend’s shoulder but remembered they were in public.

Deku looked over at her and smiled. “Thanks for looking out for me by the way.”

“Huh? Oh.” Astrid waved him off. “I’m just sorry you had to walk all the way back to the main building.”

Deku laughed. “Oh I didn’t mind. Kachan was a little mad though…”

Astrid looked up at Bakugo. 

The blonde boy was glaring at her. 

The speedster stuck her tongue out before yelling over to him. “What? I moved you like ten meters!”

Bakugo growled. “Next time just keep your hands off me, you damn brat!”

Astrid narrowed her gaze. “You wanna call me that to my face?”

Bakugo stood up. 

Kirishima put a hand on his shoulder. “Come on man, relax. Gotta save your energy for rescue training today.”

Kaminari chuckled. “You know, it says something that we’ve only been classmates a few days and we all already know you two are wildly unstable. Like, ‘most likely to turn into villains’ level shit.” 

“You wanna go, you sparky bastard!?” Astrid and Bakugo shouted in perfect (and completely accidental) unison. The pair both went a little red in the face and sat down, facing decidedly away from each other.

Deku leaned in to whisper to Astrid. “I don’t think you’re unstable. And I know you aren’t a villain.” He scooched closer so they would be resting against each other.

Astrid didn’t know what to say. Her face felt hot, her chest was tight, and she could feel her throat closing slightly. “I just want to get to the training place. I hate buses.”

“I thought this was your first bus ride.” He kept his voice low, only to be heard by her.

“It is. And I don’t like it.” Astrid wished she wasn’t feeling so sedated, she could have just run. Her quirk was returning, but slowly.

Deku nodded. “Wanna tell me why?”

“Everyone is looking at me.” Astrid whispered to her friend. She could feel their stares burning into her.

Deku paused for a moment, then looked around the bus. “Astrid, no one is looking at you.”

The speedster looked up hesitantly. Her eyes darted around the space. Some of the girls were talking. The boys had settled into a thumb-war tournament. Kaminari was teasing Bakugo (Who was getting really mad). Mineta was staring at Yaoyorozu. Jirou was listening to music. Truly… no one was looking at her. Astrid let her eyes settle on Deku’s. “You called me Astrid.”

Deku’s smile got much more forced and he started stammering nervously. “I uh, I didn’t mean to. Well, I did, but it was just that… well, you looked so upset. And I–”

Astrid poked Deku’s cheek. “Thank you.” She said when he stopped talking. She liked talking to Deku. He was the only person she’d met so far as bad at talking to people as she is. 

Asui moved to sit on the other side of Deku. “Hey Midoriya, can I ask you something?”

He seemed surprised she moved over to their bench. “Yeah, what’s up Asui?”

“I told you to call me Tsu.”

Deku got blushy and nervous, “Yeah, sorry, my bad.”

Astrid didn’t like how it made her feel when Deku spoke to other people. Why did she want him to call her that?

“No worries.” Asui said. “Anyway, I wanted to ask you something about your quirk. It’s a lot like All Might’s isn’t it?”

Deku tensed up. “Why do you say that?”

Asui shrugged. “It was just something I noticed. Is he working with you on it?”

Astrid wanted to step in, she wasn’t sure why, but she knew Deku was uncomfortable. “Asui, why would–”

Asui interrupted her. “Call me Tsu, please.”

Astrid froze. Suddenly she felt a little better about the frog girl talking to Deku. She just liked that nickname apparently. The speedster truly hated how turbulent these stupid feelings were being. 

She found people upsettingly complex.

Kazue moved to sit on the bench opposite Astrid so they were facing each other. “Excited?”

Astrid eyed the boy in the black gi suspiciously. His hair was a lighter green than Deku’s, and so were his eyes. “Are you?”

The dark judo hero smiled. “Absolutely! I’ve always wanted to learn to use my quirk to help people.”

Astrid nodded along. “What is your quirk, by the way?”

Kazue looked slightly less comfortable, but explained anyway. “Do you have any garbage?”

Astrid pulled out a chocolate bar wrapper from her pocket. “Will this work?”

Kazue took the wrapper. “Perfect.” He held it in his palm. “I can dissolve any matter I touch.” The wrapper turned to nothing as it was absorbed into Kazue. “I don’t know where it goes, but I destroy it.”

Astrid was getting more nervous around this boy by the second. “That’s… crazy.”

Kazue smirked. “It’s been a long road. But, I’m a lot more in control now.” He looked over at Deku. “Trust me, learning to get control of a quirk sucks, but it’s worth it.”

Deku seemed surprised, but comforted. “Uh, thanks Kazue.”

Astrid sat close to Deku and tried very hard to stay calm for the last few minutes of the ride.

She felt tired and slow, but not helpless at least. She felt like she could reach mach 1 if she really tried. 

The bus finally arrived at the large dome building. The students filed off the bus in a single row.

Astrid stayed close to Deku as Aizawa led the group into the building.

Someone in a space suit was there just inside the front gate waiting for them.

“Greetings students! My name is Thirteen.” The woman’s voice came through the speaker on her suit. “Welcome to the Unforeseen Simulation Joint! Or, the U.S.J.!”

The kids all looked at each other. “Like Universal Studios Japan?” Many of them said. 

Astrid elbowed Deku. “What’s that?”

He waved it off. “I’ll explain later.”

Astrid shrugged.

Thirteen continued to explain. “I designed this place to help you learn to use your quirks to save people! I just have one thing to say first. Well, a couple of things, well, maybe a few things.”

The class groaned.

Thirteen got back on track. “Many of you, like me, have powerful, and potentially dangerous quirks. With things being so strictly regulated, we tend to forget how dangerous our quirks can be.” She paused to make sure the kids were listening. “Even if you intend to save lives, you can quickly become the problem in a crisis if you use your quirks without thinking. But today is also about enjoying a new experience! So are you kids ready?” Thirteen shouted.

The students cheered.

Aizawa stepped up. “Okay, now that that’s out of the way–” Their teacher whipped around to look down into the central plaza behind himself. “Everyone back!”

Kirishima and Deku took a step forward, likely out of curiosity. 

“I said get back!” Aizawa yelled and moved fully between the students and the stairs down to the central plaza. “Thirteen, protect the students.”

“On it.” The rescue hero said.

Kirishima spoke up. “Are those guys part of the training?”

Astrid’s heart was pumping harder. 

Aizawa answered. “No. This is real. Those are villains.”

Astrid’s fear and panic began burning through the effects of the sedative. But she could feel she was moving just under mach 1. Practically standing still by speedster terms. She must have used a higher dose than she intended if this was the best she could do.

Astrid couldn’t make out what anyone was talking about. Even under the speed of sound, she couldn’t make out the actual words. She would have to make her own calls.

Her quirk faltered. Astrid fell to the ground, her quirk fully sputtered out. “Come on, come on…”

Aizawa jumped down the stairs and began fighting the crowd of villains. 

Deku helped the speedster up. “Are you okay?”

Astrid tried to force her quirk higher to burn off more of the sedative, but it felt like moving through molasses. “I’m fine.”

Thirteen yelled to the group of students. “Follow me! We need to get you all out of here.” The pro hero began leading them to the main gate.

They made it about halfway before their escape route got cut off.

A villain made of shadow and darkness with narrow, glowing, yellow eyes blocked their path. “Hello children. I hope you don’t mind us dropping in. Fear not, most of you will live if everyone–”

Bakugo and Kirishima lunged forward.

Astrid flinched against the explosion sound.

Kirishima scoffed. “Did you think we were just going to stand around and let you…”

The smoke cleared. The villain was unharmed. The darkness laughed coldly. “You kids really do live up to your school’s reputation. But you should be more careful with those quirks. Or someone could get hurt. ” His shadows reached out and surrounded the class. “Now I shall scatter you across this facility to meet my comrades!”

Astrid’s eyes went wide, but it didn’t help her see. She could hear her classmates crying out for only a moment. Then they were gone.

Everything went silent, everything went dark.

Izuku Midoriya 1:34:20pm

Izuku appeared on his face on a wet street with rain beating down on his back. That guy must have been some kind of teleporter. That’s probably how the villains got into the building in the first place.

The current wielder of One For All scanned his surroundings. He saw a couple of thugs walking the faux street, talking. “When I get my hands on those kids…”

Izuku forced his breathing under control. He had to do something, which meant he needed to stay calm and think. He heard footsteps running down the rain drenched alley. He risked a glance and saw… nothing?

He decided to take a chance. “Hagakure?” He said as loud as he dared.

“Midoriya?” A familiar feminine voice spoke up from the alley. “Midoriya!”

He looked for any sign of where she was. “You took off your gloves and boots.”

Hagakura made an affirmative sound. “They are the only parts of my costume that are visible. The body suit is made of my hair. And I didn’t want to get caught. Did you see those guys?” She sounded incredibly worried. Which was fair. They were in real danger. 

“Did you see any of our classmates?” He asked the invisible girl.

“No, you’re the first.”

Isuku nodded. “Okay, well, this area is sealed off from the rest of the USJ.” He pointed up to the dome roof pouring rain on them. “So our best bet is to rally everyone together and sneak out of here to regroup.”

“Got it. So what do you need from me?” Hagakure asked.

Deku smiled. “I know the rain makes your quirk a little harder to use effectively, but I think we can use that to our advantage.”

“Really?” Hagakure sounded hopeful. “That’s great!”

Deku looked down the street around the corner. “First we should see if anyone else ended up here.” They couldn’t just go sneaking around the streets, surely the bad guys are skilled at finding them. But with Hagakure, they could move around stealthily in buildings. Well, she could. He would have to rely on old fashioned stealth.

He remembered a page from his notebook. An interview with Edgeshot where the hero talked about his training. He said stealth had way more to do with drawing the enemies attention with movement only when you intend to.

Iziku tried to relax his body so he could focus on controlling his movements. 

The pair snuck through three buildings and then heard crying in the fourth.

“Do you hear that?” Hagakure whispered.

Izuku nodded. “Are you comfortable checking it out?”

In response, Hagakure’s footsteps could be heard moving away from him and into the building. A moment later he heard her voice. “Mineta? Why are you crying?”

Izuku snuck into the building. “Mineta, are you okay?”

The purple headed boy was in tears. “No I’m not okay! We’re going to die!”

Suddenly Mineta couldn’t speak. His mouth was covered by an invisible hand and he floated up off the ground with his arms restrained by his sides. “Keep it down!” Hagakure half whispered half hissed in Mineta’s ear. She removed her hand from his mouth, evident in him taking a deep breath in.

Mineta sighed and blushed. “I feel better. Your boobs on my back are very comforting.” 

“Gross!” Hagakure dropped the boy on his face.

“Did you hear that?” A villain said from outside the building.

Shit. Izuku preferred having a little more time. But they were out of time. This would have to do. “Mineta, Hagakure, I’ve got a plan. We need to move fast.”

Ochako Uraraka      1:36:58pm

Ochako looked around the flaming fake city streets for any sign of help. The smoke and heat were making breathing a struggle. She wondered briefly if the buildings in the area were made to stand up to fire, or just the opposite? Not important now. She had to focus.

“Hey! There's one of ‘em!” A gruff voice yeled from about ten meters away.

Uraraka turned and saw a villain with blades for hands coming her way. Her mind stalled for a second. She wasn’t sure what to do. What would Deku do? Deku would think.

The bad guy was roughly five meters away.

So think. What do I have that he doesn’t? And how does it help me? A lightbulb came on in the gravity girl’s brain. 

The villain was almost on her.

She crouched down, put her hands together and used her quirk on herself, then she leapt into the air.

“Damnit!” The bad guy yelled as he tried to swipe at her feet with his blades. He just missed.

Ochako tried to catch her breath, but the heat and smoke were so much worse up in the air. She had to do something.

She tried to look down to see where she would be landing if she released, but the smoke was covering too much of the ground.

A (burning) rooftop was looking like her only option.

“Release!” She exclaimed. She was accustomed to the feeling of falling, but never around things so… flammable. Right before she touched down on the roof she reactivated her quirk. “Release.” She said one more time to drop the remaining couple feat to the rooftop. 

Ochako scanned the rooftops for threats. She was surprised however to see Tsu on a nearby roof. “Tsu! It’s me!” She yelled, desperate not to be in this situation alone.

The frog girl turned and met her gaze. A moment later she had hopped to the same roof. “Hello. Have you seen anyone else?”

Ochako shook her head. “I was hoping that you had.”

“You shall not have me evil doer!” The girls heard Iida’s familiar voice down below.

The two of them leaned over the side. Five or six villains were chasing their incredibly fast friend. 

Ochako looked over the other edge. More bad guys were moving down the adjoining street. Her eyes went wide. Iida didn’t know they were about to get pinned. She ran back to the other edge of the roof. “Iida! Go left!” She shouted as loud as she could.

Iida glanced up, and upon seeing his friend, listened without hesitation.

Ochako knew it wouldn’t be long before that happened again. “Tsu! Can you help me move across the rooftops quickly…?” She trailed off. 

Tsu looked terrible. Her skin was dry, she looked pale and off balance. “Absolutely.” The frog girl said with confidence.

Ochako removed her own gravity. “Okay, ready.”

Tsu jumped a few rooftops closer to Iida and then dragged the gravity girl along with her tongue. 

Ochako focused on the streets below while Tsu moved them and followed Iida. “Iida! Go right!”

The turbo hero changed course and avoided another group of villains.

“Go left!”

“Go right!”

“Faster!”

“Take that bridge!”

Ochako did her best to keep their friend out of danger. And for a few moments, it seemed to be working. Until eventually… “Go left! No wait!” 

Iida had rounded a corner to find a wall of bad guys. The second of hesitation allowed the other bad guys to catch up. Iida was fully surrounded.

“Get us down there!” She yelled to Tsu.

Tsu ended her leap on the side of a building instead of the top and jumped again to land both of them in front of Iida. The green haired hero looked positively deathly.

“Release.” Ochako said as they landed almost back to back with her two classmates.

There were at least two dozen villains surrounding them. They inched closer, some had swords, some had quirks that looked like they could shoot bullets…

Iida and Tsu both looked drained.

What would Dek–

“Oh thank god I found you guys.” Takioka was standing in front of Ochako suddenly.

She looked at the speed hero with wide eyes. “How did you find us?”

Takioka threw her head back and her arms fell to her sides. “Oh believe me, it was not easy in a place like this.” She took a moment to breathe. “Were they going to have us working in here? Because this smoke can NOT be healthy for us.”

“Maybe talk about this later?” Tsu spoke up.

“Huh?” Takioka looked at Tsu, then her eyes drifted to where Tsu was looking. The circle of villains surrounding them with deadly weapons.

Ochako grimaced at their situation and then looked at Takioka. “Is there anything you can–?”

Takioka was standing slightly to the left of where she was a second ago. She also had a streak of blood across her face.

All of the bad guys began screaming and fell to the ground.

Takioka was holding a bloody knife. Where did she get that?

Ochako didn’t know whether to be scared or relieved…

Kazue Kazuto   1:39:05 pm

The judo hero stared down the warper. He hadn’t dodged, but the guy’s quirk still hadn’t worked on him.

For whatever reason, he was being left alone. It was an advantage, but one he didn’t know how to press.

He took the opportunity to look down into the main plaza. Aizawa was fighting like hell, but it still didn’t look good. That Midoriya kid was right. This just wasn’t their homeroom teachers kinda fight.

Crack!

Kazue knew that sound. He hadn’t heard it many times, but it was very distinctive. It was the loud, sharp sound of a limb snapping.

The big guy, the one with the beak and the exposed brain, wrenched their teacher's limb.

Kazue wanted to run and check on their teacher, but at the moment the warper seemed to be staying back because of him for some reason. He couldn’t walk away from Thirteen while she was injured. The warper might finish her off.

The judo champion, the boy who defeated death, the hopeful would-be hero, was powerless. Kazue felt his back tensing. He needed to move, he needed to help.

The building shook. He looked up in time to see the Nomu back off their teacher and focus on someone else.

Who (aside from himself) would be dumb enough to get involved?

Oh. Of course.

It was the Takioka girl he sits next to in class. What was she–? The thing launched forward at what Kazue assumed was super sonic speed, as its movement made a loud boom.

The red headed girl barely dodged it. She looked strained.

“What the hell are you doing, Takioka?” He whispered to himself.

Tsuyu Asui     1:39:09 pm

Tsu watched Takioka put herself in front of the exposed brain creature. The speedy girl taunted it. “Come on is that all you’ve–!”

The monster caught her with the tail end of an offhanded slap. Takioka went flying. Tsu wanted so badly to try to grab her out of the air, but her tongue would never reach.

“We need to find a way to help. Keto keto.” She informed Iida and Ochako. She worried that her nervous habit of making frog noises would prevent them from taking her seriously.

Iida was the first to speak. “I agree. But if it is fast enough to keep up with Takioka, and strong enough to defeat our teacher, what hope do we have?”

Tsu was truly hoping Iida would sound a little braver, as her own bravery was beginning to wane.

She looked back over at the fight. The beast was slamming Aizawa’s head into the ground like their pro hero teacher was no more than a toy to be broken. 

Luckily a moment later Takioka was in front of the monster again. She was clearly bleeding from a couple places. “Oh come on, is that as hard as you can hit?”

The monster lunged at her again and she managed to barely dodge it. Tsu couldn’t even see the dodging. Everything was moving so fast it looked like they were teleporting.

“Hello there.” A scratchy voice said from beside her.

Tsu’s eyes were the only thing she had time to move. A hand was about to cover her face.

Her instincts kicked in and she leapt out of the way just in time.

The new villain was covered in severed hands and deeply unsettled her.

Her eyes flicked to Ochako and Iida safely off to the side.

At least this new guy was only focused on her. She hoped that she would see her siblings again after this.

Tenya Iida     1:39:20 pm

Tenya was crouched behind a decorative plant. The latest in the prestigious line of Ingenium heroes… reduced to hiding in a bush.

He was a coward, and he knew it. But he had to overcome it.

“Ochako, I’ll run out there and distract those villains, then you can make a run for it and bring back help!” It sounded like the most heroic plan he could think of. His friends were in danger, he needed to do what his brother would do.

“Are you crazy? That thing will–” Ochako was interrupted by the sound of bones crashing into paving stones.

Iida looked over at the source of the sound. Takioka’s leg was in the monster’s grip, and it had clearly just slammed her face first into the ground. The stone where her torso had hit looked like it cracked.

In this moment he made eye contact with Astrid.

She mouthed something to him just before her head was slammed back down. He wished he hadn’t seen it so clearly, but he had.

She’d only had time for one word. So she said ‘run’.

So she knew he was a coward as well?

Ochako interrupted his dark thoughts. “Iida! Someone has to go get help!”

It occurred to the speed hero only now that Takioka was already doing what he was going to do. She was distracting it for him and Uraraka. And his indecision was costing them precious seconds.

He needed to go get help. “Uraraka! Hop on!” He knelt down and turned his back to her.

“You got it!” She jumped on his back.

Iida groaned. “Could you, uh–”

“Oh yeah!” Uraraka made herself weightless.

Iida looked past the crowd of villains to the door where the warper still held his friends hostage.

He wouldn’t let them down.

Iida ran.

Suna Fean        1:41:05 pm

The pink haired girl had gotten herself cornered. The mountain area was a confusing mess of boulders and tight squeezes.

Suna turned to face the seven or eight men who had her cornered. Please… please god somebody fucking help me. She pleaded internally but dared not speak out loud.

“Nowhere left to run, little girl.” A man with a machete and a tattoo over his eye sneered at her. “Don’t worry, I’ll make it quick.” The other men were blocking any escape route she might have been able to try.

“I’m begging you…” Her voice came out in a whisper. “Please don’t do this…” Her tears were falling, all she could remember was that day on the playground. “Please…”

The man laughed. “I thought you UA kids were supposed to be something special!” He swung his weapon, aiming it at her throat.

Suna didn’t flinch. In fact, she closed her eyes and sighed. It was too late to beg them. Maybe it wouldn’t happen this ti–

She heard his body slump to the ground.

Her lip quivered as she opened her eyes. 

The villains were all staring at her, unsure what to do.

She was losing control… she could feel every fucking drop of his blood where it met the sand.

Her mind was tingling and her body was on fire.

Hunger.

There were few other words for the feeling she was experiencing.

Ravenous, unending, hunger.

“Wow there girly.” Another gruesome looking man swung a baseball bat at her head. “If you think–”

Suna didn’t have the benefit of her eyes being closed this time. She watched as a piercing shot of sand went through the man’s jugular vein. With pinpoint accuracy… she was always so god damned accurate.

Damned. She chuckled. That was a good word.

She felt her second victim's blood hit the ground like it was hitting her tastebuds directly.

It was astoundingly invigorating.

Suna felt good. Better than she ever had. Happy even?

There were other men with weapons around her. They weren’t moving anymore, but they might. The fear would only keep them in place so long.

Best not to risk it. 

Suna’s eyes turned black and her head slumped to the side. She spoke in a monotone to the whole group of future murder victims. “I did say please.”

Suna Fean had never felt so much magnificent blood in her life.

Mashirao Ojiro     1:41:16 pm

Mashirao busted another villain’s jaw with their tail. This fight had been weirdly easy, but he couldn’t let his guard down. He took a grounding breath. Never assume victory or defeat.

He heard screaming from somewhere else in the mountain zone, but it didn’t sound like any of his classmates. The judoka looked up and saw Bakugo had just finished another couple of villains. “Bakugo!” He shouted.

The explosive young man blasted the ground and launched over to land next to Mashirao. “What do you want?”

That was a weird thing to ask in this situation. Mashirao decided to ignore it. “We need to help the others. I’m going to head to the next area. Will you come with me?”

He would go either way, but having Bakugo as backup would be fantastic. The boy with the tail was breathing and being as brave as he could, but this was unlike anything he’d ever been a part of.

“No. I have other things in mind. I’m going for that damn warper.” He sounded calm, which was truly odd for Bakugo.

“Don’t you think that’s a little risky?”

Bakugo scoffed. “If that bastard goes down, these guys are stuck here.”

“Why is that a good thing?” The perplexed judo user asked.

“Because!” Bakugo sounded like he was getting impatient. “Then they have to answer for what they did here! Now back off!” Bakugo detonated his hands and launched himself toward the central plaza where that big guy with the exposed brain was still fighting. 

Mashirao shook his head. He didn’t have time to let Bakugo distract him. The judoka began running toward the landslide zone.

As he was exiting the area, the last of the screams behind him died out. He prayed that was a good thing.

Sora Tanaka      1:42:59 pm

Sora looked down the ruined streets of the area she and Todoroki got warped too. She was thankful she chose to wear her costume today (A black tactical suit with a hood and facemask), she would have been royally fucked without her gear.

She had dealt with nine ‘villains’ so far. They shouldn’t be able to break free of their bindings anytime soon. Her ears perked up. Soon to be ten.

“So Todoroki,” She spoke casually to her walking companion. “What’s it like being the kid of a famous hero?”

Todoroki’s voice was low and annoyed. “It really isn’t as great as you’d think.”

Sora sighed internally. If she was being honest with herself, she really did feel bad about this next part. “Yeah? What? Daddy rough with his kids like he’s rough with villains?” She looked down and saw him clench his fists.

“It’s really none of your business, Tanaka.” He bit off every word.

Sora groaned internally. Why did he have to have so much self control? The footsteps were getting closer. She really didn’t want to do this but… “Yeah, that’s fair. I wouldn’t want to talk about my abusive dad or my mommy burning half my face off either.”

Todoroki’s foot shifted. He turned his body and angled himself so he could slam her into the wall.

Finally. Sora smirked at her classmate's loss of control. She exhaled and braced for the two impacts. 

First his shoulder hit her, then she hit the wall. She took a breath in. He was stronger than he looked, but not stronger than she expected.

He pinned her to the wall with his left arm and held his right up to her face. Frost was rolling off his fingers. “Where the hell did you learn any of that?”

Sora heard the footsteps pick up their pace as expected. “Relax, it isn’t your fault your parents sucked.”

“Are you trying to get me to kill you?” Todoroki’s voice had gone as cold as his right side. Good.

“No.” Sora smirked again. “I’m trying to get you to duck.”

“Duck?”

“Duck!” Sora realized he wasn’t going to listen in time. She rolled her eyes and placed a leg in between her classmates ankles and kicked out his footing.

Todoroki fell to the ground. 

Sora grabbed the wrist of the man who’d tried to cut their classmate’s throat. She twisted it the way she was taught and traded places with the pained man to slam his face into the wall.

“What the hell, Tanaka!” Todoroki got to his feet.

Sora was putting a zip tie around the villains wrists, she shrugged. “You weren’t ducking.” She gave the bad guy a pat down and pocketed the two remaining knives he had.

“I knew he was there.” Todoroki said flatly.

“Sure ya did.” Sora chuckled. If these were the best villains the ‘league of villains’ had, they might be okay.

Todoroki began walking toward the exit of the ruins area. “We should meet up with the others.”

Sora jogged to catch up. “Hey, Todoroki?”

“What.”

“I’m uh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know how else to–”

“I get it.”

Sora wasn’t sure he did. But she nodded anyway.

The two made their way out of the area they had been warped to.

Shouto Todoroki        1:43:36 pm

Shouto wasn’t sure what surprised him more when he and Tanaka first caught sight of the central plaza; the giant creature still unharmed, the redhead girl it was using as a punching bag, or the fact that Tanaka had just taken off toward the fray at a dead sprint.

Todoroki watched the black suited girl as she pulled something out of her pocket to throw at the creature.

How could she be so reckless? He took off running to catch up to her. “Tanaka what are you doing?!” He shouted to his classmate.

Sora turned back, eyes bright with purpose and drive. “Come on! We can keep this thing busy!”

No they couldn’t. He knew as much from seeing Eraser Head and Takioka on the ground. And Tanaka must have known it too. 

But they both also knew they didn’t have a choice. Todoroki nodded at Tanaka. “Let’s stop this giant bastard.”

Shouto wondered what his dad’s reaction would be if they survived this. Or if they didn’t.

Denki Kaminari     1:43:40 pm

“We have to do something.” Kaminari said as he stepped toward the edge of the boat. “You two go inside.” He told Kirishima and Satou.

The hardening hero stepped forward. “If you think we’re going to let you fight all of those water guys by yourself–”

Satou put a hand on Kirishima’s shoulder. “Come on. He asked us to go inside.” He said sadly.

Kirishima looked back. “But he–”

Kaminari was getting mad. They were running out of time. “Go!”

Satou grabbed Kirishima and dragged him into the boat’s cabin under protest.

Denki was glad that at least one of his friend’s understood. He ran a hand through his blonde and black hair. Whatever he thought today was going to be like this morning… this wasn’t it.

“Come on kid! The water’s fine!” One villain shouted.

“Yeah! And I’m getting hungry!” Called another one with the head of a shark.

They were going to die… these were real villains. And no one was coming to save them.

Denki wanted to do anything but what he was thinking. ‘Come on. Gotta intimidate them.’ he tried to pump himself up. ‘What would Todoroki do?’ The electric boy stepped up to the railing and put one foot up like he was getting ready to jump in the water. ‘Make it sound good.’ He took in a deep breath. “Okay, I am only going to say this once! Everyone who wants to live, this is your only chance to retreat!”

The villain’s laughed. One even swam closer. “When you’re dead, I’m going to pick your bones clean!”

So they weren’t going to run… and they weren’t going to give him a choice.

Kill or die…

Denki jumped off the boat into the air. He shouted as he fell to the (very conductive) water. “Indiscriminate shock! 1.3 million vol–!”

Hanta Se ro    1:43:52 pm

Hanta was having a much easier time in the fight with Ojiro at his back. But it was still a losing battle. “Yo guys! We can’t hold them like this forever!” The villains were getting back up as fast as the four students could knock them down.

Yaoyarozu swung her metal staff and it connected with a thug’s head, knocking him out. “We need reinforcements.” Yaoyorozu turned to her next enemy.

Hanta was absolutely blown away watching her work. It was a bit distracting if he was being honest. She's just so cool . “We can’t call for anyone though!”

Jirou plugged in her boots and blasted another villain away. The landslide area didn’t like her constantly shaking things though. The ground was beginning to rumble underneath them. “Well–” She was cut off as she blocked a sword attack with her machete. “I don’t think they are going to let up!”

Yaoyorozu looked at Hanta. “It has to be you! Use your tape to get out of here and bring back help!”

“But you guys need–”

Ojiro interrupted the tape boy. “We’ll be fine!” He shoved a villain down the hill with his tail. “Just grab a few more people and get back here as fast as you can!”

Hanta hated leaving his friends like this. But they were right.

Ojiro did a double swipe with his tail, knocking down the two Hanta was fighting. “Now go!”

Hanta took the opening and extended his tape out to catch onto a low lighting fixture. He retracted it to yank himself up and out of danger. He extended tape from his other elbow to try making his way down to the central plaza.

He hoped their other classmates were faring better than they were.

Rikidou Satou      1:44:37 pm

Rikidou jumped off the boat and helped a very brain-fried Kaminari do the same. “You just rest here.” He set his friend into a shadow covered corner behind a decorative tree to hide.

Kirishima ran up to join him. “Wow! Do you see that!” The red haired young man pointed to the fight in the central plaza.

Tanaka, the girl with the gadgets and the black hair had some sort of cable wrapped around the monster’s neck, and Todoroki was freezing the ground and circling the creature to keep it confused. “Oh no.” Rikidou caught sight of the forms on the ground.

Aizawa was lying in a pool of blood, and so was the fast girl with the red hair.

Before the two (still mentally functional) boys could decide where to go next, they saw Sero swinging towards them. 

The tape boy landed with a huff, clearly in a hurry. “Guys! We need help in the landslide zone! I’ll explain on the way.”

Rikidou wondered if his strength could do anything about the monster his class was fighting. But he couldn’t let arrogance get in the way. He was needed elsewhere. “Lead the way.” 

Kirishima nodded their agreement.

Sero turned and ran.

Rikidou followed, but couldn’t help but look back at the fight with the monster. ‘Am I going to regret this?’ was the only thought he could hear.

Shōta Aizawa 1:44:49 pm

Left arm, completely destroyed. 

Right arm, completely destroyed.

Eyes, all but useless. 

Breathing? Failing.

Blood loss? Immense.

The teacher had drastically miscalculated how long he could hold that thing off. He hadn’t intended to survive when he jumped in the fray with that many of them. But he thought he’d at least make it until someone could show up to save the kids.

Now his kids were fighting that thing.

Aizawa could just barely see the fight through the one eye that wasn’t fully busted. The monster, Nomu, managed to grab Sora off its back and throw her halfway across the facility. The teacher was terrified she wasn’t going to survive that without a quirk.

The Nomu turned to face Todoroki and grabbed him as well. It was just too fast for the students.

“No…” Aizawa tried with everything he had to drag himself off the ground. But he was beyond what could be pushed through. His body was destroyed.

Now he would watch his students die in front of him. Because he failed to protect them. Aizawa had seen some awful things. But this… this was a new hell.

Todoroki got slammed into the ground so hard Aizawa felt the rumble in the stones under him.

The Nomu began lumbering towards him. Aizawa gritted his teeth. His body wouldn’t take much more. Another hit or two and he’d be dead. He wondered if the time he bought was going to save any of his students.

Aizawa met the monster’s gaze with his one semi good eye. If he was going to die here, he would do it looking his enemy in the face. He wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of seeing his soul break.

He glanced at the unmoving Todoroki. Even if his soul was already broken…

Suddenly he couldn’t see the Nomu. Just a red leather suit covered in dirt and blood, being worn by a fifteen year old. A child.

“Takioka… run…” He tried to force his lungs to say it louder than a whisper, but he couldn’t.

Takioka looked at the Nomu. “Hey! Big, tall and ugly! Why don’t you pick on someone your own speed!”

Then both of them were gone. 

Aizawa could feel the wind and vibrations from the clearly brutal fight, but from his angle, he could see nothing else. Nothing but his student Todoroki lying on the ground bleeding, about ten meters away…

Katsuki Bakugo 1:45:12 pm

This was infuriating. How the hell did a bunch of low life thugs get into their school? Katsuki had questions for that damned warper, and he bet the cops would too.

Bakugo growled under his breath when he got to the central plaza. He examined what he was dealing with.

The brat was keeping the big guy distracted. The frog was doing the same for the dude with the hands.

And most importantly, the warper had left the main gate and was next to the hand guy.

Bakugo took one quick breath. He had one shot and he knew it.

Rage filled his whole body like a warm fire, then it went cold. He blasted off toward the bastard.

The warper turned to face him halfway, but it was too late. Bakugo managed to get a hold of the metal neck armor he’d been aiming for. He pinned the piece of metal to the ground and prepped to incinerate it if he had to. “Got you ya warpy bastard!”

The villain struggled for a second.

“Hey!” Bakugo yelled before leaning in to whisper. “Make one move and they’ll be cleaning you off the floor for weeks. Got it?”

The warper went still.

Bakugo examined the fights. The frog was dodging well enough, she looked tired though. His real concern was that Takioka was definitely losing ground with the big fucker.

“Damnit, you brat.” He cursed under his breath. He needed to back her up, but he couldn’t let the warper go. As violent as the other guy was, the asshole Bakugo had apprehended was definitely the main issue.

The young man’s logic and instincts were at war.

He had an idea. Keeping the warper held with one arm, he removed the gauntlet that was on the other.

She was either going to get the idea, or she wouldn’t. Hopefully she is as fast as she seems. 

“Takioka!” He yelled before chucking the oversized grenade into the air for her to grab.

It disappeared from sight. He chuckled. “Guess the brat isn’t completely useless.” A second later his gauntlet detonated in the bastard’s face. For now, Takioka was doing okay.

Bakugo looked across the plaza to see Deku and Mineta arriving in the central area.

Mineta was being smart and going up to the main gate.

Deku was being a fucking idiot as usual, and was headed toward the frog and the hand guy. “Dammit Deku…” Bakugo hissed under his breath. “Get the fuck out of here.”

Minoru Mineta     1:45:24 pm

Minoru did as they were told and began making his way up the pavilion stairs with Hagakure. 

He couldn’t help but steal glances back at the plaza.

Deku was being so cool… and he hadn’t even used his quirk in the storm zone. Now he was going to fight real villains head on? What was he thinking? What were any of them thinking? This was a mess! They are all going to die! How could this be what high school is like? All Minoru wanted was to touch–

“Think they’ll be okay?” Hagakure sounded genuinely worried.

She sounded like she was talking to a person and not a little creep, which took Minoru off guard. So much so that his first thoughts while answering weren't even lewd. “I don’t know. But, if anyone can survive this, it’s those guys.” He meant that too. His classmates really were amazing. But they were still kids too. So he didn’t know.

“I’m really scared.” The invisible girl confessed when they were about halfway up the stairs.

“It’s uh, it’s going to be okay?” He wished he sounded more brave.

“You can’t know that!” She was clearly crying. “What if some of them are already dead?!” This was going from crying to panicking.

Minoru thought hard… What would Midoriya say? What would a cool hero say to make a girl feel better? He had annoyingly little experience interacting with girls, and it was making this difficult. “Hagakure.” He forced his voice to sound calm. “We’re all in this program because we are the best future heroes in the country. That goes double for our friends. All we can do now is trust them, and stay alive to talk to them about it when it’s all over.” He nodded to accentuate his point. He was just doing his best Midoriya impression. He hoped it helped.

Hagakure sniffled as they got to the top deck with their classmates by the door. “Thank you, Mineta.” She picked him up in a hug and squeezed him tightly in gratitude.

He could feel her boobs pressed to his chest… was this real? He didn’t know where to look. After a moment she set him back down and then she ran to catch up with the others and Thirteen.

For some reason, Minoru Mineta, found himself feeling a bit braver.

Astrid Takioka 1:45:54 pm

Astrid spit blood onto the stones and looked up at the monster. Her quirk was only at about mach 6 with how beat up she was, but it was enough to just barely stay out of that thing’s reach.

The Nomu lunged again. Its fingers almost grazed her face.

Astrid leaned back just enough that the supersonic creature missed. She couldn’t afford to waste movement. She shifted her foot and ran another twenty meters away. She didn’t know how much longer she could keep this up. 

Her impact resistant suit was giving out on her, and her healing factor had slowed to a crawl compared to what she was normally capable of. But none of that mattered. She just had to keep the thing distracted until her body fully gave out on her. If she was going to die here, it was going to matter.

The guy with the hands was saying something to the monster, but Astrid couldn’t make it out at her speed, so she just dodged another wild left hook from the monster.

Suddenly the beast’s eye line changed. It looked at something to the left of it and the right of Astrid. She turned to see what it was just as the thing lunged for its new target.

Tsu.

It was going to kill Tsu. At this thing’s speed, she’d be dead in half a second.

Astrid couldn’t get her out of there by just grabbing her. She wouldn’t be fast enough.

One choice then.

Astrid let her adrenaline take her quirk as high as it would go. She felt the lightning course through her veins.

She tackled Tsu out of the way to take the hit instead.

Tsu was pushed to the side where she went tumbling, Astrid hadn’t had time to be gentle.

Then its fist hit her ribcage. 

Astrid saw stars. Her whole torso compressed into what felt like a thin line. Her momentum as she flew toward the wall of the USJ was astounding. That punch hit her like nothing else ever had.

She crashed into the wall in slow motion as far as her perception was concerned. 

Her left shoulder hit first. She could feel the bones shattering, her most solid parts being reduced to shards.

Then her ribs. They cracked one after the other like twigs. She could feel the many stabbing sensations of her organs being punctured.

Then her head–

Izuku Midoriya        1:46:01 pm

Izuku watched a red blur he assumed was Takioka getting launched across the USJ into a cement wall. The subsequent crunching sound turned something instinctual in his gut. There was a profound wrongness to the sound she made when she hit.

‘You know what that means.’ Izuku surprised himself with the morbid thought. No. I can’t think that way. I just have to focus on saving who is in front of me.

The Villain with the hands covering him was trying to grab Tsu. The attacks looked like he was just trying to touch her. His quirk could be anything. He couldn’t let him get his hands on her.

Tsu looked tired. 

Izuku ran. He needed to get between her and that villain. 

His path was blocked.

Izuku skidded to a stop and looked up. The largest villain with the exposed brain was in front of him. The young man hadn’t even seen it move. He had just appeared. The only things he’d seen that fast were Astrid and All Might.

This was definitely the most dangerous villain. It stopped Todoroki and Takioka. If there was ever a time…

Izuku switched his stance and clenched his but cheeks. “SmaaaaAASH!” He decided this villain had earned a hundred percent. Whatever it cost him, he needed to end this fight.

The air rushed through the plaza as the sheer power of One for All displaced it. Dust was kicked up and obscured the monster for a moment.

When the smoke cleared…

The monster looked down at Izuku.

Unharmed.

Oddly enough, Izuku was also unharmed. Am I finally getting the hang of this?

The monster raised its hand to squash Izuku like a bug. His thoughts crashed down on him like a wave. Is this how I die? I’m sorry mom. I’m sorry All Might. I’m sorry everyo–

“Out of my way, Deku!” A familiar voice yelled.

Izuku’s chest caved in slightly as a shockwave appeared between him and the villain and sent him tumbling backwards to safety.

He rolled to his feet to see what happened.

“Kachan! No!” He’s going to die. Oh my god Kachan is going to die.

The pissed off young man with high detonation velocity punched his palm and sparks flashed. “Allright ya freaky bastard. My turn!”

The monster swung at Kachan’s head. Izuku could barely track the motion.

Kachan exploded and was flying above the monster, he detonated another explosion right above its exposed brain.

A new sound. The monster screeched in pain.

Kachan landed a short distance from the beast, staring it down.

Izuku’s eyes flicked to the warper. Kachan had handed off guarding him to Todoroki.

The monster shook its head and screeched before focusing on Kachan again. It lunged forward.

Kachan exploded and managed to get out of the way. “So you do have a weak point! Alright you overgrown bird brain bastard! Let’s go!”

“Don’t forget me.” Kaminari staggered into the plaza. “Wanna see if you can handle 1.3 million volts?!”

It dawned on Izuku what was happening. They were just hoping to buy time… they know they’re going to die.

Izuku needed to do something. He looked at the villain covered in hands. He was being mostly restrained by a very bloody Tanaka and her wire capture tools. Tsu looked injured but was out of danger.

Aizawa was…

Izuku went to a lot of crime scenes.  He’d seen bodies. They looked a lot like his teacher did now. He heard explosions and electrical discharges going off, but his instincts were dragging him to his teacher.

Izuku slid to a stop by Aizawa and began trying to evaluate for basic first aid but… his teacher was a pile of broken parts.

He didn’t even know where to start. 

And the explosions had stopped…

Kyouka Jirou        1:46:36 pm

This had been the worst fucking workout in Kyouka’s gods damned life. She tightened the handcuffs on the guy in front of her. “Now stay down, dude.” She kicked the back of his leg to make him kneel down. “I don’t want to kick your ass twice.” She dusted off her pants and walked over to help Yaoyorozu tie up the guy she was working on. “Need some help?”

Yaoyarozu tightened the zip tie she was using, causing the villain to scream. She gave Kyouka the sweetest smile. “I’m good!” She jerked her head in another direction since her hands were busy. “I think Satou could use some help.”

Kyouka’s heart started beating a little fast. She’d liked a couple of girls, but never enough to still get flustered while people were trying to kill her. “Yeah, I’ll um, I’ll get right on that.” Why did she always sound so stupid when talking to her? Talking to everyone else was so easy.

She jogged over to Ojiro trying to wrestle a man to the ground to be tied up. She pulled out the machete that Yaoyorozu had made her and put the tip to the man’s neck. “Sit.”

The man sat.

Ojiro chuckled nervously. “Thanks, Jirou. Have you seen Kirishima?”

“No problem. And no, I–” The sound of something crashing resonated and echoed through the entire USJ. “What the hell?!”

Kyouka’s eyes darted around the giant building. The smoke and dust the explosive sound had kicked up drew her eye. The doors of the USJ had been blown open.

“Holy fuck… he made it.” Kyouka was going to fucking cry.

“It’s alright now students! There is nothing to fear!” He yelled so loud she could hear it in the landslide zone. “Because I AM HERE!”

Eijirou Kirishima      1:47:02 pm

Eijirou heard a loud crash, but he couldn't stop to think about that now.

“Dammit Bakugo!” Eijirou cursed as he sprinted back toward the plaza from the landslide zone. He got there just in time to see the inevitable taking place.

Bakugo and Kaminari were being held up by their skulls by the giant monster guy. “Fuck.” Eijirou cursed under his breath.

‘Why can’t I move?’ His blood had gone cold. ‘When Bakugo was with me…’ He felt hollow and weak, like he was trying to move in a nightmare. ‘Come on. Go help them. Be a man dammit.’ Eijirou was paralyzed.

There was a rush of air and the scene suddenly changed.

All Might was there? ‘Holy shit All Might is here!’ The symbol of peace and manliness had rescued Kaminari and Bakugo, and moved both of them over to Aizawa to help their teacher escape.

‘Thank god…’ Eijirou sighed. He was in the alleyway with Mina all over again. Now that it was safe, Kirishima ran over to help.

“Hey, weird hair! Carry the old man.” Bakugo ordered while pushing Aizawa’s legs into Kirishima’s hands. “I’m going to pay Handjob a visit.” He had already started running toward the hand covered villain Tsu and Tanaka were still restraining.

“Yeah man, I got ‘em.” Kirishima said. What else was he supposed to say? Bakugo could handle this stuff. 

Kirishima looked down at the teacher he was helping Midoriya carry. The young man thought he was going to be sick. He’d never seen a person so mangled. “Is he… alive?”

Midoriya looked really worried. “I think he is. All Might said he doesn’t have long though.”

“Well let’s do what we do and get him to safety!” Kirishima’s positive manner of speaking was more of a reflex than a reflection of his actual feelings. He was scared shitless.

Midoriya grunted from the effort of holding Aizawa steady. “I’m really glad you’re here.”

“Me? Why?” Kirishima couldn’t imagine what Midoriya needed from him.

“You always smile when things are tough. Just like All Might.” Midoriya shrugged. “Sorry, I know that’s lame. I just, I feel a little safer with you out here too. That’s all.”

Kirishima didn’t know what to say. So he settled for, “It’s just the manly thing to do, ya know?”

Midoriya smiled. “Yeah.”

Mezou Shouji      1:48:10 pm

Mezou turned their extra arms into eyes and ears in a desperate attempt to see what was happening down below. His heart rate began to climb. 

‘Later’ He schooled his emotions. He took in what he could. Midoriya and Kirishima were bringing Aizawa back.

The one they called Shigaraki was still being restrained by Bakugo and Tanaka.

Todoroki had the warper. 

All Might was fighting the one they called Nomu.

The building shook as All Might thundered punches down on the heteromorphic villain. Mezou imagined it wasn’t easy growing up with their brain exposed and a bird beak full of teeth, but it was no excuse for violence.

“Shouji!” Midoriya shouted.

Mezou snapped his focus back to the task. “Yes, Midoriya?”

“Can you help us? I’m trying to keep his neck steady, but he’s… uh, slippery.”

Mezou nodded. “On it.”

Sora Tanaka      1:48:47 pm

Sora’s tac harness held an ungodly amount of restrict chords. She despised running out of gear, so she brought way more than she could ever use in one fight.

Or so she thought.

The villain with the disintegration quirk reached for her face. Predictable asshole. Sora bent backwards and did a handspring to evade. She threw the chorded capture device as she jumped.

“You think you’re so damn cool!” The villain shouted as they began disintegrating another very expensive piece of gear.

Bakugo set off another explosion to keep the guy busy and away from the very injured Tsu.

The situation was getting better, but this guy needed to be stopped.

Sora cracked her neck as the villain got back up. Old fashioned martial arts it is. She pulled a black silk scarf off her neck.

The guy lunged at Sora’s face again .

One breath in. Intercept the grab.

One breath out. Wrap the wrist with the scarf and slide behind.

One breath in. Dodge the other hand and pin it with the tied hand.

One breath out. Restrain hands by tying the scarf.

Sora blinked. ‘Oh thank god that fucking worked.’

He was restrained. The black leather clad girl smirked. How’s that for a ‘wannabe hero’? 

Bakugo did the rest by jumping on the guy’s back and slamming his face (hand) first into the ground. The explosive boy held him there. And thanks to Sora, if the asshole used his quirk, he’d disintegrate his own neck first.

“I’ll kill every last one of–” The villain was interrupted by Bakugo creating a small explosion with the hand he was restraining them with.

Bakugo leaned in and whispered to the villain. “One move and we’ll see who’s hands are more dangerous! Got it?!”

Kouji Kouda      1:48:59 pm

Kouji had followed Todoroki and Tanaka as far as the central plaza, but he imagined he would get in the way trying to help All Might and the others.

The young man with the rock(ish) head sighed with relief watching their teacher pummel the bad guy.

Kouji wished there wasn’t such an extreme need for violence, but so many of them were hurt already, it was just good to know it was almost over.

A pigeon landed on Kouji’s shoulder. No more bad guys. Couldn’t find. Couldn’t find.

The hero-in-training nodded. That was good to know. He whispered back to his feathered friend. “Do you think you and the others could look for my friends?”

Can find. Can find. The little creature fluttered off.

Kouji was hoping that no one had been hurt. He, Todoroki, and Tanaka did fine. The latter two did most of the work in the ruins, which Kouji was thankful for. He truly had no desire to see what five hundred rats could have done to those bad guys.

Tanaka tying people up was way better.

Kouji scanned the area for anyone who might need help. When everything seemed fine, he decided to head for the entrance with the rest of the–

“--PLUS ULTRA!” All Might’s voice broke through the young man’s careful situation assessment.

Kouji didn't have time to see the hit, but the giant hole in the USJ ceiling made it easy to identify where the big villain had gone. Thank goodness this was really over.

His pigeon friend returned. Found friends. Found friends. Lots of blood. Lots of blood.

Kouji froze. So someone had been in trouble. He turned to face the pigeon. “Please take me to the lot-of-blood friend.”

The bird flew, Kouji ran from his place on the entrance stairwell back into the heart of the USJ.

Mina Ashido    1:50:32 pm

Mina crouched over Thirteen. She’d been doing chest compressions for roughly fifteen minutes.

Her arms were burning, her chest ached. Her hips were cramping. And for all she knew Thirteen was already dead.

Aizawa didn’t seem like he was any better, but Thirteen was her concern now.

After the first few minutes, Kazue had asked to switch in. She’d said no. He was holding back the warper somehow.

A few more minutes in Tokoyami had asked. She’d said no. He was their best offensive fighter if things got bad.

A few minutes ago when All Might arrived Shouji had asked to switch in. She’d said no. He was their most capable scout.

In truth she had been lying every time. The truth was she didn’t know what in the hell to do right now. But she remembered her first aid training.

She could manually pump Thirteen’s heart and manually fill her lungs with air. Sweat was pouring off her in buckets. But this was the only thing she was sure she could contribute.

She let the world fall away. She wasn’t at the USJ. There were no villains. No one else was dying. There was no life before or after this. There is only Thirteen, and the steady rhythm of CPR.

She could do this until everything was over. This was what she could do. She could keep Thirteen from dying until–

“Young lady I need you to step away now.” An older feminine voice said right in her ear. 

It was a different voice than her friends. She risked a look to the side. “Huh?”

It was recovery girl. She gave Mina a warm and reassuring smile. “Leave the wounded to us, sweetie.” Recovery girl began checking Thirteen as one of Ectoplasm's clones swooped over to do chest compressions, shoving Mina to the side. 

Mina was looking up at the ceiling from on her back. Her arms were numb. She blinked slowly and felt tears rolling down the side of her face. “Us?” She didn’t know how to ask if what she was seeing was real.

Recovery Girl walked over and gave the pink girl another warm smile from above her. “Thirteen is going to be okay. You did real good, young lady.”

Mina let her head roll to the side in relief. And then she saw a crowd… a fucking crowd of pros there to save them. She hadn’t heard or seen any of them before. Whatever reserve, whatever fighting spirit she had been holding onto to get through this evaporated. 

She’d been so damn brave for fifteen god damned minutes. Fifteen minutes that, thanks to the compressions, she would remember every second of for a long time.

No more bravery. Mina screamed. She thrashed. She wailed and cried. She didn’t know who was alive or dead. She didn’t know what had happened. And now she could be a fifteen year old girl again.

She wailed and screamed some more. She cried the entire time the pros worked. Her friends hugged her, the teachers comforted her, but she didn’t care. Right now, it was all too much. It had all been too much. For now, she just needed to keep fucking screaming.

Momo Yaoyorozu       1:55:26 pm

Momo walked down into the main plaza just in time to see All Might trading off with another pro, likely to receive medical attention. The pros had swooped down on the USJ the moment they had arrived. 

Momo took a deep breath in and let it out. She knew the situation was far from resolved. But the immediate danger had passed. Now it was time to do a headcount… She wondered briefly if ‘classmates lost to villains as class rep’ would end up being a note in her file. The idea of a constant reminder of today made her sick, as did the idea that any of her classmates were dead.

She looked around to see who she could account for. 

Bakugo looked injured but was walking. 

Todoroki looked injured but was at least conscious. 

Tanaka looked like they were still standing… she prayed that blood didn’t all belong to Tanaka.

Tsu looked like she was in bad shape, but a pro was tending to her.

She heard footsteps running up behind her. Had she missed a villain? She let out a breath and created a crude knife in her hand as she whipped around.

“Kouda?” Momo dropped the weapon. “Sorry, you just scared me a lit–” her heart sank when her eyes finally registered what Koudo was holding. Who he was holding. 

Kouda’s face was deadly serious.

“Takioka!” Momo ran up to Kouda and began examining Takioka. “Oh my god she’s still breathing. Oh thank youthankyouthankyou.” She had yet to see any of her friend’s corpses and she was not starting now. Especially not with Takioka. “Hey! We need help over here!” She yelled to a nearby pro and began to create bandages and water. 

Vlad King the 1-B homeroom teacher ran over to them. “Good job, kids. Just set her down for me.” He called. Sounding calm and in control.

Kouda set her gingerly on the paving stones.

Momo knelt next to her as Vlad went to work. “Come on Takioka… please…” She pleaded with her classmate's soul, begging it to stay in her body a little longer.

Fumikage Tokoyami    1:57 pm

Fumikage did all he could to convey the details of this sordid affair to the policeman asking him questions. “And then Thirteen tried to defend us from the shadowy villain. She demonstrated incredible courage.”

The man jotted down a note in his pad. (It made Fumikage wonder how many dark and vile things he must have written over his career.) “So,” He tapped his pencil eraser on the paper. “Can you tell me why the ‘shadowy villain’ didn’t attack the remainder of your group?”

Fumikage (Dark Shadow)  noticed that the warper hadn’t liked Kazue. “It is unclear why the evil doer did not finish us off. It may have been fear that we would have fought back.” He inclined his beak. “A well founded fear.”

“Right,” The man sounded incredulous. “Well I think I have all I need.” He began to walk away.

Did you tell him about Ashido? She was brave. I like her. The darkness that resided in Fumikage’s body and mind (Dark Shadow (The creature that once ate twenty seven bags of Honey Nut Cheerios)) whispered in his ear.

“Not now, Dark Shadow. It is not relevant to the acts of evil at hand.” He informed the abyssal beast.

The officer turned back toward him. “Acts of evil?”

Fumikage sighed. “I apologize officer, I was merely speaking to my shadow.”

The officer looked worried. “Did you get hit in the head at any point? Or fall down maybe?”

Thirteen would have died, you know.

“Not now!” Fumikage was getting frustrated trying to have two conversations.

The officer nodded. “Okay son, I think you had better have a seat.”

Fumikage sat on the back of one of the ambulances as they watched their friends come out of the building. Some walked. Most were carried.

The dishonor of how little he had done to change this would sit with the young man for a long time. He had been helpless. Useless.

I’m sorry, Fumi. Dark Shadow sounded hurt.

Fumikage often forgot that his own anguish became his companions far too easily. He tried to ground himself in the moment. He enjoyed the feeling of the sun warming his beak accompanied by the cool air and antiseptic smell coming from the ambulance. “My apologies.” He spoke to his internal self. “You did not fail, Dark Shadow. If there is fault, it is mine.”

I’m sorry. Dark Shadow whispered, quieter this time.

Fumikage sighed. He enjoyed the pain in his chest when he berated himself. It was one of the only ways he could achieve the sensation. But it wasn’t worth his shadow. “ We are not at fault for the acts of villainy that occurred here tonight.” He caught sight of someone being carried out on a stretcher. Their face was covered with a sheet… “We are not the cause of this…”

Dark Shadow felt unconvinced.

Tooru Hagakure      1:59 pm

The first of Tooru’s classmates, Takioka, had been taken away in an ambulance. The bodies of over a dozen dead villains had been brought out.

Tooru reported in that she was alive and uninjured.

Is this what high school was? Before today, Tooru had never seen a body. Now though?

Her body suit did wonders to keep her warm, but she hadn’t gone back for her boots and gloves, so no one could see her. She could have put a blanket on so she could be noticed, but… she really didn’t want anyone looking in her direction right now.

Todoroki, Tanaka, Kaminari and Bakugo were all covered in blood. She wandered over to the ambulance that the four of them were sitting near.

“We would have taken the guy if All Might hadn’t gotten there.” Tanaka said from under her black mask. She still hadn’t taken it off for some reason.

“No. We wouldn’t have.” Bakugo responded, sounding unusually somber.

Tooru wandered off. She just couldn’t be around anyone for very long right now. Her wires just felt a little too frayed.

Aizawa was also taken away by ambulance. 

Tooru sighed and just walked around in the grass, letting her mind wander. It did not, however, wander anywhere good. Would they have a new teacher? Would he be okay? Are some of her friends dead? Who is okay? Are they going to close the school? Should they close the school?

Tooru sat down in the grass and watched the door, mentally checking off names as her classmates emerged. Her breath was held, and likely would be until she knew everyone was okay. Is this what her life was now? Is this the real world everyone warned her about?

Shouji came and sat next to her. “You doing okay?” He didn’t look in her direction though, just turned a tentacle-manifested ear toward her.

“How did you know I was over here?” Tooru pulled her knees to her chest and buried her head in her knees. She just wanted to actually disappear.

“It isn’t hard to keep track of you. You aren’t that quiet.” Shouji fixed his own eyes on the ground. “I hope that doesn’t make you uncomfortable.”

Tooru smiled. It was the worst day of her entire life. And she smiled. “No, it uh, it doesn’t.” 

“I’m glad.” The two sat together a moment before he continued. “This was a disaster.”

Tooru scoffed. “You got that right. It couldn’t have gone worse if we had tried.”

Shouji nodded. “Agreed. But can I tell you the best thing about huge disasters?”

Tooru thought that was an insane thing to say when their friends were being carried out on stretchers. “What could possibly be good about disasters?”

Shouji gave her a reassuring (and incredibly accurate) pat on the back that Tooru found really comforting. “The fact that they don’t happen every day.”

The two sat together as the injuries and deaths were tallied and their friends were carried out.

Tooru hadn’t expected to agree that there was anything good about disasters like this. But she did. So thanks to Shouji opening the metaphorical door to that thought process Tooru found three whole things to be thankful for.

The first thing she was thankful for was Mezou Shouji. For helping her see the relief and joy in the next two things.

The second thing she was thankful for was that no one from class 1-A was dead.

And the final and most beautiful thing she was thankful for… 

Disasters like this don’t happen every day.

Chapter Text

Astrid wasn’t sure how hospitals worked in the outside world. Unless it was anything like the medical dramas she watched, in which case she knew exactly how they worked. One way or the other, she was 100% sure that this many people were not supposed to be in a patient's room at one time. 

Everyone from class that wasn’t also in a hospital bed had come to check on her. Kirishima was standing too close to the bed for her comfort. “I’m sorry, Takioka! I should have been the one to take that hit!” He bowed deeply.

Astrid looked at him, confused. “You think you could have survived it?” She asked him honestly.

Kirishima flinched at the question. “Yeah… I uh, I guess you’re right.” He stood and wiped away the evidence he’d been crying.

Astrid worried that she had hurt him somehow, but couldn’t figure out what she’d done.

Yaoyorozu hadn’t left Astrid’s side since she woke up. “I don’t care how you survived it. I’m just glad you did.” She rested her hand gently on Astrid’s.

The speedster reflexively jerked her arm back.

Yaoyorozu looked hurt. “I’m just… glad you’re okay.”

There was that tone again, just like Kirishima. What was she doing wrong? Everyone lived and only enemies died. Wasn’t that good enough for everyone? Astrid was tired. She just wanted to go to sleep. Her body was shredded to bits and her thoughts were scattered. If that thing had decided to finish her off she–

“Takioka?” Uraraka stepped in front of the group to be closer to the bed. 

“Yeah?” Astrid didn’t like how weird and somber everyone was being. It was deeply unsettling.

“Thank you for being there. I don’t… I don’t know how many of us would have died if you hadn’t been there.” Uraraka was beginning to cry but was clearly trying to restrain herself.

Astrid felt a knot in her stomach. What the hell was she talking about? She wasn’t the only one fighting that thing. And it thrashed her anyway. “I… uh… I’m getting kinda tired.” She needed this situation to end.

Uraraka backed up, looking crestfallen. “Of course. That makes sense.” She sounded just like Yaoyorozu had a moment ago.

Astrid was starting to panic. She didn’t like all this attention. What was she doing wrong?!

Kazue stepped up next. “I’m really glad you’re okay. And I–”

A very small explosion went off, like a particularly loud hand clap. Everyone turned to face Bakugo.

He sneered. “The reckless brat said she’s tired. Let’s go.” He walked out, followed shortly after by the remainder of her very apologetic classmates.

Soon enough the room was cleared out, and for that, Astrid was thankful. She let her head rest back on the pillow. Everything hurt. She’d felt worse pain before, but she was fairly certain this is the closest she had ever gotten to death.

Mr. Darmon’s face standing atop the Tokyo Skytree flashed in her mind. Maybe not the closest.

Astrid tried to go over the fight in her head, but it was mostly a blur. That thing, the ‘Nomu’ was too fast. Not a speedster, she didn’t see any lightning or smell any Tachyons.  But still, it was too fucking fast.

She’d met two beings that could keep up with her since leaving the facility. The thought chilled her blood. How many more were there? It isn’t like she can get any faster. What the hell was she going to–

Someone walked into the room, followed by the smell of burnt sugar. Astrid looked up. “Bom–” She coughed. “Uh, Bakugo?”

He walked up to the bed and stood so close his legs were touching it. He leaned over and started examining her. His eyes lingered on the worst of her injuries. He mumbled under his breath. “You damn brat…”

Astrid felt something strange being looked at so intensely by her classmate.

A voice she was pretty sure was Kirishima’s called from down the hallway. “Bakugo! Midoriya is out of surgery, come on!”

Bakugo huffed and left the room.

Deku had gotten hurt? What happened? She needed to check on him. She went to sit up and her stitches pulled. Stitches? She practically never needed stitches. Was it worse than she’d thought?

Blood stained the front of her gown. “Fuck.” She slumped back into the bed and the quick motion pulled out another stitch. “God, I’m literally falling apart at the seams.” She laughed at her own joke, causing another stitch to rip. “Ow.”

Chapter Text

Izuku stared at the microwave and the popcorn inside while he rubbed his still very sore leg. The school had been shut down for the remainder of the week. The teachers likely wanted them all to be able to rest up and recover.

Takioka had healed up good as new in only a couple days. Whatever her quirk was, it really was amazing.

Recovery girl had gone a little easier on him this time, but she still freaked him out with all that talk of his bones only being able to break so many times. 

The microwave beeped. “Popcorn is ready!” He called to Takioka who was sitting on the couch, flipping through the movie collection from atop her pile of blankets and pillows she’d taken from the unused dorm rooms.

“Whoo!” She yelled in response without turning around.

She seemed okay, but like, way too okay. He was still shaken up by the whole thing and it wasn’t even his first encounter with a villain. He dumped the popcorn into a large bowl. But she says all she wants is a normal movie night. Maybe it was her way of processing it?

Izuku slumped down into the seat next to her, happy to be off his legs. “Any luck picking a movie?”

Takioka shifted on the couch so she could cuddle up to his side. “Not yet, what do you like that isn’t comic book stuff?”

Izuku smiled. She reminded him of a kitten. A feral one, but a kitten nonetheless. For some reason he felt like he could relax around her. “Maybe you should pick. I’m boring. I watch documentaries to relax.”

“Oh, good call.” Astrid pulled up the documentaries and went looking for an ocean one. “I love jellyfish.”

“Really?” He asked. He wasn’t sure why that surprised him.

“They make up 40% of the biomass in our world's oceans.” She informed him like that was an answer.

He laughed. “Ocean documentary it is.”  He leaned back and let himself sink into the sofa.

Astrid didn’t last ten minutes before he could hear her gently snoring.

Izuku used his nearby crutch to pull the ottoman closer so he could put his legs up. He’d gotten used to sleeping sitting up on the couch in the last couple days, and the teachers hadn’t stopped them yet.

He sighed and tried to settle in. Every time he moved, the sleeping Takioka adjusted to be touching him. He glanced over and couldn’t help but giggle. Her feet were doing tiny little kicks, like she was dreaming about running. He tried to reign in his laughter so he wouldn’t wake her.

Maybe not a kitten, maybe a puppy.

The cute moment was slightly interrupted by the distressed noises she was making in her sleep.

Izuku felt torn. Should I wake her up?

He watched his classmate settle down a few moments later. He hoped whatever was distressing her unconscious mind had let up. He really wanted to let her sleep. She must be exhausted.

—

The next day around noon Izuku was washing dishes and cleaning up from the night before. Somehow, blessedly, Takioka was still asleep. He got the feeling wherever she came from, it had not included many opportunities for a good night's rest.

Izuku couldn’t place why, but he felt somehow responsible for Takioka.

There was a knock at the door. Izuku set down the towel he was drying dishes with. “I wonder wh–”

There was a whoosh and Takioka was standing at the door. She reached for the knob.

“Astrid, uh…” Izuku stopped her. “You might want to, you know.” He gestured to her, wearing only her pajama shorts with little lightning bolts on them and a red tank top.

She looked down at herself. “Does it matter?”

“I mean, depending on who it is.” He didn’t know how to explain modesty to her, it really wasn’t his place. But he didn’t want to see her get embarrassed.

Takioka tapped her toes on the ground behind herself for a second. “Okay. I’ve got it.” Suddenly she was wearing one of his All Might hoodies and his basketball shorts. “Better?”

Izuku gasped and then narrowed his gaze and tapped his foot. “Very funny. You really want to give whoever it is that idea?”

Takioka rolled her eyes. “Whatever.” She reappeared wearing her own day clothes, jean shorts and a white T-shirt. “But I’m not getting it now.” She walked over to the fridge and began rifling through it. “Do we have any stuff for pancakes?”

Izuku sighed and grabbed his crutches, he then made his way to the door. “I don’t think so. Do you just want to head to the cafeteria? It should be pretty empty.” He opened the door. 

The young man had been ready for a teacher to be checking in, maybe his mom, but he was not expecting to see the prettiest girl in his class. Uraraka was wearing a pair of white denim shorts and a long sleeve black t-shirt, and her hair was tied back in a much more practical style than she usually wore at school. She was absolutely–

“Midoriya?” She giggled nervously. “You’re uh… you’re staring. Is there something in my hair?”

He shook his head and began blushing like a tomato. “Sorry! I uh, what are– so you are doing here? In this uh… place?” He hung his head. That had completely fallen apart on him. “What’s up?” He said, dejectedly.

Uraraka seemed unfazed. “This is where Takioka is staying, right?”

Izuku looked up and nodded. “Oh, yeah, she’s in here.” He turned and led her inside, incredibly aware of her proximity to him as they entered the place he was staying. This was like her coming over to my house, right? Did I just invite a girl home by asking her to come in? Oh my god oh my god oh my god.

Takioka peaked out from the kitchen. “So who was– oh. Hi Gravity Girl. Urarata, right?” She walked out into the living room.

Uraraka blushed. “Not exactly, but close. It’s Uraraka.”

Takioka nodded. “Uraraka. Ura. Ra. Ka. Uraraka.” She smiled. “Got it.” Then Takioka simply waited, unsure of why Uraraka had shown up.

The new arrival looked at Izuku. “Hey Midoriya… could you give us a minute?”

His stomach turned. The idea of leaving Takioka alone with anyone felt dangerous for some reason. But he had no logical objections. “Uh… yeah. Sure.”

Chapter Text

Astrid watched Uraraka point over to the couches. “Can we sit down for a minute?” She sounded nervous.

The speedster tried to give a reassuring smile, but she wasn’t sure she was doing it right. “Sure.” She followed Uraraka over and sat down. “Is everything okay?” Astrid didn’t know much, but she’d seen enough movies to know when to ask that question.

Uraraka sat less than thirty centimeters away. She looked like she’d been crying. “Takioka?”

“Yeah?”

“At the USJ… were you scared?” Her voice was small.

Astrid found the question strange. “I mean, everyone gets scared, right?” This topic made her feel weird for some reason. “Were you?” Why was she feeling defensive?

“I asked you first. When you saved me, were you scared?” Uraraka was shaking slightly, was she upsetting her?

“What do you mean ‘when I saved you’?” She genuinely couldn’t recall. The whole fight was exhausting, but Uraraka had seemed capable enough on her own.

“In the fire zone… I was trapped. Me, Tsu, and Iida… I don’t think we would have survived if you hadn’t shown up.” Gravity Girl was seeming more and more tense.

“Uraraka, I–”

“I didn’t know if I was going to see my parents again… oh, that reminds me, they got you something.” Uraraka pulled out a package wrapped in bright pink pastel paper with yellow flowers on it. 

“Why?” Astrid understood gift giving in theory. Christmas, birthdays, etc. But this wasn’t a special occasion.

Uraraka held out the box and met Astrid’s gaze. Her big brown eyes were glistening with tears, and her smile looked genuine but shaky. “For saving their daughter.” After Astrid took the box, Uraraka wiped her tears with her sleeve. “They wanted to give it to you themselves, but they couldn’t come onto UA grounds.”

Astrid had never received a gift before. Not a proper one, with wrapping paper and such. “Thank you. This is…” She didn’t know what to call it.

Uraraka scooched forward and pulled the speedster into a hug. “Thank you, Takioka.”

Astrid wasn’t sure why tears were falling from her face and getting on the back of Uraraka’s shirt. But they were. And there was little the speedster could do about it. The speedster didn’t quite know how any of this was making her feel. It was incredibly new to be thanked for anything. Let alone to be given a gift, or to be hugged by a crying Gravity Girl. 

This was all new territory. But… She didn’t hate it.

—

The weirdness continued while she and Deku were in the cafeteria eating breakfast. Lunchrush made the best of everything for the ‘recovering kiddos’. 

Iida had apparently decided to  pay her a visit as well. He approached the table and stood half a meter away. “Midoriya, Takioka, I apologize for interrupting your meal!” He bowed deeply, almost hitting his head on the table.

Astrid and Deku looked at each other and then back at Iida before Deku chuckled. “It’s okay. What’s up?”

Iida stood. “Thank you. I am actually here to speak with Takioka.” He said in what was definitely a rehearsed tone.

Deku looked back at her. “You’re pretty popular today, huh?” He smiled.

Astrid looked up at Iida, unsure if she was ready for another confusing emotional moment by herself. “Can Deku stay?”

Iida nodded. “Of course!” Iida continued nodding as he looked at Deku. “I was meaning to thank you for something as well, anyway. This gratitude will be twice as efficient with you here.”

Astrid liked the way Iida talked. There was a silliness to his seriousness she found endearing. “What do you have to thank us for?”

He started with Deku. “Midoriya, I wanted to thank you for the kind words last night. I truly feel as though I understand what it means to be a hero in a way I did not before. You were the cause of that. So thank you very much.” He bowed deeply again.

Deku rubbed the back of his head and smiled awkwardly. “Anytime Iida, it really wasn’t a big deal. I’m glad it helped.”

Iida made a noise of confirmation. “It certainly did.” He turned to Astrid. “And as for you, Takioka. You saved me from the fire zone, and had you not done so, I would never have been able to alert the pros.” Iida’s tone sombered further. “I owe my life to you, Takioka. And so does everyone I was able to help that day.” He met her eyes and his face hardened. “I am in your debt, Takioka. If you ever need me, I will be there.”

Astrid looked at Deku, desperately hoping he could tell her what emotions she should be feeling, or what she should say. But he was unhelpfully looking down at his eggs and giving her and Iida pseudo privacy. She looked back at Iida, “Anytime, Iida? It really wasn’t a big deal. I’m glad it– I mean I’m glad I could help.” She hoped she sounded more confident than she felt. Somehow she doubted it.

Iida raised one eyebrow in apparent (but mild) confusion. Another emotion she knew how to identify fairly well. “Well just, uh–” Iida cleared his throat. “I will let you return to your meal. I apologize again for interrupting you. Thank you both again.” The engine hero left the cafeteria, and Astrid was sure he had looked confused by her answer.

Confused wasn’t mad or hurt though. She was going to give herself a B- for that interaction. She sighed with relief now that it was over and returned to her pancakes.

Deku looked up. “Takioka, are you doing okay?”

Astrid stuffed half of a whole pancake into her mouth, some syrup was still on her lip. “Uh, huh. Why?” She spoke with her mouth full.

Deku took a sip of his orange juice. “You just… you seemed like you felt really awkward just now, with Iida.”

She sipped some orange juice and shoved more pancake into her mouth before answering, as if she was adverse to talking without food in her mouth. “You did too.” She narrowed her gaze at him, which was difficult while her cheeks were stuffed so she decided to look down instead.

Deku nodded. “True. But you looked like, really freaked out when he was thanking you.”

Astrid thought she’d hidden it way better than she apparently had. Praise of any kind was a foreign concept to her. But so were pancakes. And she was adjusting to those just fine. “Does it matter?”

Deku lowered his head partway to the table so he could look up at her and see her eyes. (It wasn’t fair, she liked his eyes too much to look away.) “It matters to me, Astrid.”

She set her fork down slowly. She felt a little cold, and her hands were tingling a bit. She looked up so they could sit normally and look at each other. “Why?”

Deku scoffed. “What do you mean why? You’re my friend…” He trailed off when he saw her flinch. “Astrid, I’m so sorry.”

She blinked a couple times. For some reason she felt like she was going to get in trouble being outside the facility. But that didn’t make sense. She didn’t live there anymore. “What…?”

Deku moved over to sit on the side of the booth she was sitting on. He pressed their shoulders together the way they did when they watched TV. “I’m here.”

That was what she had apparently needed to hear (or feel) to bring her back to reality. The memories of the last few nights with Deku were fresh in her mind again. The delicious pancakes called to her. 

But before she could indulge her unending hunger for pancakes, she looked over at the fluffy haired boy. For some reason, with him, she could always find the broken part he was asking her to show him. She hadn’t known there were so many… But they didn’t seem to scare Deku. “I don’t… I don’t know how to feel. Or what to say. No one, Deku, genuinely no one has ever thanked me. For anything.”

Deku didn’t speak, but something in his deep green eyes shifted. “Astrid…” He seemed at a loss for words. She was worried that would happen. But what she hadn’t planned for was what it would feel like when Deku put his arm around her and pulled her into a hug. 

Her face was nestled into his shoulder, and the uniquely Deku smell and the delicious food filled her nostrils. She clung onto his t-shirt. It didn’t matter who else was around, or what they would think. The world had gotten so big, and confusing. She had felt a hundred things in the last week that she didn’t understand. Her emotions had become so muddy.

But right now? This one moment? For this one beautiful second, with Deku’s arms squeezing her tight and with him whispering reassurances to her. Astrid knew exactly how she felt.

She felt safe.

For the first time (maybe ever) Astrid Takioka felt safe.

—

“I’m telling you, the game that can challenge me has not been invented yet.” Astrid and Deku were looking for a videogame to play when there was another knock on the door. 

Deku stood up. “I’ll get it, you can keep looking.” He called a moment later, “Astrid, Tsu is here. Are you up for a visit?” Deku called from the entrance area.

“Yeah.” Astrid stood to go meet Tsu, tossing a game she thought might work onto the couch.

In the entrance way, the frog girl still looked a little worse than usual. Even Recovery Girl had limits apparently. She looked drained in general, but the cast on her arm seemed to be causing her additional discomfort. “Hello, Takioka.”

Astrid bowed slightly. “Hello, Tsu. Are you doing okay?”

“I’m fine.” The frog girl seemed to be struggling to speak. “I just wanted to say thank you.”

This time Astrid knew what the ‘thank you’ was about. The image of tackling Tsu out of the way of the Nomu flashed in her head.

Then the Nomu hitting her in the chest. 

Then becoming a part of the wall. Her head still hurt from that one.

Astrid tried to think of what to say. Honesty had gone okay with Deku… she decided to try it here since Tsu was clearly waiting for her to say something. What was the truth though? She didn’t know why she did what she did. “I couldn’t let that thing kill you…”

Tsu nodded. “I figured you’d say something like that.” She had begun to cry softly. “Guess that’s why you’re going to be a great hero.” Tsu met Astrid's gaze and smiled. “And in my opinion, you already are one.”

Astrid had prepped for emotions when Deku said Tsu was there. But she wasn’t ready for that. “Tsu…”

The frog girl stepped forward and pulled out a piece of paper. “This is for you.”

Astrid reached out and took the paper gently. She unfolded it. 

It was a thank you card. Tsu had clearly done most of the work of making it, the quality was too high for little kids. But it was little kids who wrote most of the words.

It was covered in crudely drawn stars and hearts. A little girl's handwriting said “Thank you for saving my sister! I love you!” The message contained multiple spelling errors, but the intent was clear.

There was a note written by a slightly older boy. “I don’t know what would happen if Tsu wasn’t around. And I was really scared. Thank you for keeping my sister safe. When I grow up I want to be a hero just like you.”

And lastly was a note that Tsu had written in cursive. “Thank you for making sure no one had to explain to them why I was gone. You’re going to be an amazing hero Takioka.” 

Astrid looked up at Tsu. “I don’t know what to say…”

Tsu nodded. “I wouldn’t know either. I’ll see you in class on Monday?”

Astrid nodded. “Yeah, I’ll see you then.”

Tsu left. Deku and Astrid were alone once more.

Astrid held the thank-you card like it was made of the most precious and fragile gold leaf on the planet. She read the words again, and then again.

Someone wanted to be like her? The thought scared her, but it also made her feel… Strong? Big? She wasn’t sure how to describe it. “Hey, Deku?”

He walked over to her and rested a hand on her shoulder. “Yeah?”

Astrid sniffled and wiped away her tears before any more could fall on the important paper. “I think I get it now.”

“What do you mean?”

“The whole ‘hero’ thing. I think I get it now.” The feeling in her chest when she read the letter she was holding… she’d die for that feeling. Hell, she might even try to live for it. “I just, I never imagined I could actually be one until now.”

Deku looked confused. “You weren’t sure you wanted to be a hero, but you enrolled in UA’s hero program? What were you planning before?”

Astrid smiled as she looked up at him. “I don’t really want to think about that right now.” She looked at the letter in her hand. “I want to think about this.” She was resolute. 

Her friend smiled, seemingly a bit unsure. “Sounds good to me.”

—

A few hours later Astrid Takioka felt a blinding rage that boiled in the very pits of her being, and it dredged up her darkest impulses. “Fuck this game!” She yelled and slammed the game controller on the ground. The plastic object shattered to bits. 

Deku was laughing at her. (Fucking laughing at her! How dare he!) “Please–” He interrupted himself laughing. “You can’t just keep breaking controllers.” 

The speedster rolled her eyes. She whooshed out of the room and returned holding a plastic box with another brand new controller in it. “The warehouse isn’t going to run out.” She handed Deku the box. “Open.”

“Say please.” He took the box.

She slumped down onto the couch. “No.”

“We can always stop playing.” Deku teased. 

Astrid stamped her feet for a second. “Fine. Please, Deku?” She batted her eyelashes at him sarcastically.

He laughed. “You know you can always give up, right?” He began opening Astrid’s fourth controller of the evening.

“Fuck you. You said I couldn’t beat it. I’m going to beat it.” She insisted.

Deku put batteries in the controller and hit the button to restart the game. “Technically what I said was being fast wouldn’t help you.”

Astrid took the controller. “Whatever.” The title screen appeared. DARK SOULS. “Alright you fucking demons. Round four!”

Deku coughed. “Five.”

“Round five fuckers!” She corrected loudly.

Astrid nodded and locked in to avoid another humiliatingly early death.

She had figured out the first bit, but the big demon in the center of the Asylum  level (her nemesis) crushed her like a bug every time. She just couldn’t stay alive long enough to do any real damage.

Maybe this time–

The Asylum Demon rushed forward with its big ass hammer thing.

YOU DIED, said the stupid game.

“Ahhh!” Astrid screamed and raised the controller up. 

Deku plucked the controller out of her hand. “Hey, we cannot keep breaking them. Wanna try punching a pillow?”

Astrid huffed. “Ugh! Fine!” She turned and punched one of the couch cushions. “Oh shit.” She said to the newly formed hole in the couch she was pulling her arm out of.

Deku covered his mouth. “Oops.” He said on her behalf.

Their rampant vandalism was interrupted by yet another knock on the door.

Deku stood up. “Wanna wait till I get back before you try again?”

Astrid crossed her arms. “Fine.”

She remained flopped on the couch trying to control her breathing. Being around Deku kept her quirk in check astoundingly well. So she wouldn’t have to wait long.

“Kachan? What are you doing here?” She heard Deku say.

She sat up and looked over the back of the couch toward her green haired friend. “Bomb-Boy is here?”

Deku turned back to her. “Bomb-Boy?”

She shrugged. “Still working on names.”

Deku chuckled as he returned to the couch. “Anyway, he was here. I think he was looking for you.”

“Why didn’t you tell him I was here?”

“I tried, but he was already walking away.” Deku shrugged. “I’m sure he’ll talk to you about it later. Kachan doesn’t forget much.”

Maybe it was the courage from her newfound hero dream, maybe it was the frustration of the video game she couldn’t win, whatever it was, Astrid was getting sick and tired of Bomb-Boy being so weird and she was feeling brave. “He keeps doing this. He keeps being about to say something, then he stops. It’s driving me crazy!”

Deku seemed to be getting nervous being on the subject of Bakugo. “I’m sure he has his reasons…”

“Yeah? Well I’m going to find out what those reasons are.”

“Wait–”

Astrid was gone.

Chapter Text

What the hell was he doing there? Damn nerd. Always in the way. Next time they were paired up in training he was going to blast him into fucking orbit. Bakugo pulled out his house key and went to open the door to his family's apartment. The door was already open.

Bakugo let his school bag fall to the ground and shifted his eyes to the left, then right. He turned around slowly. No villains he could see. He pushed the door open cautiously. “Mom? You home?” He called, ready to obliterate anything that wasn’t his parents.

“I’m in the kitchen!” His mom yelled. 

He relaxed.

“Your friend got here just a little bit ago!” His mom called as he was taking off his shoes.

He tensed. Who the hell was in his house? He ran to the kitchen as fast as he could. He failed to come to a stop fully, as he’d forgotten how busted up his torso was, so his socks caused him to slip on the polished floor and land squarely on his back next to the kitchen table.

Looking down at him from a seat at the table was his worst nightmare. He narrowed his eyes and barred his teeth. His words came out in a hiss. “Takioka, what the hell are you doing here?” His mom would be extra mad if she heard him yell at a girl. He wondered briefly if he could get away with killing one though?

The little brat smiled down at him. “Right this second? Looking at your baby pictures.” She sounded way too fucking smug. She held out a picture (Of him and Deku riding in a two kid stroller with their moms in the background) that he hadn’t seen in years. “I didn’t know you and Deku have been friends since you were babies!”

“I’ll kill you, you damned brat!” He jumped off the floor, but all he could do was stand before his cracked ribs stopped him.

His mom walked over and hit him on the back of the head. “This is the first time you’ve brought a girl over! Be nice!”

He whipped around. “Don’t hit me you damn hag!”

“Are you really going to raise your voice at me, Katsuki!?” She yelled loud enough that no amount of hearing damage would muffle it. 

“Yeah! If you–!” He clutched his chest and slumped into a chair at the table. He let out a long, controlled breath to keep from crying out from the pain. “No. What’s for dinner?”

“Pork cutlets, and all I need you to do is chop up the cabbage.” His mom walked back to the kitchen.

He started to stand up. He appreciated that she left him the easiest job. Just standing hurt like hell. “You get the hell out of my house.” He hissed under his breath at the brat.

“Did you get hurt?” She looked at him with those stupid golden eyes. “I thought that I held it off long enough…” Her tone wasn’t the bloodthirsty one he had enjoyed hearing in class. It sounded fragile. 

It pissed him off. “Yeah I got hurt.” He pointed to her. “You almost fucking died though.” He had been ready to talk to her about this when he thought it would be him and her alone at her dorm.

Fuck Deku.

“I heal pretty quick.” She said in that annoying fragile tone. Her voice sounded like glass.

“Why did you come here?” He let some sparks click off his fingers. “Last time I’m asking politely.”

“I know I don’t hear explosions in there young man!” His mom yelled from the kitchen.

The brat apparently found that entertaining and giggled. Even her fucking laugh was annoying. “No, ma’am.” He called back and clutched his chest again.

There was a whoosh past him and then Takioka was in her chair again.

 His mom called to them again. “Oh thank you, dear! That’s some quirk you have there!”

Bakugo cocked his head to the side. “What did you do?”

The brat shrugged. “You seem really hurt. I cut the cabbage for you.”

“I didn’t ask for your help.” He glared at her.

She looked down at the table, seemingly ashamed of herself. God fucking damnit you little brat! Stop it! Get mad! She looked up at him, and he was pretty sure he saw tears welling up in her eyes. 

Her golden eyes caught the light when she cried and seemed to sparkle. “I’m sorry. You seemed like you wanted to talk to me…”

She wasn’t wrong. “So you decided to find out where I live?”

“I decided I wanted to know what you keep not saying. Do you want me to leave?”

Before he could think though he heard his mom coming, so he looked across the table at her and met her stupid honey colored eyes. “After dinner.”

She smiled at him. Don’t fucking do that. She gave him a playful smirk as she reached for the baby photos. Definitely don’t do that. He reached out to grab the book but she moved it away faster than he could see. She held up a small picture that his dad had taken a while back. “This one is my favorite.”

Bakugo hated to admit it, but she had good taste. It was his favorite picture too. A rock climb he’d done with his family a few months before school started. He was doing a thirty meter free climb and had stopped to catch his breath. His mom snapped the picture right when he was feeling his best about the climb. It had been a genuine smile on his face that day. “Put it back.”

“Oh don’t be silly!” His mom said. “I have copies of that one. You take it sweetie.”

“Why are you being so nice?!” He yelled at his mom. “You’re creeping me out!”

“Forgive me for not wanting my boy to be alone for his whole life!”

“What is wrong with you, you old hag?!”

The dinner went basically like that for half an hour. Takioka being an absolute fucking brat, his mother encouraging it, and really shittily chopped cabbage. 

Eventually though his hell had ended. His mom stood up. “I’ll clean up so you kids can hang out before Takioka has to get home.”

Bakugo stood so fast his chair fell over. He huffed and picked it up. He then grabbed the damned brat’s arm and began dragging her back to his room.

When they got there he tossed her into the room and she fell over. He slammed the door shut. “Do you want to die?!” He yelled at her.

Takioka stood up. “You just dragged me!” 

“You did it to me like four different times!” The self control it was taking not to blast her through one of the walls was getting to absurd levels.

She opened her mouth to answer that but clearly couldn’t think of anything to say. Because she was wrong. “Why were you at my dorm tonight?”

“Why was Deku there?” He practically growled. Something about all of this was pissing him off in ways he’d never felt before. 

The brat looked like she didn’t want to answer. “He’s staying there… so I uh, so I don’t have to be alone.”

“How the hell did he swing that gig?” Lucky bastard got to stay on campus in his own place. That sounded like a fucking dream.

“Does it matter?” She walked over and sat on his bed. “Are you ever going to tell me what you wanted to say?”

It had been so clear to him before. But new feelings in his gut and his head were making everything fuzzy. Or the pain was doing that. Probably the pain. “You shouldn’t have attacked that monster.”

Takioka sighed. “I’ve had a few people thank me for it today actually…”

He clenched his fists. She wasn’t hearing him. “You got lucky.”

She scoffed and stood up. “You really have zero faith in me, huh?” She sounded annoyed, which was better than fragile at least.

“What the hell are you talking about?” God the damned brat was dense. “I’m saying you could have–” His breath caught. Why did he care? So many of his classmates had been in danger. But it hadn’t hit him until he was saying it out loud, that her dying is the idea that bothered (scared) him.

“Lots of people could have died.” She stepped towards him. 

He smelled strawberries, chocolate, and something oddly familiar on her. “Just don’t do it again, you damned brat…” A falling whisper was all he could manage. Why was he so choked up?

“Is that all you wanted to say?” She asked, presumably to be a bitch.

No. He couldn’t figure out why. But the idea of her running back to Deku tonight killed him. The only explanation he could come up with was that he wanted her to be there with him. Was he jealous of Deku?

No. He couldn’t be jealous of that damned nerd! He wasn’t some stupid boy who likes a girl from a distance and lets a loser like Deku take her. He was more confident than that. Braver than that. He didn’t just do nothing when he clearly wanted something. He wanted this, right?

“Bomb-Boy?” She said softly. “You okay?”

No he wasn’t okay. He was losing to Deku. But that would stop right fucking NOW. “You want to know what I wanted to say to you, you damned brat? I wanted to say I…” He couldn’t say it. Why couldn’t he fucking say it?

Takioka waited.

“I wanted to say… I’m glad you’re not dead.” Oh my god he was a fucking coward. How in the hell had this been what scared him? He took on real villains the other day and hadn’t flinched.

Takioka nodded. She smiled at him. God, stop looking at me like that. “I’m glad you’re not dead either.”

There was a whooshing sound and she was gone.

Bakugo walked over to his bed and flopped down onto his stomach. He took a few deep breaths. His emotions were all tied in knots. He spoke to his mattress. The one confidant he knew could keep a secret. “I’m going to kill that fucking girl, or she is going to kill me.”

He wondered what she was saying to Deku at that moment. 

Chapter Text

The next week of school wasn’t nearly as exciting as the previous one had been. Aizawa had asked Astrid to meet him on the running track around back of the school. She waited for him by laying on her back in the grass. She was enjoying the feeling of the sun on her face when her teacher got her attention by gently kicking the sole of her shoe. “Huh?” The speedster sat up, and then quickly stood.

“Alright, Takioka. Today is going to be simple. I want to know how fast you can really run.” He started setting up some sort of strange black stand with a box on top of it with a lens and a screen while he explained. “I’m not interested in how many laps you can run.” He tapped the box once it was set up. “This guy–” The stand broke and the device fell onto the ground.

Astrid stifled her laughter. Laughing at a superior was never a good idea. 

Aizawa seemed annoyed but simply set the machine back up. It looked fine, save for a scratch on the side. Likely just cosmetic. “Okay, one more time.” He rested his hand on the machine much gentler this time around. “This is the highest speed clocking device money can buy. It will record the fastest time you achieve today, and then I’ll check it.” He walked over and tied a bracelet on her that the machine needed to work, then he started walking away.

“Wait!” Astrid called after him. “When am I done?” She didn’t want to just run forever.

Aizawa tapped his chin and then snapped his finger. “What was your personal best before coming here?”

Astrid hated this topic. “My top speed is Mach 30.”

Her teacher smiled a devious grin. “Excellent. Any higher than that should be sufficient.”

Her heart skipped a beat and her breathing started to fail. “Sir, that isn’t possible.”

He turned away and began leaving. “Then it sounds like you have a very long day ahead of you, doesn’t it?”

Astrid growled under her breath. She took off and began circling the track like a speedster possessed. She needed to run off some of her annoyance with her teacher and his ignorance. 

As annoyed as she was, she got to what felt like her top speed easily. She looked over at the high-speed speed-tracker. Mach 23.5? The thing had to be broken. She bounced up and down on the balls of her feet. Okay. Let's break a sweat.

Astrid took off with everything she had. She ran until she was nearly gasping for air. She ran until her arms and legs were begging her to stop. She was barely touching the ground with each stride. The fact that she could still round the corners on the 2 mile long track was incredible.

She skidded to a stop in front of the speed tracker after a few laps. Her quirk was burning like it hadn’t since her last day at the facility. She could feel the lightning in her bones. She felt alive.

The readout said Mach 25.8. That… that couldn’t be right. Could it? 

She ran, but the dread was weighing down her steps. She pushed and pushed as hard as she could. But the 25.8 didn’t budge. She was pretty sure she was actually running slower than that now.

She slammed her fists into the ground.”Fuck!”

“Still just as vulgar as ever.” A low rumbling voice came from behind her.

Astrid whipped around, thankful she was burning at her top speed. “Jupiter?” She saw the same black suit as her handler Mr. Darmon, but with green highlights and trimmings. “What are you doing here?” She clenched her fists.

“Felt you running. I was in the area. Thought I’d check in.” He sounded so sure of himself, and that unsettled her.

Why send someone slower? And more importantly, why Jupe? “You wanted your ass kicked is what you wanted.” She challenged.

“Is that any way to talk to a superior?”

Her blood went a bit cold at that. “A what?”

Jupiter laughed, “Turns out they were wrong. I always was faster than you.”

“You never made it past Mach 9. Do you think I’m an ido–” Astrid was interrupted by him running forward at her. She could track his motion with her eyes, but he was at least as fast as she was. Maybe a touch faster.

“37 these days!” He nearly landed a punch to her jaw. 

The Nomu fight was fresh in her mind. She dodged like her life depended on it. When the dodge succeeded she twisted and punched him square in the gut. 

He coughed and slowed considerably. He jumped back. “Fuck you.” He spat. “Well, top speed for my tier now is Mach 100. So we’ll revisit this later.” He ran off. Why had he sounded like that? He sounded like their handlers always did.

He was just one of them, and she wasn’t anymore… he was treating her as a potential threat because she was.

Astrid couldn’t take this shit anymore. She went back to the track and ran. And ran, and ran. She wanted to run until her legs were bleeding. She didn’t fucking care. She just needed to fucking move! She could feel the tears being ripped from her eyes.

“Ahhhhhh!” She screamed as she finally came to an unsteady and rushed stop in front of the machine. Expecting to see the number 30 proudly displayed.

Mach 25.9

“Fuck!” She screamed at the top of her lungs. She needed to get away. She ran as fast as she could in whatever direction she could.

She just needed to get away…

Chapter Text

Astrid wasn’t sure how long she’d spent running that day, but her legs had started to go numb. Halfway up Mt. Fuji was a genuinely terrible place for her body to be giving out on her. She wondered if she could make it down the mountain before she would have to stop.

The sun was going down… she had literally been running all day. The speedster couldn’t take it anymore. She flopped down into the snow with her arms out. She could see the steam coming from her legs melting the snow around them. Even the friction proof suit had started to see its limit during her little head-clearing-jog.

Now that she wasn’t moving, her lungs started burning. The harsh mountain air was stinging her lungs like a thousand tiny knives.

She rolled over onto her side and coughed, but she couldn’t manage to get any air to stay in her lungs. The cold slowly began to sap her quirk’s effectiveness. She was getting too cold too fast. “Oh my god… I’m going to die up here aren’t I?”

She found the thought weirdly amusing, but for the first time in a long time, also terrifying. She didn’t want to die up here. But her legs were fucking jello and her lungs were shot.

She flopped back into the snow. She was desperately trying to move, but she had to catch her breath first. But to catch her breath she needed to get out of the cold first. But to get out of the cold she would have to move. But to move she would have to catch her–

“You okay?” A voice came from the nearby path she could now see. 

“Peachy.” Astrid gasped out. “But if you wanted to help me anyway, that’d be cool.” She managed to say before seizing up from lack of oxygen.

The person came closer. “Maybe not the best time to be making jokes.” He came into view. He was in a large winter coat and black fluffy pants. His eyes were red like Bakugo’s and his hair was bright red like hers and Kirishimas. He couldn’t have been more than a few years older than her.

“Yeah, but laughter is the best med–” She started gasping for air. Unable to finish her sentence or breathe.

“Uh huh.” He didn’t sound amused. He scooped her up with a grunt.

She braced before he touched her legs and tried to just keep breathing. She didn’t like her legs being touched. And if he knew how much he was freaking her out–

“Sorry. Can I carry you a different way?” He asked.

“What?” 

“I heard what you were thinking.” He was still walking with her in his arms. “Sorry, I can’t really turn off my quirk.” He sounded like he’d explained this a lot. “I can hear anyone’s thoughts when the thought is about me.”

Astrid thought for a moment. “That sounds… loud.”

“It can be.” He smiled. “Why do you think I live up here?” He stepped over a snow covered root. “I’m Karma by the way.”

“I’m Takioka.” She decided she shouldn’t make him carry her differently. She had jello legs and he was being nice. She appreciated him doing–

“You’re welcome.” He said casually.

Astrid narrowed her gaze at him.

—

An hour later Astrid was sitting in a rocking chair, wrapped up in blankets, in new clothes, and sipping the greatest hot chocolate she had ever tasted in her life.

The thought reader guy was stoking the fireplace that was being used to warm up the surprisingly spacious cabin.

The speedster rocked back and forth in the delightful moving chair as she sipped her hot coco. She wondered how old the guy was. And if he–

“I’m 17.” He said with a smug tone, without turning around. He threw another log on the fire.

This guy was really starting to make her uneasy. “I’m 15.”

“From UA?” He picked up his own coco and sat in an adjacent chair.

“How did you know that?”

“I didn’t. Till now. But I suspected it from the fact that you have an actual hero costume. I know the designer.”

It hadn’t really occurred to Astrid that someone had to actually design and make her suit. She had just been happy it was hers. How does he know what designer made it? “Hey, how did–”

“I did one of my internship rotations with her.” He chuckled. “I don’t know anyone else who can make a suit like that.”

It’s weird that he can hear me. What if I think something he shouldn’t know?

“Relax.” He interrupted her thought. He set his mug down and stood up. “Come on.”

Astrid felt uneasy enough that she followed, not knowing what else to do. He led her into the last room she expected to see on a freezing mountain. A large greenhouse. 

The place was awash in color. Red fruits, pink flowers, green grasses, tall plants, short plants, there was hardly any space left without a plant of some kind.

“This place is…” she trailed off, not sure what to say. She had never seen most of these plants before.

“Yeah.” He grinned and leaned against one of the glass walls. “I want you to know you can chill. I just help with the plants. Whatever you are worried about me hearing, I don’t care. I came up here so I could keep not caring for a very long time.”

Astrid took a breath. Maybe you could stop responding to my thoughts out loud at least?

“You do… want me to respond to that one though, right?” For the first time he looked slightly unsettled. 

Astrid smirked. Yes, strange red haired boy who found me in the woods. That was absolutely a question.

“Stop that.” He glared at her, but he was grinning. He scoffed in surprise at Astrid’s next mental attack. “How did you roll your eyes at me mentally?”

She shrugged and sipped her coco innocently. She had no idea why her brain would feel any weirder than other peoples. Was it her quirk? Had the facility done something to her? Was it because she was feeling weird herself? She sighed. “What do you think?” She said to the mind reader.

“About what? Also, I’m not a mind reader.”

“You responded before!”

He shrugged and led her out of the greenhouse. “Must not have been about me.”

She forgot about that part of his quirk. 

“Most people do.” He said with a sigh.

Before Astrid had to figure out how to respond to that, the front door of the cabin opened.

The young man smiled. “Welcome home, Grandma.”

The old woman waved him off. “Welcome nothing. We’ve got to unload the truck before it gets too cold.”

His smile didn’t waver at all. He jogged over to the door, threw on his boots and headed outside.

His grandma walked into the house and threw her bag down on a chair. “Colder than hell out there I’ll tell ya!” The old woman waved. “Boy isn’t listening to me. Out there in a damn t-shirt in a blizzard…” 

Astrid chuckled at her calling the light snowfall a blizzard. 

The woman turned and finally noticed Astrid. “Hello. And you are?” She said while undoing her numerous scarves.

“I’m Takioka.” She set the mug down. “Astrid Takioka. I’m from…” She didn’t know if she could say UA. She ran off in the middle of the day and didn’t come back. She was already expelled.

“She’s from UA.” Karma said as he came in carrying two bags of fertilizer on his shoulder. He began heading for the green house.

“Ohhhhh.” The woman said like she had just been let in on a secret. “So what are you doing here?”

“I was–”

“You should be out helping unload the truck!” The woman finished her thought overtop of Astrid’s attempt to explain. “Kids these days.” She mumbled. “No respect for a good hard day's work and getting to…” Her mumbles became too quiet and incoherent to make out.

Karma walked back into the room. “Come on. I’ll show you.” He led her outside after she put her own boots back on.

The mountain air was chilly, and her borrowed clothes did little to cut through it.

“I’m cold.” She pouted.

“I bet.” He led her over to a very small truck loaded down with WAY to many bags of dirt. “That suit was probably the only reason you made it this far up the mountain.”

“My suit?” She shook her head. “It's just padded friction proof.”

He looked at her like she was from another planet. “A Mori hero costume will have only two features the day hell warms up.” He put a twenty kilogram bag of fertilizer in her arms. “Here.”

Astrid fell down. Luckily, there was snow and mud everywhere which broke her fall. “God that shit is heavy!” She rolled over and spit out what she prayed wasn’t fertilizer.

He reached down to help her up, laughing. “ Shit. I see what you did there.”

Astrid had made the pun on accident and the realization made her laugh as she accepted his hand. “That was an accident.”

“I didn’t think you fell on purpose.” He helped dust her off.

“I meant the joke.” She confessed.

“I know.” He laughed. “But was fifty pounds really too much?” He didn’t sound accusatory or like he was making fun of her. 

She felt embarrassed a bit either way. “I can do almost a hundred and twenty five with my quirk active.” She felt the need to convey. Then instantly began thinking how she could explain that she was feeling too tired and… happy? To use her quirk effectively. Was she happy right now? Was it this boy making her happy? She didn’t even know him.

He met her eyes. “Deep breath.” He demonstrated taking a deep breath. “You’re okay. You can get the door for me.” He picked up three bags himself.

Astrid took her breaths and then followed to help him open the doors to the house and greenhouse.

They did a few more trips before he spoke again. “It isn’t me by the way.”

“Huh?”

The two of them were standing out by the truck. He pointed out into the distance off the mountain. The lights of the city were flickering in the distance. “Look out there.”

Astrid examined the sight. The stars were a magnificent backdrop to the glittering city. She’d never seen so many stars. Not in the movies, not in real life… she didn’t know there were that many. “It’s pretty.” Was all she managed to say out loud.

He nodded. “It really is.” He put an arm around her when she shivered. “It isn’t me making you feel better. It’s taking a step away from it all, above it all. It’s a good feeling.” 

Astrid took a big breath of cold mountain air. “I like this.” 

“It’s an addicting feeling.” He pointed down into the city. “When it’s really clear you can see the Skytree right there.”

The Skytree? Astrid expected the memory of Mr. Darmon dangling her above the ground to punch her in the gut like it always did. But… it didn’t. The Skytree looked so different from the mountain. Far away. Small. Inconsequential. Never words she would have used to describe that place or event before.

She looked up at Karma. “What if I don’t want to go back?” She didn’t know if she wanted to not go back or not. Everything just felt too fucked. And this was nice.

Karma laughed. “Then you’d be me.”

His grandma called from inside. “Boy! Where is the rest of those bags! I know that truck isn’t empty! The last time you left those bags over night they…” She trailed off in her mumbling.

Karma smiled. “And not everybody likes the old lady as much as I do.”

Astrid struggled to pick up at least one bag so she could be helpful. It was a struggle. “How do you… put up with that?” She grunted out as she began moving the bag. No that she was any stranger to being bossed around by mean people.

Karma pushed the door open for her with his back. “She thinks nice things.”

Astrid hadn’t considered that.

—

Over the next three hours Astrid had gotten to pick fruit and vegetables, help chop things, and help peel potatoes for dinner. The meal was just wrapping up when Karma looked up from his plate and smiled at the old woman. “I think he’s just about here, Grandma.”

She pushed her chair back and stood up. “Bout time. Useless gerbil hasn’t shown up at a convenient time in all the years I’ve known him.” She went over to the stove and started water boiling in a kettle.

Karma winked at Astrid. “You relax and finish your food.” He got up and took his plate to the sink before walking over to the door and putting his boots on. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

Why would he wink at me? What does that mean? It was hit or miss in the movies what that meant. It could be anything. She caught his gaze before he walked out and he just chuckled.

Astrid took a deep breath. She’d had an amazing week with Deku before school had started up again. A whole week of play, and fun, and someone to fall asleep on. She let out a long sigh as the tears started to flow. She figured there would be a price to pay eventually. Gerbil could only mean one person.

Nezu was coming to expel her, maybe have her shipped back to the facility?

The door opened and indeed, Karma was leading Nezu into the cabin. He took off his coat and handed it to Karma. “Thank you, young man.” He scampered into the room and saw Astrid standing up from the table. “Ah. Miss Takioka, there you are.” He smiled.

Astrid said nothing. She knew better than to speak before being spoken to. However bad this was going to be, she just wanted it to happen already.

Principal Nezu walked into the kitchen. “Grandma. It is a pleasure to see your radiant face as always.”

The older woman looked a bit shy. “Oh you.” She waved him off with a smile (The first smile Astrid had seen her have). “The kettle is on.”

Nezu smiled and bowed politely. “I see. Well please sit. I know my way around the kitchen.” The principal began making tea. He spoke to Astrid still standing a meter or so behind him. “Miss Takioka, how has your visit to Mount Fuji been?”

Astrid’s throat tightened. Why was he messing with her? Surely he wanted this over. Then she remembered the trap he’d put on his desk specifically for her. He might be a sadist. “It’s been… fine, sir?” She didn’t know what answer was safe.

Nezu nodded as he climbed up on the counter to pull things out of the cabinets. “Good good. I am so glad you are well. When Mr. Aizawa called me, I feared the worst.” After securing a box of green tea, Nezu fell back onto his fluffy bottom onto the counter. He smiled at what he had acquired, and the old lady smiled at his antics (Two smiles for her now).

What was happening? She was feeling sick to her stomach. She just wanted to know what was going to happen to her.

Nezu continued as he placed the tea into the diffuser. “So you can imagine my relief when young Mr. Akiyama called me and said he had found you.”

Was this a show? Was he waiting until they were alone? She could feel her heart rate spike. She could run… her quirk was coming back. She could get away. Was that Karma’s other name? Fucking traitor. He’s going to get me killed. I hope he’s happy when my head end up on a–

“Wow!” Karma walked up to her with his hands up in a gesture of non violence. “Takioka, everything is okay.”

“What?” She snapped her eyes to him. She could put him right through the wall. She could get the vegetable knife in under a second. He’d be done f–

“There’s no need for any knives or wall smashing.” He chuckled.

She’d give him something to laugh about. Her fists clenched.

His face got more serious. “Takioka, please. I am not your enemy. I am not a threat. People who want to kill you don’t usually make you hot chocolate.” He had gotten much closer to her.

Something tugged on the borrowed pajama pants Karma had given her. She looked down to see Nezu. The principal handed her a cup. “Or tea.”

Astrid was confused. She let Nezu and Karma lead her over to the table to sit. 

As soon as everyone was sitting the old woman yelled from the green house. “Boy! I need help moving some things!”

Karma excused himself.

Astrid was alone in the cabin with Nezu. The only sounds were the crackling fire, his tea sipping, and distant muffled old woman swear words.

The principal set his cup down. “Miss Takioka, I know asking you to trust me is a tall order. As I know that that request has been followed by betrayal and pain an inordinate amount of times in your young life.” The principal’s face was a bit sad now. “But I am afraid I have little choice but to make that request of you.”

“What are you talking about?” Her trust was not something she had thought was even an element in this situation.

“I had hoped that three years as my student would allow you ample time to understand that you can count on me to support you.” He picked up his tea and sipped it. “But villains have attacked my school. And things are coming to fruition whether I wish to stop the gears turning or not. So I must advance our time table slightly, and ask you to take a leap of faith, Miss Takioka. I am asking for your trust. As your teacher and your ally.”

“Am I being sent back to the… Am I being sent home?” She corrected. It was all she really needed to know to determine her next move.

Nezu shook his head. “Not while I am drawing breath.” He set his tea down and hopped off his chair before scampering over to her and climbing in her lap to have this talk face to face. “Miss Takioka, when I allowed you to move into the dorms, I knew you had nowhere else to go.” Principal Nezu sounded serious. “And until that fact changes, or someone manages to take my school, your home will always be UA.”

Astrid couldn’t help but hug her principal. She began crying into his fur. Just like the night with Deku’s mom, another load bearing bit of trauma programming fractured. “Sir?”

Nezu smiled and hopped down off her chair. “Yes, Miss Takioka?”

“Can we go home?”

“Yes, Miss Takioka.” The principal sighed with what looked like relief.

—

Astrid had expected to hate driving through the countryside at the pace of a combustion engine. But not only was it a very peaceful and enjoyable experience compared to doing it at Mach 10, but Nezu apparently liked to push the little combustion engine to its limits. The speedster lost count of how many near crashes that the little truck was almost a part of.

Less than two hours later, she was being dropped off at her dorm. She jumped out of the truck and grabbed the bag Karma had packed her suit in. The speedster wondered if Deku would be awake. At half past midnight, she doubted it.

She wished she could run to her room without being noticed, but she was fully drained. She pushed the door open slowly.

“Guys! She’s here!” Kirishima yelled from the common area.

Astrid stepped inside and was met with almost the entire 1A class (with the exceptions of Bakugo and Fean) waiting for her. “Hi, guys?” What the hell were all of them doing there in the middle of the night.

Yaoyorozu, Uraraka, Tsu, and Ashido all ran up and wrapped the speedster in a tight group hug. Astrid’s first group hug, as a matter of fact. Normally it might have scared her, but in the strange mental state the mountain left her in, it really wasn’t so bad.

“Were you captured by villains?”

“Did you just run off in the middle of the day?”

“Where were you?”

“What happened?”

“Are you okay?”

Astrid looked through the crowd of her classmates until she met Deku’s eyes. She pleaded with him with her look to please help her.

Deku seemed to get the message and began making his way into the group. “Okay guys, okay, let’s let her breathe, okay?”

Everyone seemed to take a step or two back. Astrid smiled at the group, a shy and very nervous smile. “Hi… guys?” 

Everyone waited, so she continued. “I um, I went for a run. And ended up… kinda stranded. But um… Nezu came to get me. So, I’m uh, I’m okay.” She felt like her heart was going to explode. “What are you all doing here?”

“What do you mean?” Yaoyorozu said. “We were worried about you. When you ran off we texted everyone.”

“You’re all here for me?”

“Yes.” Satou stepped up. “And now that you're here, we can get eating.” He pointed to the kitchen where there were cupcakes and pizza.

She recognized the cupcake boxes. “From your parents' bakery?” Astrid whipped back around.

Satou grinned. “Yup! You should come by some time.”

Astrid grabbed a cupcake and began eating instantly. “I’ve been there a few times.” She said with her mouth full.

Satou looked confused. Then like something clicked. “Is your favorite flavor strawberry?”

Astrid nodded. “Mmm hmm.”

“Oh that explains a couple things.” The baker’s son said.

It took zero time at all for the rest of the group to dig into Astrid’s coming home feast.

Astrid actually managed to enjoy the quickly thrown together celebration. She was expecting so many horrible things… A pizza party was a very pleasant surprise. It surprised the speedster to find out the pizza was Yaoyorozu’s idea. Nothing that girl did made any sense. But… maybe she didn’t think as little of Astrid as the speedster thought.

The evening ended around 2:30 am, which was clearly past most of the kids' usual bed times. 

Parents picked up some, some walked home, and others were driven by Mr. Aizawa.

By 3 am the dorm had gone back to Deku and Astrid being its only occupants.

Deku stopped cleaning up for a second and walked up to her. “I’m really glad you’re okay.” He pulled her into a hug that he hadn’t been up for giving her in front of everyone. “We sleeping on the couch again, or are you thinking we might actually use our rooms?” He laughed and let her go.

Astrid liked Deku hugs. They worked almost as well as her sedative shot. “Couch, definitely. I just need to change, it might take me a minute though. My speed needs some sleep to recover, I think.”

He laughed. “So, do you mean a normal person's amount of time to change?”

She shoved him lightly. “Shut up.” She giggled. “I’ll be right back.” Astrid made her way up the stairs and over to the bedroom she practically used for storage at this point.

She pushed the door open and smelled burnt sugar. Astrid looked at her bed where Bakugo was laying. He was in cargo pants and a black t-shirt. “Bomb-boy?”

Bakugo stood up and walked over to her. She backed up a little, he walked further, she backed up, eventually the wall stopped her.

Bakugo didn’t stop until he was centimeters away from her. “Why the hell did you run off like that today, you damned brat?” His breath smelled minty and sweet. 

She couldn’t think about her answer with him so close to her. Why was he so close to her? “Answer me.” He said under his breath. 

“I… It was… I was…” Why couldn’t she breathe? What was he doing?

He placed a hand on the wall by her head and got a little closer. She could feel his chest brushing up against her own. “You’re a wreck, aren’t you.” It clearly wasn’t a question. “Is that why you ran?” That was though.

“I just… needed to get away. Kinda like I’m feeling the need to now.” She wanted some control of this situation back. Her chest felt weird and hot, and her knees were weak.

“You aren’t going to run.” He informed her.

Astrid almost growled. “What makes you think I won’t? I might even take you out the window for good measure.”

He leaned in and spoke his next words very quietly in her ear. She could feel his breath on her skin. It was warm and dizzying. “Because you would’ve done it already.”

Despite her desire to defenestrate him, Astrid moaned. Her legs gave out and she would have fallen to the ground if Bakugo hadn’t forced her to the wall with his body. “What… what the hell are you doing?” It killed her inside that she had practically whimpered the fucking question. She was gonna kill him. She wasn’t used to these feelings and it wasn’t fair.

Bakugo wrapped his other arm that wasn’t on the wall around her waist. He was almost holding her up on her toes now. As far as her balance was concerned, she was at his mercy. And later, she would murder him for that. But for now… he had leaned in so close that she could feel his breath on her lips when he spoke. “I waited here for you all fucking day. What the hell do you think I’m doing here?”

Deku’s voice came from downstairs. “Astrid! Do you want to watch Ocean Mysteries again or the shark one?”

Bakugo growled. His arm around her waist tightened and he forced her to the wall harder. His other hand went to her throat and then quickly down to her collar bones when she tensed up. 

He crashed his lips into hers.

Astrid always imagined her first kiss, (if it ever happened) would have been her standing in the rain after some cute person professed their love for her in a big dramatic gesture that would result in needing to book a new flight on a plane that she was late for. But she’d never even been on an airplane.

Her first kiss was apparently destined to be an explosive, red eyed boy that seemed to have self control issues in every area.

His kissing technique was not as sweet as he smelled. He was as aggressive as he was in classes. There was a low growl in his throat.

Astrid couldn’t help but moan into the kiss. As surprised as she was, the sensations were just a bit too enjoyable for her to think clearly. She hadn’t expected kissing to feel so… competitive. She smiled against his lips.

She wanted him as surprised as she was. One of her hands ended up tangled in his hair as she clung to him to stay standing, she grabbed a bit of it, smirked, and pulled. 

The desired effect was achieved. Bakugo seemed both encouraged and angrier. He pulled her off the wall and slammed her back into it before moving down her jaw to kiss her neck. 

He did not kiss her neck. ‘Did he fucking bite me?’ Her thoughts were getting fuzzy. Astrid sort of wanted him to bite her again. 

Deku’s voice came from less-far away. “Astrid, are you okay?”

Bakugo growled again and put a hand on her chest to keep her in place against the wall as he backed up. With his other hand he put a finger to his lips while giving her a threatening look.

Astrid was displeased. She had been enjoying the new activity. Why did he stop?

Deku’s footsteps were coming down the hallway. Astrid realized why Bakugo had stopped.

Bakugo’s hand on her chest turned into just a finger pointing at her. He met her eyes with his piercing red ones. “Mine.” Was all he said.

“Yours?” What the hell did that mean? That explained nothing!

He shoved her toward the door and pushed her out of it. The door shut behind her.

Deku rounded the last corner. “Are you okay? I heard a thud.”

Astrid still couldn’t really breathe. “I’m good…” She managed in a very small voice.

“I thought you were going to change?” Deku pointed at the same borrowed pajamas she’d been wearing when she got back.

“These are fine.” She panicked. “The shark documentary sounds good. Can we have popcorn? Do you need me to run and get some? I can go to the store if we need to. I don’t think they have popcorn at the convenience stores though. But we can look up where the popcorn factory is. I’d be happy to run to the popcorn warehouse if I need to, ya know?” This was as casual as she could manage (Which was not casual at all). 

Deku laughed it off thankfully. “I picked some up yesterday, we’re good. No running required.”

Astrid kept her face aimed away from him, desperate to hide her cheeks and ears.

Not a single thing that had happened in the last twelve hours had made any goddamn sense. 

But if the world had to be completely new… coco, pizza parties, and… whatever the hell had just happened upstairs, being her new reality? She was fairly certain she could get used to that.

Deku and her snuggled up and he assumed his usual position of having one arm over her with his hand resting on her back and her head on a pillow in his lap facing away from the TV. 

After a few minutes Deku said something he hadn’t said before. “You know, you smell nice.”

Astrid’s cheeks were burning. She could smell the slight scent of burnt sugar on her clothes as well. “Uh huh.”

Luckily the movie started and he didn’t press the issue further. 

Astrid’s last conscious thought was somewhere between. 

‘What a day…’ and ‘What the hell has happened to my life?’

Chapter Text

Katsuki sat down on the edge of the brat’s bed and held his head in his hands. He had never kissed a girl before. He hadn’t expected that to change tonight. It was that damn brat’s fault. If he’d slept he wouldn’t have lost his balance like that. “Fucking christ…” He muttered to himself. “She thinks I did that on purpose.” 

He stood up and began quietly pacing. The stupid fucks would be asleep soon and then he could get the fuck out of here. He hadn’t stayed up this late since he was 7 years old. (And that was only because someone said they could stay up later than he could) He had just wanted to ask her out. “Fucking Deku.” He worked to keep his voice down. “If he hadn’t come up everything would have been fine.”

He decided to see if the coast was clear. The future hero opened the door and looked up and down the hall. No sign of the nerd. Why hadn’t she come back yet? He needed to talk to her. ‘Mine’ Definitely was not conclusive enough for his liking. 

Had Deku been talking about watching movies? It’s after 3 am. What the fuck? As Katsuki worked his way slowly down the stairs as quiet as a (very volatile, Nitroglycerin covered) mouse, he did in fact hear a documentary playing. 

Katsuki didn’t hear anyone talking. He peaked around the corner to see if the nerd or the brat were still in the common area. 

There was an explosion at least the size of the dorm building oozing out of him. He was so dripping with sweat that he could blast away half the campus if he wanted to. 

She was cuddled up to that stupid bastard on the couch. She was practically laying on top of him! He was almost as angry as he’d been when the damned nerd got into UA! Images of breaking Deku’s ribs came to his mind.

When the fuck was the nerd planning on going home? He couldn’t be staying in the same dorm, could he? The school wasn’t going to let them sleep in the same building.

Katsuki made his way up the stairs and back into her room two floors away. His arms were tingling. He felt like he needed to obliterate something.

‘Mine’ may not have been super clear, but she still shouldn’t be doing… whatever the fuck he just saw downstairs. 

Katsuki sat back onto the bed and yawned. He could always go out the window, but he couldn’t cushion the fall. They would hear the blast. “Fuck.” Bakugo growled. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I fucking bit her…” He was mortified. It was a fucking reflex when she pulled his hair. It took him forever in the mornings and he’d just been so pissed. “I fucking bit her. Fucking damnit.” He flopped back onto her bed.

He thought of Deku with his hand resting on her. He’d been on his phone. Why hadn’t the dipshit just gone back to his own room? Why the fuck were they sleeping on the couch? How the hell hadn’t the stupid little fucks not gotten in trouble yet?

Katsuki knew one thing. It shouldn’t be those two down there together. It should be him and that damn– 

His phone buzzed. He grabbed it off the nightstand he’d set it on earlier and glared at the screen.

Worthless Fuckface: “Hey Kachan. I don’t actually know if you read my texts. But in case you do, Takioka made it back safely. If this text wakes you up, sorry! If you see it in the morning, goodmorning!”

Katsuki had not responded to one of that nerd’s texts in over two years (And that had been an accident). So he had no fucking clue why he chose to now. 

No. He knew. 

He was fucking pissed, and wanted proof Deku was the piece of shit worm he is.

Bakugo: “Did the brat make it to bed okay?”

He knew the little worm was going to lie. And when he did–

Worthless Fuckface: “Are you okay? You don’t sound like yourself.”

Bakugo: “How the hell do you know what I sound like you damned nerd? Oh right, because you’re a fucking stalker!”

If he couldn’t yell out loud, typing it would have to do.

Worthless Fuckface: “I just asked if you were okay.”

Bakugo: “Fuck off.”

Worthless Fuckface: “You texted me back, so I figured you wanted to talk. Sorry, Kachan.”

Katsuki’s heart was beating fast. Very few things made him angry enough that breathing and thinking became difficult. But that piece of shit Deku always seemed to. More than anything he wanted to go down there and smash that little nerd’s head through a brick w…

The explosive young man had been awake for nearly 22 hours.

Katsuki fell asleep

—

Bzzzzz. Bzzzz, said Katsuki’s 6 am phone alarm. His eyes snapped open. “No.” He grabbed the phone and shut off the alarm. He jumped up out of the bed. “No.” He could not have slept there (for three hours) all night.

He rubbed his eyes.

There was a recognizable woosh and suddenly he was not alone in the room anymore. “Goodmorning.” The smuggest sounding brat in the world chirped. She was in the middle of brushing her teeth.

He glared at her and clenched his fists. “What the fuck was that last night?” He growled out. 

Astrid vanished and returned without her toothbrush. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

He was going to kill her. She’d been down their with him (for three hours) ALL FUCKING NIGHT! “Where… is the damned... nerd?” He schooled his breathing into something resembling normal.

“Out for his morning run.” 

His morning run? She said that like she knew his fucking routine. Suddenly the young man remembered a critical detail he’d almost forgotten last night, and had fully forgotten this morning. Deku was fucking living here. How often did they sleep together? “His morning run?”

“Uh huh.” The brat was picking clothes out of her dresser. 

“So we’re alone?” He was seething. She was about to die. Deku was about to die. Everyone within a twenty mile radius was about to die.

“Uh huh.” The brat pulled out the components of her school uniform.

Bakugo used a small explosion and launched himself forward to slam her into the dresser, the wall, whatever she hit, he really didn’t care at this point. His hands made contact with the dresser, but not her.

“Someone is needy in the morning.” She said from behind him. “Classes start in ninety minutes though. Which means I have time to goof off. But do you?”

Katsuki knew she was fast. But he also knew she was fucking predictable. He exploded and lunged again.

She was behind him. So was the second explosion.

She was knocked into the dresser with a crash. 

Katsuki grabbed her before she could get her bearings and run. He picked her up and threw her onto the dresser in a sitting position, but mostly at the wall behind the dresser that her back and head slammed into. “You think you’re real fucking clever, don’t you? You damned brat.” He was not going to let her fuck with his head…

Her face was positively feral. Her golden eyes had lightning in them, but most importantly, a bloodlust he hadn’t seen before. He’d been guessing last night, but now he was pretty sure. The brat actually liked it when he was kicking her ass.

He might not have any real experience with girls, but he could work with violence. He grabbed her shirt and turned quickly to throw her across the room into the adjacent wall. He’d been slightly worried when he heard the plaster crack. But his worries quickly faded when he heard the brat’s stupid sing-song manic laughter.

“So… you want to warm up with a sparring match today?” She gave him a wicked smirk.

His vision blurred. She was moving him. He detonated.

Blue sky. He had exploded upward. He was accelerating downward. 

He blasted himself upwards to cushion the impact.

It still hurt when his back hit the ground. The wind was almost knocked out of him. The damned brat! She moved him again! “I’m gonna fucking kill you!!!”

He saw something in the air. It was the brat… she was falling. When he detonated he’d sent her straight up into the air.

Not good. He didn’t want to see what her hitting the ground after that would look like. She was currently higher than the eight story dorm building.

He started doing the math. If he timed it right, it shouldn’t be any problem at all to catch her out of the air. He just had to wait for the exact right–

“Kachan?” Deku’s voice shattered his concentration.

Katsuki turned to him, then remembered what he was doing and looked back up. “Not now, Deku!”

“What are you doing here this earl–?”

Katsuki launched. It wasn’t gentle, but he got his arm around the stupid brat’s waist and was traveling upward. So no splat at least. Two more blasts later he was tossing her stupid disoriented ass onto the dormitory roof.

Her laughter had intensified, as did the stupid fucking look on her stupid fucking face. “So do you want to talk about last night or not–”

He exploded and pinned her to the concrete roof by the head and arm in one move. “Shut up!” He shouted. He couldn't take this shit anymore. What the fuck was Deku going to think about him being here this morning? Fuck! Everything was fucked!

The brat was struggling, but she was weak. At least she’d stopped talking for a  minute. This had all gone shit fucking sideways. 

He flipped her over and straddled her midsection to keep her pinned. He sat back. “Hey brat! What the hell were you thinking taking us both out the window! You could have killed yourself!”

She stopped struggling when he said that. “Or you.” She stared up at him. The sunrise caught her dumb-ass sunset-colored eyes and made her look even more aggravating than usual.

“Enough.” He was out of breath. He hadn’t slept long, and he hadn’t eaten since breakfast the previous day. He couldn’t fight anymore until he ate something.

The brat squirmed. “Hmmmmm Grmmm.” She made her stupid little noises underneath him.

He was too tired to keep holding himself up. He fell forward and had to catch himself with his hands. This had the unintended side effect of bringing their faces super close again. He sighed, his exhaustion was overtaking him. “You stayed down there with him all fucking night…”

The brat squirmed against him, “It was like three hours.” She glared at him. The squirming and her glare caused feelings he was not fully ready for. But at least these feelings made some kind of sense. He should be horny right now. 

“That isn’t the point.” He growled in a sedate manner. His exhaustion was threatening to overwhelm him.

“Why won’t you kiss me again?” She whined.

I didn’t mean to kiss you the first time! I tripped, you stupid fucking bitch! I don’t know what the hell I’m doing and you being a little brat, and looking at me in that stupid fucking way is not fucking helping! Fuck you! He growled. He wasn’t saying anything. Because as true as all of that was, he couldn’t say any of it. What would a cool guy do? Who always wins and gets the girl? He thought of movies, TV, pros, any examples he could draw from. His conclusion…

He kissed her again. He didn’t bother to hold himself up. He was too fucking tired. But it made the brat moan when he pressed down on her with his body weight, so he must be doing something right. He usually was.

She bit his lip.

He jerked back and slapped her on instinct. You stupid little brat! He stopped before he said it. He wasn't going to keep her (and beat Deku) that way. “Stop.” Was all he could think to say. He was pretty sure he tasted blood.

The slap and the one word order had her looking up at him sort of dazed. He would have been worried he broke the little brat had she not been grabbing at his shirt trying to pull him into her harder.

Fuck… she actually knew what she was doing. It wouldn’t be long before she figured out he didn’t. He would just have to figure it out.

“Katsuki…” She said under her breath while she squirmed in light resistance against his body.

His breath caught. The young man froze. He hadn’t been prepared for her to say his name. Not like that, not whispered in his ear like she was asking him for something.

Asking him for what? He didn’t know so many things, and that was beginning to really irritate him.

This whole fucking thing was pissing him off. He felt his ears and cheeks getting warm. He needed to get the fuck out of here.

She did feel nice under him... In her own stupid way.

Chapter Text

Minoru looked out the window at Mr. Aizawa and Takioka. He wasn’t paying attention to the class on basic hero etiquette. Mr. Snipe wasn’t one of the female teachers, so his words went in one ear and out the other.

The grape headed boy only had a short period of time to stare at Takioka before Aizawa told her to start running around the track. Why the hell was he having her do that? Having the spicy girl work on the one thing she was good at and skip etiquette classes seemed like an insane choice to him.

Minoru hated the seating arrangements in his class. All the girls with the nicest boobs (that weren’t invisible) sat behind him. He looked out the window to see if he could see Takioka’s boobs one more time. But she was already running.

It wasn’t boobs, but the lightning when she ran was pretty cool. It was usually red with a hint of yellow. But it looked a little weird today. It looked kinda green for a second.

He blinked and it was back to just being yellow and a little red. ‘I definitely stayed up too late last night.’ The girls were pretty hot in their normal clothes and PJs though.

Ashido’s boobs had been particularly–

“What about you, Mineta?” Mr. Snipe interrupted his (very happy) daydreaming with a question.

“Huh?” Minoru blinked.

A few people in the class started giggling.

“Would you like to try answering the question?” Mr. Snipe continued. “When presented with a mother and child with the indicated injuries, who do you think you should speak with first?” He repeated the question to give Minoru a chance.

“Uhhhhh.” Minoru stammered. He couldn’t get the image out of his head of Ashido in a tank top from last night. And he hadn’t slept. What was the question? It couldn’t have been about boobs, could it have been?

He worked through the question in his head and examined the chalkboard, it was covered in injury descriptions. What did they have to do with the question? He needed context. “Who’s boobs are bigger?” That was definitely not the question to ask out loud.

Mr. Snipe sighed.

The girls groaned.

A few of the boys were laughing.

“You pervert!” Yaoyorozu yelled as a Russian nesting doll broke open upon impact with the back of his head.

“Ow!” It hadn’t hurt, his sticky balls had protected him. But it was the thought of pain that counted. “What was that for?”

“You’re a gross little weirdo and that joke was not appropriate for class!” The incredibly hot class rep said from behind him.

Minoru sighed. “Yeah yeah, whatever.” He was feeling a little embarrassed and would LOVE to just play off his idiocy as a dirty joke. At least then some of the guys would still respect him. He decided to look out the window like he didn’t care.

The fast girl’s lightning had that weird green hue to it for a few seconds again. Minoru sighed and rubbed his eyes before it returned to normal. He for SURE needed some sleep.

Chapter Text

Kazue ran a hand through his bright green hair trying to keep the sweat out of his eyes. Aizawa had pushed them to the brink today. The last time Kazue had pushed himself this hard… actually he couldn’t recall. Was this the hardest he’d ever trained?

He was sore, but he’d feel better after a shower. The former judo champion walked into the locker room. He’d waited until most people were gone. It wasn’t about being shy, he just preferred a mostly quiet locker room. Easier to find his zen.

He heard a voice coming from the showers. Was that a girl in here? He got closer until he heard a voice he for sure recognized as Bakugo’s.

“How about I just kill you here before anyone can respond to the blast?” Bakugo half growled and half yelled.

Kazue looked around the corner. 

Bakugo had Takioka up against the wall by the throat.

Kazue knew Bakugo was a bit competitive, maybe an asshole, but for some reason he expected better from him than assaulting a girl. Time to kill him. Kazue thought to himself. No. But he did have to stop him.

Takioka smirked before kicking off the wall and punching Bakugo in the face.

Kazue ducked out of sight. ‘Was she smiling?’

“Say it with your hands, coward!” Takioka cackled like a maniac.

There was a small controlled blast, then a thud.

Kazue heard… consensual struggling?

Okay. He didn’t know if anyone was in danger or not, but he knew it wasn’t his place to interrupt them from… uh… that.

It didn’t surprise him that the two lunatics found each other. It did surprise him that they were that violent even when they were doing… whatever they were doing. They’d clearly been enjoying themselves, but it just looked like a fight to Kazue.

This school was fuckin’ weird. He’d just have to shower at home.

Chapter Text

The quirk counselor wrote something else on his yellow legal pad. Denki sighed. “Can I go back to class now?”

The mental health professional (A balding man in his fifties) looked at Denki with the same pitying look that everyone had been. His friends. His parents. “Young man, you did what you had to do. You have nothing to feel guilty about.”

Why did everyone think this was about guilt? If he hadn’t done what he did at the USJ, Satou and Kirishima might be dead. The villains had elected to fight. “I don’t feel guilty.” He tried to explain.

“Well, it’s natural if you feel some amount of guilt.” The man nodded like he had cracked through to something.

Why couldn’t they ever listen to the words he was saying? “You told me I didn’t need to feel guilty. I don’t.”

“Well, young Kaminari, if it is not guilt. What is weighing you down?”

“I fucking killed fifteen people!” He shouted. He bounced in his chair nervously. “I’m sorry for yelling. I just… Why does nobody understand that it hurt?” 

“In what way are you hurting, young man?” The guy wrote something else down.

“I felt them die!” Denki crumpled in on himself on the couch. The therapist's office suddenly seemed too big and too small at the same time. 

“You felt them… die?” The therapist's pen scratched on the paper, but Kaminari had his eyes closed.

“The spark…” His sobbing was ugly and uncontrollable. “There’s this… spark. This… thing, people all have…” He didn’t want to talk about this shit. “I can feel it… not much. I hardly noticed it growing up, it's so small…”

“Young Kaminari, I think that–”

“I hadn’t noticed how clear it was. But when I used my quirk…” It got so much clearer. “I could feel all fifteen of them in the water. And then… they were gone. Extinguished.”

“I have some grounding exercises I’d like to try.” The man set his notebook down.

Denki felt numb, but he sat up anyway. “I felt them go out…”

“Kaminari.” The therapist moved into his eye line.

Denki blinked. “Yeah.”

“You experienced something unique, and profoundly awful. But you are not the first that has happened to.”

“I didn’t think I was special. It just… it hurts…”

“It is special, Kaminari. No one has ever been exactly where you are. This moment, in this office, no one has ever been in exactly your shoes.”

This was new… This was the first time anyone had been right here in his position, with his exact circumstances. Does that mean–

“Would you like to know what that means, Kaminari?”

Denki nodded.

“It means you get to decide what happens past this point. You get to decide what a life after this horrible thing is going to look like. And it could be anything.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” The man smiled seemingly genuinely. “And isn’t that exciting?”

Chapter Text

Shouto walked out of the front gate of the school. It was a Friday, so the hospital's visiting hours would be limited. He often didn’t make it in time on these days, and the thought distressed him. 

The future number one hero watched his classmates grouping and walking home together. They lived in a different world. He wondered how many of them would wash out this year. A few for sure. The purple kid, and the girl who keeps running into walls for example.

The walk to the hospital helped him avoid his house for a bit longer, even if he only got a few minutes with his mom.

There was a little girl crying about twenty meters ahead of him. Was a child in danger? He had to intervene. The little girl with the pink bow in her hair came into view. She was still screaming and crying.

“There there, small child.” Shouto patted her on the top of the head.

“Ow.” The little girl said and took a step back from him.

Oh god. Had he just assaulted a child? She said ‘Ow’. Should he attempt first aid? His expression was one of paralyzed shock.

“You’re from the hero school, right?” The little girl sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve. She was getting her shirt filthy.

Shouto panicked further. And she knows I am representing UA. I’m going to get the school in trouble if my delinquent behavior keeps up. “I– I am.” He choked out, confessing his affiliation to the eight year old. He would surely regret that.

The girl wasn’t crying anymore. Her head seemed fine. “My kitty climbed this tree and can’t climb down. Can you please help me Mr. hero boy?”

Shouto let out the breath he’d been holding. His head pat must not have been that hard. Cat in a tree? Trivial. “Yes. I can help you, little girl.” He looked up and saw the cat. It did not seem distressed. It appeared to be asleep.

“Thank you!” The girl smiled up at him. “Thank you!”

Shouto grunted and walked over to the base of the tree. He put his hand on the ground and aimed at the cat. He created a slow moving, blunt, ice pillar to knock the cat out of the tree.

“MEOW!!!” Direct hit. The cat was falling.

Shouto dove and caught the feline in his arms and secured it around the middle so it couldn’t escape.

“MEOWWWW!!!” The cat was clearly unhappy. It displayed this displeasure by scratching his arms, his face, his shirt, whatever its little paw-knives could reach.

Shouto picked up the ball of rage and approached the girl. “Your cat.”

The little girl grabbed the creature and it did not harm her in any way. It made soft purring noises. “Thank you Mr. hero boy!” The girl ran off.

Animals are good judges of character. The cat hated him. It knew. The little animal knew there was nothing but darkness in his veins. His father had made sure of that.

Shouto sighed when he checked his phone. He would never make it to the hospital on time. He should text his big sister and see if she needed help running any errands on his way home. He would need to stop for alcohol wipes for the scratches anyway.

“Yo! Todoroki! Wait up!” A voice came from someone jogging down the road. It was the young man with the bright green hair that sat behind him in class. The one that wore a black gi as a hero costume. He caught up. “You walk home past Naboo intersection, right? Want some company?”

“No.”

The judo boy shrugged. “Would you mind some company?”

“No.” Shouto began walking. 

His classmate fell into step beside him. “I’m Kazue.”

“I am Shouto Todoroki.” 

“Todoroki? Like the hero…” Kazue tapped his chin. “What was his name?”

“No. Nothing like him.” It was always the same. People took one look at him and just knew he was no better than his good for nothing da–

“Cool.” Kazue shrugged. “Anyway, mind if I ask you something?”

“A little.”

“Cool.” Kazue nodded. “You seem scared of your quirk.”

“That wasn’t a question.” Shouto’s breath caught. “Why would you say that?”

Kazue put up his hands and smiled. “My quirk almost killed me as a kid. I just… I get it.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“Just, in case you ever wanted to talk about it. I got your back.”

“I can watch my own back.”

Kazue stopped saying anything after that. He just followed Shouto as far as Naboo intersection in silence.

It was nice. Shouto indeed did not mind the company. Though he had forgotten to tell Kazue hadn’t minded. He’d been too caught up in the pleasant not-talking. He would have to write him a letter of thanks at some point. 

Chapter Text

Mrs. Satou called from the kitchen. “So you took them to school for her? Or you brought her here?” She asked her son who was out working at the counter.

Rikidou was kneading bread early Saturday morning. “Neither. Let me start over. There is a girl in my class named Astrid Takioka. She’s the fastest student that has ever enrolled, I think.”

His dad scoffed. “So you’ve been sneaking all of the strawberry pastries to some girl at school?” His dad raised an eyebrow and he took on a suggestive tone. “You sound quite fond of her.”

“It isn’t like that! I didn’t even know she was taking them!” He slammed the dough back down with a huff. They only ever heard half of what he had to say. The rest was just noise.

Mrs. Satou walked in carrying a tray of goodies to be displayed. “Either way, I made a new batch of the strawberry thumbprint cookies. So it’s okay now.” She set the tray on the table. “Care to sample–” She stopped talking when she glanced down at the tray. “I could have sworn there were more cookies on this tray…”

Rikidou sighed. “Just… I’ll text her. Just give me a second.”

Satou: “Takioka, you can’t take the cookies without asking.”

A few moments passed. There was a woosh. The store's front door bell rang out as the door closed. Rikidou looked over at what had appeared on the table.

Satou: “Where did all that money come from??? The cookies only cost like two hundred yen!”

No response.

Satou: “Takioka?”

Satou: “Takioka!?”

Chapter Text

After breakfast on Saturday, Astrid was running faster than she ever had. Every step around the track felt faster than the last. Why the fuck was she running? There was no school on the weekends. She shouldn’t care this much.

She felt herself soaring. She thought of Katsuki slamming her into a wall. Her blood boiled and she took in a deep breath of what HAD to be mach 30 air. She knew in her bones that she’d never run this hard.

She ran harder. She thought of Deku’s protective hand on her back as she slept. His smell and his fluffy dark green hair. His emerald eyes looking at her with concern and patience. She ran harder. 

“Ahhhh!” She screamed. She wasn’t accepting another fucking 29.9. The number had burned into her fucking brain. She ran and she ran and she ran. But she couldn’t crack mach 29.9. NOTHING she did got her past that fucking number and back to her peak.

She felt like she had been running harder and faster every day. But the number never fucking changed.

It wasn’t for school. It wasn’t for Aizawa. 

Mach 29.9 was not her best. She’d gotten complacent. Mach 30 was her best. She needed to know she could get back there.

“AaaahhhhHHHHHHHH!!!!” Her heart was pounding. She felt like she was going to burn through the atmosphere. At this speed she wondered if she could keep up with Jupiter and their new found rank.

She had gotten 29.9 all week. 

And she definitely felt like she was going faster this time. She had to be.

She stopped. Wind rushed past her as the air caught up with the absence of her running path. There was a crack of thunder as the 2 mile track had the air rush back into it.

She caught her breath before going to check the screen. Once she saw the 30, she could go back to relaxing and–

TOP SPEED : Mach 29 . 9

“Fuck!” Astrid screamed. She needed to take this out on someone. Where the fuck was Bomb-Boy on Saturdays?

Astrid took off her speed tracking bracelet and ran off looking for some stress relief.

Chapter Text

Sora had gone through her third cup of coffee that Sunday night. The clock informed her (unhelpfully) that it was 4:02 am. 

The Sports Festival would be starting in the morning. She had needed to fill out over 72 separate forms to be allowed to use all of her gear.

She leaned back in her office chair. The black haired girl rubbed her left leg. The Nomu had shattered almost every bone in it. Recovery Girl had done wonders, but it still ached. She’d had to halt her physical conditioning for two weeks…

She was going to fall behind the class if she couldn’t make a showing at the festival.

She weighed her options. Two hours of sleep before getting up for class? Or skip sleep altogether and warm up her muscles for the day?

She had had to sleep an upsetting amount while she’d been in the hospital. She almost hadn’t survived the USJ.

But she did survive it. She held off something that All Might had been necessary to defeat.

She was able to do this. 

She started the coffee pot she kept in her room. While it brewed she wrapped her wrists with her guards.

She let out a breath and began her morning routine.

Left jab, right cross, round kick. She breathed in. “One.”

Left jab, right cross, round kick. Her leg was already killing her. “Two.”

Left jab, right cross, round kick. Her heart rate began to climb, either from the caffeine or the workout. She couldn’t tell the difference anymore.

—

Left jab, right cross, round kick. Her heart was thundering and her muscles were screaming. “Three hundred.” She dropped to her knees. Her breath was short, but she felt the pleasant numbness again. The hospital bed had been a nightmare.

She looked at the clock. 5:47 am. She still had time for an ice bath before she had to leave.

Today was the day. 

Today she was going to show everyone who she was.

Chapter Text

Mirio always enjoyed the first two days of the festival when the first years did all of their events. The tenacity and excitement was always something that got him pumped up for hero studies. The leader of the big three was always looking for sources of inspiration.

The muscular blond boy found his seat in the stands next to his classmates. Tamaki had their headphones in, but removed them when Mirio sat down. “Hey Mir.”

“Hello!” He slapped his somber friend on the back. “This is the best part of the festival every year! Don’t you think so?”

Nejire, the girl next to him with the long blue hair giggled. “I agree. Especially when there is drama!”

“This whole event is dramatic.” Tamaki said in a whisper.

“You got that right!” Mirio agreed, but with a very different tone. He loved a little dramatic flair. 

The announcements began.

Present Mic’s voice filled the stadium. “Hello guys, gals, and nonbinary pals! We have quite the competition planned for you today! So why don’t we tune in to see what the first challenge will be!”

Midnight’s voice echoed through the speakers next. “We’ll spin the spinner and find out what our first game will be!” She grabbed the wheel and spun it. “The suspense is killing me!” She stalled, she likely spun it harder than intended. The spinner finally came to a halt. “It looks like our first challenge will be… King of the Hill!”

The crowd cheered. Mirio leaned forward. “This should be fun.”

“It favors the defensive types.” Nejire chimed in. “This one is going to get bloody fast.”

Tamaki grumbled. “I hate this. Do I have to be here?”

Mirio put an arm around his friend’s shoulders. “No! We GET to be here!” He gave his friend a casual and comforting hug. “Come on. Let’s take bets.”

“Gambling isn’t very heroic.” Nejire teased. “My hundred yen is on the exploding boy from the internet video.”

Tamaki shook his head. “I can’t believe you two would participate in such a shameful activity. Betting on your younger classmates is shameful.” He leaned forward to see the first years. “Hundred yen on the fast girl. The one that's been using the track outside all week.”

Mirio scratched his chin. “Did you guys hear there was a quirkless girl down there that made it into the hero course?”

Tamaki shook his head, as did Nejire.

Mirio nodded. “I think I’m putting my hundred yen on her.”

“You like losing, huh?”

Chapter Text

Astrid stood impatiently behind the chalk circle on the sports field. She stood in a circle with  one hundred and forty-two other students (She’d counted. Twice). ‘The hill’ was a tiered concrete structure made by Cementos. It reminded the speedster vaguely of a wedding cake. The first tier of the cake tower was painted red. It rose two meters off the ground, with two meters of standing room before the next section. The next level was two more meters up and two more meters in. This continued until the cake tower was twenty meters tall and two meters wide at its tallest point. So there were ten levels of concrete cake.

“ALLLL RIGHT COMPETITORS!” Present Mic’s voice boomed. “Remember that once you are in the red zone you can’t leave it without throwing in the towel! That means that once you start charting, you have got to KEEP charting! Cause once someone knocks you back out of the circle THAT’S IT! The game will end when everyone but one person is left in the circle! The longer you stay on the hill, the higher your score! So let’s have a good clean game!”

Simple enough. Get to the top of the tower, push people off until no one was left. She figured some students might be able to make this difficult for her, but it couldn’t possibly be that many of them.

She figured Bomb-Boy might contest her pretty quick. But the idea excited her far too much for her to be concerned with the competitive implications of that.

“GO!” Their English teacher shouted both with the microphone, and presumably his very loud quirk.

Astrid yawned dramatically. This was going to be fun. She ran to the top of the tower. She could already see Katsuki flying through the air, haloed by light from the explosions he was producing.

She smirked. The speedster had been running nonstop all week, the crowd had her terrified, and Katsuki had her feeling some sort of way, which all added up to her quirk burning at a crisp Mach 30. 

‘29.9’ the thought invaded her mind.

Astrid shook her head. Katsuki would be at the top in a minute, he was moving through the air pretty quick (relatively speaking).

She looked over the other edge of the tower to see who the front runners were in second three of the game. She could see Todoroki had already begun his ice attack. That might be an issue in a minute too.

She briefly wondered if she would be able to make it to the crepe stand downtown before the two of them got her? She hadn’t been this fast in a while. A couple seconds felt like an eternity.

She looked down at the speed tracker on her wrist. She bet that Aizawa could tell her location. He’d disqualify her if she left for a snack, even if no one saw her leave.

“God this shit is stressful.” She looked back at Bomb-Boy. He’d gotten way closer than she thought. And she was definitely not slowing down. He must be moving at absurd speeds.

She glanced back to see that the ice had made it halfway up the tower. She chuckled. Their teacher did say to make an impression. And class 1A was certainly doing that. She took a gander at the front runners all around the tower. She saw a lot of her classmates. “Whoo! You go guys!” She cheered. She knew they couldn’t hear her. But she was bored and excited all at the same time. It was a terrible combination sometimes, but it bothered her less in this moment.

She turned to Katsuki to get ready to fight. However, it was not Katsuki she met. It was the Mach 22 detonation speed shockwave he produced.

The force hit her like a wall. (A wall that could move at Mach 22.)

The air left her lungs. It was then that Astrid realized she’d been expecting him to attack upon arrival, not when he was still two levels down. ‘Bastard.’

She went flying back. She had enough experience to know what it felt like when she was about to be launched all the way out of the arena.

So it was both a relief and a surprise to realize that she only went a meter. Her back hit something cold that hadn’t been there before.

Ice.

Then she fell onto her face on the small concrete pad that made up the top of the tower. The ice moved up higher and she was laying in its shade.

She could hear unmuffled sounds… The ice shouldn’t have been that fast… She heard a nearby explosion. ‘Oh my god I need to move.’ Was the last thought she got to process before the ice above her exploded into a thousand bits.

Her boyfriend (was he her boyfriend?) landed in front of her with a snarl, his face contorted in a look of pure bloodlust. He picked her up by the front of her gym shirt.

“Hi sweetie.” Astrid teased him and smiled as she held onto his wrist. She was impressed he could lift her with one–

Her chest nearly caved in at the close range blast. She felt it every fucking bone. She went flying back, away from him and down. ‘That son of a bitch!’ She tried to say, but could only think as her lungs didn’t know how to be lungs at the moment. She figured he’d pull his punch a little!

Astrid’s back slammed into the concrete. She heard something (more likely a couple somethings) crack when she hit. Christ, she missed her suit already. She forgot what getting slammed into concrete raw felt like, even though it was how she’d grown up training.

She’d gotten spoiled by her hero costume’s impact absorption real quick. She tasted copper. She gasped in a little air as her lungs remembered their job. “I’m gonna kill him.” She staggered to her feet.

She heard blasts going off above her, and the twinkling sound of Todoroki’s ice being shattered. The air smelled weird. There were so many sounds.

Astrid felt a slap on her back. She tried to turn to see her attacker, but she couldn’t. No matter how hard she ran she just… floated? ‘Oh shit.’

Uraraka yelled from behind her. “No hard feelings, right Takioka?”

Astrid could do nothing but helplessly drift off of the hill until Uraraka released her from her zero G quirk. Astrid decided she might need to kill her too.

“And we have our demon of speed, our first to the top, eliminated in the first eleven seconds! What a shake up folks!” Present Mic announced. “And Ashido takes a tumble after a kick from our other speed hero Iida!”

Astrid rolled to her feet in the grass and shrugged off the loss. It was time for pastries.

Chapter Text

This was it. This was the first real moment of Tenya Iida’s life. Everything had been leading up to this.

The future leader of the Iida Hero Agency turned to his right and saw Ashido talking to a young man in 1B with blades coming out of his face. To his left he saw Kaminari.

His yellow haired friend looked more nervous than Tenya had ever seen him look. ‘Should I do something? Say something? My friends are always there for me. Do I want to be the kind of hero that ignores a friend in distress?’ He could not quell these distracting thoughts.

Today was supposed to be about making a real name for himself. Tenya decided he would simply have to talk to Kaminari after the game. There would be time then. For now. He needed to–

“GO!” Present Mic announced.

Run! Tenya ran hard. He’d kept his engines warmed up, so making it to the first level would be–

Explosions began detonating to his left in rapid succession. 

Bakugo is surely going to be a tough contender when Tenya made it up there. He would need some sort of pl–

To Iida’s right, a few meters past Ashido skating on Acid, was a wall of ice. Todoroki was soaring to the top of the tower on a frozen pillar of his creation.

Tenya could no longer keep his thoughts internal. “Oh my!” He dodged a falling chunk of ice. “At this rate the whole structure will be–!”

The entire section of the tower Iida was on was awash with mushrooms in an instant. “What is this nonsense?!” He shouted as he tried to yank mushrooms off his gym clothes. He did not like these sensations one bit. 

The speed hero (in training) saw Ashido sliding to him on a trail of acid. “Hey Iida! Hope your ready for a figh–”

Before she could finish Iida twisted his back and hip to load his left leg like a spring behind him. Using the torque from that and his engines he kicked his pink friend in the side.

Luckily, Ashido blocked at the last second to minimize damage. But she went flying off the tower all the same.

“And we have our demon of speed, our first to the top, eliminated in the first eleven seconds! What a shake up folks!” He heard Present Mic in the background. “And Ashido takes a tumble after a kick from our other speed hero Iida!”

“My apologies, Ashido. But today is about more than classroom friendships.” He spoke solemnly to himself. ‘What am I willing to do to succeed? Am I being heroic right now? Were the pros watching for that too? What if I’m failing already?!’ His thoughts began to spiral.

The girl who had likely produced the mushrooms was jumping on them to get up to him. “How do you like my menagerie?” She gestured to her fungal carpet across this part of the hill. “Feeling okay?” She asked in a sing-song voice.

Tenya hadn’t noticed but… his lungs were burning more than they should be. He could run twenty miles before they hurt this badly. He squinted at the air… “Spores.” He coughed.

“Yeah, they sure do a good job making it hard to–”

Tenya kicked the young lady in the head. He felt terrible about it. He’d been aiming for her torso, but she had been shorter than he was used to.

She went tumbling down the hill. She should be okay. He wasn’t wearing his armor. So… yeah, she’d likely be fine. He tried to shake it off.

“Iida? Right?” A voice that seemed deep, but bright came from behind him.

Tenya whipped around. It was the boy who sat in the back of class. What was his quirk? He hardly used it in classes, mostly he relied on his Judo skill. “You’re Kazue.”

The green haired boy smiled. “That’d be me.” He clapped his hands together. “Ready to do thi–”

Kicking while they were talking had served Tenya well in his last two fights. This time however he did not make contact and had to twist back into a fighting position.

Kazue had dodged low. He jumped back to his feet and grinned wildly. “Man this is fun! Right?” He asked. He sounded genuine.

“This is not meant to be fun!” Tenya shouted (though he was having a bit of fun). He threw another kick and Kazue dodged backwards.

Kazue laughed. “It still kinda is though.” The judoka ran forward and Iida attempted to jump back, but Kazue had a grip on his shirt.

Tenya engaged his engine in his left leg to counter, but it appeared Kazue had predicted this.

Kazue used the momentum of the kick against Tenya to send him off the hill. 

“OOOoooo! A craaaaazzzy counter from our own Judo olympic champion KAZUE!!!!”

The failed successor of the Iida Hero Agency thudded off the concrete platforms as he tumbled out of the circle at high speed.

Tenya skidded to a stop in the grass on his back. He looked up at the clear blue sky. “I’m sorry.” He said to his ancestors. “I failed you…”

Chapter Text

The ‘Most promising student’ in the support course, Mei Hatsume had been waiting for this moment all year. We’re going to show them. We’ll show them ALL! She half thought-half mumbled to her beautiful babies. She had studied up on many of the top students' quirks before deciding what babies to bring. Though there obviously wasn’t time to check them all. She had to sleep sometimes after all. 

She looked to her right. The bird guy and the frog girl were both waiting for the announcement to begin. They looked so serious for this being a school event. Manga looked like they always did when they were nervous. Their speech bubbles just had squiggles and closed eyes.

She turned to her left. Wow. Whoever this girl was, she was the picture in the dictionary next to the word serious. Mei watched to see if she blinked, but she didn’t. What Mei DID see was that the black haired girl was wearing as much gear as she was.

Mei didn’t recognize this girl from any of her shop classes. Where had she gotten all of that? It certainly hadn’t been made in the school. She would have heard of at least some of it. It couldn’t have all been outsourced. You could always tell when a designer hadn’t met the client, and there was no sign of that. Fascinating. She thought/mumbled.

Mei smirked. Time to show off a little. She zoomed in to make sure the sponsors were watching. Just gotta make the babies look good, and we’re golden.

“GO!”

Mei had every intention of building a better, safer world. And she intended to do that with her own blood, sweat, and a .50 caliber grappling hook packed with enough punch to go through a meter of solid steel!

She activated her baby and it launched the spike into the 4th deck of the concrete hill. She clicked the next button and her baby yanked her by the waist higher onto the structure.

She heard banging and saw a tower of ice exploding out from other parts of the hill. She was a little bummed she hadn’t been put near ice boy. She had babies to show off with that quirk! The idea of those sponsorships had her mouth watering.

Mei landed on deck 4. The bird and the frog were right behind her.

Crack! Mei got hit in the leg so hard she thought Manga had attacked her. But when she turned around it was that gadget girl! “Hello! Can I ask where you got that gear?” She asked, throwing a grenade.

The girl with eyes as black as her hair did not answer. She did however kick the grenade out of the air and into the crowd below. 

Mei hoped that the sponsors could see the number of people that sticky bomb likely just subdued! It was so exciting!

“ And we have our demon of speed, our first to the top, eliminated in the first eleven seconds! What a shake up folks!” Aizawa interrupted her advertising. “And Ashido takes a tumble after a kick from our other speed hero Iida!”

The black haired girl ran forward and tried to wrap a wire capture device around Mei.

Mei pole vaulted back (and up one level) with the help of another of her precious babies. She drew her net gun and fired at the other girl.

The other girl cut the net apart with a knife Mei hadn’t seen her draw. 

It isn’t your fault babies. I should have brought the titanium net. Mei jumped in the air and let her jet-pack baby do their job. She hovered just out of range of the girl’s atta– “AHHHH!” Mei fell out of the air. That girl had thrown a knife and broken one of her babies!

Mei twisted in the air like a cat (thanks to her Gyroscopic Lumbar Support System (patent pending)) so she could land on her feet. She glared at the girl staring her down with another throwing knife. Okay. You want to play. Lets play.

Mei activated her most precious babies. 4 drones detached from her backpack and zipped toward their gadget laden target. I’ll show you how great my babies are!

The girl jumped back and drew a batton. “This should be fun.” She spoke for the first time.

  “OOOoooo! A craaaaazzzy counter from our own Judo olympic champion KAZUE!!!!” Aizawa’s voice rang through the stadium.

The girl took this as an opportunity to attack. She threw a knife at one drone and (finding it ineffective) she proceeded to beat another one with her batton. “These things are incredible!” The girl yelled as she smashed another one. 

Mei was feeling some very odd emotions. On one hand, people complimenting her babies was something she treasured. On the other hand, the girl was brutalizing her babies. Today was turning out to be a real mixed-bag.

While the girl killed her beautiful babies, Mei looked down to see who was making their way up. Before she could really gain any information though, she saw Manga drawing in a deep breath. “Oh shit!” She ran, sprinting right past the girl and the drones.

Chapter Text

Tooru had considered not participating in the sports festival at all. If she was being honest with herself, she hadn’t even wanted to come back to school. Midoriya had been so brave that day, so were Tanaka and Todoroki. So many of her classmates seemed unfazed by the whole thing on the outside. But it had only happened two weeks ago.

She looked to her left and saw Bakugo on the other side of a couple of kids from class 1B laughing and talking excitedly to each other. 

Ever since those guys had tried to kill them, she had had to struggle for every ounce of hope. And she was doing it. She was trying with everything she had to not let this ruin things for her. And over the last two weeks she usually won that mental battle.

But it wasn’t supposed to be a battle! She found herself resenting the laughter of the 1B kids next to her. Not what they were theoretically laughing at. No. That wasn’t what she was getting upset with. It was the fact that it sounded so easy … for them.

Tooru had never resented laughter before. She took a deep, slow breath. And she wasn’t going to start now. “Destroying happiness doesn’t create it.” She whispered one of her many mantras to herself. She wished Shouji was there to tell her ‘good job’ for winning her mental fight.

Since he wasn’t, she decided to imagine him telling her she did good. Maybe with a thumbs up?

“GO!”  

Tooru yelped. “AH!” The booming voice had startled her. Everyone around her took off for the hill. Kids were getting tossed out of the circle left and right.

Bakugo began blasting his way up the hill. Tooru tried not to cry out when Todoroki iced the other side of the tower. She also did her best to contain herself when the side just to her right got covered in mushrooms barely two moments into the game.

Everyone here was so powerful…

Tooru took a deep breath. What would she tell Shouji if she just gave up because she was scared? What was the point of all the help he gave her if she wasn’t going to do everything she could do as well?

She took off her uniform, all except her invisible bodysuit. “Okay. Stealth mode. I can do this.”

“And we have our demon of speed, our first to the top, eliminated in the first eleven seconds! What a shake up folks!”  Was Takioka already out? “And Ashido takes a tumble after a kick from our other speed hero Iida!” No! Ashido! 

Tooru’s thoughts were speeding up. Her heart was pounding. Combat training hadn’t felt like this? Was it the crowd?

A drop of rain hit her wrist. She looked up. The sky was completely clear. 

The ninja girl with the animal ears from 1B tumbled most of the way down the hill before catching herself by driving her sword into the cement. Holy shit. The sight was cool enough that Tooru almost snapped out of whatever the hell she was feeling.

She needed to do something. She tore her eyes away from the ninja. Tooru ran forward into the circle, but the moment she did she was surrounded by an invisible hero’s worst nightmare… smoke. It was all she could see. Where had it come from? It had to be the ninja girl, right?

“OOOoooo! A craaaaazzzy counter from our own Judo olympic champion KAZUE!!!!” Thank god Present Mic was finally here. Tooru didn’t know why she was so thankful for him though.

“You think this smoke is going to stop me, Hinata!” A voice that Tooru didn’t recognize called out.

Tooru heard the word BAM! And felt the ground shake violently.

Before she could really catch her breath from that (Not that the smoke would allow any breath catching) there was a loud rumbling. Tooru could feel the ground shaking under her feet yet again. Then it happened two more times. 

The sound of concrete and metal breaking each other vibrated her bones.

What was a man doing out here? Wasn’t this supposed to just be training? Tooru couldn’t breathe. She felt like the smoke was going to drown her.

“Now I’ve got you!” The man said.

Tooru wasn’t on the sports field anymore. She was standing in the rain. The torrential zone at the USJ muscled its way into her mind. She could smell the artificial rain. She could see the man chasing her.

She trusted Midoriya… that thought had kept her running that day. But the man had wanted to kill her… a real person… one that was still out there. There had been a few that day, but only one had gotten so close…

Her ears were ringing and her eyes were closed. She just wanted it to go away.

The man was right behind her now.

“Now I’ve got you!” She heard his words replay.

Tooru screamed. 

For almost ten full seconds, all she could do was try to expel the pain by shredding her vocal chords.

She hadn’t even noticed when she got thrown across the red zone.

Chapter Text

Kazuto took a deep breath in and let it slowly. This may be his first public competition this big, but the Olympics had at least prepared him for all the fanfare. He looked up into the stands for his parents. He knew they were up there, but in a stadium this size he was never going to find–

He saw a big poster board sign with his name on it. “Hey guys!” Kazuto waved to his very proud mom and dad. They couldn’t hear him, but it was the thought that counts.

He looked to his left and right to see what his immediate competition would be like. “Hey Kirishima!” The green haired judoka smiled at the boy on his left.

“Hey Kazue!” Kirishima hardened his fists and slammed them together. “You as pumped as I am for this? They couldn’t have picked a better competition for you and me if they tried!”

Kazuto couldn’t agree more. King of the hill as an olympic Judo champion hardly seemed fair to the other students. But then again, the others could use their quirks on people safely. The playing field may be more level than he first thought.

How fun, he smirked. Kazuto was going to (consume anyone) toss anyone who got in his way. He’d be at the top in no time.

“GO!”

The world fell away. When the ref yelled for him to begin, his reality became whatever his goal was, to the exclusion of all else. Kazuto was running at top speed for the tower. They heard Tanaka’s gear whirring, followed shortly after by Satou yelling in protest. Kazuto chuckled. For some reason the idea of Satou being flung off the tower by little Tanaka was endlessly funny to him.

There was an intensely loud bang to Kazuto’s right side. A wall of ice produced by Kazuto’s walking buddy covered a huge section of the concrete thing they were climbing.

He got to the concrete and pressed down, letting his fingers glide into the stone. He turned off his quirk once his fingers were in the stone, and boom, instant hand hold. He repeated the process and began scaling the tower.

A moment later he heard the next bit of commentary. “ And we have our demon of speed, our first to the top, eliminated in the first eleven seconds! What a shake up folks!” Present Mic shouted into the… mic. “And Ashido takes a tumble after a kick from our other speed hero Iida!”

“Damn. I woulda’ bet money on Ashido.” He shrugged and slung himself over two more concrete walls.

Kazuto made it about halfway up before he caught sight of another of his classmates to his left. “Iida! Right?”

Iida turned around to face him. There were mushrooms covering his armor. “You’re Kazue.” His fellow student sounded incredibly serious. Kazuto could respect that, but he was having too good a time to match the energy.

“That’d be me.” Kazuto clapped his hands together like he used to before a match. “Ready to do thi–”

He’s fast.  

Kazuto ducked just in time for Iida’s calf to miss his skull. The adrenaline that shot through his system lit his brain up like a happy little Christmas tree. The judoka sprang back to his feet. He couldn’t control his grin AT ALL. “Man this is fun! Right?” He tried to help Iida understand how great this all was.

“This is not meant to be fun!” Iida went for a potentially devastating kick that might have broken a rib had Kazuto not jumped back.

Kazuto couldn’t stop the laughter from bubbling up. Not at Iida, just because he felt alive right now. He lived for this kind of public competition. “It still kinda is though.” Kazuto dashed forward and grabbed his opponents shirt to set him up for a hip throw.

He’s kicking.

Kazuto changed his throw and dropped his stance. Iida’s kick was creating the most force, so it had to be the fulcrum for his throw. Only one counter would work, and it was going to send Iida… ‘Ooo… sorry Buddy.’

“OOOoooo! A craaaaazzzy counter from our own Judo olympic champion Kazue!!!!”

Kazuto watched as Iida tumbled down the tower. He cringed as his speedy friend thunked off the levels of the tower. He watched Iida slide to a stop in the grass on his back. He seemed okay.

The judoka began making his way up the tower, using his quirk to scale the structure quickly.

The tower started shaking.

BAAAAAMMMMM!!!!!

The word (the actual, physically manifested word) smashed through the hill and carved a massive path through and up the concrete structure.

“What the hell?!” Kazuto dug into the concrete with his quirk and held on until the quakes passed. So that left him with a trench to his right. And a mountain of ice on the other.

He sighed. The ice was almost as easy to climb with his quirk as the concrete had been, just way less comfortable. The cold wasn’t his favorite.

The tower shook again as something slammed into the other side of it, though Kazuto couldn’t see anything from his vantage point.

He looked up and saw another one of his classmates. “Hey Kaminari!”

The electric quirk user waved.

Kazuto sighed. This was a bad match up. Not if I kill him. So Kazue had little choice but to lose or run. And running on the ice didn’t seem like a good idea. He was pretty sure he’s qualified for the next round already anyway.

He walked up to his distraught looking friend. “Kaminari, you good?” Kaminari didn’t look good at all. He looked as pale as Kazuto used to be. “Buddy?”

“Huh?” Kaminari finally met his eyes. “Sorry. I was thinking about something.”

Kazuto grabbed his friend. He would only have one chance to throw him, he just wanted to make sure he was paying attention. Kazuto felt Kaminari’s hand on his arm. This was it. Then… nothing?

Kazuto aborted the throw, popped his hip and set his classmate on his feet again.

“Why didn’t you–?”

“Zap me.” Kazuto politely requested.

“What?”

“You had that one.”

A girl screamed somewhere on the other side of the tower.

“I can’t…”

Kazuto took his friend’s hand and placed it on his own chest. I should kill him before he can zap me. He just wanted his friend to know he wasn’t alone. “Your quirk isn’t dangerous, Kaminari. You’ve used it on me before.”

“At the USJ–”

“At the USJ you were in danger, so you fought. That day was supposed to be fun. Don’t let those assholes take a fun competition from us today.” He smiled reassuringly at his friend. “Come on. You had me.”

Kaminari smiled. Something Kazuto had said must have gotten through to their friend. Because the next thing he knew, he was being very confidently electrocuted.

“Thank you, dude. I mean that.” Kaminari said as he rolled Kazuto onto the ice so he would slide out of bounds.

“And there goes our gold medalist, like a token in an icey plinko game! Not really sure what happened there!”

Kazuto smiled as he slid down the jagged ice. He bounced off of things and got knocked around. But this game had been particularly fun.

Chapter Text

Ibara wished more than anything the sports festivals games would not be so steeped in violence and deceit. Sometimes she felt like there was no way to hold her faith and her desire to be a hero in her heart at the same time. Days like this made it all the more difficult.

She looked around herself at the mix of students from all four programs. It was absolutely sinful that class 1A was being forced to participate in this event. After what those poor souls went through, it was unthinkable that they would be in a dangerous game like this so soon after. Surely they would rather be recov–

“GO!”

Explosions rang out in her ears, ice covered the whole other side of the mountain she was meant to climb.

Ibara ran forward and used her vines to propel herself up the first two levels in one leap. She imagined the tribulations in this game would come at her in waves. Since she was now safely in the circle, she turned to do the awful work that had been asked of her. 

Three of her classmates tried to get past her. Shoda, Elwin, and Bondo were incredible students, but she knew them too well. She had removed them from the mountain (as gently as humanely possible) in the first twelve seconds.

A few of the 1A kids got past her, but she could not in good conscience raise a hand or vine against them after what they had been through.

“And we have our demon of speed, our first to the top, eliminated in the first eleven seconds! What a shake up folks!” Talk of demons set the young lady ill at ease.  “And Ashido takes a tumble after a kick from our other speed hero Iida!”

The 1A boy with the shaggy green hair climbed up onto the second level with her. She sighed. She would have to throw one of the poor souls after all. She reached out with her vines and–

The green haired boy dodged. “Your quirk is so cool!”

Ibara looked away bashfully. “Why, thank you.” She said happily as she sent more vines, but underground this time. Amazingly the boy dodged again. She didn’t know what his quirk was. It wasn’t as obvious as the others.

The boy looked to his right and ran back down to the first level of the tower. She found this incredibly strange. She wondered if she should climb higher or wait a little longer to not get snuck up on.

Smoke erupted to her left, covering a large chunk of the eastern side of the tower. She recognized Hinata’s handywork. Such underhanded tactics, Ibara would have to talk to her about that.

“OOOoooo! A craaaaazzzy counter from our own Judo olympic champion KAZUE!!!!”

“You think this smoke is going to stop me, Hinata!” She heard Tetsu Tetsu shouting aggressively. 

Manga blasted away a huge chunk of the structure to her right. This place was truly turning into hell on earth.

Ibara heard the tell-tale sound of her classmate Kodai enlarging bolts to the size of train cars. The massive objects appeared and rolled dangerously into the smoke.

“Now I’ve got you!” She heard a straining Tetsu Testu yell from the smoke.

“This is awful…” Ibara couldn’t help but say out loud. Was this truly the path to making a better, more faithful world? Where had the green haired boy gone?

As if she had conjured him with her thought, the 1A boy was back on the same deck as her. He was running forward recklessly. “IS THAT WHY THEY LOST SO QUICK?” The boy yelled at someone behind him.

Ibara couldn’t wonder about that now though. She would have to wrap this boy up from the back so he couldn’t dodge. She heard a girl scream in the distance.

She sent her vines underground.

“And there goes our gold medalist, like a token in an icey plinko game! Not really sure what happened there!”

“Oh shit!” She heard her classmate Kaibara shout. His language had always been a bit vulgar. But during a nationally televised event? While the whole world–

“FUCK!” Ibara surprised herself by shouting the profanity. But in her defense, the drills that her classmate had for hands had wrapped her hair tightly and were currently pulling so hard she was having trouble detaching it. “OW!”

The green haired boy jumped over her now prone form. Had he orchestrated this? What heinous behavior. Reprehensible to use someone against their own classmate. 

She would pray for him… aggressively.

Chapter Text

Momo took in a deep breath, held it, and slowly breathed it out. The crowd was loud. So many pros had come to watch the festival today. Which she knew was the point, but the reality of being watched by hundreds of heroes (and the whole world) and the idea of it were two very different things.

She could see Midoriya mumbling to himself to her left, and to her right she saw the purple haired boy who had stopped by their classroom and taunted Bakugo. He was talking to the Kendo, the other class B rep. She seemed out of it. Kendo’s face was normally more… expressive?

“GO!”

The hero in training plugged her ears by creating the plugs in her ears. She heard the muffled screaming, and most importantly the muffled explosions she had known were coming.

Her eyes went to the top of the tower. “Oh no.” She saw exactly what she feared she’d see. Takioka was standing at the top already.

The ice should be next. The temperature dropped ten degrees as if on que. She could barely make anything out at the top anymore, she focused on what was in front of her.

The girl with vines for hair was throwing people out of the ring left and right. It seemed like the vine girl was being equally tough on her own class. Momo had little time to figure out much more. She needed to move. She needed to act.

She created a massively long metal pole to vault herself right over the vine girl and up to the fourth level. She glanced up to check for threats.

Takioka was picking herself up off the ground. “I’m gonna kill him.”

Uraraka floated Takioka right off the tower from behind, “No hard feelings, right Takioka?” Their classmate called.

Momo ducked down so she wouldn’t be noticed. She didn’t know how she would win this without gravity.

“And we have our demon of speed, our first to the top, eliminated in the first eleven seconds! What a shake up folks! And Ashido takes a tumble after a kick from our other speed hero Iida!”

‘I really hope Takioka doesn’t take that too hard…’ Momo shook off the thought. She didn’t have time to worry about her.  Her classmates. She mentally corrected. She didn’t have time to worry about any of her classmates.

Momo checked to make sure Uraraka was gone. Satisfied that she was, she created another pole and vaulted up onto the fifth deck. 

Smoke erupted lower on the tower to her right. She didn’t know who’s quirk it was, but it was obscuring a huge portion of the bottom of the tower. She decided to keep her eyes up. She vaulted up another level.

“OOOoooo! A craaaaazzzy counter from our own Judo olympic champion KAZUE!!!!”

Kazue was an Olympic champion?

She vaulted up onto the seventh deck. The girl with the vines was doing a marvelous job keeping the area clear.

Only two 1A students had made it past the vines other than herself. Shouji, and Sero. Both were tough opponents, but it was Shouji she really wasn’t sure how to beat (legally).

She could figure this out. She just needed to breathe and think.

BAAAAAMMMMM!!!!!

The side of the concrete structure on her left exploded with massive force. It made her happy she had chosen to muffle sound a little bit for this game. She looked over to see what had caused this. “Oh my god… it is literally the word   ‘Bam.’” The word faded after a moment, but only after demolishing a whole area of the hill. “Reckless.” She shook her head at whoever had chosen to do that.

The ninja from class B was fighting someone to her right, whoever had the power to obliterate half the mountain with a word was to her left, Shouji and Sero were two decks down from her, and Bakugo and Todoroki were three decks up from her at the top of the tower. 

Momo decided her best bet was to try to take on Sero and Shouji. She slipped down to the deck above them as quietly as she could. Sero was going to be a tough one to knock off with his mobility. 

The tower shook again. The place was turning into an outright war zone. The USJ had felt less chaotic and dangerous than what she was dealing with now. She shook it off. The teachers would step in if it got too bad, she didn’t have to manage safety right now.

She could see the vine girl down on the fourth deck. Was Midoriya attacking her?

Someone screamed, but Momo tried to ignore it. She needed to take advantage of the chaos. She jumped down and created an industrial spring with a padded boxing glove behind Sero. “Sero!” She yelled.

Sero whipped around, she triggered the spring, Sero went flying across the stadium. 

Momo crossed her fingers. She saw him rag doll for a moment before using his tape to catch himself before hitting the ground. She stopped holding her breath.

“And there goes our gold medalist, like a token in an icey plinko game! Not really sure what happened there!”

She turned to face Shouji… but he wasn’t facing her. She watched as her classmate ran toward the smoke at top speed, leaving the arena.

“FUCK!” The vine girl screamed from down below.

Momo looked down to see Deku moving her direction, she looked to her side to see Uraraka coming back to the area she was in too. The odds of success in her current spot were dropping rapidly.

Momo went to the eastern side of the structure and moved back up to the sixth deck with two pole vaults.

She stopped in her tracks. The girl in front of her was someone from 1B, but she didn’t recognize them. Their eyes were a really bright, pretty, green, she was a little shorter than average. Momo felt like she knew the girl's quirk. What was it?

The green eyed girl was suddenly a Siberian tiger, and she was lunging for Momo.

Momo reflexively created a metal shield to guard herself. What should she make to fight off a Tiger?!

The tiger was gone. A viper had wrapped itself around the shield.

Momo wanted to scream, but she buried the instinct. She dropped the shield and produced a net from her palm in the same motion to capture the serpent.

The serpent was gone. A massive gorilla was standing in front of her. The animal pulled the net off its head like it had been a hat. It reached out to grab Momo in its massive hands.

Momo quickly and crudely created long metal spikes from her arms where she was about to be grabbed. She pierced the gorilla’s hands.

The gorilla yelled and jumped back, it angrily ripped the spikes from its hands. Then it was gone. The girl was back. “Ow!” She yelled at Momo like she was accusing her of something.

“You were attacking me!” Momo yelled. The spikes had been a reflex.

“Fine. Let me make us even.” The girl’s voice was cute. Momo liked it. But the girl was no longer there. Instead, a moose. 

Momo jumped back and made the strongest shield she could. What was the plan for moose?!

Apparently the plan was, get hit really hard (but don't die because the shield stopped the antlers), get thrown off a massive concrete structure, make as many pillows as you can as fast as you can, then hit the ground.

“An incredible showing by our resident shape shifter Ferrik from 1B! With the versatility of her quirk she is the picture of unpredictability!”

Chapter Text

“ALLLL RIGHT COMPETITORS! Remember that once you are in the red zone you can’t leave it without throwing in the towel! That means that once you start charting, you have got to KEEP charting! Cause once someone knocks you back out of the circle THAT’S IT! The game will end when everyone but one person is left in the circle! The longer you stay on the hill, the higher your score! So let’s have a good clean game!”

Izuku turned the rules over in his mind. At UA, there was always some kind of trick.

The scoring system meant height up the hill didn’t matter at all. You could stay near the bottom until the last person and then try to knock them out when they came down the hill to knock you out.

Since the top of the hill was completely extraneous, only the students that wanted to really prove themselves would be going for it. The rest would likely keep to the middle to mitigate their risk.

Is it better to demonstrate my power like All Might said I should? Or should I wait until a later round? King of the Hill was more of a strategy game than people thought. If he decided to not show off and bide his time he could use a lot of the strategies he had developed for dealing with his friend’s quirks. I might be able to hold my own in this one without using One for–

“GO!” Present Mic’s voice boomed.

Izuku ran (shoving past a dozen other students) to get into the red circle. He heard explosions and looked up. 

Of course Kachan was blasting his way to the top without even climbing. 

Izuku jumped up and grabbed the first ledge. He pulled himself up and kept his eyes up on the top of the hill. He looked behind himself and saw someone from the support course holding onto his leg. 

Izuku twisted his body and kicked the student in the face, knocking them back. “Sorry!”

He tried to see what was going on at the top of the structure.

Of course Astrid was already at the top. I need to get up there. Between her and Kachan both going for the top instantly, this is going to get messy fast.

The opposite side of the mountain turned to ice in an instant. (Make that Astrid, Kachan, AND Todoroki) Deku could make out the spikes of blue jutting out near the top. He thanked whatever god was listening that he had started far away from Todoroki and Kachan.

Who was around? Izuku scanned the first level. Sero, Yaoyorozu, Shouji, and four 1B students he didn’t know.

Thorny vines wrapped around one of the 1B kids and threw them off the tower. 

Izuku saw a girl with vines for hair… praying? I don’t have time to think about that right now. He watched as Sero swung high with his tape to get around her, and Yaoyorozu pole vaulted. How the hell am I going to get past her? He needed a plan.

He looked up and saw another 1B kid getting tossed above his head. Crap crap crap. He needed to at least get ON the tower or there was no way he was going to qualify for the next round. Most students weren’t even making it that far because of line holders like the girl with the vines.

“And we have our demon of speed, our first to the top, eliminated in the first eleven seconds! What a shake up folks!” Izuku was sure he’d be getting an earful about that later. “And Ashido takes a tumble after a kick from our other speed hero Iida!”

Izuku ran and jumped to grab the ledge and climb over. Two meters was just enough to force you to slow down when climbing, so no one could just run up the tower, it made sense. He tried to be quick about it and rolled to his feet. So where is the–

Izuku almost saw it too late. He jumped back. Vines slammed into the ground next to him destroying solid concrete. The 1B kids really were impressive. “Your quirk is so cool!” He couldn’t help but tell her.

“Why thank you.” She said and looked away. 

Izuku tried to use the moment that she was looking away to move forward. The concrete under his feet shifted slightly. He jumped back. Vines burst forth from the ground, taking up the whole area he had been standing.

Okay, he needed a new plan. He looked to see who was around. His eyes landed on a boy using drills on his hands to try to climb.

He had a plan. But he needed bait. How could he make the drill boy mad enough to do what he needed? Why was pissing Kachan off so easy? You’d think he’d be good at it in general by now.

Izuku jumped down onto the (red) first ring of the hill. Smoke erupted about twenty meters away. He was again thankful that none of the kids near him had had area- of-effect attacks. 

“OOOoooo! A craaaaazzzy counter from our own Judo olympic champion KAZUE!!!!”

He called out to drill hand boy. “Hey! I thought you guys said 1B was going to be a challenge this year!”  Izuku didn’t feel good about this part of his plan.

“What?” The kid turned to him, his drills whirring as they got faster and faster.

“I mean after you guys came to our class I didn't think you’d be so… passive.” He didn’t know what would upset him.

“That’s a little mean.” The kid said as he started walking toward him.

“BAAAAAMMMMMMM!!!!!” said someone with a bazooka for a quirk.

The ground trembled. Izuku looked to his left to see the actual, physically manifested, word ‘BAAAAAMMMMMMM!!!!!’ being launched like a missile. The word cut a path up the mountain from the bottom to about the seventh concrete deck.

The ground shook (from someone else's quirk presumably).

It wasn’t working, the kid was looking pretty calm. Izuku tried harder. “You really think it's mean to talk like that about those guys?” Izuku pointed at the 1B students the vine girl had beaten. Act like Kachan. Act like Kachan. He tried to make his face look angry and mean.

“Guess I gotta teach you a lesson about respect, huh?” The drill kid dashed forward. “My class will be twice the heroes your class will ever be!” He didn’t sound super angry. But he was coming at Izuku with all he had, and that is what mattered.

Izuku heard a scream. “Hagakure.” He spoke under his breath. A small part of Izuku went back to the first time he’d heard that scream (In a life or death situation). His senses sharpened.

Drill boy swung at Izuku’s torso but he managed to dodge at the last second. He ducked a second attack. (Remembering something from notebook 11 about a martial arts hero) Izuku twisted his body and kicked with both legs while falling to the ground. Drill boy went tumbling back.

Izuku scrambled to his feet. “Twice the heroes we’ll be, huh?” He did his best Kachan impression as he ran and jumped up on the next deck where the vine girl was. “IS THAT WHY THEY LOST SO QUICK?” He shouted. Maybe that was a bit far.

“And there goes our gold medalist, like a token in an icey plinko game! Not really sure what happened there!”

Drill boy ran and jumped up right after Izuku. He lunged at the green head of hair but Izuku had been waiting for this and put hand on his wrist redirecting him. 

“Oh shit!” Drill boy shouted.

Izuku sent the drills into the vines, and just like he’d hoped, the vines began wrapping violently around the boy. 

Izuku didn’t waste time waiting to see if his plan was working as well as he needed. He ran and readied to fight the vine girl.

Before he got to her, the girl was yanked down by her hair and slammed into the ground. Her own vines restrained her when they got wrapped up. 

Izuku looked to make sure the path was clear before trying to pass her. He saw Yaoyorozu scaling the tower and Shouji… descending? Not my problem right now. He ran and jumped over the writhing vine girl.

“FUCK!” She screamed.

If that class didn’t like us before… they definitely won’t after this.

Izuku climbed a few decks uncontested. He hesitated when he saw Yaoyorozu above him, but she was soon occupied with a shapeshifting girl. It took everything Izuku had to file away the quirk-questions he had for that girl for later.

He managed to sneak by while they fought. It wasn’t looking good for Yaoyorozu.

Izuku looked to his side and saw… that purple haired guy. He was… he was forcing one of the hero kids to carry him! 

“An incredible showing by our resident shape shifter Ferrik from 1B! With the versatility of her quirk she is the picture of unpredictability!”

Something about it felt wrong… The girl with orange hair and huge hands looked so out of it. I have to do something.

Izuku looked to his side and saw Uraraka. “Uraraka! Help me!” 

Uraraka opened her mouth to answer, but there was no time. Izuku ran as hard as he could without his quirk. He heard Uraraka behind him, so he yelled. “We’ve got you!” 

The purple haired kid looked over. “What are you doing?” He shouted at Izuku.

Izuku didn’t have time to answer though, he slammed his shoulder into the pair.

The red head woke up. “What’s going–?”

Purple hair looked pissed. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

Izuku clenched his fists and faced the boy. “How can you–”

The world went dark and fuzzy.

There was a truly massive bang as an explosion higher on the tower rang out. The stadium and ground vibrated. The world came back into sharp focus.

“And there goes our resident ninja, Hinata, with an absolutely brutal attack by Bakugo! I was rooting for you to make it to number one on the charts! Better luck in the next game!”

Uraraka showed up to back him up since the red head was recovering.

Izuku felt a slap on his back, then he, and the two he’d been fighting, began floating away. They were about to float right off the tower.

No! What happened? “Uraraka! Grab my hand!” He turned and reached out.

Uraraka gave an awkward smile. “I’m sorry, Deku! I have to try my best to win! I’m sorry!”

Izuku floated off the tower as Uraraka began floating up it. He was astonished she hadn’t been willing to help him. But in retrospect, he understood. He wouldn’t hold a grudge. Hopefully I did well enough to qualify.

Gravity turned back on.

“Ah!” Izuku fell.

“And another devastating attack from our current king of the hill Bakugo! Can Todoroki recover?”  

Chapter Text

Fumikage wasn’t worried about this battle. Dark Shadow was one of the most powerful quirks in the school, and he didn’t need to get first place. He looked around at the crowd of students. He imagined most of them wouldn’t even make it onto the hill. 

Unless they intended to eliminate all but a handful, it seemed getting on the hill may be enough to secure their spot.

Dark Shadow peaked out from under Fumikage’s shirt. “Do I have to fight?” The abyssal creature whispered in his ear.

Fumikage sighed. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. If you wish to withdraw into the void for this competition, you are free to.” This competition was monumentally important. The weight of it felt like it would root him to the earth where he stood. But nothing was worth torturing his quirk. It was bright outside after all.

“Are you going to fight?” The Shadow asked.

“You mean if you don’t?”

Dark Shadow nodded.

“Indeed.” He placed a hand on his Shadow’s beak. “This is not a battle I can afford to not take part in. I must do what has been asked of me with all of my power.”

“I’m your power.”

“I would agree.”

“I’m going to fight.” Dark Shadow’s determination washed over Fumikage. 

He had hoped his Shadow would change their mind, though he had been prepared for them not to.

“GO!”

“It’s time.” Fumikage jumped into the air and dodged the initial crowd. His Shadow extended and dragged him forward until he was at the base of the tower.

BANG! The sound rang out and set his ears ringing. Whatever it had been was louder than Bakugo.

Only a moment into the fight, the area to his left was consumed by a frozen wall of death.

Todoroki scares me. Dark Shadow spoke internally.

“This is fair, luckily outside of games, he is a trusted ally.” Fumikage was also a bit frightened of some of their classmates, though more for Dark Shadow’s safety.

Fumikage made it to the fifth deck easily, the only other student nearby him that was able to do so was Tsu, though he’d lost track of her.

He wondered what the best move was. Hold this part of the hill? Or move up to engage the stronger fighters?

I don’t want to fight the exploding one.

“Understandable.” Fumikage had no right to push, he wasn’t the strength they would count on facing Bakugo or Todoroki, it was his Shadow’s. So for now, they would bide their time.

He watched a grenade land in the crowd of people who hadn’t even made it to the hill. A dozen sets of feet were suddenly stuck to the ground. Who brought grenades?

“And we have our demon of speed, our first to the top, eliminated in the first eleven seconds! What a shake up folks!” So the great Takioka had fallen already, huh? “And Ashido takes a tumble after a kick from our other speed hero Iida!” NOOOOOOOO!!! Ashido!!!! Dark Shadow wailed in Fumikage’s mind.

“I’m sure she’s okay.” He reassured his quirk. He decided to stay moving a bit and check out the fight above him the grenade had come from.

Fumikage jumped up another level and immediately jumped back down. It was the pink haired gadget covered girl and his classmate Tanaka. No wonder grenades were being used.

Dark Shadow lifted him a bit so he could peak over the ledge and see what they were doing.

Four small flying robots were zooming around the pair.

Tanaka pulled out a baton and smirked at the other girl and the robots. “This should be fun.”

I didn’t know Tanaka could talk! Dark Shadow whispered in Fumikage’s mind excitedly.

“OOOoooo! A craaaaazzzy counter from our own Judo olympic champion KAZUE!!!!”

Fumikage dropped out of their Shadow’s embrace and looked down to see who was managing to come up.

A student from 1B whose head was nothing more than a comic book speech bubble was approaching the base of the tower. He looked competent as he threw one of his own classmates out of the ring.

“What should we do?” Dark Shadow asked. “Up is scary and down is scary.”

Fumikage gave a grunt of agreement. “Maybe we should try to find a new area to lay low?” As much as he wanted to fight, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the sun was almost at its highest.

She’s above us. Dark Shadow warned.

Fumikage looked up to see the pink haired engineer looking down, but she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking past him.

“Oh shit!” The engineer yelled and then ran.

Fumikage whipped around to see what she was running from.

FUMI! Dark Shadow yelled in his mind. Suddenly all Fumikage could see was darkness. The embrace of the void was something he was intimately familiar with. Though he wasn’t sure what Dark Shadow was protecting him from.

He could feel that he was moving, and that he had stopped abruptly.

His Shadow withdrew. Ow…

“Dark Shadow?” Fumikage said in a panic. He looked in front of himself to see what had happened. What he saw was a massive trench of damage that broke through the concrete tower.

It was a carved path between Fumikage, and the kid with the speech bubble for a head. “What is this young person’s power? It is truly astonishing. And horrifying.”

It hurt…

Fumikage nodded. “Thank you for your protection, Dark Shadow.” He took off running down the trench at the boy. He couldn’t let him do that twice.

The speech bubble had images of inhaling air. Fumikage assumed this meant an attack was imminent.

“Dark Shadow!” Fumikage yelled. He wished he didn’t need to count on them in this moment, but he did.

Got it! Dark Shadow lashed out and hit the comic headed boy, sending him staggering.

Fumikage was on him a moment later.

POW! The letters came from the comic bubble with great force. Fumikage was almost worried it had cracked his beak.

He pulled the boy’s shirt up over his face and held it there. It wasn’t the most sportsmanlike tactic, but it seemed to work.

Fumikage twisted the boy around and shoved him down the trench with Dark Shadow’s help. The boy fell out of bounds.

Fumikage was too close to the red zone…

“Sorry about this budd–” Ojiro’s surprise throw was interrupted by Dark Shadow picking them up by the tail and throwing them out of bounds.

“Thank you, my Shadow.” Fumikage turned to run back up the trench. “Now, back to the fight at hand.”

Fumikage found a perch at the top of the trench just in time to hear someone scream. “Did you hear that yelling?”

I don’t like this game.

“I am sorry, Dark Shadow. We can have rewards later.”

“And there goes our gold medalist, like a token in an icey plinko game! Not really sure what happened there!”

Dark Shadow peaked out from the collar of his shirt. “Candy?”

Fumikage nodded. “Indeed. All of your dark desires will be made manifest if we succeed today.”

Dark Shadow emerged and began looking for opponents with their fists clenched. “Bring it on!” It shouted, emboldened by the promise of rewards.

Fumikage nodded and grunted his agreement. “For now we should keep to the shadows. The longer we remain in the circle, the higher our score.” The black-feathered boy jumped down into an outcropping of broken stone in the trench that the comic bubble boy had created.

Dark Shadow withdrew into the void of Fumikage’s soul. Hidey mode. The beast said mentally in its serious tone.

Fumikage laid in wait. Less hiding from fellow students, and more operating like an ambush predator. He could hear the explosions and fighting above. He did his best to tune it out. “Dark Shadow,” He whispered. “Do you hear anything near us?”

Frog noises.

Fumikage nodded. “Tsu is a tough opponent.”

“An incredible showing by our resident shape shifter Ferrik from 1B! With the versatility of her quirk she is the picture of unpredictability!”

“Probably best to avoid her for now.” Fumikage finished after the announcement.

Too late. This was all of the warning Fumikage received before Dark Shadow lunged out to deflect the tongue that had been coming at their user at incredible speed.

“In that case, we fight.” Fumikage dashed forward.

Tsu launched her tongue out. “Kero Kero.” She chirped.

Dark Shadow knocked the tongue out of the air as gently as they could. 

Fumikage lept through the air and extended his leg to kick Tsu in the chest.

A massive explosion rang through the stadium. Tsu used this quake to her advantage and fell to the ground so Fumikage would miss.

Fumikage landed and whipped around to see his opponent, he’d missed.

Tsu had already leapt back and was looking at him with emotionless eyes. The look of a natural born warrior (and most frogs, he supposed).

“And there goes our resident ninja, Hinata, with an absolutely brutal attack by Bakugo! I was rooting for you to make it to number one on the charts! Better luck in the next game!”

Dark Shadow tried to grab Tsu, but she dodged forward under the shadow, closing the gap between her and Fumikage in an instant. She jumped up to kick him in the chest with both legs.

Fumikage could do nothing but cross his arms to block what damage he could. The impact was way more intense than he thought someone her size could create. He went tumbling down the trench.

Dark Shadow withdrew until they were at close range with their user, the creature of night and destruction helped Fumikage to their feet, and quickly dusted him off a little.

Tsu wasn’t letting up. She lunged forward with her body and tongue simultaneously.

Bakugo released three intense blasts at the top of the tower which disrupted her attack slightly.

Fumikage took the opportunity to dash forward.

“And another devastating attack from our current king of the hill Bakugo! Can Todoroki recover?”  

The announcement helped to additionally disorient his green friend. He grabbed her arm as Dark Shadow grabbed her body. The two worked in tandem to throw her as hard as they could down the trench.

To Fumikage’s great relief, she landed outside of the red circle.

Fumikage rubbed their arm where Tsu had hit him. To his great dismay, it hurt enough for him to enjoy. He worked to recall wisdoms his therapist had bestowed, and tried to not dwell on the feelings of pain.

Dark Shadow seemed worn out from fighting in the sun. Fumi… when are we done?

Fumikage looked down the hill, most students had been held back, and others knocked out. He looked up, and to his surprise he saw only Ochako standing on the top deck. “I think it will be over soon, my Shadow.”

As long as–

Bakugo screaming in the sky interrupted Dark Shadow.

Fumikage squinted into the sun, but had to shield his eyes not from that, but from the explosion happening just above the mountain. “Dark lords!” Fumikage exclaimed as he leapt backwards. He was trusting his shadow to protect him.

The explosion hit the tower, the arena shook like it hadn’t the entire game. Fumikage landed a level down from his earlier position.

“What a recovery by Bakugo! You almost had him Urararaka! Hang in there, girl!”

Fumikage felt something wrap around him, tying his arms to his torso. “What is this?” He struggled against the binding. Suddenly he was being yanked out and away from the tower.

Dark Shadow intervened by cutting through the cables wrapping their user.

Fumikage did a front flip to get his feet under himself, he landed in a low crouch on a section of cracked concrete. He looked up and narrowed his eyes at his classmate. “Hello, Tanaka.”

The black haired girl nodded her acknowledgement before dashing towards him with her baton and a knife out. She swung the baton.

Dark Shadow emerged and blocked the hit, Fumikage took advantage of the opening and struck his classmate in the jaw. He’d been expecting a stagger. Or at least some sort of reaction.

Tanaka didn’t flinch. They returned two quick strikes in response, one baton to Fumikage’s thigh, and one headbut to Tokoyami’s beak. His beak was far harder, Tanaka’s forehead was bleeding.

Fumikage jumped back as Dark Shadow slashed with a claw to cover his retreat.

Tanaka dodged the attack. Despite the hard hit to the head, they didn’t seem to be fazed. They were running forward to keep the pressure on.

Dark Shadow made themselves as big as they could in the lighting conditions. They intended to create a defensive wall to give Fumikage a moment to recover.

Tanaka threw a knife at Dark Shadow. It stabbed in, but did little to his abyssal beast.

Fumikage decided an all out attack was their only real shot. He ran forward preparing to strike as rapidly as his body was capable. “Dark Shadow!” He shouted.

Dark Shadow knew what its user needed. It slashed out with both limbs just as Tokoyami was preparing to do.

Fumikage felt a crunch as their fist smashed into Tanaka, then Dark Shadow wrapped up their tech heavy classmate.

A series of rapid fire explosions could be heard up top, as if Bakugo was somehow getting angrier.

“Bakugo! Absolutely brutal! Ochako, stand up! You can do it!”

Fumikage was uneasy. Something about the way he’d overwhelmed Tanaka felt too easy.

“So,” Tanka said as they activated multiple devices (while restrained) that emitted a small beep. “How light sensitive is your quirk?”

Fumikage didn’t see what happened, he felt it. More accurately Dark Shadow felt it.

Dark Shadow screamed in pain. He’d only heard that scream a couple times, and this one sounded like the worst yet. Fumikage felt the searing, burning pain Dark Shadow was feeling. It was muted, compared to feeling it himself. But it was still unbearable. Fumikage couldn’t even yell out to anyone. 

Dark Shadow was hurt. Not just in pain. They were really hurt.

The shadow quirk user had tears in his eyes. He felt like he couldn’t forfeit fast enough.

Fumikage would later learn what the devices (that Dark Shadow now had a phobia of(and that Tanaka had activated four of that day) were called.

Flash Bang grenades.

Chapter Text

“ALLLL RIGHT COMPETITORS! Remember that once you are in the red zone you can’t leave it without throwing in the towel! That means that once you start charting, you have got to KEEP charting! Cause once someone knocks you back out of the circle THAT’S IT! The game will end when everyone but one person is left in the circle! The longer you stay on the hill, the higher your score! So let’s have a good clean game!”

Katsuki growled as he listened to the announcement. So they wanted to see the real future heroes fight, huh? The cowards are gonna stay on the lower levels.

The crowd cheering in the background felt good. They were cheering for him, even if they didn’t know it yet. People always cheer for the winner.

There were only a handful of students he had to kill to win. The rest of them were just extras. He just had to deal with the Brat, Icy-Hot, and maybe the creating shit girl. Unless Deku used that damned quirk of his.

Bastard lied to him. This whole time he’d been lying. Trying to cover it up with his bull shit lies was even worse. He’d known the worthless little worm for years, longer than he’d known anyone. How the hell was he only now finding out Deku is a fucking lair?

He was going to kill him the first chance he got. He was going to kill everyone standing in this damn circle. But he was going to kill Deku. Bonus points if he killed the damn nerd in front of everyone, with the whole world watching.

He looked far to his right and saw Deku muttering to himself. Katsuki wondered what he was saying.

“I hope you make it to the top, Deku.” He hissed under his breath. “Because I want to watch you hit the ground from as high as possible.”

“Go!”

Katsuki blasted behind himself down low to take off into the air. He knew it was risky, but he killed like six people standing behind him just from taking off, so it was worth it.

He measured the hill in his mind as he soared through the air. He kept his blasts small so he wouldn’t overshoot too much.

He was almost at the top, and he knew she was going to be there. He aimed the biggest blast he could manage at the top platform. BANG! He didn’t see her or anyone else yet.

Todoroki had apparently started opposite him around the circle, evident in the fact that an ice wall had risen just above the top platform.

Katsuki landed on the top of the tower, destroying a large chunk of the ice with his cushioning blast. Sure enough, the damned brat was already there. She was dazed from the blast, and from the apparent impact she’d made with the ice. He grabbed the front of her shirt and picked her up.

“Hi sweetie.” She said with a smirk.

If he was being honest, he found the fighting spirit admirable. But he wasn’t thinking about anything today but winning. He poured as much sweat into the hand he was holding with as possible, and then killed her.

The blast sent her smacking off things as she fell down the tower.

He didn’t have a moment to rest though. 

Todoroki used an ice pillar to get to the top nearly instantly as well.

Katsuki smiled like a deranged ferret. “Ready to die, half and half!?” He aimed a blast right at the bastard’s face.

Todoroki deflected it to the side, so all Katsuki managed to do was blow away some more ice. The son of Endeavor activated his icy quirk as he deflected Katsuki’s arm. 

Katsuki felt his arm freezing. He broke free of the ice easily enough, but the temperature around Todoroki was infuriatingly low. And Katsuki needed to work up a sweat. He went for an uppercut with his left, but Todoroki leaned back just far enough to dodge.

“Don’t you worry you’ll never be a hero acting like that?” Todoroki crouched low and attempted to freeze the whole place from the top down.

“Shut up and die!” Katsuki also aimed his quirk down. He blasted a huge chunk of concrete (and the forming ice) away. Before Todoroki could recover his footing, Katsuki threw a kick.

“And we have our demon of speed, our first to the top, eliminated in the first eleven seconds! What a shake up folks!” Todoroki blocked his kick. “And Ashido takes a tumble after a kick from our other speed hero Iida!” Bakugo followed up with a right hook.

The stupid bastard blocked the punch, but Katsuki had wanted that. His palm was right next to Todoroki’s face. He tried to detonate his sweat to blow the kid’s face off (again).

Todoroki narrowed his gaze.

Nothing happened. No blast.

Katsuki looked at his hand to see what was wrong. His arm was freezing over, fast. He was having trouble sweating. Todoroki had made it unbearably cold.

“Tell me,” Icy-Hot said, “can you do anything if it’s a little chilly?”

Katsuki found blinding rage was an excellent way to work up a sweat. “Let me show you!” He put one hand aimed at his opponent and one aimed behind himself. A blast this strong required a counter balancing explosion.

He destroyed the entire area the bastard had been standing. “DIE!” It seemed like the easiest way to make absolutely sure he was dead.

Todoroki landed from wherever he had risen to a second before to avoid the attack. “All that power, and this is what you act like?” Icy-Hot scoffed. “You sound like a villain in the making.”

Katsuki was definitely accruing quite the list of people that would need to be in coffins for him to ever feel happy. And this fuck stick was managing to get himself to the top of the list. Well… near the top.

Todoroki touched the ground and a spike of ice extended towards Katsuki’s face.

The ice attacks were relatively predictable. Icy-Hot couldn't change the trajectory once he started, Katsuki blasted the attack away with a small explosion. “And you sound like a smug jackass waiting for daddy’s approval." He said to a grimacing Todoroki. If he wanted to make this personal, Katsuki could make it fucking personal .

“OOOoooo! A craaaaazzzy counter from our own Judo–”

Todoroki attacked before Present Mic finished the announcement. He sent four spikes of ice at his opponent from all different angles.

Katsuki sighed, a little annoyed at how easy Icy-Hot was making this. He blasted the attacks away. “Don’t you have two quirks?” Could he not use the other one? He hadn’t used his left side at the USJ either. Maybe it wasn’t as strong as his ice quirk.

“It’s none of your business.” Todoroki went to grab a hold of Katsuki’s shirt, but he was evaded.

Katsuki moved behind Icy-Hot and placed a palm on his spine. He blasted the bastard in the back to send him flying.

The stupid prick caught himself with an ice spike. He slammed into it, using his arms to protect his face. Without wasting the time to turn around, Todoroki sent a blast of ice behind him where he knew Katsuki was.

Katsuki didn’t bother dodging, the ice was too easy to shatter. He obliterated the attack, reducing it to shards. His eyes flicked to his opponents left hand. The explosive boy was smart enough to know how flammable his sweat was (he’d tested it a few times himself), and he had no intention of letting this fucker detonate him.

Todoroki whipped around and dropped low, trying to ice the platform again. 

Katsuki was getting bored with these moves. He blasted downward and shattered the attack, staggering Icy-Hot. “Come on! You’re not even trying!”

BAAAAAMMMMM!!!!! Some stupid jackass busted a huge chunk of the tower with a word. Fucking amatures.

Icy-Hot seemed to be recovering. “I will defeat you.” The moron said. “I didn’t come here for second place!” His dual colored eyes flicked over to the stands.

Katsuki didn’t care what he was looking at. He took advantage of the distraction. He blasted himself forward to hit Icy-Hot with his body. Katsuki slammed into Todoroki, Todoroki slammed into the ice wall he’d used to keep himself from falling a moment ago, then Katsuki’s hand slammed into his throat. The explosive hero set off a couple micro detonations to show Todoroki that he’d won the fight.

“Well?” Icy-Hot challenged.

“Surrender or die!” Katsuki sneered at the kid’s fake display of courage.

Todoroki narrowed his gaze. “Why don’t you try–”

Katsuki had never done well being taunted. But he also didn’t want to (wasn’t allowed to) remove a fellow student's head on national television. So he chose to detonate the hand he was holding lower that Icy-Hot wasn’t paying attention to.

He drove the blast into the idiot’s gut and watched him double over. But soon after his abs and sides felt cold. Katsuki knew that if Icy-Hot was freezing something, it was only going to take a second. He detonated his few remaining drops of sweat his quirk could still produce through the cold.

The blast shattered the ice, and Katsuki felt what he assumed were aftershocks rolling through the tower. It had been difficult to measure that blast. He looked down, half expecting a corpse.

Todoroki wasn’t there.

Did the blast atomize the bastard?

Katsuki’s neck felt cold. Lucky he’d been dealing with the brat all week. His response times to a quirk being used on him when he couldn’t identify the source of it had always been high, now it had been honed to a razor's edge.

He turned only his palms around to blast the only spot his opponent could be. Somehow Icy-Hot had gotten behind him. He blasted with both hands.

Katsuki’s legs got kicked out from under him mid blast. He went forward, almost off the tower. He detonated again to stop himself, then once more to fly straight up.

“Alright bastard! You asked for it!” Katsuki aimed a blast straight down after he was above the peak of the hill. Nowhere to hide if he obliterated the entire platform. For a moment he caught himself wondering if the brat could see how fucking good he was at this shit. Katsuki landed in the subsequent dust cloud.

When the dust settled, Icy-Hot was laying on the ground groaning.

Katsuki stepped forward and grabbed his classmate by the shirt. He hauled the other boy to his feet. “You tried.” Katsuki said as he placed his other hand on Icy-Hot’s chest for the execution.

Deku? He heard the damn nerd yell, but not what he said. He sounded unusually angry. He was still processing that when he heard another scream. It must have been loud if he could hear it over the fighting. It was the wrong kind of scream. Like someone was scared for their life.

He used to think he knew what that sounded like. But ever since the USJ he knew what it sounded like. The teachers will call the match if they need to.

“And there goes our gold medalist, like a token in an icy plinko game! Not really sure what happened there!”

The announcement was the final thing breaking his concentration.

Todoroki kicked off the ice behind him and tackled Katsuki to the ground.

Katsuki’s anger had failed him for a moment. Something else, maybe a few something elses, had snuck their way into his mind. And as a result he was on his back, pinned by Icy-Hot.

The ice user placed his right hand on Katsuki’s face and began to freeze him. Luckily this pissed Katsuki off enough that his focus returned in an instant.

He blasted the ground underneath the both of them and shattered it. It bought him the bit of space he needed to blast the asshole back.

Katsuki jumped to his feet. He knew it was going to hurt but… he hit himself in the face with a controlled blast to break the ice. He gritted his teeth. “I’m gonna make you pay for that one.”

Todoroki’s breathing looked shallow. Frost was covering his right shoulder and ribs. He launched an ice attack at Katsuki, but it was slower than before.

Katsuki didn’t even bother blasting the ice. He just side stepped. “What’s wrong with you?” He was getting pissed off. This was not the show of strength that Katsuki had been hoping to get. He was never going to impress the pros if the class prodigy crapped out this easily. He dodged another slow ass ice attack.

“An incredible showing by our resident shape shifter Ferrik from 1B! With the versatility of her quirk she is the picture of unpredictability!”

“Come on! Try damnit!” He blasted Icy-Hot and the weakling tumbled backwards before catching himself from falling by using ice to extend the platform.

“There are some things I won’t do.” The over dramatic moron said, his breath freezing in the air in front of him.

“Like what? Win?” Katsuki scoffed. “Become a hero?”

Todoroki staggered to his feet. “I won’t use my left side. I won’t give my dad the satisfaction.”

Katsuki contorted his face and cocked his head to the side. “The fuck are you talking about, loser?”

Todoroki’s eyes flicked to something behind Katsuki. 

Katsuki turned around and saw some ninja girl launching at him, sword drawn. Katsuki aimed one palm. “DIE!” He poured as much as he could into the blast without hurting himself. He would not be fighting some girl AND Icy-Hot. Even if he was just Icy right now.

The explosion shook the hill and the ninja went away. It only took one large blast. Pathetic.

“And there goes our resident ninja, Hinata, with an absolutely brutal attack by Bakugo! I was rooting for you to make it to number one on the charts! Better luck in the next game!”

Katsuki felt more than heard the ice spike coming for the back of his head. He blasted backwards, destroying frozen-fuck’s weak ass attempt at a cheap shot. “Come on! You’re supposed to be good at this!” Something bubbled up just underneath the anger. Katsuki buried it in more anger.

The weakling was shivering.

Katsuki sighed and approached him. “For what it’s worth Icy-Hot, I thought you’d at least try to fight.” His anger wasn’t even necessary, which made it all the more abundant.

Todoroki reached for his face in one last ditch attempt to fight back.

Katsuki dodged it and put his hand on his classmate’s face. Bang!

Katsuki put his other hand on the idiot’s chest. Bang!

Katsuki detonated the hand on the weaklings face again. Bang! Todoroki fell like a sack of potatoes.

“And another devastating attack from our current king of the hill Bakugo! Can Todoroki recover?”  

Maybe he put too much into those last three blasts, considering Todoroki was now tumbling down the tower completely limp. It wasn’t Katsuki’s fault. He just couldn’t look at such a waste of potential anymore.

He let out a breath. That fight had taken longer than he would have liked, and not even for fun reasons. He huffed. This was too easy. These were the ‘best future heroes in the country’, he should be able to find a real rival here. 

He glanced out over the crowd and saw… a Gorilla was floating away? And so was Deku. Katsuki laughed. “What an idiot.” But it did mean one terrible thing for his path to victory.

Gravity Bitch was still in the fight. He turned around to look for her. He’d been just in time to see her reaching for him.

He grabbed his wrist to brace it and blasted her with everything he had. 

This wasn’t like fighting Icy-Hot, if he fucked around and she got him, it would be over. His eyes darted around the dust cloud for any sign of her.

He felt the rubble shift behind him. He blasted backward while pulling his legs up slightly. He would send her flying and get out of range in the same move.

He heard her yell. He’d gotten her. He turned to blast her away for sure, and felt his weight shift off his left leg, and then his right. He was in the air. FUCK. The bitch got me. He stopped before blasting her.

The physics of using his quirk in these conditions horrified him. He needed to get away from her before he got tossed off the tower.

Okay… one controlled blast straight down. He took a deep breath. The smallest explosion he could create.

It turns out the biggest bitch of all, was physics.

The micro blast sent Katsuki flying (since effectively his mass was zero). He went up at his full explosion speed. Turns out smaller does not mean slower.

The g-forces felt like they might kill him. His vision was blacking out. The air was getting cold. Katsuki couldn’t be sure how high up he was, but he definitely couldn’t breathe.

The wind slowed. He was still hurtling upward, but now he had mass. He flailed in the air. He still couldn’t breathe. ‘How high did that fucking blast send me?’ His chest ached, his lungs in particular.

The wind changed directions. Katsuki was falling back down to earth. He managed to twist around to see what he was dealing with. He nearly threw up. The ground was hundreds of meters away minimum, it was likely a lot further, but he couldn’t think about that now.

He was seeing stars. Nothing had ever made him happier that he didn’t need to breathe to explode.

The ground was coming at him fast.

He hit his terminal velocity.

He could see the arena, and the hill. His thoughts were fuzzy without oxygen, but his quirk was working, and he could still feel his limbs.

He could try to slow down to a landing speed. 

He would be hit right out of the air and out of the circle.

He clenched his teeth and snarled. So those were his choices. Live through this, or win?

Katsuki wanted one thing more than anything in the world. To be the best hero. His choice was clear.

Think of a name… think of a name…

Gotta make it sound good. He forced just a little bit of air into his lungs. It would have to be enough.

He detonated his hands in opposite directions to rotate himself rapidly like he did for his howitzer attack. He forced his hands in front of him so he could blast with all his might at the moment of impact.

He would either time this right and win–

Now. “ORBITAL BOMBARDMENT!” He screamed with what little air he had. He poured everything into his quirk.

Katsuki demonstrated the true destructive power of nitroglycerin. 

The whole top of the structure was completely engulfed in the blast.

He felt both arms twinge and seize with the kick from the blast. He was pretty sure his shoulder had dislocated.

He blasted in a steady stream immediately following the attack to slow himself as much as he could.

He felt his wrist break when his hands found the ground. Luckily it was his right arm, which meant it was the same side as the dislocated shoulder, so he still had one arm ready for fighting.

He rolled when his hands touched the ground. The rubble hurt on his back, but it didn’t feel like anything had broken, which was all he gave a shit about right now.

Fucking Gravity Bitch…

He staggered to his feet. The dust settled. He had lowered the top of the tower down to the next level, making the shattered platform a bit bigger than it was.

“What a recovery by Bakugo! You almost had him Urararaka! Hang in there, girl!”

What? He began scanning the rubble. There was no way she was still in the game. He turned around to see her climbing up onto the new top platform, the girl’s hair was burned, her face was black and blue, and she looked like she could barely stand.

He jumped back when she reached for him. Just stop already! 

Her finger clipped his boot. He felt his hair move unnaturally. 

He couldn’t do that move twice and live… he’d barely gotten away with it once. He hooked the toe of his boot under a broken piece of concrete. He used the rubble to pull himself down and grabbed his opponent.

He wrapped his legs around her waist and locked his ankles together, the fighter girl offered little resistance. He placed a hand on her face. “Release it.” He ordered.

Uraraka thrashed like she intended to try to throw him back into orbit from her compromised position.

He grimaced. This one he didn’t want to do, but she wasn’t going to stop. He let loose rapid fire small scale explosions in her face until she was unconscious. 

“Bakugo! Absolutely brutal! Ochako, stand up! You can do it!”

The crowd booed. Fuck ‘em. He had a battle to win. 

He checked her pulse before untangling from her and standing up. It was still there.

He was just thankful her quirk shut down when she lost consciousness.

He staggered over to the edge of the platform to see who else he had to fight. He had to cover his eyes when a bright flash came from the trench someone dug into the concrete hill.

He blinked. He wanted to scan for threats and drop into a stance, but his body wasn’t doing what he asked it to do, which was infuriating. He wished he could curse out his unhelpful limbs. Especially his stupid-fucking-traitorous-broken right arm. He held onto every drop of rage he could find. If he didn’t he was going to pass out. Which pissed him off! 

The one bonus… he was dripping in sweat again.

“ And then there were two! This is why you watch the sports festival folks! Who will win out? The living bomb Bakugo? Or the quirkless wonder Tanaka!”

Tanaka’s quirkless? What the fuck? Katsuki backed up into the center of the platform. He readied his one good arm. He had no idea how some quirkless loser made it this far, but he intended to show them just how pathetic they were.

It was proof that Deku was worthless though. He didn’t even make it this far with his secret quirk.

The girl jumped up onto his platform. Her forehead was bleeding, her skin was burned, and she seemed disoriented. He almost felt sorry for them. If he’d been the only one injured, she might have survived a second or two.

He blasted her away like the bug she was. The kick from the blast jostled his broken bones. His vision blurred, the pain was beyond what he’d felt before, but that was a problem for later.

The dust settled and she was gone. 

Relief wrapped around Katsuki. (If relief felt like a titanium capture wire whirring closed to tie his arms to his sides of course). “The fuck?” He managed to say before someone yanked on the wire. His broken arm felt like it broke further. “Ah!” He hated himself for it, but he couldn’t help but scream. The back of his head made contact with the ground.

“What a counter attack by Tanaka! Show him who the real number one is! YEEEAAAAHHHHH!!!!”

He felt along the wire until his palm touched the wench on it. He blasted it apart and the wire came loose. He jumped to his feet. His arm and part of his side no longer hurt. That probably wasn’t good. And it pissed him off. It had to piss him off…

Katsuki thought he must look pretty pathetic, seeing as how the girl assumed she could take him out with a punch to the face. Katsuki leaned back to dodge and then brought his knee up to hit the girl in the chest. 

She coughed, clearly dizzy and busted up herself. Katsuki pressed the advantage. He swept out her legs, once she was on her back he straddled her chest, dropping all his weight to try to knock the wind out of her. 

He put a hand on her throat and threw off a few sparks. “Don’t make me kill you…” His voice tasted like he was bleeding, and the lights were getting too loud…

The girl bucked her hips and managed to get the backs of her ankles around his throat.

He detonated a small blast (lowering his hand to her chest at the last second) to stop her. Her legs were trying to drag him onto his back. And the blast hadn’t slowed or weakened her grip at all. He tried to reach out with his other hand, but he’d forgotten it was broken; Pain lanced through his body. 

She pressed the advantage. She did not slam him onto his back though, the move she pulled was way more advanced. She drew him halfway down to the ground and swung her whole torso out from under him at the same time. She twisted her core and suddenly he was on his stomach and face, and she was straddling his back.

“You little bitch…” Katsuki tried to yell, but his body was too broken to produce more than a whisper.

She wrenched his arms (including the broken one) behind his back. “‘Little bitch? How original.” The eye roll could be heard in her tone.

Katsuki screamed. He heard another one of those wire things starting.

He was fucked. By some quirkless nobody?!

No.

No…

This wasn’t over.

His hands were directly under her, she was sitting on them to keep him restrained. She knew he couldn’t use his quirk bound like this without fucking them both up in ways no student would dare.

Stupid bitch.

He knew there was a chance he was about to damage his shoulder beyond what could be fixed within the day. Hell, maybe within the week. But that didn’t matter.

Because this girl didn’t matter. She couldn’t matter. He couldn’t lose to her. He didn’t lose. He didn’t have it in him to face this loss.

Katsuki let his forehead fall to the rubble, he didn’t even have the strength in his neck to hold his head up.

“And it looks like, against all odds, Sora Tanaka has–”

He detonated with everything he had. He was fucked. But so was she.

There was a loud crack (other wrist) and a louder pop (other shoulder), and just for good measure, the already injured joints felt magnitudes worse.

Katsuki had never felt this pain before. This was beyond pain. At a certain point… all of the agony blended into a completely new experience.

But no one was pinning him down.

He scrunched up like an inchworm, seeing as his hands were still bound behind him. He pushed his cheek into the rubble to push off with as he engaged his core.

He managed to get to his knees this way.

He put one foot down, took a breath, and then the other.

Katsuki stood.

He looked around. The girl was gone… had he killed her? The dust was settling. The stadium was silent. He needed to make it look good… make it look easy…

Katsuki forced himself to smile. He smiled like his life depended on it. He smiled and forced laughter into his lungs. He coughed, forced the coughing down and laughed some more. “I win…” He dropped to one knee… I win…

“And that’s it folks! Our winner, I guess, is uh… Katsuki Bakugo.” Present Mic sounded disappointed. Good. Fuck ‘em.

After a long pause the crowd erupted into reluctant cheers. 

His thoughts drowned out the cheering.

It shouldn’t have been that hard… It shouldn’t have been that close…

Who the hell was that girl…?

Chapter Text

Astrid’s quirk was burning at top speed, so the festival was at a nearly full stand still. The day was just a little too exciting for her to maintain normal time. There were so many people, and foods, and everyone was acting so intense. 

She was walking along the roof of the stadium looking out over the crowd. 

She had seen records that suggested the number of heroes in Japan, sure. But seeing so many of them in one place to watch the sports festival was very different. She really hadn’t conceptualized this many pros existing and working in Japan. And they couldn’t all be at the stadium, so there must be even more.

What did they do all day? There couldn’t be that many villains, could there? She wondered if she’d ever… Astrid’s brain stalled. She didn’t know how to finish that thought. 

She took a bite of the takoyaki she had liberated from a stand outside the stadium. The sun was shining, everything smelled like food, and her classmates seemed to be having a great time. Nezu had been very clear on what her focus should be on for the festival, and she felt like she was nailing it.

Her lunch break was interrupted by the smell of tachyons. She looked to her side and saw the green lightning that told her Jupiter was approaching the stadium. Great. What the hell does he want now? 

Astrid watched his approach, which normally she had trouble doing. He looked like he was slowing down from the last time Astrid saw him. Had something happened?

The other speedster made it to the roof of the stadium a few moments later. He must have been in terrible shape, Astrid might be having a good day, but Jupiter was for sure faster than this last week.

Jupiter came to a stop with their arms crossed, glaring at Astrid. “Glad to see you’re getting smarter.” His voice was dripping with sarcasm.

“Excuse me?”

“I watched you on TV. You threw the first game.” Jupiter shrugged. She could hear the smirk in his voice. “Best to keep your head down.”

“Keep my head down?” She wasn’t sure what he was implying, but she didn’t like the way he was doing it.

“Can’t have the Zeros realizing how outmatched they all are. Mr. Darmon was worried you’d show off. Guess he had nothing to worry about.” The Facility loyal speedster shrugged off his statement.

Three of those implications pissed her off. In order, Astrid would have to say,

1. The fact that her classmates were not outmatched. They’d shown her that more than a couple of times.
2. That Jupiter thought she threw that game when she really had just lost. She was just trying to do what Nezu said.
3. And the one that made her the angriest was definitely that the facility had sent Jupiter to watch her.

“So, you gonna throw the next ones too? Or do you think you’ll get, like, a mid score to stay further under the radar?”

Strangely, the taunting brought up two completely different emotions in Astrid. One she’d expected, the anger at feeling controlled, and the desire to win the entire festival just to tell Mr. Darmon and Jupiter to fuck theselves. The other was a feeling in her chest… an ache maybe? 

“Hey Jupiter…” She sighed.

The brown eyed boy turned to her, seemingly taken off guard by her tone. “Yeah?”

“If they asked you to kill me… would you do it?” 

Jupiter swallowed. “Why… would they ask me to kill you?”

Astrid shrugged. “I don’t know. Why would they send someone after All Might?”

“If he went bad.” Jupiter’s voice sounded hollow.

“What if I go bad?” 

“You aren’t bad.”

“What if I was?”

Jupiter didn’t say anything for a few moments.

Astrid stepped closer and tried to look him in the eyes. “Jupiter?”

“Yeah?” He met her eyes. He looked so skittish, not like himself at all.

Her question died in her throat. Whatever she had wanted to ask him, or say to him, would be… too much. In some vague sense it would just be too much for him, and some part of her knew that. “Would you like some Takoyaki?”

Jupiter’s eyes went wide. They had light brown eyes with dark brown flecks. (Astrid had always thought they looked a little like chocolate chip cookies.) “Yeah, I uh… sure.” He reached over and grabbed a ball of fried dough and octopus off her skewer. 

Astrid jerked her head towards the ledge that was looking inward to the stadium, then she walked over to it and sat with her legs hanging down. 

Jupiter walked over and sat next to her.

The two of them sat and looked out over the crowd, the students, and the hill where cleanup was starting.

Jupiter was tense. “I’m not really supposed to be talking to you.”

“Why are you?”

“I don’t know.” He sounded so off.

Astrid leaned over and pushed Jupiter lightly with their shoulder. “Come on. You can say it. You missed me.”

“Shut up.”

Astrid sighed. “It’s pretty out here.” She was looking at a firework about to go off on the other side of the stadium. The blue sky behind it was the prettiest shade it could be.

“Yeah…” Jupiter sounded strained, but after a long pause, he added. “Have you uh… been to Mt. Fuji yet?”

“Actually yeah.” She thought for a moment about Karma. Then she remembered his quirk, then she worried she was bothering him. Then she tried not to think about him. Then she sighed. “What were you running that way for?”

“I just wanted to see it. I’d read about it a few times and… I don’t know. Ya know.”

“I do.”

“What were you doing up there?”

“I met a uh, a nice boy.” Damnit. Sorry, Karma. Can’t wait to see you again. She thought by accident and started blushing. “And an old lady. She made me move manure.”

“You mean Grandma?”

“I think she was his grandma, yeah.”

“No, Cin, her name is Grandma. Like, her hero name.” Jupiter scoffed at her ignorance.

The use of the old nickname took her off guard for a second, but she shrugged it off. “Okay, yeah, her. Why do you know her?”

“She’s on the fucking list.”

“What? Fucking how?” Astrid laughed.

Jupiter looked serious, but he always did when talking about work. “She’s an eco-nuke waiting to happen. She could destroy a city by crushing the whole place under plant growth. Or make a poison bomb the size of a house to wipe out a city. Or create a long lasting–”

“I get it, I get it!” Astrid laughed and put her hands up in surrender.

Jupiter huffed, but he seemed satisfied. “So what were you doing up there?”

“Honestly?” Astrid sighed. “I just needed to get away for a bit. The Wall is getting to me today.”

“I’m sorry…”

“It isn’t your fault.” Astrid was just glad for something groundingly normal in this weirdly exciting but anxiety inducing day. “Anyway, I don’t want to talk about that right now.”

“I’m not supposed to be talking to you at all.” It sounded much more like a joke when he said it that time.

“Yeah, yeah. Just don’t put it in your report. Who’s gonna tell ‘em?”

The two of them sat in comfortable silence enjoying the sunlight on their skin and each other’s company. Jupiter reached over and grabbed another piece of takoyaki.

Astrid had felt that he would want another, so she had been holding it close to him. 

Jupiter scarfed the snack down. He spoke without turning to look at her. “Of course I wouldn’t kill you, Cin.”

Astrid felt bad for asking. Jupiter didn’t deserve it. “I know you wouldn’t betray me for them. I’m sorry, Jupe.”

“Can we just… sit for a minute before…” Jupiter couldn’t finish his sentence, and his voice sounded tight.

Astrid nodded. After a moment she held out the street-food skewer. “Want the last piece?”

Jupiter hesitated, but apparently he did want the last piece. 

Astrid felt the feeling of being trapped under someone’s metaphorical boot rearing its familiar head. But for the first time, she saw another door she could choose. She hated the feeling of being controlled, and that feeling had grown by magnitudes now that she knew what it might feel like to be free. She knew the choice she had to make, and she desperately hoped her old running mate would understand. “Hey, Jupe?”

Jupiter made a noise of acknowledgement.

“I’m not going to throw the festival. I want to win, or at least try.” She felt a fire boiling in her belly at the idea. But she was tired of fighting with Jupiter. She didn’t want to yell.

The black clad speedster tensed up. “Cin, you know what’s going to happen if you piss him off.” He said it in a tight and quiet voice.

“Yeah, I know.”

Jupiter didn’t seem to know what to say to that.

The two of them sat and stared out at the crowd for what must have been a half an hour in relative time. 

Eventually Jupiter sighed and stood up. “For what it's worth… I’m rooting for you.” They vanished in a streak of black and green.

For just a short visit, the two let themselves forget they were on opposite sides now. With no one watching, they hadn’t had it in them to hate each other. Not enough to fight, anyway.

Chapter Text

Astrid had never had time move so god damned slow. Her quirk would not calm down no matter what she tried. Breathing didn’t work (She was enjoying all the smells too much), trying to take a short nap didn’t work (She was WAY too excited to sleep), even ruffling Deku’s hair and hugging him hadn’t done it.

She meandered through the stands of people watching the festival. So many pros, costumes, people of all shapes and sizes. Someone was in the process of dropping their hotdog. She shrugged. It wasn’t like the guy was going to eat it once it hit the ground. She was just being a good citizen and preventing a mess (and the waste of a perfectly good hot dog).

The speedster plopped down into an open seat and leaned back to eat. If she had to wait at this speed it would be weeks before the next event started. 

She walked back to her dorm room, and pulled the carrying case out from under the bed. She sat on the mattress and opened it. She still had two full doses left. If she over shot the dose she could end up quirkless for the next event, and that wasn’t an option. She sighed and put the case back.

The speedster was a little bummed Jupiter was gone. At least this wouldn’t have been so damned lonely and boring. 

Astrid walked into Katsuki’s room in the nurses station. He looked like he was in rough shape. He might have been sleeping, or blinking, she really couldn’t tell the difference at this speed. His arms and chest were fully wrapped in bandages. She picked up his chart and read about the multiple fractures in both arms and the broken rib. She put the clipboard back and walked over to the side of the bed.

Deku was in the hallway mid stride, he must be on his way to check on Katsuki too.

Astrid ran a hand through his blonde spikey hair. It was stiffer than Deku’s, but it still felt nice on her hand. She sat on the edge of the bed. She wished he hadn’t pushed himself so hard. She had no idea what he was trying to prove.

Astrid went to see if she could help with clean up, but the concrete was way too heavy for her to move any significant amount of it.

Her quirk was burning hotter than it ever had, so she decided to try something. She ran over to the school track where her bracelet and the speed tracker were. She clipped on the wrist strap and took off. She could almost feel how much faster she was going. 

She pushed and pushed. The lighting was coursing through her veins. Her breathing was calm, her heart was thundering. 

This is it. She felt like she had to be going even faster than Mach 30. They had been wrong about Jupe, maybe they were wrong about her too. She could go faster. She could feel it.

She skidded to a stop, even her friction proof suit had warmed slightly. She looked at the display screen.

“That isn’t possible…”

The number was blinking… Mach 29.9.

Astrid looked at the device, wondering if the stupid thing was busted. She grabbed it and something stood out to her almost immediately. The right side was completely smooth. There was no scratch from when Mr. Aizawa had dropped it. How many of these things did the school own? Maybe this one was just junk.

She needed to ask Mr. Aizawa, but she couldn’t do that at her current speed. She would do anything to be able to consistently get back to real time. Occasionally the relative time made her quirk not feel worth it.

Astrid needed this to stop… 

She did think of one thing that might work, but she didn’t like it. But she needed to get ready for the competition, talk to her teacher, make sure Katsuki was okay, she had shit to do that she needed normal time for.

The speedster walked into the boy’s locker room and began digging through Katsuki’s stuff.

A number of the boys were getting cleaned up from the last event, and the place smelled like body spray. As far as they were concerned, the event had practically just ended.

Astrid found what she was looking for. One of his smaller grenades that had already been loaded by his sweat. Katsuki’s bag smelled kinda sweet. She stuffed everything that wasn’t the explosive device back into the bag and walked out.

“Now,” She tapped her foot. “Where to blow myself back to real time?”

Chapter Text

Momo stood with her parents in one of the hallways of the stadium. 

Her mom shook her head. “I don’t know how you could have done better! That was incredible!”

Momo suppressed a flinch. Her mother really couldn’t think of a way she could have improved her performance? The hero in training could think of dozens now that the battle was over.

“You did incredible! I’m just so proud of you for trying your best!” Her father chimed in.

Does he not see the potential she was wasting? 

“Thank you for being so kind.” She bowed formally. “I intend to do better in the next round.” She reassured the pair of them.

Her parents looked confused. Her mom smiled and stepped forward. “Sweetie, you  have nothing to prove. You know that right?” She pulled her daughter into a hug.

Momo wished she believed her, or her father that was joining in to make it a group hug.

She smiled at her parents and told them she loved them before going back to the stadium to find out what the next game would be.

Her sneakers were squeaking in a mildly annoying way. She briefly considered making a new pair before deciding she needed to save her lipids.

“Hey! Yaoyorozu, wait up!” Jirou called from an adjoining hallway.

Momo turned around and waited. She watched Jirou approaching. The gym clothes looked nice on her, but they seemed a bit out of place. “Hello.”

“Sup!” Jirou took a second to catch her breath.

Momo got distracted looking at her eyes. Momo’s eyes got comments on how dark they were, they were about as dark as brown eyes could get. But Jirou’s eyes were jet black, like a finely cut onyx. She liked looking at them.

For some reason Jirou was blushing. “So do you uh, wanna walk out together?”

It made Momo feel like she was doing a good job as class rep that her classmates seemed to seek her out. “Of course.” She smiled. “And you can call me Momo.”

“Yeah? That’s uh, that’s cool. You can call me, Kyoka too. I mean, not ‘too’ cause like, your name is Momo and mine isn’t. I just mean like, you can use my first name, to.” Jirou stammered out and stopped talking abruptly.

Momo smiled at her friend. The last event must have really taken it out of her if she could barely form sentences. “Thank you, Kyoka.”

Kyoka seemed to be breathing fairly shallow as the two began walking together.

Momo looked over. “Have you seen Recovery Girl yet?”

“What do you mean? I’m– I’m fine!” The purple haired girl explained.

“You’re breathing kind of weird. I was just worried about you.” Momo stopped walking and turned to smile reassuringly at her classmate. “It’s normal to feel anxious.”

Jirou didn’t speak, and her strikingly black eyes were restless.

“Kyoka?” Momo prodded gently. “Are you okay?”

Kyoka’s face was red. Her mouth was open, but she seemed to be having a hard time making any words come out. “I…” Her eyes were beginning to water like something was upsetting her. “I just…” Kyoka stepped backward and leaned against a nearby wall.

The anxiety about going back out there in front of that crowd was definitely getting to her. Momo’s mom-friend/class rep instincts took over. She stepped closer to Kyoka to try to block her view of the hall and stadium slightly. Momo knew smaller spaces helped her feel better when she was freaking out. Luckily she was a bit taller than Kyoka, so blocking her view was pretty easy. “Hey, it’s okay.” Momo whispered softly.

Kyoka did not seem to be calming down. “Yaoyo– Momo, I just, I think you’re– so I came to find you to– If you want–” 

This was clearly a bad panic attack. The students were supposed to be on the field any second. She needed to help her friend calm down. Momo thought as hard as she could about what item or actions would be correct for the situation.

Momo stepped forward and pulled Kyoka into a hug. She pressed her to the wall gently with her body weight. Warmth and pressure always calmed Momo right down, so she figured the same might work for her friend. She spoke softly as to not startle the girl. “It’s okay, Kyoka. You have nothing to be nervous about. You’re amazing.” And it was true, there may be some very talented people in the festival, but Kyoka’s quirk was amazing. She’d make a splash for sure.

Kyoka made a noise that Momo couldn’t quite place. She also seemed like she wasn’t breathing hardly at all now. “Momo…”

“Kyoka? Are you okay? Should I take you to the nurse?” Momo was absolutely failing as a friend and a class rep. 

Kyoka managed to speak. “No…” She breathed out. “I just need a minute… I’ll catch up with you.”

“I can’t leave you alone when you need me.” Momo said resolutely. She couldn’t stand the idea of letting her classmates down.

“Really, I’m good. Super good. I’m awesome.” Kyoka laughed/wheezed. “Promise. I’ll meet up with you.”

Momo took the hint and nodded. She began walking out to the stadium. She wished she could have done more for Kyoka. Momo really liked her.

Chapter Text

Kaminari was standing in the stadium, lined up with his classmates. They were still waiting on a few of them. The yellow haired young man looked down at his hand. Sparks danced across his finger tips. He looked up to see if Kazue was lined up yet.

Kazue met his eyes and smiled. The judoka gave him a thumbs up.

Kaminari returned the gesture. Kazue was okay, that 1B kid was okay. Maybe he hadn’t hurt anyone today… He was still unsure if he wanted to use his ultimate move again.

The idea of feeling one of his classmate’s sparks go out gripped his chest and threatened to suffocate him. 

Eventually Jiro made it back and hopped in line next to him. She looked disheveled and anxious.

Kaminari was thankful for the distraction of having his friend back. “So, did you ask her out?”

Jiro had her eyes fixed on the ground and her hands in her pockets. She mumbled something.

“What was that?”

She mumbled again.

“You know, for a sound hero, you’re a little too–”

“No. Okay. No, I chickened out.” She hissed at him, trying not to be heard by the object of her affection a couple students ahead of her.

“Come on dude! What, you think she’s going to say no?” He scoffed. “You’re totally awesome. That isn’t going to happen.”

“It wasn’t even that!”

“Then what was it?” Kaminari like gossiping about dating and highschool shit. It reminded him that he was normal. That life was still normal.

“I got a little flustered.” She admitted.

Kaminari tried not to laugh. “Come on, you can’t even talk to her without freaking out?”

“Yes, I can! I mean, well, maybe not. But I definitely couldn’t do it when she had me pressed up against the wall whispering nice things in my ear!” Her quiet yelling was in danger of turning into loud yelling.

“I thought you said you didn’t ask her out.”

“I didn’t!”

Kaminari couldn’t stop the chuckle. “Yeah, I figured she was weird.”

“Apparently.”

“You like her even more now, huh?”

“Duh.”

Kaminari smiled. He was happy for them. He wanted to see his classmates doing okay after what happened. It made him feel normal to see them being normal.

There was a loud bang and a shit ton of car alarms started going off in the distance.

Kaminari’s blood went cold. He knew they shouldn’t have held this event. He looked around himself and sure enough, class 1A’s faces had all gone serious. They had done this one already.

Whatever had done that, they’d be ready for it.

Astrid whooshed onto the field and stood in front of her class. He hair was singed and her face was slightly burned. “Hey guys.” She walked over to her spot and stood there like everything was completely normal.

“What happened out there?” One of their classmates asked.

Astrid looked over. “Oh. I was stuck in relative time, so I blew myself up with one of Bakugo’s grenades.” 

“Relative time?”

“Why would you do that?”

“I knew it was you who took it, you damned brat!”

“Have you done this before?”

Kaminari found himself smiling at his class’ antics. There were no villains. It was just Astrid. The electric quirk user took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

Lady Midnight took to the stage to announce the next game. “Alright!” She shouted into her wearable mic as she spun the spinner. “Let’s find out what our next game will be!”

Chapter Text

“And it looks like our next game will be… Dodgeball!” The lady with the whip said. The crowd erupted into cheers.

Astrid looked around at her classmates, most of them seemed fairly excited about the result.

The speedster leaned over to whisper to her closest classmate, sadly that was the purple ball kid. “Hey, uh… Sticky Ball Boy.”

He looked up at her. “Yes, Mi’lady?” He said with a lisp. He sounded more confident than usual.

“What’s dodgeball?”

“Well,” He puffed out his chest. “Allow me to explain it for y–”

“The rules of the game are simple!” The teacher continued, interrupting ball-boy. “You will be separated into teams of five for a single elimination tournament!” Illustrative diagrams were displayed on the screen, which Astrid was thankful for. “There are three dodgeballs on the starting line in the beginning. If you get hit with a thrown ball that has not hit the ground yet, you’re out! If you catch a ball, a teammate comes back in and the thrower is out! If you catch a ball before it hits the ground but after it hit a teammate, the thrower of the ball is out! Step over the middle  line and you’re out as well!”

Astrid was glad the game sounded easy. She really wanted to make a show of this one. No matter what it cost her. She held Mr. Darmon’s face in her mind and felt her anger rise. She was winning this one for spite. Fuck him. And fuck him double for sending Jupe to do his dirty work.

“You have five minutes to pick your teams! And for those of you that did not qualify for this round by failing to get on the hill, we have prepared some other activities for you to show off what you can do!”

Astrid did everything she could to apply what she’d been learning. Plan like Deku? Fight like Bakugo? Overwhelm the other team with power like Todoroki? Should she look for teams with strong quirks or smart players? She looked around the field. Most people were already teaming up.

The judo boy with the light green hair and brighter green eyes approached her. “Hey,” He smiled and put his hand out for her to shake. “Wanna team up?”

Astrid wasn’t sure how tactical it was, or if that even mattered, but she figured she wasn’t in a position to say no to people at the moment. “Sounds good.” Astrid shook his hand.

For the moment their skin was touching she felt a cold sensation in her forearm. She drew her hand back quickly. 

The boy looked nervous. “Did I hurt you?” His face was scrunched slightly.

Astrid shook her head. “No, I’m good. Just… I don’t know. Weird day I guess.” She just wanted off the topic.

The boy nodded. “So, who else?” He put his hands on his waist and began looking around the field.

Astrid looked around. It looked like Uraraka was still on her own. The speedster walked over. “Hey, Uraraka. Do you want to team up for this one?”

The pink cheeked girl turned around and smiled. “Yes!” She bounced slightly, Her hair reminded the speedster of a type of jelly fish she couldn’t remember the name of. “You aren’t mad at me for floating you off the hill?”

Astrid had actually forgotten that was how she’d lost. It had been days ago almost. “No, it’s all good. You won fair and square.”

Uraraka looked relieved. She looked over at their other teammate and her cheeks got a bit pinker. “Hi Kazuto! Are you ready to win this?” Her voice had for sure gone up half an octave.

Kazuto smiled at her slightly different than he smiled at Astrid. “Absolutely I am. This whole day has already been so great, I can’t wait.”

Astrid felt like she was getting an ‘A’ in ‘Team Picking’. She scanned the remaining students. She found her next person. She jogged over to the boy with pipes coming out of his legs. “Iida! Do you want to team up with us?” She pointed back at the group.

He looked at her and shook his head sadly. “I’m sorry, Takioka. But I fear if you and I were on a team, I wouldn’t be able to make myself stand out today at all.”

“What do you mean? You’re really good at all this hero training stuff.”

“If you and I team up, to potential employers, I would simply look like the slower version of you.” He bowed slightly. “I am sorry Takioka, but my hope is to defeat you in this game. I cannot hope to do that on your team. I am deeply sorry.” He walked back over to his own group, that so far looked like it consisted of him and Tokoyami.

Astrid sighed and walked back over to her team. “So Iida is a no go.”

“What about them?” Uraraka pointed to the two gear using students who were embroiled in a discussion that may or may not have anything to do with dodgeball.

Astrid walked over to the two of them. “Hey… would either of you ladies want to join our team?”

Tanaka sat only a seat away from Astrid in the back, she had her black hair tied back which was unusual for her. She also seemed to have found a cup of coffee… somewhere. The gear hero nodded. “I’m in.”

The one with the pink hair and the weird eyes smiled. “I’m in too! Mai Hatsume at your service!”

Astrid smiled and looked over the team. 

Herself, Kazuto, Uraraka, Tanaka, and Hatsume. She was fairly certain this would be all they needed to win. She could dodge anything, And the others could… she didn’t actually know. But she hoped they were good at dodgeball, that would be a helpful skill.

Luckily Kazuto seemed to take the lead. “Alright! You guys want to strategize?”

While the team talked about how they could work together, Astrid let herself remember the Skytree and being held 300 meters off the ground. Whatever that fucker did to her after this tournament, she didn’t care.

That asshole wanted her to hide.

So she was going to make certain the world knew she was here.

Chapter Text

Astrid and her team took to the court. It was made of cement like all the other structures used in the games. It made sense to her, the place got destroyed all the time and it made more sense to just have Cementos fix it, but she really wished they could be playing in the grass.

The other team ran out to their side of the field cheering and laughing. The players names were displayed on a board so the audience could see. The other team consisted of 

Eijiro Kirishima, 

Kouji Kouda, 

Kyouka Jirou, 

Hanta Sero, 

Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu.

Astrid’s team consisted of

Astrid Takioka,

Kazuto Kazue, (Astrid now understood Kazuto was his first name)

Ochako Uraraka,

Sora Tanaka,

Mei Hatsume.

The two teams were eyeing each other as they took their spots on the line. Everyone but Astrid took up running positions.

“Allright everyone! There is no need to be left in suspense! Because I AM HERE! Announcing for the sports festival!” The crowd erupted into cheers and shouts. Clearly All Might doing anything impressed them. “We’re going to have a good clean game! You are permitted to use your quirks, but only hitting your opponent with a ball will get them out! Ready!? Go!” 

Astrid felt her quirk buzzing low, but more than enough to have both teams moving in hyper slow motion. She walked up to the line and picked up all three of the red rubber balls.

The speedster walked over and gave one to Kazue by sticking it under his arm, and one to Uraraka by placing both of her hands on it. Then she walked up to the line to throw. The opposing team had taken roughly half a step off their starting line. 

Astrid had never thrown something with her quirk. She knew most of the speedsters at the facility could do it, it just hadn’t ever interested her. But it couldn’t be that complicated. She held the ball in one hand and began turning in quick circles as she wound up her arm. She went round and round and round and then she let go of the ball. She forced herself back into real time to see if she’d hit Kirishima.

“OOOOOooooooohhhhhhhhhhhh!” The crowd jeered. Astrid looked around. Kazue and Uraraka still had the balls she’d given them. No one on the other team had been hit. So what happ–

She looked down. “Oh.” There was a dodgeball sized hole in the cement at her feet. Apparently she had thrown the ball straight down. So… aiming was going to take some practice apparently.

“Were you aiming that at one of us?!” The boy with tape elbows sounded horrified.

Kirishima hardened and slammed his knuckles together. “Hell yeah, Takioka! Let’s do this!”

Cementos blew a whistle and approached the field. Everyone waited as he set a new third ball on the line. He walked back to his reffing spot and blew the whistle again.

Astrid ran forward and grabbed the ball. She tried throwing it normally this time, just while using her quirk. She slowed down to see the results. The ball had been thrown so high it was nearly a vertical toss. 

Everyone looked up at the ball in the air.

Kazue ran forward and threw, he hit Jirou in the stomach since she’d been looking up. 

“Damnit.” Jirou walked off the field to wait and see if she could be brought back.

Kirishima dove and grabbed the ball off the ground after Jirou was out, Uraraka tried to take advantage of this and threw her ball at the prone boy.

Kirishima rolled to the side and managed to grab the second ball as well, he tossed it back to Sero. 

Astrid made sure she was moving at speed. She had no intentions of getting out this early.

The only problem with that was, she couldn’t do anything to stop the ball that was falling back to the court on their opponent's side. The one she had thrown basically straight in the air.

She got to watch every elongated second as the ball came into view. The boy with the silver hair and white eye make up seemed to be tracking the ball with his eyes. He was moving slowly, practically not moving, but he was moving fast enough to catch the ball that was falling.

“Fuck Fuck Fuck.” Astrid looked around in a panic. There was nothing she could do. She was going to be knocked out of the game in the first few seconds again!

She could almost hear the orchestral score in the background spelling her demise as the rubber sphere fell closer and closer to its final destination.

The ball was less than a meter from the silver haired boy from 1B. She assumed through process of elimination his name was Tetsutetsu. The speedster was so frustrated. She was actually fucking trying this time!

There was a light and something flying very quickly near Astrid. She turned around to see that the pink haired girl, Hatsume, had fired one of the cannons with a grappling spike that she had mounted to her hips.

“What the hell is she doing?” Astrid walked over to Hatsume and tried to follow her eye-line. Was she aiming at the ball Astrid had thrown?

Astrid watched the spike fly out and it did actually hit the ball before Tetsutetsu could grab it. It absolutely obliterated the ball, but it prevented Astrid from getting out. She kept her quirk on since the low speed didn’t completely freeze the game.

Cementos walked up and put another ball on the line. Astrid couldn’t make out the whistle to go, so she waited until everyone else was running for the ball before she went and picked it up.

She glanced up to find out that Kirishima had thrown his ball just above the new ball, hoping to predict her movements. His prediction had been accurate, but the attack was just too slow. 

The speedster picked up the new ball and let the other one fly right past her. It had been a good try, but she just wasn’t hittable. It wasn’t Kirishima’s fault.

Astrid watched as Sero threw another ball and she just walked over to a different side of the court to preemptively avoid it. That meant that all the balls were on her side of the court now. 

She forced her quirk to turn off for a moment so she could try to talk to her team. Because she obviously wasn’t the thrower for their team, she was most definitely the dodger.

All Might’s speaker amplified voice boomed though the stadium. “What an astonishing double play from Kirishima’s team! Tanaka’s team is now down both Mei Hatsume AND Ochako Uraraka!”

Astrid whipped around to look at her team. “What?”

The two girls walked off the court. Urararaka seemed particularly bummed about it.

Kirishima’s voice snapped her back to the game. “Come on! You gonna show me that cannon you got for an arm, Takioka?”

Astrid turned around to face him. It was already three on four. She could manage to not get hit, but she couldn’t win if she couldn’t actually get anyone out.

Astrid turned around and looked at Tanaka and Kazue. “What should I do?”

Tanaka rolled her eyes. “You can catch, can’t you?”

“Yeah, I got it.” Astrid nodded and then tossed the ball she was holding to Tanaka to give the gear user two.

Astrid let her quirk burn nice and high. She held the image of her handler, silhouetted by the city skyline at night, in her mind. She was going to make him regret… she didn’t know what. Just regret.

She watched the game taking place in slow motion.

Tanaka’s control of her body was amazing to watch. The black eyed girl threw one ball and then twisted her body in the air to throw the next one with the spin from her flip. 

Astrid watched the first ball Tanaka threw fly at the silver haired boy. But to her amazement, when the boy tried to catch the ball, he was foiled by the second ball Tanaka had thrown hitting the first and changing its flight path a little at the last second. 

The first ball hit Tetsutetsu in the shoulder. His face was slowly contorting into one of anger.

Kazue had thrown his while she was watching Tanaka’s throw.

Apparently Koda had been watching Tetsutetsu get hit too, he didn’t have the speed to get away with it.

Kazue’s throw hit Koda in the head and sent the large boy tumbling backwards.

So all their team had now was Sero and Kirishima. Astrid smirked. It was her turn. She could get them both out the moment they threw anything.

Her opponents took the time to look at each other and nod. The two of them were throwing in unison. Trying to hit her or force her to dodge, but she had two hands.

Astrid fancied the idea of coming back to real time having caught both throws and gotten them both out at once. All she had to do was position her hands right.

She moved into the cross section for the throw and put her hands out to grab, easy peasy. The first attack, Kirishima’s, had been a little faster. So that ball got to her first. She placed her palm on the rubber surface, and to her surprise, the ball changed directions. 

The fucker spun it when he threw. Shit. Astrid felt the ball rolling off her hand, so she reached out and finished the catch using both hands. 

As soon as she’d managed that though, the deviousness of her opponent's plan hit her. And so did a dodgeball, right in the face. She felt when it hit her that both throws had spin on them.

Astrid went tumbling to the ground, out. “Fuck!” She yelled and jogged off the court. The disgruntled speedster clenched her fists and tried to watch the match.

It didn’t take much longer. Kazue and Tanaka were the embodiment of mobility, Kirishima was a tank, but standing there and getting hit really well isn’t super helpful in dodgeball. After he was out, Sero didn’t stand a chance.

“And that is it for our first match! Congratulations to Sora Tanaka and her team! Good luck in the next round, budding heroes! Let’s hear it for ‘em folks!!!”

The crowd clapped and cheered, but Astrid knew the truth. She hadn’t done shit in that round. She didn’t want to win. She wanted to show Mr. Darmon he couldn’t push her around!

She still looked like she was throwing her performance! But she wasn’t! She just… really did suck that bad.

The anger turned to a sinking feeling, a weight on her chest.

She ran back to the changing rooms. She couldn’t be in front of thousands of people and on national television in that moment.

The speedster punched a locker and hurt her fist. The pain grounded her slightly. “Fuck. Fuck this school. Fuck this shit. I’m not cut out for this fucking bull sh–” Her phone buzzed, disrupting her rage.

Karma: [I’m looking forward to seeing you again too. Good luck in the rest of the festival! <3]

Astrid stared at the screen and tried to remember when she’d told him… oh. She’d thought about him when she was talking to Jupiter.

Astrid: [You’re invasive. But I appreciate it. Maybe I can run up your way when I get a little time off.]

Karma: [Looking forward to it.]

Astrid slipped her phone back in her pocket. The distraction had momentarily short circuited her anger. She slumped into a chair and rested her arms and head on one of the tables.

Someone was walking down the hallway. She prayed to any god that hadn’t forsaken her yet that no one wanted to talk to her right now. She just needed a fucking minute. 

The door creaked open and then closed. 

“You’re pathetic, you know that?” A voice spoke behind the dejected speedster.

Astrid turned around as she stood up, finding a little bit of her lost anger. “What did you just say?” 

It was Tanaka. The gear hero crossed her arms. “You’re basically a god. And you can’t throw a dodgeball?” She asked confidently, like she wasn’t within murdering range.

But she wasn’t wrong… “He put a lot of spin on it…” Why was she explaining herself?

“Most of the kids in this school are fighting like hell to do this.” Tanaka sounded personally offended. “Gifted little demigods like you and Todoroki are here because you just can be, and you think everyone else is so far beneath you. You’re playing on such a different level that most of us can’t FATHOM it. You have the time to do EVERYTHING right. And you choose to not give a fuck.” The girl stepped forward and shoved Astrid in the chest with one hand. 

Astrid staggered back and caught herself on the table. 

Tanaka stepped forward so the girls were nose to nose. “If you aren’t going to put the work in, why don’t you get out of the way of the ones who will. I’m not losing today because of you. ” Tanaka spat the ‘you’ as if even addressing Astrid would infect her with the speedster’s incompetence. She turned on her heel and left the room.

Astrid was angry. Or, at least she was trying to be. But Tanaka was right. Astrid hadn’t done anything to get here… Her speed was the only thing they wanted at the facility.

They never expected more from her than moving fast… 

Move fast, kill efficiently. She’d never learned anything else.

Astrid felt a tear rolling down her cheek. She clenched her fists and squeezed her eyes shut. “No.” She whispered to herself. “No.” The speedster wiped her eyes and stood up straight. “I’m not done yet.” 

Tanaka says she can’t do this. 

The facility is telling her to throw it.

And the whole world was already laughing at her.

Astrid felt a new fire in her bones. 

Spite she could work with.

“Thanks, Tanaka.” Astrid marched out to the playing field.

Chapter Text

“Allright folks! I AM HERE! Letting you know that our next match is going to be one to watch! We have an all star lineup for our first bracket team, led by Momo Yaoyorozu! Her fellow class rep from 1B Itsuka Kendo! Her fellow recommendations-admission Shouto Todoroki! The wild card from general studies, Hitoshi Shinso! And last but certainly not least, the judo future hero, Mashiro Ojiro!”

Astrid clenched her fists as she walked out for the match with her team. The crowd was muffled, she was feeling a little sped up and it was getting worse rapidly. She tried to make out what All Might was saying but it was distorted beyond what she could hear. 

Kazue was smiling at the crowd and waving, Hatsume was doing the same. Uraraka and Tanaka were talking about something to each other.

The speedster drank in the crowd and the magnitude of what this festival meant to her classmates. She thought about what this festival could mean for her.

She had a new plan. She wasn’t going to make it look good. That had been arrogant from the start. Her classmates were beating her all the time. They were amazing. She needed to actually do good. That was how she showed Mr. Darmon he could go fuck himself.

She would need inspiration. The speedster made time to watch a movie just titled ‘Dodgeball.’ It was incredibly informative.

Astrid walked out to the field and sat in her spot on the concrete. She crossed her legs and rested her chin in her hands. She examined her opponents. Her team's opponents. She didn’t make this look good by being fast. She’d tried that. She needed to make this look good by showing everyone how a speedster could help them win.

Ojiro was easy. She was confident (if she paid attention) she could catch anything he threw.

Yaoyorozu was a horrible wild card in a game like this. She could take literally any approach.

Todoroki offered an equally bad, but completely different problem. Astrid would have to keep an eye on him.

She knew next to nothing about the other two kids. 

Luckily, Focused Astrid knew she could fix this little problem. 

The speedster walked into the faculty office and pulled out the files for Kendo and Shinso.

“Itsuka Kendo…” Astrid read out loud. “Big Fist. She can make both of her hands larger to grab and strike.” Astrid was not particularly impressed by the quirk, but for a game of dodgeball, it could be devastating.

She grabbed the next file. “And what about you, Hitoshi Shinso?” She began turning the page. “What should I watch for with you–” Astrid read the quirk. “Oh shit.” The speedster dropped the file and ran back to the dodgeball court. 

Astrid managed to slow down enough to see her classmates moving, albeit in slow motion. But she couldn’t communicate with them in time to…

She took a breath. “I can do this.” A plan occurred to her. She ran back to the school and grabbed a marker. 

The speedster rolled up their friends' sleeves and tried to be very gentle as she wrote on their arms.

Satisfied, she stuck the marker back into her pocket. She waited and watched her classmates approach. She had had a lot of time to think, and it was clear she couldn’t use traditional teamwork. She couldn’t hear them or talk to them. So she would have to set things in motion and hope they understood, as well as try to figure out what they needed from her at any given moment, which was hard when you were moving and thinking at wildly different speeds.

She wondered if Karma heard her thoughts about him in real time or were they not discernable? She was pretty sure the thought he’d responded to had been–

No. She needed to focus on the match.

Eventually the other 9 competitors were in position. Astrid watched as they all stood in line waiting in their running positions. “Okay. This is it.” Astrid took a deep breath.

The game began, she could tell because Todoroki was launching a massive ice attack like he always did. 

Astrid found this strange. He wasn’t going to be able to easily get the balls that way, and neither could his team mates.

The speedster turned around while the ice was getting started. Her team was also in motion. Most of them seemed unsure how to dodge the attack.

Astrid tapped her chin, thinking. Then she tapped her nose when she figured it out.

Tanaka was beginning to get out a flash bang grenade, and her eyes were trained on Todoroki.

Initially the speedster was going to place her team mates out of the way of the blast as best she could, but if Todoroki hit the whole field, that was going to be tough. Disrupting it like Tanaka was going to try was a good move.

Astrid walked over to her team mate and grabbed the grenade (She figured she could place it faster, therefore less ice). She pulled the pin, walked over to the dividing line, knelt down, and very carefully rolled it right in front of Todoroki without crossing the chalk line.

She stood up and smiled. That should go off and stop him before the ice even made it to the back of their zone.

Astrid noticed her next problem though. Her friends were going to be affected by that grenade too. “Hmmm.” She tapped her chin, then her nose a moment later. “Got it.” She walked over and took a knife off of Tanaka. 

Astrid took off her shirt. It wasn’t like anyone could see her at this speed, and she was wearing a bra. The speedster cut four roughly equal lengths of cloth from her shirt before putting back on the garment. It was more akin to a crop top now, but she had her blind folds.

She walked up to each of her four team mates and put the blind fold on to protect them from the flash of Tanaka’s grenade, and she placed the knife back where she’d gotten it.

The concussive sound wave wouldn’t bother Astrid at her speed. It would be far too distorted to have the same impact. But her friends could lose their hearing temporarily.

Astrid had one pair of earplugs in her pocket from Katsuki, but that was only one. The speedster checked Tanaka’s belt pouches (and saw horrible things she dare not think about) but no ear plugs. “Hm.”

The speedster looked at the other team to make sure she wasn’t overlooking things in her singular focus on this flash bang issue. She’d come back to it in a minute.

Shinso’s mouth was open. He must be trying to use his quirk. Astrid wondered if her note would be enough. It would have to be for now.

Yaoyorozu was creating something and pulling it out of her thigh where her gym pants had ripped. Astrid couldn’t tell what it was yet, so she returned her attention to the task at hand. 

She decided to do the only thing she could think of. She walked over to each of her teammates and very gently put their fingers in their own ears.

Astrid saw the grenade fracturing and closed her eyes and looked away. The light part of the blast passed over her relatively harmlessly. She felt the rumbles of the sound waves that told her the sonic part was done.

She quickly walked over to her (likely very confused) teammates and took their blindfolds off.

Sure enough, Todoroki’s ice wall barely made it to the middle line before he was leaning back, rubbing his eyes with a pained expression on his face.

Yaoyorozu had been interrupted in whatever she was making, and Shinso’s mouth was closed. Ojiro was in rough shape too.

The big hand girl managed to cover her eyes and ears with her oversized hands between the grenade rolling to a stop and it going off. 

“Impressive.” The speedster acknowledged.

The 1B class rep was running for the balls that were still untouched in the middle.

Astrid had a fleeting thought that this was too easy, but she squashed it. She needed to take this seriously from start to finish.

The speedster went and picked up the balls. 

She distributed them to her own team. She gave one to Kazue under his arm, Tanaka in both of her hands, and Uraraka wrapped in both arms. The pink cheeked girl looked a little unsteady and Astrid didn’t want to risk her dropping it.

The other team still hadn’t recovered yet.

She watched Kazue and Tanaka rush (move slower than a snail drowning in molasses) forward. The two of them aimed at the heavy hitters on the other team, Todoroki and Yaoyorozu.

Tanaka’s ball was flying at the class rep, and Kazue’s was flying at Todoroki.

Todoroki had recovered and looked like he might catch the one thrown at him.

Astrid did not like this, she wanted a shut-out. So she had to stop Todoroki or the ball. She remembered how she’d been saved in the last match.

The speedster dragged Mei to a new position and set her carefully where she needed her. The determined speed hero took a knee and tried to line up the shot. Once she was pretty sure she had it set up, she hit the button to launch Mei’s spike-grappler-thing. It was the wrong button. Astrid tried another and heard a click. The spike began slowly emerging from the device.

“Okay,” She wiped her brow. “Next.” She looked over and saw Yaoyorozu dodging the ball that was thrown at her, and she was making something. The recovery time after a grenade blast was impressive. Not much Astrid could do about that.

Uraraka seemed to be confident she could though. The gravity hero was throwing at the spot Yaoyorozu was about to land. The predictive-attacking in this class was off the charts.

Astrid was fairly certain that was going to result in Yaoyorozu being out, but more importantly that it wouldn’t result in a catch.

The speedster returned their attention to the 1B class rep. She was diving to catch Tanaka’s throw.

“Damn it, she’s got some fuckin grabbers .” Astrid wasn’t sure how to prevent the catch, but she knew she had to. “Okay, okay, okay.” Astrid was starting to panic. She didn’t know how to save Tanaka here.

She watched helplessly as Tanaka’s throw was caught.

“Fuck!” Astrid let herself be frustrated for only a second before she got her head back in the game.

So Tanaka was out, and they had their whole team still in.

Uraraka’s throw missed Yaoyorozu. The creation hero was holding… a cannon? She had it aimed at the gravity hero. She pulled the trigger and Astrid watched as a red rubber ball began leaving the barrel.