I came back to school and seeing Bakugou was deadass the best moment of my life.

"Stop laughing!"

His hair was slicked down rather than it's usually spiky self.

Unlike the chair situation, I couldn't hold in my laughter—neither could Kirishima nor Sero.

"My hair's gotten used to it, so it won't go back even after I wash it!" Bakugou is quaking.

"Hey, stop laughing! I'll kill you!"

"I'd like to see you try, side-part boy!" Sero counters.

"What'd you say?!" His hair poofs back to its regular state.

"It's back!"

Wow, you even got to fight villains? I'm so jealous." Ashido says in envy.

"I just helped people evaluate and did logistical support, so I didn't do any fighting, though." Jirou says, twiddling with her elongated earlobe.

"It's still amazing, though!"

Tsu then begins to speak. "All I did was train and go on patrols, too. There was one time when we caught smugglers from a neighboring country."

"That's crazy!" Ashido and Jirou respond.

"What about you, l/n? Who'd you intern with? And how was it?" Tsu asks me.

"Oh, uh, haha. It was...interesting. I interned with Hawks..."

"What!? Seriously!? You got that hottie?!" Ashido exclaims.

"Um, because for like, one minute I used wings to fly during the obstacle course."

"Ugh, luckyyyy."

"Hehe. Well, I say it was interesting for a reason. For absolutely no reason, he shoves us into a full scale villain attack and told us to deal with it." I say, dying.

"Wait, us?" Jirou points out.

"Oh, yeah. It was Tokoyami and I."

"That makes sense, they're both birds." Tsu adds.

"Yeah, well." I sigh. "We ended up dealing with it—with some help from him—but it was a pain in the ass. He ended up taking us to a fancy dinner as an apology. And there was..." I trail off

"Hey Tokoyami!" I yell across the room.

"What?" He says blankly.

"The chair." I say, cracking up.

She starts snickering in response.

"Holy shit even Tokoyami is laughing." Jirou says, surprised.

"Tell me tell me tell me. What happened?" Ashido asks excitedly.

"Mm-mm. You just had to be there." I say, shaking my head.

"Awwww." Ashido pouts.

"Ribbit. L/n, if you were dealing with a big villain attack, how come we didn't see it on the news?" Tsu asks.

"Hawks paid them to keep quiet so he didn't get in trouble." I say, sighing.

"Hehe." The laugh softly.

"Hey Ochaco, how was your week, ribbit?"

"It was very worthwhile..." She says with a scary purple aura.

"Ochaco's awakend, huh." Tsu says bluntly.

"So she went to that battle hero's place, right?" Jirou asks rhetorically. 

"That's a huge change for just one week..." Kaminari adds from across the room.

"Change? That's not it Kaminari. Women are all demons. They're just hiding their true personalities." Adds the grape head, shuddering  snd boting his nail.

Oh.

"What did you see at Mt. Lady's place?!" Kaminari asks, concerned and scared.

He grabs the grape head's arm. "I was kind of fawned over and had a good time. But the ones who changed the most, or at least went through the most were you three, right?" Kaminari gestures towards Midoriya, Iida, and Todoroki.

"Oh yeah! The hero killer!" Sero exclaims. 

"I'm glad you guys made it out alive! Seriously." Kirishima adds.

Ok what the hell happened. I was too tired to actually watch the news when I got back to the hotel. And anytime I wasn't I was on my phone or laptop instead.

"I was worried." Yaoyorozu adds.

"I heard Endeavor saved you guys, huh." 

"That's amazing! As expected from the number two hero!" Hakagure says, getting Todoroki's attention.

I know about the hero killer with Ingenium, but were these three involved? I've had strong suspicions about Iida and Ingenium being related. Maybe he went for revenge. And Endeavor is Todoroki's father. Did they get involved somehow. Kirishima did say he was glad they lived through it. We're they attacked? Or did they seek him out for revenge?

Todoroki pauses—looking conflicted—before responding.

"Yeah. He saved us."

"Yeah." Midoriya reaffirms.

"I saw on the news that the hero killer was connected to the League of Villains." Ojirou says. "Imagining someone like that scary coming to USJ freaks me out." Ojirou continues.

I sigh, something else I can't relate to.

"He is scary, but did you see the video, Ojirou?" Kaminari asks.

"Video? You mean of the hero killer?"

"Yeah. Seeing that, you can see how he's really single-minded and, like, tenacious. Doesn't it almost make you think he's cool?"

"Kaminari!" Midoriya exclaims.

"Huh? Oh Ii—" 

He almost said "Iida," does that mean...

"Sorry!"

"No, it's fine." Iida reassures, but I can see through it.

"It's true that he was tenacious. I understand how people could think he's cool. But he chose purging as a result of his beliefs. No matter what he thinks, that part is definitely wrong."

Kaminari looks down solemnly.

"In order to keep anyone else from turning out like me," Iida stands up and lays his arm out to make a 90° angle.

"I will once again walk on the path to becoming a hero!"

"Yeah, Iida." Midoriya agrees.

"Now, it's time to commence class! Everyone take your seats!"

Tokoyami sweat drops at this, "He's so loud..."

Jirou sweat drops as well, "it's cause you talked about weird stuff, Kaminari!"

"Sorry about that." Kaminari responds, with a dumb expression on his face.

Later, we head to training ground gamma with All Might.

"Okay, I am here. Anyway, we'll start now. Right. It's hero basics training! Long time no see, boys and girls!"

And non-binary pals. I sweat drop.

"How've you been? For this times hero basics training—since you've all just gotten back from your internships, we'll have some fun with a rescue training race!"

Idea raises his hand, "If we are doing rescuer training, then shouldn't we do it at the USJ?"

"That place is for training for disasters. Do you remember what I said? That's right! I said 'race!' This is field gamma! A dense area filled with factories laid out like an intranet labyrinth."

Labyrinth, huh?

"You'll break into 5-person groups with one 6-person group and go through the training one group at a time. When I send out a distress signal from somewhere inside, you'll all start at once from the outskirts of the city! It's a race to see who will rescue me first!"

Yeah, I got that last part.

"Of course, you'll have to keep damage to buildings to a minimum." He says, gesturing to Bakugou.

"Don't point at me!" Bakugou says, grumbling and clearly mad. Again.

"Alright, first group, get in place!"

It's Midoriya, Ojirou, Iida, Sero, and Ashido. When All Might was giving his speech, Midoriya jumped at the word 'labyrinth,' but the groups were randomly selected my All Might.

The others talk about advantages and disadvantages, and who they think will win, while I spend my time observing the area. Personally, based on his quirk, I think that Sero or Ojirou will win, based on the nature of their quirks.

"Okay, here we go! Start!"

Once it starts, though, Midoriya does far better than expected. He must have learned how to better control his quirk at his internship. Bakugou starts yelling about how Midoriya's movement copies that of his own, and he seems beyond pissed off.

In the end, like I predicted, Sero won. 

"Group one, you can leave the field! Group two, get into place!"

In my group, I ended up winning. The word 'labyrinth' had me thinking of this exercise differently.

The witch hides herself deep in the labyrinth. That's how I'll find him.

The main acrobatics were already out, so my biggest competition here are Todoroki and Bakugou—and they aren't even guaranteed to be in my group.

I summoned a bird to scout the area and find All Might after the exercise started. Then I summoned ribbons similar to Sero's tape to swing around and follow the bird. 

I then see others start to get ahead of me, so I summon wings and end up there about ten seconds earlier than anyone else.

We go back to the locker room to change out of our hero costumes, when he hear the grape head himself sputter in a crazed state about a glory hole and going on about the different physical features of the females in our class.

"Yaoyorozu's ample yaoyoro-boobs! Ashido's slender waist! Hakagure's floating underwear! Uraraka's fine Uraraka-body! L/n's Incredible hourglass figure! Asui's unexpected boobie—Ahhhhh!" He's suddenly poked in the eye by Jirou's earphone jack.

"Thanks, Kyouka." 

"How despicable. Let is close this up right away!" Yaoyorozu rages but in a classy way.

I notice that he hadn't said anything about Jirou, and in a twisted way, I feel bad.

"Thank you, Jirou. Why is someone like that even at UA?" I ask, disgusted.

"I don't know." Hakagure huffs.

I quickly changed, that whole situation happened at the wrong moment. I was already out of my hero costume as just in my underwear. I'm so glad we heard him before he could peep.

Hell, I hate looking at my own body, much less someone else seeing it.

The day is over, and neither Midoriya nor Bakugou are here to ask if I want to home with them. 

Todoroki then comes up to me at the last second and asks if we can walk home together. I agree and we begin our walk.

"Hey, l/n. I know you're new, and we don't talk much, but I can I talk to you about something."

"Yeah, sure, I don't mind."

"Okay, then."

He tells me about what happened with the hero killer—even though he isn't supposed to. 

"L/n, if I vent to you about something hard for me, will you do the same? I heard your song at the sports festival and feel that we both have something we need to talk to someone about, so why not each other."

I blush a little bit before agreeing. It's a little forward, but he asks. Besides, we can revel in our pain together.

"So, have you ever heard of quirk marriages?"

"Yes, actually. My mother's one wish before she passed was that I was not ignorant about the world. She wanted me to know the real ugliness of it, so that I didn't live in a bubble of lies."

"I see, well, then... My mother was forced into one, obviously with my father. She had an ice quirk and he had fire. She was sixteen and attending a school for heroes—about our age—when she was asked to be in a relationship with a twenty two year old pro."

I fucking choked. Literally Hawks in twenty two. Obviously it isn't going to be like that, but holy shit. My dirty ass mind just fucking lives in the gutter.

"Are you okay?" Todoroki asks in concern.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine, I just, what you said, reminded me of something. Don't worry about it, continue."

"Okay, well. Everyone stared at them because with such an age gap, it's really disgusting. For whatever reason, she didn't care. She loved him, because he treated her with kindness and care. His family offered to pay hers for her marriage and the bear his children. They were poor, he was rich, so they took the deal. She had three children before the first developed his quirk. It wasn't perfect, he wasn't perfect. He wanted someone with perfect balance between fire and ice. His kind and gentle nature turned to someone that of a monster. He abused her because she couldn't get it 'right' the first try. Her fourth and final kid was me, the one with the 'perfect balance.' He locked me away from my siblings and trained me even past when I dropped. In the end, she poured boiling water on me, because I reminded her of him. 

She went to live in a mental hospital after that, and still does today. That's why, I don't use my left side."

He puts his hand over his scar and clutches that part of his face.

I gasp in surprise at this.

"Thank you, for opening up. I know it can be hard when it's basically a stranger you tell your life trauma. Well, I guess it's my turn hehe." I stretch, "Here we go. Sorry in advance if I cry. I cry easily even if I'm not sad."

"My parents were both heroes. I'd rather not disclose their identity for now. Well, they died. Brutally killed. I wasn't there to witness it though. I guess that's a good thing, otherwise I might've lost control of my emotions. I summon a labyrinth that traps everyone within a one hundred meter radius, and begin attacking everyone even if I don't want to. I was six when they died. 

I was taken in by an older cousin of mine. She loved me like a mother—or at least I thought she did. She was beautiful and took care of me and played with me. We were at the park one day when I was about nine, and she asked me if I wanted to play a new game. I agreed—as any kid would. She, well, you heard the song. She told me to stand still, and so I did. I assumed after a while it was a patience game. After a couple hours I questioned if I was playing it right. Was it hide and seek but with new rules? Was it tag but I had to use illusions to tag her? I wasn't sure, but I didn't want to lose either, so I stayed put. Three and a half days went by before heard some parents talking about something on the news. I asked about it as any child would. 'Oh, it's about a villain attack. A girl a quirk that could summon giant roses and thorny vines was destroying the city while some others were robbing a nearby bank. A parallel to what I was dealing with during my internship—I don't know if you heard. I thought 'that's (cousin's name, if you don't have one then a name you like)quirk!' I asked her to show me a picture and sure enough it was her. She told me that the villain had been taken into custody by the police before going back to their own conversation.

I stood in shock for a bit and then started walking around the city, hoping to find some food or water since I didn't know the way back to my house. I was walking on the street when a family friend of ours spotted me. Hehe, you should know him, he's well known at our school. You may or may not have guessed it, it's the principle, Nezu. Anyways, he found me and took me back to his place after seeing all the dirt and leaves that collected on me. I bathed and he asked me what happened. I told him and he was surprised to say the least. 

Four years go by, and he asks me if I wanted to speak with her in jail. I agreed—seeing why he took so long to ask me. I went to visit her, and asked why. Why she had abandoned me. She told me that there were two reasons. One: that she was a villain and didn't want to deal with a kid. She wanted to be rich and live the life every new adult does. And two: she said that I was just annoying. She couldn't stand me. My stupid smile, annoying voice, the way I laughed. It was all just annoying and it bothered her so much she wanted to kill me. She decided on emotional pain rather than physical since that ends up hurting them more. All the while, she told me with a smile on her face, and made it clear that her second reason was her main reason for what she did. 

That's why I'm so nervous about everything. I hate bothering people and upsetting them. I don't want to be hurt again so I immediately close myself so that I don't annoy them. That's why it took so long to join for me, I didn't want to be a bother to anyone. So when Bakugou was clearly upset by my presence, I didn't want to stay. That's why I missed that one day at the beginning of the-er my year. I found out that he didn't hate me, he was just a big tsundere so he treated everyone like that.

Going a bit back in time, to about a year or so after I visited my cousin, Nezu asked me if I wanted to start living on my own. He was smart, and new living by myself was something I needed. Don't ask me how someone would need to live on their own, because I'm not so sure myself. I agreed to it, and continue to receive money from the police force that was responsible for telling me what had happened to my parents. The money is for things like rent, food, electricity, etc. Okay.......

That was a long ass story. But, at least we're here, perfect timing eh? Well, bye" I wave shyly.

"Goodbye, l/n."

I unlock the door and walk inside, breathing in and out.

I walk up to my bed and collapse, setting my homework aside for me to end up doing in the morning before school.

"That was a vibe check and a half on my emotional state." I say before passing out.