People often said that once you know that you're late for classes, might as well slow down and stop hurrying –you're late anyways, so what's the point in hurrying? Might as well enjoy and take your time on the way to your class.

However, for Mayumi, the same couldn't be said –especially since it wasn't about being late. She had no plans on taking her sweet time walking, and at this point, she was running for her life.

Crap, it's three in the goddamn morning.

Aizawa knew that she snuck out, and she knew that he was waiting for her in the dorms. With each step she took towards U.A., the more she felt her stomach sink at the thought of what awaited her there –she just wishes that Bakugou had the common sense to immediately go back to the dorms. Mayumi headed to the garden area of their building, and peeked inside to see if anyone was there. The dark ground level of their dorm was enough to comfort Mayumi a bit.

Mayumi tried to slide open the glass door as quietly as she can, and she managed to close it at the same way. Just when she was about to make a run for the staircase, she felt her heart jump out of her chest when something grabbed her by the ankle, covered her mouth, and dragged her away from the staircase.

She was hung upside down, and nearly pissed herself at the sudden sight of a pair of glowing red eyes staring right through her soul.

"Where have you been?" The owner of the glowing red eyes hissed, and Mayumi let out a whimper of fear. However, it was muffled by the binding cloth that her teacher had wrapped on her mouth. He pulled Mayumi's hood off, and brought her face to the light that shone from the street lamp through the sliding glass doors of the garden. Aizawa's glare turned murderous as it revealed a swell on the side of Mayumi's head, indicating that someone hit her.

"You've been to the UFR tonight, haven't you?"

"I was careful, I wore a mask -"

Don't tell me you have a lie detector in this fucking binding cloth.

"I don't care if you wore a mask or not –your face is gonna turn black and blue by tomorrow, and there's no hiding that you've been from a fistfight."

"But -"

"No buts! I could lose my job for this, you know?!" Aizawa hissed, his eyes glowing red while tightening the binding cloth that now wrapped around Mayumi like a cocoon just to strengthen his point. "No text nor note –not even a goddamn reply when I texted you!"

Aizawa pinched the bridge of his nose, and Mayumi's fear replaced with the sensation of sinking guilt.

"Don't you understand the gravity of the situation, Nitta?! With the Manager gone and the League of Villains eyeing you as a recruit, I'm responsible for you as, not only as your teacher, but as your guardian, as well! If anything happened to you –you, who is supposed to be under my watch, it's on me! I won't stand losing someone else again on my watch!" Aizawa scolded, and Mayumi saw the genuine concern underneath the anger in his eyes. However, she also saw a hint of hurt that lingered in her teacher's eyes –was he still not over the Manager's death, or was it something else?

Mayumi felt herself slowly being lowered, the binding cloth loosening up as she was set down on the floor. Aizawa sat on the living room couch, resting his elbows on his knees as he pulled at his hair. He let out a drawn out sigh, and from that sigh alone, Mayumi felt the weight of Aizawa's burden and worry over her.

"Nitta, sit." He said in a curt tone, and Mayumi didn't need to be told twice. She sat on the opposite side of Aizawa, hands on her lap, and body tense as she readied herself for the verbal whooping that she was about to receive.

"You do understand your position here in U.A., do you not?" Aizawa asked, his hands steepled as he closed his eyes.

"I-"

"Well let me remind you," Aizawa said, glaring at Mayumi. "You got into this school through a special grant that was given to you by Principal Nezu himself; you were supposed to be attending as a teacher aid for All Might in his Combat Training classes, and have been neglecting it often; you have been tagged by the League of Villains as a potential recruit; and if you haven't forgotten, you are under surveillance by the police force!" Her teacher said, the man enumerating it and counting them on his hand. Mayumi, at this point, had her head bowed down, not even daring to look at her teacher –who was now her guardian. "I know that you are still going through something, and that the Manager's death is not easy to accept –I get it. However, going back to the UFR won't solve anything –you'll be wasting your life away in there."

Mayumi had her head bowed, fists clenched on her lap.

I know. I screwed up. I know that. I'm sorry.

"Aizawa-sensei, I'm sorry."

I can't promise it won't happen again. If I don't go back there one last time to whoop that snake lady's ass, it's not only my ass on the line, but Bakugou's, too.

"I know that the question has been coming up, Mayumi, and you may not be ready to answer it yet, but you're gonna have to –you can't both be a hero student and uphold this Iron Lady persona that you've created," Aizawa said, his next words striking Mayumi down to her core.

"You'd have to eventually choose between waning to be the Iron Lady, or the hero that the Manager set you up to be –and with the pace that you're going, I'm afraid that you're gonna have to make that decision soon."

It was from songs that Mayumi gets the little comfort and ease in her life as she walks towards the main building of U.A. for her classes. The guitar riffs and drum solos were blasting so loud through Mayumi's ear drums that she didn't hear someone calling out to her. It wasn't until when a hand pushed Mayumi's head down from the back of her head, when Mayumi ripped off her earphones.

"What the fuck?!"

Mayumi turned to meet with a pair of dark red eyes glaring at her.

"I might ask you the same shit –I've been calling you three times, now!" Bakugou exclaimed as he matched her pace and walked beside her. "And I'm gonna ask you the same thing after that stunt you pulled yesterday at the UFR –what the fuck happened there?" Bakugou asked, his voice a bit lower just in case someone was eavesdropping.

"Trust me, that fight is way out of your league." Mayumi mumbled, shoving her hands at the pockets of her black motorcycle jacket. Although it wasn't the same one, Mayumi loved this jacket for the reason that it reminded her of the jacket her father used to own. He lent it to her at first, but she eventually claimed that same jacket as hers, wearing it down.

She lost that jacket to the fire, and she saw this replica at a local thrift store a year later.

"How so? You're the rank two in the UFR, aren't ya? How's the rank one any different?" Bakugou scoffed. Mayumi rolled her eyes at Bakugou's comment.

"Don't act like you fuckin' know how it is in the UFR," Mayumi scolded as they passed the arc of U.A., entering the main building. "That woman isn't like me, or the Knuckleduster, or any other wannabe in the UFR. That woman is dangerous and a renown criminal." She said, the both of them turning to the staircase.

"That woman has cronies with her, and she uses them sometimes to beat her opponents in the UFR pre or post fight," Mayumi explained, and she noticed how Bakugou fell silent at the revelation. "Besides, her fighting style, again, is way out of your League."

"Oh yeah? How does she fight?" Bakugou asked, and Mayumi stopped at a landing looking at Bakugou straight in the eye.

"My first and last fight with her –I didn't even last fifteen seconds into the fight before she managed to knock me out," Mayumi explained. "And when I say knocked out, I meant that I blacked out until the next morning." She saw on Bakugou's face an expression that resembled something close to awe and admiration, and Mayumi had to huff at that.

She wouldn't even call the Bivirgata as someone admirable.

"She's that strong, huh?" Bakugou asked.

"Not strong, but fast –fuckin' deadly, too." Mayumi said, before resuming climbing up the stairs to their classroom.

"If you lost the last time, how the hell are you gonna win this time around?" Bakugou asked, catching up to her.

"Trust me, Firecracker –I've got a plan."

"Yo, yo, Nitta-san, you seem down in the dumps! What's wrong?"

Mayumi didn't know if it was natural for Present Mic to speak that way or not, but Mayumi wished that she just plugged on her earphones when she started this. However, she was in detention, therefore, she was stuck here in the corner of the faculty room, calculating the total of the checked test papers in the various classes of Present Mic.

"Don't fall for her pout, Yamada," Aizawa said from his own cubicle, not even bothering to raise his own head up. "She had it coming the moment she stepped foot out of the dorm hours after curfew."

"What were you doing outside the dorms in the first place?" She heard their teacher, Midnight, ask as she stepped in front of them. "What did you needed so bad that you had to break the rules?"

"Well," Mayumi looked up to see Aizawa peeking form his cubicle, waiting for her response that he knows is utter bullshit. "I was hungry –and I was too lazy to cook, so I thought of grabbing a bite."

"And that explains the bruise on the side of your head?" Vlad asked, the teachers crowding the isolated table the Mayumi was on, and suddenly, she felt like she was in an interrogation –more than what she felt when Aizawa scolded her last night for her deviance.

"I swear, I was hurrying, but I tripped, and hit my head." She bullshitted, and it was obvious that none of the teachers believed it.

"Uhuh, whatever you say, Nitta-san."

"The deviance that your youth brings is inspiring, Nitta-san." Midnight cooed, patting Mayumi's head, before the teachers dispersed, leaving Present Mic on the table with her, checking his papers.

"But seriously, though, Nitta-san," Present Mic asked, surprising Mayumi by lowering his voice so that only the two of them could hear. "Is anything bothering you? You do know that you can always talk to your teachers about this stuff. I mean we were students, once, so we might be able to say what you need to hear."

Mayumi was silent for a while as she computed the papers grades of the stack of papers she was working on. Then, it wasn't until a few minutes later, when Mayumi spoke.

"Sensei, I don't think I'm cut out to be a hero."

The yellow haired man that sat with her on the table looked up at her, lowering his sunglasses to look at her.

"And what makes you say that?"

Mayumi placed down her pen and leaned back on the chair that she was sitting on, feeling a part of her neck creak as she did so.

"Well, there's nothing special about my quirk, except that it makes me stronger," Mayumi said, staring at her hands that were on her lap as she did so. "And besides, I don't think I can't make the right decisions as a hero."

I'm not strong enough, too, Mayumi wanted to add, but kept her mouth shut instead.

"Well, do you know of any hero who has never made a wrong call, little lady?" Her teacher asked, resting his hands on the desk and positioning his hands in a steepled manner. "You're still at the beginning, Nitta-san, and nobody will think lesser of you if you make the wrong call. We heroes are not perfect people, but we strive to be. So making wrong decisions is a part of the job, but it doesn't mean that we're a failure. It just means that we've still got a lot to learn, and we learn from those mistakes, okay?"

That is exactly why I can't be a good hero, Mayumi thought, clenching her fists.

I never learn from my mistakes.

The UFR had always felt somehow like a second home to Mayumi.

The stink of smoke and booze that had stuck to the walls may have been a pain in the nose, and the cramped up space always pissed the hell out of her, but it was familiar. It was somewhere she was recognized, and it was somewhere she was always welcomed.

However, as she stood at the middle of the Cage, Mayumi felt all but welcome.

The woman that stood in front of her now lit up a shit ton of warning signals in Mayumi's head, and for good reason. The woman was slender and thinner than Mayumi. Given that Mayumi lands a haymaker, or an uppercut, that woman was guaranteed to fall, that much was guaranteed. However, slender and small doesn't always mean weak and frail. The woman in front of her was known around the UFR as Bivirgata. Not much was known about her except that she was, like Mayumi, a foreigner in Japan that had to make her name for herself. Some rumours said that she dabbled with human trafficking some time in Malaysia, and some went as far to say that she was involved in a drug cartel in countries further east. Did Mayumi believe in the rumours that made her look even more dangerous than she already is?

Yes –she did.

Mayumi, who used to be an arrogant brat back when she began in the UFR, became cocky once, and challenged the rank one fighter in the UFR –that was back when she was the rank 5 fighter. Comments about how fast she was climbing up the charts, and how she was a prodigy had filled her head so much that her feet left the ground. She forgot one thing that the Manager warned her about when it came to entering this kind of business and that was to keep her feet on the ground. The Manager decided to teach Mayumi a lesson that day, and decided to let her go to that fight.

The crowd was crazy when they heard about the fight, and the UFR was packed –more than it did during Mayumi's fight with Knuckle Duster. Mayumi had never seen the rank one fighter, but she had heard a great many deal about her. The moment that Mayumi saw her in the ring, she had the audacity to laugh at how thin and scrawny-looking the rank one fighter was -the great Bivirgata.

When the fight started, Mayumi didn't even last ten seconds the moment that she charged in with a haymaker.

Mayumi felt a series of sharp jabs that started from her hip bone that travelled all the way up to her shoulder. No matter how hard she tried, her arm went limp and simply fell to her side. Mayumi stumbled forward, losing balance and was shocked from the sudden attack. She then felt another series of jabs behind her legs, starting from her calves all the way up to her thighs. Her knees gave up after that, and she fell to the floor, not a goddamn feeling on her legs. After that, Mayumi felt a sharp jab to the side of her neck, followed by a pinch, and the world turned black.

After that day, Mayumi woke up in her apartment, all limp and receiving a look from the Manager that screamed I told you so.

From that day on, Mayumi learned to never underestimate anyone based on their size and physique.

"Goddammit."

Mayumi was about done with the sea of book shelves she went through. She was getting rather frustrated looking for something -anything- that could help her with her research. She sat down on the floor, browsing through the different spines lined up at the bottom most shelf.

She took me down with jabs that started from my hip, to the sides of my torso, at the back of my knees, then to the side of my neck. She paralyzed me, but I woke up fine the next day… So that means that I can recover from it, and I need to find something that can speed up the recovery process –hopefully.

"Oh, Nitta-san, I didn't expect to find you here."

Mayumi looked up to see the built figure of their class rep standing before her, books in hand.

"Iida-san... Well, er-… I'm not surprised that you're here."

Iida adjusted his glasses and scanned through the titles lined up on the shelf, before his brows perked up.

"Oh, you're browsing through books on reflexology! Are you looking to practice it for first aid or medical treatments; or is it for leisure?"

"Umm…. Let's just say it's a little bit of both."

Iida's demeanor changed, immediately getting what she was saying.

"Mayumi, may I ask you something? This research that you are doing… it's for a fight, right?"

Silence.

"If I say it is, would it be wrong?"

If I say yes, would you think lesser of me than I already do?

"Nitta-san, I hope that you know how dangerous this is," Iida said, adjusting his glasses. "People go to jail for things like these, and even worse, people die."

"I know."

Why did you think I didn't want to let you in my world in the first place?

Why did you think I took that fight from Bakugou?

"My brother –he used to be involved in busting underground fight clubs. Heroes have been invested in busting these clubs, because these are where organized criminal groups get new recruits."

"Yeah, you don't think I know that?"

I got kidnapped, for crying out loud, just because they thought that I was villain material.

"Yes, because if you did know it, then I would have expected you to stop getting involved in these fighting leagues."

I did, for a while. I had a choice to give up this life –I was just stupid about it.

"This fight is different. If I win, it'll be my last one, I swear," Mayumi said, standing up, and looking Iida straight in the eye. "Please, Iida-san. If you think you can help me, I need you to tell me what you can. I need all the help that I can get. This is my last fight, I'm telling you, and my future depends on whatever the outcome is –and I need to win this last one."

If I lose, that Bivirgata would make sure that it would be my last.

Iida looked straight at her, before sizing her up, as if he was reading her like one of the books in his arms. He then sighed and adjusted his glasses.

"You say that if you win, you won't fight ever again?"

"Yes."

"And if you lose, what happens?"

…

"Well… I might die, and a person I hold dear to me might get dragged into this unruly mess I've made –and I'd never want anyone to get involved in this shitty world I live in."

Mayumi swore that she saw a hint of a smile in Iida's face. However, it could also be just her eyes playing tricks on her, her vision clouded by tears of desperation that were starting to fill her vision.

"Alright… I'll help you in any way I can, Yumi," Iida said, and Mayumi let out a suppressed yelp, wrapping her arms around her spectacled friend. "I'll help you with your research, and in combat training, if I can. What do you need to know?"

Mayumi held Iida at arm's length.

"Iida-san, what do you know about pressure points?"

"So, there's an account of a black-belter martial artist here that he did this for six years, and apparently, it's effective. He said that acupressure to recover from muscle immobilization is also effective."

Iida was standing at the side of the combat area, tablet in hand with a pile of books at the table next to him. He scrolled through a medical journal that he downloaded, nodding at the points made by the researchers at the discussion of the data they got.

"Yumi-san, are you hearing me?"

"WAIT THE FUCK UP! YOU'RE NOT THE ONE GETTING HER NERVES DAMAGED AT THE MOMENT!" Mayumi shouted, trying to avoid the numerous limbs that her dupli-armed classmate was jabbing at her.

"It's supposed to hurt, Yumi-san. I mean, you are hitting a nerve that is directly exposed under your skin."

"I KNOW, BUT I CAN'T LISTEN TO THE SHIT YOU'RE SPOUTING WHILE DEFENDING!"

"Oh-ho, but when you become a hero, you'll need to." Iida said, putting down the tablet to look at the scene before her. A few days into their research, Iida and Mayumi found researches and accounts of techniques and body conditioning exercises they did to fight through the attack on their pressure points that lead to temporary muscle immobilization. A black belter at karate said that in his experience, his sensei would train them to "harden their muscles" by repeatedly hitting on these pressure points.

Hitting these pressure points, according to the martial artist, felt like hitting the funny bone on the elbow, except it is more painful, and it can immobilize one's muscles for a short amount of time –which is exactly what the Bivirgata did, in the moves she used from the art of Varma Kalai. So, in order to recover, or at least in this point be immune, to the pain that they experience that immobilizes their muscles, they simply have to fight through the pain and get used to it.

However, according to a neurologist in the same research, she explained that what those martial artists did was actually to damage their nerves. So while it was effective, both the martial artist and the neurologist of that research did not recommend it at all. However, Mayumi was determined to stop her life as a UFR fighter, and she said that she was willing to pay any price to do just that.

So Iida, although with reservations, pushed through Mayumi's wishes. He called up Shoji and asked him to spar with Mayumi. In their current sparring session, Shoji was asked by Mayumi to duplicate as many limbs as he can and aim for her so called pressure points: Between the groin and the knee, her biceps, and the spot just above the under arm. She instructed her classmate to not stop until she says so, and that even when that muscle seems to be immobilized, he should still continue unless she says so.

And that was how Mayumi ended up fighting her six armed classmate, dragging her half functional right arm as she tried to parry and block Shoji's attacks with her legs.

"Are you fighting through the pain, Yumi-san?" Iida asked, which made Mayumi's face scrunch up even more in anger, if that was possible.

"What the fuck do you think?!"

Mayumi, while blocking, tried to take deep breaths, focusing on the sensations in her right arm. A while ago, Shoji managed to hit her under her arm, rendering her right arm useless for the mean time. It was like a shock of pain at first, and it felt as if there were a wire of thorns imbedded in her arm to the tips of her fingers.

It was pain she had never felt for so long, she thought she had forgotten it.

Every time she tried to evade or parry Shoji's attacks, she focused on that wire of thorns, and in a few minutes, she could feel the tips of her fingers, and she was able to move it just a bit.

"HELL YEAH!" Mayumi exclaimed, as she continued on the defensive. It was just the first day of conditioning her body, and she still had at least three weeks left.

She can do this.

Meanwhile, her red haired classmate and an explosive blonde boy walked into the combat training area, both getting ready for their own sparring session. They stopped in their tracks to watch the sparring session on the other side of the room.

"What the fuck is wrong with her arm?" Bakugou asked, brows furrowing as he focused on Mayumi's defense against their multiple limbed classmate.

"Dude, it looks like it's paralyzed… Must have hit a pressure point or something." Kirishima observed, and Bakugou looked at the red head in surprise.

"Since when were you smart enough to think about shit like pressure points?!"

"I'm hurt, Bakubro… I may be stupid, but I'm not that stupid!" Kirishima exclaimed, walking towards a table to set down his water bottle and towel. Bakugou stayed in place, watching as how Mayumi slowly regained movement from her hands to her forearm to be able to block a jab from Shoji. However, as she did, one of Shoji's limbs managed to hit Mayumi at the back of her left knee.

Bakugou stepped forward as Mayumi yelled from the pain, crumpling on her left side as she fell out of balance.

"Yumi-san, forgive me! I went overboard, I guess, and I may have lost control-"

"No, I told you not to stop… It's not your fault." Mayumi said, panting through the pain that was blooming from within the muscles of her calf. Iida immediately kneeled in front of Mayumi, resting her left leg on his knees and reaching under her knee and pressing on the upper left side of it, where the thigh met the back of the knee.

"It says here in an acupressure textbook I saw that I should massage around this area. I don't know if it will work, though, that's why I'm being gentle with this point. We'll never know what could happen if the wrong point is pressed with the wrong pressure." Iida rambled, adjusting his glasses, and flipping through the textbook beside him.

"Iida-san," Mayumi said, reaching out her fist towards him, smiling through the fatigue and numb pain that she was feeling. "Thank you."

Iida smiled and gently bumped Mayumi's fist.

"It's no problem, Yumi." Iida said, before focusing on massaging the back of Mayumi's knee again. Mayumi sighed and laid back down on the sparring mat.

"Seriously… I wouldn't know what to do now without your help."

Mayumi failed to notice how a certain explosive blonde watched them from afar, huffing out from a tightening in his gut, before turning around to start beating the shit out of something.

I AM BACK AND THIS FIC IS NOT DEAD!

First of all, I would thank you all for your patience T-T I haven't been in the best state as of late, but I feel much better now. For those who stuck around, thank you, once more, for sticking around with this story.

Now, to answer some questions I received:

1. What does Mayumi look like?

Although I didn't get to describe her full appearance in the first paragraph of the first chapter, I believe I scattered bits and pieces of her description throughout the stories via narrative/dialogues from her classmates. Like in one chapter, Mina complimented her natural tan skin. Anyways, if some of you missed those descriptions I scattered out, I'm sorry hehehehe Mayumi was born with tan skin, black hair, and brown eyes. She's got an athletic build, and is muscular, but her muscles aren't too defined, I guess, cuz she loves to eat more than work out (also her quirk works that way. The heavier she is, the stronger she is. By heavy, it doesn't really mean muscle mass alone ;) )

2. Where is Mayumi's original country?

Well, even though I didn't mention the actual place, some people caught on to it because they recognized the foreign language that I used in the story. Mayumi is a natural born Filipino, from the Philippines (for those who don't know where that is, it's in South East Asia). I just never had the need to say it straight out in the fic, because I'd rather my readers be intrigued by the small hints of Filipino culture I scattered throughout the story hehehehe.

I'm glad to say that we are nearing Mayumi's biggest turning point in her life (and nearing the end of her first 'story arch' OoO), and things are about to get more serious from this point. I am no longer stuck in my writer's block, and I am energized once more to finally get this story going once more :D

Y'all better get ready!

Lots of love,

Gabrielle