notes. forgot to mention since kizuna isn't in 1-A and it wasn't necessary to expand upon, but mineta doesn't exist in this fic. or maybe he did, and he was expelled on the first day. does it matter? no, no it doesn't.

.

.

.

I CARRY YOUR HEART

OUCH! OUCH! OUCH!

.

.

.

It was at least mostly dry inside that shitty-ass hideout, away from the late-summer thunderstorm.

He was following her, the grey man. Watching where she stood, how she stood, the careful movements she made as she glanced around. His ratty-ass black clothes and those blood-red sneakers drifted in her peripheral vision.

She was dripping a little, in his room (ostensibly, it was a room; it might've also been a mausoleum where dusty things came to die). Her bare feet were rain-muddy and her hair clawed a soaking white river around her neck. She was shivering, her hands digging into her sweater for something to hold, her shorts and everything else uncomfortably damp from the rain.

Kizuna looked around slowly, trying to keep him in her eyesight, but also taking in the overall… horrid sunless grime of the place. A light plink-plink-plink echoed somewhere, a bucket catching drops from the leaky, moldy ceiling.

Now there was a serial killer's desk. Photos. News article clippings. Piles and piles of junk.

One photo caught her eye. She reached for it… and the floorboards groaned as he lurched across his tomb.

But it was only to sprawl across a beat-up chair with a broken spinning wheel, his legs splayed, arms dangling off the side: an oozing black puddle. Glancing again at the photo, Kizuna angled it to the light coming from the grimy, rain-streaked window.

Oh, she thought. Forever ago.

It was her, during the Sports Festival that spring. A girl with her head shaved clean, all light-grey fuzz, her arms bandaged up to her shoulders. (A similarly bandaged hand, in the present-time, winced, remembering Mina's acid.) Her eyes were narrowed, fangs on full display. She looked like she was having fun. It had been fun, back then.

Her fingers tenderly brushed over it… then set the photo face-down.

But I won't look back. Here she stood, dripping in Shigaraki's crypt, and him the king of death sitting before her on his shitty office chair. Only forward.

.

.

.

.

.

(The name Yokoyama could be read as 'next to the mountain'.

She practiced her calligraphy by writing it over and over, the kanji for beside and mountain. The wet ink of yama bled outward. Three lines signifying three peaks reaching towards heaven, one more connecting them to earth.)

"Ice! Look out!"

"Oh, thank god, it's over," said the rest of 1-C in relief, their feet frozen to the ground.

Zero-pointer robots crashed down in icy pieces, Todoroki leading the charge. More robots ruptured into pieces, wires and parts flying through the air. Ripped steel, voltage, flashy acrobatics.

(The Yokoyama clan never had a hero agency of its own and worked as sidekicks to the mountains of their era. Always standing in the shadows of the great heroes they supported. Even Yuuka—she jumped from agency to agency, helping whichever hero needed her the most. She'd been the closest to the sun, had her face warmed by that light.

Before she cracked, of course, dribbling all over the floor.)

Her sister whispered, "You need a plan."

Kizuna scrambled away from robot debris as Jiro Kyoka easily blasted it apart. Fuck that, I need a better Quirk!

"You need to be clever, mataki, you need a…"

She followed her sister's extended finger, and found a spiky black ponytail in the chaos.

(Yokoyama. Beside the mountain. To the side. A sidekick.)

In the two weeks between the USJ incident and the Sports Festival, Kizuna hadn't undergone any sort of training as extensive as the Hero kids. However, there was something special that she had cultivated—

"Momo! Use me!"

—bonds, both new and old.

There was a desperate brightness in Kizuna's eyes. She meant: Help me. I can't do this alone.

Yaoyorozu Momo rarely backed down from an impromptu challenge. Strategies formulated in the heat of the moment; that was right up her alley. And belonging to such a famed Hero family, Momo had a valuable tenet of heroism drilled in her since young: we are not in this for ourselves.

Touching Creation was like seeing an old friend again.

They sat amongst the clouds: one with a black ponytail, cradling the sleeping head of the other in her lap, her wild dark hair curling around like a tangled net. Their hands were laced together, dreaming of creating moons, planets, worlds. The heroes that responded to the sudden appearance of a giant, colorful matryoshka doll that blocked the sun for half the neighborhood found two little girls at the very top of it.

The camera drones were far ahead, following Bakugou and Todoroki as they began the third leg, explosions and ice lighting up the sky.

The rest of 1-A and 1-B were in hot pursuit. Midoriya emerged onto the minefield, clutching his shield with a look of wild determination. As Present Mic gleefully commentated, the entire stadium was devoting their full attention on the leaders of the pack.

But a noise was sweeping over the back end of the obstacle course: the whirrrr of a propeller, the hum of an Anzani three-cylinder engine.

Sunlight beamed across steel wings.

A small, lightweight Bleriot XI roared over the skies.

Two girls were packed in tight in the cockpit; sitting behind Momo with her knees up, Kizuna rested her head on her shoulder, breathing heavily. Momo fearlessly increased the thrust, stepping on foot pedals to control the rudder. The wind seared past them, rustling their dark blue PE uniforms and whipping their hair back.

Creation required information, imagination, and energy. Kizuna knew this because she explored this maze of DNA helixes and carbon chains before. She knew its rhythm, its taste, the almost balletic dance of its atoms. The conception of their duet was mostly barebones, with a wireframe tail; Exalt only needed to give Creation a significant boost when constructing the propeller and the historically-accurate engine Momo dreamt of.

Step One: Get a girl with knowledge of old-century aircrafts (preferably one whose mother had a whole collection out in the country).

Step Two: Apply battery.

Students making their way across the Fall heard it first. They craned their necks up, jaws dropping. The burst of wind from the aircraft's flight shook the tightropes and drew a plume of white over the obstacle course.

The plane rattled, the seat underneath Kizuna jolting, bumping over turbulence. No, not turbulence.

"What was that?" cried Momo.

A crafty, pink-haired Support student had clambered on the wireframe tail. Using her Zoom Quirk, Hatsume Mei had spotted the aircraft gaining speed over the obstacle course and launched her grappling hook at it; now here she was, grinning maniacally. "Par excellence, hero! What a fabulous invention! Though I would've replaced the Anzani with my own model—"

Kizuna's groggy eyes spotted something. "Mei! Can I see that super cool grappling hook again? Can you aim it down there? Where that purple guy is? Momo, hard to starburst!"

"What—you mean starboard?"

"Oh, you're so smart," she simpered, "thank you."

"You're in love with my baby, aren't ya!" Mei hooted. "I'm not surprised!"

"Hurry, we're gonna pass him!" Kizuna pressed her cheek to Momo's. A fanged leer. "What's so bad about helping a friend?"

"In the Sports Festival? It's utterly unorthodox and don't look at me like that, I know I'm not doing my argument any favors." The plane veered sideways.

A boy with his brainwashed mob was slowly working their way through the tightropes. Shinsou almost fell off as a metal arrow smashed into the rock right over his head, and he turned at the sight of three girls onboard an aircraft, the white-haired one waving in the cockpit and screaming illegibly. Still staring as if he was witnessing a trick of sunlight, his hand reached up and clenched around the wire.

"Can you reel it in, Mei!?"

"Of course, it's so simple—"

They plucked him up like a bird seizing breakfast.

Momo hastily leveled the aircraft as Shinsou wildly kicked onto the wing, and Kizuna yelled over the roar of the propeller that there'd been a change of plans. There was something very funny about Shinsou's surprised face: the usual blasé indifference went slack, and his eyes were wide and violet.

On the minefield, students gaped at the aircraft speeding past their competition. The plane lurched again.

A strip of tape had wound itself around the tail, and Sero Hanta was grinning with his funny-looking grin. A long tongue unraveled, and Asui Tsuyu was sticking to the plane with her froggy hands.

"Damn, you made a whole plane?" Sero shouted. "That's class, Yaoyorozu!"

"Yaoyorozu-chan, you're peerless," Tsuyu remarked.

The Bleriot dropped, stuttering.

"Oh," Sero remarked. "That don't sound good."

"Because we're not a bus!" Momo cried back exasperatingly. "We're too heavy! I'm landing!"

Shinsou narrowed his eyes at Sero and Tsuyu. He opened his mouth—

Kizuna shouted at the rest, "Hey, be careful! Hang on!"

Momo controlled the rudder as they began their swift descent. The needle on the tachometer shook hysterically. The piston engine chugged. The finish line was approaching, and Kizuna could hear the stadium thundering, someone already winning the race.

Right as they were about to hit the ground, the aviatrix pulled up and the world tilted.

Wheels skidded on dirt. Tetsutetsu and Kirishima, running there, threw themselves to the ground. The Bleriot bounced violently, nearly bucking its occupants off. The tail hit the ground, sparks flying, and broke off completely. Sero, Tsuyu, and Mei were flung into the air.

Shinsou watched, a small wicked curve to his mouth. Kizuna threw herself over the back, extending her hand, yelling at them to grab on. Tsuyu caught a flailing Mei with her tongue, and Sero caught Tsuyu with tape from one arm and Kizuna's wrist with the other.

She lurched forward, stomach slamming into metal. "Ow, fuck—help!"

Indigo eyes flashed at her, a half-second pause, then—Shinsou grabbed the tape with both hands, straining, and with a great heave, they yanked the other three students back onto the plane. He lost his balance right on top of Kizuna, arm over leg over sweaty purple hair, and she gave up knowing anything but the sound of wheels screeching in protest and threw her life into Momo's hands.

The wings were too wide, and they snapped against the gate.

Present Mic was hollering, "RACERS CROSS THE FINISH LI—" His eyes popped over his sunglasses. "EXCUSE ME, AN AIRPLANE!?"

The cameras, which had been trained on the victorious students, now whirled their lenses at the early-twentieth century aircraft that exploded into the arena, half-collapsed, brakes squealing, smoke and exhaust billowing behind it, and the crowd jumped to their feet with deafening applause.

The Hero students moved fast.

Todoroki slashed his hand and ice shot up, curving into ramp for the plane to slide across before it ran into the wall. Bakugou exploded off his feet to avoid getting smashed into. Ibara's vines and Tokoyami's Dark Shadow grabbed the plane to slow it down, as Sero threw his tape at Todoroki's ice to do the same, and Honenuki softened the ground, helping it stop. Mei jumped off the burning plane with her jetpack, cackling.

Kizuna peeled her cheek from Shinsou's shoulder, coughing and waving away smoke. He was lying sideways in the tight space, blinking, his legs sticking out over the cockpit's side. Midoriya stood on a broken wing, shouting at her to take his hand, and Iida was there too, helping a dizzy Momo out of the plane.

"INNNNNCONCEIVABLE! A DYNAMO ENTRANCE FROM HERO, GENERAL, AND SUPPORT STUDENTS!"

Her feet met solid ground, jelly legs staggering against Midoriya. His hand was at her waist, helping her stand, and a white-haired shadow was on her other side, bracing a weightless hand against her back. Covered in exhaust fumes, Kizuna took in the flashes of light and cheering crowd. Robotic fire hoses spraying down the plane. Present Mic screaming something about teamwork and astonishment and Pro Heroes who were astonished about teamwork.

She didn't realize she had closed her eyes until she felt someone slapping her on the face.

"Ow, ow…" Kizuna had been pulled to the side by a fretful-looking Momo.

"I knew it," she said accusingly. Her cheeks were flushed, dark eyes bright. "I told you it was going to make you tired."

"You're right." Yawning blearily, she sucked in a breath and blew at the long errant bang hanging over Momo's face. "You're always right. How come I never listen to you?"

"In one ear, out the other." Momo knocked on her skull.

With grave solemnity, Kizuna said, "Ouchie."

"I remember you once said you don't use your Quirk anymore." Momo studied her as if she were a pigeon who flew the coup and came back four years later entirely alien.

"I also once said I'd rather eat my own farts than attend UA—I'm kidding! That was a joke! I love this school. I… fucking love zero-point robots…"

She pursed her lips at the choice of language. "Well, wouldn't it stand to reason that the more you use it, the less tired you become? Like exercising muscles so they build up stronger."

"Maybe," Kizuna said, ignoring Exalt's rapid yesyesyesyesyesyes. "Anyway, thanks."

"It's only logical."

She smiled luminously at her, eyebrows raising.

"Oh." Momo blinked, then replied with a gracious tilt of her head, "You're very welcome."

The forty-second participant zoomed in with a flash of a laser. Clutching his stomach, Aoyama Yuga twinkled. Midnight told them all to catch their breath before starting the next round. Students were shouting about the plane they all saw soaring over the obstacle course.

She moved away from the center of a tornado that Momo had found herself in, a barrage of 1-A students chattering about that plane and how cool their class representative was with her powerful Quirk, even helping out non-Hero students along the way. Momo met her gaze over her classmates' shoulders, a silent question in there.

Kizuna shook her head and lifted her chin in a slight nod. This is all yours, hero.

Fifteen minutes to make a team.

Itsuka came over to ask if Kizuna wanted to join her squad. Then Ochako waved at her, desperately hunting for more teammates with Midoriya, who seemed to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Kizuna already knew who she wanted to support, and did not saunter over to him so much as sluggishly teetered.

Ojiro Mashirao from 1-A. Shoda Nirengeki from 1-B.

Kizuna snapped her fingers in their blank faces. "Nefarious. Sinister. Spicy. I like it." Her smirk slid into something more hesitant. "But what if you… maybe, tried asking them?"

Shinsou's brow furrowed.

"They couuuuld say yes."

His eyes closed. With another twitch of his brow, Ojiro and Shoda blinked awake.

"Join my team," Shinsou said. Kizuna did jazz-hands, an invisible 'General Studies: We're Cool, Too!' above her head.

"I was actually planning on joining," Ojiro began—

"Stand still. And you?"

Shoda started. "No, I—"

"Don't move." Thus, Shinsou looked at his classmate.

"…Oh," said Kizuna.

"I'm not using them just to lose," he said, more to the air than her. "I'm bringing them to the next round with me."

She was sure Ojiro and Shoda had prepared for this day. Their families were watching. They didn't want to let themselves down. But… it was the same for Shinsou. And it was the same for her.

Kizuna, whose principles fell in the 'have fun and don't get arrested' quadrant of morality, tightened her ponytail. "Then let's do this."

"No one in the Hero course you'd rather support?" he said indifferently.

They shared this goal; it was personal. Kizuna extended her hand. "General Studies."

Something passed over that dark gaze. He took a breath.

Shinsou lifted his hand out of his pocket and grasped hers, their palms striking together.

Third place. Third place.

Kizuna, who had fully prepared herself to lose in the qualifiers, dropped to her knees in flat-out shock, somehow hearing her grandmother spit tea at the tv screen and sob to her husband that their idiot granddaughter might actually make something of herself.

Calling after them, she caught up to Ojiro and Shoda on the field as everyone headed inside for lunch. They were both flummoxed, but their unremembered victory seemed to set in as she bowed her head and apologized. She couldn't really believe it, either.

Shinsou had gone on ahead, but she thought she saw him glancing at her talking to the Hero boys.

"Did he also do something weird to you, Yokoyama?" Ojiro asked tepidly, his long tail sitting on his shoulder.

An awkward, semi-jokey grin pulled at her mouth. "I could totally lie and say I was, but—that'd be very shitty of me. I wasn't. Shinsou and I are classmates."

The stout, blue-haired Shoda looked down. Ojiro said, "Well, I'm glad you made it through. On your own power."

Her grin dropped. No, not at all—it was on the tip of her tongue, but at the startlingly gloomy expression on Ojiro's face, she couldn't bring herself to say it. Kizuna held her arms behind her back, watching them leave. Ku yaiyapapu. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Thank you.

Kizuna went off to find the shortcut to the infirmary. Lunch could wait; she desired to collapse like a bedridden old-century dowager whimpering about her delicate constitution.

Yawning, Kizuna stumbled through the stadium hallways, and then realized she was going toward the student waiting rooms. She wobbled around, dragging her heavy limbs with her, eyes scratchy and heavy. These stupid hallways all looked the same.

After waffling about for a few seconds, she decided to head to 1-C's prep room after all. Hard plastic chairs were better than nothing. But those few seconds were precious, and instead of sashaying away in her imagined petticoats, she heard a cold voice say: "You overwhelmed me. So much so that I broke my pledge."

She froze, hands splayed against the wall, inches away from turning the corner and bumping into the prince of frost.

Another voice sounded, uneasy and awkward: Midoriya's.

"What is this, a stand-off?" Yuuka whispered, her long white hair suffused with purple shadows. "Or maybe a confession? How cute! Two youthful lads, in the springtime of their love…"

Oh my god, sapo, I can't hear.

What followed did not help: a hand reaching out, clamping over her mouth.

There was a brief but soundless scuffle of limbs as they elbowed each other and stepped on feet. As the serious conversation continued, the two of them warred silently; Bakugou was victorious and yanked her flush against him. He pressed his finger to his mouth, then viciously slashed his thumb across his neck in warning.

Was he threatening to kill her if she wasn't quiet? Kizuna glared back over his sulfur-smelling palm, shaking her head in exaggerated disappointment. Snooping? How unheroic! (Yes, she was also guilty of it, but this was not about her.)

"There's definitely something you're hiding. You know, my father is Endeavor. The second greatest hero of all time."

His voice was ice. Kizuna blinked quickly, feeling hoar frost growing on her lashes.

She could feel Bakugou's heart pounding against her back, the spike of it when Todoroki said raised me as a hero who could exceed All Might, just to fulfill his own ambitions, and the small intake of breath at her ear when he said, she threw scalding water in my face. They stared at the ground, completely still, hardly breathing statues. She felt immense pity for Midoriya. Having to look at Todoroki, having to see that scar…

She wondered if she had imagined it, that flash of fire, the almost-smoke during the Cavalry Battle.

"What a dramatic origin story," Yuuka whispered loudly.

Can you please fucking eshi.

"We're all thinking it. Yours isn't so bad either. Dead siblings are a natural tearjerker."

Her fangs bit through skin. Bakugou's skin. Bakugou's hand.

A trail of red ran down his palm and wrist. Blood dripped as he gripped her mouth painfully hard, his glower burning a hole in her skull. Gagging, Kizuna silently spat out the metallic taste (she was used to biting her lip, forgetting for a moment—), and quickly grasped his hand to heal it. His Die a Thousand Deaths Glare was eviscerating her into dust and she mouthed back, 'Sorry! Sorry, okay!' but it didn't stop his hand from warming uncomfortably—he's gonna explode my head off, this is how I die—meanwhile, Todoroki was still talking.

"So much angst." Yuuka glimmered in amusement. "Where does he put it all? A cardboard box marked 'trauma' in the Todoroki house? Endeavor opens it every Sunday to dump more pieces of his kids inside."

Kizuna's mouth pulled in a hysterical smile against the hot, bloody, sulfur-hand, and she couldn't even see Bakugou looking at her like she had sprouted a mutant head. The edge of the world swam, ice-blue koi fish leaping out, snow-covered bamboo trees in the rippling reflections. Todoroki went off, his footsteps sounding. Midoriya spoke up, his voice ringing loud and clear. All modesty, all because other people helped me, and yet another declaration of war.

War, bombast, blood. What she'd give to hear them challenge each other to an afternoon tea party.

Then, movement at her back. Bakugou glanced out behind the corner, checking to make sure the two had left.

They had. At the sound of their voices fading, Kizuna yanked herself away and staggered over to the wall opposite, furiously wiping away the blood along her mouth. Then her gaze wavered up to the boy standing in front of her. The line of his body was angry, hard. He clenched his fist, looked down at it, studying the dried blood and the two healed scars on the skin between his thumb and forefinger.

She pressed her arm across the lower half of her face, hiding behind it.

With an irritated glare, lips curling in to show teeth that seemed to be profoundly lacking bloodstains, Bakugou swiped his hand over his jacket and moved for the exit.

Kizuna reached out for a hand—but her fingers met the cold metal wall. The shadows were only shadows now, and none of them had white hair. Something came over her. "I," she said, before she could stop herself, "don't understand this stupid obsession with being the best."

Her voice was quiet, but it filled the cavernous distance between them.

He didn't stop walking, but he slowed down. "That's why you're in General, sidekick."

"He had a family," she went on, ignoring the jibe. "A wife and kids. A good livelihood…" She looked at him expectantly, searching for an answer she wanted to hear. "Would you give up your soul to be the top hero?"

"Soul." He had stopped, everything drenched in disdain.

"Ramat. Heart. Love. Stuff that makes us human." Supposedly.

"And this comes from a petty thief—"

"Oh, says the tyrant."

"Spare me your corny-ass lecture."

"What are they teaching you in the Hero course?" She was moving after him before she fully realized it. "Turn you into mini-Endeavors who only care about winning?"

He was digging his thumb into the spot where his eye socket met his brow, like he was fighting off a headache from her voice. "I'm here to beat the shit out of villains. Can't speak for anyone else. Especially not his fucking dad."

"And then what?" She was so close all she could see was that churlish scarlet. Easy, easy, the sensible part of her worried; the other half demanded, Can't he emote just a little sadness for this fucked-up competitiveness? "You die young, or retire with permanent brain damage, or turn into status-obsessed monsters?"

He rolled his head back, the muscles in his neck contorting as he inhaled, and then snapped, "Shit, you're exhausting. If you don't want to be a hero, then get outta the ring!"

"I didn't say—" Hating how her cheeks burned, Kizuna breathed hard through her nose. "That's not what I meant."

"Heroes don't whine; we do. If you got a problem, maybe quit your bitching and do something about it."

"Great idea, I'll just explode things until I get my way." She held up her palm, demonstrating her immense lack of anything.

"You, Four Eyes, Ponytail, Half n' Half. You elitist pricks all know each other."

"What does that—"

"That plane was you. She ain't strong enough do it on her own." Bakugou jerked his head and said roughly, "Tell that to your victim complex."

A horrid heat rose to her face. Her short hair was practically standing up on end, electrified white. "You don't know Yaoyorozu Momo," Kizuna snapped, venom leaking from radioactively pink eyes. For some reason, this cooled his expression as if seeing something he expected—or worse, wanted. It inflamed her further and she spat, "Insult her again and you're a dead man."

With that very badass and awe-inspiring threat made, she threw herself against the wall for purchase, her face magenta and veiny with the effort to stay conscious, and limped away with aplomb.

(Later, Kizuna would snap awake at three am and wonder frantically if that had been his awful way of saying she wasn't powerless at all. She would consider this for precisely five seconds, roll her eyes at the ceiling, and smush her face into her pillow with a disbelieving huff.)

An ungainly thing dumped herself on the seat next to Shinsou, and he moved his food away before her head could fall in it.

The healer snored.

"When he comes at you with a punch, don't try to block it. Dodge. Run away! No matter what, do not get hit by Midoriya."

The two of them were out in the back of the stadium, Kizuna grimly shoving shitty emergency granola bars in her mouth, hating herself for sleeping through lunch, and Shinsou sitting against a tree. But she wasn't going to let anything distract her, harrowing eavesdropping incidents or otherwise.

Ojiro and Shoda had both withdrawn. Kizuna, confronted with her own meager sense of integrity, had bowed her head at the 1-B students, telling them she couldn't do the same because she really wanted to get into the Hero course. But they were understanding. Itsuka reminded her that if Shiozaki or Tetsutetsu fought her, it'd be an easy win for 1-B. Kizuna saluted. She looked forward to dying against them.

"You should brainwash him early." Midoriya had the backing of All Might and he was getting declarations of war (or love confessions, was there a difference?) from strong guys left and right; it was totally fair if she helped Shinsou a little. Such were the laws of equality. "Don't let it become a physical match. That shorty has super-strength."

"I misjudged them. I didn't think they'd withdraw."

She stopped pacing. Shinsou's gaze met hers, then darted away. And he had seemed so unconcerned earlier, brushing it off without even a glance at Ojiro and Shoda…

"It was right in front of them." He tugged at his hair. "Who cares how they got there?"

She kicked at a leaf. "You could apologize to them. I did."

"…Sounds tiresome."

Sounds tiresome, said the same boy who demanded 1-A meet him on the fields of combat. Kizuna rolled her eyes at Yuuka, who was watching them from the shade of another tree, her dark pink eyes gleaming.

"Midoriya Izuku," Shinsou said, breaking her reverie, "what's he like?"

"We've… only talked a few times. But he's good-hearted. A total hero."

"Of course he is, with a Quirk like that."

Oh. Kizuna raised her brows at the note of bitterness. She walked in a little circle around what she had dubbed Shinsou's Tree, because even the leaves were now falling with a sort of Machiavellian shrewdness, and sat in front of him, knees tucked up. "Want me to help ya cheat?"

She measured his startled reaction. Some people viewed help as an insult to their pride. Some thought Exalt was shameful. Which it was, of course. Still, it was hers.

"If you tie a strand of my hair around your finger," she wiggled her pinky, "I can heal you. Even standing far away. It's only a one-time use, though. I could also… make you stronger."

"…How?"

"Magic." She pretended to blow out fairy-dust, fingers sparkling.

Shinsou looked back, deadpan.

Nibbling on her lip, Kizuna twisted a fallen blossom between her fingers. Its small stem glowed white, and the limp petals sprang back up, slightly more vivid than before. Won't last more than a few hours before it started dying again. She crinkled the flower between her fingers and let it fall.

"There are… two parts to my Quirk," she told him. "I can heal people, and I can… sort of, make other Quirks stronger. Momo's plane in the Obstacle Race…"

He scrutinized her, gears whirring behind an indigo blink. "That was you?"

"Just a little," Kizuna said too quickly. "I'm overselling myself. Anyway, it makes me pretty tired. That's why I slept through most of lunch." She examined her hands, the tanned hue and chipped purple nails. "It's kinda weird, though… I used a lot of my Quirk, but…" She abruptly closed her mouth and shrugged. "It's not that bad, so… if you want me to give you a boost…"

Her eyes glittered, soft and coaxing.

"Is this some kind of deal with the devil type of shit?"

Kizuna snapped, "No, and for the record, I prefer 'benevolent fucking angel'."

Shinsou locked his fingers together, looking at the falling leaves with an expression she would've once deemed 'evil handsome gargoyle plots world domination', but she now knew was 'evil handsome gargoyle thoughtfully considers which cat sticker to send over text'. "Feels like you're helping me too much, Yokoyama."

"We're in the same class. And we're friends." She said friends pointedly, daring him to try to undo their eternally pledged (in Kizuna's mind) friendship.

"You know some Hero students."

"And?"

Shinsou tilted his head back with a half-closed look, as if the word hero outweighed everything.

Kizuna thought of her father. A sidekick his whole life, he never cared about rankings or fame, only how much of himself he could give to others. She never agreed with infinite altruism, considering it got her dad killed. But he was right, to some extent. It was the brand of heroism she both admired and hated.

"There are things more important than being totally self-serving. Not a lot. But some."

Sometimes, despite the occasional evidence that said otherwise, people were kaleidoscopic. Color and glitter and sparkle, if you peered close and tilted your head just the right way.

The fleeting expression passing over Shinsou made the kaleidoscope turn in shades of dazzling purple.

He told her a little about Nabu Middle School, and the kaleidoscope turned again.

She pressed her chin into her elbows, a nasty twisty feeling in her chest. 'A Quirk perfect for a villain.' Oh, so he had heard that line a thousand times before. She'd been cruel and unoriginal; a cardinal sin. A heavy flush pulled up her ears; she remembered how All Might looked, touching his hand to his heart.

"I really am sorry," she said softly, "for being a dickhead."

Shinsou did not respond to her contrition with a passionate pardon. His reply was, "You said that already."

"Yeah, well…" A pause. "Our Quirks come with… expectations, right? People expect you to be, like, weird and creepy, and me to be saintly and lovely and kind—"

"Zero out of three, huh."

She whacked him on the knee. "I was gonna say it's actually the other way around."

His eyes closed briefly. "You're off the mark about me."

"You pulled those Hero students back on the plane."

"I would've let them fall if you hadn't said anything. You saw it."

"But you didn't, dummy. That's what matters. And you forgave me, so… that's, like… y'know…"

An uncomfortable, embarrassed silence passed. At this point, Yuuka would've redirected the conversation with a charming joke, winning him over with her easiness and beauty. But Kizuna was only a pale, clumsy imitation of her sister.

"I grew up with a bad habit," she said carefully, short wisps of white falling over her face, "of wanting to be found… a little repulsive." Her smile twitched, a jerking motion, and then flatlined. Her face was red and she couldn't look at Shinsou; she had never told this to anyone except Yuuka. "Sometimes it grosses me out, how much people assume I'm good and… passive because of my Quirk. It's sort of a sickness."

And if you give people a reason to hate you, you know why they leave. She didn't say that. This was already embarrassing enough, and she needed to save some of her mysterious allure for a rainy day.

"I never found you repulsive," he replied, after a beat. "I just thought your insults were lazy."

"Okay—"

"Hey," Shinsou said, and she was immediately afraid he was going to take back everything.

But he did not sever Kizuna's mentally-constructed eternal pledge of friendship. "You said it on the first day of class. We're more than our Quirks. I would think that means we shouldn't be controlled by our feelings towards our Quirks, either." Shinsou's mouth twitched up, and with the simplicity of someone who had spoken these words a thousand times before, said, "I don't see the point in hating something I was born with."

She thought about that. She would be thinking about that for a long time to come.

He didn't, in the end, ask her to help him cheat. Win or lose, he would go by the strength of his own Quirk. Kizuna did the only thing she could do: she reminded him to use the bathroom before his match.

Got him.

She watched from the back exit of 1-C's stands, because she'd give herself away entirely if she was in the crowd. The two boys were broadcasted on the huge screens: one stoic and in total control, the other blank-faced, green eyes wide. Why didn't he tell Midoriya to sprint out-of-bounds? This was too dramatic! Shinsou!

His fingers snapped. He stopped walking.

What the hell. That was his—how could it activate while brainwashed? What the hell kind of Quirk was that?

Shinsou was shouting, trying to get Midoriya to speak again. His words were no longer calculating; they were frantic, shouted at blistering volume. Midoriya ran across the arena, biting back a response, and Kizuna clapped her hands over her mouth so she, too, wouldn't scream, I know you're the next Symbol of Peace, but can you just—can you just not—

1-C was practically throwing themselves over the railings, screaming. 1-D and 1-E of General Studies were stomping their feet so hard the stands were shaking, and an approving roar resounded like a tsunami wave when Shinsou decked Midoriya across the face.

Kizuna clutched her hair as Midoriya regained his footing and fought back. A shoulder throw! We've gone over that!

Shinsou evaded with no elegance, and Midoriya was forced to curl his hand into a fist. A punch, straight across the face—jaw, cheek, nose, blam. Cameras zoomed in, getting all that blood in high-definition. The shorter boy grabbed Shinsou again, hands to heart, and flung him out-of-bounds.

Fuck. She dropped to her knees, head bent, exhaling.

Midoriya on the screens, gripping his throbbing hand and looking anything but victorious. He couldn't afford to lose, either. I am here, he had to tell the country, and All Might was watching, too. She knew that… she knew that, but…

The General Studies stands were quiet.

Then Ishizaki called: "You were awesome out there, Shinsou!"

"Almost!" Mitsu cried.

Kizuna joined in with the applause. Every General kid, and a good portion from Support and Business as well, clapped. The stands shook again as they cheered not for the Hero student who won, but for the General student who lost.

Then she waited.

Soon enough, after making his way up the stands, their classmates patting him on the back, he came over to the secluded back exit.

Shinsou looked at her over a bloody nose. It dripped, and he sniffed a little (in a very stoic and manly way).

Her hand passed over it, the ever-calm Neogenesis rearranging cartilage. He looked very tired. She rested her hand on his cheek, her thumb smearing the remnants of blood. His fists uncurled and swung wearily at his side. His head drooped, indifference breaking, all the frustration and disappointment blazed through as he screwed his eyes shut.

She tentatively, gently smoothed her palm over his brow, a calming gesture Yuuka used to do for her, and drew him onto her shoulder. Exalt shivered, and nipped lightly at his Quirk. A sharp brain-freeze, joints stiffening, limbs locked, a puppet dancing on strings. It crackled like a message on the radio, mass persuasion sent through the air waves, murmuring, Hello. Are you listening? She released Brainwashing, her head still crackling a little with radio static.

He had the bad luck to face a kid with All Might's Quirk. I wish you'd know, Shinsou. It wasn't fair at all. But you were like a shooting star.

What she said was, "Your giant head's heavy. Stand up."

His knees staggered on purpose.

"Yai!"

The future All Might Junior, Symbol of Peace: the Remix, Wonderboy: First of His Name, House of the Constant Broken Bones sat next to Iida and… Kizuna glanced at the boy with the head of a black bird, and took a seat next to Tokoyami Fumikage. He was effortlessly cool, arms crossed, paying her no mind.

"Good job, Yokoyama," Iida greeted, "making it to the tournament round."

"After I lose my match, promise you'll feed me fries while I cry?"

"That is detestable," he answered serenely, "I will not."

"Boo. Ask Tensei for me?"

A crack appeared in Iida's glasses, and he launched on a rant about the sacred responsibilities of his heroic brother, Ingenium, which would never involve feeding fries to frivolous teenage girls whilst wearing a short toga and fanning her with a palm-leaf. He was busy in Hosu, anyway. Letting Iida tire himself out, Kizuna leaned around Tokoyami to stare at Midoriya. It had quite the effect with her slit-pupils, like she was trying to peel him open like a banana with the secrets of the universe inside.

"Planning on cooking Midoriya?" Tokoyami inquired. She glanced briefly at him and doubled back, gazing at the deep dark red of his eyes.

"You're onto me," she said after a vague pause. Kizuna leaned over Tokoyami—he coolly moved back, his arms still crossed—and peeled the bandages off Midoriya's broken fingers. "Here, you need your full strength against Todoroki."

"He still has to win against Sero," Midoriya reminded, because he was nice.

"Yeah." Kizuna fed the twisted bones with her energy, and her stomach groused. "Poor guy."

The ground cracked with ice. Todoroki fought as a master of technique: inevitable, perfect, bored, contemptuous, with total and exact precision of movement. It was surely bringing a few pros to tears.

A frozen staircase to the sky.

Frostbite, huh.

She made her way to the 1-B stands as they watched Iida and Mei perform an advertisement commercial. Glancing around the students (she could've sworn she saw a mess of purple talk to Shoda), Kizuna decided to sit next to Shiozaki Ibara. Offhandedly, she mentioned that she was raising succulents, and asked if Ibara had any tips with her experience in growing plants. She complimented her on her vines, how long and green they were, and hey, what an interesting idea, could those vines grow if they were potted?

"Like any other plant," Ibara said proudly. "My Quirk doesn't need to be consciously activated—only consciously controlled."

Kizuna smiled, and her switchblade glinted in her hand. "May I?"

Ibara allowed her to cut off a small piece of vine. "I have a fondness for that bread you baked… one good deed must beget another. Give it plenty of water and sunlight."

It was no longer than an inch. Neogenesis felt it first (older sisters, it's a hierarchy), the patchwork of radiant, thrumming energy in its cells, chloroplasts and green veins. Then Exalt. Kizuna studied it. This might actually work.

She pocketed the thorn with a quiet, "Thanks."

With that, she hurried on down to 1-C's prep room. She passed by Mitsu and Ishizaki and Agoyamato, and they solemnly told her they hoped her death would be quick and painless. Kizuna assured them they would not be invited to the funeral.

houlder, short white hair pulled into a tiny stub of a ponytail, and the bright pink girl from 1-A smiling confidently.

The crowd murmured their standard murmurings. How that Yokoyama was the younger one, not the brilliant Tutari, but the one with the Incident, and how sad it was that kids of her generation have grown up with terrible run-ins with villains. (Her case was by no means singular.) The Yokoyama would no doubt make a good sidekick. Ashido Mina, on the other hand, was an extremely promising young hero.

Wiping away crumbs from her mouth, Kizuna kept her eyes on the stands where 1-C congregated. Shinsou was leaning over the railing; meeting his eyes, the nerves in her stomach settled a bit.

Midnight cracked her whip, her excited smile gleaming, smelling faintly of evening poppies. "Let's make this a good fight, ladies!"

"AND FOR OUR FIRST WOMAN VERSUS WOMAN MATCH… IT'S THE FLASHY, ROSE-TINTED ASHIDO MINA OF THE HERO COURSE! VERSUS AN AGGRO HEALER WHO SURPRISED US ALL BY MAKING IT THIS FAR, YOKOYAMA KIZUNA OF GENERAL STUDIES!"

A lopsided smirk tugged at Kizuna's mouth before she bit it away.

"You don't fight, right? I'll go easy on you!" Mina declared, stretching her arms over her head.

Kizuna sized her up. She was a few inches shorter than her, with thin horns twisting up over light-rose hair. Mina held herself in a wide stance that didn't look like any particular martial art—Fatgum would call her a brawler, her hands clenched and her feet braced apart, straight-ahead. Very honest, no subtlety. Then again, with a Quirk like Acid, subtlety was entirely unnecessary.

Kizuna then adopted a meek simper. "I'd appreciate that," she murmured prettily, and the crowd hummed at such a bashful girl; what a pity, this soft-looking thing was going to get decimated on national television.

Present Mic yelled start, and Mina burst into a sprint.

"It's okay to lose," Yuuka said in her ear.

I know.

"The truth is, heroism is sorrow. You can still walk away."

Here's another truth: you never had that option. So neither will I.

Mina was so close she could see bright amber eyes in those black sclera.

Her feet moved, sliding like water over the dirt. Kizuna pivoted a hundred and eighty degrees. With both hands, she seized the outstretched wrist coming in for an uppercut, and used Mina's own momentum to flip her in a circle and slam her back-first into the ground.

Judo throws, grappling, submission holds. The art of reacting. A soft art. It was how Yuuka overpowered small-time villains with minimum violence, bar a few cracked collarbones or dislocated shoulders. The first thing Fatgum drilled into her was how to breathe. The second was footwork. The third was—oh, fuck, she didn't remember, every miserable, limpsy bone in her body was in pain.

"Last but not least, kid," he said, standing over Kizuna as she wheezed like a beaten dog on the training gym floor, "remember this: every decision you make is crucial! Whether running for your life or fighting an opponent, do not waste any time on hesitation!"

She just barely evaded the stream of acid. A few silver drops landed on her leg, burning hothothot through the fabric. Flinching sharply, a green thorn between her fingers, she felt for the Quirk in there. A biblical fury. It whispered to Kizuna, suffering is religious if you do it right.

"Oooooh, you tricked me!" Mina huffed, rolling to her feet.

Kizuna touched her heart, her eyes curved in laughing slits. "No more tricks," she lied again, "promise."

She forced Vines into Exalt's mouth. Light 'em up, shitty Quirk.

Lightning chirped like a thousand sparrows.

(we are pain, we are miracle, sang the choir, we are holy, we grow)

The stadium screens showed the two combatants standing apart from each other, nothing particularly special happening.

One second later, the entire landscape exploded into green vines.

They seethed across the ruptured ground, climbing and urgent and alive. The crowd jolted as one, caught mid-practical joke. The vines rolled beneath the referee's stand and smashed up against the sides of the arena with a massive boom, making the stands shake, and Cementoss was on his feet, fortifying the walls with more concrete.

The few who were properly paying attention saw the snow-haired girl standing amidst the green, raising her vine like a sword, crackling with white sparks. But far more were spellbound by Mina flipping backwards with ease, spitting acid at the vines rampaging at her. She was a pink blur, dancing past the whipping thorns, until she vanished in the cloud of dust that covered the arena.

A few Pro Heroes were on their feet, demanding in confusion, just like Shinsou before her, why this girl was in General Studies. The Hero students stopped discussing Todoroki's powers and watched dumbly; what they thought was going to be a short, one-sided match of a powerless healer and an acid-girl was turning into something else entirely. 1-B yelled at Ibara if she was helping the healer cheat.

"I won't stand such sinful ideas!" A shocked Ibara raised her fist, demanding her thorns to stop, and they obeyed.

As for the General Studies healer, whose heartbeat was thundering in her ears: she was crouching behind the rubble. A silence had fallen. The crowd was miraculously quiet as if they too were trying to pick up on footsteps. Even certain overly-competitive boys in 1-A were leaning forward, squinting into the dust.

Kizuna had let go of the vines and brushed off her hands, shaking from adrenaline; they were back under Ibara's control. She had no more tricks up her…

…Well, maybe one more.

Sneaking around, her fox-eyes dilated enormously and found dandelion-pink moving through the dust.

A white-blue blur jumped at Mina—but she dodged at the last second, and would've blasted Kizuna in the face with acid had she not also just tripped over a vine. It was so funny Kizuna almost fell on her ass with laughter. Spitting out dirt, Mina blindly sprayed the ground with acid—smart, putting a bit of the terrain back in her advantage—and Kizuna scrambled behind a large rock for shelter.

Mina was fast—she'd be faster than her on a good day, but in the dust, with her vision impaired, they were pretty much even.

"Ashido," Kizuna called in awe, "your reflexes are amazing!"

She spat acid at the rock Kizuna was hiding behind. "How'd you do that thing with vine-girl's vines? Get over here, you tricky-trickster!"

Sorry, that is out of the question. Kizuna ducked behind another rock, scampering away.

A few more rounds of hide-and-seek and the dust settled, the stadium visible once again. She peeked over her rock. In the center of the field, Mina was breathing hard, hands braced on her knees. Her skin seemed pinker. A little red, like a rash.

That acid must be depleted by now. Only one way to find out.

Kizuna bent back down, pressing herself against the rock, trying to psyche herself up even as dread rose up in her throat. She clutched the spot on her leg where a few drops of acid had landed earlier. The small red welts stung, hot and painful, and a full-body shiver wracked through her as she imagined more of that pain. Getting punched in the face was one thing, but this was acid. Mina's Quirk was—scary.

…But All Might had said it was okay to make mistakes, and the true enemy was not failure, but the fear of it.

Kizuna inhaled. She was going to sit in a bubble bath with a cream soda and a face mask when this was all over, and it was going to be splenderiffic.

"No guts," Yuuka whispered, beaming.

"No glory," she snarled out, and sprang over the rock, feet hitting ground, arms pumping.

But Ashido Mina, one of the fastest students in 1-A and the possessor of indomitable spirit, wasn't done yet. She put her palms together, cheeks puffed up with effort, and rained nuclear silver.

Oh, come on! Yet Kizuna did not slow down.

She leaped right into it, holding her arms in an X shield over her head.

Her skin popped. A high, boiling whistle in her ears. Steam roiled off her shoulders like a cape of smoke. Her arms were singed, the fabric of her sleeves gone, hot and burning and caustic. Her short ponytail came undone, eaten away. She didn't really feel it, in the instant. She just thought: No matter how many times you fall, you are going to stand up again. You are going to be just like Yuuka.

BY TUTARI'S GRACE, GO I—

She threw her entire steaming body at Mina, wrapping her legs around the other girl's waist. Pivoting her weight backwards, she twisted her torso and slammed Mina into the ground with as much force as she could muster, and heard something crunch in the takedown.

Sprawled across the vine-covered rocks, they gasped for breath. The air stank of irradiated chemical.

Kizuna peeled herself off the thorny ground and rolled away. She wiped her mouth—and touched a painful welt on her upper lip, cringing. Was she melting? A little. Her skin was red and raw, burning like a motherfucker. Ugh, trying. Trying was the worst. Trying felt like getting stung by a hundred bees, then rubbing a lotion made out of poison oak all over you, then dipping yourself in a bottle of ethanol alcohol. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!

Mina's left shoulder was tense, rigid. It was at least severely bruised, if it hadn't popped out. "Why… aren't you… healing yourself?"

"Can't." Kizuna was gasping for air. White strands dropped around her feet, melted off. "Quirk… only works… on other people."

"I… hit the jackpot… huh?" She weakly tried drawing out acid again, but it was a tiny spout of silver.

With a fanged grin, Kizuna flicked her hands in a come at me gesture.

Mina sucked in a lungful of air and sprinted, her fist coming up for its uppercut. The world was spinning like a top. Hardly able to see straight, she bent her knees low, grabbed Mina's sleeve, and threw her onto the ground.

Mina let out a long, dizzy groan, and didn't get up.

Covered in burning red welts, Kizuna found the stands where the Hero students, Shinsou, and Yuuka were watching.

Thank you, she would've hollered if she had any remaining lung capacity. Thank you for letting me stand on your shoulders.

Then Kizuna collapsed next to Ashido Mina and heard the roar of the stadium, Present Mic shouting about the upset victory for General Studies, and 1-C waving their jackets in the air and screaming themselves hoarse.

Her hair was a lost cause.

Kizuna glumly examined herself on her phone's camera. It stuck up in sickly white patches, longer in ridiculous places and very, very short in others. She wailed at Recovery Girl to make her cute again, and was given the exasperated retort that her healing Quirk didn't work on hair.

This sucked. This sucked ass.

And she didn't even have the luck to gain a long, diagonal scar across her face.

In her other hand was an electric clipper. Kizuna looked at it, swallowing. She remembered clearly when she started thinking of herself as pretty. When she saw the white curling across her brow like the first snow of the year. It almost reflected color, vaguely iridescent in certain lighting.

This was infinitely harder than getting sprayed with acid on national television.

She couldn't lift the clipper.

…New plan: she was going to fashion herself a veil out of pillowcases and hide in the infirmary until her next match.

As Kizuna sulked and pouted and bemoaned her pyrrhic victory, something strange happened in the air. A stifling heat, thick and almost humid. She was about to ask if someone turned the heater on, before she saw the cinders.

A fortress pushed through the door. "I thought you might be in here."

Though he needed no introduction, Recovery Girl said, "Endeavor!"

Kizuna scrambled backwards on her bed and lurched up against the wall, every muscle in her body stiffening. The man was a towering giant in his blue hero suit and his hair seethed in flames. He shouldered into the infirmary, all the beds and curtains and chairs shrinking in his massive presence. His eyes glowed like hellfire.

"So you made it into General Studies. As expected of your family." Even his voice took up space, booming and gruff. "It's a fact of reality that there must be lesser heroes for the top to exist."

Her throat felt stuffed with cotton. A bead of sweat rolled down her cheek.

"But Tutari was different," came the inferno, fire licking around his words like the awful snap of burning carbon. "You too have the power to be an excellent support hero. Or you could be discarded in the trash heap without ever realizing your full potential."

Recovery Girl whapped the enormous, flaming hero with her syringe-cane. The old woman barely reached his knees. "Endeavor," she said in a pinched, angry voice, a tiny ladybug buzzing around a tiger, "this is the nurse's office. That means she is recovering."

He seemed to finally notice the bandages on Kizuna's arms and neck, the pillow she was hiding her hair under, and the wide pink eyes staring back at him with stubborn reticence.

"Carry on," he said gruffly, stepping out the door. "I'll take my leave. Watch this next match, Kizuna."

Five-car garage, newspaper headlines, absolute power… what's that all add up to when you died alone?

"I'll take my leave," Kizuna mimicked, once she was sure he was out of earshot.

"Goodness me," Recovery Girl sighed.

"I won't tell anyone if you say 'fuck that guy'. I think it's very shine when old ladies say it."

"They're about to start." Recovery Girl tottered over to the window, squinting down. "Midoriya and Todoroki."

Kizuna threw her pillow down and scrambled over to join her at the window. Those boys glowed on the stadium screens, incandescent as if they ate fistfuls of lightbulbs and shat out shining heroics from the other end. She watched their light from the shadow of the mountain.

And then—

Midoriya ruptured bone after bone.

Todoroki blazed.

"He shouldn't be a hero! He shouldn't! Recovery Girl!"

"Calm down—"

"That Quirk is killing him! It's not worth it!" She finished hooking an unconscious Midoriya up to fresh blood. Recovery Girl was examining his arms and telling Kizuna which wounds to scab over with platelets and fibrin and which parts she couldn't touch, because Recovery Girl first had to remove the bone splinters. She was this close to stomping her feet, throwing a proper tantrum. "I don't understand this at all! Can't you find another successor? Yagi-san, stop laughing at my hair!"

"Ah, no, I wasn't—you make a fair point, Yokoya—" All Might turned away from her, coughing.

"That isn't for you to decide, Kizuna," Recovery Girl reminded. Then, "I'm just as furious as you are."

"You're doing a great job of showing it," she snapped, and pressed her wrists to her face. "…Sorry."

"This has happened before, and it will happen again, and the most we can do is try to guide these heroes to a safer path."

"I don't like it." It was a rasping hiss; she was not talking about Midoriya anymore. "You keep healing, and they keep dying." Round and round like a never-ending carousel.

All Might was quiet now. He was quiet, this skeleton dressed up in a baggy black suit, his brow furrowed and dark.

"Yes," Recovery Girl said, and Kizuna took a sharp breath. "Go on. Go see if Todoroki needs patching. I have a few words to say to this troublesome mentor."

She was startled by the look on the doctor's face. Recovery Girl really was incensed.

"Well," All Might said, after a beat, "I am big enough to admit I deserve this."

She paced the hallway outside his prep room for almost five minutes before finally deciding fuck it and threw open the door.

There was a boy sitting at the end of the table, and he looked up as the healer strode in. Her jacket covered her head and the sleeves were tied under her chin like a dark blue headscarf; she gave him an imperious 'do not talk to me about my very fashionable and trendsetting ways' glare, which bounced off of his perpetual 'I don't talk much anyway' Todoroki bubble.

"Unzip," Kizuna said bluntly. She kicked out the chair next to him and plopped down.

Todoroki blinked slowly at her. Then he unceremoniously peeled the rest of his torn jacket off and deposited it on the table. He hardly had any injuries, except for some light bruising on his stomach. It didn't really need healing, but… well, whatever.

As she mended it, she said, "By the way, your dad's, like, haunting the halls."

"He doesn't have anything better to do," Todoroki replied. Then: "…Midoriya?"

Kizuna contained her surprise as best as she could, which was to say, she stared at him in astonishment. Prince Frost, caring? "Severely fucked-up."

Todoroki didn't look surprised. He didn't look like much of anything as he eyed the wall. All traces of his earlier competitive spirit were gone, replaced by something pensive and numb. "I thought his Quirk reminded me of All Might's."

"…I think there's some differences…"

"But it also reminded me of your dad's. The way he used to break."

"Okay, thanks," said Kizuna, and the dry cut of her voice breeched whatever meditation Todoroki was under. Grey-green eyes migrated from the wall and found her, as if seeing her properly for the first time. But Kizuna's face was slammed shut. She couldn't even think of anything funny to say, and so simply asked, "Are we talking like normal now, or are we gonna wait another nine years after trying to kill Endeavor?"

To anyone listening in, this might've sounded like a joke about premeditated patricide. It was not.

"Don't know." Todoroki returned to looking at the new love of his life, the wall.

She should've kicked him in the ankle. She should've rubbed his eyes with sandpaper. But Todoroki Shouto wouldn't have blinked. He wouldn't have even seen her. She could've taken off her shirt and shown him the putrid scar stretching from collarbone to abdomen, and he wouldn't even look her way.

Kizuna stood, remembering the fire blazing over the arena. "Midoriya will be back on his feet soon. The whole universe might end with you, but it'll take a hell of a lot more than ice and fire to snuff out that star."

"Yeah," Todoroki said, and did not say anything else.

Locks of ghost-white fell in the sink.

In the bathroom, the electric buzz of a clipper stopped.

She stared at herself in the mirror; it was a familiar sight. I look like an egg.

"Shiretok, dummy." Yuuka gave a fanged smile, those delicate knifelike features reflected on her little sister. "You look like me."

She could hear the distant treble of Present Mic announcing the next match.

Kizuna ran.

On one end of the stadium, Tokoyami Fumikage walked out. His dark feathers pierced the fiercely blue sky. A red choker wrapped around his neck and his beak was a resolute yellow hook. Powerful, determined, and serious; he was not here to lose.

At the other end, a girl with a light-grey buzzcut stepped up, her bubblegum-pink eyes looking straight ahead at her opponent, the stadium lights flaring over her shaved head. At the sight of this, a certain elderly grandmother in the Yokoyama household fainted.

.

.

.

do i not live?
badly, i know, but i live.

(sophocles, trans. anne carson)

.

.

.

notes. i once took a 'which bnha character are you' buzzfeed quiz and got aoyama. then i changed the answers until i got ochako. but my first (and accurate) result still haunts me to this day. i, too, cannot stop twinkling…

i think i'm gonna play a little ~fast and loose~ with certain canon events, just because they're more fun to write that way. also, and i'm sure you've probably picked up this by now, but i very much enjoy the concept of 'telling a fact first and then later explaining it/how people got to certain places in further detail'. i think it makes it more fun to read through, rather than info-dumping it all on one go.

some of you have made some very in-ter-est-ing theories. which i will neither confirm nor deny. and i will only say IT'S JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG, FRIENDS. when the sports festival wraps up, i'm thinking of having a brief interlude chapter with kizuna visiting fatgum in kansai, because uhhhhh i just love the giant orange totoro, and that's my only excuse? whoops.

comments that make me go "fjdksajfdsafhjds":

arkeisios: kizuna just going "dweeb"x10... i stan a spiteful being
guest: She reminds me of toga, all with her cat eyes and sharp teeth. If they should ever meet I would like to believe they would get along swimmingly.
scars of the sun: But the question is : does Bakugou's Quirk really smell like shit ? lol
ladyktbaby: I would just like you to know I binged watched this show just to read this story because I love your writing style so much.
meno melissa: all I can think of is Bakugo kabedon Kizuna, Todoroki kabedon Kizuna, and Shinsou stealing pocky from her hand.

i also want to say there are several comments that have touched me deeply; thank you so so much for writing them. the world is very strange; i hope you're all staying safe.

glossary

ainu

eshi: shut up
ramat: soul
yai!: hey!
ku yaiyapapu: i'm sorry
shiretok: beautiful
sapo: big sister
mataki: little sister