Mind Games - Chapter 45

Hitoshi's bound legs swung in a wide circle, cutting under Himiko as she jumped desperately into the air and landed in a crouch away from her boyfriend.

The movement of his legs continued, the chain jingling as he swept into a tighter circle and rolled the momentum into a vertical bounce.

“Now!” Himiko cries, lunging forward at an opening.

The boy landed on the balls of his feet, his hands open and ready to intercept the blow-

-or, rather, the body behind it.

Hitoshi pressed his open hands to Himiko's oncoming abdomen, crouching to avoid the claw-like blow of her fingers. With that contact, he used her center of gravity against her, rolling her up and then – instead of throwing her – slamming her to the mat directly next to him.

Her breath erupted from her throat in a gasp as she hit the floor.

A split-second later, Hitoshi's knees were on her stomach with his paired fists at her neck.

“Point.”

The assembled heroes of the Endeavor Agency were stunned into silence in the background.

The video continued, Hitoshi spinning like a top on his hands and throwing both his legs around in vicious arcing kicks. Occasionally, one of the cuffs would catching one of Himiko's limbs, enabling Hitoshi to throw her or catch her in a snake-like bind. The boy used his knees and elbows as well, trapping one of the blond's legs between his knees and using it to force her to the ground before exerting his greater weight to trap her.

“Remarkable, truly remarkable,” the principal of UA high school stated as he reviewed the footage. “Thank you for bringing this over, Hot Ice.”

“It was no problem,” The white-haired woman said, shaking her head as she sipped at her tea. “I should be the one thanking you for indulging in my anxieties.”

“Entirely reasonable anxieties,” Nezu replied with a small chuckle, his keen eyes locking onto specific movements as the, now months-old, fight continued to play on his office's expansive monitor. “UA is not stranger to... hmm, challenging students, shall we say? But even among those, young Shinso and Toga stand out in unusual ways.”

“That's an understatement,” Fuyumi muttered, then grimaced as Nezu openly laughed.

“I suppose it is, though I regard the two of them as particularly interesting puzzles at the moment,” Nezu replied, still amused. “Intelligent, capable, possessing powerful quirks one would normally associate with villainy, yet clearly committed to heroism in spite of having every reason to lash out at society at large. It speaks of a significant maturity in both of them that I seldom see in students their age. Present company excluded, of course.”

Fuyumi snorted mildly. “I'd rather you didn't get many students you have to compare to me, honestly.”

The ursine-rodent cocked his head, “A fair point, though one I'm somewhat dismayed to find truth in. You and your brother, Luminous, were remarkable students who raised the caliber of your classmates significantly just by your mere presence. If there was a way to produce motivated individuals like yourselves – Toga and Shinso included – without the need for the trauma you each bear... but, reality rarely conforms to our ideals.”

Hot Ice pretended not to notice the way Nezu's paw scratched at his scar.

Nezu, in turn, pretended not to notice her not noticing it.

For a long moment, they both simply sipped their tea and watched as the sparring footage came to an end.

“Remarkable,” the principal repeated, humming. “Did young Shinso care to shed any light on how he was capable of performing such a feat?”

“I asked him afterwards and he said that a lot of the moves he used were from a style called Kapo-Kaporia?” Fuyumi stumbled and grimaced over the foreign word.

“Capoeria?” Nezu took a stab in the dark and received a nod. “It's a Brazilian martial art, created by slaves that masqueraded as an elaborate dance in order to hide it from their masters. It's unique in that its origins instruct movements based on the idea that the hands and feet would be bound by chains and, thus, have a limited range of motion.”

“Hitoshi said much the same,” Fuyumi frowned, rubbing at her chin.

“Did he comment on where he learned such an art?” Nezu asked curiously. “Though admittedly, I'm more curious as to how he did so, as such an education in a foreign discipline would leave some sort of paper trail.”

“I didn't press him for answers,” Fuyumi admitted, “but he remarked that... what was it?”

She took a moment to think over the words her mysterious and frustrating junior had said over a month ago.

“He said... that body language is just another language, and that if he could pick up Japanese Sign Language, then there was no reason he couldn't pick up a martial art the same way,” Hot Ice explained.

“Young Shinso does have an unusually versatile quirk,” Nezu commented idly, humming as he considered the idea. “I haven't quite had the time to read through his entire quirk assessment. Was this in the documentation?”

Fuyumi pursed her lips, thinking back to the rather... substantial report the analysts had generated. Even she could admit that she'd resorted to skimming some of the more dense and academic parts of the hefty documentation. She couldn't exactly fault someone else for not knowing chapter and verse, especially when they had hundreds of other students to care for. “In abbreviated form? They had him mimic one of the advanced pottery students from a nearby college briefly. While it seemed to bear out his claims, they'd need to do a longer-term study to be sure of it.”

“Ah, yes... the hazards of insufficient evidence,” Nazu nodded, chuckling grimly. “Though I will note that I did have time to look through the police report and arrest record which got flagged by our system last week.”

Fuyumi groaned, much to Nezu's continued amusement. “Please don't remind me of that... it's been a small nightmare to deal with. Between making sure that everyone who handled that investigation form Bootstrap submitted received a stern warning over not bringing it to a superior and making sure that the agency's computers are rigged to copy me if Hitoshi sends anything like that through them again... and that's just the administrative side of things.”

“I imagine if the boy didn't have ironclad evidence, multiple video recordings of various incidents, and what amounts to a full confession by the culprits he'd be in a great deal of trouble,” Nezu stated happily.

It was an amusing scenario, inasmuch as it was not his students who were being 'pimped out.' Though the fact that Shinso Hitoshi had already been admitted to UA had allowed him certain leverage in making sure the boy's school was rather thoroughly audited from as many angles as possible. Hopefully, all of the faculty and staff would learn a valuable lesson about being observant of their students' welfare.

“Like you have no idea,” Fuyumi practically hissed, grimacing as she thought the incident over for the umpteenth time. “Hitoshi is smarter than that, I know he is. I've experienced that on a near-daily basis. What could have possibly motivated him to-”

The gerbil-raccoon cleared his throat, interrupting the rant before his former student could truly gain steam. Such things might cleanse the emotional palate, but there was a time and a place for that. “Looking over things – to the extent I've been able to – it seems like the matter was very much personal for him. I even happened upon a report from the teacher involved in the compensated dating ring who attempted to get Shinso penalized for his HeroTube channel, citing it as an unauthorized part-time job. The Intelli girl involved also had a history of socially-isolating Shinso. So when he became aware of their criminal activity...”

Fuyumi sighed, her shoulders drooping. “You know he had the gall to give me this long-winded explanation about how he was 'objectively the correct choice for investigative footwork' right after everything went down and I was trying to read him the riot act?”

Nezu chuckled merrily. “Oh, of that I have no doubt. I don't know him well enough to judge if he's self-aware of the inherent hypocrisy in espousing a doctrine of objective analysis, or if he's simply using it as a smokescreen to shield himself from overt emotional involvement, but it will be fascinating to uncover the truth of the matter.”

Privately, Nezu thought that the latter of the two was much more likely.

It would, if nothing else, neatly explain the budding respect between Bootstrap and Eraserhead, given the aforementioned teacher's issues with emotional honesty.

“How are they doing, really?” Fuyumi pressed suddenly, her gaze intent. “You told me about what Aizawa did to Hitoshi's class; do the other... survivors blame him for it? How about Himiko? Is she fitting in?”

Nezu chuckled again for many, many reasons.

“Oh, Hitoshi is hitting his stride quite well,” he replied with a smile. “Why, just before you arrived he'd been summarily thrust into the position of Class Representative, actually.”

Fuyumi stared at him in mild disbelief. “I... can't honestly imagine Hitoshi volunteering for a position like that.”

The ferret-weasel's amusement only grew more intense. “Oh, he didn't. When I say he was thrust into the position, I mean it quite literally. The remaining four other students in his class unanimously acknowledged that he was the only reasonable choice and awarded him the title. In fact, let's see how that's going-”

“Don't you disrespect me, Little Man! Don't you derogate or deride!”

Fuyumi's jaw dropped open as she watched Hitoshi begin to prance about the classroom, singing and dancing... shockingly, he was actually pretty good.

“Oh my! Let's see... oh, I see,” Nezu smiled like a shark, his eyes feasting on the new data points being presented to him as he watched the stoic, deadpan, and snarky teen hero bounce around the classroom without any hint of pride, ego, or self-consciousness. “Fascinating.”

Shinso moved up another rank in his mind, a puzzle of a human being ever so slightly more complicated than he's first considered. The overly serious facade the boy had created dropped at a moment's notice... to cheer up a child? That... spoke of a depth he hadn't quite predicted. A disregard for social consequences and willingness to put the emotional welfare of someone else before his own.

It recontextualized a great many things he'd seen the boy do.

And raised a great many more questions in the process.

Who are you really, Shinso Hitoshi?

Oh, it was common enough to see people – especially teenagers – put on different facades to blend in socially with friends, family, acquaintances, and formal occasions. Young Toga was a masterclass in such things due to her unfortunate upbringing. But Shinso? It was clear that he could, he simply chose not to for the most part.

“I can't believe I'm seeing this,” Fuyumi muttered, shaking herself as she stared at the screen.

“Indeed, it's quite a surprise, even to me,” Nezu hummed, enthralled almost past the point of amusement as he watched a newbie teen hero rib and joke with All Might so casually one might mistake them for friends.

Where did that confidence come from, though? Or was it not confidence and, instead, just a complete apathy towards social interaction. No, the latter might explain away some of the boy's personality quirks, but it just highlighted the improbability of others coexisting within the same psyche. The confidence was real enough, Nezu concluded, likely drawn from Shinso's impressive intellect and ability to quickly master skills as well as read people like open books.

All Might, for all that he was capable of deception, generally wore his heart on his sleeve.

Perhaps we are doubly-lucky that Toshinori had his time rolled back. Were he to approach Hitoshi in his injured state, the boy would probably divine something wrong with him almost instantly.

Or perhaps he was just overestimating the rising star of the Endeavor Agency?

Nezu frowned as his analysis turned inwards. Something about the boy set his teeth on edge, but it wasn't anything he could specifically name. He definitely found the purple-haired boy an interesting subject for further observation, but... there was something more than that. A mix of the innate authority he carried himself with, the maturity to generally disregard his own ego outside of deeply personal incidents, his commitment to heroism as an ideal as well as actually understanding what that meant...

Truly, the hours of 'deep dives' Bootstrap and Buster went into provided him with a deeper character study than he could usually construct after a student's first term at UA. Even if they were at least partially scripted, the boys' body language was sincere about their belief in what they espoused.

So what bothered him?

A hero prodigy rising rapidly through the ranks after a jarring and potentially-traumatizing kidnapping event. An under-evaluated and under-utilized quirk that proved to be versatile and powerful when properly allowed to blossom. Intelligence, maturity, diligence, dedication, a skillful grasp of public relations.

Aizawa interrupting the happy moment among the classmates sparked an epiphany.

That was it.

Shinso Hitoshi acted like a veteran of the hero industry.

Tired, but alert. Confident, but not arrogant. Deferential to his superiors, but able and willing to offer his own insights within his realm of competence.

Though... those descriptors were all ones which fit Toga Himiko to a greater or lesser degree as well. Particularly her heretofore underutilized talent in programming that was – even to his own skills – frighteningly formidable.

Then why did Shinso bother him in a way that Toga did not?

Instinct told him that the Toga girl was simply mimicking young Bootstrap's performance, slotting in characteristics and attitudes that she saw him using to great effect given Hitoshi's own analysis of her fragmented mental state.

But then where did Shinso's... sheer casualness come from?

Had the boy met someone whom he imprinted off of? A professional hero? Hmm... he'd have to look more deeply into the boy's history, if only to satisfy his own curiosity and stop that little itch in the back of his mind from pestering him.

Fuyumi finally shook her head, the expression of blank disbelief on her face fading slightly. “I... that was... I'm going to have to show my dad. He won't believe me otherwise.”

“I'll have a copy for you by the time you leave,” Nezu stated, cuing up the relevant program with one paw as he took a sip of tea with the other.

“We got off track,” Fuyumi stated, taking a deep breath. “You were saying about Himiko?”

“She's doing quite well, though that's to be expected,” Nezu replied idly, occupied by his own thoughts. “Fitting in with her classmates, she's actually accepted the position of representative for 1-B.”

Fuyumi jerked slightly in surprise. “I-I suppose... I shouldn't be too shocked. Himiko is very personable. Though I can't say she strikes me as the type to attempt to run for office either.”

Nezu chuckled. “Oh, her situation is not all that dissimilar from her partner's.”

Fuyumi's brows furrowed. “I don't understand.”

“Oh, in order to ensure that young Shinso actually made the effort to make real bonds and properly associate with his classmates, I ensured that no one who had connections to Bootstrap's fan-following was in 1-A. Aizawa and Kan supported the decision,” Nezu began to cackle slightly, his teacup rattling against its saucer. “While the decision of 1-A to disregard Eraserhead's authority was unanticipated, it neatly teaches the young man a lesson about the importance of being personable with his peer group! Something that he seems to have taken to heart with this little display!”

After all, Nezu more than anyone knew that any given action could have more than one motivating factor and certainly more than one goal to be accomplished with.

And he wasn't so naive as to believe that Shinso Hitoshi wouldn't see the benefits in making a fool of himself in a small group of students he was no pursuing closer bonds with. To someone who seemed as mature as Hitoshi presented himself, the true test was in understanding that a loss of face in such a situation could be turned into interpersonal currency instead of a liability.

The boy continued to genuinely impress!

“But the secondary effect of associating all of Bootstrap's fans who made it this far into a class with young Toga is that she has now become the Idol of 1-B!” Nezu outright cackled. “This will prevent her from slipping into her classmates' shadows and forcing some of her true personality to the forefront of her actions! Once she understands that not everything need be a mask and there will not be world-shattering consequences for breaking such a facade, she can begin making real relationships that don't depend on her boyfriend acting as an intermediary! Haha!”

Fuyumi repressed a shiver as the mad dwarf polar bear-gerbil hybrid explained his manipulation of the lives of two teenagers with all the passion and insanity of the most exuberant villains she'd met in her tenure as a hero.

She was beginning to wonder if it had been wise to ask Nezu for his help with Hitoshi and Himiko.

“Don't fret so, Hot Ice,” the quirk-bearing animal chittered. “If worse comes to worst, I'll have Hound Dog on call to handle any potential problems and Hitoshi himself is only a short distance away himself.”

“I'll trust your judgment on the matter,” Fuyumi sighed. Even if the whole thing made her deeply uncomfortable, Nezu was right far more often than he was wrong and had a litany of successes to show for it.

Her brother Touya was one of them, in fact, and that counted for quite a bit in her book.

She frowned as she looked at the large monitor on the wall again. “What kind of exercise is All Might doing?”

“A variation on the standard hero-villain practice matches,” Nezu replied. “The classic application wouldn't work given the size of the class, but given Shinso's presence, that's easily fixed.”

Fuyumi hummed as she watched All Might set Hitoshi as the villain for the first round, then selected the silver-haired girl as his heroic opponent.

The match started out unimpressive and Fuyumi felt it was likely going to continue that way.

The girl very obviously had no idea how to use her quirk in a combat situation. She'd made a beeline for the building and directly approached Bootstrap in his full costume. The girl's was fairly simple by comparison, just reinforced street-wear along with a pair of weighted gloves not unlike Hitoshi's own.

“Turn the audio on?” Hot Ice asked.

“-ranged weapon. Preferably something like a whip or a meteor hammer,” Hitoshi advised, leaning casually against the doorway.

“What, afraid of getting beat by a girl?” She replied. “C'mon, I'll make it quick and painless. Or... mostly.”

“Keep in mind that I told you the broad strokes of my quirk, not any non-quirk related skills I've developed,” Bootstrap sighed, reaching up to cradle the forehead of his helmet.

Personally, Fuyumi liked the fact that the boy's practicality had shown through in his costume design. The fact that he'd all but demanded a helmet, even butting heads with their PR team over the issue, made her a lot more comfortable seeing him in a combat situation.

Not that she thought he couldn't take care of himself or anything.

It was just... psychic-type quirks had a reputation of their users being... squishy, for lack of a better term.

Judging by the lightshow, though, the girl at least understood that she had been given time to set up her quirk while she and Bootstrap bantered. A sparkling ring of light surrounded the girl three meters out, easily encompassing the chokepoint of the stairway and trapping Hitoshi on the other side.

“You going to make a move, asshole?” Silver-hair asked, and Fuyumi resolved to learn her name at some point.

Hitoshi shrugged. “Don't have to. I'm playing the villain. Your win conditions are reaching the bomb or capturing me. I'm outside of your field and, unless you're willing to leave it, you are getting me or the bomb. I can just wait you out.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Know what? I can't fucking take that attitude of yours anymore!” Silver-hair screamed, and lunged. To her credit, her quirk obviously sped her up significantly and it was equally-obvious that she was experienced at using the gathered momentum to throw herself out of her zone and towards a target.

Hitoshi, though, had anticipated that.

He took the flying tackle full-on and he rolled with the force better than she did. The match ended with the girl pinned beneath Bootstrap, yowling like an angry alley cat and cursing like a sailor, her hands bound behind her back.

After that, it was the Usagiyama's turn. Fuyumi hated to assume based on quirks, but... it was fairly obvious. His quirk, though, was an interesting deviation from the norm. If he had better control of it, he'd be a real threat.

But he didn't.

Hitoshi avoided direct confrontation, ducking and weaving into the shadows of the 'abandoned building' they were holding the test in. The rabbit heteromorph ran down the clock chasing his classmate instead of looking for the bomb as he should have, then busted out his quirk in the last two minutes of the exam. It was powerful, as evidenced by the multiple walls and floors/ceilings he demolished, but Bootstrap lured him outside the building and ducked back in, continuing the game of cat and mouse until the clock ran out.

“He's not using his quirk,” Fuyumi noted clinically.

“Hmm... well, we'd hardly get actionable intelligence on Bootstrap or his classmates' combat abilities if he did so, would we?” Nezu asked, grinning. “Although it's impressive that he managed to come to that conclusion without All Might pressing the issue.”

Fuyumi nodded slowly. It was a valid point. If Hitoshi simply asked them a question and they responded, the combat trial would be over just like that.

Did he know that he was being tested too, though?

Eh... who was she kidding, Hitoshi probably had a good read on the games Nezu liked to play by now. It wasn't as though he hadn't asked her and the other UA alumni at the agency about the school.

The smaller, dark-haired teen was at least interesting. He'd clearly requested some serious support gear and deployed a set of drones from his backpack before killing the lights in the testing zone.

“Hmm... I might have to see about beefing up security in some of the school's systems, if only to see what Durchdenwald-san can do when he puts his mind to it,” Nezu snickered as he tapped a button and the harsh tones of night vision spread across the screen.

“And here I thought Hitoshi was being paranoid when he asked for a night vision visor implanted in his helmet,” Fuyumi sighed, shaking her head.

This fight, at least, prompted Hitoshi to pull out his bow and start picking off the drones.

But that proved to be of little consequence given Bootstrap was ricocheting his shots and carefully maneuvering behind.

“I almost feel bad for these kids,” Fuyumi admitted solemnly as she watched the girl with the dragon transformation. She was too shy to be truly effective, but even her limited shift into her dragon form allowed her truly monstrous power. One of her arms easily tore through more of the building, giving Bootstrap some manner of actual challenge and, points to her, she actually stayed on-mission and went for the bomb.

Still, there was a reason you didn't actually bring an artillery piece of a knife fight, in spite of how amusing that sounded.

It was because a massive weapon stopped being effective when someone was in your face and stabbing you.

In a different environment, with room to maneuver, she would likely have forced Hitoshi to actually use his quirk to avoid a loss. But, much like the rabbit boy, she was simply too powerful to use most of her abilities indoors without endangering the entire structure.

Doubles didn't help matters.

They were clumsy, too independent-minded, and got in each other's way more often than they actually cooperated. The team of the dark-haired boy and the silver-haired girl did force Bootstrap to pull out a few smoke bombs and a bolo to take down the speedster within her field.

She didn't particularly like that.

But it allowed him to pursue the drone-user unimpeded.

When the berserker was teamed up with the dragon, well...

…

I flipped off a wall and dodged another super-speed rabbit lunge.

Okay, this is getting a little ridiculous.

Sakura went careening through the wall I'd just used, parting the concrete like butter with his rage-focused strength. “STAND STILL DAMMIT! YOU AIN'T GETTING AWAY AGAIN!”

“W-we've got you surrounded!” Yoake shout-squeaked, holding out the almost-cartoonishly large forelegs of an eastern dragon out to coral me.

Sensing movement behind me, I simply dropped to the floor and allowed the bunny to sail over me in another wild lunge.

Which, of course, sent him straight into Yaoke.

Her scream of alarm matched the detonation of a pair of plasma blasts that flew left and right, taking out two more walls.

“I'm seriously going to have to knock some sense into that boy,” I sighed within my mask, already rolling to my feet and moving.

Why? Because for all my tricks, I was still pretty squishy.

And those two had just removed three of the four walls of the building's second floor.

There was another blast of energy as-

I blinked, my eyes widening.

“Oh shit,” I muttered, throwing myself out the nearest window.

Just in time, because Yaoke had gone full dragon in response to being attacked by Sakura.

She was absolutely gigantic in her serpentine form, the limbs that had almost taken up an entire hallway each before, now attached to a body that was gleaming in the morning sun. Wreathes of yellow energy formed a flowing corona around her body as the dragon roared and casually swept the length of its body through the building I'd just jumped out of.

“E-Eri! Calm down now! It's okay, everything's just fine-”

I didn't need to ask what was wrong, I already knew.

“HEY, YOU GIANT GARDEN SNAKE! FIGHT ME!”

...and this would definitely not help it. I hit the button behind my head and my mouthguard dropped open so I could jam a pair of fingers in my mouth. The gritty bite of pulverized concrete wasn't exactly the greatest taste to suddenly deal with, but I bore with it to whistle as loud and as sharply as I could.

Instantly, both of my classmates' heads snapped towards me, Yaoke's mouth full of the fucking sun and Sakura grinning like a bloodthirsty madman.

My quirk snapped into place.

“S-see, Eri! They'll stop fighting! Deep breaths, young lady-ack!”

“Yoake, carry me up to the observation deck!” I shouted. “Sakura, break through the glass!”

The rabbit moved as the dragon knelt to raise me up in one of her claw-like hands. I heard the sound of shattering glass a few moments before I was close enough to jump into the now-broken window. Inside, faux-lightning was crackling as the little girl clutched at her head, All Might a few feet away and unable to get closer as Neiko and Sakae hugged a wall. Thankfully Sakura was still under my control.

I put my gloved fingers to my lips again.

“FFFFWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

Once again, all movement stopped as Eri grabbed at her ears from the intense sound, her panic-wide eyes filled with tears seeking me out.

Again, my quirk locked in.

“Turn off your quirks,” I ordered Eri, Sakura, and Yoake in as loud and commanding a voice as I could muster.

Sakura dropped to his knees like a puppet with its strings cut. I heard a distant squeal as Yoake came back to herself – no doubt completely naked – in the testing area below. Eri's power snapped off like a lightswitch had been thrown, instantly flickering out. All Might swept in as her eyes fluttered and she collapsed.

“Th-thank you, Young Shinso,” All Might sighed deeply, the little girl in his arms. “I think that's quite enough... everything for today. Anyone with injuries, follow me to Recovery Girl.”

“Uhhh... I'll be there in a minute! I just have to, um-pleasedon'tlook!” Yoake shouted as Sakura tilted his head towards the broken window. “I'llbebackinaminutebye!”

I felt the tension drain out of me as I pulled my headgear off and leveled a look around me at the various people. “You lot are going to be the actual – literal – death of me. I swear to all the gods.”

“I'm quite sure you'll handle the responsibility just as well as you did today, Young Shinso,” Toshinori stated, shifting his cargo as he clapped me on the back and almost knocked me off my feet. “Which is to say... better even than I did, sadly. I suppose hero skills don't readily transfer to teaching those same skills.”

“I'm sure Mr. Aizawa has some pointers,” I nodded at the man, stuffing my helmet under my arm and reaching down to grab a still shell-shocked Sakae off the floor to pull him up. I almost did the same for Neiko, but her glare stopped me as she righted herself. I ignored the man's wince. “Or any of the other teachers. I still ask for advice all the time from more experienced heroes at the agency.”

“Indeed, perhaps I'll get someone to sit in on our after-action report, once everyone's calmed down,” All Might muttered, then blinked. “But in the meantime, tell me, Young Shinso... have you ever thought about... babysitting?”

I blinked, my eyes shifting to the tiny sleeping girl in his arms.

Then trailing my gaze back up to the blonde behemoth's earnest and hopeful smile.

Fuck... I'm going to agree to this madness, aren't I?

…

Fuyumi released a tense breath, her control on her quirk slipping as her pulse cooled.

“Cancel that alert, Eraserhead,” Nezu spoke through his comm device. “Bootstrap has handled the situation. If you would, though, please alert Cementoss that the testing ground 1-A was using needs to be rebuilt for afternoon classes.”

Nezu chuckled at whatever the scruffy hero on the other end of the line replied with.

“Yes, the entire thing. Yoake's fully-transformed state and Sakura's strength are even more impressive than their paperwork indicates. At least three buildings are entirely destroyed, with several others sustaining significant damage.” The ursine-roden sipped his tea. “I'm sure you'll find the review of the footage very enlightening as well.”

The principal set the device down and hopped off his seat. “I'm sorry to cut this meeting short, Hot Ice, but it appears I need to have a word with one of my employees about exposing traumatized children to stimuli which might trigger a loss of control of their quirks. I'll have the full footage of today's mock battle forwarded to the Endeavor Agency over a secure line.”

“I...” Fuyumi's shoulders slumped as she followed the diminutive education professional out the door. “As much as I want to check in on Hitoshi, I'll trust that Recovery Girl has it in hand. I really should start heading back. Thank you for your time, sir.”

“Think nothing of it,” Nezu remarked as they parted. “This has all been quite revealing!”

…and given him even more reason to evaluate Shinso Hitoshi as precisely as he could, if his read of the situation was right.

~~~

Mock Battle time! I'm proud to say that I've crafted a situation that turns out even worse that Bakugo's little tantrum in canon. At least that fight left the building standing!

Anyway, here's the next MG chapter, hope everyone enjoys.

I'll be working on The New Ron next and have that out shortly after the weekend. Monday, maybe Tuesday. Look forward to it.

Other than that, I hope this finds everyone having a great weekend and thank you again for your patience and support. I appreciate it, as always.

(PS - This one is extra long, it just got away from me. Maybe because it was substantially easier to write than the last chapter of Butler Boy.)