Quick notice before the chapter starts, shout-out to Kimichan over at kimichan_art on Twitter for the cover art, which I just added to the story. I'm thrilled with how it turned out. I'll be saying this again on Ch10 for those who had read this chapter before I uploaded the cover art.

One second, the whole world dropped away, leaving Mashirao floating in a black void. The next, reality was back, only everything was on fire. For one confused second, Mashirao wondered what he had done to deserve being kicked straight to hell, no waiting in line for St. Peter's judgement.

A knife darted out of the flames. Mashirao did a wing block out of reflex, stepped into his attacker, and laid him out with a well-aimed punch.

More attackers rushed at Mashirao from the fires. He crouched into a familiar stance and took a deep breath, instantly regretting it when smoke filled his lungs. As he coughed, the villains ran forward, only for a string of tape to stop them short.

"Ojiro-san, over here!" Hanta called through the flames. He tugged, forcing the group of villains to stumble back before one slashed the bindings. Tokoyami was with him, fending off another villain with a shrunken Dark Shadow. Using the opening, Mashirao ran towards them and helped Dark Shadow bring down the villains.

"Where are we?" Mashirao asked.

"Still in the USJ, I think," Hanta said. "Thirteen did say something about a conflagration zone."

Tokoyami put himself between the other students and wrapped Dark Shadow around them, holding the villains at bay. "We should head back to the center, like Midoriya said."

Quills flew out from the flames. Dark Shadow rose to block them, but some make it past, piercing Tokoyami's cloak. As light crept in through the holes in the cloak, Dark Shadow grew smaller and weaker.

"Are you hurt?" Hanta asked, unrolling his tape. "Ojiro-san, keep them off us, I can bandage him up."

"I'm not hit," Tokoyami said, "But my cloak's ruined." There was a short pause as the avian teen went through an internal struggle. His next words sound as though they were forced out of him. "Dark Shadow gets weaker in light, and without the cloak, I can't do anything."

"Here, let me patch it up."

While Tokoyami and Hanta were distracted with cloak repairs, the quill villain stepped out of the flames, arms aimed at them, with enough quills bristling from his hands and forearms to turn Mashirao's classmates into pincushions.

Unable to breathe from fear, Mashirao rummaged in his gi's improvised pockets. His hands closed around the bola, a last-minute addition to his hero attire. It was a graceless throw, but one end of the capture weapon struck the villain in the head. They reeled back, quills firing wildly into the air and striking another villain.

Cloak repaired, Tokoyami sent Dark Shadow after the quill-bearing villain, bringing him down before he could fire more quills. The fighting grew hectic after that, villains closing around, Tokoyami holding down the hasty tape job on his cloak, Hanta smearing moisturizer on his elbows to keep his tape from drying out, and Mashirao fighting wave after wave of villains until his arms grew heavy.

When they finally made it out of the fires, the first thing Mashirao saw was Midoriya, face bleeding as a gray-haired villain dug his hand into his skull. Mashirao reached into his gi, but he was all out of bola to throw.

Ochako was no stranger to nausea. There was the ever-familiar 'I used my Quirk too much' stomach pain, the 'I used my Quirk on myself and now I don't know which way is up' feeling that made her stomach do flips, the 'I ate two week old leftovers at the back of my fridge because wasting food equals wasting money' stomach cramps that would've made her call a hospital if that wouldn't have made her parents worry and maybe drag her back home, and because that apparently wasn't enough, she got the 'my body hates me and craves death' version once a month just for kicks. Now, she had a new type to add to her list, the 'I'm trapped in a shadowy vacuum and my stomach wants to fill the void' variety she hoped never to experience again.

When the void vomited her back into reality, it was to find herself surrounded by villains in a maze of crumbling architecture. Making herself half her weight, a trick she really had to thank Midoriya for suggesting, Ochako leapt ten feet into the air and landed nimbly onto a cracked archway. A villain came after her, but the weathered stone couldn't support their combined weight. Rocks fell to the ground, scattering the villains around her.

Ochako used the opportunity to leap higher. A glint of light from Aoyama's armor caught her eye, and she sprinted towards it. The flamboyant teen had his own bout of stomach pain, struggling to stand after firing his laser in a circle around him. The uneven terrain was keeping the villains at a distance, but Aoyama didn't have long before they made it close enough to stab him.

Neither Ochako nor the villains were the first to make it to Aoyama's side. Leaping nimbly over the fallen rocks, Shoji ran in front of Aoyama and spread out his dupli-arms. The first villain to reach him was sent sprawling by a three-pronged punch.

"Is there anyone else here?" Ochako asked when she made it to them.

"It's just the three of us in this zone," Shoji said, "Against fifteen villains."

Still doubled over and nursing an aching stomach, Aoyama shakily said, "I don't think we can take that many."

"And I can't carry both of you at the same time. Otherwise, we could just run away."

"What if I made us all half as light?" Ochako asked. "Try carrying me."

Shoji hefted her and blinked at how light she was. "I can work with this."

With Aoyama and Ochako tucked under his dupli-arms, Shoji ran towards the center of the USJ building. Without his dupli-arms to act as secondary ears, he didn't notice the pair of villains that swung around in front of him. They were moving at either side of him, planning to cut him off at a sturdy section of wall.

Shoji skidded to a halt and spread out some ears. "We can't stop and fight, there's more right behind us. Any ideas?"

Ochako prodded Aoyama. "Is your stomach better yet?"

"Oui, but I only have one shot."

"Fire it at the ground. We're going to fly out of here."

As the villains closed around them, Ochako took a deep breath, steeling herself for the nausea to come. She tapped herself and her two classmates, negating the rest of their gravity. Shoji jumped, putting them out of reach of the villains' reach. As the few long-range villains fired metal spheres and gobs of sludge at them, Aoyama fired his laser, launching them across the facility. They landed in a heap near Yaoyorozu and Jirou, closer to the entrance, just in time to watch Midoriya shove a matryoshka doll into a villain's exposed brain. It wasn't clear at first what that was supposed to accomplish, but as smoke rose from the villain's head, the villain's eyes rolled back, and it fell with a ponderous thud.

It was after watching Izuku flip nimbly off the villain's back that Ochako's stomach remembered that it got shot through the sky with a laser at zero G after she negated three-hundred kilograms worth of people, which, incidentally, was her new least favorite type of nausea.

Once she was done throwing up, it was to find Midoriya in the hands of a villain, his face falling apart in the villain's grasp. This time, she felt too frightened for nausea.

Koda never thought of himself as a coward. Sure, he preferred to avoid any and all human interaction, especially if it involved him speaking anything above a hoarse whisper. Yes, insects terrified him. Anyone who wasn't terrified of some creepy, crawly bug with way too many legs that made a sickening crunching sound when stepped on was clearly out of their mind. Everyone had a phobia or two of their own, so Koda never understood why the other kids in his school had treated him like glass. Fear was normal. Fear was what kept you alive.

Fear was what had him sprinting down a hill dotted by buried buildings as a villain howled and hooted in delight, brandishing knives as his scorpion's tail waved in the air.

"I'm going to slice you into pretty, pretty little ribbons!" the villain said, cackling as he sprinted towards Koda.

Koda dove into a ditch, hoping to lose the villain, only to run head-first into a soft, bouncy cushion of air. Falling forward, Koda reached out with his arms, trying to break his fall. His hands found something smooth and soft. He squeezed, trying to figure out why he couldn't see what he was holding.

"Could… you stop squeezing please?" a strained, high-pitched voice asked.

As Koda scrambled back, his brain processed everything at once. One, the squishy wall of air he ran into, was in fact, his classmate Hagakure. Two, said classmate, judging by the fact he couldn't see her at all, wasn't wearing any clothes. U.A. definitely couldn't make her costume soon enough. And three, there were only a handful of places he could have squeezed that would've felt so round and squishy, and Koda definitely didn't want to know which it was.

His hands were shaking as he made the signs of apology, too quickly at first, but then slowly, enough for Hagakure to understand. If he made it out of there alive, the first thing he'd do is thank Midoriya for teaching half the class basic sign language.

"It's okay, I should've been more careful," Hagakure said. "I took off all my clothes because there were too many villains around. I managed to get away, what about you?"

On cue, the villain leapt into the ravine. "Peekaboo, I see you!" He cackled maniacally and ground his blades together. "Now let's play!"

Koda let out an undignified whimper of terror and scurried back. The villain watched him struggle back until his back hit the end of the ditch.

"Come on, aren't you going to stand up? It's no fun if you don't struggle." He licked the blade, watching Koda with wide, crazed eyes as he strode closer.

Koda's mouth worked silently. He could hear the bugs in the dirt around him, not as many as would normally be around outside, but enough at least to distract the villain. The words wouldn't come. Watching the segmented, barbed tail waving in the air, Koda gasped for air, throat tightening as the villain came closer.

A rock floated next to the villain. It slammed into the villain's head, knocking them aside. The villain lashed out with both blades and the tail, but all three sharp edges struck nothing.

"Ah, the invisibility Quirk," the villain said. "No need to be shy, Uncle Tyrian just wants to play."

The villain stopped, glancing side to side with a manic grin. The ditch grew deathly silent. Koda held his breath, unable to move as the tension of the scene rose to unbearable levels.

A rock shifted. The villain lashed out with a knife. Flecks of blood splashed out from nowhere, coating the rocks of the ravine.

"Found you," the villain crooned. He flicked the blood off his knife and walked towards Hagakure. "Why don't you show me more of you? You're a very lovely color underneath the invisibility."

As the knife rose, Koda screamed. The bugs answered. Boiling out of the ground, centipedes, beetles, and spiders swarmed over the villain. Absorbed in the thrill of the chase, the villain didn't notice at first. Once the insects made it up to his neck, they started biting him. Arms, legs, face, anything not covered with skin-tight clothing felt the wrath of Koda's swarm. The villain screeched and dropped the knife, swatting at his skin, crushing insects in ones and twos as dozens more crawled up his ankles.

With another rock, Hagakure knocked the villain unconscious. The bugs skittered away as the villain fell.

"Thanks for that, Koda-kun," Hagakure said in an uneasy tone. "If we're ever fighting against each other in class, please don't do that."

Koda nodded and suggested in signs that they head towards the center, like Midoriya said before the shadows swallowed him. They found Sato further down the cliff, popping Midoriya's candies in his mouth as he broke a villain's nose. Cuts and burns covered his costume, and one eye was swollen shut. The insects, which had been following behind Koda, broke off to harass the villains. As half their number fell screaming under the arthropod assault, Sato rallied, slamming through the rest of the villains to reach the center.

They arrived just in time to watch a villain spatter the ground with Midoriya's blood.

The void had been the kind of cold that could only be described as an absence of warmth, chilly to both of Todoroki's halves. The chill that followed was felt only by his mother's half.

The mountain zone was an enclosed space with a simulated blizzard. Snow fell in a violent swirl of white, blotting out the view of the dome above. The occasional tree dotted the wintry landscape, branches sagging under the weight of snow.

A green mound, poking out from the white expanse, caught Shoto's eye. He staggered towards it, stumbling through the snow on hidden rocks. Asui, half-buried and shivering, looked blearily up at him.

"So c-c-cold," she said through chattering teeth. She clung to his left side like a life preserver.

"Let go. We need to get out of here."

"Cold blooded," she stammered. "Can't stay awake. Have to get warm."

Shoto swore under his breath. He looked around, hunting for the exit, but all he saw were cloaked shapes coming towards them. One spotted him, and the rest moved to surround him.

Their ringleader, an amber-eyed woman with black hair, smiled as she saw the two students huddled together. "Aww, trying to stay warm?" she sneered. "How cute. Here, let me help with that."

Molten glass dripped from her eyes, so hot it glowed with incandescent light. At her fingers, the glass hardened into tiny, sharp blades. A flick of her fingers sent them towards Shoto. He stomped on the snow-covered stone, and a wall of ice rose to catch the blades inches from his face. The ice sputtered and cracked as the super-heated glass shattered. Shoto sent more ice after the villains, catching a few, but most nimbly stepped aside, or ignored his attacks entirely with heat-based Quirks.

"There's supposed to be three of them," the woman said. "Back-ups, find the last kid. Green hair, Quirkless, feel free to kill him when you see him."

A few villains chuckled as they peeled away from the fight. Shoto sent a column of ice after them, but the woman swept a curtain of glass in the way. Steam hissed as the two attacks met.

"Kurogiri warned us you would be a tricky one," the woman said. "But sooner or later, you'll both freeze to death."

Shoto glanced at Asui. Her lips were turning blue, and her breathing was shallow. Her grip slackened around his arm. As panic set in, he heard Midoriya's words coming back to him, warning him, telling him to use his fire. Shoto shut it out. He wouldn't be his father, no matter what. He wouldn't use his fire.

Molten glass bled into the shape of a bow. The villain drew it back. Glass shaped itself into an arrow, nocking itself on the slender glass string. Shoto made a giant wall, wincing as the cold bit into his right side. The arrow plunged into his wall, heating the ice with enough force to blast it apart.

Shoto raised his right hand, straining to make another wall. His fingers were coated in frost, the flesh turning black, and his arm was red and throbbing from the cold.

"Done already?" the woman asked as she drew a second arrow. "Pity. I was just getting warmed up."

Shoto gritted his teeth, pushing himself even further for another burst of ice. As he tried to stand, Asui slipped off his arm. She didn't move as she lay in the snow.

"Aww, is the little froggy dead already? Don't worry, you'll be joining her soon."

As Shoto stared down at Asui, horrified from watching her succumb to the cold, he felt himself snap. White-hot pain filled his chest, and tears boiled on his cheeks. Midoriya's words bounced off his skull, use your fire, surrounded by villains, somewhere warmer, freezing to death, use your fire. The words became a chant, use your fire, use your fire, use your fire, pounding and pounding, demanding to be heard.

The arrow shot at his forehead. A torrent of fire met it, knocking it aside with a violent gust of air. The fire raced outwards, consuming the villain, reducing her to ash and bone in the blink of an eye. She didn't have time to scream.

Snow melted into wisps of steam, forming a misty circle that expanded with Shoto's fire. Villains ran, stumbled, scurried away in their panic to escape the flames. Shoto flung out his arm, and a second wall rose in front of them, blocking their escape. Howls of agony echoed in the mountain zone's dome as the fire closed in, consuming them one by one.

Once it was over, the snow was gone. Bare rock and blackened tree stumps dotted the steaming landscape. Asui lay in a pool of water, still not moving. Shoto grasped her with fumbling hands and drew her onto his lap. He radiated heat, the air around him shimmered, and his arm thawed, exposing frost-bitten fingers.

"Hey," Shoto said softly. "Wake up, please."

Asui didn't respond. Another batch of tears filled Shoto's eyes as he hugged her tightly, squeezing more warmth into her lifeless limbs.

"I'm sorry," Shoto whispered as he sobbed into his shoulder. "I should've listened to him. I'm so sorry."

The void was nothing new to Tsuyu. One time, she had wandered off from her parents and snuck into a restaurant kitchen, enticed by the sounds of sizzling meat and chatting cooks. Curiosity drew her to the walk-in refrigerator in the back, and a numbing chill in her limbs kept her there. She woke up twenty minutes later in her mother's arms, tears dripping on her shirt as her mother smiled down at her. The void was much like the final moment of limbo as the world fell away, with her still conscious but unable to see the world, unable to move, unable to escape or resist the encroaching darkness.

What was new was the sudden, jarring transition to freezing cold. Her limbs grew heavy as the cold set in. She tried to rise, but the snow weighed her down. The void crept back as her body warmth seeped into the snow.

Warm hands pulled her from the snow. On instinct, she clung to the warmth, soaking in the body heat. She could barely mumble an explanation of what was happening to her as her rescuer trudged through the snow.

Tsuyu heard more voices, but they were muffled, foggy from the cold tickling her brain. She fought off her torpor, struggled to stay awake long enough to find warmth, but the hand she clung to grew colder, the chill around her crept deeper into her chest, as walls of ice rose and fell.

When she woke up, the snow was gone. Steam curled from her soaked hero outfit. Senses returned in waves, first prickling heat in her extremities, followed by the smell of ash and moisture. The ringing in her ears faded, revealing muffled sobs. A gray dome grew into focus as she blinked her eyes. Snowflakes drifted on the wind and turned to puffs of steam when they got too close to the ground.

Tsuyu groaned and stirred. Her eyes met Todoroki's. He stared down at her, disbelief plain on his tear-streaked face.

"I thought you died," Todoroki said hoarsely. He sniffled as he wiped his tears away.

"I went into hibernation, kero. Takes a while for me to wake up."

Todoroki hugged her tightly. Tsuyu squeaked from the sudden contact.

"I'm so sorry," Todoroki said. "You almost died because of me. I promised not to, but I had to, and I – I almost didn't."

"Well, I'm not dead." Tsuyu, still numb from waking up and shocked by Todoroki's out-of-character closeness, floundered for a way to change the subject. "We should meet up with the others, like Midoriya said."

Todoroki stiffly released her and helped her back onto her feet. As they walked down the mountain, Tsuyu stumbled on a loose rock and fell. Another rock, now inches from her face, had eye sockets. A look around revealed a charred skeleton, sans its head, lying as though it had been trying to crawl away to safety.

"What happened here?" Tsuyu asked.

Todoroki gazed at the bones. "I promised not to use it," he said with a shaking voice. "I promised."

Tsuyu swallowed, suddenly understanding what had happened. She looked around and found more bones scattered across the bare mountain, blackened by Todoroki's fire. She looked back at Todoroki's haunted face, his eyes transfixed as he stared at what he had done.

On impulse, Tsuyu hugged Todoroki. He flinched as she wrapped her arms around him. "It's okay," she said. "Let's just get out of here before more show up."

Todoroki nodded and let her lead him to the mountain zone's exit. Tsuyu tried not to look at the bones, tried not to think of what might have happened if Todoroki hadn't burned them all, tried not to imagine their screams, tried not to wonder why Todoroki, distant, quiet, emotionally dead Todoroki, was crying over her.

They made it out just in time to see a hand reach for Midoriya from the swirling void.

When the void swallowed Katsuki, he responded the same way he would with anything ominous, threatening, or annoying, blasting the ever-living shit out of it until his palms stung. The void, being a metaphysical vacuum, suffered no damage as a result of the outburst, which naturally made Katsuki even angrier. He had a finger on the pin of his grenade gauntlet, ready to nuke the swirling purple void to kingdom come, when it deposited him in a giant puddle amidst a torrential downpour, raising Katsuki's anger level to biblical proportions. Unfortunately for one surprised villain with an iguana's facial features, they became the new outlet for Katsuki's pent-up fury.

Leaving the smoldering, half-dead villain in his wake, Katsuki followed the hysterical screams until he found Mineta and Kaminari, backed against a building as five villains swarmed them. Katsuki detonated his palms, flying forward to kick a villain in the chin.

"The exploding one's here!" a villain shouted. "Have everyone surround them!"

Katsuki grabbed his face. He ignited his sweat, but all he got was a pathetic pop. The villain grabbed him by the wrist and shoved him aside.

"Not so tough here, are you?" the villain sneered. "Have fun trying to blow things up when your hands are wet!"

Katsuki stared in rage at his soaked gloves. He tore one off with his teeth and rubbed furiously, trying to dry and heat his hands, but the rain washed away his efforts.

"What do we do?" Mineta cried. "They're going to kill us?"

"Use your quirk dumb- just use your Quirk!" Katsuki snapped.

"Oh yeah, great plan, I'll just cover them in sticky balls until my head bleeds, that'll stop them from smashing our heads in!" Mineta pointed at the sidewalk, which was already dotted with purple spheres. "In case you noticed, they aren't doing much!"

"I could shock them all," Kaminari said, "It'd be really easy in this rain."

"Yeah, but we'll all be fried to a crisp!"

"And I'll be an idiot, I know!" Kaminari and Mineta both looked up at Katsuki. "What do we do?"

Katsuki primed a gauntlet and looked around, making the villains back off while he assessed the situation. One villain had stepped on a ball, trapping his foot against the sidewalk.

"Your spheres still stick in this rain?" Katsuki asked.

"Y-yeah, they're hydrophobic." Mineta grinned hysterically at him. "That idiot tried kicking one, thinking the rain would keep it from sticking."

"Hydro-what?" Kaminari asked.

"Are they insulators too?"

Mineta became thoughtful, then grinned. "They're like rubber, so yeah."

"I swear you two are making up words!"

"How do you not know what an insulator is?" Katsuki snapped at him. "Your whole Quirk is electricity!"

"Guys, are we doing this or not?" Mineta asked. "I'd like to not die, thanks."

Katsuki stepped on two of the balls. He wobbled back and forth, flailing his arms to keep his balance. "Pikachu, use discharge when we're both standing on these balls."

"Hey, who are you calling Pikachu?"

Mineta made a small pile and sat on it. "Just do it!"

"Alright, but this better work!"

The villains' eyes widened as Kaminari fired off his Quirk. Arcs of electricity leapt across the ground, skirting around Mineta's rubbery balls to shock the villains. One had the sense and speed to climb atop Mineta's balls, only for Katsuki to knock him unconscious once Mineta freed him.

"That all of them?" Katsuki asked as he examined the fallen villains.

"It – it better be." Mineta anxiously looked around, as if a villain might crash through the walls at any moment. Kaminari walked around in a daze, giving thumbs-up to a lamp post and mumbling to himself.

One of the villains, a tall, dark-skinned, muscular man with messy brown hair stood up, shaking drops of water off his coat. Arcs of electricity rippled across his arms. "You actually went through with it. Reckless children. Still, I'm impressed you came up with a way to stay standing after the discharge"

Mineta shrieked and hid behind Katsuki. Katsuki sneered and primed one of his gauntlets. "If you knew what was good for you, you would've stayed down. Now I'm going to kill you."

The man frowned. "Death threats from a hero course student? As if I needed any more evidence of how backwards hero society has become."

Katsuki aimed at the villain and pulled a pin. "Like I care what a villain like you thinks, now die!"

The villain was swallowed up in a massive cloud of smoke. When it vanished, he was still standing, albeit with a singed hole in his leather jacket.

"You know," the villain said as he strode towards Katsuki, "I tried to be a hero when I was your age. U.A. didn't think much of a kid who needed to haul around three car batteries just to punch a robot. Instead, they liked kids like Endeavor, kids with bright, flashy Quirks who could burn anyone who was a problem to a crisp."

Katsuki backed away and readied another gauntlet, but the villain rushed forward and grabbed his wrist. Katsuki struggled and even bit him, getting a numb tongue for his trouble.

"I don't want to kill kids," the villain said, "But knowing what you'll become someday, just another Endeavor burning the masses into compliance, I'm willing to make an exception."

"Fuck you!" Katsuki roared.

The villain looked at him sadly and raised a fist. "Didn't anyone tell you that heroes don't swear?"

Katsuki stared dumbfounded as the fist crashed towards him. At the last moment, one of Mineta's purple spheres slipped in front of the punch. The punch still rattled Katsuki's skull, but it kept him from snapping his neck.

The villain shook his hand, trying in vain to dislodge the sphere. "Clearly, our intelligence was off. We'll have to make sure this doesn't happen again."

Mineta grabbed the sphere, releasing Katsuki, and threw two more at the villain. They stuck to his chest, but the villain was careful not to touch them.

"What are you doing?" Katsuki said as Mineta ran away. "Keep throwing!"

"I can't!" Mineta pointed at his forehead. Blood trickled down past his eyes. "I only have a few left, and they aren't even doing anything!"

The villain watched them head down the alley and turned his attention to Kaminari, who was trying to high-five his reflection in a store window. "You're not going to leave your friend behind, are you? Some hero you are."

Katsuki stopped in his tracks and snarled. "Mineta, give me one."

"Wait, what?"

"I have a plan, just shut up and do it."

"Oh, you're coming back to fight?" the villain asked. "Do you still think you can win against me? Your friend had quite a bit of electricity in him. I could level this whole block if I wanted to."

"We'll see about that." Katsuki primed his other gauntlet, pulled the pin, and pressed Mineta's sphere into the opening. "Eat this, sticky grenade!"

With a deafening roar, the nitroglycerin detonated. The sphere flew apart in a burst of purple goo, drenching the villain and Kaminari in viscous, rubbery liquid. The villain pulled and struggled, but the goo held him fast to the ground. The more he struggled, the tighter the goo clung to him, until he was hunched over.

While Mineta dug Kaminari out of the goo, Katsuki strode up to the fallen victim. "That's what you get for being a villain. I'll beat any of you, anytime, anywhere."

"This isn't over," the villain growled. "I won't let people like you become heroes. You don't deserve it."

Katsuki scowled. He planted his foot on the villain's face, taking care not to touch the goo, and drove his head into the ground. The villain gasped, curling to keep his nose and mouth just above the water.

Mineta stared at Katsuki with a nervous expression. Katsuki kicked water into the villain's face and turned away. "Let's get out of this stupid rain. There's more villains to kill."

As it happened, there was only one villain left in the center plaza. He had his hand on Deku's face, with one finger poised over his forehead. Deku's eyes met Katsuki's at the last moment. His serene expression brought back memories months old, memories Katsuki had angrily shoved aside, telling himself it didn't matter, he was still worthless, someone as pathetic as Deku couldn't have possibly saved him.

The finger fell. Deku's skin flaked away, then the muscle underneath, then the bone. Blood gushed from the wound, staining the hand and running down Deku's face. All the while, Deku kept smiling that calm, quiet smile that set Katsuki's soul on fire.

A/N: well, here it is, the USJ. I've been itching to get this chapter out.

If it wasn't made clear by the excerpts, I decided to add a special little twist to the USJ incident. In the canon, the villains went in without taking into account the Quirks of the students. That changed here. Essentially, I asked myself what conditions would be the absolute worst for each Quirk. My logic was as follows, in case you're interested:

Tokoyami – conflagration, light from fires weakens his Quirk.

Sero – conflagration, fire burns his tape and dries out his skin

Todoroki – I tweaked the mountain zone just for him, since the cold would inhibit his ice

Tsuyu – mountain, snow would make her hibernate

Bakugo – downpour. The snow would slow down his Quirk, but I imagine that his hands getting wet would be even worse. I don't know off the top of my head, but my chemist's instincts tell me that nitroglycerin should be soluble in water.

Mineta – downpour. It's tempting to think that something sticky won't work when it's wet. Too bad canon proves that thinking wrong.

Kaminari – downpour. Makes his electricity impossible to control.

Shoji – landslide, unstable footing makes his wild strength prone to upset the landscape or trip him up

Hagakure – landslide, as shifting rocks would give her away. Was tempting to put her in the blizzard zone, but I decided against it.

Aoyama – ruins, can't use his Quirk without risking bringing the walls down on him

Ochako – ruins, her Quirk would make the walls too unstable

The rest either don't have any discernible weaknesses to a particular zone and were put somewhere to balance out the teams, or they haven't shown up yet. That'll be next week.

On to the reviews:

To DemonKittyAngel, what's the fun in letting things pan out the same way as they did before? Sure, Katsuki might not have Kirishima (yet?) but he's got a small squad of his own already.

To Alex Bloodbane, I'm a sucker for stories with some good angst. Glad you're enjoying the ride.

To Im The Person, the future is now. Think Izuku decided to give the faculty heads-up after this?

To lovleydragonfly, Racoon Eyes would be Mina-chan. That one's a canonical nickname. Almost called her Pinky before I remembered that would be her hero name.

To Emrys Akayuki, having Nighteye use his Quirk on Izuku was a thought experiment I did. The results were… interesting.

To darkpaladin89, asking the important question, how to make Mineta tolerable? Giving him character growth without neutering that comedic schtick he's got going is a tricky tightrope to walk. Here's hoping I'm up to the challenge.

To elc, Katsuki playing as Best Jeanist so much was less me foreshadowing things and more me having fun with the fact that it's Katsuki's canonical internship, because why not.

To Bakeku67, glad you loved the scene. I was fretting over that one a bit, I was a bit worried I went too far with that no-name girl's haughty attitude. Wanted her anger to be justified, but over the top enough for Katsuki to get pissed and fight back.

To crazydude13, I'm not letting Deku off the hook that easy.

To mountainelements, I have never heard of Worm before, so I cannot say if you're on the right track or not. I suppose time will tell.

And… it's Monday now. Crap. Got a bit carried away typing this all out. Heck, maybe I was stalling, hoping the follower count would hit 500 before I sent this out so I could celebrate hitting this milestone. And right now, we got… 496. Rats. Now, I could pretend I had already hit five-hundred so that the people reading this, say, 12 hours from now wouldn't be any the wiser, but I have integrity, dammit. Out this chapter goes.