On his first day back in class after the internships, Minoru ended up showing up to the classroom slightly before most of his classmates, but no matter how early he thought he was to school, it seemed like Yaoyorozu always beat him there. And indeed, there she was, perched primly in the seat behind his.

  “Hey, Yaoyorozu,” Minoru said, as he slung his bag under his desk.

  “Mineta,” she greeted him with a nod.

  “How was your internship?” he asked. He’d been wondering what she ended up picking, actually; he hadn’t had a good chance to ask her about what she decided on after talking to her about her options after they were first handed out, and he vaguely recalled her first internship with the snake-haired hero being a waste of her time, though he’d liked the commercial that had come out with her in it after the fact.

  It seemed he needn’t have worried, however, as Yaoyorozu lit up. “It was amazing! I ended up taking an internship with a hero named Majestic, and I learned so much! It was such a privilege to be able to observe a pro hero in action. I’m so thankful I decided to attend U.A.”

  Minoru couldn’t help laughing. Yaoyorozu was always so forthright. She was a breath of fresh air after having to deal with Ida and Todoroki for the last couple days.

  Yaoyorozu turned her attention to him with a slightly quizzical look on her face, likely wondering what he was laughing about but too polite to ask. “What about you, Mineta? How was your internship?”

  That certainly nipped his hilarity in the bud. “Ah. Well, I certainly learned a lot. It was a little more…exciting than I would have preferred, though.”

  Yaoyorozu cocked her head. “Oh? How so?”

  Minoru stared at her. Did she…not use the internet? Granted, he knew the police were planning to hush things up, but he was clearly visible in a clip that had been posted online by someone who had been observing the brief fracas after the Hero Killer was captured.

  Just then a huge explosion of laughter from Sero and Kirishima near the front of the classroom distracted both Minoru and Yaoyorozu, and they turned to see Bakugo with an oddly clean-looking hairstyle confronted by the pair who were just about dying of laughter.

  Kaminari had meandered over to Minoru’s desk as Bakugo’s hair exploded out of its careful styling, no doubt driven by his extreme ire. “What about you, Mineta?” he asked, grabbing a chair and sitting down across the desk from him. “You were in Hosu, right? If we’re talking the most transformative, traumatic experience, that’s got to be the one the four of you had!” He turned to acknowledge Midoriya, Ida, and Todoroki where they were clustered around Todoroki’s desk.

  “Yeah, yeah, the Hero Killer!” called Sero from where he’d been forced into a kneeling position by Bakugo.

  Yaoyorozu shot Minoru a sharp look. “Wait, your internship was in Hosu City, too?”

  Minoru grimaced and shrugged.

  Kirishima spoke up from Bakugo’s other side. “I’m just glad you’re all still alive. But Endeavor came and saved you, right? That’s our number two for you!”

  “Right…we were saved,” said Todoroki, looking down.

  “Hold on,” said Kaminari. “Did you watch that video, Kirishima? Our own Todoroki was the one who put the final hit on that Hero Killer. Kind of cool, don’t you think? Endeavor showed up after the Hero Killer was already secured.”

  “Kaminari!” exclaimed Midoriya, clearly flustered.

  “What?” asked Kaminari. “I know what the news said, but we all saw it, didn’t we?”

  As the broader class devolved into a debate over what exactly led to the Hero Killer’s arrest, Yaoyorozu once more caught Minoru’s attention. “You fought the Hero Killer, too? Why wasn’t that mentioned on the news?”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “Well, no. I didn’t really fight the Hero Killer. My internship mentor and I were…involved with the nomu. I just got dragged over to the Hero Killer after he’d been captured.”

  “And you’re alright?” Yaoyorozu ran her eyes down Minoru’s body, which was frankly mortifying.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine! I got a little cut up, but nothing a blood transfusion and a few bandages couldn’t fix!”

  Somehow that didn’t appear to appease Yaoyorozu, but before she could say more, Ida’s cry of “Class is about to start. Get to your seats!” rang out and interrupted them.

  Hero Studies class that afternoon was alrescue training, in which the class needed to race to try and “rescue” All Might from within a dense urban environment.

  If there were an exercise less well suited to him, Minoru wasn’t sure what it would be. He glumly watched as his classmates threw themselves into the activity, Midoriya in particular making waves with his new Bakugo-inspired mobility, but it was hard to get excited about something that the only way he could excel would be sabotaging his fellow racers, and honestly…he just didn’t feel like it.

  After the events in Hosu City, the return to the mundanity of classes was jarring, and Minoru ended up placing last in his group.

  Afterward in the changing room, Minoru noticed a hole in the wall leading to the girl’s locker room, partially obscured behind a piece of paper that was drooping off the wall. He shuddered, unpleasant memories of getting stabbed in the eye by Jiro’s earphone jack briefly surfacing, then slapped a grapeshot over the hole and resolved to tell a teacher about it.

  Later that day, Minoru ducked into Principal Nezu’s office for a debrief about the internship program.

  “Minoru Mineta, just the budding hero-in-training I wanted to see!” exclaimed the principal, hopping down from his desk and scurrying over to close the door behind Minoru. “Sit, sit, let me brew some tea and we’ll talk! I hear on the grapevine that your internship was quite a bit more exciting than was represented in official media! You even aided in the final capture of the Hero Killer Stain, did you not? Yes, I am quite proud of you, Mineta, quite proud indeed. You’ve represented U.A. well with your actions, unlauded though they may be.”

  Minoru sagged into the offered chair, still feeling a bit under the weather after the rescue training. “I guess.”

  “No guessing required!” chirped the principal. “And now according to your own timeline, I believe you have some time to finally relax for a bit. Though do not relax too much! You still have your finals before the time for the summer camp arrives.” The principal looked over at him with a gleam in his eye. “I think you will need to work hard to arise to the challenge.”

  “Yeah, yeah, Midnight is a tough opponent for sure.” Minoru waved finals aside. He really wasn’t too worried about them. Although he didn’t remember that much about academic subjects, he’d been applying himself a little more seriously this second time around, and was comfortably in the top five scorers in the class. The practical would no doubt be difficult, but he’d passed before and that was when he wasn’t practicing with his Quirk nearly as strenuously as he was this time around.

  “Indeed, indeed,” said the principal. “Just remember: never give up, even in the face of an unbeatable foe! But that is not why I wanted to talk to you. I’d like to hear your detailed account of the nomu and Hero Killer, of course, but first: Toshinori has finally decided to reveal to Midoriya the existence of All For One.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t push him in that direction at all,” said Minoru dryly.

  Nezu shrugged, then carefully handed Minoru a full tea cup. “I do believe I would have encouraged him in such a direction with or without your future knowledge. The League of Villains’ canny actions, coupled with the evident childishness of its supposed leader all point to there being a mastermind behind the scenes. For those of us familiar with All For One’s actions in the past, it is not so great a leap.”

  “What about other people beyond U.A.? Have you been able to convince them?”

  Nezu climbed up into his own chair and cradled his tea cup, taking a small sip. “Many are not ready to believe such a thing is possible, but I have seeded the idea where necessary and it merely requires time to grow. Now that Toshinori has arrived at the same conclusion on his own, the path forward will be simpler. I anticipate I will have access to a willing task force by the time it is needed.”

  The principal set his tea cup aside and leaned forward. “On that topic, you may wish to prepare yourself to participate in the capture of the doctor, should future events proceed as you have relayed to me. While the teachers here at U.A. are adamantly opposed to students endangering themselves, certain others who are now in the know have made note of your efficacy when dealing with threats such as the nomu in Hosu City. Of which we must anticipate we are likely to face again if this doctor is indeed their originator.”

  “What?! No! That doesn’t make any sense at all! I don’t even have my provisional hero license!”

  Principal Nezu shrugged. “We shall see how events play out, but I wanted to give you some forewarning as it seems this may be out of my paws. In any case, those events will not occur for some time, so in the interim you can merely use them to propel you to further effort. Now, I do believe I would like a first-hand description of your time in Hosu City. I am very interested to hear your account of the Fly’s capabilities and theories, in particular.”

  Minoru stifled a groan, sipped his tea, and tried to make himself comfortable. He could tell this was going to be a long session.

  Nothing got Principal Nezu going like pedagogical methods.