Sato spoke up as they dashed after Sero. “I apologize if this is rude, but do you want me to carry you?”

  If only. “No, I need the training. Maybe if you ingest any sugar and want to go more all-out, though.”

  “Sure thing. You think we can actually tag sensei?”

  “I don’t think it will be as easy as Ashido seems to think, but yeah. Why do you ask?”

  Sato let out a big huff of breath. “It’s just…the teachers are tough. I wasn’t worried about the practical, but we didn’t stand a chance. And my Quirk…it’s just not awesome like most of the class.”

  Minoru almost face-planted in surprise. He hadn’t really spent much time with Sato…well, ever, in this life or the last, but he hadn’t realized the big guy had confidence problems. “Sato…how do I put this? You’re basically All Might except instead of corny jokes, you can bake. You’re going to be fine.”

  “No no no, I’m nothing like All Might! He’s a completely different level!”

  “Sure, but ultimately your Quirks are very similar. Incredible strength is useful for basically everything, whereas a Quirk like mine has much more limited applicability.”

  “Huh,” said Sato, and fell silent. As they ducked to either side of a concrete pillar, Minoru snuck a glance at him and saw a contemplative look on his face. Then he shook himself lightly, and glanced at Minoru out of the corner of his eye. “So, uh, did you happen to notice which way Sero went? I…lost track of him.”

  Minoru pointed to where a piece of tape fluttered near the top of a pillar up ahead, and the pair put their heads down and increased the speed.

  Moments later Kirishima’s voice rang out. “CONTACT!”

  Sero came whipping back as Minoru and Sato pivoted towards where they’d heard Kirishima. “Should I—?”

  “Go, go!” yelled Minoru, waving him on.

  Beside him, Sato tossed back a sugar packet, muscles rippling, and glanced down at Minoru with a questioning look on his face.

  “I’ll take that lift now!” Minoru jumped up onto his back, scrambling up until he reached Sato’s shoulders where he anchored a pair of grapeshot and clung to them.

  “Hold tight,” rumbled Sato, and blasted through the columns after Sero.

  He literally blasted through one of them, Minoru ducking his head and closing his eyes as he tried desperately to hang on while chunks of concrete blew past him.

  Thank goodness he hadn’t skimped on his grip training recently.

  As concrete rained down behind them and Sato skidded to a halt, Minoru risked a glance over Sato’s shoulder and saw everyone in their remedial group engaging Aizawa.

  Four on one, and Aizawa sensei made defending against them look easy.

  Ashido sped around him, trying to get into his blind spot but every time she neared the edge of his vision she would stumble suddenly, her acid production abruptly cut off.

  Meanwhile, Sero was perched near the top of a pillar attempting to slip some his tape through the furious whipping fabric that surrounded Aizawa, but every time it seemed like he’d finally found the perfect shot, sensei would glance his way and his tape would fail to appear.

  Kaminari was struggling on the ground several feet away, wrapped in a coil of Aizawa’s fabric with sparks igniting around him as his frustration got the better of his Quirk.

  As for Kirishima, although he’d managed to get within arm’s reach of Aizawa and did not appear to be having too much trouble maintaining his Hardening, he couldn’t completely close with their sensei thanks to the kicks and strikes that were constantly sent his way.

  Minoru took that all in at a glance. “Sato, support Kirishima. See if you can get hold of some of sensei’s capture tape and pull him off balance. I’ll get Kaminari up.”

  Without waiting for a response, he shoved off Sato’s back and dropped to the ground, grunting as he tried to absorb the impact by crouching. Why was everyone in their class so stinking tall?!

  As he dashed for Kaminari, Minoru kept an eye on Aizawa. He wouldn’t put it past their teacher to—crap, there it came! Minoru desperately threw himself forward into a roll, Aizawa’s capture tape hissing past above his head. Man, that was a close one!

  He grabbed the fabric entangling Kaminari on his way past, and dragged him partially behind a pillar before starting to tug frantically at the stuff. Ugh, it was incredibly difficult to maneuver; his estimation of Aizawa’s skills climbed even higher.

  At last Kaminari was able to wriggle one arm free, and with both of them working on it they were able to get him out of the capture tape in short order.

  “Got any ideas, Mineta?” said Kaminari as the two of them peered around the pillar.

  “Any idea if this fabric is conductive?”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Kaminari stretched a bit of the stuff between his hands, there was a brief sizzling sound, and his eyes lit up. “It is, a bit!”

  “Good; Sato is trying to get ahold of the fabric. If he does, light Aizawa sensei up.”

  “Ha ha, no mercy, huh, Mineta? I like it.” Kaminari dashed around the pillar and pelted for the fight.

  Minoru meanwhile took off running around the periphery. He wasn’t going to do any good getting under the feet of Sato, Kirishima, and Kaminari. Better to try and get a grapeshot under their sensei’s feet from the side.

  As Minoru rounded where he estimated Aizawa’s peripheral vision would cut off, he slapped a grapeshot on a pillar and let it whip him around so that he was barreling straight into the fight.

  In the time that it had taken him to circle the melee, Sero had evidently become frustrated and he was now also on the ground. He was still maintaining a bit of distance from sensei and was either firing his tape at random or…could he be trying to stick it to sensei’s capture fabric? That wasn’t the worst idea, actually, though Minoru was doubtful he’d be able to pull that sort of accuracy off.

  Meanwhile, Ashido appeared to have finally given up on using her acid and was dodging Aizawa’s strikes alongside Kirishima.

  Sato was growling and thrashing as Kaminari helped him out of another bit of the capture fabric. Evidently his attempts to grab it hadn’t quite worked out for him.

  “Yah!” yelled Minoru as he approached, trying to distract Aizawa, but it didn’t appear to work. Oh well, it was worth a shot. If he wasn’t going to have his Quirk canceled, then he might as well make life difficult for their teacher. He started snatching grapeshot off his head and flinging them toward Aizawa’s legs.

  Shockingly, Aizawa spun rapidly in place and actually smacked several of the grapeshot out of the air with a piece of capture fabric, which he then whipped towards Sato. What was with his reflexes?!

  As Kaminari ducked to avoid getting entangled, Sato slapped at the oncoming fabric, the grapeshot sticking to his arm. Aizawa was already spinning away, a foot lashing out towards Ashido.

  “Watch out!” shouted Kirishima and he stiff-armed Ashido out of the way, taking Aizawa’s kick in her place which sent him flying out of sight between the concrete pillars.

  “Now, Kaminari!” roared Sato. Kaminari grasped the capture tape that was stuck to Sato with grapeshot but still stretched back to Aizawa, and a flash of electricity traveled down the tape, causing Sato to grunt and stumble and Aizawa to briefly drop to his knees.

  Ashido, Minoru, and Sero wasted no time, all three of them diving for their teacher as they tried to place hands on him simultaneously.

  “Tag, sensei!” crowed Ashido as their hands all managed to connect. “We got you! We get to go home early!”

  Sensei relaxed back into a sitting position on the ground. “Good job, you did indeed tag me. But who said I was the only one you needed to capture?”

  All five of the students paused, but their surprise was interrupted by a second shout from Kirishima back within the pillars. “CONT—“ he started, but the sound cut off with a thump.

  Minoru quickly ran through the roster of teachers in his head. Shit, that could only mean one thing. “Midnight!” he shouted. “Everyone off the ground!”

  Sero shot a piece of tape at Ashido and pulled the pair of them up to the top of a pillar. Minoru turned to run toward where he remembered the nearest pillar being but was interrupted as Sato strode over to him, snatched him up, and bodily threw him up near Sero.

  Minoru stabilized himself with grapeshot and turned around just in time to see Kaminari also pulled up by Sero’s tape as Midnight strode into sight and Sato slowly folded over onto his face.

  “Oh my, what’s this?” crooned Midnight. “So many little birdies, sitting in the trees.” She started slowly unwinding her whip. “Why don’t you come on down, little birds? You’re looking awwwwfully sleepy up there.”

  Aizawa snorted lightly, and then slumped over, as well.

  They were screwed, weren’t they? Totally screwed.

  “Guess it’s your time to shine, huh, Mineta?” said Kaminari and Minoru whipped his head around to look at the lightning boy in astonishment.

  “Here,” called Sero from a couple pillars away, tossing a short length of tape his way. “That should keep you from inhaling for a few seconds.” He emitted several more strands, passing them to the rest of the students.

  “Things are going to get a little sticky,” said Ashido cheerfully. “You make sure she stays down when she slips.”

  “I’ll go first,” said Kaminari, voice muffled as he secured Sero’s tape around his nose and mouth. “Not like my Electrification is going to be much use otherwise.”

  Without waiting for a response, he threw himself off the pillar towards Midnight, electricity already sparking around him. “Yaaaah!” shouted Kaminari, but Midnight danced out of the way as he fell.

  “It helps if you don’t make your plans where the villains can hear them!” she called.

  Kaminari stumbled as he landed, rose halfway to his feet, and then suddenly slumped. Evidently a whiff of Midnight’s scent got around the tape.

  The other students weren’t waiting around, however. Even as Midnight dodged Kaminari, Ashido was diving down and Sero whipped a line of tape around Minoru and sent him flying over Midnight’s head to land on an opposite pillar where he scrambled to get the tape over his nose and mouth before sliding down to help.

  As Minoru hit the ground, he took a quick glance around. Sero hung limply, still suspended near the top of a pillar by his tape but decidedly unconscious. Midnight must have hit him with her whip before he had a chance to get his tape over his own mouth.

  Ashido, however, had displayed her typical athleticism, stuck the landing, and immediately engaged Midnight up close and personal, liberally dousing the surroundings with something that honestly was a little closer to slime than acid.

  Minoru paused, jaw going slack. What the hell? Ashido’s bout against Yaoyorozu in the sports tournament had been bad enough, but she was reprising it against in-costume Midnight?!

  And Kaminari, the poor bastard, was sawing logs. Minoru was going to lord this over him for the rest of—

  No, he needed to focus! Ashido might be slightly more resistant to Midnight’s Quirk, but they were all still on a strict timer. Minoru dashed in and started hurling his grapeshot on the ground behind and around Midnight before he too collapsed into unconsciousness.

  “Wake up, Mineta.”

  Mineta sat up, rubbing his eyes, to find himself still on the ground in the concrete forest with Aizawa sensei standing over him and his classmates standing or sitting nearby. He looked around, but didn’t see Midnight anywhere.

  “Did we do it? Did you get Midnight, Ashido?”

  Ashido shot him a thumbs up and a big grin. “Yep! She slipped on my acid and I pushed her right onto your grapeshot then got out of range of her Quirk.”

  “Yes, yes,” drawled Aizawa. “You technically defeated both of the ‘villains’, but you had a single student standing at the end. Not exactly a rousing success when almost your entire team is incapacitated. We’ll need to wait for Midnight to finish cleaning herself up for a full debrief, but let’s start by going over the things you did correctly and where you messed up in your fight against me…”

  Later, after an exhaustive debrief and the promise of a new roster of teacher “villains” for their next lesson, Minoru and the rest of his classmates were finally allowed to return home.

  Aizawa really hadn’t been kidding; these supplemental lessons were way worse than summer school. He just hoped his classmates had a good time on their shopping trip.