Something Like a Star (B. Katsuki)

Nineteen: Disaster Aims for Midnight

5:30 AM.

Nadoka hid a yawn behind her hand, stretching and cracking her back as she followed the rest of the students outside. Most looked just as sluggish than her, if not more so. Only Tokoyami seemed to be unaffected by the lackadaisical hours of sleep the class had gotten the night before.

"Morning, class," Aizawa announced, "Today we begin a training camp that will increase your strength. Our goal is to increase your skills exponentially, so that each of you earns a provisional license. This will allow you to face the dangers that continue to fester in the darkness. Proceed carefully. Look alive, Bakugou—" Katsuki raised his hand and caught the baseball Aizawa tossed at him— "Try throwing that for me."

"Yeah, sure," He agreed boredly, "like in the fitness test."

"That's right," Aizawa said, a smirk adorning his features, "when you first started school, your record was 705.2 meters. Let's see if you've improved."

Bakugou walked forward with the ball as chatter broke out behind him. "Oh, I get it! We're checking our progress!"

"A lot's happened to us in the past few months, maybe he can throw it a whole mile now!" Sero said cheerfully. Katsuki swung his arm around a few times, limbering up.

Kirishima pumped his fist in the air. "C'mon, get it, Bakugou!"

"Show them how it's done, 'Suki." Nadoka echoed monotonously, too tired to offer the same excitement that Kirishima did.

Bakugou grinned that slightly-scary grin of his as he bent his knees and readied himself. "I've got this. No one blink—" He reared back and swung his arm forward, screaming— "Go to hell!"

Everyone's hair was blown backward by the wind he created as they squinted toward him, watching the ball fly away and disappear into the woods in a devastating show of red and orange flames.

"That was 709.6 meters." Bakugou grunted in surprise, his eyes snapping open as Aizawa held up the tracker.

"That's it? Kinda disappointing." Sero admitted, wincing as Nadoka smacked the back of his head with an angry glare.

"You've had a single semester at UA, and due to your various experiences, all of you have definitely improved. But those improvements have mostly been limited to mental prowess and technical skill, with a slight increase in stamina thrown in along the way. Your Quirks really haven't grown that much stronger. Not on a fundamental level. That's why we're now going to focus on improving your powers—" Aizawa grinned menacingly, the class gasping in fear— "this'll be so hard, you'll feel like you're dying."

"Let's hope you all survive."

—

To an outside eye, it could be assumed that the current situation happening at the training camp was nothing short of absolute chaos. Anyone who had no idea who any of these people were, or why they were there, would probably believe that this group of twenty-one sweaty, tired, grumpy teenagers was batshit insane.

A boy with spiky blond hair plunges his hands into a barrel of boiling water, waiting long enough for the heat to really start to hurt before throwing his arms to the sky and releasing a wave of massive explosions coupled with a guttural yell. Another boy, this one with duel-colored hair, sits in his own vat of water, repetitively hitting his hands against the sides to send out waves of ice, then fire, then ice, then fire. A boy with black hair sits on his knees atop a small cliff, screaming bloody murder as his elbows stream tape off the edge continuously.

A boy with gelled red hair holds his ground and hardens his skin as a blond uses his tail to drown the redhead in blows. A yellow-blond with a black streak the shape of a lightning bolt yells meekly and runs his electrical currents through a high voltage battery atop another cliff, his mind long since shorted out, but he doesn't stop. A tall boy with large hands and an even larger head screams continuously into the woods, trying to increase the range from which he can attract animals with his call.