Seeing that the first earth beast was still standing, the other students all gathered together, working together to take down the earth beast.
While they cheered, seeing that the first earth beast was destroyed.
The ground shook again, and several more earth beasts burst from the soil, their heavy footsteps shaking the forest floor.
"More of them?!" Kirishima shouted, hardening his arms.
Before anyone could regroup.
The first beast was blown to chunks by Bakugo's explosion.
The second froze solid mid-lunge, turned to an ice statue by Todoroki.
The third got kicked by Tsutsumi; his strike cracked through the creature's chest, shattering it instantly.
The last one lunged for the group, only for Jiro to step forward, jamming her earjacks into it. Sending a powerful vibration that rippled outward, shaking the beast to dust.
The others stared, stunned.
They'd needed at least a team effort to bring one down. Yet, these four were wiping them out solo, without breaking a sweat.
"This is going way too easy with them around!" Mineta said, grinning in relief. "We'll just let them handle it!"
Tsutsumi didn't even look back. He slipped a card into his Driver.
Attack Ride: Agito Tornador!
A magenta flash burst to life as his sleek hoverbike formed. Tsutsumi swung a leg over and started the engine. Jiro immediately hopped on behind him.
"Wait, wait! Where are you?!" Mineta began, but his words were drowned out by the roar of the bike.
"Later," Tsutsumi said simply, and the two sped off into the forest.
Bakugo followed, explosions firing from his palms like thrusters, and Todoroki created an ice path beneath his feet, propelling himself forward with bursts of flame.
"They ditched us!!!" Mineta's despair echoed through the trees.
The four of them blazed through the forest, dispatching stray beasts that got in their way. They heard what Aizawa told them, so they really didn't have much of a problem ditching their classmate to fend for themselves.
Between Bakugo's explosions, Todoroki's precision, Jiro's sound waves, and Tsutsumi's sheer physical dominance, they reached the camp in just over three hours.
Waiting at the facility entrance were Aizawa and two of the Wild, Wild Pussycats. Mandalay and Pixie-Bob.
The blonde one, Pixie-Bob, laughed into her oversized cat paws. "You four are great! Strong, quick, and decisive!"
Her gaze lingered on the three boys, eyes sparkling with mischief. "Not only powerful, but you all act without hesitation. I'm so looking forward to where you'll be in three years. I call dibs!"
She lunged toward them.
"Not interested," Todoroki said flatly, forming an ice patch that sent her sliding right past him.
"Back off, you crazy cat lady!" Bakugo snarled, blasting her back midair.
Tsutsumi didn't move until she was almost in his face.
"Who's this old hag?" he muttered.
Then, he sent his hoverbike flying. It rammed into her stomach and launched her high into the air, spinning into the forest.
"I'm eighteen at heart!" came her indignant scream as she vanished into the trees.
"Thirty physically, got it," Tsutsumi called after her.
There was a distant crash, followed by silence.
Jiro blinked. "Uh… will she be okay?"
"If she's stuck in a tree, we'll just call the fire department to help her down," Tsutsumi said casually.
Mandalay: "..."
Mandalay just stared, utterly speechless. Then she turned toward Aizawa. "You were right about his personality."
"I warned her," Aizawa said, rubbing his temples. "He can be cooperative… or a headache. Depends on who starts it."
The tired teacher's tone was calm, but his eyes carried quiet understanding. He knew better than anyone how to handle Tsutsumi. The boy wasn't rebellious for the sake of chaos; he was simply someone who refused to play by rules that didn't make sense to him.
Aizawa had long since accepted that the key to managing Tsutsumi wasn't punishment, but balance. Don't push him too hard, and he won't push back harder.
With the excitement over, the four early arrivals leaned back on the benches outside the camp, letting the summer wind wash over them.
Jiro stretched, pulling out her Mask in glasses mode. "So… now what?"
Bakugo grunted, reaching into his pocket. "We wait for the extras."
Todoroki nodded, pulling out his glasses again.
Tsutsumi also pulls out his glasses.
Aizawa blinked at them through half-lidded eyes as the three boys quietly slipped on their glasses, with Jiro joining them a moment later.
He had no idea what they were doing, but they were silent, and that was all that mattered.
"Good enough," he muttered, dragging his sleeping bag behind him as he trudged toward the lodge. Moments later, soft snoring echoed from inside.
[Kyoka has joined the game]
"Huh… so this is what you three have been doing the whole time," Jiro murmured, her voice echoing faintly in the digital air.
The world loaded around her, pixel mountains, a half-built house, and Todoroki crouched on the roof, breaking and replacing blocks one by one, silently judging which color looked best.
[Katsuki has made the achievement [Diamonds!]]
[Katsuki was blown up by Creeper]
[Katsuki]: THOSE DAMN CREEPERS!!!
Jiro blinked. "That was fast."
Bakugo re-spawned right beside her, sprinted past without a word, and vanished into the mine again.
"Shoto, where's Ryo?" she asked, walking up to Todoroki as he hopped down from his dirt pillar.
"He's exploring the world somewhere," Todoroki said calmly, brushing digital dust from his sleeve. He placed a block, stepped back, frowned, and replaced it again. "I'm going to get more wood. There's material in the chests inside. Grab whatever you need."
"Sure thing, architect boy," she said, smirking as he marched off toward the forest with his axe.
Jiro stayed a while longer, helping him collect wood and test blocks for the roof. Between Bakugo's constantly dying and re-spawning, Tsutsumi's absence like usual, and Todoroki's silent perfectionism, it almost felt peaceful, in their weird, dysfunctional way.
After some time, she decided to log off.
[Kyoka has left the game]
Turning off the game on her glasses menu, Jiro noticed they'd been playing for over an hour; the digital clock built into her Mask made it impossible to miss.
With a flick of her finger, she switched to music mode, soft rhythm echoing faintly in her ears while she leaned back against Tsutsumi. From the corner of her eyes, she caught sight of Pixie-Bob glaring in their direction, her expression a mix of frustration and wounded pride, only to be firmly held back by Mandalay.
An hour later, the calm was broken by rustling leaves and the sound of multiple groans. Jiro slowly opened her eyes, spotting her classmates emerging from the treeline, clothes torn, faces streaked with dirt, and eyes hollow with exhaustion.
From the shade, she couldn't help a small smirk.
"What do you mean, three hours!?" several voices shouted in unison as they spotted Pixie-Bob.
"That's the time it would've taken us," Pixie-Bob said cheerfully, giving them a playful wink before her smirk turned wicked. "Well, these four made it around that time."
Every gaze shifted instantly toward the benches, where Jiro, Tsutsumi, Todoroki, and Bakugo sat in peaceful silence.
The uproar was immediate.
"I could understand the three of them," Yaoyorozu complained, pointing directly at Jiro, "but you too, Jiro!? I thought we were friends!"
"Just following the teacher's orders," Jiro replied, shrugging while subtly gesturing toward Aizawa. "He said we shouldn't help, so you guys wouldn't get too reliant on us."
They froze, then turned toward their homeroom teacher, not seeing him denying Jiro's statement.
Meaning it was true.
Blame Aizawa? That would earn them another lecture and extra study time.
Blame the four? They were just following instructions.
In the end, Class 1-A could only sigh in defeat.
Aizawa, who had watched the entire exchange, noticed that Jiro had left out the word 'too much' from his original statement… but decided not to correct her. There was no point in inviting unnecessary headaches.
As the noise settled, Midoriya tried to have a conversation with the small boy standing beside the Pussycats.
"Oh, um, I'm Midoriya from U.A. High School's hero course," he said politely, crouching down to offer a handshake. "Nice to meet you."
The boy looked at him for a second… then punched him straight in the crotch.
Midoriya collapsed instantly, wheezing.
"Midoriya-kun!" Ida rushed over in alarm, before turning on the child with righteous indignation. "You brute of a nephew! Why would you do that to Midoriya's scrotum!?"
The boy shot him a glare colder than Todoroki's ice. "I don't intend to hang out with guys who want to become heroes."
A heavy silence hung in the air.
"Enough with this charade," Aizawa finally said, rubbing his temples. "Get your stuff off the bus. Once you've put your bags in your rooms, we'll have dinner in the cafeteria. After that, you'll bathe and go to sleep. We start for real tomorrow."
He pointed lazily toward the facility. "Now, move."
The students trudged off to unpack, dividing into the usual male and female rooms, before gathering in the cafeteria for dinner.
The meal wasn't anything fancy, but after the day they'd had, even plain rice and miso soup felt divine. The entire room was filled with quiet chewing, muffled sighs, and the occasional clatter of chopsticks.
After dinner came the baths, a simple mountain hot spring, separated by a single wooden wall between the boys and the girls.
Steam rose lazily under the night sky, and the students of U.A. finally allowed themselves to relax after a long, exhausting day.
At least, most of them did.
Mineta wasn't one of them.
He stood suspiciously close to the dividing wall, eyes gleaming like a criminal in thought.
"Nowadays, for them not to stagger bathing times for men and women is an accident…" he muttered, pressing his face against the damp wood. "Yes… an accident waiting to happen."
The other boys collectively groaned.
"Don't tell me you're..." Kaminari began, eyes widening. He glanced over nervously, seeing that Tsutsumi was watching.
Ida immediately rose from the water, chopping his arm dramatically through the air as he marched toward Mineta. "Mineta! Stop this at once! What you are doing is demeaning for both yourself and the girls! It is disgraceful and unworthy of a hero-in-training!"
"You're too fussy," Mineta huffed, plucking one of the sticky balls from his head. "Walls… are meant to be climbed over! Plus Ultra!"
He hurled the sticky ball onto the wood and began scaling the wall with alarming speed.
Attack Ride: Half-Cold Half-Hot!
Tsutsumi exhaled, his breath misting in the air. Ice burst outward from his hand, freezing across the surface of the water and racing up the wooden wall. In seconds, Mineta was encased mid-climb, frozen solid in a block of jagged ice.
The temperature dropped instantly. Several of the boys yelped as the warm bathwater turned frigid.
"C-Cold! Coldcoldcold!" Sero squeaked, his teeth chattering.
Then a burst of fire flared from Tsutsumi's other side, melting just enough ice to restore the heat, but notably not for the purple pervert dangling upside down like an unfortunate popsicle.
No one felt the slightest pity.
After all, the last time Mineta tried peeking in the girls' changing room, Tsutsumi had personally sent him first to the infirmary, then to detention.
On the girls' side.
"Mineta really is the worst, huh?" Asui murmured, glancing at the ice spike poking through the boys' side of the partition.
"Thanks, Tsutsumi-kun!" Hagakure called back cheerfully, clearly hearing the familiar announcement of Tsutsumi's Quirk.
"At least he has some redeemable trait..." Ashido sighed.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Jiro asked, narrowing her eyes at Ashido.
"Oh, c'mon, you can't tell me his personality isn't toxic?" Ashido said, still a bit salty from the result of the final exam.
"Tch. Only weak people can't handle him." Jiro leaned back against the smooth rock, her tone calm but firm. "I've been friends with him for over ten years, and I can confidently say… he's a lot better now."
The girls blinked, surprised by how serious her tone had become.
"Although this might not be my place to ask…" Yaoyorozu began gently, "what was Tsutsumi like back then?"
"Back then…" Jiro murmured, eyes drifting upward toward the faint stars through the steam. "He was… very lonely."
The mood shifted. Even the water seemed quieter.
"Can you... Tell us more about him?" Hagakure asks.
Jiro paused before deciding to speak. "His mother was a Pro Hero before she disappeared and never came back. He didn't have any friends or anyone at home to talk to."
Her voice softened. "I think that's why he started shutting people out. He always said whatever came to mind, even if it hurt people. He didn't mean to; he just didn't know how to talk to others anymore."
She paused, remembering the countless times she shouted at him from frustration.
"I used to yell at him a lot. I didn't want to be friends with him either at first. But my parents kept insisting I stay by his side." Jiro's lips twitched into a faint, almost nostalgic smile. "Somehow, over time, we just… stayed together. And he started to open up and stop holding himself back."
"Holding himself back?" Uraraka asked quietly.
"Yeah. For most of his life, he lived like he was Quirkless," Jiro said. "Then one day, he suddenly decided to apply to U.A. He wanted to become a hero because maybe that way, he could find his mother."
"So he wanted to become a hero to search for his family…" Asui whispered, her tone watery with emotion.
Unlike him, they at least had their parents and family around, so just imagining the thought of one day coming home only to realize there is no one waiting for them felt extremely lonely.
"If you don't mind me asking…" Yaoyorozu said softly, "do you know what Hero name his mother went by?"
Jiro met her gaze, expression unreadable for a moment. Then she answered:
"Lady Nagant."