Minoru stumbled out of the forest in the wake of his classmates. How on earth had he forgotten how hellacious their summer training camp had been? It was only the first day, and they’d already missed lunch thanks to being forced to trek through the woods for hours upon end. He must have repressed the memory.

  Thankfully, after unloading their luggage from the bus, they entered the dining room to find that the food was plentiful and Minoru joined his classmates in a paroxysm of consumption.

  As the boys made their way to the open air baths, Aizawa sensei pulled Minoru aside. “Mineta, come see me after you’re done in the bath. We need to talk.”

  “Whoa, Mineta, what did you do?!” exclaimed Kaminari as Aizawa trudged back down the hallway. “Aizawa didn’t catch you peeping on the girls, did he?!”

  Minoru waved him away. “No, nothing like that. I just had some questions related to our supplemental training.”

  Sero slipped between a couple classmates and fell into step with Minoru and Kaminari. “Do you think he’ll need to talk to the rest of us, too?”

  Whoops, maybe he should have picked a better excuse. “No, you’re good, Sero! It’s just, um, a personal question.”

  Sero shrugged. “If you’re sure.”

  Thankfully, they arrived at the changing room and further questions were curtailed as the other students were distracted by their enthusiasm for an open air bath.

  As they entered the bath, Minoru fell to brooding, falling to the back of the pack. Even the wonderfully hot water and the occasional splashing sounds that came from across the divider between the boys’ and girls’ bathing areas couldn’t pull him out of his funk. He really hoped that Nezu had successfully gotten Aizawa on board.

  His worries were interrupted briefly when Kota—the boy who had accompanied the Wild Wild Pussycats around all day—emerged on the top of the divider between the baths and proceeded to harangue the boys for being, apparently, no-good excuses for heroes, and then predictably fell off the divider and was barely saved by Midoriya’s quick reflexes. As an anxious and mostly-naked Midoriya scurried off with Kota in his arms, Minoru shook his head.

  He truly didn’t understand kids these days. Midoriya had been fretting over Kota ever since the kid punched him right in the junk when they’d been introduced. If Kota had pulled something like that on him, he’d still be stuck to the pavement out front.

  All too soon, the boys finished up in the bath, and as the rest of the class prepped for bed, Minoru threw on some clothes and went to find Aizawa.

  He found their teacher slouching in front of the front windows, staring into the deepening twilight of the woods outside. No one else was around.

  “You obviously know by now that I am a great believer in adversity as a teaching tool,” said Aizawa without preamble as Minoru joined him at the windows. “It’s only rational; heroes who are coddled will never achieve the heights of those who have faced true hardship and emerged on the other side. But that is under controlled circumstances with expert medical help directly at hand. Despite how they act, the Pussycats are consummate professionals, but there is a world of difference between the full support staff of U.A. and six professional heroes in a glorified cabin in the woods.”

  He paused, but Minoru stayed silent. He honestly couldn’t argue with any of that.

  “I am not happy with Principal Nezu for putting me in this situation,” continued Aizawa. “However, it would be completely irrational to waste all of his and your hard work, so before I declare an emergency and shuttle you all back home early please explain to me exactly why intentionally exposing my students to a villain attack is in any way desirable.”

  He tilted his head, giving Minoru a glare from the corner of his eye. “And no hypotheticals, if you please.”

  Minoru gulped. Aizawa had a completely different air when he was in professional hero mode. If the rest of the class had been exposed to this, they never would fall for another of his “rational deceptions” again.

  He took a moment to put his thoughts in order. “All For One destroyed—will destroy Japan. Everyone I loved—“ He choked off. Actually, he wasn’t ready to talk about Aoi-chan, and Aizawa sensei sure wasn’t a person he’d feel comfortable doing so with, regardless.

  He waved his own statement away. “Nevermind. What I meant to say is that Shigaraki isn’t that big a threat. Almost any of you U.A. teachers could deal with him single-handedly. He’s got two things that make him and his attempts to form a League of Villains truly dangerous.”

  Aizawa nodded. “The nomu and the portal user.”

  Minoru nodded. “Exactly. I don’t know much about the portal user, but the nomu are only at his beck and call because All For One is backing him. And if All For One is the puppet master and Shigaraki the puppet, the doctor making the nomu is the strings. Attacking our training camp exposes Shigaraki to reprisal from the heroes, All For One will be forced to step in to keep his favorite puppet in play, and in the confusion we capture the doctor and cut the puppet strings.”

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “That’s effectively what Nezu told me, yes,” said Aizawa. “And you’re confident in your own predictions?”

  Minoru shrugged. “I’ve done things differently, but the big stuff hasn’t changed so far. It’s a risk to just allow villains to attack us, but I’m here risking myself, too. And last time we all honestly thought there was no way Shigaraki would even know where we were. This time we’ve been preparing for it.”

  Aizawa turned to stare down at Minoru long enough that the boy started to feel fidgety. “Very well. I will trust you and the principal to have thought this through. The fact that you’ve convinced Nezu that your crazy claims of coming from the future are true is certainly impressive. It would be foolish of me to completely dismiss his advice.”

  Minoru breathed out in relief. He really didn’t know what he could have done if Aizawa had decided to call the training off.

  “That said!” snapped Aizawa. “You and the principal are playing far too fast and loose with your classmates’ safety. If we are to weather this attack, we’re going to make it as safe as possible, which means we’re looping in Vlad and the Pussycats. If I can manage, I’d also like more pro hero backup, but we’ll see if that pans out.”

  “That’s a good idea,” said Minoru. “From what I remember, things mostly got dicey because the Pussycats were caught flat-footed. In particular, Ragdoll was killed or captured at the very start of the attack.”

  Aizawa nodded. “Noted. And when are you anticipating this attack?”

  “If things happen like last time, during our test of courage on the third day.”

  “Of course they would wait for everyone to be spread out through the woods,” muttered Aizawa. “Very well. Unless you have anything else you want to add, you should get to bed. You have a long day ahead of you tomorrow, and I have things to do.”

  “Okay,” said Minoru, and headed back toward the boys’ room. Ugh, he was not looking forward to Quirk training again…

  The next day, Aizawa and the Pussycats helped Minoru redefine the meaning of hell on earth, forcing all of the students to push their Quirks to the extreme. The only bright point was dinner time, when his unexpected skill at cooking basic curry brought the admiration of his classmates. He supposed not all aspects of his adult life had been wasted.

  Despite his worries about the forthcoming attack, he was unconscious as soon as his head hit the pillow.

  The next day after dinner, Pixie-Bob of the Pussycats called out to the class, “Bellies are filled and plates are clean! Next up…”

  “The test of courage!” cheered Ashido.

  “Sorry to break it to you, remedial group,” interrupted Aizawa sensei. “But you’ll be doing remedial lessons with me at the midpoint of the forest path.”

  “No way!” screamed Ashido.

  As Minoru was dragged away with the rest of the group that had been receiving supplementary lessons, he heard the Pussycats explaining that students would be traveling in groups of two into the forest while Class B used their Quirks to try and scare them.

  Part-way down the forest path, Aizawa paused and shook his capture tape, freeing the group of students. “Alright, that’s enough with the drama. Walk under your own power.”

  “Sensei, are we really just going to hand out name cards?” whined Ashido as the group shook off the capture tape and brushed themselves off.

  “Yes,” said Aizawa. “I noticed several of you slacking off over the last couple days, so I will be drilling you on what to do in emergency situations, and perhaps we will have a practical portion later.”

  “If this is the carrot and stick approach, where’s our carrot?” groaned Kirishima.

  “Forget the carrot, we’d even take celery at this point, Sensei,” chimed in Kaminari.

  “Celery is delicious,” muttered Aizawa, but didn’t elaborate further, his eyes scanning the darkened woods around them.

  They reached the midpoint of the forest path, finding a table filled with namecards for their classmates already set up, and Aizawa started absent-mindedly lecturing them on handling emergencies while he watched the woods.

  Minoru couldn’t help but do the same; he didn’t recall the exact timing, but he was pretty sure if the villains were going to attack during the test of courage, they would do so early on. He vaguely recalled there being a giant fire that clued a lot of people in, but so far he hadn’t caught a single hint of smoke.

  Suddenly, Aizawa sensei cut himself off, his whole body tensing. “Eyes up!” he snapped. “We’re under attack!”

  “What, where?” demanded Sero.

  But then a moment later, everyone saw it. Darkness swirled between two trees, and out of it stepped a pale figure covered in grasping hands.

  “Oh shit,” muttered Minoru.

  Aizawa crouched, hands tense on his capture tape. “Tomura Shigaraki. You are trespassing on private property.”

  “Oh no, whatever will I do.” Shigaraki stood in place as the shadowy portal behind him winked out of existence, head moving slightly as he took in the group of students spread out around Aizawa. “I didn’t believe it, but that weirdo was right. The oh-so-cool Eraserhead, and is that the little purple boy I spy cowering in your shadow? How can I resist a bonus level when there’s two out of three of my main objectives to accomplish there?”

  “Students, stand down. I’ll handle Shigaraki but I want you to head for the cabin and warn the others.” Aizawa whipped more of his capture tape out, looking ready to lasso Shigaraki, who still stood at his ease.

  Shigaraki laughed. “You think I’m such a noob that I’d try to fight you one-on-one, Eraserhead? No, no, no, I just came to watch your rematch against my nomu.”

  Minoru’s thoughts ground to a halt. The portal user wasn’t with Shigaraki! Even before the thought completed, he was whirling in place as he shouted to his fellow students, “Out and up!” Thank goodness they’d developed a limited playbook for dealing with more powerful foes in their supplemental lessons.

  As the students dove for cover, a pair of chainsaws slammed into the ground where they’d previously been grouped. Minoru found himself slung up into the trees by Sato, where he quickly anchored himself and turned to survey the situation.

  Aizawa had launched himself out of the impact zone toward Shigaraki, but the villain had ducked behind a tree and out of sight. The students had all managed to dodge the initial sneak attack and most of them had successfully made it into the trees, though Sato was still on the ground.

  Standing amid the mangled remnants of the table, tattered nametags settling through the air around it, was a nomu. Unlike the nomu that Minoru had faced in the past, this one’s head was mostly protected by some sort of helmet—though confusingly, part of its brain was still exposed. Like the nomu Minoru had defeated in Hosu City, it was huge and bulky, but unlike that nomu this one had six massive arm-like appendages extending from its back and torso, each capped by a construction tool of some sort. Minoru spotted four chainsaws, a hammer, and a massive drill bit.

  As the chainsaws revved to life, Minoru groaned. Their supplemental lessons hadn’t remotely prepared them for this.