Chapter 18

₊˚⊹✷ 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐈𝐅𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍
⤷ don’t talk down to me.

THE REST OF THE internships passed in a blur that felt almost anticlimactic after that first rush of danger. Compared to chasing a serial killer through Tokyo streets or watching Bakugo yell at literally anyone, the remaining days were… quiet. Ranpo solved petty thefts often without leaving his chair. Atsushi handled rescues, calming civilians, lifting rubble, smiling reassuringly.

Oda mostly watched. He took notes, listened, analyzed, and occasionally offered observations that Ranpo pretended not to need while still correcting Oda’s phrasing like a smug tutor.

It wasn’t boring, exactly.

And then Hosu happened.

The news broke midway through the week, splashed across every screen in every station and convenience store. Footage replayed on loop: shattered streets, bloodstained alleyways, frantic reporters shouting over sirens. The Hero Killer had been arrested. Endeavor had been the one to take him down. And somehow—somehow—three first-year UA students had been caught right in the middle of it.

Todoroki. Midoriya. Iida.

Injured and hospitalized.

Ranpo had watched the coverage with his chin propped in his palm, expression unreadable, before clicking his tongue and turning the TV off. Atsushi had gone quiet in a way Oda recognized as worry masked by professionalism. 

By the time Oda returned to UA, Hosu was all anyone could talk about.

Class resumed a few days later, and the moment Oda stepped into the classroom, he was hit by noise. Chairs scraped. Voices overlapped. Everyone was talking at once, comparing agencies, bragging about near-misses, exaggerating the danger they’d faced. It became painfully clear, very quickly, that not everyone’s work study involved arguing with their legal guardian over train schedules and being forbidden from using their quirk for medical reasons.

Oda slipped into his seat quietly, setting his bag down with care because his ribs still protested sudden movement.

A literal second later, the door slammed open.

Bakugo stormed in, and the reaction was instant.

Kirishima and Sero broke down laughing so hard they nearly fell down.

“Holy crap!” Kirishima burst out, clutching his sides.

“What the heck, Bakugo?” Sero cackled, pointing openly now.

Bakugo froze mid-step, visibly vibrating with rage. His hair was still combed down into that neat, unfamiliar style, refusing to spike back the way it should. “Stop laughing,” he snarled, voice shaking. “My hair’s gotten used to this and I can’t get it back the right way.”

That only made it worse.

They laughed harder.

“Did you not hear me?” Bakugo roared. “I’ll kill you both.”

“I’d like to see you try, pretty boy,” Sero wheezed, doubled over.

Bakugo spun toward him, fury peaking. “What did you call me?!”

An explosion popped from his palm, sharp and sudden, and the force of it blew his hair back into its familiar wild shape.

“Hey, there it goes!” Kirishima exclaimed, laughing even harder.

Bakugo stood there, chest heaving, hair finally right again, looking like he wanted to explode the entire classroom.

Oda watched from his seat, unimpressed but faintly amused.

“How was your internship?” Kaminari grinned, leaning back in his chair as he turned toward Oda.

“A pain in my ass,” Oda sighed, crossing his arms carefully. “Doesn’t help that I was healing the whole time so I wasn’t allowed to do anything.”

“And here I expected you to have changed into a full-fledged pro,” Kaminari shrugged.

Oda rolled his eyes. “How did yours go?”

“Everyone at my internship loved me, it was actually kinda great,” Kaminari said, grin widening. “But if we’re talking about who changed the most, it was those three.”

The chatter in the room slowly ebbed, like a tide pulling back.

Heads turned.

Eyes shifted.

Todoroki sat stiffly at his desk, a faint bandage still visible at his collar. Midoriya’s shoulders were tense, hands resting carefully in his lap. Iida stood beside his chair, posture rigid but eyes darker than Oda remembered, something sharp and unsettled behind the lenses of his glasses.

The mention of Hosu seemed to loosen something in the room, like a knot finally being acknowledged instead of ignored.

“Oh yeah! The hero killer, right?” Sero asked, pointing a finger, his tone still light even as Bakugo had him locked in a rough headlock.

“Glad you guys made it back alive. Seriously.” Kirishima smiled, genuine and warm, even while in the same situation Sero was in. The contrast between their easy sincerity and Bakugo’s simmering violence was almost comical.

“I worried about you too.” Yaoyorozu agreed, her brows drawn together with real concern as she looked between Todoroki, Midoriya, and Iida, taking in the lingering stiffness in their posture and the way none of them quite met her eyes.

“You’re lucky Endeavor showed up and saved you guys.” Sato chimed in, voice casual, unaware of the way Todoroki’s shoulders tensed at the name.

“So cool! Just what you’d expect from the number two hero!” Hagakure added brightly.

Todoroki sucked in a breath, slow and controlled, and his gaze dropped to his desk. “Yeah, that’s right. He saved us.” He mumbled, the words sounding practiced, like something he’d repeated enough times.

“Did you guys hear the news about the hero killer?” Ojiro asked, shifting the topic. “Everyone’s been saying he’s somehow connected to the League of Villains. Can you imagine how frightening it would’ve been if that creep had been there when they attacked the USJ?”

“He’s scary, yeah, but did you see him in that weird video? It’s all over the internet.” Kaminari chimed in, leaning forward with the unfiltered curiosity that always got him into trouble. “Stain’s like a super evil villain but super tenacious. He’s almost kinda cool, don’t you guys think?”

The words barely left his mouth before Oda reacted.

“Dude.” Oda scolded, sharp and immediate, lifting a hand and subtly motioning toward Iida. 

Kaminari froze mid-grin, following Oda’s gesture, realization hitting him all at once. “Oh wait— sorry—!”

“No, it’s okay, you’re fine.” Iida assured quickly, shaking his head. His voice was calm, controlled, and unmistakably class rep. “He is quite the tenacious villain, I can understand why people might think he was cool. But instead of helping the world, his beliefs led him to cold-hearted murder. No matter his motive, killing cannot be condoned.”

There was something firm in the way he said it, something resolved, like he was drawing a clear line not just for the class but for himself.

As if flipping a switch, Iida straightened fully, glasses catching the classroom light as he adjusted them with a precise motion. The tightness in his shoulders eased, his stance returning to familiar rigidity.

And just like that, Iida became Iida again, slipping back into his role as class representative.

𓏵

LATER THE DAY slid by in a blur of routine, drills, and muscle memory, the kind of training activity that left everyone sweaty and sore without really sticking in the mind. And then, almost immediately after that, the rest of the week followed with unsettling speed. Final exams were announced by Aizawa. 

Something that would determine who got a training camp and who got stuck in summer school. The words training camp sparked excitement across the class, while summer school landed like a threat.

Oda listened quietly from his seat, arms folded, eyes down. 

The physical exams did not worry him in the slightest. If anything, those were the only part he felt confident about. Fighting, movement, control, endurance—those were things his body understood even when his organs protested. 

The written exams, though, sat heavy in his chest. Numbers blurred together when he was tired. Textbooks felt deliberately obtuse. Concepts that others seemed to absorb effortlessly took him hours of repetition to even partially grasp.

And lately, he had been tired a lot.

Aizawa must have noticed. Oda saw it in the way his teacher’s gaze lingered on him just a second longer than usual when graded papers were passed back, in the way his eyes flicked briefly to Oda’s desk whenever written exam prep was mentioned. 

Oda did not need to be told that his grades were slipping. They had never been good to begin with, hovering just high enough to avoid intervention, but now even that thin margin was eroding.

So he did something he rarely did.

He asked for help.

The decision alone felt uncomfortable. He filled out the request form with careful handwriting, expecting—hoping—to be paired with someone neutral. Yaoyorozu, maybe. Iida. Even Midoriya would have been tolerable.

He did not expect Todoroki.

When the pairing list went up, Oda stared at it for a long moment, his name and Todoroki’s printed neatly beside each other as if the universe were making a joke at his expense.

The only person worse than Bakugo was Todoroki.

Not because Todoroki was loud, or cruel, or prone to exploding at the slightest provocation. Bakugo at least wore his hostility openly. Todoroki was worse precisely because he wasn’t any of those things. He was quiet, distant, controlled. And he was Endeavor’s son.

Endeavor, who had looked at Oda like a stain that refused to wash out. Endeavor, who had wanted Odasaku locked away in Tartarus for the rest of his life. Endeavor, who represented everything Oda had learned to be wary of: power, authority, and a smile that never reached the eyes.

Oda told himself it was irrational to project that onto Todoroki. He knew, logically, that Todoroki was not his father. He had seen enough cracks in the boy’s composure to know their relationship was fractured at best. And yet, the name alone made Oda’s shoulders tighten, his instincts bristle.

When he arrived at the designated study room after classes, Todoroki was already there, seated at a table with his materials laid out in precise order. He looked up when Oda entered, mismatched eyes settling on him with calm neutrality.

Oda paused just inside the doorway, fingers curling briefly at his sides, then forced himself to step forward. He took the seat across from Todoroki, setting his bag down with a quiet thud. For a moment, neither of them spoke. The silence stretched, heavy but not hostile, filled only by the distant sounds of students moving through the halls.

The black haired boy exhaled slowly, reminding himself why he was here. This was about passing. About not falling further behind. About survival in a system that did not care how hard things came to him.

Whatever ghosts Endeavor cast, whatever resentment lingered in his bones, this was Shoto Todoroki sitting across from him now. Not the number two hero.

And whether Oda liked it or not, he was going to have to learn how to coexist with that.

Todoroki was the first to break the silence.

“So,” he said evenly, folding his hands on the table, posture straight but not stiff. “Aizawa said you’re struggling more with the written material than the practical portions.”

Oda let out a quiet huff through his nose and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. His ribs still twinged when he shifted, a dull reminder that his body hadn’t forgotten the Sports Festival even if the rest of the school had already moved on. “Yeah. That’s one way to put it.”

Todoroki nodded once, “What subjects?”

“Math. Biology. Quirk theory.” Oda listed them off without hesitation, because he’d already gone through the humiliation of seeing the grades on paper. “Anything that involves equations longer than three lines or abstract models.” 

Todoroki watched him for a moment, then glanced down at the open book in front of him. “Those subjects are interconnected,” he said. “If you’re having trouble with one, it bleeds into the others.”

“Yeah,” Oda muttered. “I’ve noticed.”

Another silence followed, but it felt different this time. Less charged. Todoroki wasn’t staring at him like Endeavor had, wasn’t measuring him, wasn’t looking for something to condemn. He was just… assessing the problem, the way someone might look at a broken engine.

“I’m not very good at explaining things casually,” Todoroki said after a moment. “But I can go through it step by step, if that’s alright.”

Oda hesitated. His instinct was to deflect, to shrug it off, to say he’d figure it out himself. But that instinct had landed him here in the first place. He exhaled and nodded. “Fine. Just—don’t talk down to me.”

Todoroki’s brow furrowed slightly, confusion flickering across his face. “I wasn’t planning to.”

“…Good.” Oda looked away, embarrassed by how defensive he’d sounded.

They started with physics, because Todoroki insisted that understanding force, momentum, and energy transfer would make the rest easier. He didn’t rush. He didn’t raise his voice. He wrote things out cleanly, explaining each variable with a patience that Oda hadn’t expected from him.

Still, it was hard.

Oda’s focus wavered as numbers swam together, his head throbbing faintly as he tried to hold too much information at once. He tapped his pen against the table, jaw tight, frustration simmering just beneath the surface.

Todoroki noticed. “Do you want to take a break?” he asked.

“No.” Oda shook his head immediately. “If I stop now I’m not starting again.”

Todoroki studied him for a second, then nodded and adjusted his approach, rephrasing the explanation, tying it back to real-world applications instead of abstract theory. When he compared gravity vectors to controlled ice expansion and collapse, something finally clicked.

“…Oh,” Oda said quietly, eyes narrowing as he looked back at the equation. “So it’s not about output. It’s about distribution.”

“Yes,” Todoroki replied, a hint of relief in his voice. “Exactly.”

They worked like that for over an hour. Oda asked questions reluctantly at first, then more freely as the fear of sounding stupid faded. Todoroki answered each one without judgment, sometimes pausing to think before responding, sometimes admitting when he didn’t know something himself.

At some point, Oda realized he wasn’t thinking about Endeavor anymore.

That realization unsettled him more than he expected.

When they finally stopped, the room had grown dimmer with the late afternoon light, shadows stretching across the floor. Oda leaned back in his chair, exhausted but oddly lighter.

“…You’re not as bad as I thought,” Oda said before he could stop himself.

Todoroki blinked. “As bad as…?”

“Never mind.” Oda waved it off, rubbing at his side absently. “You’re just—quiet. Makes people assume things.”

Todoroki considered that. “People assume things about you too.”

Oda snorted softly. “Yeah. I know.”

They packed up in silence, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. As they stood to leave, Todoroki paused.

“We can meet again tomorrow,” he said. “If you want. There’s still a lot to cover.”

Oda slung his bag over his shoulder, then hesitated before answering. “…Yeah. That’d probably be a good idea.”

Todoroki nodded once, accepting that without comment, and turned toward the door.

Oda watched him go, unease and something unfamiliar twisting together in his chest. He didn’t trust Endeavor. He never would. 

But Todoroki wasn’t Endeavor.

And thank god for that.

𓏵

THE WRITTEN EXAMS blurred together in Oda’s memory in hindsight, three long days of cramped desks, scratchy pencils, and the constant low-grade ache behind his eyes that came from forcing his brain to operate in ways it never quite wanted to. He was pretty sure he hadn’t done well,  but for once he also knew he hadn’t completely crashed and burned. 

There were no pages left stark white, no sections abandoned out of quiet panic. Even when he didn’t know the exact answer, he’d recognized enough patterns, enough half-remembered formulas and principles, to cobble something together that at least looked like an attempt. 

That alone felt like a small victory, especially compared to the exams that had gotten him into UA in the first place, where half the time he’d been guessing blindly and hoping no one noticed.

Still, there was no time to dwell on it, because the very next thing on the schedule was the Practical Exam, the one part of finals Oda had never truly been afraid of.

Rumors had been circulating for days about what the practical would entail. A few upperclassmen had mentioned that in past years it had been a return to basics, the same massive robots from the entrance exam, just scaled differently or placed in more complex environments. 

Oda had overheard Kaminari loudly declaring that he’d fry them all in under five minutes, and Ashido had seemed delighted by the idea of melting metal for credit.

But the moment Class 1A arrived at the Practical Exam Area’s Center Plaza, it was immediately obvious that this wasn’t going to be that simple.

There were no robots lined up, no obvious targets waiting patiently to be destroyed.

Everyone was already in costume. Bright colors and bold silhouettes stood out starkly against the gray surroundings. Oda’s own red tank-top jumpsuit fit him comfortably today, snug without being restrictive, the fabric sitting right against his shoulders and torso. His hands were shoved deep into his pockets out of habit. He’d pretty much recovered from the Sports Festival by now, at least on the surface, though a few dull aches still lingered beneath his ribs if he twisted too sharply or breathed too deeply. 

“Now then, let’s begin the last test,” Aizawa announced, his voice carrying easily across the plaza. He stood at the front, capture scarf loose around his shoulders, surrounded by what felt like every other UA teacher in existence. Their presence alone was enough to make the situation feel significantly more serious.

“Remember, it’s possible to fail this final. If you wanna go to camp, then don’t make any stupid mistakes.”

That alone sent a ripple of unease through the class.

“Uh. Why are all the teachers here?” Jiro asked, glancing around with a frown as she adjusted her jacks.

Oda had been wondering the same thing, though he didn’t say it out loud. Aizawa didn’t do unnecessary theatrics, which meant every single person standing there had a reason to be present.

“I expect many of you have gathered information and believe you have some idea of what you’ll be faced with today,” Aizawa continued, his gaze sweeping over them.

“We’re fightin’ those big ol’ metal robots!” Kaminari exclaimed from right next to Oda, sounding far too confident for someone who routinely short-circuited himself. Oda cringed away from him reflexively, not in disagreement but in anticipation of embarrassment.

“Here we come, camp!” Ashido added, pumping a fist.

Before Aizawa could respond, something small and white popped into view from within his capture scarf, as if it had been hiding there the entire time.

“Actually, this year’s tests,” Principal Nezu said cheerfully, perched atop Aizawa’s shoulder with an unsettling smile, “will be completely different for various reasons!”

“Principal Nezu!” several students gawked in unison, surprise rippling through the group.

Oda’s stomach sank a fraction of an inch.

“You’re changing things?” Yaoyorozu asked, visibly tense, her hands clasped tightly in front of her.

“The tests now have a few focus,” Nezu explained, “There will be hero work, of course, but also teamwork and combat between actual people. So what does that mean for you? You students will be working together in pairs and your opponents will be one of our esteemed UA teachers! Isn’t that fabulous?”

The silence that followed was deafening.

No one thought that was fabulous.

“We’re… fighting the teachers?” Uraraka gawked, her face draining of color.

“Uh… dibs on Edogawa?” Kaminari blurted, scooting noticeably closer to Oda as if proximity alone might save him.

Oda shot him a look that promised absolutely nothing.

“Additionally, your partners and your opponents have already been chosen,” Aizawa announced, his tone far too calm for the chaos he’d just unleashed.

“Oh come on!” Kaminari threw his hands up in despair.

“They were determined at my discretion based on various factors including fight style, grades, and interpersonal relationships,” Aizawa continued. “Since there’s twenty-one of you, there will be one group of three. That’ll be our first group, Yaoyorozu, Todoroki and Edogawa. And they’ll be against me.”

The words landed like a physical blow.

Oda’s head snapped up, eyes locking on Aizawa in disbelief as his teacher’s mouth curved into an unnerving, almost imperceptible smile.

Aizawa didn’t pause for reactions as he continued down the list, his voice steady and clinical, as if he weren’t casually assigning teenagers to fight professional heroes with decades of experience.

“Sato & Kirishima vs. Cementoss. Asui & Tokoyami vs. Ectoplasm. Iida & Ojiro vs. Power Loader. Yaoyorozu, Todoroki & Edogawa vs. Eraser Head.”

Oda felt the words land in his chest. He didn’t look at Todoroki, didn’t look at Yaoyorozu. He kept his eyes forward, hands still buried in his pockets, jaw set. Of all the teachers to be paired against, Eraser Head felt like the worst possible matchup, especially for someone whose quirk could be shut down with a single look.

“Aoyama & Uraraka vs. Thirteen. Ashido & Kaminari vs. Nezu. Jiro & Koda vs. Present Mic. Hagakure & Shoji vs. Snipe. Sero & Mineta vs. Midnight. And finally,” Aizawa finished, eyes flicking briefly toward the back of the group, “Midoriya & Bakugo vs. All Might.”

That announcement drew the biggest reaction by far. A mix of awe, dread, and disbelief spread through the class, Midoriya going pale while Bakugo’s scowl stretched sharp and feral.

“To complete the exam, you’ll have thirty minutes,” Nezu informed them, hopping down from Aizawa’s shoulder and holding up a set of metallic cuffs that gleamed in the light. “In order to win, your objective is to put these handcuffs on your teacher. Or you can win if one of you manages to escape from the combat stage.”

“So we’ve got to either capture the bad teacher or run away,” Kaminari repeated, scratching his head. “It’s basically like the combat training.”

“Yeah, but is it really okay to just jet?” Ashido asked.

“Yep,” Nezu nodded cheerfully.

“It’s gonna be much different than that combat training y’all went through earlier,” Present Mic added, grinning wide. “After all, you’re up against people way better than you!”

“Better? Really?” Jiro asked flatly. “Wait, aren’t you just the announcer?”

“Hey! Watch your mouth, girl! Have some respect!” Present Mic exclaimed in return.

“This time your exam will be much closer to a real battle,” Thirteen said, her voice calm and measured. “As strange as it is, please think of us as villains.”

“Assumin’ you come across your enemy,” Snipe added, arms crossed, “if you think you can win against them, then fight. However…”

“…In instances when you’re outmatched,” Aizawa continued seamlessly, “it would be smarter to run away and find help. Todoroki. Iida. Midoriya. I’m sure the three of you understand.”

Oda’s gaze flicked, briefly, to Todoroki. The boy’s face was unreadable, but something about the tension in his shoulders suggested he understood all too well.

“So we fight to win… or run to win,” Midoriya said quietly.

“That’s right,” All Might grinned, resting his hands on his hips. “It’s a test of your decision-making skills. But with these rules, you’re probably thinking your only real choice is to flee. That’s why the support course made these super-clever accessories for us.”

“Behold!” Present Mic chimed in as All Might held up a set of bulky restraints.

“Ultra-compressed weights!” All Might announced proudly. “These babies will add about half our body weight to our physiques. It’s not much, but they will eat up our stamina and make it harder for us to move around. We had a contest to come up with these designs and young Hatsume ended up winning it.”

“You think we need a handicap to win against you?” Bakugo demanded, fists clenched, teeth bared. “Well think again.”

“Is he serious?” Kaminari leaned toward Oda, lowering his voice.

“I think he’s always serious,” Oda replied, frowning slightly.

“Can you imagine having an ego that big?” Kaminari scowled.

“Let’s begin,” Aizawa cut in, silencing the murmurs immediately. “Teams will take the practical exam in the order you were called. We have a stage prepared for you. Sato, Kirishima, you’re up.”

“Yessir!” they answered in sync, shoulders squared as they followed Cementoss toward the entrance to the combat stage.

“Those of you waiting your turns to fight can either watch the exams or try to strategize as a team,” Aizawa informed them over his shoulder. 

“It’s your choice.”