Damage Control

Training log updated.

Take a breath. The next test is already starting.

✦

The morning after the Battle Trial, my recovery log asked me to rate my pain from one to ten.

I wrote six.

Then I stared at the number until it started looking like a lie with neat handwriting.

I crossed it out and wrote seven.

Seven when moving. Five when lying still and pretending I made responsible choices.

The notebook looked more honest than I felt.

My phone buzzed before I could decide whether Aizawa would appreciate sarcasm in a medical log.

All Might.

Please remember that honesty in your output report is a heroic skill.

"He has learned texting ambushes," I said.

Inko's voice came from the kitchen.

"Is that your teacher?"

"One of them."

"The loud one or the tired one?"

"The loud one."

"Then listen to him. The tired one scares me."

Smart woman.

I finished the log and packed it beside the recovery folder. My shoulder moved better than yesterday, which was not the same thing as moving well. The brace helped. So did the medicine. So did the fact that Recovery Girl had threatened to call home if I skipped reports.

Medical blackmail was effective.

U.A. looked different on the third day.

The first day had been a monument. The second felt like a workplace that had already found my file.

Students moved faster through the halls. Teachers passed without ceremony. Somewhere outside, a training field boomed hard enough to rattle a window. No one reacted.

Normal school sounds, apparently.

My classroom quieted when I entered.

Not completely. Just enough.

The kind of pause people make when a topic has walked into the room.

Kirishima recovered first.

"Midoriya! Man, yesterday was intense."

"I noticed."

"You okay?"

"I filled out three reports before breakfast."

Kaminari twisted around in his seat.

"So no."

"So U.A. has paperwork for pain."

Jiro snorted.

Uraraka looked up from her desk. Her eyes dropped to my bag, where the corner of the recovery folder showed.

"You brought it."

"No secret injury rules."

Her mouth softened, but she did not rescue me from the sentence.

"Keep it that way."

The words landed cleaner than praise would have.

Iida stood from his desk with enough purpose to make three nearby conversations die preemptively.

"Midoriya. Uraraka. Regarding yesterday's exercise, I owe both of you an apology."

Uraraka blinked.

"You do?"

"Yes. As a villain, I overcommitted to guarding the weapon and failed to coordinate properly with Bakugo. My interpretation of the role became too rigid."

Bakugo, seated with his boots flat and arms crossed, made a disgusted noise.

"Don't drag me into your speech."

Iida turned to him.

"We were teammates."

"We lost because you let Round Face touch the bomb."

Uraraka's smile thinned.

"Round Face touched the bomb because she made the call."

Several heads turned. Bakugo looked at her. The room tightened. I shifted my weight, then stopped myself.

She did not need me stepping between every spark.

The old reflex to mediate hurt almost as much as my shoulder.

Bakugo's palm popped once.

"You moved because Deku fed you the room."

"He gave me information," she said. "I used it."

"You think that matters?"

"In a team exercise?" she said. "Yes."

Quiet.

Kirishima's eyebrows rose. Mina leaned toward Jiro and whispered, "I like her."

I did too.

Dangerous amount.

Bakugo stood. Not fast. The slower motion made it worse.

"You got one win in a fake room."

Uraraka stood too.

She was shorter than him, lighter, and had no interest in making either fact matter.

"Then beat us next time."

Iida inhaled like someone had violated a regulation and improved morale at the same time.

Bakugo's grin flickered.

For one second, I thought he would blast the desk.

He did not.

He looked at me instead.

"Training her now too?"

"She doesn't need me for that."

His eyes narrowed.

Not the answer he wanted.

Not the answer that made him comfortable either.

The classroom door opened.

Aizawa entered carrying a stack of papers and the mood of a wet grave.

"Sit down."

Everyone sat. Bakugo last, but he sat.

Aizawa dropped the stack on the podium.

"Output logs."

Half the class looked confused.

I did not.

Another mistake.

He noticed. Of course he noticed.

"Any student with a medical, control, or training restriction submits one after high-risk exercises," Aizawa said. "If you do not have a current restriction, congratulations. You may still earn one."

Kaminari whispered, "That sounded like a threat."

"It was a fact," Aizawa said without looking at him.

Kaminari shut up.

I handed mine over when Aizawa reached my desk. He looked at the crossed-out pain score. His mouth did not move.

"You corrected it."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"The first number was optimistic."

"Optimism is not data."

"I am learning that."

"Slowly."

"Also that."

He took the paper and moved on. Uraraka hid a smile behind her hand.

The class did not decide what I was in a single afternoon. That helped. It also meant they would keep watching until they found an answer.

The first period became review, safety protocols, and the horrible realization that U.A. expected adult students to understand liability in legal terms. No one said children. No one acted like bruises were cute. Every exercise came with forms, consequence, and enough professional language to make hero work feel less like a dream and more like signing a contract with a thunderstorm.

Necessary. Terrible. Necessary.

The review footage came next.

I had expected it. Expecting a punch did not make it kinder.

U.A. projected the Battle Trial on the front screen without dramatic music, slow motion, or mercy for people who had made ugly decisions in public.

My own voice sounded thinner on recording. Uraraka's movements looked cleaner than they had felt from inside the room. Iida's mistakes were obvious, but so was the speed of his recovery after each one. Bakugo looked exactly as dangerous as he had been.

Aizawa paused the footage on the frame where Uraraka kicked off the wall toward the weapon room.

"What decided the match?"

Half the class looked at me.

I kept my mouth shut.

Uraraka shifted in her seat, then raised a hand.

"I used the opening while Bakugo was focused downstairs."

"Incomplete," Aizawa said.

Her face tightened, but she did not fold.

"I trusted the floor map, used my Quirk on myself instead of the bomb, and committed before I had a perfect landing."

"Better."

He moved the footage forward. Her fingertips brushed the weapon a second before Iida could stop her.

"Midoriya gave information. Uraraka converted it into action. Teams fail when support mistakes itself for command or when action refuses help it can use. Remember which job you are doing."

The lesson hit harder than I wanted it to.

Uraraka glanced at me. So did Iida.

Bakugo stared at the screen like he wanted to set the projector on fire.

Aizawa kept moving. He dissected my feint with the same dead-eyed cruelty he used on Bakugo's tunnel vision. He praised nothing without making it bleed first. By the time the lights came back on, the win felt less like a trophy and more like a receipt for future debt.

Near the end, Aizawa wrote two words on the board.

Class Representative.

The room woke up.

"Leadership," he said, "is not decoration. Agencies, rescue teams, and field operations need people who can communicate under pressure. You will select a representative and deputy."

Mina raised her hand.

"Are we voting?"

"Unless someone here can prove a dictatorship improves evacuation outcomes."

Kaminari half-raised his hand. Jiro jabbed him with an earphone jack before it cleared his shoulder.

"Ow."

"You are welcome."

Aizawa looked at the clock.

"You will decide after lunch. Try not to embarrass yourselves."

The bell rang. The room erupted.

Half the class started talking at once. Momo looked thoughtful. Iida looked like the word representative had entered his bloodstream. Kirishima asked if nominating yourself was manly or weird. Mineta announced he had leadership qualities and was ignored by nearly everyone.

I stayed quiet.

The shape I remembered wanted Iida.

It had the right instinct about this one.

He had order, seriousness, and the kind of moral spine that could become brittle under grief but still held people together before it cracked.

Pushing too obviously would look strange. Staying silent could let the vote drift.

The Ledger pulsed once.

[Social Attention: rising]

Partner Trust: fragile but improving

Leadership Route: unstable

"Yeah," I murmured. "I got that."

Uraraka's voice came from beside me.

"You are doing the face again."

I looked at her.

"Which one?"

"The one where you know something and hate that knowing it still means work."

Far too accurate for day three.

"Iida would fit," I said.

Her eyes shifted toward him.

He was currently explaining to Sero that campaign speeches should be concise, transparent, and not exceed the scope of the office.

"Yeah," she said. "He would."

"People need to notice it."

"And you do not want to make them notice."

"If I push too hard, it becomes about me."

She studied me for a second.

"Nearly healthy lesson from yesterday."

"Nearly?"

"You still look like you are trying to move pieces without touching them."

Ouch.

Fair.

Before I could answer, Bakugo walked past our desks. He did not stop. He did not insult anyone loudly. He only dropped one sentence as he passed.

"Careful, Round Face. Deku likes maps where other people only see the room after they step in it."

The room noise covered most of it.

Uraraka heard.

So did I.

My hands tightened.

She looked at Bakugo's back, then at me.

"Is he wrong?"

Enemies who knew you could still pick the right knife by accident.

"Not completely," I said.

Uraraka nodded once. She did not forgive me on the spot. She did not turn it into drama either.

Just a fact filed for later.

Worse in the best possible way.

"Then don't make me guess forever," she said.

Her voice stayed light enough for anyone nearby to miss the weight under it.

"I cannot promise forever," I said.

"Start with tomorrow."

Tomorrow had a rescue facility on the schedule. A class trip. A normal lesson, from the outside.

The distant part of my mind named black portals and hands around throats and the kind of danger that did not need a student file to become real.

I almost said something careful.

I almost said too much.

Instead, I nodded.

"Tomorrow."

It was not a full promise. The way her eyes narrowed told me she knew that too.

After lunch, the class would vote.

If the old road held, Iida would earn the role through crisis. If the road had shifted, someone else might step into a position that changed how the class moved when fear arrived.

I looked around the room. At students laughing, arguing, campaigning, posturing. At Bakugo pretending not to watch. At Iida trying too hard because trying was the only honest way he knew how to stand.

Aizawa slept at the podium with one eye open.

Maybe leadership really was a test.

Maybe every normal school moment at U.A. was a test with fewer alarms.

The intercom clicked overhead.

Lunch period began.

The bruises did not stay private. They showed when sleeves rode up, when someone reached for a tray, when a joke landed half a second late because the body attached to it still hurt.

Battle training had ended on paper. In the room, it kept happening in the way people looked before they spoke.

Respect from classmates did not arrive clean. It came with suspicion, side glances, too-careful praise, and Bakugo's silence sharpening every time someone said I had done well.

I wanted the win to feel simple.

Instead, it moved around the class and changed shape in everyone else's mouth.

Beyond the classroom door, the press had already started gathering at the gate.

✦

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