At 6:30pm, we're gathered back together out back of the main cabin. 

"Now, remember what I said?" Pixie-Bob asks us as her and Ragdoll stand before a large table of ingredients. "We're not serving your food anymore!"

The green haired lady flails her paws wildly. "If you guys wanna eat, you'll have to make your own meals! Starting with curry!"

"Yes, ma'am," all the students reply tiredly. 

Ragdoll giggles delightedly and chirps, "oh, man, do you guys look exhausted! But that doesn't mean you can coast by making sloppy cat food!"

Iida starts exclaiming how important of a task this is, but I've already tuned him out, heading with the rest of my classmates inside to change. I rinse the blood off me briefly in the showers before changing into casual clothes. 

When I head out, I take up my position at one of the Class A tables, peeling and chopping potatoes into uniform slices. 

I notice Todoroki is lighting the fires in lieu of Bakugo accidentally destroying one of the grills. He stomps over next to me and starts working on carrots, grumbling under his breath as he chops them quickly. 

I would call him out for some of the things he's saying, but I'm too exhausted to use my quirk and my hands aren't free to sign. Tsu runs between us and the stoves, bringing the ingredients to those making the curry. 

"Gonna fuckin'..." The blonde continues mumbling angrily, "trash...useless..."

I roll my eyes and bring the rest of the potatoes to Momo and Ochaco's stations. On my way back to the table, I get attacked by Mina who has a sudden burst of energy. Probably at the idea of food.

"So! Gonna tell us what I saw last night?" She chirps. I shake my head and walk around her. "C'mon pleeeeease!!!"

I turn to face her as the other girls, as well as a few of the guys in the area, immediately perk up. I raise an eyebrow at her blandly, not in the mood to do this today. But a part of me knows I have to. "Absolutely nothing," I sign. She looks to the rest of the Bakusquad in the vicinity to translate. Eijiro all but jumps at the opportunity. 

"She said it's absolutely nothing, and she's right!" He protests a little too loudly, trying to get the message across to his crush.

Mina and some of the other girls pout, but the guys are just looking on, confused now. I can tell she doesn't believe either of us, but the others confirm that was what I said. 

I leave her so I can wash off my knife and cutting board, then wait with the rest of the group in charge of ingredients.

Eventually, the cooking group comes around with bowls of curry and rice, placing them at the centers of the tables. I wait for the others to serve themselves before taking any. It tastes absolutely awful, but I only ate half an apple today, so I eat it anyway with no complaints. 

All the other girls try to coax me into spilling what actually happened, but I pay them no mind, staring at the table in front of me the whole meal. When I've eaten my fill, I wash my dishes and head to the hot springs. 

I sit by myself for a while in blissful silence before the door opens and the other girls come running in. 

I groan. I was gonna try to get out of here before they bombarded me again. I push away from the far edge and go to grab my towel and robe, but Ochaco grabs my wrist and looks me dead in the eyes. 

"I'm your best friend, am I not?" She asks and I nod in response, feeling slightly guilty for shutting her out. "You'd tell me if anything was happening?"

"Of course," I sign, then wrap myself in my towel.

"So you and Kiri aren't dating?" Mina whines.

"No!" I illuse at the same time Eijiro says it from the other side of the wall. As I head inside, I illuse, "there's your answer. Trust me, we don't feel that way about each other."

After drying off, I put my pajamas on and head back to our room, laying down in my bedroll. 

•°•°•°•

The next day, Aizawa pays extra close attention to the remedial group while everyone else continues their training. I hear his garbled voice, but by the time I come up to the surface to try to hear, he's already finished his speech. Tiger walks threateningly over to me, so I immediately sink back into the water, not wanting to face his wrath for slacking. 

Ragdoll knocks on the side of my drum in the late afternoon and calls everyone to attention, announcing that tonight will be fun. "We're putting classes against each other in a test of courage. I know you've been training hard today. And later, you'll get to play hard! How's that for a reward?!"

Everyone pauses to listen to her and talk to each other, but she exclaims, "don't slack now! Make sure you keep on pushing yourself as you work!"

"Yes ma'am," everyone responds. 

Without even giving me a moment to stretch, she pounces on me, forcing me back underwater.

•°•°•°•

That night, Bakugo and I are on chopping duty again, getting the potatoes and carrots ready for tonight's meal.  

Ochaco comes over to grab more firewood. "Whoa, Bakugo, you're really good with that knife!" She exclaims. "It's weird." She starts inching closer for a better look, which I figure is probably a bad idea. 

He turns to shout at her while still cutting, "What do you mean 'it's weird'? How can you people be so damn bad at everything?"

Kaminari walks behind him and says, "look at that. He's not blowing stuff up."

"Hah?" He sneers and I shoot Kaminari a dirty look. Why would anyone mess with him when he's actually calm? 

I guess the prospect of Bakugo holding a knife is enough to scare them away and we go back to cutting the veggies in silence. I take my bowl of potato slices over to the grills and portion them out between pots. 

The pot at the end of the line has been completely abandoned, so I take up post at it, tending the flame underneath it and stirring it, so the sauce doesn't get too thick. When Bakugo stops by to dump in the carrots, I snap and point to the spices sitting on the table behind us. 

"That's not my fuckin' job," he growls, but I hold the spoon out to him and gesture to the pot of curry that actually doesn't look terrible. 

It's a silent proposition: let's make it tolerable when we have the chance.

The boy gets a confident smirk and goes to collect spices in his empty bowl. He comes back seconds later and begins sprinkling them into the pot with a practiced hand. 

When it's done and we place the serving dish on our table, most of our class and some of Class B crowd around us.

"Fuck off, extras," Bakugo waves them all off, serving himself. "If you want good food, learn to make it yourselves."

I serve myself a good sized portion and take a bite as the others go sulk. I chew and swallow even as my mouth bursts into flames. How spicy did he make this?!?

I cough into my elbow, but take another bite as my eyes begin watering. Despite the spice, this is still ten times better than what our classmates made yesterday. Sorry guys!

"Too hot for ya, Curly?" Bakugo asks with a small smirk over his bowl.

I put down my chopsticks and sign, "I love spicy food, but it hurts." Though I don't remember the last time I had anything this spicy. I take another bite and wipe the sweat off my forehead. He snickers and goes back to his own food, seemingly not affected at all. 

Through the rest of the meal, whenever I cough or sniffle, I see Bakugo smirking into his own bowl. Sure, he's finding enjoyment in my pain, but I can't help but smile along. 

•°•°•°•

Pixie-Bob gathers us after dinner in a clearing far out in the woods. "Perfect," she says. "We've filled our bellies and cleaned the dishes. It's time for..."

Mina hops up and down, shouting, "a totally awesome test of courage!"

The other remedial group chimes in, "we're gonna win!"

But they're soon cut off by Aizawa who drags them back inside for more lessons. 

Pixie-Bob explains how the game will work with Class B starting as the scarers who will be stationed around the trail. We'll travel in teams of two and try to make it all the way around to grab the tags with our names on them at the far end. Basically it's like a giant haunted house in the middle of the dark forest. 

Our class draws lots to decide pairs while the others spread out in the woods. I pull number 3, placing me with Hagakure. 

"I can't wait till we get our chance to scare people!" She chirps, squeezing me around the shoulders. "I absolutely love horror movies!"

I, on the other hand, can't stand them. 

At midnight, we're let loose. I focus to not trigger Panic accidentally, knowing it'll ruin the integrity of the game. I may not know how to control it exactly, but I can at least try. As the other students jump out at us, I scream, but know it's all good fun.

At some point, something starts smelling smoky. Knowing there aren't any people on the scaring team with quirks like that and we're surrounded by trees, we look around for smoke. Some pink wisps come from ahead of us, a sort of mist that creeps across the area. 

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Toru says as we pause, "but I didn't think Midnight came on this trip with us."

I look up above the trees and see black smoke rising. Bright blue glimmers of embers and ash drift on the wind. I know for a fact that's not natural and nobody on the trip has a quirk that does that.

"She didn't," I illuse, backing away. The invisible girl takes my hand and we run in the opposite direction as the mist keeps following us. 

Mandalay's voice plays in our head, telling us there's an ongoing attack and to get back to camp without engaging the villains. 

Toru isn't nearly as fast as me, nor does she have as much endurance, so she's much slower, but I know I can pull her through this. That is, until I hear the snap. Her hand slips through mine and she lands on the hard forest floor. 

"I stepped in a hole!" She shouts. "My ankle!"

I crouch down to help her up, hoping I can help her hobble away, but the gas has already overtaken us. My first inhale of it causes my lungs to burn and my eyes to water. 

"It's poison!" I illuse, practically dragging Toru across the ground. 

"Just go!" She screams, wincing as she has to take in another breath of the toxic air. "I'm not letting you go down with me!"

"Absolutely not," I illuse, trying to pull her over my shoulders, but the action is too exerting without a steady stream of air. 

"I'm not making it out of this, but if there's a chance you can, then you have to take it." 

With tears in my eyes, both from sadness and pain, I squeeze her hand and run off. When I finally make it out of the gas, I turn to see how fast it's traveling, only to see it's not advancing at all. Instead, it seems to be swirling around wherever the center is, this being the furthest radius it must have. 

I take in some deep breaths of clean air before contemplating how far into the gas Toru is and if I can bring her back on my own. Nobody seems to be around. Whoever the gas villain is is probably at the center of the cloud and the fire villain looks to be much further away. Unless they set the fire and ran.

I don't know how many villains are in these woods and Toru is somewhere in that smoke cloud, dying, so I do the only thing that seems logical. 

"Help!" I illuse, letting it project through the woods. I keep calling for somebody to come help, but when I hear footsteps approaching, I jump. 

A curly blue head of hair breaks through the thicket of bushes, the person out of breath and looking distressed. Eito? "You... You're the guy that Sayuri brought to movie night."

He nods and falls to his knees, mumbling nonsense. I approach him and see his face covered in dirt and grime. "Wouldn't do it..." he gasps out, clutching his head. "Can't do it...save him..."

"Take a deep breath," I illuse calmly, kneeling down next to him. "What do you need to say."

He looks up at me, tears streaming from his dusty purple eyes. He gulps and says, voice cracking. "They're going to kill him."

"Kill who?" 

He shakes his head. "I'm sorry," he whispers before quickly putting his hand to my forehead. The moment his fingers touch my skin, I black out.