Yui POV:

The first day of training officially started with Mr. Vlad King having us wake up fairly early. Since Kino was barely awake, I gave her my arm for support while we were walking and being explained what today was going to consist of.

"For the entirety of this week, we will be training your quirks. Just like your skin and muscles, the more you push them to their limits, the stronger they'll become. As such, we'll be having assignments put specifically for all of you." When we arrived at a clearing, class A had already been placed into their training with only one word coming to my mind at first glance. Hell.

"Usagiyama! Change positions now!"

"Yes sir!" I looked over to see Izuku walk over to where Todoroki was with him jumping into a bat of water to freeze the water and the area around it before melting it again. Todoroki was doing something similar.

"Woah! Izuku is super strong shroom!" Kino looked up at this before Izuku was told to go towards another station to lift up a couple of rocks beside Ochako.

"Head towards a station that has your name on it! Class A had already started, so you have a lot of catching up to do!"

We both stopped staring to begin heading towards where we needed to and seeing a notebook saying what we need to do. 'So I need to increase the amount of things I can grow in a single moment as well as see about growing it larger. Seems simple enough.' I began doing this to start making my max limit and then trying to grow another to have a bit of problems. 'C'mon.' I began pushing it to feel a bit of strain on my body from it.

"Usagiyama! Change positions!"

"Yes sir!" Izuku ran towards me to begin grabbing every piece of debris he could before getting to the max limit I could and pushing to get another one. "How is it going for you?"

"Could be better." I was able to finally get the tenth one done before trying to go for an eleventh. "So you're jumping from station to station?"

"Yeah. Basically, my quirk doesn't allow me to do better than everyone else unless they hold back. So as a way to make sure everyone isn't slacking and I'm pushing myself just as much to meet the standard of everyone else, I'm jumping from station to station in order to keep the gap between us as narrow as possible." Izuku was able to grow the tenth piece of debris and join me on the eleventh.

"Usagiyama! Next station!"

"Yes sir! Thanks for the talk. Hope your training goes well." He ran off to join Tetsutetsu on his station and begin punching a wall in hopes to avoid the steel of the quirk he was using to weaken.

'I think half the reason he's having Izuku go to each station to work side by side with us is to motivate us. If it was just us, we'd complain a bit. But since Izuku's doing all of our stations, he's trying to make it so we're being motivated to do better.'

"Kodai! Keep going!" Vlad shouted at me for my focus to be back on my objective.

'I'm going to get stronger. I'll make it so we can be great heroes together.'

Later that evening, Izuku POV:

The day finally finished with us and my body could not feel more drained. Thanks to running from station to station, I had almost nothing left in me and feel like I was on the verge of collapsing. 'I wonder if mom had to deal with running out of stamina like this when she was training at the start?'

"Usagiyama. Do you need a hand up?" Iida offered me a hand for me to take it. "We'll be making curry, so please try to keep going just a little longer."

"Thanks Iida. I'm gonna try and keep going." I went over towards the areas we were going to start cooking to see Kaachan and Todoroki start lighting the fires. To be honest though, I think it would be better to say Kaachan was 'trying' to start the fires since he kinda....blew up the area he was trying to light. 'Maybe if I use a smaller explosion I can make it happen.' I tested it on one area with a few dead leaves and branches. I used small sparks that you could honestly get from small firecrackers and noticed them start to work.

"WOAH! THAT'S SO COOL!" Mina looked over my shoulder to see me starting a fire with Kaachan's quirk. "So he doesn't have to use larger explosions to make fires?"

"SHUT UP RACCOON EYES!"

"Don't be rude, Kaachan. You're just using too much power than you need. You're at full power when it should only be 10%, you don't need to kill the wood, it's already dead."

"Whatever." He looked away with me noticing Kota to the side.

'I wonder where his parents are?' I saw Mandalay walk inside for me to get the idea to try and ask. "Hey Mina, can you take over for a sec. I need to head inside."

"Nature calling?" I went red hearing this for a smile to come on her face. "Sorry Izuku. You're just so funny to tease sometimes." Mina started laughing before kissing my scar on my eye. "I'll make something up for you. Do whatcha gotta do."

"Thanks." I ran inside to head directly towards the office and see Mandalay sitting at her desk. "Um..excuse me?"

"Oh. What can I do for you?" The pro gave me a smile with what I wanted to ask being a little hard.

"Well. It's about Kota."

"....Did he hit you again?"

"N-no! He didn't. But I did wanna ask about him." I walked in and shut the door before asking my question. "It's a little personal, but why is Kota here? Doesn't he have parents?" This seemed to be really hard on the pro for me to try and fix what I said. "I-I'm sorry! I didn't mean to-"

"No. It's ok. You see, Kota's parents were heroes. Unfortunately..." She trailed off before continuing. "During an villain attack, they died trying to protect civilians. As a hero, this is arguably the most noble way to go, but how do you explain that to a child who's only knowledge at the time is his parents are his world."

I felt horrible asking this to begin covering my eye with my hair. "I'm sorry I asked. Kota just...he looked very angry and in pain that I just..." I couldn't find words to explain why I wanted to help before feeling a pat on my head.

"Don't worry. It's not your fault. I think he just needs to warm up to people like you. Aizawa told us about you and I know this is not meant to be any ill will, so don't think I'm mad you asked this."

I started thinking about this before asking another question. "Where does Kota normally go to hide from everyone?"

"There's this place up on a hill nearby that you can see the entire forest. He normally goes there."

"Thank you Mandalay." I bowed to her before going to the door. I stopped before opening it though to say one final bit. "Being alone hurts. I'm not sure if I'm able to help, but I'll try to do what I can to help Kota understand he isn't alone." I opened the door to walk back out towards everyone to continue cooking.

Few hours later

"Kota! Kota, are you up here!?" After dinner, I decided to head out with a plate of food for Kota that we had leftover since I wasn't sure if he ate yet. "Kota-" I was cut off by a rock hitting me dead center in the forehead to feel a bump start to form.

"What are you doing here!? LEAVE!"

I held my forehead before smiling at the young kid. "I really should be more careful around you. That was really good aim."

"Why are you still here!?"

"I didn't know if you ate yet, so I made you a plate of what we had left over. We're not the greatest cooks, but we all pitched in and tried our best." I gave a smile hoping to at least get him to open a little.

"I don't want anything from a bunch of phonies like you all!"

"...You're not fooling me with the tough guy act." Kota looked at me a little confused. "Let me tell you a story about someone I knew that was about your age. For the past four years of his life, his childhood was pretty normal. He had two loving parents and lived in a house not too big and not too luxurious. It was a little cramped, but the family lived happily. When the boy was told what his quirk was, his family deemed him defective and threw him out. For two years, he scrounged on the streets for food barely getting by. Eventually, a person he rubbed the wrong way cut his eye and left him with it bleeding. Not knowing how to clean or do anything for the cut, it got worse and he almost lost his ability to see out of it. But even after all this pain, the worst he had was having his parents think he was defective and throw him onto the streets like garbage." He held his head down hearing this for me to walk closer to him. "I know it hurts. Losing family isn't something anyone wants, especially if they died the way Waterhose did."

"Wait, when did-"

"I uhh...I have this kinda nact for learning about heroes. I honestly thought their work was amazing and didn't deserve to go the way they did. But for you, it's a hundred times worse since you probably feel like they abandoned you. But believe me when I say this, leaving you here without them was probably the last thing they wanted. One day though, you will find some more people to help give you the love and happiness you lost here." I came directly next to Kota to kneel down to eye level with him. I pulled my hair up to show my scar and finish my point. "The pains we hold on the outside or inside hurt more now because they haven't closed yet, but they will one day go and leave the scars of their harm for us to remember and be more blessed with what we have."

I placed the plate in my hands down before hugging Kota. "L-let go!" He began punching me with his voice starting to crack. "I SAID LET GO!" I could feel the tears coming off his face as his punches slowed down with the sound of his crying making its way to the surface. He wrapped his arms around me and gripped the back of my shirt as he let everything out. "It *hic* it isn't fair! Why!? WHY DID THEY LEAVE ME!?"

"I know. This pain never fully heals Kota. It hurts, but we learn to bear this pain as we grow up. Even if you think you're alone though, you're really not. Mandalay and her teammates. They wanna help you. She lost someone like you and it hurts seeing you in pain. Please let her help you so she doesn't feel bad helping herself." Kota kept sobbing into my shoulder for me to accept this and pat his head. 'I'm sorry Kota. Nobody deserves to go through this.'

Ten minutes later

After Kota had everything he needed out of him, we sat on the rocks and looked at the evening sky while he ate. "Hey." He got my attention for me to look over towards him. "I'm sorry I punched you in the balls...and hit you with a rock....and called you a corny phony....and was mean to you."

"It's ok. No harm done." He finished eating to place the plate beside him. "Sorry if it was a little cold."

"N-no. It was good." There was a silence before Kota took a deep breath. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"...For helping me." I patted Kota's head and flashed him a smile.

"Everyone needs help from time to time. Though some need more than others, not every person who needs help needs a flashy cape to be someone's hero. Sometimes, it just takes someone wanting to give a hand to somebody that needs it."

Kota smiled a bit before looking up at the stars. "Your name's Usagiyama...right?"

"Yep."

"Do you...do you think my mom and dad are still watching over me?"

"...Yeah. They're probably sad they left you and want to make sure you grow up happy and healthy." I saw this get him down before getting an idea. "Kota. When you feel sad and hurt, try to smile to make it feel a little less painful and look on the brighter side of things."

"What do you mean?"

"It's easy to accept unhappiness, but it's hard to smile and look at something positive when you're sad or hurt. Sometimes, smiling helps you the most when you're in pain."

"....I'll keep that in mind."

Kyoka POV:

After finding out Izuku had been gone for a while, me and the girls decided to try and look for him. Mandalay told us that he's probably near a cliff overlooking the forest to show up around the time he and Kota had a little crying moment. We heard a little of what he said to feel for the kid and smile knowing Izuku was able to get him to open up. "I feel sorry for the kid."

"Yes. Leaving a son is the biggest concern any parent can have." Yaomomo agreed with Mina starting some waterworks.

"I hope Izuku helped him. I wanna cry hearing what happened."

Yui pulled an umbrella for her and Pony to avoid being sprayed by Mina's acid tears with Itsuka standing up. "Let's go. It's probably better if they don't see us." We agreed to start heading back towards the camp to give the two the time they needed without an audience.

And that finishes this chapter. See how Izuku handles the situation with Kota next time. Hope you all enjoyed and thanks for reading.