[Image: "Shadō Barrē (Emi Yukimura)" by Raaor]

After grabbing her costume from the classroom, Katsumi started to head to the bathrooms to change. Her middle school hadn't allowed her to use the girls' changing rooms, so it was a habit.

"Ah," Omisha squeaked at her, and Katsumi turned to look. Her wide, stormy-blue eyes snapped to the floor and she shifted her weight from side to side before meeting Katsumi's gaze again. "Um, where are you going? Aren't the changing rooms this way?" she pointed over her shoulder toward the other side of the hall. Katsumi stared at her for a moment until she remembered that she wasn't at her middle school anymore.

"Right! My bad," she said, and walked to the correct changing room with Omisha.

The girls chattered excitedly as they changed into their uniforms and it was weird since Katsumi had never really changed with other people around before. They commented on each other's costumes, and even their bodies, saying how great one looked or how jealous someone was of another's well-toned thighs or long hair.

Katsumi couldn't help but wonder what the hell her middle school was worried about. They thought I'd stare at the other girls? Seems like the other girls are doing a lot more of that than I am. It didn't really seem to bother anyone. Except for Kisho, who changed away from everyone else, even those who were a little self-conscious didn't mind.

Katsumi's own costume was a simple black leotard, high cut around the hips so it wouldn't impede leg transformations, sleeveless so she could change her arms as needed, and open-backed for wing transformations. She had a large, cloud grey swath of light-weight fabric tied around her waist, partially for modesty, partially for use to defend against quirks like Mr. Aizawa's, which only worked when they could see her. The shoes were regular purple sneakers, but the laces were untied and tucked inside so she could slip them off easily as needed, but wouldn't trip.

She changed pretty fast and was one of the first to head over to Ground Beta, along with Uchikatsu, who's costume was all black and completely plain, long sleeved shirt and jeans, boots that looked like she'd pulled them from a dumpster, and a mask that was basically just a strip of fabric with eye-holes cut into it. It looked pretty mysterious and bad-ass the way Uchikatsu wore it, but Katsumi couldn't help but think she should have gone for something sturdier considering her quirk. She kept that thought to herself. She kept all her thoughts to herself actually, because she and Uchikatsu walked in complete silence.

Slowly, the rest of the class trickled into the training ground and once they were all present, their teacher appeared. All Might stood before them in all his mighty glory for about three seconds, long enough to shout his famous catchphrase, "I am here!" before he shrunk down in a puff of smoke and showed them all his true form: the thin, hunched over All Might that he'd revealed to the public not even two full years before, coughing heftily for a few seconds before grinning.

"For health reasons, I'm not really supposed to do that, but I couldn't deny you all a grand entrance, could I?" He laughed. "They're what I'm known for, after all. Welcome to your first day of hero training. To start the year off strong, I'm going to have you all participate in an exercise to determine your ability levels when it comes to practical combat and teamwork.

First I'm going to split you all into groups of two," he held up two fingers, then paused awkwardly and added, "Well, there will be a few groups of three since there are an odd number of you. For this exercise, one group will play the 'villains' and the other group will play the 'heroes'. The 'heroes' win the exercise by capturing the 'villains' with this capture tape." He held up a roll of white tape. "They can also win by capturing the 'bomb'. As soon as the 'heroes' touch the 'bomb' it is considered captured, but there is a time limit of ten minutes. The 'villains' win by either capturing the 'heroes' with capture tape, or successfully defending themselves and the 'bomb' until the time limit runs out. The 'villain' team is also allowed a few minutes to prepare the building before the 'hero' team enters."

"Don't the villains have a bit of an advantage?" Yukimura said. Her costume looked like a cross between ballet clothes and martial arts clothes, pastel blue and silver and white with a Karate gi and pointe shoes. "All they have to do is stall for time, and they can set up however they want in order to do that."

"That's pretty much how it is in real life too, though," Ayumu remarked, rolling a silver coin back and forth across his knuckles with ease. His costume looked like a birthday party magician complete with cape and top hat. "Heroes generally don't have the advantage. They don't know a villain is going to attack before it happens, if they did, they wouldn't give the villains a chance to attack. Villains on the other hand have as much time as they want to plan before an attack, and these days they often have greater numbers as well."

"Uhh . . . that's correct, Young Ayumu," All Might said. He probably wanted to be the one to explain it, but Katsumi was impressed that All might seemed to have memorized all their names beforehand. "Does that make sense to you, Miss Yukimura."

"Yes, I suppose so."

"Are there any other questions about this exercise?" he asked. No one had any. "Alright, you'll be scored on your full performance, not just whether you win or lose, so be smart about this. Winning the exercise doesn't necessarily mean your scores will be better than the other team's scores. Here are the teams:

"Team A is Ayashimu and Sukippu. Team B is Ayumu and Okane. C is Keien, Yukimura, and Silva. D is Nioubo and Heihomame. E is Kusabana and Hiretsuna. F is Hexum, Kisho, and Omisha. G is Hansho, Uchikatsu, and Chirin. And finally, H is Suzuki and Oribunoki. If there are no other questions, I'll draw the first match up." He reached into two boxes and pulled out two plastic balls, one with the letter C and one with the letter H. "Looks like the 'heroes' will be group C, Keien, Yukimura, and Silva, and the 'villains' will be group H, Suzuki and Oribunoki."

Once that match up was announced, All Might showed the class to a booth where they would be watching the fights, then took Katsumi and Oribunoki to the building where they were going to do the exercise.

"You okay, Suzuki?" Oribunoki asked. "You look kind of upset." Was she upset? "Is it because we have to play the 'villains'?" Was that the reason? "It's only a drill. It's not like we're actually villains, so don't be too down about it."

Oribunoki had a simple but powerful strength quirk. Her costume was designed to protect her, blue body armor and padding to cushion blows as well as a helmet, combat gloves and tactical boots so she wouldn't hurt herself while throwing attacks of her own, and to make her already heavy attacks hit harder. It was basic but enhanced her existing abilities well, just like her quirk itself.

Katsumi formulated a plan while they walked to the building, complex and conniving, just like she'd been taught growing up. 'Villain' was the role Katsumi was used to, and she could play it pretty well, but she had thought she wasn't supposed to be playing it anymore. Did it mean something that she was thrust back into it already for their very first training exercise? It was probably just coincidence, but she couldn't help wondering.

"Alright Oribunoki," she said once All Might had left them alone in the five-story building to start their prep. "You have a strength quirk, so you shouldn't have any trouble moving an empty bomb casing from the fifth floor to a storage closet on the second floor, right?"

"Easy-peasy, but why would we want to do that?" she asked.

"It's time for me to give you a crash course in villainy," Katsumi said. They were being graded on their performance, which meant they were probably supposed to try to think and act like villains. That Katsumi could do easily, and a good villain couldn't have incompetent henchmen. It was important to train one's employees properly, lest they unintentionally foil your plans before the heroes even arrive. "Let's go get the 'bomb' while we talk."

[I'm kinda hyped for the next chapter guys, because villainous Katsumi freaking out her classmates with her unexpected competence is something I've been looking forward to writing since I first started this. Share and comment or this arc will be the last one with any substance. Love y'all.

<3 Raaor!]