|| Boys' Locker Room ||
The boys file in and find their lockers by number, the low familiar sounds of the room settling in around them. Latches clicking open. Costume pieces are set down carefully.
Kirishima starts with the mask, working the clasps and setting it aside before rolling back the shoulder pieces of his costume. There are pressure marks on his forearms from the fight, faint and fading, and he checks them quickly and moves on.
Sero sits on the centre bench and works through the same process. "Man, that was intense."
"Tell me about it," someone mutters from further down the room.
Koda stands a little off to the side, carefully folding part of his uniform, movements quiet and deliberate.
"…Iida and I seem to be the only ones mostly unharmed," he says softly.
Iida, already halfway out of his costume, pauses and nods once. "That is correct. Maintaining awareness of one's surroundings is essential in minimising unnecessary injury."
Koda nods. Then hesitates.
"…Though… Izumi also appears unharmed…"
A small pause.
"…It's difficult to remember that… considering the amount of destruction he caused…"
A few nearby students glance over at each other.
Iida adjusts his glasses. "Control is just as important as power," he says, tone firm. "Perhaps more so."
Nobody disagrees with that. The room carries on.
Shoji keeps his back to most of the room, removing his costume slowly and deliberately around the wider bandaging Recovery Girl had applied across his torso. Each movement is carefully considered.
Kaminari stands at his locker with his costume half off one shoulder, apparently trying to locate his uniform shirt while also conducting a one-sided review of the afternoon.
"Objectively speaking," he says to the locker, "I think we did well. We had a plan, the plan had real logic to it, and we executed the initial phase completely correctly."
"You went down to smoke," Sero says.
"A sedative compound delivered via smoke," Kaminari says. "Yaoyorozu herself made the distinction, and I think that deserves respect."
"She made the smoke."
He pulls out his uniform shirt. "That is a separate issue."
"Is it?"
"The plan was good," Kaminari says firmly. "The plan was genuinely good."
"The plan got cooked," Sero says.
"The plan encountered an obstacle it was not designed to account for."
"The obstacle was air…"
In the far corner of the room, Bakugo works through his costume in silence. Gauntlets first, set down without noise. Then the shoulder pieces. Then the rest of it, each part removed and stacked with careful focus. The bandaging goes from his wrists past his elbows, Recovery Girl's work, tight and clean, the skin underneath still faintly red where the wrapping presses. He works around it without acknowledging it, jaw set, the room existing at a comfortable, irrelevant distance from him.
Kirishima finishes with his own pieces and wanders over, leaning against the locker beside Bakugo's.
"Your fight was good," he says.
Bakugo doesn't respond.
"I mean it. The way you moved in those corridors —" he scratches the back of his head, "…It was solid."
Bakugo pauses momentarily and continues removing his gear.
"…Tch."
Kirishima grins slightly and pushes off the locker.
Bakugo finishes stripping off the last of his costume, folds it into a neat pile and loads it into his locker in one efficient movement, pulls out a towel, closes the door, and heads toward the washroom without looking back at the room.
The shower runs.
Kaminari has found his uniform and located his tie and is now sitting on the bench. His shirt hangs loose over his shoulder, tie half-looped in his hands as he leans toward Sero like he's sharing classified information.
"— because okay, look," he's saying, leaning in further. "You saw them in the hero gear, right? And I'm just saying, objectively speaking —"
Sero, equally interested in the topic, pays close attention.
"— Yaoyorozu is obviously — I mean, you've seen her, she's — and then Adachi, she's like, actually terrifying but also —"
He stops.
Something makes him stop. Not a sound. Not a movement. Just a feeling that arrives slightly before the information that causes it.
A moment later, the shower cuts off.
The door opens.
Both Kaminari and Sero glance over.
Izumi steps out, one hand holding a towel to his shoulder, the other loose at his side. Silver hair still damp, falling past his shoulders.
He's tall, noticeably so, clearing most of the room by a few centimetres, and built broad across the shoulders and chest, definition across his torso that comes from years of actual work rather than any deliberate effort to be looked at.
Water still traces lines across his skin as he moves. He walks to his locker, pulls it open, and reaches in for his uniform.
Kaminari and Sero watch him. Completely forgetting what they were discussing.
He tucks the bundle under one arm, closes the locker, and heads to the changing room without once registering that he has an audience.
The door closes behind him.
Kaminari exhales as he and Sero turn back to face each other.
A beat passes.
"…Anyway," Kaminari says, voice just a bit higher than before, tying his tie with more focus than necessary, "When do you think Midoriya and Todoroki will be back? They're still in the medical wing, right?"
"Tomorrow morning," Tokoyami says from his locker, not looking up as he tucks in part of his uniform. "Recovery Girl said the muscle damage needs at least a day's rest."
"Right," Kaminari nods quickly. "Yeah. Makes sense."
He straightens his tie. "Good. Normal conversation."
"Shoji," Kirishima calls across the room. "You good? That wrapping looked serious."
Shoji is carefully working his uniform around the bandaging, each movement deliberate. Several of his arms manage the buttons while the others hold the fabric clear of the gauze.
"It looks worse than it is," he says. "Recovery Girl said a day's rest should be enough." He pauses. "She also said the strike was precise. Intended to incapacitate cleanly. If it had landed even slightly off target, the damage would have been considerably more serious."
His gaze drifts toward the changing room door.
Kaminari and Sero follow it.
The three of them look at the changing room door for a moment.
"That's wild," Kaminari says. "But even so, you tanked a lot in that match."
"So did Sato," Sero adds, nodding down the bench.
Sato raises a hand from where he is carefully feeding one arm through his uniform shirt around a bruise that clearly has a very specific location.
"Worth it," he says.
The room winds down around them. Lockers close. Uniforms get straightened. One by one, they collect their things and filter toward the changing room, trading the last of the afternoon's conversation in pieces.
***
The girls' locker room is warmer, and somehow louder.
Steam hangs lightly in the air, softening the edges of everything.
Voices overlap more here. Conversations threading into each other without stopping. The click of locker latches, the soft movement of costume pieces being set aside carefully.
Ashido is already halfway out of her, talking without pause as she struggles with a strap. "Okay, so the hands through the wall."
And that is the end of the quiet.
"I saw that," Uraraka says immediately, turning around with her costume half unclasped. "I was watching from the monitoring room, and I saw that, and I still don't fully understand how that works."
"They came through the concrete," Ashido says. "Like it wasn't there. Like the wall just decided to let them through."
"Because for her it wasn't," Tsuyu says, slipping her gloves off nearby and adding it on top of the folded pile that was her costume. "From what I understand, space isn't fixed around her quirk. She moves things through distances that aren't there. Ribbit."
"That's the explanation that makes it scarier," Ashido says.
"Most accurate explanations do," Tsuyu says. "Ribbit."
"Yeah! But still," Mina says, finally freeing herself from the last clasp and tossing part of her costume aside, "how do you even deal with that?"
"You probably don't," Hagakure says from somewhere near the lockers. One sleeve lifts animatedly into the air. "You just avoid her entirely. Like if I saw her walking toward me in a hallway, I'd turn around and go home."
Ayaka snorts from upside down near the ceiling.
"I'm serious!" Hagakure continues. "One second you're standing there, and the next your friend disappears, and suddenly the corridor is haunted."
"It really did feel haunted," Uraraka admits quietly.
"You adapt," Yaoyorozu corrects gently.
She stands near her locker, movements smooth and unhurried as she begins removing parts of her costume. Everything is placed carefully, folded or set aside with deliberate precision.
"Avoidance is not always an option."
Ayaka floats lazily nearby, upside down for no particular reason, watching the conversation with obvious amusement. At some point during the discussion, she had partially changed already, shirt discarded somewhere behind her while she drifted through the air in athletic shorts and a grey undershirt, like gravity had simply stopped applying to her halfway through changing.
"You could also just not stand in front of it," she says.
Hagakure's sleeve points at her immediately.
"That's not helpful."
"It's accurate."
Ochako laughs under her breath.
Jiro sits on the bench near her locker with her back turned to most of them, pulling off her boots.
"Maaaan," Mina says, leaning forward with a grin already spreading across her face. "Jiro."
"No."
"I haven't even said anything yet."
"You were going to."
"I was going to ask," Mina continues shamelessly, "how it felt when Ayaka's face appeared right next to yours."
A beat.
Jiro freezes halfway through pulling off her second boot.
"…I hate all of you."
That only makes Mina light up harder.
"So, you were scared!"
"Anybody would've been scared!"
"You screamed."
"I did not scream."
"You absolutely screamed," Uraraka says immediately.
"It was more of a startled yell," Tsuyu adds helpfully. "Ribbit."
Jiro groans into one hand.
"And then," Mina continues, completely unstoppable now, "Kaminari grabbed your hand, and you guys started running together—"
"We were not holding hands."
"You were emotionally holding hands."
"We were trying not to die!"
"That's actually kind of romantic," Hagakure gasps.
"It was not romantic!"
Yaoyorozu, who had remained politely silent until now, glances over with clear curiosity.
"You were also leaning against each other when you regained consciousness," she adds thoughtfully. "Though admittedly that may have simply been disorientation from the sedative."
Jiro turns bright red instantly.
"Yaoyorozu!"
"What?" Yaoyorozu asks innocently. "I merely observed the situation."
"She observed it academically," Ayaka says solemnly from the ceiling.
"That somehow makes it worse!"
Mina nearly doubles over laughing.
"Oh my god! Your ears are literally red."
"They do that naturally!"
"Not that red," Uraraka says.
Jiro quickly turns away from all of them and begins aggressively reorganising the inside of her locker despite the fact that it is already perfectly organised.
"None of this is interesting," she says to the locker.
"It's a little interesting," Uraraka says.
"It is not."
"Your ears went red earlier," Tsuyu says. "When you woke up. And they are red now. Ribbit."
The locker organisation intensifies.
Nearby, Yaoyorozu finishes adjusting the sleeves of her uniform while Ayaka somehow drifts across the room already fully dressed despite nobody having actually seen her finish changing.
Hagakure watches her float around the locker room with obvious fascination.
"You move like that all the time?" she asks.
Ayaka pauses midair.
"Like what?"
"Like gravity is optional."
Ayaka considers it for a moment before slowly spinning once in the air.
"…It kind of is for me."
There's a brief silence.
Then Mina grins.
"Okay, yeah, you're definitely going to be popular."
"No question," Ochako agrees with a laugh.
The conversation shifts again after that, softer now, lighter.
Bags are picked up. Uniform jackets straightened. Lockers shut one after another.
Ashido says something to Uraraka near the doorway while Tsuyu follows behind them with the same unhurried composure she had carried through the entire afternoon.
Jiro is the last one near the lockers.
She closes her locker, picks up her bag—
—and pauses when Hagakure suddenly blurts out:
"Okay but floating around everywhere honestly sounds amazing."
"It is," Ayaka replies immediately.
The girls look back toward her.
Ayaka tilts her head slightly as if trying to think of the right way to describe it.
"It's like…" she starts slowly, "being underwater without the weight. Or lying down right before you fall asleep. Your body just stops feeling heavy."
Hagakure makes an exaggerated sound of envy.
"That sounds incredible."
"It's nice," Ayaka admits.
Then, after a second:
"I could make you float too, if you want."
Five heads turn toward her almost instantly.
"…Seriously?" Ochako asks.
Ayaka shrugs casually.
"Sure."
Mina is already raising both hands.
"YES."
A moment later—
Ochako lets out a startled laugh as her shoes lift cleanly from the floor.
Tsuyu rises next, completely calm despite now floating several inches above the ground.
"Interesting," she says. "Ribbit."
Hagakure squeals loudly as her invisible body drifts upward.
"I'M FLYING—"
"You're floating," Jiro corrects automatically—
before her own feet suddenly leave the floor.
"—oh."
Mina is spinning slowly through the air by this point, laughing loudly as she drifts sideways across the locker room.
"This is AWESOME!"
Even Yaoyorozu, who had clearly experienced this before, allows herself a small smile as she gently lifts from the ground alongside them.
Ayaka herself simply floats among them effortlessly, entirely at ease.
For a few brief moments, the locker room fills with laughter instead of exhaustion.
No tension.
No battle pressure.
Just six girls suspended weightlessly in the air like the day had forgotten to end properly.