"Why is this so hard!??" Uraraka groaned, holding up yet another torn paper goldfish scooper. She was crouched in front of the shallow tanks, lantern light reflecting off the rippling water and the darting flashes of orange beneath the surface. "It would be so much easier if I could just float it," she muttered, dropping her voice at the end.

  Robinn stood over her with her arms crossed, looking down at the tank rather than at Uraraka. She lifted one hand and pointed lazily toward the small sign nailed to the stall, its paint chipped and faded. 'No quirk use allowed.'

  Uraraka followed her gaze and rolled her eyes. "Since when are you such a rule follower."

  Robinn shrugged, the motion slight and unapologetic.

  After a few more failed attempts and some reluctant yen changing hands, Uraraka finally gave up. She slumped back on her heels and tilted her head up to look at Robinn, a mischievous spark returning to her eyes. "Why don't you give it a try?"

  A few steps away, Kirishima and Tetsutetsu stood off to the side, watching the repeated failures with quiet amusement.

  "So umm... What were you and Robinn talking about?" Kirishima asked, nudging Tetsutetsu lightly with his elbow.

  "Huh?" Tetsutetsu glanced over at him, eyebrows lifting before he followed Kirishima's line of sight back to the girls. "Oh, Robinn. Yeah we were talking about our quirks. I joked about how being metal always felt weird."

  Kirishima studied him for a second, then smiled. "Oh okay, cool."

  Any follow up questions died in his throat as Uraraka suddenly yelped, the sound sharp enough to draw attention from nearby stalls.

  Robinn stood there holding the paper pan steady, a small goldfish resting inside it, water trembling at the thin edge. Her expression stayed flat, almost unimpressed, as if she hadn't just succeeded where Uraraka had failed repeatedly.

  "You actually did it!" Uraraka exclaimed, leaning in close to peer at the fish, her face lighting up with delight.

  Robinn blinked once, then again, and turned toward the vendor. The old woman behind the stall smiled warmly, already reaching for a small plastic container. Robinn leaned forward as if to return the fish, but the vendor gently stopped her, insisting with a wave of her hand that she keep it.

  The group drifted away from the stall after that, stopping briefly for food before settling at a nearby picnic table tucked just outside the main foot traffic. Robinn sat down first, carefully setting the small container on the tabletop. She leaned forward until she was level with the fish, resting her chin near the edge of the table.

  "What am I going to do with this thing?" she asked.

  Kirishima and Uraraka exchanged a look, then both turned back to Robinn.

  "You should keep it," Kirishima said with a positive head tilt.

  Robinn glanced up at him with unconvinced eyes.

  "You have to name it," Uraraka insisted, her hands animatedly gesturing toward the container where the goldfish was currently making a slow, rhythmic lap. "It's a rule. You can't just have a nameless pet."

  Robinn didn't look up, her eyes half-lidded and tracking the orange blur with a sort of heavy, quiet intensity. The long beach day followed by the sensory overload of the festival seemed to be catching up to her. She looked lighter than usual, the sharp edges softened by a visible, bone-deep sleepiness.

  "It is a fish, Uraraka," Robinn murmured, her voice trailing off slightly at the end. "I don't think it needs one. It seems perfectly fine just being a fish."

  Tetsutetsu laughed, leaning back on the bench and crossing his thick arms. "Man, you're cold! Even my weights have names. I've got one named Bertha. It builds character to name things!"

  Kirishima leaned back, glancing at Robinn as she struggled against her own heavy eyelids. After watching her get all animated with Tetsutetsu about their quirks earlier, seeing her this quiet was a change of pace. He wasn't feeling that same pinch of being left out anymore, mostly because it was hard to feel anything other than a bit of sympathy for how exhausted she looked. She was usually such a powerhouse in class, always standing perfectly straight. Seeing her slumped over a tiny fish made her look less like a top-tier student and more like anyone else who had spent way too many hours in the sun.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  "We'll name it later," Robinn said, her tone final but lacking its usual bite. "When I am certain it will survive the night."

  "That's the spirit!" Uraraka chirped, though she didn't seem entirely convinced.

  The group eventually stood up, their movements sluggish as they navigated through the thinning crowd toward the open clearing near the river. The humid air was thick with the scent of sweets and fried dough, clinging to their skin like a second layer. As they reached the edge of the grass, they bumped into the other cluster of U.A. students who had claimed a spot early.

  The two groups merged loosely near the riverbank, a chaotic sprawl of teenagers settling onto the cooling grass. Robinn sat down near Kirishima, her movements fluid but slow. She seemed restless, her fingers twitching against the fabric of her hoodie as she stared at the dark horizon. The crowd was pressing in closer as the start time approached, and the proximity of so many strangers seemed to be pulling at her nerves, but she kept her mouth shut, watching the water.

  Kaminari, meanwhile, felt like he was vibrating at a frequency that didn't quite match the rest of the world. He was leaning heavily against Sero, his eyes looking glassy and unfocused. He had spent the better part of the afternoon as a walking charging station for everyone’s phones after the beach trip, and the drain was evident in the way his knees seemed to buckle every few steps.

  "You still alive, dude?" Sero asked, bracing him up as they found a patch of grass.

  "Barely," Kaminari muttered, his voice sounding thin even to his own ears. "My brain feels fuzzy."

  Despite the fatigue, Kaminari’s eyes scanned the shifting crowd until they landed on Jirou. She was standing a few feet away with Momo, the two of them looking out toward the dark horizon where the first sparks of the display were expected to ignite. He felt a nervous flutter in his stomach. He’d been trying to find the right moment to talk to her all night, but the exhaustion and the constant noise had kept him anchored in a state of fuzzy, static-filled indecision. He just needed one good moment. One 'main character' moment to make the headache worth it.

  Then, the first firework exploded.

  It was a massive, blooming peony of deep crimson and gold. The sound was a physical weight, a thundering boom that vibrated in their ribcages. For a moment, the world was bathed in a brilliant, artificial noon.

  Kaminari took a shallow breath, trying to push through the haze. He started to move toward Jirou, a clumsy apology or a joke forming on his tongue. He just wanted to be near her for the finale. But as a second set of fireworks whistled into the air, the light revealed Jirou and Momo standing close together, framed against the thick smoke of the first blast.

  Kaminari stopped mid-step.

  In the brief, blinding flash of a blue starburst, he saw it. Jirou leaned in, her hand resting tentatively on Momo’s arm, and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to Momo’s cheek that quickly shifted toward her lips as they turned toward one another.

  The world went dark for a second as the firework faded, leaving only the smoky afterimage in Kaminari’s retinas. He felt something inside him just... drop. It wasn't a violent break, but a sudden, hollow realization. The exhaustion he’d been fighting flooded back in tenfold, turning his limbs to lead. He didn't feel the urge to cry or shout. He just felt incredibly, devastatingly tired. The spark he’d been trying to fan into a flame was just gone.

  Without a word to Sero or the others, Kaminari turned around. He began to walk away from the light, away from the cheering crowd and the booming sky. He headed toward the outskirts of the festival, where the trees grew thick and the shadows were deep enough to hide the fact that he was barely holding himself upright. He just wanted to find a place where it was quiet.

  The fireworks continued, a relentless barrage of light and sound that drowned out everything else in the clearing. Jirou remained standing near the front of the group, though her mind was miles away from the colorful display. She felt a strange, dizzying lightness in her chest, her heart performing a frantic rhythm that had nothing to do with the pyrotechnics. The ghost of the kiss still lingered on her lips, a soft, buzzing warmth that made the humid night air feel suddenly bearable. She looked at Momo, her expression softened by a dazed, genuine giddiness she usually kept buried under layers of punk-rock sarcasm. For a heartbeat, the world was just the smell of gunpowder and the incredible, terrifying reality of Momo’s hand on her arm.

  Then, a vibration shuddered through the ground that didn't match the beat of the explosions.

  Jirou blinked, the lingering softness in her eyes sharpening into something alert and defensive. The transition was jarring, like a bucket of ice water being dumped over her internal warmth. Habit took over before she could even process the loss of the moment. She let her earphone jacks dangle, her movements instinctive and sharp, before pressing one firmly into a nearby wooden fence post. She needed to filter out the deafening roar of the overhead shells to find the source of the discordance.

  Underneath the rhythmic thud of the celebration, there was a different sound. It was a high-pitched, metallic scraping. It sounded like serrated steel being dragged across stone, or perhaps the frantic, rhythmic grinding of metal against metal. It was a cold, sharp noise that set her teeth on edge.

  "Meat," a voice rasped. The sound traveled clearly through the wood and into her senses, vibrating against her eardrum with a guttural, mindless hunger. "Meat... so much... meat..."

  Jirou’s blood ran cold, the last remnants of her happiness vanishing instantly. The word was repeated, a mindless mantra that hummed with a terrifying, rhythmic clicking of metal. The sound lacked any trace of a festival-goer, carrying instead the raw chill of a nightmare sharpening its teeth in the dark.