"Man she must have a lot of patience to deal with that guy so calmly." Kaori commented idly as she glanced out the window of the bus.

"Who?" Mina turned to her with a curious look.

"Kendo. You've seen that blonde guy from Class B. He's like a slightly more polite but just as obnoxious Bakugo."

"I'll fucking kill you, glowstick!" A familiar shout sounded from another end of the bus amidst all the chatter. Mina giggled slightly at the nickname Bakugo had happened to choose for her, much to Kaori's annoyance.

"…Does he seriously have to put such little effort into those damn names?" Kaori mumbled under her breath so that Bakugo wouldn't accidentally hear her words this time.

"Hey, at least it's not 'raccoon eyes'." Mina stated with a pout. "I hate being compared to something that eats garbage whenever he happens to mention me."

"Says the girl that was more than okay naming herself after an old movie monster that killed people." Kaori stated with a smirk and roll of her eyes. Her voice took on a slightly mocking tone. "Whatever would you do?"

"Hey! That thing is cool and nothing you can tell me will convince me otherwise!"

"As soon as I stop freaking out every time I see one of those…things…burst out of someone's gut then I'll agree with you." A disgusted look crossed Kaori's face before she shook her head a bit as though to clear the thought. "It's a good thing I get to choose for our next movie night."

"Not all of my favorite movies are monster movies, though!"

"Doesn't matter, we agreed on a rotation."

"Everybody quiet down and get ready to exit the bus." Aizawa's voice sounded from the front of the bus. "We're almost there."

Kaori turned to Mina with a surprised look. "That was fast. Guess we'll have to table our movie talks for another time, huh?"

"I still say that I was robbed when Midnight said no…" Mina crossed her arms and slid down into her seat a bit with a theatrical huff. Kaori could only shake her head in amusement at the antics of her friend as everyone anxiously awaited the view of their destination.

Needless to say…no one was expecting a sudden fall down a mountainside and put face-to-face with a bunch of earthen monsters that they would have to fight their way through to reach the place they would be staying.

"Above us!" Kaori yelled out as she reached out with her Quirk to grab a pair of flying creatures out of reach of most of her classmates before slamming them into the ground with a sickening crunch. A few heads turned in surprise at the sudden shout, but immediately were forced back into their own battles as more of the earthen constructs came across their trek through the forest.

After doing this for a few hours, everyone was starting to show signs of wear and tear, but they knew that despite how harsh it was this was right up the alley of what they signed up for when they came to U.A. Everyone knew that after the events of the USJ and the encounters many of them faced during their internships that they still had a long way to go.

That didn't make it any less exhausting, however.

"I thought using your Quirk too often gave you headaches, Kaori. Shouldn't you stay back and let some of us take care of them when you call them out?" Yaoyorozu commented as she lowered a large two-handed hammer she had created with her Quirk to bash through the more vulnerable parts of the creatures that attacked them.

"Oh, I have a bit of one already starting here." Kaori motioned with one finger towards the top right side of her head. "But I can't let that stop me. If I ever hesitated, then someone else could wind up in danger or get badly hurt. I just have to push through it."

"Let me help at the very least." Her pony-tailed classmate reached out with one hand as a pair of small pills formed in the palm of her hand a few moments later. "Take these to help make it subside at the very least."

Kaori hesitated for a moment as she glanced between the pills and Yaoyorozu's face. The moment the girl gave a small nod her hand was almost a blur as she grabbed the pills and swallowed them dry before giving Yaoyorozu an appreciative nod of her own. "You didn't have to do that you know. You'd be better off saving your energy to make whatever weapons you need to for dealing with these things."

"I can't just let my friends and classmates risk their safety without doing something to help, now can I? Besides, it's good for me to practice making some of the more complex creations without always having my book on me. I've known the makeup of painkillers for years given how useful they can be in an emergency."

"What about all that stuff about not ruining the economy?" Kaori tilted her head with an inquisitive look.

"I always make exceptions when the need arises. We can't exactly have you collapsing due to a migraine, can we?"

A knowing smirk appeared on Kaori's face. "All the same, thanks for looking out for me."

Following an exhausting ordeal that ended nearly around dinner time, everyone finally emerged from the forest and in front of the lodge where Aizawa and some of the members of the group known as the Pussycats were awaiting them. Everyone looked terrible with various scratches and scuffs, but mainly piles of dirt and dust lingering on all of their bodies that was kicked up whenever one of the earthen beasts were defeated and crumbed into bits before drifting off into the wind.

With grateful hearts and hearty appetites, everyone dug into the food prepared for them without any hesitation before eventually going off to the large baths set aside for the girls and for the boys to wash up for the night.

"Oh man, this feels great right now." Kaori sighed as she sank a little further into the warm, soothing water. "I feel like I could melt…"

"You know, it wouldn't hurt as much if you didn't go around punching things all the time like some of the boys do." Hagakure commented from nearby as some water shifted around her invisible body. "Though I guess some boys are probably into that sort of thing."

"Well, as soon as you think of some other way for me to use my Quirk, feel free to mention it." Kaori calmly replied as she soaked in the large pool. "I could care less what any boys think of it, regardless."

"Speaking of boys, what do you think they'll do whenever some of the boys from Class B use this bath?" Mina commented off to Kaori's other side.

"Why would that matter to us?" Uraraka questioned.

"It likely has to do with one of the boys in their class being a massive pervert based on something Kendo told me when we interned together with Uwabami." Yaoyorozu replied as she placed a finger to her chin.

"I wouldn't worry about it." Kaori idly commented as she continued to relax with her eyes closed. "Look up there." Without even opening her eyes, Kaori pointed up towards an oddly-shaped object that was poking up slightly from the wall separating the two baths.

"What is that?" Jirou wondered aloud the same question on many of their minds.

"It's the hat that belongs to that kid Kouta that Mandalay was talking about when we got here. I caught a glimpse of it when we all came in."

"Your eyesight is amazing, Kaori!" Hagakure praised the white-haired girl who failed to fight a small blush at the compliment. "That's incredible!"

"…It's not THAT fantastic…" Kaori mumbled as she sank a little more into the water with an awkward look. "I just worked a lot on noticing small details when I was younger because of the way my Quirk works."

"I would have to disagree." Yaoyorozu's voice took on a criticizing tone. "Being able to spot small details such as that is an indispensable skill."

"You've been spending too much time working on class president stuff with Iida, Yaomomo." Mina commented with a smirk. "You're starting to sound like him."

"Leave her alone, Mina." Kaori chided with a laugh, glad to not be the target of everyone's attention for a few moments much to Yaoyorozu's discomfort. "…Thank you, Yaoyorozu. I guess I just never really thought much of it before since it was fairly normal for me and my mom to just be really keen at noticing things since both of us rely so heavily on our sight compared to the normal amount other people do."

"Speaking of which…" Mina turned to wave up towards the wall where Kaori had pointed out Kouta's hat. "Thanks for looking out for us, Kouta!"

Unfortunately for all of the girls, Kouta happened to glance up over the wall at the sound of his voice being called out, only for his eyes to widen into saucer plates before he stumbled backwards over the wall towards the boys side.

"Somebody catch him!" Uraraka yelled out as all of the girls looked on with expressions of fear and shock. A sudden sound of rushing water followed by a dull thud against the wood of the wall had everyone's breath held.

"He's okay!" Midoriya's voice echoed from the other side of the wall, allowing all of the girls to release the breaths they'd been holding the entire time. The moment of peace didn't last long before Kaori reached over and swatted at Mina's arm with a displeased look.

"What were you thinking, Mina?!" Kaori fought to keep herself from breaking into a nasty yell and instead kept her voice strict and controlled. "He could have gotten really badly hurt!"

"I'm sorry, okay!" The pink-haired girl apologized profusely. "I didn't know that was going to happen!"

Kaori regarded the torn up expression on her friends face as well as the worried looks the other girls had as well. "…Look, I'm sorry for snapping at you like that. But did you really think he WASN'T going to react to his name being called out like that? Maybe next time, DON'T call out a boy's name when we're all naked in a bath, okay?" Kaori's eyes gained a far off look for a moment before a VERY uncomfortable look came over her face. "On second thought…maybe don't think too hard on what I just said." Just as quickly as she spoke, Kaori dunked nearly her entire body save for her head back into the water. "…Damnit Yori. You've gotten too ingrained into my head…"

"Who's Yori?" Jirou asked with a confused look.

"She's a friend of Kaori's from when she went to middle school." Mina replied with a knowing look. "We met once when Kaori introduced me, Kirishima, and a couple girls from Class B to her and another friend of hers."

"Yeah…and she is an absolute tease that is often obsessed with boys." Kaori grumbled from her sunken place. "It doesn't help that her Quirk let's her read minds to an extent, so she often uses that to tease people about crushes and different things like that. She has almost no boundaries when she's in one of her more excitable moods and it's terrible."

"She can't be that bad, can she?" Uraraka questioned with an innocent look.

"If she ever gets the chance to meet any of you…avoid thinking about anyone you may possibly have a crush on or think is good looking as much as possible." A dark look loomed over Kaori's face for a moment. "She will NEVER stop hounding you about it." For some reason, Uraraka seemed to shy away the most at that statement.

With all of the day's events out of the way, Kaori gently lowered herself into one of the beds lying on the floor of the room assigned to the girls for their training camp. All in all, a lot of things had gone on and Kaori now looked back on it to really reflect on how much her day-to-day life had changed since she had set foot in U.A. Going from a rather boring cycle like she had when she was in middle school to a life that had something crazy happening every other day from the way it felt at times really made her wonder why she had chosen this path sometimes. But whenever her mind turned to thoughts of her father and her friends, from U.A. or otherwise, she couldn't help but smile and not have a single doubt about her choices.

A hero's life was never dull, after all.

More of a fluff piece this time around, but I wanted to take advantage of some of the scenes like when their class was on the bus as well as in the hot springs prior to getting their bodies worked into a dizzy in the days that follow. I also wanted to highlight some of the relationships she has with her classmates a bit more, as I feel I don't do that enough sometimes whenever they aren't stuck in a battlefield or something along those lines. All in all, a very simple chapter but not without its own purposes to highlight different things.