Nezu's idea of enough was, quite frankly, terrifying.
"First, we need you in tip-top physical condition. Not only will that help you gain better control of your Quirk, it is a necessity for almost every Hero. If a villain ever has a Quirk similar to Eraserhead's, you will need to be prepared—you can't rely on your Quirk for everything, yes?"
Nakano nodded as he led her to a massive indoor gym, sleek and polished like everything else in U.A. She hurried into the locker room, changing from her everyday uniform to the athletic uniform, pulling on her regular sneakers instead of the ones with the hard toes. It's just conditioning, she told herself. It can't be that bad.
An hour into training, she realized her mistake. Two, in fact.
One: She shouldn't have eaten that much stew before coming here.
Two: Conditioning can, in fact, be that bad.
Nezu had her running laps around the 400m track, presumably as a warm-up. Not even two laps in, she was already breathing hard. By lap three, her breathing pattern could be described as almost-wheezing. By lap four, she felt like she was going to puke her guts out.
Luckily, he had her stop after four. She didn't really want to know what would've happened during lap five, but floppy unconsciousness was her best bet.
She performed the various forms of torture Nezu had set out for her—squats with weight bars, lunges with weight bars, crunches with weight balls, storks with weight balls—basically anything that required her to put her body in an uncomfortable position while holding weights.
She really did puke after the first round of crunches. Nezu calmly held the trash can and handed her a silk handkerchief afterward.
"That's alright. You can eat more later. Now, twenty storks on each side—make sure to hold the ball in front of you—yes, like that—and lift your leg! Higher! Higher!"
***
"Nakano! Where were you?" Ochaco asked a very disheveled-looking Nakano as she walked—limped—through the door. She'd missed math class, taught by Ectoplasm, but that was okay. He freaked her out a little because she couldn't see his eyes, and she hated math anyway. But at that question, twenty pairs of eyes swiveled in her direction.
"Umm...Recovery Girl's office," she mumbled, not looking Ochaco in the eye. It wasn't an outright lie—she did have to visit the kind, elderly nurse after her intense torture training session—but she felt the urge to keep her extra training a secret, though she didn't really understand why. It was more reflex than conscious thought, but now that she had spoken this half-truth, it seemed to want to twist her words and thoughts away from her control, and she didn't like that urge at all. It was rare that she felt like she could trust someone, and she hated that her memories were still haunting her, refusing to let her build her life as she wished it to be.
"Are you okay?" Ochaco looked worried, and murmurs rose from the rest of the class, too. It stung her a little that they cared; it was another reminder that people could be wonderful, and she was resentful, still, that wonderful people hadn't been around earlier when she'd really needed them.
She shook her head: now wasn't the time. "I'm fine. Just felt a little sick, but Recovery Girl gave me the all-clear." She plastered on a smile that she hoped was convincing.
They bought it and didn't ask her any more questions. She took her seat in the corner, next to Momo, who handed her the classwork she'd missed and a brief copy of her notes. Nakano thanked her quietly and promptly fell asleep on her desk, much to the other girl's dismay.
***
She woke up to absolute cacophony.
She'd slept past the bell, but the clamor of people outside the classroom was loud enough to shake her from her slumber. Ochaco yelped when they crowded around the doorway, blocking everyone from exiting.
"Wh-what's going on?!?"
"What business do you have with Class A?" Iida, stern as ever, adjusted his classes as he interrogated the crowd.
Mineta, the little purple punk, had more immediate concerns. "We can't get out! What'd you come here for, anyway?"
Bakugou walked confidently up to the crowd. "Scouting out the enemy, of course. We're the ones who made it out of the villains' attack. They probably wanna check us out before the Sports Festival. There's no point in doing stuff like that," he paused, menacing red eyes staring at someone at the front of the pack—a boy with elven ears whose face dripped with sweat from Bakugou's glare.
The class held its collective breath. What he said next would influence everyone's view of Class 1-A, regardless of whether or not they agreed with his statements.
"Out of my way, extras."
Damn.
"Stop calling people 'extras' just because you don't know them!" Iida fumed, hands chopping up and down.
A new voice cropped up from the back of the crowd. Nakano saw a familiar shock of purple hair. "I came to see what the famous Class A was like, but you seem pretty arrogant." Shinsou's cool voice floated over the ruckus. "Are all the students in the hero course like this?"
Everyone behind Bakugou began rapidly shaking their heads, as if they could shake off his bad first impression like a dog shedding water.
"Seeing something like this makes me disillusioned." He rubbed the back of his neck tiredly, and Nakano was almost glad that she wasn't within his line of sight. He might call her out individually, in front of her classmates and all these other people, and that would be near-unbearable. But maybe he was still inclined to small kindnesses, like midnight katsudon and sitting near someone who was alone at dinner. Maybe she wasn't being fair.
"There are quite a few people who enrolled in General Studies or other courses because they didn't make it into the hero course," he continued, and the crowd let him speak for them. "Did you know that?"
Bakugou growled, but Shinsou was undeterred.
"The school has left those of us a chance. Depending on the results of the Sports Festival, they'll consider our transfer into the Hero Course." Nakano saw Midoriya and others stare in shock; this was the first time they'd heard this information. But the graduating numbers of heroes had always seemed to waver between 30-40 students, depending on the class—and there were already 40 students, not counting her, in the first year Hero Course. Surely they wouldn't take any more? Unless...
"And it seems they may also transfer people out." Shinsou's eyes narrowed.
Ah, that explains things.
"Scouting out the enemy?" he scoffed. "I, at least, came to say that even if you're in the Hero Course, if you get too carried away, I'll sweep your feet out from under you. I came with a declaration of war."
"Hey, hey!" A boy with silver hair and long, pale eyelashes interrupted the brewing tension in the room. "I heard you fought against villains, so I came to hear 'bout it! Don't get so full of yourself! If you bark too much, it'll be embarrassing for you durin' the real fight! You ignorin' me, bastard?" This last part was aimed at Bakugou, who'd turned and started walking away. Bakugou didn't deign to answer.
A worried Kirishima rushed up to block his path. "Wait a minute, Bakugou! What are you going to do about all this? It's your fault that everyone's hating on us!"
Unperturbed in the least, Bakugou turned with a blank face. "It doesn't matter," he drawled in that lazy way of his.
"Huh?" Kirishima sputtered. "What-"
"It doesn't matter as long as you rise to the top," Bakugou interrupted him. And then, sparing a final look at Shinsou, he turned to leave. "And I will be at the top."
The class broke out into heated conversation, but the crowd at the door gradually dissipated. Nakano waited until they were all gone before she left the room. She thought about how reckless Bakugou had been, and Shinsou, too. How could they afford to be so careless about whom they spoke to? Weren't they scared that one of those students might be a spy, might grow disillusioned with how hero society operated and decide to take matters into their own hands? It wasn't unheard of—vigilantes were everywhere, people who had wanted to become Heroes at some point in their youth but had given up from a slew of life factors. Weren't they the least bit afraid that someone might nurse a grudge until it grew too wild and too potent to maintain and had to be unleashed? They made themselves into targets almost unthinkingly, and it was something that Nakano had never understood about people like them and perhaps never will. She couldn't imagine that kind of life. In her experience, big mouths and fat egos only ever spawned more trouble, and she was thoroughly tired of trouble.