The battle with Snatch had e to an end, and the Kaminari family's life had returo normal.

  Kaminari resumed his daily routitending school as usual and silently cramming to finish his homework. Although his grades had always been exceptional, he still felt the o sharpen his skills for bat.

  Well... there was more. He still had to make time to prepare new songs while also guiding Snat developing his Quirk. Overall, his days were packed.

  As for his parents, his mom tiaking care of the housework while drawing one Pokémon after another, while his dad led the pany's middle and senior ma to work on a pn called the "Pokémon IP Physical Industry Cluster."

  In simpler terms, if this pn succeeded, cepts like "Pokémon-themed restaurants" and "Pokémon-themed schools" would begin to appear in everyone's lives.

  Kaminari's father even harbored an ambitious dream: to build a Pokémon-themed amusement park someday!

  In short, Kaminari and his family were determio squeeze every st drop of value out of "Pokémon."

  But because of this, Kaminari hesitated. He wondered whether he should introduother intellectual property (IP).

  The reason for his hesitation was simple: he felt his pany shouldn't rely solely on one IP. However, seeing how busy his parents were now, he worried he wouldn't be able to manage a sed one.

  He uood the importance of taking things step by step, but it recisely because he uood this that it made him feel flicted. Still, for Kaminari, these were just small worries that cropped up in his free time.

  After all, who told him to have so mu his pte?

  Meanwhile, as time passed, the story of his battle with Snatch began to spread steadily within Japan's Hero circles.

  It went without saying that this was the work of the Hero assistants at Midnight's office. Whether this attention was good or bad for Kaminari remaio be seen.

  Three days ter, the midterm exams arrived.

  Sihere were no practical test pos this time, apart from going to the cafeteria during lunch, the students spent the day in their s, creating a temosphere.

  At 2:10 iernoon, the familiar chime of the bell rang throughout U.A. High, signaling the start of the final exam: Hero Basiformation Sce.

  Their homeroom teacher, Aizawa, walked down from the podium, yawning zily as he gave instrus.

  "Time's up. Start colleg the papers. Pass them forward like always."

  True to form, Aizawa hadn't invigited the exam. Instead, he'd sprawled on the podium and hroughout. Yet strangely enough, no one in Css 1-A had dared to cheat.

  Once Aizawa left the room with the collected papers, Kirishima's loud voice broke the silence.

  "It's over! I'm doomed! I couldn't answer nearly a third of the questions, and ahird I'm not even sure if I ght!"

  "Does that mean you're banking everything o third?" Sero teased, looking over at him with mock pity.

  Well, Sero was no academiius himself. In fact, several other students shared simir struggles.

  It's worth mentioning that passing U.A.'s entrance exam already meant their grades in middle school had been solid. At the very least, they weren't the kind of students you'd call hopeless cases. But who could've predicted the difficulty would jump so much after enrolling at U.A.?

  "Yeah… the st third was mostly fill-in-the-bnk questions. Luckily, I've always had good fortuh those, so I should be able to get half of them right," Kirishima said with a self-satisfied grin.

  Sero aetsu stared at him bnkly.

  "So you're proud of that, huh? You idiot," Bakugo said, gring at him with open disdain.

  Meanwhile, the top students—Kaminari, Momo, Todoroki, Iida, and Midoriya—quietly pared answers with one another.

  As usual, Todoroki remained silent due to his reserved nature. And Bakugo? Well, everyone uood his personality by now.

  Kaminari quickly piled their answers into a chart. It was something he'd doer every exam.

  "Based on this, I think I got six wrong. What about you guys?"

  Though slightly disappointed in himself, Kaminari uood his ret distras had affected his performance.

  Midoriya studied the chart, then admitted with a bit ret, "Seven for me." He silently vowed to study harder and make sure he never disappointed All Might.

  "Two," Tenya reported, frowning slightly.

  "Three," Todoroki replied, his expression calm as always.

  "None," Momo said with a small smile.

  Kaminari hen hahe chart to the rest of the css. Before long, the erupted with wails of despair.

  Ign the chaos around him, Kaminari turo Momo and Kyoka, grinning. "My new song is almost ready. Tomorrow's Sunday—how about we meet up if you're free?"

  Kyoka's eyes lit up at the mention of a new song. She couldn't help it, this was her passion.

  "Should we invite Kazama too?" she asked nervously.

  Kaminari hesitated for a moment, not because of Kyoka's suggestion, but because he'd promised Kazama that he could join the band once he earned a provisional hero lise.

  Notig his hesitation, Momo quickly intervened. She had heard about this undecided band member before.

  "How about we set some terms with him? Joining us doesn't mean he has to participate in all future activities. And we don't have to include his name in the song credits."

  "If he's okay with those ditions, it'd be great to have a professional keyboard pyer, right?"

  Kaminari exged a gh Kyoka and finally nodded. "Alright. Tell him I'll test his skills tomorrow to see how much progress he's made."

  Kaminari's reasoning was simple: if Kazama had genuinely worked hard and improved, then he didn't miing closer as bandmates.

  After ing up the versation, he walked out with Kyoka and Momo.

  "Pika!"

  The sleepy Pikachu uhe table tilted its head and followed after Kaminari step by step. Its adorableness made the irls burn with envy. They all wanted such a cute pet.

  Stepping away from the noise, Kaminari stopped near a window and took out his phone.

  "Hello, Dr. Tenma. This is Kaminari."

  "Kaminari, what's up? Is there a problem with the suit?"

  "No, the suit's w great. But… I was w if we could add color-ging and unicatioures to the Nano Sand."

  However, Dr. Tenma's reply quickly dashed Kaminari's hopes.

  The doctor expihat the Nano Sand was designed specifically for bat, and adding unnecessary features would dilute its purpose. Moreover, the teical plexity of enabling such funs would be immense.

  In short, Kaminari's little wish wasn't feasible.

  Sighing, he hung up the call, disappoi clouding his face.

  "Guess I'll just have to focus ohat don't involve color-ging or talking," he muttered.

  But even then, he couldn't help w why he was so fixated oing a e. Wasn't it unnecessary? Pikachu could already trol the golden sands perfectly fine.

  Deep down, Kaminari probably uood this. But still… he just wanted a e that looked cool. Wasn't that reason enough?

  "All those big-shot vilins send out their minions first while they calmly watch everything from behind. I'll be like that one day too. When I run into some punk, I'll let my e ha first!"

  As Kaminari's imagination ran wild, his inner i spirit fred to life. Fire seemed to burn in his eyes as he decred to himself:

  "I must create a e!"