If there were two things that Izuku Midoriya would say that he didn't expect when he stepped foot into Yuuei, one answer he would give would be the hectic ride it had been so far.
From Villain attack to attacking the Villains, written and theoretical class to eventual Hero-course class, and internships to apprenticeships, he could safely say that he hadn't expected his first year to be such a string of events that grew more and more hectic each time he stepped foot out of the school that was now his home. Her knew that the Hero Course at Yuuei was the number one for a reason, but he certainly hadn't appreciated just how it had gotten that reputation until now.
The second answer would be romance. He hadn't entered Yuuei looking for a romance, but he'd found plenty of it happening both around him, and to him.
Briefly, he thought that he had a thing for his friend Uraraka, until he eventually came to the conclusion that he was just a mess around girls in general, and that one could probably put him in a room with any member of the direct opposite sex, and he'd end up as the flustered idiot that most of his class had of him for the first half of the year. Outside of himself though, many people seemed to be finding their respective romances with one another, connecting with their peers on a deeply emotional level. Momo Yaoyorozu and Itsuka Kendo were one such couple, and Kacchan and Uraraka ended up being another. There were other couples, even a few that ended up originating outside the school.
Hectic-ness and romance. If Izuku had to say which one he'd ended up with dealing with more, he would sigh.
And say both.
He couldn't even say for sure that he knew how it happened. It just sort of did, and he got dragged along for the ride, initially anyway. Of course, as time had gone on, he'd grown to fully embrace the madness that his life had become enveloped in, but he couldn't recall exactly how he'd been dragged into said insanity.
Really, all he fully remembered was that he had been training, as hard as he could, when it happened.
Izuku leapt from artificial cliff to artificial cliff, throwing out a series of kicks aimed at the targets set up betwixt said cliffs, trying to improve his accuracy. Just about everyone else in his class had left hours ago, retiring after exhaustion had caught up to them, and they had decided that they couldn't be any more prepared until they had gotten some rest.
Not him though. His new Shoot Style technique was very much in its infancy, and he had a long, long, long way to go before he could claim that it was anything close to ready. He was already behind on everyone else when it came to developing a 'Super Move', and he didn't want to fall behind any further.
There were only a few days to go before he and the others would find themselves at the Provisional Licence Examinations, and if he wanted to have any hopes at passing at all, he needed to be a thousand times more ready than he currently was. He counted himself lucky that Cementoss had left so many of his artificial cliffs up from the session a few hours ago – It left him with two great spots to practice site-to-site leaping.
Setting up a few targets made off the shattered rocks that had been scattered around during the days training, he found himself trying to land solid strikes on targets that were much smaller than was the standard Cementoss was making. It doubled as both good practice for getting used to Shoot Style, and as honing his precise targeting for it.
He still had a long way to go. But he was proud of the progress that he had been making. He took a moment when he was back at ground level to look at the pile of shattered and ground-up rocks that had previously been his targets, and felt a twinge or pride.
A small smile emerged on his lips.
"Yo, you must… Really hate rocks."
The sudden, unexpected arrival of a new voice almost made Izuku trip up on the spot that he was stood on. He could have sworn that his heart made an effort to escape from his ribcage, he was that surprised – He had been certain that he'd been alone!
"W-Wha – "
"Easy, dude." The person who's voice was feminine, originated from behind him Izuku realized. He turned on his heels immediately, and found himself opposite some girl he'd never me before. A girl who had hair as green as his was, and a slightly darker green full-body costume, adorned with scales that seemed to be designed to look like those of a lizards. Going along with all of that, she also opted with a face-mask, to go around her green eyes. "I ain't gonna bite'cha. Lenny might though."
"L-Lenny? I-Is someone else here?"
"Nah. Lenny's my pet lizard."
"You brought a lizard in here?"
"Nah. He's at home. But he'll get your scent and find ya."
Izuku blinked.
"Too much, gotcha." The girl noted, holding her arms half up as if to fake a surrender. "My bad. Didn't really expect anyone else in here, never mind someone not from my class." She paused, before peering at Izuku closer, before running her mouth a mile a minute. "Hey, wait, aren't you the bone breaking super strong mentally insane rapid mumbling note taking jumping round shouty God damn you run into a lot of shit man?
"….What?"
"Aren't you Izuku Midoriya?" She said, apparently considering that to be a repetition of what she just said.
"I… Y-Yeah." Izuku confirmed, honestly not completely certain of what was going on right now. This girl didn't seem hostile in any way. She was friendly enough, and socially adept enough to just stroll up and start a conversation, but she was…. Insanely forward, to say the absolutely least. She made people like Ashido and Hagakure seem formal in comparison.
"Neatness! Names Setsuna Tokage! Setsuna's fine! As is Sets, Suna, and ST!" The hyper girl held her hand out for Izuku to shake.
"…Tokage then." Izuku said, accepting her handshake.
Whereupon her arm seemed to just pop off of the rest of her torso.
For a moment, Izuku didn't even react. There was now a completely disconnected arm in his hand, and he didn't even know how, or what, he was supposed to be reacting to. His eyes went wider, but that was about it. Shock prevented him from doing much else.
"Dude." Setsuna said, looking at him plainly. "Rude."
"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Finally reacting to what had happened, Izuku leapt back, screamed, and dropped the arm in abject horror. His brain was racing with about a billion thoughts, none of which were coherent or made even the least bit of sense. He was far, far, far, far, far too freaked out to be thinking rationally in any capacity.
There wasn't even the slightest hint of pain in any way on Setsuna's part. More than anything, she just looked completely non-pulsed, and confused. ""Yikes. Sorry. I... Kind of expected the reputed badass to... Not fall apart like that. It was just me trying to be a n-ice breaker. I can stop if you want"
"...N-Ice breaker?"
"Puns. Sorry. It's like an impulse."
She walked over and picked up her own arm, and seemed to reattach it to her torso without issue. A squelching sound could be heard as it re-merged with the flesh of her body.
"It's my Quirk dude. It lets me remove limbs and then reattach them." The girl explained. "S'Not exactly anything awesome, but I can scare the hell outta people with it, so I've got that going for me." She smirked as she spoke.
The analyst in Izuku took a short while to actually start working, but when it did, he found himself considering various uses for the Quirk, although his list basically started with hand to hand combat, and ended with distractions. While he did believe that every Quirk had the capacity to be useful, he struggled to think of many ways self-limb dismemberment could be helpful in the field.
Then again, one could say the same thing about One For All. A Quirk that rendered its user unable to do anything after just a few attacks, and had to focus on actually learning on how not to be garbage when it came to using his newfound powers was probably not anyone else's idea of an ideal Quirk. So It wasn't like he had any real right to talk.
Martial arts, and escape tactics would be the first thing that he considered. Inherently, it would have to be a close-Quarters-Combat Quirk. If this girl could also maintain her control over her disjoined limbs, that would be something that she could utilize a whole lot more. It seemed more likely that that wasn't the case though, as he would have felt it moving when he held it, which would mean her Quirk was a lot more limited. As he thought earlier, it was probably good for making escapes and then counterattacking, but he couldn't help but think that any counter would be limited since one limb was already detached. Perhaps the element of surprise would be enough to get an advantage over her opponents, so long as they didn't know her Quirk.
Still, how would one even train a Quirk like this? That was what he found himself considering the most. Would she just practice tearing her limbs off, or was there something more intricate going on?
"Huh. So there's the mumble thing I've heard about."
Izuku looked up at Setsuna, and then realized that his index finger and thumb were perched atop his chin. His cheeks tinted a slightly pink shade. Had he been muttering all of that?
Setsuna didn't seem too much like it bothered her. If anything, she looked amused. "You're weird. Well, weirder than I was told." There wasn't any malice in what she said. Again, she seemed to find this whole situation entertaining as opposed to mortifying. "I train my Quirk basically via conditioning, in case you wanted an answer to that mutter storm." She said, holding her arm up at arm's length. "I detach them, get used to functioning with just one, practice a few attacks, that sort of thing. Plus, I try to slow down how long it takes for the limbs to reattach. Reaction too. Trap an arm, detach it, then reattach it to escape. The special move I'm working on is basically shooting it from my body. Like a fleshy ballistic missile."
"I… I see."
"Gotta say, you're a lot… Meeker than your reputation makes you seem."
"M-My reputation?"
"You kind of owned the Sports Festival in that fight with the icy-hot dude. Pretty sure everyone in the school at least knows who you are. And most people kind of expect you to be a complete badass. And… Well…"
"…I'm not?"
"You want the honest answer, or the one that'll make you feel better?"
Honestly, Izuku could have laughed. That was pretty much what he had expected people around him to consider from day one. No one could doubt the confidence that he'd gained from the beginning of the year, not even himself, but deep down, he was still that kind of awkward dork that he was when he first stepped foot into Yuuei. Despite that, he never expected to be reputed as a 'badass' in any respect. Frankly, he was surprised that he was able to hold a conversation wit this girl, even if it was mostly one-sided.
"S… So." He said, shaking his head. "Are you just in here for extra training?"
"Pretty much, yeah. Compared to everyone else, my Quirk isn't all that impressive, so I kinda figured it could do with a bit more work." She chuckled. "If only Itsu could see me now. She'd be so proud."
"Itsu?"
"Kendo. From my class."
"Ah."
"Yeah. She's the one who kept telling me to do extra when I fell behind. Damn pretty girls. They know I can't say no to them." She paused, and smirked. "No, she's not my girlfriend if that's what you're wondering."
"I-I never even asked."
"Just covering all bases." Setsuna grinned again. "Say, I don't suppose you're up for some joint training?"
"Joint training?"
"Hell yeah. Like, I dunno, testing out how we fare against each other, trying out special moves, that kinda thing I feel like it'd be kinda fun to go up against someone with your rep."
There was sense to what she suggested – Training against another person would do him a lot more good than it would against a bunch of inanimate rocks. It would give him the chance to see how his new style worked against someone who was fighting back, and would give him better experience and practice against future opponents with the same sorts of powers as her.
The chance to have a training partner from 1B was also welcome – He hadn't gotten many opportunities to work with members of his sister class before now.
It was weird. Normally, when in a scenario where he'd have to interact with a girl like this, he would be a nervous, blushing mess, unable to even speak. Not with this girl though. She moved as such a breakneck pace, he didn't even have the time to be embarrassed. She just jumped from one thing to another, and he couldn't even register a moments fluster before the next topic was being thrown at him.
If nothing else, it was endearing. He smiled, and nodded. "Sure!"
That had all been a year ago, and he hadn't known it at the time, but that was what Setsuna was going to call their first date. Retroactively, of course.
Setsuna wasn't the kind of person who messed around when she was interested in someone, or something. Izuku learned that she would always jump into things, and just ask. And she claimed that she had decided that Izuku would be interesting to get to know, even though Izuku wasn't entirely certain if that was true or not. Truthfully, Setsuna could be a bit much sometimes, and he found it difficult to keep up with her a lot of the time. She jumped from topic to topic, and that hadn't changed since.
Loud snoring could be heard from around his chest, which was where Setsuna had made herself comfortable. Drool soaked into his shirt where her mouth was. In the time since he'd known her, he learned Setsuna was a flirt, or, in her words, a 'flirtasauous Rex.' And flirted with just about anyone who fell into her field of vision, regardless of their gender or identity. Mostly girls, but that didn't bother Izuku. He was of course, the most common recipient of these flirtations, and Setsuna's constant efforts to make him blush.
One could pay him and he wouldn't be able to say when exactly they started dating. Setsuna said it was the moment he agreed to do joint training with her. Izuku couldn't say for certain – All he knew was that they had gotten more and more comfortable together over time, and this had been the end result.
Setsuna Tokage was a hectic, hyperactive, lizard-and-dinosaur obsessed dork. She was his girlfriend.
He couldn't help but smile. She was a hyperactive mess and he wouldn't prefer it any other way.
This was honestly kind of a... Interesting one to make to say the least. Primarily I made this because speaking to DominoMags and a childhood friend AU where these two were buddies who boosted each other in getting to be better Heroes in a non-romantic setting, I got interested in playing with a romantic setting, mostly because of how they were. So I made this to get the idea out of my head while in Croatia. If nothing else, it's confirmed to me that they don't work as a pair, at least not in my opinion, because of how hyperactive Setsuna is in it - Mina is hyper, sure, but she can tone it back when she needs to. Plus, SetsuJirou and Izumina.
I played around with Setsuna being Bi/Pan here, cause i honestly like the idea. I also played with her liking Itsuka, since that's a pretty close second for me when compared to SetsuJirou, and its probably one i wanna do more with soon. I also don't think bi/pansexuality would be a remote concern for Izuku when dealing with someone who he is involved in romantically, and i wanted to portray that. I don't do that with Mina because I don't think she is, so i did it here, and... Well, I'm not sure how it went. Frankly im not sure how this entire oneshot went. It's mostly a "Get it out of my head" deal. So, here it is. I hope you somehow managed to enjoy it. (Now lets wait a few weeks to learn just how wrong about Setsuna's Quirk I am.)
