I don't own My hero academia or any of it's characters.
I just want to say before we begin, thank you so much for all the support for the story even if it's only two chapters into the story and 88 favourites as of the time that I am writing this, also I want to apologise for this taking so long to update as I was having problems as I had released a chapter for another story and was debating whether I should delete the bad attempt at the story or if I should carry on with it. I have come to a decision of deleting it, not that that matters right now. Anyway I hope you enjoy this chapter!
"What? What do you mean no, I thought that you would want for me to be free from Kacchan and everything he does! Is that not what you want?" The look on Izuku's face almost broke Inko's resolve at that very second but she knew that she had to get Izuku to understand why it was that she wanted Izuku to stay in his class, at least for the rest of the year so that he could learn to stand up for himself instead of running from his problems no matter how bad young Katsuki may be. While, she did agree that Izuku did deserve another chance at friendship with new people as well as with being with people that were at Izuku's intelligence level.
"Izuku I understand that you and Katsuki are having lots of problems since the rumour spread that you might not have a Quirk about a year ago but you have to understand that since then we have had confirmation that you aren't Quirkless. Surely that means that you and Katsuki can settle your differences and stop this endless hatred that you share. I know that you aren't on the best of terms right now and from the way that you turned up today I can tell that things might be worse than ever but I want you to at least try and make up with him before the year is over, that is all I want you to do. If you can make it up with him then I will allow you to move up to a year or so up if that is still what you want with your life, however, if I find that you have made no effort to talk to him then you won't be moving up until you have." Izuku's eyes were wide as he looked at his mother a look of complete shock on his face at what it was that he was expected to do in the limited time of the rest of the school year. How was he supposed to be something that sounded as impossible as that in only 7 months?
"H-How? What do you expect me to do in the time that I have? You know what Kacchan is like he is as stubborn as they come I doubt that anything less than a miracle could convince him that I'm not just some useless punching bag that he can just use." Inko' eyebrows rose at this, she knew that Izuku's current relationship with the explosion user wasn't great but she didn't realise that it was so bad that it could be described in such a way by someone who usually saw the best in everyone no matter who they were. "But... But I guess if this is the only way to get you to agree then I guess that I will do it however, could you throw me a bone and at least send in the request now so that it has less chance for being rejected or anything like that because it was late?" Inko gave her son a nod which caused his face to brighten up from his current facial expression before he rushed over giving his mother a hug before rushing off to his room to make plans for how he was going to complete his goal in making Katsuki Bakugou his friend.
This left a smiling Inko happy that she had made a way to force Izuku to stand up for him self and not allow himself to be pushed around like she knew that he did for Katsuki, a boy who Inko had once called a second son because of his close friendship with her son as well as liking the small boy herself. That opinion of him had steadily changed as she saw Izuku walk in from school day after day with burns on his body which she had known had come from the young boys newly found Quirk. However, unlike her son she knew that the main reason that the boy lashed out at Izuku was that it was because he was upset that Izuku, once his closest friend had been made a social outcast. This had forced the young boy into forcing all his pent up anger at his once friends situation onto Izuku himself. Then when it was found out that Izuku had, had a Quirk all along Inko knew that Katsuki felt one of two emotions. Either he felt betrayed by Izuku for not telling him that he had a Quirk, something which Izuku himself hadn't known at the time when all the bullying had started. Or the young boy had felt angry at himself for separating himself from his closest friend for something that wasn't true and had pushed that anger on Izuku like before thus increasing the bullying on her son and further separating the two boys with either one of the two options causing this outcome.
That was why her plan would not only cause Izuku to stand up for himself and gain some self confidence that even Inko herself could see which was pretty incredible seing as she has often been accused of being self conscious and having a low self esteem but Izuku's was lower than hers by miles because of what had happened to him. The plan would also cause Katsuki to stop pushing his anger onto Izuku thus maybe allowing Katsuki to face his own problems and become like he once was the small lovable young boy that Inko had once known. She could only hope that it would all work and Izuku wouldn't give up on it all like she feared that he would, however, Inko could hope that his martial arts training can increase his self confidence enough to be able to do follow her plan like she hoped that she would. That was something that Inko could be thankful from what has happened today as she could hope that it would be a good thing for her son to learn to fight and to be taught by someone that he looked up to like he did with all heroes.
With Izuku
Izuku had spent the last ten minutes trying to come up with a plan to achieve what was expected of him, but even after all this time he had yet to find something that would work for the annoyingly stubborn boy that he had been tasked to befriend like they had once been. 'How am I expected to do this he hates me for a reason that I never actually got told? It just all came up out of the blue and never got explained to me.'
He had gone over every plan that he could come up with but nothing that he came up with would be good enough to work on the explosive boy, without his Quirk everything he could come up with was useless and terrible just like the deku he was. As much as he tried to ignore Kacchan's insults he knew that deep down he was right that without his Quirk he was just a useless nobody that spent most of his time in the library to make up for his lack of friends. This could change though, if Izuku was able to complete his part of the deal then he would be able to escape from his current class and life and be able to find new friends that he wouldn't of met otherwise something that he was extremely excited about. Even if he had to do the impossible to get to that point Izuku knew that he would be able to do it and reach the goal that he wanted to achieve he only had to wait for his Quirk to come back after it's hopefully temporary switch off after the extreme usage a couple hours ago. In the mean time Izuku made his way to his bed hoping to get a good rest hoping that it might allow his Quirk to come back quicker and be back in the morning so that he could come up with a plausible plan. And hey maybe after school tomorrow he could go to his first lesson of martial arts with the retired hero, Crimson Riot.
when he awoke he carried on his normal routine of shower, dressed, breakfast, teeth then finally school. He didn't know why but he was desperately trying to avoid confronting what it is that he needs to do to achieve his goal for the year, befriend Kacchan. Every time he went to use his Quirk he stopped himself when he felt the time dilatation taking hold not allowing for his mind to come up with a plan in the split second that he gave it at a time. 'Why can't I do this I know that I have to and I know that it will help me get what I want out of next year, a new start with new friends. Yet I still can't do it. What's wrong with me!' In his haste to ignore what it was that he had planned to do in the morning had finished his daily routine an hour early and was thus left with lots of free time to sit around and do nothing. This made it all the worse for him as he had nothing to take his mind off of everyhthing.
"Izuku are you ready for school already? Normally your not ready for a while, does this mean you already have a plan for what we talked about yesterday." Inko saw the look on her sons face and knew that he hadn't, "What's wrong Izuku you look terrible? What I asked of you wasn't that hard was it you were friends once surely you can be friends again?" Izuku felt bad he knew that his mother meant well but he seriously doubted that no matter what plan that he would be able to come up with he would never be able to rekindle the friendship with Kacchan at any level let alone what she is hoping that he can achieve in the space of 7 months which whilst a long time for someone his age he knew that in the long run it wasn't enough time to be able to do what he was being asked, although he doubted any stretch of time would help him to do it something he wasn't going to tell his mother in fear that she would stop him from moving up like he wanted.
"I- I don't have a plan yet and I don't plan on getting one until after school where I can discuss it with Crimson Riot if that is alright with you mum, I want an outside opinion from someone that I know that I can trust to give me advice. It isn't that I don't trust you it is just that well I feel like you are going overboard in your request so that you can try and keep me in that year either by me failing and not being allowed to move up or me passing and suddenly my friendship is back to how you want it to be and I don't want to leave my once best friend." Inko only looked sadly at her son hurt that he believed that she was only thinking about ways top keep him down and not ways to bring him up further than he could get otherwise. "Is this ok with you?" Izuku's tone of voice was timid and nervous as he obviously felt scared that he had inadvertently offended his own mother which hadn't been his aim at all.
"I don't see anything wrong with that only that you take your own thoughts as well as mine into consideration and not just do as Crimson Riot says as even if he is a hero it's about what's best for you not what would be best for him." Izuku nodded at this before noticing the time and that it was 5 minutes until school started which meant that if he didn't run now then he would be late for school.
"Hey mum gotta run thank you for allowing me to go see Crimson Riot after school and for talking to me I hope that I can come up with a way of doing it so that I can achieve what you feel I can. I will see you later and I might ask Crimson Riot to take me home depending on what time that I will be leaving his martial arts dojo. See ya!" With that Izuku sped off out the door in the direction of his school.
School that day was incredibly dull as Izuku could only concentrate on what he was doing after school, however although he found it boring he still couldn't help himself from glancing over at Kacchan every couple seconds. It got so bad that Kacchan noticed after only half an hour into the first lesson! This caused Izuku very little issues though as Kacchan and his group seemed to still be considering if they should approach him from the beat down from yesterday. Izuku could only hope that this could last until he has a plan to get in Kacchan's favour again like his mother seems to want from him. The most he got of a reaction was a few harsh glares and a slightly violent shoulder bump when he walked past him in the halls. It seemed that after yesterdays commotion it had put Kaccahn completely off picking on anyone while Izuku was in sight as he never went anywhere near any of his old victims when Izuku was out for break with them.
When school ended Izuku rushed straight out of the room making a beeline for the martial arts gym ignoring the questioning looks he was receiving from all his classmates for their usually reserved classmate pushing past everyone to run down the hall as fast as he could. However, if Izuku had taken the time to look back he would of seen the look on Katsuki Bakugou's face showing a look of confusion and curiosity at Izuku's change in behaviour over the course of the day. At first Bakugou had put all of Izuku's staring as a way for Izuku to rack up the courage to apologise for what he had done yesterday as he did for anything that included bringing harm to anyone, swhich had been one of the things that had annoyed Bakugou about Izuku. Yet by the time lunch ended Bakugou could tell that it was more than that as normally by that time he would of gained the courage to do that but he was still giving Bakugou quite as much looks but still made no attempt to go up to him.
During the day Bakugou hadn't wanted to confront the emerald haired boy as not only could it damage his reputation in the school because of his record of being very anti-Deku. Also the fact that he wasn't sure how he would react with how Izuku had held himself slightly better as if he had gained confidence from their fight yesterday and Bakugou wasn't sure if that extra confidence would cause him to attack if he gets near. Bakugou knew that really he needn't worry as he knew from the young boy that he had once been friends with would never be like that no matter what sort of confidence boost he faced, as when they had been friends Izuku would hardly hurt a fly on purpose let alone a person. Despite all this Bakugou still didn't approach his childhood friend preferring to watch how it all played out with Izuku and what it was that the boy wanted from him.
Back with Izuku
Izuku was now only around the corner from the gym approaching it quickly, he had run the whole way which whilst impressive for his age it had been a large test to his energetic personality, that he reserved for those he knew. Once he reached the small building he found the door already open and a welcoming sight of Crimson Riot having laid out different martial arts equipment from bo staffs and escrima sticks to shuriken's and throwing knives. Next to each of the different weapons was what looked like a specialised training equipment with sharper weapons like katana's having a thick wooden pole to attack instead of the blunter weapons normal punching bags. Walking in the building Izuku found that there was a lot more to it than what he saw from the door. To the right there was a large bundle of objects in a circle with a sign 'Quirk Training' which was probably designed to increase Izuku's limit to how much he can focus on during his Quirk usage. On the left was a small fighting area that was probably only 5 metres by 5 metres.
Altogether the whole room looked completely cramped but he could tell that Crimson Riot had spent a lot of time making something specifically designed for him which was something appreciated even if his main reason for coming today wasn't to learn martial arts but to get his advice. "Ahhh Izuku I see that you ran her, you must really be eager to start you're training. But first I was told earlier that you have something that you want to talk about to me. What do you need?" Izuku took a deep breath trying to concentrate on what it is that he wants to say to the large ex-hero.
"After you left I asked my mum if I could move up a year or two in school like I talked to you about and she said that for her to agree to it then I would have to try and become friends or make up with the boy that we were talking about when you left. She says that I need to try and be friends with him like we used to be, how does she expect me to do that with the boy that had bullied me for years?" Izuku looked over at Crimson Riot and was surprised to find his face unreadable and even with the help of his Quirk Izuku was unable to pick up any signs of emotion on his face. "I wanted to ask you what it is that you think I should do here and whether I should still go through with it. I've come to you hoping for an outsiders perspective on it all."
The look on Crimson Riot's face didn't display the feelings that he was currently feeling nor the ideas that were floating around in his head. The experienced man was trying to think of a reason why a woman like Inko would want her son to try and make friends with his childhood bully despite the fact that he was so bad to him. He could see that it had positives such as forcing Izuku to stand up for himself against someone that he was obviously afraid of but he couldn't tell if that would be a good enough reason for Inko Midoriya to ask such a thing from her son. The both of them stood there in silence for several minutes both lost in their thoughts to notice the silence was even there. Finally ending the silence Crimson Riot spoke up, "I think that your mother is trying to help you in the long run so yes I think that you should do this , however, I won't be giving you any support in this situation other than martial arts training as we have already agreed on, I believe what is being asked of you would be done better on your own if you take the time to come up with a plan to do it.
Izuku wasn't sure whether to feel annoyed or not from the fact that he wasn't going to get any help in his plan, he had come here expecting a more supportive and helpful meetin only for him to get told that he was left to do it on his own. Izuku knew that he had to accept it though as he doubted someone that acted as hard headed as Crimson Riot, judging from his hero days, would have his opinion changed particularly easily. "So then if you're not going to help me then can we get on with this lesson then as everything seems extremely well prepared to fit me and my Quirk so you probably spent a while getting it all ready." This earned a nod from Crimson Riot who then walked over to the center where all the weapons were lined up on the floor for selection, he motioned Izuku to follow him with his hand which Izuku gladly did.
"Right Izuku I want you to choose four weapons here, I have some sort of competency in all of them however, if you get to a level that is beyond where I am then I will call in a favour with another hero that has more high level training to help you master these weapons." This made Izuku's eyes to go wide with amazement. 'How am I expected to learn four different weapons when I don't even know how to fight without one, and now that I think about it I thought that weapons were usually introduced to more advanced martial arts students instead of beginners. What was he doing?' Crimson quickly carried on with his speech wanting to get his point across more. "I expect you to have a level of competency with all of these weapons by the time you start you're next school year as well as having semi-mastered my version of martial arts that I will be teaching you. If you don't then I won't be bringing in someone who has a Quirk that allows him to have the same sort of advantages in a fight until the same time the year after. I hope this will inspire you to do well even if I am giving as little time as I am."
"W-What how do you expect me to do all that AND do what my mum asked me to do? Don't you think that you're expecting a little much from me?" Crimson Riot only gave a shrug of his shoulders and then waved his arm to the collection of weapons that were available. Giving up Izuku made his way to the large collection of weapons admiring each one as he passed it, he was looking for a weapon that wasn't sharp as he didn't want to cause bleeding of his enemies as he knew that while it would weaken enemies it would give him a bad public image if he went around cutting enemies up. This led him to the blunt and ranged weapons parts of the collection, this was because he wanted something that would cause damage but not as obvious damage. Also if his enemies didn't bleed from his weapons it would be easier to use stealth to his advantage as he left less evidence, which suited his Quirk well which required stealth and analysis of targets to make himself most effective.
Looking through all the options Izuku decided that he should probably have at least one ranged weapon so that he could have more variety in his fighting style and more options for his Quirk to work off. Looking through the ranged options he had two options in his mind at the moment, he either wanted to use a boomerang as it gave him many options in combat with it's many applications or a Kunai knife with it's quick usage and it being a quicker and straight to the point weapon. Leaving that debate for later he moved on to look at the blunt weapons, out of all of those he had decided that it was between three weapons. It was the eskrima sticks with it's quicker fighting style yet still quite long range, another option was a longer range Hanbo staff allowing longer range yet less mobility. Lastly, was the bo staff that had an even longer range but had less accuracy with it's swings if not used properly. What was it that Izuku wanted out of his weapons, did he want speed or range; power or accuracy; versatility or ease of use. Izuku immediately put away with the idea that he wanted power as he wasn't the most physically strong thus if he had to rely on power then he would be at a large disadvantage. This allowed him to rule out the Bo staff as it was just a larger version of the Hanbo that gave more power over accuracy and speed.
"I think I've decided what it is I want to learn, I want to learn the Eskrima sticks, the Hanbo Staff, Kunai knives and boomerang. I believe that each one of these will give me lots of different options in what it is that I want to follow especially in the use of stealth like I believe my powers will work best in. What do you think are they the best idea?"
"I don't really know if what you chose is the best idea as my Quirk is fundamentally different to yours, so that means that I won't know what is best for your Quirks approach to fighting. However, I will ask you is this your final answer as I won't be letting you change weapon part way through this in an attempt to escape the training that you will go through to get better and stronger." Izuku only nodded not allowing himself to speak unsure whether his worry would stop himself and make him second guess himself. This however was all Crimson Riot needed as he cleared out all the other weapons leaving the four selected weapons and the unarmed station. "Next I want you to choose between what weapon you want to learn first as you will be doing three months on each of them thus I advise you to start with the ranged weapons as it will give you a quick journey into the importance in accuracy that you will learn with all the other weapons that you will come across. Which ranged weapon is up to you though."
This got Izuku thinking again, which one would be good for him to learn first? He knew that the boomerang would make him think more and would be more complicated to learn as it required him to learn trajectories and stuff that would allow it to curve back to him. In the end he knew that the Kunai was more useful for first time users to use, also it was smaller and more compact allowing for it to be hidden easier for more stealthy approaches in hand to hand combat. "I think I'll choose the Kunai knives first it seems like the best one to use when it comes to accuracy like you are telling me to work on."
"Good Choice, let's get to work."
Thanks for reading and sorry again that the update was so late I have been preparing for exams at school and trying out new ideas for fanfiction(Which I quickly scrapped and trying again after a failed attempt). Thus I haven't had much time to update this story and have only really added to the future plot for when Izuku ages a couple years and the sort. Anyway Hope you enjoyed and thank you to everyone that reviewed last chapter and to those that are complaining about the first chapter I am planning on fixing it so that it is no longer a big mess of endless words and is more readable like I've been trying to do these last couple chapters.
~DarkShadow54~