Hello All, welcome to the next chapter! I hope that you all enjoy... remember to give feedback / reviews I'm always excited to get reviews!

Many thanks for all the Favourite / follows!

I do not own BNHA, just Mika...

Chapter 20 – Tumble

"Oniichan?" Mika called out.

"Uhuh" Hizashi called back from where he was drying up the dishes from their dinner.

Mika had cooked and therefore it was his turn to clear away. That was normally how dinner time went for them anyway, they took it in turns. Hizashi hated cooking and he always tried to get Mika to do it, but she loved the way her Oniichan cooked chicken teriyaki and therefore they had to come to an agreement of sorts. Mika was sat in the lounge with the TV remote in her hand as she flicked over all the channels, not really watching what was coming on as she just flicked through them all. Her brain was too wired with all the stress and worry of training up for the Sports Festival.

She had been training alone all week, which was a contrast to how she had been training the week before. After the incident with the crowd outside their classroom, everyone had realised that even though they were a class, they would still be competing against each other in the festival and if their places in Class 1-A were being threatened by those who wanted to transfer into it, then they needed to up their game. Everyone had started training on their own, even Ochako had turned to Mika and thanked her for all her help but suggested not training together again.

It was odd for Mika. It was not something that she was used to at all. She had never ever been one to join in in her last school. Granted she hadn't attended long enough to make proper friends for she joined half way through a year and once everyone had already made their friendship groups. She had been left out of everything and had never been included. Therefore, training with everyone was something completely new to her and she had been thoroughly enjoying it.

She would be lying if she told herself she wasn't coming out of her shell. She knew it was happening and she could feel the lonely and lost child within her screaming at her to stop and to throw up her walls, but she just couldn't. She had let her first lines of defence down around so many of her Classmates now, so to have them stop training together and for her to then go it alone was a feeling she had never had to deal with before. She didn't like it, but she knew that it was the best way, and that they should all have realised to begin with. Yet there was a very large part of her that was sad that she couldn't train with her friends. She had enjoyed being around them all far too much and she was missing the camaraderie.

"You're still friends with the people you were in UA with, right?" She asked in an off handed tone. Her Brother paused what he was doing and looked over his shoulder to her through the door way. His eyes catching the way she was silently staring down at the remote in her hand with a worried look on her face.

"Yeah, why?" He hummed as he turned back to the sink before him waiting for her response.

"Just wandering" She mumbled back and that wasn't the answer he was hoping for.

"What's up, Kiddo?" He asked as he appeared in the doorway, his eyes narrowed in on her lost in thought expression.

"It's just… I don't know" She sighed, not really knowing how to voice her thoughts without making her sound like a moaning three-year-old that had had her favourite toy taken away from her.

"After the Sports Festival it will go back to normal" Hizashi smiled down at his sister, catching onto what he thought might have been the problem. He had noticed that she hadn't been training with her friends through the week and that she had been a little more like her old self because of it.

"I hope so, I was just getting used to them all…" She sighed.

He knew more than anyone the kind of pressure and strain the Sports Festival put on the students. He remembered going through them himself. He pushed off from the door frame and moved to playfully slap his gloved hand on her head. The suds from the washing up splattering across her black curls. She made an indignant noise before shoving him away with a half amused half exasperated expression.

"I like your friends" He chuckled down at her.

"Which ones?" She asked, peering up at him, with a look that was more childlike than he had ever seen her.

"All of them, because they are making you happy, and that's a green light in my book!" He insisted. "Although that Bakugou is a crazy mad kid"

"He's not that bad, if you know how to act around him" She snorted.

It was true really, she knew how to wind him up like an absolute treat, but she also knew how his brain worked. For hers worked kind of in a similar way, she thought. They both wanted to become the best heroes and to prove all those that thought they weren't suited to it wrong. They wanted to make their idols proud, and they wanted to be stronger, better and faster than everyone else. She understood him a little in that way and that was enough.

"If you say so, Kiddo" He rolled his eyes.

Mika strolled into the U.A school gym first thing before their Friday morning homeroom. She had made it with enough time to get 45 minutes on the treadmill and she had her mind set on keeping her pace up and maybe pushing for a faster last ten minutes to really wear her out.

She had shoved herself into her usual gym attire of black leggings with her green vest and sports bra. She had worked her mad crazy black curls into a braid that ran down to the back of her head and fell to the small of her back, her green ribbon knotted at the end of it. She had her headphones plugged into her ears, already playing music she knew she could set a good pace too, all the while humming to herself.

She hadn't realised anyone else was in the gym at all, so the fact that Midoriya was in the back corner curling some hefty weights didn't even cross her vision as she strode with purpose over to the running machine.

Mika jumped on and before the song she was listening to made the first chorus she was pressing at the buttons on the machine, trying to get started. She felt the treadmill beneath her start to roll, making her lurch into a slow walk. Once she got the pace up and she was slowly jogging she let her mind wander away from the treadmill screen before her, and into her own daydream.

She felt ready, she didn't feel all that nervous for the sports festival that was quickly encroaching, with it being only three days away. Mika wanted nothing more than to let her quirk really go at something, and the sports festival was the best place to do it. Her Oniichan had been keeping his mouth shut tight about what they would be facing in their festival, but she knew it was definitely going to be something that pushed her. She was ready for it though. All her life she had been training, improving, enhancing, adapting. Training for the sports festival was no different. She was good at channelling her mind to self-improvement for it was all she had drilled into her from an early age.

Nothing was perfect, there was always room for improvement.

…You're mine.

The voice of her Father flashed across her minds eye and she subconsciously started slamming her feet a little harder into the treadmill below her.

He had always looked at her like she wasn't complete, like there was something missing. She had spent her childhood chasing his back as he walked away from her. She thought that being better, stronger, faster, cleverer would make him turn back around and show her affection. Affection that she craved, but never ever got. He pushed her constantly, always telling her she needed to improve, that her moves weren't perfect, that her quirk wasn't quite there yet. It had driven her up the wall then, and the left over need to be better was what drove her mad even now.

She huffed and slammed her fist onto the button to pick up the pace, and she started full pelt running. She knew she wouldn't be able to keep up the sprint for long, not without the help of her quirk, but that wasn't what she wanted now.

She wanted to feel her pathetic leg muscles burning, she wanted to feel her chest heaving and her lungs calling for a break. She wanted her head to thrum with the effort, because then she knew she was giving her all, then she knew that she was close to being better, faster, stronger.

Is that all that you've got…

Mika heard her Fathers voice in her head once more. She slammed her fist down once more, her breaths ripping out from her chest now as she sprinted to keep up with the treadmill. The song blaring through her headphones drones out into the background too, which would normally be impossible granted how loud she loves to listen to her music whilst in the gym. The words of the tune were disappearing out of her concentration as she pictures herself running laps of the stone garden of the main house she used to call home.

She could hear her Father shouting at her.

Then she could hear the voices of all the people that had ever doubted her after her Brother had taken her in. They were weighing her down and she could feel her hands shaking and she knew it was nothing to do with the exertion. She was pissed, and running wasn't making it feel any better. The pit in her stomach opened up as her mind jumped to Mineta's comment on the bus to the USJ all that time ago now.

You look more like a villain with a face like that, Yamada-san

"Mika-chan…"

She sucked in a quick shallow breath as she felt her eyes tear up a little at the thought that someone could think she would be better suited to be a villain than a hero. After everything she had been through it would have been easy for her to give up on her dream of being a hero. She could have given up and not used her quirk for anything. She could have quite of easily gone the other way too, and that was what upset her the most. That there was a part of her that knew there was a point in her past that could have switched her. That would have sent her down the wrong path and then she really would have been a villain.

"Mika-chan?"

"DAMN IT!" She snapped at the voices in her head.

The thought of people being scared of her made her slam her fist down on the speed button again, but she missed, and the momentum had her stumbling forwards and loosing her footing. She dropped and braced as her knee hit the treadmill and she got flung off the back of it.

What she hadn't realised was that Izuku had picked up on her distress from across the room and had seen her getting more and more agitated. He had started to really worry when she began to hit at the machine she was on, looking like she was about to cry. It was the most emotion he had ever seen on her face at one time. The fact that him and the others had started to get smiles out of her had made him feel amazing, the cold and bored looking girl was warming to them all. When he had met her, he knew that she was a caring person, all her sulking and frowning couldn't cover that up. He had wanted to see more of her emotions, but not like that. She looked like she was having an internal battle and loosing.

He had placed his weights back and had made it to her just in time to see her move to slam her fist on the machine and miss. He was stood right behind the machine, which was his first mistake, when she lost her footing and fell onto her knees on the treadmill. She was shot backwards and straight into his legs sending him toppling.

"WOAH" He gasped as he fell over Mika and onto his hands and knees over her.

"Izuku-kun?" Mika gasped as she laid sprawled out on the floor. She pulled her headphones out of her ears as she tried to catch her breath. Her wide emerald eyes flew up to meet his own green eyes, and at seeing how close he was she turned the brightest shade of red known to human kind. He immediately launched himself backwards and off from hoovering over her. He jumped to his feet and nervously offered her a hand.

She shakily took it and let him pull her up to her own feet where she then took to shuffling like she had been caught dancing nude in her room.

"Sorry." She finally muttered.

"No no no, it was my fault..." Izuku insisted, by waving one hand frantically around before him, while the other came up so he could hide his face in the crook of his arm. Then he peered out from it seeing how Mika was trying to cover up her emotions by letting her bored expression slip over her features and the sight of her doing it made his resolve a little stronger. He placed a careful hand on her arm and smiled enquiringly down to her. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah, I didn't hurt myself…" She tried, knowing deep down that he didn't mean if she was ok after her embarrassing fall from the treadmill.

"That's not what I meant" He interjected, letting the arm that was covering his face fall back down to his side as he looked down at her. "I saw you running, and you looked angry… and then upset, kinda?"

"Oh… just got a lot on my mind, but I'm ok" She blushed at being caught showing so much emotion without knowing. Nice one Mika, you got all worked up and now Izuku is looking at you like you're broken. A new feeling hit her in the stomach like a brick, the feeling of warmth as someone other than her Brother noticed her, really noticed her, and how she was feeling. It felt nice, like that part of her that was living for other people was starting to stretch outwards past herself again. She looked to Izuku as he watched her and she couldn't help but feel equal parts glad that he had come over to see if she was ok, and equal parts nervous to make sure that she put on a good face to show him that she was in fact fine.

The sports festival was stressing her out, and not because she didn't think she was strong enough, she had been training just as hard as everyone else. If not for longer. The stress was there due to the strange dynamic that had fallen over the class and her friends. She didn't like it, and she didn't want it to be stuck like that forever. She wanted everyone to get along, and she wanted to let the class slowly pull her out of her shell. She was hoping that they would make her better.

His eyes followed hers as she looked around to make sure that there wasn't anyone else in the gym that had witnessed her blunder. Yet it was just them, they were the only people in the whole place and she didn't know if that made her feel better or not. She looked back at him and felt her cheeks heat up even more becoming increasingly away that he had left a hand on her arm, the place where it rested against her skin was now unbearably hot. Damn it, Mika!

"I get it though, all this training for the Sports Festival can feel a bit too much, huh?" Izuku tried, scratching the back of his head again before continuing, his eyes looking more confident. "But, its these tests that will make us stronger, and turn us into amazing heroes"

"Do you think?" Mika asked tentatively back. You are such a contradiction Izuku, one minute you are a stuttering (but cute) mess, the next you look like you could take on the world. "Will everyone go back to normal afterwards too?"

"What do you mean?" He asked, looking at her confused.

"Everyone is so tense, and no one is as close as I thought they were getting… so I uh, was just worried that… you know, this edge would stay even after the festival?" She asked more than stated, letting her eyes fall to the floor. She hated how nervous she sounded but opening up to people was something she just wasn't used to. She knew she needed to learn though, that was why she was trying so hard. It did help that Izuku made it so easy. His eyes just drew people in and promised care and attention.

"I kind of get what you are saying… everyone is concentrating on the competition instead of getting along… I think it's only normal, everything will be fine once it's done and over!" Izuku countered, nodding along as he spoke. "It's to be expected though, for everyone" He smiled to her, his kind smile that made his eyes close and his cheeks dimple a little.

"You're so adorable Izuku-kun" Mika whispered as she huffed and set to turning off the Treadmill and grabbing her towel and bottle of water. Leaving Izuku staring at her like she had just grown another head. He really wasn't used to her compliments, especially seen as she was calling him cute. "Let's get ready for Homeroom, ne?"