Alright, guys. This is a chapter that's been in my head for a while: the fight between Izuku and Bakugo. I've been procrastinating for about a week but I'm ready to get going after the recent delay of CP2077. I'm… Going to be writing in a pretty sombre mood for a while.
Also, just a quick note because I seemingly forgot this in chapter 8, everyone's already wearing their combat gear because it would get tedious to have to wait between every fight for someone to change. It's a detail I forgot was in the actual show but a quick rewatch of the series told me it was a thing so I included it here for logical reasons.
My mess of a writing schedule might be even more skewed and I'm sorry for that but hey, at least you have this chapter to tide you over, right?
Leaning into his chair with a notebook and pen in hand, Izuku Midoriya was getting ready to note down some fighting styles, semblances and other general information about the other people in his combat class. At this moment, he was relaxed inside the comfortable interior of Dreamcatcher; observing and note-taking came naturally to him so the task wouldn't be all too hard. Perhaps he could even filter in the information into his ORC AI… which he still hadn't used in a major event. Perhaps he should increase the speed of recognition; whilst he'd thought a minute and a bit would be a good balance to both make relatively accurate observations whilst not taking too long to be useless, he was having issues with actually using it. Maybe adjusting the machine learning algorithm would be a good idea before he made the choice to shorten it.
"-Izuku Midoriya, to the stage please," the authoritative voice of Professor Goodwitch snapped him out of his little daze.
'Right, I forgot that I can be picked as well,' Izuku almost mentally face-palmed for getting a little too comfortable, 'And, unless the planets and stars align I'm still fighting Bakugo.'
Izuku's eyes flicked away from the stage and looked for the specific blonde and, lo and behold, there he was. Despite only getting a second of eye contact between the two, Izuku recognised the look behind those red eyes: dissatisfaction. Their last fight had been cut short and Katsuki remembered that. Well, Izuku wouldn't leave the boy as disappointed this time. Instead of fighting with just a neutered Black Whip, he had all of the wonders that Dreamcatcher bestowed upon him. Hopefully this time, Izuku would be able to accurately measure himself up to his once childhood friend.
"Alright then," Izuku got onto the stage and stretched once before eying his opponent head-on and spiking his Dust as high as he could, revelling in the warm sensation that ran across his body.
"Deku!" Bakugo spat out, eyes not hiding any of the contempt he felt, "I'm going to kick your sorry ass so hard, you'll piss off to some weapons company."
Professor Goodwitch ignored the statement, having heard similar trash talk in her long teaching career, and faced the entire class, "Alright. Today I'll quickly explain how Mr Midoriya will be using a slightly different combat system than others. In case you don't know, he is an anomaly who's Aura can't be detected by Beacon Academy's Aura recording instruments."
Almost immediately after the statement was said, the room seemed to focus all of its attention on the armoured inventor. There were looks of scrutiny and contempt and even a few barks of laughter that were quickly cut short when there was no punchline. Izuku expected this; he hadn't expected to be able to hide his Auraless status for too long and the fact that he had a custom combat system would have raised a few eyebrows no matter how discreet about it he was. Still, the looks that almost everyone gave him stung just a little. It wasn't like he hadn't felt them before (they were commonplace when he was younger) but, after I-Island had softened him up with people who couldn't care less about anything other than his intelligence, they hurt more than he wanted to admit.
"Therefore, there is a new system in place. Mr Midoriya can only last five hits of any strength above a point specified by the system being used. Thus, the only three clauses for him to be eliminated from a fight are to be hit five times, to be rendered unconscious or to surrender from the match. Some of you may need to work around this and others will be able to stick to their usual fighting style. Nevertheless, this is something you should keep in mind when sparring," Goodwitch explained the system quickly before turning to the two fighters.
'Wait, five hits?' Izuku thought to himself, confused for a single second before remembering what school he was in, 'Right, Beacon has some of the best fighters of our age worldwide. Three hits might have been a little too low.'
"You can begin," Professor Goodwitch gave the go-ahead and Izuku was thrust into combat.
Almost immediately, the inventor slid his handgun out of the holster and fired three rounds of ice Dust bullets into the blonde. Since he'd been launching himself forwards with an explosion, Bakugo had left himself open from the front which meant all three bullets landed. It did nothing to dissuade the boy's attack since, only seconds later, he had closed the distance and had a right fist cocked for impact. Expecting this, Izuku wrapped two wires around his attacker's arm and yanked him to the ground. Before the blonde could react, electricity flooded his system. Despite being stunned for only a second, it was enough time for Izuku to punch Bakugo in the back of the head with all of his Dust-fuelled strength.
Not allowing himself to be struck so easily, Katsuki pushed himself off of the ground with a single high-powered explosion before dive-bombing towards Izuku with another set of explosions. He crashed into the ground with enough momentum for the ground under him to crack. Unluckily for him, it was only the ground and Izuku had dodged the attack with a few steps back. Processing the information instantly, Katsuki let out a single bark of laughter before eying Izuku.
"Alright then, you've improved. Still, going from a shitstain to a fucking pebble isn't much of an improvement," the blonde eyed him with heated fury before twisting his wrist slightly and releasing an explosion to deflect a wire, "And don't think you can slip those wires by me; we both know it won't work."
"It worked just a second ago," Izuku retracted the wire before looking at Katsuki with sheer determination, "But, don't worry; I have more things to use."
"You fucking better. Right now, you're disappointing me even fucking more than i thought you would," Katsuki moved from his spot with the propulsion of an explosion before going for a sweeping low kick.
Izuku jumped over the Katsuki's kick before pointing both palms at Katsuki and detonating an explosion right in front of him. As Izuku was sent backwards, he looked at Bakugo and noted the look on his face: it was a feral grin. As if to test how strong the imitation was, Katsuki rushed Izuku much faster than he had before. Explosion after explosion was sent Izuku's way and the boy was able to avoid them all through swatting away hands a moment before an explosion and meeting other explosions with his own before pushing on the attack. In fact, Izuku was getting a little confident. He could keep this up for-
A hard impact struck his stomach and Izuku realised he'd already been hit. it seemed that Katuski had kneed him in the stomach whilst Izuku was dealing with the explosions. Retreating back with an explosion-propelled jump, Izuku eyed the boy in front of him and checked the ORC HUD to see if anything had been made noteworthy… nothing yet. Well, instead of relying on that, Izuku unclipped an ice Dust grenade before trying to predict how his opponent would move.
"You're a shitty fake, Deku! Even when copying my semblance, you still can't challenge me!" Katsuki opened a palm and seemed to charge something up, "Fucking pathetic!"
Eying the charged up attack, Izuku readied a wire to grab the grenade and throw it into Katuski before the boy would react. Of course, that plan was almost broken a second later as soon as Katsuki let loose a blinding flash of light towards him. With his cameras being filled with bright light, Izuku had to use his radar, which caught Katsuki's movement almost immediately after he let the flashbang loose. After twisting the seal on the ice grenade, the wire snatched it from his hand and tossed it in front of Bakugo who used a quick explosion to send it back to Izuku. With the grenade already pinged by the radar, Izuku slapped it back with another wire before the grenade exploded a split second after.
Izuku winced as both he and Katsuki were hit with the high-powered blast of ice. A buzz in the system told him that it counted as his second hit but, as his vision came back, he spotted Katsuki being completely frozen to the spot, frost covering every inch of his body. Whilst spiking his electrical levels to melt the frost on his body, Izuku used all of his wires to heap on as much damage as he could in the short time Katsuki would be vulnerable for. Of course, it didn't last long since the blonde was no pushover; the ice exploded off of the boy all at once, blasting the wires away along with it.
As soon as he was freed from his icy prison, Katsuki pushed the attack once more and pulled Izuku back into a flow of dodging, parrying and hitting with his own attacks. Unlike before, where Izuku found a flow to follow, the armoured student was faced with unpredictable, chaotic attacks. Every move Katsuki made was from instincts and instincts alone whilst every move Izuku made required a little bit of thought which meant one thing in their exchange: Izuku was always playing catch-up.
Breaking the close-combat exchange by roughly pushing Katsuki away with a wire, Izuku decided to push an advantage that Dreamcatcher gave him. Sliding a smoke grenade out of its spot, Izuku tossed it into the space between the two, swapping his handgun's magazine with the fire Dust rounds in the magazine wheel. Whilst he'd been able to keep Katsuki at bay with unrelenting wire attacks, the blonde had already figured what Izuku was trying to do and blasted them away before heading into the smoke with an angry smirk.
Izuku emptied the magazine into Katsuki as quickly as he could, using the IR camera to aim each shot. Each bullet told Katsuki where Izuku was which the blonde tried to capitalise on by leaping forwards and readying an explosion to detonate on Izuku's general person. Seeing his opponent through the smoke, Izuku was able to roll away from his attack and wrap his wires around Katsuki's leg before letting electricity loose through the wires.
Using an explosion to cancel his forward movement, Katsuki ascended with quick, light explosions before twisting in the air, using even more explosions to increase his spinning. Izuku raised an eyebrow before eying where the blonde was going to strike: almost in the centre of the smoke to ensure that Izuku would be hit wherever he was in the smoke. Thankfully, Izuku already spotted the attack and rolled a fire Dust grenade in its general direction before sprinting away from the smoke to dodge the impact. As soon as Izuku was out of the smoke, Izuku dared to look at Katsuki who already wrist deep into the smoke.
Not a second later, the dark grey of the smoke was replaced by a brilliant bright orange. In mere moments, Izuku was pushed from his spot only a metre away from the clouds of smoke to the edge of the arena with two long trails in the dirt left behind when Izuku tried to withstand the explosion. Despite not hearing the buzz that indicated he'd been hit due to the ringing of his ears, Izuku knew for a fact that he'd used up his original three hits. The boy was almost thankful that he'd be getting another chance though the granting of two extra hits.
"You better be fucking glad you're alive, Deku!" Bakugo said, ignoring the flames which were chipping away at his Aura, "If you made that armour for aesthetics like a dumbass, you'd be even worse than an Auraless little shit; you'd be the universe's grand attempt at fucking up! Be grateful you weren't sent to the fucking afterlife with your ass handed to you!"
Ignoring those words, Izuku eyed the screen above the arena which showed Bakugo's Aura levels: he was at 16 hours and the bar accompanying it showed that Izuku had chipped away over half of the boy's Aura in their fight. This could be salvageable if the armoured teen played this right.
Playing the aggressor, Izuku used his Dust-enhanced speed to reach Bakugo before sliding to the ground. As he came close, two wires swerved around Bakugo's ankles and threw them upwards causing Bakugo to be suspended upside down. Using the temporary suspension, Izuku kicked the boy in the head with all of his Dust-fuelled strength before throwing a rocket-propelled elbow into their stomach and following those up with a one-two fully-powered explosion. Deciding not to overcommit, Izuku threw the boy away from him as soon as he landed the second explosion. The throw came just in time since an explosion was detonated just far enough that it wouldn't count as a hit. That was close; the inventor was almost left on his final hit.
Electricity ran across the inventor's finger as he reloaded his handgun with a fresh magazine of gravity Dust bullets. A stray wire held the empty magazine before zapping it with electricity and throwing it towards Bakugo with enough force to cause some damage. The attack was deflected by an explosion from Bakugo, which sent the magazine away from both fighters. Making sure to mentally note down the location, Izuku stuck his wire into the wall next to Bakugo before retracting it.
As Izuku flew through the air, he noticed Katsuki preparing an explosion to disrupt him. Noting that down, Izuku ripped his wire out of the wall and lashed his opponent on the back with the wire to stun him for a second. Despite that, the blonde took the attack in his stride and pushed a hand out, ready to release the explosion when Izuku came close. The wire that lashed Bakugo returned again, now aimed to wrap around Katuski's neck and tug him back so he wouldn't land his attack. Just as it was about to close in, the wire was thrown backwards via a quick explosion courtesy of Bakugo.
Izuku cancelled his momentum with his own explosions as soon as he noticed the wire missed. As his explosion met Bakugo's own, Izuku aimed his handgun at Bakugo and took two shots at point-blank. Both bullets were followed with another strike from Izuku's wire, this time landing cleanly on his shoulder. Whilst Izuku tried to use his whip to get a hold on the boy's shoulder, an explosion met the wire and deflected it. At the same time, another wire from behind the back of Katsuki's shoulder was also deflected. And then, three wires simultaneously went to lock onto Bakugo with one going around their neck whilst the others grabbed the boy's ankles and suspended him mid-air.
Taking a slow breath, Izuku finally had a moment where he could unleash all of his wires in one swoop. Whilst letting his wires slam into Bakugo from all directions and rack up damage, Izuku used his right gauntlet to spray his explosive formula onto his rival whilst using his handgun to bury bullets into the boy's body. In a second, Izuku saw Bakugo raise his gauntlet, aiming the barrel at him. The inventor couldn't allow that and thus he backpedalled and used his right gauntlet to let his explosion loose.
As Katsuki was sent rocketing away, Izuku retracted his wires, all of which had been ripped off of Katsuki by the explosion. Almost as soon as Katsuki landed, he felt Dreamcatcher's HUD ping some notifications: ORC had, finally, done its job in combat. Eyes glancing at the notes, he was surprised to find two particular factoids: 'Prefers to start running with right foot' and 'Favoursright hand - especially in CQC.' That… wasn't something Izuku knew about. But, looking back, he recognised both of those. Well, to be fair, he already knew Bakugo leads with a right hook but this was slightly different.
Those seconds of being distracted cost him since Katsuki returned from where he'd been sent to. Izuku grabbed the boy's right arm with his hands (using his newfound knowledge to expect an explosion from there) before swinging it to the side and throwing a knee into the boy's stomach. This came at the cost of being in direct range of another explosion which he narrowly jumped away from, saving himself from being stuck with only one hit. Remembering his empty magazine's location, Izuku grabbed it with a wire and threw it.
As soon as Bakugo felt the magazine hit the back of his head, he left himself open for two explosions to the chest. Smirking at this, the grenadier gathered his bearing and fought back with explosions that were dodged with quick movements. Quickly throwing explosion after explosion, the blonde distracted his opponent enough to quickly step around the boy. Izuku's sensors registered a quick movement from his side to behind him. Despite trying to quickly counter it with a wire, Izuku felt a sudden impact to his side.
Izuku felt an internal sense of panic whilst he sped away from Bakugo; he was on his last attack. Using his wires to ensure a safe retreat, the inventor eyed his opponent warily. It seemed that ORC wasn't wrong since, as it predicted, the blonde started with his right foot before going to an explosion-propelled sprint. Dodging the first two explosions that came his way, Izuku returned fire with some quick, light attacks with Black Whip whilst also using the wires to stop some of Katsuki's attacks.
For a second, the armoured Huntsman-in-training thought he had been doing fairly well… And then he slipped up. After sliding beneath an explosion aimed at his side, Izuku quickly kicked off of the ground and struck Katsuki in the ribs with a shin. Whilst he may have landed the strike and done some damage, it allowed his opponent to come in close whilst he was off-balance. Dodging that with a quick explosion-powered roll to the side, Izuku was again in a vulnerable position, barely cancelling his momentum quick enough to avoid being hit by a knee, before rolling to his feet.
Seeing Bakugo in a similar position to the one he'd been a second earlier, Izuku tugged Bakugo's grounded leg off of the ground with a wire before using an explosion to push him into the ground. Whilst the blonde fell, he pulled a pin from his right gauntlet before using his left hand to rocket himself up and aim the gauntlet into Izuku's chest. Whilst unsure what pulling the pin actually did, Izuku understood that he didn't want the barrel aimed at him so he pushed the gauntlet upwards with his wires. As if expecting that, Katsuki used his other hand to rocket himself upwards and arcing around before aiming it downwards directly onto Izuku. Unsure how long he had until whatever the pin entailed happened, the armoured teen quickly moved to dodge whilst using his wires to push the barrel away.
Out of the barrel, a blast of pure explosive energy came out. Because of his efforts to avoid the attack, the beam just barely missed him. Izuku would have celebrated if not for the fact that he felt his wires got blown off of the gauntlet barrel. Now with nothing to stop him from aiming his attack, Katsuki moved his forearm and sent the blast straight into Izuku's back. The explosion hit like a truck and, whilst Dreamcatcher protected Izuku from being injured, he knew he'd be feeling that explosion later on. The sheer shock from the fighting almost made him miss the buzzing noise which indicated his loss.
Even if he hadn't been expecting to win so easily, he was hoping that he could make his former bully eat his words. Gaining the satisfaction of finally showing Kaachan that he, Izuku Midoriya, could become a Huntsman; showing that he wasn't another pebble on the side of the road; that he wasn't worth less than everyone else because he was effectively Auraless would have been a turning point in Izuku's life. Accepting his loss, Izuku thought of the bright side: it was a close fight. As soon as the boy came to terms with his defeat, he dared himself to look at his opponent's Aura levels and saw the remaining time: one hour, forty-four minutes.
Wait, one hour and forty-four minutes! Izuku almost won.
"Katsuki Bakugo, you are the winner. But, perhaps you didn't win by as large of a margin as you could have. Next time, I recommend occasionally moving to defence; you end up leaving yourself open in more than a few places. If Izuku had noticed, this fight could have swayed to his favour," Professor Goodwitch congratulated the boy before turning to the armoured student, "And, Midoriya, whilst you've greatly surpassed my expectations, you are not without fault. Although those wires you use are useful, I'd recommend using your other weapons. Perhaps try fighting with only those explosions and see how far it carries you.
Izuku almost blushed in sheer delight at the compliment but he quickly reigned it in and went back to his seat amongst his teammates. Accepting their congratulations on fighting well and compliments from some of the other people that sat around them, the teen eased himself back into his seat before opening his notebook and readying his pen. Now that his fight was over, he could focus on notetaking like he originally wanted to. Just as he waited for the next match to start, Izuku heard a whisper from behind him.
'You know that armoured guy that fought Katsuki…'
Izuku tried to ignore it, expecting an insult or something similar. He knew his performance wouldn't negate all of the bad feelings people had about him but he couldn't deny he hoped everyone would be okay with him now. Perhaps he could use that to fuel his training. Yeah, he'd prove to everyone that he shouldn't be looked down on.
'I want to be his friend.'
Oh. That was unexpected. He should keep that in mind whilst he wrote down notes about his fellow classmates. After all, making more friends is never a bad idea… Unless those friends are the type of friends that Izuku had when he was much younger; making those kinds of friends was never a good idea. But, this was different. Probably. Unless, of course, Kaachan had already made his team think that he was useless as all hell.
Izuku breathed in deeply. Someone wanted to be his friend and there was no reason to think poorly of the person (likely a girl if the voice was any indication.) So, deciding to end his train of thought with that, he looked down at his notebook and opened up a new entry for the next two fighters that would be going onto the stage. He only had to wait a second before Goodwitch picked the new fighters: a boy with sharp, messy red hair and another boy with slightly less messy black hair.
As soon as the fight began, the pen in his hand scrawled down some information. Izuku knew this was going to be a productive session.
"Did you make notes for every student there?" Pyrrha asked idly as Team IRNN left combat classes.
"Yeah. You noticed?" Izuku's eyes widened, "Was I mumbling through all of the fights? Damn it, I must have annoyed everyone?"
"No. Not all of them," Pyrrha gave a little smile that hid a smirk, "Although, I did hear you describe someone as 'half of Pyrrha's strength' followed by 'would completely destroy me.' You know you don't have to hold me on such a high pedestal! I guarantee that, by the end of the year, you'll probably be as strong or stronger than I am."
"Oh, er, you heard those bits too? Well, I guess it's better to overestimate your opponents than to underestimate them, right?"
"And it's better to know where your strengths lie than to ignore them all. Whilst knowing your enemy is half of the battle, you can't fight without knowing yourself," Pyrrha countered with some words of wisdom.
"I-I'm not that self-deprecating, right?" Izuku asked the question before looking at the other two members of his team who remained silent, "W-Well, I guess it's better than being an overconfident douche."
"You? As an overconfident douche?" Ruby piped in with a small smile, "Would you be one of those over-the-top side characters? Ooh, like your blonde friend! Heh, that'd be an interesting premise for a story ya know: if your personalities were swapped. You'd be this edgy, angry inventor that's trying to prove themself and he'd be the generic main character. Well, the main character in a sense, since y' know, you have the main character role written all over you!"
"Hey, Ruby," Izuku decided that he should repeat the question to her, "You don't think I'm that self-deprecating, right?"
"Dude, it's an inherent part of your character," Ruby deadpanned, being as blunt as possible, "You without being somewhat self-deprecating is like me but always confident; it just isn't course, that's what character development is for. Hey, erm, s-since we both have the same underlying issue, w-we could probably have some sort of joint-character development."
"E-Erm, sure…" Izuku answered slowly, seeing that the girl had good intentions, "How would that work though?"
"Oh, that's easy! We just have to find some sort of obstacle that we are unable to surpass and then, er, s-surpass it," Ruby scratched her chin, "That's the gist of any good adventure, right?"
"Adventure, ain't that what being a Huntsman is about?" a new voice injected from behind them.
The inventor turned to the voice and saw a girl with shoulder-length brown hair, "O-Oh, er, hello there."
"Heya!" the bubbly voice responded, "You're Deku, right?"
"His name's actually called Izuku," Nora came to the boy's defence surprisingly quickly, "Unless… This is a shadow from your secret double life and your codename used to be Deku (a strange name, all things considered.) What would that life have been though?"
"I-I don't have a secret double life, Nora!" Izuku sighed exasperatedly before seeing that the girl was going to open her mouth, "And I didn't have one in the past either!"
"You sure… You could be an amnesiac," Nora suggested before remembering the new presence, "So, anyway, what do you want with 'Zuku?"
"He seems like a cool guy," the brunette answered honestly, heavy enthusiasm in her tone, "Well, that and Katsuki seemed to single ya out specifically. D'ya guys have some sort of history?"
"Wait, you heard about me from Kaachan - I-I mean Katsuki…" Izuku ran through his memories to check over something, "Wait, you're the girl on his team, aren't you?"
"Yep, Uraraka Ochako, member of Team Smokey!" it seemed the girl never dialled down how bubbly she was since the feeling was almost exemplified, "Anyways, I saw your fight with Bakugo. It's kinda amazing how far you got with only five hits!"
"E-Er, thanks…" Izuku blushed from the praise, "I likely won't get as far next time, a lot of my attacks landed since he hadn't expected them. Next fight, I'm going to need to fight better."
"Well, yeah, we all need to get better!" the girl seemed to get slightly embarrassed, "Still, it's a little weird to think that you could beat me so easily even if you're Auraless. Then again, without that five hits restriction, you could probably beat a majority of our combat class. You must've suped the hell outta that armour to get so good. Makes me wonder if Tenya should upgrade his own armour."
"Tenya was the tall boy in the knight's armour, right?" Pyrrha asked with a friendly smile, idly wondering whether she could lift the boy with her magnetic powers.
"Yep! That's the one!" she made an exaggerated hand-chopping motion in jest although it seemed to be lost to the group, "He's a bit of a by-the-books, follow-the-rules person but he's super nice after you talk to him for a bit. You know, now that I think about it, you both wear armour and you're pretty quick; you'd probably make pretty good friends!"
"If you say so, I'd be glad to make more friends," Izuku said, "Anyways, where's-"
"Oi, Round Face!" Katsuki's loud voice stopped Izuku, "Why the fuck are you hanging out with Deku of all people? Ah, fuck it, I don't care. "
"Ooh, looks like I've gotta go!" Uraraka gave them a mock salute, "See ya around, Dek - I mean Izuku! Bye Pyrrha and other people?"
"How'd she- oh right," Nora looked at Pyrrha with a bright smile, "I almost forgot Pyr's a celebrity. Now that I think about it, I'm sure I've heard your name way before we met."
"She was brought up rather often mainly because she was someone everyone either thought could surpass them or someone they wanted to surpass. You don't remember since you couldn't tie a face to the name because we never watched one of her fights," Ren gave Pyrrha a sympathetic look, a look which conveyed a level of understanding, "Must've been odd to be talked about so often by complete strangers. Especially considering how young you'd have been when you debuted."
"Yeah, it was hard to get used to. I'll always find it just a little interesting how Izuku never knew who I was until we met. My name being brought up as often as it was in my combat school leads me to think that he must've heard it enough to question who I was or at some point end up watching at least one of my tournament clips," Pyrrha shrugged, "Still, I count us meeting at that shooting range as fate… Destiny, if you will."
"Woah, getting a little philosophical there Pyrrha!" Ruby piped in before thinking about what the redhead said, "Wait, you met at a shooting range? That's… kinda cliche. Meeting someone really good at something at a place where they do that thing when you want to do that thing because you both want to be the same thing."
"I… don't follow you," Nora sighed out, cursing her lack of attention.
"Seems kinda like you just so happen to follow a lot of story conventions, Izuku," Ruby raised an eyebrow before her eyes widened in realisation, "Wait… Maybe Pyrrha's not wrong."
"About?" Ren asked, curious as to why the girl reacted like that.
"Destiny…" Ruby seemed to have some otherworldly revelation if the look of excitement said anything, "W-What if the world actually is a story? A-And Izuku is the main protagonist of the story… well, an admittedly cliche, conventional story but a story nonetheless. Then, everything had already been written and planned and - oh my God, what if everything we do doesn't matter because it's already planned? Does it even matter what we do? Guys, we have to test this - Yang, put me down!"
"We're not having another existential crisis, Rubes!" Yang gave everyone else whilst carrying Ruby over her shoulder, "Sorry 'bout that guys. She does this sometimes when her little mind gets racing. Erm, don't hold this against her and peac- Wait, where the hell did Weiss go?"
Team IRNN watched in amusement as Yang seemed to look around like a concerned mother. It seemed she was successful since the blonde plucked the short girl from the crowd, seemingly having some group activity in mind as she dragged the two away. For a second, the quartet looked to see where Blake was if only to watch Yang pull her along. It took Izuku a little longer than he'd like to have spotted her but, in the river of students exiting classes, Blake slipped around her partner in plain sight.
Whilst he was about to call out her name, the inventor realised that the girl would likely prefer not to be called out (if the fact that she was hiding was meant to be any indication.) Allowing Blake to stay undetected, Izuku decided that they should probably share out their notes from their History lesson which (whilst incredibly interesting to Izuku) was something that completely passed over Nora's head.
"I don't get why we have to learn History though?" Nora coughed bitterly, "It's so boring!"
"Really? I remember you enjoying the subject when we read about it in… I've forgotten the name actually," Ren wracked his mind but couldn't think of anything substantial. "The point is that you enjoyed History when I taught it to you."
"Well yeah, that's because I learnt it from you!" Nora quivered near unnaturally, "Oobleck speaks too fast even for me."
"He wasn't that fast!" Izuku responded, "I was able to get a decent amount of what he said summarised and into note form without much difficulty. Then again, I did get pretty good and processing words so maybe that's just me."
"Processing words?" Ren asked, "You mean speed reading and things like that?"
"Yeah, I-Island's a competitive place. I had to go through a bunch of different lectures and read a tonne of different books to find get as good as I needed to be to get this far," Izuku almost shuddered when he thought back to those times, "If Melissa wasn't there, I'd have gone days without sleep. I'd have led myself to failure."
"Melissa? Who's that?" Nora asked before her eyes shone with hope, "Don't tell me you really do have a secret past-life!"
"I-I… won't, because I don't."
Nora's face fell in comedic contrast to how bright her previous expression had been before as she moaned in disappointment, "We were so close, team leader! So dang close to getting everyone to say their backstories!"
"I don't mind telling you, you know," Izuku rubbed his neck bashfully, "I'm not that interesting of a person outside of what you already know: I'm an inventor and that I've been an inventor for a long, long time. But, back on topic, Melissa was a student in one of the senior classes that helped me out a lot during I-Island. Or, well, she helped me with the work when I first started and then helped me not overwork myself once I got good enough. She's a pretty close friend."
"Oh, I guess that's not a super cool of a past as I thought you'd have," Nora seemed to let the thing go and walked on ahead, "Alright then, I guess we need to go through your notes, 'Zuks. I hope you didn't write too much."
"Hehe…"
"Now that I think about it, I didn't hear his pen stop," Pyrrha scratched her chin, "You did summarise it, right?"
"I tried to," Izuku's smile turned sheepish, "But, well, he made a lot of points that needed to be written down."
"How many pages did you write?"
"Erm, several?"
Pyrrha checked her scroll to see how much time they had, "... maybe we should do the notes when we can finish it all in one go?"
"Probably a good call," Ren eyed Nora, "We'll likely need you to elaborate on more than a few notes. Especially considering that the pace you wrote at would necessitate rather concise notes."
"Alright then, as long as it helps you guys, I don't mind," Izuku thought for a seconds before asking, "... What are we going to do now then?"
"Seems like a great time for some semblance training: zap time, 'Zuku!" Nora flexed an arm and channelled a little bit of the electric Dust she consumed in the morning, "We have to get that down before Vytal begins!"
"W-Well, it's not a bad use of our time…" Izuku only needed to look Nora in the eyes once before his fate was sealed, "Alright, but we're going for an endurance run! You can't punch anything to smithereens."
"Izuku, you don't mind if I try my semblance out in your weaponry room, do you?" Pyrrha asked, sounding as close to shy as the boy thought she'd ever been, "I've realised that my lack of semblance uses stretches beyond how strong it is. I need some practice with controlling multiple objects at once."
"My tools are your tools. You're free to use whatever you want," a stray thought popped into his mind, "Hey, Nora. Remember when I mentioned having a big box of destruction? I called it Pandora's Box if that rings any bells."
"Yeah, the big abomination that Pyrrha's gonna use for her semblance right?" Nora seemed to be thinking something but decided to ask, "Why?"
"That's the one. I was thinking... Do you want to use it?"
The squeal that Nora let out after the question told Izuku one thing: he made a mistake.
Here's another shorter chapter. I'm sorry if I'm taking longer than I normally do but I've been feeling a little out of it. Next chapter is going to be some interactions with Izuku and Team RWBY. Enjoy it whenever that comes out