A/N: Hope you are all enjoying. Thanks to all who have fav'd and followed the story! Don't forget to review what you think so far, I'd love to hear how you all like it!
Chapter 5: Training
Bakugo somehow managed to convince her to return to the infirmary where Recovery Girl continues to heal her injury, while they all discuss her stay. Bakugo lifts his chest in defiance as their decision hinges on her parentage. "That's bullshit," Bakugo states aggressively as he shakes his head with annoyance. "This loser is the only reason that Deku and I are alive," he says pointing at her lazily.
"Bakugo," Principal Nezu begins with a high-pitched tone that Katori finds condescending. "You don't understand each factor that has led to our decision."
"I don't need to." He shrugs, "So her dad is some villain, who cares? What I know is that she helped me and Kirishima out there. She asked us for permission to use our Quirks. She took down those losers with as much force as we did. She jumped in to save me from that brainy freak without hesitation, and she let that flaky-skinned creep decay her own arm so he couldn't get to Deku," he reminds them.
She looks around the room, seeing Principal Nezu stand stiffly next to the foot of Aizawa's bed. While she was on her way out, All Might, Midoriya, and Thirteen were placed into the room, with All Might and Thirteen being hidden behind curtains due to their extensive injuries.
"Kacchan's right," Midoriya speaks up, not hidden behind a curtain. "I was frozen looking up at his reaching hand. But Satsuma jumped into action." He turns to the curtain that holds All Might, frowning as he knows the mighty hero is listening into this decision. "All Might, you said that true heroes jump into action; their legs move sometimes before their minds do. We all saw that's what she did. If it wasn't for her… things would have been different," he says shaking at the idea that he and Bakugo wouldn't be in this room right now if it weren't for her intervention.
"If she submits to a test—" Nezu begins but Bakugo interrupts him.
"You gonna make us all take a test?" he asks with a cock of the head as he crosses his arms over his chest. The Principal doesn't respond to this and Bakugo huffs, "Let me make this easier for you; if you don't let Copy-Paste stay—without a lie detector test—then I am leaving with her. And we are going to go enroll at Ketsubutsu or Shiketsu and UA loses their top two students," he threatens with a smug grin on his face.
Katori looks up at him with wide eyes as he stands next to her bed with arms crossed over his puffed-out chest. She knows just how much this school and education means to him, and doesn't understand why he would risk all of it for her.
"Young Satsuma," All Might begins, and the purple-eyed girl looks up at the curtain that holds the mighty hero behind it. "Despite me telling you all to stay back, you jumped within the fold, and risked your life to save the life of your classmate," he says and she is unsure where he is going with his words since she is unable to see his eyes. He thinks about Midoriya, and how despite the lack of a Quirk, he ran to save Bakugo from the sludge monster while the so-called heroes were frozen from acting. "You acted as a true hero today, and young Midoriya is correct; without your actions things would have ended more grimly for us." All Might looks down on his frail hands in his small withered form. It is because of her that he was given more time and things did not end disastrously, and he is indebted to her. "We would be failing you as heroes if we pushed you out to the streets for aiding us as you did."
The decision was made at that moment and with no verbal disagreement from Principal Nezu or Aizawa, Katori was allowed to stay at UA, but she knew that she would be watched like a hawk from this moment forward. It is clear to her that she will not be able to report back to her father tonight. She grits her teeth at the fact that she will not be able to tell him about the low-level thugs that attacked the school and find out if he has any information on who they were.
The administration decided to allow the students the day off to recoup and be with their families after the attacks they faced. Katori decides to stay in the infirmary for the night with Recovery Girl's approval, and she is moved out of the room All Might, Midoriya, Aizawa, and Thirteen stay in and into a smaller room within the main hall of the UA campus.
Since she will not be able to return to her father with all eyes on her, the best place for her over the night is in the infirmary where they can monitor her every move and see there is nothing suspicious about her. She and her father agreed that in instances where her identity is at risk, she should stay away from the lair, so her absence will not raise concern with her father.
Katori sits on the medical bed with the lights off, tracing the large hand-shaped scar on her forearm. Despite her best attempts at healing the wound, Recovery Girl could not get rid of the large red mark that would stain her body for the rest of her life.
She thinks about the pale blue-haired man and wonders if he will share the same scar as her, or if he has a more competent healer on his side. She wonders how her father will react to the scar, imagining that he will not be happy to see that she's disfigured her body for the sake of saving her classmate. She hopes that he understands that she did not save Midoriya because she cares for him, but rather a necessary tool of manipulation to solidify her innocence here… or at least that is what she believes.
She ponders over the idea of why she truly jumped after Bakugo and Midoriya. She placed herself at risk when she did not have to. None of the others jumped in to save those boys, since they were not nearly as quick to respond as she was. So why did she do it? She could have played her cards as the rest of the boys; frozen in fear at the hordes of villains around her. In that moment, she wasn't thinking so far ahead that saving them would buy her ticket to stay at UA. So then why did she do it?
Katori buries her face in her hands, combing her fingers through her hair as she thinks about the day's events and why she acted the way that she did. "Because they're my friends," she releases aloud. She swallows hard as the words sting her throat. She shakes the idea out of her head as strands of black hair fall in front of her eyes. She didn't do it because of that. She did it because she needs to make it look believable. Or at least, she thinks so…
The following day the students of class 1A congregate around each other's desks discussing the events the day before last. Katori watches from her desk as students animatedly discuss how they each fought against the villains that attacked the USJ. Her eyes land on Todoroki as he watches her carefully from the desk to her left. When she notices his eyes on her, he shifts and parts his lips. "Does it hurt?" he asks her, nodding his head towards her as his eyes fixate on the scar staining her wrist and lower forearm.
"Not anymore," she sheepishly tugs her sleeve to cover the mark and he frowns at the scar.
"Katori was probably the most badass!" she hears Kirishima's voice speak up to Kaminari. He turns towards her from the desk directly in front of her. "Tell Kaminari how you used that creep's Quirk against him!"
She smiles with an embarrassment blushing her cheeks, hiding her expression behind strands of black hair. She tugs onto her sleeve, holding it in place at her wrist as she clears her throat and licks her lips. She looks up at the two expecting boys, "I don't know," she shrugs shyly. "I just saw him going for Midoriya, and that was all I could think of doing."
"She used Bakugo's explosion to get to him, and in an instant, she took his Quirk and turned it on him!" Kirishima excitedly explains to the blonde electric boy.
"Woah, Bakugo let you use his Quirk?" the blonde bewilders.
She looks up as he says this, noticing the blonde they speak of enter the room. His red eyes land on her purple ones with a harsh expression as he sneers at her. Her brows press in confusion at his sudden hostile nature towards her. He pulls his gaze from her, while she continues to follow him to his desk across the room. He plops into his chair and smashes his chin into his palm as he props his head up with a prominent scowl on his face.
Katori wonders why he is suddenly so hostile towards her since she saved him from the Nomu, wondering if that is where the resentment stems, and why he would hate her for saving him. She figures it is not since he asked her to stay, but this morning he is suddenly angry with her once more. She looks onto him as he does not dare to look at her while she wracks her mind at what is going on with him.
Meanwhile, Bakugo is drowning in confusing feelings targeted towards the girl. He thinks about the moment that she took All Might's power to save him. He wonders what she was thinking in that moment, and why she would be stupid enough to risk her own life for his. He remembers how quick she was to move when he was frozen in fear. His fist tightens on the fabric of his pants around his knee as he recollects the panic flowing through his body. He was weak and she wasn't. She jumped in and saved him, launching herself on top of him to make a fool of him.
But she didn't stop there. She had to show him that she was stronger than him by saving Deku without hesitation. Her willingness to jump in and self-sacrifice made him look like a weak idiot with his jaw on the ground. And after all of that, she had the nerve to cry to him and tell him that she was quitting. She strategically put him in a vulnerable position so that he would say something sappy to her that he cringes at as he plays it back in his head. More than anything he wants her to stay here and challenge her Quirk's capabilities, but he hates that she caught him off guard and he came off desperate to her. He wants the world to know him as a strong and powerful Number One, and he let her see him as a pathetic helpless kid. It's a secret between them that he hates she holds.
"So, what was it like?" Kaminari pulls Katori back to their conversation. "To have your Quirk drained?"
Kirishima lets out a heavy sigh, "Oh man, it was like I was being drained of water or something," he says trying to explain the strange sensation. "Like my limbs were shaking and I felt like I hadn't eaten in days, but I still felt powerful enough to fight back."
"What about you, Satsuma?" Kaminari asks, "What is it like to have those Quirks? How do you know to use them so well?"
Todoroki perks up at the question, wanting to know the answer as well, while Bakugo listens in with discretion, so not to be seen. She smiles up at the electric boy as she tries to explain. "It just feels like energy surging through me." She shrugs, "I am not sure how to explain using them," she begins honestly. "It's like the second I have this energy pulsating through me, I have to push it out, and it just all seems natural, as if they were my own Quirk," she says self-conscious of her vague description.
"But you were able to use both my fire and ice at the same time," Todoroki speaks up, unable to continue listening to the conversation without the answer to his question. "That's something that even I cannot do."
She turns to him now to speak, "My Quirk takes yours, but I am not restricted by your own limitations. I experience the same drawbacks of your Quirk—such as overheating—but my body is different from yours, which allows me to use the Quirk as my own."
"So, can you drain someone's Quirk until they can no longer use it?" Kaminari asks and Katori stiffens. She thinks for a moment, as she has never used her mother's Quirk to completely drain someone of their powers.
"I don't know, I've never used it like that. I imagine it would take a long time to drain them of all their power," she tells the blonde honestly.
"If you did, do you think they would get it back? Or would you make them Quirkless?" When he asks this, the immediate area grows stiff, and she notices Bakugo's hard eyes on hers. She keeps her eyes off of everyone, looking down at her hands wondering the same. Her father never instructed her to take the Quirk of someone in such a way, and she wonders what would happen if she tries, unsure if her mother held the same power.
"What about All Might?" Kirishima presses, reading the room and changing the tone, "What was it like harnessing the Number One's power?"
Katori shrinks into her shell at this question, noticing that more students have their eyes on her as they hungrily wait for an answer. "It felt… like nothing I have ever felt before," she says glancing over at Midoriya as the green-eyed boy watches her, wondering if he feels the same with such a similar Quirk.
"Morning class," the unimpressed voice of Aizawa pulls the students from their conversations. They all glance over to see a bandaged Aizawa from head to toe. They all ask in unison what he is doing here, seeing that he is in no condition to be teaching. "My wellbeing isn't important," he mutters behind the bandages that cover his face. "What's more important is that your fight is not over." Everyone begins internally panicking at the intention of his words, wondering what he could possibly mean. "The UA sports festival is about to start," he concludes ominously.
"Yes!" Kirishima grunts through grinding teeth and hard fists slamming against his desk. "Let's go kick some ass!"
"Wait a second," Kaminari begins.
"Is it really such a good idea to hold the sports festival so soon after the villains snuck inside?" Jiro asks before the electric boy can.
"They could attack once we're in the same place," Ojiro continues her sentiment.
Aizawa sighs as if he agrees with their concerns, "Apparently the administration thinks this is a good way to show that the threat has been handled and our school is safer than ever. Plus, they are beefing up security compared to past years. This event is a huge opportunity for students at UA. It's not something we can cancel because of a few villains," he explains to them. "Our sports festival is one of the most watched events in the world," he begins telling them the importance of the sports festival. He informs them that this will be where they will all get scouted for internships and eventual hero agencies as sidekicks or even heroes, stressing the importance of doing well in this festival and getting their names out there for pro heroes to notice them.
Katori remembers watching the sports festival each year with her father as he broke down the importance of each section to her. She often wondered what it would be like for her to participate in the festival with her Quirk. If she were not around students with a helpful Quirk, she would be useless to compete. Her ability to train for the sports festival solely depends on what Quirks she manages to drain and steal for her own.
Later in the day at lunch, Katori sits with Todoroki, Yaoyorozu, and Tokoyami as they all discuss their excitement for the upcoming sports festival. They debate previous winners of the sports festival, and how each of them became well known sidekicks or pro heroes. Kaminari, Sero, and Kirishima come join them at their table as the conversation moves to which agencies they would like to intern under.
"Hawks would be a once in a lifetime chance," Tokoyami tells them and they all marvel at the heights that he shoots for.
"Yeah right, Bird Brain," Bakugo sneers as he approaches the table. "Like Hawks' agency is going to scout you."
"Oh yeah," Yaoyorozu challenges the blonde, "then who are you going for?"
"I'm shooting for the best, because I am going to be the Number One Hero," he promises them, still standing and holding his tray as he refuses to sit with them. "Come on, Nerd," he directs to Kirishima, "you really wanna sit with these z-rate wannabe heroes?"
Katori watches him carefully, seeing the clear shield that he holds up between himself and them, not understanding that he doesn't want to sit at the table because of his own embarrassment with her.
"Nah, man," he shakes his head, "I wanna see who everyone wants to intern with." Bakugo huffs as he seats himself at the edge of the table, slurping on his ramen with dissatisfaction.
"What about you, Todoroki?" Katori asks him dipping her head toward the two-toned boy who sits right next to her.
"I'll work under my father undoubtably," he says with no inflection in his tone.
"Oh yeah, your dad is Endeavor," she says softly. "That will be nice to have on your resume," she says, but the boy responds with a dejected shrug.
"What about you, Katori?" Kirishima asks her with wide red eyes. "I bet you can show off some sick moves at the sports festival and get anyone to scout you!"
She blushes at his compliment, "I guess it all depends on who ends up extending me an offer."
"Well, if you manage to get to the final round, whoever you fight against is going to be in for the fight of their lives!" he promises and she smiles at him lifting her up.
After the day is over, Katori knows she is in no place to return to her father. She frowns wanting to tell him everything that is going on with her. She wants to tell him about the attack on the USJ, as well as help her with training for the sports festival, but until she knows the magnifying glass is no longer locked onto her, she will not be able to see him for a while.
For two weeks the students train for the sports festival where they work on their Quirks to shine in front of all the promising pro hero agencies they aim to sign with. Katori listens around, hearing many of the students discuss which agencies they are targeting for, but she cannot think of any specific one she would like to intern under, hoping that she even gets that far in the sports festival with her Quirk. Though she can be very powerful when she has a Quirk under her belt, she still needs to find the perfect person to drain depending on the course, otherwise she is nothing more than Quirkless.
After class Katori walks the grounds to find Kirishima training in the fields. She smiles as she approaches the red boy as he chips away at a large boulder with hardened fists. "Kirishima! Hey!" she calls out to the boy, waving her hand at him.
"Oh hey, Katori!" he calls back with a large smile that shows his sharpened teeth. "What are you doing out here?"
"I was looking for someone to spar with," she says lightly. "There's only so much training I can do to prepare my body to host a Quirk, but if I want to actually practice with Quirks, I have to rely on others."
Kirishima grows visibly uncomfortable as he scratches at the back of his head, releasing an awkward chuckle as he says, "yeah totally… it's just… the thing is… your Quirk drains my own, and I really gotta focus on my own training and…" he fumbles on his rejection of her and she holds back a visible frown.
"No, it's totally fine!" she stops him before he can stagger through anymore words of rejection. "Makes sense," she says with a fake smile plastered up to her eyes. "I'll just ask one of the teachers or something. Good luck!" she wishes him well, waving at him as she urgently leaves the scene before she can look any more desperate.
She notices Yaoyorozu sitting at a table with her head in a book. She figures that the girl might be more willing to aid her with her Quirk and approaches the studious girl. "Hey, Yaoyorozu," she says with a large smile. "What are you up to?"
"Hi, Satsuma!" she calls out cheerily to the girl, but Katori still notices the fatigue in her eyes. "Just studying for the sports festival, you?"
"Oh yeah, you need to know the molecular breakdown of an item before creating it," she reminds herself. "You must know a lot to be able to be as valuable as you are in the field."
She blushes at this compliment, "It takes a lot of work, but it has really been worth it."
"Do you mind if I try using your Quirk?" Katori asks, "I am curious to see if I need the same knowledge as you to be able to affectively use your creation Quirk."
"Sure," she says closing her book and Katori smiles happily that someone is willing to help her.
"So, how does it work? I just think of the item and it appears?"
"You have to know the molecular breakdown. So, for me, I repeat the various components in my head, picturing the item and the scale that I am trying to create, then I am able to pull the item out of my body to the size I imagined."
"Okay," Katori says with a nervous chuckle. "Without knowing the breakdown, I'll think about a rope," she says picturing a rope less than a yard long. She looks onto Yaoyorozu's grey eyes taking her Quirk as she does anyone else's. Her hair lifts off of her shoulders and she feels the creationists power flowing through her as she thinks about the rope. She smiles to herself as she goes to grab the rope from her forearm, but frowns when her fingers crash against the skin and nothing appears.
"Looks like you will have to know the molecular structure," Yaoyorozu frowns as Katori's hair falls down her back. "Here," she says opening her book to a section that outlines the components of a simple straw rope. "Study this page and try again," she says.
Katori reads the components over and over again, memorizing them as she repeats them in her head. She looks onto Yaoyorozu once more, repeating the words and envisioning the small rope. Her hair lifts off of her shoulders while she reaches for her arm, and this time, she is able to dig into her arm and pull out the small yard of rope.
Katori's eyes widen at the sight of a yard long rope coming out of her skin. "Woah this is wild," she giggles at the strange Quirk. "What else can I try?" she asks her, looking at her with wide excited eyes, having never experienced a Quirk like this.
Yaoyorozu's smile drops into a flat line as she looks away from the girl and glances down at her book uncomfortably, "Well, there is a lot to learn, and we don't really have much time before the sports festival, and I was hoping to focus more—"
"Oh yeah, no, sorry, of course!" Katori releases quickly like word vomit, feeling her heart flutter at her stupidity as she lifts herself from the table. "I should get going too. I have a lot of training as well. Good luck!" she calls out to the girl, practically running from her before she can pity her any further.
Katori groans as she walks towards the building, feeling so stupid for asking for anyone's help during this time. She is in a competition with everyone and the last thing anyone will want to do is help her improve on her Quirk.
"Damn, that was painful to watch," she hears the rough voice call out behind her. She turns to see Bakugo walking behind her with his bag slinged around his left shoulder. "You couldn't have looked more desperate."
"Screw you, asshole," Katori sneers at him, turning away from him as she walks up the main stairs.
"You're not going to get anyone to train with you, Copy-Paste," Bakugo says in a flat tone. "No one wants you draining their Quirk when they should be focusing on building it up."
"Yeah, I get it. Thanks for the refresher," she says with gritted teeth.
"Won't matter anyway," he says walking past her as he picks up his pace to be in front of her. "I am going to win at the sports festival."
She looks up at him, seeing the determination in his red eyes as he sneers down at her. She notices that he has not been kind to her since the USJ incident, seeing his words of convincing her to stay as a selfish act to make sure she's there for him to beat. She realizes that he doesn't care about anyone but himself and his over inflated ego, so she wants nothing more than to deflate it. "If that's what you need to do to make up for freezing up at the USJ," she begins with a snarky tone, "then you have a lot of work ahead of you."
His eyes enlarge at her tone, not fully prepared for her to be as nasty to him as he is to her. He recovers quickly, a smug smirk crawling up the right side of his face as if he is proud of her. "See you on the field, Copy-Paste. Try to keep up." He turns away from her, leaving her on the stairs to look up at him.
She turns away from him, heading to the fields where she goes to work on her stamina as much as she can before the sports festival. Now, above anything else, she wants to take out Bakugo and knock him off of his damn high horse while she looks down on him from the number one spot.
She goes to the field when she sees Todoroki already there practicing with his ice attacks. She knows that next to Bakugo, Todoroki is probably the last person willing to help her develop her Quirk at the expense of his own time with it, so she doesn't even waste their time asking.
Katori exhales as she begins running the track while Todoroki works with his Quirk in the middle of the field. She catches his eyes periodically watching her as she runs, but neither engage one another. Katori huffs and puffs as she runs the course as quickly as her body will take her, but she eventually takes a moment to stop, gripping onto her side as she pants for air.
She looks up at Todoroki through sweat-saturated strands of black hair. She takes in staggered breaths of air as she approaches the two-toned boy. She grabs onto a water bottle she placed on the stands, gulping at the contents as he continues to glance at her between forms.
She finally turns to him, wanting to break the awkwardness of training next to one another without acknowledging each other. "Your form is looking good," she says awkwardly, immediately regretting her strange compliment.
Todoroki blinks at her, dropping his shoulders from his fighter's stance and looks at her. "Thank you," he says in a flat tone.
"Why aren't you using your fire?" she asks him and he turns from her, going back to his fighter's stance. She chews on her lower lip, seeing his hardening shoulders at what appears to be an intrusive question that he clearly does not want to answer.
"How are you training your Quirk?" he dodges her question to ask his own instead.
Katori shrugs, but his eyes are no longer on her to see. "Not much I can do. No one wants to risk their own training to work with me. So, I am just exercising my body to be prepared for the worst."
Todoroki turns to her as she says this, and she can notice a change in his normally stiff expressionless demeanor. She watches as his brows turn upward and the corners of his lips tug downwards into a frown. It's clear that he pities her, and she tightens her fist at her sides with this realization.
"I can't blame them," Todoroki thinks thoughtfully. "Everyone has been on edge, wanting to show what we are made of. All eyes will undoubtably be on us since the incident at the USJ. We have firsthand experience with villains, so pro agencies are going to want to pick out the best out of our class."
She nods, unsure what to say to that and a silence falls on them with his assessment. Todoroki finally speaks up, seeing the dejection in her eyes, "You stood tall during the attack on the USJ. I don't believe you have anything to worry about with the sports festival."
She looks up at him, smiling at his kind two-toned eyes. "You managed to get them to confess their plan. I don't think you have much to worry about either," she says with a soft smile.
Todoroki reads her expression, still seeing the sadness of rejection in her eyes. He looks over at her with a sigh, emptying his chest. "Would you mind helping me out with training?" he asks her and she looks up with widening eyes. "I could use someone to help me with my quick attacks."
She knows that he does not need any help with his training or his quick attacks, nor does he want to train with her, but he is clearly asking her for the sake of her own training. Part of her feels embarrassed that he pities her, but mostly she needs someone to spar with, so she cannot be too prideful in this moment. She enters the center of the track with a heavy sigh, standing next to the boy. She smiles up at him with a genuine smile, "Thanks Todoroki."