"Kacchan!" - Speech

'Izuku!' - Thoughts

"I AM HERE!" - All Might Speech

"Detroit Smash!" - Special Technique Usage

Beta'd By BigCC

Chapter 3: Grown Flames

Ten Years Later

3rd Year Classroom, Aldera Junior High, Musutafu Town

"... but why bother, you all want to be heroes, right?!"

Midoriya Izuku merely rolled his eyes as the majority of his classmates began cheering and shouting raucously, most showing off their Quirks as they did so. He personally refrained from both activities for several reasons. The most logical being that activating his Quirk would likely set off the over-sensitive fire alarms Aldera had received shortly after he and Kacchan had started. A standard precaution for when a school had not one but two students with extremely…volatile Quirks.

The more personal reason was Izuku's extreme distaste for the attitude that seemed to permeate the entire school. Aldera had proven itself to be have a particularly Quirkist mindset, with most of teaching staff treating the increasingly rare Quirkless student with dismissal, an attitude that emboldened several of the worst of the school's population.

The verdette had very firmly put his foot down when he'd found out about that.

"Oi teach, don't put me and Izuku on the same level as this bunch of reject background characters." Bakugō Katsuki scoffed loudly from his seat next to his childhood friend, legs casually kicked up and resting on his desk. "We're the next Top Two Heroes after all; if any of these scrubs could even hope to make it out of the minor leagues, I'll be fuckin' surprised."

Izuku couldn't help but roll his eyes again, some things never changed.

The rest of the class was far less blasé about Katsuki's little declaration.

"Damn you, Bakugō!"

"Who do you think you are!?"

"You're not that great!"

"You looking down on us?!"

"Yeah, I am. Any of you worthless scrubs want to argue my point?" the blond [Explosion]-user returned the indignant shouts with a feral sneer, absently sitting up and raising one hand and threateningly making the claw gesture he usually made before setting off an explosion.

That one gesture was all it took to make the rest of the class shrink back, most losing any trace of defiance. Bakugō and Midoriya were the undisputed kings of Aldera Junior High; no one in the entire school had a Quirk that could match either [Explosion] or [Silver Tyrant's Flame] when it came to power, versatility or the skill either boy showed in their use. Not even the teachers had anything close to an ability that could challenge the two teens.

The former rulers of the school had attempted to assert their dominance shortly after the duo had become first years, ambushing both twelve year olds after classes were over on their third day. The third years, ten of the them in total, had been soundly beaten without landing so much as a scratch on either pre-teen. Bakugō had been heard loudly complaining that the fight hadn't even counted as a proper warm-up as they left.

"Tch." Bakugō spat off a scoff before relaxing back into his seat. "That's what I thought."

"Kacchan…" Izuku gave his best friend a long look, a note of censure in his tone.

"Yeah, yeah. I know." Katsuki waved the scolding off, before offering Izuku an unamused glower. "And what have I told you about using that damn nickname?"

"'Stop it.' Sorry." the flame wielder responded absently.

As the class settled back down, Izuku absently settled into his own seat, ignoring the teacher's blathering in favour of filling out the form that had been waiting on their desks when class started. It was obvious where he intended to go; U.A., the school that had produced some of the best and most upstanding heroes in the country. They regularly had more alumni in the Top 100 than Shiketsu and Ketsubutsu, its most well-known rival schools in Japan, put together.

Ever since their visit from All Might shortly after his own Quirk had awakened, Izuku had been working tirelessly at the Volatile Quirk Training Centre whenever he'd had the opportunity, to the point that his mother and mentor at the centre had had to force him to take rest days to keep him from overworking himself. The Quirk Training Allowance that his mother received to help subsidize the costs of having a child with such a potentially dangerous Quirk had paid for his continued his training, relieving some of the pressure from his mother's part time jobs.

He had bled, he had sweated, and he had cried during his training, but the enormous strides he'd made in controlling his silver flames were well worth the efforts in his mind. Now it was only ice-wielders that could shake his confidence in his abilities, and even then he'd worked tirelessly to develop counters and ways to mitigate his Quirk's glaring weakness. They weren't perfect, not yet, but Izuku was at least confident he wouldn't be helpless in the face of his natural nemesis.

Katsuki hadn't been idle either, the blonde dynamo had worked just as hard beside his best friend, never willing to allow Izuku to get a step ahead of him. Their occasional sparring matches at the VQTC normally ended with the main sparring area utterly devastated before the match could be settled. Powerful explosions clashing with tides of silver fire overwhelming the centre's ability to contain and control the damage.

Socially, things were a bit…dicier. Thanks to All Might's talk, both Izuku and Katsuki had been mostly prepared for the wave of sycophants, brown-nosers and other hangers-on that had tried to surround them since Junior High had started. The fawning and bootlicking from the teaching staff had been a surprise, but one that the two had eventually left both teens more disturbed/annoyed than anything else. It had taken the majority of their first year in Aldera to get the message across, but the rest of the school had eventually gotten it into their heads that trying to get close to the duo in an attempt to bask in the reflected glory was a quick way to ensure a cold shoulder from both.

The end result was that the duo had found themselves mostly left alone by their peers and teachers outside of schoolwork and similar requirements. Honestly, that had suited both boys just fine. Both were exceptionally driven young men, and none of their peers seemed willing to even attempt to keep up with their friendly competitions. Those that had tried usually ended up being little more than a distraction at best, nuisances at worst.

Katsuki had honestly been tempted to recruit a couple to just act as 'gofers' for the two of them, but Aunt Mitsuki's 'gentle admonishments' had knocked the idea out of his head while reminding him of the advice All Might had given them, which always worked wonders. Katsuki might hide it far better than Izuku, but he was just as much a fanboy for the Symbol of Peace as his best friend was.

And just as All Might had warned, without an ability to bask in the reflected glory, the awe their classmates had previously shown quickly started to turn to jealousy and spite.

The hateful words, snide remarks, and nasty rumours had started getting really bad shortly after their second year had started, with the staff mostly ignoring any reports if they weren't directly witnessing the events in questions. They had come to deeply regret that when two furious mothers had descended upon the school and giving the (now ex)principle an hour long rant on what would happen if he continued to passively encourage bullying at his school 'just because my ass-hat of a son and his friend are too fucking smart to let your ass-kissing staff get any kind of fucking reflected goddamned glory by association', as Bakugō Mitsuki had put it.

Izuku felt the corners of his lips twitch in amusement as he remembered how the teachers had started looking at him and Katsuki like there were demons hiding behind their back after that. He knew it wasn't very heroic, but the Quirkist jerks had needed a good dose of maternal fury, and by All Might, had they gotten it.

As the bell toned, signalling the end of classes for the day, Izuku couldn't hold in a relieved sigh. In addition to the substandard staff and attitude, Aldera's academic challenge was, to be completely frank, an utter joke. If Hero Schools had allowed early admittance, he didn't doubt that he and Katsuki could have tested out early rather than stay for their Third Year of Junior High.

…maybe he was exaggerating slightly, but certainly not by much.

"Man, I can't wait until we're done with this fucking place." Katsuki grunted out as he and Izuku walked out the school gates. "Having to deal with the background characters is bad enough, but those fucking brown-nosers they call teachers are starting to turn into a real fucking pain in the ass."

"Just think of it as training for dealing with the press." Izuku suggested absently as he thumbed through one of his notebooks. "You know how far some reporters will go to try and get a story. Just look at what happened to Strong Arm last month."

The blonde bomber snorted in amusement at that. The over-muscled ape that called himself The Power Hero: Strong Arm had been a former up-and-comer who'd managed to make into the Top 100 in only his third year after graduating. Then a blonde bimbo of a reporter had fluttered her eyebrows at him and the dumbass had started bragging about his personal conquests; only to be shocked when everything he'd said was plastered across the morning edition for the next few weeks. Now it would take years for him to rebuild his rep after the scandal, if he ever could.

What a moron.

It didn't take long before two reached the points where they had to go their separate ways in order to reach their respective homes; Katsuki to his family's house, and Izuku to his. The Midoriya Family had moved out of the apartment that Izuku had lived in when his father moved back from America. Midoriya Hisashi was now a Branch Office Supervisor at the textiles company he worked for. He had initially taken a small hit to his pay-check when he started at a lower position, but he had worked himself hard to climb back up and support his family.

"I'm home!" Izuku called as he entered the front door.

"Welcome home, Izuku!" Inko said as she bustled out of the kitchen to give him a hug. The Midoriya Matriarch had remained mostly unchanged through the years, the only real change being the occasional bout of exhaustions and fatigue that sometimes came over her.

"Dinner will be ready soon." she said as she led her son to the joint kitchen/dining room. "How was school? Better?"

"Honestly, pretty boring for the most part." Izuku responded with a slight grimace as he sat at the table. "Some of the teachers are still trying their stupid brown-nosing tactics, but its honestly just a nuisance these days.

"Still? Honestly, some people just refuse to learn don't they?" the green-haired matriarch offered with a slight frown.

"It's no big deal. They're just going to end up disappointed either way so it's best to just ignore them." the young fire user said with a shrug. "By the way, is Dad going to be home for dinner tonight?"

"Afraid not sweetie, he was selected to act as the company's representative at a business conference tomorrow." Inko responded with a sigh of her own. "He'll be gone for a couple of weeks at least, and I'm afraid he can't get out of this one. He's at the office right now, making sure everything will be handled by his subordinates while he's out."

"Again? Why do they always pick Dad for these things?" Izuku grumbled.

Honestly, Izuku understood exactly why. His father was an utter professional when it came to his work; competent, composed and hard-working to the extreme. Not to mention loyal and law-abiding. More and more people these days weren't above cutting corners or taking bribes to overlook irregularities. This was especially true for a company that worked with such large corporations like the Yaoyorozu Hero Support Company and Shield Support Industries in America like his father's company did.

In that kind of environment, a man with a reputation like Hizashi's was worth his weight in gold. Meaning he was always a first-pick for any major project or meeting.

The fact it left him overworked and away from his family for long stretches of time was a cost the company was willing to pay.

Inko gave her son a sympathetic smile as she cooked. Izuku and his father had truly gotten close again once he started to be more than a voice over the phone, and the father-son bond between them was truly something heart-warming for her to watch. Neither of the men in her life were happy when Hizashi got dragged into these long-term projects, but it couldn't be helped sometimes.

"Oh, that reminds me. Ikazuchi-san called earlier today." she suddenly remembered. "He said he's going to be handing you over to your new trainer next week."

Izuku's face scrunched slightly at that. Ikazuchi Goemon had been his personal mentor at the Musutafu Volatile Quirk Training Centre for a decade now and the two had developed an almost familial rapport. Sadly, Issen's health had been taking a turn for the worse lately and he'd be retiring permanently within the next few months; something about a chest injury that he'd taken before he'd lost his leg.

The Frost Heroine: Cold Front still stopped by every now and again to help him work with developing counters for his Quirk's weakness and he'd had a few other temporary trainers over the years, but Ikazuchi had been the one who'd helped guide him the most. So, the fact that this might be his final handover with the man was a sad moment for Izuku.

"He say anything about who my new trainer will be?" he asked aloud after a moment.

"Sorry honey, he just said that you'd be excited to meet them." Inko replied with a shake of her head. "I think he's planning another of his surprises, he certainly sounded excited about it himself."

"Yeah, he's always enjoyed making me jump." Izuku said with a fond shake of his head. "Well, at least I don't have any homework tonight; I finished it all during class today and handed it in before we left."

"I'll bet the teacher didn't enjoy that." Inko offered with a smirk. She was oh-so proud of her brilliant baby boy, and she honestly wished that she and Mitsuki had been able to send their boys to a better school. Neither Izuku or Katsuki were being remotely challenged by Aldera, and the teachers were...several things that she'd prefer not to call people in polite company.

Still, Izuku hadn't allowed anything to dampen his dream to become a Pro Hero, and the first step to that for him was attending U.A. High School. She wasn't worried about him passing the academic exam, he self-studied enough that she was confident in his abilities there, but the practicals were an entirely different story. Outside of the occasional spar with Mitsuki's son, and that awful incident which had awakened his Quirk in the first place, Izuku had never used his Quirk to attack anyone or anything, static targets aside.

It was something for him to work on this year, she supposed.

Izuku, meanwhile, had turned on the television and was eagerly watching footage of All Might punching a villain with some kind of Sludge Mutation Quirk. She noted that it was happening live and was just thankful that her son hadn't been drawn into that kind of mess.

The Next Week

Staff Room, Musutafu Volatile Quirk Training Centre

Kamiji Moe, better known as the Pro Hero Burnin', forcefully repressed the urge to scratch at the cast covering her left forearm and hand. Instead, she once again began to mentally curse the dumbass villain with that fucking Transparency Quirk and a goddamned crowbar that had broken her wrist and forearm in three places. She'd scorched the creep something fierce for it and arrested his ass, but she was still officially stuck on light duties until she fully healed.

So instead of having her stuck doing office work, which she both hated and sucked at, her boss, the Flame Hero: Endeavour, had temporarily assigned her to take up a temporary post at a VQTC as a 'PR assignment.' Honestly, it was probably more to keep her from going stir crazy and annoying the shit out of him and the rest of the Flaming Sidekickers.

'And now I'm stuck teaching some snot-nosed brats how not to scorch themselves with their own Quirk. Fun.' she thought sarcastically. 'At least it beats doing paperwork all day, if barely.'

She really wasn't really the type to normally get all moody and shit, instead she honestly tried to live up to her Hero Name as a passionate, outgoing Hero. But she honestly preferred working with professionals or at least people who knew how to actually work properly. She'd had to deal with far too many incompetent morons who'd thought that having a 'powerful' or 'flashy' Quirk was all it took back when she was a hero student, and the experience, not to mention the injuries she'd had to suffer through because of said morons, had left her with a severe distaste for anyone without a proper appreciation for control of their Quirk.

Like most of the brats that attended facilities like this and thought just throwing their Quirks around would make them the next All Might.

The sound of the door sliding open pulled her from her thoughts and she got a good look at the tired-looking old timer wearing the VQTC's tracksuit uniform stumping into the room, his prosthetic leg thunking hollowly as he walked. The sight of him was a sobering one for Burnin'. The Thunder Hero: Issen, had been, if not a legend, then a well-known and respected example of the type of Hero children could aspire to be like when she was just a brat. Instead of having an overwhelming powerful Quirk like All Might or Endeavour, he'd instead earned his spot into the Top Ten with just a simple Elemental Quirk, hard work, training, and discipline.

There were still a lot of people who remembered the man who'd clawed his way to the Number 8 position with nothing but grit, determination, and a Quirk most wouldn't have expected to see in the Top 100, let alone the Top 10. He still had a bit of a cult following among those with Electricity-based Quirks.

"Sorry for runnin' a bit late, this ol' body ain't as spry as it used to be." Ikazuchi Goemon apologized absently as he sat down opposite her. "You'd be Burnin', I take it?"

"Yup, that's me. Nice to meet you in person, Issen." the Sidekick replied with a friendly grin, deciding to put her best foot forward here and getting straight to business. "I've been told I'll be taking over one of your kids while I'm here. So, what am I going to be dealing with?"

"Aye, you'll be taking over Izuku Midoriya's case. I guess you could call him my pet project since he first came to the VQTC a near-decade ago." the old Pro offered with a fond smile. "He's a good kid with a heart of gold, smart as a razor, a work ethic that'd make a drill sergeant weep in joy, and a damned powerful Quirk that'd give that boss of yours a run for his money."

"Really? Kid sounds too good to be true." Burnin' offered, sounding sceptical. Kids, particularly those with powerful Quirks, tended to be rude, arrogant little buggers. Same as her when she was a brat, really. "So, I take it his Quirk's a fire-based one then?"

"There's the tricky bit, while Izuku's Quirk is technically classified as a Fire Quirk, it's actually closer to some form of Elemental Composite Quirk." Issen offered with a smirk. "It's called [Silver Tyrant's Flame] and it's a flame manifestation and manipulation Quirk that works almost as an antithesis to other fire-type Quirks. The flames he manifests are not only silver-coloured but also show properties more akin to a liquid-type Quirk than a fire-type; they give off the same heat and energy as normal flames, but possess the fluidity and flame-smothering abilities of water."

That last fact caused Burnin' to nearly bolt up out of her chair. "Wait a minute!" she gaped at the old man. "Are you saying that his flames…!?"

"Can extinguish most any other type of fire, whether its Quirk-generated or natural." the old Pro finished with a nod. "Aye, more than that, he's learned to actually use other flames as a fuel source for his own, letting him 'conquer' them as a friend of his once put it. That little trick is what convinced him to officially have his Quirk relabelled from simply [Silver Flame]. Can't say it's not applicable either. Point of fact is, even if someone like you or Endeavour tried to use their Quirk against Izuku-kun, all they'd be doing is making him stronger."

That image made Burnin' gulp a bit. No Pro liked the thought of someone being able to completely no-sell their Quirk. The very idea of her boss's signature Kaku Shakunekken (Flashfire Fist) being not only quenched but absorbed by this kid's Quirk was simply mind-boggling.

Endeavour hadn't held the position as the Number 2 Hero for the better part of two decades without reason. Her boss was a veteran fighter with an extremely powerful Quirk. She'd seen him use [Hellflame] to defeat even those who should have been a natural counter to his Quirk, from Water Quirk users, to flame controllers, to even those whose Quirks should have made them utterly fireproof. There had only been a few cases in her entire time as a Flaming Sidekicker that she'd seen them do more than annoy her boss, and only one or two that had ever forced the Flame Hero to fall back for any amount of time.

"That sounds…fuckin' crazy." she muttered aloud before shaking her head and getting back on topic. She could brood later. "And what exactly can he do with these flames of his? How good is the kid's control?"

"Oh, he's been working on his control for nearly as long as I've been working with him, and I can say that he's gotten pretty dang good at it." Issen chuckled. "He's managed to figure out how to release his flames from any point of his body and he's good enough to not only shape his flames into constructs, but condense and at least partially solidify them as well. Like I said, boy's got one hell of a work ethic and his Quirk itself is nothing to sneeze at either."

"Daaaaang…" the sidekick hissed out, drawing out the word. She could respect that kind of work ethic. "Kid sounds like some kind of monster." she stated approvingly.

"Oh, he's still got some flaws that need ironing out." the retired Pro offered with a light shake of his head. "One of the biggest things I'm hoping you'll be able to help the lad with is that he tends to be a bit overly cautious, particularly when it comes to causing collateral damage. As far as his Quirk itself, he still suffers from the most common Quirk issue for Fire Quirk users, overusing his Quirk rapidly dehydrates him; though he's worked to build up his endurance and resistance to that. In addition, there's two real weaknesses that I've keyed onto when it comes to [Silver Tyrant Flames]. First, it has a naturally strong empathic link to Izuku's emotions, particularly his negative ones like anger or sadness. If Izuku loses control of his emotions, it'll instinctively lash out at whatever is causing him distress almost like a natural defence."

'That's not particularly rare when it comes to Flame Quirks.' Moe thought absently, remember how her own [Blazing Hair] would flare up uncontrollably when her emotions got the better of her back when she was a teen.

"The second has to do with its liquid qualities. Because of this, Izuku's flames are as vulnerable to Ice Quirks as any Water Quirk, perhaps even weaker." Goemon finished.

"Ice?" Burnin' questioned flatly, not quite sure she'd heard him right. "You're saying this monstrously strong Fire Quirk is vulnerable to ice?"

"Doctor Matsushita's [Insight] Quirk has already taken a look at it. He's confirmed that, due to the liquid nature of the flames, [Silver Tyrant's Flame] is unusually vulnerable to cold." Issen replied patiently, having obviously been expecting the disbelief. "Even a moderately powerful Ice Quirk can quickly freeze Izuku-kun's flames solid. One of our usual volunteers, the Frost Heroine: Cold Front, has been working on and off with Izuku-kun to try and develop counters for it for nearly as long as I've been working with him and we've literally got hours worth of recordings on the subject. Oddly enough, even when the flames are frozen, Izuku-kun can still sense, manipulate, and control them telekinetically as if his Quirk were cryokinetic, though the effort required is several times more intense than simply controlling his liquid flames."

Moe had, of course, heard of Doctor Matsushita before; he was widely regarded as one of the foremost Quirk Analysts and researchers in the world. Endeavour had personally hired the man several times over the years to get a better understanding of how his subordinates, and even his children's, Quirks worked. Burnin' reluctantly conceded that Issen wasn't bullshitting her on this one.

"I think I might be in a bit over my head on this one." she admitted. "I'm not sure what I can help him, his Quirk sounds like its on a whole other level than mine."

"My [Thunderball] isn't exactly a close match for his either, girl." the retired Pro reminded her dryly. "And I like to think I've done fairly well over the last decade with just what I've been able to gather from Fire Quirk users I've either worked with or fought against during my career. As a fire-user yourself, I don't doubt that there's got to be dozens of tiny little tricks, strategies, and techniques that only a Flame Quirk holder would notice or understand. More than that, young Enji's got more fire, flame, and heat-based Quirk users working for him now than any Hero Agency in Japan, so you've likely got an even broader spread of knowledge than normal."

Burnin' almost choked on her own tongue when she heard someone call her boss, The Number 2 Hero himself, 'young Enji.' Then again, she supposed that if anyone had the right to call the Flame Hero something like that, it would be a hero from the generation that had immediately preceded the rise of Endeavour and All Might. While it couldn't compare to some of the battle that the current Number One and Number Two heroes had been involved in, Issen's final battle as a Pro Hero against the villain King Katana, who'd been hopped up to hell and back on a Quirk-enhancing drug, likely an early predecessor to the drug commonly known as Trigger in the current age, was still required watching for final year students at several Hero Schools across Japan, including the Big Three of U.A., Shiketsu and Ketsubutsu.

"W-well…I guess you've got a point there." she coughed into her fist before continuing. "There's a lot about Fire Quirks that you need to have a fire-type of your own to really understand. Anything else I need to know before I meet the kid?"

"Well first, expect to have him ask for an autograph and to have several questions about your Quirk. Kid's a bit of a hero fanboy." Issen offered with a small, fond smile.

Moe snorted a bit at that, feeling that they were back on safer ground. "The first is kinda expected, but why would the kid ask me about my Quirk?"

"Oh, Izuku-kun's a bit of Quirk Analyst himself, by hobby more than anything else. Seems he got really interested in it back when he visited Matsushita's clinic. Kid's pretty damned good at it by this point too. Why, just last week he broke down that flashy new rookie Mt. Lady's Quirk while taking a snack break during his training. Honestly, it's a bit scary how into it he can get when he starts thinkin' about something." Issen answered with a bit of a chuckle, before he frowned in thought. "I should also mention that he's…not really a fan of Endeavour, says he gives Fire Quirk users a bad name with how liberal he can be with his Quirk. Doesn't help that he's a big All Might fan too."

While Burnin' instinctively set her face in an indignant expression, she could honestly see where the kid was coming from. While Endeavour's impressive arrest record, one that rivalled and even surpassed All Might's in some areas, and his public image as a strong, stalwart defender and warrior against villainy had earned him some support and followers, his seeming lack of concern for the amount of damage he inflicted and the excessive amount of force he would sometimes bring to bear had earned him just as many detractors.

There was a reason that his position of Number Two was never as solid and unshakable as All Might's position as Number One.

That combined with his caustic rivalry with the Symbol of Peace, as much as his PR teams tried to downplay it, and yeah; Moe could see some good reasons the kid would dislike her boss.

"Is me being one of Endeavour's sidekicks likely to cause problems?" she asked bluntly.

"As long as you don't intend to defend the man's virtues to the death, then no. Izuku-kun is a good boy and he's always been very respectful with the Pros who've helped out before, even those with less than stellar reputations. As long as you treat him fairly and don't act in an unheroic manner, he'll give you all the respect that a teacher and trainer deservers, never mind what he believes a Pro Hero has earned." Issen replied honestly.

"I can live with that." Burnin' let out a sigh. "Well, at least I'm going in forewarned about that particular landmine. How long until I meet the kid?"

Issen checked the clock. "He should be showing up in the next five minutes or so. Gotta admit, I'm going to miss teaching him."

"So why are you retiring then?" the heroine couldn't help asking.

Issen let out a bone-rattling sigh. "I'm an old man, Burnin', one that took more than his fair share of licks when he was still in his prime." the retired Pro looked off into the distance, eyes foggy as he reminisced about a day long ago. "Back when I'd just quit being a Sidekick and started my own Agency, there was this young punk of a villain who'd decided that tearing down a new Hero Agency would be the perfect way to make a name for himself on the streets. Cocky young bastard had a nasty Electric Quirk of his own that let him gather and fire out beams of concentrated electrical energy like lightning bolts out of his hands. Fool called it [Shock Treatment] and the things were strong enough to kill most with a direct hit. Me, I was just getting into my prime, rising up the ranks, and thought I was near-unbeatable, and that was all it took for the little bastard to get the drop on me. I ended up taking a shot directly to the heart."

"Shit…!" Burnin' hissed out in horror. "How'd you even…?!"

"I've an Electric Quirk user myself. Just like how most of you with Flame Quirks usually have a natural resistance to flames and heat, those like me can usually handle more voltage than a normal person." Issen offered with a small smirk. "I managed to power through it, which surprised the hell out of the punk. Before he could even try again, I managed to knock his block off and send him scurrying off, then I promptly collapsed onto the floor. Turns out that the blast had done some minor damage to my heart, something about how it handles electrical impulses. It wasn't an issue back then, but it's only gotten worse as time's gone on. I can't even use my Quirk these days without my heart achin' like someone took a knife to it. I made a few friends in the Support Industry back in my glory days, and one of them contacted me a few months ago to offer me a spot for some trials at a clinic on I-Island. They're planning on cloning my heart and then doing a transplant surgery. It's all the latest and greatest so with any luck I'll be back on my feet within a couple years. It was a chance that I couldn't turn down, just my luck that it comes right when Izuku-kun needs all the help he can get prepping for the U.A. exams."

"I'll do my best to do right with the kid, but I'm only going to be here for a few months while this stupid thing heals up." Burnin' offered, absently tapping on her cast.

"Just do your best, that's all he or I could ask." the former Pro responded with a tired sigh. "Well, we'd best get to the Fire Room to formally introduce you to Izuku-kun."

After the Training Session

Kamiji Moe's Apartment

Taking a long drink from the can in her hand, Kamiji Moe collapsed back into her favourite chair with a contented sigh. She'd needed that after meeting her new 'pupil' just a few hours ago.

Midoriya Izuku…was not your average kid. He'd arrived at the VQTC dressed in a comfortable-looking set of workout clothes and, true to his name, had the greenest pair of eyes she'd ever seen, along with a messy mop of green-black hair on top of his head. His looks were…a bit above average for a teenage boy, she supposed, with a face that was more cute than handsome. He was about average height for a fourteen-year-old and had a fairly well-developed set of musculature. The latter was something Moe appreciated on a professional level more than anything else; she'd seen far too many idiots, particularly those with Emitter Quirks, that thought they could be a hero relying solely on their Quirk.

His eyes, however, remained the most drawing feature of the young man. Those bright green orbs were bright and sharp, showing a quick mind constantly taking in everything around him.

As Issen had predicted, he'd asked for her autograph almost immediately after getting over his shock that he'd be working with a, relatively, well-known Pro for the next few months. The barrage of questions about her Quirk that he'd asked after she'd signed his notebook had been interesting and amusing. She'd ended up using it as a test to see just how 'sharp' the kid actually was, telling him to analyse everything he could about her Quirk during their session and give her a rundown on everything he'd discovered and theorized at the end. She'd critique and correct him after they were done.

'What the fuck was I thinking?' she asked herself now. The several pages of notes he'd presented at the end of their session, written out neatly and quickly in that notebook he apparently carried around religiously, had given her chills. The analysis of her Quirk, its strengths, weaknesses, limitations and probable counters was not only accurate, but better written than several professional analyses she'd had done over the years. She'd briefly thought the kid must have hacked into the National Quirk Registry after somehow figuring out she'd be his new trainer and copied the information from her Quirk Registration File. That is, until she noticed that he'd written about how her control over her Quirk was likely dependent on the length of her hair, something she'd never put in the NQR at all!

'Sharp' did not do this kid justice. Scary was a far better word for it.

And then there was the training session itself! Seeing her [Blazing Hair] Quirk's flames being so easily engulfed and absorbed into that odd liquid fire the teenaged boy had conjured had been astounding to watch, but what had really impressed Burnin' was the fact that he'd summoned it without so much as a single gesture. Most Quirk Users needed some form of physical aid in combination with any mental control they had over their Quirk.

The reasons why this was ran the gamut from a Quirk simply having a fixed origin point like the hands or feet, to using the gestures as an extra mental focus to help improve their control. Seeing a fourteen-year-old demonstrate that kind of control that even Endeavour usually admitted was more trouble than it was worth was…again, scary was a good word, though a bit of an understatement in her opinion.

And, of course, that hadn't been the end of it. She'd had the kid run through his entire repertoire of tricks and techniques after that to get an idea of how he normally used his flames.

Moe had never been more glad that she was so used to seeing dramatic explosions of flames on a regular basis, otherwise the show the kid had put on would have had her jaw clattering against the floor like one of those lame American cartoons.

Midoriya had also proven to be completely immune to the heat of his own flames, and had even demonstrated that he could control it enough to have it not burn others as well. Hell, she'd experienced that aspect first-hand when the kid had thrown an attack at her that looked as visually impressive as Endeavour's Kaku Shakunekken. Instead of being royally scorched by the tidal wave of fire, she'd merely been swept back by the impact of the flames. No heat, no burning, nothing.

That alone made the kid's Quirk Pro-level material, but he hadn't stopped there. The green-haired little pyro had demonstrated how well he could shape, condense, and solidify his flames; forging weapons, armour, and even constructs to fight with in addition to simply blasting flames at anything that moved.

Kamiji Moe was not normally a person who felt jealous of other people's Quirk, her own [Blazing Hair] was damned impressive enough in her own opinion, but she could honestly admit to being more than a bit jealous of the kid by the end of their session. Finding out the exact circumstances about how it had awoken (being chased and nearly flambéed by a crazed jackass with a Quirk that turned him into some berserk three-headed dragon monster when he was only four) had certainly killed a bit of that jealousy.

"Damn, and the kid's planning on applying to U.A. next year…" she mused aloud. "Fuck me running, if Nezu and the others are even half as good as their hype, then he's going to be one scary little bastard by the time they're done with him."

Granted, he was well on his way to being one right now, but she could already see some issues that needed work on. For all his combat power, Izuku lacked both combat experience and any form of real combat training. He was also, as Issen had mentioned, overly cautious when it came to causing collateral damage when he started using his Quirk. It was a respectable, morally upright attitude to have.

Only it was a completely untenable one for a Hero.

Every Quirk that had any form of physical component, particularly Elemental Quirks, could cause some form of damage to the surroundings. Nearly every hero out there had done some amount of collateral damage sometime in their career. Most who specialized in villain capture did it on a fairly regular basis. After all, Villains weren't about to hold back just to keep property damage down, expecting Heroes to handicap themselves to do the same was just stupid.

Keeping property damage to a minimum was a good thing, but there was a reason that Hero Public Safety Commission had such a large budget when it came to repairing property damage.

'So, beating practicality and combat pragmatism into his head, offering up some Fire Quirk tips, and getting him some actual combat training and experience.' Moe mused to herself absently as took another sip of her beer. 'Yeah, that should be doable in the three goddamn months I'm stuck off the frontlines. Eh, it's better than being chained to a desk again. I'd end up burning it down in a week. Again.'

Idly brushing off the memory of Endeavour's glowering face as he stood over the blackened remains of her desk after the last time she'd been trapped on desk duty, Moe leaned back and started to plan out exactly what she'd need to do in the next three months before nodding slowly. What she had planned should cover all her bases fairly nicely, even if the kid only came to the training centre once a week.

"Oh yeah, by the time I'm done with him the kid will rock that Entrance Exam." the fire user smirked to herself, her hair flickering excitedly to mimic her own emotions. "And I'll be able to say I trained the brat. Heh…well at least I'm going to have a bit of fun while I'm benched. Get ready for some hard work, Midoriya. Get ready to Flame On!"

Coincidentally, in the Midoriya home, Izuku suddenly felt a bad premonition about his future.

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Next Chapter: Robo Rumble at UA

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