Hello once again my dear readers, here is the next chapter in my story and as always I welcome any and all feedback you are willing to give me so that I can improve the story for you all. Now, as of now I am open to getting a beta reader as of now to help improve my iffy grammar and wording in places though I don't know how the beta reader system works. If anyone is willing to PM me with the basic rundown of it I would be open to it. Also sorry this chapter is a bit shorter than usual, I needed a good ending spot and extending it much more might make things sound awkard.
Izuku once again stood within the cold stream of the river looking down at the multitude of fish swimming within the stream, he had been at this for the last three days just trying to master the concepts his sensei was trying to teach him for the Seikuken. Keeping a calm a mind as possible the young man noticed that there were a lot more fish swimming down the river than the last time he had been in the river, his eyes tracking them as they swam past his feet, trying to judge which ones were within his reach, sticking his hand out far as it could go at first before he bent the arm a bit so that he could put the right amount of power into deflecting the fish.
Spying one going around his left side, Izuku released a small breath before he went for it his hand dashing into the water and slapping aside to hopefully knock his food towards the shore, only to miss the swift thing by a moment and ended up with a loud splash that disturbed the rest of the fish around him, causing them all to dash forwards before he could really react causing the boy to release a small curse before shaking his head. He could do this, Sensei believed that he could at least master the basics of this technique before the summer was over after all.
Suddenly, Izuku felt a dull pain in the back of his neck followed by a light splash and looked around worriedly but found no one there. The only indication that he wasn't alone in the woods being the sound of cracks through the forest as Fumai chopped up firewood for them to cook over that night. Shaking his head free of distractions again, Izuku looked back into the river mumbling to himself as he went over what he learned of their behavior so far.
"Ok so, the Fish will naturally swim around my waist and stay within an arms reach most times, there is plenty of them swimming around in these waters and as long as I am not panicking their silver scales stand out against the water somewhat. If I try to grab one and throw it to the shore as it is, any fish I want to catch will just dash forward out of my reach before I can get it."
Nodding with that behavior, Izuku continued to mumble to himself thinking about the steps of the Seikuken his sensei had described and checked off things in his mind. Calm mind, awareness of arm's reach, flexing his fingers a bit Izuku let himself be made more aware of his arm's than ever before. The icy river's cold numbing his legs slightly and making it easy just to forget about his lower body for now.
"When something enters arm's reach I need to predict where it will go and deflect it on its path right? Predict, predict" Izuku continued to repeat this mantra to himself to focus in on it when he suddenly felt that pain again on his head, this time the impact side throbbing a bit to make this task even harder. Shaking his head and closing his eyes to forget the throbbing on the back of his head he went over his two lists, wait if he knows how the fish will behave then where the fish will become clear! Then when his hand next hits the water, the target can't be where the fish is now...
Noticing another aquatic animal headed towards him within reach, Izuku's hand descended into the water again, though this time as his fingers disturbed the fish his hand went forwards along the thing's path, colliding with the aquatic animal along the escape route and suddenly swinging upward, knocking the fish right out of the water and onto nearby land making Izuku smile some as he realized the principle of the Seikuken before he refocused on the environment around him noticing a black dot headed towards him at high speeds, mentally coming up with the path of the projectile's movement Izuku raised his left hand up to where he knew the thing's path would take it swift as possible, making it so the back of his hand collided with the small stone headed towards him and deflected it off into the water.
Turning towards the shore, the shore where their camp was, Izuku watched as two more projectiles headed towards him at different heights. Letting out a sigh to keep himself focused and from panicking Izuku took a few steps towards the shore as he created mental paths for the stones in his mind and swiftly moved his hands to deflect them into the water below and to the side depending on which was easier. The young hero to be felt his hands throbbing in pain and protest from deflecting the high speed projectiles but he kept walking forwards anyways, visualizing the range of his arms' motion as a spherical shield around him.
Calmly and confidently, Izuku strode onto the shore while deflecting the stones that were thrown at him from his Sensei, or at least the boy could only assume that this was his teacher's doing as part of the training. As he strode forward, the stones started flying at him at a higher rate of fire and it took all of his focus to keep up deflecting the rocks as they flew towards him, his arms becoming a bit of a blur as he let the prediction and movement of his arms become a reactive response like his sensei said even then quite a few of the rocks broke through his defense and landed right onto his chest forcing him to grunt in pain, especially when the areas above his heart and lungs here struck, those points staggering the boy.
Gritting his teeth as he strode forward, the stones only started to fly forward at a higher rate, and with each one blocked it seemed like another was flying right towards him, Izuku's mind started to panic losing the visualization of the shield in front of him, more rocks started to break through his defense, Izuku ridiculing himself when one that he should have blocked broke through when he tried to keep up with the blows best he could until one hard, solid rock flew right into his forehead with a thunk that echoed throughout the forest as the blow knocked him out.
Katsuki growled into his food as he ate his breakfast of waffles and syrup, prepared by his lame ass father this morning. The food itself was actually really well made like always but something else was on his mind as he ate.
"Ey brat, stop scowling at the table! It is rude as all hell and your growling insults the food your dad cooked for us." Mitsuki's authoritative voice rang out in his mind making Bakugou growl a bit harder before staring her right in the face.
"I wasn't growling at the damn waffles mom! I was just thinking of how I need to really get to the gym for a while today instead of loafing around for most of the morning!"
"And why do you want to hang around the damn quirk gym all day?! You know you have chores to do that take up most of your time." The fellow ash blond spoke to her son in their usual angry tones, though it was lacking any bite like it always did, this was just how he and the hag communicated after all.
"I just spoke to Bulu the other day and it turns out Deku went on this big fucking training trip with his teacher to get stronger. If I don't put in as much effort as he is to develop himself that damn nerd will surpass me and I can't have that fucking happen now can I!" The boy then started to eat his food at a higher pace, wanting to be through with it and head off to his wanted place for the day. Hoping to Christ that it wasn't too crowded today.
"Trying to keep up with Izuku now are ya brat? What a role reversal from how you were at four!" Mitsuki broke out into a bit of a laugh at that but smiled at her son afterward, glad that the boy was actually pushing himself now instead of becoming complacent in his status. Sure he could probably get into UA as he was now but she sure as hell wasn't going to tell that to him, not when Inko's kid was pushing her son so much.
"Anyways, go ahead hang out Goda's all day if you want though be sure to get your chores done when you get home alright?" Mitsuki half shouted to the boy who just nodded as he swallowed the last of his breakfast before rinsing off his plate in the sink.
"Thanks pops, see ya later hag!" Bakugou smirked a bit as he ran off as his mother shouted at him to stop using that nickname and dashed right towards Goda's Gym. Jumping through the suburban streets when he arrived at the huge facility with a large sign out front displaying the Owner, with his muscled body that rivaled All Might's with a fist pumped up in a cheering pose and the gym's slogan, "Fight On!" displayed proudly.
Dashing past the doors, Bakugou flashed his membership card, the bright white design with red lettering indicating him as a premium member of the facility. The future king of explosions went into the changing room to get all up in his regular workout clothes, overhearing a few bits of conversation on his way in about some kid that could make his skin hard or whatever going extreme on the combat dummies. Shrugging off their opinions like the side characters they were, Bakugou rushed off to his usual combat place to see some black haired asshole in his spot!
"Yo jackass! What the hell are you doing in my combat arena? Didn't anyone tell you that this spot is usually taken?" Bakugou growled at the young man, who looked to be right around his age as he got into the enclosed area. Getting the attention of him who turned around and gave Bakugou a nice pointy-toothed smile.
"Oh? Sorry man, no one told me this spot was usually reserved but I just went to the one that seemed the most difficult to train some, I need to improve myself if I want to improve this quirk of mine enough to be a hero." The amicable young man's attitude...Didn't quite piss off Bakugou enough for him to get angry yet as he saw him hold up an arm and watched as it visibly shifted and became harder.
"My name is Eijiro Kirishima by the way, nice to meet ya."
"Bakugou, appreciate that you get to bask in my presence." Seeing this fellow teenager's quirk in action gave Bakugou an idea and he smiled some, this jackass said he was training to be a hero right? Well, might as well take advantage of this opportunity.
"Hey hardass, how strong is your skin like that? Because I think that you and I can have a pretty good set up if it can withstand an explosion or two from me. Could help us both improve as I am aiming to be a hero as well?" To accentuate his point, Bakugou pointed his left palm out at the young man before triggering a light explosion.
"Oh, you mean like sparring between us to improve our quirks? Hell yeah, I want to do that! Sounds manly as all hell, clashing against each other to sharpen our skills!" Kirishima smirked a bit before he backed up to the back of the arena and turned off any sparring programs that had been going on before turning to face his opponent with a smile on his face.
"Alright Hardass, we start on 3 and then everything else is off, quirks can be used freely as well as anything you can think of to gain the upper hand. We fight until one is on the floor and unable to fight, no ring outs, no time outs or any pussy shit like that ok?"
"Sounds perfect, I would never want to win through away like ring out or time, a real man conquers the opponent in front of him with everything he has!" Nodding at his new sparring partner, Kirishima eagerly started to harden his body.
"3!" Bakugou called out the first number, both boys' muscles tensed right up, ready to fire off in the moment.
"2!" This time, Kirishima called it out the eagerness to test himself against Bakugou clear in his voice, his eyes tracking the blond's movements and muscle tensions as he tried to get an idea of what was going to happen next.
"1!" Both young men called out in unison before dashing at each other, Kirishima's fist back ready for a large left hook while Bakugou was much the same, but with his right hook leading, the two attacks hitting right on target, though Bakugou's was swiftly followed by an explosion that blew them apart after the first attack.
Rubbing his cheek, Bakugou smirked feeling the pain there, oh yeah this guy would be a good fight to improve his quirk. So with an excited smile the hero to be dived right back towards his opponent, sending out a mid-range explosion to deal a bit of damage while staying away from his opponent, only to be surprised as Hardass rushed right through his explosion to give him a hard punch to the gut making Bakugou grunt out in pain before he retaliated with a hard boom of his own right on the black haired kid's chest with his right hand and using his left to blow himself away from the close combat user again. Dropping to a crouching position as he figured out the best way to attack and smirking as he thought of the perfect way.
Charging his foe once more with his battle cry of Die! He charged until he was just outside of the man's range before he jumped and blasted beneath him to propel himself above the black haired bastard before using his other hand to hit him right back towards the man and unleashing a particularly strong explosion to the back of Hardass's head, breaking through some of the young man's skin finally though his efforts were rewarded with a sharpened, hard elbow being slammed into his solar plexus, forcing some air out of Bakugou's lungs and blowing him back a bit towards the wall behind them.
Growling as he touched his chest and felt the nasty bruise there, Bakugou cracked his knuckles some before spitting a bit on the ground and dashing towards his foe, using the same all-out offensive tactics as before, and it seemed like his foe was going to do the same thing as he turned around to face him and charged head-on, cracks showing in the armor of his skin making it clear the young man was running low on his quirk power.
Deciding to show absolutely no fear for his opponent's attacks now, Bakugou ran forward, focusing on his right hand, it felt like there was enough sweat built up there now for what he planned, avoiding what would have no doubt been a devastating uppercut from Kirishima's right arm with a last minute weave, Bakugou slammed his palm on Hardass's chin in the moment he had open before sending the strongest explosion he could into the skin, shattering through his hardness and making the whole body blast back, forcing his foe to land hard in a state where he could not get back up.
"Hey, Hardass! Your name... It was Kirishima right?" Bakugou smiled as he saw his former foe lift his head up a bit and gave a thumbs up before a wheezy voice came out of his mouth.
"Yeah, that was a great fight, my man, just...Just let me recover some and I will be right back up to fight you again! We gotta keep clashing against each other to refine ourselves and quirks right?" That final word was followed by a cough from Kirishima and a chuckle from Bakugou as he squatted near the young man.
"Sure, by the way, what is your membership level here?"
"Just a regular, I can only access the basic stuff like this arena and all. Why are you asking?"
"Oh well, I have premium which means we can fight in the fancy arenas up top with changeable environments if you want to... By the way, you don't have many plans this summer do ya? Cause I want to spend it all in my self imposed training camp! Here at the gym!" He smirked down at the boy who had a bit of a sparkle in his eye before Bakugou extended a hand to Kirishima to take.
"You seem good enough to be my sidekick, wanna join in on this? I am going to go hard as I can, after all, can't do any less if I want to topple All Might one day after all"
"I would love to join in on this, sounds manly as hell to be improving ourselves so much for this whole summer break!" He grinned as a weak hand came up and shook Bakugou's as a small friendship was forged.