Author's Note: Apologies for last week's chapter! I didn't realize it had gone badly until today. Hopefully this time it'll come out ok!
The next few days were absolute hell.
At 7am every morning, we were herded to the training grounds, given our instructions, and forced to undergo boot camp - rigorous quirk training designed to shred our muscle fibers, tear our quirks apart, and turn us into champions.
I had to submerge my arms in boiling water, then pull them out and use my quirk at its operative power. Each time, they told me, my sweat glands would expand. It was agony, but no use complaining. Just one step along the path to becoming the world's best. Everyone else was doing it. Icy Hot trained near me boiling himself in water. Deku was in regular old boot camp, and like hell I would slow down while he was around.
The four cat Ladies, Sensei and Class B's teacher were supervising our progress all the time. Aside from the first two cats we'd met, there was also a big burly man and a bug eyed one. The blond had earth moving powers. The brunette could project thoughts into people's minds. Bug eyes could look at people and see their weaknesses and locations. And Burly could flex his body around, with a quirk called pliabody.
At 4pm, we arrived in the mess hall. No food for us this time.
"Now, I told you yesterday, 'Today's the last day we help you out!' said blondie.
Bug eyes nodded. "If you want to eat, get off your asses and make it yourself! Starting with Curry!"
"Yes ma'am" we all barely stumbled out.
"Hahaha! Everybody's looking pretty raw!" gloated Bug eyes. "That doesn't give you an excuse to do a sloppy job though!"
"You're right!" gloated glasses. "In the case of an emergency, feeding the hungry and providing sustenance to mind and body is an essential part of providing Aid! These pros are correct! Let's make the world's best curry!"
Fire was a real pain.
"Bakugou, you can't light fire with an explosion!" said tape arms.
"Just watch me!" I snapped back. Everything lit on fire and ended up in ash, dammit. Everyone just let Icy Hot make fire.
Eventually though, we had food. For some reason, Deku wandered off in the middle of the meal and didn't get back till later, but I was too tired to bother with figuring out what he was up to.
The end of the day was complete exhaustion. By day 3, we were so run down we could barely keep our heads up.
"Oi, remedials!" snapped Sense at the five failures. "I don't see your muscles moving."
He grabbed Broomhead's head with his scarf and pulled it back to make him pay attention.
"I'm sorry," Raccoon Eyes gasped out. "It's just….sleep…deprivation."
"Yesterday's 'remedial lessons,'" groaned Dunce Face, "were…"
"Told ya, didn't I? This was gonna be rough," Sensei reminded us. "Sato and Kaminari, your capacities, the amount of quirk-related power you have stored up, are directly linked to whether or not your survive any particular fight. Raising those capaciteis requires endless repetitive use of your quirks. Sero, in addition to increasing your capacity, yo also have to work on increasing the strength of your tape as well as the speed at which you can fire it. Ashido," turning on me, "extended use of your acid eventually causes your skin to reach a limit. You need to lengthen the amount of time it takes to reach your limit. And Kirishima, if you work both on your muscular strength and increasing your quirk's rigidity, you'll achieve synergistic benefits. Above all else," he glowered. "Every last one of you here were exposed during final exams. While you train I want you guys to think long and hard about why it is exactly that you're so much more tired than everyone else."
He turned once again to snap at Uraraka and Laser naval this time. "You guys are in the same boat! You didn't fail per se, but you were pretty damn close. 30 points was the cutoff and you two only squeezed by with a 35. Don't lose focus. Everyone keep at it! No matter what you do, never forget your fundamental drive. That's how you improve and progress. Why am I working this hard? Why am I putting up with being chewed out like this? To what end? Always keep the answer to that question in mind."
What I want. Why I'm here. To surpass All Might. To become the World's Greatest hero. To surpass Deku and everyone else here. Keep that in mind.
As if on cue, Deku sidled over to Sensei, apparently so sure he didn't need to train as hard as the rest of us.
"Sensei - Is all might - ah, no, are the other teachers not coming?"
"As I told you before we left," Sensei told him. "In order to prevent the enemy from anticipating our movements, we left with only the bare minimum amount of personnel absolutely needed for our mission here. We had All Might stay because we believe he is one of the enemy's targets. That's why he wasn't allowed to come. For better or for worse, he gets in these situations because he stands out."
"I see," Deku sighed.
"Meow meow meow, allow me to change the topic! Let's talk about tonight's plans!" cried Pixie Bob. "We're doing an inter-class test of courage! After training hard, you get to play hard! See! Carrot and stick!"
How stupid and lame.
That night as I was cutting, Uraraka popped up behind me. "Bakugou! You're really good with that knife! It's weird."
"What do you mean it's weird? How can you people be so damn bad at everything?" I snapped back at her.
damn weirdoes.
That night, we were put out into the woods.
Blondie smiled. "Our stomachs are full and the dishes are clean! Next up!"
"The Test of courage!" cheered Raccoon eyes.
"Before that," said Sensei, and those 5 froze. "Though it pains me to say it, the remedial bunch are going to have a review lesson with me starting right now."
"NO WAY!" screamed Raccoon eyes.
But there was nothing they could do. sensei bound the five of them and dragged them off to the stupid building.
Blondie explained the rules of the Test of Courage. "So there we have it. Class B will start out as our scarers. Class A will leave in pairs of two every three minutes. In the middle of the route, there'll be a card with your name written on it. Take it back with you as proof. The scarers are not allowed to directly touch anyone. But scaring tactics using any and all available quirks are permitted. The winner will be the class that makes the most creative use of their powers and makes the most people piss their pants!"
We drew our lots. I had to look twice. Shoto Todoroki.
No way, not goddamn icy hot, I groaned inside, glaring over at him. I stomped over to Tail and grabbed his shoulder.
"Yo, tail, switch with me," I jabbed a thumb at Icy Hot. But no dice.
A few minutes later I was stomping through the damn woods with Icy Hot glued to my side.
Someone's head popped up from the ground, a Class B girl with black hair.
WHA?
We both jumped, but it ain't like that girl scared me. Not at all.
We'd made it to the table with the name tags when Cat Girl with big eyes jumped out.
"Boys, you need to hurry back to the main clearing. We've been attacked by the league of villains!"
