Their Hero Academia – Chapter 6: Isamu Haimawari and the First Big Mistake
He wasn't hurting. In fact, he felt like he was past the point of pain. But he could hear people yelling, screaming. Strange, he could swear he smelled something burning…
"Go!" he heard Aizawa yelling. "Get them to Doc Clock!"
And it had been going so well…
Well, if the son of the Number One Hero could mess up on their very first real Heroics exercise, maybe Isamu didn't have to feel so bad about how he was probably going to fail too. All four of the first team had had impressive powers, but they hadn't been watching their backs. Of course, there was the whole thing where they'd been too busy arguing to pay attention to anything.
True, he'd spent long, long hours working on his Quirk with his dad, who'd passed on all kinds of lessons he'd learned from the School of Hard Knocks with Professor Knuckleduster. But he still felt like he couldn't possibly measure up to all the Pro-Hero kids.
Still, he'd done his best to congratulate Midoriya on at least getting to smash one of them. The green haired boy looked pretty down from his failure. He would be too.
After the first group had returned, the second group had set out. The absolutely terrifying Kirishima-Bakugo took the lead, with the other three following her.
She looked around. "Loud Kid," she told Shinso, "you're on lookout. You two, you're with me. And for fuck's sake, look around you!"
There wasn't any arguing this time like there had been with Midoriya's group. Kirishima-Bakugo was simply too frightening for the rest. Ojiro looked the most like she was going to say something (Maybe. You could only read so much body language on a floating gym uniform), but chose otherwise.
The robots were quickly upon them. Kirishima-Bakugo raced out to meet the first one, letting out a scream of "DIE!" as she did so. When she got close enough, she gave it an open-palmed slap on the Two-Pointer's side and seconds later, a massive explosion rocked the robot, destroying it.
"That's how you do it!" she screamed.
"Whoa!" Isamu yelled. He remembered how she'd made the spoons explode like firecrackers in the cafeteria yesterday, but he hadn't know she could do anything like that.
"Yeah," Midoriya agreed. "Her Quirk is pretty powerful. She can release this liquid from her hands that does… something to whatever it touches and makes it explode. The more she lets out, the bigger the boom."
"…Remind me never to make her angry."
"Trust me, Haimawari, when I say 'good luck with that.'"
Kirishima-Bakugo had already destroyed another Two-Pointer, while the rest of her team were making short work of the rest. Ojiro stopped in front of the one of the One-Pointers and then simply… disappeared.
"Wait," Isamu asked. "She can get more invisible?"
"Uh-huh," Midoriya explained. "What she's really doing is bending light. Her skin's always doing it, but she can extend it to anything she's touching, like her clothes."
The One-Pointer suddenly jerked and bucked, like something was trying to climb it, and then its head suddenly disappeared! It stopped completely, staying still on the sand. With the One-Pointer distracted, Mineta gave it a powerful kick with one of her hooves, breaking its leg joint and knocking it down. The robot's head reappeared as Ojiro returned to view, jumping off of it.
"Oh, that's good," Midoriya said. "She made its head invisible so its camera couldn't detect anything! Without visual input, it shut down!"
Mineta was doing a decent job of her own as well, even without team work. She lowered her head, aiming her horns at one of the remaining One-Pointers. From the tip of teach horn, a stream of purple spheres fired forth, starting the size of a pea, but rapidly growing to the size of a baseball. They stuck wherever they hit the robot, jamming its joints and obscuring its vision until it could neither move nor see, at which point she rammed it, knocking out its control panel. She was extremely creepy, but Isamu had to admit, her skills were impressive.
"Hey!" she called out, "if I do well enough, do I get a kiss?"
"I thought I told you to stop hitting on me, horse-legs!"
"Sheesh! You've really got no sense of humor! Besides, maybe I was talking to Ojiro!"
"In your dreams, Mineta!"
The remaining One-Pointer was demolished by a shrieking Kirishima-Bakugo, blowing its treads off with a pair of powerful explosions. "More! Bring 'em on!" she yelled. "Keep fighting, all of you!"
And the second wave was on them. More Two-Pointers this time, but still a few One-Pointers. Like last time, some of these started coming in from the sides.
"From the left!" Shinso called out. As one drew close, he took in a deep breath and then let out a long, low tone. Isamu could see the air between him and the robot ripple and the ripple slammed into the robot, knocking it over as though it had been punched. Shinso kept up the tone until the rippling wave punched a hole in the robot's chest.
That was… that had definitely been a thing. Isamu remembered how Shinso'd made the ground flow like a wave yesterday.
"What," he asked, "what exactly is his Quirk?"
"Beats me," Midoriya said. "They call it Vocal Harmonics. He does a sustained pitch and stuff happens. Different things for different pitches. Nobody's really figured out any logic behind it. Trust me, they've tried. It's not like either of his parents' Quirks."
The others leapt into action too. Kirishima-Bakugo exploding them, with Mineta and Ojiro slowing them down for her and Shinso.
It was in the fourth wave that things started to go south for them. The One-Pointers were gone, Two-Pointers making up the majority of the wave, along with a single giant three-pointer.
It started when the Two-Pointer had Ojiro down, one of its massive arms pinning her to the ground. Her clothes flickered in and out of visibility as she tried to squirm away, but to no avail. "Argh! No fair!"
"I'm coming, Ojiro!" Shinso called out. He took in a breath again and started coughing. All the explosions Kirishima-Bakugo had been setting off had stirred up a massive amount of smoke, smoke he sucked into his lungs. Another Two-Pointer pinned him, face down on the ground.
Kirishima-Bakugo lashed out, heading for the three-pointer, causing explosions along every Two-Pointer between her and it. Mineta fired off more sticky balls from her horns, but panic was throwing her air off, not to mention that the smoke was also interfering with her ability to aim.
Kirishima-Bakugo reached the three-pointer, sliding under its reach and tapping its arm. But she was also clearly running out of whatever liquid she generated to make things explode, because the explosion she created was clearly much less powerful than she had expected. She stared at her hands like they had betrayed her.
And then the failure buzzer sounded, as the three-pointer had reached the bunker.
"Well, you lasted longer than the first team," Aizawa said, his voice ringing from the loudspeakers. "We'll review everything tomorrow. For now, get back to the Bunker. We'll let the smoke clear out before Team Three goes."
"Good job, Team!" All Might said. "Though you might want to learn to take it easy, Young Kirishima-Bakugo! There's a time for going all out and a time for caution!"
The robots released Shinso and Ojiro, the former of whom offered Kirishima-Bakugo a hand up, but she batted it away, getting up on her own and stomping towards the Bunker, her face set in a deep scowl.
Isamu finally remembered to close his jaw. If his team lasted any time at all… it was going to get intense out there. He was pretty sure his Quirk wasn't going to be any good for smashing robots, but maybe he could be a distraction for some of the others? Or get a couple of the robots to smash each other?
Midoriya gave him an encouraging grin. "Hey, you're up next! You're gonna do great, I know it."
He returned the grin, maybe a little sheepishly. "Maybe. Gotta try, anyway."
Okay, deep breaths. He could do this.
When the smoke had cleared, Team Three was finally able to step outside the Bunker. "So," Isamu said, "how do we want to do this?"
They'd already seen the first two teams. They definitely wouldn't devolve into in-fighting like the first group, but hopefully they wouldn't mess up the battlefield like the second either.
"I'll guard the rear," Sato volunteered. "My Quirk's no good unless they get real close." Isamu remembered catching sight of him a few times during the Entrance Exam, tearing into a robot with his teeth. It wasn't something he was going to forget anytime soon.
"Good," Todoroki said. "Sora, Haimawari, you both have mobility-based Quirks. Do you think you can control the left and right edges?"
"I'll give it my best," he assured her. Hopefully that would be enough.
"Just leave the driving to me!" Iida said.
Todoroki nodded. "Then I will do my best to hold the middle. Remember to support each other when you can, and try not to make too much of a mess." Her lips twitched slightly when she said the last part. A smile, maybe? Isamu didn't know her well enough to know.
Really, Todoroki was quite the puzzle. There was the strange power she seemed to have over the ginormously scary Kirishima-Bakugo. And Torodoki herself was so reserved, quiet, but firm. It was hard to know what to think of her.
And then the first wave of robots was upon them, the same mix as the other two times. Two Two-Pointers, three One-Pointers. Iida went right, so he dropped to the ground and went left, his Quirk pushing him along like a bullet shot from a gun. Maybe a little too fast; he was coming up on the One-Pointer faster than he expected.
He didn't have nearly the power to go with his speed to ram his way through it like he'd seen Tensei Iida do in the first round… but maybe he had some skills the flying teen didn't! Instead of trying to dodge, he kept going and when he got close to the One-Pointer, he jumped on the robot and kept going, sliding over it as easily as he had over the ground. The nearest other One-Pointer took a swing at him and he added an extra burst of speed, carrying him over the robot's shoulder and down his back. The second One-Pointer's blow hammered home on the first, smashing a hole in it and bring it down, giving him just enough time to hit the dirt and slide away.
He skidded to a stop. "I… I did it!" He'd managed it a couple times during the Entrance Exam, but he really hadn't been sure he could do it again.
"Good job, Haimawari!" Todoroki cheered. "But keep alert!'
A Two-Pointer was nearly upon her, but she pointed a pale hand at it and frost began to appear along its surface, until its skin was frozen solid and it started to crack under its own weight. Todoroki grimaced with the exertion of it, her pale features flushing. She pointed at one of the One-Pointers, this time unleashing a blast of flame that quickly took it down. As she stopped the flames, her condition improved.
Weird, actually. Every time he'd seen her make ice, she made fire right after. He didn't know what that meant.
But he needed his head back in the game. He saw Iida taking down the last one pointer, her jet engines giving her more than enough power to knock its head clean off.
"One more Two-Pointer," Isamu called out. "Heading towards Sato!" The thick-lipped boy took up a defensive stance, but he wouldn't last long against that.
Isamu threw himself forward and saw Sora Iida keeping pace with him. "There's a design flaw," she told him. "Lots of them, actually. But the leg joints are especially weak. If we both hit it at the same time in a different leg, we should be able to take it down."
"Got it!" he said, squinting against the dust their speed was kicking up. He was definitely going to need goggles and a mask if he was going to keep doing this kind of thing.
He concentrated, pouring on the speed, kicking himself into a higher gear. Iida kept pace, both of them racing to towards the robot. Sato, to his credit, held his ground, bearing his teeth at the machine. He and Iida reached the robot at the same time, both of them striking a leg joint. The joints buckled and the robot toppled over. Sato pounced on it, opening his jaw wider than Isamu would have thought possible, taking a huge bite out of its head.
"Blegh," Sato said. "It's stale!"
Yeah, he wasn't going to ask any follow up question about that.
And there wasn't any time. The next wave was already starting.
By the fourth wave, they were running out of steam. Iida was down, having run out of fuel from overusing her Jetpack. Sato was curled up on a ball, his belly bloated, moaning.
Todoroki looked dead on her feet, and even Isamu was exhausted. This was the longest and hardest he'd ever pushed his Quirk continuously. At least during the Entrance Exam, he'd had spurts where he could rest, catch his breath for a moment.
"You okay?" he asked Todoroki, as the next wave came towards them.
"No," she said. "I do not think I can keep fighting much longer." A hard, determined look set itself on her face. "But I will go down fighting."
She brought up both hands and Isamu could feel the temperature dropping. A massive block of ice incased every last robot in the fourth wave, two and three-pointers alike.
"Whoa," he breathed.
Quickly, however, he noticed that Todoroki had gone even paler. Her knees buckled and she began to fall.
He found himself moving before he could even think. Even as he heard someone yelling, telling him no…
Too late, he remembered about the flames. As he caught Todoroki before she could fall, her body erupted in flames and his world turned to pain.
He sprung up with a gasp, only to find he was no longer on the battlefield. Instead, he seemed to be in… a hospital bed? He had to be in the Medical Building. How was that possible? He'd taken a blast of fire hot enough to melt steel to the face and also pretty much every other part of his body. Isamu was pretty sure that he should be dead, or at the very least, severely burned. But his hands were unblemished and as he felt his face, he realized that was too.
"What?"
"You're awake," a voice said, as he heard the curtain around the bed part. "Good. You gave us all quite a fright when you were brought in."
At the foot of the bed, he saw a woman in thirties, wearing a white doctor's coat over a black and purple costume with a clock insignia on her chest. She had blue-white hair down to her shoulders, but what was most noticeable was the horn growing from her head.
"How…?" he began.
"Are you not dead? Or at least not more severely injured? That would be my doing."
"I thought I heard someone say something about a… Doc Clock? Is that you?"
The woman smiled. "I never did like that name very much. A friend of mine called me that when I was a student here and it stuck. I am Doctor Eri Izumi."
"Ah, nice to meet you, Doc," he said. "And… thanks. You must have one hell of a healing Quirk."
She shook her head. "Not in the way you would think. I can rewind living matter back in time. It's best if I have an idea of exactly how long. I may have been slightly generous in my estimate with you. But on the plus side, you're now about thirty minutes younger than you used to be."
Well, that was a new one. He was just going to add it to the list of things he wasn't going to think about right now.
"Are you feeling up to visitors? A few of your friends are waiting on you."
He nodded and she turned to a very elderly woman that he now noticed was napping in an electronic wheelchair at a nearby desk. "Recovery Girl!"
The old woman's eyes snapped open. "Just resting my eyes!"
"Of course you were," Doctor Izumi assured her. "Do you think you could go get Haimawari's friends?"
The old woman smiled. "Of course, dearie. Just leave it to me!" She threw the wheelchair into motion, nearly clipping a wall on her way.
Realization hit him. "Todoroki! Is she okay?!"
Doctor Izumi nodded. "She's fine, just resting like you. It was a brave thing you did. Or as my father called it, "A damn fool heroic stunt." That's practically high praise from him. I've told him to have you take it easy for a few days though. Rewinding can be stressful on the body."
Wait. What? She couldn't have been talking about All Might, so she had to mean…
He was going to file that under things he wasn't going to think about too.
"What do you mean I can't see Izzy, you shriveled old crone!"
"Who're you calling shriveled, you whipper-snapper! Why, when I was your age, I knew how to talk to my elders!"
"That was my foot you just ran over, you senile old biddy!"
"Young Kirishima-Bakugo…!"
"Katsumi, please…!"
Eventually, the noise died down and Recovery Girl brought Midoriya, Shinso, and Tokoyami, along with All Might. The former Number One Hero, here to see him. His heart was suddenly pounding in his chest.
"Young Haimawari!" All Might beamed. "Quite the display of heroics out there! Though I really would ask that you not do anything like that again! This old heart of mine isn't as good as it used to be."
"Oh, really?" Doctor Izumi asked him. "Did I not do a good enough job the first time?"
"What? I, Eri! You see…"
"Relax," she told him. "I'm just teasing you."
"Oh, of course…"
Doctor Izumi chuckled and shook her head. "Just a few minutes, now, all of you. Haimawari needs his rest."
As his new friends gathered around his bed, Isamu thought he might actually be doing all right after all.