Chapter 6!

Hey everyone, hope this update finds people well with the new year and such! This chapter had a fun little bit of action, not much though of course with Izumi being OP here and all, but I thought it was still enjoyable in a number of ways.

This update went up alongside a new fic called Tiger's Hunt, which is the original idea, where Izumi remained quirkless, and now alternate route to my fic Tiger's Bite. No prior knowledge of that fic is needed to enjoy the alternate route and I listed out the pertinent info in the end notes of Tiger's Hunt.

I had hoped to make a bigger update for the start of the new year but there's just so much more I want to get into the fics I had planned to update that they're going to need some more time. In particular, a double chapter update of The First Steps Upwards was going to be included but looking at what I currently have on it and what information I want to deliver all at once I decided to hold off, plus it's looking like it'll be a TRIPLE chapter update too with how I split up and format my chapters. Tiger's Bite will be getting a double chapter update as well and some of my older fics that haven't had as much attention should be getting new single chapters as well. Thank you to everyone for being patient!

User/Reviewer yomunot: I'm looking forward to getting to the stuff with Izumi and the Hero Commission. I think I have some interesting things in regards to that. Thanks as always for your patience as well as your reviews!

User/Reviewer EndlessChains:Thanks as always for the reviews! Yeah, as confused as a number of the characters are in regards to Izumi, they are slowly starting to realize a few more things about her or just generally be more curious about her in some ways.

To everyone who faved, followed, or reviewed thank you so much!

Disclaimer: I don't own BNHA or the referenced power

Chapter 6: Glacial

*All Might POV*

He would be adhering to Aizawa's request of pressing Midoriya but looking over at the girl, eye mask down and snoring, as she slept on one of the bus benches made him wonder if it would truly be necessary.

The man knew that Midoriya's quirk was nothing to sneeze at but the things that would play a more defining role in his opinion would be the greenette's disposition and personality. Even if he tried to force her hand, would Midoriya really answer the call and put forth a real effort? From what All Might had heard about her, and rarely saw, the ice girl sharpened up in situations that called for it but this was more a matter of just passing a test. The hero gave her, as well as Bakugo, one last look over before he simply waited for them to arrive at the testing ground.

He doubted that he'd see anything outside of his expectations.

-break-

He'd found the ice girl lying on her side in the middle of the street, where the pair of students had started, while she used her arm as a pillow to support her head. She hadn't lowered her sleeping mask but her eyes had been closed until he had arrived and her expression became somewhat disgruntled at his appearance before her.

The lazing greenette lifted her free arm and pointed off, "You'll probably find Bakugo that way," Midoriya informed much to the blonde hero's surprise, "he was looking for you himself anyway."

"It appears you've been too lax young Midoriya," the hero laughed in show of his character, "I've already defeated young Bakugo."

"So he really intended to defeat you huh?" the green haired girl yawned and examined the nails of her free hand, "that's a surprise, I thought he was joking."

"Perhaps it would have gone better if you assisted your partner," All Might chastised her lightly in reminder that she was both a part of this test and was supposed to work as a pair, "you could have even tried to escape while he drew my attention."

"Standing around was making me tired," Midoriya deadpanned but the blonde knew she was speaking seriously, at least for her, "plus," the greenette added on while an inch of a smirk came to her lips, "It is hard for him to use his quirk when I use mine." It was cheap yet accurate reasoning but he also doubted that the greenette was only being considerate to her teammate.

"Regardless, you should be giving more effort than this young Midoriya." All Might lectured in reprimand, the greenette truly had to be more serious than this, and the blonde hero prepared himself to engage the lazing student.

Placing down her open hand, a line of ice raced over to the hero and a barrier of cold surrounded him up to his shoulders.

"There, effort." Midoriya stated blandly, practically blowing off his previous attempts of scolding her.

"Young Midoriya," All Might sighed, shaking his head in disappointment while he effortlessly broke the poor excuse for a cage, "if you truly wish to be a hero then-"

All Might was shut up in an instant and it didn't even take more than the blink of an eye before everything around the two of them was frozen solid. No, even further than just the immediate surroundings, the entire training ground and beyond had been transformed into crystalized cold. All Might could barely comprehend the sight of the jagged ice pillars that towered over the buildings all of a sudden and his gaze wordlessly fell back to the one who caused all of this while a wall of ice closely surrounded him in mock capture for the second time. Midoriya didn't seem the least bit tired from the grand scale attack and the green haired ice girl got up so that she was sitting across from him with crossed legs with her hands folding in her lap while her eyes stared down at the ground before her as if she was in thought.

All Might observed her carefully as he tried to figure out what she was going to do as well as how he was going to make his approach. Of course he could simply breakout of her ice again and take the initiative but despite her attack early, Midoriya still had an unknown potential. The icy greenette gave a sudden sigh, her breath visible from the cold, and her eyes appeared dulled though still a touch curious as she spoke up with a neutral tone.

"Let's say that attack killed 50 civilians but in doing so I, a hero, captured you," the greenette posed hypothetically, "but 60% percent of them weren't innocents, 40% of them being classified as villains with the other 20% ranging from minor to major criminals," the ice girl explained while a pit formed in the hero. "Is that justice?" Midoriya questioned.

"No," All Might answered firmly and without missing a beat, his throat was dry from the implication and he was unsure where this was coming from, "my apologies young Midoriya but now is not the time for questions nor is that appropriate," the blonde redirected and the girl seemed to give up on whatever she was trying to do with her scenario.

"Then how about we change the roles?" the ice girl offered, continuing despite his words, "I'll be the villain and you," Midoriya pointed directly at him from her seated position, "are the hero."

All Might wasn't sure what to say and while he had already told her that this wasn't the time for such a thing, her question and the way she was speaking gave him an underlying sense of discomfort. They weren't things of complete impossibility but that line of thinking was anything but good. The blonde hero watched as the ice girl stood up, still staring at him with her unchanging expression, and the man decided to indulge her no longer.

As fast as Midoriya had made the ice, All Might destroyed and freed himself from his second confinement and dashed by her. However, it seemed as if the greenette had expected the straightforward attack and stepped out of the way of the passing blow while turning herself to face the hero again.

Midoriya lifted her right hand and used her middle finger to scratch at the top of her head, "Guess it wouldn't matter what a villain has to say," the green haired girl noted once again to the hero's discomfort but he was already moving to attack her once more.

A shell of ice appeared before her which caused an icy blast of wind as the blonde's left punch smashed into it while shards of ice were flung through the air. All Might once again missed with his attack but as expected, the greenette had moved towards the outside of his punch and the blonde rotated his body to prime his right. Thinking that she would defend again, the hero upped his power just slightly but instead his punch landed directly. All Might's surprise turned to fear as Midoriya quite literally exploded into chunks and crystals of ice that were blown away from the strike and the testing ground became quiet.

The silence lasted far too long for the hero and he nearly panicked until he managed to notice tiny bits of ice beginning to coalesce in the air just a few steps away. All the blonde hero could do was wordlessly stare, his body completely stunned, as a purely ice figure of Midoriya reformed before returning to how the girl normally looked. It couldn't be, could it?

"That wasn't very careful of you," the restored greenette stated and tilted her head slightly while her eyes were touched with a hint of disappointment, "I suppose you being number one made me think too highly of your potential answers," she admitted while dusting at one of her pant legs.

All Might was still somewhat baffled by the student before him and Midoriya apparently took notice of his shocked state. The greenette began raising another hand but the teacher snapped out of his stupor and tried another punch only for it to once again break through the student's body, but instead his arm was now lodged into her side and ice crawled along his limb while the place on the green haired student's body that had been damaged turned into ice in response. Midoriya's expression didn't change and a chilly breath left her mouth and All Might's suspicions about her quirk were confirmed. It seemed that Aizawa's idea about Midoriya was a miss.

"Escape or capture right?" the greenette asked in reminder for herself and for All Might that this was a test. "Well," the greenette rolled her neck, "you're here I suppose."

Just like before, the hero was caught in the ice girl's flash freezing but this time the ice that surrounded him clung to his body strongly while restricting his movements far more than previously and Midoriya stepped out of the ice cage and stood beside him with her hand placed on the frozen prison's side.

"With this can we count you as captured?" the greenette wondered, likely wanting him to simply surrender so she didn't have to do anymore.

"I can still break free young Midoriya," All Might assured her and it was true but the ice user cut in before he could make an attempt.

"If I froze every training ground and the school from here all at once would you be satisfied?" Midoriya questioned, clearly believing that such a feat was within her power, "or I can freeze you to the bone without completely killing you," she offered next but sighed, "then again you'd likely die on the way back before we could treat you properly."

That was a...very dark suggestion but All Might mulled over her words and took consideration of the fact that this was still a test and not some fight he needed to give 120% on.

"It seems I'll need to concede this time," the hero relented, admittedly quite cold from the girl's three freezing capture attempts despite being able to free himself with more effort.

The ice that was encasing him cracked and shattered into pieces under Midoriya's touch and the girl quietly walked for the exit as the passing was announced.

"Then we're done here."

All Might's gaze lingered on her retreating figure for a moment before he went to retrieve the other student. He would need to apologize to Aizawa later but he was also still thinking of some of the things that Midoriya had said and done during this final.

The man quietly thought to himself as he walked through the glacial cityscape.

-break-

*Eraserhead POV*

"My apologies Aizawa-kun," the blonde hero sighed in his true form as he took a seat beside the 1-A teacher.

The tired man had been going over the footage for a third time now but paused it to turn to his colleague, "No, I misjudged and made the wrong choice so there's no need to apologize," Shouta admitted, though he was still going to rewatch the exam until he had some answers.

Shouta had intently listened to All Might and Midoriya's conversation during his reviews of the exam and while maybe before the test he wouldn't have believed in the ice girl's claim of freezing all the way from the training ground to the school, he now had to at least consider that she might be able to. In fact, Midoriya's actions of freezing the testing site that she had been in had proved once more that she was way stronger than she'd previously shown.

Even hours later, the site was still frozen in the exact same way that the green haired girl had left it. There had been an attempt at clearing the cityscape's worth of ice but it had resulted in a number of bots whose tools suffered damage from trying to chisel the ice. Even switching to melting the formed cold away took far longer than what anyone would have thought so it was agreed that they would let it weaken naturally since it had been proving to be too much of a hassle at the current time.

"While I can consider both Midoriya and Bakugo's overall performance poor, it doesn't change the fact that they passed," the erasing hero begrudgingly noted, still somewhat displeased by the results for numerous reasons. "Did the principal make his decision yet by the way?"

"About the training camp?" Yagi wondered, settling into the backrest of his chair, "the normal location would likely be fine but it seems as if he's giving it more thought."

"I see," Shouta noted while thinking of the early discussion between the staff.

If the erasing hero could realize that something was up with the events of Hosu then the principal could figure it out as well. While the League of Villains were involved in the attack since there had been more Nomus at the scene, nothing had come from it since the Hero Killer's capture overshadowed the fact. Sure there had been a slight buzz over this budding force of villains but there had been no real growth to the organization or villainy in general. However, considering that U.A had been attacked once before, with All Might predominately being targeted, and this league was trying to increase their activities it had caused the teaching staff to debate over the location and focus of the upcoming summer training camp.

Regardless, the students would be working on their quirks to an extent but if it was decided that a more proactive approach was needed then they would stretch their quirks to the limit and then some. That said, Shouta's mind wandered over to a certain green haired ice user. If anything, training her quirk seemed to be one of the last things she needed to do and the 1-A teacher wasn't even sure what her limits were or how to get to them. At first glance, Midoriya was worse than Todoroki about flinging large scale attacks but the erasing hero reminded himself of the greenette's ability to create complex forms of ice like spears and perfectly smooth pillars and shields. Some of her comments to All Might during her test also felt as if they were directed at him which only further unsettled the erasing man.

Shouta still didn't have the answers he needed and Midoriya only furthered his paranoia of her.

-break-

*Nezu POV*

Midoriya's little hypothetical had intrigued the principal to a certain extent.

It wasn't for the dark implications of it nor its out of nowhere appearance but rather that the green haired ice girl actually wanted a proper answer. She likely didn't have grand expectations out of All Might's answer but it didn't change the fact that she truly desired one and was letdown by what she received. Midoriya certainly continued being a mysterious and intriguing person in Nezu's eyes and he wanted to figure out just what she was hoping to accomplish, both as a hero and as a human. He would be spending more attention to her in the future.

After all, he would be surprised if Midoriya didn't have more hidden goals.

-break-

*Shouko POV*

She didn't understand why Midoriya didn't bother to try.

It felt shallow or wrong to say that the greenette was simply lazy or that she only wanted to use the optimal amount of energy but for what other reasons would Midoriya refuse to give effort? Did the green haired ice girl think that highly about her own abilities? No, that didn't feel right either but that still left Shouko baffled about the other ice girl's choices.

Shouko had finished her own test with Yaoyorozu before any of the other student pairs and had opted to watch the other tests, Midoriya's specifically, and the display that the greenette had shown had left her floored. The red and white haired girl had been confident and somewhat content in some of her progress in using her fire but the way that Midoriya used her ice was what Shouko would consider as flawless. Speed, power, technique, ease, Midoriya was at a point in which each one was natural for her but the utilization was what impressed Shouko so much.

For as grand and spectacular a scale as Midoriya could attack, she could also wield her ice with such perfect precision on an equally small one. It had made Shouko realize that what might be seen as a sloppy misuse of power was actually intentional on the greenette's part. Perhaps Midoriya's honed abilities were lost in the face of her breathtaking attacks and that could have been exactly what she was aiming for. However, what truly threw the fire and ice user for a loop was when Midoriya reformed from being broken apart.

The scene had left Shouko speechless and it made her feel like Midoriya had limitless potential. Potential that the greenette held back. Midoriya clearly worked hard to get to the point she was at and she was also very smart as well so why did the ice girl not capitalize on all those things? Shouko might have been able to accept it if Midoriya was always the way she normally appeared but the dual quirk user had seen the greenette up close at the USJ against that Nomu. No hesitation, no over the top display, just picture perfect response of action. Number 1 hero no longer felt like the only thing that Shouko wanted to aim at.

Midoriya was her other, perhaps more difficult, goal now.

Notes and Stuff

Have I hammered the OP bit in enough? Man I've been waiting to have Izumi reform for a while cause its satisfying to have characters react to such a crazy thing.

We're definitely getting to the point in which I'll start diverging more away from certain sequences of events and having more about Izumi revealed and explained. I mean even just in this chapter we have the debate of the location of the training camp since Stain never got his message across which in canon led to the growth of the League of Villains. Both Aizawa and All Might really had some misconceptions about Izumi's quirk still huh?

I mentioned it in the start notes but I'm working on lots of updates. The First Steps Upwards, Tiger's Bite, Time, Slice of Light, Henshin, and Midair Collide are the ones I have the most progress on with chapters so sometime soon I should get those down and released. I'm also brainstorming a few other fics so we'll see where that goes and I may be going out on a limb for one of them as it's probably a hit or miss in writing presentation and style but updates are a higher priority for me at the moment.

Reminder, I put up a new fic alongside this update called Tiger's Hunt, an alternate route to Tiger's Bite, so be sure to check that out!

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed and look forward to more updates from me!