A/N. Little bit of a filler chapter to tie up loose ends and herald the next arc. Don't worry, there's serious action coming next chapter.
/~/
Kimiko was a little conflicted on the subject of Shoto Todoroki.
In fact, she was pretty sure she went through the stages of grief. Denial- no, no, no, this is a mistake, this can't be happening. Anger- what the hell? I don't deserve this!
Then bargaining, in which she'd approached Aizawa about it.
He just looked down at her and said, "You have not figured out a heavy-hitting application of your quirk, nor managed to be efficient enough with your energy to be of use; no, Todoroki didn't succeed, but you didn't do anything either. Furthermore, you have not learned to control your extra power yet or learn hand-to-hand combat, leaving you defenseless once your main reserves are depleted."
Tail between her legs, Kimi exited the classroom.
The depression stage was tinged with awkwardness. She managed to function as a decent human being throughout most of the day, until Chemistry where they sat in groups and did group experiments. And she shared a group with Todoroki.
Yeah, that was awkward. It didn't help that Midnight kept winking at her- and that winking wasn't all she did.
"Don't worry, boys are like that. You'll get over your lovers' spat soon."
"We did not have a lovers' spat!"
"Sure."
"We didn't!"
It got to the point where she and Todoroki ended up pretending the other didn't exist just to banish the awkward tension. And when Kaminari, holding a tray of beakers, told her to pass one to Todoroki, she sort of shut down and just stared blankly for a moment.
That was the final straw. This was ridiculous; she was not going through the goddamn stages of grief over a test. Even as she thought that, she recognized herself finally entering the stage of acceptance.
Sighing, Kimi approached Todoroki after class.
"I think," she said slowly, "that we have a problem."
"…Yeah."
"It doesn't have to be that way."
"No."
A little hesitantly, she said, "Meet me at the Beach Park?" There was a long pause before he nodded.
"…Okay."
/~/
They faced each other on the now-clean sands of Dagobah Municipal Beach Park, both struggling to find words to say. They ended up settling on a spar, because this world of power bred violence, until it was the only language they knew how to speak fluently anymore.
No quirks, no weapons, just pure hand-to-hand in a head-on fashion, which was exactly what Aizawa recommended her to never do. And it proved to be with good reason as Todoroki thoroughly thrashed her.
But the rush of battle singing in her blood relieved the pressure on her chest, her frustrations and energy channeled into doing her very best to pound him into the ground. Todoroki was strong and swift, dodging and striking cleanly, while Kimi's style was more flowing to suit her lack of raw strength, twisting around limbs and using her opponent's momentum against them.
But she was painfully inept in this area of combat; she lacked the sheer skill and reflex of someone properly trained in the art, and a few decisive strikes to her gut were enough to send her breathless and to surrender.
Kimi simply lay on the beach for a good while, enjoying the fruits of her labor; the beach was completely clean of trash, and had given her enough muscle and power to compete among her other classmates. It felt like forever since she was that desperate child, throwing herself into every exercise with an unhealthy obsession.
But All Might had realized and held her back, had taken the time to tell her about heroes and villains, and what it really meant to train, and what it meant to be strong. More importantly, he taught her to rest, to take a break and enjoy life, and perhaps she had needed that more than the training itself.
Kimi sat up suddenly. "Todoroki? Why did you choose to not use your fire?"
He'd been gazing at the softly roiling waves, mesmerized, but her voice visibly snapped him out of his thoughts. "I told you."
"You told me that you didn't need to. You clearly did."
"I thought otherwise at the time."
"Liar."
Her sudden boldness sparked a flicker of surprise in his eyes. "Oh?"
"You're many things, Todoroki, but stupid isn't one of them." Kimi paused. "And that wasn't a compliment."
A small smile tugged at his lips. "Of course not. And…it's a personal matter."
A personal matter. A personal matter was slitting someone's throat with a knife and trying not to vomit every time her eye caught on the glint of steel. But it doesn't matter how much her power repulsed her, because it was hers and she had to hone it or die.
But Kimi didn't say any of that and merely sighed. "I will never understand you."
"Nor I you."
She blinked. "What?"
He fixed her with an inscrutable look. "Why a knife? You're clever; it's obvious. So surely you could try for a different, less lethal weapon? Unless your quirk specifies using a knife?"
Why a knife indeed. True, it was a strong weapon that she already owned, and summoning spent much less energy than creating (and sustaining). But that wasn't really it, Kimi mused; obtaining another weapon wouldn't be too difficult.
She suspected some sentimental part of her liked the philosophy of using the thing that had brought her torment and suffering and forcing it to work for her instead.
…That was actually kind of twisted.
But if Todoroki wanted to be mysterious and vague, she wasn't about to vomit her feelings at him. Instead, Kimiko smiled sweetly and said, "You don't need to know that."
He sighed and shook his head.
/~/
The weekend passed, and Kimi had Chemistry first the next school day, and was infinitely thankful that she and Todoroki had gone back to acting like normal functioning members of society. But upon arriving in the class, Midnight was nowhere to be found.
Instead, Present Mic greeted them with a voice much too loud for a Monday morning.
Unamused, Jiro called, "Why are you here."
"Ah, Midnight isn't available to teach today, so I'll be substituting instead! Now, class, let's take attendance…"
They went to work after that without further incident, doing a group analysis on the experiment from the previous day. Mina, who'd been the only decent member of the group (with Kaminari being academically inept and Kimi and Todoroki pretending the other didn't exist), looked remarkably not in the mood to carry the weight of the team today.
Taking pity on her, Kimi offered, "I believe the experiment was reliable as we accounted for a lot of constant variables and did many repeat testings."
"I disagree," Todoroki responded quietly, causing the rest of the group to blink in shock. "It could be more reliable as we had a very narrow range of independent variables."
There was a tense silence as Kimiko mulled that over, before saying, "Yeah, you're right."
And with that, the atmosphere in Chemistry class was back to normal, and Mina looked extraordinarily relieved.
/~/
The week passed with no unordinary events. Pro Hero Snipe took over for Midnight's History classes, and they had a Unit test in Math, which was a little more difficult than expected. There was also another Rescue assignment which Kimi scored high on, despite having been overly anxious about it.
On Thursday, Midnight's repeated absences became rather suspicious. Then on Friday, their Math teacher Ectoplasm went missing.
"Well, class," droned the dull voice of Shota Aizawa, "I'm handing your math tests back."
"Where's Ectoplasm?" Kaminari demanded. "And why isn't Midnight back yet?"
That sparked a rising chorus of, "Yeah!", "It's been a week!" and "What happened? We wanna know!"
"Yeah, Ectoplasm's gone." Aizawa sighed. "That's three teachers the villains have taken now."
"What?!"
He blinked. "You didn't know? Yamada should have told you on your first Chemistry class this week."
"He said that she was 'unavailable to teach," said Kimi. "Which was obviously extremely helpful."
Momo nodded sagely.
"Well, they're pro heroes; you have better things to worry about. Like the math tests I'm about to hand back." Aizawa smiled gleefully, causing Kaminari to groan and slam his head on the desk.
And so, life went on as usual.
/~/
Until Sniper was gone as well.
Momo scowled at Present Mic, who was now teaching three of their classes. "I'm sensing a problem here."
Todoroki gave her a dry stare. "How very perceptive."
"Why thank you."
That was three of their teachers gone, with apparently the homeroom teacher of another class as well. Kimi felt a sense of foreboding wash over her, icy cold and faintly ominous. Something big is going to happen.
And she was right, just not in the darkly ominous way she was expecting.
"So!" All Might boomed. "The end of your Rescue Unit is coming up, and that means… a Unit Test!"
Cue the groans.
"Now, while you will not be marked individually, this test will not be an individual assignment. You will be split into teams-"
Kimi locked eyes with Momo.
"-that have already been chosen based on your previous group assignment. Also, the contents of the test will be kept secret until the day of, so be sure to prepare a flexible strategy. Alright! The groups are…" He listed them, inciting various levels of enthusiasm.
She ended up with Todoroki, Mineta, Ojiro and Uraraka against Momo, Shoji, Kirishima and Asui.
Kimi looked over Mineta's short stature and grimaced, a sinking feeling of realization in her gut. "All Might? Um, who chose these teams?"
"Since I was away for your first Rescue assignment, Aizawa was generous enough to take the time to come up with these teams," answered All Might. He didn't ask her why.
Aizawa. Of course. Todoroki and Uraraka she'd worked with (with varying levels of success), and Ojiro had paired with Uraraka. But Mineta…none of them had interacted with him in the assignment.
You vouched for him, Aizawa's voice whispered. You deal with him.
Kimiko closed her eyes. She would make this work.
/~/
They were given the rest of class to talk with their teammates. Kimi's group huddled in the bottom-left classroom of the gym, discussing strategy. Or attempting to.
Kaminari blinked. "Run that by me again?"
Kimi sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "We should plan out offensive and defensive moves to counter our opponents and their possible combinations. Or do you need me to tell you for the fourth time?"
"No, I mean why?" He said, "Shouldn't we be focusing on us instead so we'll know what to do for every opportunity?"
"We are focusing on us," Kimi all but growled. "We're seeing what we will do to counter them in as many scenarios as possible. That forces us to get to know each other and our styles better if we want to be creative and flexible."
"Ah…sure."
"You know what… whatever. We should start by introducing and explaining our own quirks; we might have misinterpreted each other's based on just watching."
Uraraka was nodding. "That makes sense."
"Okay, my quirk allows me to wish for things and have them come true, but only small things like, summoning, creating, and being temporary strong." Well, it was a bit more complicated than that. "Also, I can send my emotions into overdrive for bigging things, but that fries my nerves and incapacitates me for the rest of the match."
"I can manipulate gravity," offered Uraraka. "Like make things or myself lighter or levitate."
"Can you increase the gravitational pull of things?" asked Kimi curiously.
"I...I've never tried."
She was going to say something else, but Kaminari interrupted her. "I can manipulate electricity! But only on a small scale. If I do it on a large scale, I short-circuit and become stupid until I recharge."
Kimi smirked. "When do you recharge?"
He paused, then realized. "Hey!"
She waved a hand. "Joking, joking. Todoroki?"
"I can create and control ice with my right side and fire with my left, though I never use my left side in combat." He gave Kimi a pointed look. "Don't question it."
"Not questioning it," she reassured him.
"Um," started Mineta. "I can pull off these sticky orbs from my head, and they regrow. Look!" He plucked one off and threw it at the wall, where it stuck.
"Cool," said Uraraka. There was a moment of silence, before she said, "So what now?"
Heads turned to look at Kimi, and she was startled by how expectant they all were. Like they were looking to her to tell them.
"Ah-" The moment there was pressure, her mind just seemed to blank. Okay, Kimi, think. "We should pool together our knowledge to analyze our opponents' quirks. I know Kirishima's and Asui's, and have a good guess at Momo's."
"I think we all know Kirishima and Asui's," Todoroki commented.
"Oh, yeah, those are the obvious ones, aren't they?" said Kimi. "Anyways, Momo's quirk is Creation, where she can create matter. I don't know if she makes things out of nothing, in which the only reason she's limited is by lack of knowledge of her objects. If creates from matter in her body, that prevents her from making too many or too large things."
"One option means she can create a very small range of objects, but a lot of them," mused Todoroki. "The other means she can create a large range but few; a machine-gun or a jack of all trades."
"Or both," added Kaminari. "Now, anyone mind clarifying Shoji? He's kinda weird."
"He's not weird!" Uraraka defended hotly. "Mezo's just quiet, that's all. His quirk allows him to grow body parts on his tentacles, and he's also really strong."
"Well, him and Kirishima will probably be the close-range hard hitters of their team, something we lack, so we should go for a more defensive angle." Kimi glanced at Todoroki. "How dense is your ice?"
He smirked. "Dense enough."
They discussed for the rest of the class, before making plans to get together for practice over the weekend.
"My house doesn't have a place for destructive quirks," said Kimi. "So Kaminari and Todoroki wouldn't be able to practice."
Uraraka shook her head. "My house doesn't work either."
"Me neither."
"Nope, sorry."
Todoroki exchanged glances with Kimi. "Actually, we know a place."
/~/
A/N. Welp, that's the chapter- I'm upping the length of the next one. This one was more of an…interlude; a bridge for the next event. Still, hope you enjoyed.
Next up, Kaminari tries not to electrocute everyone, the Rescue Exam doesn't go as planned, and shit starts to go down.