After passing out on the first day of our training, Haruhi and I worked together to improve her quote-unquote Master Plan. Since it really was just basic exercise, there wasn't all that much that needed to be done, so we just took her father's advice to heart and put breaks between everything—Haruhi originally wanted the breaks to only be a minute long, but I succeeded in getting her to use logic and make them at least five minutes.

Obviously, taking a few breaks didn't make all of that training a walk in the park, but at the very least, it became something that was actually manageable. The supplements that Haruhi's father suggested I take helped a lot, too. I could actually feel my endurance going up, and before I knew it, I was able to keep to the program without even feeling like collapsing. Of course, even with that, I was never able to keep up with Haruhi; she says that she's never done any serious exercise before now, but that has to be a lie. For the sake of my pride, that just has to be a lie.

So yeah, training was going pretty well. Good enough for me, at least. Haruhi, however, made her dissatisfaction apparent to the world, and it existed for one reason that she was rather hung up on.

"We need a martial arts teacher!" Haruhi said one June afternoon.

"So you've told me at least once a day for the past month and a half," Midoriya said as he went through his lunch.

"Because it's important! No matter how strong we might get from all of our training, it won't mean anything if we can't throw a punch, and I can only learn so much from the net and the library, which is why we need to find someone who can teach us how to do that!"

"I know that, but it's not like we haven't found someone from a lack of trying so much as we haven't found someone because of your crazy standards."

"I do not have crazy standards." Midoriya put down his chopsticks and gave Haruhi his full attention.

"Suzumiya-san, when we went to Gunhead's martial arts studio, you got so frustrated that you called him a weird-talking dork and got us kicked out."

"I had every right to get mad at him. He was only teaching us how to do grapples, but you can't just grapple your way out of everything. Heroes are supposed to be more well-rounded than that."

"And what about that other place where we met that girl with the big hands Quirk? We could have learned some good karate and kung-fu there, but you kept complaining about how boring it all was."

"Because it was boring! Knowing just karate and kung-fu is played out, and I refuse to be walking cliche. Besides, I didn't like that girl's hair."

"It was just a ponytail. Nothing wrong with that." Without warning, Haruhi grabbed Midoriya's bento and shoveled the rest of his lunch into her mouth. "I guess I'm done eating."

"Look Midoriya, all those places we went to didn't work because they were too one-note. If we want to make it as Quirkless Heroes, we're not going to get anything done until we know ten million techniques!"

After that, are we going to Spain to find someone with a power level of ten million? Midoriya thought.

"Don't look at me like that. You think we'll be able to shut up people like Bakugou if we limit ourselves to what any person can do?" Haruhi made Midoriya turn his head to the left, which just happened to be right in Bakugou's direction. Bakugou might have been picking on him less since he and Haruhi had their fight, but their relationship was hardly cordial, so it was no surprise that Bakugou threw a scowl at Midoriya until he turned back around.

"What are you even looking for, then?"

"Someone who can teach us everything the world has to offer! Someone who throws caution to the wind and throws every crazy book at us until we're the best of the best of the best! If we can't find a teacher like that, then there's no point in even giving someone the benefit of the doubt, Midoriya. No point at all!"

At that moment, lunch was over and the next class was going to start. Midoriya breathed a sigh of relief, for that meant that he wouldn't have to struggle to try and continue the conversation. While going outside the box to learn how to fight wasn't a bad idea, her standards were too high to do anything more than impede on any and all progress. He, better than anyone else, understood what Haruhi was feeling, but they weren't going to get anywhere if they had to keep moving in accordance with her random whims.

After all, just because Haruhi wished for something didn't mean that she was going to get it.

Once school ended, Haruhi dragged Midoriya to the park so they could get in their training for that day. As soon as that concluded, Midoriya went back to his apartment and allowed his aching body to collapse onto his bed. It only took half an hour for him to stop feeling exhausted; a new record. From there, Midoriya went about his usual routine—doing his homework, having dinner, playing with his sister, the works—all the while thinking about what might happen if Haruhi's wish for a polymath-esque martial arts teacher. Haruhi might have just been a kid, but she had the ferocity of a full-grown adult, so there was no telling what might happen if she reached her limit. Such thoughts stuck with Midoriya up until his evening bath, and they were only interrupted because they collided with something equally confusing.

"Hey, get out of here!" Namely, his little sister barging into the bathroom.

"But Deku-kun, your phone was ringing and I answered it and they wanted to talk to you and it's a girl!" his little sister said, giggling like a mad clown.

"I'm still in the bath! And what are you doing answering my phone, anyway?" She just shrugged her shoulders.

"Anyway, here you go!" Midoriya's little sister tossed him his phone. Despite some fumbling on his part, Midoriya managed to catch it and prevent himself from getting electrocuted. Naturally, his sister had already bolted before he could properly reprimand her.

"Always doing whatever she wants; no wonder Kacchan likes her so much. Who's calling so late, anyway? Suzumiya-san? Aunt Rika?" The caller ID said "Unknown Caller." Midoriya hoped that his little sister hadn't interrupted his bath so he could talk to a telemarketer. "Hello?"

"Hello?" the other person repeated like a parrot. It really was a girl, though if Midoriya had to guess, it sounded more like she was a young woman.

"Um, who is this?"

"It's me. M-E. Me!" That was hardly an answer. "Oh, are you in the bath right now? Sorry about that. Want me to call back later?"

"N-No, that's okay. Can you just tell me who you are, please?"

"Now where would be the fun in that? I'm sure you'll learn it one of these days, but it doesn't need to be today."

"What? What are you—why did you even call me?"

"If I'm being honest, I just wanted to hear the voice of the boy with the inspiring dream. That's all this is."

"What?" Midoriya almost dropped his phone right into the water. He only ever had one dream, and not only were there only a handful of people who thought it was inspiring, the only thing that handful of people had in common was that they were people Midoriya knew. There was no reason for a strange woman to be commenting on it in any way, shape or form.

"We're probably gonna meet up in the future, so thanks for going along with me in advance. I hope we get along so well that we get to finish each other's sandwiches! Buh-bye!"

"Wait, hold on!" The line went dead. It appeared that in addition to being mysterious and foreboding, the woman he just talked to was also incredibly rude. The proverbial icing on the proverbial cake, as it were.

What am I supposed to do with this? Midoriya asked himself. There's no number listed, so it's not like I can track this woman down. If I told my mom, she'd just start to worry, and if I told Suzumiya-san… I don't want to think about what she might do. With that in mind, Midoriya opted to keep the conversation to himself.

He really hoped that it wouldn't come back to haunt him.

The rest of the week carried on as normally as it could. Haruhi kept nagging Midoriya about how they needed to find a martial arts teacher, and Midoriya just kept nodding along to that, as there was little else that he had the power to do. The only thing that made it different was him having that mysterious phone call locked in his mind. He still had no idea who that person was, and because she only said that they would meet in the future, that meant she could show up at any time. Once that thought came about, Midoriya couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched, that people were hiding in the shadows observing his every move. He wanted to say something, but he knew that he couldn't tell anyone about what was probably just a prank call and not have it all spiral out of control, so there was nothing to do but grit his teeth and bear it.

Eventually, the weekend came about, and with two full days off from school, Haruhi showed up at Midoriya's door early Saturday morning to drag him to the park for training.

"You're hiding something, aren't you?" Haruhi asked as they boarded the train.

"Excuse me?" Midoriya asked.

"You've been acting really weird these last few days, and I'm sick of it. You better tell me what's wrong, or I'm gonna work you so hard today that your bones turn to dust."

"What makes that different from any other day?"

"Just fess up, already!" That tone of voice made it clear that Haruhi was ready to make that statement all too literal.

"It's just, well, um… Kacchan's been picking on me again, and I've been feeling a little down about that. That's all."

"Are you serious? Why didn't you say so before? If you just came to me from the start, I would have socked it to that jerk no problem!"

"That's kind of why I didn't do it."

"Well next time he does that, just come straight to me. Hell, come to me with any problem you have any time you have it, and I'll blow it into oblivion. That's just the kind of girl I am, you know?"

"Yeah, I know." Midoriya would feel bad about throwing Bakugou under the bus later. For now, he was too busy feeling bad about lying to such a strong person.

Training went about as well as it always did and took about as long as it always did, as well. At the end of the ten-kilometer run—broken up into small chunks so Midoriya wouldn't run the risk of death—Midoriya and Haruhi sat down for a snack break that was mostly used for her to keep talking about how they needed a martial arts teacher. She didn't dwell on it as much as she did other days though, most likely because their conversation on the train directed most of her attention towards her wanting to beat up Bakugou. Midoriya wasn't a fan of that, but he knew better than to comment on it.

The two didn't bring many snacks to eat, so they ended up finishing rather quickly. It was about time for lunch, so the plan was to go back to Haruhi's house so her father could make them something to eat.

That plan was interrupted by a kunai being thrown into a tree and missing Midoriya's head by only a few centimeters.

"What?" was all Midoriya managed to say as he jumped away from the tree.

"What the hell?! Are we being attacked by a ninja?! Show yourself!" Haruhi shouted, holding her Mirko water bottle like a dagger. Midoriya chose not to point out that a ninja wouldn't show themselves if they were trying to kill someone, but that wouldn't help them in any way, shape or form. Either way, there was no sign of anyone attacking them in the immediate area, so that had to mean the attacker was either hiding somewhere or had a Quirk that let them attack from a distance.

"Who cares?! W-We've gotta get out of here! If someone's trying to attack us, we need to get as far away from here as possible! No, wait, first, we need to alert the other people in the park! Ah, but what if that starts a panic and makes this person do something crazy?! If that happens, then—"

"Hey look, there's a note attached to the end of this thing." By the time Midoriya had turned around, Haruhi had already removed a paper scroll from the end of the kunai. "'Izuku Midoriya and Haruhi Suzumiya, I humbly request that you meet me at the most opposite end of the park from your location in ten minutes so that our destinies can become fully intertwined. Come alone if you know what's good for you. P.S. That last part isn't meant to be threatening, I just mean to make you think about what would be best for your own development. Seriously though, come alone.'"

"Oh my God."

"I know, right? It's a real-life letter of challenge! Someone's calling us out for all-out war!"

How did you get that from all of that? And why do you sound happy about this?! Midoriya thought.

"This is amazing! To think that someone would recognize our talents so early into our careers! Well, let's not keep them waiting."

"Suzumiya-san, we can't actually meet this guy! The only thing we should be doing is calling the police!"

"We can't do that! Even if the note didn't specifically say to come alone, we need to be there in ten minutes before they leave."

"I don't want to meet the person who almost put a sixth hole in my head!"

"Hey, if they actually wanted to do that, it would have happened." Haruhi pointing out that fact did nothing to make him feel better. "Besides, I don't think this person wants to hurt us."

"Could have fooled me."

"I'm serious, Midoriya. I can't explain it, but when I was reading that note, I got the feeling that whoever wrote it doesn't have any ill intentions for us. I know I sound weird, but that's just what was going through my head, and I'm sticking by it." Haruhi's words and face showcased no less conviction than they did on any other occasion. It was hard to not find the whole thing intoxicating.

"What if you're wrong, though?"

"Just like I said before, any time you have a problem, I'll blow it into oblivion!" The way Haruhi smiled almost made Midoriya believe that that wasn't hyperbole.

With only a few reservations unable to be cleared away, Midoriya and Haruhi made their way to the most opposite end of the park from them; neither one was completely sure about what that meant, so they just headed northeast of their location and hoped that it would all work out. Despite the park being as large as it was, despite the two of them just completing a heavy workout, they made it to the part of the fence surrounding the northeast end of the park in just a few minutes. Midoriya was happy to know that he was really getting something out of his training, but now was hardly the time to be elated about something like that.

"Okay. Only eight minutes have passed since you read the note. Where is this guy?" Midoriya asked.

"Don't worry, they'll be here. They're not the kind of person to make a big fuss about something and not commit to it," Haruhi said.

"You sure have a lot of opinions about someone you've never met."

"It's called optimism, Midoriya." He had his doubts about that.

"Yes, and I thank you ever so much for it!" shouted a feminine voice that belonged to neither one of them. That had to be the mysterious person who wanted to talk with them, yet she still wasn't making her presence known.

"Before we go any further, do you think I could get an apology for almost being debrained earlier?" Midoriya asked.

"Hey, if I actually wanted to do that, it would have happened," she said. The smug look on Haruhi's face was hardly justified.

"Anyway, stop hiding like a coward, already. You're the one who challenged us to a fight, so hurry up and let us give you one!" Haruhi said.

"A fight? Oh, non, non, non. There won't be any fisticuffs between us, little children. Not if I can help it, anyway."

"Why did you call us out then? Who are you, anyway?"

"Who am I? Who am I? I am the terror that flaps in the night! I am the corset emphasizing the bosom of justice!" A puff of smoke appeared around the top of one of the trees. "I am The Kagemusha—whoa, whoa, whoa!" The mystery woman appeared in the middle of the puff of smoke, quickly lost her footing, and fell to the ground flat on her face.

"A-Are you all right?" Midoriya asked.

"Yeah. I just—ow. Right on my keys. But yeah, I'm The Kagemusha. Nice to meet you." The mystery woman—Kagemusha, as it were—got up off the ground, and Midoriya finally managed to get a good look at her. She was a tall woman who looked to be somewhere between her late twenties and early thirties with a head of curly brown hair adorned with a smiley face barrette and the kind of fur-lined helmet that Takeda Shingen would have worn. Her body had the sculptings of a supermodel—large breasts, thin waist, toned abs, healthy thighs, the works—and it was all wrapped up in a sarashi, leggings colored like the American flag, and a male cheerleading coat that hung off of her shoulders like a cape. There might have been more, but Midoriya couldn't work up the nerve to stare at her for more than a few seconds.

"Well aren't we shy?" Haruhi asked.

"S-So Kagemusha—"

"No, it's The Kagemusha."

"That's what I said. Kagemusha," Midoriya said.

"No, no, my name is The Kagemusha. It's like A Tribe Called Quest, you gotta say the whole thing."

"Can't we just call you 'Kagemusha' for short?" Kagemusha started pouting and stomping her feet like a child.

"No, you idiot! My name is The Kagemusha! The! Kage! Musha!"

"The Kagemusha." As soon as Haruhi said that, The Kagemusha calmed down and looked at Haruhi with innocent eyes. "If you're not here to fight us, what are you here to do? And how do you know us, anyway?"

"Allow me to explain, children. To start things off, I am one of the people in this world who has made the necessary effort to become a Hero."

"Y-You are?" Midoriya asked.

"It's understandable if you haven't heard of me. I tend to do things on the down low, so I'm not really in the spotlight all that much."

"Guess that explains why a Hero fanboy like Midoriya didn't recognize you at first glance," Haruhi said. That was a good excuse, if not a little convenient. Still, Midoriya quickly discovered that, much to his own surprise, he did feel some sort of familiarity with The Kagemusha. Perhaps he saw her on TV once or read a report about her while surfing the web at some point; he couldn't exactly remember. At the very least, her voice sounded oddly familiar.

"So there I was, doing my daily patrol around this neighborhood, when I come across two little kids—that would be you—doing way more exercise than you'd expect a little kid to do. Curious, I decided to watch you two go at it, and because of that, I learned that you were a couple of Quirkless kids trying to have a go at being Heroes! At first, I thought it was silly—"

Of course, you did, Midoriya thought.

"—but then I spent a few days watching you, and I couldn't help but be touched by how committed you two were to your goal! There was a sort of romantic aspect to it all that just left my heart aflutter!"

"Why, thank you. That's exactly what we were going for!" Haruhi said. Midoriya wondered where he was when Haruhi decided on that aspect of their training.

"However, after so many weeks of just watching you two go at it, I knew that I couldn't just limit myself to being an observer. No, I needed to get directly involved in your process, so!" The Kagemusha pointed up at the sky and posed dramatically. "I've taken it upon myself to become your martial arts teacher!"

"Wow, cool!"

"No, it isn't! We need to get something straight first!" Midoriya said.

"You're right. What do you plan on teaching us, The Kagemusha? If you only have a single art under your belt, then forget it!"

That's not what I was talking about! Midoriya thought.

"Please, as if I'd be boring enough to just be that one-note. No, I'm the kind of woman who'll throw caution to the wind and throw every crazy book at you until you're the best of the best of the best! I'm gonna teach you everything there is to know under the sun, starting with stuff like wrestling, aikido, and while I'm at it, maybe a little Bartitsu. All that and more will be available to you the second we start to work together!" Haruhi's eyes looked like there were literal stars in them. For his part, Midoriya couldn't believe that he was meeting someone who was actually in tune with Haruhi, especially with that someone being a full-grown adult.

"U-Um, Miss… The Kagemusha. Not that this isn't a tempting offer, but I don't think this is something we can agree to right off the bat."

"Oh, I get it. You doubt my skills and want to see just how tough I really am!"

"That's not—"

"Nice thinking, Midoriya! It's not enough to say that you're a polymath-esque martial artist; you have to actually prove it!" Haruhi said.

"That's not why I'm—"

"Then come at me! If either of you can land even a single hit on me, then I can't teach you anything and I'll make sure to leave you both alone," The Kagemusha said.

"This isn't why I—" Before Midoriya could finish, Haruhi had already charged at The Kagemusha, yelling at the top of her lungs like a Viking warrior diving into battle. She stabbed at The Kagemusha with her Mirko water bottle, but The Kagemusha bent her body at an impossible angle to dodge, twisted her legs around Haruhi, and threw her into Midoriya, making the two collapse onto the ground in a pile of bruises and lumps.

"Your turn, Izuku," The Kagemusha said.

"For obvious reasons, I elect to forfeit," Midoriya said.

"What the hell, Midoriya?! Avenge me!" Haruhi said as she pulled herself off of him.

"Avenge yourself."

"No!"

"Ha Ha Ha Ha! Now you're more than aware of my awesome might, right? Right?" The Kagemusha asked. "I'm sure you are, but as much as I'd like for you to commit to me, there's one other show of strength I wanna give you before you sign on the dotted lines. It can't be done here, though, so come with me, okay?"

"Okay!" At that point, Midoriya had decided to give up on protesting and allowed himself to fall into Haruhi and The Kagemusha's flow, wherever it was going to take him.

The Kagemusha directed Midoriya and Haruhi out of the park and back to Koyoen station, the three of them jumping on the first train to arrive. The entire walk to the station and the entire ride on the train, no one they walked by so much as batted an eye at The Kagemusha; the fact that a grown woman could walk around in such a provocative outfit and not draw attention to herself had to be proof that she really was a Hero.

The three of them were on the train for five stops. Midoriya didn't recognize the town they were in, but Haruhi said that she remembered reading that the town they were in was a rich neighborhood said to be under the protection of a branch of the Yamaguchi-gumi. Midoriya's heart could have done without that second bit of information.

The Kagemusha spent thirty minutes directing them out of the main part of the town and to the foot of a mountain. There was a wooden sign that bore the image of a crane fishing a dragon from the heavens; the mountain clearly belonged to someone, but in case it wasn't clear enough already, there was a message outright denoting it as private property. Naturally, Haruhi and The Kagemusha ignored that and stepped past it under the grounds that a family that couldn't be bothered to fence off their property probably didn't care that much about trespassers. Midoriya greatly wanted to point out everything wrong with that, but Haruhi had already grabbed him by the hand and made him an accomplice in her crime.

"Okay, this looks good," The Kagemusha said after they had spent twenty minutes walking up a seemingly random trail.

"Good for what? What are we doing here?" Midoriya asked.

"You two are doing nothing. I, on the other hand, am now going to show you the full heights of my power, power that, with any luck, you'll be able to obtain by the time you're ready for U.A." The Kagemusha surveyed the area for a bit before running over to a large boulder a few meters away. "Before anyone gets any ideas, I don't have a Quirk that boosts my strength in any way."

The Kagemusha got into a fighting stance that looked like a boxing stance, but she had one arm kept to her chest and the other stretched out in front of her. She took a quick breath and delivered a punch to the boulder that was too fast for Midoriya to completely keep track of. The end result—the boulder being shattered to pieces with a single blow—was perfectly visible, however.

In an instant, Midoriya found himself too in awe of The Kagemusha to be as suspicious as he should have been.

"That was incredible! Absolutely, positively incredible!" Haruhi said.

"I take it I pass the interview?"

"With flying colors, The Kagemusha!"

"A-Are you saying that we'll get to do that someday?" Midoriya asked.

"Definitely," The Kagemusha said. "Sir Roland of the Matter of France wielded the sword Durandal, which was an indestructible blade capable of destroying giant boulders with a single strike. When I'm done with you two, you'll be a pair of unbreakable Durandals. How does that sound? Good, right?" Haruhi was already nodding her head, and if Midoriya was being honest, he wanted to do that, too.

"Can I just know your name? Your real name? If we're going to be working together, I think we should at least know that much about you."

"I beg to differ, but you're the boss. I'd still like to be called The Kagemusha, but my real name is Yasumi Watahashi. If you ever decide to use it, please say it as if it's written in katakana."

"Gotcha!" Haruhi said. Midoriya was not at all surprised that Haruhi was the one to make sense of that, and he elected to not comment on it.

If I'm perfectly honest, I never thought we'd actually find someone to teach us martial arts. With Haruhi's crazy standards, it should have been impossible for us to find someone remotely compatible with her. It's apparently impossible for me to be right about anything, though, because completely out of nowhere, Yasumi Watahashi—I mean Kagemusha—I mean The Kagemusha fell into our laps and checked off every box on Haruhi's crazy list. Sure, I got worn down to the point where I couldn't complain anymore, but it's still insane that something like that actually happened.

It's moments like those that serve as good citation for the idea of the world revolving around Haruhi.