Okay, I'm getting some positive feedback (thankfully) and since I wanna hear more from you guys, I'd like to drop chapter 2 for all y'all. The development of the relationship is going to take a while, just so you know, but I hope you can enjoy the process of that development. As well as the touch of comedy that I add in which hopefully doesn't fall flat on its face.
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"Hey, Jirou, some of the girls and I are planning a little afternoon movie party tonight. Wanna come with?"
"Ah, I actually have plans. With Midoriya."
The second Ashido had comprehended the words that came out of Jirou's lips, she immediately rushed her with a big crazy smile on her face, "WHAT?! A DATE?! WITH MIDORIYA?! AND YOU DIDN'T TELL ME?! WHO ASKED WHO OUT?! WHERE'RE YOU GOING AND WHEN!? DETAILS! GIMME! NOW!"
"First off, personal space. Second, yes, with Midoriya. I didn't stutter. And no, it's not a date. He's just giving me a couple pointers on some hand to hand. He's got notes covering all of us, so I figured he was the best person in our class to talk to. It's just a favor being returned, nothing like what you're thinking, so cool your jets, Pinky. It's only logical thinking." She gave a reassuring wink to Uraraka that nothing was going on between the ultimate All Might fanboy and her, to which the brunette responded by whipping her head in the other direction as she began blushing through her hands.
"Lemme know later how it goes, 'kay?! Remember, I want details! ALL OF IT!"
"IT'S NOT A DATE, DAMMIT!"
Training Room Theta was just a large, padded room with a high ceiling. There were over fifty white rings with a ten meter radius printed on the ground in five meter increments. The edges of the room were lined with an assortment of punching bags, speed bags, pull-up bars, kettle bells, disk weights, striking posts and mock weapons of various shapes and sizes. Opening the door, she saw Izuku in gym shorts and a T-shirt already getting some work done via shadow boxing.
His movements were so smooth which she never noticed last night. The transition from one attack to the next to a dodge, a sweep kick, a roll just…..glided together so naturally like a stream of water. It was sharp and graceful, almost like he was dancing. She whistled to get his attention.
"Oh, hey. You made it."
"Course I made it, no point in you being here if I didn't show up. So, how're we doing this?"
"Well…let's uh….let's work up a sweat first."
"Alrighty then. What're we doing?" Izuku simply handed a piece of paper with a list of calisthenics complete with repetitions and sets to her.
"Um…..you're kidding, right?" Jirou looked at Izuku with a hopeful eye, the corner of her mouth twitching with dread.
"I suck at lying, remember?"
It took no longer than twenty minutes out of the forty minute warmup Izuku put her through before she was on the floor, red in the face and gasping for air. "Oh….fucking hell…."
"Crap….you uh, you okay, Jirou?"
"Midoriya….I fucking hate you right now."
"What?! Why?! You wanted my help!"
"Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm just spiting you, sue me. Now help me up." She held out her hand for Izuku to take. Very slowly and carefully, Izuku reached out with both hands and gently pulled Jirou to her feet. Her fingers were long and slender, nails well-kept which complemented her pale skin. He immediately released her hand from his grip once she was upright and on her feet.
"Okay….okay, um, uh…now, we…we, uh….we'll go to the bags. Yeah. Bags….Punching bags…." Jirou followed Izuku as he took hurried steps scratching his head "Show me your best stance you would take if you were in a fist fight."
Following his words, Jirou turned her body to the right, drew her chin in and brought her fists up at eye level, her right fist covering the temple and everything below while her left hovered the width of two fists away. It was the best she could replicate from a boxing video on Youtube. She began hopping on the balls of her feet.
"Okay, great! Tuck your elbows in a little more."
"Now what?"
"Now, punch, kick, head butt, whatever you know how to do."
"For how long?"
"Mmm….Let's say three minutes for now." Jirou immediately went to work. Starting off with simple jabs, she moved on to the one-twos, body shots, push kicks and whatever else she could remember. The bag was heavy and she had no protective gear, which made her take more care than usual in her form. As the clock ran out, Izuku began his usual mumbling again.
"Dude, hey! Stop that shit. Timer went off"
"Wha? Oh. Oh, great. There I go again, so sorry. It's…it's a uh, it's a bad habit I have. Sorry. Good news is, I think I can help you."
"Awesome. Hey, what was that you were doing last night? I think I've seen that fighting style before."
"Oh, um….well, that was based off of something that was written by a hero a long time ago. The Muay Thai Hero known as Broken Sword. One of his sons took up the mantle recently. Polls say he's ranked number two in terms of having the best smile." The number one place for best smile naturally belonged to All Might.
"Oh yeah! That's what it was. That's what I'm going to be learning?"
"More incorporating and making it suit your style than learning, but yeah. My style focuses more on using my legs than arms, b-but you can round yourself well if you can incorporate your Quirk attacks into it. Like when you clinch and your opponent tries to wrestle you down, you can use your jacks to create an opening."
"Or a sound wave followed by a knee kick. Oh yeah, I'm already excited." The endless possibilities made Jirou smile.
"Um, let's not get too excited. Your legs are still stiff. None of your kicks went above your chest height."
"What? If you're trying to get me to do a perfect split like Mina….."
"No, no, no, no, no, no! Of course not, that'll take way too long to achieve! Even I can't do that. Just flexible enough that your head touches your knees and your palms are flat on the ground when you bend down from a standing position."
"Still sounds like a long road."
"Since when is becoming a hero easy?"
"Touché. What do I do now?"
"Uh….let's balance out your kicking technique with punching for now as much as we can. Let's start with a push kick. Bring your guard up a little higher. Yeah, like that. The point of impact is the ball of your foot and make sure your knee is above the waist before you kick. Keep going until you compromise form." Using a padded section of the wall, they began.
The training went on for about two hours with five minute breaks after every half an hour or so, each half hour focusing on a single kick and how to counter them until Jirou couldn't even stand. She found out the hard way that while Izuku certainly took care without leaving much possibility for an accidental injury to happen, he had quite high standards for himself and while he didn't impose them, he still managed to encourage her to strive for perfection.
"Oh man, my legs…..urgh…."
"We'll be done in five minutes. Now that you know the push kick, knee kick, middle and low roundhouses, mix it into your punches however you like."
"Two."
"Three."
"Fine. I got this….I think."
"Aaaand….go." One-two, roundhouse, double jab, cross, left hook, low kick…..Everything was coming together seamlessly, her mind putting the moves in a sequence like the notes on her recent addition of sheet music. Three minutes passed in what felt to be a mere third of that for Jirou.
"Done. Great job on your first day. I brought some poultice if you need it. I definitely needed it for the first few weeks."
"Damn Midoriya, you really think of everything, don't you?" Jirou chuckled, lying flat on the floor. Izuku just gave a bashful shrug in response as she sank down to the floor, arms and legs outstretched. "Do you…..mind doing it for me?"
"Wha――"
"I can't lift my arms, dummy! You're the one that ran me rugged, so you're taking full responsibility for my physical wellbeing, dammit!"
"Um, uh….um, you're sure….about that?"
"Um, yeah? You're the only one here and my arms are too sore to lift. And don't you even think about ditching me here."
"Right, of course. But, I mean…." Izuku's eyes flicked from Jirou's smooth, toned legs to her face nervously, the red in his face increasing steadily. "Come on, doesn't it, you know….b-bother you? Letting me do this?"
"Well now it does since you brought it up! Just…It's fine! Just do it!"
"Okay," Izuku whispered, steadying his breath as if he were about to disarm a bomb rigged with a string of booby-traps about to go off in a matter of minutes. He started at the calves, placing two on each with trembling fingers, taking care not to leave a wrinkle when applying them. Then came the challenge: her slender, milky white thighs. "Y-you still want me to….continue?"
"Look, I'm not gonna bite. You'll know if you did something wrong when you have a jack in your eye. Continue." He knew she would do it too without hesitation, especially since she has a prior with Mineta, the resident pervert of 1-A.
"Alright. Here we go." Slowly pushing her violet gym shorts up, Izuku peeled the plastic pieces off the adhesive side of the poultice and slowly placed one down several inches above her knees. He did so as gently as possible like with her calves, but Jirou still let out a small grunt in pain. Two more to go on each side.
Izuku couldn't help but look away in embarrassment as he pulled her gym shorts up further along, revealing more of her thighs. His heart rate was going through the roof as he silently prayed for a heart attack or for this dream to end; whichever came faster.
"Midoriya, in case you've forgotten: we're burning daylight and we have a curfew! It's gonna hurt either way, so hurry up!"
"I'm gonna apologize in advance, Jirou."
"Argh!" Her thighs stung, and felt her body being rolled over onto her stomach as another two poultices were applied on her hamstrings.
"Done! There we go…..holy crap….Jesus…." Izuku lay down on the ground as well, the ordeal of resisting his hormones finally won. Her soaked purple hair reflecting the LED from the ceiling, rosy cheeks, thin lips, the slender, delicate curves of her body line, and her husky, heavenly voice that not even fatigue seemed to be able to compromise―――that was something that will be keeping him up more than the nightmare in more ways than one.
"Hey."
"Hm?"
"How's your schedule looking this weekend?"
"Stretches, shadow boxing and running tomorrow, and I just stretch and rest on Sundays. Why?"
"I'm thinking I wanna keep doing this. If you can spare the time, of course."
"Uh, okay….as long as you know you're basically asking a half-blind novice to lead you…."
"Come on, you're doing fine. Dumb it down any more and even Kaminari in Jamming-Yay mode won't even be able to comprehend it." Plus, she had just come up with the perfect first verse for her still unnamed ballad a few seconds ago.
"Sooooo? How'd it go?" Mina asked with a sly grin in the common room with the other girls at night.
"He just showed me basic punches and kicks and we did repetitions of that to help me perfect form and technique. What more do you want me to say?" Jirou said flatly, twirling a pen in between her fingers as she nodded at the first verse on her note pad with several words crossed out and replaced. Finally the lyricist's block was caving in a little.
"Aw, come on! You can't actually mean you didn't feel anything between you and Midoriya!"
"Ashido, private interaction between members of the opposite sexdoes not automatically necessitate a connection to a romantic liaison." Yaoyorozu interjected with a slight, disapproving frown.
"S-she does have a point there, Ashido. There's nothing wrong with a platonic relationship between a boy and a girl…..right?"
"Oh, like you haven't been stealing glances at Todoroki every now and then, Yaomomo! I've seen you!"
"Wha-I have never――"
"Um, yeah you have. Ribbit." Asui interjected with a slight giggle. "Remember the home economics class when Todoroki cut his finger open trying to peel carrots with a knife? You panicked and fussed over him like a mother would with a small child."
"Oh, yeah. That did happen." Jirou agreed absentmindedly without even looking up, making Yaoyorozu blush a crimson hue deeper than her hero costume.
"And you, Uraraka, are frustrating the hell outta me! Girl, you need to assert yourself!"
"I…but――"
"Shush! No buts! Even a ditz can see that you're clearly head over heels for him. Besides――"
Jirou quietly left the common room before Pinky began her hour-long tirade about asserting herself and make a pass at Izuku if she wants him to even acknowledge the fact that she likes him as more than just a friend.
But her words did leave Jirou something to think about. The first verse came to her immediately after the training with him like the block didn't exist for those moments. But then again, this was probably the first time they actually even had a full-blown conversation that didn't just end with exchanging pleasantries with each other.
It was just a coincidence due to radical change of pace. Nothing more.
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While I know that Izuku's still a hero in training that's a semi-pro after getting a provisional license, I still found it a little bothersome that he doesn't really base his fighting style that has already been established. I know that's not really central to the canon plot since he isn't Kenichi Shirahama, but considering he's got a good eye for observation and a brain for coming up with tactics on the fly (kinda like Batman but less edgy), I thought introducing at least one style that he may incorporate wouldn't hurt.
Plus, I REALLY like South East Asian martial arts as well as Tony Jaa, Buwakaw and the movies "Broken Sword Hero" and "The Samurai of Ayothaya"
If you enjoyed this and want more of it, please feel free to drop a comment or SMASH the follow/favorite!
Until the next chapter, PLUS ULTRA!