I Forgot to mention this last chapter, but I have omakes about this story. Check out the page!
With everyone in class 1-A back together, many were talking about their field training with their friends. When Izuku, Shouto, and Tenya walked in the door from having their worst wounds healed by the nurse, the room turned silent.
"Yo big shots! Nice work in Hosu!" Denki shouted, causing the class to get wild again.
"Fuck yeah! Kickin' the hero killer's ass is epic!" Hanta congratulated.
"I saw the footage when the heroes were on scene… Midoriya, you have my respect on sheer gall, if not a lack of danger sense." Mezo and Mashirao nodded at Fumikage's words.
"I was worried for you." Momo said softly, which Eijiro agreed with.
"I'm glad you're alive; no joke, that's what matters." while Shouto and Tenya were taking the praise in stride, Izuku wasn't faring nearly as well. The green-haired teen was trying to get to his seat when Katsuki stopped him.
"Don't get too big a head; I'm gonna catch up fast, so you better prep for it." The blond's words were filled with both arrogance and confidence, but his voice was shockingly at indoor volumes. The inheritor of One for All smiled.
"I'll take your words to heart; I heard you went for Crazy Eight instead of Beast Jeanist." the explosive blonde grinned at the question.
"Wolf Grin informed me of him; guy's a pretty good fighting hero." Katsuki remembered the talk Anima had with him.
'He's not as big, but he's a better match for your method. Jeanist is a perfectionist, but Eight is more of a loose cannon, save some iron-clad rules.' And the werewolf was right. The hero let more than most would slide, until a civilian got hurt; Katsuki smiled at the memory of the thug getting his ass handed to him by his nominator. Soon the class quieted down (largely thanks to Tenya) and school began once more.
"I'm glad that you all seemed to gain some experience from your field training. Especially you, Uraraka-san; your form has improved splendidly!" Anima praised the brunette before attempting to continue.
"Where's All Might-sensei this time?" Tsuyu bluntly asked.
"Due to people associating Stain with the League of villains, he's having to deal with some issues in the background. Just by taking a guess, he's going to have to prioritize this for a few weeks, so he'll be teaching on odd occasions." the teacher answered smoothly. In all honesty, Anima felt that there was going to be some major trouble soon, so he had the haggard hero conserve as much of the remains of One for All. The tall blond trusted his friend's instincts on this, and wasn't using his buff form as much as possible; his resources were telling him the same after all.
"Back to the lesson." Anima told the students. "This is a rescue race. You're competing with four others- meaning four groups of five- to get to me from somewhere in ground gamma(Ɣ), starting from the outside of the mock city. You will mainly be scored on your speed but you can be deducted points for property damage, so mind the destruction. Looking at you Bakugo." the werewolf added.
"Fuck off!" the only thing telling the explosive quirk user his teacher heard the words was a shit-eating grin as Anima looked to the bulk of class 1-A.
"The first group contains Midoriya Izuku, Iida Tenya, Asui Tsuyu, Bakugo Katsuki, and Sero Hanta. You have ten minutes." the five students decided to go from the same spot just for the sake of fairness.
"Leave it to Anima-sensei to have the fastest five at the same time. My money's on Bakugo though. He can almost fly with his quirk." Denki shamelessly admitted.
"Mine's on Sero; he's built for that playing field." Eijiro decided.
"I'm giving mine to Midoriya just on his acrobatics and reflexes." Mina piped up.
"I think Iida-kun will get first." Ochako admitted. The signal blared and everyone started. Tenya was the only one who stuck to the ground, but he was consistently closing in on the signal. Tsuyu and Hanta had decided on staying in the middle of the labyrinth of pipes, making it a race between the two. Both Katsuki and Izuku were flying on top, with sudden bursts of speed coming from the blond's explosion while his rival was jumping on the high, but thin pipes that gave a better view for scouting his freerunning route and making adjustments to it.
Soon enough, mistakes occurred as Hanta's cellophane caught on a loose pipe, making him lose altitude which he had to regain. Tsuyu wasn't using her tongue in fear of tetanus, so she was lagging behind as well. It was looking better for the three that hadn't slowed down. It was a close match, but little mistakes made it harder to not lose time regaining balance. When the three fastest got within sight, it was clear who won.
"Congratulations for getting the fastest time out of every student, Bakugo." Anima praised. "Now then, if you look at your times, the difference between Bakugo's time of 110.5 seconds and Hagakure's time of 174.3 is only sixty-four seconds. In a rescue operation, that handful of seconds can mean life or death for the victim. Any method you can use to shave those seconds off, use them." the class was used to this by now; Anima never condemned heroes, but he always stressed the value, danger, and emotional weight the career presented. He made the worst mistakes, and he would be damned if he didn't let them learn from his failures; It made the class want to work harder so they weren't repeated. When the teens were out of their hero costumes, Anima walked up to his disciple.
"Go to the teacher's lounge after school; Toshinori wants to talk with you." it was a small message, but Izuku nodded.
Shouto was nervous. It wasn't because of a villain, or the press, or even a normal crush; he was nervous because he was moving in a single day from the hell he called home to halfway across the city. Everything was planned. He, Anima, and Jesse would gather everything he owned save the bed and throw it in the back of the martial artist's' truck before driving to what would be his new residence without returning for another trip.
The problem was they only had an hour before his old man returned.
Entering his soon-to-be former residence, he called to his sister. Walking from the living room, she saw the cacciatores and gave a hesitant bow.
"Hello. My name' Todoroki Fuyumi. What brings you here?" her voice was unsteady, but the married pair could tell she was going to protect her brother by her body language.
"Hello. I'm Anima Cacciatore, and this is my wife Jesse. I'm a teacher at your brother's school, but that's not why we've come. On his request, he'll be living with me until further notice." the werewolf's words shocked the eldest child, but he continued as Shouto went to his room with Jesse.
"I heard of his… relationship with his father, and offered him my place. We're getting his things before he leaves. We have to do this before Endeavor comes back from work." Anima walked to his student's room to lend a hand, only to find Fuyumi following. Looking over his shoulder, she only gave a single response.
"I want to help my little brother." The martial artist liked her resolve. The four managed to pack everything in just over a half hour. When they were ready to leave, Jesse gave Fuyumi a small piece of paper.
"Visit whenever you want, no matter the time." the she-wolf explained with a warm smile.
"You know, I just might." the eldest Todoroki returned the smile. 'If these are the people looking after shouto-kun, then he'll be fine.'
Over the next couple months, the class of 1-A was studying as much as they possibly could, mainly thanks to the pressure Momo, Tenya, and Izuku kept so no one would have to miss the lodging trip. While Denki and Mina were having the hardest time, they were maintaining more than they usually did because of the bookworms helping. Soon enough, everyone was up to be at least passing in common school studies.
Physically, the class was doing phenomenally due to the fact almost everyone decided to take Anima's martial arts lessons at least once a week if not more. Toru was learning how to utilize snake style, making her strikes even more of a nightmare to predict. Denki decided to focus on the collapsible baton to channel his electricity through. Both Tetsutetsu and Eijiro were becoming monsters in offense and defense respectively. Due to their differing skeletal structure, Tsuyu and Mezo were working on making their own fighting style just for themselves. Rikido was learning boxing to make the most of his quirk, trying to make every punch muscle memory. Koji was learning tai chi for keeping even his opponents uninjured. Even Fumikage was learning aikido for when Dark Shadow was not reliable.
Soon, the exams were just a week away, but with their training and studies, everyone was fairly confident.
"Of course you're getting better now; real combat will do that." Anima spoke with surety. Izuku and his mother were having Katsudon and cold soba with the Cacciatores and Shouto before the exams. The green-haired teen looked confused before his mentor explained.
"It has to do with experience. You know how to do many techniques since you started training at a young age, but you didn't know when to use them. With your fights at the USJ and with Stain, you've been learning how to use them, not just how to execute them."
"But, didn't I fight with you often?" Anima shook his head.
"It's a matter of mindset. If you screw up in a spar, I'll stop, and you know it. When your life's actually on the line, you know screwing up will get you killed, so your mind has you act accordingly." the werewolf's words were enough to get his disciple on a mumbling rant. Shouto watched his classmate fall deeper into his thoughts before turning to Inko.
"I'm curious; when did Midoriya-san start doing that?" he asked.
"I think he was seven. The best thing to do is let Izuku finish his tangent." she answered honestly.
"-so it lets all prior training consolidate with the fear of real combat." the youngest teen finished his thoughts, satisfied with the reasoning.
"Now then," Anima held his drink up. "Let's have a toast for our dear students; Good luck on your exams!"
"Cheers!" everyone touched glasses.
"Are you comfortable, moving I mean." Izuku asked softly.
"It's… it's new, but nice. I can't tell you how much it's taken off my shoulders. Thank you, all of you." it was small, but everyone saw the warm smile on the scarred teen's face. Inko quickly went over to hug her son's friend.
"It's no trouble at all. If you ever want, come visit Izuku at our place. We'd love to have you." It was odd for the teen to see so much emotion thrown around, but it was more welcoming than anything at his old house.
'So,' he thought. 'This is what home is supposed to be like.'
When the day of the finals arrived, everyone in class 1-A gathered outside the mock cities with many teachers and even the principal.
"Right, the physical test will begin shortly." Shouta said emotionlessly. "I'm sure you learned a little about this from other resources." Mina and Denki were ecstatic that they heard it was going to be robots like the entrance exam, but the principal shot their hopes down.
"Due to various reasonings including the USJ incident, we have decided to focus on person-to-person combat instead of the robots this year. You will be paired up and assigned a task against a teacher. These pairings have been decided based on the way you move, your grades, and your degree of familiarity with one another. Now then: Ashido and Kaminari will be going with me, Aoyama and Uraraka will be facing thirteen…" the list went on until there were four left.
"Yaoyorozu and Midoriya are against me." Shouta said with a grin that made the two shudder.
"And I'll be taking on Bakugo and Todoroki." the strongest teens turned to a low voice and froze. It was Anima.
And he was in his werewolf form.
That was a fun chapter to write. Next chapter will be focusing on the changes 1-A has had due to training, so there will be some major change. Now, Shouto is in a better situation, and the class is more cohesive as a whole. If you think I messed up, Tell me! I read like a broken record sounds, but I love hearing your responses. Till next time!