Everyone Has a Secret

by Disaris

Jasmyne Keane was adopted from Japan to the U.S at birth, and lived with her family in Texas until the age of 18. With a powerful quirk, and few people around to understand it, she made it through most of her life barely getting by. Now she's been accepted as a transfer student to the prestigious UA High as a 3rd year transfer student. Original posting on AO3

9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Quirk Training

Over the next few days, Bakugo and Jasmyne fell into a routine with their training. Every morning, up at three thirty then down to the kitchen for a silent breakfast before starting their run. As each day passed, the run got a little easier for her, though her overall time still left something to be desired. Then into Gym Gamma for at least two hours of quirk training before making their way back to get ready for class. Then after dinner was another run and an hour of combat training before Jasmyne's new unintentional nine o'clock bedtime.

Even class time though, seemed like it was going to be dedicated to quirk training, as Bakugo was insisting that she use the time to bounce back and forth reading different people's minds. The idea was, he'd explained, that the more she did this in a safe setting without the risk of harm, the easier it would be to exercise her quirk and thereby hopefully increase how much time she had before experiencing the backlash. Despite the obvious necessity for this training, Jasmyne had been more than a bit against the idea of delving into other people's thoughts without their consent, which had led them to their most recent argument.

"You're making a mountain out of a mole hill," Bakugo argued. "If you get their permission, then what's the problem?"

The pair were sitting together in the classroom during lunch going over Jasmyne's progress over the past few days when Bakugo first brought up the idea of using their classmates as training tools to help develop her quirk. Jasmyne had suspected he was going to tell her something she wasn't going to like when he had stopped her from going to the cafeteria with an offer of a home cooked bento box, but the smell of the mapo tofu wafting at her had lowered her guard.

"The problem is even if I get their permission, they're going to be constantly on guard since they'll never know when I'm going to switch off between them," she retorted, stabbing a piece of tofu with her chopstick. "That's not a fair thing to ask of someone, especially since I still haven't even started trying to make peace with any of them."

"You're being difficult for no reason," he grumbled back at her. "They're never going to even know if you don't say anything to them. It's a victimless crime."

"Wow," Jasmyne replied, rolling her eyes. "So, what you're saying is as long as a crime's victimless we can just let everyone get away with it? Send a memo to the Hero Commission so we can let the pros know to leave all the villains who commit victimless crimes alone."

"You're acting like this is anything different from what you were doing for the mission," he pointed out. "What? Just because it was strangers that makes it okay, right? We should alert the Hero Commission and tell them to leave along the villains who don't know their victims."

Jasmyne narrowed her eyes at his mocking tone. "Copying me now huh, are we back in Kindergarten? And yes, that was different because I wasn't just looking at their thoughts for shits and giggles, I had something specific to look at and I did my best to ignore the rest of the thoughts in their heads."

"So do that. Look for something innocuous in their minds, something you already know about them so that it's not an invasion of privacy."

"What's an invasion of privacy?"

Jasmyne and Bakugo's heads snapped around to see Midoriya standing over them with his own lunch from the cafeteria. He pulled up a chair between their desks and sat down with them, a quizzical look on his face.

"Not your business shitnerd," Bakugo replied without his usual bite. "We're having a private discussion."

"Oh, so you do know what privacy means, shocker," Jasmyne teased, making Bakugo glare at her. She turned her head again to address Midoriya. "We were talking about my quirk training. Bakugo wants me to use my quirk to spy on our classmates so I can start getting used to the backlash from it. I told him it's a complete invasion of privacy and I wouldn't do it."

Midoriya's brow furrowed in concentration as he considered the issue his friends were having. "Do you want my opinion," he asked after some time.

"No," Bakugo snapped.

Midoriya ignored him. "I think Bakugo's right," he said to Jasmyne. "If you have a severe reaction to overusing your quirk, then I think that Kachan's idea is a really good one."

"See, even goody two shoes Deku thinks it's a good idea," Bakugo said, quickly forgetting his annoyance at the green haired boy. "Now you have to do it."

"Excuse me," Jasmyne snapped. "I still don't have to do anything. I'm not some feeble-minded girl who looks to the damn men in her life to tell her what to do."

"Could have fooled me," Bakugo quipped, earning him a punch in the shoulder from Jasmyne and a look of disdain from Midoriya.

"Kacchan, I swear, you're incapable of being tactful," Midoriya said with a sigh.

Bakugo slammed his fist on the desk and nearly knocked Jasmyne's bento off the side before she quickly grabbed it. "Hey!" she protested. "Don't take it out on the food!"

"Don't tell me what I'm capable of Deku, I can do whatever I put my mind to," Bakugo snarled. "I can do whatever the hell I want to do, and I can do it ten times better than you can."

Midoriya just sighed in exasperation. "Okay Kacchan. Whatever you say."

"Don't look down on me ya damn nerd!"

"Oi!" Jasmyne shouted over the two of them. "Can we get back to me please. Self-centered American here, I don't like the attention not being on me at all times."

Midoriya choked out a laugh at her joke and even Bakugo snapped out of his anger long enough to crack a fleeting smile, before sitting back down.

"Look no matter which way we spin it, it's an invasion of privacy to the rest of the class," Jasmyne told them. "I don't feel comfortable with that, so we need to brainstorm a different way."

"There isn't another way to do this unless you're stuck on doing it in the field," Bakugo insisted. "You can't keep getting these migraines in the middle of a mission, otherwise you'll keep being left in vulnerable positions."

Before Jasmyne could argue further, Midoriya jumped in. "Why not just bounce between me and Kacchan for now then. If you don't want to put other people in the middle of this, then just bother the two people who are pushing you to do it."

"We're still presented with the same problem though," Jasmyne argued. "Try as you might to control your thoughts, your brain isn't under your control, you're under its control. You guys may end up thinking something you don't want me to know and then what happens."

"You're being impossible," Bakugo said, throwing his hands into the air in frustration. "Do it, don't do it, I don't care. You have our blessing so if you want to stop being a brat, then take advantage."

Before Jasmyne could retort, the bell rang, signaling the end of the lunch period and the rest of the class began to file back in. Jasmyne closed up her only half-finished bento box and handed it back to Bakugo who waved her off. "Keep it," he replied shortly.

Jasmyne just shrugged and took her seat behind Midoriya just as the last few stragglers rushed back into the classroom. A few minutes after everyone was seated, Present Mic walked into the room, ready to start their English lesson which was the only class where Jasmyne wouldn't get called out for not paying attention. She looked around at all her classmates one by one, still internally debating whether or not she should use them as guinea pigs in her training. No matter how the boys tried to spin it, this was the one thing about her quirk that had always gotten her into trouble before….

Grade 1

The day Jasmyne's quirk first manifested, she was six years old, a little on the older side but not uncommon for kids in her area. The teacher had just allowed the kids up from their desks to go to the independent reading rug and Jasmyne rushed over to her neighbor and friend. "Hey Matthew, are you still going to park after school," Jasmyne asked.

The boy, Matthew, picked his head up from the book he was reading and gave her a funny look. "How did you know I was going to the park?"

"I heard you say so at recess," Jasmyne replied with a giggle. "Don't you remember, silly?"

Matthew's eyes narrowed. "I wasn't outside during recess," he said, confused. "I had to stay behind and eat in the classroom with Mrs. Brown because I got in trouble."

"Wait…you weren't?" Jasmyne asked him, extremely confused. "I could have sworn I heard you say so."

"I promise, I wasn't," he said earnestly. "Maybe you heard someone who sounded like me. But I am going to the park today with my big brother, do you want to come with us?"

"Oh…yeah, I guess I must have heard someone else. But sure! What time are you guys going to go…."

Grade 5

"Alright kids, lets settle down now." The teacher clapped her hands together loudly three times trying to get her students' attention. "Okay so before lunch we were talking about Christopher Columbus and how he discovered America back in 1492. Can anyone tell me – "

"Excuse me Mr. Valdez," Jasmyne interrupted with a raise of her hand. "But that's not correct."

Mr. Valdez paused and let out a long, exasperated breath, internally debating whether or not he should indulge in this conversation. Clearly it was not the first time that Jasmyne had interrupted his lesson like this. "Jasmyne, yes, it is correct," he said finally. "Did you read the pages I assigned for homework last night?"

"I did," she said with a nod of affirmation. "But I've heard from other teachers that he didn't discover America, he landed in the Bahamas. And besides there were already people in America and the Bahamas so how did he 'discover' anything."

"And which teacher said this to you," Mr. Valdez asked sharply.

"Well…no one said it directly," Jasmyne replied sheepishly. "But I heard it in some of the older teacher's heads."

"Alright Jasmyne, I don't know what you think you heard, but that's enough out of you," Mr. Valdez snapped, losing his patience. "You're confusing your classmates by lying to them, so you need to sit there and be quiet while I give them the correct information."

"But – "

"One more word out of you and you're going to the Principal's office. You need to learn to keep your head out of other people's thoughts and learn that you don't have to be the center of attention all the time young lady."

Jasmyne glared at Mr. Valdez, and he returned it with a look of warning, as if daring her to keep going. With a huff, Jasmyne sat down in her seat, and crossed her arms. "Yes, sir…."

Grade 11

As was the norm by this point, Jasmyne sat by herself at one of the tables in the back of the cafeteria, eating whatever 'lunch' her mother had decided to pack her that morning. For all her mother's skills, cooking was not one of them and Jasmyne was still trying to figure out if she was eating chicken or beef.

"So are we still on for dress shopping tonight," a voice wafted over from a few tables down to where Jasmyne could hear them. "I want to find something amazing for the prom next month. I swiped Daddy's credit card this morning so we can go nuts!"

"You're so bad Marina," said her friend who was sitting across from her. "What's he gonna say when he sees the credit card bill?"

"He never even looks at the bill anymore," Marina said, flipping her dark brown hair over her shoulders. "And even if he did, he'd probably just blame my mother. Daddy's angel could never do something so bad." She let out an obnoxiously loud laugh at her own 'joke' which made Jasmyne roll her eyes.

Unfortunately, as she did so, she caught the attention of Marina's friend Sasha, who narrowed her eyes in Jasmyne's direction. "What the hell is your problem, freak?" she spat.

"No problem," Jasmyne replied with disinterest. "Just eating my lunch."

"Keep your nose out of my business, freak," Marina said. "Just because no one asked you to prom, doesn't mean you can go horning in on my plans."

"Maybe you shouldn't talk so loud," Jasmyne quipped. "Not everyone wants to hear that grating voice of yours. Your conversations aren't interesting enough for people to eavesdrop on willingly."

"Bitch," Marina snapped. She shot up out of her seat and stomped her way over to Jasmyne's table, slamming both her palms down on top of it when she got close. "Who the hell do you think you're talking to here. I could make your life a living hell you freak."

"You know that's the third time you and your friend have used the word freak," Jasmyne replied blandly. "Maybe it's time you expanded your vocabulary a bit. I know your brain's been fried by the coke you and your boyfriend snort on the weekends, but still, it won't be that – "

Jasmyne's words were cut short when Marina slammed her closed fist right into Jasmyne's cheek. The force of the punch knocked her off balance and she fell backwards off the table. Before Jasmyne's mind could catch up to the fact that she'd been punched, Marina was standing over her and grabbed her by the collar of her shirt to pull her close. "Listen your worthless waste of air, I don't know where you heard that, but don't you go spreading my business across the school or I swear the next time I'll knock out your teeth."

"I heard it," Jasmyne managed to groan out. "The same place I heard that you screwed the gym teacher into passing you since you couldn't be bothered to show up." She tapped her forehead and gave Marina a sly smile.

Marina flew into a rage at that last comment and threw Jasmyne back against the wall and pounced on her. Jasmyne, fighting through the pain traveling up her spine, rolled out of the way at the last second and Marina flew into the wall herself. The brunette quickly regains her balance and lunges at Jasmyne once again throwing a flurry of quick jabs against her. The blond instinctively threw up her hands to shield her face but the brunette manages to land a harsh blow against the blond's shoulder, spinning her around and giving Marina an opening to throw another punch right in Jasmyne's stomach.

Jasmyne doubled over in pain, coughing, and trying to catch her breath but Marina didn't let up, grabbing Jasmyne by her hair she threw her onto the ground. Jasmyne's head smacked hard against the cold tile of the cafeteria floor, and she barely had a second to recover from that before Marina threw a hard kick right into Jasmyne's rib cage. Jasmyne cried out, feeling something crack under the force of the brunette assault.

Before Marina could pull her foot back for another attack, the school safety came rushing over followed closely behind by three of the school deans, the assistant principal, and the school nurse. As the deans spread out to try to control the crowd that had gathered, the school safety officers rushed towards Marina and grabbed her by her arms to pull her away from the blond, who was still doubled over in pain on the floor. The nurse and the AP rushed to Jasmyne to see the damage as the officers dragged Marina out of the office kicking and screaming.

Once the administration had gotten the situation under control, Jasmyne was taken to the nurse's office and eventually transported to the hospital once the nurse confirmed that one of Jasmyne's ribs was most likely broken. She sat in the pediatric wing of the hospital, surrounded by the cartoon animals that plastered the walls for hours as she waited for multiple tests that the emergency room doctors ordered.

"Again!"

Her mothers screech made Jasmyne jump up in bed, which sent a new wave of pain shooting up her side. "Mom," she said through gritted teeth. "How did you know I was here."

"You think the school's not going to call me to tell me my underage daughter is being sent to the hospital because she got into another fight!" her mother snapped. "Jasmyne what is wrong with you? You're getting into fights almost weekly now and this is the third time you've had to be sent to the hospital in as many months!"

"You call them fights? Mom I'm the one getting beat on here, I didn't throw a single punch."

"Oh, come off it," her mother shouted over her. "You think I don't know you? I may not have given birth to you, but you've been my daughter for sixteen years now. You think I don't know that she probably only hit you because of your smart mouth! Jasmyne it's time to grow the hell up and stop being such a know it all…"

Jasmyne startled as Mic slammed a textbook down against her desk, effectively waking her up from her daydream down memory lane.

"Ms. Keane," he said unusually seriously. "I cut you some slack because I know English isn't a foreign concept to you, but if I'm giving you that freedom, I expect you to at least pretend to be listening to me and answer me when I call on you. Does that sound fair?"

"Yes sir," she replied sheepishly. "I'm very sorry."

"Excellent!" he said, shifting easily back into his normal loud, energetic self. "So now why don't you stand up, help out your classmates and explain to them why this sentence is read a certain way!"

"Alright, I think it's time we went a little further into your quirk training," Bakugo said later that same evening. He and Jasmyne were sitting in Gym Gamma as usual getting ready for their nightly sparring session. This time though, they had the addition of Midoriya who Bakugo had invited at the last minute.

"Further in what sense," she asked as she stretched her arms above her head, loosening up her muscles.

"You've stopped hesitating between switching off quirks, so that's cut down on your time a bit," he explained. "But you've been creating and hopefully storing the stem cells for a few days so I want to see if you can use them in tandem."

"But I can only produce stem cells for one quirk at a time still," Jasmyne said. "How am I supposed to use two at once?"

"That's where I come in," Midoriya told her. "You're going to spar with me tonight using Kacchan's quirk, and as we're fighting, we want you to store up as many stem cells as you can for his quirk and then I want you to activate one of mine."

"So, while you're transitioning between quirks, the idea is to see if your body can produce enough cells quickly enough to hold you through at least the forty seconds it'll take you to create enough new cells to activate Black Whip if not longer."

"It won't be as powerful as my Black Whip because of the boost it gets from One for All, but it was pretty powerful on its own before that so it still will work as a good capture quirk."

"I don't know if my quirk can do that," Jasmyne said skeptically.

"Well, that's why we're calling it a test, brat," Bakugo countered. "We don't know until we try so let's try."

Jasmyne nodded and took her place on one side of the training floor and faced off against Midoriya. While she waited for Bakugo to give the starting signal, Jasmyne activated her quirk to search for Black Whip so she could be prepared when the time came.

"You're going to have about a minute of using my quirk before I call the switch," Bakugo shouted so that the other two could hear him clearly. "When I call it, you're going to keep using Explosion until you can't anymore, but you need to split your focus and start activating Black Whip. You don't need to do anything flashy, so if all you can do its dodge, then just dodge, but don't stop using it."

Jasmyne nodded and readied herself, lowering her body into her starting stance and watched Midoriya as he did the same. As soon as Bakugo gave the signal, Midoriya launched himself towards Jasmyne, using about twenty percent of One for All to give her time to react. What he wasn't expecting though was Jasmyne launching herself right towards him at the same moment with two well-timed explosions propelling her forward. Her right hand shot out as soon as she was close enough and it was only Midoriya's familiarity with that opening move that allowed him to dodge the blast that she let off by mere centimeters.

The blond flew past him, and as soon as her foot hit the ground, she pivoted to her left and letting off another explosion with her right hand which the greenette wasn't as lucky in dodging. Midoriya flew back more due to the wave of energy that came off the blast, rather than the actual heat of the explosion. He activated his air force to keep himself from landing headfirst on the ground and his body flipped around just in time to see Jasmyne flying towards him again.

As Jasmyne got closer, she stopped letting off explosions from her left hand and curved her right arm so that she flew around in a circle. Midoriya – who was used to Kacchan's fighting style – recognized this as the beginning of his signature Howitzer Impact and braced himself for it. But Jasmyne didn't complete the rotation and caught Midoriya off guard, simply using the kickback from the last explosion to add more speed to the round house kick she was preparing to let off. Unprepared for attack, Midoriya felt the impact on his right hip and stumbled back.

"Change!" they heard Bakugo call out from somewhere behind them and Jasmyne switched tactics immediately as she'd been instructed to. Deku went onto the offensive at Bakugo's shout and lunged towards her as Jasmyne let off another explosion to launch herself backwards. Her brain was working in overdrive, refusing to stop making the stem cells needed for Explosion while simultaneously trying to make the cells for Black Whip. Jasmyne could feel the energy of her explosions starting to weaken as the seconds passed, putting less distance between her and Midoriya who was already close on her tail. Come on, she thought. Just a few more seconds.

As Midoriya closed the last few feet of distance between them, Jasmyne could see the thin whisps of Black Whip on her palms. Using the last bit of explosion that she could, she shot herself backwards into Midoriya, catching him off guard once again. She slammed into him just as Black Whip fully materialized and shot out like snakes from her fingers, coiling around both of their bodies into a tight hold. The pair dropped to the ground with an unceremonious thud and the fight concluded.

There was silence for a second before Bakugo burst out into side-splitting laughter and the position the two of them had landed themselves in. Jasmyne frantically searched for how to deactivate Black Whip through her memory bank so she could free herself from the constraints. Eventually the black haze dissipated, and Jasmyne untangled herself from Midoriya.

"Sorry, sorry," she said frantically with a bow. "I didn't think I had enough energy left to swing myself around, so I just panicked and did whatever came to my mind first."

Midoriya was laughing now too, though not as loudly as Bakugo who was now doubled over on the floor clutching his side. "You're fine. I mean ideally you don't want to capture yourself along with the villain, but hey it worked."

"I know, I'm still really, really sorry," she told him again. She reached out her hand to the greenette who accepted it gladly and she helped him off the ground. The two of them walked over towards where Bakugo was still bent over although the laughter was slowly dying down. They waited for it to completely subside before Jasmyne asked him, "So how did I do."

"You actually did pretty good, brat," he said wiping away a tear from his eye. "You did exactly what we asked you to do, and you did it well. I'm – and don't let this go to your head – I'm proud of you." Jasmyne and Midoriya's jaws both dropped at Bakugo's unexpected praise and the blond boy's face immediately returned to its normal scowl. "Either of you got something to say?"

"Uh no," Jasmyne said, quickly recovering. "Just, well thank you."

Bakugo just nodded his head in response. "Alright, let's go again."