Hello everyone 😊
Welcome to the new chapter. ^^
Endeavour is still on top of the ranking for the internship. If you haven't already done so vote in chapter 7.
The thing about Denki is that he has so much potential if he just learned how to use his quirk properly, so that's what we're doing in this, because he deserves to be acknowledged. Screw Horikishi nerfing my boy as much as he does. Denki having ADHD also makes a lot of sense to me, so I'm going with that headcanon like a lot of others. I just love that sunshine boy.
Warnings: Mention of Child neglect in the beginning
I hope you'll have fun reading. ^^
Chapter 13. Growing Stronger
"Comrades are comrades because they help each other out." – Natsu Dragneel
Everyone avoids Vivi on the next day because they notice her mood and the glooming, almost deadly aura around her. Her whole class is wondering what the hell happened to get her into this mood, but no one has the guts to ask. Or they simply don't care like Katsuki and Shoto.
She only calms down after lunch when she talked to Hitoshi again. He promised that his parent's treatment doesn't bother him anymore. Careful to speak as silent as he can so no one would hear what they talk about. He's used to just ignore his parents like they do him. Most times he's not even home until late at night and he always stays in his room when he's home. Expect for when he's getting food from the kitchen, which is the only thing he is allowed to do outside of his room anyway. And even that is limited to specific times of the day. If he misses them, it's his own fault that he's not getting something to eat.
When he told her that part Vivi stood up from her chair, once again ready to totally murder his parents. He held her back again by grabbing her arm and tells her that one day he will move out from home and not look back. Until that time comes, he can endure his home life. He promises her that as well. Having Vivi as a friend now also makes it better because he can always text her. Not that he told her the last part.
His arguments didn't make her feel any less angry about his parents, but she promises him to let it slide for now. No one will question if his parents accidently die in a bad storm one day, right?
Olivia definitely finds herself relaxing almost completely after she and Hitoshi carried out their plan to let Mineta pay in that same lunch break. The pervert is currently dangling from a flag post in front of the U.A. main building, bound to it by a rope. No one knows how he got there. Not even Mineta himself, who's currently busy freaking out, because he just regained his senses. A bird has settled down on the boy's head, pecking at it. Mineta tries to shoo the bird away with his arms but doesn't succeed, since they are bound to his sides. All in all, he's making a hilarious image. Hitoshi and Vivi exchange a low five, hidden by the massive crowd of people that look up at the boy. Some laugh, while others ask around and whisper about how that happened. Both of them are really proud of their succeeded plan.
After classes of the day are over Olivia is busy stuffing her school utensils into her bag when she is approached by one of her classmates. "Olivia." She looks up at Denki when he addresses her, noticing that he looks visibly nervous about something, fiddling with the hem of his shirt.
Vivi lifts an eyebrow at him, all her school utensils finally packed into her bag. "Please don't ask me out. I'm not interested in the slightest. You smell to much like my brother." She tells him immediately, remembering how Denki has a history from flirting with the girls in class and trying to ask them out one after another.
"What?" Denki blinks at her in confusion. He shakes his head to catch himself, "I didn't want to ask you out. But good to know that I don't need to try it later. I wanted to ask you something else."
She nods and smiles at him, "What is it?"
He rubs the back of his neck and glances nervously to the side, "Back when we had battle training you said that you could show me some tricks. Would you still do that?"
Vivi almost beams at him at his request. "Of course! If you have time you can come with me to training right now."
"Right now?" he replies surprised, before catching himself, "Uh, sure, I'll come."
"Great. Then you better change into your gym uniform and we meet at the P.E. Ground number one in ten minutes. It's where we did the Quirk Assessment Tests."
"I'll be there!" he grins and takes off out of the classroom and towards the changing rooms.
Olivia meets up with Hitoshi at the training ground after she changed into her U.A. gym uniform. He is already there and warms himself up by doing push ups. Bubble grins and settles down on Hitoshi's back. That lets him stop in his movements for a second, before he continues after he spotted Vivi and was able to guess where the new weight on his back came from.
"Hitoshi, I hope you're not mad, but we'll get some addition to training today." She tells him.
He raises an eyebrow at her, continuing with his push ups. "What kind?"
The question answers itself by Denki stepping onto the training ground in that moment. He waves at Vivi and grins wide. When he spots Hitoshi who still does his push ups he stops dead in his tracks. "Woah, that's the guy who declared war on our class." Exclaims Denki, pointing at the indigo-haired boy.
"He is." Vivi nods. "His name is Shinso Hitoshi. Hitoshi, that's Kaminari Denki. One of my classmates I offered to help with training too. I'm sure you're gonna be friends in no time."
Hitoshi decides then that he warmed up enough and stands back up from the ground. Bubble settles down in his hair, like a bird would in a nest. "Did I ever tell you that I have no interest in making friends?"
The mage raises an eyebrow, a smile plastered on her face. "You, in fact, didn't ever tell me that."
Denki looks back and forth between the two of them. "You help him train?"
"What? You think she's betraying you or something?" questions Hitoshi with a stoic expression on his face.
"No, I think it's awesome." Denki grins at Hitoshi. "What's your Quirk?" he asks genuinely curious.
"Brainwashing." He replies with a neutral voice, "It's exactly what it sounds like."
Denki's eyes go round, "Dude, that's awesome!"
Hitoshi blinks in confusion and Vivi chuckles. "Told you." She says with a smile. Afterwards she turns to Denki. "So, what exactly do you want help with?"
He rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. "Uh, I don't know if Yaomomo or Jirou told you about my Quirk, but I'm not able to control the path my electricity takes. It just goes everywhere when I shoot it. So, there's always the danger I accidently hit other people with it. If I use to much energy, I also short-circuit my brain. You said your brother has a similar Quirk. Maybe you have an idea what I can do about that?"
Vivi touches her chin with her finger, thinking about it. "These aren't problems my brother has. He can form and control his lightning similar to how I can use my storms. His Quirk's drawbacks are like mine too. It comes with motion sickness as well as tiredness, physical weakness, a sore body and the like when overusing his Quirk. Have you ever tried to channel your electricity and use it as a projectile or form it into shapes?"
"I tried a lot of things." He tells her, "I've got my Quirk from my mom. It's the same with hers. She has these awesome gloves that let her form her electricity into whips. I don't have a clue how they work. She never lets me try them out." He pouts at the last part, clearly offended by his mom not letting him use her equipment.
Hm, so there would be ways to shape his electricity, but he'll probably need a device for that. Vivi nibbles on her bottom lip while in thought. I don't know where someone could get that. I need to think of something else for him. What could he do? Oh, I know! Back when we did the Quirk Assessment Tests I'm pretty sure he used his electricity only over his legs and I don't remember that it shot out anywhere. "But you can use your electricity to move faster, right? You did it at the Quirk Assessment Tests on our first day."
"That was on instinct." He admits, rubbing his neck again, "I don't really know how that worked."
Vivi chuckles. Instinct, huh? "I think that's something we can work with." She turns towards Hitoshi, "Is it all right for you to train by yourself for today?"
He nods, eyes roaming over Denki for a second before he starts to jog around the training field. Bubble is keeping him company on his head. The rocking movement of his jogging puts the Exceed to sleep in no time, a warm nest of fluffy indigo-coloured hair under him.
"Now then." Vivi turns back towards Denki with a grin, "You won't have to worry about hurting me with your Quirk. I'm mostly immune to electricity. Try to use your instinct like you did on our first day. Let's see if we find a way for you to get stronger."
"Uh, okay. I'll try." They both take fighting stances in the middle of the field, standing a few feet apart from each other. Without thinking much about it, Denki uses his Quirk and propels himself towards Vivi by using his electricity only over his legs just like he did at the first day of school. Back then he just wanted to be fast for the test and he really only moved on instinct. He never even knew he could use his Quirk like that before then.
Vivi moves swiftly to the side to easily avoid Denki's fist by a few inches. She karate chops him on the head, bringing him to the ground. A grunt of pain leaves him. "What was that for? I only did what you told me to." He looks up at her, rubbing his head in the process where a bump already starts to grow.
The Dragon Slayer smiles at him in apology. "I'm sorry. That was instinct too." Vivi used to karate chop Natsu just like that when he decided to attack her in similar ways. She just couldn't help it. "But I do have some ideas of how you can use your Quirk in better ways. Maybe instead of trying to find a way to use your Quirk for long rage attacks you should focus on close combat for now. That may be suited better for your Quirk."
Denki takes her outstretched hand and lets her help him back onto his feet. "How?"
"Just now, you were able to use your Quirk only on a specific body part to move faster, right? If you use that technique and also use electricity on your hands, for example, you could save your energy as well as hit your opponent with an electric fist. I could show you some close combat techniques from my brother. They could work with that." Vivi offers with a grin. To be fair, his attacks will probably not be nearly as powerful as Laxus's. Not that they even need to be in this world.
"That sounds awesome!" exclaims Denki, "I never thought of that!"
"Could it be that you're kind of dumb?" asks Hitoshi who jogged past them in that moment. He looks at Denki out of the corner of his eye.
Denki sulks at that, "My mom always said I'm just special, not dumb."
"Don't be offended, Denki. A family member of mine is dumb too." She tries to cheer up the boy, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder and smiles at him, "The only thing he's smart at is when it comes to battle sense. He's kinda unbeatable in that area. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. You just need to find yours and how to balance your weakness with your strengths."
Denki looks at her in wonder. "Really? What's your weakness? You took on the three main villains at the USJ on your own. I can't imagine you'd have a weakness." At Denki's words Hitoshi stops in his jog and looks at Vivi. He still wants to know more about that villain attack. Vivi already told him a lot but maybe someone else has different views on things.
"I have weaknesses just like any other human being." She answers, "I'd say one of my biggest is exactly that I took on these villains by myself. When it comes to protecting people I care about I don't really care about my own wellbeing anymore. Selflessness is not always a good thing. I almost died a few times because of it and got scolded by my family. … And don't even get me started on my motion sickness. You all saw what that does to me." Vivi's face turns green when she thinks about it. "Oh, and I also can't stand closed, dark rooms. They freak me out." She adds, only the thought making a shiver run down her spine.
"Aye, that's true." Agrees Bubble from on Hitoshi's head. He woke up when Hitoshi stopped jogging.
"But enough chatting." Speaks Vivi, her toothy grin back on her face, "Let's go again."
All three of them continue to train. Like she said shows Vivi her classmate a few of her brother's techniques he could try to do. He struggles a lot to get the techniques quite right and Vivi continues to help him with that. In the meantime, Hitoshi does some more stamina and speed training with Bubbles help. The so called 'Bubble's projectiles from hell exercise'. The Exceed throws softballs at the boy in great speed that he tries to dodge. He's really surprised that the cat can throw that hard, already having a few bruises forming from when he wasn't able to dodge. Hitoshi can be glad Bubble uses softballs. When he did that exercise with Vivi back on Earthland he threw exploding Lacrimas.
At the end of the day, when the sky once again is covered in stars, they stop for the day. Denki is currently in an awkward state with a stupid face and gives thumbs up while stumbling across the training ground. Vivi realizes that his thumbs ups are probably supposed to show them that he is all right. Still, besides realizing that, she can't help but think about his current state in a critical manner.
This 'short-circuiting' looks like his own electricity overloads his brain. Vivi's thought travel back to times where she overloaded her magic. Her state may have been different than Denki's, but it was still always painful as hell. That's why she can't help but worry about her classmate even when he's trying to reassure them with his thumbs up. If his overloading feels only slightly like hers felt it can't be healthy. Her feelings tell her that Porlyusica would definitely yell at Denki and that means she has to help him out. Maybe there is a way for him to avoid overloading his brain?
"So, that's what he meant when he said overusing his Quirk short-circuits his brain." Notices Hitoshi, tearing Vivi out of her thoughts with his words. The indigo-haired boy watches Denki with an expression that shows slight amusement but also a hint of worry, "I guess flashy Quirks aren't all that great after all, if they have drawbacks like that."
"Looks like it, but his Quirk is still powerful." She doesn't know why Denki is so bad at acknowledging his Quirk as powerful. If he uses it right, he can easily be on par with the top-class Quirks, Eijiro called Katsuki's and Shoto's. The Dragon Slayer doesn't count herself to that, since she technically doesn't even have a Quirk. She is sure she can help Denki get there. And maybe she can really find something to help him not overloading. "At least he thinks today was helpful." She says, translating Denki's unintelligible words he blubbers.
Hitoshi lifts an eyebrow, "You can understand him?"
Vivi nods. "Growing up surrounded by idiots tends to do that to you."
"Aye!" agrees Bubble.
When Denki is back into his normal state a few minutes later, he pats the Exceed on the head, thanking him with a big smile. Bubble had to stop Denki a few times from stumbling into walls or falling over the bench. The Exceed pulled him at his collar to change his direction, so that he wouldn't hurt himself every time it was close.
After that they say goodbye to each other and make their separate ways to the changing rooms to get out of the gym uniforms. Vivi offered Hitoshi that he could stay with her, but he declined, saying once again that he's all right the way things are right now. With a sight Vivi accepted it. Just you wait, Hitoshi. I'll get you away from your fake family someday.
For the next two weeks until the Sports Festival the three of them continue to train together. Vivi worked on training schedules for everyone which they focused on. She also asked Aizawa for some ideas he had for training, especially because he has a non-combat Quirk like Hitoshi and must know some advice.
When she turned away from the man, she regretted talking to him because of the next sentence leaving his mouth. "Can you tell me why I saw Bubble carry Mineta around a few minutes before he was found dangling from U.A.'s flag post?"
Vivi froze in her steps and grimaced. Fuck. "Uh, you must have imagined things. You really should sleep more. The masses off coffee make you hallucinate."
"Really?" he lifted an eyebrow under his bandages, "I don't think that's true."
Vivi sighted and turned towards him with an apologetic look on her face. "Just so you know. I don't regret doing that. That pervert deserved it. He groped Tsuyu when the villains attacked the USJ. And from how she described it, it was definitely on purpose."
Aizawa narrowed his eyes. "If that's the case I'll let it slide this time, since no one was hurt. Next time something like that happens just tell me. I'll handle it. You're just getting into trouble if you do something like that again."
She blinked up at him in confusion, surprised that he wasn't scolding her more. "Uh, okay. ... I'm surprised you're not punishing me somehow."
"This time I won't. Just don't do it again. Next time I'll need to do something about it." To be honest. I had a good laugh because of it. Not that anyone needs to know that.
The Dragon Slayer grinned at him and saluted, "Aye, Sir!" With that she took off towards the training grounds, were the boys were already training with Bubble.
Hitoshi's training mostly contained of basic strength, speed, stamina, agility, battlefield awareness and close combat training. Denki's training looked almost the same only that he also worked on learning the moves with his Quirk the Dragon Slayer showed him. He also got big headaches when Vivi tried to teach him battle tactics. She realised that he doesn't have the slightest amount of battle sense when they sparred for real the first time. Or more tried to. Denki shot her with his currently strongest attack right away without using any logic, short-circuiting his brain in the process. The yellow-blond boy just ended up giving Vivi a power up and good meal because she simply ate his electricity.
Hitoshi's face to eating the electricity was hilarious, by the way. He totally forgot she already said to him that she could eat lightning and freaked out when Denki shot her with his 1.3-million-volt attack. Only Bubble holding him back by his collar prevented him from jumping at Vivi to protect her from the attack somehow. He stared with big eyes and an open mouth when she just sucked all of the electricity into her mouth with a giant grin on her face.
When she saw Denki afterwards her grin vanished and she sweatdropped. What the hell was the point of this attack? He really is kinda dumb. I definitely need to teach him some battle tactics. He should have known I am immune to such an attack. He just ended up rendering himself useless.
The Dragon Slayer also noticed that Denki seemed to not really get stuff when she simply explained it to him. Most of the time he just looked utterly lost and like he could barely concentrate or pay attention to what she tried to teach him. That's why she changed her teaching method for him. Vivi started to always use examples he could imagine with the things she explained to him. She also showed him the moves she explained to him by demonstrating them with her magic to make it easier. He started to get it then.
Another thing she noticed was that Denki needed more breaks than Hitoshi. Particularly when they focused on battlefield awareness, tactics and other non-physical training. The yellow-blond would get more and more distracted by the slightest things the more they focused on that kind of training. That's why she fit extra breaks into his schedule on the days they focused on that. When he took his extra breaks, he rested on the bench with Bubble in his lap. The teenager petted him and played with his tail and ears while watching Vivi and Hitoshi continue training. Bubble totally loved that and gladly joined him in his breaks.
When Vivi trained by herself she focused mostly on meditating to strengthen her magic power. Hitoshi asked her why she did that, because it seemed strange to him. The Dragon Slayer explained that meditation strengths the control she has over her 'Quirk' and its power level. Other than that, she also trained the accuracy of her long rage attacks because some of them need some work. And she never left her daily workouts to keep her body fit and in Earthland shape out of her training.
Denki wasn't able to join them every day for training. He managed to be there on nine out of fourteen days. On the other days he said that he had to babysit his little sister. Apparently, both of his parents had to work late on these days. His mother works in hero work and his father as a chef in a restaurant. That's why watching over his sister is something he has to do a lot. Not that it bothers him. He adores his little, adorable sunshine sister and loves to spend time with her.
Despite their different characters Denki and Hitoshi actually got along surprisingly well. 'I have no interest in making friends' my ass. Thinks Vivi with a grin when she watches them spar against each other. Hitoshi swipes Denki's feet out from under him in that moment, causing him to fall to the ground on his back with a grunt.
"How are you so good at this?" asks Denki, not making a move to stand back up from the ground.
Hitoshi shrugs his shoulder. "No idea, really."
"He's definitely a natural." Speaks up Vivi from her place on the bench. Bubble lies on her lap, taking a nap. A snore Bubble comes out of his nose like always when he sleeps. "There are not many people that can improve this fast. It shows how determinate he is to become a hero. But he still has a lot of work to do and a long way to go."
"That's because I am determinate." Says Hitoshi, "I'll definitely be a hero. I never imagined it would be a cakewalk. That's why I'm doing my hardest."
Denki grins, giving him a thumbs up. "That's the right attitude, dude."
"You improved a lot too, Denki." Speaks Vivi, "Don't sell yourself short just because Hitoshi beat you in a few quirkless sparring matches. You're doing great."
Denki looks at her, wondering if she really means it. "You think?"
"Yeah." Tells him Hitoshi, "Even I can see clearly that you improved a lot. You're actually not that dumb. … Just kind of an idiot."
A strange look takes over Denki's eyes, "You really think I'm not dumb?"
"Definitely." Agrees Vivi and smiles at her classmate, "You just seem to have a hard time concentrating on things and learn best in different ways than everyone else. It doesn't make you dumb."
Denki's eyes visibly light up. Like a child receiving a Christmas gift they wished for really badly. This was the first time anyone ever told him that he wasn't stupid besides his parents. In that moment he's more grateful than ever before that he asked Vivi to train with him. … And he definitely didn't almost burst into tears right then and there.
"Who would have thought Olivia's hellish training would pay off like this … and that the cat would be such a demon." Stats Hitoshi.
Vivi just grins and gives a thumbs up like Denki did before. "I'll take that as a compliment." She carefully lifts Bubble from her lap without waking him up and places him on the bench. After patting his head once, she stands up, stretching her arms a bit, "So, what do you two say to a one-on-two match? For the fun of the last day of training before the Sports Festival starts tomorrow."
The boys share a look, before both of them share a grin, Hitoshi's of course a lot less visible than Denki's, and nod at the Dragon Slayer. They take fighting stances on the battle ground and begin with their last sparring match of the day. Hitoshi and Denki vs. Vivi.
Needless to say, she wiped the floor with both of them.