Hello, friends, and welcome to Chapter Five! I apologize that this has taken so long to come out. I promise the updates will be coming faster in the future. Again, I look forward to your comments, so please don't hesitate to leave them! Thanks so much for reading!
Disclaimer: All characters owned by Kohei Horikoshi
Chapter Five
Izuku watched as Yaoyorozu took another shot. Wide left.
"You're still changin' your stance after each release," Snipe said, walking a circle around her. "And your elbow's too high when you draw back to you anchor point. Try again."
Yaoyorozu sighed and drew back another arrow. Izuku could tell she was getting frustrated. Snipe hadn't given her any new information in a while; Izuku had stopped writing in his binder five minutes ago.
She fired, and this time it was a little bit better. She actually managed to hit the target.
"You've gotta aim lower," Snipe said, gripping the lower limb of the bow and pulling it down. "Your eyes are tellin' you to point the arrow at the center of the target, right?"
"Yes, sir," Yaoyorozu replied, her hands resting against the bow and its string.
Snipe took up his own bow, nocked an arrow, and drew it back. "Makes sense. You want the arrow to hit the bullseye, so you point it at the bullseye."
Izuku had his binder out again, writing furiously. On an adjacent page, he started drawing a picture of Snipe with his bow at the ready.
"But look at where I'm actually aimin'," Snipe continued. Yaoyorozu took a step around her instructor, so she could better see the placement of his arms. "Follow the line of the arrow. Do ya see how high it is?"
They looked together, Izuku climbing down from where he'd been perched on a stack of hay bales. Their faces almost pressed together to get a better view, and the sudden closeness ignited a fire in Izuku's cheeks. He did his best to ignore it, and the lavender scent of what he could only guess would've been her shampoo, and instead examined the arrow. It angled upward, not sharply, but the slant was akin to that of the rise at the base of a small mountain.
"I didn't realize how far off I was," Yaoyorozu said.
"It happens a lot when you're startin' out," Snipe replied. "It's because your eyes are higher than the side of your mouth, which is pretty much where you're firin' from. It's a small difference, but when you're dealin' with ranged weaponry, small mistakes become big ones real fast." Snipe fired the arrow, which struck high, about an inch to the side of where Yaoyorozu's had landed. "But, if you can make those changes part of your muscle memory," he nocked and fired again quickly, with this second shot hitting true in the center of the target. "You've got a much better chance to hit what you're aimin' at."
Their teacher stepped to the side, allowing Yaoyorozu to take her position again. He circled her as she prepared, giving her a reminder about her stance, adjusting her arm as she drew back the bowstring. Izuku watched as she lowered the bow, though not as much as Snipe had. She released, and the arrow struck the target to the upper right of the center.
"Yes!" Yaoyorozu beamed, first at the target, then at Izuku. Her smile was bright and wide, reaching up to her eyes, and Izuku felt what was becoming a common warmth in his cheeks.
"Well done!" Snipe said. "Excellent improvement. You're a quick study, Miss Yaoyorozu." He reached out and took the upper arm of her bow, clipping something that resembled a two-tined fork onto it. "This should help you out a little more. It's called a marksman's sight, and it'll help you judge the distance between the arrow and your eyes." He tapped the accessory lightly with a finger. "In fact, this one was mine when I was first bow trainin'."
Izuku's mouth fell open. "Mr. Snipe? You trained?"
"Of course I did," Snipe replied. "Why wouldn't I?"
The boy scratched the back of his neck. "Uh, well, I just assumed that… with your Quirk, I mean…"
Snipe nodded. "Oh, I see," he said. He took up his bow again, slotting several arrows into the quiver on his hip. "Midoriya, with your fascination with Quirks, I know you're aware that they're physical abilities. Quirk use takes the same energy from a body that running, jumping, swimming… anything like that would." An arrow nocked into the bowstring, and Snipe drew it back to his anchor point, next to the filter on his mask. "Mine's pretty tough on the muscles in my arms, wrists, and hands. Yes, my brain'll tell my body where to place my hands and when to pull the trigger, but my muscles've gotta be in perfect synch. They have to use only a certain amount of pressure, both on themselves and on the weapon, in order to make a perfect shot."
He released the arrow, and Izuku and Yaoyorozu watched as it hit the target… just to the left of center. He fired again, this one hitting just to the right of the first, in the bullseye. With a third shot, he hit centimeters lower than the first, still left of the center circle.
"Quirks are not the end-all, be-all of our abilities," Snipe said. "We overuse them and we'll get worn down 'till we're worse than useless." He turned to Yaoyorozu. "You know what I mean, don't you?"
She nodded. "Yes, sir," she said. "My Quirk uses the lipids in my body to build whatever I make. If I create too much without eating, I'll faint."
Yaoyorozu neglected to add on what Izuku knew to be true: if she created too much without replenishing herself, she could die.
Snipe looked back to Izuku. "If all any Pro relied on was their Quirk, we'd all be in a heap of trouble," he said. "Yes, most people in the world have Quirks, now, but we should never forget that we're still people too." He nocked another arrow. "And people," he fired, struck true in the center of the bullseye, splitting his other arrow down the middle, "Can still do some pretty amazin' things."
Izuku stared at the split arrow, his mouth wide. "Did you…?" he started.
Snipe shook his head. "I trained to be able to do that," he said. He removed the remaining three arrows from his quiver, and nocked them all together with a slight twist of the bowstring. "So that when I need to be able to do this," he released them, and with a whistle the three arrows flew apart and struck the bullseyes of the other three targets in the room. "It'll be easier."
Yaoyorozu's bow clanked as it fell to the concrete floor, the material echoing through the concrete room. "I could never…" she started.
"Hey," Izuku gripped her arm, "Don't get discouraged. It's your first day!"
She turned to look at him. The tears that had been welling in the bottom of her eyes died as she sucked in a heavy breath through her nose.
"Listen," Snipe said, leaning down to pick up her bow. "I don't expect you to be able to group shots like that overnight." He handed it back to her, adjusting the marksman's sight on the upper arm again. "All I expect is discipline and patience. Skill will come with practice."
Yaoyorozu nodded and turned to the target. She readied her stance, nocked an arrow, and drew. Kept her eye to the sight. Released.
The arrow sailed down the gallery and struck the target.
One circle off from the center.
She lowered the bow, and even though her eyes were focused on the target, Izuku could see the smile growing on her face.
He didn't even try to stop his own.
"Great shot!" Snipe said.
Yaoyorozu turned to their teacher. "Thank you, sir," she said, tucking an errant hair behind her ear.
"Don't thank me just yet," he said, pointing toward the target with the arm of his bow. "Are you ready for the bad news?"
Izuku watched as the glow that had been growing on Yaoyorozu's face began to fade.
"Archery is a skill," Snipe continued. "It will take you years, longer than you have left at this school, to master it. And that doesn't even include trying to work your Quirk into it."
Yaoyorozu's shoulders dropped, and she turned her face to the ground.
Their teacher rested a hand on her shoulder. "But," he said, "Midoriya is right. With the way your Quirk works, it'd be bad for you if a villain got too close. Just like me."
Izuku smiled as Yaoyorozu turned her eyes toward him, and she returned it with a halfhearted grin of her own.
"And a gun, even a six-shooter like mine, is still a pretty complex machine, especially if you're tryin' to build one from scratch," their teacher continued. "So the bow really is your best bet."
Yaoyorozu lifted her head and nodded.
"Now, then," Snipe said, turning toward the door, "I'm not gonna be able to train with you every day. I've got other students, after all. And my own Hero work on toppa all that. But," he opened the door, Izuku and Yaoyorozu heading through the opening before he closed it behind them. "I think with all the notes he took today, and his pretty impressive insights into your Quirk use, Midoriya here will make a perfect partner."
Izuku fumbled his notebook at the mention of his name, the stammer in his voice tremulous. "But, sir, I… I don't know anything about ranged weaponry!"
"But you will," Snipe said, turning to him. "Won't you? You were gonna go back to the dorms and start researching."
"I—well," Izuku felt his entire face heat up, and his hand started rubbing the back of his neck of its own accord. "Yeah, I guess."
Snipe nodded. "Good, then," he said. "This'll work out well for you too, Midoriya. I know you like to get up close and personal, but if a bad guy's trying to gun you down, knowing how to counter them could be just the edge you need." He clapped Izuku on the shoulder, then stepped past. "Now, I've got some other work to do. Y'all get it done, but don't push yourselves too hard, ok?"
"Yes, sir!" they said together.
"And Yaoyorozu," Snipe said as he turned the hallway corner, "Don't forget what I said. All I expect is discipline and patience. The skill will come in time."
She nodded, and their teacher tipped his hat to them before he was gone.
The hall outside the gallery was silent but for the hum of the air conditioning. Yaoyorozu stood facing the corner where Snipe had just disappeared, a hand still gripping the haft of her bow. Izuku scratched the back of his head, uncertain. His mouth opened to speak, but nothing emerged. Finally, he shuffled, and the squeak of his red shoes on the tile floor echoed through the empty hall like a gunshot.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Yaoyorozu said, turning. "I was lost in thought." She took a step and bowed, both hands now holding the bow. "I cannot thank you enough for this. It truly feels… right."
Izuku shook his head with vigor. "You don't have to thank me, Yaoyorozu," he said. "I just had an idea, I mean, Mr. Snipe's really the one who—"
"Midoriya." Yaoyorozu's voice was stern, her eyes closed as she cut him off. "Please don't sell yourself short. You know I would never have thought to try archery without you."
He took a step backward, looking down as he felt his cheeks warming.
"Besides," she continued, "I think this partnership is going to work out quite well, don't you? Especially since I've thought of a great way to repay you." She cocked her head to the side, a sideways grin stretching across her lips. "Are you interested?"
Izuku's head snapped up so hard he felt a soreness in his neck. He looked left and right, as if expecting someone else to be there to tell him what to do.
"I… you… what?"