Chapter Seventeen! Sorry if this entire part seems drawn out, I thought of that, so I'm giving a slight break before the final rescue exercise chapter!.
Anyways, if you were wondering. Yes Izuka will "Ascend". The main point of the ascension is that it's a limit break. In the first version of the story, I talked about how I drew inspiration from several different series.
I figured that I should cover this in a longer note now, so everyone can understand what the power is before I get to it. This is a different approach than other stories, which like to keep powers a secret.
I kinda want everyone to get hyped for the story, so this is my sort of spoiler for the entire work. I think it's better to look forward to something that you know will come into play, instead of it being pulled out of the ass for plot armor reasons.
!Warning!: If you don't want ANY spoilers, scroll down and ignore this note. The chapter continues below,, like always.
Okay, so. Ascension. It's a limit break that only the quirkless can achieve by going through intense training and stress, breaking their body's physical limiter. A person can ascend multiple times, although the amount of suffering one must go through to ascend even once is incredibly destructive.
The idea is built around the concept of Saitama's power, as well as the argonaut skill from Danmachi, which allows the user to power up with an adrenaline rush. Overall, the individuals strength, speed, and processing abilities are enhanced. This won't be as drastic as the first version. Izuka will not be as physically strong as All Might. But I cannot say more, so for now, you will just have to look forward to a looong bout of chapters before we get to Bakugo in UA, and the beginning of the league's emergence.
I just thought to mention this so nobody is confused as to why she isn't broken yet. Right now, we're going through the culmination of skills and abilities that Izuka learns before her ascension.
Now, let's get into the chapter.
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Izuka looked at one of the screens on ground alpha as the first group was sent in.
"So… the scenario is an earthquake?"
Aizawa nodded. "It's easier to replicate than a mass scale attack, and much more probable."
Izuka nodded, taking a few gulps of water from her water bottle.
"So when does the next group go in?"
Aizawa turned to the student. "Look, I know you're eager to jump in, but please let your body rest for a moment. You've shattered my expectations, giving you a proper teaching as opposed to meaningless torture should be my job."
Izuka chuckled. "Meaningless torture huh? Well I will admit I probably would run out of energy quicker."
"And then how would you defend yourself? Also, I want to give your current classmates a chance."
Izuka yawned and leaned back. "While we wait, could I have another of those fruit packets?"
)=(
Katsuki Bakuo strode down the sidewalk with his friends. Today was their last day of vacation, so they were taking the time to hang out, have fun, and get a few final things for school.
"I don't really need many clothes," Mina nodded to no one in particular. "Auntie Midoriya got me some really nice outfits, so I'll be set. A backpack might be a different story."
The girl looked in the window of a department store that was advertising school supplies. "I ordered a quirk resistant bag, but it won't be delivered for another two weeks. I need a placeholder…"
Katsuki rolled his eyes. "Come on pinky, we're grabbing you a bag."
The kids looked at a selection of backpacks. Bakugo handed Mina a bland pink backpack.
"Should work for the next two weeks." The blonde grunted.
"Thanks Bakugo!" Mina smiled.
The backpack was relatively cheap, so Mina was able to purchase it without putting much of a dent in her money.
"Yo, an arcade! You guys wanna go play?"
"As if tape arms, I play Auntie on a daily basis." Bakugo said.
"Well, you don't have to play if you don't want to." Kirishima said. "But I owe Sero a good beatdown on 'Unbreaker'."
Katsuki rolled his eyes, but followed the others into the arcade regardless. The blonde smirked as he watched Sero play first, placing the final score for the game at eighteen thousand points.
Kirishima cracked his knuckles, before going in to try to beat the score. He got pretty close, but lost just shy of seventeen thousand five hundred points.
"Ah! Dang it!" the boy grunted. Katsuki chuckled a bit at the display.
"Fine, you do it then!" Kirishima pouted.
Katsuki shrugged and stepped up to the arcade game.
The game's objective was pretty simple. The center was your entire 'life source'. There were walls around it, which would be slowly destroyed by a barrage of attacks like bombs, thunderbolts, and more, which came from a different direction outside of the screen.
As the game continued, the attacks sped up, and you'd have to rebuild your defenses a lot quicker.
Katsuki yawned as he started setting down walls. As the attacks began to speed up, he was able to swiftly replace them.
The boy swiftly approached ten thousand points, before going up to eleven thousand, then twelve thousand. In a matter of minutes, Katsuki had surpassed Sero's score. Another minute and he doubled it.
At sixty thousand, Katsuki grew bored and just let the game end.
"Dude… that was insane!" Sero exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air.
Mina chuckled as she watched the spectacle.
"You wanna give it a go pinky?"
"Nah, I'm not good at this one anyways…"
Kirishima chuckled. "But she'll crush you in Dance Dance revolution!"
Katsuki grinned. "I expect her to. C'mon guys, the one merch shop is only open for so long."
The blonde boy led his friends out of the arcade and they rushed to a small storefront.
"This is it?" Kirishima blinked.
"Oi! Don't knock it until you see what they have shitty hair!" Katsuki shouted, before turning and walking into the store.
Inside was a magnificent display of hero merchandise. Kirishima's eyes glittered as he saw the holy grail of Crimson Riot Merch, an authentic set of brass knuckles that were signed by the hero. There were only five hundred known pairs, and Kirishima had ever even seen one. Until today, that is.
Mina began drooling over a few posters of Midnight. Katsuki chuckled and revealed a poster of Midnights first hero costume, causing the girls face to become pure purple.
Sero grinned at a few items here and there, most of them belonging to heroes with a quirk like his.
One piece of merch specifically caught the boy's eye.
"That can't be…"
The store owner looked up and nodded with a smirk.
"Caught your eye, did it? Those there are authentic. I have a few things that go with his entire set, but since he isn't as popular anymore, I keep them in the back."
"What'd you find, soy sauce?" Katsuki blinked.
"These are the stabilizer gauntlets… They were a piece of support gear used by the pro hero Lariat right after he graduated from hero school! He ditched them after he got a better hand on his quirk, but still!"
"Solid!" The owner nodded. "Here, let me get some of his other merch from back in the day."
The man stood up and walked through a door, before returning with a large cardboard box. "We've got the one sweatshirt designed around him… There's the goggles. Got a few of the Lariat rings, those were only available in select cereal boxes! OH! Here we are!"
The man pulled out a large cardboard envelope. Sero's eyes widened.
"Is that-"
"Lariats record? Yeah!" The man nodded with a grin. "I've got a few copies. His covers of a few popular songs, and his most famous cover of 'What's Up Danger'."
Sero Grinned. "How much?"
The store owner smiled. "Fans like you aren't easy to come by anymore. I'll sell it to you for a discounted price of two thousand yen."
"SCORE!" Sero grinned, pulling out the money. "Dang… never thought I'd find one…"
Katsuki nodded to the owner. "Did you get the item I ordered?"
The man nodded with a grin. "It looks sick dude! Where did you even order it from?"
Katsuki grinned. "I have my sources. But since you asked so nicely, I'll tell you. Auntie Izuka gave me her friends number."
"SERIOUSLY? Dude, you have to give it to me." The man shouted.
"Sorry, she gave it to me in strict confidence." Katsuki shrugged. "Maybe she'll give it to you one day."
The man groaned, before retrieving a long box for Katsuki.
"Sweet…" Katsuki breathed with a grin. "Hey tape arms, can you strap this to my back?"
"Sure thing, will you show us what it is?"
Katsuki nodded. "When we get home. Come on, let's bounce. Thank you for holding onto this for me!"
"Yeah… sure thing…"
The four friends walked out of the store and began making the trek back to Katsuki's house. They stopped at a small ramen shop and ate lunch, before continuing on their walk.
Katsuki stopped as a rumble shook the area.
"What was that?" Sero shouted.
"Hold on, stay close." Katsuki said. "We'll get home soon."
As they went to take another step, a shadow flew down in front of them, landing with an incredible amount of force.
"Wait… that's Harpsichord!" Sero blinked.
A roar came from down the street. The group looked up to see a large crab like beast, with tentacles spilling from its back, up to its head.
"You kids… run…"
Katsuki unbound the package he had from his back and set it at the side of the road, before running to check on the hero.
"What happened?" The boy said.
"Villain called Kraken. Took a dose of trigger. He's on a rampage. Run!" The hero choked out.
Katsuki grit his teeth and threw the hero over his shoulder, slowly moving him out of the way. Kraken ran forward with a roar, locking on to the blonde as the target of his next attack.
"Shitty hair! I need cover, or this guy will die!"
"Right!"
Kirishima ran forward, activating his quirk and taking a strike to the chest.
The boy grunted a bit as a crack formed on his arm. "Damn… that's strong…"
"Tape arms! Bandage this guy!" Katsuki said, before running to help Kirishima.
Sero nodded and began using his tape to bandage the injured hero. Katsuki let a few pops off on his hands, heating them up to start sweating. Mina walked up beside him.
"Do we have to fight?"
Katsuki let his face grow cold. "That punch the guy threw was no joke. I have a feeling if we don't fight now, he'll kill us before we get away."
The abomination before them gurgled and spat, yellow liquid dripping from his tentacled maw.
"Okay… gross." Mina groaned.
"He cracked my arm… I'm going to do my best to protect you two, but I won't be much help when hitting."
"Leave that to us." Mina nodded, preparing a glob of acid in each hand.
"You kids… you're too young. You'll get killed! What are you even doing out alone?"
"We're responsible enough for our parents to trust us." Sero nodded. "Now try to keep the moving to a minimum."
Kraken let out a roar, before falling down onto all fours and charging again.
"PARTIAL UNBREAKABILTY!"
Kirishima's Chest became a bit more bulky and ke caught the beastly villain, before grabbing a hold of its tentacles.
"Go now! I don't know how long I can hold him."
Mina nodded and began spraying the beast down with her quirk, causing it to hiss and squeal in pain. The beast growled and gave a roar, before starting to flail.
Kirishima was hurled back into a wall. The boy's quirk failed and he slumped down to the ground, unconscious.
"Pinky! I need some time!"
"Gotcha! Come here you ugly ass bitch!"
The creature stilled, before turning to Mina and letting out a shriek.
"Oh shit."
Mina began acid skating away, the monster hot on her heels. Katsuki pushed his hands down, letting his explosions kickback propel him into the air.
"Woah…" Sero breathed. "He can fly…"
Katsuki grit his teeth as his arms quickly grew sore. 'I haven't built up this technique enough… Sustaining the shock of each blast pretty much liquifies my muscles… I have to do this as quickly as possible.'
Katsuki flipped over, so his head was pointing just above the Krakens current position as it ran.
'His back… there's a crack in his armor, where all of those tentacles come out… I need to hit it right… THERE!'
Katsuki's hands erupted, sending him flying towards the monster. He flipped his hands to make himself spin, straightening out his trajectory, while also building even more speed.
'I based this attack off of the weapon auntie made… I hope that she likes the name.'
"HOWITZER IMPACT!"
The beast screamed as a massive explosion blasted through its body. The villain slumped over, leaving a panting Katsuki standing behind it, his scorched arms outstretched. As the armor began to fall off, the true body of the villain remained knocked out.
"He… did it…" Harpsichord coughed, as Sero helped him over to the downed villain.
"HARP? YOU OKAY?"
"Uh… yeah!" The hero called to his approaching reinforcements. The villain took me down when I ran to defend these kids. After I was down, one bandaged me up while the others fought for their lives. They managed to take him down just now."
"Woah… you guys must be pretty strong!" One of the heroes grinned. "I hope you're looking to be heroes some day!"
"Yup… we are…" Everybody turned as Kirishima picked himself up out of a wall. "Woah that guy hit hard…"
"How about we get home and check you for injuries?" Mina asked.
"I feel fine, just some muscle aches." Kirishima nodded. "Happens when I overuse my quirk."
"Yeah… I feel that." Katsuki chuckled. "Let's get back."
The blonde picked up his package once more, and the four kids walked the remainder of the way to the Bakugo house. The heroes wished them a good day, promising that they wouldn't be questioned for underaged quirk use.
"So… what is in the package Katsuki?"
The boy grinned and opened the package, before drawing out a Crystal katana. "A replica of one that the hero 'Gemstone' uses." Katsuki nodded. "You wouldn't believe how long I waited for this…"
"I always pictured you as an explosion hero type guy."
Katsuki grunted. "Most fire or explosion heroes are massive assholes. Anyways, I need to hang this on my wall upstairs. You guys wanna help?"
)=(
"Alright kid, you're up." Aizawa nodded.
Izuka grinned. "Finally! Hopefully there are a few bots left to rescue."
"There are. Nobody can rescue them all." Aizawa nodded.
"Well then," Izuka cracked her knuckles as she walked out of the observation room. "I'll just have to save as many as I can, and try to make a hint of difference."
)=(
And there we go! Chapter seventeen! I hope you all liked a small break from the rescue exercises. Next chapter will be the final part of the training, maybe spilling into the beginning of chapter Nineteen, but we'll see.
Maybe the next chapter will be long, and Nineteen will be short.
Either way, until next time!
Sushui Out!