"Can I idly suggest we ignore the monsters and just rush past?" Yukimura Kenzo says with a sigh.
"Don't be no fun, Yukimura!" Kirishima cries, hardening up.
"No fun—?" Ken starts, before grumbling, and with a shift of her hands a duffel bag comes flying down the cliff they just got smacked off of and into her arms. "You people are crazy, y'know that? 1-A is crazy."
The bag unzips and once folded sheets of metal float into the air, two flying forward and cutting a dirt monster in half.
Toru laughs at her attitude, before squeaking and hopping out of the way of a downward smash.
"Everyone work in tandem and we can get through quickly!" Iida shouts from where his leg engines are speeding towards and kicking a dirt monster.
"Will do, Class prez!" More than one person shout.
"Toru, you can hurry ahead if you want," Ken says to her from where she's stayed in the same spot, flicking her hands and by extension her metal to and fro. "Fuck knows these things won't notice you when you're full invisible."
Toru hums, sidling up beside Ken.
"Nah. We're supposed to work together as a class!" Toru says, punching the air above her head.
They make a slow press forward, all hoping to make it by lunch.
It's clear who are the class's most experienced the longer time goes on, though. Barely flagging while others get tired.
Ken comes first, which doesn't surprise Toru. She knows her quirk, and she doesn't really need to move much to use it. She takes the grand lead.
Midoriya is probably second, because man has his quirk gotten better since the Sport's Festival! No broken bones now! He gets more visibly tired than Ken.
Todoroki probably goes tied for second. He, like Ken, is very used to his quirk.
Iida is third. After the Hosu incident he definitely changed a bit, Toru can tell. Which, wow, first his brother is hurt and then he has to fight the Hero Killer himself? Brutal .
Bakugo really goes unsaid. It's Bakugo.
Toru stays by Ken, if only because it's safest and because she really isn't the most suited for heavy hitters like these dirt monsters.
A monster swoops down towards Ken, and with a almost artful twist of her arms Ken sends a metal plate clean through its neck, hopping away from the falling dirt.
So cool!!
"Dude, I'm fucked the second they make us spar without quirks," Ken says dryly, brushing some dirt off her shoulders.
"Oh, you didn't get martial arts training before UA, right?" Toru asks, stepping out of the way of a stray dirt monster strike.
"Nope," Ken says, popping the p and then suddenly cursing. With a flick of her hand Iida is pulled out of the way of a Dirtmonster.
"Thank you, Kenzo!" Iida shouts.
"No problem, Tenya! Don't hurt yourself!" Kenzo shouts back.
"Well, this week will be a good time to work on that!" Toru says cheerfully.
"I can give you some pointers, Ken!" Ochako says, skidding back to their position after sending a monster floating.
"It'd be appreciated if you can give them, Ochako," Ken says with a thumbs up, before cussing again and catching a falling Ashido Mina— who'd gotten smacked by a dirt fist —with her metal.
"Thanks Yukimuraaaa!" Mina says as cheerfully as she can through a groan.
"I feel like a mother cat doing damage control," Ken states.
"Because you are!" Toru says, patting Ken's shoulder and running out to distract a monster for Momo.
—
"Quit stealing kills!"
"Kill them faster ? Will do, Bakugo, will do," Ken says.
"Don't antagonize him, Kenzo, we're almost there!" Tenya says weakly, chopping the air and limping.
Everyone is tired. Everyone has overused their quirks. Even Ken is slowed down, at least physically. Her quirk isn't bothered at all.
...it's probably even more powerful after she got one of her metal plates shattered.
"I'll kill you, raccoon eyes!" Bakugo shouts.
"In another life you called Ashido that," Ken says, punching the air and sending metal shards spiraling like a chainsaw through a monster.
"Ehhh? He calls me pinky this life! Bakugooo!" Ashido whines, one arm over a brain dead Denki's shoulder.
"Shut up pinky!" Bakugo says, sputtering explosions coming from his hands.
"Your quirk is already overextended, Bakugo, quit it," Ken says with a sigh, hands in her uniform pockets. "I'm sensing the camp super close. God I want a long shower."
"We can make it this last stretch, class 1-A! I believe in all of you!" Tenya says.
Tenya's legs hurt. His legs hurt very very much.
—
There's a hot springs!
Ochako sinks happily into the water, muscle aches fading away.
"Man, today was a real workout! And it's only day one!" Ashido says loudly, coming up from dunking in the water.
"Shhhh," Ken grumbles from where she seems to be lounging mostly submerged. "Sleepy time, Ashido-kun. No noise."
"Man, Ken, you should really get some more sleep," Ochako says. "There's no way it's good for you to be doing hero training and running on fumes!"
"I run on spite and caffeine, Ochako," Ken grumbles. "What am I supposed to do, care for this lowly meat sack?"
Hagakure huffs a laugh from… the vague direction she's in. It's not Ochako's fault! She's invisible!
"I think the bags under her eyes are permanent, like Tenya's hand chopping," Ochako says with a laugh.
"You should sleep more, though, Kenzo. Your health is very important to your growth as a hero," Momo chimes in.
Ken sinks further into the hot springs, bubbles coming from her now submerged nose. That's an answer in itself, isn't it?
Maaaan Ochako aches!
—
"I haven't really... found a limit to my quirk, Sensei?"
"It's very good that I prepared for that, then," Aizawa Shota says with a grin. "You'll see how many pieces you can control at once, and then see how big is too big for you to pick up."
Shota kicks over a chain reaction of twenty barrels of metal marbles and watches the light die in Yukimura's eyes.
"Wooh," Yukimura says with a weak hand pump, before Shota watches all of the marbles lift with a flick of her hand, brows furrowing minutely.
"Make them form shapes," Shota orders.
"What, like a starfish?" Yukimura grumbles, tilting her head and flicking her hand again eyes intent on the suddenly formed starfish. "Alright. That… wasn't hard at all."
"You do this by forming magnetic fields, correct?" Shota asks.
"More or less. I can… feel the fields already in place, and create my own as well using already latent energy," Yukimura says with a shrug. "It doesn't really cost me anything either? Besides the hand waving, and that's mostly for show and to reaffirm that I'm doing something to my brain."
...Shota hadn't accounted for this.
Problem children. All of his kids this year are problem children.
"So you could, say, manipulate the earth's magnetic field?" Shota says dryly.
Yukimura makes a face. Shota doesn't like that face.
"Yukimura," His tone is as dead as he feels inside. "How powerful is your quirk?"
"Powerful enough that it was much smarter to be listed as minor metal manipulation, Sensei," Yukimura says quietly, eyes glancing over to where the Pussy Cats are.
Shota doesn't sigh. He wants to. He really wants to. Shit.
"How far can you sense the metal around you?" Shota asks.
"Without thinking too hard?" Yukimura asks, flexing her fingers. "Miles deep down. Miles around. If I really think, like really really, I can sort of feel the metal in my apartment in Mustafu. Vaguely."
Shota isn't a man for gods.
Jesus Christ.
"Can you attempt to pull metal out of the earth, from, say, five miles? And not cause a sinkhole?" Shota asks now. Better to just see if she can and go from there.
Yukimura doesn't hesitate, widening her stance, her eyes going slightly unfocused before narrowing. She punches a fist downward, before very slowly drawing it upward.
Once her fist is at her chest, a chunk of what is definitely gold shoots out of the earth and pauses between them.
"Oh shit, I could've been rich if I thought of this before," Yukimura grumbles.
"Language," Shota says with a sigh.
"Sorry, Sensei," Yukimura says, plucking the metal out of the air and peering at it. "I could sell this."
"Now put it back exactly where you found it," Shota interrupts before she destabilizes the gold market.
Yukimura now sighs, but does as he bids, tossing the metal into the air and watching it shoot back into the hole she made.
"Goodbye, easy money. You will be forever mourned."
Shota rolls his eyes.
"Change of plans, you clearly don't need quirk work. You're going to dodge dirt projectiles."
Yukimura grimaces.
"Yes, Sensei. Will do."
Shota needs more coffee. Way more coffee.
—
"Toooorruuuuu."
"Keeeeeeeen," Toru whines back.
"Can you pass me the garlic?"
Toru snorts, it's very attractive, and hands it over.
"Man, I can't believe they're having us cook after all that," Denki complains at the cooking station at their left.
"Try cooking after an eight hour night shift, man," Ken says with a snort. "Though I don't think I ever had this many bruises."
"Back off the damn meat, shitty hair!" Bakugo shouts nearby, and there's a tell tale, if weaker than usual, sputter of explosions.
"I can't wait till the test of courage tonight, though!" Uraraka says nearby. "I get kinda spooked, but it'll be fun!"
Ken's hand pauses from where she'd been pressing the garlic Toru handed her, before starting again.
People forget, when you're invisible, you get perceptive.
"What's up, Ken? You scared?" Toru asks.
Ken grins, completely at ease.
"Nah. Probably gonna nap through dinner before we go, though."
Toru likes to think she knows Ken well enough since becoming friends with her the beginning of last semester.
Toru also knows, Ken lies.
Usually little ones. How much she slept in the past week to Aizawa-sensei, about her being fine. Toru knows the look on her face she gets, slack and at ease, eyes curled. Like she's in on some joke no one else can hear.
Sometimes the lies are bigger, though.
About the time she had bruises on her already pale, silvery scarred stomach when they changed for Hero Basics.
About her keeping that face the whole day before USJ. About her keeping that face before Internships and Hosu. Kept it on th day she put in an order for a gas mask to add to her costume.
Toru doesn't ask. She doesn't want to, honestly. She doesn't want to know.
Toru hopes this is one of those little lies. Maybe she's scared of the dark.
Maybe she isn't.
—
Yukimura Kenzo isn't a good person.
Other people would argue otherwise, she's certain. She paints the picture of a good person quite well. Kind and accommodating and nonjudgmental. Always a pillar to trust in and lean on.
She's not a good person.
Good people don't hide intimate knowledge of future events. Good people don't hide under the facade of a fifteen-year-old at three times that age. Good people don't get reborn, and good people don't remember what not existing is like so viscerally they could dry heave, try to get the taste of ash and the void off their tongue.
Good people don't hide that they know when people are going to get hurt and let them.
Her face is blank, when the villains appear.
"Permission to take out the ones with metal?" Ken asks the Pussy Cats.
"Oh you're the one I was meant to fight!" Magne says cheerfully, her eyes wide under her sunglasses. "Magnetic fields, hm?"
"Retreat, Yukimura!" Mandalay shouts, claws coming out her her gloves.
"Oh no you don't!" Magne hums, raising a hand, and—
A field bursts forth around Ken's body, pink and tugging her atoms towards Magne.
Ken's eyes narrow, not budging, manipulating the field and dispersing it.
"Permission to use my quirk, Mandalay!" Ken says, more abrasively this time.
Ultimately it's out of her hands anyways. Izuku comes through the underbrush slamming through Spinner's mass of weapons and informing them all Aizawa gave it his okay.
"Right then," Ken says dryly. "Beware the Might of Magneto, villians."
She raises her hands.
She's not a good person. And if anyone says otherwise, well, she'd just point them to this occasion. Where she's going to inadequately pin down these villains, and then take off sprinting into the woods looking for Bakugo.
—
"Izuku your arms are fucked!"
Izuku keeps sprinting, eyes darting over to a quickly moving Ken.
She's curved knives around her shoes, letting her propel herself forward with her quirk.
"I need to get to Kachaan!" Izuku says back through gritted teeth. "You should go, Ken!"
Ken snorts, genuinely snorts, before her eyes sharpen.
"Something's wrong."
That's when they find Tokoyami.
—
"I don't need any of your protection, damn it!" Kacchan shouts.
"Yeah, you fucking do," Ken says blankly, rolling her shoulder that got clipped by Tokoyami when she was trying to snap Moonfish's teeth. "These people want to kill you or worse, do you understand me? You could barely handle Moonfish. I'll take rear with Tokoyami."
Bakugo doesn't sputter his explosions, but they all know he's thinking about it from those hand moves.
—
Yukimura Miho is proud of her daughter.
She worries, though. She really worries now, after all these dangerous incidents.
"Mom, I need help with my Japanese!" Yuki says from the kitchen table.
Miho takes a deep breath and gets up from where she'd been sitting on the couch, muscles aching.
"Of course, honey."
Her phone rings.
"One second honey!" Miho says as placating as she can to her youngest daughter, and answers it.
"Hello? Yukimura Miho speaking?"
"Yukimura-san, you may want to sit down for this."
That's the third time someone's said that to her over the phone in five months.
Miho sits down, eyes already watering.
"Please don't say it's Kenzo," Miho says. It's a practice in futility she knows it.
She's fine. Kenzo is fine. No matter what's happened so far, she's been fine!
"I'm afraid something happened at the UA Training Camp, Yukimura-san," The voice pauses. "Several students were involved. Are you sitting down?"
No.
Miho's phone, two cracks from mindless fumbling previously flash down the screen, and lands with a soft thump on the couch.
" No."
Turning on the TV reveals two teenage faces plastered everywhere.
One of which is her daughter's.
Notes:
Alright, one, explanation for Kenzo's OP-ness!
I gave her Magneto from X-men's powers when I first made this fic, not really researching said powers. I have been very suddenly enlightened writing this chapter that Magneto is the biggest OP motherfucker in the MCU and I can't go back now. I'm super sorry. I didn't intend this. Ken didn't intend this either.
Two, the chapters for this book will be as short as I want unfortunately for all of you. Mostly because I save all my big effort for my other fics and this one is definitely way more laid back fun than them. So, sorry??
Three.
Kenzo got snatched. Lmao. My tumblr is TheOneKrafter, I posted art in honor of this chapter.