Izuku and Mei's Totally Bogus Journey

by Bardothren

Returning home stronger than he had left, Izuku no longer fits in the world he once called home. Both heroes and villains view his power as a threat and work to remove him. Faced with bending himself to his world's norms or breaking them, Izuku embarks on his journey to become the number one hero, while a world-ending disaster lingers in his shadow. Sequel to IMEA.

5. Chapter 5

"This isn't a good idea," Mei said without looking up from the gauntlet she was tinkering with.

"Feels weird with you saying that," Izuku quipped.

"I'll rinse my mouth out after this. It's still a bad idea."

"It'll be fine. It worked out great for me, and I was far weaker than Kirishima when I did it." While waiting for Kirishima to arrive, Izuku sampled U.A.'s exercise equipment. He had no idea how to use the more complicated machines, but they had a dumbell and barbell collection that would've made Zoro greener with envy. Izuku could barely even lift the heaviest ones, with weights measured in fractions of tons.

"And you needed Crocus to fix you up afterwards. How well do you think the school nurse will take it if you show up with Kirishima dying in your arms?"

Izuku shuddered when he imagined Recovery Girl's reaction. He could feel the old woman's cane smacking his skull like a pinata.

"It's not like it'll be that bad. He'll just need food and bedrest."

Mei slotted a dial into the gauntlet. When she slipped her arm inside, the metallic fingers curled, and a wisp of flame trailed around her fingertips.

"We don't even know how it works. What if it doesn't work in this world?"

"Then we could always take Kirishima there. Can't be anything more than the air and the food that makes it work."

"Well, you should at least let your teacher know you're doing this."

"I let Aizawa know we were using the gym," Izuku said nervously.

"And did you maybe mention to him you were planning to work Kirishima down to his literal bones?"

Izuku experimented with warping his body as he lifted the weight. Though his arm stretched out to noodle-like proportions, the dumbell remained steady in the air. "Look, when I showed that my strength didn't come from a Quirk, he freaked out about it and covered it up. If I said I was doing the same thing for someone else, he would probably stop it from happening."

"Which would probably be for the best."

"What do you have against Kirishima?"

"Nothing. I'm glad you didn't try to do this with Bakugo. If you picked him, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now, I'd be talking to your homeroom teacher instead."

Izuku flinched, and a dumbbell nearly slipped from his hand. While he strained to keep it under control, Mei shrugged off her gauntlet and set it on the bench beside her. "I don't think it's bad you want to help your classmates get stronger. I just think you're not thinking this through and doing this too quickly."

"That's rich coming from you. Remember those rocket-powered roller blades?"

"I remember. You told me they weren't a bad idea, but you didn't stop me from doing it anyways. I'm doing the same thing." With a twinkle in her eye, Mei added, "And what do you think it says that I still want to make rocket-powered roller blades and yet think this clandestine training montage is a bad idea?"

Her quip made Izuku hesitate. He wasn't blind to the risks, and he could already imagine all the ways trying to toughen up Kirishima could go horribly wrong, and yet…

"I'm tired of everyone being afraid of me. I thought people would finally like me, but after the USJ… Mei, they tried to vote me out of the class."

"It's only been a couple days. They'll settle down once the news blows over."

"Then there's the Sports Festival." Izuku set the dumbells down and took a seat next to Mei. "1-A is supposed to be the strongest class, and I don't even need the Rokushiki to beat most of them, let alone this." Sparks danced between his fingers, illuminating his face with flickering green light. "Then there's the HPSC, planning to use the event to make me look like a villain and stop me from becoming a hero. Either I hold myself back and look like an asshole for toying with them, or I go all out and get called a brute for stomping them into the dirt. But if there's someone else as strong as I am, someone who can hold their own against me, then I can go all out without worrying. And if anyone can take it, it's Kirishima."

"Have you talked with your teachers about this? They might have a better idea of how to handle it."

"Nezu's the one that told me all about the whole HSPC thing. If he didn't have any better ideas about it, why would one of the teachers?"

Mei shrugged. "Just wanted to make sure you thought this through. Well, I'll be here if something goes wrong." She held out a Dial. "Juice this up for me, would you?"

Izuku flicked a jolt of lightning into the shell. Mei hit the button, and the open end crackled with sparks.

"Whoa," Kirishima said, "Did you just turn that seashell into a taser?"

"They're Dials," Izuku said, "They're-"

Mei elbowed him in the ribcage. Izuku winced and rubbed the spot. "A specialty of Mei's," Izuku amended.

"Sweet. Are you planning on using those for the Sports Festival?"

Mei gave Izuku a glance. "Nah, this is just a side project. I already have my best babies lined up for the Festival."

"I… see…" Kirishima cracked his knuckles and said, "So, how does this thing work? Some sort of ancient kung fu secrets? Teaching me the secrets of the universe?"

"You push your limits until you bleed. Then you keep going."

"I don't know if that sounds super manly or super horrifying."

"Not too late to back out," Mei called out.

Kirishima gave a broad grin and said, "Back down from a challenge? Never."

Izuku hefted one of the barbell weights and spun it on his palm. "You need to be absolutely certain about this," he said, voice cold as the iron dancing on his hand. "You need to give this everything you have. You need to keep pushing on even as every fiber of your body screams at you to stop. You'll feel your muscles tear, your bones crack, your heart fluttering in your chest, just another step away from giving it out, and you'll need to take that step, and another. Can you do that?"

For a fraction of a second, hesitation flashed across Kirishima's face. Then his resolve hardened, along with his face, and he shouted out, "You bet! I won't let anything stop me from being the manliest hero possible!"

Izuku crushed the doubt fluttering in his chest. "Then let's get started. We don't have any cannonballs around here, but I saw a video that gave me an idea."

The idea in question involved putting barbell weights around Kirishima's arms and legs, until he resembled a tubular metal golem. Kirishima sagged with his own weight in iron weighing down his limbs. "Man, this is almost as much as I bench. You're not gonna make me run in this, are you?"

"Just walk. From one end of the room to the next." He handed Kirishima a sharpie and said, "Make a mark every time you make it to a wall."

Kirishima nodded resolutely, but his hand struggled to raise high enough to take it. Then he plodded off, making clanking noises with each step.

While Kirishima trudged through his first lap, Izuku went back to lifting his own weights. "Do you think I put on enough weight?" Izuku asked. "I think we could fit another set above his knees."

"Maybe make sure what he's got won't break his kneecaps first."

Kirishima raised a trembling arm and made a squiggly line on the wall. "How many of these do I gotta do?"

"You'll know when you're done," Izuku said.

Mei shook her head. "If this was working, he wouldn't have asked."

"He just has to get into the zone first. It'll happen."

For all that Izuku feigned nonchalance and confidence, every fiber of his being felt wired with anxious energy. Even as he curled with one arm and paged through a book with the other, he kept one eye on every ponderous step Kirishima took. His ears caught every clank and scrape of metal, and he felt every flicker of charge coursing through Kirishima's body.

Back and forth, Kirishima plodded across the room. His hardened feet left dents and scuff marks on the wooden floor, and the wood groaned piteously beneath his weight. Another mark wriggled down the far wall, followed by another, and another. Tally marks criss-crossed each other willy-nilly, spread out wherever Kirishima staggered to, and he didn't even bother trying to group them in bundles of five.

"You put yourself through this?" Mei asked. "For a whole night?"

"I didn't realize how long it was until I stopped."

Kirishima teetered. He tried to flail his arms, but the weight around them kept them drooping towards the floor. Tipping slowly, Kirishima grit his teeth and hardened his legs until his movement crunched to a stop. He stood there, leaning halfway to the left, balanced at the precipice of gravity's pull. The slightest breath of wind would have sent him crashing to the floor, and quite possibly through it. Yet, with a guttural growl, Kirishima shifted his foot, settling his weight firmly beneath his stance. Righted once more, Kirishima clanked for a few more steps and made his fiftieth mark.

"He's a hard one to think of support gear for." Mei studied him consideringly. "Something to give him range is obvious, but boring. Can't be something worn, not with his Quirk. Can his hardened skin withstand fire?"

Remembering a bout between Kirishima and Bakugo, Izuku said, "A little bit, but he still burns."

Mei grunted and turned back to her gauntlet. "Range and mobility, then. A grappling hook. Reel them in close so he can clobber them."

"Mobility won't be an issue once he learns Rokushiki."

"If he can learn Rokushiki."

Clank. Clank. Step by ponderous step, Kirishima approached the wall yet again. The sharpie slammed clumsily into the wall, and it twisted in his grip. Panic flashed across his face as the sharpie hung precariously at the edge of his fingertips, delicately balanced against the wall. Sweat ran in rivers down his face as he gently eased the marker back into his grip.

Mei checked the time. "You should've done this on the weekend. Kirishima's going to be out of it tomorrow."

Izuku shook his head. "I tried, but Aizawa wouldn't let me come in without Recovery Girl on site. He says it's usually never allowed, but Nezu made an exception for me."

"Do you think Nezu knows what you're doing?"

"I never told him, but I suppose he's smart enough to figure it out."

As the faintest hints of dawn reddened the eastern horizon, Kirishima, face haggard, hair hanging limply over his eyes, arms and legs too tired to tremble beneath their burdens shuffled towards the wall for the hundredth time. Halfway there, he tried to reach for his chest, and he sank to one knee.

"It hurts," Kirishima groaned. "Heart… I think I-"

"One more step!" Izuku roared. "Get up! Just one more!"

"But I-"

"Are you going to be a hero or not?"

Kirishima sat there gasping for breath. To Izuku, it seemed as though his words fell on deaf ears. Then a fire lit itself in Kirishima's eyes. Slowly, bones creaking from the effort, Kirishima rose back to his feet. With herculean effort, he raised his right foot a millimeter off the ground. It slid across the pitted wooden floor, settled half a foot forward, and took his weight. Kirishima grunted in pain. Before him, the far wall stood tantalizingly close, its tally marks a tangle of wriggling lines dancing in his blurry vision. His arm rose, and his leg shuffled forward for one final step.

The marker slipped from his fingers. Kirishima didn't seem to realize, it, still moving forward. His foot slid onto the sharpie, and when he set his weight down, it slid out from under his feet. That sudden, tiny shift of his foot disturbed the delicate balance of weight keeping Kirishima's body upright. The weights twisted his leg awkwardly. An ordinary limb would have handled the strain with the barest twinge of protest, but bones pushed as far as Kirishima's had been, riddled with miniscule cracks and held together through sheer force of will, started to fracture.

Izuku felt a shiver of premonition run down his spine. In that instant, he knew Kirishima was a second away from having hamburger for legs. Acting on pure impulse, Izuku lashed out with his lightning. A razor wire of electrons darted through the metal weights, cleaving them in three pieces. The shorn metal hit the floor in a shower of clanking metal.

Kirishima collapsed, writhing on the floor as every muscle in his body spasmed painfully. Izuku rushed over, frantically searching for any way to help him. He thought about numbing his muscles by temporarily paralyzing the nerves and instantly dismissed the idea. One wrong move, and he could stop his heart.

"Izuku!" Mei snapped. "You need to take him to the nurse."

"But I-" Izuku let out a deep breath. "Alright."

He carefully cradled Kirishima in his arms and sprinted away. Recovery Girl's door was already open, and she had a bed and a sour look of disappointment waiting for him.

"Nezu filled me in," she said sharply as she splinted Kirishima's legs and forced a painkiller down his throat. "And you better believe if I was in charge of this school, you would be off to General Studies until you got your head screwed on straight, got it?"

Izuku gulped and nodded. Recovery Girl sighed and said, "It is my understanding that you at least intervened and prevented him from suffering any serious injuries. If you hadn't, well, with him as exhausted as he is, I can't use my Quirk on him. Shattered bones while in this state could have ended his career before it even started. So, Izuku, don't do this again."

"I won't."

"Good. Now go home and get some sleep."

"Can I come see him tomorrow?" Izuku asked. "To make sure he's alright?"

The nurse's stern expression softened a bit. "You may, and you better have an apology ready."

"I'm sorry I-"

Recovery Girl smacked his arm with her cane. "For him, Midoriya. Now go home, before I have you join your friend in the other bed."

As early as it was in the morning, Izuku felt none of the fatigue that should have come with lifting weights all night. He felt a restless electric hum in his head as he worried over whether or not it worked. He wanted to believe. Kirishima had worked as hard as he did, reached the very edge of his exhaustion. So what if he stumbled on the last step? Didn't all that effort mean something?

Yet, Izuku couldn't dismiss that lone, niggling doubt, that the last step was the most important, that Kirishima had failed a test of character that separated ordinary men from monsters like him.

Kirishima had woken up when Izuku finally worked up the nerve to visit him at U.A. His arms were bunded in casts, and he had an IV jutting out of his arm. Recovery Girl watched with a wary eye while Mei tinkered with a mechanical arm holding a spoon. It did a fine job scooping up congee, but it had a habit of aiming for Kirishima's eyes instead of his mouth.

"Hey," Izuku said awkwardly. "How do you feel?"

Kirishima grunted and sat up. "Like every muscle in my body got pounded into hamburger, dude. I can literally feel my heart pumping blood through my body with how it hurts."

Izuku gritted his teeth. He wanted to believe that Kirishima would be right as rain with some more food in him, but seeing him with sunken eyes and shaking arms, feebly clutching to the blankets, he knew it hadn't worked.

"I'm sorry. I don't know why it didn't work."

"It didn't work because it's plain crazy," Recovery Girl snapped. "Exercise isn't magic. It's like setting an oven at four-thousand degrees celsius and expecting your cookies done in half a minute. All you wind up with is charcoal. Developing muscle mass takes time, patience, and caution. Overdoing it, like you had Kirishima do, damages the muscles and weakens them in the long term."

Izuku gulped. "Is he…"

"He will be fine. Perhaps not completely right as rain for the Sports Festival, but I'll do my best. But he will be missing out on a few days of class, and I think it's only fair that you take notes for him."

Izuku nodded. "Is there anything else I can do?"

"Unless you have some miracle cure stashed away, no." When Izuku started thinking about it, Recovery Girl glared at him and said, "That was not an invitation to try another hair-brained scheme of yours. Give him so much as a sliver of an aspirin tablet without consulting me and I will have you scrub this entire campus top to bottom until I can see my reflection in every surface, you hear me?"

"I understand, but I might have an idea-"

"Denied. Midoriya, you have helped quite enough. As the primary care physician for all students of this school, I cannot allow any treatment plan that lacks the approval of the national medical board." Looking up at the ceiling, she said loudly, "Even if Nezu asked me to."

"You know," Kirishima said, "I kinda want to hear what he-"

"Listening to his ideas got you into that bed. Midoriya acted with the best of intentions, or so I believe, but that doesn't change the results. I hope this teaches you to think a little more critically of other peoples' ideas, right?"

Kirishima nodded and settled back into bed. Once she got him another dose of painkiller, she ushered Midoriya out of the room and tapped his shoulder when he turned to leave.

"People have limits, Midoriya, and pushing past them has long-term consequences. You could have killed Kirishima. Please don't do it again."

With those final words of wisdom, Recovery Girl went back into the room. Mei stepped past her and walked with Izuku out of the school.

"Never thought I'd be on this side of a bad idea," she mused.

"Me either," Izuku groused. "I don't get it. Why did it work for me?"

"Different world, different rules, I guess. Seashells spit fire and fruits give Quirks. We could always try taking someone else there."

They walked on in silence. As they crossed the threshold of U.A.'s campus, Mei asked, "Feel like testing out some of my new babies?"

Izuku disappeared in a flash of lightning. Mei's eyes darted about, catching the stray sparks in the air that marked his path. With a sigh, she said, "Guess he's done the same for me enough times."

The trail of sparks led her down to the Musutafu beach. It came as a shock to see the glittering sand, and a few people even had towels laid out, though the odd patch of rusted metal amidst the waves warned anyone against swimming. Part of her mourned her old stomping ground for old motors and scrap metal, but she had to admit, the beach looked and smelled a lot nicer.

Izuku sat in a divot of displaced sand, knees pressed against his chest as he stared out at the waves. Mei sat down next to him and said, "You cleaned this up, didn't you?" Izuku didn't answer, but his silence confirmed it. "Nice going. Now where am I supposed to get new parts?"

"I could have killed him."

"I could have killed you a hundred times over. That one piece of Baby Twenty-Nine is still embedded in the wall, with a bit of your hair poking out from underneath it."

Izuku fell quiet as he struggled to find an answer. The waves lapped closer to their feet as the tide rolled in, yet Izuku refused to move.

"Everything feels so fragile here. If I'm not careful, I could rip a door off its hinges, crush a pencil into splinters, walk clean through a glass window, shatter the ground beneath my feet. I cut my phone's screen with my fingernail the other night, and fried my All Might lamp when I tried to power it myself." He grabbed a handful of sand and squeezed it until he could hear the crackle of quartz grains cracking. "Even the people are fragile. Who am I going to hurt next? Another classmate? My mom? You?"

Mei took his hand. "Don't forget, I went there too. I'm not as fragile as I used to be. My dad nearly jumped out of his skin when I lifted a car with one hand to check the transmission."

Izuku squeezed her hand, not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to show her he could if he tried.

"You are stronger, but I am something else. Recovery Girl said that people have limits, but me? What are my limits? Every day, I can lift more and more weight. I can move faster, hit harder, and take harder hits. None of my classmates can keep up with me. I'm not even sure the teachers can. How long will it be before I'm stronger than All Might? What if I already am?" Izuku opened his hand. Fine powder drifted from his fingers and disappeared into the beach. "If I don't have any limits, then there's no limit to the amount of damage I can do."

"That also means there's no limit to the amount of good that you can do. You could power the whole city, or pull every person out of a burning building before it collapses. If you're worried about doing good, then pick a problem and do something about it."

"And what if that problem is everyone is afraid of me?"

Mei shrugged. "Not much you can do about that besides prove them wrong. So, how are you going to do that?"

For a while, Izuku stared out at the horizon. Then he said, "I'll win the Sports Festival. And I'll do it without hurting a single person. Not a scratch or bruise on them."

"Alright. Then what?"

"Then the internship. I'll pick whoever I can that's in the spotlight, taking down villains." He grinned and said, "I'll show them exactly how good of a hero I am."

---

A/N: I'm alive! I had hoped to get this done a few weeks ago, but writer's block struck once again. I'm not entirely happy with this chapter. It's a little shorter than I usually make them, but I don't think it would be served by being made longer. Story will start picking up next chapter, so there's that.

As for how my vacation went, eh. It was nice getting away from the cold for a while, and it was a memorable experience, but factored against the price of airline tickets, the hassle of air travel, and all the other expenses and hassles that come with vacationing? Definitely not for me. On the return trip, we should have had 2.5 hours to catch our next flight. The plane was an hour late, and it took two hours to get through customs. We sprinted to the terminal for our final flight, only to wait another three hours because of maintenance. Beats having to wait two or three days for the next flight, I guess. In any case, I wouldn't say I was miserable on the trip, but between the cost and the hassle, I'm definitely not doing that again.

AidenJacksonSmithDSBB: "I was going to write a review, but there is no way to write it without it becoming confusing to me and you, also Hello God"

Bardothren: uh… hi?

AinzNamikazeD: "Ah, can't wait to see OP Kirishima"

Bardothren: You might have to wait a bit longer…

korrd: "This was good. I won't say it didn't make me uncomfortable to read, but its a fact that all of 1-A are kids. They aren't, and shouldn't, be exposed to the reality of their chosen profession so soon. Their reactions are real."

Bardothren: if that's how you perceive it, then my writing did its job

MrMateuz: "God Bless Kirishima's soul, he will be missed (died due to exhaustion after Izuku's (hell) training)"

Bardothren: darn right it did. His bones too.

AJtheGreat332: "Interesting chapter, nice to see Izuku recognize 'subtle' moves though the classes surprise at Izuku killing villains but not the anti-killing itself doesn't completely mesh with the mention of Endeavor kill multiple villains a week."

Bardothren: given the hero culture and how much society revolves around it, I'm willing to bet that the news sweeps a lot of those fatalities under the rug. Unless it's convenient for the HPSC.

CriticaofRandomness: "The only thing that makes me iffy is that Mei is nowhere. When is our favourite Lightning Broccoli gonna meat up with Mei again"

Bardothren: your wish is my command