"What…What is this?" He asked as he turned, holding the two items in his hands.
She was silent as she stared at him from the doorway, hair still dripping wet from the shower. "Miwako!" She flinched back at the sound of her name. He bit his lip hard enough to bleed, thinking he hurt her ears. He threw the items on her bed as he took several long strides to her, putting his hands on her cheeks to turn her head so that he could have a better view of her ear.
Her hands reached up to place them over top of his, squeezing his hands as if she was afraid he was going to disappear. "You didn't hurt me."
"Then answer my fucking question." He tore his hands away from her and opened his arms wide gesturing around her room widely. "Where did you get that mask cause I know damn well they don't sell it online. Did you lie to me about everything because I'm almost 100% sure that that-" He pointed directly at the picture on her desk "Is your twin, but it couldn't be right?" He jabbed a finger into her shoulder. "Because you told me he died years ago."
"I never lied, I just…" The words got caught in her throat.
"Just what Miwako? Fuck! First Deku, now this?" He swept a hand over his hair and took a step back. "Are you not even going to say anything?" She was still just staring at him.
"Fine, I'm leaving then." He tried to push past her but she grabbed onto his arm tight. "Katsuki wait!" Even though she asked him to stop, she still couldn't get the words out of her mouth. She was terrified he would see her differently, see her as a murderer, and an imposter. At her silence, he scoffed and ripped his arm away from hers.
She fell to the ground at the slam of the door. Neither could sleep restfully that night.
They both walked into class with deep eye bags as they plopped into their respective desks. The whole class could tell something was wrong with the normally close pair. Bakugou shot a death glare at anyone who tried talking to him, asking what was wrong so early in the morning. School couldn't end fast enough for them as time crawled at a snail's pace.
Bakugou was ready for the sports festival, he wanted to be able to let loose all his pent up rage. Miwako was just tired, she didn't want to do anything but lay in bed and wallow, but All Might forced her to go to class.
When lunch came, Miwako was missing from their table, only Bakugou sat there violently chewing his food, glaring at nothing in particular. Kirishima tried to ask one more time if everything was alright.
Bakugou snapped his chopsticks in half. "She's a lying bitch.", he spat as he got up from the table, no longer hungry and dumped his food. Kirishima frowned as he got up and tried to look for Miwako and found her still at her desk with her head on the table napping. He took off his blazer and draped it over her sleeping figure since she looked cold to him.
He sat next to her, until he had to wake her up for their next class. "Hey Uzumaki, you gotta get up now." He said gently as he lightly shook her shoulder. She answered with a drawn out groan as she sat up, cracking her back.
Miwako was surprised at the extra jacket that was covering her. It didn't take her long to realize it was Kirishima's since he was the only one without it. "Thanks Kirishima, and also thank you for staying with me at the USJ. It really means a lot." She said, handing the jacket back.
"It's not a problem, it wouldn't have been manly leaving you alone when you were injured. Especially after you protected us so much. I wanted to text you to see how you were doing but then realized I didn't have your number."
She dug around her backpack and handed her phone over. "Well we should remedy that."
He handed her his phone as well so they could exchange numbers. "Hey I wanted to ask, is everything alright? You and Bakugou seem to be in some sort of fight." He asked in concern
"It's my fault, don't worry about it Kirishima."
They spent the day talking to each other in their classes. Kirishima, the sweetheart that he was, didn't want her to be alone especially after the villain attack they went through.
"Do you want to meet up and train sometime?" he asked as they packed to head home.
"Yeah that would be fun. I'll text you later to let you know when I'm free and we can meet up."
They both looked up when they heard the commotion at the door. A flash of purple caught her eye and she walked forward. "Shinso! It's good to see you again."
He gave her a tired smirk. "Hey Uzumaki, heard what happened, you alright?"
"I'm all healed, no worries." She gave him an appraising look. "Are you taking my advice?" She asked.
"Unlike some, I'm not dumb enough to disregard help from someone that made it where I want to be."
She smiled and started to walk out the door. The crowd parted for her unlike Bakugou. "I'll see you at the festival then, good luck."
She forced her feet to walk to the market to buy food for dinner even though she could have just easily went to bed hungry. She browsed through the isles hoping for inspiration on what to make when she saw a tall man with jet black hair reaching for hair dye. Flashes of heavily burnt skin peeking out of his sleeve. She couldn't help but blurt out a question. "Hey are you alright?"
He looked down at her and she was mesmerized by how bright his blue eyes were. They almost seem familiar but Miwako can't place where she's seen them before. His voice was deeper than she had expected. "Don't worry your pretty little head doll face. Didn't anyone ever tell you to not speak to strangers?"
She shrugged. "I can take care of myself so I don't really care. Seriously though, are you ok? Those burns look like they hurt like hell."
He continued to ignore her questions as he slipped the box into his jacket, definitely not intending to pay for them. "Don't talk to strangers doll, you could get yourself into bad situations. Something they should teach you in that little hero school of yours." He walked past her saying nothing more.
"So what are we doing first?" Kirishima stood in the center of the gym excited.
"Well, telling me what you want to work on is a good start." She said as she stretched on the floor.
"Well, I want to increase the time I can keep my quirk active." Kirishima said, as he tried to think of what would increase his chances of winning the festival.
"How long can you keep it up for now?"
"Well, an hour if I don't get hit, but the more damage I take, the less time I have." He said, as he scratched his cheek, looking embarrassed,
"Hey, don't be ashamed. We all have to start somewhere." She tried helping him get his confidence back. "The sports festival from what I've seen the past few years is always a 3 round event and the last one is always tournament style. If we just work on increasing your time holding your quirk active all over your body, it wouldn't really help much considering how long the event is going to be. If we had started training earlier it definitely would be our main focus. I would suggest increasing your reaction time to being able to activate parts of your body in an instant so you don't get tired as easily. It'll also help your stamina in a roundabout way.
"Alright that sounds great! Let's do this!" He was fired up for training.
Miwako smirked as she walked to the storage unit and looked around until she found what she was looking for. She pulled out the dusty tennis ball launcher and plugged it in. She also moved the treadmill right in front of it. "Alright, here's what I want you to do. Your arms are going to be your biggest asset so keep your quirk active there at all times. This bad boy-" She slapped a hand on the launcher, only for it to blow dust up and she coughed waving her hand to clear the air. "This piece of shit is going to be launching tennis balls at you. Your job is to run and either dodge or knock them away from you while I-" She pulled out a metal baseball bat "am going to hit you with this and you have to activate your quirk in whatever body part I call out or else you will be seriously hurting. Everyonce in a while I will tell you to harden your entire body so I can beat you up. Sounds good?" She said cheerfully while swinging the bat.
"Umm, why do we have to do it all at once?" He asked in fear.
"Barely over a week isn't enough time to focus solely on building endurance for your quirk. This is your best bet is to increase your processing speeds by doing this until it becomes second nature for you while also slowly increasing your stamina. Now get on the damn treadmill Kirishima."
"Yes Ma'am!"
She set the launcher to at a slower speed at first so he could get used to it then increased it as time went on. "Back!" she yelled, giving him only a second until the hit landed before he was able to harden.
"Ow!" he yelped.
"Right leg!" This time he was able to successfully block the hit, however he lost focus and got hit in the nose by a tennis ball.
By the end of their session, Kirishima was whimpering on the mat curled into a fetal position. "Come back same time tomorrow Kiri." Miwako said as she skipped back home. After a few days he was able to dodge or bat away all the balls thrown at him and never got hit. Miwako figured it was the perfect time to up the ante.
Without telling him, she had requested an upgraded version of the launcher and this time instead of soft air filled tennis balls she also commissioned a tightly wrapped ball with steel on the inside. The launching speeds were also increased and Kirishima was hard pressed to dodge or block all of them. That day, Miwako took pity on him and just had him focused on running and the launcher. Some still got through his defenses and he fell to the ground in pain when a ball hit his diaphragm.
She winced as she powered down the launcher and helped him up, handing him a bottle of water. "You did great Kiri! You lasted almost a full 2 hours without a single hit!"
"Can we work on something else for the rest of the session please?" He begged. While his legs didn't hurt as much as the first few days, his lungs were bruised.
"Ok, you deserve it. Do you want to work on your fighting skills then? No quirks." She asked.
He brightened up as something new. "Yes please."
She nodded. "Alright, show me your stance first."
He widened his legs, bending his knees slightly with his fists raised. She walked around him as she adjusted things slightly. "Place your feet wider, not too much though, and bring it back just slightly. Bring this arm a little closer to your side, don't leave an opening."
She nodded, satisfied with the changes. She made him get out of stance and get back into it until he made no mistakes. "Alright now come at me."
She fought with him for a few minutes to get his general style before telling him to stop. "Not surprising that you fight pretty head on, it'll work really well with your quirk. You're also not a bad fighter, a few missteps here and there but that could easily be fixed. Let me ask you this though, what do you do if you're tired and still need to fight?"
Kirishima felt like that was a trick question. "Uh, give it my all until I can't?"
She smiled at the expected answer. "Sometimes that is all you can do, or you use your head.", she said, poking him in the forehead. "When you're too tired, your hits barely scratch the other person, you're basically wasting what little energy you have left to keep standing. Everyone will expect you to be a bulldozer in a fight with heavy hits because of your power, but the element of surprise is sometimes the perfect way to end a fight without exhausting yourself. Instead of meeting your enemy's hits head on, use their momentum against them. Come at me again and I'll show you."
He charged and swung hard at her head, but she completely redirected him without even grasping his arm, hooking her feet onto his and he fell face first to the ground. She reached a hand out to help him up. She spent the rest of the day showing him different moves that required little energy to do.
By the time the sports festival came around, his progress in their training sessions completely blew her expectations out of the water. "Let's end this session early, you learned everything you could already and more. Let's go get some ice cream to celebrate." She said.
"Isn't it a little too early to be celebrating?" he asked as he packed up his things.
"Of course not Kirishima. You improved so much over the week that there already is a reason to go out. No matter what happens tomorrow, be proud of yourself."
"Thanks Uzumaki! You should become a teacher in the future like Aizawa-sensei." He said happily.
"Aww that's so sweet. Call me Miwako by the way."
"Then call me Eijiro!"
Miwako flopped in bed the second she got home, exhausted. She pulled out her phone when it started ringing in her pocket. "Hello?" She answered without looking at who called her.
"Miwako…It's Izuku." A nervous voice came from the other end.
"Hey, what's up? How has your training with my dad been going?"
"Uh i-its great! I mean it's always been my dream to meet All Might let alone be trained by him. He's so strong and inspirational that I just-" Miwako listened to him ramble on and on fanboying over her dad. After knowing him for so long, she could pick out what he wanted out of his mumblings without getting confused.
"So you still can't get a hang of one for all." She said cutting him off.
"Yes." He said in shame.
"Why are you only asking for help now, one night before the festival? There isn't much I can help you with. I stepped back from training you since my dad pretty much monopolizes your time."
"I just wanted to ask if you had any suggestions. I know I should have talked to you sooner."
She sighed loudly over the phone. "My dad theorized that it's because your body hasn't adapted to the power yet, but I have a different hypothesis. I noticed you always go from 0 to 100 with your quirk. Have you ever tried doing any exercises with One For All similar to breathing exercises? Like powering up your quirk slightly, and then letting it go over and over again so you have a feel for it instead of just releasing it all in one go."
"That's a great idea! I should have called you sooner and then I could've practiced that all this time." He groaned to himself, but quickly perked up again. "I'll train it tonight!"
"Absolutely not. The festival is tomorrow Izuku. What are you going to do if you mess it up somehow?" She shot his idea down immediately. "Just wait until afterwards and I'll help you some more. I have a lot of experience trying to control a shit ton of power."
"I guess you're right. I should probably let you go now so we can head to bed."
"I'll see you tomorrow Izuku." She said as she hung up. She tapped onto the texting app and decided to send a text to Bakugou. These past few weeks she had been sending him messages every once in a while, even though she never got a response. She wanted him to know that she still wants him in her life, even though she couldn't tell the truth.
Good luck tomorrow!
-sent 8:11
She kept her eye on it, hoping that maybe he might text her back, but she just saw the read notification and nothing else. Bakugou stared at his phone screen, thumb hovering over the keyboard, before he shut it off and threw it on his nightstand.
He eyed the jacket he had draped over his desk chair. A custom sweatshirt Miwako had sent to him for his birthday. It was all black with his two signature crossing orange lines and on the hood were orange accents that resembled the wings of his mask. One the back is the kanji for explosion. He hasn't worn it, but couldn't bring himself to throw it away.
"Is everyone ready?" Ida asked as he opened the door, fixing his glasses. "The event is about to start."
"Midoriya." Todoroki said as he walked right up to him. Miwako watched in interest along with the whole class as she sat on her chair, legs resting on the table with her jacket unzipped.
"Objectively, I'm positive I'm stronger than you, but you have All Might supporting you."
Midoriya flinched slightly at the mention of All Might and Miwako narrowed her eyes, lowering her feet from the table in case she had to step in.
"Nevertheless, I'm going to beat you." Todoroki said.
Kirishima placed a hand on his shoulder to pull him back, admonishing him for threatening his classmates. That didn't stop him, as Todoroki looked at her next. "You were able to keep up with the monster at the USJ. That's not something a normal student should be able to do. It caught Endeavor's attention, whatever he offers you…reject it."
AN: I had such a hard time trying to figure out how to train Kirishima. I hope I did an alright job at least since I didn't want it to be exactly like how Aizawa had him train for the training camp arc. Also sorry about the long wait for this chapter guys. I got slammed with hours at work and I also started to get back into crocheting.