Author's Note: Hey, welcome to the story arc that's going to conclude Izuku's first year at UA. Over on AO3, I'm splitting this fic up into a trilogy based on Izuku's three years at UA, but I think I'll keep it all together on here just to see how long the single version becomes. Welcome to Arc 15: The Right Hands! It may end up being the single longest arc I'll ever write for a fanfic! The closest one is an arc I've got planned for Decimation, ironically also featuring the characters and ideas played around with in this one. Enjoy!
Izuku walked toward Gym Gamma in his high-collared, long-sleeved gym uniform. He heard conversations around himself, but wasn't exactly paying attention. Ochako and Hitoshi were competing with each other to tell the dirtiest joke they knew, and it seemed there was no end to their constant one-upping each other. Tsu was trying to have an actual conversation with Katsuki, which despite the blond's impoliteness and profanity seemed to be going well, with the two of them engaged in a discussion about the weather, since both of their Quirks limited them in the cold. Kirishima, Yaoyorozu and Hagakure also chimed in now and then to the discussion of the weather, since their costumes provided little to no warmth. Hagakure had gotten more warmth from her costume ever since Izuku had helped her find an alternative to simple nudity with the control over her Quirk that wasn't so new anymore. He sometimes found himself shocked by the fact that so much time had passed. Everyone's costumes looked different than when they'd started school, some more so than others, but everyone had changed. Luckily for those whose costumes provided little warmth, they weren't wearing costumes for that lesson, as they were doing simple spars instead of immersive training scenarios, like last week.
All Might led them inside and explained the rules of the sparring they'd be engaging in that day. The students would be randomly split up into eight pairs and one group of groupings would then spar, and whoever got their opponent or opponents to tap out first won. The groupings would then be randomised and then the structure of the session would repeat until All Might called it for the day. Izuku figured that was as good a method as any to ensure variety and prevent the lot of them from building up any bad habits from fighting one person for too long. Izuku needed to work on multitasking with his Quirks no matter the situation, so training with a variety of his classmates and their unique Quirks was good. Ochako and Katsuki got excited hearing the format of the lesson, as did Kirishima and Sato, but Izuku couldn't find it in himself to get excited. He would never insult his classmates for enjoying their training, but Izuku was faced with the reminder that he needed to be stronger, that he wasn't strong enough already. He remembered a flash of his disastrous work study and shivered, though he played it off when Tsu gave him a look. He had to throw himself into this training session just like he had done with all the others since he'd returned from his winter break work study. January was almost over and he'd only improved his mastery of One for All to twenty-one percent. He needed to be stronger.
His first sparring partner was Hagakure. Back when Hagakure had become visible, her hair and eyes had been brown. Izuku figured that was the way they naturally were, but her hair and eyes had changed colour lately. He thought it was because she no longer depended on the device Power Loader had made for her to stay visible, but her features had taken on an iridescent, glittery shine, with her hair becoming a greenish yellow with pink specks and her eyes turning blue and yellow. She joked a lot nowadays about her natural appearance being so flashy when her only superhuman ability was to turn invisible. That wasn't the only thing that had changed about her, though. Izuku knew her Quirk well, as it had been one of the first in class that he'd devoted any significant amount of time to. That would serve him well in this spar, though Hagakure had surprised him with the mastery she had over her Quirk before, during their first term final exams, though that had been possible in the first place due to outside help from one Hitoshi Shinso's own Quirk. Izuku formulated his strategy in the moments before their spar began. He had to be ready to shield his eyes from her light manipulation, but didn't have to be concerned about physical attacks. He brought One for All up to ten percent and felt the hum of Danger Sense in the back of his head as Hagakure readied herself for battle as well.
!
Blackwhip leapt from his hands and made a sheet in front of Izuku's eyes as he responded to Danger Sense's warning. It wasn't a severe warning, but it was clear from her body language that Hagakure was gearing up for an attack. Izuku could guess based on the shadows cast on him behind his shield of Blackwhip that she'd raised her hands and used her Flashbang attack, which created an instantaneous flash of light that would temporarily blind anyone that looked right at her when it was used. It was but one of her ultimate moves under the umbrella of her Warp Refraction technique, and it was a solid opening move. Izuku took his Blackwhip away from his face when Danger Sense quieted down, and saw that she took a single step forward before she and her costume, which was a sparkly bodysuit made of glittery fabrics and reflective panels, vanished in a surge of light. Izuku focused his senses like he'd trained to do back during the peaceful days of their summer camp, and he couldn't even hear her footsteps. That was what happened when a brawler and a stealth expert went toe to toe.
If she wanted to play hide and seek, Izuku could indulge that. He conjured a puff of Smokescreen from his feet through reflex, due to his costume having soles that allowed Smokescreen to sift through and expel from his feet properly. Izuku was reminded that he wasn't wearing his costume when Smokescreen billowed out of his shoes and higher into the air than he'd been intending, obscuring the small area their spar was contained to but not as efficiently as he'd have liked. It would disperse into the air above them, instead of thinning out over the ground, but that was fine. He heard a quiet whine and a huffing of breath, and figured that Hagakure had forgotten that he could pull off stealth as well. Izuku felt as though his body flipped upside down and his ears popped as all of his senses recalibrated and Danger Sense took over the heavy lifting of finding Hagakure in the smoke cloud. A ping from behind him had Izuku spinning around. She was seriously fast when she wanted to be. Izuku launched a net of Blackwhip in that direction, and felt it catch on something. He used his free hand to use Air Force and forcefully dispel the cloud with the wave of his arm and found his Blackwhip hanging onto the air and binding something he couldn't see. Izuku allowed himself to feel some satisfaction at that victory, even if he could acknowledge that Hagakure was never going to beat him in a head to head fight with no environment to take advantage of on the floor of Gym Gamma.
Izuku and Hagakure shook hands after he dismissed Blackwhip. She became visible once again with a literally dazzling smile and congratulated Izuku on his win. Izuku thanked Hagakure for the fight, and praised her determination, as he respected the way she never went into a fight acting as though it was a given she would lose. He did it with a subdued attitude, though, as he still couldn't find a shred of enthusiasm, nor any of that fanboyish excitability that got him teased more often than not. He was focused on getting it right, so there was no room for him to take glances at the other matches going on and take notes on the new things the others were doing with their Quirks. Hagakure laughed at a joke she'd made that Izuku had missed, and looked at him strangely.
"Hey, you okay?" she asked.
"Yeah. I'm fine. Just thinking. About the next match, I mean," Izuku said, haltingly covering up his lethargy. He wasn't sure how convincing he was, but Hagakure seemed to accept it.
"You're always thinking about the next thing, Midoriya. Greatest hero this, and Symbol of Hope that. Think about now for a change, man. You'll never know if something good passes you by if you don't, y'know!" Hagakure said.
She glanced off to the side, and Izuku followed her gaze to find that she'd looked over at where Ochako had just pinned Shoji to the roof using his own weight inverted and multiplied by ten. The proud grin she wore as she shot a jab back at Katsuki for a passing remark he'd made about her technique had Izuku staring for a moment, but he tore his eyes away from her. He looked back at Hagakure and sighed. This was how it always went. He tried to prove the rumours wrong, but they never listened.
"There's—"
"Nothing, I know. Hey, I know."
And she did. At the very beginning of the year, Hagakure had confessed that she'd been developing a little bit of a crush on Izuku after how much he'd helped her out with her Quirk. Nothing had happened, but Izuku sometimes felt awkward talking to her because of it. They'd both recovered from that awkwardness well enough, though, and Hagakure had actually been the one to mention that being asexual was a thing that was valid for him. He'd always thank her for that. However, Hagakure was also among those in 1-A that were convinced there was something going on with himself and Ochako, which was frustrating and embarrassing, and they didn't seem to be dissuaded when he'd cleared it up in the past, which simply added to his stress about it.
"Nobody seems to have told her that, though. And for as sure as you sound about it, your face just now told a whole other story, man. I'm kind of an expert when it comes to how your body language tells people more than you ever could. Being invisible for fifteen years forces you to master all your little microexpressions. Everyone knows you like each other. Just go for it, Midoriya!" Hagakure said.
"I don't. I don't … I can't. Not really," Izuku said. He fought to keep his expression neutral, but he couldn't help the grimace that showed through his attempt. His chest ached as he tried to put his feelings into words, but he couldn't. It always made him feel terrible to think about this, to think about why he couldn't return the feelings Ochako had made known a long time ago. Every time he convinced someone that they weren't like that, it felt like a hollow, pyrrhic victory. On top of the depression he was feeling due to his work study, it was too much, and he kept his mouth shut to avoid letting Hagakure see it all.
Luckily, the first round of matches had concluded and that meant their sparring partners got shuffled around. Izuku and Hagakure parted ways and met up with their new opponents, Todoroki for Hagakure — which Izuku did have the decency to sympathise with her about, because that was not going to be fun — and Ashido for Izuku. He recalled everything he knew about Ashido's Quirk, Acid, in the moments before their spar began. She was talking to Kirishima earlier about how she'd created a new ultimate move earlier that was modelled after one of his own, Unbreakable, which he'd created during his first work study with Fatgum. He didn't catch the details of the move, nor the name, but if it was modelled after Unbreakable, which Izuku did know the details of, then he had a rough idea of what to expect. With a surging flash of green lightning as the aura of power around him grew more intense, One for All rose to twenty percent within him.
"I've been wanting to test my new move against a power type like you, Green Bean!" Ashido cheered as acid dripped from her hand. "I have no doubts that I'll lose, but I hope to give you a fight at least!"
Izuku respected that. He wanted to test a few things out as well. As soon as their match began, Ashido crouched down, leapt up and spun around in a ball in the air. As she did, a coating of iridescent, bubbling acid, shining and glittering much like Hagakure would in the moment she became invisible. This acid coating adhered to the shape of Ashido's body and formed a kind of armour around her, as she called out the name of this move as Acidman. That was pretty cool, but Izuku didn't have time to think about the intricacies of the move. He didn't have his Air Force gloves, so he would have to do with the archaic, brute force version of that move. Izuku punched the air right in front of him, aiming so that a surge of pressurised air rushed away from him and caught Ashido's in mid-air, where she couldn't dodge. Acidman took the hit, a significant portion of the armour being ripped away, but Ashido was unharmed underneath it all.
!
Izuku dodged under her and leapt to her other side as Ashido came landed where he had stood in a shower of acid, on the weaker end of her Quirk's potency judging by how it only faintly sizzled on the floor. If he hadn't moved, it probably would've stung quite a bit, probably left him with burns for a while. It seemed like she was taking their spar seriously. That, and the fact that she had attacked him with her acid at all when she still seemed to have something of a complex about it after permanently blinding Tokoyami with her Quirk. She wasn't holding back. Neither would he, but he still had a few things he wanted to try out.
Blackwhip surged from both of Izuku's hands and wrapped around the diminished form of Acidman, still bulky and twice as tall and wide as either of them. It reminded Izuku somewhat of the villain that had attacked him and Katsuki on the day they'd met All Might for the first time, the event that had led to Izuku inheriting One for All in the first place. He ignored that as he dismissed Blackwhip, realising that the shadowy energy tendrils could indeed be corroded by Ashido's acid, judging by the steam that had wafted off of it as it diminished in power before being recalled. Then why could that telekinetic, Chikara, not manipulate Blackwhip with his Quirk? Why had that been the only one of his attacks that had landed? A question for another time. Izuku sent a few more blasts of his primitive Air Force at her, stripping her of her Acidman armour while she tried to sling some more sheets of acid at him from afar.
!
Danger Sense allowed him to dodge easily. Izuku caught her in Blackwhip and wrapped it around her arms tight enough that she couldn't move them, though Ashido tried corroding the black mass with some of her more potent acid. Izuku could constantly add new Blackwhips, though, so she wasn't able to break out faster than he could restore his Quirk's strength. She was beaten. Izuku dismissed Blackwhip when the little robot helper called the match, and they shook hands, which earned Izuku a minor burn on the palm of his hand, as a little bit of acid had remained on Ashido's hand as they'd shaken.
"Oh, sorry!" Ashido said, taking his hand in one of hers and spitting in the other.
"What?" Izuku asked, retracting his hand as she went to press her spit-covered one into it.
"Right, I don't think I've explained it fully. Since my body is resistant to my acid, my bodily fluids act like a solvent and make my acid inert. It'll only work in small amounts, like this, but it should make it so your hand doesn't scar," Ashido said.
Izuku reluctantly let her rub her spit into his hand with a bright blush on his face. He wondered if people were watching. He needed a distraction. "That's cool. Have you always been able to do that, or …?"
"Nope. I found out during my work study — my first one. If I'd have known during our final exams … I'll never hurt someone like that again. I made a vow, right?" Ashido said with a grin on her face. Izuku couldn't exactly return the smile, but he nodded in agreement.
Ashido went on her way and started happily chatting to Kaminari as they both sat out after losing. It looked like Kaminari had lost to Yaoyorozu, who had insulated herself against his electricity and baited him into attacking enough that he short-circuited. After he'd let Ashido's natural solvent do its thing and gone to clean his hand, his new sparring partner flew in and landed on the patch of Gym Gamma they'd been assigned. Izuku sighed. Of course they'd been paired up to fight. Izuku would have been worried if the universe hadn't pitted them against each other.
"What's your deal, Deku?" Katsuki asked. The disgust that had once been inseparable from that nickname was gone now, but the sound of it grated on Izuku on bad days. "You're bumming everyone out and I'm sick of hearing about it."
"I don't have a deal. I take it you're my opponent," Izuku said, flaring One for All to twenty-one percent.
"I don't buy that, but if you're down to fight, let's do this for real!" Katsuki said, triggering a series of crackling explosions in his hands.
"Is it one of those fights?" Izuku asked, sighing once again. Since they'd kind of made up and become friends again, Katsuki had demanded that they spar once at least so that they could be certain where they stood with one another, since they both seemed to improve at such a rapid rate. They'd had four so far — this would be the fifth — and they were more or less equal. Izuku had won two of their contests of strength, and so had Katsuki. This would unbalance that tie.
"It better be! I don't care if you're a Quirk God now, Deku. I know I'm just as strong as you, if not better!" Katsuki yelled. Izuku groaned at the nickname Quirk God that Hitoshi was trying to get to catch on. It wasn't.
"We'll see," Izuku said, crouching down and preparing to move.
!
Katsuki rushed forward with his Explosive Speed move, where he propelled himself using his explosions. He moved across the arena in the blink of an eye, almost too fast for Izuku to track, which caught him off guard. The last time they'd fought, Katsuki's speed had been well within Izuku's ability to perceive with about eighteen percent of One for All. Now, at twenty-one percent, he was just too fast? It looked like Katsuki had been putting in even more time after class training, while Izuku had stagnated a little bit. Izuku pushed off to the side in the moment before Katskui reached him thanks to the warning from Danger Sense. Izuku's feet skidded and bounced off the floor as he stayed an inch or two off the ground while he let his momentum carry him. He slid to a stop on the very boundary of their arena and watched Katsuki's attack detonate and create a massive blast that would've sent him out of bounds, which Izuku wasn't sure was an automatic win or not. Katsuki was thinking about the rules of the exercise and how to use them to his advantage as always, and Izuku was caught up in his head.
Izuku launched his counterattack, a flurry of punches that sent rippling shockwaves at Katsuki as he noticed what had happened. Katsuki turned and saw the blasts of air coming at him and let off an explosion that sent him up above the ground and allowed him to dodge Izuku's Air Force. Izuku stayed grounded so that he could easily dodge any coming attack, but none came. Instead, as the ripples of air from Izuku's previous attack died down, Katsuki reached the apex of his Quirk-powered leap, and looked down at him with a grin as he placed a partially closed fist against his open palm.
"You're going for ranged stuff now, are you? I've got that too, idiot!" Katsuki yelled. "AP Shot!"
!
Since Katsuki had been the one to introduce verticality to their battle, Izuku figured he would take advantage of the clear field of view. Izuku moved his limbs and twisted his torso in the way that Danger Sense guided him to in a move he called Perfect Dodge in his head. It basically entailed allowing Danger Sense to more or less hijack his reflexes and letting his body go on autopilot to dodge. Since Katsuki had given him the entire floor to use with this move, it was easy to duck and weave around the blasts he sent Izuku's way. What was interesting was that the explosions were narrow, thin and burning hot, unlike the relatively low-heat explosions that he normally fired off over a wide area of effect. Izuku figured that these precise shots were the result of the way he'd overlapped his hands. Katsuki's hands were basically fireproof, so making a cone or a funnel with them would compress the explosion and make it more powerful at the cost of requiring more precision to use. That was a very clever loophole he'd found due to how his body worked to withstand his explosions. Not many people took advantage of the secondary mutations they experienced in order to survive using their deadly Quirks, but it came as no surprise that Katsuki was the first one in their class to do so.
Izuku crouched down and released Smokescreen through his shoes, this time with some thought behind it. The hissing release of the purple fog rushed up and out of his civilian shoes and into the air, higher than he'd intended the first time he used the Quirk that day but exactly right for where he wanted it at that moment. Izuku hid in the cloud and stopped Danger Sense from completely overtaking his senses. He wasn't going for a Total Obfuscation, just trying to bait his opponent into doing what he wanted him to do. He used Float to hover two or three inches above the ground. Boots touched down on the ground a few metres away, and suddenly the Smokescreen was gone with a shockwave that raced along the ground and pushed the lilac smoke upward, dispersing it easily.
"Landmine Blast!" Katsuki shouted the moment before he became visible to Izuku, who had already touched down on the ground once again having avoided the tremor in the floor.
Blackwhip surged through the air as Izuku flung it at Katsuki. Katsuki was still crouched down and suffering from the recoil of sending a blast point blank at the ground, judging by his twitching hands. Izuku grabbed Katsuki by the torso with Blackwhip and yanked the blond toward himself as he pushed forward and threw what would've been a Detroit Smash had All Might done it. The punch connected, and Katsuki took it right on the chin with a savage grin on his face. Katsuki flew backward due to the hit, and started spinning as he lost control of himself. No, he was spinning on purpose. Little blasts from his outstretched hands pushed Katsuki in a corkscrew rotation. He wouldn't go for a Howitzer Impact indoors. Izuku had to believe that Katsuki wasn't that invested in the fight. Unfortunately, he knew Katsuki Bakugo. He was absolutely that invested in the fight.
Izuku leapt up into the air and used Float to throw himself toward Katsuki. Izuku got into a spinning brawl with Katsuki in the air. The two of them rotated due to Katsuki's momentum as they engaged in a brawl, Izuku's raw power was greater than Katsuki's at that time, so his punches were more damaging than Katsuki's, but Katsuki was faster, and as such was able to pull off a move Izuku wasn't familiar with in the time between his punches. Katsuki let off a chain of explosions that propelled him to spin, not unlike the introduction of a Howitzer Impact, and forced his elbow into Izuku's sternum with the power of those blasts. The air rushed out of Izuku's lungs at that blow, and he growled as he kicked Katsuki in the stomach in return to get the boy off of him so that he could catch his breath. Katsuki held on tight, though, and grabbed hold of Izuku's wrist as he began to propel himself in another spin, dragging Izuku along as they both rotated in the air.
!
The centrifugal force was enough to overwhelm Izuku's muscles. The world was a blur and the only solid thing he could perceive was Katsuki. Izuku threw a punch with his free hand, but it didn't connect before Katsuki let go of his wrist and sent Izuku speeding toward the ground as he screamed, "Explode-A-Pult!"
Despite Nana Shimura's power having saved his life many times, Float was not a perfect Quirk. Izuku was well aware of its flaws. The biggest flaw was that a significant enough force acting on Izuku could negate the buoyancy Float applied to the air below him. That definitely was true at that moment as Izuku rocketed toward the ground even as Float did slightly slow his descent. Izuku found himself finally giving into the childish glee that Katsuki seemed to experience whenever they fought. That was a very clever trick. Izuku would have to use that one. He stared back up at his childhood friend and grinned as he threw out his hand and flung Blackwhip up at Katsuki, who was stalling in the air as his momentum cancelled out gravity for just a moment. The blond's satisfaction at pulling off that incredible move had seemingly dulled his reflexes, because Blackwhip easily wrapped around his ankle, causing shock to rippled across his face.
Izuku spun around, using some of the present aspects of Float to generate enough force for him to roll over. Izuku spun, the winds kicked up by this spinning negating his fall and propelling him higher once again. Katsuki was flung around like a ragdoll as Blackwhip tugged him along, and the two of them spun around in the air as Izuku mimicked his friend's move. Katsuki attempted to escape and slow his momentum with his Quirk, but the G-forces he had to be experiencing getting flung around by twenty-one percent of One for All made his struggling futile. Izuku gave Katsuki one last pull and sent him hurtling through the air across Gym Gamma at the same time he realised that their fight had taken them to the very top of the chamber, up near the ceiling. Katsuki flailed in the air, kicking his legs and waving his arms to regain some sense of balance, using smaller blasts to slow his momentum and push his body in the direction he wanted it to move. All of that was for naught, however, as Katsuki crashed into the far wall of Gym Gamma just as Izuku hit the other from the sheer force of his throw, a big cloud of dust being kicked up and smaller chunks of concrete debris falling toward the ground with the blond.
It was Ochako and Tsu that kept Katsuki from impacting the ground and getting hit by any of the debris. Ochako made Tsu weightless and they used that to leap over and catch Katsuki in their tongue in an instant, whereas they wouldn't have been fast enough with Ochako's assistance. Tsu carried Katsuki to safety and set him down on the floor carefully, where All Might and the rest of the class gathered around to check on him. Izuku came down from the air and landed on the outside of the group, where Kirishima, Sero, and Kaminari patted him on the back and congratulated him on finally fighting against their class's resident loudmouth as hard as he fought against Izuku. It didn't feel like a victory, though, even as All Might stood up and assured the class that Katsuki would be completely okay after a quick trip to Recovery Girl. Izuku attempted to volunteer to take Katsuki, but Ochako and Tsu were already picking him up and carrying him off, with Ochako deactivating her Quirk's effects on Tsu and applying them to Katsuki so that they could carry him like he weighed nothing, because he did.
Sparring continued, but not before Hitoshi noticed the look that must've been on Izuku's face and tried to joke about how Katsuki had been running head first into a beating since the first day of class, so Izuku shouldn't really feel bad about giving the guy what he'd been asking for since April. It didn't make him feel better, but he appreciated that his friend was trying to cheer him up. Everyone else he fought before classes concluded for the day said something similar. I can't give you a fight that epic, but I'll try. That had been Ojiro. We're not all powerhouses like you and Bakugo, and I just had my nails done last night, so go easy, okay? That one had been Aoyama. Izuku never could get a solid read on Aoyama for whatever reason. He didn't have friends in the class and he tended to disappear entirely whenever he could. Weird. You're too strong for me, but at least you're quiet. Izuku liked that Jiro had tried for a joke as well. All in all, that lesson was not as productive for Izuku as he would've liked it to be.
At the end of the day, however, Izuku left toward the dorms having realised something. It wasn't even a realisation of anything crucial. The adrenaline from his fight with Katsuki had cleared his head of all the messed up thoughts about Spinner and the Children and let him focus on one thing, one solid goal — win. That had allowed Izuku to actually approach his previous thoughts after that from a new perspective, and he realised that advice that was so often given during combat training, advice he'd received from Aizawa a number of times, could also apply to how he was so caught up in his own head about what had happened in his winter break work study. Doing something was always better than doing nothing. Izuku knew now that he had to do something. The only question then was what to do. It'd come to him. Izuku cooked that night, and made a spicy curry to apologise for hurting Katsuki more than he'd meant to. The blond clearly enjoyed the meal, going on about how someone else in their class finally learned how to cook real food, but nobody had been able to tell him that his mortal frenemy Deku had been the one to cook it.
Either way, Izuku didn't stick around that night. He headed up to his room and got started on thinking of ways to act on his desires to track down the Children. That night was the first step on a very long road, a road Izuku would never come back from and never regret starting down. He didn't know it at the time, but that work study had been the point of no return, the event horizon, and the chain of events that unfolded from there would change Japan forever. It was only a matter of time.