"I hope you have all been studying properly despite the events that have been happening this term." Aizawa-sensei told everyone, before continuing, "Next week you have final exams. There is a physical and a written portion. Study and improve your quirk use to equal proportions. If you pass, you can go on the training camp trip during the Summer Holidays."
After he left the room, pandemonium exploded. "Man, I haven't studied at all!" Kaminari complained.
"Yeah..." Mina said, looking equally downcast.
"As U.A students it is imperative that you keep up with your studies!" Iida scolded them, being third in the class from midterms. Yaoyorozu nodded in agreement, having had been second. "If you would like, I can help you assist with your studies."
Iida nodded in agreement, saying that he and the other members of the top five in the class would assist with studying. Bakugo broke out in laughter, before settling on a smirk. "I'll help study alright, but it'll be fucking intense. You shitty little extras will need it." Several members of the class sweat dropped before he started screaming, "OH IT COULD BE FUCKING WORSE YOU DUNCES! IZUKU COULD BE RUNNING YOUR STUDIES!"
Izuku sighed, being number 1 in the class and his brother coming in 4th was for several reasons, before he buried himself back in the English notes he had taken from the day. Everyone turned to look at the shy boy, before looking to Bakugo with a look of disbelief. "ALRIGHT FINE NONE OF YOU FUCKERS BELIEVE ME! OI NERD! GIMME THAT FUCKING BOOK!"
Izuku just rolled his eyes before handing it over, absently mindedly tapping his fingers on the desk. "3-D Printer! You were 2nd, behind this FUCKING NERD! Surely you can understand this!" Bakugo yelled, aggressively shoving the book towards her. She blinked and took it, before opening it and her eyes widening quickly.
She quickly tried to find some comparison in her own notes before closing the book and handing it back. "LITTLE NERD'S QUIRK CAN DOUBLE AS AN INTELLIGENCE BOOST!" Bakugo screamed, before whacking his Izuku on the head and continuing, "SO GO FUCKING AHEAD AND GET THE LITTLE SHIT TO TUTOR YOU IF YOU REALLY WANT TO!"
Izuku had stopped paying attention and was on his phone, texting Mirio who had decided to be generous and sent some information regarding exams in the past. 'Robots huh... I doubt it. It'll probably be something different, like...' Izuku's eyes went wide with realization as he thanked Mirio for the information, before texting Nejire (much to his embarrassment) to ask if she could help him with some ideas of his, as they had similar quirks (at least in terms of when being emitted) and she was ecstatic to help.
His attention was drawn back to the present when Todoroki tapped his shoulder. "I would like to do better than fifth for the final exams. Would you mind giving me some... basic tutoring?" Todoroki asked, before Sero added something on.
"Yeah, could you help all of us man? Even if it's only a little, I reckon your help with anything from combat to heroics to general studies would help greatly!"
"Uh, Sure, I'd be happy to!" Izuku said, running some ideas through his mind for his time usage. He figured if he completely applied himself, he'd manage to help tutor his classmates whilst keeping on top of all his own studies and training.
Izuku followed his classmates out to lunch, where they split up to their own respective friendship groups. Izuku went off to meet with the Big Three in the cafeteria, all of them sitting together. Izuku was just making general discussion with them, talking a variety of topics, from studies to hobbies, generally getting to know each other better.
Izuku was about to start saying something when an elbow hit the back of his head, resulting in him jumping slightly and holding the back of his head in pain. "Oh! My bad! I managed to not see your massive head!" Monoma from class 1-B told Izuku, who was a more than a little dumbfounded, "Your massive class 1-A ego must ha-"
"Hey! That's not cool!" Nejire cut him off.
"Oh, the famous big three! Why're you hanging out with this class 1-A loser?! Why don't you come over to the betmmph!" He was cut off by a large tentacle hitting him backwards, which quickly retracted.
Izuku, Nejire and Mirio all looked at Tamaki in shock, before Mirio clapped the now panicking boy on the back, whilst Monoma was looking over in shock. He was about to start again before a hand chopped his neck, and a girl with orange hair caught the irritating blond by their collar. "Sorry about Monoma! He managed to escape from our views! Hope he didn't bother you guys too much!" Kendo said before bowing slightly, leaving the slightly shell-shocked friends. They held a silence briefly, looking at each other before continuing like nothing happened.
Finally came the end of the day, and Izuku, now in his dorms, had drawn up a daily schedule until exams. He would spend about an hour after school working with Nejire (who was free for that time), before helping his classmates study until about dinner, around seven. After finishing dinner at 7:30pm, he would spend several hours in his own intensive studying regime before spending some time training and doing some additional quirk advancement that wouldn't be safe to do with Nejire, before sleeping around 1. Okay look, he was the kind of person that didn't feel tired, even if he should.
That aside, there was also a weekend before the exams that he could spend studying. He knew he was meant to be part of the group study after lunch, and Nejire was free to work during the morning so he could spend time then working with her, before the group study, then going to train and develop individually for a while, before making something to eat in the dorm kitchen and going to do intensive study for a while.
Heading outside, he met Nejire at one of the school fields, where the two made light conversation whilst doing some basic stretches, led by Nejire. "Soooo, because we're going to be using our arms, we'll focus on some stretches from them! Yeah? Yeah! Alright let's go!" She pumped the two of them up, punching the air before leading the stretches. Basic arms stretches and a variety of shoulder stretches.
Eventually they finished stretching and began working on directional shots. "Sooooo, when I first started using my quirk, I found that my shots were really unpredictable and chaotic in general, and there were more than a few people making some comparison between me and my quirk, which is totally fair by the way I 100% agree and whilst there's more to both it's a baseline, anyway where was I? Right! Targeting shots! Try visualizing a shape or flow for your quirk to follow once fired!" Nejire explained, before opening her palm and firing a shot. Izuku watched in awe as it went straight up, before gently floating down like a feather.
Almost on instinct, he pulled out a notebook and flipped to the page on Nejire's quirk, adding some additional notes and drawings. Nejire only managed to get a brief peak at the book, but there were things on her quirk she didn't even know. She shook her head before stepping back from Izuku so he could try and manipulate a shot from his quirk.
Izuku took a deep breath, and looked up. 'Visualize the shot, the path it will follow...' He repeated it like a mantra as he raised both arms, connecting at the palms and hands cupped. He breathed out, gathering energy in his arms, both having lightning arcing off of them as he fired a shot. He watched in mild disappointment as he just fired a lightning bolt upwards in a vaguely straight line, but there was less additional arcing than normal.
He turned his head to Nejire who was eagerly clapping. "You did good for a first try! Remember, I'm a third year at the top of the school! This is your first year at U.A! Right? Yeah! Anyway, can you control the speed of your lightning?" Nejire asked, bouncing slightly from side to side as she leaned towards Izuku.
Izuku blushed slightly, before answering, "I, uh, maybe?"
"Try slowing it down then, and focus on a shape! Trajectory first, speed second, power third, yeah? Like for my quirk, I have to fire it slowly to get the former and latter, as faster shots are harder to control and have less impact. You gotta find the right balance for your quirk! So just give it your best shot!"
Izuku nodded, pulling out a notebook and writing some things down. He nodded to her that he would try again, and she beamed at him as she stepped backwards. Izuku repeated the actions from before, trying to calm his nerves as he breathed out. 'Slow it down and follow the path...' Izuku concentrated, relaxing slightly as he pictured a fish, gently flowing down a stream at a steady pace. It helped him, as he fired the lightning, this time as he fired it, it did not stray from the path and, although it traveled slowly and was very thin, it made it high up before Izuku lowered his arms.
It took a fair bit of effort, but he was pleased and smiled over to Nejire, who was bouncing excitedly. "EEE! Good job Izuku! I think we'll leave it there as I need to go study as well, we can work on a stronger strike tomorrow!" Nejire said, smiling as the two began walking back to the dorms. They were still on school campus, but because of where they were it was about a fifteen minute walk back.
Izuku nodded before bowing deeply. "Thank you for all your help, if there's anything I can do to rep-"
"Oh it's fine, you're one of my best friends Izuku!" Nejire said. Izuku blushed slightly and was still bowing so he didn't quite get Nejire's brief look of ever so slight discontentment, but the two continued making brief conversation before he arrived at his own dorms. He waved to Nejire, who was waving rapidly as she floated away slightly.
Opening the door to the dorms, he found the rest of the class had already started their study session. He apologized for being late, to which they just shrugged, as he ran up to grab his study material.
Bringing down a couple study books, some that he had especially made for group study sessions that didn't have the extreme depth that his own ones did, but would still be more than enough to pass with a decent margin.
He took a seat between Sero and Jiro. They were about the middle of the class, so they didn't need excessive amounts of help but they also didn't have the same drive some that were just not quite at the top had to make that bonus mile. They were both thankful for the additional help that they weren't otherwise getting. The two of them were doing some revision over maths from the year so far, and were having a little trouble with understanding some of the proofs.
Opening his notebook, he did his best to explain it in a simplified fashion, making sure not to accelerate his speech (mostly because the one time he accidentally did Bakugo screamed "STOP MAKING THE FUCKING EXTRAS FEEL DUMBER! THAT'S MY JOB YOU SHITTY NERD!" at him). By the end of the session, the two had completely understood the proofs in question and learnt some new methods to finding other proofs. Izuku was pretty satisfied with this as they all sat down to eat dinner together.
After dinner he helped clean up briefly, before excusing himself to go to his room and begin setting up. Study time. His plan was to do maths tonight, Japanese and English over the weekend (being much more to study), science on Monday, and Modern Hero Art History on Tuesday (yeah Midnight had a unique subject to teach, but no-one really cared, it was an easy subject), and spend the Wednesday and of the written exam period doing further preparation for the physical exam Thursday. Then Friday was only homegroup for the class, to recap the exams after they had all been graded and such.
Regardless, it was 8 and he was planning to study for about 5 hours straight, assuming he remembered to go to sleep later. Regardless, he cleared his desk and set up the two fold away tables he had prepared for studying. Once all set up, he had three tables, forming a rectangle with a side missing. Next, he pulled out the many maths notebooks he had filled up throughout the year, and had each open on the tables, with a few otherwise empty spots filled with graph pads so he could go over all the proofs and problems again, along with any other general rules of mathematics he may come across.
About three hours later, if you were to enter Izuku's room, the first thing you would notice is the constant green lightning flashing off of him, as he studied. The next thing, would be the three desks, and how he was onto the second one, the first one covered in dozens of empty pens and pages covered in a variety of notes, equations and proofs.
That is, if you were to enter his room. No-one came in the first place, he was fairly quiet with his quirk unless he were to fire it, further more his door was locked and the only person who might come in was Bakugo, who wouldn't dare enter after last time he entered during one of Izuku's study sessions (he was constantly shocked accidentally from just looking at the notes and also getting in Izuku's way).
Regardless, he continued without breaks of any sort, until he finished the last of his notes. He didn't bother checking the time as he silently showered, getting changed and putting away all his notes from the day. He had put it all stacked in a specific spot for his finished notes, before pulling out his mattress and preparing it to sleep as he released the last remnants of his quirk, collapsing and ready to pass out in the sweet embrace of sleep.
For apparently only 5 hours, as his alarm went off and he shot up. He began charging his quirk and shot a text to Nejire to confirm they were still doing the training (she said yep and that they would work on more complex shots today) as he changed into some exercise clothes and ran downstairs to grab a light breakfast and greeted Iida and Todoroki as they came down before heading out to meet Nejire.
Together the two of them worked on shaping Izuku's shots, and his day followed much like yesterday afterschool, just more. Much, much more. The quirk training went for several hours instead, same with the group study session, but his personal study session went for close to ten hours. It was very early in the morning by the time he was finished.
The week went on a lot like this, until Tuesday. He had developed his ranged shots to be about twice his own speed, about 50 meters before lightning would begin arcing randomly whilst still following the primary path, and would be effectively establishing a connection for him to keep attacking, effectively like when he sends it through the ground but without resistance. Overall, just better with more options.
He found he was ahead of schedule and prepared to do broad studies with literally all his notes gathered on his desks as he began studying. About half an hour in, he heard someone yell from outside. "Hey Izuku! Whatcha doing?" But didn't really register it as he kept studying. He vaguely heard Bakugo yell something about "Good luck getting to the shitty little nerd" before there was a loud slam, but Izuku wasn't really paying attention as he threw another empty pen away, before a tap on his shoulder broke him out of it. And so he did the appropriate thing. He screamed.
"Woah, chill dude! I just wanted to check on you, you haven't been responding to your phone until like, 2am which is not healthy for a number of reasons. I just figured out why though. Dude, you haven't been taking any breaks have you? And look at this material! You don't cover this stuff at all during U.A! Like, kid, seriously, take a break!" Mirio scolded Izuku. The green haired boy just laughed nervously before Mirio grabbed Izuku and began dragging him out.
"Where are you taking me?" Izuku asked, trying and failing to escape.
"Me? Oh I'm not taking you anywhere, I'm the only here to get you out of here cause your door is locked," Mirio explained, unclicking the door and practically throwing Izuku out, "It's about where she's going to take you."
Izuku suddenly had a pair of arms wrapped around his waist, trapping his own arms at the side. He saw a strand of periwinkle blue hair and was oblivious to Bakugo and Yaoyorozu working to create a special padlock Izuku hopefully couldn't break into without their knowledge. "N-n-n-nej-j-jire?"
"Right! I'm taking you somewhere that doesn't involve work because you need a break!" She proclaimed, as she stood upright whilst still holding his arm, ignoring the scheming going on in the background. She proceeded to drag him straight downstairs, past the rest of the class who were eating dinner, and outside to a different part of the U.A campus. Izuku was reaching new levels of red, even more so when he heard Mina yell "I ship it!" from the dining room.
"Did you even eat dinner?" Nejire asked, with a look on her face that said she knew. Izuku failed to form a coherent word, opting to shake his head instead. She whacked him on said head, hard. "Idiot! Right! I'm not surprised so I've got some food you can eat once we get there!" She scolded, continuing to drag him. Izuku could only nod again, his face still a deep red, probably creating a more significant solid colour change than Mina's quirk.
Once they finally got to the spot, it was a lake with a small clearing and waterfall. "Wow... U.A has funds for everything huh?" Izuku asked, now able to speak again, despite the red tint his face still had, "And was that really necessary?"
Nejire's face flushed in turn, much to Izuku's worry. "Hey are you okay? Your face is really red." He stated, leaning over. Nejire nodded, but her face went redder when Izuku pressed the back of his hand to her forehead. "It seems like you have a slight fever. Where's the food? I'll bring it over and you can re-"
"N-no, it's fine. I-I don't have a fever, it's, uhhh, a side-effect of my quirk! Yeah! Anyway, you're meant to be the one relaxing and maybe catching up on some rest after sleeping for like, 5 hours a night for the past four days!" Nejire diverted the subject, still red as she searched for where she put the basket. Izuku just nodded, the concern never leaving his eyes as he looked around. "Why does U.A even have this?" Izuku asked, to which Nejire just shrugged.
"Well, the others don't know where this is so we won't be bothered... hopefully" She muttered. Izuku raised an eyebrow to that but didn't bother following up on it as she laid out the picnic blanket and the two sat opposite each other. Nejire pulled out two Bento Boxes, handing one to Izuku. "O-oh, t-t-thank you Nejire..." Izuku managed to stammer out, looking at the ground as she giggled a little.
"It's nothing Izuku, you're my... you're special to me, and I think you need this for a break. Like, no-one in the school has ever even studied half the amount of time you have, nor as in depth, so chill a little." Nejire told him, placing a hand on top of his.
Izuku looked up at her and smiled, despite his own blush. "T-thank you."
"Anyway, enough talking, I wanna eat!" Nejire said, beaming at him as she watched him open the box. Izuku nodded and tried some of the chicken. "Itsh really good!" Izuku said, causing Nejire to blush slightly. "T-thank you."
"Are you sure you don't have a fever? You seem to be red a lo-"
"It's nothing! Anyway, how're you going?" Nejire asked, diverting the subject again. The two engaged in light small talk, the setting sun a backdrop for their meal as they sat side by side, watching the calm water. It was silence, sure, but a comfortable silence. Izuku vaguely felt himself nodding off as he breathed out in contentment.
Nejire was blushing a lot, she felt Izuku leaning against her shoulder. She yawned herself, the work the two had done that day had tired herself out as well, and somehow the junior student was still energetic by the end of it. They both were trying to compress attacks as much as possible, to try and make much stronger attacks. She yawned again, leaning against Izuku's head, not failing to notice the fluffiness of his hair. Nejire was asleep moments before the sun dipped below the horizon, equally content as the green-haired boy next to her.
Aizawa was observant, unsurprisingly. Being an underground hero helped a lot with that. Regardless, he was checking the location of some students when he noticed one missing from the map of the dorm. As part of helping to keep track of students, they always had to keep their ID cards with them, with each ID card having a built-in GPS based tracker.
Clicking on the application's option to find the green-haired problem child's tracker, he found it somewhere deep in U.A's campus. 'Well he's safe at least.' Aizawa thought, before taking a second look. There was a second dot there two. The periwinkle-haired problem child. He sighed deeply before thinking for a moment. 'The school has no relationship policy, and personally I don't care as long as it doesn't cause their grades to drop... I don't think Izuku's grade dropping is even a problem, if anything the kid probably could use that to be able to take a break... and if anything Nejire would end up doing better with someone with such a dedicated mind and Izuku could almost definitely use the confidence.' Aizawa thought, sighing again. He knew Izuku had slept less than himself over the past few days and probably had been studying to a stupid degree for an unhealthy amount of time. He'd make sure to wake the kids up around 7 tomorrow. For now, he'd leave the two be.