Chapter Ninety-Two
Waking up bright and squirrely, I felt surprisingly rested, my copied High-Speed Regeneration likely working at a higher RPM (Regens Per Minute) than it had before. It was easy to jump into the showers first, getting ready ahead of the others, and waiting with a smile as the rest of the class stumbled out, not as tired as they'd been last morning, but nowhere near one hundred percent.
"Mornin', Midoriya," I smiled. "How're you this fine day?"
"I'm okaaaaaaaaay," the boy yawned, blinking blearily.
"Dude," Kirishima groaned, "How are you so. . ."
"Energetic?" I grinned, sparking slightly. "I'm a naturally positive individual!"
Midoriya frowned, "Aren't electrons negative?"
Frowning slightly myself, I nodded, "Well, yeah, but, uh, I'm trying to compensate?" Thinking of what'd happened these last few days, versus what was originally supposed to happen, I shrugged. "Plus, maybe, sometimes there's no need to be negative."
"You said it!" Mina cheered, coming over to stand next to me, throwing a hand around my waist, and I returned with one around her shoulders. "So, Mandalay, what're we doin' today?" my girlfriend asked the watching Pussycat. "Team battles, races, ooooh, do you have a second, bigger hot-springs somewhere?"
"Maybe tomorrow, we'll see if that's paw-sible. Today it's back to what you all were doing be-fur, pushing yourself to your limits!" the cat-themed heroine grinned, giving us a thumbs up with those gloves her entire team all wore.
There were some groans of disappointment, in addition to the ones over those terrible puns, but everyone was already starting to see gains with their Quirks from their training, so the complaints were mild. Myself, I was looking forward to trying myself against Tiger, and headed off to breakfast with a spring in my step.
MHA
Cradling my arm, the sharp, hot pain of a fractured bone clear but quickly fading, this wasn't what I'd expected. The only male pussycat had tested me in combat, like he had the others, but, upon having me exercise, he'd shaken his head, telling me that, without extra equipment, this wouldn't be enough to extend my limits. Even dropping my empowering OfA, my regen was such that my muscles weren't really pushed the way that Midoriya's were, and the man had instead shifted gears, where we'd had short, brutal matches where I couldn't use my Quirks, get messed up in the process, and then I'd take five minutes or so to heal from my injuries.
And, because of this, I wasn't just training my High Speed Regeneration Quirk, but also getting one hell of an education through my Martial Talent.
It was hard to put into words, but, while I learned a lot from my training with All Might, the man more skilled than Tiger by a wide margin, that blond behemoth's focus was fighting like All Might. That is to say, the Symbol of Peace was a damn artist when it came to the application of his overwhelming strength, dancing on the edge of the force that'd take down his foe, and the force it'd take to eviscerate them, and never missing a step.
I'd learned a great deal about how to properly apply my still-growing strength from him, but, honestly, most of what I'd picked up past the basics was functionally useless until I could casually drop a building with a punch. I naturally adapted what I learned, or maybe I did so as part of the design of the Talent, but most of what I got from the man was then put away in the 'when you're a demigod' box in my head.
Tiger, meanwhile, was weaker, and, thus, had a lot more I could adapt into my own style. The man was 6'3", towering over my current 5'10", and my natural build was a bit slimmer than his 'brick shithouse' physique, but he was still closer to me than All Might's 7'3" Atlas-esque form.
However, without using OfA, the man was completely dominating me with his strength, and his superior skill just made these fights nowhere close to fair. Interestingly, the man almost never used his Quirk, which made him a Dollar Store Mr. Fantastic, able to extend and shift his body like one of those old Stretch Armstrong toys I'd heard of as a kid, though they were before my time.
Nah, he didn't need his Quirk to kick my ass, the man having trained his body to the point he was kind of ridiculous. He'd refined his 'Atlas' Quirk, which, as working with him didn't seem to elicit the same feeling as training with my Mina after I'd copied her Quirk, probably wasn't actually a Quirk, but merely a way for locals to understand the phenomena. Either way, Tiger's was honed to a razor's edge, and he was now using that same training to repeatedly kick my shit in.
And I was, oddly enough, having a great time!
If it was just beatings, I probably wouldn't, but the more I fought, the more I learned, and it was easy to brush off even serious injuries when I could literally watch bruises disappear in real time. Not quickly enough to make a difference in a fight, nowhere close, but I'd say, given ten minutes, I'd be ready to try again. The Pussycats even had a device that worked like a portable x-ray, only with sound instead of radiation, that scanned me to double check there weren't problems with this kind of healing, something that Recover Girl hadn't done, but that old medic had probably been able to tell what was going on at a glance.
Tiger had explained that there was a concern that, if I kept being injured, even if I healed quickly, I'd amass scar tissue and other problems, like Midoriya had developed on his hands in the original timeline. However, the regeneration I possessed was true regen instead of enhanced healing, which, considering the original user could regrow entire limbs, I'd assumed, but I couldn't exactly tell them that. And the fact that they'd thought to check spoke well of their professionalism, or at least Tiger's professionalism, Pixie-Bob and Ragdoll's. . . notsomuch.
Taking my time, looking around at the others, everyone was hard at work using their Quirks, and, turning my focus inward, I could feel something furiously active, though completely outside of my direct control. If I had to guess, it would be my Psychic Talent taking notes from the uses of powers all around me, to replicate myself when I 'copied' their Quirks, though none of my classmates, or those of 1-B, were anywhere close to masters of their own powers, which slowed down the acquisition rate, the only real metric I'd been able to pin down as it had been right there in the description.
However, consider how quickly I'd gotten Momo's Quirk compared to Mina's, relatively speaking, there had to be something else at play.
Regardless, most of both classes had. . . distinctive Quirk expressions, which meant working them into my own roster of abilities without giving away my status as a power copier would be a bit of a problem. And I needed to keep that sub rosa, because if I thought All-For-One was interested in me now, if he got into his head that I was some distant relative, able to copy powers without taking them from others, then holy shit would things go bad.
Maybe Koda's Anivoice? Talking to animals might be cool, I considered. Sato's Sugar Rush might combo interestingly with OfA's strength boost, and I could no-sell its downsides.
Which had been a pleasant discovery, having fully drained myself at home, past the incidental drain from I-Island and trying to set off the affect, I'd only had real Quirk 'switch off' until it'd recharged up to twenty-five percent capacity, Mind Defense stopping me from 'popping a fuse' and going stupid like I'd thought I might. However, the others' Quirks were too out there that, without 'Support Items' to hide the manifestations, they were a no go. Class 1-B was, for the most part, even worse in that respect, as all of them either had physical components, like Shiozaki's hair, Pony's horns, or Tetsutetsu's metallic transformation, or created clear manifestations, like Awase's bonding things together, Honenuki's softening them into gel, Kodai's embiggening them, and so on.
Still, for Trump cards in case things went bad, I wouldn't say no to, well, any of them, really. Slowly working my arm, it was an odd feeling, the pain receding, and, running OfA through it, it seemed to help, though I wasn't sure if it was enhancing my regeneration, or merely strengthening my body to the point that I could work even with cracked bones, or maybe it was a bit of both. Either way, I let the power fade, just in case.
So, what if I injure myself twice, healing once normally, and then the second time with OfA? I proposed. Only, what if there's been gains in Regen between the two. Hmm, in that case, I need to flip the order, so that, even if there are gains, as long as the benefit from using OfA is greater than the slight increase in effectiveness from using the Quirk, which it should be as the gains should be negligible, there would still be a noticeable difference. Now, for the real problem: how to do this without coming off as a complete psychopath.
Because Mina hadn't been exactly. . . happy with how hurt I'd gotten yesterday, even though it, comparatively, was almost all surface level, as opposed to the beatdown I'd received when I'd tried to throw down with Mini-Might during the Sports Festival. Telling her as such hadn't worked, but apologizing for making her worry, which was something that I was sorry for, instead of a blanket 'sorry for doing it', which I wasn't, had helped.
Leaning back, thinking of how to fight Tiger this time, I tried to figure out a way around his style. The man, well, he was fond of pouncing, which fit in a way that hurt my brain, but kind of made sense? The man would lunge, coming in with explosive power as he used his full body to deliver his rapid palm strikes, but, even if he missed one, he'd smoothly flow into another blow, using his positioning from the first to flex his entire body into the next.
Tiger was damn fast, though was clearly not stepping into the realm of the superhuman. He was somewhat like the martial arts masters I'd read about. 'While you were thinking of moving, I already was,' would describe his style, and it was something that I was trying to integrate into my own, to. . . limited success. I was getting faster, but there was absolutely a mental aspect to it that wasn't quite clicking for me, and Martial Talent wasn't supplying the solution either.
Working my hand, I pressed against it with my other, then put pressure on my arm, finding everything perfectly fine. Waving at the Pro, who was man-handling Midoriya, the boy using his Quirk, though at a low level, Tiger nodded, then, with a series of rapid strikes and fades, baited the boy into a flying kick. Once his opponent was committed to his ballistic path, the large man sidestepped it easily and put the green-haired hero student into a tree, barking at him to try another set of exercises before he'd try again.
I leapt over to Tiger, and took up a balanced stance, watching him carefully. "I'm good to go again," I stated, wondering if that's what he was waiting for.
The martial expert chuckled, eyes behind his mask almost burning with a malevolent light. "I must say the flaming spirit of a Pro is certainly burning within your breast! Come at me, Kaminari, and see if you last longer this time, as we tear apart your weakness and replace it with strength!"
Grinning, I took two steps, and lunged as he did, countering his hit by striking away his palm, turning, still moving in time with the other man, to counter his instant follow-up, unable to stop him completely, but diverting his strike enough to get closer, inside his guard, sinking a fist into his gut, which was as hard as rock, but getting a single exhale of surprise from the large man was still a victory.
The rising knee he sent rocketing upwards I dodged, but, as his muscular thigh flexed under his skirt, he extended his shin up and to the side as he twisted, catching me in the ribs, enough to stress my bones, but I turned and brought a hand up, pushing the force up before they could break, unbalancing the Pro and sending him backwards. The man flipped, showing me that, yes, he was wearing exercise shorts instead of going Scottish, Thank God, and I shifted back to ready as he completed the flip, coming down into a crouch, and lunged explosively towards me once again, this time with the extreme force of his full-body extension.
Knowing taking that blow head on was fucking stupid, I leapt to the side, and, while Tiger was able to get a foot down to dart after me, he had to work against his own momentum to do so, lessening the force of his charge considerably, while I didn't stop, moving to the side even further, causing the Pro to have to fully shift, now moving almost perpendicular to his original vector.
His right hand, coming up in a very telegraphed blow, wasn't a feint, as a dislocated shoulder had informed me an hour ago. Instead, the blow was absolutely serious, but the man was also ready for a number of responses to it, ready to counter those counters in a way that All Might, with his straightforward, nearly titanic blows, rarely did, or at least rarely needed to when fighting me, strength such that no one could match his own. Well, there were those that could, like the Metal villain, but those kinds of Villains didn't do tight fights like this, too busy re-arranging the landscape with every attack.
No, if I needed to make this work, I had to move without over-committing, unless, no, I needed to commit in such a way that, no matter the result, I had a plan of where to go from there.
One problem.
I had no idea how to do that.
Fuck it.
Deflecting the blow limited me to a handful of possible reactions, because physics, which Tiger would try and capitalize on, so, how did he think I'd do so, and how did I think he would react to that?
Going with my gut, out of time to come up with an optimal move, I came up short, trying something that'd work but be unexpected, tumbling backwards in the same kind of flip Tiger had just used, lashing out and up with a kick that stopped the downwards force of the man's blow, but not the forward momentum, but then, with my foot on his paw, I pushed off while taking the force, sending myself flying backwards and landing in a crouch while bleeding away my opponent's momentum.
Tiger hadn't stopped, still charging, so I tweaked the full-body lunge he'd used on me, going low instead, like I was aiming for his feet. Mimicking the larger man, I knew, intellectually, that turning this into a mirror match was a fucking terrible idea, so I didn't lash out with a telegraphed blow, instead tucking myself down to, like Mina had done to me a number of times, turn this into a springing handstand, my borderline supernatural strength letting me rise up, feet first, even as Tiger moved to counter a blow to his legs that'd never come.
He tried to react, but he was just enough out of position that I caught him straight on with my rising heel, slamming into his chin with the audible click of teeth slamming against each other, lifting the large Pro off his feet, but he wasn't still either, twisting his entire body into a kick, which I could only barely get an arm up to deflect, sending me flying towards a tree as the man used the opposite reaction of his blow to twist about and land easily.
Heading for a maple, I twisted myself around to land on it, feet first, bleeding off my momentum before leaping back at the other fighter, who lunged once more, this time even faster, and while I could counter his blows, I didn't expect the man's paw to close on my arm and Hulk-smash me into the fucking dirt. The sudden pain of my right arm breaking making me gasp in shock, my left hand going to my neck, and, when I surged up ready to return the fucking favor, he merely head up a paw, and I paused, thoughts racing, confused.
"Good attempt," he stated, without condemnation. "You're learning, young tomcat, but we are also here to train your regeneration. Heal up, and we will continue."
I lifted an eyebrow, holding my right arm close to my chest, "I can keep going."
Tiger smirked, "You can, but you are not my only student."
Glancing at the others, I nodded, as he was bouncing between us fairly regularly. "Fair enough. See you in five?"
"Five," he rumbled, turning and striding up to Kaibara, speaking in a carrying not-yell, "Young man, I said to continue until you could fit your entire arm into the ground! Does that look like your entire arm? Dig the weakness out of yourself, until you reach the bedrock of your Quirk!"
Shaking my head, I leaned against the tree, and started working my injured limb, the shooting pain slowly starting to recede, as I tried to figure out how the hell I was going to deal with Tiger mid-air. There was clearly a way to do it, but. . . how?
Tapping the back of my head onto the bark behind me, I considered the force calculations that'd go into it, as, however briefly, aerial combat without flight powers kind of worked like Zero-G movement, which I knew the basics of, but Power Loader had insisted we not go to space until our second year, much to Mei's disappointment.
MHA
Everyone was thankful when we reached the end of the day's training, much moaning and groaning to be found, though, thankfully, the Pussycats didn't make us cook our own dinners this time, only help out a little to finish and plate everything, Pixie-Bob having done the lion's share of the cooking seemingly on her own, though, from the slightly disturbed dirt nearby, it would be closer to say the woman's Quirk had done it all. Either way, there wasn't any soil in the food, so I wasn't going to complain, and the blonde, looking at her brunette teammate, visibly relaxed when Mandalay nodded her way.
Regardless, we tucked into the kabobs with an unholy hunger. Well, the skewers before us were are all of one thing each, be it steak, peppers, and so on, but, bouncing between them, the taste was the same. Afterwards, we were roped into cleanup, but that was just fair, and after that we were all just content, the weariness of a long day's work mixing with the comfort of a belly full of good food, along with the presence of good company, all three elements turning into its own unique sensation.
Moving on, the classes sat around a fire, though it was an artificial one, in that it was the projected image of a fire, combined with a heater. I was a little confused, and sat down next to Momo, Mina taking the spot on the girl's other side, only to find out that today's activity was, according to Ragdoll, "SpoOoOoOoOky StoOoOoOoOries!"
Sitting back, I listened, a bit amused at the tale of a serial killer that stalked a camp just like this one, talking about how the Villain went after the students, one by one, most of my classmates getting really into it in a way that just made me shake my head. Maybe it was my real age, or the fact that I had the feeling I'd seen far worse, though I couldn't remember it, but the tale of horror just didn't carry any real weight for me.
Either way, it was amusing watching the others react to it, Momo yelping when one student locked themselves in the boat shed, only to turn around, and find the killer right behind them! The rich girl was very into it, and, glancing at my girlfriend, who glanced at me, then the dark-haired girl, then nodded, grinning. I rolled my eyes and put my arm around the Creationist's shoulders, which she was surprised by, but seemed to find comfort in, leaning into me as the story continued.
When the story was over, though, I had to laugh, when the image of the fire disappeared, replaced with a holographic screen, and we then workshopped exactly where all the dumbass teens went wrong, what they should've done instead, and formed an actual battle plan given the limited intel we got. Pinning it down, working through the scenario, we discovered the Villain had a rare teleportation Quirk, but it only worked when no one was looking at him, which made me snort, as it was the Pussycats playing around with classic horror tropes.
Despite this, when they moved onto the next one, both classes couldn't help get engrossed, this one about a transfer-student, a girl who had some kind of succubus-style Quirk, playing around with people and leaving a trail of comatose teens in her wake. Glancing over at the girl leaning up against me, I couldn't help but think, If this Villain was half as sexy as Momo, I could see how she pulled it off.
The girl I was holding stiffened, and, blushing a bright red, slowly turned to look at me, which was confusing until I realized that I'd accidentally transmitted it with Telepathy. Making sure to use my inside-thoughts before I internally went Oh, fuck, I decided that I was already screwed, so instead I just winked at the girl, who, if anything, blushed brighter, before silently turning away to stare as Mandalay continued to tell her story.
A little unsure if I'd made things weird, I started to lift my arm off her, only for the girl to grab my hand and put it back down on her shoulder, whispering a very embarrassed, "Not a word, Denki," while Mina tried not to laugh.
Smiling myself, the story wrapped up and Kirishima raised a hand, asking, "Are there actually people out there like that?"
It was Rin, the guy who could armor himself up in draconic scales, who answered. "There are. My Aunt was on that case. They didn't catch her until the girl was on her third school."
"How did they miss something like that?" Sero questioned scornfully.
"Okay, show of hands, who's heard about this case?" Mandalay requested, noting that Mineta, Setsuna, and Bondo also lifted their hands. "Okay, you four stay quiet for this one. Now, step one. Was there anything the first victim should've done differently? Yes Shiozaki?"
"He should have abstained from the carnal delights of the flesh until he was secured in the protective bonds of holy matrimony!" the vine-haired girl stated, looking upwards, hands clasped together as if in prayer.
Mina scoffed, "Pfft, where's the fun in that?"
"I meant should he have done anything differently that your average teenager would," Mandalay corrected, Ibara considering that, and shrugging at the point.
Hashing it out, the correct answer was to tell someone else where you were going, and with who, when going anywhere with someone you didn't know well, even if they asked you not to, especially if they asked you not to, and how, if that'd happened, the case could've been solved a lot easier. Sorting through Denki's memories, none of this had been covered in the surprisingly bare-bones sex ed he'd received, as the mixing of Quirks and any kind of romantic activities was societally not talked about, so all of the dangers of such were also completely ignored, other than a blanket 'don't, which all the teens, ironically, then ignored.
Going forward with a simulated 'investigation', it came out that the girl had subtle Master powers, normalizing what she was doing, up to a point, which is how she'd slipped away the first two times, the larger, better coordinated investigation of the third school's draining catching her as her Quirk only worked on the people that could see her, so people working through reports, or who only had radio communications, were unaffected.
Moving onto the next case, this one about a 'wild monster' that had been picking off hikers in the forest, just like this one, the others were still getting a little scared, but had shifted gears and were now looking at the situation with a more professional lens, dissecting the details to try and figure out the way things worked.
On my end, as I was relaxing, but not enough that my hold over Telepathy loosened, I felt the same sensation as I had last night, as something clicked in my head. Freezing, I looked around as subtly as I could, but I didn't seem to be manifesting anything, instead having the faintest sense of. . . flow?
It was coming from in front of me, moving past me, bits hitting my chest and bouncing off, with a weaker stream coming in from behind and above us, the only part without any movement being where I was sitting on the log, the inside of my closed hand, and where my arm was pressed against Momo's shoulders. Opening my hand, I could then feel the flow over it, seemingly coming from the fire. Some kind of heat control? I wondered.
At first I thought Todoroki, but his power wasn't heat/cold control, it was heat/cold generation. Glancing around, I went through each of the students in turn, but, despite it being a pretty common Quirk, no one else had anything to do with fire, at least directly. Similarly, while I vaguely remembered there being a wind controlling student from one of the other schools, that didn't help me right now.
With everyone's attention focused on Tiger, whose growls mimicking those of the beast caused Momo to shiver in fright, leaning into me, I decided to, just a little, exert my will on the flow going over my hand, keeping my face turned towards the Pro but my eyes on my limb.
And it warped.
Reflexively letting the new power go, my hand snapped back, the changes not that large, only a slight shifting of my finger, making it appear momentarily crooked, but I hadn't felt any different. Doing my best not to frown, I, instead of redirecting the flow, tried to stop some of it entirely, watching as, for the single second that I exerted my will, one finger darkened, as if it were cast in shadow, before I let the flow continue, the 'firelight' once more playing across my hand, as it had before.
Staring, I realized I knew whose power I'd copied.
Toru Hagakure's.
On one hand, the entire 'skill' issue meant that, given how she was only now realizing she could do more than 'be invisible' with it, she was likely the least adroit with her Quirk of anyone in both classes, but on the other the girl was constantly using it. Every day of school, every hour of class, the girl was using her Quirk, and, maybe because she was now doing more with it, or maybe because it'd finally hit the point my Talent had kicked in, I now had the clearly mis-named Invisibility Quirk for myself.
Which, if it followed the pattern of the others I'd gathered, meant that, right now, it was fucking useless.
But, unlike Mina's, and even more than Momo's, this was one I was going to practice the shit out of when I had some time on my own, as invisibility was fucking awesome.
And, from working with Mei, there were ways to make invisibility fields, they were just often power hogs, but, since my main Quirk was, from a certain point of view, literally power generation, I could pretend to be using one of those instead.
I refocused on the story, which was apparently about a werewolf, with some looks sent Shishida's way, the beast man not reacting to the attention, as it continued. The obvious question for the class was if this 'Villain' was a man with a beast Quirk, or a beast with a Quirk of its own, like Principal Nezu, though the answer remained unclear, and I smiled, looking forward to what tomorrow would bring.
AN: Next Four Chapters are up on and Subscribestar, as usual!