"Setsuna Tokage and Sen Kaibara, battle trial commence!" The voice of the announcer rang through the building.
Once they were given the word, the two students stealthily advanced through the building while making sure to avoid any open areas. Even though they were stuck inside of a large, circular building, there were still enough corners to work with. Deciding to play it safe, Tokage immediately detached one of her eyes and used it to discreetly scout a few meters ahead of them. Over the last few weeks she had been able to work on her stamina to a point where detaching only one small part of her body could barely be considered an issue anymore. But considering who their opponent was, it was best to conserve as much energy as possible.
"What do you see?" Kaibara quietly whispered to his partner.
Tokage used her free floating eye to round another and take a look down at the lobby that lead onto the next hallway. There, she spotted two of Ectoplasm's clones wandering around the area.
"There are two down on the ground patrolling the lobby. But they're pretty spread out. We should be able to slip past them...if we're quick enough."
"Okay." The boy nodded.
Tokage aimed her vision back down to the ground once again to figure out how she was going to time this maneuver. Once she felt confident about it, the girl quietly split her body up into five parts and grabbed onto Kaibara. The two teens then descended down to the main floor and silently slipped by the two clones without being seen.
Once they were in the hallway, the two resumed their earlier formation. While Tokage was acting as their eyes and ears, Kaibara was tasked with watching their backs. When it came to their exam in particular, they knew exactly why Ectoplasm was chosen as their opponent. For Kaibara, the boy's greatest strength was also his biggest weakness. And that was one-on-one combat. As for Tokage, her stamina was her biggest issue. The more opponents she had to fight, the longer it would take. Which would mean she would need to expend more energy as time went on.
Another minute or two passed before the duo came across the next lobby on the other side of the hall. The second she poked her eye around the corner, Tokage immediately yanked it back and pulled her partner close to the nearby wall.
"What is it?" The 'gyrate' quirk user asked.
"Twenty of them." The girl explained. As far as she knew, Ectoplasm could create up to thirty clones of himself. And each of them shared a mind link with each other. Which meant that whatever one saw, the rest did as well. They passed two of them along the way. Which meant that eight were either unaccounted for or not being used yet.
"The exit gate is on the other side of the lobby, right? So that means that his real body must be in here somewhere."
Already one step ahead of the boy, Tokage was surveying the area with her eye. In the area closest to the gate, one of the Ectoplasms was remaining relatively still and simply watching the others. In her mind, it was a pretty safe bet that he was the original.
'He's barely inside the range of my quirk. We're probably only going to have one shot at this, so we'll need to be quick.' The girl thought to herself before looking towards her partner. "You remember the plan, right?"
"Yeah." He nodded. "Just make sure that you watch my back."
With one final breath, the two set their strategy into motion. In a manner very unbefitting of his usually stoic and calm demeanor, Kaibara ran directly out into the open with Tokage right behind him and immediately began taunting Ectoplasm. The pro hero was visibly thrown off by this for a few seconds before sending his clones to attack. Which was exactly what Tokage wanted.
Without hesitation, Kaibara activated his quirk in both arms and both legs and began going to town on the clones. Fortunately for the black haired boy, although there were a lot of them, they weren't very sturdy. He did feel bad about essentially ripping his teacher to shreds multiple times. But considering his current grade in math class, he pushed those feelings to the side. While that was going on, Tokage had split her body up into seventeen pieces and provided backup through the air.
With her head floating high above the fight, the girl was able to give her partner enough time to keep himself from getting overwhelmed. While at the same time, she was able to confirm her earlier suspicions. The Ectoplasm that was closest to the exit gate hadn't moved. Which told her that he must've been the real one.
Unbeknownst to the pro hero, Tokage was slowly moving one of her hands towards the exit. According to the rules of the exam, they just had to make it through the gate. They never specified exactly how much of them had to get past. Just as the girl's hand was about seven meters away from her goal, Ectoplasm activated his quirk once again and produced another clone from his mouth. Said clone then immediately swung his leg across its body and pulverized the girl's hand in one blow.
'Fuck!' The girl thought as she groaned in pain. It was just her luck that the part of her opponent's prosthetic limb that hit her body was the compressed weight that he was wearing. The impact was enough to literally crush the girl's hand under the weight and it she realized that she just lost the ability to use that part of her limb for the rest of the day.
"A valiant attempt, Tokage. But these eyes see everything. Escaping will not be that easy." The 'clone' quirk user looked up to the girl.
Normally when someone's plan gets thwarted, they start panicking or complaining. But for some reason, a slightly manic grin formed on the green haired girl's face and she started laughing like a madwoman. "Sensei...who the heck said that we were trying to escape? We were just trying to confirm which of you was the real one."
"What?"
"Kaibara, now!"
"Got it!" The boy responded.
All of sudden, the pieces of Tokage's body that were still hovering next to the boy began violently rotating in the air and spreading out further and further with each passing second. This provided her partner with enough space to abandon his fight with the clones and make a beeline straight for his teacher. In response to this, Ectoplasm created another clone just in time to take a swing at the boy. However, Kaibara had enough wherewithal to powerslide across the ground and dodge a prosthetic limb to the face. In one fluid motion, the 'gyrate' quirk user got back up to his feet and tackled the teacher to the ground.
"Tokage, I got him!" Kaibara shouted as he attempted to put the teacher in a submission hold.
With the green light, the 'lizard tail splitter' user sent her other hand flying forward and grabbed onto the teacher's leg. Tokage remembered Kayama mentioning that Ectoplasm's prosthetics were screw-ons earlier in the school year. Which meant that they were easy to take off.
As the rest of the clones converged on their position, the two students somehow managed to relive their math teacher of both of his artificial limbs in a matter of seconds. Never one to miss an opportunity, the girl quickly grabbed both of them and sent her hand a good thirty meters into the sky above.
"You won't be getting these back, sensei!" The girl taunted with a confident smirk.
The masked man didn't even get a chance to respond before Tokage once again used her "Scale Storm" move to surround both her partner and her teacher. With the rest of the clones now out of the picture, Kaibara then activated his own quirk to twist the pro hero into an even more uncomfortable position. Once the boy had their opponent where he wanted him, he unhooked the cuffs on his belt and latched them onto the man's exposed wrist.
"Ectoplasm has been captured. Team Tokage and Kaibara have passed the exam!" The voice of the announcer boomed through the training building.
"I can't believe we actually just did that." Kaibara said in a slightly shameful tone. "That felt so wrong…."
"What are you talking about, dude? I think it went rather brilliantly if you ask me!" Tokage smirked while putting her body back together. Unfortunately for her, her right hand was no longer good so she would have to do without that for the rest of the day.
"That was a pretty bold gamble. Using misdirection, you made me assume that you were going for the exit gate when I was your target the entire time. And taking out my legs from under me was a good idea." The mask hero said to the two students.
"We know that you mainly fight using your legs, so it was the best option for us to go with." The girl explained.
"That doesn't make it any less ridiculous." The boy rebutted.
All Tokage did was laugh at Kaibara's obvious distaste for their plan. He was pretty against it when she first proposed the idea to him. But after a few minutes of pleading her case, she somehow got him to agree to it.
"C'mon dude, all's fair in love and war. Besides, we were going up against a pro who can literally clone himself. We had to take any advantage that we could get." She patted him on the shoulder while still laughing about the entire situation.
"I feel so...dirty."
"In any case, congratulations. You two pass with flying colors." Ectoplasm interjected.
"Alright!" Tokage cheered. "Let's hurry back to the monitoring area so we can catch the rest of the matches." She continued before walking in the direction of the gate.
"Uh, Tokage...can I get those back please?" The pro hero pointed to his prosthetic limbs that the girl was still holding her left hand.
"Oh whoops, sorry sensei." She immediately apologized.
The first thing that Midoriya noticed when the waking world demanded his attention was the slight aching sensation all over his body. His head was still throbbing and he had the vague feeling that someone ran over him with a car. The green haired teen let out a soft groan as he made an attempt to push himself up. Only to immediately fall back down onto the admittedly comfortable surface that he was apparently laying on top of.
"Woah, easy there hot-stuff." A familiar voice said to him in a teasing fashion.
Midoriya finally opened his eyes, turned his head to the right and was met with the image of Tokage and Yanagi sitting in a couple of chairs at his bedside. Both students were still in their hero costumes and had some relieved expressions on their faces.
"Ugh...what happened?" He asked while rubbing the side of his face.
"You passed out after our match." Yanagi flatly stated.
"Really?"
"Yeah." Tokage answered. "Apparently you overdid it with your quirk and conked out right after you guys won."
"Oh...sorry." He apologized, more out of habit than anything else.
"It's fine."
"Are you guys okay?"
"You're the one laying in the infirmary and you're asking us if we're okay? Man, you really are too nice for your own good." The green haired girl teased. "But since you asked, we're good."
"How'd your match go?"
"We won, of course!" The girl beamed while flashing him a thumbs up with her left hand. The small gesture was enough for the boy to notice that Tokage was missing most of her other one. Evidently her test must've been pretty rough if she ended up losing part of her limb.
"Tokage-chan thought it was a good idea to take Ectoplasm-sensei's legs so that he couldn't fight anymore." Yanagi immediately interjected.
"What?!" Midoriya almost yelled in response to hearing that. But knowing how Tokage likes to operate, something like that was definitely expected from her.
"I'll tell you about it later. Anyways, how are you feeling?"
"Tired, and my head still kind of hurts."
"Makes sense. If your quirk is anything like mine, overusing it results in headaches. The same thing happens to me if I go overboard." The 'poltergeist' user said.
"Good to know." He laughed.
Midoriya then took a second to look around the room. From what he could gather, he was in the infirmary back on the main campus. It was only his second time being there. But considering the abundance of medical supplies laying around, it was a safe assumption. On the other side of the room, there were three other students laying on the adjacent beds. Todoroki, Kirishima and Bakugou were all silently sleeping. And all three of them looked to be in worse shape that he currently felt.
"What happened to them?" The boy asked.
"It turns out that three of them had to go up against All Might for their exam." Tokage explained. "From what Yaoyorozu told us, it wasn't pretty."
"Seriously?" He stole another glance over to the three 1-A boys. Having to go up against All Might must've been terrifying. He was the number one hero after all. Even if there were three of them, he doubted that they even stood a chance.
"I'll go get Recovery Girl and let her know that you're awake. She wanted to be notified as soon as you woke up." Yanagi said before standing up and making her way towards the door.
"Thanks." He gave her a quick smile.
"No problem."
As Tokage watched the small interaction, something about that piqued her interest. Over the last few weeks the two of them had been talking a lot more frequently than at the start of the year. Granted, neither one of them were particularly anti-social, relatively speaking. But she was curious as to when the two of them got so friendly with each other. On a regular day, Yanagi barely said more than three hundred words to their other classmates. But whenever those two were around each other, they seemed to have full conversations. Deciding to push that thought aside for the time being, the green haired girl turned her attention back to her friend.
"Your fight was pretty awesome to watch. I never knew that you could move a bus with your quirk."
"Normally I can't." He replied. "I don't know why, but for some reason I was able to do it pretty easily."
"It probably has something to do with the whole floating hair and glowing eyes thing we saw."
"Oh yeah...Yanagi-san did mention something about that before I blacked out." He said, wondering what that was all about. So far as he could remember, nothing like that had ever happened to him before.
All Tokage did was shrugg at that. "It was still pretty cool though. If you ask me, you looked kinda hot." She teased, causing the boy to blush a bit. Only furthering his headache.
"T-thanks."
"Ugh!" An annoyed groan came from the other side of the room. Both teens turned their attention to the far side of the room where a certain ashen blonde teen was sitting up from his bed. "Take your shitty flirting somewhere else. Some of us are trying to sleep you damn losers."
"Kinda weird of you to call us losers when you're the one who got totally washed in his exam." Tokage immediately shot back, more out of a reaction than anything else.
"What the hell did you say to me?" Bakugou growled back.
"Hey...don't be mad at the truth."
Bakugou and Tokage stared each other down for a few seconds before Midoriya placed his hand on her shoulder. The girl looked at him and recognized the expression on his face as one that said: "Just let it go". All she did was give him a quick nod and quickly chose to ignore the boy.
"Did you win your fight, Deku?" Bakugou then asked Midoriya in an aggressive tone.
"What's it matter to you?" Midoriya dryly responded, earning a weird look from the 'explosion' quirk user. Instead of saying anything, all Bakugou did was let out a huffing sound and angrily stomped towards the entrance. Just as he opened the door to make his exit; Recovery Girl, Yangi and Katsuragi were standing right in front of him.
"Bakugou, what are you doing out of bed?" The healing heroine inquired in an annoyed tone.
"Bathroom." Bakugou stated before pushing past the three of them and heading down the hall. Leaving everyone with a variety of different expressions plastered on their faces. Deciding to worry about it later, the three women entered the room and went right over to Midoriya's bed.
"How are you feeling deary?" The elderly woman asked the boy.
"A slight headache, but I'm fine."
"Good to hear. Now that you're awake, I can give you one last look and you should be good to go. But you'll probably have to deal with that headache for the rest of the day. You went way overboard during your match and really messed yourself up. I highly recommend against doing something so reckless in the future."
"Yes ma'am." The boy nodded.
A few minutes passed as Recovery Girl gave Midoriya one final dose of her quirk before he was good to go. Naturally, even the minor portion of her power that she used left the boy a bit more sluggish than he was before. But the fact that his headache was already starting to subside was worth it.
"So what happened anyway. Things are still a bit...fuzzy." Midoriya looked to the group.
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about." Katsuragi interjected.
"Huh?" The boy turned his gaze over to the woman who was wearing a rather serious expression on her face.
"What you did out there during our fight...to put it in simple terms, was you breaking the natural limit that your body has on your quirk."
"What does that mean?" Tokage asked.
"I don't know if it could be considered the same thing. But me and my sister are able to use a similar technique. We called it "Overdrive"." The woman explained.
"Overdrive?" Midoriya repeated in a curious tone.
"Yes." Katsuragi nodded. "It's what happens when you push your quirk to its maximum output. However, this is the first time I've seen anyone else use it besides the two of us."
"Katsuragi seems to have a lot of knowledge about this kind of thing, so I'm going to let her be the one to explain it to you." Recovery Girl interjected.
"When it comes to telekinetic quirks, most of them work in a very particular way. Unlike most emitter type quirks, they use two separate areas of the brain to operate. The parietal lobe and the cerebellum. Both of those areas require a significant amount of blood flow to function. When using quirks like ours, you slightly alter the amount that those parts of your brain take in." The green haired heroine explained.
"That makes sense." Yanagi nodded. Obviously she didn't have anywhere the level of knowledge that Katsuragi had on the subject. But she remembered her dad saying something similar about her quirk.
"However...when you overuse your quirk, your body tries to compensate for the increase in power by pulling blood from everywhere else. Typically, most of it goes to your head and can result in your blood vessels popping by the sudden increase in volume. That's why when you overdo it, you experience nosebleeds and headaches. And that's also why you're probably experiencing body aches and muscle soreness."
"I see." Midoriya said.
"Listen Midoriya-kun, I highly recommend that you refrain from doing that unless you are in an absolutely dire emergency. Sure, you'll get a significant increase in your power, but the backlash is too dangerous. The three times that I've done it, I was left bedridden for a few days. And the two times that I've seen my sister have to do it, she was out of commission for an entire week. If it wasn't for Recovery Girl here, you would be in much worse shape than what you are now."
"I understand." The boy was thankful that the woman was telling him this now. Otherwise he would have had to learn this on his own, which did not sound pleasant.
'Why he can even use that ability is still a mystery though. I get that our powers are similar, but I've never heard of anyone else with a telekinetic quirk that can do it. And why was the effect on his body so similar to mine and onee-chan's? I'm starting to think that Ozehana-chan's joke about us being related might have some merit.' Katsuragi thought to herself, remembering the sight of the boy's glowing green eyes.
"It's hard to imagine Tornado having to do something like that. From what I've seen, she was already super powerful. Her having a power up like that would make her unbeatable." Tokage chimed in.
"The only time she ever used on the job was during the Kurobe Dam incident a few years back. Doing that put her in the hospital for a week."
Everyone in the room thought back to the event in question. It was roughly seven years ago when the largest dam in all of Japan had a hole blasted through it by some villains. Tornado, who was roughly twenty-one years old at the time, single handedly held almost the entire dam in place for a good three hours before workers managed to get it fixed. Averting what was sure to be a massive disaster if all that water got into the surrounding area. Subsequently, this was the same event that sent her hero career skyrocketing.
"So that's how she was able to do it, huh?" Yangai said to no one in particular. The grey haired girl remembered watching that event live on television when it happened with her mom. 'Tornado looked really cool back then.'
"In any case, I just wanted to let you know the dangers of doing something like that. Activating it in and of itself is no small feat. But the longer you maintain it, the harder the crash will be."
"Thank you for telling me, Fubuki-san."
"You're welcome." Katsurgai replied with a warm smile. "Now that we got the serious part out of the way. Congratulations on passing. I'll admit that you caught me off guard out there, but don't let that take away from how well you two did."
"Thank you." Midoriya and Yangi said simultaneously.
"Unfortunately, I need to hurry and get going. So I don't have as much time to talk as I would like."
"It's no problem."
"I expect you to keep up this level of improvement by the time your next internship opportunity rolls around. Don't forget that I still have first dibs on you, Midoriya-kun."
"Of course." The boy awkwardly chuckled.
"And Yanagi-san." Katsurgai then turned her gaze over the grey haired girl. "I was actually very impressed by you as well. Your level of control over your quirk is quite astounding. It took me a while to get my "air surfing" technique down and you seem to have a pretty good mastery over it in such a short time."
"Thank you."
"If you ever want to come and intern at my agency, my door is open. I'm always on the lookout for people with telekinetic quirks and I can tell that you have a lot of untapped potential. I'd be glad to have someone like you working alongside me in the future."
A single blue eye widened at those words and for a moment it looked like the grey haired girl was speechless. This may have been the first time Tokage ever saw the girl show this level of emotion before. She was definitely going to put that in the "save" file for later.
"I'll...keep that in mind, Blizzard-san."
"Please, call me Fubuki." Katsuragi smiled. "Well anyways, congratulations to you all of you once again and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day."
"Thank you." The three students bowed at the woman as she made her exit.
"You're good to go too young man. You all have the rest of the day off, so you can go ahead and get home. I want you to take it easy for the next few days. Which also means that I want you to refrain from using your quirk for the next two days at minimum. Like Katsuragi said, the backlash from your quirk puts a massive strain on your body." Recovery Girl added on.
"Yes ma'am."
It didn't take long before the trio of students made their way out of the infirmary and over to the locker rooms to get changed out of their hero costumes. After they were done with that and dropped their suitcases off back in the classroom, Yanagi split from the green haired duo to go take care of something. Leaving Midoriya and Tokage to make the journey out of school by themselves.
Now that they were finally alone, Tokage wanted to make up for lost time and didn't hesitate to link arms with the 'telekinesis' quirk user. For some reason, the act didn't leave him a blushing mess like it usually did. Which let the girl know that she was going to need to come up with some new material to get a reaction out of him.
As the two turned onto the next hall to make their way out of the building, they were met with the sight of three body's approaching them on the opposite end of the hall. And one of them was very familiar.
"Hey, kohai!" The bubbly voice of Nejire Hadou echoed through the hallway. The blue haired girl wasting no time leaving her two friends and literally zooming through the air towards them.
'Oh no…' Midoriya silently gulped. This was his first time seeing the girl in almost a week and he had a pretty good idea of what was about to happen.
'How the fuck can her boobs be that big?!' Tokage thought at the sight of the girl and her hero costume. To say that Hadou's outfit was eye catching would be an understatement. It was a royal blue, skin-tight bodysuit with a high collar and pale mint green markings covering her torso from over her shoulders to between her legs.
Tokage wasn't necessarily one to get jealous of another girl's body. But when faced with a literal bombshell like Hadou, it was hard not to. The girl herself wasn't exactly lacking in the physical department. She had a more slim and athletic figure as opposed to a curvy one like other girls. But standing in front of the blunnette made her feel like a walking stick figure.
"H-hello Hadou-senpai." Midoriya nervously greeted the girl.
"Why haven't you called me yet?!"
…
…
…
"What?" Both greenettes said simultaneously.
"I left my number in that notebook of yours so that we can talk about quirks and stuff! Didn't you see it?"
"You did?" A very confused Midoriya tilted his head.
"Yeah, I left it on the back of the page."
"Is that so?" Tokage deviously grinned at the boy. Apparently she wouldn't have to long for some new teasing material to pop up.
Deciding to verify whether or not this information was true, the green haired boy fished into his backpack and pulled out his hero notebook. He quickly turned to the back of the page and sure enough, there was a phone number written down on the top right hand corner. 'I didn't even notice that!'
"Damn Izuku, look at you~." Tokage teased.
"I-I um…"
"Oh hey, your girlfriend's here too!" The blunette then looked to Tokage before noticing that she was missing her hand. "Whoa! Your hand, it's gone! What happened? Are you okay?!"
"I'm fine." The girl waved off with her nub. "I lost it during our exam. It should be back in a few hours."
"That's...so...COOL! So you can regrow lost limbs? How does that work? How long do they usually take to grow back? Does that work for every part of your body?" Hadou started firing off questions with stars in her eyes.
"It's a part of my quirk. I have a minor regeneration ability but it's pretty slow." The girl answered.
"That's crazy! How are you so calm about this? I'd be freaking out if I had to walk around without a hand."
"It's happened before, so I'm kinda used to it." Tokage smirked before once again linking arms with Midoriya and nestling up a bit closer to him than usual. "Plus, I don't need to worry since I got a pretty capable pair of hands right here."
The subtle innuendo was not lost on Midoriya at all and was enough for a decent amount of blush to form on the boy's freckled cheeks.
"Oh my god, you guys are so cute together! And you're both green so it's like you match."
"Hadou, stop harassing the two of them." The boy with dark hair and pointed ears dressed in a white cloak quietly said from behind her. The group then turned their attention over to the two newcomers. In addition to the aforementioned student, the other was a taller and considerably more muscular boy with blonde hair and blue eyes.
'Jesus Christ, this guy's ripped!' Tokage thought at the sight of the boy. She had never met him before, but something about him seemed vaguely familiar. And the guy's body was practically radiating an aura of power.
"Aww, but Tamaki-kun this is the guy that I was telling you about. The cute boy with the telekinesis quirk." Hadou groaned.
"I like her, she has good taste." Tokage elbowed Midoriya jokingly.
"Ah, so you're the first year that Hadou keeps going on about?" The blonde teen chimed in and extended his hand out towards the two first year students. "I'm Mirio Togata, and this is Tamaki Amajiki. Hadou's a friend of ours."
"Nice to meet you! I'm Setsuna Tokage and this fluffball here is Izuku Midoriya." The girl decided to have a bit of fun with this and placed her left hand over his right. Leading to a very awkward handshake.
"Whoops! Sorry about that." The boy now identified as Togata laughed at his little screw up.
"Don't sweat it."
"Y'know, I've heard quite a bit about you...Midoriya-kun." The blonde haired teen gave the boy a rather peculiar look.
"Me?" Midoriya pointed to himself.
"Yeah...Hadou here says that you two sometimes eat lunch together on the school roof. And that you're pretty strong."
It took a second, but the boy's words finally clicked in Tokage's mind. "Wait...that's where you run off to during lunch? The roof?"
"Y-yeah…" Midoriya admitted begrudgingly. Not even a full minute into this conversation and his secret of his lunchtime hideout spot had been blown.
"Wait, you didn't know?" Hadou popped out from behind Togata. "Y'know kohai, it's not good to keep secrets like that from your girlfriend."
"She does have a point." Tokage's grin only widened as she milked this new information.
'Great, they're ganging up on me…' The boy internally groaned.
"Guys, we need to get going." Amajiki said in a voice that was barely above a whisper. For some reason, it looked as though he was hiding behind Togata.
"Yeah, Tamaki's right." The blonde boy agreed. "Sorry for bothering you guys."
"It's cool." Tokage waved off.
"Ugh fine…" Hadou pouted while folding her arms. Although pout was probably a strong word. In reality, it had the same effect as if marshmallow was trying to look tough. "I'll see you later kohai, don't forget to call me. Oh wait, I probably shouldn't say that in front of your girlfriend. That's kinda rude isn't it? Oh hey, I know! Why don't you join us for lunch sometime so all of us can talk and have a good time? I really wanna know more about your quirk."
"I'll think about it."
"Awesome! Anyways, have a good day you two!" Was all the girl said before the three upperclassmen made their way down the hall and disappeared around the corner.
Now that they were once again alone, they had time to absorb everything that happened. However, that moment was short lived before Tokage decided to keep the fun going, much to Midoriya's dismay.
"So...Izuku." She dramatically turned her head towards the boy, giving a rather devious look.
"Y-yeah."
"Tell me, are you a boob guy or an ass guy?"
"Huh?!" The boy paled and nearly suffocated on his own saliva. Did he hear that right? Maybe he was still experiencing some of the side effects of overusing his quirk.
'Bingo!'
"C'mon dude, I gotta know. Especially if that's what I'm competing against." The girl motioned over to the corner where the three other students just were. "I mean, did you see that girl in her costume? She's got curves for days...and then some."
"I don't really know how to respond to this."
"C'mon man, everybody's got a preference."
"Well, I-I never really thought about it before."
"Don't give me that. You're a teenage guy, I find it hard to believe that you think about that kind of thing."
"W-well...what are you into?" The boy shot back for some reason. In times like this, it was best to change the topic as soon as possible. Unfortunately for him, Tokage saw this as a golden opportunity to have a bit more fun at his expense.
"Well...now that you ask~." The girl adopted a slightly sultry tone and closed the distance between the two of them. "If you really wanna know…" She further egged on by walking two of her fingers up his chest. "I'm into guys who are good looking, nice, have freckles and get easily embarrassed."
"Oh um w-well…" A now red faced Midoriya stammered out.
Suddenly, and completely ignoring the fact that they were standing in the middle of an empty hallway, Tokage leaned in a bit further and wrapped her arms around the boy's neck. The girl then detached her head from her neck and brought it up to eye level. Once they were face to face with each other, Midoriya could feel his heart rate begin to skyrocket. He certainly didn't dislike being in such close proximity to the girl. But his natural instincts were telling him to pull away before he passed out.
"So...tomorrow." The girl said, still holding her grin.
"Tomorrow?" The boy repeated.
"Our date." She clarified.
Oh yeah, the two of them were supposed to go out on their first official date tomorrow. With all the craziness surrounding the exams, it almost slipped his mind.
"I'm really looking forward to it." Tokage continued as she reattached her head to her body and released her hold on him. The girl then back away a couple of steps and place her hands behind her back.
"Me too." Midoriya smiled at the girl.
"Glad to hear it." She smiled back before resuming their previous position from earlier and linking her arms with his own. "Sorry about that, I know I can get a bit out of hand at times." She then apologized.
"It's fine, really. I actually don't mind it all that much."
"Good to hear!"
Before long, the green haired duo exited the school grounds and made the journey over to the train station. Seeing as they got out of class way earlier than normal, and that they had the next few days off from school, the trip was a lot more relaxed than normal.
"So, do you always head up to the school roof during lunch?" Tokage asked.
"Yeah, pretty much."
"Why? If you don't mind me asking."
"It's just something that I've always done. I just like getting some fresh air in between classes."
"Yeah, I can see that." The girl joked. "And that Hadou girl is always there too?"
"No." He shook his head. "She kinda just...pops up sometimes."
"Oh…" She simply nodded and faceed back forward before going quiet for a few seconds.
"Is something wrong, Setsuna?"
"Nope." The girl lied. But hoping to throw the scent of her own trail, she quickly threw the heat back onto the boy. "So...since we still got a bit of time before we hit the station, I've been meaning to ask you something."
"What is it?"
"Whenever we hang out, I'm always the one asking you stuff about your life. How come you never really ask me anything? What, are you not interested in me like that or something?"
"No, it's not that at all. I just uh...don't want to ask you personal stuff that you might not want to answer."
"C'mon Izuku, I think by now it's pretty clear that I'm an open book. Plus, I always ask you stuff about yourself. To be honest, it feels kind of weird."
"Oh...I never really thought about it like that."
"So, this is your chance. Ask me anything and I will answer with one hundred percent complete honesty."
The boy wasn't expecting to be put on the spot like this. As strange as it sounded, most of the questions that he had for the girl were rather plain. Like she said before, she was pretty much an open book.
"So...did you have a lot of friends growing up?" Was the question that he decided to ask for some odd reason. "You seem like you were the popular type."
"Nope not at all." She answered without missing a beat. "To be honest, the only friend I really had was Metalhead. Especially in middle school."
"Really?"
"Yeah." She shrugged nonchalantly. "Most of the other girls didn't want to hang out with me and the guys were kind of annoying."
"Why wouldn't they want to hang out with you? I find that a bit hard to believe."
"Most of them were the super girly and stuck up type. And as you already know...I'm definitely not. I don't really like being around those kinds of people. Plus they would get super jealous of me since I usually got the best grades in class and talked about me behind my back."
"That sucks." He said in an apologetic tone.
"And I'm guessing you were kinda in the same boat? Before you started the whole homeschool thing?" She inquired.
"Yeah, I guess you could say that." The boy admitted. Thinking back to his less than stellar public school days.
"It sucks that you had to deal with that kind of stuff just because your quirk hadn't manifested yet. Of all the reasons not to talk to be friends with somebody, that's a pretty shitty one."
"That's just how it is nowadays."
"That doesn't make it any less ridiculous." She answered. Sure, society revolved around quirks and people preached how you should treat everyone equally despite them. But when it came to quirkless people, none of that seemed to apply.
"I agree."
"Well if you ask me, you're better off without those losers."
All Midoriya could do was laugh at that statement. "Yeah, I'd like to think that too."
"It's too bad we didn't go to school together before this. I'm pretty sure the two of us would've been awesome friends."
"You think so?"
"Hell yeah! I like to think that we balance each other out. Y'know, I have all the beauty, the brains and the charming personality. While you have the adorable disposition."
"I don't think you can really call that "balanced", Setsuna..." The boy laughed.
"Well, I guess that's just a matter of perspective, huh? But come on, don't tell me that those are some of my best qualities."
"Yeah...I guess they are some of the reasons why I like you so much." Midoriya's brain froze as soon as those words came out of his mouth. Did he really just admit that, out loud. He really needed to get home and rest up before he said something else that was even more embarrassing.
"Wow, a declaration of affection? When did you get so bold?" A now slightly blushing Tokage said in a teasing fashion. On the outside she managed to keep herself composed, but on the inside her heartrate had suddenly jumped.
"S-sorry."
"What's there to be sorry for? Nothing wrong with giving a girl a compliment every once in a while. In fact, you should do some more."
"I'll keep that in mind." He awkwardly laughed once again.
Eventually, the two parted ways and got onto their individual trains home. Once he made it back to his apartment, Midoriya wasted no time in showering, eating and getting started on his extended weekend. Fortunately for the boy, today just so happened to be one of his scheduled video chats with his father.
"Izuku, how's it going? How'd your exams go?" Hisashi Midoriya asked his son before taking a sip from his comically large cup of coffee.
"Pretty good. I passed everything, but I ended up overdoing it with my quirk during the practical portion."
"Are you okay?" The black haired man with freckles asked in a concerned tone.
"Yeah, I'm fine. I just have to take it easy for the next few days." The boy explained.
"That's a relief." He let out a slightly dramatic sigh. "So what's new? Anything exciting happened?"
"Actually, there's something that I wanted to talk to you about. I could really use some advice…" The green haired boy bashfully rubbed the back of his head.
"What about?"
"I...kinda...might be going on a date tomorrow…"
…
…
…
"What?!"
Author's Notes: First things first, Happy New Year to all of you and I hope that you have a wonderful and prosperous 2020. 2019 was kind of a bad year for me overall, but I picked up writing as a hobby so it wasn't too bad.
1. Like I said in the last update, I was going to be explaining the concept of "Overdrive" a bit more and it's drawbacks. These may or may not become important relatively soon. For the record, Todoroki and Kirishima were still knocked out during that entire conversation. And yes, we will be finding out how everyone else did in the next chapter. I'm going to be switching up the result a bit though.