All Midoriya could see around him was a vast plain of darkness. There was no light, no sound, nothing other than his own body floating in an endless miasma of pitch black. Midoriya wasn't one who dreamt very often. In actuality it was a rare occurrence for the boy altogether.
"Hmph!" A sound from behind him suddenly caught his attention.
In reaction, Midoriya quickly rotated himself around, only to meet with the sight of another person. Actually, saying that it was a person was a bit of a stretch. Before him was a human-like silhouette cloaked in grey mist. It took him a second, but he could clearly see that the figure had to be a woman based on slight curves that shaped her form.
Her features were indistinguishable except for one thing, her eyes. Much like him, the figure possessed a pair of emerald green orbs that seemed to be boring a hole into his soul. But unlike him these eyes were different. If he had to describe them, they were cold, vain and almost judgmental. He couldn't see the person's face. Yet it was obvious that they were looking at him with a slight bit of contempt. And for some reason, she seemed vaguely familiar.
"W-who are you?" Midoriya asked hesitantly. Something told him that he should choose his words carefully so as to not anger them.
"Hmph!" Was the only response that the figure gave as she turned her head, almost as if she was disgusted for some reason.
Before the boy could say another word, the mass of grey mist dissipated in an instant. Leaving him all alone in the void.
The morning training session came and went for the would-be heroes of U.A..
Just like the day before, the students had been rigorously training their quirks and pushing themselves to the limit. Not only were they starting to feel the wear and tear from today's training. But the fatigue from yesterday's session was still howling in their muscles.
Thankfully, the future heroes were granted a respite from their labors. Shortly after lunch was over, everyone was told to head over to the base of the nearby cliffside and await further instructions from their teachers.
"Alright students, listen up!" Kan shouted. "We're taking a break from your quirk training this afternoon and are going to switch things up a bit."
"What do you mean?" One of the students followed up.
"Today you maggots are going to be going up against each other in a game of "quirk dodgeball"!" Tiger impatiently announced while flexing his muscles.
"Quirk…dodgeball?" Shiozaki repeated curiously.
"What are the rules?" Asked Honenuki.
"As the name suggests…all of you will be participating in a few games of dodgeball in which you are allowed to use your quirks." Aizawa explained.
"Standard rules still apply. If you get hit by a ball, you're out. If you catch a ball, then the person who threw it is out and you get to recall any member of your team that was taken out prior to that. You'll be split up into teams of ten and both opposing teams will start at either end of the playing field. Use your quirks as necessary for mobility, offense and defense. However…do show some restraint." The man finished off by giving a sharp look towards a certain ashen blonde student.
Kirishima was the first to raise his hand. "So where's the playing field?"
"Right here!" Pixie-Bob announced before activating her quirk. The students watched as the woman created dozens of large pillars of various sizes over an area about half the size of a soccer field. Judging by what they could see, it would be hard for anyone without a high mobility quirk to maneuver in between the obstacles. How they were supposed to play a game of dodgeball in there was a mystery.
"This is gonna be awesome." Tsuburaba smirked.
"Like we said before, you're going to be split up into four groups of ten." Kan said after regaining everyone's focus. "The first group will be Tokage, Shinsou, Shoji, Hagakure, Awase, Bondo, Ashido, Yanagi, Rin and Shiozaki."
The aforementioned students looked around at one another for a moment. In terms of fighting strength they were pretty balanced. And they had some team members who were pretty good when it came to mobility. The only wild card was Shinsou. In Tokage's mind, his quirk wasn't exactly the best for this kind of scenario.
"Their opponents will be Uraraka, Tokoyami, Tetsutetsu, Kodai, Ojiro, Tsunotori, Mineta, Shoda, Midoriya and Bakugou."
Almost immediately Midoriya and Bakugou simultaneously did a double-take towards one another. The two of them were on the same team? That didn't bode well in the slightest. Any semblance of team chemistry their group might have had suddenly flew out the window after hearing that.
However, unbeknownst to the two former classmates this was no mistake. Aizawa had purposely out them together. When it came to Bakugou, the nocturnal hero could identify quite a few major flaws in how he operated. One of which being his reluctance to work with others. During the exam, he and his team would have fared much better if he bothered to try and work with them instead of attempting to do everything on his own.
The second issue that was apparent to the man was that for whatever reason Bakugou absolutely hated Midoriya. He had no clue what the reason behind this was. But every time the green haired boy from 1-B was brought up in conversation around him, he would become noticeably more irritable than usual. This game would be a good measure of whether or not he learned anything from his failures.
"Now that the first two teams have been announced, you all have ten minutes to come up with a strategy before we start. Good luck!"
"Alright Midoriya, so what's the plan?" Tetsutetsu said to the green haired boy as their group huddled together.
"And the hell makes you think that Deku is in charge, Shitty Eyelashes?" Bakugou immediately protested.
"Because he's the strongest one here, he's good at coming up with plans, his quirk is perfect for this kind of thing and unlike you...he's actually a team player." The silver haired boy replied without any hesitation.
Although Tetsutetsu normally wasn't one to judge people he didn't know all that well, Bakugou was a bit of a special case. His introduction to the boy at the start of the school year left a pretty bad taste in his mouth. Especially how he seemed to have no trouble calling Midoriya a freak for allegedly being quirkless. After that, nothing he had seen from the ashen blonde teen was enough to warrant his respect. It was still a mystery to him why someone like Kirishima enjoyed being around the guy so much.
Somehow Bakugou was able to keep his temper under control just enough to not blast Tetsutetsu into a crater. He was starting to get sick and tired of these 1-B rejects thinking that they could get away with talking to him so recklessly.
"Like hell I'm going to let that useless nerd boss me around!" The 'explosion' quirk user declared.
"Midoriya, be honest with me. Has this guy always been this angry?" Tsunotori whispered to her classmates in her native tongue.
Maybe she could just chalk it up to one of the many cultural differences between here and her home country. But the American girl really had a hard time wrapping her head around how someone like Bakugou could be a hero candidate. Aside from his powerful quirk, there was nothing "heroic" about him in her opinion. The guy was a walking time bomb with a temper to match. Back home, no one like him would've ever been allowed to enter a hero school without some serious counseling and reconditioning. But she assumed that the people of Japan just had different views on the subject.
"So I take it that you want to be in charge then?" Shoda dryly asked, already dreading having to deal with the 1-A boy.
"I don't want to be in charge, I am in charge! As long as you extras do what I say we'll beat those other losers."
"And you really expect us to do what you want after you just called all of us "extras"…?" Tetsutetsu deadpanned.
"Guys…just let Bakugou be in charge. We don't really have the time to argue about it." Midoriya suggested while pinching the bridge of his nose. He knew something like this was going to happen.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah." He nodded.
"It's good to see that you still know your place." The ashen blonde teen gave the boy a side-eye.
All Midoriya did in response was roll his eyes before letting Bakugou tell them their strategy. Although a part of him hated the idea of taking directions from his former tormentor, he was mature enough to put his personal feelings aside for the time being.
At the very least, he hoped that this was going to be over quickly.
"Alright team, so how are we going to play this?" Tokage looked to the other members of her group.
"They have a lot of heavy hitters in their group, especially Midoriya. I think we should make taking him out our first priority since his quirk is perfect for this." Awase commented.
"Bakugou's going to be an issue an issue too." Hiryu Rin stated.
"Yeah, you're right about that…." Tokage began rubbing her hand on her chin. "Their team is pretty stacked."
On paper, it was easy to say that Midoriya's team had the advantage. Aside from him and Bakugou, they had Tokoyami and Uraraka as well. Which meant that they were pretty well balanced in terms of range. Be that as it may, Tokage was never one to shy away from a challenge. Not only was she really looking forward to once again getting the chance to go up against Midoriya. With the people on their team, victory was almost a guarantee if they played their cards right.
"I vote that we play the defensive game." Rin suggested. "There's a limited number of balls anyway, let's just wait it out for a bit until they don't have the chance to attack us."
"That doesn't really matter since Midoriya can just levitate as many balls as he wants."
"Oh, don't worry about Izuku. I've got the perfect strategy to take him out. And it involves you, Ghosty." The green haired girl practically beamed confidence while grinning towards Yanagi.
"Alright."
"Ready...begin!" Ragdoll shouted in a joyous tone towards the students.
The second the woman lowered her hand, most of the students acted as one would predict. Some of them rush to the center of the playing field where the balls were at while others intentionally stayed behind. Bakugou of course flew straight in and started sending explosion powered balls flying in every direction while laughing like a maniac. In the span of a couple of seconds, he managed to knockout Ashido and Shinsou with very little effort.
While that was going on, a few other students were making their moves.
On the other side of the field. Ojiro and Uraraka were doing their best to avoid getting nailed by Shiozaki. The girl was using her vines to throw multiple balls at once, which proved to be quite a difficult situation. Tokoyami was using his 'dark shadow' to maneuver between pillars with some rather impressive speed. And in the most hilarious turn of events yet, Awase managed to get Tetsutetsu out in one throw. By a sheer stroke of dumb luck, the 'weld' quirk user activated his power right as the ball hit him the face. According to Mandalay, this technically counted as a catch which meant that the headband wearing teen was still in the game.
However, there was one thing that left everyone scratching their heads, and that was Midoriya. The boy quite literally wasn't doing anything at all. He was simply floating in the air above the above the playing field and watching. Unknown to the others, Bakugou had directed him to simply stay up there and keep an eye out. Midoriya had no reason to deny it, so he just rolled with the de facto group leader's demands. Yet, that certainly didn't stop him from having his own plan.
Unbeknownst to everyone else, while the madness was in full swing Kodai was shrinking as many dodgeballs as she could and stuffing them into her pockets. Once the black haired girl had a decent amount she circled back around to where she was in Midoriya's line of sight. After enlarging the captured dodgeballs quite a bit the girl gave him a thumbs up and Midoriya began levitating them into the air. The moment they were all in position, Kodai activated her quirk once again and the dodgeballs all grew to an absolutely ridiculous size. About the same as a car.
Without a second thought, the green haired boy dropped the balls out of the air and chaos quickly ensued as the other team began retreating from the giant red balls of death. Unfortunately, the boy wasn't able to enjoy the success of his plan before narrowly avoiding a dodgeball that came at him from below.
He looked down to see none other than Yanagi. The girl was floating several balls around her body somewhat like a protective shield. The boy didn't even have enough time to think before another two balls were sent flying at him. Midoriya knew that the range of the girl's quirk was limited to about thirty meters. So the sooner he got away from her the better. As he began ascending further into the air, a strong force flanked him on his right arm.
The second he turned around Midoriya was narrowly able to dodge another dodgeball, however this was one was different. Right after it passed him, the thing came circling back around at a pretty impressive speed. Just when he was about to begin maneuvering through the air, another force struck him from behind.
"Sorry Izuku, but you're too much of a threat to leave alone!" The floating head of Tokage shouted at him from close by.
Immediately after that, the girl encased his entire body in one of her "Scale Storms". But that was only part one of this attack. What Midoriya hadn't noticed was the other set of pieces above him that was mere moments away from making contact. Nor could he see the lone dodgeball coming at him from below.
Over the last few weeks Tokage had been working on splitting her focus to conduct multiple attacks at once. It wasn't easy by any means. In fact, it took all of her brain power to literally move her body in separate directions across multiple areas at once. But now she was finally starting to get the hang of it. And there was no better person to test it on than like Midoriya who's quirk was also versatile enough to counter it.
Back with Midoriya, the boy was quickly trying to think of a way out of this situation. He was literally pinned down from all sides and was about to get taken out of the game. Unfortunately for him, this would prove to be futile. What the boy didn't realize was that this was all just one giant diversion. Instead of actually planning to hit him with either her second wave of pieces or the dodgeball, Tokage had other ideas. Just when it looked like Midoriya was distracted, the girl sent on her pieces flying at him and nailed him in the side of the head.
'Without that helmet on, he's pretty much a sitting duck.' The girl grinned outwardly.
As expected, the sudden impact was enough to disrupt Midoriya's control on his quirk. As the boy began losing altitude Yanagi finally took her shot. The gray haired girl sent about seven dodgeballs his way and connected with each and every one of them. Luckily, the boy just so happened to be floating a few meters above one of the nearby pillars so his landing was relatively safe.
"Midoriya-kun, you're out!" Mandalay shouted from the sideline. Very impressed by the teamwork that she just saw.
"I almost forgot that Midoriya-kun actually has a weakness." Said Kendou to a few of the 1-B students. It was easy to forget that the powerhouse of their class could be taken down with one good blow to the head.
"Alright! Good job Ghosty!" Tokage gave Yanagi a thumbs up.
'I can't believe that actually worked.' The 'poltergeist' user thought to herself.
Barely a few minutes later, the game to an end with Tokage's team coming out as the victors. Thanks to some impressive skill on Shiozaki's part to take down Tokoyami and a few others they were able to take a good lead. And much to everyone's surprise Toru Hagakure, the invisible girl from 1-A, managed to sneak up behind Bakugou and take him out of the game. Much to the 'explosion' quirk user's annoyance.
The rest of the afternoon was spent like this. And the students were more than happy to take a break from their hellish training to have a little bit of fun.
Once training for the day was complete, the students were finally given some time to relax before they needed to start making dinner. Well, everyone minus those in the remedial class. Those lucky souls were tasked with helping Tiger and Pixie-Bob get the supplies from the kitchen and storage shack.
After changing out of their uniforms, Midoriya, Tokage and Tetsutetsu were all walking together to the lounge area to join their classmates. The trio were seconds away from turning the corner when they just so happened to run into Shinsou of all people. The boy looked particularly exhausted out of everyone. From what they had seen, Aizawa had the general studies student focusing more on physical training rather than quirk related exercises. Which wasn't all that surprising considering his rather frail frame.
"What's up, Shinsou? Good work out there today." Tetsutetsu politely greeted the boy with a friendly wave.
"Hmph." The purple haired teen scoffed.
That rude action was enough to rub Tokage the wrong way. Sure the boy didn't seem overly friendly, but that wasn't an excuse to be rude to people for no reason. "Geez dude, what's your problem?"
"None of your business." He shot back.
"Wow, I guess the girls from 1-A were right. You are kind of a dick."
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me." Tokage scowled with her hands on her hips. "The entire time we've been out here you've been avoiding everyone else. Y'know, if you do end up getting into the hero course you're gonna have to get rid of that attitude."
"And why should I care about what you have to say? Last time I checked, I'm the one who won our match in the Sports Festival."
"Yeah, you sure did." She shrugged. "But now that we all know how your quirk works, the chances of that happening again are slim."
For some reason, the girl's words seemed to strike a nerve with Shinsou. Sure his quirk was strong. But when it came to fighting, it was pretty one dimensional. "Well I'm sorry. Not all of us can have super flashy and versatile quirks like you people do. Some of us actually have to learn how to get by with what we have."
"Okay, I think it's best that we all just calm down." Midoriya said nervously as he attempted to diffuse what was already shaping up to be an intense moment.
"What are you talking about?" Tetsutetsu immediately followed up.
"People like you would never understand what it's like. You were all blessed with awesome and heroic quirks that people didn't ridicule all the time. It must've been so nice having your powers put up on a pedestal and being praised for them." Shinsou continued.
"So what, you have a grudge against people with strong quirks or something? That's kind of hypocritical coming from someone with the power to brainwash people at the drop of a hat."
"Yes, my quirk is pretty good on the surface. But imagine growing up with something that caused everyone to automatically label you as "villainous" and having to put up with that for your entire life."
Oh yeah, this dude definitely had a chip on his shoulder. And a big one at that. It was no secret that society nowadays was what one would call hero-centric. And people would have their abilities categorized into either two main areas. But even though the 1-B trio could understand where the guy was coming from, that didn't give him the right to be so rude.
"Y'know...being around you people makes me feel even more jealous. All of you probably grew up pretty easy and let all that praise go to your head. Unfortunately, I wasn't so lucky. With my quirk people told me that I'm gonna end up as a villain. There were a lot of times that I wished that I was born quirkless. It probably would've been better."
That statement was enough to make something click in Midoriya's head.
He honestly couldn't believe that someone could say something like that so casually, like it was some sort of joke. To be frank, he was having a hard time wrapping his head around it. To say that you'd rather have been born quirkless as opposed to having a powerful brainwashing quirk was just...ridiculous. His mind quickly flashed back to all of the torment that he had suffered before his quirk developed. All of the mental and physical anguish that he had to go through just because he was powerless. He couldn't even count how many times he cried himself to sleep at night wishing for a strong quirk like Shinsou's. And here this boy was, being ungrateful for the power that he had.
Just before Midoriya could voice his opinion, Tokage decided to speak up.
"Wow...that has to be the dumbest thing I've ever heard."
"What?" Shinsou shot the girl a confused look.
"You should be grateful that you even have a quirk to begin with. Especially a strong one like yours. Not everyone is born with a quirk. And those that don't have one have a much harder time than you ever did."
"Please, you have no idea what you're talking about."
"Actually I do." She retorted. The girl was now very annoyed and it was showing. "A couple of friends of mine were born quirkless, and their lives are far from easy. In fact, I doubt you'd even last a day in their shoes. So before you go around saying something stupid like that you should probably look up the suicide rates for quirkless people. I guarantee you that they'd be more than happy to switch places with you."
Midoriya was shocked by what he was witnessing. This may have actually been the first time in his life that he'd ever seen someone outright defend quirkless people and their lives that didn't have to go through that pain themselves.
"Whatever…"
"Instead of letting people's ignorant comments get to you, you should focus more on learning how your quirk can save lives. I mean, we have a guy in our class whose quirk is only good for blowing things up. That's way more "villainous" and dangerous than brainwashing. Maybe you should learn to think for yourself in the future." Was the last thing the girl said to him before walking off in the direction of the lounge.
Although he wouldn't admit it, Shinsou was having a hard time coming up with a response to Tokage's impromptu speech. He still felt like his opinions were justified. But he'd be hard pressed to deny what the girl was saying might have been true. Either way, there was nothing more that he had to say.
Electing to get out of this painfully awkward situation, Midoriya and Tetsutetsu began walking away to go rejoin their classmate. However, the green haired boy took a second to look back at the hero course hopeful. He may not have fully understood what it was like to grow up a quirk labeled as villainous. And he could sympathize with his apparent feelings towards those blessed with powerful quirks from birth. Especially because he still had similar thoughts himself, even nowadays. But he definitely didn't appreciate the boy's earlier comment.
Either way, he was glad that Tokage was the one to speak up instead of him. Because his choice of words might not have been as nice.
After dinner was over, Midoriya was laying down on his futon with the other members of his class. Things were quickly heating up as some of the boys decided to get into an arm-wrestling match to see who was strongest. And Tetsutetsu was on his way to a rather impressive undefeated streak. The boy was halfway tempted to join in on the fun before a text notification popped up on his phone.
T-Rex: You busy?
Rabbit: No, why?
T-Rex: Meet me outside the back entrance in five minutes.
Rabbit: Okay.
True to his word, five minutes later Midoriya was standing outside the back entrance of the lodge waiting for Tokage to show up. The students still had a full hour left until their designated curfew, so it wasn't like he had to worry about staying out too late. However, he was curious as to why the girl suddenly asked him to meet up with her. Luckily, he didn't have to wait long to get an answer.
"Hey!" Tokage greeted him with a warm smile. The girl was dressed in her usual nightly attire of a pair of running shorts and a loose-fitting t-shirt. Along with her hair tied up in a ponytail. Midoriya would be lying if he said that he didn't enjoy this look.
"Hey." He greeted her back.
"Sorry for taking so long. But that Ashido girl from 1-A was telling us a pretty funny story and I lost track of time."
"It's fine. I wasn't waiting long." He told her. "So…is something wrong?"
"Nope! I just thought that since we have a full hour until "lights out", we could spend a bit of alone time together."
"Oh okay." The boy nodded. Tokage did have a point. The two of them hadn't really spent any time together where it was just the two of them ever since the camp started. With all the training and the few moments of downtime that they had, it was rather difficult. "So what did you have in mind?"
Tokage closed the distance between the two of them and proceeded to grab the boy by his hand. "There's a clearing a bit further into the woods." She pointed in the direction of the nearby mountain. "I asked Ragdoll earlier if it's okay for us to go there and she said that it was cool as long as we made it back by curfew."
"Really?"
"Heck yeah!" The girl cheered before pulling him in that direction. "C'mon, let's go!"
It only took a few minutes for the young couple to locate the clearing. It was a simple plot of land in the middle of the woods that was devoid of trees which just so happened to be close to the nearby stream. During the daytime it provided a lovely view of the surrounding area. But at night, it had that cheesy romance movie vibe that Tokage was looking for.
"This place is pretty nice." Midoriya voiced his thoughts while looking around.
"Told ya!" Tokage giggled before planting herself on the ground and pulling Midoriya down with her.
The two of them stayed quiet for about a minute and just gazed up at the stars. Living in the city for most of their lives, it was easy to forget how nice the night sky looked without all the extra light pollution. But now that they were out in the middle of the woods far away from the nearest metropolitan area, they were actually able to identify the constellations.
"So, how's your training going so far?" Tokage started off the conversation.
"Pretty intense to be honest." He laughed. "Pixie-Bob is really trying to keep me on my toes. How about you?"
"Pretty much the same. I'm honestly not used to using my quirk in such an extreme way for that long. Stamina is still my biggest issue, but I think that I'm starting to improve on speed." She answered back with a shrug.
"That's good to hear." Midoriya smiled back.
"Yeah, I think I'll be able to come up with some good ways to use my quirk by the end of the week. But since we're on the subject…when the heck did you improve so much? You were on fire out there today."
"I honestly have no clue." Was his reply. "I think using that "Overdrive" technique Fubuki-san told me about got me over some type of wall. But I can't be too sure."
"I'll admit that I'm kind of jealous, though. If you keep going like that, the rest of us will be playing catch up pretty soon." She teased.
"I don't know about all that." Midoriya blushed a bit. No matter what, the boy still couldn't get used to being complimented like this. Especially about his quirk. He was doing a lot better lately when it came to not being so critical of people who only acknowledge him for his powers. But a part of him was still a bit skeptical.
Now that they were getting a little bit more comfortable with each other, Tokage decided to turn up the heat a bit. The girl readjusted herself and laid her head down in the boy's lap while sprawling her body out over the soft grass. Once she was in this position, not only did she have a better view of the sky above them. She also had front row seats to see just how flustered Midoriya suddenly became.
"What's wrong? Did you want to be the one to lay down instead~?" She gave him a toothy smirk.
"N-no, I just w-wasn't…expecting this is all."
"Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Has anyone ever told you that you have some really comfortable thighs?"
"N-no…"
"Well it's true. In fact, I'm tempted to stay like this for the entire night."
"I don't think that's a good idea. We might get in trouble."
"Who said anything about staying out here? I was thinking that I would take you back to the girl's room and wrap myself around you like a baby koala."
"Yeah…I don't think that Shiozaki-san or Kendou-san would agree to that." Now it was his turn to make the jokes.
The two continued joking around like this for the next few minutes. After that, an idea popped into Tokage's head. The girl then pulled her phone out of her pocket and opened it up to the photo app. "Hey, check this out."
Midoriya grabbed hold of the device to get a better look at what she wanted him to see. To his surprise it was a picture of the two of them. More specifically, one from their first "official" date. It was right after the young couple had left the udon stand and were holding hands on their way to check out some other areas.
"It's one of the photos that Aunt Nemuri sent to my dad when she and my sister were stalking us. I thought it looked pretty good so I saved it on my phone, along with a few others."
"Yeah, it's a nice picture." He said honestly. "You really cute in it."
Tokage admittedly had to fight back a bit of blush herself. There was just something about receiving a compliment from Midoriya that made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Slowly but surely she could tell that he was getting more comfortable around her.
"Hey, now that I think about it…you never really talk about your family that much." The girl suddenly announced.
"Huh?" He looked down at the greenette.
"I talk about my family all the time, but you hardly ever mention yours. The only thing I can remember is that your mom has a similar quirk to yours and that your dad works in America."
The boy replayed every conversation between the two of them that he could remember. Tokage was right, he hardly ever talked about his mom or dad. If at all. "There's really not that much to tell. After all, my family isn't nearly as interesting as yours."
"Still, what are they like? I'm actually really curious."
"Well…." Midoriya started off as he tried to find the right words to describe his parents. "My dad's pretty easygoing. And he enjoys traveling around the country and antiquing."
Tokage had to try really hard to hold back her laughter after hearing that. "What about your mom?"
"My mom is…my mom's kind of emotional. She has a habit of getting too…mushy at times. But she loves cooking."
It was easy for the girl to pick up on the not-so-subtle change in his tone. For some reason, Midoriya spoke very differently when it came to his mother as opposed to his father. Which was a bit odd in her opinion.
"Are you two not very close?" She asked without really thinking.
"We've hit a bit of a rough spot recently because of some stuff that happened a while ago."
"Oh…" Was all the girl felt like saying before deciding to switch topics. "I understand. I'm kind of the same way with my dad."
"Really?" He said in a surprised tone.
"Yeah…I hardly ever see him nowadays since he works so much. He just became the lead engineer in his department a couple of years ago so he's rarely ever home. If I'm lucky I'll only get to see him at home twice a week."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"Don't be." She shrugged. "He makes time for me whenever he can, but I understand that he's got an important job. Plus, he did spend a lot of time making my hero costume after all. So I can't be too mad at him"
"That's actually really cool."
"I know right! The only sucky part was that I had to get my haircut to make the special fibers so my suit will activate with my quirk."
'So that's how her hero costume works with her quirk.' Midoriya thought to himself. He always wondered how heroes with transformation quirks got their suits to react along with their bodies. But if it was made out of their DNA then it just made a lot more sense.
"Hey, Setsu-"
Midoriya's follow up question was cut off when a pair of soft lips suddenly came crashing into his own. In that last couple of seconds Tokage decided to get the drop on him. It was her plan all along to try and sneak in a kiss before the two had to go to bed tonight. And this option seemed like the most entertaining. Without any warning, the 'lizard tail splitter' user detached her head from her body and brought it right up to his. Thankfully, Midoriya seemed to be thinking about something at that very moment so he wasn't really paying attention.
Time pretty much came to a halt for the two of them as their brains were processing what was going on. More specifically, Midoriya was trying his best not to burst into flames and Tokage had to stop herself from letting her hands wander.
Eventually the two parted. Revealing a one set of flushed cheeks for the girl, and one beet red face for the boy.
"Sorry for doing that out of the blue. But the opportunity was just too good to pass up." Tokage giggled.
"It's ok-"
"Meow~! What do we have going on over here?!" A female voice suddenly said from behind the trees.
'Ah shit!'
The students couldn't help but jump at the unexpected interruption. Hesitantly, the two of them turn their heads to the left to see none other than Pixie-Bob standing there in her pajamas with a very amused look on her face.
"Oh my, two little kittens decided to sneak off and have a bit of private time, eh? How naughty." The blonde haired heroine cooed.
"What do you mean "sneak off"? Ragdoll said that it was okay to come out here as long as we made it back by curfew." Tokage shot back, choosing to ignore the fact that she and Midoriya were just caught in the act.
"Yeah you're right about that. Tomoko sent me out here to check up on you guys. But…I certainly wasn't expecting to walk in on this."
Midoriya would've tried to plead their innocence. But there were two problems with that. The first was that his head was still spinning from actually being kissed by a girl barely a minute ago. And the second was that he had no idea how long the woman was standing there.
"Oh don't worry lovebirds, I won't mention this to anyone else. We'll just keep this between us. There's nothing wrong with two kittens having a little fun, especially when it's during their free time."
"Thank you…" Midoriya breathed out a sigh of relief.
"That being said, it's almost time for bed. So I'll walk you back to your rooms."
"Cool." Tokage shrugged before reattaching her head to her body. She may have been playing it cool on the outside, but on the inside the girl's heart was beating a hundred miles an hour.
Eventually, their night came to a premature end when the two greenettes were escorted back to their rooms where they remained for the rest of the night. While everyone had no trouble falling asleep. It took Midoriya a bit longer due to the fact that his mind was still reeling from actually having been kissed by Tokage.
It was a welcome surprise, that much was true. But the green haired boy never really imagined his first kiss coming from a disembodied head. So that was something to think about, in and of itself. However, this sudden act of affection guaranteed that he wasn't going to be falling asleep anytime soon.
Author's Notes: A little bit of relaxation before certain things kick off next chapter. Someone mentioned to me that Midoriya seems almost unbeatable in this fic compared to his classmates, so I just wanted to remind everyone that he's definitely not. That may or may not come up in the future. Also, I wanted to show that despite being in a relationship that doesn't stop Tokage from wanting to compete with and get the upper hand on Midoriya. Plus her and Yanagi haven't partnered up that much in this fic. Which is something that I want to have happen more often.
1. I had been holding off on that interaction with Shinsou for a while now. Obviously his words wouldn't sit right with Midoriya. But I also wanted to highlight how Tokage's recent experiences would compel her to put him in his place. Especially since she's seen first hand what quirkless people have to go through. I'm not 100% sure with where I want to go with his character, but I wanted to go ahead and plant those seeds in Shinsou's head sooner rather than later.
2. Yes, they finally kissed. I don't want to spoil things. But expect Tokage to become a bit more daring with how she shows affection as the story goes on.
Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a comment/review. I'm really interested in seeing what you guys think of this fic.