44

 Chapter 44: Chapter #43 | Calm Before The Storm

Notes:

Chapter Text

The class was dreading the start of combat classes. If the endurance running to get to "baseline" acceptable level had been as rough as it was, then the entire weren't looking forward to whatever hellish plan Midoriya had laid out for their hand-to-hand training.

That dread only mounted as the class waited for Aizawa to enter the room. Usually, Midoriya was waiting for them as they arrived for their afternoon heroics class, but, today, it seemed, he was missing, as well. When both Aizawa and Midoriya arrived, it was mostly without fanfare. Midoriya was in the same gear that they'd seen him in for their first heroics class with All Might. Nedzu had sent him to the support labs with Hatsume. Evidently, Powerloader still wasn't keen on Midoriya's actual gear, but requests from the president, as well as demonstrations from the man who'd be wearing it, were rapidly leaving Powerloader with few reasons to object. As it was, Midoriya had changed into his temporary gear before coming over, and as such, looked like he would have been more at home on a battlefield than he would in their college classroom. Aizawa looked as he always did, slightly disheveled and chronically sleepless. The contrast of the two would have been funny were it anywhere other than a heroics classroom.

Aizawa cleared his throat as he opened the wall where the students' costumes were stored. "Training field, you all know where to go. You'll all be wearing your costumes from now on. This means all of your gear, including the additions some of you will find. If something needs to be changed, it's better to know about it now rather than later." The class nodded their heads and, at a gesturing hand from Aizawa, grabbed their cases and left for the changing rooms. At his silent request, Midoriya stayed behind rather than following his class. "I would have thought you would be in your actual costume by now."

"Yes, well, even with Snipe certifying me, I can't blame Powerloader for not wanting to allow me to carry certain things. Thermite, for example. Not something you'd generally find a hero carrying."

Aizawa sighed. "Why precisely would you need to be carrying thermite?"

Midoriya gave him an incredulous look. "In case I need thermite, obviously. It's fantastic for breaching and disabling enemy equipment. It's relatively quiet compared to plastic explosives, too."

Aizawa rubbed his eyes. "Let me guess. You're also attempting to carry-"

"Yes."

"Alright then." Aizawa dropped the subject. This was Snipe and Powerloader's problem to deal with, not his. If the president had okayed it, there wasn't anything he was going to be able to do, anyway. Aizawa handed Midoriya a slip of paper with a list on it and a small disk. "I'm going to deal with training the class. You start pulling these aside for quirk training."

Midoriya raised an eyebrow at Aizawa. "I'm neither a licensed quirk counselor, nor am I exactly sure why these students have been selected. Besides, shouldn't I be the one training them in hand-to-hand? I'm fairly certain that I know how to fight in the style Nedzu wants taught better than you."

Aizawa scowled. "Because of your military training?" Midoriya's face froze before relaxing into a flat, sardonic smile that was all teeth and never reached the eyes.

"I'd rather not start with lethal techniques, thank you." Aizawa had seen Midoriya fight on several occasions, and he had to admit, the man was utterly lethal when he did. But that didn't mean it needed to be the first thing his students learned. "As for the quirk counseling, it's that in name only. We don't need any more unlicensed teaching. I said training, and that's what you'll do. Nedzu and I noticed some preliminary issues at the entrance exams, and I've cut together what you'll need on that disk. According to Nedzu, you have the quirk analysis skills to help. I'll deal with teaching them to fight, you pull those students," Aizawa gestured to the list, "aside and deal with their issues."

Midoriya looked at the list and sighed. "I'm really starting to regret letting my military background slip to the rat. I could have just been an overachieving student, but no."

"You made the deal with him. Just because you don't like the outcome doesn't mean it's invalidated." Midoriya glared over at Shimura. The woman had been hovering and watching him practically every minute since Aizawa had found him in the bathroom. Apparently his "wildly differing behavior" was "concerning." He honestly wished she'd just go back to ignoring him and staying as far away from him as her incorporeal soul would allow.

The intercom spoke with Nedzu's voice, unknowingly echoing Shimura's sentiment. "It was a fair deal, Midoriya. You got what you wanted, and I got my three questions answered."

Midoriya glared at the intercom and let out a snarl. The only saving grace of those questions was that Nedzu had zeroed in on the wrong part of his answer. He'd learned that Midoriya had been in the military, had been special forces, and had taken part, during that time, in some less than legal biomedical activities as far as the Japanese government was concerned. He didn't know any details of anything that had happened, nor had he evidently shared what he had learned with Aizawa. He didn't regret the trade, not really. The rat's information had given weeks of work to his operatives, and several good operations came from it. Nedzu didn't need to know that, however. "That doesn't mean I'm not starting to regret the trade."

Aizawa gave the intercom a hard look, face hidden behind his scarf. "Let's get going. No need to waste time."

…

Everyone had their hands on their heads after their "warm up" lap, if it could be called that. Some of the less fit students weren't doing quite as well and were lying on the ground, panting. The dread had dissipated into excitement once everyone had found out that Aizawa would be teaching. Evidently, their conditioning had been left to their illustrious student teacher. Last week, they'd hated him with a passion. This week, that feeling was waning.

Aizawa had arrived and sent them on a quick warm-up, as he put it. A quick warmup consisting of a two-mile sprint in all of their gear. Had it not been for the last week of conditioning, they mused, they probably wouldn't have made it through that warm-up. Had Midoriya's classmates that had refused the red cooler not broken down and started to use it, they wouldn't have made it, either. Even so, as amusing as watching Kirishima eat two entire ribeyes on his own had been, none of them wanted to experience the clawing hunger that came with the last week again.

Aizawa looked at his stopwatch in one part amazement, one part disbelief. "Well, down to twenty minutes as a class for a two-mile sprint. I'd say last week is showing results. Keep that up. Everyone, gather around. We'll be covering the basics before Midoriya gets back."

Uraraka, as winded as the rest and having done only a half-mile walking, raised her hand. "Where is Midoriya, precisely?"

Uraraka, of course, was the only one in her gym uniform, her own being practically destroyed during the last training. Midoriya and Hatsume both needed to help Uraraka completely redesign it from scratch because of the inclusion of her new legs. That wasn't to say, of course, that there weren't other changes to the costumes. Both Toga and Jiro had finally been authorized to wear their full costumes.

Two silver lines traced Jiro's jawbone on either side. A sleek, black, full-body leather coat hid the kevlar lining while the salmon-colored shirt fitting loosely around her frame masked the inclusion of a bulletproof strike plate positioned within a vest underneath. Black pants held a simple black utility belt at the top and led way to polished black, steel-toed combat boots. The entire ensemble was accented with silver rings on all four sides of the boots, the outside of her thighs, on the back of her coat, and on the back of her fingerless gloves.

To the untrained eye, Toga would look like anyone else you might see on the street. To the trained eye, however, even the girl's posture screamed danger. Along her jawline were two black lines with four points of silver. Toga's leather jacket concealed much the same as Jiro's, with the exception that it stopped at her waist, just long enough to conceal the addition of a small sub-compact pistol within the small of her back. Within the jacket, itself, were multiple blades inside of hidden sheaths, alongside several tubes that snaked down the lining in her arms to black gloves, concealing the hidden needles there. In addition was the simple utility belt on top of black pants, two obvious blades sheathed on the girl's thighs, and tough steel-toed black combat boots.

The simpler changes had already been implemented. The halter and lead rope around Tsunotori's head had been removed after concerns of them being used against the girl, while pouches had been added at her waist. Ashido had her new eye-searing, tie-dye leg pouch. Tsuyu received several new waterproof diver pouches.

Others had yet to receive their new costumes, owing to either complexity or further planning needing to be scheduled. Practically everyone's costumes had received material upgrades, and Hatsume in particular had made notes to speak to a few members of both Class 1-A and Class 1-B in regards to gadgetry. After quirk training, of course, at Midoriya's insistence.

"Each day, one of you will be going with Midoriya for quirk training. He's setting up. Now watch closely. You'll be following, and you'll all need to have this down before we move onto sparring."

…

"WHY. Why ME?" Ashido lamented as Midoriya stood in front of her with his arms crossed and an eyebrow quirked. He had removed most of his gear, leaving only the base layers with the sleeves of his BDU rolled up, his cargo pants, and black steel-toed combat boots.

"You were the first on the list?" Ashido glared at the list as if it had personally insulted her family.

"Stupid list." Ashido shrugged and seemed to bounce back in an instant. "So, what will we be doing?"

"First, explain your quirk. I have your records, of course, and footage of you at the entrance exam, but that hardly tells the entire story."

"You have our records? Isn't that, I don't know, some kind of ethical violation or something since you're also our classmate?"

"I'm sure it is, but good luck explaining that to the president or the administration. If it makes you feel any better, I'm a doctor. I handle sensitive personal information every day."

"Not really, but thanks." Ashido felt disconcerted but shrugged it off. If the heroes had given Midoriya the information, then it should be fine. "My quirk is Acid. It's pretty self-explanatory. I make acid. If I make too much or too strong an acid, though, I can burn myself."

Midoriya nodded and gestured to a block of metal on a nearby table. "Could you demonstrate for me, please? Your strongest acid, if you would."

Ashido approached the table while pooling her acid in her hand, willing it stronger as she went. When she felt her palm starting to tingle, she tipped her hand and let the acid slip onto the metal. The metal promptly began to bubble as the acid ate its way into the block. Midoriya nodded.

"One more time, please." Then, when she looked at him funny, he gave a slight smile. "Trust me, this is going somewhere." Ashido shrugged and, once again, went to pour the acid onto the metal cube. Only this time, when she allowed the acid to pour from her hand, she jerked and gasped in horror when Midoriya slid his arm between the stream and the metal cube.

"Hoo, yeah, okay. That's brisk. Been a while since I've had acid eat my skin off." The acid bubbled and seared Midoriya's skin, even as it ate its way through the muscle. Ashido panicked, looking around for any kind of counter agent, anything she could use to deal with the acid. She'd learned early that this kind of thing could happen! She'd been so careful, so why now? Why had Midoriya stuck his arm in the way? She didn't want him to be scarred. No no no, she kept a counter agent on her right? Why hadn't she requested it with her costume? Why hadn't she stuck one in the fancy new pouch?

"-hido. MINA." Ashido's head snapped around to see Midoriya staring at her in concern. "Look, hey, it's fine. I'm sorry, I didn't know you'd react like that. No need to panic. Look, see? Everything's fine." Ashido's head turned to look, expecting to find a hole in the man's arm. To find it hanging by a thread. To be maimed beyond repair, him staring at her accusingly. Instead, she found the acid gone, already neutralized, and his arm seemingly knitting itself back together, meat, muscle, and tendon pulsating in the wound. When the goo was gone, Midoriya's arm was as it always had been, not a burn to be seen.

"H-how."

"Medicine that is not so dissimilar from what you and the rest of the class have been drinking for the last week. The only difference is that what I have inside of me," Midoriya pulled a series of pressure syringes out of one of the pouches at his hip, "is designed for combat. It's faster acting and designed to cut and stitch the body back together from materials preexisting inside of the body. The downside is that the more efficient it is, the harder it is on the body, and the more materials needed for the healing."

This was, of course, not entirely the truth. The truth was that he was genetically altered to heal rapidly, that he had been injecting himself with tiny machines governed by his general intelligence medical A.I., Sprite, that served to knit him, and the rest of the class, back together. That it was only in the case of large nanite quantities paired with enhanced physiology that they could reach the healing speeds Ashido had witnessed here. He'd definitely be low on practically everything in his body after this training, and it was excruciating to experience.

"Cut and stitch? Isn't that incredibly painful?" Ashido asked curiously before paling. "We've been drinking that?"

Midoriya shook his head. "No, you've been drinking low amounts of a medical variant designed for low-intensity maintenance work. We originally designed it for in-house rehabilitation programs. Its only purpose is to perform light repair work as the body goes through low-intensity strain. As for pain, what was caused by the medicine you guys had was less severe than the pain of the exercise. Do none of you read things before you sign them? This was in the waver."

"What about that medicine, then?" Ashido gestured to Midoriya's arm. "You didn't answer. Isn't it painful?"

Midoriya shrugged. "I'm used to it. "

Ashido began to look more and more excited by the prospect. "That's incredible, it's like a miracle cure! You can help fix so many people with that! Are we like a test group or something before it's used in hospitals? Like some kind of case study?"

Midoriya rubbed his face with his right hand. "I'm going to have to discuss this with the class. How do you sign things without reading them? No, you aren't a case study, and no, this medicine will never be used in a hospital environment outside of my purview, and only for the most extreme of cases. The pain of anything other than the low-intensity variants would generally drive a person insane, not to mention that this technology isn't functional without the direct oversight of-" Midoriya looked up at Ashido's face before realizing he was rambling. "Sorry, irrelevant. Let's get back to what we were doing. You see? I'm fine."

Ashido pouted at Midoriya. "Yes, you're fine. What were you thinking? My acid can seriously hurt someone!"

Midoriya nodded. "Exactly right. What's the strongest acid you can use on another human without serious injury?"

Ashido stared blankly at Midoriya. "I- I don't know? I've never used higher concentrations of my acid against other people. Just the tingly kind."

Midoriya nodded again. "And rightly so, but that needs to be addressed. So for today, this is your exercise. You're going to keep burning me until you find that line. You can't permanently injure me, as you just saw. And you need to figure out how much strength to put into each scenario. We can't have you going full or no power. So," Midoriya gestured to his arm, "get to burning."

Ashido's eyes were wide with shock. What Midoriya was suggesting was horrifying. Even if he wasn't permanently injured, it still hurt. Not just that, but she'd be severely burning him multiple times. She felt sick and started to look it. Midoriya responded to this look by pulling out a trash can and setting it to the side of two chairs, taking one for himself.

"What the FUCK, Midoriya." Midoriya jumped slightly, even as his head snapped around to where Shimura was poking her head through the wall. "I stop hovering around you for less than an hour to go check around the school and come back to you trying to get a classmate to burn you with acid." The look of abject shock masked the horror she was feeling.

Ashido glanced toward where Midoriya was staring. "Uh, is something wrong, Midori?" Midoriya faced her with as plain a face as he could.

"No. Just thought I heard something irrelevant and useless." Midoriya hissed the last word with a glare towards Shimura. "Now, let's start, shall we?"

…

Later in the dorms, Midoriya sat at the dining room table eating his fourth plate of food while several members of the class watched him from the living area. The wonder of open floor plans, he supposed. Hagakure was the first to voice the question on several of their minds.

"Uh, hey Midori?"

Midoriya raised a brow at the timid question.

"Mmm yes? I am him."

Laughter bubbled up in the room, and Hagakure seemed to pick up on it. "We were just looking for Mina. We've not seen her since she went to train with you earlier. Would you happen to know where she is?"

"Hopelessly sick and desperately trying to forget what she just did in the corner of her dark room?" Shimura chimed in with a fake cheer before scowling at Midoriya. "You know, like anyone does when forced to perform fucked up training?"

"Oh, yeah. She's up in her room right now. The training was a little rough on her, so she's sleeping it off, I think."

"Oh, alright. I'll go check on her." Midoriya gave a thumbs up to her before shoveling more meat and greens into his mouth.

After the attention was off of him and Hagakure was upstairs, he hissed under his breath. "Not forced in the slightest, and perhaps a little harsh but a necessary lesson, so piss off, Shimura."

"Oh yeah, there was definitely no better way to train what level of acid to use, like, I don't know, perhaps a fucking skin substitute? A giant fucking steak?"

"Then she wouldn't have gotten proper knowledge of what acidity level causes what level of pain. The woman is a walking war crime and needs to learn to control it yesterday. Now shut up."

…

Kirishima was a tad nervous. It was hard not to be under Midoriya's rather withering glare. "Uh, Midoribro? Is there a reason you're looking at me like I kicked your dog?"

Midoriya's eyes snapped up to Kirishima's face before he sighed and seemed to soften. "No, sorry. I just-" Midoriya grimaced. "Why do you not have a shirt with your costume?"

Kirishima shrugged. "I don't need one. My quirk is my armor, and this way I look manly!"

Midoriya's deadpan expression gave away nothing. "Right. Somehow I get this feeling you'll regret that when winter rolls around. Anyway, how do you view your quirk? What kind of hero do you want to be?"

Kirishima hardened his body before striking a pose with both of his arms flexing on either side of his head. "I'm gonna be the manliest hero. My quirk is kinda boring and not that flashy, but I'll take the hits and make everyone remember me!"

Midoriya smiled slightly. "It's always useful to have someone that can not only draw fire but take it, as well. You'll play an important role, and your quirk is plenty useful. But tell me, what are your weaknesses? Do you know them?"

"Well, yeah. My quirk is directly tied to my stamina, so if I get tired, I can't get as hard."

Midoriya once again stared at his classmate. He hadn't said that intentionally, right? "Okay. Well, yes. That is one of them. But you compared it to armor earlier, right?"

Kirishima nodded his head vigorously. "Yup. It's my own personal manly suit of armor."

Midoriya nodded and picked up one of the training weapons that he'd set out earlier. A simple single-edged pocket knife. Midoriya held it up for Kirishima to see. "Its edge is blunted, so it can't cut you. Put up your quirk." Midoriya waited for him to do so before slashing the blunted blade across Kirishima's chest. "As we both expected, that did nothing. Just like a good suit of armor to block a slashing attack, right?"

Kirishima nodded, smiling at the display. "My quirk is the best for dealing with sharp edges."

Midoriya merely raised an eyebrow before grabbing Kirishima's arm and holding it up. "Yes, well, that would generally be correct. But much like a real suit of armor, there are a few weak points that you need to be aware of." Midoriya drilled the point of the blunted knife into the gap that was Kirishima's shoulder joint. Not hard enough to injure but enough to get his point across.

Kirishima yelped as he instinctively jerked at the sensation. "Armor can't cover every single inch, can't be one solid plate. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to move or articulate the joints. Now, you might be able to get around this problem by hardening the joints before someone strikes them. We'll have to test that. But it's a problem you need to be aware of. Even the best suit of armor has weak points.

Kirishima nodded his head before focusing on the joints in his arm, briefly hardening the entire arm into one solid piece. He let it go after a second. "It's hard, and it'll take practice, but I think I can harden the joints, too."

Midoriya nodded. "Figured it would take you longer to manage that, since you've always instinctively not hardened your joints. Noted. The second problem every suit of armor has is blunt force trauma." Midoriya gestured for Kirishima to harden up again before ramming his fist into the man's gut. Kirishima gasped, even as Midoriya hissed at his scraped knuckles. "As you can see, just because you're protected from slashing and, to a lesser degree, piercing damage, armor isn't fantastic at handling blunt force. While I don't doubt that you've thought about that, I'm willing to bet that you've put it out of your mind since, well, who would want to punch a rock?"

Midoriya pulled out a non-blunted combat knife, holding it up to Kirishima. "Something to keep in mind is that even sharps can be used as blunt objects." Midoriya spun the blade around in his hand, carefully grasping the blade firmly. Gesturing for Kirishima to stick his arm out, Midoriya brought the pommel of the knife down onto Kirishima's forearm, once again leaving the man hissing.

"Okay, ouch. I can see how that's gonna be an issue. But wouldn't that cut you, too?"

Midoriya rolled the blade out of his hand to reveal no cut. "As long as I don't let my hand slip down the blade, I'll be fine. This isn't something you're likely to run into, but I want you to be aware of it all the same. I'm not sure if you can harden your organs. I can't really think of any comfortable way to check or test that, either. I'm not even sure it would be healthy if you could, so we're going to throw that idea out entirely. Let me state something obvious here, you don't need to take every hit."

"But that's the whole point of armor! I take the hits for the others."

Midoriya shook his head. "Your job isn't to take hits, it's to take attention. The fact that you are safer than most while doing it is great, but you don't have to take the hits to accomplish your goal. So this is what we're going to do. We're going to train this exact premise. I'm going to vary attacks of alternating types." Midoriya gestured to the table of weapons, ranging from knives to swords, and up to good old-fashioned maces and hammers. Your only goal here is to block what you can safely block and dodge what you can't. We'll work on the actual attention-getting part later, after you have more combat experience."

…

Midoriya was relaxing at the table, sifting through another mountain of paperwork when Sero grabbed his attention by waving a hand for him. "Hey, Midoriya. Where's Kirishima?" Midoriya pointed sideways at one of the couches where Kirishima was face down on a pillow. Sero went over and poked the groaning, now very soft man just as Aizawa gestured Midoriya out the front door for some privacy.

"You need to take Setsuna tomorrow. She nearly killed Shinso today."

From over both of their heads, sitting on the edge of the awning, Shimura called out, "Fucking BINGO, and it's only Tuesday!"

Midoriya snarled. "Shut the FUCK UP."

Notes:

For those of you wondering where Shimura is when I'm not describing her, she's either wandering, or as seen here, harassing Midoriya.