9

Chapter 9: Training Starts

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Nemuri tapped her finger on the steering wheel. The paparazzi apparently didn't have anything better to do, so they camped outside her apartment, which meant she had to take the car and drive off somewhere. Then Izuku left a bit later to meet up with her. Part of her just wanted to get the whole thing over with and out in the open, but the other part wanted to keep Izuku safe and out of the public eye till he got to UA. Three years would be a long time, but it's not like every day would be like this, so they could probably pull it off.

She saw Izuku approach and unlocked the door as he got to it and hoped in, "so um, where are we going?"

Nemuri started the car and sighed. "We need to train your quirk, but we can't exactly flood the apartment with gas that knocks people out. It might get into other apartments, so I'm taking you somewhere special so we can train."

Izuku looked at her curiously "somewhere special?"

Nemuri smiled "you'll just have to wait and see."

As the two rode, Nemuri laughed while Izuku told her how ecstatic Toru had been about the grades she got on the finals. "It's good that your study sessions paid off. Glad to see you two weren't just messing around the whole time."

Izuku blushed "it's important to take breaks and let your mind absorb the info. If you just study for hours, you'll get worse results. It's like working out, ya know. You need to take breaks and recover for good progress."

Nemuri nodded as she hummed as she smiled "whatever you say, Izuku."

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Toru groaned as she wandered around. Izuku was busy, and her brother was off with his new girlfriend, so she didn't have anyone to hang out with. Her mom had the day off and had started to get on her nerves, so she left intent on finding something to do.

Toru hadn't paid much attention to where she was going through and only stopped when she smelled garbage. A brief panic overtook her as her head shot around, looking for the sludge monster only to see huge piles of trash. "Oh... it's Dagoba beach. Man, this place sucks. If it was a beach again, I could have some fun here..."

She stared at the garbage for a while before feeling compelled to walk down the steps to it. She was careful to watch her step as she moved through the piles of garbage. "This place is like a labyrinth. Midoriya would say it's a great place to train stealth and probably some strength training. There's a lot of heavy stuff here..."

An idea struck her, and she pulled her phone out to text Izuku.

Hagakure:  Midoriya do you know Dagoba beach?

Midoriya: it used to be a nice beach, but the current carried trash to it, and the city slacked off on cleaning, so eventually, people started to illegally dump stuff there. Now it's a huge issue no one wants to take care of.

Hagakure: ... yeah, that place. We could train here. It's like a maze, and there's a bunch of heavy stuff, so stealth and strength training.

Midoriya:  that's a great idea! I'm almost to wherever Nemuri is taking me, so I'll text you when I'm done, and we can figure out the details.

Hagakure:  Sounds good. Good luck with your training.

Toru smiled and slipped her phone back into her pocket before continuing her trek. Eventually, she came out to the shoreline and stared out towards the horizon. "Wow... it's so pretty here."

The invisible girl nearly jumped out of her skin when someone coughed to her left. She looked over and saw a skeletal man sitting on top of a washing machine. She caught a glimpse of blood on his handkerchief as he put it away. "Ah, sorry, I didn't know anyone was here."

The man raised a hand "it's alright. I wasn't expecting anyone to come here either. It's a nice place even though it's not as beautiful as it used to be."

Toru nodded "my mom always said it was a nice place when she was a kid, but now..."

The man grunted, "it's been a long time since this could be called a beach."

The two stood and sat in silence for several moments before Toru spoke up, "why are you out here?"

The man chuckled. "I like coming here. It was a special place for me before all this." he gestured to the garbage around. "If you don't mind me asking, why are you here?"

Toru smiled and scratched her head "oh, you know. Was wandering around and ended up here. Figured I'd look around. My friend, I will probably be coming back to do some training."

"Training? What are you training for?" Toshinori asked. He saw her posture straightened and could almost feel the smile she was probably giving.

"We're training to be heroes."

"And a garbage dump is where you decided to train?"

Toru chuckled "hehe yeah... but it seems like a good place. We can both work on stealth and strength training while cleaning this place up a bit. I don't know if we'll be able to get everything..." Toru leaned over, looking past him "cause I think that's an SUV, and there's no way we would be able to move that."

Toshinori chuckled "no, I don't think you could, but perhaps your actions will inspire someone who can."

"We can only hope! Oh, I'm Toru Hagakure. It's nice to meet you. Figure I should introduce myself since we may run into each other again." she held up an invisible hand towards him.

Toshinori smiled at the invisible girl he had seen twice before as he reached for her hand. "I'm Toshinori Yagi. I do hope you-" his brain froze as he grabbed a closed fist.

Toru did her best not to giggle but failed to keep it in check. She devolved into laughter, and Toshinori joined in, realizing she had pulled a joke on him. "Sorry, I can't help myself sometimes."

Toshinori shook his head "it's quite alright. An old friend of mine would love to see an aspiring hero who can crack a joke."

"Well, I better get going. Don't want my mom to freak out. I hope to see you around, Mr.Yagi."

The skeletal man nodded. "I hope your training goes well, Young Hagakure."

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Izuku cocked an eyebrow as they stepped out of the car. "Uh, is this it?"

Nemuri nodded as she approached the old brickwork building. "Yep, welcome to the Kayama gym."

Izuku stopped "wait, what?"

Nemuri smiled and motioned for him to follow "come on and see."

The two entered the building, and Izuku was surprised by how well it was maintained. The exterior needed some work, but the inside looked fine. The equipment lining the walls and floor looked old but well cared for. Izuku jumped a bit as a loud, deep voice boomed, "Nemuri is that you?! Why I thought the great hero Midnight was too good for this old gym nowadays."

Izuku watched as an elderly man stepped out of an office room in the back. His short dark purple hair and blue eyes reminded him of Nemuri. "It's good to see you again, uncle Nabira. How's auntie?"

The older man waved his hand "she's doing fine. Mentioned you yesterday wanted to know if you'd forgotten all of your family."

Izuku watched Nemuri's face slip into a sad smile "of course not. I've been busy, is all."

Nabira looked past her at Izuku. "I'll say. Don't you think he's a bit young?"

Izuku's face went red instantly as Nemuri smacked hers. "Uncle, it's not like that." she took a breath and pointed at Izuku "this is Izuku Midoriya... my adopted son." Nemuri motioned to Nabira, "Izuku, this is my uncle Nabira Kayama."

The older man smiled "wow, Nemuri went and got a kid. It's nice to meet you, brat. You behaving yourself for your new mom?"

Izuku nodded and stammered, "I-y-yeah, I am. Um, it's nice to meet you too, sir."

Nabira waved his hand "gah, don't call me sir. We're family, it's Nabira or uncle. Got it?"

Izuku nodded quickly, still feeling a bit overwhelmed at suddenly meeting one of Nemuri's relatives. "Yes, si- I mean, of course, Uncle N-Nabira."

The man smiled and motioned for them to follow "so what brings you here other than introducing the new family member?"

Nemuri smiled as they entered the office. "I was hoping to use the gym for some quirk training."

Nabira gave Izuku another look over. "You trying to be a hero?"

Izuku nodded. "Y-yeah, ever since I got my quirk, I've wanted to be a hero."

Nabira nodded "alright. I've got a room separate from the rest of the gym you can use. Nemur, you know where it is?"

Nemuri nodded as she stood "yep. Come on, Izuku, let's get to work."

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The separate room they got to use was pretty barren, all things considered. The thing Izuku did notice was there were a lot of vents and fans as well as a couple filing cabinets "uh..."

Nemuri chuckled "it's for getting rid of the gas from our quirks." Nemuri walked to the center "come on, let's see what your base is. I'm guessing you can release gas from any spot on your body?"

Izuku nodded as he followed "yeah. I've never tried to release it from my whole body at once, though."

"That's alright. I've never needed to do that before, so I doubt you will. For now, I just wanna see how much gas you can put out at once, so..." Nemuri pulled open a drawer of a metal filing cabinet and pulled a gas mask out. "I want you to just go all out until I say stop."

"Alright, I'll do my best," Izuku said as he watched Nemuri slip on the mask and motion for him to start.

Izuku took a deep breath and held his arms out, and focused on his quirk. Nemuri watched as a thick dark green fog started to slowly pour from his forearms and hands. The pace started to pick up, and the room was slowly but steadily getting filled. Nemuri quirked an eyebrow as she noticed how the gas wasn't flowing how she thought it would. It seemed to cling to Izuku and swirl around him till it was about a meter away, then it dispersed and behaved normally.

Nemuri motioned for him to stop before asking, "are you consciously making it stay near you?"

Izuku scratched his cheek as the gas dispersed more quickly now that he wasn't using his quirk. "Um... No, I don't think so. It seems to just kinda do it on its own."

Nemuri pulled her mask "hm, alright. Let's test something. I noticed when I saved you from Bakugo you didn't faint after inhaling my quirk. Let's see if it's the same for me."

Izuku held his hand up as Nemuri stepped closer "so just let out some, right?"

Nemuri nodded "try to catch me if this goes poorly."

Izuku nodded before forcing his quirk into his palm and letting push out towards Nemuri, who took a breath and was hit with an unfamiliar feeling. She staggered back, feeling a wave of tiredness washed over her. Izuku moved to catch her, but Nemuri held a hand up and yawned "n-no, I'm fine. Just...wow, is this what people feel when they get hit with my quirk?"

Izuku chuckled. "Y-yeah, it does."

Nemuri shook off the drowsiness and nodded "alright. Let's run through some more tests."

Izuku nodded, and Nemuri ran him through several tests to gauge his quirk's limits and skill level with it. He rapidly switched from pouring gas from different spots on his torso and arms. His delay was a bit long, but it would shorten as they trained. They learned he could store up and release a big burst from different spots on his body though they were smaller than what Nemuri could do at his age. After several more tests, Nemuri turned up the fans and sucked the gas from the room before taking her mask off. "Alright, well, I expected you to be farther behind than you are, so that's good. It'll take a couple days, but I" ll get a plan set up for the summer."

"Oh Hagakure found Dagoba beach. She suggested we use it for stealth and strength training while also cleaning the place up." Izuku said as they made their way out of the back room.

Nemuri smiled "some community service on top of a workout? Sounds pretty heroic. I'll work it into your training. Now come on, we gotta find a way around the paparazzi at home."

Notes:

I'm rewriting The Sweetest Lies (have been for a bit cause it's not my focus) the first chapter is done kinda but it's kinda a dark opening for a story that I don't think is gonna be as dark as this opening is suggesting and I'm just not sure if I should rework it again or roll with it.