One of the most common questions that Izuku asked himself throughout his entire life was a simple one word inquiry. It was so simple a question that it almost sounded like a child was wanting attention from their parents by asking irritating questions, but they were valid, at least to the green haired boy. A simple question that could be asked about so many of the things that happened throughout his life, that he wished could be answered simply, if only because it would save him both a lot of heartache and pain, but would stop making him ponder it every time it entered his head, and sent him down the spiral of worries and doubts that he'd never escape from.
That question was...
Why?
It applied to such a wide variety of things that Izuku was used to asking that question far more than any other. The contract always mattered, and he found himself always wanting to know more. His inquisitive nature naturally led to him to think these things and ponder them, but the main ones were obvious. The ones he wanted to know so badly. The ones he pondered all the time.
Why had he been so unlucky as to be born Quirkless?
Why had he been chosen to succeed All Might?
Why did he always seem to be involved in dangerous situations whenever they showed up?
Why couldn't he figure out a faster way to master One For All?
These were questions that he asked himself basically every day. Some of which, he already knew the answers to, but just struggled to accept them, because they felt so completely alien to him.
The fact that he was Quirkless he had answered long ago. He could explain that one with the power of science - People just weren't born equal. Being Quirkless was a recessive trait, meaning that, even if one of his parents was Quirkless, he would have been much more likely to get a Quirk than not. But he hadn't. This meant both his parents carried to recessive Quirkless Trait that left him powerless. Sort of like the traits that gave people red hair. He was just unlucky enough to be born with the trait that meant naturally, he would never have a Quirk of his own. The answer here – He was just unlucky. Simple as that.
The fact that All Might had chosen him, of the eight billion people on the planet, to be inherit the power that was One For All. That was something that, even with the explanation from All Might himself, Izuku still struggled to understand sometimes. Of the many incredible people out there, with absolutely amazing Quirks that could shake the very foundations of the world. And he was the one who had been chosen. That was an idea he still struggled to get his head wrapped around sometimes. And while that fact made Izuku was to cry tears of joy every time he thought about it... Part of him still felt unworthy to wield this power.
The fact he couldn't find a way to master One For All... Full Cowl was helping him get there. And he was getting there. If he kept this up, he'd be able to wield the Quirk fully within a few years... But it was a slow process, and while he knew that patience and practice would eventually make perfect... He didn't want to wait. He wanted to be able to become a Hero as fast as possible, to be able to help save people with a smile while announcing that everything would be okay, even in the face of danger and fear.
That had been his dream, for so, so, so long, and now, the ability to do that was in his veins... But he couldn't control it. He wasn't sure if that was fair of him or not, if he had any real right to complain over the speed of his development of the Quirk when he should just be damn thankful for his Quirkless body to even have a Quirk… But now that he had it, that it was within his palms…
It frustrated him... Of course he still had years ahead of him at Yuuei that he needed to complete before he could even think about becoming a Professional, yet his desire to excel, and his lack of ability to do so… It frustrated him. While everyone else could really push themselves to the limit, stretch their Quirks like there was no tomorrow, he still had to figure out how to get his Quirk off its stabilisers. But it also reminded him that it wasn't his power. It was a borrowed power, that one day, he would have to give up. It wouldn't be for a long, long time. Maybe when he was on his death bed, handing it off to his own successor. Or maybe it would be next week, when All Might just... Decided that he had found someone better to inherit the Quirk...
He didn't want to think like that. But... Was it selfish to not want to let go of this power? Did that make him a bad person? That he wanted to hold onto this power for as long as he could? Did that make him a selfish person? He just couldn't know. He had no idea...
"Remember what you said to Todoroki... 'It's your power'."
They were powerful words that had made Izuku remember a few important things about One For All. About All Might... And about himself, too. Things that, when he started doubting himself, he just forgot to mention to himself to relax. Things that really just... Took the edge off, was the best way to describe it.
Really, it didn't matter that All Might had chosen him and not someone with a good Gigantification Quirk, or someone with a Quirk like Todoroki's. It had been All Might's choice to hand down this power to him, and he had had to accept it. Even if he had never wanted to be a Hero, to deny the wish that All Might had, to name him as the person who was to run with this amazing power… Those doubts that he felt, they still existed every single time he thought about his status in this world... He doubted they would ever fully go away. All he could do was bite the bullet and just keep moving forward, hoping that someday, he'd get to where he wanted to be.
Right now... That place he wanted to be... It was by Mina's side. And it surprised Izuku when he thought that. That his first thought wasn't that he wanted to be standing alongside his Hero, and protecting and saving people who needed saving with a smile. It was that he wanted to be next to Mina. Not even necessarily as Heroes. Like the now was just as good, not just the future.
Which just raised one more question...
...Why... Why had he fallen for Mina so badly?
His abilities to express his emotions were limited, even disregarding his fear that if he said he loved her to her, she'd leave him behind… But as for how he truly felt about her, when no one was able to listen to him, and he thought about her on his own… He loved her. He really, truly loved her. He loved her so much that he himself could hardly even stand it, and they were dating, for God's sake.
He'd never be able to express how much he loved her. She meant the world to him.
Of course he loved his girlfriend - Their relationship would not be a healthy one if Izuku didn't feel this way about her. Mina was a person who Izuku cared deeply, deeply for, who he thought about every day, and who he struggled to see himself without anymore. And at the same time, he had another struggle - The struggle of explaining just why. When he thought about that final question, there were a number of answers that ran through his mind, each of them seeming like a reasonable answer when he responded internally.
Mina was a kind person.
She was a cute girl.
Being around her made him happy.
She was funny.
He loved her because she was there with him, and she shared his desire for Heroism... They were reasons why he loved her... But they were definitive. They were aspects that they shared, and of course he loved her for all those reasons in addition... The truth was, it wasn't any of those things that caused this deep level of affection that he felt towards her. The depth of his feelings was something a lot more emotional. A lot more intimate.
Mina was the first person Izuku felt this way about. This deep, warm, almost instinctive feeling. It was the same one that enveloped him virtually every single day, whenever he saw, spoke, or even thought about his girlfriend. The air of familiarity and comfort, safety, warmth. She could simultaneously excite and relax him whenever the urge hit her, being as bombastic in her joy of making him blush as he was with his Heroic impulses. Izuku loved this girl to death...
And the reason was because... Well...
She had faith in him. She stood by him.
It sounded like a weak, pitiful reason for someone to fall this deeply in love, but it was the honest truth. Mina knew the truth about One For All, about his Quirkless origins, and about All Might's condition and aiding Izuku. He had been terrified of her reaction when he revealed all of this to her, but she had simply turned around and smiled, and told him that it didn't change anything. When he talked about his dream of becoming a Hero endlessly, she didn't tell him to stop, like he was so used to being told to in middle school. When he gushed about All Might and his favourite Heroes, he didn't get told that he wasn't good enough to be like them. He didn't get told to shut up.
His girlfriend... She sat there. She accepted all of these things about him, and she still loved him. To Izuku, that was the single most incredible thing about Mina. Growing up, he had been conditioned to accept that he was going to be abused like that. That it was part of the destiny that had had placed in front of him. But Mina didn't follow that trend. She accepted him for the person he was... She liked the person he was. Sometimes it was hard for Izuku to get his head around.
It made him was to kiss her.
To hold her.
Keep her close.
Feel her warmth.
Taste her lips.
Feel how soft and warm her skin was...
Every time they kissed, hugged, or just touched, Izuku noted just how it felt, just so he could remember later on. Just so he could relive it. He remembered it all. Even back when she had 'Forced herself' on him. The taste of her tongue, the soft feel of her breast... He remembered it. He'd never confess to it under normal circumstances, but he'd liked it. He would also, on very rare occasions admit to himself... He might slightly want to do that again. He'd never say that to Mina in a thousand years. ...But it was true.
Now that he thought about it... There wasn't anything he disliked about Mina. She had her more intense traits, sure, but he did too. Everything about her, good and bad... It just felt so perfect. So good, so right. Like this had been meant to happen. Everything about her...
She was right. One For All was his power.
And he'd prove it. All this time, he'd always felt like he was proving himself to other people, to other concepts. Proving that he was worthy of succeeding All Might, proving that he could catch up to Bakugou, proving that he deserved his place here in Yuuei... He was constantly proving himself to others.
This time, he'd prove it for himself - That he deserved to wield One For All for himself.
As soon as the word 'Go' was uttered, Team Awkward Energy was away, already on the hunt for Ectoplasm clones that had intentionally put themselves into precarious locations, the aim to test their ability to save and serve as part of a team.
The first issue that they ran into was the fact that they had no way to determine where exactly those clones were located. The USJ was a large building, as it needed to be to house such a variety of environments to train the next generation of Heroes, but this worked against the two of them, as far too many places could be used as tricks to waste their time, hidden in as part of some kind of ambush, or and even the ones that were being used would no doubt be in the more precarious places that would waste their time anyway.
So locating the 'Injured Citizens' was the foremost priority. Then selecting which ones to save would be the next step.
The vast majority of them were going to be outside, Izuku thought to himself. It was as All Might said - While the majority of serious crimes and Villain activity occurred indoors, that meant that overall few people were going to be injured while in said confined spaces. Heroes were seen rescuing people mostly outdoors, because those indoor activities meant there were few civilians around.
Civilians were almost certainly never going to be hurt in those circumstances. Villains, the worst of the worst, wouldn't risk doing operations in the open, where all eyes were upon them. They'd do so indoors, and therefore, there would no civilians to notice. Villains who acted outdoors were usually thugs or idiots who acted without thinking, were in a panic, or for some other reason. Whatever the case though, those were where civilian lives would be at risk.
Mina had absolutely no way whatsoever of scanning an area for anyone who would be at risk. Her Quirk was totally useless for this sort of task. Her Quirk was useful for combat, or stealth, not even remotely close to being helpful when it came to this aspect of Heroism. When it came to scouting, Mina wasn't the best person. At all.
One For All, it was a powerful ability, of course, otherwise All Might wasn't going to have been able to become the world's number one Hero, and remain as such for so long, but it wasn't exactly grand for recognisance. It wasn't a good Quirk for scouting by default, although for someone who knew exactly what they were doing, again, like All Might, there wasn't much it wasn't good for. Izuku wasn't All Might though, so his abilities with it still needed refining.
In short, he wasn't the best scout right now. He'd need a lot of practice to figure out the best ways to go about rescuing civilians in this sort of scenario before he could claim to be an expert. Still, he had an idea that he could try at least, and it was better than nothing.
"I'll check around!" The green haired boy declared, sending One For All's power surging throughout his body with his Full Cowl technique, and leaping into the air as high as he could, leaving his girlfriend behind where she stood at the top of the steps to the USJ grounds. The timer was already counting down, so every second that they had given to them had to count for something, or they weren't going to be able to complete a single rescue.
Gone out of earshot before Mina, if she had wanted to, could voice a protest, she decided to make her own way down to the foot of the steps, activating her own Quirk from her feet, and utilizing the Acid-proof shoes that she had requested in her costume specifications. In doing so, she created what amounted to a surfboard made of corrosive liquid, only she could use it so skid down solid surfaces as though she were on a wave in the ocean, allowing gravity to pull her towards the ground at the bottom of the stairs far faster than if she had run down without the use of her powers.
It wasn't like she had much else she could do in her current situation, what with Izuku already charging off into action like he normally did. Her Quirk didn't let her follow suit, so she just decided to get herself into a more convenient situation. Keeping an eye on him as he propelled himself into the air with the sheer amounts of kinetic energy that One For All gave his Quirkless body, she had to remind herself to keep an eye on the rapidly approaching ground below her. A simply jump though, and she was fine, skimming along the surface below her like she were on a skateboard.
Someone could argue that her using her Quirk hadn't been totally necessary there, but to Mina's mind, there wasn't much reason having a Quirk if she wasn't going to use it.
Within a second of her having reached the ground, Izuku came falling down just afterwards. By utilizing his Quirk, he managed to avoid taking any damage that he otherwise would have suffered from crashing into the ground at the speed he had, using his powers almost like they were a crash pillow for him to land on. He landed on his right knee, his body naturally bending as the force followed him, before he re-postured himself, and turned around to face Mina.
"Over here!" He called, waving her over and already darting off in the direction he had spotted one of Ectoplasm's clones. This time, he didn't utilize his Quirk, so Mina could catch up with him. As the two were supposed to be working in a Team, he knew they had to stay close and work together if they had a hope of passing this initiation.
Mainly attributed to her own levels of physical fitness, Mina caught up within seconds, before she slowed down her running pace to what to her, amounted to a brisk jog alongside Izuku, and headed in the same direction as he was. "You saw one of Ectoplasm's clones this way, yeah?"
"Yeah!" Responded Izuku positively, him not taking his eyes off of his chosen destination, even as they made a run through the building. Picking up his speed without utilizing his Quirk, since Mina was clearly more than capable of keeping up with him, he broke into what was more a sprint than it was just a run anymore. "Underneath some rubble in the Ruins Zone!"
"Neat!" The pink skinned girl grinned, acknowledging Izuku's report and looking straight ahead to completing their objective.
Izuku on the other hand… He was more sceptical.
Yes, he'd been the one to spot the clone. Yes, he'd been the one return to Mina and inform her of where the clone was, and yes, he was now the person who was leading her towards that particular location. All of this was very true, and he accepted all of it readily, even as his mind raced at a thousand miles an hour.
But it seemed… To easy. Naturally, he knew Ectoplasm sensei was able to create thirty of his clones, thirty-four or more if he was in a good mood, or had practiced with his vocal cords or… Whatever peculiar trait it was that increased his ability to produce more clones. Regardless, it did in fact mean that with such a high number of clones scattered around the place, some were going to be more obvious and easy to spot than others were going to be able to be. Some would hide themselves exceptionally well, whereas others would be in the open, in more clear and obvious locations that anyone would be able to spot if they had a clear line of sight.
Those were the ones that, in spite of being the easiest to locate….
They would also be the most dangerous.
"Hey, Mina!" He called over to his girlfriend, catching her attention immediately. "Keep an eye out for the other students around this place! I think they'll try and launch a surprise attack on us!"
"What makes you say that?"
"This clone was really easy to spot – So if I could spot it, then the other Hero Team students would have been able to see it easily too, and they have more experience at this sort of thing that we do! Cones that are easy to find are easy for us to locate, but they're easy for them to find too, so that makes them good ambush targets! All they'd need to do is wait for us to run towards them!"
"…Like we're doing right now."
"…Yeah."
Not that they could stop, even if they wanted to. With such a short time frame to save as many as possible, even though they both knew that the chances of ambush were fairly high, there wasn't much that they could do about it. Flanking around and checking all the possible locations would kill way too much time, and as Heroes, they couldn't just leave a civilian in pain under a collection of rubble for that long anyway. Their job was to save the civilians as fast as possible – That was the mandate of any respectable Hero, regardless of the risks presented to themselves.
Even if it gave a Villain the advantage over the Hero… The Hero wasn't supposed to ever leave a Civilian in danger like that. Heroes put themselves on the line to protect those who couldn't protect themselves, not use them as bait to lure out Villains that might not even be there.
And that wasn't even the end of their problems.
On top of all of that, Izuku and Mina knew very little about the Hero Team students' Quirks. The only student that they had even the first clue about was the one that belonged to the albino-appearing Kuroshi, and the only indication that they got from his was that he had a fire based Quirk. It was something at least, but it didn't help them much, since they had no idea exactly how the Quirk worked. Did it just cause his hands to catch fire, or did it let him blast it off? If so, what were the limits and drawbacks?
This total lack information caused a huge number of issues for the two of them. Without any Intel on what they were up against regarding their opponent's abilities or Quirks, it meant that they couldn't develop a counter-strategy, something that was Izuku's main defence against any of his enemies.
The only thing that he had to work with was the fact that they were Hero Team students – Meaning that they had to value teamwork to a fairly large degree. But that also raised more questions – What sorts of strategies would they use? Would they rely on numbers, or attack one by one, wearing down their targets before moving in for the knockout? Would their Quirks complement one another, or would they be dichotomic opposites that contrasted and somehow became more effective as a result, like Todoroki's own hybrid Quirk? Would they use tag-team style tactics, or just rush them at the same time and use brute strength?
All these variables meant that Izuku would have to gather his information as they fought whoever showed up, and he'd just have to figure stuff out from there, and play it by ear.
Essentially, and simply put, they were possibly heading into an ambush that the other teams had quickly laid out, and were just waiting for them to fall into. Or just one person on their own.
It didn't honestly matter. As long as they had no information to work with, they had no counter-strategy….
Meaning that if they wanted to get anywhere, they just had to take the risk, and if they were ambushed, they just had to let that happen. Otherwise, they were going to spend this entire initiation in the dark, and they wouldn't be accepted into the classes.
"We need to figure out what sorts of Quirks the other teams have – I think we should just let them spring the ambush on us, so we can figure out at least a little bit of information about their Quirks!" Izuku explained his thinking, skidding to a stop behind a concrete slab as the two of them came on the verge of the Ruins Zone. The clone he had spotted was barely even ten meters away from their current location, and if they were to peek their heads out from behind cover, they would be very easily be able to spot it. "You hang back. If I get attacked, then you can flank around them and jump them from behind."
"This isn't your smartest plan, you know." Mina lightly joked, though she knew that it was the best he could do given such little information. This wasn't a battle against thugs that they could just figure out on the fly – This was against people who had formal, serious training, and were going to fight like they meant it. They had higher levels of education than they did, and more experience in working as direct teams. Without any sort of knowledge as to their opponent's tactics, they were basically looking at a guaranteed loss. "Okay, I've got you covered. Be careful."
Nodding, Izuku took a step from cover, and scanned the area quickly. He spotted no signs of anyone being around the place, so he made his way, quickly as he could, towards the clone of Ectoplasm. The clone said nothing, and barely even seemed to acknowledge that Izuku was there, which made sense. The clone was there to act as a civilian that needed to be rescued, not a teacher who was criticizing them for what they were doing wrong in this context. That wasn't what this session was about.
How the clone had even buried itself in this rubble in such a short span of time was a mystery to Izuku, but he didn't dwell on it. With speed, he ran up to the clone, and began doing what he could to dig out his target.
He had no idea where Mina had gone. In spite of her incredibly bright colour pallet, even without her Hero costume, she'd managed to camouflage herself easily into the backgrounds of dark and various greys that belonged to broken rubble and concrete. How she'd accomplished this, he honestly didn't know. Her Quirk would make her well suited to this sort of activity, of course, but it was actually pretty impressive that she'd managed to go ahead and do it, given her skin pigments, and how colourful her costume was. He was genuinely impressed.
Pulling on the limb clone, Izuku dragged the body of a man who was just under twice his size from the rubble it had clambered into itself. Part of him expected it to be booby trapped. Thankfully, it wasn't.
"Well, that didn't take long."
There was the ambush though, he thought to himself.
His head rotated upwards about fifty degrees, to see none other than the pale skinned fire type Quirk user Kuroshi squatting just atop a pile of rubble that looked like it had formerly been a pillar of some kind, just a few meters above the green haired boy. At the tips of Kuroshi's fingers, fire danced like candlelight's in the wind, though he didn't seem to be controlling its movements at all, just letting them do their own thing.
Taking a proper look at Kuroshi's Hero costume, Izuku noted that he seemed to be a more practical sort of dresser than he was a show-off. He wore shorts and a tank-top vest, all pale in colours like his skin tone, presumably to evade constantly burning clothing with his Quirk. Unlike Todoroki, who now sued a full black-body suit as his costume which would regulate his temperature, Kuroshi seemed to forego this entirely. Perhaps him dressing light was his way of cooling off when his Quirk was used too much, though it felt unlikely, given that he was already casually creating flames at his fingertips.
One thing that Izuku was certain of though – He looked like he had been looking forward to this.
"You're that weird Strength Enhancement Type, right?" The albino boy questioned, standing upright now as he looked down on Izuku. His central heterochromic red eyes had mask wrapped around them, a darker scarlet, and in the shape of flames that reminded Izuku of Stain's scarf more than anything else. "Super Strength, but using it makes you break your bones… Your girlfriend's got Acid as her Quirk… You're an odd choice for a Hero Team, you know." Seeing Izuku's confused expression, Kuroshi explained how he knew all of this information about them. "Ah, right, I watched the first years during the sports festival match. You were up against the brainwashing dude in the tournament matches, and then the ice and fire dude. The pink girl went against the… Weird laser guy and the bird. Well, she at least tried to fight the bird, anyway."
His hand suddenly burst into flames again. Apparently, he just liked talking, and he never had any intentions of having a conversation with Izuku properly.
"Like I said, weird."
His right hand extended, and suddenly, he unleashed a huge blast of red-hot flames towards Izuku without restrain or restriction. The beam itself was no thicker than its users arm, though the speed at which it ignited and was shot out was something to be beheld. The power behind this Quirk wasn't something to be underestimated. How much training had he gone through to be able to produce flames of that power so quickly?
What happened next was what caught Izuku out though – Instead of charging directly at him and staying the course, the fire suddenly changed direction, altering trajectory like it were some sort of snake, and hit not Izuku himself – It was very careful and precise to avoid hitting him like that – But instead, totally singed the clone of Ectoplasm, reducing it to its most basic plasma form on the ground within seconds of making contact.
Meaning that this particular rescue had been a total failure. Not only that, it also guaranteed that they would lose at least one mark, since one of said marks was literally dead. Kuroshi grinned as white mist emerged from between his teeth. He was really getting into the role of the Villain.
Jumping back, Izuku quickly assessed what had just happened. "A Pyrokinetic Quirk!"
The fire changed course again, returning to Kuroshi as if it had been connected to him from the very start, and engulfing his arms in the warmth of its burning. Looking down at Izuku, Kuroshi gave him a smug grin. "Let's see if you can figure out my Quirk."
As he spoke however, his head turned to spot another attacker charging in – Mina, with a pool of Acid in her left hand, leaped over some of the rubble that had been in her way, and using Izuku and his interaction as a method of sneaking up without detection, Mina had managed to get close to the albino Second year without even being noticed.
Yet it didn't do her much good. Leaning off the side of his platform, and allowing himself to fall for just a quarter of a second, Kuroshi's Quirk then activated from the soles of his feet, propelling him and keeping him in the air, and, utilizing the combustion of his Quirk on his legs, spun around and delivered a sharp spinning-back-leg roundhouse-kick to the back of the neck, all in one fell swoop that had been far too quick to react to or get out of the way of without the power of precognition.
Kicking her off of the rubble and letting her fall, Kuroshi used his fire to keep himself floating in the air, before reclaiming his step atop the pillar he previously stood. He didn't even look to be mildly challenged, like he was only toying with the first years out of boredom, not a serious initiation test.
"Mina!" Leaping forward, Izuku reached out, and caught his girlfriend before she wound up falling, back first, onto the ground below. Catching her in his arms, he held her in the traditional bridal manner. Normally, this would cause him to blush, and Mina would tease him about it, but given their station, neither of them had the time or frame of mind to react s they normally would.
"Aaah…" Mina groaned, before looking at her boyfriend. Her hand made its way to the back of her head, rubbing the impact sight in an effort to nullify some of the pain. "Sorry… I thought I'd be able to sneak up on him."
"That was pathetic, if I'm totally honest." The fire using Quirk user sighed, another puff of mist leaving his mouth with his expulsion of air, and he started crouching down again. "That was like someone trying to sneak up on me while wrapped in a giant flag. I saw you coming a mile away. You're useless if you can't even figure out your Quirks optimal use. Never mind joining a Hero Team, you wouldn't even make a decent Hero, full stop."
"Mina's going to make an awesome Hero!" Izuku suddenly, and violently shot back, much to the surprise of Mina and Kuroshi both. Letting Mina get onto her own two feet on her own, Izuku started to smile himself. It was a wobbly smile, and it didn't look all that intimidating or reassuring, or anything else that a smile was supposed to do… But the fact that Izuku was even able to smile under these circumstances meant one thing.
He'd figured something out.
"She helped me figure out how your Quirk works."
"I did?" Mina blinked in surprise, looking towards Izuku for explanation.
"Yeah." Izuku nodded. "I got to see his attacks better because of you. He's got a fire type Quirk that lets him generate and manipulate fire. He has Pyrokinesis, if you want to look at it like that. He can generate it enough to propel himself against gravity, so that tells me that he's able to generate a large amount of force from his Quirk… And he seems to be able to generate it wherever he likes on his body, like your Acid Quirk."
"…But you already knew that, right?"
"I noticed something though." Izuku explained, pointing towards Kuroshi's mouth. The culprit still seeping from between his lips, Izuku still had his doubts, but he was more than willing to put money on this being the tell that his Quirk gave. "I noticed it before, but now I'm convinced that it's directly linked to his Quirk – It's that mist."
For a second, there was total silence, while Mina tried to figure out what the hell Izuku was even talking about. This sort of behaviour from Izuku, it certainly wasn't normal, and she had no idea what he was trying to accomplish, aside from maybe provoking his opponent. Whatever the case was, this didn't seem like the Izuku that she normally knew… But he had the observational skills and applicable knowledge that he did. It was odd, like she was watching someone who he was and wasn't merged into one, if that made sense.
He was either really, really confident… Or he had a plan here.
Kuroshi stared right back at Izuku, the red that surrounded his pupils seeming to glow a bit more bright against the white that surrounded it. The older Yuuei student didn't make any sort of movement whatsoever, like he'd become a statue.
"…Impressive." He suddenly grinned, standing upright. "Not a lot of people figure out that that's how my Quirk works just from the mist. Though you can cut the act, kid. You won't provoke me like that. I'm more than happy to tell you my Quirk now that you'd figured it out."
He still didn't remove his smile, not quite yet, but Izuku did seem to calm down at this affirmation that his guess had been correct. He let out a breath that he hadn't seemed aware that he'd been holding in, like he'd just bluffed his way to victory and hit the jackpot. "Considering your personality, I thought that might get you to flinch. I know someone a lot like you, and that would have made him lose his cool."
"I'm guessing the Explosion Boy. He seems pretty weak, emotionally speaking anyway." Chuckling, Kuroshi spoke louder. "You can't afford to be impulsive like that if you're going to be in a Hero Team. One person's desires don't outweigh anyone else's. You'll learn to have some impressive personal discipline if you pass the Initiation."
"What is going on?" Mina finally asked, looking at Izuku like he'd just started speaking German partway through the conversation. "You were trying to make him attack you?"
With a nod, Izuku confirmed that that had been his intention. "I thought if he did, it might confirm my theory about his Quirk if I saw it again… But He just admitted that my thinking is correct." Explained the normally nervous teenager. He let out a sigh, and his smile left his face, returning him back to the normal looking Izuku Midoriya that she knew. His ability to think quickly and bullshit his way out of messes was impressive to say the least, she'd give him that.
Had this grown from his time fighting Villains? Had his win against tall Might been a catalyst for some sudden growth? Was he proud of himself right now?...
Or was something else happening? He seemed to be… amazingly confident right now, which was insane, considering that less than an hour ago, he'd been expressing how doubtful he was about being the inheritor to All Might's almighty power. It felt inconsistent… Mina had every intention to ask him about it later.
"That mist that comes from his mouth when he uses his Quirk – Its condensation. When warm air meets with cold surfaces or air, it creates condensation, or vice-versa. Like when you open a freezer and all that mist comes out, the same thing happens to him whenever he uses his Quirk."
Grinning, Kuroshi activated his Quirk again, this time creating two fireballs that he allowed to hover in his palms. He didn't move or manipulate them to, nor were they poised to strike against the two first years. He actually looked like he was just offering visual aid to Izuku as he explained his Quirk.
"I think his Quirk requires him to exchange his body temperature when he wants to create that fire. Like Sato's Sugar Rush Quirk – He needs to use his internal body temperature as a fuel to activate his Quirk!"
"You got it." Kuroshi confessed. Holding the fireball up so it was clearer to see, he went into further detail. "My Quirk is called Pyrokinetic Degree. I can make and control fire, but every fireball I make, I give up one degree of my internal body temperature to make – That blast I shot at you and killed that clone with, that took a whole degree of my body temperature to make. My body temperature is about fifty degrees centigrade, so I get fifty shots of my Quirk before I reach freezing point. So I'm at about forty-seven degrees now. Although…" As he spoke, the fireballs he made suddenly increased in temperature, turning blue hot, and then white hot. "…If I give up more of my body temperature, I can create even hotter flames, that burn for longer, do more damage, and are a lot harder to avoid."
He then aimed at the two first years.
"And knowing how my Quirk works isn't going to help you avoid it!"
With that, he unleashed his attack.