Izuku didn't stop to argue. He circled back to the start and waited for the whistle.
It blew.
He ran.
Touch the car. Come back. Don't die.
"Forty seconds! You're getting slower! Again!"
Run.
"Thirty-nine! Stop thinking! Move!"
Run.
"Thirty-eight! Your footwork is garbage!"
My footwork is fine. You're just impossible to please.
Run.
By the twentieth sprint, Izuku's legs felt like they'd been replaced with wet noodles. By the thirtieth, he was pretty sure his lungs were going to stage a revolt. By the fortieth, he stopped counting because numbers lost all meaning in the face of pure physical misery.
But something happened around sprint forty-five.
His body stopped fighting him.
The weights were still there. The terrain was still hostile. The rain still fell. But his movements smoothed out. He stopped thinking about where to step and just stepped. His muscles knew. His bones remembered. The path through the junkyard became a pattern, a rhythm, a dance with sharp edges and tetanus.
"Thirty-two seconds!" Hano called. "Now we're talking! Ten more!"
Izuku wanted to die. But he ran.
===
Sparring on top of a trash mountain was Hano's idea of a good time.
"Balance!" the old man barked, standing on a washing machine that sat atop two refrigerators that were balanced on a pile of scrap metal. The entire structure swayed in the wind. "If you can't maintain your footing on unstable ground, you're dead the moment a villain destroys the floor under you!"
Izuku stood opposite him on a car hood that was only slightly less precarious. His stance was wide, knees bent, ready to move.
This is insane. This is actually insane. I'm going to die falling into a pile of rusty metal and my last thought is going to be 'I should've just stayed in bed.'
Hano moved.
He crossed the distance between them in a blur, foot lashing out in a low kick aimed at Izuku's ankle. Izuku shifted his weight, avoided the strike, countered with a jab that Hano slipped like smoke.
The car hood tilted under their combined movement. Izuku adjusted his stance, kept his balance, threw a second jab to cover his repositioning.
Hano caught his wrist, pulled him forward, and Izuku's world became a lesson in momentum management. He let the pull carry him, used it to close distance, drove his shoulder toward Hano's center mass.
The old man twisted, redirected, and suddenly Izuku was stumbling toward the edge of the car hood.
His foot found the lip. Toes gripped the rusted metal. He teetered.
Nope. Not today.
He dropped his center of gravity, bent at the knees, and pushed off backward. His foot left the edge. He twisted mid-air, caught a handhold on an exposed pipe, used it to swing his body back onto the car hood.
He landed in a crouch, breathing hard, grinning despite himself.
"Not bad!" Hano said, and actually sounded impressed. "Now do it again! And this time, try hitting me!"
They went another round. Then another. Then ten more.
Izuku fell off the trash mountain six times. Hano never fell once.
Of course he didn't. The universe loves him and hates me.
The apartment smelled like miso soup and something that might have been teriyaki chicken.
Izuku stumbled through the door at 8 PM, looking like he'd been beaten with the ugly stick and then thrown into a rust factory. His clothes were soaked. His hair stuck to his forehead. He was pretty sure there was blood somewhere on his person but he'd stopped checking after the first week.
"I'm home," he called, voice hoarse.
"Welcome back, Izuku-chan!" His mother's voice drifted from the kitchen, warm and sweet and completely oblivious to his suffering. "Dinner is almost ready! Go wash up!"
He wanted to collapse right there in the entryway. Just lie down on the floor and become one with the tile. But that would make Mom worry, and worried Mom became Scary Mom, and Scary Mom was the only force in the universe more terrifying than Hano.
So he dragged himself to the bathroom, peeled off his wet clothes, and stepped into the shower.
The hot water hit his bruised muscles and he groaned. It felt like heaven. It felt like dying and going to a place where water pressure was worshipped as a deity.
He stood there for twenty minutes, letting the heat soak into his bones, watching rust and sand swirl down the drain.
Two months. I've been doing this for two months. Eight more to go.
When he finally emerged, clean and dressed in dry clothes, he found his mother setting the table. She looked up, smiled that gentle smile that could probably stop wars, and gestured to the spread she'd prepared.
Mountains of rice. Teriyaki chicken. Miso soup. Pickled vegetables. Grilled fish. Enough food to feed a small army.
"Eat up! You need your strength!" Inko said, already loading his plate with portions that violated several laws of physics.
Izuku sat. He ate. His body accepted the food with the desperate gratitude of a machine that had been running on fumes.
Between bites, his mother chatted about her day. A patient at the clinic had recovered from a nasty Quirk accident. The neighbor's cat had gotten stuck in a tree again. She'd bought green tea mochi from the store because it was on sale and she knew it was his favorite.
Normal conversation. Normal life. The kind of peaceful domestic scene that existed in a completely different universe from the hell he'd been living in for the past two months.
Is this what it's like to have a normal family? Where the biggest concern is whether or not you remembered to buy mochi?
"Oh, and I added extra bandages to your bag," Inko said casually, as if this was the most natural thing in the world. "And antiseptic. The good kind. Sensei mentioned you've been very enthusiastic in your training lately."
'Enthusiastic.' That's one word for it. 'Slowly dying' would be another.
"Thanks, Ma."
She smiled, reached over, and patted his hand. "I'm proud of you, you know. You're working so hard."
Something warm settled in his chest. Something that wasn't pain or exhaustion or the burning desire to set the entire beach on fire.
"Yeah. I know."
After dinner, he retreated to his room. His body screamed at him to sleep. His brain had other ideas.
He sat at his desk, pulled out his journal, and started writing.
Day 47: Successfully moved engine block. Took forty-seven attempts. Hano's obstacle sprint drill is effective but I hate it. Balance training on unstable surfaces is improving proprioception. Still can't land a clean hit on the old man. Current theory: he's actually a ghost and I've been training with a supernatural entity.
Physical Status: Everything hurts. Calluses on calluses. Pretty sure I've lost feeling in my left pinky toe. On the bright side, the weights feel lighter than they did last month. Progress is measurable but slow.
Mental Status: Spite is an excellent motivator. So is the mental image of walking into U.A. and watching everyone's faces when they realize the Quirkless kid is a problem.
He closed the journal, leaned back in his chair, and stared at the ceiling.
Eight more months.
Eight more months of rain and rust and engine blocks. Eight more months of Hano's critiques and obstacle sprints and sparring on trash mountains.
Eight more months until U.A.
His phone buzzed. A text from the old man.
Tomorrow: 4:30 AM. Bring gloves. We're moving refrigerators.
Izuku groaned, set an alarm, and collapsed into bed.
Sleep took him instantly.
Outside, the rain kept falling on Takoba Beach. The trash waited. The engine blocks sat in their pile, patient and immovable.
Tomorrow would come. The work would continue.
And somewhere in the back of his mind, buried under exhaustion and spite and the distant echo of Hano's whistle, Izuku Midoriya smiled.
Because he'd proven something today.
It was possible.
Now he just had to do it a thousand more times.