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Chapter 55

Clearly, you're lying—you're, honestly, ready to collapse—and he knows you're lying but there's no way out of this, so your only option is to keep going.

All of you, along with class B, made it till late in the afternoon. Yesterday's fight with those rock giants felt like child's play after today's intense training.

When you returned, Pixie Bob and Ragdoll, were waiting behind a counter full of food ingredients.

"Now, remember what I said yesterday?" Pixie Bob's energy is too much for your ready-to-break body. "Today's the only day we'll be doing stuff for you!"

"At least, make your own food!" Ragdoll says.

Curry is not so hard to make; that's the only thing keeping you motivated and your stomach growling like crazy. With that said, it still didn't come out as tasty as you'd hope but it's edible.

Mandalay calls out for Kota to come inside and eat, however the boy actually runs away into the woods. You got a little worried about him being all alone in there in the middle of the night, so you got up to follow him and it seems Izuku had the same idea.

You both follow him until you reach in front of a cave, up on the hill. Izuku brought him a plate of curry since he refused to eat with you at the camp.

"You're hungry, aren't you?" Izuku says. The boy looks at you two with so much hate in his eyes. You wish you knew why he hates heroes so much. "You can eat this curry."

"You! How'd you find this place!?"

"Sorry, Kota," You say softly. "Well, uh, we followed your footsteps. We brought you some food, we thought you'd be hungry."

"I'm fine. I don't need any." He bits. "I told you I don't intend to hang out with heroes. Get out of my secret hideout! Both of you!"

"Kota..." You know there's a backstory to all this anger and hate towards heroes. You really want to know but he's a child and you don't want to pressure him to remember something he might want to forget.

"Getting all into trying to improve your quirk. It's gross." It's rare to see a child hating something so passionately, most children his age adore or idolize. "You want to show off your power that badly?"

"Your parents..." Izuku looks down, not with wonder, but rather like he knows Kota's story. "Could they be Water Hose? With the water quirks?"

"Did Mandalay tell you!?" The kid got all defensive immediately. So, Izuku does know.

"Oh, no, um, uh..." He stutters, looking up to the distance. "Sorry! Yeah, I kind of ended up hearing about it, and based on the information I got, I thought maybe..."

You remember them. Water Hose were two heroes who died two years ago, protecting citizens from a villain. Everybody praised them for their heroic death, but...for a child it's not the same it seems. Especially when it's their own.

"I remember that. It was an unfortunate incident." You say, feeling bad for Kota.

"Shut up." He turns to the other side, not bearing to look at you. "Everyone's crazy...Calling each other heroes and villains and killing each other...Talking about quirks and stuff...It's because they're all showing off that it ended up like that...Stupid..."

"Oh..." This poor kid...He doesn't hate just heroes, he hates the whole superhuman society itself. "I see how it is."

"What is it? If there's nothing else, then go away!"

"Come on," You try pulling Izuku. "Let's leave him alone."

"You know..." Izuku says. "My friend, uh...My friend...couldn't inherit any quirks from his parents...It's a hereditary thing, and apparently it's rare but does happen. But he admired heroes and wanted to become one, but you can't be one these days without a quirk. My friend couldn't accept that for a long time and practiced...Trying to draw objects around him and breathe fire...But it was no good. There are a lot of different ways to think about quirks, so I don't know if this'll apply to everyone, but if you reject it that much, then it'll just be more painful for you. Um, so..."