A Different Path.

The Power to Strive.

The three day break from UA may not have been much to most other students. However, to Izuku it was the gear that got the machine working.

He had gotten to work, constructing several different armor pieces and other support gear.

One particular piece of equipment, a tungsten carbide rod designed to be used as a quarter-staff kept detonating in the middle of construction. However, after twelve consecutive hours of work he managed to get it to work.

Now dubbed the Wrangler, the staff sat in a display case waiting to be shown to both Vlad King and Power Loader.

It wasn't anything special appearance wise, just looking like a steel pole. But, it had several unique aspects to it. There was a small button on the handle that when pressed caused small studs to protrude from the metal. Another button would turn it into 'stun' mode.

Electricity would course around the Wrangler, it's voltage similar to that of the Quirk of the Number Thirty-Seven Hero, Thundershock.

The last aspect of the Wrangler was heavily inspired from his lesson in the Labyrinth. Twisting the handle would open several different sized holes in it. From there, a gaseous compound similar to that of Miss Midnight's Quirk would seep out of the Wrangler. It even worked the same as her Quirk, Izuku having knocked himself out several times with it during testing.

Of course, Izuku still had to learn how to use a quarter-staff, but surely that was something someone at UA could teach him how to do.

The second piece of support gear that he had made was designed to be fitted onto his gauntlet. It was based on both a fictional character as well as a real life, yet very dead man.

He had been watching some Pre-Quirk Era movies about a bunch of superhumans when he'd been inspired.

There was a teenage superhero with some of the abilities of a spider. The most important being the ability to produce a silk-like web and shoot it at people or use it to hold entire buildings together.

After some research to see if this could be replicated, Izuku had come across the mentions of a Vigilante from the Quirk Settlement period.

One Daigoro Banjo. His Quirk, Black Whip acted a lot like Spider-Man's own webs. It also oddly enough gave him some form of strength enhancement. Again, much like the fictional Hero Spider-Man. Further research led Izuku to find out how Black Whip worked, and after a full day of receiving very painful electric shocks he had mostly replicated it.

Sure there were still some hijinks to work out and more than a few issues with it, but he was hoping to get Power Loader's assistance with that.

"Sweetie? Are you sure you're okay to return to school?" His mother asked, quite obviously worried. "You didn't get much sleep over the past couple days, plus your arm isn't even fully healed."

"I'll be fine." Izuku replied, quickly chugging down his third energy drink as he did. He needed as much caffeine as possible in order to survive the day.

After giving his mother a hug, he darted out of the door and ran head first into Neito Monoma and Ibara Shiozaki.

"Woah! Someone's in a hurry." Neito said with a laugh.

"Sorry. I'm currently running on no sleep and three cans of Monster."

"The fuck? Are you okay?"

"No. I can no longer feel my heartbeat and I am either going to fight All Might or die trying."

"Ehh, fair enough."

As the three walked off down the street, laughing amongst themselves no one noticed as a green haired woman let out a small sigh of relief.

Her sweet, little baby boy was finally making friends.

_______________________________________

Ochacko hit the ground with a heavy thud, trying to late to roll as she dropped.

As she laid there, the wind knocked out of her lungs and her vision swimming she tried to recall how she'd seen that underground Hero do this.

Did he start the motion of rolling forward as he fell or did he roll as his feet made contact with the ground?

She really needed to figure this out before class as she wanted to impress All Might. He'd given her all three days off, saying that she needed to take a break and deal with the potentially traumatizing situation that was the USJ.

She didn't need to do that. She was fine. She totally wasn't bothered by the fact that All Might had struggled in that fight against the Nomu.

She totally wasn't terrified by the sheer amount of blood he'd coughed up after the fight.

Just like she totally didn't also break down into tears and spend the next three hours crying upon realizing that her mentor was slowly dying right in front of her.

Nope. Not at all. She was handling everything perfectly.

Wiping the tears from her eyes, Ochako stood back up and returned to the start of the obstacle course. She had an hour before she had to be in class.

She could do this. She would do this, because she had no other choice but to.