I blearily rubbed the sleep out of my eyes as I grumbled, shivering slightly in the cool air of the forests and birds and cicadas chirped lively around us.
5:30 in the morning was far too early for me.
But at least we were in our P.E. uniforms this time.
I think everyone felt the same as some people were still yawning or had bed head.
"Good morning everyone!" Mr Aizawa greeted, looking the same as ever. "Today, we will begin training camp to increase your strength in earnest."
His eyes scanned the crowd of students. "The goal of this training camp is to increase everyone's strength. And with that, for everyone to obtain their provisional licenses."
I looked up a little more, getting a provisional license was another step towards being a hero.
"It is to prepare you all to face hostilities that are becoming more real by the minute. Proceed carefully."
We all nodded before he threw a ball towards Bakugo.
"Okay, Bakugo, try throwing that." He instructed.
"This is from the fitness test..." Bakugo muttered as he looked at the ball.
"Your previous record, from right after you started school, was 705.2 metres. Let's see how much you've improved."
Bakugo said nothing as he walked to the drawn circle in the clearing.
"Oh, we're checking our progress?" Mina asked.
"Since a lot has happened these past three months, huh?" Sero added. "Maybe he can throw it a kilometre or something now!"
"Do it Bakugo!" Kirishima cheered.
"Here I go..." Bakugo started, getting ready to throw the ball. "Go to hell!"
He let out a huge explosion as the ball sailed into the sky, the wind causing our hair to fly back.
I watched in awe as the object flew through the air before landing with a muted thud onto the ground.
"709.6 metres." Mr Aizawa said, holding out the tracker.
"Huh? It's less than I thought..." Kaminari pointed out, the rest of the class murmuring in agreement.
"It's been about three months since you started high school. Through various experiences, you all have definitely improved. But that improvement has mainly been at the mental and technical levels, with some increase in stamina." Mr Aizawa explained. "As you can see, your quirks themselves have not improved that much."
I gulped, personally I thought I had improved a lot since the beginning of the year, but it probably wasn't as good as I had thought.
"That's why we will work on improving your quirks, starting today."
He grinned.
"It'll be so hard you'll feel like dying, but try not to actually die."
I nodded, real great pep talk Mr Aizawa.
———
I moved slowly, edging out from the tree line before activating my kinetic booster and running towards Shoji, but he duplicated some limbs and caught me.
I sighed. "Ugh again? Let's do it again!"
"Okay." He replied, letting me down and I ran back off into the trees, activating my camouflage.
Since my quirks was under the guise of one actual quirk, I decided to focus on my stealth ability.
Aizawa did take note that I didn't camouflage a whole lot, more utilising strength and speed in hand to hand combat. He said that by training with Shoji and Hagakure, I would be able to work on my stealthing ability while also helping Shoji work on his quirk in return.
So fair, it's mainly just been hide-and-seek for a few hours, though I hadn't been able to tag Shoji yet, he was getting good at using his quirk.
I was told that either tomorrow or later in the day, I'd be joining with Kirishima and Ojiro with working on my fighting skills.
However eventually, at 6pm, we were allowed to stop training and get dinner.
Well, we actually had to make it.
"Remember what I told you yesterday?" Pixie-Bob asked as she and Ragdoll stood behind a pile of plates and ingredients that's used to make a simple curry. "'Today's the only day we'll be doing stuff for you'!"
"At least make your own food!" Ragdoll added.
I sighed along with the 43 other students, we had been training all day, just to come back and make food for ourselves.
'Is this what it's going to be like for the rest of the camp?' I wondered.
"Yessir..." We all mumbled, causing Ragdoll to laugh.
"You all look exhausted! But that doesn't mean you can make any old sloppy cat food!" She said.
I heard some mumbling but couldn't care to look, chalking it up to Deku muttering to himself.
"Let's make the most delicious curry in the world, everyone!" Iida exclaimed, trying to amp up our energy.
We quickly got out of our P.E. uniforms and into comfier clothes and soon enough we got a system worked out. Those who had fire-based quirks lit the fires used for cooking, a group of people would be mixing the curry, a group would be cutting the meat, another chopping up the vegetables and another peeling the vegetables.
I happened to get put with the group peeling vegetables, which consisted of a couple of people from class B. Who I recognised from being in Dylan's team during the second round of the sports festival.
"Hi." I greeted as I sat down, grabbing a peeler and carrot.
"Hello." The girl with blue hair replied with a grin while the one with red hair nodded in reply.
The two looked similar but yet completely different, I wasn't too sure if they were related or not, the one who greeted me had long blue hair tied in a ponytail with mismatched blue and green eyes. The other girl had long red hair, both tied into two plaits on the side of her head with small hoops at the end, and mismatched pink and yellow eyes.
"What's your names?" I asked. "I remember seeing you two working with Dylan during the sports festival."
"Oh, I'm Mizuki and this is my cousin, Tamami" Mizuki replied, gesturing to the quiet girl next to her. "She's just a bit shy, what's yours?"
"(Y/n)." I replied. "Nice to meet you."
"Likewise! So, how do you think the training camp is going to go?"
And we quickly fell into conversation, talking about how much we think that we were going to improve over the training camp or getting to know more about each other.
———
"Thanks for the food!"
The curry we had all made wasn't bad...but it wasn't the best either to be honest.
But I was pretty sure that we were all too hungry to care about that.
The area was loud with chatter as we ate and drank, glad to be relaxing despite the training we had coming over the next few days.
Though at some point I had zoned out as I looked off to the side, I knew that the League was going to attack this area at some point, but I had no idea when.
I kept on telling myself to not worry, but how could I not? When they do attack eventually, I'll know that I would be responsible for exposing our location.
And that didn't sit right with me.
How could I be a hero when I was helping the villains? A hero doesn't do that, they fight them, not willingly work alongside them.
They probably don't help them into the school, find out where the symbol of peace was or even taking a tracker with them so they know the location of where the hero students would be training. Which was supposed to be classified.
"Earth to (Y/n)..." I heard someone say, bringing me out of my daze.
"Huh? Oh, sorry." I apologised.
"You good? You were kind of zoning out there for a little while." Hagakure asked as both she and Ojiro looked at me in concern.
"Yeah, sorry, just got lost in my thoughts. Nothing to worry about." I replied with a half-hearted grin.
———
After a couple days, I could start to see the intense training starting to pay off. My fighting skills were improving as well as my stealth, I've managed to tag Shoji almost three times by now.
Aizawa kept on giving us 'pep talks' talking about how we should think about this and that, but frankly I had been tuning him out.
'Just focus on training and you'll improve, (Y/n).' I told myself as I just managed to avoid Shoji trying to grab me. 'Don't think of anything else.'
"Hey everyone! Important announcement, tonight we'll have a test of courage with the classes pitted against each other!" Pixie-Bob announced. "After training hard, you can play hard!"
That announcement seemed to make a few people seem interested, including me, it sounded like fun and a good distraction.
"So, do your best right now!"
"Yessir!"
———
Ever since the courage test was announced, everyone wouldn't stop talking about it as we made dinner.
"I bet I could scare the crap out of some people." Kuroiro from class B said light-heartedly, "although it would be fun to go through it."
"Well, I think one class would be the first to scare others and then we'd swap around eventually." Shoda from class B replied, as I started to peel a potato.
It was a bit of a surprise and a bit amusing to find out that Iida had no clue how to use a potato peeler. Watching him attempt to peel potatoes was funny until we actually showed and helped him learn how to use it.
"Your hands stopped moving! Come on! We're going to make the best meat and potato stew!" Iida cried, furiously working on peeling the potatoes.
"Woah, don't peel the entire potato, just the skin." I said as I saw the potato in his hand progressively grow smaller as he continued to peel even though it was fine.
———
"Now, we've filled our bellies and washed the dishes!" Pixie-Bob said with a grin as we got ready for the courage test. "Next..."
"It's time for the test of courage!" Mina cried excitedly, jumping up and down.
"We're gonna test it!" Sato, Sero, Kirishima and Kaminari agreed.
"Before that, it pains me to say this, but the extra lessons group will be having class with me now." Mr Aizawa interjected.
"You've gotta be kidding me!" Mina yelled in frustration.
"Sorry." He started, using his scarf to bind everyone in the extra lessons group. "Your training during the day wasn't good enough, so I have to use this time."
"Give me a break!" They cried as Mr Aizawa dragged them off to their lesson.
"Okay, so Class B will be the scarers. Class A will leave in pairs every three minutes. There are tags with your names written on them in the middle of the route, so bring those back with you." Pixie-Bob explained. "Those being the scarers aren't allowed to make direct contact. Show us how scary you are with your quirks."
"The class that makes the most people piss their pants with creativity and imagination wins!" Tiger announced enthusiastically.
"Now, you'll draw lots to determine your partners!" Pixie-Bob said, bringing out a bag with numbers supposedly in it.
I pulled out a 4 from the bag and went around looking for who had the other 4.
"Hey, what number did you get?" I asked Ojiro. "I got 4."
"Oh, 7." He replied. "Sorry."
I asked a couple more people before Dylan tapped me on the shoulder.
"What number did you get?" He asked.
"4." I replied.
"Really? Guess we're a team then." He replied with a grin, showing he had the other 4.
"Cool." I replied, sort of hoping I had been with someone else but didn't mind.
Soon people were walking in, and I was a little bit antsy, it was dark, and people were going to be trying to scare us.
"Alright, the 4th team is next!" Pixie-Bob called, and we stepped forwards. "Stay on the path and go!"
I took in a breath and walked in, hearing the distant screams of classmates being scared.
"Spooky isn't it?" Dylan asked and I nodded.
"A little." I agreed.
"Well if you get really scared, don't be afraid to use me as a shield." He said nonchalantly.
"Really? You're not scared?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Of course not."
"BOO!" Kuroiro yelled as he leaped out of the shadows, causing Dylan to shriek and run behind me while I flinched a little.
I looked up at him, trying to hold in my laughter as Kuroiro started laughing.
"You should've seen your face!" He laughed and I started to chuckle along with him.
"I was not scared!" Dylan said defiantly straightening up and crossing his arms, continuing down the path.
"Thanks for that." I chuckled before running after him.
We fell into step before I looked at him, an amused smile on my face.
"So, you totally got scared." I said.
"No I didn't!" He replied, pulling his hood up and crossing his arms.
I laughed. "It's fine, everyone gets scared at some point."
We continued down the path, a few more people from class B popping out trying to scare us, a couple of times they did scare us a little, but not to the extent that Kuroiro managed to do near the beginning of the test.
We passed Ragdoll, informing us we were about halfway through, giving us a slip with our names on them and pointed us in the way to go.
Soon we were in a denser part of the forest, it didn't feel like anyone was waiting for us, so we decided to take a small break.
"So...I have something I want to ask you." Dylan started as he looked around, seeming to check if anyone was nearby.
"What?" I asked.
"Okay, there's no one here, just you, and me."
"Uh huh?" I nodded slowly, unsure why he would bring that up.
"So tell me...are you quirkless or not?"
I looked at him.
"You're really asking me that?"
"Yes! Do you have any idea for how long that's been bothering me?" He asked. "In the orphanage you were quirkless, you were bullied for it. And now you somehow got into one of the finest hero schools in Japan with a quirk?!"
I looked away. "Oh..."
"Oh? Oh?! That's all you have to say?! Just answer the damn question!"
"I can't!" I replied.
"Because you lied, you always had a quirk and just wanted to be different from everybody else!" He said, throwing up his arms and turning around. "Why would you even deny you have a quirk in the first place?"
"No, it's not like that." I replied.
"Then just tell me! I think I deserve to know. I told you about how my parents raised me before they died...I never tried to question you about it because I thought you would eventually tell me. But no, I'm the only one in class who knows what's up with you, and yet I still don't know the whole story."
Silence.
I took a step back, how could I tell him, 'hey, I actually received three quirks from someone known as All for One and helping the League of Villains with their deeds'?
But I could bend the truth a little.
I went to open my mouth, but Dylan was the one who stepped forwards.
"Look...I've liked you for a little while...but I know you probably don't feel the same way about me or like someone else." He admitted shyly. "I don't care if you don't like me back, I already know you don't. But please, can you just at least tell me the truth about your quirk?"
I was silent before opening my mouth.
"Someone gave it to me..." I mumbled.
"Huh?"
"I was out looking for a job and found someone, saying they could give me anything. So I jokingly asked if I could get a quirk, and they did." I said.
I knew it wasn't the whole truth, but he wanted something, and I couldn't tell anyone the real reason.
"I know it sounds farfetched, but that's how I got my quirk." I said, looking at him. "I was quirkless...now I'm not."
He was quiet before nodding.
"Okay...you told me...I- woah." He started.
"Yeah and?"
"I dunno what I was expecting, I was thinking that you had just been lying the whole time about being quirkless...but having someone give you a quirk?" He said. "There's people with quirks that can do that?"
"Well, it doesn't sound too unlikely that there would be quirks like that." I shrugged.
We started to walk back to the path.
"Oh and, uhm...what I said earlier, just ignore that." He said, rubbing the back of his neck and looking to the side.
"About you having a crush on me?"
"Yeah...I know you're not interested in me, and I just want to continue being friends with you."
I nodded. "Well if I'm honest, I haven't really been focusing on my feelings towards others, I don't even know if I want to be in a relationship at the moment."
"Yup, okay." He replied. "But can we just not bring it up, like ever?"
"Okay." I replied with a nod before Dylan stopped in his tracks.
"Do you smell something burning?" He asked.
I sniffed the air, first getting nothing but eventually I could smell smoke.
I turned in the direction the smoke was coming from and saw the faint glow of something blue over the trees.
I was quick to realise what was going on.
The attack.
It was happening right now.
Word count: 2958 words