chapter xxv.
( into the thick of it — the mountain, i mean )
Bright and early the next day, as the sun stretched and rose from its blanket of darkness, Class 1A stood, groggy and still full of sleep.
Aizawa woke them up early on the second day of the training camp, where the real training would begin as he said the day before.
"Good morning," Aizawa greeted his half-asleep students. "Today, we'll start the real training."
Keiko, who was up late into the night because of her bad sleeping habits, was dozing off while standing, the eye bags under her eyes a little more prominent than before from all the recent events.
What really brought her back to life, though, was the big explosion that went off a few meters from her.
She woke with a start, her eyes wide open as she flinched forward and almost lost her balance.
709.6 meters," Aizawa was saying, holding up a device that showed the numbers he had just recited.
Everyone started muttering, while Keiko just stood there, an invisible question mark floating above her head as she wondered what on earth was happening.
Your teacher was simply explaining what the content of your future training will be in this training camp.
Oh ok. Thanks.
"Kobayashi," Aizawa called, bringing Keiko's mind back to the ground. "Here."
She caught the ball thrown at her clumsily, still not fully recovered from the sudden interruption of her sleep.
"What do I do with this?" Keiko asked, feeling quite stupid for not listening but shaking off the feeling.
"Oh right, you weren't there during the quirk assessment test." Realization dawned Keiko's red-haired friend Kirishima.
Aizawa pointed at the ball. "Throw this as hard as you can with the help of your quirk. Try to beat Bakugou's score."
Keiko smirked. "That won't be hard."
"Wanna fight, northern lights?" Bakugou growled, glaring at his friend — I mean, classmate. He doesn't consider her his equal.
Totally not.
Keiko made it look like she was pondering the offer, before facing his direction and giving him a closed eyed smile. "No thank you."
She sharply turned back forward, using the momentum of her body to throw the ball in the air with her glowing hand.
It shot skywards, a faint trail of smoke following in its wake.
Aizawa showed the stunned class the device with the ravenette's score on it. "713.4 meters."
"She beat Bakugou!" Mina cheered while the rest of the class looked slightly surprised, wrapping her arm around Keiko's waist and resting her head on her shoulder.
Kaminari turned to the fuming ash blonde, a cheeky smile making its way onto his face. "Well it seems you aren't at the top of everything," Kaminari remarked. "You also didn't top at the midter —"
"YOU WANT TO DIE YOU STUPID FUCKING PIKACHU LOOKING FUCK TURD?!"
Whew, that sounded like a mouthful.
Keiko turned to Aizawa. "Uh, why did I have to do that?"
"As an example," he said, turning to the rest of the class. "You've been training in UA for three months now. It's true that you've improved from some experiences, but only on a mental and physical level. And some stamina of course."
He walked over to the front of the group, slight horror coming to the faces of those that realized the training slash torture Aizawa planned on putting them through.
Aizawa continued on his suspenseful lecture, side eyeing the students. "But, as you saw, the level of your quirks is pretty much the same."
He gestured to Keiko, who was rubbing her eyelids with her free hand in an attempt to fight off the sleep that kept making them close. "I asked Kobayashi to throw the ball because she's undergoing different training compared to you all."
Huh? Keiko blinked away the aftermath of her harsh treatment to her eyes and looked at her teacher in confusion. What do you mean different training?
"She's been training both her body and quirk for years now, which is why her utilization is much more different than yours."
Realization dawned Keiko.
He's doing this to silence the suspicions my classmates might have from my reactions to fighting. They probably think I'm being favored by the school, since I've handled everything UA threw at me pretty well.
Quite a smart, yet seemingly unnecessary precaution of your teacher. I am quite sure that no one will find out about your true identity unless you wave it right in front of their faces.
"She's used to upgrading her quirk," Aizawa droned on, the class looking a little less confused and more awed as they "learned" a little more about their mysterious classmate. "She can make her quirk adapt to sudden changes because of her training. You lot need more training for you to fully utilize your quirks."
Keiko narrowed her eyes as a creepy grin grew on Aizawa's face. "Starting today, we'll be improving your quirks."
Everyone tensed at the creepily gleeful look on the man's face as he raised his pointer finger at them. "It's gonna be tough as hell, so don't die in the process."
Keiko sighed. I'm never going to really have a break, won't I?
▪︎•▪︎•▪︎•▪︎
About half an hour later, 1A were all doing different types of training, while Keiko just stood there awkwardly as chaos unfolded all around her.
She wasn't told what to do yet, but she had a feeling hers would be much more hardcore than the others, considering the difference in skill and experience.
"Kobayashi," Aizawa called from behind her, making her turn and raise her eyebrow, asking a silent question what am I gonna do?
"Follow me," the teacher said, turning around and walking away. Keiko tilted her head a little at her teacher's lack of explanation, but she followed nonetheless.
She heard her classmates do their own thing left and right, and she had to really keep her distance from Todoroki and Bakugou, since she thought she'd go deaf from the ash blonde's explosions, while the range of Todoroki's ice generation had improved by a lot.
They walked through the forest for about another half hour, making Keiko think that the homeless-looking man was trying to waste her time.
Aizawa finally stopped on the other side of the mountain, putting quite a bit of space between her and the rest of the class. "This mountain is reinforced," Aizawa said. "You can do whatever you want to it, and it won't crumble."
Wow. When you have over a billion yen in your bank, spend it on reinforcing mountains. Noted.
"What do you want me to do about it?" The girl asked, looking at her teacher.
"Drill a hole through the mountain," he answered, making Keiko's eyes widen, "and come out on the other side where your classmates are."
"Are you trying to kill me?" Keiko let out a humorless laugh, running a hand through her hair. "That's fucking suicide on my standards."
"But not in your quirk's," Aizawa countered, giving her a look. "We've gathered as much as we can about Ninja, and he's been able to push his quirk to the maximum on rare occasions."
"On rare occasions," Keiko emphasized. "Besides, Ninja's never done a big ass beam until the sports festival!"
"Then that means you can do it," the man shrugged. "You've done it once already."
"Well, at that time I passed out and would've lost if Todoroki wasn't out of bounds first," Keiko tried to fight back, but she knew that it was confirmed: she would die trying to break through a mountain.
Aizawa sighed, stuffing his hands deep in his pockets and sauntered away. "I don't care what you do, but you're here to train. This is the best way to improve your quirk's power in the eyes of the other teachers, and we worked on this together. I suggest you give it a try even if you can't do it all the way."
Once the man was out of earshot, Keiko groaned. "The school's actually trying to kill me."
I think it would be best if you attempt to drill through the mountain.
Unfortunately Astran, in my vocabulary, there's no attempt or try. It's either do or do not.
I do not recall you pushing through with something you start.
... Bitch. I just thought of it now, give me a break.
Astran stayed silent after that, making Keiko huff in indignation, her hands balling into fists.
Screw it.
Keiko turned to the mountain beside her and activated her quirk, her fists slowly growing brighter as the energy she stored slowly built up. pointing her arms at the mound of dirt, she released the energy, making an indent on the mountain.
It was a good start, but unfortunately it isn't much compared to the width of the mountain. She had a long way to go, but hey, at least she would get some training. She just hoped that she would finish the task before the others so she would get to shower alone in the girls' shower area.
The ravenette tried once more, building up more energy and releasing it onto the side of the mountain. Keiko winced and clutched her forearm, which had started to hurt.
Though releasing built-up energy deals more damage, it takes a while to charge and it hurts like a bitch after a while. It seems my body doesn't have that much resistance against moves like that, since I'm not used to it.
Keiko decided to go back to her normal way of shooting, using both hads to keep digging into the mountain. She couldn't hear anything over the sounds of rocks being blasted apart.
On the other side, the hero course students (plus 1B) heard the racket she was making and some paused what they were doing in confusion.
"What's that?" Kirishima panted, deactivating his quirk and letting his skin return to normal.
"Don't mind it," Aizawa said, not even glancing at the direction Keiko was in. "Keep training."
And with that, Kirishima blocked another attack from Ojirou and slowly strengthened his quirk.
I suggest you try different styles to expand the usage of your quirk.
That's exactly what I'm doing, Astran.
If you were doing that, I would not have needed to point it out.
Watch the sass, mister.
Keiko scoffed at the god speaking in her head but took his advice nonetheless. She activated her quirk once more and charged up.
Letting out a war cry, she punched the rock as hard as she could, tiny pieces of nature flying to her face and pushing dust out of the shallow hole she made.
The girl coughed at the sudden appearance of dust in the air, waving it away from her face and squinting her eyes as she tried to get a glimpse of the amount of damage she caused to the mountain.
Once she got a better view, her eyes widened in surprise. "Wow, okay."
The damage was deeper than the beam she produced when she started, but it was much less controlled, which meant that it did go deep, but it also went up a little.
She wasn't as experienced using her quirk for her punches as she was for her shots and kicks, so that meant that she was a little more reckless with them.
She sighed. "Well, I have the entire width of a mountain to test this on, so I can probably master it today."
She continued on, adding kicks to the mix of attacks as well.
The girl really had grown; her development, both mentally and physically, apparent in her. She was able to make use of training that some of you readers didn't want her to accept. Let's be honest, she also didn't want to accept at first, but she couldn't keep depending on Gizmo (her Spanish dealer) to provide her with the equipment she needed. She barely even knew the guy personally.
Now, she was faster, stronger, and smarter than before, and she has a life companion living inside her, whispering pieces of advice and providing her with directions whenever she gets lost in her head.
She almost seemed overpowered, actually, but she does have flaws; she has too many secrets locked away in a vault that weakened day by day, the contents getting closer to spill as she continued to stay in UA. After all, not everyone in the school was stupid. As it was said before, they were bound to find out sooner or later.
Above all her improvements, she was even able to make some friends.
But will she keep them after what we know is about to happen? After the secrets that we know finally spill?
Well, we don't know.
Or rather, dear readers, you're the clueless ones.
The power to manipulate the plot is in my hands. I can make you cry, scream, and celebrate on this rollercoaster of emotions. It is up to me if our main character deserves a happy ending.
The only thing you can do is watch as Keiko fights for everything she knows and loves, leaving you and her with not a single clue if peace or death is waiting for her at the end of her suffering.
▪︎•▪︎•▪︎•▪︎
At dawn, the entirety of the hero course were drained. Actions were sluggish, minds were slow.
Keiko, of course, was no exception; she probably had the most difficult training out of all of them.
Her muscle fibers were torn apart and repaired by Astran multiple times, which resulted in them hanging limply by her sides. They hurt, but as of now, she had to deal with it and make food. According to the Pussycats (even thinking the name makes her cringe), they would have to cook their own food starting now.
It was apparently part of the training.
Despite her weak arms, Keiko tried to carry the basket of ingredients on her own, ignoring the scolding of Astran in her head and lifting the vegetables over to the table, where A and B worked together to prepare their dinner.
Right when she felt that she was about to drop the basket, a pair of arms slid under the basket and lifted it, freeing her unstable ones from the burden.
"You shouldn't use your arms while injured," Shoto said, carefully carrying the ingredients over to the table with the girl following right behind him.
Keiko huffed, crossing her arms and biting back a wince. "First of all, I'm fine. I don't need to rest right now. Second, one thing you should know about me and my family is that we're stubborn as fuck. If things need to be moved around, or if anyone needs extra hands, we always help despite our current state."
Shoto smiled faintly at her firm decision. "At least try to not carry anything heavy. You'll make your injuries worse."
Keiko scoffed lightly, her lips twitching up. "Fine." She glanced at her classmates, who were starting to prepare everything needed to cook. "I better go help."
Without waiting for a response, Keiko walked towards a vacant chopping board and grabbed the chef's knife and a red onion.
She laid the onion on its side first, holding it firmly as she dug her knife straight through the middle. She cut off the top of the onion on both pieces, then she started peeling off the outer layer of the vegetable. Albeit it was a little difficult since her hands were also shaky, but she managed to accomplish the task and slid the onion pieces together so she could cut them horizontally into small pieces.
Her cuts were uncharacteristically uneven, but she couldn't really do anything except hope that no one notices her struggle.
Of course, her prayer wasn't answered.
"Oi, northern lights. You're cuts are fucking ugly."
"Thank you, pom-pom," the ravenette said sarcastically to a specific ash blonde boy who started to stomp over to her.
Without fully thinking, Bakugou pressed his chest to her back and wrapped her hands in his bigger ones.
Keiko stiffened at the sudden contact. Though she did share skinship with those from the Bakusquad, mainly Mina, but Bakugou touching her was a different story.
His palms were rough, most likely because of his vigorous training and usage of his quirk. He smelled of caramel and smoke, just as she expected him to smell like, since he did sweat nitroglycerin from what she knew.
"You cut off the bottom as well," Bakugou said, his voice unnaturally soft for someone loud like him, guiding her hands and helping her cut the onions.
"I'd prefer to keep it on until the end, since it keeps the entire thing close together. Makes it easier to cut," the girl responded, regaining her composure rapidly as she tamed her racing heart.
Bakugou was silent for a while, before both of them laid the knife sideways, slid the onion slices on top of the blade, and carried them into a clean bowl. "That's not a bad idea, but it still looks fucking weird when you leave a dirty part of the fruit still on."
"It's not like I won't cut it off once I'm done," Keiko breathed. Bakugou seemed to have come to his senses, his cheeks reddening a tad once he realized the lack of distance between them.
"J — JUst do it right next time," Bakugou sputtered, clearing his throat and turning around, speeding away from the girl.
"Fucking northern lights..." he muttered once he was far enough, taking deep breaths to make the tint on his cheeks fade.
Keiko just stared at his back, eyes wide with confusion.
Did... Did THE Katsuki Bakugou just stutter and had a voice crack? Damn, I should have recorded it... I need blackmail material against that asshole...
It seems you have made him quite flustered. I can hear the speed and strength of his heartbeat even from here.
Ha, I did make him flustered! That idiot isn't as inhumane as I thought.
Keiko continued to help with the preparation, amusement lingering inside of her as she continued on with her usual mental arguments with the god living inside of her head.
▪︎•▪︎•▪︎•▪︎
Finally, after a while of cooking and hard work, the tired bunch was finally able to make a large batch of an edible version of curry.
Her classmates feasted on the food, eating like they it would be the end of the world tomorrow.
Keiko ate at her own pace, frowning slightly at the passable taste of their food but kept eating. After all, food always helped when Astran were to heal her muscles.
Right, I should get food for Kota.
She looked over her shoulder, scanning the outline of the trees and found Kota glaring at them. She caught his eyes and waved, knowing that if he beckoned him forward he would flat out say no. His face reddened a bit, before he looked away and walked to his secret hideout while ignoring his growling stomach.
The ravenette started to eat quicker so she could bring food to the young boy.
During her rush, she didn't notice her green haired friend follow Kota's footprints with a plate of food in his hands.
"Woah Keiko, slow down, you might choke," Kaminari joked, hinting one of their first interactions back in UA, when he choked on his own food.
"Sowwy," Keiko said, her voice muffled from the food in her mouth. Kirishima looked over and blushed a bit at the girl's look; her cheeks puffed out, her eyes wide and her plate void of food.
Keiko gulped down the rest of her dinner and said, "I better be off. I'll see you guys tomorrow."
She stood with her plate in hand and walked over to the sink, where she let down the plate and grabbed a clean bowl off the rack and some wooden chopsticks.
She walked back to the dinner table, snagged some rice and curry, and walked into the forest, frowning a little when she saw big footsteps beside Kota's smaller ones.
"Keiko-san!" Midoriya exclaimed, his eyes widening in surprise.
She tilted her head in acknowledgement. "Izuku."
He glanced at the food in her hands. "Where are you heading?"
"I'm going to bring food to Kota, who I assumed you met from where you came from."
Midoriya nodded. His expression softened a little in pity as he recalled the thoughts Kota had voiced just a few moments earlier. "Kota really dislikes quirks, not only heroes. He said that it's stupid to have labels like 'villains' and 'heroes.'"
Keiko sighed. "Well, he has a better view of society than most. Even you."
Midoriya perked up. "What... what do you mean?"
"I'm not really sure why he hates heroes — and I don't need to know why," she added swiftly when Midoriya opened his mouth to speak, "but he's right. What's the point in cutting society in half because of labels. You think just because one saved another doesn't mean you're a hero. What if we saved a villain? Does that make us heroic for saving them? Or does it make us villainous for saving them of all people?"
Midoriya studied her. Her eyes held words he couldn't read, thoughts he couldn't decipher. A mystery, she was.
Of course, he understood her better now that he knows about her identity, but that doesn't mean Keiko had opened up with everything, mainly the tales Astran had told her about society and how he watched it evolved into what it was now. Even he wasn't sure if it was for the best or the worst.
"Anyway," Keiko said, bringing Midoriya out of his cloud of thoughts, "I suggest you head back. You should sleep, especially after the training you went through."
With a final pat to his shoulder, Keiko walked passed him without another glance, hoping that Kota would eat at least something tonight so he doesn't starve.
Her eyes scanned the view of the private in front of her, smiling contentedly at the peaceful atmosphere that surrounded the area. Her eyes lingered on the plate of cold food that Midoriya had probably left for Kota before she walked over to the boy.
"Hey," Keiko called, making him spin around. "You should eat something."
Kota huffed, thought his glare softened at the sight of the older girl. "No thanks."
"You know, starving yourself won't force society to change," Keiko said, amusement lacing her voice.
The tips of Kota's ears reddened, making Keiko laugh a little as she approached the kid and sat down beside him. Kota followed, crossing his legs on the ground.
"Here," Keiko handed him the bowl and chopsticks. "Eat."
She looked up at the stars as Kota ate beside her, wondering what the future held in store for her.
Surprisingly enough, her future...
Is undetermined.
Extra scene
"Do you hear that?" Jirou panted, clutching her sore ear jacks.
The booming from before was almost unnoticeable so Jirou ignored it, but ig was considerably louder now.
Mina breathed out loudly. "Yeah. What is it?"
From inside a cave, closer to the mountain, Tokoyami dropped down to his knees, sweat dripping from his head as he panted.
"There's something coming," Tokoyami muttered, looking to the side of his tavern and narrowing his eyes.
The other trainees stopped as well, a subtle breeze of panic wafting around.
"She's finally here," Aizawa muttered, grinning slightly at the strength of the girl.
The sounds strengthened in volume, and people could feel the vibrations from their feet.
"HAH!" A hole burst forth from the side of the mountain, right where Bakugou and Todoroki were. Both paused their vigorous use of their quirk and looked over, eyes widening at the sight of their classmate.
"Holy shit," Keiko panted, sinking down to the ground and on her knees. Her uniform was battered, and her arms felt like they were ripped from their sockets, but she had made it.
"Aizawa!" She called hoarsely to the man who was just passing by. "I'm done for today. I need... to heal..."
[ author's corner ]
Time for the action i've been itching to write! I hope you enjoy.
- R