I woke up earlier than the other girls the next morning. I'm not used to sleeping so much, so I was awake after a few hours of deep sleep. I silently flew my way out of my bed after changing up in my bunk, making sure not to wake any of them. I wandered around the resort, once again following my nose, only this time it was the smell of coffee that lured me.
"Morning, Aizawa." I sleepily say as I spot my tired teacher standing by a coffee maker.
"Yoarashi." He nods to me, automatically grabbing an extra mug for me before pouring us both a cup.
"Sunrise?" I ask, pointing towards the outside deck where we could see the sun rising slowly above the trees. He nods absently and we both take seats outside, enjoying the peace and quiet.
"I'm going to start training Shinso on capture scarves when we get back." He says as we make idle conversation. "Be prepared, it's annoying when first learning it. Boundaries are about to become zero."
"Ohh, who did you train with? Was it Yamada Sensei?" I tease him with a grin, imaging him wrapped up with the loud blonde. His glare was answer enough that I was right and I chuckled lightly but didn't push the topic. "How much is today going to suck?"
"You'll get stronger." Is his only answer, and I shiver in fear once again. Yeah, today's going to suck.
I wandered away from him after putting my mug in the sink and went to walk a bit in the forest. It wasn't until a bit later that I realized I was out there for a while, so I rushed back and saw everyone standing in front of our teacher, all of them still looking half dead and tired.
"How?" Aizawa turns to me with a deadpan. "How are you late?" I only answer with a shrug, not really knowing what to say. "Anyway, as I was saying." He sends a quick glare at me again before turning back to the class. "We're going to push your quirks today. Each of you has limits, and during this camp we're going to find them and break them. Your goal is to earn your provisional license next term, so this camp will get you closer to that goal."
Aizawa then has Bakugo throw the ball again, just like we did at the start of term. We all kind of expected him to throw it further, but it only went a couple extra yards than last time. As bad as it is to think, Bakugo really hasn't improved much since the start of term. He started out strong, and he's worked hard to maintain that strength, but he hasn't had massive improvement like Midoriya or even like myself.
Aizawa then went to point out that we haven't really pushed our quirks, at least most of us. He then went on to become really freaking creepy. I hate the smile he gave us, he's given it to me and Shinso a few times, and it's never followed by anything good.
"This will be so hard you'll feel like you're dying." Aizawa creepily grins at us, a malicious glint in his eyes. "Let's hope you survive."
"I thought the coffee this morning was supposed to bring your soul back from hell." I grumpily say to our teacher. "I didn't think it brought a whole damn demon along with it."
Aizawa simply hits me over the head and goes on to give everyone individual tasks to be doing for the whole day. Bakugo had to stick his hands in boiling water and then fire huge explosions, Todoroki had to go back and change into a swimsuit before sitting in a giant tub of water and use both halves of his quirk to regulate the temperate. I feel like Mashirao and Kirishima got off easier, they just had to fight each other to improve their quirks.
"Yoarashi, float up off the ground right now." Aizawa orders me once it's my turn. I do as asked, floating a few feet above the ground. "Great, now you can't touch the ground until it's time for dinner." He orders and my eyes widen a bit in shock. "Additionally, we're going to improve the weight that you can lift with your wind today. Over there are some downed trees." He points to a small clearing in the woods a bit away from the class. "Start with one of the large tree limbs, then every hour we're going to add more. At midday, I'll check in. Until then, those tree limbs can't touch the ground either. I expect you to keep them entirely above the tree line so I can see them at all times."
I wanted to cry. Each tree limb was massive and weighed hundreds of pounds, and without the ground to anchor myself, I had to rely entirely on using my mind to hold the large pieces of wood upright with wind. By the time midday came around, I was struggling with holding up six hunks of tree. My whole body was shaking from the effort.
"Yoarashi, you can put the tree limbs down now." Aizawa calls out, and I don't even second guess what I heard as I drop them and feel the tension leave me as they make small craters in the ground. He approaches me and tosses me a protein bar and a water, both of which I inhale instantly, still not touching the ground at all.
"I'm almost afraid to ask." I say tiredly, knowing there's still a whole second half of this day of training. Aizawa's sickening grin made my want to cry more.
"Now you'll be taking this entire tree here." He fondly slaps the meter-thick tree that's laying on it's side, easily 40 yards long and looking like it's been laying there for years. "And you're going to fly above Iida and race over him in the sky, making sure the tree never touched the ground. Have fun."
"This is punishment for accidentally bringing you a decaf coffee three weeks ago, isn't it?" I whine out to him, and he only chuckles and tells me to get to work.
Parts of this training were easier than this morning, like getting to use momentum to aid in lifting the tree. Other parts, like having to turn quickly or try and keep up with Iida on those turns in his established route, were a nightmare. I don't even want to pretend to know how much the tree weighed or how fast I was flying.
"Quit fucking walking into me, Airhead." Bakugo tiredly growls out to me as we're walking back to the resort for dinner, our grueling day of training finally over.
"Can't see you." I pant out truthfully, then proceed to stumble into him again for about the sixth time in two minutes. "Can't use quirk." I add so he understands my subconscious is totally off.
"God damnit." He grumbles before placing a hot hand on my shoulder and starting to guide me back to the resort. "You're on your fucking own when we get there. And I'm only doing this so you don't fucking walk into me anymore."
"Thanks, Bakugo." I smile slightly at him. "Don't worry, I won't let anyone know that you're secretly a nice person." His grip tightens threateningly and I half expect him to shove me to the ground, but instead he just huffs and we continue walking.
Once we get back, he releases me once we're around all the others. We get told we have to cook our own dinner now, so we all divide out the tasks. Someone put me on chopping duty, so I stumbled my way over, hitting the table painfully with my hip, crashing into Todoroki who was carrying a large pot and sending them both the ground, and then reaching out to grab the knife and misjudging the distance by a lot and just grabbing air.
"On second thought, Irisa, let's put you on water duty." Momo says as she steps in between me and the knife I was attempting to grab again.
"Probably smart." I agree with a huff, stumbling my way to join Kirishima in getting water.
"Wow, you're so clumsy." Kirishima teases me as we carry large pots to go and fill at the well.
"Shut up you stupid steady rock." I grumble to him and he laughs. "You would probably just end up ramming through the objects, ya big bulldozer." I tease him right back. We continue a back and forth teasing exchange as we return with the water.
Koda quickly takes the water from me before I attempt to set it on a table, my guess is I wasn't close to it at all. I got forcibly sat down at a table with 1-B students and tasked with simply shaping the dough, this was deemed the only safe task for me. I chatted away with the 1-B students and got to know them a little, which was fun. And thankfully, I was too tired to make an idiot of myself, so we got along well.
The food was super bland and kind of overcooked and mushy, but we were all so hungry none of us cared. My quirk started up again after I was seated for a few minutes, so I was happy to feel back to normal once again.
Mina was the only girl who had the remedial lessons, so she left with Sero and Kaminari to join Monoma for those. The rest of us girls went to the hot springs again, but I wasn't quite ready to go to sleep yet. I spent so little time today on the ground that I felt like going for a walk. It was dark so I brought a flashlight, but otherwise enjoyed the peace and quiet.
"Risa?" I heard Kirishima call out to me softly when I got back from my walk. He was sitting on the porch by himself, relaxing in his pajamas with a cup of tea in his hands.
"Hey Eiji, what are you doing out here?" I ask as I take a seat by his side.
"I tried to find you earlier, the girls said you went outside though." He answers nervously.
"Oh, did you need me for something?" I ask curiously.
"No!" He shakes his arms and head in a no. "Well yeah, but also no."
"Hmm..." I hum out at his mixed answer. "That's ok, I needed you too, but also absolutely didn't." I tease him back lightly as I nudge his arm and he laughs lightly. "Want to not need each other for a bit as we look at the stars?"
"Yeah, that sounds nice." He says warmly. "Not that we need to, but we totally need to see them."
"Eventually one of us is going to get confused in our conversation, and before it becomes me, I'm going to end the joke now before I embarrass myself." I say with a grin before leaning my head on his shoulder and looking at the sky. "It's pretty here. We don't see stars like this in the city."
"It is pretty here." He agrees softly, his voice close to my ear. I tilt my head slightly to look at him, and find him already looking at me. I blush at his beautiful crimson eyes and smile in realization on what he meant.
"Eiji." I say softly, my eyes lidded as I glance up at him. I opened my mouth to say more, but closed it and looked back up to the stars again. I didn't fully know what I had wanted to say, so I stopped myself before my rambling could take over and I say something I don't mean to.
The feeling of something warm and soft pressing against my right cheek made my eyes widen. Kirishima's lips were pressing softly to my flushed cheeks, making me gasp in surprise. When he pulled away I looked up at him properly, and he was blushing but also smiling warmly at me.
"I've waited months to get even with you, ya know?" He says quietly, his voice a little deeper and more gravely than normal. "Since the sports festival when you kissed my cheek, I've waited for the right moment to return the favor. I can think of no better moment than right now, alone under the stars."
"This is the perfect moment." I smile softly at him, melting at how cute he is. I didn't know what else to say, so we both went back to watching the stars for a bit longer. Finally, when we were both yawning and knew it was time for bed, we stood back up. "Night, Eiji." I bid him good night as we walked back inside, parting ways to go to our own rooms.
"G'night, Risa." He says softly in return.
It was foolish to think our absence wasn't noted and then monitored. Once I walked into my room with the other girls, all of them present were giving me smirks and knowing grins. I pointedly ignored all of them as I jumped into my bunk, secretly glad that Mina wasn't there since she would have been relentless.
The next day of training was different than my first one. I was mentally preparing myself for Aizawa to tell me he was going to have me juggling trees by the end of the week, but apparently he had different plans.
"Yoarashi, today you're going to work on something different." Aizawa tells me after the class got dismissed to continue what they were doing yesterday.
"Oh? No juggling?" I ask idly, and he gives me a deadpan for my random comment with no context.
"See this tree here?" He asks, ignoring me and pointing to a regular tree that's still in the ground. For a minute I gulp and think he's going to make me rip trees out of the ground, which sounded really hard, but I was wrong. "I want you to cut every single leaf off of this tree and then hold them all in place exactly where they had been."
"Wait, what?" I ask in confusion. "Cut them off but hold them in place? With wind?! But like... um... how?!"
"Figure it out." He says and turns his back to walk away. "No touching the ground again today. And if a single leaf drops, well... let's just say you don't want to know the penalty." He gives yet another creepy grin, and I instantly know I don't want the penalty.
"Um... ok I can do this." I say to myself in contemplation as I float close to the tree. I cut a single leaf with wind and try to keep it in place to test out a method. I can see the leaves all around it being moved around since I'm using a little swirl of wind at the stem of the leaf. I cut a few more leaves next to it using the same method and start to see a flaw. The wind is pushing the leaves too much and starting to tear them and push them off. I need to cancel some of the excess wind without losing the strength. This is such a precise way of using my quirk.
It took the better part of three hours, but eventually I was successful. I was sitting in the air in a lotus position with my eyes closed in concentration, my forearms resting on my knees with my fingertips lightly touching each other, all with my mind completely focused on the task in front of me. Around each and every individual leaf on the tree I have a miniature dome of wind, each dome being created with alternating flows of wind to there's limited chaos around them. The result looks like the leaves are softly swaying to a light breeze, but the amount of my quirk being used is intense. I've always used my quirk for combat or speed, so using it now for something so delicate is pushing me in a whole different way than yesterday's weight training with trees.
"Yoarashi." Aizawa calls out from below me, startling me since I didn't hear his approach. Instantly, all the leaves started to fall from the tree and I had to act quickly. I felt out for each and every one of them before they hit the ground and floated them to the sky, then placed them slowly back onto the tree. I opened my eyes and turned a glare down to my teacher who was staring blankly up at me.
"What?!" I yell down at him, the leaves all shaking from my burst of annoyance. I took a deep breath before calming down. "What, Sensei?" I asked with thinly veiled annoyance. He just smirked at me in response at first.
"Next stage." He says smugly as he tosses me a protein bar and water, and I feel my brow twitch as I clumsily catch them and half the leaves almost fall again. "Let's push that concentration, shall we? Mineta!" He calls out as I eat, and the purple boy crawls tiredly away from his task over to us in confusion. "You have a new target to practice on. If you can land one single pop-off ball on Yoarashi, you can go and rest for the rest of the day." He tells the short boy before turning back to my glaring face. "And if you get hit by a single one of his balls, or if any of them touch a single leaf, then your punishment will be having to eat the entire contents of this bag." I tilt my head curiously on how that's a punishment, until I saw what he pulled out of his pocket. It was a jumbo package of black licorice, and my eyes widened in disgust and betrayal.
"You wouldn't dare." I glare down at him in disbelief. "I knew you were a sadist, but this is taking it to the next level. I wouldn't even wish that on my enemies!"
"Then you better not lose." He says coolly as he walks away, waving the offensive package of my most hated food tauntingly above his head.
"It's fine, Yoarashi. You'll get over your hatred of that candy soon enough. I'll comfort you after your punishment is over, but I will be winning today." Mineta says confidently as he takes two of the balls off his head.
"I think you're underestimating my hatred of black liquorice, Minoru Mineta. There's not a force on this earth that will make me eat them, so you will not win." I say darkly to him, and then he starts his attack.
Dodging rapidly thrown balls while also not only protecting the leaves but holding them in place was damn near impossible. So many times I almost dropped some of the leaves onto the ground, but pure stubborn pride kept them afloat and affixed. It was too hard to evade the balls, plus it tore my concentration too much away from my main task with the tree, so I had to use my wind to redirect every single ball. I had a mountain of them on a few of the surrounding trees by the end of the training day, but my tree stood pristine. Mineta's scalp was bleeding profusely and he tried his damned hardest to get me, but his throws were too weak.
"I won!" I say jubilantly when Aizawa calls the end of the day. When he came and told me to stop, the leaves all majestically fell in a halo around the tree. I stomped straight over to him and held out my hand for the punishment from hell. "Hand it over. This method of motivation will not work again after this. I regret you ever finding out."
"Should have been quieter when you were 'not flirting' with Shinso and sharing both of your likes and dislikes." Aizawa teases monotonously as he places the candy in my hand. I don't respond and just glare as I stomp away from him, going to find my favorite hot head.
"Bakugo." I call out to the ash blonde when I catch up to him. He turns his face slightly to let me know he's listening, but then he faces me fully when he sees my heated expression. "Destroy this. Kill this. Murder this." I say darkly as I shove the liquorice into his hands.
"The fuck?" He asks trying to shove it back, but I shove it roughly into his hands. "Fine, I don't give a shit. Die." He rolls his eyes and uses a small explosion and destroys the disgusting candy.
"Thanks, you're my hero today." I say with a breath of relief as I pat his shoulder and lead the way back for us.
"Don't fucking walk in front of me, Airhead." He grumbles out his usually response. "Do I even want to know about that?"
"Aizawa is a sadistic and evil man." I answer without saying more. His chuckling laughter was the only response and it made me giggle as well.
"You going to be fucking useless for dinner again tonight?" He asks as we get to the resort.
"Nah, I'm good today. I'm mentally tired, my quirk is overused, but it's a different kind of overused I guess." I observe, noticing my fatigue but also that I'm less physically exhausted than yesterday.
Today's dinner task was for me to grill the meat. I was good at that because my wind could control the heat from the flames that Todoroki made for us all. Our meal ended up tasting better than yesterdays, so we all ate a bit more of it before our test of courage.
If I knew that would potentially be my last meal, I think I might have at least had seconds.