Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Shoto Todoroki was staring blankly at the girl sitting in front of him.

In his eyes, the girl in front of him, Aizawa Kirisame, was a strange person.

Perhaps because the people he usually dealt with were law-abiding heroes, during their sparring match when she drew her sword and pointed it at him, the pressure and killing intent she exuded was something he rarely saw even in adults.

But when she put away her weapon, all the aggression vanished without a trace, as if she were just an ordinary student.

His bangs hadn't grown back yet, and over the past few days he had received many hesitant glances, and it even caught Endeavor's attention.

Recalling how Endeavor's eyes had widened, Shoto Todoroki turned his gaze back to the girl in front of him and found himself inexplicably liking her a bit more.

Since the day they had fought, the boy had found himself unconsciously glancing at her from time to time.

—Like now.

It seemed she was... tying up her hair?

Having seen his sister tie her hair, Shoto Todoroki could roughly understand what she was doing.

Her fingers fumbled with the hair tie, twisting it oddly a couple of times. For some reason, maybe she tangled her hair in it, then untied it and started over. Then she twisted a couple more times, pulled the upside-down metal piece to the top—was it star-shaped? A decoration maybe? It didn't work, so she yanked it off.

She seemed frustrated.

She paused for two seconds, then, as if she had made up her mind, raised her hand again.

This time her movements were so smooth! It was like a completely different person!

In less than five seconds, the hair was tied, and the star was neatly centered.

—But why did she seem even more dejected?

What was wrong with her?

"..."

Wait, what am I doing?

Kirisame suddenly felt a chill behind her. The girl quietly stopped her mental bickering with Chōgitai and sat up straight.

...Come to think of it, even after that fight, the guy sitting behind her still barely acknowledged her.

English class was as easy and fun as ever. Present Mic would suddenly activate his Quirk just when the students were getting drowsy, always making a couple of them jump.

Today it was Kaminari, the kid who could discharge electricity. Startled awake, he accidentally discharged an electric shock, and Kirisame, sitting diagonally behind him, along with several others, shook for half a minute. Bakugo immediately blew up, and all hell broke loose.

Kirisame had originally planned to wait for an auspicious day when Bakugo wasn't angry to explain about bumping into him, but nearly a week had passed, and Kirisame found that no such day existed, so she decided to just bite the bullet.

So during the afternoon break, Kirisame stopped Bakugo at the entrance of the training room.

"I'm really sorry!"

The girl, holding two boxes of extra-spicy curry recommended by Midoriya, bowed deeply.

In the hallway, unfamiliar classmates gave them polite but awkward stares. Bakugo's forehead veins bulged as he grabbed her and pulled her into the training room, slamming the door shut.

"What the hell do you want?!"

"...Sincerely asking for your forgiveness?" Kirisame said cautiously.

"Ha?" He looked utterly disbelieving.

[Oh god, he's cracking his knuckles.]

"You mean you forgot before, and only now remembered?"

That smile, with his gums showing, made Kirisame want to turn and run away.

But Kirisame's only experience with such situations was watching Zapp when he was caught in a love triangle between two beautiful sorceresses. Her intuition told her that wouldn't work, and the consequences would be severe.

So Kirisame chose to tell the truth, skipping the Blood Clan matter and explaining the official story of that day's events to him.

Incredibly, although he looked like he was about to explode any second, he actually furrowed his brows and listened to her.

Kirisame didn't feel guilty at all; after all, she had genuinely spent a full month in the hospital.

"This was Deku's idea again, wasn't it?" He sneered, tossing the two boxes of curry back into Kirisame's arms. "Don't think you can just blow me off with two boxes of curry."

Kirisame caught them and held them, looking up at him.

"Fight me."

The training room had wooden swords for sparring, perhaps considering that some students needed to practice.

The sparring training room prohibited destructive Quirks for safety reasons, and obviously both Kirisame and Bakugo fell into that category, so this match would be just hand-to-hand combat.

Even just comparing their hand-to-hand skills revealed a lot.

Kirisame sidestepped to dodge his so-called "right side smash" while mentally evaluating his level.

In terms of hand-to-hand combat, he was even better than the ice-using guy sitting behind her. And more frighteningly, his style was markedly different from what he had shown in his match against Midoriya that day.

Quite cautious.

Bakugo punched the floor, pulled back his fist, and stood up.

"Are you holding back?!"

Kirisame was caught off guard for a moment, then nodded.

After all, she had been trained differently; if they really fought, he would probably get beaten up badly.

...And if the training room got damaged, the consequences would probably be severe. Kirisame remembered hearing the furious roar of some teacher when she passed by the Support Course lab, whose door had been blown off.

Seeing this, Bakugo let out an angry laugh.

"If that's your attitude, then there's no need to continue." His tone was strangely calm. "Playing a childish game of house with someone who holds back means nothing to me."

He took off his protective gloves and turned to leave.

[He's angry.]

Kiris

The black-haired, golden-eyed girl gripped the remaining wooden sword with both hands, her expression serious. "I understand. I'm sorry. Please, let's start over."

The boy was taken aback for a moment, then turned and lunged at her. "Now that's more like it!!"

Over the next period of time, Kirisame probably defeated him twenty or thirty times.

After the first dozen or so times, each subsequent bout took a little longer than the last.

He seemed to never tire. The moment he was thrown to the ground, he would flip over and get back up to continue. Later, Kirisame even found a hint of passion in his constant "Again!" calls, and they ended up grappling with each other until both were exhausted, lying side by side on the ground panting.

Though exhausted, Kirisame felt inexplicably pleased. For the first time, she understood why HL's underground boxing ring was so popular.

Thinking this, Kirisame fell a few steps behind.

"Hurry up and catch up! Want to be late?!" Bakugo shouted at her gruffly from ahead.

This probably... means he's not angry anymore, right?

The girl thought uncertainly.

In the end, she was still punished by the homeroom teacher with a five-thousand-character written reflection for damaging the training room.

Bakugo also mocked her for not knowing how to write it.

Then he was given an additional two thousand characters for yelling in the classroom.

...Just great.

A few days later, when reporters flooded in, Kirisame was crouching on the roof of another building, holding a bowl of rice.

The alarm signaling a breach of security blared across the entire campus. Mr. Aizawa and Present Mic's slender (?) figures seemed utterly insufficient to block this fierce group of uninvited guests.

But this wasn't something Kirisame could handle. After the commotion had nearly settled, she jumped down from the roof beside the terrace, hopping from treetop to treetop along a side path as a shortcut to the classroom.

As she ran past a side door, she brushed past someone.

The proximity was only for an instant, but the girl, who had a natural instinct for danger and malice, felt her hair stand on end.

When she stopped and turned to look, that person had already walked out the door and disappeared from sight.

...Could it be a reporter?

The gray-blue haired young man's eyes, hidden under his hood, curved in delight.

In the afternoon came the eagerly awaited Hero Basic Studies.

True to its reputation as the most credit-heavy course, this time it was a rescue training in a large area. Sitting on the bus in her battle costume, her hand held by Meiyu beside her, Kirisame felt like she was on some legendary "field trip."

...She should have been happy, but for some reason, there was a lingering sense of unease.

It seemed to come from the person she met at noon, but also from inside her.

...Was her body temperature rising?

Lost in thought, Kirisame missed Bakugo's latest outburst. She only snapped out of it when Asui, the frog girl, tugged on her arm.

?

Asui sighed. "Everyone's talking about your Quirk!"

"That's right, Kirisame-san's Quirk really looks like something from a manga—it feels super cool," said Denki Kaminari.

Tokoyami, who had been silent the whole time, unexpectedly nodded in agreement.

"Hey, since Little Kirisame's Quirk is so strong, what kind of opponent would she least like to face?" the girl Ashido blurted out.

The entire bus fell silent.

"Hmm..." Kirisame thought for a moment. "Kirishima-san."

"Ehh?!" Kirishima was taken aback. "It's me?!"

"Hah? What kind of crap eyesight do you have?!"

"Well, Kirishima's hardening Quirk definitely has an advantage in close combat..." Midoriya and Iida both lowered their heads in thought. "But Todoroki-san and Tokoyami-san's mid-range attacks are also hard to deal with..."

Kirisame nodded.

Because he can become very hard, and you never know just how hard, so it's hard to gauge how much force to use.

"What about Bakugo? What kind of opponent does he struggle against?"

"Hmph, like I can't beat anyone!"

Soon the topic shifted again. Amidst the laughter, the girl's furrowed brow never relaxed.

U.A.'s Unforeseen Simulation Joint, or USJ, is an advanced training facility with a huge area and multiple disaster terrains, equipped with the most cutting-edge simulations and the most thorough security measures.

Therefore, standing in the center of the facility, everyone was stunned as a swarm of villains poured out of a black portal.

That villain with its exposed brain really had the style of HL…

Kirisame stared at the figure in the center covered with hands, feeling strangely familiar.

—Just then, a powerful wave of dizziness and heat surged through her, causing her to pause in mid-step.

A black mist engulfed her. The next second, Kirisame found herself in a mountain rescue area, with steep cliffs far apart on either side and no foothold in sight.

She was plummeting.