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Katsuki groaned as he heard the unfortunately by then familiar voices of Camie and Inasa approaching. Shouto got up from his seat beside him to greet them politely.
As much as he loathed the half and half bastard, at least his classmate was socially inept enough to allow the awkward silence between them to stretch on. The Shiketsu students on the other hand were the dictionary definition of loud.
Katsuki didn’t even spare them a single glance, until he heard voices that he couldn’t recognize. His eyes darted upwards and saw that his fellow remedial course students had company.
Camie was chattering with a slender upperclassmen who had early 2000’s emo hair, with his bangs swept to the side and even covering one eye. And behind them was a tall man Katsuki recalled to have been one of Shiketsu’s faculty supervisors. It was difficult to forget a man who resembled Kakashi from Naruto with his gravity defying white hair, but instead of a mask covering his mouth he instead had a blindfold which seemed much more impractical.
Meanwhile, Inasa was flanked by three students that looked around their age. One of them had pink hair and scars underneath his eyes. And the other looked like if Shadow the Hedgehog was given human form, with hair that resembled a gothic sea urchin.
The last one made Katsuki raise his eyebrow, though. She had mid length straight hair in a bob, somewhat reminiscent of Round Face’s. Her hair was dyed an auburn brown, pushing the buttons on the prestigious school’s strict dress code. She had a petite stature and a slim figure, exaggerated considering she was standing next to Inasa who was built like a tower, but she held herself like she was a skyscraper, as well. Her eyes were what really captured his attention, though. They were a sparkling amber, reminding him of pure gold.
The girl’s gaze shifted to him curiously. Damn it, he had been caught staring. Her eyes seemed to linger on him for a moment, almost appraisingly. Katsuki’s breath hitched. Crimson eyes met hazel.
Then, as if Katsuki weren’t enamored enough, the girl smirked.
“Shouto! Katsuki!” Inasa’s voice boomed across the waiting area, rudely disrupting whatever was going on between Katsuki and the girl. Katsuki turned to glare at him. “These are our classmates!”
“The four of them are doing their work study with Ratio, the guest lecturer for today, so they asked permission to join us,” Camie explained, before slinging her arms around her mentor and the doe eyed skinny kid she had been chatting with. “You remember Gojo-sensei, right? And this is my classmate, Junpei!”
The older boy gave them a shy nod while their instructor flashed them a peace sign. Shouto gave a timid bow in return. Katsuki merely offered them a grunt in acknowledgement.
“And the rest of them are in my class!“ Inasa beamed. He gestured towards the two boys. “Those are Yuuji and Megumi.”
Yuuji, the pink haired boy, waved at them not unlike a dog wagging its tail. Megumi, the one with safety hazard hair, simply mumbled a greeting with a thoroughly uninterested expression, which Katsuki related to on a spiritual level.
“And that’s Nobara,” Inasa introduced.
Nobara eyed him and hummed.
“I’m Shouto. It is a pleasure to meet all of you.” Shouto lowered his head respectfully.
“Katsuki,” he grunted, head held high, and not at all respectfully.
The corner of Nobara’s lips twitched as she offered her hand for him to shake. Katsuki eyed it dubiously for a moment before clasping it with his own. She inconspicuously pulled him closer to meet his eyes.
“So, you’re the ones who also failed the Provincial License Exam?” Nobara asked daringly.
“Nobara!” Camie gasped.
“Yeah.” Katsuki challenged, taking a subtle step forward to bring them even closer together. “And you’re the ones whose teachers didn’t believe were even ready to take the test in the first place?”
“Katsuki.” Shouto sighed.
Nobara’s eyes widened, clearly not expecting the retaliation. For a moment, there was a tense quiet that hung in the air, before Katsuki and Nobara broke down laughing at the same time.
“You’ve got guts, Blondie.” Nobara licked her lips. “I’ll give you that.”
“You have no idea, Shortcake.” Katsuki bared his teeth.
“You may know me as The Overtime Hero: Ratio, but here I am simply Nanami, and I will be guiding you for today,” the blond man in a suit, who looked more like an office worker than a pro hero, politely greeted them from the middle of the training facility. “My interns asked to join me today, so I thought it would be a good learning experience for all of you if you sparred together. I understand that you’ve been training with one another for some time now, but it’s always good to spar with new opponents in order to not fall into a rut.”
Nanami paired up the students. Camie was up against Junpei, Inasa was facing Yuuji, and Shouto was with Megumi.
Which left Katsuki and Nobara together.
The two had similar fierce grins as they stepped up to the center of the room. Katsuki paid no mind to his peers watching them in the stands. Like always, he had his eyes on his opponent.
Nobara flipped her ginger hair back and placed a hand on her hip, mirroring his feral smile.
They had changed into their hero gear. Like all Shiketsu students, she had integrated the elite school’s cap into her costume to showcase school pride or whatever. She had a cropped button down jacket with a matching skirt that reached just above her knees. They seemed black at first but looked navy blue when directly under the light. Peeking from underneath the jacket’s high collar was a white turtleneck undershirt, which covered what would would have been her exposed midriff. Black stockings clung to her legs and she had put on sturdy brown shoes, popular in countryside fieldwork or construction site utilities. What seemed to be a support item was a tool belt that hung around her hips. Completing the outfit were the gold pins on her jacket, which were engraved with detailed spirals.
The get up looked both stylish and practical, two things Katsuki admired greatly.
Finally, it was their turn to fight.
“You can use your quirks and support items,” Nanami reminded them through his microphone. “You have until the timer runs out to incapacitate your opponent. You are deemed incapacitated if you are rendered unconscious, out of bounds, or left immobilized. You may also forfeit the match at any time if you judge yourself incapable of continuing. Are both of you ready?”
“Hell yes!” Katsuki snarked.
“Always am!” Nobara retorted.
“Then let’s begin,” Nanami announced.
Katsuki, like always, started with a bang.
He charged at her, thrusting his hands forward and igniting the sweat on his palms. The noise of the explosion rang through the building. But as the smoke cleared, Katsuki couldn’t spot her.
He heard what sounded like scratching against metal, right before something small flew past his head, nicking his ear.
Katsuki whirled around and saw Nobara, who had hid behind the smog, wielding a hammer with a pink heart emblem on it. He was detachedly aware that his ear was bleeding, but he was otherwise unharmed.
“What do you think you’re doing, Hammerhead?” Katsuki barked, before lunging at her. His hands sparked and crackled, blinding her as she was forced to withdraw.
But before he could follow up with another attack, Nobara crouched down, and picked up a stray steel nail on the ground. Was that what she had shot at him with earlier?
Katsuki then noticed that the tip of the nail was tinted red from his blood. Nobara twirled the nail in her fingers like it was a little baton, before she pressed it in between her fingertips.
And then, without a moment’s hesitation, she plunged the nail into her own wrist with her hammer.
Katsuki opened his mouth to ask if she was crazy, but before the words could escape his lips, an inconceivable shock of pain rang across his body. It felt like he had been shanked by a sword.
Katsuki stood stunned as he watched Nobara reach into her tool belt and pull out another nail.
“Let me properly introduce myself. I’m Kugisaki Nobara, but you can call me by hero hero name: Effigy. My quirk is called Straw Doll,” Nobara revealed as she clutched her forearm. “It’s a mutant type quirk. I’m like a living doll made out of straw. And when I have a piece of your DNA, like blood or even a strand of hair, I can hurt you without even needing to touch you.”
Katsuki howled in surprise as she slammed her hammer against the other nail, impaling her wrist once more. He felt his knees buckle, but tried to ignore the stabbing sensation in his gut.
He let out another explosion, but Nobara didn’t even attempt to dodge. Instead she took the brunt of the blast without blocking it, sending herself soaring through the air before plummeting to the cold hard floor.
Katsuki frowned in confusion before out of nowhere he felt his skin grow hot. It was like he had been burned, but his flesh bore no such wounds. And then he had a sudden wave of vertigo hit him, making him nauseous. It felt like he was floating in the sky, though his feet were still rooted in place, and then there was an invisible impact that left him breathless. It felt like he had dropped down from the sky, and yet he hadn’t moved an inch.
Nobara then rose from the floor, laughing manically.
That was when Katsuki figured it out. Nobara’s quirk wasn’t just limited to the nails. Whatever he did to her, he would feel it, too. How long would it last? She said it was a mutant class quirk, so he couldn’t exactly get her to deactivate it, could he? He imagined that the dose of blood she took from him would be used up somehow, unless every single person she had stolen DNA samples from was suffering like him now, too. But that was highly unlikely. Hopefully. Since the blood she took from him was only a small amount, she would probably either ration it or try to get him to bleed again.
Katsuki closed the distance between them, so Nobara couldn’t take the time to aim another nail at him. She switched fighting stances, shifting her weight to get into a more defensive position. She wildly swung her hammer side to side, and Katsuki narrowly avoided having blunt force trauma.
Nobara took a step back, tossing a nail upwards before pounding it with her hammer, firing at Katsuki’s head. Katsuki ducked out of the way just in time, internally wondering if she actually was trying to give him a concussion.
He felt the nail snag a tuft of his hair, which was how Katsuki realized what Nobara was up to. However, Nobara was already rolling underneath his legs and swiping his fallen hair off of the ground.
Every muscle in Katsuki’s body was flexed or clenched as he braced himself for the next attack, but it didn’t come as quickly as he had expected. He looked up and saw that Nobara seemed reluctant as she lifted the nail to her wrist, which already looked like a pin cushion. But then she saw him staring, so she glared and gave him another session of the world’s worst acupuncture treatment.
Katsuki felt wobbly as he regained his composure, but saw that Nobara wasn’t faring any better. She had no visible injuries, and yet she appeared just as exhausted as him.
That was when it hit Katsuki.
“We’re linked,” Katsuki muttered with a predatory grin. “So even if I feel the attacks made on your body, you’re still affected by them, too. That’s why you’re not just digging more of those nails into your arm until I can’t take it anymore. And that’s why you’re still trying to use direct attacks, since you can still hit me without you feeling it. The pain I feel is what you’re feeling. And you’re way more hurt than you were letting on.”
Nobara scowled as she blew a lock of hair out of her face.
“This isn’t just a game of strength or power.” Katsuki smiled mischievously. “It’s about stamina, too. And it looks like I got you beat.”
“We’ll see about that.” Nobara hissed, before launching a cloud of nails his way. He evaded them by lurching forward, closing the gap between them.
So Nobara’s plan was to attack him as much as possible without using her quirk. Even though they were enduring the same injuries, she looked more tired than he did. There also seemed to be a delay whenever her quirk got used, since he didn’t feel the attacks as they happened, only moments afterwards. He could either win through outlasting her or make her reach her limit first.
Katsuki threw himself at her with an explosion, but she met him halfway as she pounced. They grappled for a while before he tackled her to the ground, pinning her hands over her head. She then wrapped her legs around his waist and flipped them both, straddling his lap.
She let out a primal growl. “I’m gonna kill you!”
He let loose a guttural roar. “Go die!”
They were animals.
Nobara leaned down, so close that Katsuki could feel her breath against his face. And he despised the way his heart reverberated frantically in his ribcage.
“Time’s up,” Nanami’s voice blasted through the speakers all of a sudden, startling them both enough to disengage and jolt apart. “It’s a draw.”
“Hah?!” Katsuki bellowed. “It was just getting good!”
“Yeah!” Nobara sneered. “I have him pinned down, I definitely win!”
“This ain’t a damn wrestling match!” Katsuki seethed. “I have more stamina than you, so I win!”
“Heh!?” Nobara snapped, swiveled to face him. “In your dreams!”
“Enough,” Nanami declared with a warning glare. “Both of you, go to the clinic. Now. We’ll review your performances later.”
Nobara huffed undignified, before shoving herself off of the floor and stretching not unlike a cat. She then offered her hand to Katsuki. He stared at it suspiciously for a moment before scoffing indignantly, grasping it, and letting her help him up.
Even when they both stood face to face, neither of them let go.
“So that was fun.” Nobara gave him a teasing smirk. “But next time, it won’t be a tie.”
“Oh, I can guarantee that.” Karsuki tightened his grip on her hand.
“You two did well.” Nanami hummed as he read through his notes. “Katsuki, you were able to figure out ways to counteract Nobara’s quirk. You thought logically and conserved your energy well. Nobara, it was smart of you to explain the basics of your quirk to try and fool Katsuki into thinking you were invincible. Even if it didn’t work out in your favor, you made it hard for him to predict your next moves. You both fought admirably, if not a tad excessive. Although it wasn’t very heroic of either of you to yell out death threats at each other.”
Katsuki and Nobara eyed each other in scrutiny. Somewhere behind them, Yuuji stifled a laugh, but Megumi elbowed him to shut up.
“We’ll be doing one more exercise for today,” Nanami stated. “We will be doing group battles. Your opponent from your last match will now be your teammate for this match.”
Katsuki and Nobara recoiled at the same time.
“Inasa and Yuuji will be fighting Camie and Junpei.” Nanami pointed at them with his pen, before motioning to Katsuki. “And then Katsuki and Nobara will be fighting Shouto and Megumi. Same rules as last time. You may now talk with your partner to discuss strategies.”
As the students moved to different corners of the room, neither Katsuki nor Nobara were making eye contact with the other. Concluding that Katsuki wanted to beat up his classmate more than he hated this Shiketsu bitch, he broke the ice first.
“What’s Porcupine Punk’s quirk?” Katsuki ground his teeth.
That had at least earned him a snort from Nobara. “His hero name is Shikigami and his quirk is called Shadow Summon. He can summon different creatures from his shadow.”
“There’s an extra in my class with a similar quirk.” Katsuki frowned. “I don’t suppose he also happens to be weak to light.”
“Not that I know of.” Nobara shook her head. “What about Two Face?”
Now that made Katsuki crack a smile. “Icy Hot can emit fire and ice.”
“Lovely.” Nobara grit her teeth. She had started absentmindedly fiddling with one of her nails again.
Katsuki thought back to how Nobara had launched her nails at the previous match, when an idea struck him.
“I have a plan.” Katsuki grinned playfully.
Once more, Katsuki and Nobara found themselves together in the middle of the stadium. Only this time, they stood side by side. Shouto stood opposite them with Megumi next to him.
“Let the match begin.” Nanami’s voice blared throughout the stage.
The moment Megumi saw Nobara take aim, he exclaimed for Shouto to create a wall of ice to give them cover. In the blink of an eye, iron nails were imbedded into the ice. However, while the two boys drew a breath of relief, as soon as the nails hit the wall, the entire structure exploded right before their very eyes.
Katsuki had coated several of Nobara’s nail tips with his nitroglycerin, so that the moment there was any friction on the nails, they would explode. Megumi then conjured a demonic looking dog to attack them. The monstrous wolf nearly unhinged its jaw as it prepared to bite.
“Fetch.” Katsuki whistled before pitching one of his grenades into the hound’s mouth, so Megumi dispelled it before it could get blown up.
Not to be outdone, Nobara fired off a flurry of nails at the two boys. Shouto shot a ray of fervid flames to preemptively explode the nails, making it so that the blast wouldn’t reach them. However, like in the earlier match, Nobara used the smoke from the explosion to shroud herself and sneak up on them.
She popped out of the smog, and nearly bashed Megumi’s skull in with her hammer. Megumi drew back, calling forth a truck sized elephant to deflect the next wave of nails. The beastly elephant was able to resist being dispelled, and proceeded to rear back, ready to curb stomp Nobara.
Nobara rolled her shoulders and bludgeoned the elephant with her hammer like she was hitting a home run. The elephant stumbled back, and Nobara took the opportunity to sweep its hindquarters, causing it to lose balance and nearly crushing Megumi in the process. Megumi dispelled it to prevent becoming a flattened pancake, and took the chance to summon an owl as tall as a car.
It collected Megumi with its talons and flew him out of Nobara’s reach, right into a soaring Katsuki who was waiting for him with an explosion, singing off a fistful of his hair. Katsuki watched as Megumi made nonsensical shapes with his hands before he felt something slimy coil around his torso. Katsuki realized that a slippery tongue had snaked around his midsection, right as the tongue retracted, bringing him along with it. After he was plucked out of the sky, he was suddenly in the mouth of a human sized frog, which now seemed to be attempting to swallow him whole.
Before he could be eaten alive, he found Nobara nabbing Megumi’s fallen hair from before. She took a deep breath before giving herself a severely unhygienic piercing. The nail she had used still had some of Katsuki’s nitroglycerin, so she withstood the explosion, before watching in satisfaction as the attack was repeated onto Megumi.
Megumi lost concentration of his summonings, dispelling both his bird and toad shadows. Megumi was then dropped, plummeting outside of the ring and slipping out of consciousness.
“Megumi has been eliminated,” Nanami dubbed, already signaling for Gojo to retrieve his limp body.
Shouto wiped the sweat off his brow right as Katsuki landed in front of him. Shouto blasted him with a beam of blazing fire, but Katsuki propelled himself skywards, weaving through the embers. Katsuki zigzagged to him, making himself a harder target for Shouto.
Shouto spun around in circles trying to aim at him. Suddenly, Katsuki rushed forward, and Shouto preemptively unleashed a wall of ice to protect him from the upcoming explosion. However, the impact never came.
“Gotcha,” Nobara’s voice suddenly called out to him from behind. Shouto whipped around just in time to see Nobara slash at him with one of her nails.
She cut his cheek, right before he threw up another ice wall. Nobara backed away and jammed the bloody nail into her wrist once more, causing Shouto to writhe in agony.
Shouto’s lithe body crumpled to the floor as he attempted to set up another ice attack, but he was disoriented from Nobara’s quirk and conjured the frost beneath him, trapping himself in his own ice and leaving him immobilized.
Before he could use his fire to evaporate the ice, Nobara tossed the rest of her nails towards his feet, scattering them on the ground surrounding him. Shouto’s eyes widened in disbelief as the realization sunk in.
“The nails are still dripping in nitroglycerin.” Katsuki cracked his knuckles.
“Which means if you heat them up,” Nobara continued with a smirk, “this whole place will get blown to smithereens.”
Shouto squirmed in his ice prison before he realized that struggling was futile. He lowered his head as he sighed, “I concede.”
“Shouto has been eliminated, as well.” Nanami’s voice echoed across the facility. “Congratulations to Nobara and Katsuki, you are the victors. All of you please head to the infirmary now.”
“You did good out there,” Nobara confessed, hands on her knees and panting heavily.
“You weren’t half bad yourself,” Katsuki admitted, in between sharp intakes of breath.
“Guys, can you please help me out?” Shouto whined.
“You all did exceptionally.” Nanami tapped on his notepad with his pen. “Megumi, you were able to adjust to your opponents’ moves and summon the appropriate shadows to counterattack. And Shouto, your reflexes are astounding given your age. However, you both acted separately instead of as a unit, and you reacted more to your opponents’ moves rather than take initiative of the fight.”
Shouto and Megumi pouted like the stoic brats they were as they got lectured, until Nanami faced Katsuki and Nobara.
“You both impressed me,” Nanami complimented. “You worked together cohesively and utilized each other’s quirks outstandingly. I’m sure you will both get your provincial licenses in no time.“
Katsuki instinctively preened under the praise. From the corner of his eye, he could see Nobara beaming at the pro hero, too.
“That’s it for today. Good work. You’re all dismissed.” Nanami waved them off sternly.
After getting dressed back into his U.A. uniform, Katsuki ran into the others outside the training facility once more.
“Inasa, you made my hair all frizzy,” Camie complained petulantly. “And Yuuji, did you have to hit Junpei so hard?”
Yuuji was already fretting over Junpei, though the older boy seemed equally stressed from attempting to ensure him that he was all right. Gojo was muffling his laughter as he watched in mild amusement, while Megumi simply rolled his eyes at them as he decided not to intervene.
“Shouto! Your match had me on the edge of my seat!” Inasa gushed.
“I lost, though.” Shouto deadpanned bluntly.
“Well, duh, you were up against me!” Nobara smirked.
“Oi, that’s my line!” Katsuki interjected.
Nobara squinted at him, before strutting up to face him. Katsuki narrowed his eyes at her. Even though she was half a foot shorter, she squared her shoulders up and stared him down.
“Care to say that again?!” Nobara dared. “I carried you in that match, for your information! It was my nails that gave us the upper edge!”
“Are you insane, woman!?” Katsuki challenged. “It was my nitroglycerin that won us that fight!”
The two glared each other. The others watched the exchange but wisely chose not to interrupt.
“I could beat you, any day, any time!” Nobara snorted.
“Oh yeah? I’d like to see you try!” Katsuki huffed.
“Okay then. Sparring session. I’ll get Inasa to tell you the details, Blondie.” Nobara scoffed.
“Fine. It’s a date, Voodoo.” Katsuki smirked.
The corner of Nobara’s lips curled upwards.
“Let’s shake on it then.” Nobara mused, offering her hand to him.
This time, Katsuki didn’t hesitate. He grabbed her hand, giving it a firm shake. As he held her hand, he noticed that it was rough with callouses, yet still soft to touch. He had been told in the past that his own hands felt hardened from releasing so many explosions over the years, yet smooth because of his nitroglycerin’s healing factors. He also tried not think about how clammy his palms must have been.
And once more, neither of them wanted be the first to let go.
“Uhm. Katsuki?” Shouto coughed into his fist to gain their attention. “We have to go now. We’re going to miss the bus back to school.”
“We should probably head off, too,” Nobara groaned.
Katsuki’s face twisted at that. He reluctantly let go of her hand, noticing that there was something papery on his palm. He looked down and saw a piece of scrapped paper with a phone number written neatly on it. And underneath it was a tiny doodle of a heart.
He almost got whiplash from how swiftly he gazed up and saw Nobara’s retreating form. She glanced back, face appearing flushed. She then stuck her tongue out at him and winked.
And as he held the paper closer to his chest, Katsuki felt a blush spread across his cheeks.