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There was nothing Izuku liked more than a good spar.
All of his friends and family in 2-A were strong, each possessing unique sets of skills and strengths that always challenged Izuku to go to greater heights. Testing his flexibility, his speed, his timing and reactions, his ability to think one step faster than his sparring partner, to always be ahead of them…Being a Hero was great; to help people and make a difference in their lives was fulfilling to Izuku in ways he’d never thought possible. But there was just something about going up against someone who knew all of his tricks, someone who would push Izuku to be better than before, that forced him to step up or fall behind… That feeling pumped Izuku’s blood like no other.
It also helped that the rest of 2-A were the same.
Izuku never lacked for a sparring partner. Whenever Izuku had too much energy inside, One For All bubbling and flowing through his veins like an untapped power source, he would head for 2-A’s Commons Area, looking around, silent and bouncing, his restlessness showing through little hops and jumps. It would never take long for someone to pick up on the restless, eager energy Izuku would exude, and a sharp grin and a nod would be sent Izuku’s way, letting him know that he’d found a sparring partner for the day.
It was great, having nineteen different sparring partners, all of them unique in how they fought. Tsu was quick and precise, hitting with devastating strength before quickly getting away with short, powerful hops. Eijirou-kun was the opposite, standing strong and firm while his attacks came in fast and hard, his quirk allowing him to have a nearly impenetrable defense. Fumikage-kun was another fascinating person to spar against, with him and Dark Shadow making a deadly combination, never truly having to stop to plan their next moves, so in tune with one another that it was like fighting the same person with two bodies.
Izuku loved it. His classmates had the same drive to do better, to be better than they were before, an ingrained instinct from the War that only pushed them all to new heights. Neither Izuku nor the rest of 2-A came out of their struggle against the League without scars and trauma; against such dangerous opponents, it just wasn’t possible. But they came back alive. They came back alive, with a burning desire to never go through a War again, to never see their comrades and allies and friends and families suffer like they did. 2-A came back alive, and none of them have stopped since.
After all, if they stopped, their pasts would catch up to them, and in their world, there just wasn’t time for that.
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Today was like any other day for Izuku. He got up, did his morning workout and went to class, interacting with his classmates and doing his best to ignore the rest of the school that openly gawked at 2-A. Everything was normal, that is, except for one thing: it was Wednesday, and Wednesdays were Izuku’s favorite day of the week. It wasn’t so much that Wednesdays held something different in his schedule; in fact, it wasn’t even that different from his usual nights at U.A. What made it different, though, was that he and Kacchan—
“Oi, nerd, hurry the fuck up already!”
—sparred on Wednesday nights.
Once a week, Izuku and Kacchan had 2-A’s gym reserved so they could spar. It was the one day of the week where both of their schedules aligned fairly well, and they dedicated that evening to beating the shit out of each other sparring with one another, to see what they’d each learned since they last sparred, to once again challenge the other for the top spot in 2-A. It was a silly competition, one that didn’t hold any value outside the two of them, but it was a connection Izuku had to Kacchan that Izuku thought he’d lost long ago, and so it was something Izuku held onto with all his might. Kacchan seemed to be just as invested, because he always came to Izuku’s room to make sure Izuku never missed a spar. It made Izuku’s chest glow with a warmth that he hadn’t felt since the two of them were four and running through the forests, pretending to be some of the world’s greatest Heroes.
Izuku left his room, closing the door behind him, the small echoing click quietly telling him that his room was secure. It was a precaution that Mei-san had come up with during the war to make sure that no one could infiltrate the dorms without DNA authentication. With Toga’s quirk, it had been necessary, and now it was just a small gesture that Izuku and the rest of 2-A took comfort in.
Izuku turned to Kacchan, who was standing impatiently outside his door, his own gym bag hanging from its strap over his shoulder. The blond was scowling, but Izuku was well-versed in the Many Scowls of Kacchan, and this one wasn’t an actually upset scowl, just an impatient one. Kacchan would never admit it, but Izuku knew that the blond enjoyed their weekly spars just as much as Izuku did.
“Hai, hai,” Izuku replied, beaming, swinging his gym bag over his shoulder as he followed the blond down to 2-A’s gym.
“Don’t fuckin’ “hai, hai” me nerd, you only need to say it once.” Kacchan replied, sneering, but Izuku continued smiling, walking in step with his blond classmate-turned-rival.
Their walk towards the gym was quiet, though Izuku did wave towards some of their friends. None of 2-A bothered to stop Izuku anymore on Wednesday evenings, because they all knew that Izuku would be shortly dragged away by a screaming Kacchan, and sometimes it was just better to preserve your eardrums. His quirk wasn’t the only explosive thing about Kacchan, after all.
When they got to the gym, Izuku put his bag in one of the alcoves along the far wall, out of the way on the off-chance that one of their attacks or moves caused physical damage to the surrounding areas. It had happened before, when one of Izuku and Kacchan’s attacks had collided, causing a concussive wave that had damaged the walls and had all but destroyed their gym bags. Kacchan had cussed the whole way back to their rooms, complaining about his clothes being destroyed. Izuku said nothing about it, having long since been used to having his clothes ruined for one reason or another. Kacchan had sent Izuku some strange looks the next day, and Izuku let those looks go. Izuku was well aware of the blond’s intelligence, and he figured that Kacchan was having some realizations about why Izuku never said anything about his clothes being destroyed. Whether Kacchan had taken Izuku’s silence for, Izuku wasn’t sure, but the blond hadn’t complained about his destroyed clothes since. Instead, he insisted that they make sure their bags are well out of the way. Aizawa-sensei apparently agreed with this, because when the gym had finally been reopened (and Izuku and Kacchan allowed to go back in said gym), there was a small part along the far back wall that had been designed to store any personal belongings. It was well-received amongst 2-A, because replacing destroyed items tended to become troublesome after a while.
Izuku started stretching, thankful that he’d started joining Tsu a few times a week for her morning yoga workouts. He’d become much more limber since then, and the increased flexibility meshed really well with Izuku’s fighting style. Going from an arm stretch into a backbend, Izuku let himself fall backwards gracefully as the world turned upside down. He took the time to look over at Kacchan, who, while throwing his stuff in the same alcove as Izuku’s things, chose to stretch for their spar away from Izuku. The blond was currently doing a series of warm-ups for his wrists and forearms, which let Izuku know that this sparring session would probably be a quirk-heavy spar. It was small cues like this that let Izuku stay ahead of his classmates and family whenever they sparred, the small, subtle routines they engaged in when they sparred with Izuku. Doing special wrist exercises was one of Kacchan’s typical routine signifiers for a quirk-heavy spar. Of course, the blond never actually told Izuku what kind of spar he wanted during their weekly spars. It was as if Kacchan expected Izuku to automatically know what he wanted to do. Izuku wasn’t sure as to why, but then again, there was a lot that Izuku didn’t really know about his friend-turned-bully-turned-rival-turned-friend. Izuku would be the first to admit that the relationship the two shared was rather complicated and very emotionally-charged. It was definitely better than it was before, though, and Izuku was very thankful for that.
“Oi, the fuck you staring at nerd?”
Izuku blinked, eyes refocusing as Katsuki’s blazing eyes stared back at him. The blond was frowning at him, arms crossed over his chest. Izuku blinked again, standing back up from his backbend. He must have been staring at Kacchan while thinking. Oops?
“Tch,” Kacchan shook his head at Izuku, as if he knew what Izuku was thinking. “Learn to be aware of your surroundings, idiot.”
“Well yeah, I usually am, Kacchan,” Izuku quipped, pulling his left leg up in a stretch. “But you’re the only one here, so I don’t really need to be too aware, right?”
Kacchan had a gleam in his eye, and Izuku did his best to keep back the feral smile he knew was curling the edges of his smile. Izuku knew very well what the gleam meant; Kacchan was going to go for a surprise attack this week, which always made things more interesting. Of course, Izuku wouldn’t let the blond take the lead, where was the fun in that?
“You sure you should be saying that shit Deku?” Kacchan asked, casually walking over to Izuku. Izuku felt a thrum of excitement rush through him even as he turned his head to the side slightly, as if he weren’t looking at Kacchan anymore.
“Why shouldn’t I be, Kacchan?” Izuku asked, humming lightly. “It’s not like you’re a threat, right?”
Izuku could hear Kacchan’s teeth grinding before the blond jumped at him explosively, aiming at him with a jump kick. Izuku dodged, his body dancing with green lightning as he used Fa-Jin to propel him from Kacchan. Looking down at Kacchan, he sent the blond a smirk he was told riled everyone up, especially Kacchan.
“Wow, you didn’t start with a right hook for once. Good job Kacchan!” Izuku taunted, laughing as the blond blasted towards Izuku with a shout.
The spar was on.
Izuku and Kacchan spent the next few hours chasing after one another, primarily sticking to aerial combat. It was a great challenge for Izuku, learning to fight in the air as he’d had to do. It might have been a part of his Shoot Style, but fighting in the air wasn’t something that came naturally to Izuku as it did to Kacchan. Kacchan was smart enough to do the necessary physics to consistently propel himself to where he needed to be, but that also came with years of learning about and interacting with his quirk. Izuku had two years with One For All, and half of that came with his quirk mutating as the previous users allowed him access to their powers. While necessary for defeating Shigaraki, it was definitely a challenge to learn them all during a war. Izuku supposed that his experience in analyzing quirks on the go was what allowed him to have as good of a handle on his quirks as he did, but it was his spars with his classmates that really helped him hone in on actually mastering his quirks. Case in point, Izuku was far better at doing turns mid-air now than he was a few months ago. There were just some things that Izuku needed to practice before becoming proficient at them. It was something that he had learned the hard way during the War, something that had left him with regrets —
“Don’t take your eyes off of me!”
Izuku was jarred out of his thoughts by Katsuki’s yell, narrowly dodging a punch that would no doubt have given him a black eye, if not a broken nose. Izuku looked back at Katsuki, who’s eyes were bright and blaring, potent in the artificial lights of the gym. A thin layer of sweat covered his exposed arms and neck, shoulders tense as he let loose another explosion to keep him in airborne.
Shaking his head, Izuku blasted off towards Kacchan once more, twisting in a tight turn as the blond dodged him, taunting Izuku as he did so.
“What, already out of energy nerd?” Kacchan asked, tilting his head as he gave Izuku a smug look. Izuku scoffed, bouncing off the wall to chase after Kacchan once more.
“As if, Kacchan,” Izuku replied. “If anything, you’d be the one getting tired, it’s nearing your bedtime, after all.”
Kacchan barked out a laugh, and something shifted for Izuku. He doesn’t know what, exactly, it is that changed, but the way that Kacchan smiles at him, wild, full of energy and so full of life…it set Izuku’s heart ablaze. Honestly, the blond took Izuku’s breath away sometimes, and Izuku didn’t realize it had happened until he was left there wondering where the air in his lungs had disappeared to. (Izuku knew, but he was too afraid to acknowledge what it meant, scared of what it was going to do to him.)
Glinting ruby eyes looked up at Izuku from where Kacchan stood on the floor of the gym. Kacchan’s expression was knowing and sharp, reflecting something that Izuku wasn’t quite sure of. And then the blond grinned, bright and sharp and explosive, warming Izuku’s chest in a way that nearly sent Izuku falling to the ground.
“What are you waiting for?” Kacchan asked. “Come and get me.”
Izuku grinned, wide and feral, going down to meet Kacchan punch for punch once more.
(Maybe Izuku did know what it meant.)
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