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Saiko huffed as she walked into the gym. Her performance would’ve been humiliating if she weren’t more relieved that she just wasn’t dead. Villains had attacked her class and all she could do was run and hide. She couldn’t fight back like her classmates. Like Bakugo or Todoroki or Asui or Kirishima. She just had to sit back helplessly as that monster thrashed her sensei.
That needed to change. She needed to be stronger. If she wanted to be a hero then she couldn’t just rely on her intelligence. She needed more.
“Oh hello there! Nice to meet you!” Greeted a 2.1 meter tall woman with messy green hair who looked like she had muscles on top of her muscles.
“Good morning. Who are you?”” The other girl replied, trying hard to maintain her composure even as her eyes lit up with shock. Saiko had never seen this woman that was so ripped before but there was this girl, looking like she could best All Might himself in an arm wrestling contest. Her shoulders and back were covered by a tank top but were wide and massive. Her thighs were mostly covered by gym sweats but Saiko could tell they had the kind of strength that could crush boulders. Her arms were exposed and looked like they were bowling balls covered with scarred skin. And her stomach left Saiko wondering if she was jealous, impressed, or in love.
The older student giggled, she saw right through the poised younger woman. “I’m Izumi Midoriya, Class 3A. It’s a pleasure.
“Oh! You’re sensei’s famous problem child! I’m Saiko Intelli, Class 1A.” Saiko recalled.
“Eraser still calls me that?” Midoriya giggled.
The younger girl nodded.
“I miss that grumpy bastard.” the upperclasswoman sighed, a nostalgic tone in her voice.
Saiko scanned her senpai’s form some more. This girl was huge! “You know, sensei told us you were strong but I never knew how strong. Maybe Todoroki was onto something with that secret love child theory…”
“Secret WHAT?!?!”
Saiko suddenly felt very nervous.
“Yes, um, Todoroki-san theorized you were All Might’s secret daughter.” She explained, holding her hands together and keeping them close to her face as she spoke.
Midoriya let out a heavy sigh and shook her head. “What a weird guy. Between his conspiracies, Shinso’s grumpy attitude, Iida’s blatant hypocrisy, and Kacchan’s temper, I’m surprised the boys in your class can manage to do much of anything.”
That all made perfect sense, but it also left Saiko questioning how Midoriya senpai knew so much about her class, and especially how she knew Bakugo so well as to give him a nickname like ‘Kacchan’ but she decided she could ask about that later.
“We’re getting off the subject, so you’re wanting to get in better shape?” Midoriya asked.
Saiko nodded. “Yes senpai, I wasn’t of any help during the USJ attack and-”
Midoriya gently shushed the younger woman. “Before you say anything else, I need you to understand something. What happened there wasn’t your fault. You’re a 15 year old girl who is not expected to take on actual villains, even a bunch of C and D listers like those guys. It’s okay.”
Saiko’s ordinarily cunning expression faltered and she began crying into the muscular woman’s shirt. “They almost killed sensei! They almost killed him and I couldn’t do anything!”
“I understand.” Midoriya replied, gently stroking Saiko’s silver hair. “But you know what’s a great way to get your mind off of all the horrible things we remember?”
“What?” She asked, sniffling as she looked up at the older girl.
“Lifting weights.” Her senpai answered. “Last year, me, my friend Togata, and our mentor, Sir Nighteye were helping with a raid on a Yakuza faction called the Shie Hassaikai. They were using this little girl named Eri to make drugs that could take away a person’s quirk.”
Saiko’s tear filled eyes lit up with shock. Quirk erasing drugs?! That’s insane! And using a little girl to do it? That’s horrific!
“I put on four kilos of muscle because I refused to leave this gym until she was safe. And then I packed on another five kilograms the week after because I was so angry, I was angrier than I’d ever been in my life about what they did to her, that sweet little girl.”
Saiko nodded as she dried her eyes. That information tracked, Aizawa had no pictures of Midoriya out of her uniform but the girl from Aizawa’s pictures definitely wasn’t as big as the girl in front of her now. “So working out helps you calm down?” The smaller girl asked cautiously.
“Martial arts training too, but we can work on that another time.”
“We?” Saiko repeated.
“Yeah! As your upperclassman, I’m supposed to help you when you need it. So how about it, kohai? You wanna learn how to get swole from a master?” Midoriya teased, flexing her right arm which looked positively mangled but incredibly massive as well.
Saiko considered the offer while also pondering where those scars came from, but ultimately decided now wasn’t that time. “I definitely want to get stronger but maybe not necessarily ‘swole’ if that’s possible.”
“Of course! There’s all kinds of ways to build muscle, you can go the All Might and Endeavor route or you can go the Snipe and Eraserhead route. Those guys are still in top shape but they’re not at all bodybuilder level huge.”
Saiko nodded. That also made sense. “Fair enough, where should we start?”
“You start by doing some stretching and some exercises without weights. I’m gonna work on my legs for a little bit.” Midoriya replied. “In the future, we’ll do our workouts together, but I already started today and I don’t feel like starting over.”
“Fair enough.” The younger girl nodded. “Um, how should I start?”
Midoriya looked at Saiko with a dumbfounded expression.
Oh that’s new. I’ve never felt stupid before. This must be how everyone else feels. Saiko thought, blushing with embarrassment underneath Midoriya’s gaze.
The bigger girl sighed deeply. “Okay, just do what you do first thing in the morning then do jumping jacks. Okay?”
Saiko did as suggested. She kept at it for at least half an hour while her new mentor worked at building up her already godlike quads. Saiko found herself having a very hard time not drooling over the sight.
Stop that! You’re an intellectual dammit! Saiko chastised internally.
“Okay, now let’s work on you.” Midoriya declared, stepping out of what looked like some sort of torture device. “Go over to the bench press, Intelli.”
Saiko did so and glanced at the weight on it, 225 kilograms on each side. Her eyes nearly bulged out of her skull. “Please tell me you don’t expect me to lift that much.”
Midoriya laughed. “No no, I’m going to have you take off each weight and carry them to the rack one by one.”
The IQ quirk user gulped. The 25 kilos might not be too bad but the 100s would definitely be a challenge. “I-is this how you started, senpai?”
“How I started? No, I started by clearing up Dagobah Beach before my first year.”
Saiko’s jaw hit the floor. “THAT WAS YOU?! You were the skinny green haired girl with the tall scary blonde man?!”
Midoriya Senpai grinned proudly. “Yep!”
Saiko made a reevaluation. Not only was senpai strong even without her very powerful quirk, not only was she brilliant, not only was she drop dead gorgeous ( shut up brain! Logical thoughts only! ), but she was also completely insane.
“Well then, no time like the present I suppose.” The first year huffed, groaning with effort as she slid the first 25 kilo plate off the bar. It was quite a bit heavier than she thought it would be but she still managed to carry it to the rack without too much difficulty. “If nothing else, it can’t hurt to get stronger because a pro hero should not find lifting 25 kilograms so difficult.” Saiko muttered, now repeating the effort with the plate on the opposite side.
“You’re doing really good, Intelli!” Midoriya complimented.
“Oh goodness me.” The younger woman murmured, putting away the second 25 kilo plate. “That weighs nothing to you doesn’t it?” Saiko teased.
Midoriya smirked, picked the weight back up, and then folded it in half with her bare hands. “You could say that.”
“Y-y-you didn’t use your quirk did you?”
“Nope.”
Oh my fucking God. Oh my God. Jesus fucking Christ. Oh my God. Fucking shit. Jesus fuck. Oh my fucking Jesus fucking Christ. God in heaven. Holy fucking shit.
“Impressive!”
“Thanks!” Midoriya grinned, looking quite proud of herself.
Why is she so hot and cute?! Saiko screamed internally. Alright fine brain! You win! I admit she’s hot!
“Okay now here’s the tricky part, try to move the 100 kilos, if you don’t think you can do it just let go, but please give it a decent effort.” The taller woman explained.
Saiko took a deep breath and started to pull the 100 kilo plate from the bar. With great effort she managed to pull it off… And then immediately dropped it onto the padded floor.
“Oh, so that’s what failure feels like.” The younger girl huffed, red in the face from embarrassment and exertion.
“You didn’t fail. You found out what your limit is. And that’s good. What we need to do now is push past that limit.” Midoriya explained, picking up the weight with an ease that left Saiko wondering if she could bend this plate too.
“One might even say go beyond my limit?” Saiko joked.
“Plus ultra.” Midoriya replied, winking at her kohai.
Saiko’s face turned even redder.
I knew I was gay but I didn’t know I was this gay. The young woman mused internally.
“So 100 kilos, obviously too much for you to lift, and I get the feeling even on the bench you probably couldn’t handle it, so let’s bring back those 25s, and see if you can bench 50 kilograms.” Midoriya suggested, as she pulled off the three remaining 100 kilogram plates without too much effort.
“Why do I feel like you could juggle those if you felt like it?” Saiko murmured.
“I could, but I don’t need to show off for you anymore than I already have kohai.” The bigger girl teased, sliding a 25 kilogram weight onto each side of the bar once the 100s were put away. “No I want you to just lay back on the bench and try to lift the weight off the rack, then just steadily let it come down until it’s touching your collar then push it up. We’ll do that one time and if you think you can do more, we’ll keep doing more. Sound good?”
Saiko took a deep breath and nodded, taking her spot on the bench. She wrapped her hands around the spaces on the bar she was meant to grab onto and with one more breath, she picked the bar up off the rack and shakily allowed for it to be lowered towards her chest.
“Good job, now bring it back up.” Midoriya senpai instructed.
Saiko grunted and raised the bar up until it was on the rack again.
“Attagirl!” The older girl praised, clapping her hands excitedly. “Do you think you can do more?”
Saiko really wanted to say no but she also didn’t want to. Despite the difficulty, there was something rewarding about knowing she’d done the one rep, and she felt like she could do more. On top of her goals of becoming a stronger hero and getting into better shape for the Sports Festival, which was still on for some baffling reason, she wanted to prove to herself that she could become stronger. It didn’t feel that different from training her quirk. Maybe she could even incorporate this into her quirk training? After all, it made intellectual sense to have a body as strong as her already powerful mind. Why not train both?
“I think I can senpai!” The younger woman replied, her face alight with a competitive glee.
“That’s my girl.” Midoriya grinned.
Saiko tried not to look senpai in the eyes. That smile would definitely make her falter. It was too pretty.
She gripped the bar tightly and pulled it off the rack a second time. Once it was touching her collar, she took one more deep breath and pushed it upward. One rep. She let it fall again. One and a half reps. She pushed it back over head again. Two reps! She was actually doing it!
“Okay, four more reps then we’ll take a break.” Midoriya instructed, keeping her hands hovering underneath the bar at all times.
“Why so few?” Saiko groaned, doing a third rep.
“Building muscle takes time, you don’t want to exert yourself too much too soon. I made that mistake too when I first started working out.” The older girl explained.
“You were doing actual exercises between sessions cleaning up the beach?” The IQ quirk user teased, grunting as she performed a fourth rep.
“I was! Sometimes even at the beach.” Midoriya replied. “But you see, the reason I wanted to get fit was because my quirk hadn’t come in yet. I’d been in an accident right before I started training where I found out I actually had a quirk, I thought I was quirkless.”
Saiko almost dropped the weight on top of herself. “Didn’t sensei say you were so powerful that you used to break your bones when you used your quirk?!” She asked, struggling through the fifth rep.
“I was. My body had to get used to the power once I could access it. I had to bulk up to unlock it, and after 10 years of thinking I was quirkless, I was in a rush to officially not be.” The taller girl explained, pulling the bar back onto the rack once Saiko finished her sixth rep. “So I kept doing exercises on my rest days and I kept pushing myself further when I was tired and should’ve been relaxing. I was hurting myself and making myself exhausted. So take some advice from somebody who knows.”
Saiko sat up and looked up at her senpai, making sure to digest the words properly.
“Take care of your body.” Midoriya insisted, raising her scarred up right hand for emphasis. “Or else your body will look like this.” She warned.
Saiko suddenly felt a bit sheepish. “I mean I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the way you look, scars and all.”
Now Midoriya’s face was turning red. “That’s very sweet of you, Saiko, but that isn’t my point. I’m not talking about aesthetics, I’m talking about damaging yourself. Don’t do what I did. Your body is a machine, you need to maintain it like any other.”
Saiko nodded. It was a valid point. “Well then, that was six, what should we do next?”
“Take a ten minute break. Did you bring a water bottle?”
“I did but it’s filled with iced tea…” Saiko chuckled, pulling a bottle from her gym bag.
“Why iced tea?”
“It’s my quirk, I get an intelligence boost every time I drink tea. Green tea gives me a boost to my logic centers. Earl gray boosts my capacity for emotional understanding. And black tea increases my ability to understand the way my body works. I picked iced tea because I spent a summer visiting a relative in Georgia, and I developed quite the taste for the stuff.”
“Increased bodily understanding sounds like a good thing for being here.” Midoriya mused, looking around at the equipment.
Saiko followed her gaze and cringed. Some of these things really did resemble torture devices, but she supposed that would change over time as she became more used to the environment. “Have you ever been to America senpai?”
“Oh yeah, I’m a big All Might fangirl, I visited California once to see where he got his start during his sabbatical to the States.”
“Oh yes, sensei mentioned that too.” Saiko chuckled.
“I’d ask about why Aizawa sensei has been talking about me so much, but I’ll let that slide for today. Right now, I’d like to see you try your hand at the pull up bar.” The older girl explained, pointing to a bar bolted to the concrete wall.
Saiko took a long sip of her iced tea. “If you insist, senpai.”
“Oh don’t be like that! I believe in you!” Midoriya teased, giving the other girl a peck on her cheek.
Saiko suddenly felt a rush of energy surge through her. A sudden overpowering belief that she could do exactly what Midoriya senpai said she could.
Oh sweet Jesus, I am so gay!
Saiko and Midoriya went through a handful of other exercises after this before calling it a day, with Saiko offering to treat Midoriya to lunch. It was the start of a lovely afternoon with many more to come.