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Minoru Mineta was bored.
Now, there were things he could do. He just… didn’t feel like doing them. He certainly didn’t feel like interacting with anything in the old Minoru’s room. Those things didn’t seem very sigma, to tell you the truth.
As for the friends he hung out with a lot, well they were just busy today. He couldn’t exactly do that today either. That sucks.
Maybe he could train? Yeah! That seemed like a good idea to him. After all, his goal was to get stronger. And it was fun. Yeah, yeah, he rocked with that. Turning his brain off for a bit could do wonders too.
So it was off to one of UA’s gyms for him! There was plenty of equiment here, but he couldn’t really use a lot of it. It was meant for people for average size and Mineta was really small.
Oh well. He supposed quirk training was what he would do today.
If he was remembering this correctly, he believed exercises were divided into reps and sets and things like that. For a short bit, he thought of quirk exercises he could do.
At last, with those decided, he tore a ball from his head, he was off! He threw it to the floor and immediately bounced off it, followed by him throwing the next ball while airborn and landing on it at an awkward angle, launching a bit too forward and not enough upward.
Thud. He had not thrown another down in time. Groaning, he sat back up to continue this ‘run’.
Throw. Bounce. Throw. Bounce. Throw. Bounce. Throw. Bounce. Throw- Oh no, he thought, he missed.
He once more hit the floor, less painfully this time due to landing on his head. That was enough of that exercise, probably. He had others to do!
Next up: climbing. He needed to tear balls off his head fast enough to not slow down his advance upward. That couldn’t be that hard, especially since he had done it before.
He grabbed the first 2 balls and jumped, putting one on a wall, before continuing. One ball after the other, he ascended. When he reached the top succesfully, he had a crazy thought. Surely he shouldn’t do it though…
Oh, he was already doing it. And as expected, he did not get very far on the ceiling before falling. He wasn’t quite Spider-Man, it seemed. He took some time on the floor, groaning a bit, befoes sitting up. That was all good exercise, but he needed some food and drink.
So out of that gym he went, out of UA, and down to the nearest convenience store. He ruffled through his wallet before selecting some grape soda and returning to the counter with it. Handing over the 150 Yen, he went outside and sat on the sidewalk with a yawn. Maybe he should sleep early tonight…
Mineta blinked at the now empty soda bottle, shrugging and walking over to a garbage can to throw it away. He found himself embarrassed as his stomach rumbled loudly. Luckily no one was around to hear.
Mineta walked over to a restaurant and sat down inside. He took a menu and read it over a bit. He pondered over it, wondering what to get.
Mineta wasn’t really familiar with most of these foods, due to not really being Japanese in his old life. Oh well, that was what Google was for, he thought.
So he whipped his smart phone out and booted up Moogle, his fingers slowly typing in the various menu items to see what they looked like and what sort of foods they were.
Sushi was something he already knew, so that needed no explanation. Okonomiyaki though… He glanced at the results and decided it might be worth a try. Yakitori too, maybe. Ooh, he liked Udon.
By the time Mineta had looked through things, he had ordered a bit of a wide variety of things.
Of course, he was a bit too busy eating to notice another there.
Who was a bit too busy eating him eating either. That person? Hard Head, a villain. Of course, villains don’t exactly parade their villain outfits in their off hours so he was dressed casually. Even if Mineta had been paying attention, he might not have been able to identify the low ranking villain.
Hard Head was just finishing his meal and headed back out to get to work. He had a lot of things that needed to be done.
First up, he needed some more money. That wasn’t that hard to obtain, he mused.
Half an hour and a robbery later, Hard Head had replaced the cash he had spent on food.
So now it was time to defend his title, heading back to that one bar. The name slipped his mind until he reached the Broke Man’s Bar and he roared as he entered, signalling his presence. He was, after all, the current champion and the main entertainment for those not fighting.
Hard Head immediately entered the ring and plowed through several fellow villains with a devilish grin, a menacing look in his eyes.
Hard Head felt someone impact him from behind and swirled around to throw a punch, only to see one of the foes he had already knocked out. In his opinion, that was rather strange.
He knocked them out again and turned around to drive another opponent into the ground with incredible force. Then the same attack from the same opponent.
What was with this guy, Hard Head thought angrily. Then a man popped out of the body and attempted to flee into another one. Ah, so that was how it was.
Hard Head grabbed the man’s ankle before they could reach another body to possess and slammed them into the ground, knocking them out.
Hard Head suddenly felt heat and just barely side stepped a blast of fire, leaping forward and knocking the source out.
Hard Head blinked at some man that seemed entirely made out of plants. It was a curious quirk. He did not have a favorable opinion on the grapes on his head.
He lumbered forward and slammed a fist into the other man, only to have it caught and wrapped up. He was hurled into a wall.
Hard Head dug his hand into the wall and pulled himself out with a snarl. Well if he couldn’t beat the fool in, he’d have to get creative.
He grabbed a piece of rubble and hurled it at the other, rushing in behind. The plant man grabbed a vine and hurled the rubble away only for Hard Head to get a grip on the vine and throw the other into the fire quirk user, who had just started getting up.
With those two tussling, he unleashed a barrage of punches on some other unsuspecting foe before using them as a club against the enemy they had been fighting.
Hard head looked around. It seemed to him that he was among the last few left. He decided to hang back and let them fight it out before taking on the winner.
One’s arm began to melt, forming into a long and grotesque fleshy tentacle. The other had small balls of light hovering around their hands and feet as small bells chimed.
Hard Head watched as the whiplike tentacle whipped foward amd the balls of light coalesced into an electric blast of fire that collided with the tentacle, burning it, but not stopping it from leaving a line of blood on the young man’s face.
The light man hopped back with a boost of that fire from his feet and firing off several smaller and weaker bolts which the tentacle woman did her best to block.
The light man then focused on evasion as the tentacle woman grew frustrated, not noticing the several minute charge in the light man’s hand. In a flash the tentacle woman was eliminated and Hard Head led a quick yet brutal onslaught on the survivor.
Hard Head yelled and the crowd cheered. He went back out the doors with a smug grin before ducking out of the way after seeing the Buster Hero: Airjet. For some reason wearing a Santa Hat? It wasn’t even winter…
Hours earlier, Airjet had noticed something simple. Something most people wouldn’t think twice about. It was simply a calendar flipped to december and left laying around, likely from one of his sidekicks.
Most people weren’t pro heroes who regularly checked the subdreddit and fanfiction made about them to determine the public’s opinion on them. Airjet had recently had a dip in popularity that he wished to make up.
So, temporary gimmick it was. He looked through the storage boxes in his agency. At last, he located a Santa Hat. And off he went through the skies singing HO HO HO.
Airjet laughed a booming laugh as he encountered the first villain of the day and fired off the ball of frost he had stuffed in it. “In the name of justice and the holiday spirit, your crime spree stops here, villain!”
“What the f-” the villain started before getting a blast of air. No cursing on his watch! He landed on the ground and checked on the civlians around the crime scene, handing out toys to the children.
Glancing at the nearby alleyway, he spotted a buff man who ducked out of sight. He thought that was curious and followed but it seemed that there never was a man. He did not look behind the dumpster, narrowly missing the villain that would become a major hindrance to his student.
Instead, Airjet merely continued on his quest for heroism. This would result in double the increase than what he had previously lost, but he would not know that for a couple weeks.
After busting several more villains with merry cheer, Airjet stumbled upon his pupil. “RUBBER!”
Mineta startled to attention when he heard the commanding voice of his internship hero and mentor, letting out a startled noise before getting to his feet quickly. “Sir?”
“MERRY CHRISTMAS!” The hovering hero shouted before tossing him a bucjet of fried chicken and busting off, leaving the grape boy very confused.
Mineta scratched his chin. He had heard of this, he thought. In Japan, they ate fried chicken on Christmas due to some weird thing he hadn’t bothered commiting to memory in his old life.
Mineta thought to himself that it didn’t really matter because he had KFC. He happily munched away on the crispy poultry, confused yet satsified.
When Mineta was done with that, he walked to Airjet’s agency to find out what was up with the hero. After all, it was… well, Mineta didn’t exactly pay attention to the calendar but it wasn’t december. At least as far as he knew.
So up, off, and away Mineta went. Considering he did not yet have a provisional hero license, he could not use his quirk out here and thus began his trek considerably slower than any normal person would due to his short leg length.
It was definitely slower than Airjet, who it seemed had beaten him back and was currently drinking hot cocoa with his helmet off. Mineta also thought he heard him humming a tune.
It was at this, that Mineta stumbled into one of the sidekicks of the Buster Agency. They had dark hair and red eyes. Also, for some reason, they were covered in frost despite their quirk being the thrusters they had instead of feet.
“Merry Christmas, Mineta, I guess” He mumbled before stumbling away. Frost continued to fall from his body as he went around a corner and disappeared.
Mineta blinked before walking up to Airjet and piping up. “What’s going on, Airjet? Were you hit by a christmas quirk?!”
Airjet blinked back before handing Mineta a mug of hot chocolate. “Nah, just a gimmick to get my popularity back up, kid.” He had to get his popularity back up. It was a relevant factor in his paycheck, after all.
Mineta shrugged before drinking the rest of his hot cocoa and going home. Laying in his bed, he could’ve sworn he forgot something. Eh. If he forgot, it wasn’t important, he decided.
He failed to hear the cry of confusion of UA’s janitor, checking on the gym only to find a bunch of mytserious purple sludge.