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Shinsou Hitoshi does his absolute best at the Sports Festival, only to be bested by both Midoriya’s insane ability to break his own bones and the boy’s sudden refusal to answer questions or even respond to insults.
As Hitoshi is tossed bodily out of bounds, his journey at the sports festival ends.
His hero journey on the other hand, has only just begun.
Because Shinsou Hitoshi, General Education Student, Class 1-C, has successfully managed to catch the attention of one of his Pro Hero teachers…
It just isn’t the one everyone expects.
***
Hitoshi collapses to the training room mat, gasping and heaving for breath. Somewhere high above him and out of his line of sight, Midnight barks out a laugh.
“Come on now, where’s all that youthful vigor? Where’s that spark of defiance? Where’s your plus-ultra spirit!”
She cracks her whip in the air for emphasis, and Hitoshi groans.
They’ve barely even done anything yet, Midnight having proclaimed they gotta first, quote “whip him into shape” before she could teach him anything fancy.
Thankfully it seems that despite the actual whip she wields, she at least hadn’t meant that part literally.
…So far.
A towel flops down over his face, and Hitoshi uses it to wipe his face off with a sigh.
Yeah. Break time’s over. He’s lucky enough to have caught someone’s attention. If step one means he can’t learn any actual hero moves ‘til he’s apparently got a rockin’ bod to back it up, then so be it.
Hitoshi tosses the towel to the side and gets back to work on the pull-up bar.
***
“Alright!” Midnight crows, cracking her whip in the air for emphasis. “Now that you can survive the harshest of tortures without completely falling to pieces…”
Hitoshi grumbles into his water bottle. It was just basic strength and stamina training, he knows that. She doesn’t need to make him sound like a wimp who couldn’t even handle five sit-ups. Even if that is exactly how he’d started.
“It’s time to incorporate the next step!”
Hitoshi perks up. Yes! This is the shit he’e been training for! This is the shit he’d been waiting for! This is the shit–
“Pickup lines and aggressive flirting!”
Hitoshi’s water bottle slips through his fingers and spills out all over the floor, but he barely even notices as it slowly seeps into his socks. “What?” he asks, tone absolutely flat and utterly done with this shit.
“Oh honey, you’ve been wasting too much time crafting personal insults and comments for your individual opponents.” She smirks and flexes a pose. “You wanna really catch ‘em off guard enough to respond to your quirk? Start hitting on ‘em. The more attractive your own abs, the better.”
Hitoshi opens his mouth. He thinks about everything she’d just said. He closes his mouth again and finally picks up his now-empty water bottle with a sigh.
“That’s the spirit!”
Her whip cracks through the air with a sense of finality, and Hitoshi finds himself questioning just what the heck he’d gotten himself into.
He tosses his water bottle into his bag and reaches for the pull-up bar once more. Damn but he has to admit, he’s getting much better at this.
“Is there,” he grunts as he pulls himself up, “a reason,” an exhale as he lowers himself back down, “that I need to,” back up, “practice flirting,” back down, “while exercising?”
Midnight cackles, full-on bending over to slap at her own knee with laughter. “Case in point, my silly dear. You don’t sound sexy right now at all.”
Hitoshi almost falls off the bar. Yeah, that's not exactly something he wants to hear from his teacher, thank you very much.
“You can’t flirt while you’re out of breath, darling, it’s gonna get you nowhere. Stamina is all well and good, but for you and your quirk, you’re gonna need to work on speaking normally even through your exertion. How else can you shock a villain into answering you while you’re hanging off the side of a building or something, hm?”
Hitoshi doesn’t really have an answer to that.
So he just gets back to his pull-ups and does his best to recite the corniest knock-knock jokes he can think of while literally dying over here.
Midnight does in fact respond to him, though.
So that’s something.
***
Hitoshi leaps across today’s obstacle course, his feet finding purchase on the tiniest of footholds and his hands grabbing for handholds whenever the ground falls out from beneath his feet.
And through it all, he keeps up the steady stream of poetry Midnight had sent him home to memorize last week.
“Oh very good, darling,” Midnight claps, as he successfully vaults a low wall, rolls across the mini platform, and springs off the far end to land beside her on the starting point once more. “So steady and heartfelt, your cadence, your inflections, why you nearly brought tears to my eyes.”
Hitoshi lifts the edge of his shirt up and wipes it over his sweaty face to hide his pleased grin from view.
It’s been five months since Midnight first started training him, and the difference is sometimes staggering even to himself. Where before he was just a scrawny, lanky, weak little kid, who couldn’t even best Midoriya when their fight had left quirks behind to devolve into fisticuffs, now stands a boy with well defined arms and toned abs, just the way Midnight claims will be most effective.
She’d forbidden him from cutting his hair ever again on the day they’d first started training, and now he’s got a neat little ponytail on the back of his neck that Midnight has excitedly told him will one day complete his look once he gets his hero costume.
Hitoshi is almost afraid to ask.
“What’s next?” Hitoshi asks her, because if there’s one thing he’s learned in the near half-year they’ve worked together, it’s that this little obstacle course had seemed awfully a lot like a unit test before the teacher moves on to the new chapter.
Midnight beams at him before taking three large steps away.
Hitoshi raises an eyebrow.
Midnight tosses him a whip.
Hitoshi’s eyes widen.
Yoooooo, let’s fucking go! This is the shit he’s been waiting for!
***
Turns out, wielding a whip is a lot harder than watching movies and Jacques Ze Whipper shorts have ever made it seem.
Hitoshi can barely even get it to snap, much less grab onto things or deflect oncoming projectiles with it like Midnight can.
But damn is he going to keep at it until he can.
***
The day Hitoshi successfully manages to not only snag a pole with his whip, but even swing across on it from one platform to another, is the day he first accepts that he might actually be able to do this.
He looks up at Midnight, beyond pleased with himself, his expression open and hopeful for once as he heaves for breath, adrenaline still racing along with his heart.
Midnight simply laughs and cracks her own whip ostentatiously. “Now do it again while reciting poetry.”
And Hitoshi is simply too high on the feeling of accomplishment coursing through him to do anything else but listen.
***
The day of the joint training with the Hero Course’s Classes A and B arrives, and Hitoshi finally feels ready to face them all again.
His hair has been brushed smooth with some kind of gel and pulled back into a high ponytail, which Midnight ties off with a light purple ribbon that trails behind him and flutters in the breeze when he runs.
His shirt is little more than a kevlar weave vest that’s tight enough around the shoulders to really showcase his arms. It also ends just high enough on his stomach to show off the barest bit of skin. A little tease, as Midnight had called it. He’s kind of embarrassed about it, honestly, but it’s too late now. It’ll probably grow on him the longer he wears it.
…he hopes.
His reinforced black jeans are thankfully not tight enough to be uncomfortable. Even Midnight knows that there’s a limit to how well a boy can run and fight in jeans tight enough to fully showcase his ass. Thank god.
He absently adjusts the various chains dangling artfully from his belt loops. Midnight had whispered that they were strong enough to be used as restraints if needed, and Hitoshi had been unable to hold back a grin. Oh man, but he’s a sucker for getting people to think he’s defenseless only to bust out a secret weapon.
He holds still as Midnight does his eyeliner for him. He’s been practicing doing it himself, but quite frankly, considering what’s at stake today he hadn’t wanted to take any chances.
“Fierce, darling,” Midnight coos, helping him up so he can face himself in the mirror. “They’re not gonna know what to do with you.”
Hitoshi stares himself down and agrees. Quite frankly, he’s not sure he’s got the confidence to pull this all off just yet.
But that’s okay.
There’s always his next sports fest.
He pulls on his fingerless gloves last and settles his two whips into their holsters on his thighs.
He’s ready.
Hitoshi walks out onto the training ground with his heart hammering in his chest and a cocky grin he only half feels tugging at his lips.
The Hero Course isn't gonna know what hit them.