Aizawa shook his head. "These cracks are external damage. You need to make it fall, without it having any external appearing damage."
Haru protested. "Sensei, that's too complicated. External parts are connected to internal parts, too deeply. Even if I sever the connection, they would still be affected."
Aizawa nodded. "Good. It's supposed to be complicated. If it's easy, then your quirk won't grow. Training is supposed to be hard. Uncomfortable."
"but, this is too hard."
"Did you say something?" Aizawa glared at him.
"Nothing!"
Aizawa nodded with satisfaction before walking away. However, a few metres in, he stopped.
"Also, fix your sleep problems. I don't want others to accuse me of passing my bad habits to my students."
"Yes, sensei..."
'It's not like I wanted this to happen. If I had known that I would lose track of time again, I would have forcefully sent my body to sleep. They say, not to repeat their mistakes, yet here I am.' Haru sighed.
Just like that, another gruelling day of training began. If not for Haru being able to track his quirk improvement, he wouldn't have been this dedicated.
He needed all the little-bit of power-up he could get before what was going to happen tonight.
"Seeing all of you work hard, we are going to have fun tonight. It's time for a test of courage!"
Haru's heart tightened, knowing what was going to happen.
'Will my presence cause butterfly effects? What if somebody dies?'
Contrary to his negative thoughts, others were pretty happy at this.
"Finally! Something worthy to be done in this camp!" Mina clapped her hands excitedly. She almost felt like dancing.
Unfortunately, she didn't know that her happiness was temporary.
"Not you 4. You need to do remedial work with me." Aizawa's words felt as if somebody had put cold water on her.
"Sensei! This is too unfair."
"What she said."
"Can't we have it at some other time?"
Mina, Kirishima, Sero, and Kaminari were halfway through their complaints when Aizawa grabbed them by his scarf and dragged them off for remedial work.
Soon, the time to make pairs for class 1-A came up.
"Why the fuck am I with half and half?"
Haru looked at Bakugo and Todoroki.
Then he looked at his partner.
Mineta.
Haru felt almost like crying. 2 sleepless nights. Villain-attack coming up, but he can't stop it. And then, Mineta of all people as a partner.
Can things become any worse?
"Why is it always me? I wanted a pretty girl as my partner, not a pretty boy." Mineta muttered.
"And, he has the gall to say this..." Haru didn't even feel angry anymore.
He can't even pinpoint what he was feeling anymore. Acceptance? Indifference? Dead-inside?
They walked the forest path together, lantern light bobbing weakly. The air felt heavier here. Narrower.
Mineta climbed onto Haru's back without asking. "Faster if we move like this."
"Just say that you are scared. I can feel the goosebumps on your skin." Haru adjusted his stance and kept going.
"Men don't get scared."
Haru stumbled. "That's so cringe."
"...Yeah", Mineta also felt lucky that Haru couldn't see his face.
Haru chuckled. "This is kind of funny. Didn't really expect such words from you of all people."
"Hey—"
Suddenly, blue fire washed through the trees ahead of them, heading straight at them.
Haru swerved on instinct, boots skidding against dirt as heat roared past. Flames tore through leaves, igniting branches, cutting off the path ahead.
"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?" Mineta shrieked.
A figure stepped forward through the smoke.
Most of his face had several stitches along with burn marks.
"Guess, my luck is good," Dabi grinned.
Another wave of blue fire roared at them.
"Hang on tight!" 'Featherless current' The air around Haru changed, as all the resistance from the air vanished.
Haru's speed increased as he barely dodged the fire.
"You wanna play tag? It's been so long since I played it." Dabi followed him from behind.
Haru's normal speed wasn't that high, as his quirk didn't enhance it directly. Due to feeling almost no resistance from the air around him and even a bit of help to move, his speed was increased drastically, but it was nowhere near Dabi's level.
It was a miracle that Haru was able to dodge all the attacks for nearly a minute before he got cornered.
"There's nowhere for you to run. Don't worry, it would only hurt a bit. Just a few burn scars."
Behind Haru and Mineta was a cliff, and in front of them was Dabi. This area didn't have many trees, so they couldn't use obstacles.
It was a checkmate.
Another wave of fire surged forward.
Dabi saw them engulfed by the fire.
"Well, it was too easy. I just had to prevent him from touching me. From a range, he is helpless." Both Haru and Mineta's information was open to the public from the Sports Festival incident.
Suddenly, a silhouette shimmered into view a few meters away. The fire curled and thinned around it, failing to touch either of the figures.
Dabi's eyes widened in shock.
Mineta clung tighter. "WHY ARE WE NOT DEAD?"
Haru didn't answer. In his mind, his father's words echoed.
"When you control what they don't know, you control what they think they know."
Dabi might have information on Haru, but Haru also had information on him.
He closed the distance in three steps.
His hand touched Dabi's chest.
Dabi collapsed instantly, dissolving into wet mud that steamed once before going still.
"Tch. It seems it's not the real body." Haru clicked his tongue. In front of him, be it clone or real body, the result wouldn't have changed.
A voice echoed in their heads.
'Villains are attacking the camp. This is not a drill. I repeat, villains are attacking the camp. This is not a drill.'
"Mandalay," Mineta muttered, still clutching Haru's shoulder like it was his lifeline.
'The pro-hero Eraserhead has permitted the quirk usage to all the students. I repeat, the pro-hero Eraserhead has permitted the quirk usage to all the students.'
Haru exhaled slowly.
Mineta slid off his back. "What did you do then?" He wiped the sweat off his forehead, caused by the heat.
"I hacked the air around us and removed all the oxygen by moving it inside my body. So, the fire wasn't able to reach us."
Mineta's eyes widened. "You could do that? That's so convenient. Doesn't this mean that you are invincible against fire-users?"
Haru shook his head. "I thought that too until my internship. Endeavor proved that wrong. He said that the advanced fire-users could create fire that doesn't need oxygen. We were lucky that the villain didn't know that I could do this trick. Next time, things won't turn out like this."
"Is that even scientifically possible?"
"Quirks. And it probably is. It's just that the knowledge required to understand it comes beyond high-school level."
Suddenly, another thought came to his mind.
'The villain's target is Kacchan. The individual Kacchan must move in a group and retreat to the main base.'
"So, Bakugo, is the target." Mineta started walking back. After walking a few steps, he stopped. He turned back, and Haru was at the same spot.
"Haru," Mineta's face fell, as if already seeing what Haru would say next. "We should go back."
The forest ahead glowed faintly from distant fires. Every once in a while, a loud sound could come and go, indicating various battles happening at different places.
"Katsuki's out there," Haru said.
Mineta swallowed. "Yeah. And so are villains. We're… not exactly built for this."
Haru turned. His face was calm in a way that didn't match the situation, eyes fixed forward as the path had already been decided. His hold on the phone loosened as he kept it back in his pocket.
"I'm not going back. I have already called for help. So, U.A should know that we were ambushed along with All Might."
Mineta clenched his fists. "You can't just—"
"I can," Haru said. "You don't have to come."
Mineta looked past him, back the way they'd come. The dark felt thicker there. It somehow felt more terrifying than the earlier promised ghosts.
"…I'm not going to the base alone," he muttered.
They moved together. Mineta again on Haru's back, as the latter drifted like a current.
"Cheer up. Maybe we will rescue some cuties from 1-B. Don't you want to be their knight in shining armour?" Haru tried to ease Mineta's nerves. In fact, he was no different from him; he himself was nervous about this.
"I hope I just survive." Mineta sighed. "Then again, it's a shame that we didn't got chance to be scared by 1-B. There were some promising ones."
"Right?" With that, the atmosphere between them relaxed, as they talked about the 1-B girls.
After a while, Mineta spoke again. "Why'd you even want to be a hero, anyway?"