Untethered: Bakugou x OC x Todoroki

Chapter 17: Sweating

The next month flew by with several somewhat-eventful twists and turns. During the first week after Bakugou and Todoroki's argument, Kaida—who'd never found out about it—had felt well enough to go back to work and Bakugou prepared himself to train her. They all collectively agreed on Kaida taking a break from using her quirk upon her brief explanation of learning the few new things that Kazan had been capable of. They weren't sure if her quirk use had anything to do with tracking her but they all agreed to the 'better safe than sorry' mindset.

By the end of the second week, Bakugou and Kaida had begun basic fight training to assess her current combat knowledge and they had a proper schedule in place to make sure it didn't conflict with either of their work. This also gave the other heroes more time to handle their own responsibilities outside of keeping an eye on her.

Once the third week rolled around, it started becoming increasingly clear to Bakugou that Kaida and Todoroki were at least seeing each other in some way—whether it was official or not—as the two-toned hero began picking her up from training, they'd briefly discussed dinner plans a few times in front of him, and were seemingly always together whenever he was around. So...he made himself be around less.

By the end of that week, Bakugou was taking the necessary steps to become a standalone hero, as he not only couldn't handle being under Todoroki's thumb any longer, he couldn't stomach watching the icy-hot bastard get close to the woman he pined after. Though, regardless of the constant need to shove aside his feelings, Bakugou still insisted on continuing to at least train Kaida—due to their progress and her comfortability with him—mostly because he wanted to keep her in the dark about his disbandment from Todoroki's hero agency as to not alert her to his unrequited affections. Plus, Todoroki couldn't deny that Bakugou was still the best to train her either. In all reality, Todoroki had no choice regardless, because Kaida was already on a schedule and he, too, didn't want to bring attention to Bakugou's crush on her or the rift it had created between the two males.

As the fourth week neared its end, it was time to begin incorporating Kaida's quirk into training, especially given the lack of any villainy attempted against her; Bakugou felt like enough time had passed that it was safe enough to freely use her quirk again.

"This time," the ash-blonde began, centered in a vast, cleared out meadow amongst a forest of trees surrounding them—the place they had considered their training grounds—still panting from their previous exercise, "I want you to use your quirk to escape my attack but I also want you to try and hit me in the same motion."

A sly grin crept across Kaida's visage and she leaned forward into a crouch, her arms extended beside her with her fingers outstretched tensely.

"Bring it, Blasty," Kaida growled back playfully, determined to complete her first major challenge, flawlessly.

Kaida'd had enough time to energize her quirk tenfold, having not used it in so much time, and she used this opportunity to utilize it as perfectly as she could. Having missed the feeling of it allowing her to travel along inside a different dimension, free of the outside world momentarily before exiting in a different location, she relished in its comfort as she zipped back and forth between disappearing and reappearing to try and fight the ash-blonde hero. The acrobatic dance between the two kept neither of them from touching each other as the minutes dragged on with Kaida warping in and out of view and Bakugou perfectly flipping and blasting himself out of the way of every single one of her advances.

A devious smirk slinked across Bakugou's face once he knew that he was about to capture Kaida—after several long minutes of failed attempts to hit him—and he reached an extended hand for where he expected she would reappear.

Though it seemed to Kaida that Bakugou was simply reacting to every swing she threw at him in an attempt to avoid her, he was actually studying her every move and memorizing the predictable pattern she'd subconsciously fallen into. Thus far, Kaida hadn't been able to hit him yet, as he, too, was just as speedy at getting out of the way—teleportation quirk or not—and her frustration was tiring, consequently slowing her down. She wasn't fully paying attention to the way she was using her quirk and was missing opportunities left and right, to neither of their knowledge, though.