Savior (My Hero Academia: Todoroki x OC)

Chapter 16: LOV-VAS

As the afternoon wore on, Mr. Aizawa and the Pussycats continued to offer encouragement while pushing us to our limits. They even tried to incentivize us by offering up a fun competition with class B, who I had kind of been ignoring up to this point. It was hard enough for me to handle being around my own classmates, let alone another class full of people who I didn't know and who hadn't been very friendly toward us up to this point. The blonde kid from class B, who I learned was called Monoma, was taking the supplemental lessons as well and had taken every opportunity to gloat over how many of us had failed. As I wasn't one to take kindly at being reminded of my failure, I didn't have very nice thoughts toward him.

As training came to an end, all the students began to trudge back to the lodge to clean up and prepare dinner for ourselves. I once again set myself up at a prep station and began carefully cutting some vegetables, trying my best not to cut myself as I couldn't stop myself from yawning every couple of minutes. I was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to curl up on my futon but I knew it would be another late night of lessons for me.

Ochako suddenly yelling out in surprise woke me out of my stupor. "Wow, Bakugo, I'm really surprised! You're like a pro with a kitchen knife!"

"Surprised? The hell?! How can you be bad with a knife?!"

I heard a couple of his friends laughing at his outburst but I agreed with him. Ochako had been stationed next to me yesterday and her knife skills weren't the greatest. Then again, mine weren't either, especially as I watched in awe as Bakugo expertly sliced a carrot with amazing speed."

"Wow, she's right, Bakugo. Your knife skills are amazing."

He glared at me, eyeing my small pile of vegetables. "Why wouldn't they be? How the hell are you people so bad at everything!"

I chuckled as I continued to carefully slice my own vegetables. I wasn't as fast as Bakugo but I still tried to make my slices even. I sacrificed speed for consistency. It made me think about all the training I'd done so far. I hadn't ever focused on speed when training my quirk before coming to UA. Accuracy had always been the most important aspect of my quirk. I slowly grew things to become acquainted with them. I carefully made thorns to be a consistent size. Even when using my vines, I tended to opt for stealth to creep up on someone to capture them instead of doing it quickly.

Since starting at UA, speed had become increasingly important. I could see why. A split-second reaction could be the difference between life and death for a hero. The quicker I could react the more time that gave me to save someone. Despite my exhaustion I began thinking of ways to incorporate training my quirk for speed at home.

I ate dinner in silence while my classmates began to get excited for the test of courage competition. Mina was cheering excitedly and I was surprised she had the energy to do it. Fun incentives certainly had a positive effect on her, however her happiness was short-lived.

"Sorry to break it to you....remedial group, you've got your extra lessons with me now."

"Noooo!" Mina yelled. "Give us a break. Test our courage!"

I went to pat her shoulder in sympathy, but my arms were quickly binded to my side as Mr. Aizawa captured the five of us with his scarf and began dragging us away.

We were all yelling and grumbling at the humiliation of being dragged across the hard ground. Eventually, Mr. Aizawa stopped and allowed us to regain our footing but still kept us tied up behind him. We must have looked like a group of prisoners headed to the gallows. Mina was still whining about wanting to test her courage but Mr. Aizawa ignored her.

He spoke as we entered the lodge and headed toward the classroom. "In today's lesson we'll be drilling on what to do in emergency situations." He opened the classroom door to find Monoma and Vlad King already inside. "I'm thinking we'll add a practical portion to the lesson this time."