All For Some

Chapter 13: Training

Izuku was spending his Saturday morning training against the Nomus, now all three of his remaining kidnappers at once while wearing his villain costume. He'd progressed enough to avoid or defend against their attacks most of the time without having to regenerate, but only caused scratches with his blades or local damage with his vibration. He had not gone for the brain since the one Nomu that died.

He had been training harder than ever since agreeing to help his father by going to UA, but he still wasn't set on it. It didn't feel right, not after everything that had been done to him, or everything he had chosen. Not to mention he would have to have All Might as his teacher. Going to school with Shinso and Ida was an attractive idea though.

"You aren't focused!" His father shouted. "Is this how you're going to fight when you face Bakugo? He's going to declare you worthless all over again. Is that what you want? Even if you managed to win like that with your quirks that won't change your value without them. It won't prove people were wrong about quirkless people. Until you can beat him even without quirks you haven't proven him wrong."

Izuku didn't respond and blocked a Nomu's punch with his flame shield. By the time he recovered from the momentum of the impact he had already reformed it back to a blade. He jumped away just in time to avoid an air blast from his father. The bang as it hit the ground reminded him of Bakugo's explosions. His father had upped the amount of force he used again.

"Not good enough. People are going to come after you. I am already a widower, do you want to add a father of a dead child to that?"

Izuku sliced a Nomu's arm off and instead of going for a kill jumped away as another attacked. He was biting his teeth together, swearing he wouldn't let his father's taunting get to him. He knew what it was for, but that part of the training was something he didn't want to play along with, even if the Nomus' old appearances as his kidnappers flashed over them.

"Maybe I should have left you with the Bakugos since Inko raised such a weak child, or taken you with me years ago before she taught you to be so soft. Did you ever even fight back when Bakugo came after you? I am sure he loved having a punching back that didn't even try to fight back because that is what Inko made you."

Izuku's eyes hardened. He vaulted over the attacking Nomu's arm and brought his palm to strike at its external brain as his vibration quirk activated at full power. Visible waves crossed the brain like when a stone falls on the water's surface and as the first waves reached the skull the whole thing exploded into a formless mass. The other two Nomus rushed at Izuku only for both of them to lose their hands to his blades, soon after those fiery weapons finding themselves penetrating the Nomus' brains, no chance for regeneration.

Izuku was left breathing hard in the middle of the three Nomu corpses, his Dragon Blades still active but twisting and bending with his emotions until his eyes found his father and hardened. The blades straightened and stretched even longer and sharper than before. Izuku raised one of them at his father and started walking towards him.

"Leave mom out of this. She isn't some training tool you can drag out whenever you want to push me. No more."

"No," he answered. Izuku stared at him and took a step closer. "As long as you can be influenced by those words, they are a weakness that can be used against you. Until you realize that, they might as well help raise the anger you need to surpass your limits in battle."

"You can find another way. She was a great mom, and I don't want her involved in this even if she's dead. I am not going to fight or," he stopped briefly to look at the Nomu corpses, "kill because of her, not even Nomus. Even if you weren't with us you should respect her memory at least that much."