Ultra Responsibility (My Hero Academia X Spider-Man Reader)

Issue 57 - The Girl Who Played Villain Part 2

Morning at the camp didn't arrive politely.

It kicked the door in.

Cold air, mist hugging the trees, the kind of quiet that feels like it's waiting for something to scream. We were lined up in the clearing with sleep still stuck to our bones, hair doing whatever it wanted, and everyone smelling vaguely like "camp" already.

Aizawa stood in front of us like a man who hadn't slept in ten years and took pride in that fact.

"Alright," he said, voice flat. "Real training starts now."

Groans rippled through the line. Kaminari looked like he was physically restraining himself from collapsing into the dirt.

Aizawa didn't care. He never cared. That was his whole brand.

He held up a ball. Same one as the Quirk Apprehension Test back at UA.

"Bakugo," he called.

Bakugo clicked his tongue and stepped forward like the ground owed him rent. He rolled his shoulder once, stared at the ball like it had personally offended him, then hurled it with an explosion crack that rattled the air.

The ball vanished into the trees.

Aizawa glanced down at the device in his hand, then back up at Bakugo with the dead-eyed patience of a man grading homework.

"Four meters farther than your first score this semester," Aizawa said.

For a second, nobody spoke.

Bakugo's head snapped around. "What."

Aizawa didn't even blink. "Your stamina is better. Your mental control is better. You've learned tactics, teamwork, endurance. But your quirks? The raw output? The growth is minor."

Bakugo looked like he wanted to explode the concept of "math."

Aizawa continued, voice calm in that infuriating way. "This camp exists for one reason. To push your quirks until they evolve. To force improvement. To build power you can rely on when everything goes wrong."

Silence settled. Even the trees seemed to listen.

I raised my hand, because apparently I enjoy pain.

"So... throwing balls is the training?" I asked. "Because I'm just saying, if this is the big secret technique, I'm gonna be kind of disappointed."

A few people snorted. Kaminari tried to hide a laugh and failed.

Aizawa's eyes slid to me. "Parker."

"Yeah?"

He tossed the ball at my chest without warning.

I caught it easily, mostly out of habit. It sat in my palm, heavier than it looked, rubbery and plain and annoyingly symbolic.

I rolled it between my hands, weighed it, tossed it up once and caught it again.

"What was the highest score on the test?" I asked, glancing sideways like it was casual.

Aoyama lifted a hand, sparkling even in the morning gloom. "Uraraka had... infinity, because of course she did," he said, as if the universe had personally targeted him. "But Bakugo had the highest actual throw. Over seven hundred meters."

I looked at Bakugo.

Bakugo looked at me.

There was a brief moment where the air itself seemed to lean back like it wanted to give us space.

"That's it?" I muttered, mostly to myself.

Bakugo's expression sharpened. "Say that again."

I didn't.