Digital Dreamworld

Chapter 2 - The Old World

It took a few days for Mills to upgrade the program in order to make sure nobody would be able to regain their memories and get kicked out of the world. It gave them a bit of a break to calm down and think about their first experience. Or, well, the others did. Izuku's experience was very limited, as was Kacchan's, leaving them out of the loop whenever the rest of the class talked about it. That's how they ended up here, training together in gym gamma after Kacchan stormed into his room, claiming to be fed up with all this digital dreamworld talk and that he needed someone to punch who wouldn't constantly remind him of it.

Izuku wasn't sure how he wouldn't remind Kacchan of what happened, what went wrong, but he was always happy to help.

He rolled out of the way from another explosion, quickly jumping back on his feet as he kicked away Kacchan's arm when he came in for the next attack. They had been going at it for a while now, but nobody really got the upper hand during their fight. Izuku felt proud to know he could actually keep up with Kacchan now, even if the ash blonde was pissed off whenever he refused to unleash all his quirks on him during training.

"Alright, break," Kacchan breathed, wiping the sweat off his hands on his pants. He always called the shots whenever they trained together, knowing Izuku would just keep on pushing himself until he strained something, or worse. It happened before. "Fuck, I really hate those stupid legs of yours."

"Thanks!" Izuku smiled, knowing it was meant as a compliment in a weird way. "Here, some water."

"Yeah, whatever," he grumbled, still taking the water bottle Izuku offered him. With that they sat down against the wall. For a while, the only thing that could be heard was the sound of their breathing as they calmed down from their battle. Neither of them was good at the whole small talk thing, definitely not when it came to the other, so they mostly sat in silence whenever there wasn't some big issue to discuss or they weren't reviewing their training and their move set. Izuku didn't mind the silence, just glad he was allowed to sit next to the blonde at all.

"You ready for tomorrow?" Kacchan asked, catching Izuku off guard. Tomorrow. Of course he knew what was going to happen tomorrow, it was the second run of the experiment, and no, he was totally not ready to face that machinery again. He was kinda scared he'll have a panic attack just walking into that room again. "It's gonna be old society this time around, or so I heard. You know, back when there were no quirks."

Izuku hummed. He'd read the new information sheet about the updates and the next virtual world they'd be sent into. He also knew that this time they'd experiment with fake memories, allowing them to live a life within this fake reality. He didn't know how that played into the whole villain rehabilitation thing, but he wasn't going to question that aspect of it all. And since time was sped up inside the simulation, they could easily spend a day there when only spending like an hour asleep in real time. So that was gonna be something, for sure.

"Hopefully we won't break anything this time," Izuku mumbled, earning a shove from Kacchan.

"It's gonna be fine, nerd. You worry too much."

"I think you worry too little, but okay."

"Oi, I'm the one trying to comfort you here so show some fucking respect."

Izuku snorted, but he appreciated the thought nonetheless. Because if Kacchan had told him he was comforting him about a year ago, Izuku would've never believed it. He wouldn't have thought it was possible for the ash blonde to care, to be soft, to be human. That thought did things to his heart he'd tried to bury and forget about, without success apparently. Then again, people don't choose who they fall in love with...

"I know, sorry," Izuku said. "Just... Nervous, I guess. After what happened last time."

"Yeah..." Kacchan sighed, looking down at his water bottle. "Just don't pull that shit again and we'll be fine."