Running Solo

Chapter 29 - Quirkless

-Bakugo's Perspective-

He looks like Izuku. Was my first thought when I saw the quirkless kid in my class. He had black hair with an occasional green tint. He had freckles covering his body and was super pale too. He even had the same green eyes as Izuku and Auntie Inko. The similarities stopped there, though. The quirkless kid, Itamie, had scars covering almost every inch of his visible skin. I knew that there had to be more if the kids at this boy's previous schools were anything like me and the extras at Aldera had been to Izuku. There was a hardness in the boy's eyes that I had rarely seen in Izuku's eyes. The hardness seemed to be a permanent thing as the boy didn't lose it, even when he smiled at that pink-cheeked girl with the brown bob.

He's nothing like Izuku. I thought as I left the school at the end of our first day. The boy was hard, closed off, and indifferent. Nothing like the anxious and shy, but open boy that Izuku had been. I'd also noticed the way that the quirkless boy had seemed to darken around All Might. Izuku would have vibrated right through his seat if he'd been there. Stupid nerd. I couldn't help but think fondly, though the thought, and the feelings that came with it, were tainted with sorrow. The quirkless kid was also a lot more muscular than Izuku had been. While the boy wasn't super buff, he was toned and lithe and, in some of the tests, he appeared to be very flexible. Like, bend-in-half, forward and backward, kind of flexible. Izuku had been a twig when he disappeared. And, though he'd been somewhat flexible, Izuku had been nowhere near as flexible as this Itamie kid. Itamie was also really fast, though I remembered Izuku being pretty fast too, which had probably come from trying to outrun me and the other kids at school. I internally winced at that reminder.

—

I made sure to keep a close eye on Itamie all throughout the quirk assessment test and watched as he beat out most of the kids with quirks using his skills alone. It confused me when I didn't see him using a quirk and I was determined to find out what it was.

For the 50-meter dash, he got a time of 4.11 seconds, just barely beating my time of 4.13 seconds.

For the grip strength, he got somewhere between 150 and 200kg, this time only being beat out by the kid with multiple arms, who used multiple arms to squeeze his, and the creation girl who made a really impressive looking clamp.

Itamie didn't do as well on the standing long jump as the people who had quirks to propel them, like me, the frog girl, and the navel laser kid, but he still managed to make it almost to the edge of the sandbox, beating all of the other students who didn't have quirks that could help them.

The quirkless boy excelled at the repeated side steps. Only me and the kid with purple balls on his head managed to surpass him in this test. He even beat out the frog girl.

For the distance run, he beat out everyone but me (who used my explosions to propel myself), the half-n-half kid (who used ice to skate along the majority of the track), and the Yaoyorozu girl (who created a motorcycle and only ran the last few feet when it ran out of gas). I had to admit that the guy had impressive stamina.

No one's quirk really helped them with the sit ups, so Itamie managed to beat out everyone on that test.

For the seated toe-touches, the guy tied with the frog girl and the pink-skinned girl with the horns. No one else managed to match those three, especially not any of the guys.

The last test was the ball throw. Since I'd already done it, I just got to stand back and watch everyone else. No one really impressed me or stood out until the pink-cheeked girl got infinity. The last person to go was Itamie. I paid closer attention as he walked up to the circle. The boy took the ball from Aizawa-Sensei without a word and then eyed the crowd of students. I blinked and suddenly there was something flying at my face. I immediately clenched my eyes shut and set my quirk off at it, hoping to direct it away from me. And I did. The ball Itamie had just thrown at me went flying away. I could only scowl at the boy in shock as our teacher watched the screen in his hands. Then he turned it around. 705.3m. One more meter than I had gotten on my own throw.