Away

Forty-One

"Won't Toya be a better option?" I ask "I mean his fire is blue."

"This is true." the bird-head guy states "But I am also aware of your brother's condition with Hawks wanting me to make sure that Toya doesn't over exert himself. Besides this, if you were to help me it would also benefit you in giving you the opportunity to use your fire against a proper opponent." He's not wrong, and this would let Toya focus more on Shoto training wise.

"Fair enough." I ignited my right hand, "Let's do this."

Fighting against Dark Shadow was more challenging than at the festival, mostly because I am not used to using my quirk, hand-to-hand is my forte almost always has been. I've gotten better at making walls of fire up to cherry red and fireballs barely getting to orange. But I'm nowhere near where I need to be, it doesn't help that I haven't let my burns heal just getting more blisters. I gotta keep trying to improve, "Come on!" I groan, sending a blast from my right hand and holding my wrist with my left to keep the burns in one area. Then it happened, my flames turned yellow.

Dark Shadow still charges despite the bright light, it's really not liking it. Come on, I need to keep it going. Both hands are killing me, but I gotta keep going. "Fuck!" I fell on my knees, the heat got too much for me to control my core, but I entered yellow. It still had a tinge of orange, but it's progress.

"Todoroki! Are you alright?" Kaminari asks after rushing over, I don't even know where he came from.

"Yeah, almost started overheating." I huff, I'm so close. So fucking close..

"Your hands are burnt." Tokoyami notes before advising that I go visit Recovery Girl.

"I'll be fine." I state "My hands will be fine." I got to yellow. That's what matters now, I just need to work on keeping my core temp stable while being at those temperatures. But that'll be a slow process, I could just postpone that and just work on getting to higher temps and controlling the flames. Sure it'll be risky with the high temps and promote bad habits but I'll have a better chance of passing the exam. Besides, heroes are supposed to take risks right?

"We should take you to Recovery Girl." Kaminari states, bird-man giving a nod.

"It would be wise to do so even if it's not necessary." he states.

"I'll walk with ya!" Kaminari offers "It'd probably be a literal pain to deal with the door handles, I need to get my costume tinkered with anyways."

I let out a huff. "I'll be fine, I've dealt with worse injuries." I mean my leg is still fine.

"Cool! Let's go. I'll let Aizawa know where we're going." Kaminari smiles, gently guiding me towards the exit.

"So what do you like to do for fun?" Kaminari asks as we walk to the main building. Odd, why the fuck is he asking.

"Mainly physical training, like with hand-to-hand combat, Melee, and weight lifting." I answer, giving him a bit of a side eye. Politely, why the fuck does he care? Sure I'm the new kid but still.

"Pretty hardcore, I like that." he remarks with a smirk. I internally roll my eyes, whatever, probably say something like that to everything with legs. I mean I'm pretty sure he was flirting with the vine girl at the Sports Festival, before she kicked his ass.

"What do you like to eat? Because for me, Hamburgers are the bomb." Kaminari remarks, making explosion gesture with both of his hands.

"Cold Soba for me, though not everyone's tastes the same" I answer, better to make idle chatter than walk in awkward silence.

"You notice that too?! People act surprised that I can tell where they get the burgers, like they each taste different, not by a lot but I notice."

"Of course there is, everyone puts their own twists in their cooking from their own experiences." I shrug.

"That's interesting." Kaminari remarks. I give another shrug.

Kaminari keeps the conversation up as we walk to the nurse's office, why he was doing so beats me.

We then walk back to Gym Gamma, with a note from Recovery Girl saying that we were there, though I assume Tokoyami told Aizawa. Both of my hands are wrapped up, given my stamina is too low for her to safely heal more than my finger tips in one session. Whatever but that'll mean I can't do anymore quirk training today. Putting me more behind just about everyone else.

"Ya good Todoroki?" Kaminari asks "You seem quiet, like quieter than I've seen your twin."

"I'm fine, just thinking." I reply out of habit, like he'd care or really understands.

"Not wanting to fall more behind?" Kaminari asks.

I crease my eyebrows "Why'd you ask that?"

"Just guessing." He shrugs, putting his hands behind his head. A lucky guess it seems.

"But if you are worried, you're crazy. You got third at the Sports Festival, you'll be fine. Not like you're taking the exam with the class."

"Yeah."