Viridescent

Chapter Seven: Encounter

Having finished their homework for the night, Izuku and Katsuki were hanging out at Katsuki's home and spending the last hour or so before Izuku had to go home playing games on a PlayStation 2. They were currently playing Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock, trying to win on "Through the Fire and Flames" set to moderate difficulty. Neither of them had ever beaten this song on hard mode, god-tier that it was.

"Goddammit," Katsuki swore as he missed a note. He recovered quickly, but this song was utterly unforgiving if you really got off-track.

Izuku was biting his lip, trying to focus. The four and a half minutes or so they spent on this song brought with it as much intensity as one of their training sessions at U.A. They barely took a moment to breathe.

When it was all said and done, the two teens flopped onto the couch behind them with near-simultaneous groans. Izuku set his guitar aside while Katsuki just chucked his onto the floor.

"I'm over this fucking thing for the night," he growled, shaking his left hand to work the sore muscles out.

"I second that," Izuku leaned his head on the back of the couch with a sigh. It always felt good to beat "Through the Fire and Flames", but good godit took a lot out of you, especially after a hard day at high school.

"I'm going home," he decided after glancing at the clock. He only had like ten minutes before he had to leave anyways and he was getting tired.

Katsuki grunted. "Whatever. See ya."

"Yup," Izuku replied, walking to the kitchen table to grab his backpack. Katsuki's mother was there, sipping on a cup of coffee while she scrolled through something on her phone.

She looked up as he came by to pick up his stuff. "Going home?"

"Yes, ma'am. Thanks for having me over."

"Need a ride?"

"It's okay. I want to burn off some more energy before I get home."

"Suit yourself," she shrugged. "Night, Izuku."

"Goodnight, Bakumom."

Yes, he called her that. Only Katsuki thought it was weird. No, he did not care.

Izuku left the Bakugo's house and made straight for his own family's apartment. It was only like a ten minute walk, but it gave him time to reflect on stuff.

The last two days had been crazy at school. The majority of the class had continued the robot-battling exercises that started yesterday during today's lesson as well. Ochako and Fumikage had joined him and All Might for a training session to get their Quirks checked out for control issues. All Might had confirmed that Ochako's issue with her Quirk causing her nausea was due to her needing more practice with it. She would just have to build herself up until she could either suppress the nausea or hold it off for a longer amount of time.

Fumikage was something else. Cementoss had created a "dark isolation room" with his Quirk for All Might to see what was going on with the teen's control problem, so Izuku hadn't actually seen what happened inside, but whatever it was made the building tremor multiple times. That went on for about thirty seconds until what seemed like an artillery shell impact stopped the prior tremors cold. When Cementoss retracted the room of concrete, Fumikage was nearly unconscious and All Might had a nasty looking bruise forming on his arm. The Pro Hero didn't look all that exerted, though he seemed rather impressed by what he'd seen.

Dark Shadow became timid once he was exposed to light, but Izuku could've sworn he heard the shadowy creature mutter something like "I didn't get to show off" after the event. What the hell even had happened in there?