Viridescent

Chapter Twenty-Three: Going Beyond

The Class A students were woken up at five in the morning and given thirty minutes to prepare themselves. As difficult as the day before had been, everyone looked exhausted when they came outside into the faint light as the sun peeked over the horizon. Aizawa didn't have any sympathy, apparently; he was used to sleep deprivation. Not to mention it seemed like Fumikage and Hitoshi were doing just fine despite the shortage of rest.

They'd get over it once things got started.

Class B joined them shortly and once their homeroom teacher, the Blood Hero Vlad King took his spot beside Aizawa, the Class A teacher began to explain things to their barely-conscious students.

"Morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is the first day of our training camp to improve your strength in earnest. The goal of this camp is to increase everyone's strength so that you'll be able to obtain a Provisional Hero License. It's also to prepare you all for hostilities that are becoming more and more real by the minute."

Itsuku tilted her head to the side in confusion. "What do you mean? We've been doing physical conditioning for a while now, right?"

"You're not wrong," Vlad admitted, crossing his arms. "But that's not exactly what we're doing here at this camp."

Aizawa pulled out a softball and tossed it at Katsuki, who deftly caught it. "Katsuki, your previous record for the softball throw when school started was 705.2 meters. Give it another shot and let's see how much you've improved."

Katsuki grinned and rolled his shoulder a few times to warm up. "With pleasure!"

He threw the ball with a huge explosion, launching it sky high as he yelled. "GO TO HELL!"

Izuku stared at his friend with his mouth set in a line while the wind from the explosion blasted his face. Go to hell...

They waited a few seconds for the ball to hit the ground somewhere in the woods. Aizawa studied the gauge on his tablet and nodded. "Pretty much what I expected. 709.6 meters."

"Wha-?!" Katsuki's jaw dropped.

Izuku was just as surprised. It's less than I thought it would be...

Tetsutetsu looked bewildered. "Wait, just four meters difference?"

"Is that all you've improved?" Neito snickered and started laughing manically. "Class A really hasn't done much but cause trouble these last three months, have they-"

"Quiet, you," Itsuki chopped his neck without knocking him out.

"Over the last three months," Aizawa said as he put the tablet back in his pocket. "You all have definitely improved. But that improvement has been mostly at the mental and technical levels, as well as some growth in your stamina. As for your Quirks...they haven't grown all that much."

Vlad grinned as he saw the students start to figure it out for themselves. "That's why we'll be working on upgrading your Quirks starting today."

His smile was mirrored by Aizawa, who looked just a little too happy to the gathering of teenagers. "It'll be so hard you'll feel like dying, but try not to actually die!"

"Upgrade our Quirks?" Shoto raised an eyebrow curiously.

"That sounds manly!" Eijirou grinned. "I'm getting pumped up!"

Ibara frowned. "You say that, but between Classes A and B, we have forty different kinds of unique abilities. Could you be more specific? How and what are we supposed to improve?"

Vlad nodded. "As you know, muscle fibers break down under constant abuse, but become stronger and thicker when they heal. It's the same concept with your Quirks- if you use them over and over and over again, they will begin to grow stronger. If you don't keep them in shape, they'll start to wither away."