Inquisitor

- Chapter: 12 -

At the Training warehouse

Izumi entered the warehouse after the two Aizawas. Katsuo was the one who closed the door behind her. He then lead her over to an area with several mats on the ground. Shouta was messing around with some silver cases off to the side.

"Okay, so Izumi this is where I'll be training you how to fight. Today we'll start with some light hand-to-hand practice then go into the basics of how to use your version on the capture gear." Katsuo said this while getting into a basic combat position. "Go on ahead at try to hit me, anything goes"

Izumi was surprised by the sudden declaration and didn't move for a few seconds, after two or three seconds however she got into a stance mirroring Katsuo's. She lunged at him to try and grab him, however he jumped over her and landed on his hands.She tuned around and tried to kick him but he pushed up and away seeming almost like he was flying to get back on his feet and so she was out of range.

For the next thirty minutes Izumi tried to hit Katsuo to no avail, she never even layed a finger on him. Whenever she seemed to get close enough he moved out of her sight and out of range.

Izumi tried once more to grab Katsuo, who simply sidestepped the attempt. Izumi fell to the ground and started to get up as Katsuo spoke. "Okay, that's enough for now. I'll teach you some techniques later, for now let's move onto the capture gear." Katsuo then properly looked at Izumi who was out of breath and tired out, while he wasn't even sweating.

"Um, actually take a break first, I'll get you some water. After that we can start the capture gear training." Katsuo quickly raced off to get some water and Izumi fell over onto her hands and knees gasping for breath.

After the break

"U-um, how w-will I trai-ain with the c-capt-ture ge-gear?" Izumi asked the question as she and Katsuo walked over to the area that Shouta was in.

"Hm? Oh, today will mostly just be you learning how it feels to wear it and use it, you won't be proficient with it for a while. It took me around four years to get fully proficient to it." When he said this Izumi looked shocked and a bit scared.

"F-four ye-years? But U.A. starts i-in less th-than two..."

"Oh, don't worry about that, I created a new style for my arm version, it only took six months to learn the neck version with my father teaching me."

By then they had reached where Shouta was. Katsuo told Izumi to look into one of the silver cases that Shouta was messing with earlier. She walked up to the case and unlatched it opening it up. Inside she saw a capture gear, identical in all ways to the ones the Aizawa's use except it was the same dark green as her hair.

"Go ahead and put it on, then we'll start." Katsuo said this as he grabbed his neck gear, his father already wearing his.

Izumi put on her new capture gear and was surprised by it's weight, or rather the lack of it. It was surprisingly lightweight, especially considering the fact that she could tell how deceptively strong the bands were.

After Izumi got the bands on her practice consisted of throwing out a band and then recoiling it. The band kept moving at weird angles when she threw it and she couldn't hit the target set up once, while the Aizawa's never missed once. Recoiling it was also extremely difficult, she had to move the band a very specific way or it would become loose again. By the end of the day Izumi was exhausted by the continuous and repetitive motions of practice with the capture gear.

On Izumi's way home with the two Aizawa's she mostly had a conversation with Katsuo (if you can call it that as she stuttered the whole time) about what she should do to practice and him giving her tips. She was interested in what he referred to as 'sleeping arts'. He said that he uses them to increase the quality of his sleep so that he can train more efficiently. She was sad that she would have to wait for a break to learn the techniques.

When Izumi returned home she ate dinner then went up to her room to sleep.

When Katsuo returned home he cooked and ate dinner, that his father rejected for a few juice pouches. When he got to his room he crawled into his bed lying on it in pain from his injuries that he had only pretended to be fully healed. It might be a day or two before he's actually fine however, he was used to masking pain.

The following days were interesting. The incident on Friday ended with no legal action as a Pro Hero called Eraserhead stepped in and took care of it, the only repercussions of the incident were that both of the boys who fought had to turn in written letters of apology to the school, the girl caught up in the fight, and each other, all of which were promptly turned in.

When Monday came Katsuki told Katsuo that he was going to train and surpass him, which Katsuo promptly replied to by throwing sand in his eyes and accepting his challenge. Katsuo had multiple people trying to get into his good graces (who all had sand thrown in their faces as well). Katsuo found Izumi hiding during lunch once again and ate with her. The days of both Katsuo's and Izumi's middle school lives stabilized at this point, falling into a rhythm of training and hanging out with each other. 

Months passed by like this.

Izumi made rapid progress with the capture gear and was now as accurate as both of the Aizawa's, although she couldn't use it to the same degree that they could, she was always surprised at how their quirks rewound the bands incredibly fast. She also made huge strides in hand-to-hand combat and was able to spar with Katsuo regularly, (she could actually land hits) however he still won every time without fail. She also learned the sleeping arts. Izumi couldn't believe how reviving sleep was after she learned the techniques and utilized them.

Izumi still had her stuttering issue, most likely from the fact that she was constantly confessed to, (much to her confusion) under the pretext that the guy would protect her from bullying. Katsuki seemed to change his constant torment to only periodic, and mostly consisted of him telling her to stop trying to become a hero, never physical violence.

Katsuo was rather upset when he got Katsuki in his class every year. While he didn't exactly dislike the Pomeranian he  definitely didn't like how he wouldn't accept the fact that Izumi could be a hero, thus making them naturally dislike one another. He did however enjoy watching the once extremely prideful Pomeranian now training to try and surpass him. Especially since he still hadn't been able to control his quirk enough to complete the same action Katsuo had.

Now it's their first day of their last year in junior high, and their new homeroom teacher is walking in through the door with a stack of papers in his hands...