Bloom (Todoroki x OC)

#5 "Half-cold and Frozen"

Color coding for Daina's hair: green - jealous; blue - channeling her quirk; purple - afraid; red - angry; pink - flustered; orange - happy; blonde - confused; white - asleep; grey - sad; brown - tired.

★★★

For the next three weeks things weren't as eventful but they were enjoyable. Our heroine was warming up to everybody but so far her friends were mostly Tsuyu, Momo and Ochako. From the boys she was closer with Shoto and Izuku. Katsuki was unclear in his opinion of her but if she had to guess, he was somewhere above "can stand the sight of her" and a lot below "her quirk is cool and i'm ready to admit i feel threatened".

Kirishima was always on edge when she was around and if she was being honest with herself it was a hundred percent understandable. It was apparent he didn't want anyone to know the way he felt about Baku and he didn't trust the girl to keep it to herself yet.

Dani even found out that the redhead had ditched his best friend at the carnival after they had a fight, which explained Bakugo's behaviour and the fact that he was alone when she met him. She felt a considerate amount of guilt for depraving Kiri of the choice whether to tell her or not himself but she kept telling herself it was technically her quirk to blame, not her.

Whenever she had any free time she would spend it practicing. She'd gotten a lot better in her first month at the UA but she felt like she couldn't develop hr quirk the way she wanted to at the moment - she couldn't test the darker possibilities of it on anyone. Instead, she decided to focus on exceeding her current physical limits.

For example, Bakugo was on an average many times faster and well aware of his surroundings in a fight than she was. While Dani still realized she was almost an outsider comparing herself to the number one, that changed nothing about her ambitions. Her fighting style was not very advanced: it started with close combat until she found a window of opportunity to "connect"; then she usually went long range to buy time to make use of her quirk. It wasn't always great to be this predictable; that's why she had to learn tricks to compensate for it - it was the way she felt most herself.

On the third day of her second month at the school, Daina had practice with Mr. Aizawa and All Might. After about an hour, All Might went up to her.

"Hello, Murakami-chan" she flinched slightly when he used her last name. The hero seemed to be in a good mood. "Have you been adjusting well so far?"

"I'm great, All MIght-sensei, thank you. I think I've really fit in here. And I'm happy to have the chance to master my quirk at such a great school." she paused. "I still have a long way in front of me though."

"And why do you think that is, young lady?"

"I think I am not nearly as skilled physically, battle-wise. I need to increase my strength and use my fans more freely. Also, I feel weird about certain aspects of my quirk. I need to perfect it, but I'm a bit uncomfortable to use it on the other students for now..."

"HA! I have the perfect solution!" he grinned slyly and she smiled back with zero idea of what he had in mind.

"What is it?"

He got into his muscle form for a second to flex then changed back. "Use it on me."

"Oh, All Might-sensei, I really, really don't know about that..."

"Come on, despite my current physical form you know I'm still tip-top in the head. Plus, I want to experience your gift for myself."

"So you...really want me to? To make you feel defeated, worthless and like there is no point in living?" she let out a frustrated sigh though the frustration was directed at the truth, rather than the person in front of her "Because All Might-sensei that is exactly the direction I can't practice in and it's where I would have to go in order to beat a villain. I can't possibly try it on anyone."