The first day of the chaotic training camp came to an end, and the next morning the sun peeked over the mountain peaks.
At 5:30 a.m., the children stood scattered in front of the lodging, unable to hide how exhausted they were.
Kirishima, who usually woke up even earlier than this, had already finished his warm-up and was waiting for Aizawa to speak.
"Did you all sleep well, gentlemen!"
Even though most of the kids still had sleep clinging to their faces, Aizawa paid it no mind and continued.
"Starting today, we begin the full-scale strengthening camp. The purpose of this camp is to strengthen everyone. More than that, to earn provisional licenses through that growth. It’s preparation for standing against an enemy whose threat grows clearer by the day. Brace yourselves and get to it. And Bakugo! Throw that thing."
Aizawa tossed Bakugo the ball they had used for the Quirk assessment test.
Normally he would have had Kirishima do it, but there was no need to send a ball flying dozens of kilometers across these mountains.
And since the others already treated Kirishima as something outside the norm, there was a risk that the meaning of what they were doing would be diluted.
"This is the one from the physical test..."
"The last record we measured after enrollment was 705.2 meters. How much do you think it’ll improve?"
"Ohhh! A growth check!"
"We’ve had all kinds of stuff happen over the past three months, too! Shouldn’t it go at least a kilometer?"
"Blast it as far as you can, Bakugo!"
With the children cheering behind him, Bakugo rolled his shoulders loose.
Then, with that same nasty grin of his, he hurled the ball.
"DIEEEE!"
With a wide arc, an explosion detonated precisely at the peak of the throw and drove the ball forward.
The blast sent the children’s hair whipping around.
Before long, the ball landed far away, and Aizawa checked the distance.
"709.6 meters."
"Huh? Less than I thought..."
Bakugo looked mildly offended, while the others wore puzzled expressions.
Kirishima watched them without much reaction and thought to himself,
Even if you call it learning after enrollment, most of what they’ve picked up is in the realm of technique and tactics. This is only natural. Bakugo probably hasn’t slacked off in private either, but...
Bakugo’s physical abilities, trained from a very young age alongside Kirishima, had already reached something close to their peak.
He was still young, so he would keep growing steadily, but dramatic improvement in the short term was impossible.
And as for making his Quirk stronger, that wasn’t possible either.
Bakugo’s Quirk was Explosion, and training it to become stronger meant increasing a Quirk that already came with massive noise and shockwaves. That wasn’t something he could do on his own.
Unless he were some kind of absurdly wealthy heir who could turn a huge private estate into a training ground.
Aizawa happened to explain that very fact to the children.
"It’s been about three months since enrollment. You’ve all been through a lot, and you’ve definitely grown. But that growth has mainly been mental, technical, and to some extent physical. Your Quirks themselves haven’t grown nearly as much as you just saw. So starting today, we’ll develop your Quirks. It’ll be brutally hard, but whatever you do... don’t die."
With that, the children started toward the training grounds.
Aizawa stopped Kirishima as he was about to follow them.
"Kirishima, stay behind for a moment. I need to talk to you."
"Ah, yes. What is it?"
Aizawa looked up at Kirishima, who was even taller than he was, and said,
"I’ll be frank. You’re already almost a finished product. Of course, you’re still growing, and I’m not saying this is your limit. But you’re not at the level where a standard curriculum can push you much further."
He calmly explained the difficulty of preparing a curriculum for Kirishima.
"On top of that, we still have trouble figuring out what you can and can’t do. To be honest, whenever we think we’ve found the limit of what you’re capable of, you somehow leap right past it. So I’m planning to talk with you separately, figure out what you need, and build a curriculum from there."
Kirishima liked that Aizawa was willing to acknowledge difficulty.
A student stronger than the teacher was a delicate position.
Normally, a teacher should be more capable than the student, and if they aren’t, they either feel threatened or become burdened by it.
But Aizawa was neither.
Instead, true to his cold and rational nature, he chose to analyze Kirishima’s track record and exchange opinions with him almost as an equal.
"Yes. I’ve actually had some ideas about how I want to train. As for how far I can go... well, I’m not sure. Still, if I’m willing to move with killing intent, I think I could beat most Pro Heroes."
Aizawa narrowed his eyes at Kirishima’s words.
Usually, when a kid that age talked about killing, it was just bravado.
It was rare for someone who hadn’t grown up in a slum or a country torn apart by civil war to speak seriously about killing.
But from the reports on the USJ incident and the combat footage from Hosu City, it was clear that Kirishima had no hesitation when it came to killing blows.
At Hosu City, one could excuse it as a clash with a Nomu and a judgment that it wasn’t human, but USJ was different.
Kirishima had punched straight through the heart of a clearly human-like creature, no matter how grotesque it looked.
Of course, Aizawa had no intention of nitpicking an attack made in a life-or-death situation, but in his view, Kirishima’s strike hadn’t been some desperate flailing from a corner.
Rather, it had been a blow delivered after thoroughly reading the Nomu’s attack pattern, enough to make anyone admire it.
A boy who could calmly assess his own power, stop at thinking about murder, and actually carry it out, while also being stronger than most Pro Heroes—if he hadn’t been aiming to become a Hero, he would have been a disaster.
After thinking that far, he cut off the unnecessary line of thought and answered,
"Fine. Let’s talk while we walk. We can’t afford to be too late."
"Yes."
At that moment, the Class B students came pouring out of the lodging.
Blood King, Class B’s homeroom teacher, asked Aizawa with interest,
"Eraser? You’re still here? That’s unusual. You mixing up the time again?"
Aizawa realized he had spent longer than expected talking with Kirishima, and with a slight frown said,
"I see. I should get out of the way. Sorry for the delay."
"Ah, see you later."
Kirishima gave Blood King a slight nod and followed after Aizawa.
By the time they finished talking and walking, they had already reached the training grounds.
Aizawa first explained each student’s training while leaving Kirishima out of it.
Soon, the grounds were filled with the sound of the children’s shouts.
"Damn itttt!"
Bakugo kept sticking his hands into a barrel of boiling water, then blasting explosions into the air over and over again.
It was training to expand his sweat glands and repeatedly detonate them to increase his firepower.
Todoroki was inside a barrel as well, freezing and burning himself in turns to maintain the temperature.
It was training to develop both sides of his power while also testing simultaneous activation.
Sero kept pulling tape endlessly from the air, while Ojiro kept striking a solid iron pillar again and again.
Kaminari charged a massive battery, and Koda kept shouting to increase the volume of the voice that let him command living things.
Aoyama had a toilet beside him and kept firing lasers into the air, while Tokoyami struggled with Dark Shadow rampaging inside a dark cave.
Uraraka rolled around inside a zero-gravity ball to break her habit of getting motion sickness when she floated herself, and Iida just kept running without end.
Tsuyu climbed using her tongue and whole body, Sato trained while eating sweets nonstop, and Yaoyorozu kept creating endless matryoshka dolls while eating beside her.
Jiro pressed her earphones against a cliff and kept jabbing at it, while Ashido was melting the cliff face.
Sho transformed into a stone lion and moved around to get used to quadrupedal movement and extend the duration of his transformation.
The Class B students who had arrived late stared at the scene in disbelief.
"What kind of hellscape is this...?"
"For activation-type Quirks with a set upper limit, the goal is to raise the floor of that limit. For mutant types and other transformation types, we train the organs derived from the Quirk. Normally we’d do it in line with physical growth, but well, we’re short on time."
The boy with the ponytail trembled at Blood King’s explanation, then went completely rigid like a stone statue.
Aizawa walked up to him and said,
"Class B, get started too."
Kendo heard that and voiced her doubt.
"Even if you include us, that’s forty students. Can six people really manage that many?"
Hearing that, Aizawa explained why they had chosen this place for the camp.
"That’s why we asked them for help."
At the perfect moment, a short woman with green hair burst in front of Aizawa and shouted brightly,
"We are one body and soul!"
"Lock on with sparkling eyes!"
"Cat’s hands, here to help!"
"We appear from somewhere without warning!"
"Cute and catty stinger!"
"Wild! Wild! Pussycats!"
In Demon Form, Kirishima silently watched the group strike the same pose as yesterday, now joined by the green-haired woman and a muscular giant.
How embarrassing...
Not wanting to make enemies, Kirishima said nothing.
Whether she truly felt no shame or not, the green-haired woman kept her finger pointed to the side and shouted,
"I’m Ragdoll! My Quirk is Search! With these eyes, I can learn information on up to one hundred people I’ve seen before! Their current location, their weaknesses..."
Then Pixie-Bob continued,
"My Earth Flow lets me shape the terrain to fit each person’s training..."
"And my telepathy lets me give advice to multiple people at once!"
Mandalay’s explanation followed, and finally the giant man said with a fierce air,
"And I, Tiger, hit and kick and commit acts of violence!"
That’s not what you’re supposed to say...
Even as the children looked on sadly, he did not stop and shouted,
"Those with simple enhancement types, come before me! My boot camp has already begun!"
Tiger strode up to Midoriya, who was throwing punches into the air, and roared,
"Hit me!"
"5% Detroit Smash!"
Midoriya immediately activated Full Cowl and used his left hand to pull Tiger’s arm down.
At the same time, the arm that had been drawn back behind him lunged forward.
Tiger twisted his body in a strange motion to dodge the punch, then struck Midoriya with his free hand.
Midoriya was sent flying and slammed into a tree, and Tiger gave him a stern rebuke.
"Your movements still aren’t sharp enough! That’s proof your muscle fibers haven’t torn yet!"
"Yes, sir!"
Kirishima’s eyes gleamed as he watched.
High destructive power born from movements that defied common sense.
It was truly a martial art suited to the age of Quirks.
Apparently not noticing Kirishima’s gaze, Tiger barked at Midoriya again.
"Your voice is too small!"
"Yes, sirrr!"
"You said Plus Ultra, didn’t you? Then hurry up and be ultra!"
Watching Tiger glare with a terrifying expression, the Class B students muttered to themselves.
He’s the only one here who feels like he’s from a different gender, genre, and everything else...
To them, Aizawa continued his explanation.
"U.A. is busy, so we can’t assign enough staff to just the first-years. The achievements of these four, and their Quirks that can cover a wide area, are the most rational way to raise everyone’s level in a short time."
"Don’t fall behind Class A! Class B, move!"
"Yes!"
Once the rough explanation was done, the full training finally began.
Kirishima spoke at length with the Pussycats, Blood King, and everyone except Aizawa and Tiger.
First, he explained his current combat ability in detail.
"I haven’t measured it exactly within a single step’s worth of leap distance, but I think my speed is around 1,000 kilometers per hour. My hand speed is far faster than that. If I just run long distances on the ground, I’d probably hit six to seven hundred kilometers per hour. Ah, that’s under Demon Form. I’m not that fast normally."
At Kirishima’s words, everyone except Aizawa and Blood King, who had already guessed roughly as much, had strange looks on their faces.
"What kind of monster are you...?"
"At that level, you could probably just brawl your way through and crush most people."
At their words, Kirishima also spoke about the technical side.
"That said, I can’t just fight recklessly. I’ve been boxing for thirteen years, and Muay Thai for about one year now. I’ve also learned some karate, mostly hand techniques. As for the level..."
Kirishima paused for a moment.
He hesitated because it felt like he might sound like he was bragging, but since this was for training, being modest would be pointless.
So he simply told the truth.
"If we’re talking purely about technique, I doubt I’d lose in a hand-to-hand fight. The world is wide, so I can’t say there’s absolutely no one better, but I’m confident I’m at the very top. Honestly, since you’re my teacher, I’ll say it plainly: when it comes to ground-based close combat, I think I’m the strongest."
Kirishima grinned as he said it.
At his bold declaration, Blood King’s brow twitched.
Far away, Tiger, who had been pounding Midoriya, also pricked up his ears.
Sensing both reactions with his Demon Form’s heightened senses, Kirishima laughed like a mischievous brat.
Something interesting was about to happen.
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