MHA Chaos' Whims Chapter 4: Training (Patreon)

My heart beat loudly enough for its drum to fill my ears. My palms were sweaty. And a mix of dread and nausea filled me, growing whenever I so much as glanced at the distant ground below. Despite all of that, I steadied myself, took a breath, and ran!

More like carefully walked, but that aside, I made my way across a thick branch of one of countless trees within the park and with the strength provided by drinking my own blood, leaped to a lower branch.

And promptly missed my jump.

Heart stopping for a moment, one of my hands shot up, grabbing the branch. Hanging from it, a good distance from the empty trail below, I released a breath, threw up my other arm and with a bit of momentum swung myself to a different branch. Landing not nearly as smooth as intended, I stumbled onto the branch, barely stopping on, toes at its very edge.

The branch shifted, bending.

Then snapped.

Pain flared across my side as I hit the ground, rolling along the downward slope of trees, only managing to stop myself through sheer luck, hands securing some bark.

I groaned as I rose up, rubbing my side. No serious injuries, but more bruises and scrapes were going to be added to the collection.

My quirk didn’t just make me stronger, durability increasing alongside it.

Said strength, right on time, began to leave me, the temporary muscle growth it brought shrinking away.

Twenty minutes. I still wasn’t sure about all the factors but using blood from my shallow cuts, the physical boost consistently lasted for twenty minutes. That could be extended by drinking more blood during the boost.

I was getting used to what I was capable of with my quirk active, but I don’t think I’d be doing much training like this just yet. I called my quirk Bloodboost, and just like the title said, it boosted my natural physical abilities.

Whether or not things like blood type and the blood of others in general would affect the degree of that, getting into peak physical condition was a no brainer.

Pushing myself to a stand, I groaned, pressing a hand into my bruised side and looking down at myself.

I spent my whole Saturday out here as soon as school was over, plenty of scraps, bruises and dirt on my body.

Hand raised, the Sun tarot card formed from those glowing blue balls of energy.

I wouldn’t be able to explain all these injuries to Aunt Nozomi once I got back and I should try out my healing item at least once to make sure it worked exactly like it said.

That cooldown still made me a bit paranoid.

With a clench of my hand, the card shattered into thousands of little glowing shards, my body glowing for a moment. A soothing sensation filled me as I looked back down at myself again, all the cuts and bruises gone as the glow died down and the sensation settled.

Maybe this was too early to say considering I wasn’t sure about everything this Chaos Gacha offered, the limits of my quirk, or any real idea how to fight but didn’t I have the potential to contend with some of the strongest people here? At least in terms of versatility. As far as others were concerned, it would look like I had multiple quirks.

Which would probably draw crazy amounts of attention.

Yeah, I didn’t plan on it before, but I definitely couldn’t be too cavalier with things until I could defend myself or at least reliable dip out of any bad situation. Even then, playing certain cards close to the chest was the only smart way to go about things.

XOXO

Soul Solid.

On the surface a purple cane with a bit of reflective metal at the start of its straightened end. Pulling the handle revealed that the metal bit was a marking for the start of the sheath, a pristine blade housed within it. The purple coloring of the cane wasn’t really to my taste, but a blade was a blade.

I swung it.

It cut through some of the grass along the pond I stood beside but stopped within a sizable rock. Despite the name, it really was just a normal sword which meant its effectiveness would depend entirely on me and my abilities.

Twisting the blade over, I focused. An orange coating of flames flared around the blade alone, the handle I held spared from the effects of Enflame. I instantly noticed my energy draining far faster compared to what it took to set a few eraser caps aflame. I could use it for a while before that became a problem, I think, but it was worth noting and testing the limits of.

I thrust the blade down into the same rock as before. It stabbed in easily.

I watched for a few moments, the flames remaining coated around the sword and burning anything that touched it but not spreading. So, the flames only stayed on what I coated? Nice. I’d test that out more later.

Pulling the blade out, this time I ducked it into the pond.

Steam rose up, the water around the blade bubbling. The flames refused to go out, no extra energy required from me to keep it going even in a place normal flames shouldn’t be able to burn.

I take back whatever insults I might’ve said about the ability. Enflame wasn’t going to be what put me in the ring with any big hitters, but it was far from trash. I could get a lot of use out of it.

Keeping an eye on the surrounding trees, I decided to carry out more tests.

I could coat things I held in flames. Could I spread those flames onto things that I touched the sword to? Could I coat something like a rock then throw it and keep the flames going? Could I increase the heat of the flame by feeding more energy into it? How much energy would all that take and just how long could I keep all that up in the first place?

Plenty of testing to do alongside setting up a training plan.

XOXO

Quietly locking the apartment door behind me and setting my skateboard down in the entranceway alongside my shoes, I toed my way further in.

Hiding injuries using the now on cooldown tarot card? Easy enough. I hadn’t put in enough thought to realize the one too many tears in my clothes would draw the same kind of questions about what I was spending the day doing. Lucky for me, Aunt Nozomi wasn’t anywhere in the main living area.

Toeing my way further down the hall, I spotted the DO NOT DISTURB sign she hung right outside her door. Perfect. She recently scored some kind of job, software related I was pretty sure, that allowed her to work from home and look after me without any issues.

Slipping into my room I got to grabbing a change of clothes and stuff for a shower, pausing to look over at the small desk I had in the corner of the room.

If I did want to get into UA, recommendations were also a way to go about it. I wonder if that would count as a feat? Either way, while I was sure most subjects wouldn’t be a problem, I’d have to study up on history, science, and the other more questionable stuff just to be sure.

Ugh, and doing all my homework on top of overall being a good student.

Just thinking about doing all that was filling me with the strangest sense of déjà vu.

Once the weekend was over, I wouldn’t just be locking in physically but mentally too. It was going to be grind time right up until the main plot was over or I pulled some overpowered shit that elevated me so far above everyone else that I could end things in one punch.

XOXO

I stood out.

Spending my gym period in the metal stands once again, I’d seen the other people in it glancing my way and whispering among themselves, some laughing. Whatever gossip might have just circulating my class had jumped to every part of the school, people giving me more looks than usual.

The whole yelling thing aside, I probably wasn’t helping my own case. Over the weekend and the past few days of this week I’d been going hard at training and experimenting. I started making sure to be more careful, changes of clothes brought with me to the park. With the Sun Card having a crazy ten day cool down I couldn’t just poof my injuries out of existence, so I brought a basic first aid kit along with me.

Bandages wrapped around my cut up hands and legs. A few noticeable bruises here and there. And some scrapes. I’d been able to hide a lot of that beneath the school’s uniform, but it still didn’t stop the attention.

As much as I’d like to say none of it bothered me, watching people look my way then quickly turned away was so damn annoying.

Ignoring that annoyance, I dropped my eyes, focusing on my binder and some homework I brought out here with me. With me free to go to that park after school, Aunt Nozomi allowing it only after we shared our locations on our phones so we could see each other on GPS, there was no point in risking being seen using something unrelated to my quirk here in school.

In other words, this lax gym period was the perfect place to both study and get homework done ahead of time.

Like I expected, history and other subjects shaped by the onset of quirks would actually require a bit of studying on my part if I wanted to be a top student, something I’d been nowhere close to before, but all that experience in my other memories helped with everything else.

It wouldn’t be hard to-

“Watch out!”

I looked and found myself nearly pushed back out of my seat, a burning pain spreading across my nose. A dark red ball some of those near the stands had been kicking around had slammed right into my face, bouncing off, leaving the stands, and rolling to the feet of someone running over.

I held back my annoyance in favor of dealing with the blood leaking out of my nose so I could get back to studying.

“Are you okay?’ The same voice that yelled for me, some girl by the sound of it, called out from in front of the stands. “I can ask one of the teachers to let you go to the nurse’s office.”

“I’m good.” I called back, ignoring them.

Fortunately, they didn’t make a bigger deal out of it, leaving me be.

[Feat Accomplished!

Become the target of Toga Himiko’s Obsession

+2 Bronze Familiar Gacha Tickets]