what if female mineta fall for deku help her with her quirk

 

The locker room of Class 1-A was entirely too bright, the fluorescent lights buzzing with an irritating, clinical hum that made Minori Mineta’s headache throb just a little bit harder.

 

She stood in front of her open metal locker, staring blankly at the neatly folded fabric of her hero costume. Purple and yellow. A cape that was supposed to look dramatic but usually just tangled around her short legs. A pair of oversized, diaper-like pants that completely obscured whatever semblance of a figure she might have possessed. And gloves. Thick, white gloves meant to protect her hands from the extreme adhesive of her own Quirk.

 

She hated it. She hated the costume, she hated the lights, and most of all, she hated the sound of the other girls laughing.

 

"Oh, Momo, your hair looks so elegant when you tie it up like that!" Mina Ashido’s bubbly voice echoed off the tiled walls. Minori glanced over her shoulder, peering around the metal door of her locker.

 

There they were. The goddesses of Class 1-A.

 

Momo Yaoyorozu stood tall and statuesque, adjusting the zipper of her crimson leotard. She looked like a supermodel who had incidentally decided to fight crime. Beside her, Mina was doing a series of light stretches, her pink skin contrasting beautifully with her acid-proof camouflage suit. Even Ochaco Uraraka, who was currently struggling to pull her pink boots over her calves, had a natural, endearing charm that made boys melt. They were radiant. They were powerful. They were undeniably, effortlessly heroic.

 

And then there was Minori.

 

Four feet, nothing inches tall. Hair composed entirely of sticky, purple spheres that made her look like an overturned bowl of artificial grapes. She didn't look like a hero. She looked like a mascot for a discount candy company.

 

"Hey, Mineta!" Mina called out, noticing her staring. "You almost ready? Aizawa-sensei said we need to be at Ground Beta in ten minutes!"

 

Minori instinctively plastered on her trademark, exaggerated grin—the shield she had spent years perfecting. She leaned against her locker, putting a hand on her hip and pitching her voice into a dramatic, breathy tone.

 

"Just taking in the view, Ashido! I mean, with Yaoyorozu's proportions on full display, how's a girl supposed to focus on combat training? I think my nose is gonna bleed before we even hit the training ground!"

 

It was a crude joke. It was exactly the kind of thing the 'boy-crazy, perverted Mineta' was expected to say.

 

Mina rolled her eyes, chuckling good-naturedly. "You are incorrigible, Minori. Keep your eyes in your head and hurry up!" The girls went back to their conversation, easily brushing off her comment.

 

Minori turned back to her locker, her exaggerated smile instantly falling flat, replaced by a heavy, sinking frown. She pressed her forehead against the cool metal of the locker door, closing her eyes.

 

She wasn't actually a pervert. Not really. She didn't stare at the girls because she was captivated by them in that way; she stared at them because she was consumed by an acidic, suffocating envy. She looked at Momo's chest, Mina's waist, Uraraka's smile, and thought, Why couldn't I look like that? Why couldn't I be normal?

 

Her entire persona—the crude jokes, the exaggerated swooning over the boys in class, the inappropriate comments—was a carefully constructed defense mechanism. It was a camouflage far more effective than whatever Mina was wearing. In middle school, Minori had learned a harsh truth: if you are short, weird-looking, and possess a Quirk that makes people physically cringe, you are going to be a target. You are going to be invisible to the boys, and a joke to the girls.

 

So, she decided to own the joke. If people were going to laugh at her, she would give them the punchline. She acted like she didn't care that boys didn't look at her by acting like she was aggressively, comically obsessed with them. She made herself the loud, unbothered clown so no one could see the insecure, terrified girl hiding underneath.

 

She wanted to be a hero for the most shallow, pathetic reason imaginable, and she knew it. She didn't have Izuku Midoriya's burning desire to save people with a smile. She didn't have Tenya Iida's noble family legacy to uphold. She just wanted someone to look at her. She thought that if she became a Pro Hero—if she got on television, if she did something amazing—then maybe, just maybe, some handsome guy would look past her height and her weird hair and actually want her.

 

"What a joke," she whispered to herself, pulling the purple pants over her legs.

 

Ten minutes later, Class 1-A stood under the blistering afternoon sun in the center of Ground Beta, a massive, simulated cityscape of concrete buildings and winding alleyways.

 

Shota Aizawa stood before them, looking as exhausted as ever, his capture weapon coiled loosely around his neck. He held up a clipboard, his dark eyes sweeping over the twenty students.

 

"Listen up," Aizawa drawled, his voice cutting through the ambient wind. "Today’s combat exercise is a two-on-two retrieval mission. The objective is simple. One team plays the Villains, guarding a dummy payload hidden somewhere in a three-block radius. The other team plays the Heroes, tasked with retrieving the payload or capturing the Villains. Standard rules apply. No lethal force, no destroying the payload. You have fifteen minutes."

 

Aizawa began reading off the teams. Minori felt a familiar knot of dread twisting in her stomach. Combat training. Her absolute worst nightmare.

 

"Team G," Aizawa called out. "Mineta and Kaminari. You will be the Heroes."

 

"Alright! Team short-circuit and short-stack!" Denki Kaminari cheered, throwing an arm over Minori's shoulders.

 

Minori forced a blush and giggled, leaning into his arm. "Oh, Kaminari! If we get trapped in a dark alleyway together, I can't promise I'll keep my hands to myself!"

 

Kaminari laughed, lightly pushing her away. "Focus, Mineta! We've gotta win this!"

 

"Your opponents," Aizawa continued, ignoring the banter, "Team H. Sero and Ashido. You are the Villains. Head into the city and hide the payload. You have five minutes before the Heroes are released."

 

Minori’s stomach dropped further. Hanta Sero and Mina Ashido. Two of the most highly mobile students in the class. Sero could swing between buildings like Spider-Man using his tape, and Mina could slide around on her acid like she was on ice skates.

 

How the hell was she supposed to catch them? Her Quirk, Pop Off, allowed her to produce incredibly sticky, purple spheres from her scalp. They stuck to anything—except her—and would eventually lose their stickiness depending on her physical health. But they didn't make her fast. They didn't make her strong. They just made her a mildly annoying obstacle.

 

"Alright, Mineta, what's the plan?" Kaminari asked once Sero and Ashido had disappeared into the maze of concrete buildings.

 

"Uh," Minori stammered, looking up at the blond boy. "Well, they're both really fast. We shouldn't split up. Maybe we can... I don't know, corner them?"

 

"Nah, too slow!" Kaminari grinned, cracking his knuckles. "I say we charge in. I'll blast 'em with a localized shock, stun 'em both, and you run in and tie 'em up with your sticky balls. Easy peasy!"

 

"Kaminari, if you use too much electricity, you'll fry your brain!" Minori protested.

 

"Trust me! Let's go!"

 

Before she could argue further, the buzzer sounded, echoing loudly across the fake city. Kaminari immediately sprinted down the main street, leaving Minori to frantically waddle after him, her cape flapping uselessly behind her.

 

"Wait! Denki, wait up!" she called out, her short legs burning as she tried to keep pace.

 

They turned a corner into a narrow alleyway flanked by towering brick walls. It was silent. Too silent. Kaminari skidded to a halt, looking around.

 

"Where are they?" he muttered.

 

THWIP.

 

A strip of white cellophane tape shot down from the roof above, slapping directly across Kaminari's chest. Before he could even shout, he was violently yanked backward, his feet leaving the ground as he was hoisted into the air.

 

"Kaminari!" Minori screamed.

 

"Got one!" Sero's voice called out from the rooftop.

 

Suddenly, a splash of corrosive, pink liquid splattered across the pavement right in front of Minori's boots, smoking and sizzling as it ate into the concrete. Minori yelped, jumping back.

 

Mina Ashido slid down from the fire escape, surfing on a wave of her own acid, a massive, villainous grin on her face. "Not so fast, Hero! You're not getting to our stash!"

 

Minori's heart hammered against her ribs. She was alone. Kaminari was currently dangling upside down from a streetlamp, wrapped in tape like a blond mummy, groaning as Sero secured him.

 

"Mineta!" Kaminari yelled. "Throw your spheres! Trap her!"

 

Right. The spheres.

 

Minori reached up, her gloved fingers gripping the purple balls on her head. She yanked one off—POP—and hurled it at Mina.

 

Mina laughed, gracefully sidestepping the sphere. It sailed past her and stuck harmlessly to a brick wall.

 

"You've gotta do better than that, Minori!" Mina taunted, skating closer, her hands glowing with fresh acid.

 

Panic seized Minori's chest. Her breathing turned shallow and rapid. I'm useless. I'm so useless. She reached up with both hands, grabbing spheres and tearing them from her scalp as fast as she could. Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

 

She threw them in a frantic, uncoordinated barrage. A dozen purple spheres flew through the air. Mina simply danced around them, melting a few mid-air with precise flicks of her acid.

 

Minori kept pulling. She didn't aim; she just threw. She needed to hit her. She needed to do something. She pulled harder, faster. The adhesive roots of the spheres tugged fiercely at her skin.

 

Then, she felt it.

 

A sharp, stinging tear at the top of her head.

 

Minori gasped, her hands faltering. She reached up and pulled one more sphere, and this time, the pop was accompanied by a wet, tearing sound. A searing bolt of pain shot across her scalp, radiating down her neck.

 

She dropped the sphere. She brought her white glove down and looked at it. The tips of her fingers were stained with bright, fresh red blood.

 

"Ah..." Minori whimpered, her vision blurring at the edges.

 

The adrenaline vanished, replaced entirely by agony and nausea. When she overused her Quirk, her scalp didn't just hurt—it broke. She had pulled too many, too fast, without letting her body regenerate the follicles.

 

Warm blood trickled down her forehead, stinging her left eye. She stumbled backward, clutching her head, crying out in pain.

 

Mina stopped instantly, her villainous persona dropping. "Minori? Oh my gosh, are you okay?!"

 

From above, Sero dropped down, looking equally concerned. "Whoa, hey, Aizawa-sensei! Mineta's bleeding!"

 

The buzzer blared, a long, harsh sound signaling the end of the match.

 

“Hero Team is incapacitated,” Aizawa’s voice crackled through the PA system, flat and devoid of sympathy. “Villain Team wins. Return to the observation room.”

 

Minori collapsed onto her knees on the pavement, the rough concrete biting into her skin. She curled in on herself, holding her bleeding head, squeezing her eyes shut. She didn't want to see Mina's pitying face. She didn't want to see Sero's awkward shifting.

 

She had failed. Again. Not only had she failed to land a single hit, but she had defeated herself. She was a liability. A joke.

 

Ten minutes later, she stood in the observation room with the rest of the class. A medical robot had wrapped a thick, humiliating bandage around her head, compressing the bleeding follicles. It throbbed with every heartbeat.

 

Aizawa stood at the front of the dark room, the glowing monitors casting harsh light on his scarred face. He went through the review of the match.

 

"Kaminari," Aizawa said, his voice cold. "You charged blindly into an unknown environment without assessing vertical threats. You were neutralized in ten seconds. Pathetic."

 

Kaminari rubbed the back of his neck, looking down. "Yes, sensei."

 

"And Mineta."

 

Minori flinched, shrinking into herself. She could feel the eyes of all her classmates on her. Todoroki's icy, indifferent stare. Bakugo's scoff of disgust. Midoriya's... she didn't even want to look at Midoriya. She couldn't bear to see the pity in his wide, green eyes.

 

"You panicked," Aizawa stated, pulling no punches. "Your Quirk is not designed for a frantic, frontal assault. It requires strategy, placement, and environmental awareness. Instead of using the alleyway to create a chokepoint, you threw a blind barrage, exhausted your physical limit, and bled out. In a real combat scenario, a villain wouldn't have stopped to ask if you were okay. They would have killed you."

 

The words hit her like physical blows.

 

They would have killed you.

 

"A hero who incapacitates herself because she lacks emotional control is worse than a civilian," Aizawa finished. "Do better. Next match. Team A and Team C."

 

The class moved on. The screen switched to the next fight. No one looked at Minori. She stood in the back corner of the room, her small hands clenched so tightly into fists that her fingernails bit into her palms. She bit her lower lip, tasting copper, fighting with every ounce of her willpower to keep the tears from falling in front of everyone.

 

I don't belong here, she thought, the realization settling over her like a heavy, suffocating blanket. I'm just a freak who snuck in through the cracks.

 

 

 

The sun had begun to set over Ground Beta, casting long, fiery shadows across the simulated ruins. The combat exercises were over. The class had long since packed up and headed back to the Heights Alliance dorms, eager to shower, eat dinner, and unwind.

 

The training ground was strictly off-limits after hours, but Minori didn't care.

 

She sat alone on a slab of broken concrete in the center of the street where she had failed so miserably hours earlier. She had stripped off her cape and her ridiculous gloves, tossing them carelessly onto the dust.

 

She reached up, her bare hands gently touching the bandage wrapped around her head. It was stiff with dried blood. Carefully, wincing with every millimeter, she began to unwind it. The cool evening air hit her raw scalp, offering a tiny, fleeting moment of relief before the throbbing returned.

 

Minori looked down at the street. Several of her purple spheres were still stuck to the brick walls and the pavement, immovable, mocking reminders of her panic.

 

"Stupid," she whispered into the empty street.

 

She reached out to one of the spheres stuck to a nearby piece of rubble. Because it was her own Quirk, it didn't stick to her skin. She plucked it off the rock, rolling the rubbery, purple ball between her palms.

 

"Stupid, weak, ugly Quirk," she muttered, her voice trembling.

 

The dam finally broke. The tears she had been fighting back all afternoon spilled over her eyelashes, hot and fast, cutting tracks through the dust on her cheeks. She pulled her knees to her chest, buried her face in her arms, and sobbed.

 

It was a hollow, ugly sound. The sound of a girl who was entirely, thoroughly exhausted with being herself.

 

Why did she think she could do this? UA High School was the pinnacle of hero society. It was a place for legends. It was a place for people with explosions in their hands, engines in their legs, and the power to control ice and fire. It wasn't a place for a short, weird girl whose only power was shedding her own sticky hair.

 

She remembered her middle school graduation. She remembered wearing her best dress, a pretty floral thing she had begged her mother to buy. She had spent two hours trying to style her purple spheres into something resembling normal hair. She had walked up to a boy she had a crush on—a tall boy with a minor wind Quirk—and nervously handed him a letter.

 

He hadn't even opened it. He had looked at her, then looked at his friends, and laughed.

 

“Mineta? Seriously? God, you’re like a little purple grape-bug. Get away from me, it’s gross.”

 

That was the day she decided she would become a hero. She would get into UA. She would become so famous and so universally loved that no one would ever look at her with disgust again. She would force them to love her.

 

But sitting here now, in the ruins of Ground Beta, bleeding and humiliated, the truth was undeniable. Being a hero wouldn't make anyone love her. It just put her flaws on display for a much larger audience.

 

"I should just quit," she choked out, wiping her nose with the back of her wrist. "I should just pack my bags and go home."

 

"I... I don't think you should do that."

 

Minori froze. Her breath hitched in her throat.

 

The voice came from the mouth of the alleyway. It was soft, hesitant, and distinctly male.

 

Minori's head snapped up. Standing a few yards away, partially illuminated by the orange glow of the setting sun, was Izuku Midoriya.

 

He was still in his gym uniform, his messy green hair catching the wind. In his hands, he held a battered, slightly scorched notebook. He looked incredibly awkward, shifting his weight from one red shoe to the other, his wide eyes fixed on her.

 

Panic and mortification flooded Minori's system. Midoriya. Of all people, it had to be Midoriya. The boy who broke his own bones to save people. The boy who was constantly praised by Aizawa for his raw potential. The golden boy of Class 1-A.

 

He was seeing her cry. He was seeing her without her mask.

 

Instinct took over. Minori scrambled to her feet, violently wiping the tears from her face, smearing dust and faint traces of blood across her cheeks. She forced her trademark, obnoxious grin, though it wobbled pathetically.

 

"Midoriya!" she squeaked, her voice cracking. "What are you doing sneaking around in the dark? Were you hoping to catch a glimpse of a maiden undressing? Oh my, you bad boy! If you wanted to see me out of my costume, all you had to do was ask—"

 

"Minori, please stop."

 

The gentle, quiet tone of his voice cut through her frantic babbling like a hot knife through butter.

 

Midoriya didn't blush. He didn't flail his arms or stammer nervously the way he usually did when she made inappropriate jokes. He just looked at her. Really looked at her. His emerald eyes were entirely devoid of judgment, devoid of disgust, and, worst of all, devoid of pity.

 

He just looked... sad for her.

 

Minori's fake smile shattered. Her arms dropped to her sides. She felt entirely naked, stripped of every defense she had.

 

"What do you want, Midoriya?" she asked, her voice dropping into a harsh, bitter whisper. "Did you come back to laugh? Or did Aizawa send you to make sure the liability didn't bleed to death on school grounds?"

 

Midoriya blinked, looking genuinely surprised. "What? No! No, of course not. I... I came back because I dropped my notebook during my match earlier. I was looking for it." He held up the scorched notebook as proof.

 

"Great. You found it. Now you can leave," Minori snapped, turning her back to him and staring at the brick wall. She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering in the cooling air. "Go back to the dorms. Go hang out with Uraraka and Iida and the people who actually matter."

 

She waited for the sound of his footsteps retreating. She waited for him to awkwardly apologize and run away. That’s what anyone else would do.

 

Instead, she heard the crunch of gravel as he walked closer.

 

"I was in the observation room," Midoriya said quietly, stopping a few feet behind her. "I watched your match."

 

Minori squeezed her eyes shut, fresh tears threatening to spill. "I know. Everyone did. I was pathetic. You don't need to rub it in."

 

"I don't think you were pathetic at all," he said.

 

Minori whipped around, glaring at him, her chest heaving. "Are you mocking me?! I panicked! I threw my spheres at nothing, I didn't land a single hit, and I ripped my own scalp open! I lost the match for Kaminari in less than a minute! Don't patronize me, Midoriya! I know I'm useless!"

 

Midoriya didn't flinch at her yelling. He took a deep breath, and then, slowly, he opened his notebook. He flipped past pages filled with dense, meticulously neat handwriting and sketches of Bakugo, Todoroki, and Uraraka.

 

He stopped on a page near the middle.

 

"Aizawa-sensei was right that you panicked," Midoriya said, his voice taking on that focused, analytical tone he usually reserved for pro-hero fights. "But he was wrong about your placement."

 

Minori frowned, her anger momentarily derailed by confusion. "What?"

 

Midoriya stepped forward, holding the notebook out so she could see. Minori’s eyes widened.

 

At the top of the page, in Midoriya’s neat handwriting, was the title: Minori Mineta - Quirk: Pop Off.

 

Below it was a surprisingly detailed, respectful sketch of her in her hero costume. But it wasn't just a drawing. The page was entirely covered in notes, diagrams, and calculated trajectories. Arrows pointed to the spheres, detailing their adhesive properties, their elasticity, and their bounce radius.

 

"During the match," Midoriya explained, his eyes alight with genuine passion, "you threw fourteen spheres in a state of panic. You thought you were missing Mina, right?"

 

"I did miss her," Minori muttered, staring at the notebook in disbelief.

 

"You missed hitting her body, yes," Midoriya nodded. "But look at the spread. You threw them in a horizontal arc. You didn't realize it, but you entirely cut off the left side of the alleyway. Mina had to stop skating and shift to the right to avoid the trap. If you look here—" He pointed to a diagram he had drawn of the alleyway, "—Sero was preparing to swing down from the right wall to capture you. But because Mina was forced into his trajectory, he had to abort his swing to avoid colliding with her."

 

Minori stared at him, her mouth slightly open. "I... I did?"

 

"Yes!" Midoriya smiled, a bright, encouraging expression. "You bought yourself an extra four seconds. If you hadn't thrown those spheres exactly where you did, Sero would have taped you to the wall instantly. You delayed two highly mobile opponents using an area-of-effect denial strategy. And you did it on pure instinct while panicked!"

 

Minori looked from the notebook up to Midoriya's face. He was beaming at her. Not mocking her. Not pitying her. He was genuinely, entirely amazed by what she had done.

 

"Midoriya..." she whispered, her voice shaking. "It was an accident. I wasn't... I wasn't being tactical. I was just freaking out."

 

"Maybe," Midoriya conceded, his smile softening. "But it proves my point. Minori, you’ve been trying to use your Quirk like you're a brawler. You're trying to throw punches with it. But that's not what Pop Off is."

 

He closed the notebook, holding it to his chest. He looked her directly in the eyes, his gaze so intense and so fiercely respectful that Minori felt a strange fluttering sensation in her stomach—a feeling entirely alien to her.

 

"Your Quirk isn't a weapon for hitting people," Midoriya said, his voice ringing with absolute conviction. "It's a tool for absolute battlefield control. You have one of the most terrifyingly effective capture-and-mobility Quirks in our entire class. You just haven't figured out how to use it yet."

 

The wind howled softly through the ruins of Ground Beta.

 

Minori stood perfectly still. For the first time in her entire life, someone was looking at her and seeing potential. Someone was looking past the weird hair, the short stature, and the gross adhesive, and seeing a hero.

 

"Mobility?" she echoed, her voice barely a breath. "How am I supposed to be mobile? I have the shortest legs in the class."

 

Midoriya's eyes practically sparkled. "Because the spheres don't stick to you! You said it yourself on the first day of class! They bounce off your skin!"

 

He stepped closer, closing the distance between them, his hands animating his words. "If you set up a trajectory of spheres on the walls and the ground, you can use them as trampolines! You can ricochet off them to increase your kinetic energy, entirely bypassing your running speed! You could move faster than Sero, faster than Mina! You could turn an entire battlefield into your own personal pinball machine, where you're the only one who can move, and anyone who tries to follow you gets stuck!"

 

Minori's mind raced, visualizing what he was saying. Bouncing. Ricocheting. Moving at high speeds without ever having to touch the ground.

 

Could I really do that?

 

She looked down at her small, trembling hands. "But... but my scalp. If I use too many, I bleed. I'm weak, Midoriya. I can't keep up a massive trap like that."

 

Midoriya’s expression softened. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, clean handkerchief, holding it out to her.

 

"That's just a physical limit," he said gently. "Everyone has those. When I use my Quirk too much, I break my arms. When Todoroki uses too much ice, he gets frostbite. Limits aren't failures, Minori. They're just the starting line for training."

 

Minori looked at the white handkerchief. Slowly, hesitantly, she reached out and took it. Her fingers brushed against his, and she felt a sudden, electric jolt shoot up her arm. She quickly pulled her hand back, pressing the cloth against her unbandaged, throbbing scalp.

 

"You... you really think I could be strong?" she asked, looking up at him through her eyelashes, her heart pounding a frantic rhythm against her ribs.

 

Midoriya didn't hesitate. He didn't need to think about it.

 

"I know you can," he said, his voice warm and steady. "I've been analyzing Quirks my whole life. I know a pro-tier Quirk when I see one. You just need to change your perspective. And... well..."

 

Suddenly, the confident, analytical hero vanished, replaced by the awkward, stuttering teenage boy. A dusting of pink appeared on Midoriya's freckled cheeks, and he rubbed the back of his neck, looking away.

 

"If... if you wanted to, that is..." he stammered. "I could... maybe help you? With your training? I have a few ideas for support items we could submit to the Development Studio, and we could practice the bouncing technique in Gym Gamma after school. Only if you want to, of course! I don't want to overstep or—"

 

"Yes."

 

The word left Minori's mouth before she even realized she had spoken.

 

Midoriya blinked, looking back at her. "Really?"

 

"Yes," Minori repeated, her voice firmer this time. She lowered the handkerchief, standing up a little straighter. The throbbing in her head was still there, but the suffocating weight of her own self-loathing had momentarily lifted.

 

She looked at the boy standing in front of her. Izuku Midoriya. He wasn't the tallest boy in class. He wasn't the coolest, or the loudest, or the most traditionally handsome. But as the last rays of the sunset caught his messy green hair, Minori realized something profound.

 

He was the most beautiful person she had ever met.

 

For years, Minori had chased after the idea of boys. She had wanted their attention, their validation, their fleeting glances. She had thrown herself at any guy who walked past, hoping someone would find her joke of an existence endearing.

 

But looking at Midoriya, she realized she didn't want the attention of boys.

 

She wanted the attention of this boy.

 

She didn't want to make a crude joke. She didn't want to pretend to swoon. She wanted to be the hero he saw in his notebook. She wanted to be worthy of the absolute, unshakable faith shining in his emerald eyes.

 

"I want to train with you, Midoriya," Minori said, a genuine, soft smile gracing her lips—a smile devoid of any irony or defense mechanisms. "I want you to teach me how to be a pinball."

 

Midoriya's face lit up with a brilliant, blinding smile. "Awesome! We can start tomorrow! Oh, man, I've got so many ideas for trajectory calculations, I'm going to have to get a new notebook just for the physics equations—"

 

He immediately began muttering to himself, pacing back and forth, entirely lost in his own mind.

 

Minori watched him, clutching his handkerchief tightly against her chest. The butterflies in her stomach weren't born of panic this time. They were born of something entirely new. Something terrifying, and wonderful, and deeply, undeniably real.

 

She was ordinary. She was short, she was weird, and she bled when she fought too hard.

 

But for the first time in her life, Minori Mineta felt like she could fly.

 

 

The morning sun filtered through the massive glass windows of UA High School, casting long, golden geometric patterns across the polished floors of the hallway. For most students, it was just another Tuesday. But for Minori Mineta, the world felt fundamentally tilted on its axis.

 

She sat at her desk in Class 1-A, her chin resting in her hands, staring blankly at the chalkboard where Ectoplasm was diagramming a complex calculus equation. She wasn't absorbing a single number. Her mind was entirely consumed by the events of the previous evening.

 

She could still feel the phantom weight of Izuku Midoriya’s handkerchief pressed against her scalp. She could still hear the absolute, unwavering conviction in his voice.

 

“You have one of the most terrifyingly effective capture-and-mobility Quirks in our entire class.”

 

Minori reached up, her fingers lightly grazing the fresh bandages hidden beneath her voluminous purple spheres. Her scalp still ached with a dull, rhythmic throb, a physical reminder of her spectacular failure during the combat exercise. Normally, an utter humiliation like that would have sent her spiraling into a week-long depression, masked heavily by exaggerated, perverted humor and desperate attempts to get the boys to look at her.

 

But today, she felt quiet.

 

She stole a glance across the classroom. Midoriya was sitting three rows ahead and one seat to the left. He was hunched over his desk, his green hair an unruly bird's nest, his hand moving at lightning speed as he furiously copied down Ectoplasm’s equations. Every now and then, he would pause, tap his pencil against his chin, and mutter something under his breath before diving back into his notes.

 

He was such a nerd. A massive, unapologetic, superhero-obsessed nerd.

 

And yet, Minori found her gaze lingering on the curve of his shoulders, the intense focus in his emerald eyes when he looked up at the board. She felt a strange tightness in her chest, a fluttering sensation that made her want to look away, but simultaneously made it impossible to do so.

 

"Hey. Earth to Mineta."

 

Minori jumped, startled out of her reverie. Mina Ashido was leaning over from her desk, waving a pink hand in front of Minori’s face.

 

"You're zoning out hard," Mina whispered, a teasing smirk on her lips. "Thinking about dirty things again? Or are you just still recovering from Kaminari’s tragic performance yesterday?"

 

Old Minori would have seized the opportunity. She would have puffed out her chest, slapped on a leering grin, and made a comment about how she was actually visualizing the boys’ locker room, or how tight Iida’s pants were. It was the script she knew. It was safe.

 

But as the words formed in her throat, they tasted like ash. She looked at Mina, then glanced back at Midoriya, who was entirely oblivious to the world around him.

 

"Just... tired," Minori mumbled, forcing a small, tight smile. "My head still hurts from yesterday."

 

Mina’s teasing smirk instantly dissolved into genuine concern. "Oh, right! I'm so sorry about that, Minori. Are you sure you shouldn't be in Recovery Girl's office?"

 

"No, I'm fine. Just gotta rest it."

 

Mina nodded sympathetically and turned back to the lesson. Minori let out a slow, quiet breath. It was a small victory—rejecting the clown persona—but it left her feeling exposed and vulnerable. Who was she, if she wasn't the class joke?

 

The lunch bell rang, shattering the quiet focus of the classroom. Chairs scraped against the floor as the students eagerly gathered their things, breaking into their usual social clusters.

 

Minori usually spent lunch hovering on the periphery of the girls' table, laughing too loudly and trying to insert herself into conversations. Today, she just wanted to find a quiet corner. She gathered her bento box and stood up, preparing to slip out the back door.

 

"Um, Minori?"

 

She froze. The voice was right behind her.

 

She turned around to find Midoriya standing there, his scorched "Hero Analysis for the Future" notebook clutched to his chest. He looked nervous, shifting his weight slightly, but his eyes were bright with an infectious energy.

 

"Hey, Midoriya," she said, her voice coming out a little breathless. She mentally cursed herself. Play it cool. You are a cool, mysterious woman of the world. Sort of.

 

"I, uh, I was wondering if you wanted to eat lunch together?" he asked, rubbing the back of his neck. "I spent some time last night going over those calculations I mentioned, and I drew up a few preliminary sketches for the Development Studio. I thought maybe we could go over them before we head to Gym Gamma this afternoon?"

 

A few heads turned in their direction. Uraraka blinked in surprise from the doorway, and even Bakugo shot them a confused, side-long glare before scoffing and walking out. Minori felt a sudden flush of heat rush to her cheeks. Izuku Midoriya, the golden boy, was asking to sit with her. Publicly.

 

"Y-Yeah. Sure," Minori stammered. "Lead the way, nerd."

 

Midoriya beamed, completely unfazed by the nickname.

 

Instead of the crowded, noisy cafeteria, Midoriya led her to a quiet, shaded bench in one of the school’s inner courtyards. The air was cool and crisp, carrying the faint scent of pine needles. They sat down, a comfortable distance between them, and opened their lunches.

 

But Midoriya barely touched his food. The moment he sat down, the notebook was open on his lap, flipped to the page entirely dedicated to her.

 

"Okay, so," Midoriya began, his eyes scanning the dense text. "I was thinking about the primary limitation of Pop Off. The bleeding. Your scalp needs time to regenerate the follicles. If you pull too many at once, you tear the skin. It’s a bottleneck issue."

 

Minori took a small bite of her rice, watching him intently. "Right. It’s a pretty pathetic bottleneck, too. I threw, what, fourteen yesterday before I busted my head open?"

 

"Fourteen in ten seconds," Midoriya corrected, holding up a finger. "That’s the key metric. You were pulling them faster than your body's natural regenerative cycle. But, according to my observations during the USJ attack and the Sports Festival, you can pull significantly more spheres if you pace yourself. Your body does regenerate them, it just needs a microscopic window of time between each pull."

 

Minori frowned, chewing thoughtfully. "So... I have to fight slower?"

 

"No," Midoriya said, his eyes gleaming. "You have to fight smarter. You need to maximize the utility of every single sphere so you don't have to pull as many. That's where the mobility comes in."

 

He slid the notebook over so she could see. The page was filled with diagrams of a stick figure—clearly meant to be her—bouncing off the walls of a narrow corridor.

 

"Look at the kinetic energy transfer," Midoriya explained, pointing his chopsticks at the drawing. "Your spheres are hyper-elastic to you. They repel your DNA. If you launch yourself at a sphere, it doesn't just bounce you off; it reflects your kinetic energy. It’s like a trampoline on steroids. If you place a sphere on the floor and jump on it, you’ll bounce up. If you place one on the wall and bounce off the wall at an angle, your speed increases with every ricochet."

 

Minori stared at the math. It looked like Greek to her, but the diagrams made sense.

 

"The problem is the initial launch," Midoriya continued, muttering slightly faster now, his brain moving a mile a minute. "You need a high initial velocity to start a chain bounce, but your legs are short, so your natural sprinting speed and jumping power are below average for our class. You can't generate enough momentum on your own."

 

Minori sighed, slumping slightly. "Gee, thanks for the reminder."

 

"Which is why I designed these!" Midoriya flipped the page.

 

Minori gasped softly. On the new page were two incredibly detailed, mechanical blueprints.

 

The first was a pair of boots. They looked similar to her current white hero boots, but the soles were heavily modified. They were thick, layered with shock-absorbing foam, and featured a distinct, purple, bowl-shaped indentation right at the ball of the foot.

 

"I call them the 'Ricochet Greaves'," Midoriya said proudly. "The soles are lined with a synthetic, kinetic-absorbent mesh. The indentation is perfectly sized to fit one of your spheres. If you drop a sphere on the ground and step on it, the boot will cup it, stabilizing your foot so your ankle doesn't snap when the repulsion effect triggers. It’ll give you a massive, controlled vertical leap."

 

Minori reached out, her fingers lightly tracing the ink of the drawing. It was brilliant. It was perfectly tailored to her exact weaknesses.

 

"And this," Midoriya pointed to the second drawing. It was a gauntlet meant to go over her wrist. It had a retractable, elastic band attached to a small leather pouch. "It’s a specialized slingshot. Right now, you throw your spheres like baseballs. It’s slow, and it telegraphs your attacks. With a high-tension slingshot mechanism built into your gloves, you can fire your spheres at three times the speed with pinpoint accuracy. You could set up a bounce-trap across an entire room in less than two seconds."

 

Minori looked up from the notebook. Midoriya was staring at her, waiting for her reaction, his eyes wide and hopeful. He had stayed up all night doing this. He had spent hours thinking about her, analyzing her power, designing tools to keep her safe and make her strong.

 

Nobody had ever done anything like this for her. Not once in her entire life.

 

"Midoriya..." she whispered, feeling a sudden, intense lump form in her throat. She swallowed hard, forcing the tears back. She wasn't going to cry in front of him again. "This is... this is incredible. You really think Mei Hatsume could build this?"

 

"Definitely!" Midoriya grinned, relaxing back against the bench. "I can submit the blueprints to the Development Studio this afternoon. It might take a week or two to get the prototypes, though. So, in the meantime, we have to start conditioning your body for the physical toll of bouncing."

 

He leaned forward, his expression turning serious. "It’s going to be hard, Minori. Bouncing at high speeds requires intense core strength, spatial awareness, and incredibly fast reaction times. You’re going to get dizzy. You’re going to fall. It’s going to hurt."

 

Minori looked at the notebook, then up at Midoriya's determined, scarred face. This boy had broken his arms a dozen times just to learn how to punch correctly. If he was willing to bleed for his dream, she could endure a few bruises.

 

She offered him a small, genuine smile. "I'm not afraid of falling, Midoriya. Not if it means I learn how to fly."

 

 

 

Gym Gamma was a massive, cavernous facility designed for advanced mobility training. Commonly known as the "Training Kitchenland," it was an industrial labyrinth of steel pipes, towering concrete pillars, catwalks, and uneven terrain.

 

When Minori arrived after classes, wearing her standard blue-and-white UA gym uniform, Midoriya was already there.

 

He had set up a specific training zone in a corner of the gym heavily populated with dense, thick concrete pillars. He was currently standing on top of one of the pipes, measuring the distance between two pillars with a tape measure, muttering complex geometry to himself.

 

"Angle of incidence equals angle of reflection... assuming a twenty percent loss of momentum due to air resistance... wait, if she spins, the aerodynamic drag will decrease..."

 

"Hey, nerd! Are you going to measure things all day, or are we going to train?" Minori called up to him, hands on her hips.

 

Midoriya yelped, startled, and nearly dropped his tape measure. He scrambled down from the pipe, dropping into a neat crouch on the ground before standing up, his face slightly flushed.

 

"Ah! Sorry, Minori! I was just... checking the structural integrity of the pillars to make sure you wouldn't crash through them."

 

Minori laughed, a sharp, barking sound. "Crash through them? Midoriya, I weigh ninety pounds soaking wet. I couldn't break concrete if you strapped dynamite to my forehead."

 

"Kinetic energy is mass times velocity squared," Midoriya replied instantly, entirely serious. "If you move fast enough, your ninety pounds could shatter solid rock. We need to be careful."

 

Minori paused, blinking. He genuinely believes I can be that powerful. It was intoxicating. It made her want to prove him right immediately.

 

"Okay, boss. What's the drill?"

 

Midoriya walked over to a gap between two thick pillars, spaced about ten feet apart. "First, we need to establish your baseline bounce control. No slingshots, no gadgets. Just pure Quirk physics."

 

He pointed to a spot on the concrete floor. "Place a sphere right there. Then, I want you to jump on it, aiming your trajectory toward that pillar on the left. Place a sphere on the pillar right before you hit it, bounce off that, and try to land on your feet."

 

Minori stared at the pillars. Ten feet wasn't far, but doing it in mid-air, relying on the bouncy repulsion of her own hair... it felt daunting.

 

She took a deep breath, trying to shake off the nerves. The old defense mechanisms began to creep up. The urge to deflect the tension with a joke.

 

She turned around, stretching her arms above her head, exaggerating the arch in her back. She cast a sultry look over her shoulder at Midoriya.

 

"You know, Midoriya," she purred, pitching her voice low, "watching a girl in spandex stretch and jump around... I hope you can control yourself. Try not to stare too hard at my assets. I wouldn't want you to get distracted from the math."

 

It was a classic Mineta line. Crude, suggestive, and entirely designed to make the boy uncomfortable so she could control the dynamic of the interaction. She expected him to turn bright red, wave his hands frantically, and stutter an apology while averting his eyes.

 

Instead, Midoriya didn't even blink.

 

He was holding a stopwatch and a fresh notepad. He looked at her form objectively, entirely unbothered by her flirtation.

 

"Actually," Midoriya said, his tone purely analytical, "your lower body strength is vital here. Given your center of gravity, your glutes and calves are going to absorb the majority of the G-force during the ricochet. Your stance is a bit too wide right now. Bring your feet shoulder-width apart to maximize the kinetic spring in your knees."

 

Minori froze. Her sultry expression instantly evaporated, replaced by wide-eyed shock.

 

He hadn't been flustered. He hadn't been disgusted. He had completely ignored the sexual connotation of her joke and evaluated her purely as an athlete. He was looking at her body, yes, but he was looking at it with the same profound respect a mechanic gives a high-performance engine.

 

For the first time in her life, Minori felt a genuine, burning blush creep up her neck and flood her cheeks.

 

He doesn't see me as a joke, she realized, her heart thumping against her ribs. And he doesn't see me as a piece of meat. He sees me as a hero.

 

Suddenly, the mask felt heavy. It felt stupid. Why was she trying to act like a perverted clown in front of the one person who was treating her with absolute dignity?

 

She swallowed hard, dropping the exaggerated pose. She brought her feet together, shoulder-width apart, exactly as he instructed.

 

"Right," she mumbled, staring at the floor. "Shoulder-width. Got it."

 

Midoriya nodded, clicking his pen. "Whenever you're ready, Minori."

 

Minori reached up and plucked a sphere from her head. Pop. She tossed it onto the concrete floor in front of her. It stuck fast, a shiny, purple dome.

 

She bent her knees, took a deep breath, and leaped forward, aiming both her feet directly onto the sphere.

 

The moment her sneakers made contact with the purple surface, the physics of her Quirk activated. It didn't feel like stepping on rubber; it felt like stepping on a loaded spring. A massive surge of repulsive force shot up through her legs.

 

FWOOSH.

 

Minori was launched violently into the air.

 

"Whoa!" she shrieked, her arms flailing. The speed was incredible. In a fraction of a second, she was hurtling toward the left pillar.

 

Place the sphere! her mind screamed.

 

She frantically reached for her head, yanked off a second sphere—Pop!—and slammed it against the concrete pillar just as she collided with it.

 

Her feet hit the newly placed sphere. The repulsion triggered again.

 

But her angle was entirely wrong. Because she had panicked and flailed her arms in the air, her center of gravity was thrown off. Instead of bouncing cleanly backward, her legs shot out from under her, and she was launched sideways, spinning out of control.

 

She hit the gym floor hard, tumbling across the concrete like a ragdoll, scraping her elbows and knees before coming to a groaning halt.

 

"Minori!"

 

Midoriya was at her side in an instant. He didn't use his Quirk, but his natural speed was still incredible. He dropped to his knees next to her, his eyes wide with concern, his hands hovering over her as if afraid to touch her.

 

"Are you okay?! I'm so sorry, I should have calculated for aerial disorientation, I didn't think about the gyroscopic effect of your torso—"

 

"I'm fine," Minori wheezed, sitting up and rubbing her bruised shoulder. She winced, looking at the scrape on her elbow. It stung, but nothing was broken.

 

She looked up at the pillars, then back at the floor where she had started. She had covered fifteen feet in less than a second.

 

"Holy crap," she breathed, her eyes widening. "Did you see how fast I went?"

 

Midoriya blinked, his frantic muttering cutting off. A slow smile spread across his face. "I saw it. Your kinetic transfer was almost ninety percent efficient. That's incredible for a first try."

 

Minori pushed herself up off the floor, brushing the dust off her gym pants. Her muscles ached, but beneath the pain, a fierce, burning excitement was igniting in her chest.

 

"Let's do it again," she said, reaching for her head.

 

And so, the grind began.

 

For the next two hours, Gym Gamma was filled with the rhythmic sounds of popping, the heavy thuds of bouncing impacts, and the occasional groan of pain as Minori hit the floor.

 

It was grueling. Midoriya was a patient teacher, but the physical demands of the bouncing technique were extreme. Every time she hit a sphere, the sudden change in momentum jarred her bones and tested her core strength. She had to learn how to keep her body tight, tucking her chin and bracing her abdomen to control the spin.

 

She threw spheres, bounced, fell, and got back up. Over and over again.

 

"Keep your eyes locked on the target!" Midoriya called out from the sidelines, clicking his stopwatch. "Your body follows your eyes! Don't look at the floor!"

 

Minori gritted her teeth. She stood at the starting line, sweat pouring down her face, her gym shirt clinging to her back. Her breathing was ragged, her muscles screaming in protest. She had pulled maybe twenty spheres over the course of the two hours, pacing herself perfectly just as Midoriya had advised. Her scalp ached slightly, but there was no blood.

 

"Three points of contact," she muttered to herself, staring at the pillars. "Floor, left wall, right wall, landing."

 

She plucked three spheres from her head. She tossed the first one to the floor, holding the other two in her hands like sticky grenades.

 

She leaped.

 

Her feet hit the floor sphere. The repulsion launched her diagonally.

 

Keep your core tight!

 

She soared through the air, completely horizontal. As the left pillar rushed up to meet her, she slammed the second sphere against the concrete, perfectly planting both feet onto it.

 

BOOM.

 

The impact echoed through the gym. The kinetic energy multiplied. Minori shot off the left pillar like a bullet, hurtling toward the right pillar twice as fast as before.

 

The wind roared in her ears. The world blurred into streaks of gray and brown. It was terrifying. It was exhilarating. She felt entirely weightless, a creature unbound by gravity.

 

She slammed the third sphere onto the right pillar, her feet hitting it dead center.

 

BOOM.

 

She ricocheted backward, shooting out from between the pillars.

 

"Tuck and roll!" Midoriya yelled.

 

Minori hit the gym floor, tucked her shoulder, and executed a perfect somersault, bleeding off the excess momentum before popping up onto her feet. She skidded a few inches on the soles of her sneakers, entirely upright, entirely unhurt.

 

She froze, her arms out for balance, her chest heaving.

 

Silence descended on the gym, broken only by the sound of her ragged breathing.

 

She had done it. She had chained three high-speed bounces and stuck the landing.

 

"Eight point four seconds," Midoriya's voice cut through the silence. It was quiet, filled with awe.

 

Minori turned to look at him. He was staring at his stopwatch, his eyes wide, his mouth slightly open. He looked up at her, his expression a mix of shock and absolute, radiant pride.

 

"Minori," he breathed. "That was... that was faster than Iida's baseline sprint."

 

Minori felt a massive, blinding smile break across her face. It wasn't the fake, obnoxious grin she usually wore. It was a smile of pure, unadulterated joy. She felt powerful. For the first time in her life, she didn't feel like a joke. She felt like a hero.

 

"I did it!" she cheered, throwing her arms in the air. "Midoriya, I did it!"

 

Adrenaline surging through her veins, entirely forgetting herself and her usual calculated behavior, Minori rushed toward him.

 

"I want to try a higher angle!" she declared, pointing up toward the steel catwalks hanging thirty feet above the gym floor. "If I can bounce vertically, I can get the drop on anyone!"

 

Midoriya's eyes widened in alarm. "Wait, Minori, hold on! Vertical trajectories increase the G-force exponentially on the descent! We haven't practiced aerial recovery yet—"

 

But the adrenaline was too loud. Minori wasn't listening. She felt invincible.

 

She plucked a sphere from her head, tossed it onto the floor, and jumped onto it with every ounce of strength in her legs.

 

The repulsion was massive. The spring-loaded effect launched her straight up into the air like a rocket. Ten feet. Twenty feet. Thirty feet.

 

She soared past the steel catwalks, the ceiling of Gym Gamma rushing up to meet her. The feeling of weightlessness peaked. For one glorious second, she hung suspended in the air, looking down at the sprawling gym floor below.

 

Then, gravity remembered her.

 

The upward momentum died, and Minori began to fall.

 

Panic, cold and sharp, instantly pierced through her adrenaline. She was thirty feet in the air. She didn't have her Ricochet Greaves. She didn't have a safety net. She was falling straight down toward the unforgiving concrete.

 

She desperately reached for her head to pull another sphere, hoping to cushion her fall, but her hands were shaking too badly.

 

"MIDORIYA!" she screamed, the wind tearing the sound from her throat.

 

Down below, Izuku Midoriya didn't hesitate. He didn't panic. He didn't shout.

 

His eyes hardened, flashing with a fierce, heroic intensity. Emerald lightning suddenly erupted around his body, violently crackling across his skin as the power of One For All coursed through his veins.

 

Full Cowling: Five Percent!

 

He moved. He was a blur of green electricity, sprinting across the gym floor faster than the eye could track. He reached the spot beneath her, bent his knees, and leaped.

 

The concrete cracked beneath his red shoes. Midoriya shot up into the air, meeting her halfway in her descent.

 

Minori squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the bone-shattering impact.

 

But it never came.

 

Instead, she hit something solid, warm, and incredibly strong. Two muscular arms wrapped securely around her waist and under her knees, pulling her tightly against a firm chest.

 

The wind rushed past them as they descended. Midoriya twisted his body in mid-air, taking the brunt of the kinetic energy as his feet slammed into the concrete floor. The impact echoed through the gym, a cloud of dust kicking up around them as Midoriya slid to a halt, absorbing the shock flawlessly.

 

Minori kept her eyes squeezed shut, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She was shivering uncontrollably, her hands clutching fiercely at the fabric of Midoriya's gym shirt.

 

"Gotcha," a soft, breathless voice murmured near her ear.

 

Minori slowly, hesitantly opened her eyes.

 

She was cradled in Midoriya's arms, held entirely secure in a classic princess carry. The emerald lightning of his Quirk faded away, leaving only the dim lighting of the gym.

 

His face was mere inches from hers. She could see a faint sheen of sweat on his forehead, the scattered dusting of freckles across his nose, and the intense, vivid green of his eyes looking down at her.

 

He was breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling against her side.

 

"Are you okay?" he asked, his voice low and incredibly gentle.

 

Minori couldn't speak. All the air had been entirely driven from her lungs, and it had nothing to do with the fall.

 

She stared up at his face. The strength in his arms, the protective, absolute certainty in his gaze... it short-circuited her brain.

 

This was the boy who broke his own bones. This was the boy who defied villains. And he was holding her like she was something precious. Like she was worth saving.

 

All her life, Minori had imagined scenarios like this. She had dreamed of strong, handsome heroes swooping in to rescue her, hoping that the physical proximity would spark some kind of romantic movie moment. She had tried to manufacture these moments with Kaminari, with Sero, with anyone who would look at her.

 

But none of those fantasies had ever felt like this.

 

This wasn't a desperate grab for validation. This was a profound, terrifying vulnerability.

 

"Y-Yeah," Minori finally managed to squeak out, her voice trembling. "I'm... I'm okay."

 

Midoriya let out a long sigh of relief, a small, warm smile returning to his face. He didn't immediately put her down. Instead, he looked at her with that same, intense analytical pride.

 

"You scared me," he admitted, chuckling softly. "But... your launch form was incredible, Minori. Your core was perfectly aligned. If you had the boots, you could have easily transitioned that into a lateral swing across the catwalks."

 

He was praising her. Even after she had been stupid and reckless, he was focusing on her strength.

 

Minori felt a massive, overwhelming wave of emotion crash over her. The butterflies in her stomach multiplied into a swarm. Her face flushed violently, burning so hot she thought she might spontaneously combust.

 

It wasn't a joke anymore. It wasn't a shallow crush based on looks or popularity.

 

Oh God, she realized, her fingers tightening in the fabric of his shirt. I really, really like him.

 

It was a terrifying revelation. Liking a boy meant risking rejection. It meant dropping the act and admitting that she cared. But looking up at Izuku Midoriya, whose green eyes shone with nothing but kindness and unwavering belief in her, Minori realized she didn't want to hide anymore.

 

"You can put me down now, Midoriya," she said softly, her voice remarkably devoid of any teasing or sarcasm.

 

"Right! Sorry!" Midoriya suddenly blinked, as if just realizing the intimate position they were in. A massive blush exploded across his freckled face, turning him as red as a tomato. He gently, almost frantically, set her on her feet, taking a quick step back and waving his hands.

 

"I-I'm sorry! I didn't mean to—I just had to catch you, and that was the most aerodynamically stable way to distribute the impact force—!"

 

Minori laughed. A genuine, warm, ringing laugh that echoed through the empty gym. It felt lighter than anything she had ever experienced.

 

She looked at the flustered, stammering boy who was secretly the strongest person she knew.

 

"Thank you, Izuku," she said softly, using his first name for the very first time.

 

Midoriya stopped stammering, his eyes widening slightly at the sound of his name. The blush remained on his cheeks, but a shy, incredibly sweet smile touched his lips.

 

"You're welcome, Minori."

 

They stood there for a moment in the quiet gym, the air thick with an unspoken, shifting dynamic. The clown and the golden boy were gone. There was only a girl who was learning to believe in herself, and the boy who had handed her the wings.

 

"So," Minori finally said, breaking the silence, her eyes sparkling with a new, fierce determination. "When do we start practicing aerial recovery?"

 

Midoriya's smile widened into a full, beaming grin. He reached for his notebook.

 

"Right now."

 

The next three weeks of Minori Mineta’s life were a blur of bruised knees, aching muscles, and the sharp, distinctive thwip-pop of her own Quirk echoing against the concrete walls of Gym Gamma.

 

If someone had told her a month ago that she would willingly spend every single afternoon after school doing brutal core exercises, running wind sprints until she threw up, and throwing herself against concrete pillars at high velocities, she would have laughed in their face and made a crude joke about being tied up.

 

But things were different now. She was different.

 

The change wasn't sudden or magical; it was ground out in sweat and exhaustion. Minori’s body, previously accustomed to minimal effort and hiding behind the taller, stronger students, was being forcibly rebuilt. Izuku Midoriya was a genius when it came to Quirk analysis, but he was an absolute tyrant when it came to physical conditioning. He had applied the same meticulous, borderline-obsessive work ethic that he used on himself to her training regimen.

 

"Your Quirk relies entirely on your body's ability to withstand sudden, massive shifts in kinetic energy!" he had told her on the third day, standing over her with a clipboard while she planked on the gym floor, her arms shaking violently. "If your core isn't essentially made of iron, the whiplash from a high-speed ricochet will snap your spine! Another thirty seconds, Minori!"

 

She had cursed him out entirely that day, using language that made his freckled face turn a vibrant shade of scarlet. But she hadn't dropped the plank.

 

She refused to quit. Because every time she felt like giving up, every time her muscles screamed and her lungs burned, she would look up and see him watching her. Not with pity. Not with the exasperation Aizawa-sensei showed her. Midoriya watched her with absolute, unwavering faith. He looked at her like she was a diamond in the rough, just waiting to be polished.

 

And so, she ground her teeth, wiped her sweat, and pushed harder.

 

The change didn't go unnoticed by the rest of Class 1-A.

 

It was a Tuesday morning, during Present Mic’s English lecture. Normally, this was prime time for Minori to pass inappropriate doodles to Kaminari, or loudly sigh and complain about how bored she was in an attempt to get Sero to laugh.

 

Today, however, Minori was dead silent. She was hunched over her desk, her brow furrowed in concentration. She wasn't taking notes on English, though. She was meticulously copying a diagram Midoriya had lent her—a parabolic trajectory chart calculating the optimal angles for a three-point bounce in a confined space.

 

"Psst. Mineta."

 

Minori blinked, tearing her eyes away from the paper. Kaminari was leaning across the aisle, poking her arm with the eraser end of his pencil.

 

"What?" she whispered back, slightly irritated by the interruption.

 

"Are you... feeling okay?" Kaminari asked, his brow furrowed in genuine confusion. "You haven't made a single joke about Midnight's costume in three days. And yesterday, when I dropped my pen and bent over to get it, you didn't even make a comment about my ass. It's freaking me out. Are you sick? Did an alien replace you?"

 

Minori felt a flush of embarrassment. Was she really that predictable? That pathetic? She looked at Kaminari, seeing the harmless, goofy boy she usually used as an audience for her clown routine.

 

"I'm fine, Denki," she whispered, keeping her voice flat. "Just focusing. Midoriya gave me some homework for our training later."

 

"Training? With Midoriya?" Mina Ashido chimed in, leaning back in her chair from the desk ahead of Kaminari. Her golden eyes were wide with curiosity. "Wait, is that where you've been disappearing to every day after school? You and Midoriya are having secret gym dates?"

 

"They're not dates!" Minori hissed, her face instantly turning beet red. The mere suggestion sent her heart into a frantic rhythm. "He's just... helping me figure out my Quirk. Because I sucked so much at the combat trial."

 

"You didn't suck, you just panicked," Mina said softly, her teasing tone vanishing. "But honestly, Minori... you look good. You look tired, but... good. Like, fierce."

 

Minori stared at the pink girl, entirely taken aback. Mina Ashido, the athletic, beautiful goddess of the class, was calling her fierce. Minori swallowed the lump in her throat and looked down at her desk.

 

"Thanks, Mina," she mumbled softly.

 

Across the room, as if sensing the conversation, Izuku Midoriya glanced over his shoulder. He caught Minori’s eye. He didn't say anything, but he offered her a small, secret smile and a tiny thumbs-up before turning back to the chalkboard.

 

Minori felt a warm, golden feeling bloom in her chest. She smiled back, feeling more grounded, more real, than she ever had in her life.

 

 

 

The real breakthrough came at the end of the third week.

 

Minori was in Gym Gamma, stretching her hamstrings on the concrete floor, when the heavy metal doors of the facility burst open with a deafening CLANG.

 

"DEKUUUUUU!" a voice shrieked.

 

Minori jumped a foot in the air. Marching into the gym was Mei Hatsume, the pink-haired, goggle-wearing mad scientist of the Support Course. She was lugging two heavy-looking metal briefcases, her face smeared with engine grease and a manic, terrifying grin plastered across her features.

 

Midoriya, who had been setting up a series of target dummies, immediately lit up. "Hatsume! You finished them?!"

 

"Finished them? I perfected them!" Hatsume cackled, dropping the briefcases onto the floor with a heavy thud. "Your blueprints were adorably rudimentary, Deku, but the core concept was sound! I present to you: my absolute cutest babies!"

 

Minori scrambled to her feet, her heart pounding with anticipation as she walked over. Hatsume popped the latches on the first briefcase.

 

Nestled in the velvet lining was a pair of pristine, heavy-duty boots. They were primarily white, matching Minori's hero costume, but reinforced with sleek, dark grey metallic plating around the ankles and calves. The soles were thick, ridged with shock-absorbing hydraulic mesh, and right in the center of the ball of the foot was a smooth, purple, bowl-shaped indentation.

 

"The Ricochet Greaves," Midoriya breathed, leaning in with stars in his eyes.

 

"Exactly!" Hatsume boasted, pulling one out. "I lined the indentation with a hyper-slick, non-stick polymer. Your sticky little hairballs won't adhere to the boot, but the concavity will perfectly cup the sphere upon impact, preventing lateral ankle roll during the expulsion of kinetic force! I also added micro-shock absorbers in the knees. Try 'em on, Grape Girl!"

 

Minori didn't need to be told twice. She kicked off her standard gym sneakers and slid her feet into the boots. The moment she clasped the magnetic buckles, she felt the difference. They were heavier than her normal shoes, but perfectly balanced. They made her feel anchored.

 

Hatsume opened the second case. Inside lay a pair of white, fingerless gauntlets extending halfway up the forearm. On the back of the wrist, a small, sleek mechanism rested flat against the metal.

 

"And for the arms: The high-tension Slingshot Gauntlets," Hatsume announced. "Deku wanted a manual pullback, but I said, 'Why stop there?' I installed an auto-retracting carbon-fiber cord. You just load the sphere into the pouch, pull back, and fire! The moment the sphere leaves the pouch, the cord snaps back into place instantly. You can fire three times faster than you could manually!"

 

Minori strapped the gauntlets onto her arms. She reached up, plucked a purple sphere from her head, and pressed it into the small leather pouch attached to her right wrist. She pulled the pouch back with her left hand. The carbon-fiber cord hummed with immense, beautiful tension.

 

She aimed at a concrete wall fifty feet away and let go.

 

THWIP-BANG!

 

The sphere shot through the air so fast it was a purple blur, slamming into the concrete wall with a heavy smack. It stuck perfectly, exactly where she had aimed.

 

Minori stared at her wrist, then at the wall, her mouth hanging open.

 

"Oh my god," she whispered.

 

"Right?!" Midoriya cheered, practically bouncing on his heels. "With that velocity, you don't even have to bounce off them! You could just use them as high-speed projectiles to subdue villains from a distance!"

 

"Forget a distance," Minori said, a fierce, feral grin spreading across her face. "I want to fly."

 

She turned to the obstacle course Midoriya had set up—a dense forest of concrete pillars and steel pipes. She took a deep breath, feeling the heavy, comforting weight of the boots.

 

She didn't hesitate. She fired a sphere at the floor ten feet in front of her. She sprinted, leaping directly onto it.

 

The moment the purple bowl of her boot connected with the sphere, the repulsion triggered. But unlike her first attempts weeks ago, where the force had jarred her spine and thrown her off balance, the Ricochet Greaves absorbed the violent shock, funneling all that kinetic energy straight upward.

 

Minori shot into the air like a cannonball.

 

"Woohoo!" she screamed, the wind tearing through her hair.

 

As she soared toward a pillar, she loaded her right gauntlet in mid-air, firing a sphere at the concrete. Thwip-smack! She twisted her core—three weeks of agonizing planks paying off—and brought her boots up. She slammed into the pillar, the boots cupping the sphere perfectly.

 

BOOM.

 

She ricocheted off the pillar at a terrifying speed, rocketing across the gym. She fired again with her left hand, placing a sphere on a steel pipe. Boom. She bounced again, hurtling toward the ceiling.

 

She was a blur. A purple and white pinball, entirely unbound by gravity, defying her own physical limitations. The gym echoed with the rapid-fire sounds of her gauntlets and the heavy, concussive booms of her boots hitting the spheres.

 

She moved faster than Sero swinging. She moved faster than Mina skating. For the first time in her life, she felt truly, undeniably powerful.

 

She executed a final, massive bounce off the ceiling, hurtling back toward the floor. She fired a sphere at the ground, bounced one last time to bleed off her momentum, and executed a perfect, flawless backflip, landing on her feet with a solid, heavy thud.

 

Silence descended on Gym Gamma.

 

Minori stood up straight, panting heavily, a manic smile on her face.

 

Midoriya and Hatsume were staring at her. Hatsume looked incredibly smug, but Midoriya looked like he had just witnessed a miracle. His green eyes were wide, shining with unshed tears of pure pride.

 

"Thirty-two seconds," Midoriya whispered, looking at his stopwatch. "Minori... you cleared the entire aerial obstacle course in thirty-two seconds. You're... you're amazing."

 

Minori looked at her gloved hands, then up at him. The boy who believed in her.

 

"No," Minori breathed, her chest heaving. "We are."

 

 

 

But progress is a double-edged sword. With newfound power came a dangerous, intoxicating arrogance.

 

Two weeks later, the honeymoon phase of the new gear had worn off, replaced by a grueling drive for perfection. Midoriya and Minori had moved on to simulated combat scenarios. Midoriya would use his Full Cowling to act as a villain, darting around the gym at five percent of his power, and Minori had to try and capture him.

 

It was infinitely harder than bouncing off stationary pillars. Midoriya was erratic, unpredictable, and incredibly fast.

 

"Too slow, Minori!" Midoriya called out, his voice echoing off the walls as he ricocheted off a pipe, emerald lightning trailing behind him.

 

Minori gritted her teeth, wiping a bead of sweat from her eye. She fired two spheres in rapid succession, creating a trip-line on the floor, but Midoriya simply vaulted over them.

 

Damn it, she thought, her frustration mounting.

 

She wanted to catch him. She wanted it more than anything. Not just to prove she was a good hero, but to impress him. She wanted to see that look of absolute awe on his face again. She was terrifyingly aware of how much his opinion meant to her. She was entirely, hopelessly in love with him, and every time she failed to catch him, she felt like she was letting him down.

 

She fired another sphere at a pillar, bounced off it, and soared after him.

 

"I've got you!" she yelled, loading three spheres into her gauntlet at once—a risky move they hadn't fully tested.

 

"Minori, watch your count!" Midoriya warned, glancing back at her. "You've pulled over twenty spheres in the last two minutes! You need to rest your scalp!"

 

"I'm fine!" she snapped, adrenaline overriding her common sense.

 

She wasn't fine. Her head was throbbing with a dull, heavy ache, a warning sign that her follicles were reaching their limit. But she ignored it. She was so close. Midoriya was heading toward a bottleneck between two massive concrete walls.

 

If she could just box him in...

 

She landed on the ground, sprinting to keep up with his aerial maneuvers. She reached up, both hands flying to her head.

 

Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

 

She pulled five spheres in the span of two seconds, loading them into her gauntlets and firing them in a wide, scattering arc across the bottleneck.

 

Midoriya landed, skidding to a halt. He was trapped. The walls and the floor were covered in a minefield of sticky purple spheres.

 

"Checkmate, nerd," Minori panted, a triumphant grin on her face.

 

She reached up to pull one final sphere, intending to throw it directly at his chest to secure the capture.

 

She grabbed a sphere near the crown of her head and yanked.

 

But instead of the usual, clean pop, there was a sickening, wet RIIIIP.

 

It felt as though someone had taken a red-hot branding iron and pressed it directly into her skull. A blinding, searing flash of agony exploded behind her eyes. The pain was so intense, so instantaneous, that it entirely short-circuited her nervous system.

 

Minori didn't even have time to scream. Her vision went stark white, her knees buckled instantly, and she collapsed onto the concrete floor like a puppet with its strings cut.

 

"Minori!"

 

The playful, competitive tone in Midoriya's voice vanished, replaced by sheer, absolute terror.

 

The emerald lightning flared, brighter and wilder than before. He didn't care about the sticky minefield. He blasted straight through it, tearing his gym shoes on the adhesive, dropping to his knees beside her.

 

Minori was curled into a tight ball, her hands hovering uselessly over her head, her entire body trembling violently. She was gasping for air, the pain radiating down her neck and spine in agonizing waves.

 

And then came the blood.

 

It wasn't a minor trickle like during the combat training. She had ripped a massive cluster of follicles entirely out of the skin. Dark, thick crimson blood began to pool rapidly in her purple hair, spilling down the side of her face, soaking into the white collar of her gym shirt, and dripping onto the concrete floor.

 

"Oh my god," Midoriya gasped, his hands hovering over her, his eyes wide with panic. "Minori, hey, hey, look at me. It's okay. It's okay."

 

He didn't hesitate. He stripped off his green gym jacket, wadded it up into a thick pad, and pressed it firmly against the top of her bleeding head.

 

Minori whimpered, a high, pathetic sound, as the pressure flared the pain before slightly dulling it.

 

"I've got you," Midoriya said, his voice trembling but fiercely determined. He slid his other arm under her knees and scooped her up off the cold floor, holding her tightly against his chest. "I'm taking you to Recovery Girl."

 

"N-No," Minori gasped, her fingers weakly clutching his shirt. "No, please. Not Recovery Girl."

 

"Minori, you're bleeding badly, you need—"

 

"Please, Izuku," she begged, tears freely mixing with the blood on her face. "She'll... she'll tell Aizawa. He'll say I'm a liability again. He'll say I haven't learned anything. Please. Don't make me look pathetic."

 

Midoriya stopped in his tracks, looking down at her tear-streaked, bloodied face. He saw the genuine, desperate terror in her eyes. The fear of being written off. The fear of being a joke again.

 

He understood that fear intimately.

 

His jaw tightened. "Okay," he said softly. "Okay. But we need to clean this and bandage it right now."

 

He turned and carried her quickly to the small, private locker room attached to Gym Gamma. He kicked the door open and gently set her down on one of the wooden benches.

 

"Don't move. Keep pressure on it," he instructed, placing her hand over the bloody jacket on her head.

 

He ran to the wall, ripping the large, heavy-duty first-aid kit from its mount. He rushed back, dropping to his knees in front of her.

 

The locker room was silent, save for the hum of the fluorescent lights and Minori's ragged breathing.

 

Midoriya worked with startling efficiency. He gently pulled his soaked jacket away from her head. Minori hissed in pain, squeezing her eyes shut.

 

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he murmured, his face inches from hers. He pulled out a bottle of sterile saline and a thick stack of gauze. "This is going to sting. Squeeze my shoulder if you need to."

 

He poured the saline over the wound. Minori cried out, her hand instinctively flying out and gripping his shoulder with a vice-like grip. Midoriya didn't flinch. He leaned in closer, his hands incredibly gentle as he began to dab away the blood, navigating through the sticky purple spheres of her hair with meticulous care.

 

Minori opened her eyes, looking at him.

 

They were so close. She could feel his breath on her cheek. She could see the deep furrow of concentration between his eyebrows, the absolute gentleness in his eyes. His hands, rough and scarred from his own brutal training, were treating her as if she were made of spun glass.

 

And she hated herself for it.

 

The shame hit her harder than the physical pain. It washed over her in a suffocating, sickening wave.

 

Here he was, Izuku Midoriya. A boy who broke his arms to save children. A boy who embodied everything pure, noble, and selfless about hero society. And he was kneeling on the floor, covered in her blood, taking care of a girl who had ripped her own scalp open because she was throwing a childish tantrum over wanting to impress him.

 

She was a fraud.

 

"I'm so stupid," Minori choked out, a fresh wave of tears spilling over her eyelashes.

 

Midoriya paused, keeping the gauze pressed to her head. He looked up, his green eyes meeting hers. "You're not stupid, Minori. You just pushed too hard. It happens."

 

"No, it doesn't," she sobbed, her voice cracking. The emotional dam she had been reinforcing for a month suddenly shattered. "It doesn't happen to you! It doesn't happen to Todoroki or Bakugo! It only happens to me, because I don't belong here!"

 

"Minori, that's not true—"

 

"Yes it is!" she yelled, her voice echoing harshly in the small locker room. She pulled away from him slightly, her hands trembling in her lap. "You think I'm this... this diamond in the rough. You think I have all this potential. But I'm not a hero, Izuku! I'm a fake!"

 

Midoriya sat back on his heels, his hands lowering, his expression a mix of shock and profound sadness. "Why would you say that?"

 

Minori squeezed her eyes shut, unable to look at him as she confessed her ugliest, most deeply buried truth.

 

"Because I didn't come to UA to save people," she whispered, the words tasting like poison in her mouth. "I didn't come here to be a symbol of peace, or to protect the innocent. I came here... I came here because I'm ugly. And I'm short. And my Quirk is gross."

 

She let out a wet, bitter laugh, finally opening her eyes to look at the ceiling, refusing to meet his gaze.

 

"In middle school, everyone laughed at me. The boys thought I was a disgusting little bug, and the girls thought I was a pathetic joke. So, I decided I was going to be a Pro Hero. Because if you're a hero, people have to look at you. They have to cheer for you. I thought if I got famous, maybe... maybe some guy would finally think I was pretty. Maybe I wouldn't have to be the punchline anymore."

 

She looked down at her bloody hands.

 

"That's it, Izuku. That's my big, noble origin story. I'm superficial. I'm selfish. I act like a perverted clown because it's easier to make people laugh at me on purpose than to let them reject me for real. My Quirk is weak, and I'm weak, and no amount of fancy boots or slingshots is going to change the fact that I'm just a selfish fraud!"

 

She dissolved into heavy, racking sobs, burying her face in her hands, heedless of the blood. She waited for him to stand up. She waited for the look of disgust to finally cross his face. She waited for him to realize that he had wasted a month of his life on a girl who wasn't worth his time.

 

The silence in the locker room stretched on, thick and heavy.

 

Then, she felt a warmth on her wrists.

 

Midoriya gently reached out, wrapping his scarred hands around her wrists and slowly pulling her hands away from her face.

 

Minori looked at him, her vision blurry with tears.

 

He wasn't disgusted. He wasn't angry.

 

He looked at her with an empathy so deep, so profoundly shattering, that it took her breath away.

 

"You think you're a fraud?" Midoriya asked, his voice barely above a whisper. It wasn't accusatory; it was incredibly tender. "You think you're the only one who feels like they don't belong here?"

 

Minori sniffled, staring at him. "You don't understand, Izuku. You have the greatest Quirk in the world. You're... you're a natural."

 

Midoriya let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob. He let go of her wrists, reaching up to run a hand through his messy green hair.

 

"A natural," he echoed, a bitter smile touching his lips. "Minori... do you want to know a secret? A secret I haven't told anyone else in this school?"

 

Minori hesitated, then nodded slowly.

 

Midoriya took a deep breath, looking down at his heavily scarred hands. He traced the crooked, broken lines of his fingers.

 

"I didn't get my Quirk until the day of the UA Entrance Exam," he said quietly.

 

Minori's brain stopped working. She stared at him, trying to process the words. "What? That's... that's impossible. Quirks manifest when you're four."

 

"Mine didn't," Midoriya said, looking up at her, his emerald eyes shining with unshed tears. "For fourteen years of my life, Minori, I was Quirkless."

 

The word hit the room like a physical shockwave. Quirkless. In their society, it was a death sentence for ambition. It was the lowest rung of the ladder.

 

"I had the extra joint in my pinky toe," Midoriya continued, his voice steadying, drawing strength from the memory of his pain. "The doctors told me I would never have power. And my classmates... they made sure I never forgot it. Bakugo used to call me Deku. Do you know what it originally meant? It meant 'useless.' It meant someone who couldn't do anything."

 

Minori felt her heart shatter into a million pieces. She looked at the scars on his arms. She looked at the boy she idolized, suddenly realizing that his unwavering kindness wasn't born from a life of privilege, but from a lifetime of suffering.

 

"Every single day," Midoriya whispered, "I was told I was a waste of space. I was told I was a creepy, muttering weirdo who was dreaming too big. I felt entirely worthless, Minori. I felt like the whole world was a party I wasn't invited to. I wanted to be a hero just to prove that I had a right to exist."

 

He reached out, taking the clean gauze and gently pressing it back against her bleeding scalp. His touch was an anchor in the storm of her emotions.

 

"So don't you dare tell me I don't understand," he said fiercely, his eyes locking onto hers. "I know exactly what it feels like to hate yourself. I know what it feels like to think you have to put on a mask just to survive."

 

He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a fierce, fervent whisper.

 

"But Minori... reasons change. You started this because you wanted validation. But look at what you've done. You've bled for this. You've worked harder in the last month than anyone else in our class. A selfish person would have quit the moment it got hard. But you didn't."

 

He reached up with his free hand, gently cupping her uninjured cheek, his thumb softly wiping away a tear mixed with blood.

 

"There are no weak Quirks," Izuku said, his voice echoing with absolute, unwavering certainty. "And there are no weak heroes who are willing to bleed to get stronger. You are not a joke, Minori. You are amazing. And I am so, so proud of you."

 

The world seemed to stop spinning.

 

Minori stared into the vibrant, beautiful green of his eyes. She felt the rough warmth of his calloused hand against her cheek. She heard the absolute truth in his words.

 

He saw all of her. He knew her ugliest secrets, her deepest insecurities, and her most profound flaws. And he didn't run away. He didn't laugh. He looked at her and called her amazing.

 

In that single, crystalline moment, the final wall around Minori Mineta’s heart crumbled to dust.

 

It wasn't a crush. It wasn't an infatuation born of his good looks or his raw power.

 

She loved him.

 

She loved him with an intensity that terrified her. She loved his messy hair, his frantic muttering, his scarred hands, and his relentlessly beautiful soul. She loved him so much that it physically ached, a deep, pulling sensation in her chest that rivaled the pain in her head.

 

"Izuku," she breathed, her voice trembling, fresh tears—tears of overwhelming relief and love—spilling from her eyes.

 

Without thinking, driven entirely by the overwhelming swell of emotion, Minori leaned forward. She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, burying her face into the crook of his shoulder.

 

Midoriya stiffened in shock for a fraction of a second. Then, slowly, he melted into the embrace. He wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her securely, letting her cry into his shirt.

 

He didn't pull away. He just held her, a silent promise that she didn't have to carry the burden of being ordinary alone anymore.

 

"I'm sorry," she whispered against his collarbone, her tears soaking his shirt. "I'll do better. I promise, Izuku. I'll be a hero you can be proud of."

 

Midoriya held her a little tighter, resting his chin gently against the uninjured side of her head.

 

"You already are, Minori," he whispered into her hair. "You already are."

 

They stayed like that for a long time on the cold bench of the locker room, two bruised, scarred kids finding solace in the fact that they finally had someone who saw them exactly for who they were.

 

And as Minori sat there, breathing in the scent of his sweat and the metallic tang of her own blood, she made a silent vow.

 

She would master the Ricochet Greaves. She would master the slingshot. She would become the fastest, most terrifying capture hero the world had ever seen.

 

Not for fame. Not for validation.

 

She was going to become a hero so she could stand proudly by Izuku Midoriya's side, and protect the boy who had saved her soul.