Dinner wasn't shortly lived, but after running through the forest and working up a sweat, everyone wanted to sink into warm waters and let it sit as long as the heat would allow them. The natural hot springs were deep enough to sink everyone up to their shoulders or neck, divided by a large wooden wall for males and females.
"Come on, hurry up girls!?" Mina gushed, practically diving into the water.
"Please be more careful, you shouldn't dive in hot springs," scolded Momo.
Ochaco sank into the water, her pink cheeks becoming more flushed as the warmth enveloped her. "This is better than the baths back home,"
"I'm just glad to finally get this sweat off," said Toru. "And all the dirt,"
Kyoka's sweat dropped, "I didn't notice,"
"How is the water?" Sakura asked, coming down the cobblestones to the edge of the waters, a towel wrapped around her body.
"It's great! I can feel my muscles unwinding," sighed Ochaco, throwing her head back.
"Don't get too excited or you're going to have to leave sooner," Sakura warned, about to dip her feet in when Mina called, splashing the water around her like a child would in the bath.
"Hey, hey why are you in a towel? That's so uncomfortable in the baths!"
"Yeah, we're all girls here, nothing to worry about," said Kyoka, smiling at Sakura, though she became a little worried when Sakura became quiet. The pink-haired girl looked up at the sky.
'I think I said something similar to Hinata, that was the last time I went to the baths with everyone…' It was another fun pass time they all did together, and it often turned into a war zone because the boys would also go to the baths, even separated they caused a riot.
"Come on in Sakura, and ditch the towel!" said Toru, coming up in front of Sakura and tugging on the front of her towel, though she didn't put up much of a fight to prevent it from falling.
A few gasps left them, and Sakura easily knew why, though it was misty because of the heat, they could see through the steam, the scar that blemished her skin.
"S-Sorry Sakura!" Toru cried, mortified when she realized that this was probably something Sakura didn't intend to show anyone. When they were in the lockers changing, Sakura always wore a tank top.
"It's fine, I'm not ashamed of it or anything, I just didn't want to make you all uncomfortable,"
"We're not!" Ochaco exclaimed, bubbling up from the water, looking ready to float. Her upper body became chilled as it left the blanket of water. "I'm just ashamed that we were inconsiderate,"
"That's right, I apologize," said Momo, even though she hadn't been one to chide in on the conversation until now.
Sakura waved them off, stepping into the water, and Toru got a view of her back as well and she couldn't slap her hands over her mouth quick enough, "Straight through!"
The kunoichi just chuckled in turn, "No need to panic, it's just a scar,"
Momo's face softened, she was the most well-versed in anatomy and there was something very obvious from what she saw.
"That would've had to go straight through to your heart,"
Sakura put a hand on her chest, rubbing the jagged skin, "It did,"
This might have been a topic of conversation better left as was, but the girls were too curious after seeing a blemish of such a wound from the girl that had earned the title, 'Strongest of Class A'.
"H-How could you possibly have survived something like that? What happened? Who did that? What were you doing? Whe-
"Mina!" Tsuyu lightly smacked her hand over her purple friend. "It's rude to pry, and you don't even know if Sakura wants to talk about it,"
It was waved off though, as Sakura settled into the water up to her shoulders, her arms laying out on the edge of the springs, the ripples settling around her. "I was stabbed,"
The girls almost sunk like anchors at that statement, rather the nonchalant tone it was delivered in. Her eyes fixed on the glittering against the sky, as she inhaled the smell of pine behind the steam. Sakura didn't look towards the girls again but felt their eyes attempting to subtly pry at her for more information, for the full story to the blurb they just read in her scar.
"I was trying to stop someone from destroying everything I loved, I lost focus and almost lost my life as a result. But I survived,"
Ochaco shifted, little drops of water plopping to ripple around her. "That's…I never really thought it because you're so strong, but someone beat you?"
"Not exactly. Even if you learn how to fight, you can't always predict what's going to happen to you in a real battle. Depending on the stakes you'll take whatever actions you can to win, that doesn't always mean to keep your life, but to succeed in your mission. I chose an action that would've won the battle but cost me my life, I was fortunate that it didn't.
You're probably going to have to face challenges like these when you become heroes. And you'll receive your own scars that won't heal,"
It wouldn't be too long before Sakura would leave this class, and she was content to do so. However, with the spare time, she had a chance to give the girls more incentive to grow, because that was something they missed in comparison to the boys. The boys were headstrong and reckless but they were determined and had a powerful sense of resolve. The girl's still held onto logic and sense that prevented them from pushing further.
"You're truly incredible," Momo said.
Sakura scoffed softly, "Remember this, us girls have to be strong to survive in this world. Otherwise, we'll be standing behind the boys for the rest of our lives, depending on them to be our heroes. And that's not the point of being here right?"
"RIGHT!" The girls first pumped, holding their hands high, as the discomfort of Sakura's scar evaporated like steam.
"MINETA GET BACK HERE THIS INSTANT" Tenya's rigid voice was easy to pick up, and they were painfully away that while the wall between their genders was high, Minoru's quirk allowed him to climb nearly all surfaces and he sounded determined.
"What the hell is that pervert doing!?" Sakura hissed, grabbing a rock she could throw the minute she saw that purple-headed boy. He had been voicing his excitement for the camp and 'baths' since it was mentioned.
He didn't get to his goal, however, as between the walls was enough space for a reliant if not a moody child to be standing guard and eager to knock the wannabe hero off the edge.
"Thanks, Kouta!" Mina called, drawing his attention over to the other side of the barrier. Where the girls were closely gathered. Unfortunately, that gave the poor child a jolt of embarrassment and shock seeing them bare, and he ended up falling from the ladder onto the boy's side.
"IS HE ALRIGHT?" Sakura called onto the other side, and Izuku quickly responded.
"I caught him don't worry, I'll take him inside!"
"You sure? He didn't hurt himself falling did he?" Sakura wanted to know if she needed to get out of the baths and dress now before heading to examine the boy.
"He's fine, I'm sure of it," Izuku said.
Sighing, Sakura slumped back into the water, "Thank goodness,"
"Well a boy is still a boy," said Kyokga.
"Oops," Mina smiled sheepishly.
Splashes alerted them to Sakura leaving the baths, throwing on her towel, "I'm just going to make sure he's okay,"
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"He's just unconscious," Shino assured, placing a cold towel on her little cousin's head. Izuku had brought him to the office and had him laid on the couch. When he wasn't scowling at the world, he looked like any child, endearingly cute.
Shouta had warned them of Minoru's antics and they decided to have Kouta guard to baths to keep him from attempting anything risky. Though Sakura still would've like to throw a rock at that grape head boy. She remembered Tsunade telling her about how she would practically turn the men inside out when they tried to peep on her. It was inspiring if not also horrific when going into the details.
"Remind me to thank him later when he wakes up," Sakura snickered.
"I'm just glad he's alright," Izuku said.
"You must've hustled to save him," said Shino.
"That's clear," Sakura coughed, watching Izuku's face turn red when he realized what she was referring to.
He had been in such a rush that he hadn't bothered to put on any clothes or even a robe as Sakura had and just ran out with a towel around his waist.
Izuku's face was a different match to his body, with his wide eyes, round cheeks, and curly hair, then his toned arms and legs showing off his training. Sakura had to remind herself not to stare.
"Little late for bashfulness," Sakura teased. Izuku's bare feet were tapping along the wood as if they were dancing to stumble along with his words.
"I-I um….." He thought for a moment, whether it was to diver the conversation and his loss of dignity or finally address a matter that was dwelling in his mind since encountering the boy, Izuku shifted the air. "Kouta, he has negative views on heroes doesn't he?"
He certainly didn't have that same starry gaze as other people had when they saw heroes. Sakura didn't develop under this world's influence so she found it less odd than Izuku. Her case was that everyone could be entitled to their opinion, but the root of heroes was deeper than she realized to the point where it was a way of life. The common denominator joining society.
"Isn't this just because he kicked you down there?" Sakura actually pointed and Izuku became flushed, visibly red she had to snort out laughter.
"T-That's not it!" I just-I found it strange that someone his age feels like that! He couldn't believe Sakura could be so callous, especially when she always behaved so rigid. Seems that there was more to her. He wasn't too sure if he liked this side though since he was falling, victim.
"I've always been surrounded by people who wanted to be heroes, so I thought it was unusual that a boy his age feel the way he does…"
Shino leaned back in her chair, "Of course, there are many people in society who don't think well of heroes…If he had been raised normally he would've admired heroes too."
Just then carrying a tray with cups for each, was Ryuko "Kouta's parents were heroes, but they were killed in the line of duty,"
"Two years ago, protecting citizens from a villain….For a hero, it is a respectable way to die, an honorable death,"
"But for a young child, it left a sense of abandonment," Sakura answered. No wonder Kouta was so angry at the world, it's because he believed it was their expectations that stole his parents from him. That their duties and priorities as heroes had cost them their lives and had been more important than their son.
'Konohamaru was the same,' He despised heroes too.
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"I can't imagine what it must be like to lose your parents like that,"
"Brutally murdered does leave a sour taste in one's mouth," Izuku choked at her casually making that statement.
"To Kouta heroes are people he can't understand and find unpleasant…." Izuku stopped to look out at the sky. They were in the middle of the hallway heading back to the dorm area. Enough time had passed for everyone to be hard-boiled and leave the baths so there was no point in returning.
"Do you think some villains feel that way too?"
"That's very likely," Sakura tucked a strand of hair behind her ear "There does seem to be a lot of controversy to the term hero when it's capitalized and propped as a filter for people with extraordinary power,"
Izuku winced, "When you say it like that…."
"I don't hate heroes Izuku," Sakura could already see where his mind was going. "It's just a matter of different opinions, but what the majority believes becomes the norm,"
"What's your opinion then?" Izuku felt his throat become dry just for asking. Sakura was a private person, who kept her interactions brief with most. He was one of the few from class that knew about her circumstances regarding her living situation, even that had been veiled because she didn't try to bring up a discussion on the matter and they thought better of it. But for the blank spaces, Izuku tried to fill, he had Kouta as a reference now.
"S-Sakura, was there a time when you needed someone to save you?"
The cool summer breeze gave a brief distraction, listening to the leaves rustle from it and the chirps of the insects hiding out in the trees. Izuku was bitterly reminiscing about Tomura Shigaraki when he caught Izuku at the mall that day. The villain had confirmed that Stain was never actually one of them but he had been associated with the League. Yet Tomura wanted to know what was the difference between himself and Stain, when at the end of their actions they were both just destroying what they didn't like?
At the time Tomura had four fingers wrapped around Izuku's neck, so he had no choice but to comply in answering.
The difference was understanding. Izuku admitted that he understood the Hero Killer, even if he didn't agree with his morals and standings. In the end, though Tomura had concluded that he was so irked, was because of All Might.
"Always grinning like there's never anybody he couldn't save,"
When Izuku heard her laughter, he stumbled like she had pushed him with her voice, "More times than I can count,"
He was stunned, the girl who had become the wall everyone wanted to overcome, admitted to needing saving too. For the longest time, Izuku had kept a simple opinion, that heroes were the absolute saviors. Yet with his encounters with all these different villains that had been labeled as the scorn of society, he was able to hear the different opinions and realize that the world was not as simple as he had come to believe. But what could you do, when you were standing on the other end of someone else opinion?
Sakura was studying to become a hero, but she had broken away from the system that encased their structure. And even showed to have a different belief. He had thought the reason was she might have been similar to Kouta.
"I can't believe that someone as strong as you…
"Would need a hero? Fact is at some point everyone will need someone else to save them," Her tone was light, but he felt heavy. She started shuffling her robe, Izuku promptly turned away when he saw it open slightly. When he didn't hear anything, Izuku peaked through his eyelids, his jaw dropped, viewing the deep scar along the center of her chest.
"But I learned a long time ago, that it's better to be able to save yourself than have to wait for others to come to your rescue. What becomes of you and more importantly the people you care about is a matter of how long you decide you want to stay helpless."
She walked away. "All I want is to be strong enough so that I never need a hero,"
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Sakura huffed, feeling her chest give the painful contractions as if her flesh was trying to pull itself apart from the inside. Her nerves, blood, and bones were like elastic threatening to snap and open her to a new threshold of agony.
She managed to find a secluded part of the building to curl up and wait until the chills and spasms came to an end. She stuffed her mouth with the belt of her robe to keep from biting her tongue on accident.
Her fingers twitched, digging into the floor trying to claw, every breath she inhaled was like a crushing force pushed against her and when she exhaled, it was hard to lift. She slammed her head against the wall, trying to create a new distraction even if it meant a different pain, but it wouldn't go away.
Her thoughts filled with only two people she thought could save her from this agony, her predicament, from everything.
"Naruto…Sasuke…."
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Shouta may have been a night owl, but he was walking his students out by five-thirty that morning. In the mountains, the sun was almost done rising at that time, but the skies were still tinged with violet. Hardly any birds in sight. Class A trotted after their teacher, gym uniforms the only thing neatly presented as they barely took the time to comb their hair. It didn't matter as long as they were present.
"Today we will begin the training camp to increase your strength. Our goal for doing so is that you will be able to obtain provisional licenses," Shouta took a softball and tossed it over to Katsuki.
"Bakugou try throwing that,"
"This is from the fitness test,"
"Your previous record was 705.2 meters, let's see how much you've improved,"
So this is what Sakura had missed when she skipped that first day? A ball throwing contest, well it had its merits in testing their abilities and it wasn't that different from the training that followed.
Katsuki first wound his arm, his classmate's cheering, wanting to see how much he had improved after three months.
"GOT TO HELL!" He screamed before tossing it viciously into the air but with a degree of control as he released his grip right at the moment his explosion went off.
The ball flew far, leaving behind a trail of smoke.
"709.6 meters,"
That wasn't much of an improvement, and it shocked the class especially Katsuki when Shouta gave the result. What this meant was power-wise, Katsuki hadn't changed that much since the start of school, on the other hand, while his skills might have gotten better and his fighting ability, his quirk strength was the same. That's exactly what Shouta wanted to point out with this test.
"Through your various experiences you've all improved, but only at mental and technical levels, with some increase in stamina. The same cannot be said for your quirks. It'll be so hard you'll feel like dying,"
While Shouta's statement had frightened them, no one was turning away from this chance. Not when their provisional license was on the line now.
"Haruno," Shouta called throwing another softball this time for her, "Since you missed the chance before, let's see where you'll be starting."
A pink eyebrow quirked up, but she stepped forth without remarks with her classmate's eyes burning her back. Shouta told her to throw the ball without taking any running starts.
She stared at the softball, an ironic name since getting hit with one wouldn't be soft. Distancing her legs from each other, she pulled her arm back, chakra running through her arm to her hand. She raised her leg higher than her head before she pitched it into the air.
"Cha!"
It flew over the trees towards the sky, getting further and further away. Shouta was looking at his phone, waiting for the record to show. Finally, it beeped, be turned around, and showed it to the class.
"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT"
Sakura Haruno, softball throw: 5000.39 m
….….
….….
With the League of Villains looming as a possible threat to training, there was a limit to the number of heroes aware of the location of the camp. Even so, they were assured that the team set to help would be able to create the perfect training conditions and terrain for each student to strengthen their quirks.
There were no exercises or typical preparation for these. Katsuki would be plunging his hands into boiling water and releasing his explosions, Shouto was going to be in a bath of water and regulate the temperature over and over with his ice and fire, Tenya had to keep on running, Ochaco would be going into a bubble ball and rolled down a hill as a means to deal with her nausea, Momo would be stuffing herself full while she continued to make things.
Basically, everything was set so that the students would have to use their quirks without rest.
Sakura found that what strengthened an individual's quirks was like training a muscle, the more they used it the stronger it would become. That was a fine logic for them, but chakra was different. The conditions were that the more you used it, the more refined your control would become if practiced properly but there was a limit to how much chakra one could produce, and trying to surpass those limits could be deadly.
She wouldn't give such details out though and it wasn't as if they fully understood how her powers worked. 'If they knew using chakra like they're making them use their quirks could kill me, they'd never stop hovering,'
"Come on let's get those muscles tearing!" Rawed Yawara, at Izuku. The man towered over his two charges, his lip up in a snarl. Though he was ferocious in tone Sakura had great difficulty taking it to heart when he was also wearing a tube top and skirt matching the other Wild Wild Pussy Cats.
Before they started training, the last two members of the hero team had been introduced to them. There was Tomoko Shiretoko, or Ragdoll, a woman with a bright smile and even brighter emerald hair. Her name Ragdoll suiting her physique, and round eyes. Her quirk Search was able to observe and monitor up to 100 people. Then there was the only male of the group Yawara Chatora, a man whose strong physique matched his name but not his outfit.
No one thought to say anything after they watched him send Izuku flying into a tree during training. His quirk Pilabody allowed him to stretch, flatten, and bend his anatomically impossible bodies, and gave him an array of fighting stances and counters to attacks.
That's why he had been put in charge of handling all students with a physical-based quirk, that he could 'tear apart'.
"I don't know what we should do with you Haruno," Shouta said. He had been wracking his brain on what to do about her since Sakura's case was a bit unique. She only admitted recently that her quirk caused a branch of abilities and they were in such contrast, yet they stemmed from the same source.
He needed something that would exhaust her quirk so she could strengthen it. Of course, he imagined that if she was this strong at such an age what she was going to become when she grew. As her teacher, he had to provide her with the obstacles to get there. If only she could be more cooperative in the path they tried to guide her on.
"I'd be better off training on my own," Shouta believed that the best placement for her would be with Yawara since he was working on physical quirks. But he didn't know if it was possible to tear apart Sakura's quirk, so far no one has seen her limits. He wasn't even certain how much physical strength even attributed to her quirk. Her strength was especially astounding because she was so frail in comparison to most with power quirks.
Yet she could maneuver herself with great advancements that many other students couldn't, and that showed she didn't neglect her body just because of her quirk.
"Haruno," Shouta spoke sternly, "This is in preparation for your provisional license. We're strengthening your quirks, to do that we have to be able to push you to the absolute limit,"
"What makes you think I have one?" She countered.
"Everyone has one,"
"Does All Might?" Of course, he did, she had seen it, she knew it but Sakura knew that the Symbol of Piece couldn't portray his limits to the world like other heroes. So what she knew no one else could and as far as Shouta was aware, she understood nothing of his limits.
"You have limits Haruno, another wise I wouldn't have found you in that condition,"
Sakura shrugged, "Then I better go with Tiger,"
Shouta sighed. 'What am I going to do with that girl?'