The sun rays shined through the clouds down to the dirt below of the open field, and the commotions below sent every animal running.
"SMASH!" Sasuke's purple rib cage didn't even budge, he gazed at Midoriya with low eyelids and rubbed some dust off his shoulders.
"What was that? Like one percent of One For All? Did you even activate the power?"
"Hehe... Sorry... I'm still not really fully comfortable with punching a person," Midoriya rubbed the back of his head.
Sasuke shook his head, "Well, you better get used to it, whoever you face in the tournament won't feel the same way."
"Well, whoever I face probably doesn't have to worry about accidentally killing someone..." he mumbled.
"What was that?"
"AH! Nothing, Sasuke," he jumped, "Let's try again."
Sasuke manifested his ribcage and Midoriya pulled back his arm, "SMASH!"
The vibrations from the force of the hit could be felt throughout the ribcage, but it maintained its integrity. "Ah, not bad. How much do you think that was?"
Midoriya started playing with his hands, "Uh... Maybe... 3% I think."
Sasuke leaned against a fence and observed the forest scenery in the distance, 'I'm not getting as much out of this training as I thought I would. It's only been one day but still...' The wind blew his hair over his eyes and he turned back towards Midoriya. 'At this rate, I won't be able to get any proper practice with my improved Susanoo. For someone who's supposed to succeed All Might, I expected something like maybe an inexperienced young All Might, but it's more like I'm fighting All Might if he was ten and he was half paralyzed...' Sasuke paused. 'Paralyzed…'
He strolled over to a sitting Midoriya and squatted, "Hey, Midoriya you're really stiff. If you're getting into an actual fight, shouldn't you be able to jump around and dash like All Might? With the way you're fighting, it's like you have no powers 99% of the time, and then you pull out your one ability before going back to your normal slow self. Why don't you just have it active all the time?"
Sasuke raised an arm showing some of his energy, "Like when I manifest energy around my body, I have it on the whole time throughout my body, not just right before I'm going to hit something."
Midoriya blinked a few times before becoming wide-eyed and smiling. "Sasuke, you're a genius!"
"Huh? Yeah I know," he blinked.
Midoriya got on his feet and braced himself, lowering his gaze, "I was so focused on the thought of 'using' it, where and when I needed to. Like flipping a switch, but that's made my reaction time slower... What I should have been doing was flipping all the switches at once the whole time!" he glowed as green lightning sparked around him, "I gotta hold the image of holding it uniformly around my whole body!"
Sasuke took a few steps back and smirked, 'He learned from that tip really fast. Alright, maybe I was wrong."
Midoriya gritted his teeth, "Steadily all the time, at 3%! That's my upper limit!"
"Can you move like that?"
"I... I think so!"
Purple energy flared up and coiled around Sasuke's body, "Why don't I test that?"
"Please do!" Midoriya smiled as he met Sasuke's gaze. Sasuke dashed towards him and Midoriya jumped to the side. However, he lost control of the jump and ended up ramming into a wall. He lost focus and stopped glowing.
Sasuke skidded his feet on the ground and turned to Midoriya and charged again. 'Damn it! Not enough time to spread it across my body!' His legs glowed and he jumped high into the air. A bit too high actually. "AHHHHHHH"
He flailed his arms and Sasuke sighed and caught him in a Susanoo hand and set him down lightly. "Alright, maybe I got too excited."
Midoriya frowned and rubbed the back of his head as he sat against a wall, "Sorry... It's hard enough just keeping it going... I don't think I'll get it in time at this rate..."
Sasuke pulled out a couple of energy drinks and handed one to Midoriya as he leaned against the wall. "You'll get there. You just gotta keep trying. It's probably like learning to walk again for you. One other tip I'll give is that you should probably try to use it in your own way, All Might's fighting style might not be the best for you... Also, it made it very on the nose for me to find out you have his quirk."
"*Guh*! Haha... Was it really that obvious?" He sweat dropped.
Sasuke nodded, "Yeah, idiot. You use the exact same attack names and try to replicate the way he punches..." Sasuke looked up at the sky. "Although most people probably wouldn't catch on since they haven't seen you train with him like me, and I'm already aware of the idea of quirks being given."
Midoriya sipped his drink as he looked down, "He Sasuke... Why do you want me to train with you anyway?"
Sasuke glanced down, "Well as the successor of All Might, I thought that I would have gotten a lot more out of this, but so far it seems like I've just been training you basically."
Midoriya's head dropped with a tiny smile, "Oh..."
Sasuke rolled his eyes, "It's fine. I told you, you were one of the people I wanted to fight, right? Besides, you're showing some improvement now. As you get better, that just means I'll have a bigger challenge to overcome." he looked back out at the sky.
Midoriya stared up at him pondering, 'Sasuke... So...' "So what happened to Sasuke to make him feel this way?" his perspective shifted from looking up at Sasuke to looking up at All Might in the Faculty room.
"He was... A victim of All For One. His family was taken advantage of and ultimately killed, and he was given a quirk."
Midoriya went wide-eyed. "Like me?"
All Might's eyes shifted to the side, "Not quite... Young Ashido told me that he said it wasn't his quirk. The quirk in question must be the one All For One gave him, likely as part of a deal with his parents for their servitude."
Midoriya's hand found its way under his chin, "That makes sense... He did tell me his quirk awakened really late."
"That adds up, since otherwise there wouldn't be any reason to strike a deal to give their son a quirk... Although that's strange, if this was the case then it should have shown up on his x-ray that he doesn't have the extra joint in his toe... I'll have to leave to look more into this Young Midoriya... But one last thing, if you remember when Sasuke was shouting at Ashido during the testing. He was shouting at her because she tried to get him to use that second quirk. I want you to help Sasuke... But it would be best not to try and pressure him about that"
The image of All Might shifted back into Sasuke as he thought, 'Sasuke so you have two quirks? That's so cool! How could you not use both of them? Wouldn't you be one step closer to your goal if you used both of them? Is it because you don't see it as your power?'
Midoriya looked back down at the ground cringing, 'He'd definitely give me a death glare if I said that.'
Sasuke looked down at Midoriya, "Can you go again?"
*Gulp* "Ah... Yeah. Let's keep going," they smiled."
Many days passed until only one day was left to train with Midoriya. Sasuke decided to take a train this time and while looking down at his phone, certain people stared at him. The man had blue eyes and long blonde hair in a ponytail with a bang covering his left eye. A big white smile was plastered on his face, and he stared at the man next to him. The other man had shaggy red hair with light brown eyes and was looking down at his phone.
The blonde nudged the redhead, "Hey, Kidomaro, have you heard about all the new drugs moving through Musutafu's south side lately?"
Kidomaro's phone fell to his lap as his gaze shifted to the blonde, "Yeah, it's causing a big mess. One of my brother's kids ended up getting addicted to one of them."
"Really? That's awful. When are the heroes gonna do something about this?"
Sasuke briefly side-eyed the two and decided to listen.
Kidomaro rolled his eyes, "Jobo, come on now. We both know those heroes can't do anything about it, they might take out a few dealers, but more will be out on the street the next day. I saw it happen myself! One dealer was arrested but he was replaced by a guy selling the same drugs the next day."
Jobo scratched his chin and snuck a glance at Sasuke, 'If this guy isn't paying attention yet, he definitely will when he hears this', "That's not good... Do you think they're connected somehow? Like in some kind of drug circle?"
Kidomaro nodded, "Definitely. My brother interrogated his kid after finding his stash and found out that they're connected to some guys called Deidara and Sasori. Sound familiar?"
Sasuke's eyes became saucers and he gripped the train pole hard enough to dent it. The names sat in a deep pit in his mind that refused to ever disappear until he died. The pole he gripped turned into his mother's pants leg as he shrunk and heard his father yelling while throwing things.
Fugaku chucked a chair at a wall which broke on contact and he gripped his hair like he was gonna rip it off. "HE SOLD ME OUT! What the hell are we supposed to do now?!" He showed one finger, "This was our one shot, ONE SHOT to get enough money to pay off this debt, and they both sold me out!
He looked down with a fist white from being gripped so hard, "Deidara... Sasori... I swear, before I get arrested I'll make sure you two pay for that!"
Mikoto stuttered, "U-um... Dear, you probably shouldn't do that. There's still a chance, maybe we can just"—
"Just what?!" he whipped around with a snarl, "Just nothing! We're finished! Sasuke is quirkless so there's no way he could become a top hero anymore. This was the only way to clear the debt our parents caused us! And now the cops are gonna come and... And..." he slumped to the ground with his face covered by his hands.
There was a knock at the door and Mikoto strolled over with Sasuke following the whole way to open the door to see a man in a suit standing there, "Hello Mr. And Mrs. Uchiha, I'm not the police don't worry." He started at Fugaku in his sorry state with no visual reaction and continued, "You recently performed a heist with a couple of our employees, and things went very sour. I'd like to offer my deepest apologies."
Fugaku's tired eyes raised to meet his, "What are your apologies gonna do for me at this point? I'll be in jail tomorrow morning."
"It's a good thing I brought more than just apologies then. I'd like to offer you a chance to clear your name in return for some service... A deal perhaps. Courtesy of... Well, you'll find out if you accept.
Sasuke released his mom and his mind returned to the train as he eased his grip on the pole. Kidomaro stared up at him and smiled. 'Got him.'
Jobo shook his head, "No, sadly not. Hopefully, someone will take them out or something. I don't wanna hear about one of my family's kids getting addicted to that."
The train stopped and Sasuke trudged out of the train, 'They'll be taken out all right... But now is a bad time... I'll have to wait until after the Sports Festival, and...' His mind shifted back to his experience with the Nomu and his fist clenched, 'I need to get stronger faster than I am right now, no off days!'
"Hey, Sasuke! There you are. Are you ready?"
Sasuke snapped out of his mind and saw Midoriya stretching with a smile on his face. Sasuke met it with his own smile as his eyes turned red and purple energy surrounded him. "Very."
Midoriya himself got in a stance with green lightning surrounding himself, "Shoot style: 4%!" He blitzed towards Sasuke who jumped backwards and blocked as Midoriya landed a punch. Sasuke was sent rolling but used his ribcage to roll and his skeletal hands to quickly recover and get back on his feet as he threw a giant fist at Midoriya who jumped above it and performed a wheel kick. The kick left a small crack in the cage and Sasuke slid on the ground but stayed on his feet. He dashed towards Midoriya this time and swiped to grab him. Midoriya jumped away, but Sasuke increased his Susanoo's size to catch him anyway and he threw him high up towards a wall.
"Ah!" Midoriya barely caught himself with his legs on the wall and jumped back down at Sasuke using momentum and gravity to punch him.
Sasuke set one foot behind himself with a smile, "This looks like it'll hurt. I think it's time."
Sasuke focused and his Susanoo increased in size greatly as a collarbone, arms, and skull were formed into a half-skeleton Susanoo that swung its fist at Midoriya's. The clashing of their first caused a gust of wind that ruffled the trees close by. Although the clash itself only lasted a few moments, Midoriya was blown away, skidding on the ground.
Sasuke took a deep breath. He walked up to Midoriya and offered him a hand as he lay grimacing on the ground. Midoriya accepted the hand with a grin and rose. "I might feel that tomorrow."
"Hopefully not. I'm impressed though, you made me pull out my final Susanoo."
Midoriya rubbed the back of his head, "Hehe, but I was blown away in a few seconds..."
"You're fine, it's just that I'm that good," He sported a snarky grin, "Either way it's better than a couple of weeks ago when you couldn't properly spar at all."
"Yeah, good thing I have such a good friend to help me then—" Midoriya clapped his hand over his mouth, 'Oh! Does he still not like being called a friend?'
Sasuke stared for a second before turning to the horizon. He stared off into the distance while his hands were in his pockets, "Yeah."