Moody Ascension Chapter 4
Title: Moody Ascension Chapter 4: Inclement Weather Author/s: Definitely me. Wordcount: 1313 Prompt: Falling Leaves Rating/Warnings: None. Paranoia, maybe?
Summary: Tsuyu and Ochako help train Chihiro!
Link to chapter 3: https://haxorus612.tumblr.com/post/179000465127/moody-ascension-chapter-3
Link to chapter 5: https://haxorus612.tumblr.com/post/179059766832/moody-ascension-chapter-5-garchomp445
7pm. Tsuyu was late, which wasn’t too surprising. Ochako had snuck in past security, and met up with Chihiro on UA grounds. It was too late in the day to ask for permission, but Ochako would never suggest that Chihiro sneak out of school to meet up with an adult. Instead, she just called Izuku to make sure it was okay. He showed them to a currently unused arena they could try.
“So, don’t stay out too long, Chihiro! Your curfew is in just an hour.”
“Sure!”
Izuko turned to Ochako with a big grin, “You can’t believe how relieved I was when all you called me about was sneaking into the school. Compared to villain attacks, typhoons, and surprise parties, this is super casual!”
“Wait, did you really not like that surprise party we threw for you?” Ochako cringed.
“Well!” Izuko started scratching behind his head rapidly, “There were a few things I liked. Seeing all of you was nice. Being reminded of, uh, you know, was less nice! But it was great catching up with you!”
“I’m so sorry! Wow! We didn’t even think-” She shook her head, “Are you okay? Do you want me to get Lida or Shoto to apologize too?”
“Oh, no, no, it’s cool now, but a warning next time would be nice, too!” He laughed, “The other staff were great at keeping it a secret, so kudos to that!”
She smiled, “Yeah, they really liked the idea of a surprise party. Have you made a lot of enemies or something?”
“Evidently! The real villains were in the school the whole time!”
Ochako laughed, she went over to Chihiro, “Okay, it was nice catching up with you! Hope you have a nice night!”
“Yeah! You too!” He waved.
“Oh, and Tsuyu was going to show up later, did you want me to text you once we’re done? We could get some really late hot chocolate or something.”
“Sure! Oh! And Chihiro!” She turned back around with a start, her phone immediately back in her pocket, “You’re gonna do fine!” He smiled.
Once he left, Ochako turned back to the open concrete field. The lights overhead were dim and orange, they didn’t even illuminate the center of the field at all. Chihiro didn’t seem too concerned, and even smiled at Ochako. Ochako returned the smile, then clapped her hands together,
“Okay! Let’s get into it! Did you have anything specific you wanted to practice?”
“Oh, yeah, I wanted to make it more consistent?” She splayed her hands out, “Like, I want it to always do what I want it to do.”
Ochako shouldn’t have asked that. She cringed, but tried to hide it. She spoke, “I’m sorry, that’s more of a long term goal. We can work on it, but it’ll take a while to achieve.”
“Yeah. I know.”
They both jumped as a figure dropped into the dark middle of the field. It said,
“I made it. What did you get done without me?”
“Tsu!” Ochako had to stop herself from running over and tackling her into the ground. Instead, she stammered, “S-so glad you could make it!”
Chihiro grinned, “We were just about to start, actually! Are you really the number 7 hero in Japan?! Sorry!”
“Yes. I mostly work on the water. I wouldn’t be number seven in a country with less coastline.” She nodded.
“Do you like swimming?!”
“Yes.” Tsuyu stood up and ambled over, “So I understand that you’ve had some confidence issues?”
Ochako stated, “Well, I wouldn’t put it that way-”
Chihiro nodded rapidly, “Yes! I don’t know why, I just don’t always have control over my quirk.”
“That’s not too uncommon. Not everyone gets to control every part of their quirk.” Tsuyu pointed to her cheeks, “I’ve got very froggy lips. But that’s not even slightly similar to your problem.”
Chihiro nodded. Ochako stood to the side, she wanted to see Tsuyu work, too.
“You need to remember that it’s a part of you. You can’t change it, you just need to work through it. Or, account for it.” Tsuyu pointed at Chihiro, “You’re already doing that.”
“I am?”
Tsuyu nodded. “When you use your flash, it also produces a disturbance in the ground. You learned to direct both where you wanted them.”
“Oh, yeah!”
“Let’s just work on that. We’ll go through each of your powers, and work on uses for each side effect.”
Chihiro bit her lip, but nodded along. Ochako had seen her powers in work, and it was rarely that simple. Still, maybe Tsuyu would give her that push to really get into gear. She stated,
“How about you try making a whip vine? What sort of side effects does that produce?”
“Yeah! Okay! I think I can do that!” A pink light shone from Chihiro, it lit up the panels of her skirt one by one. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, and pink lights shone across the field. In the section that was lit up green, she produced a small vine that coiled up and around itself. It had two small leaves. In that same instant, another, thicker vine stretched across the ground, anchored at two points. Chihiro’s light shut off, and she took a couple of deep breaths in a row.
“Nice job!” Ochako gave her a thumbs up.
“So this extra vine appears every time?” Tsuyu crouched next to it. “Can you try again, but direct the vine from that bleacher, to that point on the ground?”
“I can try.”
The pink light appeared again, this time stronger and brighter. Ochako noticed brown leaves fluttering around the edges of the concrete field. Very pretty. Chihiro made another whip vine, then the extra vine formed a taut line between the bleacher and the ground. Ochako smiled,
“Wow! You definitely have power, It went right through the concrete!”
Tsuyu smiled, “Exactly. You can always focus on the strengths of your quirk, too.” She leaped onto the vine. It didn’t even budge. “One use of these would be climbing buildings, creating bridges, or just using them to trip up your opponents. I would recommend training in free running.”
Ochako put a hand up, “Right! It can help you control your body, center yourself, and get stronger. There’s a lot of similarities to gymnastics, actually.”
Chihiro nodded, and brought out her phone, “Uh, could I take notes? This is a lot to get down!”
“Sure!” Ochako saw claws out of the corner of her eye, in the darkness. She leapt to the side and went into a defensive stance. Nothing leapt out. She couldn’t spot anything. Tsuyu and Chihiro kept talking behind her.
“So, free running? Is there any place you’d recommend?”
“I’d recommend any climbing gym. Ochako knows more about that.”
“Ochako?” Ochako jumped. She turned to face the other two sheepishly,
“Oh! Yeah, uh, there’s this place on the other side of town that I went to.” She walked over, “Here, let me type the address in your phone.”
“Ochako, is everything okay? You’re a little jumpy.”
“Oh, yeah! I just thought I saw something.” She typed in the address, then backed up. She needed to calm down. Chihiro was supposed to be the tense one, not her. Tsuyu had a calming aura, but nobody needed to know that Ochako was apparently hallucinating.
Tsuyu stated, “I’m afraid that I haven’t seen much of your true abilities, Chihiro. Could you demonstrate your ‘area transformation’ ability?”
Chihiro took a deep breath, really pumping up her chest, and sighed, “Okay. I’ll give it my best shot. Just stay out of the area at first, okay?”
Tsuyu backed up to the bleachers.
Ochako took the chance to check out what she saw earlier. She quickly jogged to the other side of the field, and looked around for the orange leaves. There weren’t any. There were never any leaves.