#remember that post i made where i said aizawa and uraraka were cousins?

[chemicalmagecraft]

The Gamer Hero, Deku Chapter 15

A/N: I'm back from the dead. Will probably update sometime next year. Have fun while it lasts.

Ultimate Pervy Sage: Yeah that happened offscreen. Figured it was implied and there wouldn't have been much else to the scene, so I didn't write the scene. Will imply that it happened, though.

jeanette9a: Bam, did it retroactively because I'm awesome like that.

Zane Tribal Tyne Alexandros: First off, thank you for the multiple reviews and I really wish I thought of the W.T.F. thing. Second off, as for Hagakure and illusions? Considering the fact that it's your suggestion, you tell me.

xoxoxo

"So now you have ten elementals?" Kacchan asked as we walked. We had a day off from school because of the USJ incident, so Kacchan and I decided to go to an arcade to have some fun and play games.

I nodded. "Yeah, with the six elements I got from Duality. I did all six rituals at once, actually."

"That was probably a fucking stupid idea."

"That's what Blaise said, though with more cussing."

"No shit," Kacchan said. "Seriously, what if that put you in a fucking coma!?"

I shrugged as we started to cross the street. "I felt less tired after summoning the higher my skill level was, and even beyond that Duality raised all my-"

I was cut off by a speeding van ramming into me. It made me take a step back and I took a hit to HP, but otherwise it was the van that was broken by the collision. I pried myself from the dent I made in the car and ran to the driver's side door. "Oh my gosh, are you guys okay!?" I asked. The door opened, and the man inside punched me in the face, which surprised me more than anything, and grabbed me by the neck. "Oh," I said as I felt him hold a knife to my neck.

"Alright, nobody move or this freak gets it!" the criminal yelled. His accomplices got out and brandished knives as well, though thankfully they didn't grab any other hostages. I heard a motorcycle coming.

Kacchan laughed. "You fuckers do realize that you just took the guy who unintentionally totaled your car by getting fucking hit by it hostage?"

The motorcycle sound screeched to a stop, and Present Mic ran up. "Hey! Stop!"

"We've got a hostage, jackass!" one of the villains jeered.

"Hi, Mic-sensei!" I said, waving at him.

Mic-sensei grinned. "Hey, listener! You okay?"

"I'm fine," I said. "Hey, can I ask you something about Quirk usage laws?"

"Sure!"

"I know people are allowed to use their Quirks to get out of situations where there is a danger to themselves, but I... don't actually feel threatened at the moment, so I don't know how legal it would be."

"I'll show you threatened!" the man holding the knife to my neck shouted, then tried to stab me. I say tried because apparently I couldn't be stabbed by normal people anymore, though to be fair the man was trying really hard. I noticed a text box that was probably the reason for that. It looked like I got it when I got hit by the car and just didn't hear it over the sound of metal hitting me. "The fuck?"

"What did I fucking tell you?" Kacchan said.

"I mean, they are trying to stab you..." Present Mic said.

"And let's just say," I continued, "that in my attempt to get away from the person threatening me with a knife I 'accidentally' incapacitate all three of them, can I be arrested for that?"

Mic-sensei chuckled and said, "Technically, you're good because you're being attacked by a weapon."

I nodded, then exploded into electricity. I arced through the three villains with exactly enough voltage to knock them over without causing lasting damage and reformed next to Kacchan. "That good?"

"Great! I'll need to snag you for a couple minutes for some paperwork, though."

xoxoxo

"Okay," I said, coming back to Kacchan. "So where were we?"

He stared at me for a bit as we started walking again. "You're fucking unbelievable," he told me. "You were just hit by a fucking car, then stabbed. What the fuck?"

"Physical Endurance prestiged and I wasn't actually stressed enough for Mantra to deactivate."

"Are you okay, kero?" a familiar voice asked me. I turned to see Uraraka and Tsu walking up to us. "That looked like it hurt," Tsu said.

"Thanks, but I'm fine," I told her with a smile. "As I was explaining to Kacchan, a passive skill of mine that reduces physical damage just reached max level, which means that I now take one fourth damage from any and all physical attacks."

Uraraka whistled. "That's pretty broken."

"Plus, because it maxed out, I got a new passive, Damage Reduction."

Tsu put her finger on her lip. "I think we already have a general idea, but what does that do, Midoriya?" She asked me.

"I'll have to test it, but judging from the description it removes point-five percent of my HP from all damage, which doesn't sound like a lot, but with my VIT that's a lot, especially combined with Physical Endurance. And assuming it levels linearly, that means that at max level it'll take an attack that does more than half my HP without the skill for me to actually feel it, which is pretty good."

"Deku's Quirk is fucking broken, who would have fucking guessed?" Kacchan said.

I chuckled. "Let's talk about something else, though. I take it you like space, Uraraka?"

"How'd you know?" she asked.

Kacchan snorted. "Gee I fucking wonder." Uraraka was wearing a galaxy-print skirt, a JAXA shirt, and a moon-shaped pendant. "Where the fuck did you get that necklace anyway? No offense, but isn't your family poor?"

"This?" Uraraka asked, pointing to the pendant. "It was a birthday gift from my cousin Shōta. He doesn't visit us often, but he always sends us stuff like this." She chuckled. "Mom's always worried he's spending too much on us, though."

"Though seriously, maybe you should've seen about staying with your cousin before you decided to get your own apartment?" Tsu said. "Didn't you say he lives somewhere near here?"

"You fucking what?" Kacchan asked.

Uraraka blushed. "S-so, my parents live in Mie..." Kacchan slapped his face.

"And that's why I brought Ochako-chan home with me, kero," Tsu said with a tone of... something in her voice. Annoyance?

Uraraka blushed a little. "I-it wasn't quite like that..."

Tsu nodded. "So luckily both of our parents were visiting yesterday-"

Kacchan glared at Tsu. "What," he demanded, causing Tsu to make a startled croak.

"My parents' jobs mean they aren't home all the time," she explained, a little faster than normal. "They leave me in charge of my siblings, but at the same time literally the entire neighborhood looks out for us, so don't worry about it, kero. They didn't leave us to fend for ourselves in an unfamiliar environment with no adult supervision Ochako-chan. So I may or may not have not been in the best state at the time, so because I was clinging to Ochako-chan we decided to just have lunch at my house. At some point Ochako-chan's... living situation... came up and now she lives with us. Our parents banished us from the house while they're moving Ochako-chan's stuff into our spare room. So where are we going, kero?"

"Kacchan and I were going to go to an arcade," I said. "You don't have to come."

"Nah, that sounds pretty fun and neither of us had actual plans other than the fact that I wanted to see if I could spot Ochako-chan's cousin in the wild, kero."

Uraraka made a little noise and pressed her index fingers together. "We have several thousand yen in coins, Deku's Quirk counted. Don't fucking worry about it, Uraraka."

"Thanks..."

xoxoxo

"Damn it!" Kacchan groaned after I beat him easily yet again in the old Street Fighter game. Tsu and Uraraka went elsewhere after Kacchan challenged me. "How the fuck are you so good at this all of a sudden, Deku?"

"Sorry, Tactician keeps activating," I apologized.

"Well I'm gonna fucking beat you anyways! Let's go again!"

I opened the skill boxes for Tactician and Mantra and read them closely. "Hang on, I might be able to cheat the system."

Kacchan snorted, then put another coin in the machine. "Whatever." I took a deep breath, then chose my character. As the match started up, I reminded myself that it was just a game, and that I didn't need the boost. Even when Kacchan got me locked in a combo, I never got the same feeling of clarity and rush of information that I became accustomed to with the repeated activations of Tactician. I just barely managed to beat Kacchan, and by the time I was done Mantra and Tactician both leveled up despite the fact that Mantra wasn't that near level up and I specifically didn't use Tactician. "I'll get you next time, Deku." He put in more coins for a rematch.

"So apparently Ochako-chan's actually monstrously good at fighting games," Tsu said once we were done. It was even closer, but I still managed to beat Kacchan.

"I might have almost accidentally used my Quirk on the machine once or twice," Uraraka added, blushing slightly. "That would've been bad..."

Kacchan stared at Uraraka for a moment, then popped some coins in the machine. "Right, I wanna see this. You and me, Round Face."

I don't think Uraraka had actually played Street Fighter before. She messed around in the character selection screen for a bit before picking a character at random. When the match started, she hit random buttons and just let Kacchan get some hits on her. "Oi Round Face, you're supposed to fight back," Kacchan said after stopping. "Have you not played Street Fighter before?"

Uraraka pressed the jump button a few times. "In my defense, my family doesn't have a lot of money, so I never really went to arcades. My cousin did get me a couple Pokémon games for birthday and Christmas presents, though." She started doing some attacks.

Kacchan twitched. "'Kay, no offense, but I don't really feel like curbstomping a total newbie right now. 'Specially one I'd actually be willing to call a friend. Might feel a little bad."

"Oh, don't worry. I think I've figured it out now." Without any more warning, Uraraka launched a near-perfect series of attacks on Kacchan. To be fair, I think it was more Kacchan's sheer astonishment than anything else that made him unable to fight back, but Uraraka still wiped the floor with him.

"Yeah that was my first match with her too," Tsu told me when the round ended. "The next couple rounds are even better." As Tsu said, the next round was a close win for Kacchan, followed by a close win for Uraraka in the tiebreaker. In the rematch, Kacchan didn't even win once, even if he came close. Kacchan's really good at Street Fighter, so that was impressive.

"Damn it. 'Nother round?" Kacchan asked.

Uraraka nodded. "I'm having fun." Kacchan grumbled, but put another coin in. That time it wasn't even close.

"How the fuck are you so good?" Kacchan asked.

Uraraka shrugged. "I have no idea but I'm not complaining."

"Right, much as I hate to admit it, you're too good for me." Kacchan looked over at me and grinned. "So's Deku, so let's see how you two fight."

"I'm fine with that if you are, Deku."

I nodded. "Let's go, then." Before we started, Kacchan cackled maliciously and whispered in Uraraka's ear.

"He told her some combos, by the way," Sonia told me. Oh boy. At first I tried to keep from using Tactician to be fair to Uraraka, but after losing a somewhat short first round I changed my mind. Even with Tactician automatically giving me both characters' entire movesets and each button she pressed on the controller, it was surprisingly difficult. I think that the only thing that let me win in the end was the fact that my DEX leveled up from the frantic button pressing and the Mantra I'd been using earlier.

"That was intense," Uraraka sighed.

"I know. Even with Tactician, you almost won," I said.

Tsu smirked and pointed at something. "Hey Ochako-chan. There's a flyer for a tournament over there. Says it's a week from now and there's a cash prize, kero."

Uraraka's head snapped over to where Tsu was pointing. "Cash prize?"

"Dammit, I was gonna compete..." Kacchan sighed.

xoxoxo

Aizawa Shōta sat up in his bed. Recovery Girl would probably have scolded him for doing that if she hadn't stepped out, but between her Quirk and the healing spells Midoriya had taught her, he was mostly just sore. He reached out with his good arm to grabb his phone from where Hizashi put it and opened up his photo album to a picture that he looked at often, even if he had a framed copy back home. It was twelve years ago, a few months before his mother's accident. She'd dragged eighteen-year-old him down to Mie for his cousin's third birthday, and they decided to take a family picture. 

He sighed at the younger Shōta who looked like he'd rather be anywhere else in the world than next to his mother. His gaze drifted over to his aunt, uncle, and cousin. His uncle was a large, burly man with light brown hair, while his aunt looked almost exactly like his mother, though her eyes were a different color and lacked the ability to erase the gravity of whatever she was looking at. Even if his mother was older, they were always mistaken for twins. And his cousin... Sweet, young Ochako already looked so much like her mother, even as a toddler. The only difference was the age and the fact that she had her father's hair. Aizawa looked at a few later photos, pictures of Ochako that his aunt and uncle sent him. He laughed at a picture of Ochako with her sixth birthday cake all over her face.

"What are you looking at?" Thirteen asked him. He always thought they looked a little odd outside of their containment suit, all thin and with pitch-black skin.

"Pictures of my cousin," he responded.

"Ah. Your cousin. You never talk about her much."

"I don't talk to most of my coworkers in general. No offense."

"None taken. So what's she like?"

Aizawa thought for a moment. He really was too secretive. Perhaps it was the concussion or the near-death experience, but he felt like he should change that. "You've met her."

"Oh? When?"

"Yesterday."

Thirteen shot up, then winced and gingerly touched the bandages on their back. "Ow... Who was it?"

"The girl who asked for your autograph."

"Ah. If you don't mind me saying, I didn't exactly... get that impression from you two, if you take my meaning."

Aizawa shrugged, then winced from the pain in his bad arm. He slowly lowered himself back down on his bed. "I see you almost every day and this is the longest we've talked, after we both nearly died. My family lives in Mie. You do the math."

"I see. I always see you with Kayama and Yamada, though."

"I've been friends with them since I was a student here and they basically adopted me with joint custody. They keep dragging me out to do things."

"So she hasn't met you?"

"No, she has. I don't visit often, though, and the last time I visited... Was it really four years ago?" Thirteen stared at him. He couldn't really tell what they were thinking, their face was too alien. "I send them money, though. My family isn't in the best of financial situations, and they don't let me spend too much money on them, but I send as much as they'll let me."

"So if they live in Mie, where exactly is your cousin staying? Mie isn't exactly a short train ride from Musutafu..."

"I... Son of a bitch."

"They told you she was fine and you bought it, didn't you?"

"Shit."

They chuckled. "I take that to be the case." Aizawa reached for his phone again. "Do it later. Hopefully she'll be fine for a day, and if not then at least she has friends, right?" Aizawa nodded. She was getting along well with Tensei's brother. "You, on the other hand, won't be fine if Shuzenji-baasan finds out you've been exacerbating your injuries by yelling at your relatives over the phone." Aizawa blanched and lowered the phone.

"Do you... drink?" he said after a while.

"I think if I didn't I'd die rather soon."

Aizawa rolled his eyes, then winced because his eye still hurt. "I meant, do you drink alcohol? Sake?"

"Ah. Hang on for one second." They sat up slightly, enough to take a sip of the water by their bedside. Then they spat it out. "Are you sure you didn't get hit too hard?"

"Ha ha," Aizawa deadpanned. "I absolutely did, though. It made me introspective. Want to get a beer sometime?"

"Absolutely, but clearly only after the both of us are out of the infirmary."

"Obviously."

"You're getting out tomorrow, yes? I mean, Shuzenji-baasan won't like it, but with her healing you'll be well enough by then and you aren't going to miss your class, are you?"

"No, I won't."

"What will you do, then?" Aizawa picked his phone back up and reopened his photo roll. Then he changed the picture because the picture of Ochako with chocolate icing on her forehead was horrible for any serious insight.

He stared at the family photo from over a decade ago. Ochako looked so young, so happy. And yesterday, she could've died. Aizawa could've, almost did die, before she even got to know him. "Learn more magic, for one thing," he decided. "I'm going to talk to Midoriya."

xoxoxo

I sneezed. Odd, it wasn't that cold and I didn't have allergies. If I was more superstitious, I'd have suspected someone was talking about me.

"How the hell did you still manage to beat me at DDR that last time?" Kacchan asked Uraraka. "You were sneezing up a fucking storm!"

Uraraka sniffled. "I habe no idea."

"Right, I should probably take Ochako-chan home," Tsu said. "It's probably going to be dinnertime by the time we get home anyway. Bye, you two."

"Oh, actually!" I said. "Before you two go, could I ask a favor?"

"What's up, Deku?" Uraraka asked as she rubbed her nose.

I pulled a scroll out of my "pocket." "This scroll contains knowledge on the Illusion Barrier and Space Invader spells. When Kacchan and I defeated each of our bosses for the first time, we got scrolls that I could use to learn a skill related to the boss. We have no idea if it's a side effect of my Quirk or not, though."

"So you want to see if that happens if we go in without you, kero?" Tsu asked.

"'Course, we didn't give it to any of our classmates because my Illusion monsters were made of fire, meaning it's entirely possible for the monsters to counter the user's element. That's not really a concern with Round Face, though. I didn't see it in person, but I heard you were fucking awesome in the USJ. Protect Tsu, won't you?"

Uraraka beamed at the compliment and saluted Kacchan. "Roger!"

"And Tsu should probably be able to do something about whatever the fuck gravity monsters Uraraka's insane magic spawns."

"I'll take that as a compliment, kero."

"Yeah most of the time Kacchan compliments people like that..." I said. "You two will do fine, though maybe Tsu should get a water elemental?"

"Yeah, I got one, kero. I was gonna show everyone tomorrow. Though if I may ask, how did you have that scroll on you?"

I chuckled. "That's actually from an elemental that I recently summoned," I said.

"One of six," Kacchan interjected. "All at the same time."

"That probably wasn't the wisest idea," Tsu said.

"I KNOW!"

"Right, so as I said," I said, then sent a mental command to Sonia. She nodded, then "materialized" a pair of floating turntable-like devices. "Huh. At least now I know who was reading Homestuck on my phone," I thought. She started fiddling with the records and gave me a very Strider-like nod. She somehow managed to mess with my BGM in addition to setting up a very subtle noise distortion field like I asked. "One of my elementals, Juniper, can control any organic material, with enough control that she can turn part of a tree into a pre-written scroll. Add that to the fact that my most recent upgrade to Summon Elemental actually granted my elementals some of the benefits of my Quirk, which includes shared Inventory when in range of me, and I was able to get that scroll for you guys from a nearby tree."

"You really play it fast and loose with Quirk usage laws, don't you, Midoriya?" Tsu said. Kacchan snickered.

"Yeah, that's fair." I had Sonia cut the field, causing me to hear a scratch that was hopefully just my Quirk before the normal BGM resumed. "Right, good luck you two."

"Try not to die," Kacchan added.

"We won't," Tsu said.

Uraraka waved at us as she started to walk away. "Bye!"

xoxoxo

A/N: By the way, JAXA, unless I am very much mistaken, is like Japanese NASA. I've seen a lot of Uraraka fanart where she's wearing NASA shirts, but I figured JAXA would be a better fit because she is Japanese.

And you can probably tell from how I wrote the Street Fighter scene that I've never actually played a Street Fighter game. Also Uraraka secretly being a genius is a concept that I find deeply amusing for some reason. It started with a tumblr post I made wherein Uraraka won the stock market...