What Makes A Hero

4

          You might have gotten an update notice for chapter 5, uh, yeah, sorry, published the wrong chapter, it's unpublished now (or at least it should be) whoops?

         - T.A.L.A.

           "So what?"

When Nox had returned the next day he had listened to Izuku's analysis of Kami Woods before showing him an old clip that even Izuku hadn't seen before of one of the first professional heroes and a villain who was able to control and grow his head hair which was an unusual-for-the-time soft pink color. It was at least an hour into their discussion and yet Nox still would say barely anything beyond 'so what' and finally Izuku snapped, "So he has very little control of what happens after its extended! What do you mean so what!? Why do you keep saying that?"

"You're still only observing, you need to analyze if you want to have a practical use for this. What does it suggest about his quirk's makeup? It's limits? What does it suggest about his usage of it? How can it be used to his advantage? Or against him? You're still sticking with the basics."

"It suggests that while he has the ability to extend and control his own hair the control is based in the roots or at least near it, the further he extends it the less control it has, it also suggests that his ability doesn't actually rely on his hair, so cutting it off wouldn't neutralize the ability or even hinder it if you take into account the rapid growth rate. Also that there is a point of distance where he has very little control, but can still reach where he'd likely continue to attack rather than attempt to close the distance and risk you getting to close- based off his fighting style- so if you remained in that section you could predict his attacks and possibly attack with minimum risk to yourself."

"A start, I suppose, how would you attack?"

Izuku paused his frustration leaving him, "I'm- uh I don't know... am I- do I have a quirk or a- a weapon?"

"Well are you the one fighting or are we using his current opponent?"

"I- uh, h- s- di-"

Nox chuckled and Izuku realized he hadn't heard him laugh before, "It's your choice, you're the one analyzing this I'm just pushing you to go more in-depth."

"O-okay, then he's fighting the same hero he is in the clip... based on her fighting technique...."

Izuku forgot his nervousness as he enthusiastically launched back into piecing together everything from the fight- a small part of his mind trying to figure out where he had seen the hero from while another broke down the two combatants' quirks and how they paired with their fighting styles, a third section set to work with deciding how the implementation of the styles matched against the others and a fourth deciphered the advantages offered by the terrain. Each time he thought he'd pulled everything he could his eyes would catch a new piece to add to the puzzle; a flinch, a too close observer, a flash of panic, a twitch. So what? The question that had been so frustrating now echoed in his head pushing his observations forward as he placed each observation into sections, pulling the sections into one whole picture of how the fight would happen.

"Not bad." Izuku's eyes darted around as he was abruptly yanked back into reality, quickly the two green orbs landed on Nox and he realized he'd devolved into muttering again. Before Izuku could stutter out an apology, Nox continued, "But you do realize you think aloud... I guess we found your scalpel then."

".....Thinking aloud?" Izuku knew the other was referring to a skill he could put to use to become a hero, but that didn't seem like a very useful thing.