MANIA - Katsuki Bakugou

━ shinsou

chapter 44

A FEW DAYS LATER
SATURDAY

The hallways of U.A. High were quiet, as were the dorms. Students were either out and about at the mall or spending time in their rooms for some alone time. Izuku Midoriya, for one, was taking the day to train with All Might out in the woodland area outside the school. Todoroki was visiting with his family for the weekend. And Bakugou was alone in his room, reading a comic book contently.

Tikki Shimamura, on the other hand, was in Gym Gamma with Hitoshi Shinsou. Still training their hearts out like they did most weekends while most everyone else was relaxing. Their work to try to cultivate Shinsou to become a student in the hero course was seemingly never ending.

Shinsou and Shimamura walked around each other slowly in their boxed arena they had laid out for themselves, stalking each other like prey. Shinsou's purple eyes were trained on Shimamura as he scratched his cheek, itching at where his new metal mask touched his skin. Shimamura narrowed her eyes and fought to remain deadly focused. Her chest was heaving as they paced around each other, waiting for the other to strike first. Shimamura was dressed in her hero suit, minus the giant purple ribbons that usually wrapped around her arms and middle and extended in the back like two dress trails. Her purple gloves were tossed on the bench nearby along with the massive ribbons.

It was only a matter of seconds until the first strike finally came upon Shimamura—Shinsou suddenly bounded forward and shot his capture weapon fabric at her, similar to that of Aizawa's. The flimsy fabric extended like a knife as it hurled towards Shimamura, but she dipped to the side and it whizzed past her ear.

As soon as it shot past her, the fabric wilted and fell to the ground, lifeless. Shinsou frowned from behind his mask and flipped his arm back, flicking the fabric back towards his body. Shimamura dashed to the side and dashed at him at an angle.

She quickly swiped her leg behind her then landed a swinging kick into his side. His rib cage screamed with pain. He staggered and nearly tripped over his own two feet. He flinched and whipped his head around, expecting another attack or kick... but none came.

He held his hand to his rib cage, coughing a bit. From his left, Shimamura turned away from him and walked back to where she previously stood on the square arena layout. Shinsou flexed his brows at her. He didn't have to ask her a single question to know that she was distracted. Her face said it all: her eyebrows were furrowed, her eyes glancing from side to side—always coming back to her phone that sat on the bench—and never uttering a peep to Shinsou.

Something's up.

"You holding back on me?" he scoffed slightly, wincing in pain.

He couldn't deny that her kicks were hard as hell. When she fought hand to hand, it wasn't as difficult because she didn't have as much training in fist fights or anything like that. But her kicks... She's a trained taekwondo martial artist. Of course they're perfect and painful.

But since she was kidnapped, she was somehow stronger than she was before.

Shimamura shot her gaze towards him, her eyes lingering on her unlit phone ever so slightly. He glanced at it then back at her. She glared at him and shook her head. She knew better than to answer him.

"Alright," he grumbled. "Then what's the problem?"

Shimamura rolled her eyes and raised her fists, signaling to him she was ready to start sparring again. They should be training, not talking. But no one was stopping them from having a normal conversation. Aizawa's not here, and neither was Arima.