Consequences

Star Skyline was pretty sure she was going to die.

She felt her heart beating out of her chest, her breathing was labored, and sweat was covering her body as she ran as fast as she could. Looking back in alarm, she saw in horror as he gained on her, smirking maliciously. She forced her legs to move faster, feeling them go numb with the effort, and she knew this was it. It was going to happen again. Don't say it, don't say it! She braced herself-

"On your left."

"OH COME ON!" Star groaned, letting herself fall to the ground in defeat. Bakugo ran past her, lapping her for the third time. "That's it! This was a stupid idea and I'm literally dying and you're no freaking help!"

Turning around, he slowly started coming to a walk before stopping in front of her with his hands on his head, breathing heavily as he cooled down. Smirking down at her, she could feel the smugness radiating off of him, hating it. "This is hopeless, I'm never going to be able to keep up with you."

"Tch, that's the point, you baby. I've been doing this for years longer than you. You're not supposed to catch up to me after only a week." Rolling his eyes, he picked her off the ground, and dumped her into the fighting arena boundaries. She complained loudly the entire time, especially when he dropped her on her butt.

"Now get up and fight me, Cry Baby. This is when my explosions get the biggest!" Grinning evilly, the explosions already started crackling on his skin like fireworks.

She stuck out her bottom lip, considering how she could get out of this daily suicide mission. Finding no cracks in his mind, she pressed her lips together and got up. Her being sober seemed to hype him up for some reason. She didn't need alcohol when it was just them, especially since his mind was already hard to read.

This gave her a massive advantage in fighting ability, having been trained by the Ojiro family since she was young. On the other hand, she had a major disadvantage since she was essentially quirkless around him. Not being able to clearly and easily read his mind made her lose the quirk advantage she would normally have against other people. It had gotten better the past week, but not having a functioning quirk when faced with a powerful quirk and mind like his, was-

Bakugo shot forward towards her, using his explosion to propel him, and swung his leg at her head. She angled her arms around his foot and started to use his momentum, swinging him to the ground. Impatient, he let off a blasted punch towards her face. Barely seeing this coming while she touched him, she hastily let go of his leg and dropped to the ground, rolling out of the way.

He landed on his feet just as she was standing up, and she narrowly dodged his gantlented arm shooting past her head. Grabbing the arm, and like she had to the villain at USJ, she moved to slam him over her head. She got a flash in his mind of Deku having pulled the same trick and his anger, and immediately aborted part way through, ducking all the down so he'd have nothing to balance on.

As he stabilized himself, she used her hands to support her weight and sent a sweeping kick to his legs. With reflexes beyond what should be possible, he aimed an explosion from both hands down to the ground. It not only lifted him up to avoid her kick, but the blast also hit her leg, destroying her workout leggings and leaving angry red marks on her pale skin from the proximity. She hissed in pain, but desperately held onto her barely there quirk advantage.

"So, Midoriya figured out that move first during hero training? He really is a genius, isn't he?" She mentally thanked Hitoshi for learning how to use talking to her advantage during a battle.

Just like she hoped, he unraveled, taking a split second to become angry before charging towards her. The split second was what she needed to get back to her feet. He fired off a blast and landed behind her, grabbing her arm. Using his explosions to spin, he went to slam her on the ground.

Star saw a flash of this and brought her hands up to grip the arm holding her, and shifted her weight mid air. She swung her legs and used his momentum against him, pulling his upper body with her while simultaneously smashing into his legs instead of the ground.

They ended up in a heap on the floor, him falling on top of her. Wincing at the gauntlet pressing into her arm, she felt him lift off of her slightly, putting his weight on his arms next to her head. Panting as sweat dripped off of him, he looked... exhilarated.

His face was flushed with exertion, and his strong chest was moving up and down quickly with his breathing. Feeling the blood rush to her cheeks, Star tried glancing away. But he was too close, and she huffed. Pressed against her, she could read smugness, excitement, curiosity, appreciation, satisfaction, adrenaline, and too many other powerful emotions too mixed together for her to interpret the cause of any of them. But at least she could identify them. She had come a long way. She did see a flash of her own face though, and hated how red her cheeks were in it, wincing.

"Teach me how to do that." He demanded, breathless. The smell of carmel and burnt sugar filled her senses, making her dizzy and distracted.

"Huh? Which part?" She asked airily. He was so handsome when he grinned like this.

"That last part. Show me that one."

"Oh, okay-"

"Why, Mister Bakugo and Miss Olivia! I hope we are not interrupting anything!" A booming charismatic voice spoke up loudly.

Bakugo immediatly pushed himself off of her and she scurried back a few feet, face flushing even deeper. She pulled herself out of Bakugo's confusing mind at the loss of contact, and felt three other minds hit her hard. All Might, Midoriya, and Hitoshi were approaching them. She groaned at the sensation, looking at Bakugo desperately.

"Your shitty grape looking drink is in the black water bottle in my bag." He grumbled. Star grinned at him and went towards the bag.

On their first day of training, he had tossed two water bottles at her, looking away from her questioning gaze. He explained the first one was a replacement and that the second one would only be used for water, and not her 'stupid posion shit'. She had been floored by the fact he had bought her anything, and had looked at him like an idiot, left scrambling to catch up as he started their first run.

He had reluctantly kept the alcohol bottle in his gym bag, saying 'your only hope to possibly beat me is without that shit.'. He hadn't been wrong either, she had yet to win a match against him. He was incorporating her martial arts into his fighting, and she was learning to fight without her quirk as she slowly unraveled the chaos that was his mind.

Today had been the closest she had gotten to winning, and she was thrilled. Though, it was obvious he would've won if they had kept going. Whenever she did something he wanted to learn, he would stop the fight, and they'd focus on that instead. They had been at this for a week now, both of them improving enough that they never closed the skill gap between them, but she was coming closer as she became more familiar with his mind.

"Sorry to interrupt your training for the Sports Festival, but I need to borrow Miss Olivia here!" The number one hero said loudly.

Star and Bakugo exchanged a look, and he shrugged. She sighed, handing him his bag. He scowled at her until she also handed him the black water bottle, and he gave her the blue one with water in its place.

"Find me when you're back then, we have unfinished business, Freckles." He spat out, moody at having been interrupted before he could learn the move. Despite talking to her, he was looking Hitoshi in the eyes angrily, and Hitoshi was smirking back. She rolled her eyes but nodded, and he walked off to the other side of the arena, probably to use Kirishima as a hardened punching bag.

"What's up?" She asked the group, before wincing and correcting herself. "Sorry, I mean let's go to the office."

Not having to hide her quirk was strange, and being sober enough to use it fully was even weirder. She drank long enough from the black bottle to handle it, but not nearly as much as she would've liked. Especially with the topic of conversation Midoriya was thinking loudly about.

"R-right! We're going to All Might's office, if that's okay, Olivia!" Midoryia asked. Such a sweet boy, but such a loud mind. She was interested though as he analyzed the end of her and Bakugo's fight. She hadn't been aware they were watching then, since she had been in such close contact with Bakugo. He was interested in how she used a move similar to him, and was also interested in Bakugo's reaction as he was knocked down.

"Olive." Hitoshi lazily called, snapping his finger in front of her face. She jumped violently and grinned, embarrassed.

"Er, right! Lead the way!"