Author's Notes: Chapter edited and corrected by Scott Fellman.
May 28 - Izumi Pov.
"Are you ready?" I asked, looking at Louise. She was wearing her UA training uniform and had her hair tied up, with a determined look on her face. I was dressed the same as always, standing next to a chest filled with blunt training weapons that UA had.
They weren't elegant at all, just appropriately weighted pieces of metal, but they'd be a lot more useful than handing a sharp weapon to a complete novice. Even with aura, accidents can happen. I grabbed one of the katanas and gave it a light wave. It'll do the trick.
"I'm ready!" Louise said firmly. I hummed lightly.
"Grab a weapon and try to hit me. This-" I pulled out my scroll "-is set to beep every couple of minutes. When it goes off switch to another training weapon. We'll try them all until we find one you're comfortable with." I said simply. Louise grimaced but nodded. I activated my scroll, put it in my pocket, grabbed a nearby dagger, and threw it to Louise.
Louise clumsily grabbed it in the air before catching it properly and getting into position. A terrible, bad position. I almost wanted to sigh, even more so when Louise didn't move. I raised an eyebrow at her, and that finally got her to react. Louise lunged at me and tried to stab me.
I parried her thrust with minimal force, sending her swerving. Louise lost her balance and had to take a couple of steps to regain her footing. Once she did, she attacked again, this time with a downward thrust while screaming. I grimaced. Horrible. Too predictable, too wide, too telegraphed.
I moved to the side and easily dodged her attack. Louise lost her balance again, and I seized my opportunity and slammed the handle of my weapon hard into Louise's stomach. Louise let out all the air from her lungs as she gasped, falling to her knees and clutching her stomach.
"Is that all?" I asked boredly as I watched Louise on the ground recovering. Louise gritted her teeth and glared at me. She shakily stood up, her grip on the dagger tight. She attacked again. Well, at least she has some fire left in her.
I smiled slightly before defending myself from her attack, parrying it to the side and lightly hitting her again. Louise continued attacking until my scroll's alarm went off. I walked over to the toolbox, grabbed a walking stick, and threw it at Louise. Louise looked momentarily confused before dropping the dagger she was holding and gripping the stick firmly… like a baseball bat.
I sighed wearily. Okay, let's do this.
------
"You're terrible with every weapon," I said honestly. Louise's face fell completely, and she shuddered violently. "So we'll do it differently. Which weapon were you most comfortable with?" I asked simply. Louise was about to open her mouth. "And don't mention foil," I said immediately. Louise closed her mouth tightly and glared at me.
"Why not?" she growled. I rolled my eyes.
"It's obvious you've been practicing on your own, trying to copy someone you saw, but without knowing how to do it. All your moves were terrible, and you didn't improve at all as you kept attacking me. You're following a shadow, and it's impossible for you to unsee it. You'll never be able to learn how to use a foil or a rapier," I said honestly.
"What?! Why not! My mother is an A-rank hunter! She is an expert in using a foil!" Louise exclaimed angrily.
"I'm not saying she is bad. But... she uses her quirk with the foil, doesn't she?" I asked calmly.
"Yes, and what does that have to do with it!?" she snapped.
"It has a lot to do with it. Jinx and Ruby already told you. A foil isn't a weapon that can be used in combat, at least not conventionally. If your mother uses her Quirk with the foil, then it would make sense. But the movements of a foil aren't good for a fight against monsters, so she had to adapt and build her own style. A style that doesn't suit you at all." I said brutally honest. Louise grimaced.
"Yeah, I'm terrible at everything! What's the point of all this? I came here for you to help me, not to tell me what I already know!" Louise exclaimed. She gritted her teeth. There were tears in the corner of her eyes, but she seemed to refuse to cry. I sighed.
"I wasn't telling you this to be mean." I sighed tiredly. "Let's do this another way. What's your quirk? Your real quirk?" I asked curiously. Louise shuddered.
"...explosions." She finally murmured. I raised an eyebrow at her.
"And the truth?" I asked again. She glared at me while gritting her teeth.
"They're explosions! That's all it does! Explode! When it shouldn't, it still explodes! It always explodes! My quirk is explosions!" Louise exclaimed over and over again, although she seemed to be trying to convince herself, but there was something interesting there.
"Even when It shouldn't?" I asked curiously. Louise clicked her tongue.
"Never mind, forget it, you wouldn't believe me," she muttered as she looked away. "...like everyone else." She muttered to herself. Okay, so there's a lot of unpacking to do.
"Maybe yes, maybe no? Just tell me, and we'll see. If I don't believe you, I'm just another person?" I asked mockingly. Louise wrinkled her nose and remained silent. I waited patiently.
"I... I have the feeling my quirk can do more, do something other than explosions. But no matter what I do, it explodes," Louise said finally. "Everyone tells me I'm wrong. To stop dreaming and accept my quirk as explosions... I should listen to them." She said in defeat, her head bowed. I hummed lightly.
Does she have the same problem as in canon? Void magic? But it wouldn't make sense. This was a quirk; it didn't require any of Brimir's artifacts or the incantations that had to be recited. Which, unfortunately, I didn't remember at all.
A quirk can't fail just because. It was almost impossible. Unless the quirk was based on luck (which is extremely rare), or had some usage condition (5-point quirks, Uraraka or Shigaraki), or the wielder was just plain stupid. Like Midoriya and OFA, but the only thing failing there was Midoriya's weak body. Not his quirk.
So there was something she was doing wrong.
"Can you use your quirk on me?" I asked curiously. Louise frowned.
"What for? Are you going to make fun of me?" she asked dryly. I shook my head.
"Color me curious." I said simply. Louise frowned before clicking her tongue.
"Well, it's not like it's that hard to blow something up." She muttered, turned to the side, and raised her hand. Almost immediately, I felt her aura extend and burst out of her. My eyes widened slightly. That was too much aura!
"No, wait-"
BOOOMM!!! The explosion shook my bones slightly, but… it barely moved me. That was much weaker than Bakugou's explosion, and I immediately frowned. What happened? With that amount of aura, the entire building should have collapsed.
"Done, happy? Now, can you teach me how to use a gun again?" Louise asked, annoyed. I frowned.
"Do it again." I said simply.
"What?! Why do you-"
"Just do it." I interrupted. Louise grimaced before clicking her tongue.
"As you wish." She murmured simply before raising her hand once more. And there it was. The utterly ridiculous spike of aura coming out of her and-
BOOOMM!!! another explosion.
"list-
"One more time," I said simply. This time, I leaned closer to Louise, my face just inches from her chest.
"What the?! Why are you so close?!" Louise squealed and tried to move away, I came closer again.
"Use your quirk again." I said simply, still staring at her. Louise looked thoroughly confused but raised her hand. This time, I extended my Haki fully and looked closely at what was happening. I could slowly see her aura, visible to my senses, extend once more in all its splendor, before... colliding with something and-
BOOOMM!!! How the hell did that happen or do that?
"Again." I said simply, looking inside her organs closely. All her organs and nerves were visible to me. And I looked closely. Louise followed my order silently this time, and her aura triggered once more.
BOOOMM!!! are you... are you kidding me?
"Can you put less power into your... attempts? Like, the lowest power you can, a tiny bit, almost none of it." I said quickly. Louise frowned.
"I'm doing that! It's the least amount I can put in!" Louise replied but still raised her hand.
BOOOMM!!! I sighed at the result.
"What are your family's quirks and ranks?" I asked quickly. Louise looked surprised.
"Uh… Mother has a Wind Quirk, A-rank. Father has a Water Quirk, B-rank. Eleonore has a Fire Quirk, B-rank, almost A-rank. And finally, Cattleya has an Earth Quirk, B-rank." Louise said quickly. My eyebrows raised slightly. All the elements? Coincidence?
But most importantly, I think I finally understood what was happening to her. It wasn't that she was intentionally doing something wrong. It wasn't even Void Magic, though I still couldn't rule out that she had it, or at least its equivalent. It was simply that she was born with good luck. Or very bad luck, depending on how you looked at it.
"When did you unlock your aura?" I asked almost impatiently.
"When? I don't remember, when I was 4? Before my quirk appeared. Something normal for families with hunter or hero backgrounds. As you know, when you get your aura you get a boost of some kind to your quirk, raw, power, resistance, so it's better to unlock the aura before the quirk so that later you don't have to get used to using your quirk again." Louise said as if it was obvious.
My eyes widened slightly. At 4?! I unlocked my aura completely on my own at 10! What nepotism! If only I'd had six more years to train it!
But that gave me the final piece of the puzzle. She had the opposite problem as Midoriya. Her Quirk was too weak for her. She was right that the Quirk did undergo a change when the aura was awakened. But it wasn't often noticeable. Simply because the average person didn't have enough aura for it to matter.
But for someone who wakes up with an S-rank aura? Oh, it would definitely be noticeable. And here was the problem. A Quirk changes and grows in order to utilize the person's aura. It didn't even have to get stronger or change noticeably; it could even stay precisely the same, simply adapting to the greater flow of aura.
And this was exactly what happened when it didn't change or adapt. It was like Naruto trying to use the regular clone jutsu with too much chakra, and it failed miserably... although that might be some kind of headcanon and not canon at all.
But my point still stood. Quirks are mostly hereditary. If your whole family had B-rank Quirks, except for your mother, and she inherited some of those. Then she had a B-rank Quirk that she was trying to use with an S-rank aura, and she was getting so annoyed that it wasn't working that she put so much more aura into each attempt, almost subconsciously.
Essentially, she was trying to push a missile down the barrel of a gun. And she pushed so hard that she made the ammunition explode… I'm not sure if that's a good analogy, but you get the idea.
She pushes so much aura, that it somehow breaks her quirk. Which caused the explosion. Now. The question was, why didn't she change her quirk? And I think the answer is, that she did have void magic. A Void quirk. The problem is she doesn't know how to use it.
Canonical Louise was able to use everyday elemental magic by the end of the novels. If that were true, she should also be able to use elemental quirks on top of her void quirk. But the elemental part of her quirk was an add-on, a side effect of her void power. If her quirk didn't grow or adapt, it's because the central part, the void, was already perfectly calibrated for Luise's Aura output.
But the elemental quirk part was so minor and so weak, it wasn't suited for Louise's enormous aura. So, she was overstretching her quirk to the point where it would fail.
The worst part is that she didn't realize it. Most Quirks are used naturally and instinctively. When you awaken a Quirk, it's like a metal button that activates and deactivates it. Simple as that. If you want to train it, or do something more elegant like manipulating it, you have to train, and it takes time.
And therein lay the problem. Louise can't train because her Quirk simply hasn't worked so far. It just... explodes. Without training, she can't identify, or even know how to use, the individual parts of a Quirk (like Todoroki with his Fire and Ice). So far, she's only been using the "minor" part of her Quirk, not the "main" part, because she believes she has an elemental Quirk.
She's so convinced she has her mother's Quirk, or one similar to it, and wants to follow in her footsteps that she subconsciously ignores her Void Quirk. The worst part is, it was extremely normal! People can go decades thinking their Quirk can do something in a specific way, only to discover it can't, and it turns out it can do so much more.
This could only happen if she could truly manipulate the wind! If she only had the void, no matter how hard she tried to create wind, her quirk would have already done something with her void quirk, but she hadn't done it yet! Damn! A whole combination of so much good luck and bad luck at the same time that it was truly absurd.
Well, that was the best theory I had. Maybe everything I just came up with was complete nonsense. The question was, how do I check it?
"Okay, change of plans. Mimic my moves," I said immediately as I got into the starting position of the Dragon Dancer. Louise looked at me with a strange expression. "Just do it," I said firmly. She grimaced, but quickly imitated me.
I began to move slowly through each position. I continued moving from one position to another as Louise clumsily followed my lead. I corrected her immediately after a few attempts. I looked at her aura. There was no movement to betray that her Quirk was trying to be used.
From what I discovered, body movements, especially the ones I used, worked by causing the aura to move in unison almost unconsciously. It usually helped power the attacks behind each movement, but if it had a related Quirk, it would be used unconsciously.
Just like what happened with Azula and her fire. But with Louise, absolutely nothing was happening. Her aura was so rigid and unchanging that it was annoying.
I sighed wearily. Louise had an almost resigned look on her face.
"Stop, let's try something else." I said as I grabbed one of the swords and threw it at her. I felt a spike in her aura and immediately looked at her. I tilted my head. "Drop the sword?" I asked awkwardly.
"What?" Louise asked, confused.
"Just let go. And then grab it again," I said simply. Louise grimaced.
"If this is like one of those cheap Chinese movies-"
"It's not, just do it." I interrupted without hesitation. Louise sighed, but dropped the sword before bending down and grabbing it. There was the pulse in her aura again. Curious. Let's see. Sun Breathing would be too much. Her Quirk was different from Azula's; it definitely wouldn't grow with the sun like hers.
I'm guessing it'll be Water. It's easier for a complete beginner to master. She definitely wasn't ready for any of the moves; I was sure she'd mess up. But if I was right, then...
"Okay, let's start something new, imitate me," I said simply and began to dance. Hinokami Kagura wasn't the only dance that existed. All breathing styles could be translated into a dance. That's what had happened in the epilogue of the series. So I started dancing.
Louise imitated me clumsily, but I felt it. Her aura began moving. I smiled widely. Louise had another damn mental block. Seriously, that girl's head was full of knots. She associated a weapon as the elemental part of her Quirk. Maybe from seeing and admiring her mother, once again. It all came back to respect and admiration for her mother. That's why Dragon Dancer didn't work, but now Water Breathing did.
I moved fluidly through each form like water. Louise mimicked me terribly clumsily, but with each repetition, Louise moved more and more confidently. And I could feel and see it, her aura unconsciously moving along with the movements. Each time more fluid, with better form, and less aggressively than when she tries to use her Quirk on purpose.
We were on our 23rd repetition, First Form: Water Surface Slash, a horizontal slash. But it finally happened. Louise's movement released a small jet of water that followed the sword slowly and clumsily before falling to the ground. We both froze, staring at the puddle on the ground.
Louise looked as if she couldn't understand what had happened. I smiled slightly. It worked like a charm! The way the breathing styles mimic nature forces the elemental quirks to move on their own; And since the movement is almost unconscious, the quirk comes out much more naturally, and most importantly, to a much lesser extent than when it is done consciously.
"I... I did that?" Louise looked completely stunned, completely in disbelief at what had just happened, as if she had never considered it possible.
"You did it," I said simply. It took Louise several seconds to process that answer before she smiled widely, her eyes watering.
"I did it!" Louise said tearfully. I smiled slightly and let her calm down. "L-let me try again!" Louise said firmly and determinedly. She raised the sword and I immediately felt the pulse of her aura, my eyes widened slightly.
"no! wa-"
BOOOMM!!!
I had a lot to explain and loads of work to do.