Hello, friends, and welcome to Chapter Four! I apologize for this chapter having taken a bit longer than the others, but, to be honest… I was scared. This is the chapter where I commit to a particular path, and I was worried about how you all might react. So hopefully you like it. But, either way, we're moving forward!

Disclaimer: All characters owned by Kohei Horikoshi

Chapter Four

Momo bounced on the balls of her feet, her hand gripping the back of the couch. Her eyes snapped to the clock on the wall. "Nine oh-three," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

"You gotta relax," Kyoka Jiro's voice came from the other side of the couch; Momo looked down to see her best friend munching on a bowlful of dry cereal, one finger twirling the jack that dangled as part of her earlobe. Kyoka looked up as she saw her friend's nervous expression. "So he's a little late? Big deal. Midoriya's probably the most dependable guy in class."

The clock ticked down another minute. Momo's lip pulled from between her teeth, and her forehead was beginning to ache from how hard her eyebrows were pushing together. "Are you sure?"

Kyoka sat up, her elbows pushing against the arm rest. "Do you remember the school festival? We were all freaking out because we couldn't find him, and where was he? Fighting a pair of villains. By himself! And he still made it back in time for us to go on, even though his only job was to dance around some and hoist Aoyama up like a pinata."

Momo had to smile at that. Playing that show for the rest of their school had been an incredible time, capped off by watching Aoyama swing above the crowd, his naval laser reflecting and refracting, a sparkling mirror ball in a rainbow of spotlights.

"Point being," Kyoka said, settling back down on the couch, her hand digging around in the cereal bowl again, "If Midoriya says he'll be here, I doubt anything short of the League themselves would be able to stop him."

A twitch ran up Momo's spine. The League of Villains had been quiet for a while; the official line stated that they had been having a power struggle since All Might defeated their leader in Kamino Ward, but whispers had them bolstering their ranks, preparing for some new offensive. Either way, Momo had seen their ruthlessness firsthand on multiple occasions: their unveiling at the attack on the U.S.J.; their kidnapping of Bakugo during the summer training camp; she and Midoriya—along with Iida, Todoroki, and Kirishima—rescuing Bakugo during the Kamino Ward incident. They were neither foolish nor merciful. Their plans thus far had been careful, and nearly flawless.

Put simply, they were dangerous.

Which was just another reason why she needed to improve.

A chime sounded; Midoriya was now five minutes late, and Momo's threadbare patience snapped. She walked over to the elevator and pressed the button, and watched the car slide down the glass tube from the second floor. The doors started to open, and in her haste Momo stepped forward before they were fully parted.

Unfortunately the car's occupant had done the same, and their forehead collided with Momo's. The pain was pinpoint and instant, and she heard a cry escape her lips as she staggered back; before she could fall, however, a rough hand gripped her around the forearm, and she was able to regain her balance.

"Oh! I'm sorry, Yaoyorozu!" Midoriya winced, his other hand pressing into his green hair. Papers collapsed in a heap beneath him, but he seemed not to notice. "Are you ok?"

Her fingers prodded the spot where they'd bumped each other, just above her eyebrow; there was no blood, so most likely it would just leave a bump, or a small bruise, if anything. "Yes, I'm all right, thank you," she said, regaining her balance. "I was actually just coming to look for you."

"Yeah, sorry about that," he said. His hand left her forearm to scratch at the back of his head. "I was making a couple calls, and one carried on a little long." He knelt down and started collecting his notes.

Momo curled her arms into herself, placing a hand over where his had just been. "That's all right," she said, trying to calm herself from how stressed she'd been waiting for him. She joined him on the ground, grabbing several papers to add to his stack. "Are you ready to get started?" she asked.

Midoriya stood, notes once again in hand, and nodded, a smile crossing his features. "Sure!" he said, walking toward the kitchen. "Just let me grab a breakfast bar and we'll be on our way."

Momo headed back to the couch, where Kyoka's jacks were retracting from where they'd been pierced into the floor. "I told you he'd be here," Kyoka said as Momo approached, another handful of cereal on it's way to her mouth.

"You hush," Momo said, reaching down to grab some cereal herself.

Midoriya emerged from the kitchen a moment later and exchanged pleasantries with Kyoka. "You ready?" he asked, turning to Momo.

She nodded, and pulled on the jacket of her gym clothes. "Have fun you guys," Kyoka said, one hand pulling out her phone while the other dug around in the cereal bowl. "Try not to work too hard, okay?"

"We'll do our best!" Momo said over her shoulder as Midoriya held the door open for her.

They stepped out into the clear sunlight of the morning, and Momo fell into step beside Midoriya, who appeared to be trying to put his notes back in some kind of order, and was fumbling them terribly. "Would you like some help?" she asked, holding her hands out.

"Huh?" Midoriya asked. Two sheets of paper escaped the confines of his arms, drifting their way to freedom on the gentle breeze. He snatched them back up in a single motion, returning them to the others braced against his chest. "Oh, no, thank you! I've got it!" His balance wavered, but he managed to hold on to small pile before any more could be caught up by the wind.

Momo smiled and zipped her jacket halfway down, placing a hand over her sternum. Brightness shone from her chest, and a half-second later a three-ring binder, green with accents of red, black, and white, emerged in her hand. "How about something to hold them in?" she asked, extending the binder to him.

Midoriya braced the stack of paper against his chest and took the binder with his free hand. "Thank you," he said, his voice quiet, a pink glow on his cheeks. He turned his face to her. "But I don't really have—"

She held out a single hole puncher, still glowing in the palm of her hand.

"Oh, right," he said, hooking a pinky finger through the loop at the bottom of the puncher. An unbidden smile crossed her face as she watched his hands bungle everything they were trying to hold. Finally, he managed a truce with the various elements, with the binder under his arm, and the stack of notes pressed against his chest with his forearm. His hands remained free to sift through the pages and punch holes as they walked, though it looked cumbersome.

Metallic clicking and the crunch of gravel were their only accompaniments for a few moments, until Midoriya got himself into a kind of rhythm. "So before we really get started," he said, punching another hole, "Do you mind if I ask you something?"

Momo's heartbeat thumped behind her ears. "Of course not," she replied, tucking back a loose strand of black hair. "Ask away."

Midoriya shifted the papers against his chest. "Well first," he said, "Your Quirk isn't able to make anything with organic matter, right?"

"Not exactly," she replied, shaking her head. "I can't make anything alive. But I could, for example, make something out of wood."

He hummed a low note, then returned to punching holes in his notes, leaving Momo to wonder how that information could be relevant to his theories about her Quirk. "Okay, next question," he said after a moment. "I've noticed, when you fight, you tend to create particular weapons; specifically a cannon, or your bo staff. Do you have a reason for doing so?"

Momo gaped at him for a half-second, then smiled. "I didn't know you were watching so closely," she said, her voice quiet, almost fading into the breeze.

Midoriya's face quickly turned the color of a cherry blossom. "Erm, well, I mean, I, uh…"

In the split second that followed, Momo realized how her words could be taken, and it became her turn to shift into a shade of red. "No! That is, I, um, I just meant that…" she paused, her volume dropping by octaves of uncertainty. "I didn't think anyone was really paying attention."

He paused outside the door to the gym, one hand on the door handle, his face pensive. His lips were pursed, and his eyes seemed keenly focused on a crack in the path. Then he looked up at her, and a half-smile crossed his features. "Well, I wouldn't be much use to you if I hadn't been, would I?"

Momo closed her eyes and shook her head, but a grin was stretching her cheeks. "No," she said, opening them just as Midoriya was pulling on the door. "I suppose not." They walked through and found themselves facing a room full of sparring mats, exercise equipment, and free weights. The doors on the other side of the gym held specialized training areas—for Quirks that might endanger other students if they were used out in the open—as well as a massive pool, several rooms that simulated places villains frequently attacked (such as banks or convenience stores), and a shooting range.

Several of their schoolmates were present, all at different stages of their workouts; most were at varying machines in the exercise area, and two sparring mats had hand-to-hand matches being fought on them. Momo saw Hitoshi Shinso in the corner, who gave her a nod of recognition, though it was difficult to notice due to the capture weapon he wore around his neck.

"To answer your question," Momo said as Midoriya led them toward the racks of training equipment on the other side of the sparring mats, "Yes, I do create those particular weapons for a reason; several, in fact. My bo staff is both simple to create, which means it takes almost no time, and I have been training in bojutsu and aikido since I was very young, so I am well versed in its use."

They stopped in front of a punching bag. Midoriya used the opportunity to finally set down his notes and start putting them in the binder. "And what about the cannon?" he asked, without turning around.

Momo blanched, scratching at a spot beneath her earlobe. "Well, the cannon is just a relatively simple way to get a larger attack," she said. "Compared to other long range weapons that would give a similar impact, a cannon is a fairly simplistic construct."

"But it does take time," Midoriya said, turning around now that his notes were all squared away. "Both to create and to reload."

She nodded. "Yes."

He flipped open the binder, then started patting at the pockets of his gym clothes. His head snapped around to where he'd left the hole puncher resting on a stool, and Momo realized what was wrong. When he turned back, she was holding out a ballpoint pen for him. "Thanks," he said, his voice quiet, the blush on his cheeks hiding his freckles.

"You're welcome," she said, smiling.

"Let's see…" he said, writing furiously. "Okay, how about your creations? Do they dissipate or dissolve? And do they have to be fully formed when they leave your body?"

Momo shook her head. "They don't wither. They're just as solid and real as anything else of their like, so long as I construct them properly. And they only have to be as complete as I want them to be. For example, if I need a blade to cut through a person's seatbelt, I don't need to construct a handle for it as well. However, once a creation is out of me, it cannot be retracted."

Midoriya nodded, his hand flying across the paper. Momo was half-convinced she saw green sparks snapping around his arm. "So that blade would just be there with no safe way to retrieve it," he said.

"Yes," Momo replied, "Which is why I usually make fully functional creations. Making something for a one-time use is fairly inefficient."

He hopped down off the stool and set the binder on it. "Do me a favor," he said, standing behind the punching bag. "Hit the bag. As hard as you can."

She waited for him to hold the bag, but he never did, so she took her stance before it. In a single swift motion, her entire body weight shifted, and the bag collapsed in where she'd struck it before the force caused it to swing on its chain.

Momo smiled to herself. She'd been out of practice for a little while, and it was good to see she hadn't rusted too much.

Midoriya, however, was not smiling. His hand was on his chin, and a pinched frown sat beneath his finger. Finally, he looked up at her. "Can I show you something?" he asked.

"Please," she said, gesturing to the bag. She picked up the binder and sat on the stool.

He stood before the bag and shook out his arms. The green lightning of his Quirk passed over his body, and with a single step forward, he threw what she knew was a sloppy and easily defensible punch at the bag.

Which proceeded to fly off its chain, slam into the back wall, and explode in a burst of sand.

The noise of the gym quieted to a whisper. All eyes were on them as Midoriya turned back to her.

"I thought your Quirk didn't give you any kind of physical augmentations," he said. "I needed to be sure before we move forward."

The gust of wind that had come after his attack had thrown her hair out of order, and Momo tried to tuck the unruly strands back into place. "How… how much of your power was that?" she asked.

Suddenly he was the bashful Midoriya she'd known all along again, staring down at the floor. "That's not really important," he said.

But that wasn't who she needed. She needed his confidence, both in himself, and his insights, and in her ability to overcome these hang-ups she was experiencing. "How much?" she asked him again.

He shrugged and shook his head. "Maybe a tenth? I'm not sure."

A tenth. Ten percent. "Why?" she asked.

"The first thing I thought of last night was how, when you fight, you're basically Quirkless."

Her eyes widened, her jaw dropped.

"I knew you had skill, and technique. I could see that in the way you moved," he continued. "And with your Quirk, you can make yourself all the tools you would need to be able to fight. But tools can only do so much. And they can all be broken."

Her shoulders slumped. "So that's it, then?" Momo asked, her voice distant. "I should give up?"

"What? No!" Midoriya said. He knelt before her, looking into her downcast eyes. "There are plenty of heroes who fight that way. Our teacher is one of them, remember?"

Momo nodded, slowly. "But Mr. Aizawa is able to level the field," she said.

"So can you," he replied. "Mr. Aizawa doesn't level the field just with his Quirk. He does it by fighting smart. And you're the smartest person I know."

She smiled at him, grateful for his presence. For his overwhelming optimism. "What should I do?" she asked.

He took her hand and stood, pulling her toward the special training areas in the back. His grip was strong, much firmer than Momo expected, and she didn't know if it was some kind of residual effect of his Quirk on his skin, but there was definitely a tingling sensation in her hand where he was touching her. Her heartbeat thrummed behind her ears again, and heat rose up to her face from somewhere near her collarbone.

"With your Quirk, you essentially have to balance practicality, usefulness, and resources," Midoriya said as they pushed through the back doors into the special training area. "You make a cannon, and it takes a minute or two, but that probably wears you out quite a bit, and you only get one shot before a lengthy reload process." They kept moving, passing heavily reinforced walls and completely soundproof rooms. "But your instincts there were good. Keeping your enemies at bay for as long as possible is your best bet at being able to either defeat them outright, or give you enough time to make something that can shut them down."

He stopped in front a door with nothing but a target on it. "What's the simplest long-range weapon on the planet?" he asked.

Momo thought for a second. "A spear? Or javelin."

Midoriya gave her a sideways nod. "Technically true, but again, only one use and then you have to make another one."

"Hmm," Momo frowned, but after another moment the realization struck her. "A bow?"

He flipped open the binder, holding it open to a page where he'd drawn a crude, rudimentary recurve bow. "A bow!" he said, almost bursting with excitement. "Over the millennia materials and such have made it more and more complex, but it still comes down to the same basic design: a curved stick and a string."

Momo looked at the drawing, and something about it just felt… right. She'd never considered it before, but looking at it now, she was surprised she hadn't.

"Bows are unbelievably versatile," he continued, flipping more pages. He turned the binder back around to show her two separate pages of arrow designs. "Arrowheads can be tipped or customized in any number of ways. You could tip one with a paralyzing agent, or magnesium to create a fire, or fill one with nitroglycerin to make an explosive!" His enthusiasm was infectious, and Momo found herself grinning like mad. "You could make one with the chemical compounds used in fire extinguishers! It can double as a bo staff! And… and…"

He paused for a breath. "And the best part," he said, "Is that you are literally the only person on the planet who can pull this off! You don't have to worry about supply, because all you'll be making are small, thin shafts of wood or metal or whatever material you want to use! The arrowheads themselves would be the only complicated part!"

Momo looked to the drawing. Again, that feeling of rightness settled on her. But she shook her head at it. "I've never used a bow before," she said. "I wouldn't have any idea what I'm doing."

"Well, neither would I, really," Midoriya said, pushing open the door with his back. Momo's eyes fell first upon the shooting range, with moving and stationary targets all on one side of the room. But then they fell on the figure leaning against the wall before them, a tall man covered by a red poncho, wearing leather chaps over blue jeans, spurs, a gas mask, and a cowboy hat with a metal plate resting on the brim. A stylized black "S" was branded into the metal plate, and a revolver with an extended round chamber rested in a holster on his hip. "But that was why I made one of those phone calls this morning."

"Mr. Snipe?!" Momo asked, dumbfounded.

"Took y'all long enough," Snipe said, tipping his hat to them. He pushed off from the wall, and turned to face them. "Now then, how 'bout we get started?"