Hero Trainer: Choke Me With Those Thighs!

The interior of the training building was a labyrinth of cold concrete and silent hallways. On the fifth floor, in a cavernous room, a fake papier-mâché bomb stood like a monument to the exercise's artificiality. Tenya Iida, in his hero costume that looked like a futuristic knight's armor, patrolled around the weapon with absolute seriousness.

"Excellent," he said to himself, his voice echoing slightly in the empty room. "The location is strategically defensible. Multiple pillars for cover, a single main entry point. Protocol dictates that we secure the perimeter and await the heroes' assault."

He turned to his teammate. Katsuki Bakugo had his back to him, stretching his arms, a twisted smile full of contempt that had nothing to do with the exercise.

"Bakugo-kun, your attention, please," Iida said, with a rigid chop of his hand. "I have assessed the situation. I propose you place non-lethal adhesive mines in the access hallway while I prepare a barricade. A coordinated defense is our best option to—"

"Shut up."

The word was a whip crack, sharp and dismissive. Bakugo didn't even bother to look at Iida.

"Bakugo-kun, your behavior is unbecoming of a villain!" Iida insisted, adjusting his glasses. "Our mission is to protect the objective! Your cooperation is essential to achieving victory!"

Bakugo finally turned, and the look in his eyes wasn't that of a student playing a role. It was pure, concentrated fury.

"The only mission that matters is crushing that damn Deku insect," he hissed, his voice a low, dangerous growl. "The only objective that matters is wiping that stupid look off his face."

"But he is not the mission! The weapon is the mission! All Might is watching us!"

"Let him watch!" Bakugo snapped. "Let him watch me show that damn extra his place! Shut your mouth and stay here like the good piece of furniture you are. Protect your stupid bomb. I'm going hunting."

Without waiting for a reply, Bakugo stormed out of the room. His aggressive footsteps thundered down the hallway until silence fell once more. Iida was left alone, dismayed, in the middle of the empty room.

"This… this is not at all proper for a villain," he muttered to himself, completely bewildered. "It's simply bad team strategy!"

Two floors below, Izuku and Ochako moved along the wall, their steps silent on the concrete floor. Every corner was a new danger; every shadow, a potential ambush.

"All Might said that most confrontations happen in narrow hallways," Ochako whispered, her heart pounding. "Do you think Iida-kun will stay with the bomb?"

"Iida will. It's logical, he follows the rules," Izuku replied in a murmur, his eyes scanning every inch of the hallway before them. "But Kacchan… he won't. He's not playing the part of a villain. For him, this is personal. He won't wait. He'll come for me."

Suddenly, he stopped. He raised a hand, a universal signal for silence. Ochako froze beside him. Izuku tilted his head, his body tense. He didn't hear anything, but he felt something. A vibration in the air. The instinct he had developed over years of being Bakugo's prey.

"Get ready," he whispered.

Just then, Bakugo rounded the corner at the end of the hall, about twenty meters away. There was no battle cry, no warning. His movement was pure aggression, his right arm already cocked back, his palm glowing with an orange light.

Time seemed to slow down. Instead of panicking, Izuku's brain switched into a cold, analytical mode. The trajectory, the speed, the angle of the arm… it was all familiar.

The instant Bakugo's hand shot forward, Izuku reacted. It wasn't a dodge. It was perfect anticipation. He grabbed Ochako by the waist and, instead of pulling back, he lunged to the side, pressing their bodies against the wall with desperate force.

BOOM!

A deafening explosion erupted exactly where their heads had been a second before. Searing heat passed inches from them, and the smell of burnt nitroglycerin filled the air. The shockwave blackened the floor and the opposite wall with soot.

Bakugo stood motionless for a fraction of a second, his triumphant smile frozen into a mask of pure disbelief. He had missed. Not only that: Deku hadn't screamed or cowered. He had anticipated the attack.

Ochako, her back pressed against the wall with Izuku's arm still around her, felt her heart threaten to beat out of her chest. But it wasn't just fear. It was awe. The speed, the foresight… her partner was much more than he seemed.

In the monitor room, a murmur went through the students.

"Whoa, what reflexes!"

"Midoriya saw it coming!"

All Might watched, a small smile forming on his lips.

The humiliation of failing a point-blank ambush was like throwing gasoline on a fire. Bakugo's disbelief morphed into volcanic rage.

"YOU LUCKY BASTARD!" he roared, his voice distorted with fury.

He launched himself again, with no strategy, only the intent to wipe the calm expression from Izuku's face. He telegraphed his most classic attack, the one that always worked on the weak: a wide, powerful right hook, his palm already sparking for a contact explosion.

But Izuku wasn't weak anymore. And he certainly wasn't stupid anymore.

Instead of backing away or blocking, he did the unthinkable. He stepped forward, moving inside the arc of the swing. The instant Bakugo's arm swept past him, Izuku moved with a fluidity Ochako had never seen from him. His left hand deflected Bakugo's wrist upward, redirecting the imminent explosion toward the ceiling. Simultaneously, his right hand gripped the fabric of Bakugo's costume at the shoulder, and using his opponent's own unstoppable momentum, he twisted his hip and pulled.

It was a basic karate throw. A takedown by unbalancing him. Simple. Elegant. And for someone like Bakugo, utterly humiliating.

Katsuki Bakugo, the prodigy, the combat genius, fell backward with a heavy thud that echoed through the hallway. He landed hard, the air knocked from his lungs.

The silence that followed was more painful and more deafening than any explosion. Izuku stood over him, his breathing steady, his face a mask of cold evaluation.

"Always the same move, Kacchan," Izuku said, his voice calm but sharp as glass. "A big right hook. You're so predictable."

Those words, spoken by Deku, the pebble in his path, were a poison that spread through Bakugo's veins. He leaped to his feet, his body trembling not with fear, but with a rage so pure and absolute it seemed to distort the air around him. The public humiliation, at the hands of the person he despised most in the world, was a mortal wound to his pride.

"How…" he said hoarsely, each word a piece of gravel, "…dare you, you damn Deku?"

"I told you. I'm not that Deku anymore," Izuku replied, taking a step back, maintaining his distance. "While you were relying on the power you were born with, I had to do something else. I had to watch, I had to learn, and I had to think."

"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!" Bakugo screamed, completely unhinged.

Small, violent sparks began to crackle in his palms. He was preparing for a massive attack, one that would likely destroy half the hallway. His fury had blinded him to everything else. And in that blindness, Izuku saw his chance. The perfect moment of distraction.

He turned sharply to Ochako, his expression shifting from cold calm to desperate urgency.

"Ochako, now!" he hissed. "It's your time to run, you have to get to the bomb, but first...!"

Panic and embarrassment fought a pitched battle on Ochako's face. "Here? Now?! He's watching us!"

"There's no time!" Izuku insisted. "Iida is fast, you need every advantage you can get! Forget about being embarrassed! Think about victory! Trust me!"

Before she could protest further, he closed the distance between them. There was no awkwardness or hesitation in his movements. It was fast, decisive, and outrageously brazen. In a single, fluid motion, his two hands shot out and cupped the stretchy fabric of her costume, completely covering her breasts.

He squeezed them with a firmness that was both tactical and appreciative. His strategist's brain registered the perfect connection, but his teenage brain registered something else: They're soft, unbelievably soft. The best feeling.

The shock paralyzed Ochako for an instant. The sheer audacity of the act left her breathless. She felt the warmth of his hands, the firm pressure… and then, something else. A surge of energy, a heat that started deep in her chest and exploded through her body like a supernova, sweeping away the shame, fear, and panic with an overwhelming sense of lightness and power. She felt like she could lift the entire building.

From the other side of the hall, Bakugo's fury froze. His brain, tuned completely to the frequency of violence and annihilation, simply could not process the scene unfolding before his eyes.

Deku? Useless? The cowardly worm Deku?

Touching… a girl's breasts?

And like that? With… both hands? Like it was the most normal thing in the world?

His brain completely short-circuited. His mind went blank. He was momentarily stunned, his mouth slightly agape, the sparks in his hands faltering, his massive attack forgotten for one crucial instant.

The contact lasted barely two seconds. Izuku pulled his hands away instantly, his face a mask of concentration with a spark of maniacal triumph in his eyes.

"There you go!" he said, his voice tense and triumphant. "A little extra power boost! Now go show Iida why you're the powerhouse of this team! RUN!"

Driven by the new energy buzzing under her skin and Izuku's peremptory command, Ochako nodded, a fierce determination replacing the shock in her eyes. She shot down the hallway, rocketing past a still-baffled Bakugo at a speed that left a trail of air in her wake and stunned everyone in the monitor room.

Bakugo, shaking out of his stupor, ignored her completely. To him, she was irrelevant, a gnat. His rage, now multiplied tenfold by the incomprehensible and humiliating audacity he had just witnessed, completely refocused. His bloodshot eyes locked onto Izuku.

"Big mistake, Deku," he growled, the low, guttural sound of a beast about to strike. "Letting your partner run away. Now no one can save you."

Izuku took another step back, shifting into a defensive stance. A tense smile touched his lips, though the cold sweat running down his back and the frantic rhythm of his heart betrayed his fear.

"Who said I needed saving, Kacchan?" he retorted, his voice a challenge. "I just needed to keep you busy for a while."

Izuku was left alone in the concrete hallway. In front of him, Katsuki Bakugo, his face twisted by a fury that transcended simple rivalry, was about to unleash hell.