Alrighty, we're back with a normal chapter and with it we draw ever closer to final exams and what comes after. We're also closing in fast on new milestones for both Favorites and Reviews. It's always pleasing to watch my stories grow. Since we didn't do reviews last time, there's a few more than usual to cover, so bear with me.

Review time:

The Incredible Muffin, ProjectIceman, Constipated Genius, D3lph0xL0v3r, Death of Snipers, Dragon Man 180, The 0bservanc3: People liking Kendo+Tetsu joining Fight Club

The Keeper of Worlds, Constipated Genius, The 0bservanc3: Denki's development = good

The Incredible Muffin, Constipated Genius, Batmarcus, Death of Snipers: Katsuki finding out about IzuOcha

avidreaded, AdrianVnz: Dude-La-Han and Dee-Sync were characters I made up that would make for interesting reading on the Quirky Life forum. Dude-La-Han's Quirk is Dullahan, meaning his head is separated from his body, while Dee-Sync's is Desynchronization, which causes her to age randomly either up or down. Last Tooru heard, she was in her twenties again after a brief stint of being seventy.

AdrianVnz: I was reading over your suggestions and you just solidified what I'm doing next chapter, so thank you for that.

tacktician: That does sound like a fun idea and I might keep it in my back pocket for future use. Could definitely be funny.

Death of Snipers: You are correct. Exams come next and then the summer training camp.

The 0bservanc3: People could definitely be forgiven for forgetting just how intelligent Katsuki is sometimes. I like how getting in his head has helped me humanize him and not just have him be Captain F-Bomb. It was indeed supposed to be an LED light and I forgot the capitalization. I'll be fixing that.

Renegade Remade: Izuku's ability to use 5% smashes is indeed because of the leftover OFA energy left in his system. He accesses it the same way canon Izuku uses OFA, but without fuel it's capped at 5% and he can only use it in one limb at a time. I can certainly see how even just having some additional protective lining inside his big gloves would benefit Izuku. It's worth noting that Stain had to stab, twist and tear with his best weapon in order to pierce the Enterprium; it certainly wasn't easy. Izuku cannot further manipulate flames that he himself has expelled unless they ignite part of the environment or blow something up, thus creating more flames. There is one exception to this, which we have seen before and which, when mastered, will form the basis of a new technique. It's amusing that you chose the name you did, is all I'll say.

The Ultimate Balance Chaos: There is some degree of light manipulation involved with her Quirk, but it's never been explained how exactly it works. Given how she never uses it prior to Super Move training, my working theory is that she either didn't know this about herself before that or just didn't know how to use it.

Gako959: I know that you meant "concentration," but now I can't get this image of Shoto being a holy avenger smiting people in the name of the Fire God using his consecrated Flames of Purification. Regarding Izuku's color pallet, that's on purpose. Endeavor wanted to mark him as one of his, which is why the costume looks so similar.

RotWS: The reaction fic has not been made as far as I know, but anyone who wants to is still allowed. In canon it may well have been a double-agent. As far as Torchbearer goes, I've actually shown that in-story already. Himiko (who is with the League much earlier than in canon) impersonated someone and got into U.A. during all the chaos. What exactly she did is unknown, but it allowed the LoV to get the info they needed.

Blaze1992, Brightwizard21, MogtheGnome, KNIGH7DRAGON3, Gowithebeat, GoMagikarp, Nihai, EmperorCookies, Uwu, AWriterNamedReet, xxXMr_DarknessXxx, HighPaladinRath, SuperSaiyanViolet, Cosmyk Angel, Lazer, Caspian123, Midoriya-San, FF-loverHP1 and everyone else: Thank you and I hope that you continue to enjoy!

Now, Katsuki missed some important info last time. Let's get him up to speed.

Chapter Sixty-Five: Flashfire

"So, to sum it up, the Hero Courses are going on a summer camp training trip, but if you don't do well enough on our exams, you'll be stuck doing remedial lessons instead."

"And you're sure he made this announcement to the whole class?"

"He sure did, Kacchan. Honestly, I'm shocked that you missed the whole thing. Are you feeling okay?"

"I guess I might be a little tired. Maybe I'll go to bed early."

"That's a good idea. If you don't feel better tomorrow, you should see Recovery Girl for a checkup." Izuku nodded emphatically as their train started to slow down, signaling that they were close to their stop.

He was honestly a little relieved that Kacchan was just feeling a bit under the weather. He had noticed that his best friend had been acting oddly that day, especially during their most recent Fight Club meeting where he seemed only half-aware of what was going on. It just wasn't like him and Izuku's natural tendencies had made him wonder if there was something really bothering him.

Here I am wondering if there's some big problem and it turns out he's just tired. Maybe I'm more wound-up than I thought?

I mean, you did kind of get a bomb dropped on you a couple days ago. Maybe it's taking a while to sink in?

Maybe. I can't explain it, but I'm not as scared of the prospect of All For One still being active as I probably should be. I just…can't imagine how we'll lose. All Might beat him before and now he's got me too. As long as I keep getting stronger, there won't be anything the two of us can't do!

…If you say so.

T – o – r – c – h – b – e – a – r – e – r

Kacchan was noticeably more alert and present on Thursday and by Friday Izuku had nearly forgotten about his strange mood, what with their normal workload combined with the looming pressure of exams, even though they were still over a month away and most of his classmates were hardly thinking about them yet.

What people were wondering about was what their Friday Basic Hero Training class would be.

"Seems like it's been a while since we did Battle Training, doesn't it?"

"We had Rescue Training earlier this week, so it probably won't be that."

"I've got this sinking feeling that we're in for a Hero Ethics lecture."

"All of you are wrong, for what it's worth." Aizawa yawned as he walked into the classroom, "Suit up and make your way to Gym Gamma; Cementoss has something prepared for you."

"He said Gamma, right? That's the place we were at earlier this week?" Kirishima confirmed in the boy's locker room a few minutes later.

"No, that was Ground Gamma and Aizawa definitely said 'Gym Gamma.' I'm not sure we've been there yet." Sero mused, "Anyone know what it's used for?"

"I mean, it's a gym, so maybe we'll be working out?" Sato hazarded, "We exercise during P.E. and Hero Training, but I don't think we've ever had an in-class workout session."

"Why would they need Cementoss for that though? Are we going to be pumping concrete instead of iron?" Kaminari asked.

"It would make for a cost-effective and customizable way of producing weights, I guess." Izuku said, "Though I'm not sure how many of us would actually need something like that."

"The shadows that cloak this mystery will be pierced momentarily." Tokoyami supplied.

"I concur, Tokoyami-san. There is little point in speculation." Iida agreed, gesturing to the door, "Let us proceed to Gym Gamma and find out for ourselves what our teachers have in store for us!"

They arrived at Gym Gamma and saw…a large, empty room lined with windows and made entirely of concrete that otherwise resembled the other gyms at U.A., if not slightly larger. Aizawa and Cementoss were already there, waiting for them near the entrance.

"Given that none of you are goldfish, it's logical to assume that you remember the Rescue Training from Monday." Aizawa began, "All Might said that it was to see how your overall abilities had improved over the course of your internships and while that's true, I had an ulterior motive: to bring to your attention something that I've known for a while now. Does anyone know what that might be?"

Aizawa scanned the class, gauging their reactions to this news, although none of them responded.

"1-A as a whole has a mobility problem." he continued, "There are those among you whose Quirks lend themselves very well to movement, but that number drops sharply as soon as you have to start taking property damage into the equation. Response time is critical for a Hero, meaning you need to be able to move in any situation without adding to the problem. That's why today's training will focus exclusively on improving your mobility. Even the ones who did well on Monday still have room to improve." the Erasure Hero then gestured to Cementoss, causing the student's attention to switch to him.

"As I'm sure you all know by now, my Quirk lets me manipulate anything that uses cement as an ingredient." the blocky Hero started, "I created Gym Gamma in order to have a space that could be tailored to whatever needs U.A.'s students might have. Let me show you."

Cementoss turned and knelt, placing his hands on the floor which began to ripple and flow like it was made of liquid as the Cement Hero created a massive, roughly U-shaped system of structures that was clearly meant to be a practical obstacle course modeled after an urban environment.

"Gym Gamma is ideal for many sorts of training! This is why it's other name is Training Dream Land, or TDL for short!" Cementoss looked pleased as he turned to face the students again, "You will enter the obstacle course on the left side one at a time and exit from the right side. You are allowed to use your Quirks, naturally, though you must follow the route and any damage to the structures will count against you. We'll do this in seating order, so Aoyama is up first."

Izuku watched his classmates intently while at the same time trying to decide on his own strategy, thankful that his position as seat 18 would give him ample time to prepare. The first four students did about as well as he had expected. Aoyama struggled outside of the occasional moments where he was able to boost himself with his Navel Laser, Ashido did very well although she would have done better if she had been allowed to melt handholds into some of the higher obstacles, Tsuyu excelled, being entirely in her element and Iida shot through the stretches of flat terrain while slowing down when more elevation was required.

It wasn't until it was Ochako's turn that he saw something that surprised him. He had known that she had become more physically adept during her time with Gunhead, but seeing her in action as she used timed bursts of weightlessness while kicking off of walls, leaping buildings and maintaining a pretty consistent pace the whole time really drove home how much she had improved, even if she did look a little queasy after she completed the course.

"Nice moves, Ochako-chan!" Ashido high-fived her as she rejoined the group, "You're getting way better at using your Quirk on yourself!"

"It won't do much good if I feel like garbage by the time I get to the scene though." Ochako sighed, "Baby steps, I guess."

Ojiro went next and did an especially good job when it came to movements that allowed him to use his high level of skill in conjunction with his tail, such as using it to spin around a telephone pole without losing any momentum. Kaminari did about as well as Aoyama even without Quirk utility, displaying improved physical abilities, particularly balance. Kirishima was the first one to get docked points for damaging the course when he used his hardened fingers to create handholds on a building, reasoning that he could always apologize about something like that later, needing to focus on getting where he was going.

Koda and Sato performed similarly to each other, especially since Sato didn't use Sugar Rush to boost his strength at all, saying that his Quirk would be needed when he was actually dealing with whatever the issue was, so he shouldn't waste it just getting there. Shoji took advantage of his six arms to scale the nearest tall structure and then glided between high points to save time. Jiro's petite frame worked against her a little, but she still managed to be on-par with the others whose Quirks didn't exactly help them.

Sero, predictably, was the star of the show. Nobody in 1-A could compare to him when it came to three-dimensional movement capabilities, especially when property damage was a factor. Tokoyami did quite well himself, sending Dark Shadow ahead to grab onto an obstacle and then using him like a grapple to pull himself forward.

Shoto's mobility was excellent, as he was able to use pillars and ramps of ice to aid in his movements, but it came with the caveat that he would still need to go back afterwards and melt the ice, lest it impede other people. It led to a short discussion over whether leaving ice structures laying around constituted property damage or not and it was eventually decided that as long as they didn't have a risk of causing damage when they melted and weren't overly large, it was fine.

Hagakure was…hard to keep track of. Her overall time was comparable to Jiro's, but not being able to see exactly what she was doing, it was difficult for anyone to give her any real feedback other than to keep practicing. Kacchan more or less did what Shoji had done, scaling a tall structure and then using Blast Rush Turbo to rocket between vantage points. If it wasn't broken, there was no need to fix it.

Then came Izuku's turn. He did not, thankfully, slip off of an inopportune foothold this time. In fact, he did quite well, but he couldn't bring himself to feel satisfied with his overall performance.

There has to be something else I can do. Some sort of technique I can incorporate to help myself move better. All Might has some of those; I should talk to him later.

Shinso was second-to-last in the seating order and he surprised everyone by producing a very familiar-looking length of cloth.

"Shinso-san, is that-" Izuku started to ask.

"Yeah, it's the Binding Cloth that Aizawa-sensei uses. I annoyed him in to teaching me how to use it, though I'm nowhere near as good as he is with it, obviously. Like Erasure, my Quirk doesn't really have any offensive capabilities, after all."

Shinso had told the truth. As Izuku watched him progress, it was plain that his moves with the Binding Cloth were nowhere close to as instinctive or refined as Eraserhead's. Even so, it proved to be an extremely useful tool, allowing him to swing from point to point or aid him in a climb. This, combined with the fact that he had had even more time than Izuku to plan his route, meant that he did quite well. Better, in fact, than anyone else from the "non-synergistic Quirk" group.

"It's amazing how much having the proper equipment for the job helps, isn't it?" Yaoyorozu said as she produced a grapple gun from her stomach and proceeded to take a modified version of Sero's route, ending up with a good time of her own.

"Alright, you've all had a go and hopefully you each have something to think about. I say 'hopefully' because we're going to do this again next Friday and I expect to see improvements across the board. It doesn't matter by how much or how little as long as you convince me that you gave it your A game."

T – o – r – c – h – b – e – a – r – e – r

After class that day, Izuku and All Might had their first private training session at USJ since he returned from his internship with Endeavor. Izuku's mentor was highly interested to hear about the progress he had made in greater detail and praised him for gaining better control of his Quirk. He didn't even seem surprised when Izuku said that he had managed to communicate with it (though he left out the part about him thinking it had been just a voice in his head for a while).

"One For All is a special Quirk, as you know. It lives and evolves just like we do and though I've never spoken with it like you have, I have felt a connection with it many times. I wouldn't be surprised if its ability to communicate evolves just as the rest of it does." the thin man explained.

"Yeah, with that logic I guess nothing it does would really be a surprise, huh?"

"Well, I might start questioning things if it begins manifesting new powers for no apparent reason. Even All For One doesn't work that way."

"Yeah, that wouldn't make sense." Izuku agreed as he worked on manipulating the flames of the conflagration zone, trying to pass a concentrated ball of flames from one hand to the other without letting it disperse.

"In any case, you said you needed my help with something, my boy?"

"That's right. I sort of noticed this during my fight with Stain, but what with everything that happened after that, it slipped my mind. Today's mobility exercise really drove it home though: I don't really have any techniques dedicated to sudden bursts of movement. You don't usually need them, but even you have your New Hampshire Smash for when you need to maneuver differently."

"I see what you mean. If your power had manifested more similarly to mine, I could've shown you how to use air pressure to help maneuver yourself, but you haven't reached the point where your capacity is high enough to maintain that level of output for very long. Still, now that your Flame Cowl is stable, you're already much more mobile than before, aren't you?"

"It's not enough." Izuku shook his head, "Even if it only worked in short bursts, if I'd had a technique that let me move faster then I might've been able to take Native and escape from Stain. I need a way to cover ground more rapidly, whether it's to get to someone in danger or get someone away from danger."

"Hmm…" All Might considered the situation for a few moments as Izuku continued his exercise with the ball of flames, "What about your legs?"

"What?"

"Well, now that I think about it, you don't seem to have any techniques that really use your legs. I know from our control exercises that you're capable of setting an attraction point to your foot, but I don't think I've seen you incorporate that into an actual technique. Besides, since one of the primary purposes of this technique is to help you get someone away from danger, there's a good chance that your hands would be otherwise occupied. Wouldn't want to singe the person you're trying to rescue, after all."

Izuku stared blankly at All Might for a few moments as his brain processed what he'd just been told.

…Oh my god I'm an idiot.

You are quite dumb for a smart person sometimes, yes.

"I think I have an idea." Izuku said quickly, his mind racing with inspiration as he held up the ball of compressed flames, "During my fight with Stain, I did a new move on accident."

All Might nodded encouragingly, not wanting to interrupt his successor's train of thought.

"Reflect Fire, right?" Izuku said as he held out the ball of fire and let it explode, "I take pure, compressed flame and then let it go all at once, which allows the heat to expand rapidly, causing an explosion." he then held up a fist and started concentrating on it, "But that's not what happened when I was fighting Stain. I wasn't really thinking about it at the time, since all I wanted was to get one more punch in before I lost the chance that Todoroki-san gave me." he began to attract fire to his fist, watching as the flames coated his gloved hand.

"I was focusing really, really hard on just my fist, so the fire might've been compressed a bit, even if it's not as much as Reflect Fire would be. Then, just as I punched him, I released it at the same time. The explosion augmented the impact of my fist, sending him further away than a normal smash would." he swung at a conveniently-placed section of building, demonstrating, "What if I can do the same thing, but with a dash?"

"Kicking off of the ground and releasing the condensed fire at the same time, propelling yourself forward!" All Might realized, "Midoriya, my boy, I think you're on to something!"

"Now I just need to try it out."

T – o – r – c – h – b – e – a – r – e – r

"Come on, Deku, out with it! You've been hush-hush on this mysterious new technique of yours all week and it's starting to piss me off!"

"I've been curious about it too, Deku-kun. Usually you're all about asking for feedback on stuff you're working on, so why not this time?"

"Sorry, guys." Izuku gave a placating smile as they headed for Gym Gamma, "It's just that, well…the problem with this move wasn't the theory behind it; it was the execution. It's actually a really, really simple technique, but it's different than anything I've tried before so I wasn't actually able to do it sequentially until a couple days ago. I knew you guys were hard at work with your own stuff and there wouldn't have been much you could've done to help anyway, so I didn't want to distract you."

"You could've just vented then." Kirishima said as he swung an arm across Izuku's shoulders, "To me if not anyone else. We all knew I wasn't going to come up with anything new, so I've just been running my ass off trying to get a bit quicker. You wouldn't have interrupted much, believe me."

"Even if you had, I'm sure none of us would have minded." Iida made as if to adjust his glasses before remembering that he was currently in-costume and thus wearing his helmet, "Friends always have time for each other."

"And if you didn't want to talk about that, I could've recommended some meditations to help you clear your mind." Shoji added, "It works wonders for one's focus."

"…Maybe a small part of me wanted to keep it a surprise?"

"Well you got your wish, didn't you? Better be worth it." Kacchan griped as they entered the TDL once more with the rest of 1-A.

"Alright. It's been a week since the last time we did this, so time to see if you've managed to improve." Aizawa said as Cementoss created a similar obstacle course to the previous time, though things were shuffled around a bit, "We'll also be going in reverse order this time to shake things up a bit, so Yaoyorozu is up first."

Yaoyorozu employed the same tactics as last time, but had clearly been practicing with her grapple guns as she took noticeably less time to line up her shots and even once took a shot in midair, something that only Sero had been able to do up until that point with his Quirk. Shinso likewise did the same thing he had done last time, but better, using his Binding Cloth more readily than before.

As Izuku made his way to the starting line, he mused on how he felt like he hadn't needed to work as hard on this technique as some of his others, most notably Flame Cowl. He hadn't been lying when he said that it had been about the execution rather than the theory, but he wasn't used to not having to struggle with a new technique.

It's not really new, if you think about it. All you did was take things you'd already been doing and combined them. At that point, it was more about the legwork.

I know, I know. It just…feels a bit like cheating?

It feels like all your hard work is paying off and you need to get over yourself.

Izuku exhaled slowly as he took a starting position reminiscent of a sprinter, bent over with his fingers on the ground and legs prepared to kick off.

"Hey, didn't he start with Flame Cowl active last time?"

"Yeah, and the running stance is new too, though I can see why he'd do it."

In truth, there had been one minor snag in developing his new move: he had a hard time doing it in quick succession due to the amount of time it took him to focus the necessary amount of flames in each foot. He had to do them one at a time in the span of time it took him to take his next step, which just wasn't working. Not to mention the technique had been practically unusable if there was no fire nearby for him to draw in.

The solution had been deceptively simple, but due to Izuku's stubborn determination he hadn't thought to try it until two days prior. It still wasn't perfect, but he thought it would be good enough to use in short spurts.

"Alright…start!"

"Flashfire!"

*Fwoom*

Izuku ignited his right foot just as he kicked off from the ground, sending him shooting forward without having to build up momentum first. He immediately killed the one-legged Flame Cowl before it could throw him off-balance and utilized his smash run to reach the first obstacle before igniting his left leg and leaping upwards at an angle, catching himself on a wall with his right leg before igniting that too and sending himself up onto the roof of the building.

That's about as much height as I can cover with just two steps. If it was any taller then I'd need full-body Flame Cowl to make consecutive leaps, but for anything less it's actually more efficient just to activate one leg at a time in conjunction with my smash run.

That had been the solution: if there was no fire around for him to use, then he could focus the burst caused by Flame Cowl's ignition into one leg and use that instead. The nice thing about it was that igniting a single leg was far less costly than doing it for his whole body, even at the same level of output. Besides that, with his arms and body not ignited, he could safely carry someone to safety if he had to.

It was exactly the technique that he wished he'd had in Hosu.

"Time! Well, Midoriya, it looks like you've been busy. I hope you've been keeping up with your homework and not just focusing on that though."

"Yes, Aizawa-sensei!"

"Good work then. Alright, Bakugo, you're up."

Flashfire is a move I've had in mind for Izuku for a while, though I didn't have the exact mechanics of it figured out until this chapter. It goes a long way towards fixing one of his biggest issues though, namely "how can he escape with someone when he's on fire?" Stain really helped him out with that one. He's also developed the yet-unnamed Backdraft, which is a handy way of further-augmenting a punch that isn't as costly as Nevada Smash or time-consuming as Reflect Fire.

We made it to the end of the first week of June (exams are first week of July) so we're making some solid progress. I just looked at my reference calendar and there's actually a 6-week gap between exams and the summer camp, which really drives home just how much time canon glosses over. I don't intend to fill every single day with stuff, since that would take forever, but it does open up some possibilities.

You've made it to Chapter 65, so odds are you like what I'm doing. Maybe you want to see more? Starting at $1/month, you can. Fires of Creation is home to an ongoing original work (the first chapter of which is viewable by the public), patron-exclusive omakes and side-stories and other stuff besides! You can easily find it by googling "Fires of Creation Pat_reon" with the underscore removed.

Special thanks to Animeguy1101, The 0bservanc3, Fallenasgardian, Hyper, RoTWS and all of my other patrons who are already donating!

Next time, June 10th is a special day for a lot of people, but for someone else, June 16th is just as special.

And as always, thank you for reading!