Everyday Life: Training One's Quirk Even at Play

Inside what was probably an ordinary house, Uraraka Shige lifted the cushion off his face, looking somewhat dazed.

"Emmm..."

Shige's gaze shifted back and forth between Ochaco and the cushion in his hand. Another bold idea suddenly sprang to mind, but he waited quietly until Ochaco had calmed down a little before offering a solemn apology.

"I'm sorry, Ochaco. I shouldn't have teased you..."

Hearing Shige's apology, Ochaco, who had already calmed down, felt a little happier. She rubbed the back of her head beneath her short brown hair, smiling a silly, somewhat adorably vacant smile.

"Sorry, Shige. I was wrong too. I shouldn't have hit you with the cushion..."

But before she could finish, Shige swung the cushion back at her, knocking the rest of her words back down her throat.

Caught off guard by the cushion, Ochaco swallowed everything she had yet to say and froze, looking completely bewildered by what had happened.

A moment later, Ochaco came to her senses. She looked down at the cushion in her arms, then at Shige, who was snickering.

"Shige... that's so mean. QAQ"

Shige had been quietly snickering at Ochaco's bewildered expression, but when he heard her aggrieved voice and saw tears welling in her eyes, he coughed awkwardly twice. Then he casually picked up another cushion from beside him and smiled at her.

"Want to have a pillow fight, dear sister?"

At Shige's words, Ochaco held back the tears that were about to spill. Her little mouth puckered into a wavy line, and her cheeks puffed out, making her look explosively adorable.

Well, at this point, she was still a little loli!

Just like a little steamed bun.

Seeing his sister's expression, Shige nearly burst into the laughter he had been struggling to hold back. With great difficulty, he managed to force it down, only to accidentally choke on his saliva. He coughed several times before recovering enough to speak.

"Big sis, throw the cushion over here. Let's have a pillow fight!"

As he spoke, Shige gently tossed the cushion in his hand out again, letting it land beside his own leg as a demonstration. Then he seemed to remember something and hurriedly added another sentence.

"Don't throw it too hard, big sis! Throw it gently!!"

Unfortunately, just as he began to add that, Ochaco had already hurled the cushion in her arms at him. It startled Shige so badly that his voice involuntarily went out of shape.

His body was only seven years old, just like Ochaco's. Although he had been using his Quirk to train his physical abilities ever since he first gained some control over it, that didn't mean it wouldn't hurt if the cushion Ochaco had thrown so hard hit him.

After all, he could see quite clearly that the cushion was headed straight for his nose!

"Huh!"

Shige made a strange sound as he fell backward. Fortunately, the sofa he and Ochaco were sitting on was long enough to seat the whole family with room to spare, so he didn't fall straight onto the floor. Otherwise, after the back of his head had made intimate contact with the floor (Bilibili, season two, episode fourteen, 17 minutes 13 seconds), he was still young enough that he would probably have ended up with a bump on his head.

Even so, despite the sofa being relatively long, his head still ended up pressed right against the armrest after he fell.

"That was close... I didn't hit the floor, but I almost knocked my head on the sofa's armrest..."

He thought this and muttered it aloud, watching the cushion Shige had thrown sail over the sofa's armrest and fall to the floor. Then he abruptly tightened his waist, intending to sit straight back up with a sit-up...

Then, halfway up, he watched a second cushion fly through the air and knock him back down...

Emmm...

"I'm so tired. I was going to act cool and look handsome or something..."

With his little face completely covered by the cushion, Shige sighed and swore never to do anything so stupid again. Then he quietly dispersed the "shackles" he had kept on his body with his Quirk, took the cushion off his face, and kipped up, got off the sofa, and picked up the cushion in one smooth motion.

Hmm... now that I think about it, that should have looked pretty cool... So showing off is actually one of humanity's survival instincts. There's just no suppressing it, hiahia... ahem!

After picking up the cushion, Shige sat back down on the sofa and suddenly threw it. But because he had deactivated his Quirk, he failed to control his strength and could only watch as it whizzed over the head of Ochaco, who was still sitting on the sofa, and landed silently on the floor at the other end.

It was like a silent accusation from the cushion.

Shige fell silent. He activated his Quirk again, formed it into "shackles," and applied them to himself. Then he looked at Ochaco, blinked, and threw the remaining cushion in his hand over to her as well.

This time, with his Quirk restraining him, he could control his strength well again. The cushion floated lightly into Ochaco's raised hands, and she caught it easily.

Then, while Ochaco got down to pick up the cushion, Shige suddenly began to think.

Hmm... after bearing the "heavy shackles" for a long time, I briefly can't adjust to my own strength after removing them. So when necessary, would it be best to remove the "shackles" in advance and take a few seconds to adjust? No, rather than that, I should spend more time not keeping my Quirk active all the time. Maybe the reason my Quirk has grown so slowly has to do with my using it year after year. As the saying goes, alternate tension and relaxation... I haven't done that at all before... Besides, I can use the time when I'm not using my Quirk to adjust to my body's strength without it.

As he thought this over, what had begun as simple reflection gradually turned into deep thought.

Come to think of it, there was a "hero" in the original story who could erase other people's Quirks...

Pia~

A cushion from Ochaco interrupted Shige's sudden deep thought.

After concentrating on his thoughts for just a short while, he had nearly forgotten that he was in the middle of a pillow fight with his sister.

So when he, having suffered the pain of losing an arm not long ago, was roused from his thoughts by Ochaco's cushion and saw another one coming his way, his first reaction was to instinctively use his Quirk to keep this "unidentified dangerous object" far away from himself.

"Rise!"

And so, under the effect of Shige's Quirk, the cushion Ochaco had thrown curved upward like a hydrogen balloon until it was pressed firmly against the ceiling...

"Ahem..."

Shige's little face turned red. Faced with his sister's puzzled gaze, he canceled his Quirk and wished the ground would swallow him up, silently grumbling to himself.

I'm a meowing idiot!