Chapter Text
The first weaponized baking utensil Hatsume handed Satou (after assuring him that yes, Midoriya had tested it to both of their satisfaction), was what, at first glance, appeared to be a wooden rolling pin, with one handle painted blue and one painted red. Satou eyed it doubtfully.
Hatsume merely grinned at him, still bordering maniacal. “Pull the blue handle out,” she told him.
Eyeing her doubtfully this time, Satou mused that most likely the red handle would be the more dangerous of the two. He tugged on the blue handle, feeling little indents under his thumb. It didn’t budge.
“Oh - you’ll have to use a little bit of your quirk,” Hatsume told him, leaning back on her workbench. “I had Midoriya test how much strength should be needed. Won’t stop everyone, but will at least be an obstacle to overcome. Just a few grams of sugar should do the trick.”
Glad that he had eaten a snack just before he’d come here, Satou carefully activated his quirk and used his additional strength to wrench the blue handle out of the rolling pin. As it slid out, he held his breath. Nothing happened.
“Great!” Hatsume said brightly. “Now, see that punching bag over there?” She gestured to a part of her lab that was especially littered with pieces of plastic and metal, all looking distinctly charred. There was something hanging in the corner that might once have been a punching bag but was now surely too tattered to be called much of anything. “Go do a few test strikes.”
Satou picked his way over to the bag. Taking a deep breath, he cautiously bumped the rolling pin against the fabric.
“Oh, come on, hit it like you mean it!” Hatsume chided him.
Boldened by the lack of reaction, Satou gave the bag a few more whacks, putting some of his quirk into it. The bag swung, and the rolling pin stayed remarkably intact.
“That’s more like it,” Hatsume said. Satou turned to look at her. She had moved to behind her workbench to better see what he was doing. “Now, you should be able to rotate the red handle, about a quarter of the way to the left. Do that and give it a few more test hits.”
Satou easily turned the handle. There was a small click, and a light at the bottom of the handle turned on. Instantly, all the wariness he had the first time he’d stepped into the lab came flooding back. He glanced back at Hatsume, and she gave him a thumbs up.
He hit the bag. And promptly dropped the rolling pin to clap his hands over his ears, as a guitar riff shredded through the room, accompanied by violent strobe lights that left him seeing spots. He stumbled backward, tripped over some leftover scraps from some other project, and landed on the ground, hard. He groaned.
As the sound faded away and the lights stopped flashing, Hatsume popped into his field of vision. He blinked up at her, trying to see her past the after images of light that were dancing in his eyes. It took a few seconds, but he saw that she had put on a pair of tinted glasses and ear-protection. Glaring at her, he batted her offered hand away and stood up, ready to tell her exactly how much he did not appreciate having no warning for things like that. She didn’t give him the chance.
“Brilliant!” Hatsume said, whirling away to pick up the rolling pin. “That was the lowest setting. There are three different settings, all activated by turning the red handle different degrees. None of them are lethal, and should really only be used for distraction only. The highest setting should cause spots and disorientation for half a minute, at most. The light will indicate which setting it is on - at least for now, until you’ve got a better feel of the item. We can remove that if you think others are figuring it out. Similarly, you probably noticed the bumps on the blue handle. Once you’ve memorized the different feel of the handles, I’ll give you unpainted handles. The flashbang feature will only work if the bumpy handle is removed - so when you’re ready to use it, simply pull that out first. It’s a reusable feature, but it will only work again after the handle is replaced and pulled out again - prevents anyone from using it against you, theoretically. And the flashbang only activates upon coming into contact with someone or something, so if you need to throw it, it will still work. Also, instead of just doing some boring bang, I put a heavy metal version of the theme to the Great British Baking show as the noise. If you ever make your own baking show, I’ll replace it with a heavy metal version of your theme.”
Hatsume kept on talking, as she moved back to her workbench and inserted the bumpy blue handle into its slot. She had to brace it against her bench to get it in all the way, and she used a clamp to turn the smooth red handle back to the off position. As she did so, she told Satou about different ways the rolling pin could be used, including as a tambo weapon, for offense or defense, or as a thrown grenade. She suggested who to go to for lessons on using the rolling pin in all these different ways, and also promised to send Satou some videos to watch on how to start. Satou could hear hints of Midoriya in the recommendations she was rambling at him and found himself relaxing a bit.
By the time Satou was back in the hallway, having been kicked out of Hatsume’s lab in her usual way, he was begrudgingly grateful to her. The rolling pin really was more than he expected, and he was excited to start practicing with it. He was, he decided, still upset that she hadn’t warned him about it before setting the flashbang feature off, but then again, she wouldn’t be Hatsume Mei if she had.
--
He’d had his new support item for about a week when he used it in a real fight for the first time. Well, pseudo-real. They were sparring in class, Aizawa supervising from behind his capture scarf, glaring at them as if daring them to require his intervention. Satou was paired with Tokoyami.
He paused outside of the sparring ring, fingering his utility belt nervously. Hatsume had added several loops to his belt, to hold all of his potential baking utensils as well as the sugar pouch he usually kept on it. Currently, the only loop in use was the one holding his rolling pin. The flash bang inside it would be useful in defending against Dark Shadow - the light would weaken him. But Satou hadn’t really practiced enough to feel confident that he wouldn’t also weaken himself as well. But, he could use it as a bludgeoning weapon, maybe… Momo had tried in the Sports Festival to defend against Dark Shadow with a shield, but she hadn’t had the strength to match the quirk. Satou did.
Mind made up, Satou unlatched the rolling pin from his belt and stepped into the ring. Across from him, Tokoyami bowed his head, acknowledging his sparring partner. “May the best win,” he intoned.
“Good luck to you, too,” Satou responded, tightening his grip on the tool. Then they started.
Satou was almost immediately on the defensive, as Tokoyami’s long-range quirk quickly crossed the distance between them, Tokoyami himself hanging back. Satou brought the rolling pin up to block Dark Shadow’s first strike and activated his quirk to brace himself against the blow.
They traded blows, Satou faring better than he expected to with the rolling pin. It took the brunt of Dark Shadow’s hits, though Tokoyami was able to direct his quirk around Satou’s defense several times. As the fight progressed, Satou slowly but surely made his way to where Tokoyami was camping out. Several times, Tokoyami saw him coming and had Dark Shadow run interference while he moved back, putting Satou back at square one. It was a war of attrition, as spars with Tokoyami often were, and Satou was losing traction.
Deciding to try a different approach, Satou turned his attention to Dark Shadow. Dark Shadow’s energy could be worn down by taking enough hits - perhaps he could batter Dark Shadow to the point where he had to recharge in Tokoyami’s shadow, which would give Satou a shot at actually taking out Tokoyami.
The next time Dark Shadow made a swooping dive at him, Satou met the bird head-on with a quirked up punch, following it up with a quick strike to Dark Shadow’s umbilical cord with the rolling pin. Dark Shadow squawked and one of the grasping arms grabbed the end of the rolling pin. They played tug-o-war with the pin for half a second before the blue handle popped out in Dark Shadow’s grasp, sending him shooting backwards with the sudden release of tension.
Satou rushed forward, determined to use the distraction to his advantage, raining down blows on Dark Shadow with fist and rolling pin alike. Dark Shadow twisted away, and for a split second Satou felt a thrill of victory. Then his feet were knocked out from under him as Tokoyami, whom he had forgotten about and had snuck up behind him, performed a leg sweep on him. He hit the ground hard, losing his grasp on the rolling pin as he did so.
With a low groan, Satou rolled over onto his stomach, ready to heave himself to his feet. Raising his eyes as he did so, he heard rather than saw Dark Shadow let out a victorious shriek from above him and dive towards the rolling pin. The rolling pin that had a blinking light at the bottom of the red handle.
“No, wait!” He started to shout to Dark Shadow, but it was too late.
Dark Shadow grabbed the rolling pin to claim it as his weapon, and the flashbang went off. Light burst out from the center of the pin and guitar riffs shredded through the room. Dark Shadow let out a shriek that sounded a lot less victorious and a lot more pained before fleeing back to Tokoyami, the light doing more to weaken the quirk than Satou’s punches had ever accomplished.
As the sound and light effects faded away, Satou raised his head again from where he had buried in the crook of his elbow, blinking the last of the spots away. Everyone was staring at their sparring ring, the commotion having grabbed their attention. Aizawa was somehow right next to them, despite having been halfway across the room not five seconds earlier. Satou wondered, not for the first time, if teachers and parents magically gained the ability to teleport when they got their position. Then he discarded that thought for the more pressing one of whether or not he was in trouble.
“What happened?” Aizawa demanded.
“It’s my fault,” Satou said, climbing to his feet. “I got a new support item from Hatsume, and it went off accidentally.”
Aizawa gave him a flat stare. “What sort of support item did she bully you into letting her make?”
“I requested it! Well, mostly,” Satou amended, glancing over to where Midoriya had been sparring with Ojiro to see if the other boy wanted to back him up. “But I liked the ideas she had, and Power Loader approved it. It’s a flashbang, of sorts. In a rolling pin.”
“A rolling pin.” Aizawa seemed to grow more exhausted by the second. “And how did it accidentally go off?”
“I didn’t mean to use it. I have to turn the handle to activate the flashbang feature, and when Tokoyami threw me, I lost my grip on it, accidentally turning the handle, I guess. And the flashbang goes off at the next contact, which is what happened when Dark Shadow tried to pick it up.”
“It tried to kill me!” Dark Shadow piped up, peering out from behind Tokoyami, still sluggish.
“Right.” Aizawa sighed. “We’ll call this match a draw. Detention after school, Satou. An hour in the training gym working with that new tool of yours.”
“Oh, but…” Satou paused as Aizawa’s ‘detention’ sunk in. “...I was going to do that anyway, Sensei.”
“And now you’ll do it with supervision,” Aizawa said, eyes glinting. “You’ll need to get used to that thing going off - you wasted a perfectly good takedown, when both of your opponents were distracted and disoriented by the flashbang. You could have taken down Tokoyami during that time and won the match. But for now, put it away for the rest of the class. Everybody rotate!” The last bit he aimed at the rest of the class that was still watching them with curious stares.
Satou slid the reset rolling pin flashbang back into his utility belt as Hagukure stepped into the ring across from him.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get it in no time!” She chirped at him. He grinned back at her, and then the spars resumed.