Chapter 97: The Reward and the Punishment

Now that Gray had left the four kids with their own respective new after-hours teachers, he went over to the girls’ side and picked a few of them for their own training. Gray had told them he would reward them when he fought them in the Battle Trials class, so here he was. What better reward than growing stronger and breaking their own limits?

Gray chose Momo, Ochaco, and Tsuyu. He brought them over to the other side of the mountain. "I told you guys I would reward a few, so here we are," Gray called Momo to move forward. Once she did, Gray made three people appear right in front of her: Dr. Gero, Bulma, and Edward Elric.

Gray pointed at Dr. Gero and Bulma first. "They will teach you new technologies." Then he pointed at Edward. "And he will teach you to better use your Quirk. I noticed that you struggled in fast-paced battles, so he’s here to help you with that."

Next up was Ochaco. Gray only made one person appear: Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow. She would teach Ochaco close-quarters combat. Gray knew that once she reached a better physical level, they could move on to improving her Quirk.

And finally, for Tsuyu, Gray made Toad from Marvel appear, along with a much bigger figure. Jinbe also stepped forward, his massive, imposing fish-man frame catching the light. Gray wanted to test whether her amphibian anatomy would allow her to learn Fish-Man Karate.

Leaving them to their training, Gray turned around and headed back. But before he could even think of resting for the day or worrying about anything else, he spotted two familiar figures trying to peek into the girls’ dormitory. Mineta and Kaminari were actively snooping around, trying to catch a peek of the girls leaving the bath.

Gray appeared behind them in a literal instant, his voice dropping into a terrifying tone. "What do we have here..."

The two adolescents froze on the spot, the color instantly draining from their faces the millisecond they heard that familiar voice echoing right behind their necks.

"It seems my warning didn’t matter to you, huh?" Gray asked, a smile forming on his face.

Before any of the kids could make up an excuse, Gray grabbed them by the back of their necks and flew straight up into the air. Rising rapidly into the dimension’s white sky, he started thinking about the proper punishment for them. If he wanted to, he could easily ask Aizawa to expel them from Class 1-A for their inexcusable behavior. While they flew, the two kids kept thrashing and moving around, terrified for their lives.

"If you keep thrashing about, I might drop one of you," Gray warned. "And, well, let’s just hope you’re made of rubber. Otherwise, I doubt you’d survive."

Hearing that, the two kids looked down at the ground and froze in terror. They were at least 300 feet high in the air, dangling like ragdolls.

Seeing the two kids stop struggling, Gray smiled. "Much better." He looked down at Mineta and sighed. "I have no idea why you’re acting this way, kid. But if I was a parent of any of those girls, I’d ask the school to immediately expel you and press legal charges..."

Gray finally came up with a brilliant, twisted idea. "Since all of you are under my direct supervision in here, I guess it falls on me to come up with a good punishment."

With a quick command, Gray willed a huge, isolated island to appear far away from everyone else’s training sectors. He designed it as an exact replica of Momoiro Island, the pink kingdom of Kamabakka. If the masters of Newkama Kenpo could heavily traumatize and push Sanji to his limits during the timeskip, then Gray was more than willing to leave these two perverts there to see how they would fare. If they still did the exact same things after this ordeal, then getting them expelled back in the real world wouldn’t be hard at all.

Gray flew down and dropped them off right at the sandy shore. "Try to survive," he said. But before he could even fly away, Gray left them with another ominous warning. "I wouldn’t try to swim away, either..." Gray pointed a finger toward the vast ocean bordering the island as a ton of aggressive, finned sharks started appearing in the water, circling the perimeter. "It wouldn’t be good for your health."

"You can’t leave us here!" Mineta yelled, his voice cracking.

"Yeah, this isn’t right!" Kaminari continued, sweating through his uniform. "We didn’t even do anything wrong yet!"

"Really?" Gray frowned, his eyes narrowing. "You guys got caught red-handed trying to peek at the girls."

Gray turned on his heel and started flying away, hovering just above the shoreline. "If you guys wanna act like animals, then you get treated like animals. But don’t worry, I’m not as heartless as you make me out to be. The people on this island are a very welcoming bunch. I’m sure you’ll fit in in no time."

As Gray soared back toward the main mountains, the faint, horrifying sounds of pink-clad Okama running out of the pink woods with open arms echoed behind him, followed immediately by the high-pitched screams of Mineta and Kaminari as they ran for their lives down the beach.

On the way back, Gray was glad he had bought as much inside the Training Dimension as he did. Back in The Walking Dead universe, he had more gold than he knew what to do with, so he spent it heavily on expanding the Training Dimension’s features. He bought teachers and masters from as many fictional works as he could remember, which is exactly why he could easily get the students the instructors they needed.

He hadn’t even shown 1% of the masters he still had available, not to mention all the legendary sparring partners he hadn’t touched yet. But let’s just say he wasn’t strong enough to bring out those final god-tier characters yet; his own physical limits needed to break first.

Once he landed back at the main camp, Gray walked straight over to Aizawa and told him that Mineta and Kaminari wouldn’t be available until the very end of the thirty-day training sessions.

Aizawa instantly felt a massive headache coming his way. He massaged his temples, looking thoroughly exhausted. "What did they do?" he asked.

"They tried to peek at the girls," Gray replied, hands on his hips and a perfectly innocent smile. "But no need to worry. I doubt they will give us any issues regarding that behavior in the future."

Aizawa’s eyes narrowed into suspicious slits as he stared at Gray. "Do I even wanna know what kind of punishment you gave them?"

"Probably not?" Gray laughed, totally unbothered. "Not to worry, they will be fine... maybe."

"I don’t get paid enough for this..." Aizawa muttered under his breath. He pulled out his eye drops, squeezed a few soothing drops into his tired eyes, and slowly walked toward his sleeping quarters.

Gray watched the ragged, slumped form of the underground hero leave. "That man seriously needs a vacation," he murmured to himself with a chuckle, content with how his first weeks of running the boot camp were turning out.

The next few days blurred together as all the kids continued their grueling training. Momo Yaoyorozu was completely ecstatic at all the new concepts she was learning. Thanks to the world-shattering genius of Dr. Gero and Bulma, her engineering and molecular knowledge expanded rapidly. And thanks to Edward Elric, she was also getting raw, high-speed combat experience. Her days were incredibly busy, but she felt a profound sense of enjoyment as she got smarter and stronger with each passing day.

Ochaco Uraraka, on the other hand, was extremely exhausted. In the mornings, she pushed through her brutal Master Roshi conditioning, and once it was over, she immediately reported for more training with Natasha Romanoff. She felt like she was becoming skinnier by the day from the sheer cardio. But the one thing she was deeply grateful for was the end-of-day meal. Gray prepared the last meal of the day as a sort of reward for all the students, and it was heavenly. She already liked Lunch Rush’s school meals, but Gray’s cooking was on a completely different level. Just thinking about it made her mouth water. Natasha, seeing the sudden opening, instantly swept Ochaco’s legs out and flattened her on the floor.

"No getting distracted!" the Black Widow said, looking down at her.

Tsuyu Asui was bewildered. When she first stepped through the portal, she never expected a Quirk could do this... buildings appearing out of nowhere and simulated people who were stronger than the top pro heroes in Japan. She was glad she had chosen to come to UA. Working out every single day and then being trained even more at night by Toad and Jinbe was rough, but seeing the relentless effort Gray kept putting into his own training, even when he was already that strong, made her try even harder to keep up.

On the boys’ side, Bakugo got injured first. Thanks to the extreme conditioning he had undergone, his sweat glands had expanded beautifully, but it wasn’t all good news. When he tried to recklessly copy a high-speed mobility move he had seen Shinra use, he severely strained his muscles and injured himself. He had thought the injury would put him out of commission for a few days until Recovery Girl could take a look back in the real world. But once Gray found out about the accident, he casually walked over, took out a green Senzu Bean from his inventory, and made the explosive kid eat it. Bakugo was flabbergasted as all his injuries, tears, and soreness healed in a literal instant.

"Be careful next time," Gray told him before turning on his heel to check on the other kids.

Further down the shore, Izuku could be seen in Full Cowl, continuously throwing powerful punches at a massive, retired military battleship that Garp had made appear on the beachside. Gray nodded and left them to their training.

Nearby, Kirishima sparred intensely with Po, his hardened skin clashing against the panda’s fluid blocks, while Silver Fang watched from the side. Every now and then, the old master calmly called out to fix Kirishima’s stance, and the boy adjusted and immediately continued the fight.

As for Todoroki, the kid still had his deeply hidden anger issues, but apparently, Uncle Iroh had successfully worked his way into the boy’s shell. They sat inside a pavilion, having a quiet cup of tea while they chatted. Apparently, Todoroki had finally opened up to him about his mother and his past, which was nice. Now came the hard part: actually making him use his fire side and getting rid of his stupid idea that he should only use half his power.

All in all, Gray was content with how things were going across the entire dimension. He, of course, had not forgotten about the two perverts he had isolated on the far side of the dimension. When he finally went over to check on their progress, he found Mineta and Kaminari sitting silently on a rock by the beach. They were both wearing frilly pink dresses, with heavy, ridiculous makeup smeared all over their faces, staring blankly at the shark-infested waters in pure, traumatized defeat.

As the final days went by, the training dimension came to an end. Some of the kids looked dead on their feet. They’d thought the class would be an easy walk in the park, but they were catastrophically wrong. It had been the hardest thirty days of their young lives. Some of the students had only completed Master Roshi’s baseline physical training. Of course, it wasn’t at the absurd level of Goku or Gray’s conditioning, but a much more moderate level suited for their bodies, and they still could barely do it.

Some kids from both Class 1-A and 1-B came out of the dimension with their worldview and goals broadened. They had seen Mirko spar at high speeds, and they had seen Gray fight, if that’s even what you’d call it, since most of them only saw shockwaves and couldn’t track most of the movements in the sky. But it was still incredibly eye-opening for the freshmen. If they truly wanted to become top pro heroes in this world, then they had to put in the effort and never slack off again. Before some of the students left the school, they approached Gray and respectfully asked if he could make them weighted clothes to wear daily. Gray happily obliged, using his clothes beam to make the gear.

Class 1-A had been worried about their two missing classmates for the last two weeks, only to be told by Gray and Aizawa that they were fine but simply had to be punished for what they did. Only now, once everyone finally came out of the dimension and materialized back onto the gym floor, did they see what had actually happened.

Mineta had a dead, hollow stare as he stumbled out of the portal, his frilly pink dress and smeared makeup still fully on his body. Kaminari was the same, his spirit broken. They could outrun the Newkama residents on the island, but only for a little while; after that, their stamina failed, and they became victims of their affection. They learned about unwanted attention in the worst, most terrifying way possible. Even now, when Mineta and Kaminari see a girl move toward them, they would flinch and back away in terror.

Some male students from their class instantly pulled out their phones and started taking pictures of the ridiculous sight, laughing quietly. Gray, of course, let it happen. He wanted it to be a permanent, unforgettable lesson for any future training sessions.