Our Teacher is a Devil (Youjo Senki x BNHA)

Chapter 9

While Tanya still didn't like the feeling of wearing makeup, it was making her subordinate smile, so it was worth it. Himiko also masterfully hid the bags under her eyes from her lack of sleep today which was a plus. She was not normally a night-time hero, because the Commission wanted her to be visible, but the abrupt relocation towards Mustafu had required her to take the understaffed and unpopular patrol routes early in the morning. Crime rates here were thankfully low due to All Might´s presence in the area.

“Aaaaand done.” chirped the excited vampire in front of her, finishing the last brush stroke of her eyeliner.

Himiko held a small mirror up to show Tanya her face, grinning proudly as if she was unveiling the Mona Lisa itself. Upon inspection Tanya noted with relief that she looked indeed surprisingly decent. Himiko´s talent in changing one's appearance through minimalistic techniques was apparent, despite how subtle the changes were that she made.

“Look how gorgeous you are. I mean, normally you look extremely good too... But today you look extra good!”

“Thanks, Himiko.” she weakly smiled.

“No problem, Senpai! I will gladly do it again whenever you want! It makes you look even more professional, you know? When you need to entertain these stupid media vultures again then they wouldn´t be able to utter a single word at seeing how cute you are! They´d be rendered speechless by your perfection!”

Tanya´s smile grew larger at hearing the ridiculous plan that the over-energetic girl laid out. One could never be too sure if Himiko was serious about such things or if she was playing into the role she had created for herself, but Tanya found it amusing either way.

“No, that would be bad. I need my publicity to stay high in the hero rankings. I also don’t want to be known for my beauty, but for my actual competence. You know what I think of heroes like Uwabami or Mt. Lady.”

“They are useless dolls that nobody would care about if they didn't make their fans too horny to think clearly.” Himiko droned on, in a tone that made it clear she had heard that particular argument a dozen times already.

“Exactly.”

“Although I wouldn't mind seeing you in a skin tight suit...”

“What was that?”

“Nothing!”

“Anyways, I have to go now. School starts in an hour.”

“Yeah...” her ward replied dejectedly.

Then as an afterthought to lift her mood she added: “Thank you for making me so pretty, Himiko.”

The girl beamed back at her so brightly that she nearly went blind. How adorable...

~[#҈#]~
​

“Yes I know that is two minutes before the start of class, but please sit down in an orderly fashion and remain silent. I spoke with Mr. Toshinori today and he assured me that All Might would indeed be coming back today. So please show the appropriate amount of respect for the man who got wounded in his line of duty to save your lives.”

“YES MS. ARGENT!” answered the class as one.

Silence lay heavily over the class room as every student had their eyes trained on the door, waiting for any kind of movement. One minute ticked by, then the next. And the next...

The pointer of the clock crawled with an agonizing lack of haste over the painted numbers at the wall, slowly but surely filling everybody with restless energy. Each passing minute made Tanya´s glare turn colder and colder, making some of the students wonder why the door had not been frosted over yet. Nonetheless did she continue to sit motionlessly, save for the soft rise and fall of her chest as she observed the entryway.

Some students had begun to lay their heads on their tables in hopes of catching a few minutes of sleep. Others discretely used their mobile phones to entertain themselves. All of them however instinctively knew not to make a single sound, lest they drew the attention of their balefully staring teacher.

It seemed as if the entire lesson was doomed to be wasted in quiet boredom, until...

“I AM HERE! COMING THROUGH THE DOOR AGAIN LIKE A NORMAL PERSON!”

“You are late.”

“Uh... Sorry. The printer was stuck. ANYWAYS, WHO OF YOU IS PUMPED FOR ANOTHER PRACTICAL EXERCISE?”

“We are not going to do that.”

“YOUNG TANYA-“

“That is Ms. Degurechaff to you. Didn't you read the lesson plan I sent to Mr. Toshinori?”

“OF COURSE I DID! I JUST THOUGHT IT WOULD BE BETTER TO-“

“No. I cleared that plan with principal Nedzu. If you have complaints about how this class is run or what is taught here then I suggest you take your issue to him. I understand that you must be confused after your brief absence and we are both in our first year of teaching so such mistakes are completely understandable. Just relax and let me handle this.”

“Uh... OF COURSE, YOUNG TANYA! I AM IN YOUR CAPABLE HANDS.”

In an instant her posture relaxed and with an almost pleasant smile on her face she forcefully cheered: “Now everyone, please give a warm welcome for the number one hero!”

~[#҈#]~
​

Izuku had never been this baffled before. Well, maybe when he got the confirmation that he had actually been accepted into UA. That had also been pretty surprising, considering that he had gotten exactly zero combat points in the entrance exam.

But seeing All Might getting so casually bossed around for the remainder of the period took the cake. Was Ms. Degurechaff mad at him? Well, he had wasted more than half an hour of their collective time, but he was also All Might! He must have had a valid reason! A mere printer couldn't stop him, right?

She made him sit in the corner for the purpose of ‘giving her feedback on her pedagogic skills’, but he had the sneaking suspicion that she wanted him out of the way as much as possible. When All Might finally spoke up to contribute to the lesson, she coolly brushed him off and made him hand out the worksheets she brought only to find out that she had ’accidentally’ printed out too few of them so he had to get more.

By the time he was back the period was over and Ms Degurechaff seemed not the least bit sad about that fact.

Oh no! What if she hated him now? As ridiculous as that statement was, there were apparently people out there who didn't like All Might very much and she seemed to be one of them! That could be disastrous ! The tension between two teachers managing the same class would only make things worse for everybody. He really wanted two of his favourite idols to get along.

Perhaps he could apologize on his mentor´s behalf? Would that improve or worsen the relationship between the two heroes?
In his mind it was worth a try at least.

Hesitantly he approached her desk while the rest of his classmates packed their belongings.

“Ehm... Ms. Argent... D-do you have a minute?”

“Ah, Midoriya. Perfect timing actually. I was just about to ask you something.”

“W-what would that b-be?”

“You are a pretty observant kid. I have not looked into any of your notebooks that you carry around, but if even half the stuff you mutter ends up there then they are probably filled to the brim with useful information. If I were to remain in this role here at UA a while longer then I would make it a mandatory assignment for all of you to write down their observations.”

“Y-you know about m-my n-notebooks?” he stuttered embarrassed.

She raised a perfectly coiffed eyebrow.

“How could anyone not notice your notorious scribbling? You should hide that better if you don’t want to be found out then. But enough of that, do you know who created these pictures? They have caused quite a bit of trouble for me.”

Ms. Degurechaff held up her phone and swiped through multiple photos depicting her with special focus on the blue ribbon she had worn yesterday.

“Ehm... I... I think I t-took one o-of those? Sorry... ”

“Why?”

“Huh? I thought it w-would be interesting for other people to see a more playful side of you. With all due respect, but you are s-so serious all the time. N-not that there is an issue with that! You are a teacher and a respected pro hero, so you should not constantly be silly if that is not part of your image like in the case of Ms. Joke or Present Mic. Those two use humour to lighten the mood and bring hope to distraught civilians as well as-”

Tanya cleared her throat loudly, interrupting his monologue.

“Ehm, y-yeah... I uploaded it t-to hero-net, because I believed it would be nice to humanize you more in the public eye. Seeing the ever-professional Eleventh Goddess break character so much could be inspiring... S-sorry. I am being stupid again.”

“No, no. That is a far better reasoning than I expected. It was nonetheless thoughtless of you to openly post a picture of me. Can you tell me why?”

“I am sorry, Sensei. Um... W-was it because you were not in public? I mean pros get photographed all the time, but that is when they are out and about doing their job. When they show their face openly then they're basically consenting to having their picture taken. But you Ms. Argent are off hero duty right now in the classroom, so that same ambiguous consent to be photographed is not present.”

“I am impressed, Midoriya. You have repeatedly demonstrated that you can overcome your speech impairment with some determination. But, yes. What you deduced is part of the reason. Still, you should really know better than to release sensitive information like the inside of the school building or who your teachers are. UA has already been targeted by villains, no need to make it worse when they attack you the next time.”

“Th-the next time? ” he squeaked, now being painfully reminded of the USJ incident again.

“Of course. They couldn't accomplish their goals last time so they will try again. Now, back to the topic at hand.”

Hurriedly he composed himself, pushing the ghastly image of his broken and bleeding teacher out of his mind and taking a deep breath like Hound Dog had taught him.

“Sh-should I take it down? The photo, I mean.”

“No, don´t bother. It will have spread by now which would make deleting the source useless. Although... ”

She searched something on her phone before showing him a social media page. It was titled: “The palace of pleasure from AnonymousGrape69” and was filled with suggestive imagery that tested the limits of what was legal on the site. One of the newer posts was another photo of Ms. Degurechaff, but in a side-profile that was centred on her bust. An obnoxious red arrow pointed at her hair ornament.

The caption read: [ See, even our hard-ass teacher tries to look nice sometimes. There’s no excuse, girls! ]

“Who is the culprit behind this obscenity? The image id confirms that it was first uploaded here and I want to know who did it.”

“... M-maybe... I am unsure... b-but I think it could be Mineta... He h-has this whole ‘grape motif’ going on.”

“Ahhh... that is what his costume is supposed to represent.”

“Y-yes. The p-pants symbolize a bowl. At least he said so last week.”

“I thought it was just an elaborate crotch protection. Not an unwise choice considering how many times he must have been kicked there if he has always been this perverse.”

Izuku nearly choked.

Suddenly the heroine raised her voice, clearly addressing the whole room:
“I nearly forgot to tell you, but here at the best hero school in the country we cannot waste time on doing nothing; especially with the sports festival taking place soon. So for all of you who value your education I will arrange an extra session after the end of lessons today.”

Oh! Then he could perhaps finally show All Might the progress in his training! His mom had not let him out of the house during the weekend which meant that he couldn´t meet with his mentor. Of course he had texted him some of the stuff he found out about All for One, but he had kept the biggest breakthrough a secret to surprise him. (Izuku only felt a little guilty about that, because he knew All Might would be proud. Hopefully.)

“Oh man, I wanted to go to the cinema later.”

His excitement was obviously not shared among the others.
“Yeah! My mom baked pie today. It's gonna be cold by then...” whined Kaminari.

“If your education is less important to you than pie, I will not stop you from leaving. You just shouldn't be surprised to find that you are no longer a member of the hero course if your performance at the sports festival is not satisfactory.”

Kacchan smirked for some reason and looked at him. What was that supposed to mean?

“And Mineta... I have seen your questionable online activities. Go to Hound Dog´s office immediately and give him this note. I will know if you don´t.”

“Why? I am just appreciative of the female form! That is free speech and there is nothing wrong with that!”

“It went wrong the moment you photoshopped my head onto Midnight´s body! Get out! ”

Izuku was unsure if his disgust outweighed his amusement at that moment.

~[#҈#]~​

The only reason why Mina didn´t try to catch a picture of how beautiful her teacher looked was the talk she had given to Midoriya a few hours ago. She wasn’t a stalker or anything creepy like that, but she wanted to analyze what kind of makeup Argent was wearing. And more importantly...
She wanted to discuss with her friends who she was wearing it for!

Who could this special person be? Clearly Ms. Degurgenchaff – no Degurshaft? Deggu- whatever...

Her name was so difficult to pronounce! Mina decided that from this point onward she would just call her teacher Tanya in her head, although she wouldn't dare to say that out loud. The verbal lashing the diminutive young woman had given All Might for that had been enough to convince her that acting so informal around her would be a terrible idea.

Anyways, before she had been distracted by the impossible spelling of Argent´s family name, she had been thinking about Tanya´s love interest!
No interview that she remembered had talked about Argent´s relationship status, but in Mina´s mind there were only a few possible candidates. First the bright blue ribbon yesterday and now the elaborate makeup during school hours. Either Tanya was seeing her mysterious lover on UA grounds or shortly after leaving them.

Mina, however, firmly believed that the reserved and pragmatic Argent would not fall for anyone in the faculty so quickly. Someone who appeared so guarded needed months of gentle prodding and romantic gestures to open up, at least if her novels were to be trusted. Instead it had to be someone she knew for a longer period of time. The acidic girl loved the childhood friends to lovers trope!
Someone who had also come to this region not too long ago...

Someone who was both charismatic and strong enough to woo Tanya´s heart...

It could be no other than – Mina knocked against the wall to imitate a dramatic drum roll – Hawks!

“Whatcha smiling about?” asked her new friend Tsu.

Mina looked around to verify that her teacher was not nearby and conspiratorially whispered to the frog girl: “I think Ms. Argent is in love with Hawks!”

“What gave you the idea? Ribbit.”

“It makes perfect sense! Both work directly under the HPSC so they are guaranteed to know each other, both are incredibly strong and, come on... Isn’t it obvious? Hawks comes here for a charity event, has to stay because UA expressed security concerns and then through pure coincidence Argent accepts the teaching position here immediately. They have to be secretly together!”

“If you put it like that...”

“Who is together?” asked a cheerful Ochako who had apparently just finished putting on her gym clothes in the changing room.

“Argent and Hawks. Ribbit.” replied Tsu in her typically blunt fashion.

“Wait, really?”

“Yeah, they are such a cute couple!”

“How do you know that though?”

“Like I said, it can´t be a coincidence that they moved simultaneously to a new city and I bet they have lots of experience working together. Also, that cute ribbon that she was wearing yesterday? Do you honestly think she would have put that on if it wasn't a gift from someone precious to her? And today she is wearing, like, super awesome makeup that lets her look more mature... All I'm saying is that my ‘date senses’ are tingling.”

“Your ‘date senses’ ?” deadpanned Ochako incredulously.

“They let me feel whenever two young people are about to go out on a romantic date. I am rarely wrong about that kind of stuff.”

Mina would have continued to present more evidence for her case if the object of their discussion had not chosen to appear.

“Are that all of you? Mph. Today we are fighting uphill battles. Does anybody want to guess what that means? Sero.”

“Of course we are going to fight on uneven terrain. On a slope most likely!”

“Incorrect. Yaoyorozu?”

“I believe you meant it less literally and more metaphorically, Ms. Degurechaff.”

Ahhh... That was how it was supposed to be pronounced, Mina noted with interest.

“We are going to fight against an opponent significantly stronger than us.” the rich girl continued.

“Indeed. You will spar with one opponent and the same safety rules apply as always. One of you will not be allowed to use their quirk while the other does. Within reason of course. Any unnecessary injuries will get you detention. Understood?”

“YES, MS. ARGENT!”

“Because Mineta is still with Hound Dog, the number of partners is uneven. Mmmm...”

Tanya theatrically grabbed her chin in mock thought.

“Kaminari, I see you have not abandoned your class for the temptation of baked goods. You are fighting against me. The spar lasts until you can't move anymore or I call it quits. Understood?”

“Why me...” he mumbled under his breath, but Ms. Argent still heard him.

“Because why not? After all, yesterday you were still of the opinion that I was –quote unquote – ‘trying to impress a guy’, no? Why don' t you impress me instead.”

“But Sensei, you are the number eleven hero! How am I going to prevail against your quirk?”

“Who said that I would be using my quirk? This is supposed to be an uphill battle for you, not an unwinnable scenario. Use whatever you feel like. I even am going to limit myself by not moving my arms from behind my back at all and keeping my eyes closed.”

“There is no way...”

“Yes, there is. Now come on! This is supposed to be nearly one-sided!”

With a battle cry Kaminari leapt into action, throwing his sparking fist towards the unmoving hero. Everybody watched with bated breath as he put all his power into a single attack to incapacitate their blind and seemingly defenceless teacher.

Needless to say...

He stood no chance.

Tanya had spoken the truth. It had been one-sided.

~[#҈#]~
​

Kirishima Eijiro stood at attention, back straight and arms at his side as Tanya looked him up and down. Honestly, she rather liked the boy, as he reminded her of some of her more boisterous soldiers from her previous life. Diligent, determined, and with a fire in his heart that refused to be smothered. At least, that was what she gathered from her interactions with him so far, and if she was even remotely accurate in her assessment, then he would flourish most under her special brand of training just as her precious 203rd did.

And if she was wrong? Well, it would be nothing Recovery Girl and Hound Dog couldn't fix, she was sure. Kaminari´s largest wound had also been that to his pride.

"So, you wish to be a shield, do you?" she asked as she circled him, getting the boy to nod once, gaze focused straight ahead.

"Yes, Sensei! I want to be a wall that will never fall! A shield for people to stand behind!"

"Heh, a mobile bunker." she mused with a smirk. "I could see the appeal."

The smirk quickly turned into a hard frown as she continued: "However a bunker must be sturdy, so as to not collapse upon those it's meant to protect in their most dire hour. Your hardening will help in that, but it's not enough, not yet and not on its own."

She stopped in front of him and snapped her fingers, causing two large robots to whirl up, each holding a bokken.

"Tell me, Kirishima, have you ever heard of kongoken?"

"Um, I don't think so." he answered honestly, eyeing the two UA provided robots wearily.

"It's a martial practice in Kung Fu, sometimes referred to as the iron shirt. It's a routine of intense training used to build up one's durability." she explained. "This is achieved through subjecting the body to increasingly extreme forms of punishment." She gestured to her robotic companions.
"The first stage of which is enduring the strikes of wooden swords repeatedly across the body. I believe these machines would be more effective than one of your classmates wailing on you."

He grinned at that.

"Is that all? That's easy!" he said as he began to harden his body.

The process was halted though, when Tanya harshly yelled: "No! You will not be using your quirk for this. At least, not at first."

This caused the boy to blink, confusion clear on his face.

"No quirk? But why? I mean, I'll be using my quirk in real fights as a hero, right?"

"That's true." she agreed. "But I know stamina is an issue in your hardening, both in merely maintaining it over extended periods, and doing so under continued assault. Out on the field, there's no telling what sort of scenarios you might encounter, but prolonged battles, especially if they end up being against multiple opponents, or consecutive fights, aren't out of the question. In which case, you will either want to reserve your quirk usage to defend against certain attacks or powerful adversaries, or extend your time limit over the course of the situation. That's why we're beginning a new type of training today."

She slapped a palm onto the man-sized robot to her left as she explained. "You are going to put up your guard, tense your muscles, and let B-12 and C-13 hit you repeatedly with their bokken until you can't take it anymore. Then you will go to the Nurse for healing and return to repeat the process. Recovery Girl has agreed to do this one time per training session and once again before you return home, provided you let her perform post-training examinations and follow a diet plan meant to replenish what her quirk will take out of you."

"That sounds pretty intense..." he mumbled, gulping as sweat started to form on his brow.

Tanya quirked a brow. "Too much for you? Here I thought you took the school's motto of ‘Plus Ultra’ seriously."

Eijiro shook his head and stood straight and proud once more, eyes steely as he glared at the two robots in challenge.

"You're right! It'd be totally unmanly of me to back down now after I asked you to come up with a training plan for me."

Tanya smiled and nodded approvingly. "Just so." she agreed. "And after you grow accustomed to the sticks, we'll move onto iron chains, then steel bats, and finally cannonballs. Recovery Girl and I also theorize that this training will translate to an improvement in your quirk as well, which she'll be keeping an eye out for during her examinations. Once you can withstand that level of punishment with your unaltered body, we can begin proper quirk training with a zero-pointer."

With her eyes turned to the ceiling and hand on her chin as she said this, she didn't see Eijiro's face grow increasingly pale.

"Anyway, there is no better time to start than right now. Put up your guard, Kirishima. B-12, C-13, initiate training routine two-oh-three."

"With. Pleasure." B-12 said in a tinny voice as C-13 bounced its sword eagerly against its metal palm, both approaching the red-haired boy as he took a hesitant step back. He only just barely had time to put up his guard before the strikes came raining down.

Turning away, Tanya scanned the gym for the next student in need of her help. She frowned upon noticing that the majority of them had stopped duelling for some reason to instead stare wide-eyed in her direction.

Ignoring the sound of wood impacting flesh and the pained grunts from behind her, Tanya yelled:
"What are you doing?! Get back to work! Koda! Come over here! Don't think I haven't noticed you refusing to fight back against your sparring partners! You're not only hindering your own training, but your partners' as well! If you're so worried about hurting someone, then I'll be your opponent. Rest assured, you won't have to worry about hurting me, and I won't allow you to pull any punches, or else... "

His frightened glance in the direction of Kirishima who had already passed out again told more than words ever could.

EDIT: I might have to split such long chapters up in the future because my browser struggles really hard with editing so much text lmao

 

Chapter 10

Although the first half of the exercise had been carried out quirkless (oh the memories...) Izuku had more than enough time to practice his quirk later on. All Might´s time limit had decreased again as a result of his wound from the USJ incident, which left him not enough time to visit the gym in his “muscle form” to watch him train. Still, the opportunity to show off a bit for his idol made him giddy. With his mentor steadily growing weaker he needed to push himself harder than ever before to become worthy of All Might´s legacy.

He swallowed nervously at the mere thought of becoming the next Symbol of Peace, but he owed it to his mother, to his friends – no, the whole world to try his best at fulfilling that role. The nasty voice of his inner doubts reminded him that he would never be able to live up to the greatness of his mentor, that he was useless, unworthy, just a Deku-

“NO!” he screamed mentally, clamping down on those thoughts of inferiority that had been drilled into his head since his fourth birthday. Even though he had told some of his experiences to Ochako and his mom, letting out absolutely everything out in front of Hound Dog had been incredibly relieving. It had taken multiple hours until he could properly open up about that topic, but it had been worth it! Of course Izuku couldn't tell the counsellor everything, because the existence of One for All was a secret, but the weight of the mistreatment that he had suffered for most of his life had been lightened just enough to make him feel like he was starting life all over again.

Hound Dog had also shown him how to meditate “to calm his centre” whatever that really meant. When he was worried or stressed it still took him a while to clear his mind and focus on the here and now, but he was getting better at it. Izuku hoped that it would help with his control over One for All and he liked to believe that it worked to a certain extent.

That was also what he was currently doing to prepare for using his quirk. Now was the time to test if his quirk counselling had been a success.
His breathing slowed, his mind emptied of doubts and his veins began to thrum with power . Izuku opened his eyes and grinned up at the skeletal form of his favourite hero.

“Look! I can channel it through my entire body!”

Green lighting danced over his skin, but it did not hurt him.

“Very impressive, young Midoriya.” replied All Might with a similar smile.

“Remember how I told you that my body is like an egg in the microwave oven?”

The number one hero cringed at the terrible comparison.

“Well, I think I got the perfect power setting down. Now the egg doesn't explode anymore! Although I still haven't punched anything, so I don´t know if it really works. Would the egg explode if I-“

“Young Midoriya, please never talk about exploding again.” said his mentor sternly.

“Y-yes, All- uh Mr. Yagi.”

They were not completely alone so he needed to make sure to only address him in his civilian name, lest the secret of All Might's ‘muscle form’ be discovered.

“How much of your quirk can you safely use so far?”

“Uhm... Like I said, I didn´t test it. I only tried to manifest as much of the quirk as I can handle... Like dragging something from the depths of the ocean to the surface without suffocating...”

“Your metaphors should really be centred less around you dying.”

“Hehe... I guess... I can't say for sure, but when the lightning appears like it does right now, it feels as if I am calling upon maybe... three to five percent of the total power?”

“Very good. Very good, young Midoriya. Do you want to see how your technique holds up on the field of battle?”

“W-why are you saying this so seriously?”

“Come on! Stand up! Punch this sandbag with as much force as you think you can handle! Let your heroic desire become your strength!”

“Uh... okay.”

Izuku gathered the small trickle of overwhelming power inside him and tried to disperse it throughout his whole body as he had been instructed to do. His vision shrank as he focused solely on his target, doing his hardest to keep the egg from explo- uh, cracking.

“I call this... MINOR SMASH!”

Nobody could tell if Mr. Yagi was coughing from laughter or because he had gotten sand in his mouth after the bag detonated. Nonetheless, it was obvious that he was proud of Izuku´s achievement. Even Recovery Girl was pleasantly surprised when she had to heal only two hairline fractures!

~[#҈#]~
​

Kaminari Denki stared at the case held up to him as if it was going to explode, then at his blond teacher like she was a rabid ferret ready to attack.

"Take it, Kaminari, and open it." Tanya repeated impatiently, eyes narrowing a millimetre which had the boy scrambling to follow her command post-haste.

"Yes, Ma'am!" he yelped as he opened the case, only to stall as he stared inside. "Um, what is this?"

"Support gear. Power Loader was willing to whip up a prototype based on the functionality I described to him." she explained.

Tanya had been lucky that she was able to convince Power Loader to create the weapon at such short notice. All it had cost her was a signed autograph for his niece, who was apparently her biggest fan. The propaganda network of the HPSC was unreasonably effective if they could boost her popularity so much, despite her just doing her job properly.

"Okay, I get that... I guess, but, uh... why does it look like a weird gun?"

"Because it is in fact a weird gun, though for legal reasons, I suggest we continue calling it a support item."

Denki looked from her to the strange device in the box, tentatively taking it out and setting the case on the floor beside him. "You're giving me a gun?" he asked incredulously.

"Yes, because our spar a few days ago showcased for me how cumbersome your quirk can be in certain circumstances."

"Using it at too high wattage impairs your mental faculties, and you're liable to shock an ally if they happen to be too close. It also lacks effective range, which this will rectify nicely."

"By shooting people?" he said sceptically. "Why not just become a police officer instead?"

"Because this weapon does not use gunpowder as an ammunition propellant, instead operating through the use of a strong electromagnetic pulse to fire bullets, which your quirk will generate."

As she explained this, she began pointing out some of the features in the pistol-like weapon in the boy's hand.

"By eliminating the need for brass casings, the magazine is able to hold twenty rounds, and the lack of an onboard power source aids in the compact form even more. Also, as it's powered by your quirk, muzzle velocity can be adjusted situationally by you, allowing for both subsonic and supersonic rounds which would normally not be feasible for small arms. In fact, on the lowest end, the bullets are hardly lethal at all, which makes it a fine piece of support gear for taking in villains alive. Honestly, for a prototype, it's a rather robust weapon already. Power Loader outdid himself. He even provided a nice thigh holster for you."

Denki stared down at the small pistol in a new light, a smile pulling at his lips as he looked back up at her. When he did, however, the smile faded.
"I don't get it. Why would you do something like this for me?"
Tanya tilted her head.
"I don't understand what you mean."

"Well, it's just... Don't you hate me?" he asked awkwardly, looking away. "Like, that spar yesterday was just an excuse to kick my butt and embarrass me in front of the class, right? I mean, I know that stuff with the picture was out of line, and I get that, but-"

"I don't hate you." Tanya interrupted. "I don't like your lackadaisical attitude towards your heroic studies, and perhaps I was upset about the photo, but that's in the past. It is my job as your teacher to correct your behaviour and, among other things, instil in you the appropriate attitudes to become an effective hero. I don't expect you to be the perfect hero, or even student right now, but I do expect you to improve with time, and for you not to waste my efforts on you." she tilted her head and asked quietly: "Are you a wasted effort, Kaminari?"

He stared, mouth slightly agape, before his eyes became moist and he shook his head. "No, Sensei! And thank you! I promise I'll be better from now on!"

She smiled fondly at the boy, but smoothed her expression when he refocused his attention on her. "Good." she said. "I hope you strive not to waste your new instructor's time either."

"Um, new instructor?"

"Of course, I'm certainly not fit to teach you how to use that. After all, I don't use guns." Tanya said with a shrug, and it was the truth in most ways.

She'd hardly used a gun in this new life, relying almost entirely on her quirk for her public operations. Even in her previous life, she wasn't so arrogant as to claim she was a sharpshooter.

No, the man approaching them was far more qualified than her.

"Howdy." Snipe greeted, tilting the brim of his Stetson at them when he came to a stop beside Tanya. "So the lil´ lady here wants me to teach ya how to use that little peashooter, that right?"

"Indeed." Tanya confirmed, holding a hand towards her student. "This is Kaminari Denki, and I think he has much to learn from you, sir. Not just in how to utilize his new tool in the context of heroics, but also in managing his image while doing so. After all, the fact that you have become such a well-respected hero in Japan, a country known for its very reserved views towards firearms, is a testament to your PR skills."

The much taller hero looked away, scratching the side of his gas mask-covered face as he muttered, "Well shoot, I already agreed to teach the kid. There's no need for flattery, miss."

"There isn't." Tanya agreed. "I am only speaking the truth, now Kaminari, I know you're probably eager to try out your new equipment, but I suggest you first read the instruction manual Power Loader provided so as to not risk blowing your fingers off."

"Yes Ms. Degurechaff!" he nearly yelled before turning bodily towards Snipe and bowing at the waist towards the man in a show of respect Tanya had not seen from the boy yet. "And thank you, Snipe-Sensei. I promise to take this training seriously and to not waste your time."

"Thanks, I guess, now come on, kid. The shooting range is on the opposite side of campus, and we're burning daylight as it is."

"Yes, Sensei!" Denki said as he grabbed the case and hurried after his new tutor.

And so, Tanya watched the pair leave with a small smile and new hope for the boy's future. Now if she could only figure out how to correct Mineta Minoru's deviant behaviour without flinging the little horndog into orbit. Maybe she could brainstorm with Himiko to come up with something. Her partner had a wondrous ability to make people do her bidding even before she showed them her knife collection.

~[#҈#]~
​

Meanwhile, Himiko was going over the mission plan that had been sent to her through the encrypted network of the HPSC Special Operations Unit. Her infiltration of the League of villains had gone off without a hitch. She had created somewhat of a name for herself in the criminal underworld by murdering countless people either directly or falsely claiming responsibility for their demise. It was not work that she actually enjoyed, but nobody would notice that when she wore her trademark smile wherever she went.

There was only one person in this whole, wide world that was able to detect the sorrow and disgust beneath her mask. She was the personal sun of Himiko´s life; her sole star in the bleak darkness that otherwise threatened to swallow her up. Yet this source of comfort and affection was bound by the same chains as she was! Neither of them was free from the iron-hard grip of the HPSC.

These... pigs forced them to do their bidding. To bloody their hands so that this rotten society could decay just a bit longer. It was abhorrent how corrupt these men in fine suits and their lapdog heroes in motley costumes had become. She would kill them all if she could!

But she couldn´t. Not when it would put her love at risk. For her saviour she would endure.

So Himiko had taken on the role of a villain in order to blend in with the rest of the lowlifes that housed in this city. Like a good, little soldier, she followed the demands of the pigs that held her chains and carved the name “Blood Dancer” into the fearful hearts of villain scum. She shuddered to think that she could have become a hopeless bottom feeder if her love hadn't saved her.

Hanging out in bars and flirting with stinky, drunk men was so not cute!

Regardless, her infamy had spread wide and multiple organizations had tried to hook her already with empty promises. Only one of them had been the one she was allowed to accept: The League of Villains.

A band of clueless psychopaths without restraint or intelligence or cuteness. Worthless.

However, her orders said that she had to get close to them so she played her usual game and enticed them with her body and her combat prowess. The alleged leader was a manchild who only acknowledged her as a human being because she defeated him in a match of Mortal Kombat 32. That made her his “favourite NPC” and he started to even listen to her suggestions from time to time.

His pride had been hurt badly by his failure to kill anyone at the USJ which had made it child's play to goad Shigaraki into immediately seeking revenge. He promptly sent her on a mission to break into the “high-level dungeon” to steal the safety codes that would let them bypass the automated security to the sports festival. It was stupid, childish and ridiculously dangerous, but he did not appear to care.

Shigaraki´s babysitter, a misty bartender that gave off uncomfortable vibes, attempted to dissuade him from the terrible plan, but the hand-loving moron was having none of it! All it had taken on Himiko´s part was to self-assuredly declare that she could accomplish any mission without backup or die trying! For a second she felt pity for whoever was the real leader of this nonsensical organization. Who needed enemies with such subordinates?

Why the pigs wanted her to instigate a villain attack during the UA sports festival of all places was beyond her. Did they want to weaken the school's reputation? Or strengthen it? At the end of the day it was unimportant. The whole world could burn as long as she was together with her senpai.

Now she was reading over her final instructions before the plan could commence.

Protocol 21749-b was rather simple. Himiko would receive the package with the blood of Aizawa Shouta (commonly known as the underground hero Eraserhead) six hours before the launch of the operation. The life fluid had been channelled off from the regular blood tests that the man underwent by an insider in the hospital, who soon after would be found as the unfortunate victim of a memory loss quirk which made him forget the last two weeks of his life. It was a clean, humane and effective way to wrap up a loose end that could potentially turn into a liability later down the road.

Himiko, or as the documents called her: “Carmilla”, would ingest that blood two hours before school started and exit the hospital with Aizawa´s face. Her quirk could not replicate physical injuries so she needed to get her disguise of bandages and plaster casts right. The videos of Eraserhead´s body language and typical mannerisms that had been attached to his dossier were all blurry and short, so she needed to make up most of his behaviour on the spot.

Oh well, the extra challenge would make it more fun.

Not to mention the chance to tease Tanya a bit in her new form! The cute faces she would make were going to be hilarious!

~[#҈#]~
​

Tanya let out a deep breath as she closed the door to her apartment behind her and finally took the time to check her phone. Her newest post on hero-net about social equality was blowing up which was nice to see. Apart from that nobody else had sent her anything of importance. Just the usual spam of marketing deals and requests for interviews. Nothing that her automatic reply system could not deal with.

Then she pulled out her special, unofficial, untraceable and most importantly secret phone from a hidden pocket and checked that too. Despite being as technologically secure as humanly possible the HPSC did not like to send compromising data through their network often. The reason had been something about emerging technomancy quirks, but Tanya could not care less.

So it came as a surprise to find a new message in her inbox.

[Do not be alarmed by a familiar face . More commands coming soon.]

What? She read the text again and subsequently deleted it from the device to leave no trace.

This was most likely a ‘know-only-what-you-have-to’ case. There was no other reason for this instruction to be so vague and cryptic otherwise. Possessing mission critical information could be dangerous, especially when dealing with mindreading quirks or similarly frustrating abilities.
But still...

Was she in danger? Probably not, seeing as she was supposed to “not be alarmed”. Also why had the word “face” been highlighted? This whole scenario was fishy. Furthermore, now that she thought about it, Himiko had been acting strange over the last few days, behaving more clingy and moody than usual. Did she know what was up?

Tanya did not want to be dragged into this mess. If a conflict of some sort arose then staying at UA should be her safest bet. From what she could tell the security had been amped up considerably. Cameras and motion detectors in the hallways were everywhere. With over a dozen pro heroes on site Tanya was sure that the HPSC was not crazy enough to cause a fight near the school grounds. Those spineless paper pushers would not dare to upset the smartest being on the planet.

She sighed again.

“I am not going to get involved. If they call me in, I´ll just claim that my school work required me to stay there or risk breaking cover. I have a flawless record! I deserve some rest, damn it!” Tanya angrily muttered to herself.

“Damn you Being X for giving me this much power!”

Once again she wondered how her third life could have gone differently if she had been born with an ordinary, plain, weak quirk. Instead she had been “gifted” with near limitless potential and was chained to an organization that used her however they saw fit. A nostalgic experience, one could say.

Her quirk worked in a variety of ways, some of which were not unlike the magic of her last life. Officially it was registered as “Light Walls”, but as it was often the case, this entailed far more than what the name would suggest. In its most basic form Tanya could form shields of translucent, silver-shimmering energy which had given her the moniker “Argent”. They were resistant even against excessive force and could cover more than a football field with their surface area.

She could manipulate certain properties of these barriers like their shape, position, opacity or permeability. By applying a force field around her feet and torso she could “fly” through the air, although in reality she was just pushing herself with a nearly invisible platform of sorts whose position she altered along a calculated vector.

The greater these changes, the more focus energy this took out of her though. For example, clouding a barrier so that normal sunlight could not pass through was far, far easier than manipulating it until no radiation of any kind could pierce it. Of course this also applied to how big her shields could become. A four thousand square metre force field required at least four thousand times more stamina to maintain than a one square metre large one. Subsequently it had taken her a nearly inhuman level of training to push herself to endure such strain.

Nonetheless, that quirk made her ideal for crowd control or rescue work, because she could hold back either large amounts of people or debris. Separating protesters, supporting collapsing buildings, levitating wounded civilians or utterly immobilizing criminals were all tasks she excelled at. No wonder that she had reached the top of the national hero rating charts so quickly (with the subtle help of the HPSC of course).

However, should the force that pressed on her defences exceed the capabilities of the shield then it would collapse in rather painful fashion and she would be unable to erect another one for a few seconds afterwards. A substantial weakness that she covered by erecting multiple smaller barriers in a staggered fashion next to each other, so that if one failed it would not cause her whole support structure to collapse.

As strong as her quirk was to fend off normal humans, “normal” did not exist in the world of the twenty fourth century anymore. Mutant type quirks often came with slight strength enhancements and/or spikey bits that could be used to concentrate kinetic energy into very small points. Anyone with a crowbar or an axe could also replicate this effect to smash through her defences with comparative ease. It would still be hard to accomplish, but multiple villains working together could make short work of her barriers.

Of course she could limit her surface area and channel that energy into more powerful fields that could withstand those blows, but that would be merely delaying the inevitable. Tanya was not fond of focusing on pure defence if attacking could prove more far safer. After all, nothing was gained from committing resources to merely delay an enemy. Her second life had taught her the importance of mobility and overwhelming firepower to crush any opposition before they could really become a threat.

Due to her barriers being constructs of pure energy, they had no physical mass or thickness which made them excellent blades if she pumped enough power into them so that they could actually separate solid objects from another (which was not much). The downside of using her quirk as a weapon in this way was that it was simply too effective.

The smallest amount of error on her part would bisect a man or at the very least lacerate important blood vessels. Humans were annoyingly fragile things and she was not sure if even the Commission could save her from the public backlash of openly killing a villain. Tanya would rather not risk being labelled as a murderer (although that description would be more than accurate). Therefore, she resolved to only ever use her “Silver Slice” technique in case of a catastrophic emergency.

Far more applicable were her “Silver Wedge” and “Silver Bash”. Whoever at the marketing department had come up with these stupid names should be fired for their apparent lack of imagination. It was an established part in modern hero culture to cry out the name of your attack like a moron before using it, so her handler had vehemently insisted for her to partake in this absurd ritual. Luckily she only had to scream like a bad action hero when cameras were nearby.

The “Silver Wedge” was technically also a blade, but ninety five percent less lethal. As the name aptly described it was a wedge, although the naked eye couldn't see that. Basically, two small shields were overlapping each other in a V-shaped form, creating a relatively dull edge compared to the practically two-dimensional “Silver Slash”. In reality it still served as an extremely sharp knife or sword that she could control at will.
Tanya´s “Silver Bash” was the simplest of all weapons since the dawn of humanity: A club.

She simply projected a small, hard force field over the head of her target and pressed down with enough force to knock them out. If it didn't work the first time then repeated bonks on the head typically put most of her victims out of commission. It's effectiveness came from the fact that most people never bothered to look directly up if their eyes had not mutated to do so.

Her range to use any of these attacks amounted to more or less exactly forty metres in every direction, but Tanya was optimistic that she could expand that area with time and effort. Discipline and diligence had carried her this far already, so it stood to reason that they would carry her further. Quirks also had the chance to spontaneously evolve under stress, but that was pretty rare and not something she could rely on.

Anyways, in Tanya´s opinion, it was now time for more ice cream. She deserved it for the stress that was soon to come.

 

Chapter 11

Himiko hadn’t messaged her in two days and Tanya was feeling restless. Of course she was not concerned; the girl could take care of herself. Nobody she had ever known was as dangerous as her partner in close combat situations. It filled her with immense satisfaction and gratefulness that she had managed to find Himiko on that fateful day and train her up to one of the finest agents the HPSC had seen to date. That was one of the few unambiguously good things that had happened to her in this life.

Why then did she feel so... empty? Probably the weather. Too much sunshine could also weigh down on one's mood, apparently.

Once again she dressed herself for school. Although this time she chose a more civilian attire instead of her iconic hero costume. Today was the day that the first pros from neighbouring districts were arriving to serve as extra security during the sports festival. That meant that she did not need to go on patrol, because all relevant areas of the city were already covered enough. For the next few days she would only need to serve in her role as teacher, not as a soldier.

A downside she sadly failed to consider was that she was technically not allowed to use her quirk when outside her hero persona which meant that she had to take the train to UA instead of flying there. It hurt her professional pride a bit that she had to run to the classroom in order to be on time, as that was a clear indication of time mismanagement, but at least she was not late.

So in her hurry she did not even notice the dark figure hiding under her desk when she entered the classroom.

~[#҈#]~
​

Shoto watched with interest as their normally perfectly prepared teacher rushed into the room. Well, to the untrained eye it might have looked like she was just casually walking in, but he could notice the subtle signs signifying her hurry. Her slightly dishevelled hair, the marginally raised breathing rate, and her uncharacteristically late appearance mere seconds before the clock signalled the start of class...

To Shoto for whom interpreting such details could mean the difference between getting a good night's sleep or not being able to properly walk the next day, it was all too obvious.

“Good morning 1-A! Today will be our last official lesson together before the sports festival. If Mr. Aizawa has recovered enough by that point he will be taking over your education again. I must say that I have enjoyed our shared time immensely – as short as it might be – and I hope that I could be of help to you aspiring heroes. So I wanted to say preemptively... Thank you.” spoke Argent.

A shame. Although he still kind of resented her for forcing him to use the fire aspect of his quirk, he could also understand why she did it. It may seem cruel, but her teaching was much different from that of his sperm-donor, if one could even call that “teaching” . She wanted to push him to be at his best, not for selfish reasons, but simply because she actually wanted to do her job.

Ashido broke the ensuing silence by clearing her throat.

“Ehm... Ms. Argent, couldn´t you ask the principal to hire you for real?”

“Yeah! That would be awesome!” added Uraraka.

Fools. As if the number eleven heroine would risk her position by further staying at UA. Perhaps she was different though...

“I do not want to slander Mr. Aizawa; for he has proven exceptionally brave in our defence at the USJ and our overall experience with his teaching methods is limited, but it would be a welcome change if you attempted to share the position of Homeroom Teacher with him. Ms. Argent, your dedication to our training has been commendable in every aspect and your enthusiasm to support us in unexpected ways much closer aligns with the vision I had of UA when coming here. I believe I can speak for most if not all of us when I say that it would be terribly sad to see you leave!” Iida started to drone on in his usual stuck-up fashion.

“Sure! What he said!” yelled Kirishima.

Why did they all have to be so loud? Screaming would not change anything.

“The shine of your appearance has been most dazzling, mon prof! Our little school will glow much less brilliantly without you, oui mademoiselle?”

One wave of her hand was enough to take back control of the room. Impressive. His bastard-father would have needed to flare his disgusting quirk for a similar effect.

“It warms my heart that you think so, but it is not my decision. If the higher-ups are unwilling then I am powerless to refuse them.”

He found it comical how some of his classmate´s postures simultaneously deflated as if they were a hive mind.

“Nonetheless I will try my best to present my case to them. After all, how could I refuse if you ask me so politely.” she smiled lopsidedly.

It was a nice smile. A small, but real one. Idly, Shoto thought back to the last true smile he had gotten from his family.

Suddenly a familiar dry voice rasped: “Well, isn't this sweet.”

Argent´s body briefly tensed as if she was expecting an attack before slowly turning to the podium where Eraserhead had seemingly appeared out of thin air. How the man had been hiding inside the cramped space with his giant plaster casts was a mystery beyond mortal comprehension.

“Welcome back Mr. Aizawa. I was not aware that the hospital had released you yet.”

“They haven’t.” he grumbled.

“Then why are you here? Surely you would know that aggravating your injuries will only lengthen your absence from your position as teacher.”

“I am not going to aggravate them. Anyways, that speech was very cute, but don´t you think I have a say in this?”

Had he just said ‘cute’? Unironically?

“Of course. Naturally I will respect your opinion on the matter, but ultimately it is up to the principal to decide how this school is run.”
Eraserhead only grunted in reply, but remained silent. Both of them seemed to wait for the other to make a move until Ms. Degurechaff broke the tension.
“If that was everything you wanted to say, then I must ask you to leave. I have a lesson to give and we certainly don't want to waste our students’ time any longer, right?”
“No. I am going to watch. I want to see what is so praiseworthy about your teaching style that got the kids all excited.”
Argent nodded her head in contemplation and produced a translucent chair with a wave of her hand in the corner of the room. Wordlessly the bandaged man limped over and cautiously sat down on the silvery construct.
Hers was a powerful and extraordinarily versatile quirk. Too powerful, one could say. Just like with the Midoriya boy, Shoto had the feeling that there was more going on than simply good genetics. It was rather suspicious how someone with no personal information that his begetter´s spies could dig up had already achieved the number eleven rank. The informants that Endeavour employed were all top tier or else the bastard would have not managed to hide nearly as many scandals as he did.

Was Ms. Degurechaff also the product of a quirk marriage? A secret government experiment? Hmmm...
The lesson continued. He felt neither bored nor particularly engaged by it, but that was how they were most of the time. At least it was better than math with Ectoplasm. While taking notes he observed Eraserhead from time to time.

If Shoto had not known any better, then he could have sworn that Mr. Aizawa was eyeing their replacement teacher up. She seemed to be the sole focus of his gaze, roaming her body up and down, but never straying for too long from her shining, blue eyes. He reasoned that he was most likely wrong though, because the bandages around his head obscured much of his actual expression.

“So that concludes that particular topic. I am sorry that I had to overrun the time a bit, but it is important that you understand this particular subject. It will be the basis of much educational content in the future. If you have any more questions, please approach me now or in the teachers’ lounge where I will be spending the next five to seven hours. Goodbye everyone!”

“Goodbye Ms. Argent.” he mumbled, but it was drowned out by the much more enthusiastic responses of his peers. They were all so noisy and emotional; it was incomprehensible to him how they could act so carefree. He would definitely not miss them when he got his license.

Vaguely he could hear: “A word please...” from Eraserhead, but he was already half way on his way to the door, wanting to get out of the classroom as quickly as possible. A wish that was promptly squashed by the large crowd of people outside who were nearly filling the gigantic hallway.

Shoto clicked his tongue in annoyance.

~[#҈#]~
​

“How can I help you, Sir?”
It always paid to be respectful to veterans in the industry. You never knew what kinds of connections they had formed that could make her life harder in the future. Her strained relationship with Present Mic was a prime example.

“Well, would you like some feedback on what I thought of your lesson?” he asked.

Tanya had been expecting something of that sort already. Despite how she felt about Aizawa from the bits of information she had been able to piece together, she also knew that Nedzu would not have appointed him as homeroom teacher for the most prestigious class in Japan out of a whim. There had to be some hidden characteristic buried beneath his unprofessional laziness and it would prove beneficial to find out what that was.

“Of course. I would be thankful for more criticism. I imagine that despite our different work philosophies I could learn a lot from you.”

The Erasure Hero smirked underneath his bandages.

“For one, why are you not in costume? Shouldn´t you demonstrate your presence as a hero in front of the kids? Not that I mind it, though. ”

Um... What was that?

“I do not think it is necessary to always wear my uniform in school. The children have already gotten used to it now, so I thought it would be a good idea to shake that up a little.”

“There is something else you definitely need to change though.”

“Hmm? What is it?”

From the sound of it he sounded quite serious! Had she broken some unwritten rule? Was she in trouble?

“You need to stop being so damn cute. It’s distracting.”

It took a full three seconds for her brain to comprehend what he had just said.

“Excuse me?”

“I said, you need to take a damn cue .”

Oh. That made slightly more sense. She must have misheard.

“A cue from what? Your own style?”

“Hmph. Figure it out. Can you help me to the teachers’ lounge now? Don't want to fall and embarrass myself in front of the brats.”
As weird as the man was, his last wish was at least understandable. Tarnishing your image in front of an audience was never fun. Walking side by side they made their way over to the door only to be immediately blocked by a heatedly glaring mob of students. Most of their scorn was directed at Bakugou unsurprisingly.

Huffing in annoyance she stepped in the middle between the two sides to deescalate the situation before someone resorted to actual violence.
“What is this commotion about?”

“These extras want to scare us like the pathetic losers they are. ‘Declaration of war’? Don’t make me laugh.”

Out of fairness she should ask for the perspective of the other side as well. Bakugou was hardly an objective source. In front of the crowd stood a purple-haired kid with an almost bored expression. He seemed to be in charge so Tanya addressed him.

“Could you tell me please what is going on here?”

“I was just advising the hero course that they should be prepared to give it their all next week. Because if they don’t... There are many people here who did not pass the biased entrance exam and they are more than ready to take their place.”

“Uh-huh. What is your name?”

“Shinso. Shinso Hitoshi. From 1-C.” He stated defiantly.

Petty rivalry? How amusing... Time to crush his misguided jealousy.

“How many points did you get during the entrance exam then, Shinso?”

“Zero. The test was not fair. It was heavily favouring those with physical and flashy quirks. Those with less destructive powers were left behind in the dust. You wouldn’t understand that .”

Ignoring the whispered barb at the end she followed up: “Oh? You got absolutely zero points, because of your non-flashy quirk?”

“Yes. The exam was deeply unfair.”

“How do you explain then how Hagakure here, got in?”

She pointed at the pile of floating clothes to her right.

“I cannot fathom how only being invisible could help directly in taking down giant robots. You would additionally need to be athletic, fast and smart to succeed. Or take Koda here, who can speak to animals. How do you imagine talking with birds and bees helped him in the entrance exam?”
The previously confident boy appeared to lose his previous bravado with every word she spoke.

“I... uhm...”

“Exactly. The truth is that you could have made it in somehow if you had just found a way. There is more to fighting than your quirk. I honestly don’t know how the evaluation works at UA, but even I can see that it measures more than brute strength alone.”

She turned to the rather nervous looking green-haired boy to her left.

“Midoriya, you only learned to control your quirk not too long ago. How many points did you get?”

“Ehm... Z-zero combat points a-and sixty rescue points.”

“They had rescue points?” Tanya asked mildly surprised. With a raised eyebrow she stared straight at Shinso, looking so thoroughly unimpressed that a few children at the sidelines began to snicker.

“Am I right to assume that helping other examinees was what granted you your score, Midoriya?” she asked, not breaking eye contact with the Gen Ed student.

“Y-yeah.”

“Good to know. Now that we cleared that up, please go back to your classrooms or to the cafeteria. Blocking the corridor is unacceptable.”
Obviously not all fighting spirit had left Shinso, because his face twisted in fury and he yelled: “That still doesn’t mean that we don’t deserve to be in the hero course! I’ll show you by entering through the sports festival!”

Tanya regarded him with an encouraging nod and made her way through the dispersing mass of bodies towards the teachers’ lounge. Hopefully Midnight hadn’t broken the coffee machine again. For all her talent with the needle that woman was as clumsy with electronics as a villain with snapped hamstrings.

~[#҈#]~
​

Nemuri had in fact not broken the coffee machine! The settings were glitching out randomly and the brew it produced was a little thicker and spicier than normal, but she did not really mind...

When she heard the door creak she innocently sipped at her cup and sifted through her papers as if nothing was wrong. Nobody needed to know that she had-

“ Not again , Nemuri!” groaned Snipe as he uselessly pressed the start button over and over again.
Damn it! How did he know?

“Why do you always suspect me? I haven't done anything! I was just sitting here and-“

“Yeah, yeah spare me the details. You owe me Nemuri! You owe me for this injustice!”

Oh no! That was bad! She didn’t want to fund his Karaoke Night again. Well, they were actually pretty fun, but the Sharpshooting Hero could drink like few others and good booze was quite expensive nowadays! That would cut harshly into her savings and she wanted to rather spend that money on the awesome new whip she found...

Think, Nemuri, think...

When in doubt, use your body as a distraction! That was a tried and tested Midnight specialty!

“Ohhh~... What do you want to do with me...” she mock-shivered, pretending to shield her modesty with her hands, which only served to accentuate her curvy figure even more.

“Stop that. Ya ain’t getting me with that ol’ trick.”

She pouted, clasping her hands and pushing her bosom out in a seductive yet innocent manner.

“You are no fun... Don’t you want to do some naughty things to a young maiden like me, you strapping fellow?”

“You are no young lady anymore.”

Wha- That comment went too far ! He would taste her wrath for this unfairly accurate insult!

“How dare you! I look not a day over twenty-two! Take this!”

The R-rated Heroine threw her half-empty cup at the fiend that had disrespected her beauty. Snipe expertly dodged the object with the ease of a veteran hero and so it continued unhindered on its trajectory towards the entrance area. She could only watch in horror as in precisely that moment the door swung open again and the projectile hit another target.

The porcelain burst and showered the entering person with coffee. Wait, was that...

“Shouta! Oh, I’m so sorry Shouta!”

Hastily she jumped out of her seat and began her best to clean his plaster casts and bandages with a napkin. Not that it did much, but further smearing the pristine white cloth with brown.

“Enough.“ snapped her friend and she fiddled with the stained handkerchief in shame. Her friend was in the process of recovering from severe wounds and what did she do? Throw a mug at him!

“Sorry... It's wonderful to see you so well already. But... uh, should you be out of the hospital? I mean the rat would have notified us if they released you...”

“Who knows? Maybe he thought it would be funnier that way.”

“Alright. That sounds like him.”

“Also I released myself. Another day looking at a white ceiling and I think I would have gone insane.”

Nemuri chuckled at that.

“Yeah. Somehow I knew you would try that. Can’t leave your kids alone for two weeks, ey? You are such a sweetheart.”

“Whatever. I trust my replacement has been adequate?”

“Ehm, Shouta, she’s standing right there...”

Argent appeared to realize the awkwardness in the air and pointed at the coffee machine.

“It’s ok. I was just going to-“

Snipe despondently shook his head and the number eleven heroine glanced at Midnight with unbridled contempt. Oh shit...

~[#҈#]~
​

Nedzu had sunken deep in thought. His eyes were fixed to the live feed on his screen and his paws were absentmindedly tapping on the surface of his office desk. Normally, even the most complicated problem could be solved by him within a few minutes, but the scenario at hand was consuming his whole focus for more than an hour already.

The enigma in question was no other than his dear employee Aizawa Shouta.

When his familiar face had shown up on the security feed after entering the front gate Nedzu had been amused. The stubborn man seemed to never prioritize his own health above what he perceived as necessary for the wellbeing of his students. An admirable trait that led to much foolishness.

Then his amusement switched to confusion when he saw Aizawa apparently flirting with Ms. Degurechaff. Was it a technique to catch her off guard or disorient her? Had the trauma to his head perhaps produced undiagnosed side effects? Was he on drugs?

For his safety Nedzu needed to understand what precisely was happening to his former student. So he examined the video and audio footage closer and found more strange irregularities. They were subtle and could all individually be explained away, but they formed a pattern that was too consistent to ignore.

For example Aizawa spared his students not a single look. It was like they were of no importance to him at all. Or when he ate a peppermint bonbon which he normally hated.

The only logical conclusion was that this was not really the pro hero Eraserhead. An impostor had taken his place to infiltrate UA.

Of course there was a direct way to prove this, but if he went down there and arrested the doppelganger on the spot then that would only alert whoever was behind this operation. He had a few candidates for that in mind, mainly the League of Villains or the Hero public Safety Commission. Last time an outside force had penetrated the school security it had ended in the USJ attack, one of the most humiliating moments of his career. It had shown him that he had become far too lax and arrogant. Nedzu vowed that such an event would never come to pass again as long as he drew breath.

So investigating this suspicious individual was his highest priority at the time.

First he checked all traffic cameras in a five kilometre radius to ascertain where the Aizawa-lookalike had come from. Despite them using more hidden passageways and other less frequented routes it took his facial recognition software only half an hour to pinpoint their exact way through the city. What he found was either the most disturbing fact that he learned today or the one that could put his worries entirely at ease.

They came from the hospital.

Maybe it had been the real Aizawa from the beginning? Or… something terrible had happened to the poor man. Visions of a villain skinning his employee alive and wearing his skin or forcefully taking over his body assaulted Nedzu with gut wrenching dread. As fast as his paws could manage he dialed the number of the clinic, but was put directly into a waiting loop.

That was bad! This much planning and competence was the work of an experienced team! Far too professional to come from the League of Villains who only recently had made their clumsy debut. Not to get him wrong, Nedzu was extremely grateful that they did not kill anybody during their assault on the USJ, but it also demonstrated a certain level of incompetence on their part. Armed with hundreds of criminals, a biological super-weapon and an incredible warping quirk they could have staged a slaughter if their plan had been any good.

“I should be going now. The doctors are certainly searching for me all over the place like headless chickens.” spoke Fake-Shouta through the speaker of his computer.

“Aww… You know I missed you? Without you grumbling in my ear I’ve felt lonely all week!” whined Nemuri.

“Only one week? I have been gone for two in case you haven’t noticed.”

Midnight punched the pretender slightly on the arm.

“Hush you. Will you show up to the sports festival?”

“Of course! You can count on it!”

“Wow, you sure sound enthusiastic about it, Shouta. Never thought you had it in you!”

“Hmph. How am I going to get in by the way?”

“The same as every year, silly. With your ID pass.”

“Doesn't that sound a bit insecure? What if someone steals my pass or replicates it? Don’t tell me that I am paranoid, Nemuri! After recent events we cannot be too cautious.”

The previously jovial heroine sobered up and nodded seriously.

“Yes. You are right. The rat installed a ton of new security measurements for this reason.”

“And what are they? I don’t know if I feel comfortable with blindly trusting the security this time.”

“That is not-” she began, but stopped herself when she looked down at his bandages. “Of course.”

Nedzu would need to have a stern talk with Midnight when this was over. To give out sensitive information so readily was more than foolish, but in this special case he would not stop her. This failure would become unforgettable for her, he was going to make sure of that. Furthermore, if he knew which security details were given to the intruder then he would be the one in control. Should the breach become too severe he could still change the configuration of the safety protocols and special codes on a caprice.

By luring the attacking party into a false sense of confidence, the principal would be able to play them however he wanted and lure them into a trap. Then he could also observe how they acted when believing themselves to be alone and safe, which was objectively the best way to catalogue human behaviour.

Putting a tracker on their spy could possibly alert them and they would increase their efforts of staying hidden which would make it harder to roll out his retribution. No… he would do nothing for now, merely watch from afar.

But their transgressions would not remain unpunished for long. As soon as they crawled out of their holes the principal of UA would obliterate them! Their fruitless attempt was going to show the whole world that nobody messed with HIS school without painful consequences! Destroying their plans would be most satisfactory.

His shrill laughter reverberated through the building, filling students and teachers alike with trepidation.

 

Chapter 12

Pling!

The sound of a knife being parried away uncomfortably broke the silence of a seemingly peaceful home life. Tanya had just been standing at the stove, stirring a pot full of noodles when she had intuitively thrown the kitchen knife on the counter at the shadows behind her.

Any question as to who her assailant was went out the window as soon as a familiar pair of arms wrapped around her waist and Himiko’s voice giggled into her ear: “ Too slow... ”

“In all fairness, the only person who knows the layout of my photoelectric barriers is you. I was more occupied with cooking than being alert.”

“ Aww... And here I thought the Eleventh Goddess was losing her touch.”

“Stop that. You know how much I hate that pretentious nickname.”

“It’s fitting though! You look absolutely stunning when you go around saving people! Of course they are gonna give grand titles like that to you.”

“Please... Gods and goddesses are useless concepts made to distract humans from the grim reality of their day to day lives. They do nothing besides looking pretty and wasting people’s time with their worship.”

“Isn’t that what pro heroes do?”

“Actually... yeah. Since when did you get so smart, Himiko?” she asked with a bit of mirth in her voice.

“I learned from the best, Senpai!” cheered the smiling girl.

“So, do you have anything noteworthy to talk about?” inquired Tanya with a subtle squeeze of her partner`s hand to signify that she was talking about whatever classified mission Himiko had undergone in the last few days.

She had been meticulous to search her new apartment for bugs or hidden cameras, but it was impossible to tell if the HPSC might be listening in. Regardless of how many times the higher-ups had promised her that they respected her privacy, Tanya did not believe them. Politicians and government agents were all cut from the same slimy, rotten piece of cloth.

“Not particularly. Everything is as peaceful as ever.”

Two squeezes back indicated that Himiko could not tell her the whole truth or risk punishment by the HPSC. Neither of them wanted that to happen even if most of their negative reinforcement techniques were milder than what Tanya had dished out in her previous life.

“Just infiltrating the League and all that stuff. Anything interesting going on at school?”

“I'm rapidly approaching the end of my contracted time as a teacher. Today, the one I was substituting for visited the school, so I guess he will be able to take over my class again soon.”

“My class? You've grown attached to the brats already?”

“Don't call them brats. You are barely older than those students.”

Himiko pouted: “I am a grown woman like you! I am not a kid!“

“Yeah, yeah… talk to me about that again when you are old enough to drink.”

“Not fair, Senpai! Your own birthday is still a week away so technically you are barely of age yourself!”

“But I am not a teenager anymore.”

“I don't want you to see me as a child. I want to be a woman for you.”

An understandable desire. Himiko wanted to be respected by her superior. If she was in her kouhai's position Tanya would strive for the same. How else would she ever earn a promotion?

For someone who had killed dozens and was tortured on multiple occasions, mental maturity was a given. To be called a kid was an insult to Himiko's many achievements as a person.

“I am sorry. I did not intend to underplay your progress. You are my valued colleague and dare I say closest friend. Despite the negligent difference in physical age between you and my students, your mind has evolved far further than any of them.”

Strangely, Himiko did not seem happy about that. Should she have emphasized her outstanding work ethic more? Or had she perhaps misunderstood and Himiko was also insecure about her body or something ridiculous like that?

“You are also exceedingly pretty if that is what you are concerned with. If you could show your face openly in public then you would be overrun with suitors, I bet.”

Tanya had no idea what the more feminine members of her gender were concerned with, but romance always appeared to be an important topic for young adolescents. The few movies and novels she had consumed were her only source in that regard. Sadly, she had apparently missed the mark again if Himiko's sour expression was anything to go by.

“Why won't you notice, Senpai…”

Quickly changing the subject of the discussion before it could become too awkward she turned to Himiko before asking: “Mmh? Want some noodles?”

“Alright…” answered Himiko despondently.

What would cheer her up? More ice cream? No, that trick was getting old. A higher salary? Also no. The higher-ups kept a tight financial leash on both of them. Running out of options she chose the cheapest one. Hopefully it would be enough.

“We can spend tomorrow together if that doesn't interfere with your orders. I am not on patrol this weekend.”

It was remarkable just how fast her partner’s mood could switch. In spite of experiencing the process of growing up three times, Tanya suspected that she would never comprehend how people of this age group actually functioned.

With a wide smile the young vampire exclaimed: “Yay! Let's go to the cinema! They are running this super cute rom-com at the moment that sounds perfect for us!”

“I guess our lives are like a comedy sometimes...” Tanya mused.

Why was Himiko looking at her like she had said something idiotic?

~[#҈#]~​

The day of the sports festival was here. Powerloader had really earned himself an extra vacation with all the overtime he was putting into expanding the security. Nedzu was positive that an attack of some sort was coming and he would not be surprised by it this time!

He had shared some of his concerns with the faculty and the heroes stationed around the stadium, but he had kept the finer details to himself. It could tip the villains off if they noticed them acting differently or worse, giving away information through word of mouth.

There was also the dilemma with a potential spy being already planted inside his school. While he possessed no evidence and was generally against accusing anybody in particular, Degurechaff was the most likely candidate for that job. However, so far she showed exceptional commitment in educating her students and her affiliation with the HPSC ruled out a life of secret villainy.

If Nedzu had not visited Aizawa himself in the hospital then he would be at the top of his suspect list too. Thankfully the man had been honest when he described the awful migraine and mysterious memory loss he experienced yesterday. Judging by the bump on his head someone had knocked him out none too gently with a blunt object. Luckily it wasn’t a concussion that would slow down his recovery process.

No, as loath as he was to admit it, if there was a traitor among them then it was probably a student. Another reason to carefully observe the festival and scour the footage later for the slightest hint of collaboration with the enemy that was certain to reveal itself.

No matter how the day went, it was sure to be memorable.

~[#҈#]~​

Ochako was trembling in her boots for multiple reasons. First and foremost, because she was afraid to embarrass herself on national TV and in front of her family. But also, because she was so damn excited!

She had already felt like the happiest girl in Japan when her acceptance letter came in the mail. It was like a dream come true! Or a nightmare, some might argue. The entrance exam had been her first brush with death as the zero-pointer nearly flattened her and then she was attacked by real, actual, living and breathing villains too? Madness!

Both times she was scared. Afraid and helpless against obstacles threatening to utterly crush her. Despite how recent those situations were to her, those memories shaped her . Ochako did not want to be just some damsel in distress! She wanted to be strong like her friends and idols!

Subsequently she trained her butt off in the last weeks and was itching to see how much progress she had made. The sports festival was as much a test from the school to evaluate the students, as it was a test for herself to evaluate her own growth.

Suddenly the speakers in the corner of the waiting room blared to life.

“Heeeeello and welcome to the annual UA Sports Festival, dear listeners! I am your host for today, Present Mic and as a very special guest here in my studio I am thrilled to introduce to y’all… drumroll please ... the number eleven heroine and temporary substitute teacher, Argent!! Say something to your fans!”

“Greetings. It’s a pleasure to be here on this fine morning. Thank you for having me, Present Mic. I am looking forward to what the kids are going to show the world today.”

“Yup! Dear listeners, are you also as excited as us to see the up and coming hits of tomorrow make their big entrance today?”

Deafening cheering permeated even through the gate to the stadium.

“Wonderful! Wonderful! Then let the festival commence! First we have the shining star of our school, the class that has drawn everybody’s attention after their run-in with some real villains two weeks ago. Give it up to Class 1-A!”

If possible the cheering got louder as they stepped out into the blinding light of the sun mixed with thousands of flashing cameras. It took everything she had not to duck and hide her face from the raving crowd.

“And next we have the other heroics class of UA! 1-B has much to prove and I wager that some of them are going to surprise us with how hard they’re gonna fight for the spotlight!”

Ochako tuned the rest of the introductions out, in favour of subtly warming her muscles up and stretching her arms and legs to be in top condition for whatever the teachers were going to throw at them. At the end of the festival nobody was going to say that she didn’t give her absolute best! Nobody would-

She was ripped out of her personal motivation speech by Bakugou tapping the microphone on stage. Wait. Why was he speaking at the microphone again?

“If you wanna compete here I have one thing to say to you…”

Oh no. Ochako had a bad feeling about this...

“I’m gonna win. But you extras better give it your damn best, scrambling for second place. ‘Cause it’s more fun that way.” he grinned darkly.

Angry booing erupted among her fellow students and she was inclined to chime in. What a rude thing to say! Did he have no shame to mock the whole school like that?

On the other hand though, she could admire his drive, his will to stand at the very top and his confidence in achieving that goal. Had she not tried to think about herself similarly less than a minute ago? Although Bakugou’s way of saying it was more than questionable, he had successfully inspired everybody who wanted to prove him wrong. They all would be giving it their best just to stick it to the arrogant kid who was now leaving the stage.

Ms. Midnight was hyping up the crowd again: “What a fiery speech from our student representative! Things are only going to get more stimulating when we see which game will get chosen for the first round of this girthy festival! Gird your loins contestants, for you will be participating in...”

The R-rated Heroine dramatically waved her whip at the spinning wheel which was supposed to randomly determine the next event. Ochako wondered in passing if it wouldn’t get tiring to constantly come up with different innuendos.

“The obstacle course!”

Fantastic. Over and over her teacher had hammered into them that mobility was key, and she had a quirk perfectly suited for that. If only she could use her new support gear then it would be even better.

~[#҈#]~​

Izuku gulped, feeling his heart pounding in his chest as they stood in front of the large tunnel, mere seconds away from charging into the fray. He tried to concentrate on his breathing exercises like Hound Dog had told him, but it turned into a hiccup as he heard Bakugou's palms pop and fizzle somewhere nearby. He could not see the other boy, but he had been threatened by these particular fireworks too many times not to recognize either the sound or sweet smelling smoke instantly at this point.

Kacchan was not threatening him though, just bleeding off the nervous energy they were all feeling as they awaited the crack of Midnight's whip and the declaration to start. Trying again, he closed his eyes and breathed deep, focusing his attention inwards, starting from his toes and working his way up. Like a system's check, he went over each joint and muscle, tapping thumb to finger one at a time and rolling his neck. He needed to be limber. Ms. Degurechaff made clear that remaining loose was always important in avoiding injuries, and that went doubly for him.

“If you're going to toss yourself around like that with your quirk, you'd do well to make sure you know how to take a fall without getting hurt.” he remembered her saying, as well as the hours of internet videos he watched after about how gymnast tumblers hit the ground safely.

Shaking out his wrists and rolling his neck, he opened his eyes just in time for Midnight to give them the signal, and then they were off. Or, more accurately, many of his competitors were, yet he remained still, crouching low and observing the screaming and pushing crowd ahead.

“It's admirable, running into the fire without hesitation. Very heroic. I am sure you've all heard such notions romanticized before. I, for one, find it the height of foolishness. Are there times when a moment cannot be spared and action is needed immediately? Certainly, though it is less common than you might believe. Not every incident is a crisis. It takes years of experience before your instincts are honed well enough to rely on impulsive speed and until then, rushing in will rarely result in the best possible outcome. Recognize when there is time to think, and utilize it accordingly. Analyse, plan, and competently execute, and you will find success always within reach.”

The crowd that had rushed ahead of him were now jammed at the entrance of the tunnel, wedged in and preventing each other from passing through the narrow opening. Ochako, having been one of the other students who held back, no doubt recalling their teacher's words as well, got a running start and jumped before bringing her fingers together to send herself soaring over the crowd. Sero also had the same idea to go up and over, along with Bakugou propelling himself above their fellow students. With a firm grasp of the situation, Izuku prepared to do the same, green lightning dancing across his body as-

Ice engulfed everything in an instant.

Izuku blinked at the tundra in front of him, but quickly shook his head, regaining focus and thanking his teacher's advice for preventing him from getting caught up in Todoroki's... enthusiasm . Instead, he leapt with the barest minimum of One for All circulating through his muscles, catapulting his body over the majority of the group whose feet were still frozen to the ground.

"Sorry!" he yelled back as he used the head of a hapless student as a stepping stone.

He didn't look back when he hit the ground, instead converting his momentum into a roll that disoriented him briefly, but conserved his speed. The fewer times he would have to use his quirk the smaller was the risk of him injuring himself, so he needed to make the most out of his super-powered jump. Even if he was confident that he would not completely shatter his bones anymore, Izuku instinctively knew that he hadn't mastered One for All enough to use while running, so instead he relied on old fashion sprinting to quickly surpass the Gen Ed students who were ahead of him.

He really did need to talk with All Might about how he managed to stay stuck to the ground when running at high velocity without accidentally launching himself into the stratosphere.

Izuku was proud to see that he was already pulling ahead of the mob. He could even spot Kacchan’s explosions in front of him. Eyes narrowed in focus, the green-haired boy decided that the risk was worth it and began to occasionally incorporate more three or five percent powered leaps into his run, making the distance between him and the frontrunners shrink rapidly.

That was until the giant zero-pointers rear their blocky heads and he nearly sprained an ankle by messing up one of his landings. They expected them to fight those things during a race?! The memory of the entrance exam caused phantom pain to bloom in his arm and legs, and he clenched his jaw.

No. He doesn't need to fight, just get past them.

“Discretion is the better part of valour. Perhaps it seems strange to you here in the heroics class, but it's something to keep in mind. Sometimes, if a fight can be avoided, you should do so...”

Stomping with a flicker of his quirk to embed his shoe into the dirt, he formed a rudimentary starting block to brace his foot against and bent his knee to let himself fall forward. Izuku felt his side chilled as he throttled All for One and kicked off, sending up an explosion of dirt and causing someone behind him to enter a coughing fit and passing Todoroki just as he readied some large ice attack.

However, while the zero-pointers and everyone else was focused on them, Izuku had already gotten past the cyclopean robots and was well on his way to the next obstacle.

He would do it. He was going to show everyone, All Might and even Ms. Degurechaff that He! Was! Here!

~[#҈#]~​

Toru was shivering badly. Her thin school uniform was doing nothing to alleviate the searing coldness spreading throughout her body. The pain would have been manageable if she had not already been hurting all over from the countless bruises she earned while fighting her way out of the crowd at the start. Nervous, competitive people tended to be brutal when clawing for a position at the top. A fact she was made even more keenly aware of due to being invisible and eating more than one stray elbow to the face.

Nonetheless, she did make it out of the flailing pile of screaming and shoving students. Somehow. She might have to become religious for miracles like that to happen more frequently to her.

Toru knew that without a physical quirk her chances of doing well in this event were relatively low, but the true reality of how hopelessly outmatched she was presented itself when she found her way blocked by frozen and destroyed zero-pointers.

How.

Sometimes life was simply unfair. Oh well. It also wouldn’t be fun if it was too easy. So she bit back a curse as she climbed with her bare hands over the icy and sharp-edged barricade and slid down the other side. Most of the smaller robots that had been spared were confused by her seemingly empty school uniform and she remembered the spots where each of their different kill switches were located from the entrance exam, which made dispatching any she could not avoid child’s play.

Just as Toru came into viewing distance of the next obstacle, a pit with ropes over it, Present Mic announced that the front runners were reaching the one after that. At least she now knew that a minefield of some kind was waiting for her.

“Class 1-A seems to be in the lead. With powerhouses like Todoroki, Bakugou and Midoriya, will the others even stand a chance to win this race?” commented the Voice Hero from his studio.

“Normally I would say yes, but attacking other students was explicitly prohibited so I am not too sure.”

“Oh? Who would you have picked as a promising candidate if that was the case, Argent?”

“The pink-haired girl from the support course-”

“Hatsume Mei.”

“Yes, Hatsume. I guarantee you that some of her equipment could be used for long distance capture. Like that grapple hook she used earlier. Quirks are powerful on their own, but technology can be just as versatile.”

“Well, folks, you heard it here first. The number eleven is a support item enthusiast! What might be her hidden gadget that she kept a secret for so long?”

“I never said-”

“Oh look! Midoriya is digging up the mines! What could he want with them? Genius or madman? We will soon find out!”

Ignoring their banter Toru feverishly checked the other participants to figure out the fastest way over the ropes. Tsu caught her eye as she was speedily crawling along the ropes hanging over the chasm thanks to her extraordinary grip strength. Maybe Toru could replicate that.

She tried to not look into the abyss below her as she hung herself on the nearest rope upside down. Her legs were crossed over each other as she bobbed along the swinging cable towards the other side. Left unoccupied by the exhausting, but repetitive task, Toru started to listen to the broadcasted commentary again.

“Oooooh! Dear listeners, can you believe it? Midoriya just used the mines as a cushion to soften his fall after jumping nearly fifty meters into the air, securing him the first place by a split second! What a maneuver!”

“Indeed. It was impressive that he was able to think of his own safety instead of just jumping without planning for the impact. Although I would urge everybody who is watching right now to never attempt a similar trick. The margin for error is so small that you would risk life threatening injuries without a shock absorption quirk. Midoriya is lucky to have multiple capable pro heroes on standby who could have surely intervened if his borderline suicidal plan went wrong.”

“Eh… Yes! Stay safe kiddos! We’re pros and we know what we’re doing! Anyways, Todoroki has used his ice to skate over the field and Bakugou flew over it entirely! Directly behind them we have Shiozaki from 1-B coming in unexpectedly and Iida…”

As Present Mic droned on and on about who was making it to the finish line Toru grew increasingly nervous. Time was running out if she wanted to make it to the next round. Her palms were raw from all the abuse she was putting them through, but she nonetheless continued to climb until she reached the other side of the pit, instantly falling into a sprint despite her aching lungs.

Due to the minefield being largely cleared of actual obstacles by now, she skidded into the 30th place without much trouble. Too bad that no one would pay attention to her on TV when she reached the finish line. Once again Toru wished that her quirk could be turned off at will. She was not a vain person, but she wanted people to at least know that she existed! Or if that was too much to ask, even remembering her own eye colour would be nice.

Getting forgotten by everyone around you sometimes sounded worse than death to her. Wiping an invisible tear from her cheek she approached her classmates to feel a little bit more “real” again.

~[#҈#]~​

Shigaraki was rubbing his hands in anticipation of the upcoming raid, disintegrating the smartphone between his fingers in the process. His Rogue had collected valuable info about the dungeon and now he held the key to defeating the boss in his hands. He could almost feel it! Victory was in reach!

He would need to buy her some cosmetics later to keep her morale up. Useful NPCs like her were hard to come by and didn’t want to reroll for a new character with possibly shitty stats again. Even with Sensei’s vast resources such pay-to-win tactics could get too expensive really quick.

Shigaraki had planned the whole mission out meticulously, so nothing would go wrong if his team members could follow his instructions properly. Else Kurogiri was going to teleport a few hundred kilos more dust into the ocean...

The seasonal “UA sports festival” event always consisted of three phases. All three challenges were designed to keep the trash mobs busy while the guards patrolled around the arena periodically. His clever plan intended to strike them when their attention would be lowest to cause as much chaos and confusion as possible. Therefore the period after the start of the second phase would be most ideal moment of attack, because even the “heroes”, bored from the uneventfulness of the first, were going to watch what the stupid NPCs were doing.

Then he, Destroyer of Peace and Provider of Truth, would destroy the fragile thing that they called “safety”. Nobody in this world was safe, because the “heroes” could not protect them! He would show them! Shigaraki would show them all!

“Hahahaha! I’ll tear this rotten society down! Starting… now!”

 

Chapter 13

Tanya was on her way to the nearest soft drink machine to quench her thirst when a vibration in her pocket suddenly put her on high alert. The reason for this was that it had not been her normal phone, but instead her unofficial one inside a hidden fold of her uniform. Was this the instruction she had been told to expect ‘coming soon’?

She grabbed her stomach in mock discomfort before rushing towards the bathroom, locking the door behind her and pulling out her work phone. A new message in her inbox simply read:

[East side. 30 minutes.]

Her heart beat accelerated. Something was going to go down in half an hour and she would be right in the middle of it. What had these crazy bastards planned that required an operation during the UA sports festival? Millions of people were watching this event live! If a scandal of some kind happened then it would be impossible to hide and her career would be over!

Finding a new profession honestly would not bother her too much, but leaving Himiko behind felt just... wrong to her. Without her being present to protect the girl, Tanya was certain that the HPSC would run her into the ground, squeeze every last drop of energy out of her and then discard her immediately.

Even if the higher-ups understood that exploiting valuable assets was going to bite them in the ass sooner than later, they would definitely use her as leverage to keep Tanya quiet about their dirty business. She was going to become a hostage as long as her senpai drew breath, threatened with her life at the slightest hint of their secrets being exposed.

Himiko was a bright, hardworking young woman who deserved better than that. Letting such a precious human resource be wasted was unacceptable . Who knew when Tanya would discover a subordinate half as loyal and capable as her ever again?

Pushing images of a teary-eyed, bruise-covered Himiko from her mind, she calmed her aching heart to think the situation appropriately through. In all likelihood though, she was just overreacting. Surely nothing bad would happen. Nedzu’s intellect would deter the higher-ups from pulling anything crazy that could be traced back to them.

“There is no need to panic. It’s probably a PR-stunt to excite the masses! Fireworks maybe... or some mildly infamous criminal hiding in the audience for me to capture.”

The only question was: What excuse could she use to appear at the specific time in the allocated location?

Checking the time revealed that she had around ten minutes until the start of the next round. Tanya needed an idea. Quickly.

~[#҈#]~
​

“You want me on your team for the cavalry battle, Deku?”

“Of course Ochako! Your quirk is integral to the strategy I came up with!” he practically beamed.

She liked that determined expression of his when he broke out of the shell that typically surrounded him when talking with others. Actually, she liked it a lot . Izuku’s eyes practically sparkled like emeralds under starlight and his smile was...

Ok, stop! Where were those thoughts coming from all of a sudden? How strange…

Naturally after showing off his confident, charismatic side he reverted back to his old, insecure self.

“O-only if you w-want though... I-I don’t want to pressure you-”

Before he could undo more of his progress she intervened.

“Don’t be silly! I’d love to!”

Aww ... The way his cheeks lit up was adorable! Wait, why was she thinking that? Her own face reddened in embarrassment.

Behind him, the pink-haired girl with the annoyingly large bosom grinned manically and pumped her fist.

“Together we will show everyone the true power of my babies! This is going to be awesome!”

She sweat dropped at that statement. Did she really have to talk about her gadgets like that?

“A-alright. Yes! Here is what we are going to do...”

~[#҈#]~
​

Shouta nibbled on the cap of his pen as he mulled over the results of the first event. Originally he planned to visit the sports festival in person, but that nasty knock to the back of his head had prompted the overly cautious doctors to keep him in bed for a day longer. It was infuriating, but the rat had made it pretty clear that he didn’t want to see him on school grounds again until he could present his recovery certificate.

At least the news coverage of the festival was so comprehensive that he could see his students from basically any angle by just flipping through the TV channels. Begrudgingly, he even admitted that he was actually able to observe their performance better from his hospital bed than if he sat next to Hizashi and his ear-splitting screaming.

In his lap lay a notepad filled with barely legible scribbles about what his children did right or wrong. Eraserhead had only known them for a few days before the incident happened, but he could already tell that some of them had improved much in the last two weeks. For example, the number one problem child Midoriya seemed to no longer break his bones with his quirk, although his punches and kicks looked far weaker than what he had demonstrated before.

The next round of the festival would show him how well they had learned to work together which was almost equally as important. They would need to rely on each other as much as themselves in the future.

So he sat there and blankly stared at the screen in front of him, waiting for the advertisement break to be over.

“... Don’t forget to reserve tickets for ‘Heroes of the Heart’ this weekend! The critically acclaimed opera about Uwabami’s love life that you don’t want to miss under any circumstances! A once in a lifetime experience, so romantic it will make your heart melt!”

“No, thank you. I’d rather keep it functional.” he sneered, half disgusted, half amused.

Which idiot would want to watch a garish display like that? Truly, career heroes were all tasteless morons of some sort. Shouta would bet one of his remaining organic teeth that his substitute teacher, Argent, was a fame-hungry, greedy pretender much like the rest. All Might had turned out to be exactly the naive, empty-headed muscleman the media depicted him to be and Eraserhead knew from personal experience how unpleasant Endeavour was.

Well, she couldn’t be too bad. His students had obviously learned something in her lessons and what little footage he had seen of the number eleven on hero-net portrayed a fairly impressive capture speed paired with near unmatched efficiency. Her attire, while stylish, was also clearly designed with utility in mind instead of accentuating feminine sexuality in any way like Mt. Lady’s or Mirko’s did.

Not that there was anything wrong with showing off your body, his childhood friend Nemuri would say, but to expose yourself purely for clout and attention was decidedly unheroic in his opinion. A lack of protection was essentially inviting a villain to stab you. Dead heroes were of no use to anybody.

“Aaaaaand we’re back, dear listeners! Our poor Argent has suddenly suffered a migraine, so for the time being I will be your sole host.”

“Can’t imagine why sitting next to you might cause her physical pain...” Shouta snickered, a rare smile ghosting over his lips before he tugged his capture scarf further up.

“The forty two students who got into the second round must now prevail in a team exercise of epic proportions! The cavalry battle is...”

Present Mic continued to explain the rules for the viewers who were just tuning in before that game properly began. As expected, most teams went immediately for Midoriya’s headband due to its absurd point value. The green-haired child however was making the rational decision of not engaging in an unwinnable fight. Instead he fled to the air to avoid the dozens of contestants trying to dogpile him.

Shouta nodded approvingly at his perfect team composition. Uraraka was able to extend his airtime after leaping tremendously while the support course student provided equipment to hover indefinitely. Tokoyami could defend them effortlessly in all directions with the help of his shadow quirk. Overall, it was a very solid strategy that would be hard to overcome by the other teams.

Bakugou used the vagueness of the rules in his favour and attempted to propel himself upwards with his explosions to reach them, but a quick strike from Tokoyami’s bird-shaped shadow sent him tumbling down again. If his teammates had not been there to save him from that foolhardy manoeuvre then he would have touched the ground and lost the round. Such hot-headed recklessness would end up killing him sooner or later.

Meanwhile, the remaining teams were duking it out among themselves for the lesser headbands with lower point values. Multiple strategies were employed to-

What was that?

Purple Mist?

Oh no! No, no, no, no ! It could not be! The nightmare of the USJ was repeating all over again!

A black monstrosity with large, leathery wings dropped out of the swirling portal and halted the playing students in their tracks. Then it screeched and Shouta leapt out of his bed.

The rat could fire him, but he would not sit by and watch while his students were being attacked a second time!

~[#҈#]~
​

“I’ll tear this rotten society down... starting now!”

Himiko had to hide a scoff by clearing her throat. This manchild was as simpleminded as he was melodramatic. To claim that he could ‘tear society down’ when he was going to go up against her beloved? How pathetic . The moment Tanya got sight of this scum he would get eviscerated.
Ironically the only thing preserving him from total annihilation was the exact society he raged so uselessly against. Many live cameras and onlookers would regrettably be ensuring his survival today.

Oh, how Himiko longed to slip a knife between his ribs and string him up like the puppet he was. What made him think he was worthy of even laying eyes on her cute senpai? The insolence!

Despite her loathing of Shigaraki she had to keep up the charade and pretend to be excited about the upcoming mission. As always, fantasizing about her love helped improve her mood.

“Yay! What fun would it be if we could bathe in the blood of these pigs together...” she laughed dreamily.
“Whatever, come on. We have a boss to kill.”

Totally unbeknownst to him Himiko grinned; because he was one of the pigs she had been talking about. And she would make it extra painful when his time came. Everybody who directly or indirectly planned to cause her love harm, needed to suffer.

The purple mist guy opened a portal which took her to a service entry that had been unlocked by the codes she learned from Midnight. Of course that would not be nearly enough to trick the security system whose true scope only the principal knew, but that would be soon taken care of.

She sprinted up the stairway leading to the seats outside and arrived at the maintenance hatch just in time for the lights to go out. The guy with the electro quirk who the League had found on the streets was doing a fine job at overloading the power lines and internal circuitry of the stadium as well as anything connected to it. Too bad that he was most likely not going to make it with a lethal overdose of Trigger ravaging his bloodstream. How would he taste, she wondered. Like ten condensed energy drinks mixed with raw thunder perhaps?

Himiko kicked the door open with strength that belied her tiny frame and stepped out into the open. The sudden illumination of sunlight blinded her for just long enough to be almost hit by a taser from the security drone waiting for her. Like she had predicted, Shigaraki’s preparations had been insufficient to completely distract Nedzu.

One flick of her wrist sent a retaliatory blade into its optic, shutting the machine down in a spectacular light show of sparks. What a flimsy construct. One would think that UA had the budget for better security robots.

Her adjusting eyes scanned the crowd of slowly panicking civilians and instantly found the source of their fright. A ’Nomu’ had been dropped by Mist-Man in the middle of the stadium where it was busy attacking the students and kicking up as much dirt as possible to deny the heroes an overview of the situation.

Nomus were her number one research priority after she had infiltrated the League and she could understand why the voracious pigs at the HPSC were interested in them. Gentle prodding and much feigned admiration for the ‘impressiveness’ of their organization revealed that they were apparently humans infused with multiple quirks. The elusive leader of the League, often called ‘Master’ or ‘Sensei’ by its members, was the one responsible for this.

Of course the assholes in charge of the operation told her no more than necessary, but she had an anonymous tablet, courtesy of Senpai , and an internet connection. Piecing the clues together through forum posts and dubious online news articles was not the best way to conduct research, but Himiko felt rather confident that ‘Sensei’ was in some form linked to the urban legend of ‘All for One’, the man who could give and take quirks.

Most people would dismiss that story as a mere myth, she however knew better than anyone what kinds of atrocities the government was already hiding. And honestly, a transfer quirk wasn’t even really weird. She had blackmailed a guy who could turn into a horde of rainbow-coloured spiders once. Not much could top that.

Shaking the distracting thoughts off she began to incite proper hysteria in the crowds by roaring a dramatic war cry and driving another blade into a nearby civilian. His fat would absorb most of the damage and she was careful to not hit any extremely vital organs. He would be fine if he got medical aid within the next twenty minutes.

Of course the chubby guy was not very appreciative of her skilled work and began screeching like a swine on slaughter day. Japan’s population was truly growing soft if a little shanking was upsetting a grown man so much. With a voice like this he would never get a girlfriend! At least the red added a nice contrast to his white shirt, similar to the national flag, only cuter.

Jumping on a middle-aged woman’s shoulders she raised her bloody knife in the air and screamed: “Hahaha TREMBLE IN FEAR, FOR THE LEAGUE OF VILLAINS IS HERE! Oh, that rhymed? Nice. ”

A tumult broke out as everybody scrambled to put as much distance between her artfully dancing blades and themselves. Himiko cut tendons and aimed for limbs, but stayed largely far away from larger blood vessels which would result in lethal injuries. A favourite area of hers to hit was the scalp since those wounds would bleed tremendously and look far more dangerous than they actually were. People running around with bloody faces, calling for help got the mob riled up pretty effectively until the whole side of the stadium was in disarray.

All in all it was good fun.

Some overeager sidekick crashed in front of her and raised his fist, shouting: “Your reign of terror ends here, villain! You shall not harm-“

Only to be cut off by a tranquilizer dart to the neck.

“You talk too much. Why would you expose your throat like that anyway? Disappointing. ”

He was apparently only a distraction though, as the dagger she was raising to cut him up some more was shot out of her hand by a bullet. No police officer had such good aim which meant that it had to be Snipe the Sharpshooting Hero! Himiko threw herself to the floor not a moment too early as a second bullet barely missed her shoulder.

Shit! That bastard was supposed to be stationed outside, not in here! As fast as she was able to move, Himiko was under no delusions that she could consistently dodge his bullets. If she went out there she would get shot. Getting wounded was not what she was afraid of, but instead the ensuing time in the hospital and police custody until the HPSC broke her out. Unnecessarily wasting a week away from her love was going to suck.

Maybe she could transform again and trick the heroes…

Another shot punched clean through the seat she had just been used for hiding, forcing her to crawl behind a new cover. Hole after hole was blown wherever she went with surgical precision. Did the guy have clairvoyance or what?

No, screw the pigs in their fancy suits! She cared not if their stupid power play worked out or not. This farce was annoying enough without the risk of being perforated with lead.

By sending the pre-prepared emergency codeword via a text message she informed Purple-Mist-Man that she wanted an extraction asap before the situation could further deteriorate. Hopefully he was going to read it immediately.

Himiko looked around for something to protect herself against Snipe. There! Behind two collapsed seats cowered a little boy who was bawling his eyes out. Such a cute hostage provided the perfect meat shield. Sneaking up behind him she seized the boy and pressed his tiny frame against her chest. A threatening glare in the direction of wherever the bullets were coming from together with a knife to the kid’s carotid artery sent the appropriate message.

As it turned out, walking backwards over uneven terrain with a child on one arm was not easy. Especially considering that she was unable to look where she was going, lest the Sharpshooting Hero chose to blow some of her fleshy parts to pieces.

“Stop. Release the hostage. Put your hands up in the air. You are under arrest.” droned a clearly synthetical voice in a monotone fashion.
Wonderful… Now a security bot showed up as well! Those were supposed to be fried by the system overload!

The most rational response would have been to comply with the machine’s wishes and let herself be arrested. Later, all the officers who saw her true face after her current disguise inevitably wore off would be subtly mindwiped, demoted or sent on suicide missions. Himiko was proud of the fact that they had caught her only once so far and that had been on purpose.

Consequently, her pride as a fighter was wounded. Defeat at the hands of a damned robot was not an option!
“Why would I? He is so warm and cuddly!”

“The temperature of the civilian is irrelevant. Release the hostage.”

“Aww… Why are you so cold, robo-chan? Don’t you wanna dance? Like Cha-Cha-Cha or… tap dance!”

In tandem with her speech, Himiko stomped her feet on the concrete, triggering the concealed smoke bomb in her heel. Inky blackness rushed forth and concealed the area. She dropped her meat shield and jumped sideways to avoid any eventual shots at her position. In an incredible feat of acrobatics she managed to leap blindly from seat to seat, crossing the distance to the irksome machine in the span of a few heartbeats.

Its glowing, red cameras shone faintly in the dark fog, guiding her way and making it an easy prey for the superhumanly agile girl.

“Gotcha.” she chirped as she drove one blade into the unprotected joint on its nape before she yanked hard to sever the cables inside.
When the smoke cleared, Himiko was nowhere to be found.

~[#҈#]~
​

“Here, sweetie. Take one every hour and it should help.”

“Thank you, Recovery Girl.” murmured Tanya, playing her bit as the patient with migraine.

Even with modern medicine it was impossible to prove if a person suffered from headaches or not, so that had been her ailment of choice to get out of the commentary booth. It was not very creative, but at least she got some free painkillers out of it. Now she just needed to make her way over to the east side of the stadium and wait.

How about a conveniently timed walk around the facility? Some fresh air would do her good. Furthermore, Nedzu might actually be impressed by her diligence in securing the perimeter. Yes, that was perfect.

Satisfied with her ingenuity Tanya leisurely strolled around, soaking in the peaceful sunshine as long as it was still possible. However, as the minutes ticked by she grew intrigued by the sudden, incessant cheering from the crowd inside and decided to take a look.

Supported by a barrier she levitated herself above the stadium to gain a bird’s eye view of the game. Midoriya, and his team were seemingly hovering in the air too which was amusing if not pretty precarious. Flying was a pleasure like no other, but also required practice which none of these kids should possess yet.

But why were they waving so frantically at her?

Tanya elegantly slid towards them and in doing so changed the angle of her viewpoint on the arena. A dust cloud obscured the field and towers of flame appeared to randomly erupt from it. Additionally, some unidentifiable, winged silhouette moved around at rapid speeds.

“-llain -ack! Nomu!” Midoriya yelled in her direction before recklessly jumping into action.

Nomu? Wasn’t that the bioweapon used by the League of Villains?

Absent-mindedly she wrapped the foolish greenette in a barrier and safely deposited him on the rooftop.

Himiko would have told her if the League was planning an assault…

Oh.

Abruptly everything snapped into place like the pieces of a puzzle. Himiko’s absence, the secrecy of the HPSC… Those madmen had manipulated a villain organization into attacking UA! Once again power-hungry morons were tangling her up in their petty conflicts!

“Curses!”

Growling irritably she dove towards the chaos, simultaneously creating half a dozen ‘Silver Wedges’ to rend that beast apart. It was a weapon, not a human and deserved neither kindness nor mercy. Tanya channelled all her rage into her quirk, pushing her speed to the utmost limit her body could endure. Was even a single , peaceful job really too much to ask for?

She couldn't even blame Being X like she used to!

 

Chapter 14

Minoru cried out more from shock than the unexpected pain as he was thrown around like a pinball. Dust had found its way into his eyes and tiny shrapnel from the exploding concrete floor ripped open the tiny boy’s side as his back crashed into the ground. He coughed and screamed as the battle around him continued to rage on.

Through the haze of tears he could make out Todoroki’s giant, red flames and Bakugou’s white explosions as they tried to bring down the abominable beast that had interrupted their sports festival. The earth was shaking, people were rushing to and fro and the ambient noise was giving him even more of a headache than the fall had, but despite this pandemonium there was only one question echoing in his head:
Why was he doomed to die a virgin?

It just wasn’t fair! UA highschool was supposed to be safe, yet villains were attacking him for the second time this month! Maybe the delectable skin-tight costumes of his female classmates could be worth the trouble, but that bitch of a teacher had forced him into therapy! As if he needed to be cured of his enthusiasm for the objectively best part of female anatomy! Dreaming of squeezing them was a natural part of every healthy male.

Now Minoru would surely meet his end before he even got the chance to touch them! In contrast to most others in his class he was neither strong nor fast. The sticky balls on top of his head were all he had. Confronted with a monster that could shrug off buckets of caustic acid and meter long ice-spears, what could he do?

Everything hurt, the world was spinning and Minoru knew that death would claim him any moment-

“Stand up, Mineta!”

What?

“Are you deaf? Stand up! Ribbit!”

A hand roughly grabbed his uninjured arm and yanked him upwards with surprising strength.

“Get yourself together! Ribbit! We need to get out of here!” roared the normally quiet Asui over the sounds of carnage in the background.

He stammered an affirmative and used his torn school uniform to hastily clean his eyes a bit. The cute frog girl had saved Minoru once; maybe he would get to touch her again when she carried him on her-

“Help me carry her! Ribbit! The noise is too much for her!”

Finally he noticed the twitching girl slung over her shoulder. Jirou seemed to be pretty out of it if her rolled up eyes and bleeding ears were any indication. Normally he would have used that opportunity to measure her non-existent bust some more, but at this point he simply wanted to get out of this hell as fast as possible.

Distributing the weight of the deliriously moaning girl between them was rather difficult considering Asui’s and Minoru’s height difference, but they somehow made it work. On their way to where the frog girl believed the nearest exit to be they had to occasionally dodge another student or falling debris, however the now visible edge of the arena gave him hope that this nightmare would come to an end soon.

Unfortunately the beast responsible for this entire mess decided that they would make good targets for its mindless aggression and charged them from the side with a screech. Minoru barely had time to turn his head and open his mouth to yell for help before a black fist came down on him.
People say that memories of one’s life resurface in the last few moments of existence...

That many sinful people regret their wrong choices over the course of their life...

Not Minoru though...

He could only think of how pleasantly relieved his bladder felt all of a sudden.

The Nomu’s clawed fist approached his frozen face with the force of an oncoming freight train until-

“Thump-Crack!!!”

-it broke on a hovering, translucent barrier that appeared in front of him out of thin air!
A silvery hexagon made from what appeared like pure, rippling energy stopped the grizzly appendage in place. Only a heartbeat later more shining shields slammed into the creature, giving it no time to scream as they shredded its wings and cut off its legs.

The malformed fist that had nearly pulped him and the girls lowered just in time for the barrier to crumble into glittering shards, much like a glass pane shattering under pressure. Simultaneously a tiny, although no less silvery glowing, object smashed into its torso and broke the Nomu’s ribs with an audible crack.

One after another the shimmering blades stuck inside its black flesh twisted sideways, causing the bulging muscles to nauseatingly rupture and burst. Thick, steaming blood splattered the dirt as the monster was literally plucked apart like a dough puppet in the hands of a small child. It tried to futilely lift its hideous head in retaliation as a final shield hammered it so hard into the ground that Minoru was nearly thrown off his feet.

Not even ten seconds had passed yet the Nomu lay defeated in a rapidly growing puddle of its own unidentifiable fluids. Scary.

“ Mmm... This one apparently has no super-regeneration... I might have overdone it a little...”

Was that the voice of their teacher?

“Ms. Argent, you came! Thank you! Ribbit.” cheered Asui and Minoru never wanted to agree with something more. At long last someone actually qualified showed up to protect them!

“Where is All Might?” asked the pitifully flat woman sternly, compelling him to speak lest he suffer grievous consequences.

“ Uh... ” was his eloquent answer which in retrospect might have been worse than saying nothing.

“Doesn’t matter now. Gather your classmates and exit the stadium. Stay together and wait for authorities to arrive!” she ordered, already flying off to the next problem that caught her eye.

If Jirou had been able to pay attention to anything beyond the rushing of blood through her sensitive ears then she would have heard Argent murmuring: “Why do I always need to clean up other people’s messes?”

~[#҈#]~​

Stage two could finally begin! It was a genius strategy created solely by him! This time he would surely not fail. Oh, how proud Sensei would be if he told him that he killed the end boss by himself!

Shigaraki was uncomfortable outside of his standard armour set, but this mission required a stealthier approach. So, dressed as a civilian with baggy clothes and a medical mask he let himself be teleported to the east side of the dungeon where the stupid NPC’s had remained safe so far.
Everywhere else Kurogiri had deposited his party members so that they could rile up a mob and aggro the local heroes. Roughly a dozen villains running around spreading chaos and fear among the audience would do that nicely. Ironically that left this side of the stadium vulnerable to the biggest threat of all: Shigaraki himself.

Distracted and confused those idiotic oppressors would be far away from his spawn point when he struck. Only All Might would be fast enough to get to him and then...

Then, victory would be his!

Stepping through the portal to his destination he attempted to hide in the masses, but a painful sensation unexpectedly bloomed in his shoulder.

“Aghh! What the-“

Blood? Did he get shot? That bastard Snipe must be hiding somewhere again! Shit! Why did this NPC have such OP gear? Tomorrow, after he killed All Might, Shigaraki would find a ranged fighter like that to complete his party.

Diving for cover he decided to enact his glorious strategy earlier than planned. There was no use trying to dodge a sniper with bullshit hitscan bullets. Enemies you couldn’t see were bad game design in general. So unfair...

In retaliation he pressed his hands on the ground of the spectator stands. Instantly the familiar itching feeling intensified, but it was increased a hundredfold! Decaying the floor strained his quirk to its absolute limits. It was as if scorching magma was flowing through his hands as he bit back the urge to scream. Never before had he attempted to destroy something so large. However he would endure for his Sensei, for a better world, for his dream!

Slowly the area of disintegration widened and some NPCs were catching on to what was happening. Shigaraki though paid them no mind as he kept his hands glued to the fracturing ground. More cracks started to appear and the stage began to quake as its foundations got eroded. The concrete around his hands had long since turned into sand that was slipping through the extending cracks in the building.

“I’ll show you... He will save us and then... ugh... I can touch him... The whole world will see the ‘Symbol of Peace’ turn to... ugh... dust!” he huffed in exertion.

Shigaraki only vaguely registered the screams of the citizens trying not to fall into the void beneath the crumbling stadium. To him their fear sounded like music, but it was not what he was looking for. With trembling arms he forced himself to sit upright on top of his shaking island of disintegrating concrete. He had no fear of falling into the abyss he had created; merely anticipation for the approaching showdown.

Underneath his mask he grinned and gave his best imitation of a frightened NPC: “Help! Help me please!”

As far as he was concerned this was a flawless scheme. And indeed someone came to ‘rescue’ him, falling right into his magnificent trap! Blond hair, a large smile and...

Wait a second!

The person rushing towards him wasn’t All Might!

~[#҈#]~​

Nedzu mashed his keyboard in frustration to get a reaction from the sparking machine. Fifteen seconds was all it had taken for the altered security codes to be overwritten and the stadium’s system to be destroyed!

He had made extra sure to overhaul the power lines, but the strength of the electro quirk had overwhelmed every defence Powerloader had installed. No ordinary street thug possessed such a powerful ability so either it was the work of a specifically designed Nomu, a mediocre quirk that had been boosted by Trigger or the missing villain “Thunderstorm” was making a comeback.

His arrogance had cost him again! “Stupid!” he chastised himself. But who could have known that four separate fail-safes would not be enough?
Most of his automated defence plans and warning systems were reliant on UA’s power grid in some way which was a rather obvious mistake in hindsight. They would need to be outfitted with independent generators in the future. Luckily not every security bot had been connected to the network when disaster struck, because they were randomly patrolling the corridors at the time.

Overall they proved themselves to not be very effective, but they bought enough time for the heroes to arrive and take out the villains that appeared from floating portals of purple mist. Furthermore they were going to be his best proof that UA had not been unprepared. The experimental sniper unit in particular was doing an excellent job at taking out or scaring the villains into submission. Potentially lethal guns in the hands of robots were not something the media would approve of, but with Snipe present at the scene those injuries could be easily explained away.

Nedzu only had access to a few functioning drones, so his coverage of the entire stadium was less than complete, but the pros he could see were doing a splendid job so far at keeping civilian injuries at a minimum while simultaneously quelling the mass hysteria that was breaking out.

Although Endeavour looked pretty upset that he could not contribute much due to the many citizens nearby...

His students were another matter entirely. A Nomu had appeared on the field and was attacking the participants of the Cavalry Battle with an animalistic savagery that was only matched by its brutish strength. Fortunately it possessed no higher intelligence to improve upon the strategy it had been programmed with. All the creature could do was flap around with its leathery wings and punch, which to be fair, was still sufficiently dangerous that it needed to be dealt with immediately.

If Nedzu’s communications relay wasn’t fried then he would have ordered All Might to take care of the rampaging bioweapon already, but the threat to his students was so obvious that he did not think that the number one hero needed encouragement to dispose of it. Yet that left the question: Where the hell was that oaf?

One minute passed and All Might still wasn’t showing up anywhere on his video feeds that he was streaming to his laptop. Enough! There was no more time to waste!

Pulling out his mobile phone, he speed-dialled the pro’s number and impatiently waited for the other end to pick up.

“Toshiori, where are you?” he hissed.

“Uhm... on the toilet?”

“Stop lying, the situation is urgent!”

“Uh... I kind of forgot the medals in the teachers’ lounge? I went to get them now before-“

“Come back here! At once! We are under attack!”

“YES! ” answered the deeper voice of All Might’s muscle form as he hung up.

What an idiot! Nedzu had specifically told him to stay available throughout the whole event! Maybe this was another result of his arrogance. From now on he would monitor the location of his employees around the clock!
Speaking of the devil, where was Argent?

Oh... It seemed like she already took care of the Nomu in a particularly gruesome fashion. While that demonstrated a worrying affinity for extreme violence it also showed the conviction to fight for UA without holding back. Being so utterly dedicated to protecting her students that she used what many were going to consider ‘excessive force’ only added to her trustworthiness in Nedzu’s eyes.

Still, he was going to sharply question Argent about her notable absence in the last two minutes. Degurechaff was the most unpredictable human he had met in a long time. She was a mystery that needed to be solved urgently!

~[#҈#]~​

Himiko watched the TV with bated breath. The dust cloud had obscured much of the spectacle, but it was hard to miss the shining meteor crashing into the earth. Her love looked like an angel raining down fiery retribution on those she judged unworthy! A pleasant tingle ran up Himiko’s spine at the image of both of them standing side by side, cleansing the world of all that filth crawling around. Senpai would be her angel in the sky and she would be her demon on the ground! Together they could accomplish anything!

“Ha... Religion can be funny sometimes...” she mused offhandedly.

“Indeed! One could call organized faith the greatest show in human history! However, only in battle is where the true thrill of a grand performance can be found!” proclaimed Marble-Guy.

The masked weirdo called himself “Mr. Compress” and he was apparently a disgraced stage magician with a quirk that could turn nearly anything into small, round stones. He could have been an intimidating criminal if he hadn’t completely lost his marbles . Yeesh… Ok, that joke was a bit too corny even for her tastes.

Himiko diverted the topic of the conversation: “Do you see how cute Nomu-chan looks with its guts in the open like that? So awesome! How are you here by the way? Shouldn’t you be helping Boss-Man out there?”

“A good entertainer always knows when to make an exit.”

“Huh. I already knew you were a coward. That just means I’ll have to stab you in the back when the time comes, so you don’t run away.” she thought.

Not wanting to encourage this pointless exchange any further she snatched the remote and changed the channel to a newsfeed that showed her love in action. Most of these brainless journalists had the audacity to focus on the boring heroes like that grumpy number two (who would forever remain number two as soon as Senpai became number one). Who wanted to see these weaklings?

Ah, there it was! A gorgeous streak of silver zipping around carrying civilians from the collapsing stands to safety. How her shields flickered in and out of existence, supporting pieces of debris or transporting terrified spectators was nothing short of beautiful.

And in the middle of it all sat Shigaraki like a cockroach marring an otherwise exquisite painting. The mentally-handicapped gamer might fool the millions of viewers with his relaxed posture and common street clothes, but she recognized that mob of grimy, greyish-blue hair anywhere. Himiko’s nose was very sensitive and the rotten smell that clung to his form had permanently ingrained his dishevelled appearance into her memory.

Her love stabilized his deteriorating platform and went on to slip a barrier beneath him to take the moron to stable ground, but the energy construct fizzled out as soon as it touched him. Huh?

Tanya tried again with similar results and Bad-Touch-Man slowly turned towards her. Damn it, that was not good! Her heart began to beat faster, dreading what was about to happen.

She could not understand what they were saying and the camera angle was too awkward to read their lips, but she would bet that her love was staying true to her serious personality by telling him something like: “Sir, please deactivate your quirk. The situation is under control. You are impairing your own rescue.“

Obviously that was not going to work, because he was a villain scum!

Himiko wanted to scream ! She wanted to cry ! She wanted to warn her beloved!

Instead she numbly watched as the bastard leapt at her with his filthy, abhorrent and unfortunately deadly hands stretched out. Pure horror swept over her as she saw him come closer and closer in almost slow motion.

Tanya recoiled backwards in shock evading his first hand, but the second managed to make contact with her torso. The barrier supporting her midsection dispersed and her uniform underneath turned to ash. Hectically she paddled away, struggling to keep her balance, her normally relaxed expression turned into one of surprise.

Shigaraki apparently cared very little for the rift below him, because he jumped after her with a shout of hatred that even the distant camera microphone was able to catch.

Panicked, the heroine formed another barrier between them, but it materialized a few centimetres too far in front of her, detaching her attacker’s fingertips as she moved backwards. Himiko observed with satisfaction how the barely visible chunks of flesh plummeted into the depths together with the man that she hated more than anything in the world at the moment.

The TV did not have to show her the purple fog to know that he was alive though. A corresponding purple portal in the centre of the room spit him out like the piece of garbage that he was and Himiko had to suppress a growl. Her entire willpower was focused on not tearing his throat out right then and there.

“Agh... That bitch! Aghhh... I’ll kill her! Aghhh!”

He waved his left hand around, displaying the cleanly cut off stumps where his middle-, index- and ring finger were supposed to be much to Himiko’s malicious joy. What better punishment for a barking dog than to lose his teeth?

Seconds later Mist-Man appeared and took him away again, most likely to the ominous Doctor who made the Nomus. Hopefully the hopes of fixing his demented leader were going to be dashed, or at the very least the process would be extraordinarily painful.

Calming her breath, Himiko examined the place where he had fallen. Curiously she went over to the tiny puddle of blood on the floor and sucked it up with one of her many needles. A single drop made it onto her fingertip and she reflexively licked it up.

“Ughhh... bah! Disgusting!”

It tasted worse than he smelled! How was that even possible? Maybe the best way to dispose of his filth was to burn him? She certainly didn’t want his remains on her hands! What would Tanya think if she found her elbow deep in such waste?