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The Road to Greatness: One Quirk at a Time - Chapter 3
🕑 Added 2024-01-21 00:52:18 +0000 UTCChapter 3
The next day came pretty quick and I, along with the rest of the class, were sitting in our seats waiting to find out what the results of yesterday's event was. Though I'm pretty sure Midioriya had a rather unpleasant talk with All Might. He looks extremely depressed and even Uraraka wasn't able to get him to perk up.
I'm ambivalent about the situation between him and All Might. I don't plan to sit around and hope that Midoriya grows enough balls to deal with things. I'll deal with them myself.
Bakugo also looks a little angry, but that could just be his default attitude. I've not spent enough time around the psychopath to really know.
Thankfully, the bell finally rings and we're not left waiting any longer. The giant door opens and Aizawa walks in first with Nezu sitting on his shoulder. Following them into the room is a blue women that looks kind of familiar to me but I honestly can't remember who she is exactly. When I say blue, I mean blue. She's as blue as Ashido is pink.
The woman had short dark blue hair and her skin is a lighter shade of blue. She's wearing a rather professional looking buisness woman's outfit of a blazer, shirt, and skirt, with low heels on her feet. Both practical footwear and professional looking attire? She's already made a much better impression on me than Aizawa ever did. A quick glance around shows I'm not the only one who thinks so.
Though my glance lets me know a couple of people know who she is and they're excited. I assume she's a pro, all the teachers at Yuuei are, it's a big selling point. I will say this though, she's pretty damned hot. There's also a lot of room for fantasy between the pink Alien-Queen of the class and this new True-Blue woman. Heh.
Once all three of the adults were in the middle of the room, Nezu spoke up, “Good morning students. This morning we will be discussing the consequences of yesterdays events. First and foremost, I want to reiterate that no one is being expelled and no student is in any kind of trouble here. Any fear you might have had about blemishes on your records, you can go ahead and forget about.”
There were actually a couple of sighs of relief at that. I hadn't even considered that angle. Honestly, nothing but death would stop me from being a hero. Even if I had to start as a nothing wearing jeans and a t-shirt and work my way up one criminal at a time. I'd even go vigilante if they wouldn't give me a license!
“Second, Aizawa-san will no longer be the Homeroom Teacher for this class.”
Ohhhh using his last name and an honorific? Nezu must be piiiiiiissed.
“Instead, you will have a new homeroom teacher.” He gestures to the blue woman, “This is Awata Kaoruko whom you might know better as one of Sir Nighteye's sidekicks, Bubble Girl.”
OH! That's why she looked familiar! She wasn't hugely important so she kind of slipped my mind and I haven't really paid much attention to Sir Nighteye or his agency. This news excited the class as they seemed to be trying to decide if they should clap or cheer, something to show their happiness at having anyone but Aizawa as their teacher. I decided to get things started by gently clapping my hands together and giving Bubble Girl a bit of applause in welcome.
I was quickly joined by the rest of the class. Bubble Girl's cheeks turned a darker shade of blue while she smiled warmly toward the class and gave a small polite bow. After a minute or so, Nezu cleared his throat and the clapping quickly died down.
“Awata-Sensei has a teaching degree but never had the opportunity to teach in a hero school. Positions don't open often. However, due to that she doesn't have any real teaching experience. Therefore Aizawa-san will be acting as her TA and doing whatever she asks him to.”
Nezu turned to glare at the side of Aizawa's head at that last bit there. Aizawa had maintained a stiff posture and hadn't said or done anything since he came into the room. Hell, he didn't even have his usually lazy slob gaze either. He was actually paying attention and staying focused.
“Aizawa-san is also on probation. If he steps out of line, even just a single toe, he will be fired on the spot.” Nezu's dark gaze finally shifted off of Aizawa and back onto us, “If you believe he has stepped over the line and done something wrong, please inform Kaoruko-san. Lastly, I want to reiterate that Kaoroku-san is your teacher, meaning that Aizawa-san has no authority in this class outside of emergency situations where his superior experience as both a hero and teacher is required. Outside of such situations, Aizawa-san is only to adviseKaoruko-san.”
I gotta admit, this made me pretty happy. I was slightly worried about Aizawa not being around for our trip to USJ, but he'll be sticking around with vastly diminished authority. I could very much live with that. Who knows, maybe Bubble Girl, er Awata-Sensei, would be a much better teacher and, you know, teach.
At a glance from Nezu, Awata-Sensei took a step forward and gave another polite bow, “It's a pleasure to meet you all. I'm Awata Kaoruko, you can call me either Awata-Sensei or Bubble Girl, I don't mind which. I may be inexperienced, but I hope to be a good teacher to all of you.”
The entire class, myself included, gave her a round of applause. Nezu let it go for a while Bubble Girl blushed again. He finally called an end to it and spoke once more, “With that, I shall leave you to get to know your new teacher with what little time is left of homeroom.”
Nezu hopped off of Aizawa's shoulder and left the class room, Bubble Girl being polite enough to open the door for him while Aizawa hadn't even attempted to move from where he was standing. After Nezu left, Bubble Girl moved back to the front of the class, “Since we don't have a whole lot of time left, I'd like to know if you all went through introductions yesterday?”
At the entire class shaking their head in the negative, Bubble Girl gave Aizawa a disapproving glance, “I see. It's important for professional heroes to know each other. Especially when working in areas close to one another. A good familiarity with each other promotes teamwork and allows for sudden team ups in dire situations to go much smoother. Any professional hero worth the title is friends with the heroes they work close by.”
At her last comment she gave Aizawa a scathing look. Hot damn but do I like our new teacher a lot! I happen to agree with her wholeheartedly. Aizawa's comment yesterday to Midoriya, Uraraka, and Ida about leaving if they were here to make friends always rubbed me the wrong way. A single strong hero could do a lot of good on his own, sure. But a bunch of heroes working in tandem, whether strong or weak, could accomplish so much more by working together.
The power of friendship was a trope for a reason dammit! That shit really works.
From there Bubble Girl had us all take turns introducing ourselves to each other. There was little of note in that. The exception being Midoriya taking the time to explain how his 'Quirk' had only manifested a year ago because his body wasn't strong enough to handle it. Still wasn't technically as he had little control and constantly hurt himself.
I guess that was as good a lie as any to explain One For All, for now. Honestly, One For All was never really my favorite Quirk in the series. Then again, Midoriya wasn't my favorite character either. I never found him to be nearly as inspirational as others seemed to think. I mean, he spent his whole life wanting to be a hero. Even after he failed to manifest a Quirk he wanted to be a hero and go to Yuuei. Even in the face of Bakugo's bullying and violence, he wanted to be a hero.
I admit the dude has at least enough will to maintain his dream. Yet, it meant nothing because he did nothing with that willpower. All he did on his path to being a hero is write his notebooks. Yeah, no one believed in him and whatever, but he still wanted to be a hero. He could have done something, anythingtoward making that dream possible.
I mean, look at Aizawa. His Quirk gives him zero benefits to his physique and has little to no effect on mutant type-quirks. Yet the dude trained himself into the ground and worked his ass off to get where he is now. If Midoriya had put even half the effort Aizawa did into training himself, he probably could have gotten into Yuuei even without a Quirk.
I don't care what All Might said in the canon material, Midoriya did not earn One For All, it was given to him.
Seriously. Look at me and what I've done. My Quirk is useless on its own and does nothing to make me anything beyond human. Without touching someone else and borrowing their power I am a regular human being, practically Quirkless. Did I let that stop me? No! I did whatever I could to minimize my disadvantages. I went to the gym, took martial arts classes, and anything else I could think of that would give me even the slightest edge in a fight.
Because, guess what? The heroes aren't the only ones with the ability to negate Quirks. Such Quirks might be rare, but they're not unheard of.
Even if I had been reborn into this world as a Quirkless nobody, I would have fought tooth and nail to gain every single advantage I could. I would have gone full on scrapyard Batman if I had too. I would have studied any field of science and learned anything I needed to know to give myself an edge. I know I never would have been a hugely popular hero, maybe just an underground one like Aizawa. But, I would have done something other than whine about how unfair life is while wasting my time and potential.
Serious note. The technology in this world is similar too my last world in most ways, but in others it is so much more advanced. Anyone who studies enough to get into a Support class in a hero school could easily become a Batman or Iron Man using tech to cover for a lack of a Quirk. Part of me wants to make a working Iron Man suit just because it's possible.
When it was my turn, I stood to introduce myself, though the entire class knew who I was already, “My name is Monoma Neito, feel free to call me Neito, and my Quirk is Copy. With it I can copy the Quirks of other people with a simple touch. The copies are only temporary though and I can only copy four Quirks at a time. Even if I have copied four Quirks, I can only actively use one at a time. I've discovered a few ways to circumvent my limits but they are still there. If anyone wants an outside perspective on their Quirk, just let me know and shake my hand. We'll see what we can discover about your Quirk together.”
I gave a polite bow as their was some applause. Kirishima was also loudly talking about how I helped him push his Quirk to a new level yesterday. After a few more people went, the bell rang and homeroom was over.
The rest of the morning was actually pretty normal and boring. It was nifty having pro-heroes teaching mundane classes like math, but it lost its luster after a few minutes. The only exception was lunch, provided by Pro Hero Lunch Rush. I have no idea what his Quirk is, but I know it has to have something to do with cooking because...
OH.
MY.
GOD.
His food is the best thing I have ever eaten in either of my lives. Seriously. In this life I've been to a couple of five star restaurants on special occasions with world renowned chefs cooking the meal. They got nothingon Lunch Rush. Seriously, even the plain white rice is better than I would have believed possible.
The table I chose to sit at was soon filled by the girls of 1-A, minus Uraraka who was sitting with Midoriya and Ida, as well as Kirishima, Kaminari, and Sero. The conversation is light until we once again get to discussing Quirks. Kaminari starts it off, “Oh! Neito-san...”
“Just call me Neito. Seriously. That applies to all of you.”
“Cool man. Anyway, I wanted to thank you for the advice! I did some research last night to get an idea of what you were talking about and managed to get a coin to twitch after some practice. I still need a lot more but it's a good start!”
I grin at Kaminari and nod, “Glad to hear it. Speaking of Quirk improvements, I had some ideas.”
That got everyone's attention. I took a bite of my food both because I was hungry and because I felt like teasing them all. After I swallow, I look at Ashido, “For example, Ashido-san...”
“Call me Mina!”
I grin, “Mina then, did you include anything like nozzles for your costume and support gear?”
Mina tilted her head then shook it, “No.”
I nod, “You should. With your Quirk you can produce a fair amount of acid rather quickly which can generate some pressure. But! If you had a handheld nozzle you could funnel your acid into, you could increase the pressure, like a hose nozzle can, and launch your acid even further. You could also have specially made nozzles to refine your acid into thin streams for precision rather than distance.”
Mina blinked before clapping her hands excitedly, “Ohhh that's a good idea! I was already doing something similar with my hands, but having a variety of nozzles really would be awesome!” she gave me a thumbs up and a wink, “Awesome idea Neito!”
The others looked pretty impressed by the idea and excited on what I might have to say to them. I looked to Asui next, “Asui-san...”
“Call me Tsu-chan.”
“Tsu-chan then. I'm assuming that with your Quirk being what it is that you've done a lot of researching into frogs and toads?”
Tsuyu gave me a blank stare before slowly shaking her head, “No. My parents both have frog Quirks, as do my siblings. I learned everything I can do from them.”
“Ah, I see. I would suggest looking into real frogs, and even toads, are capable of in nature. Mutation-type Quirks have a higher chance of... well... mutation. It's possible that you have abilities that your parents don't.”
Tsuyu tilted her head and placed a finger on her chin as she thought about it. She quickly nodded though, “Thank you for the advice, I'll do so.”
I turn to Jiro next, “Sorry but I don't know enough about your Quirk yet to give you any advice.”
Jiro sighs and shrugs her shoulders, “That's alright. It's not that great of a Quirk anyway.”
I frown, “Don't say that! All Quirks are awesome! Sometimes it just takes an outside perspective or the right friend to get the most out of your Quirk! I think all Quirks are amazing and I always feel the desire to collect them all. Even the so-called 'worthless' ones out there.”
Jiro blushed a little at what I said while Mina was suddenly sporting a 'cat that got the canary' grin, “Oh? Does that mean you want to touch all of us?”
I give Mina a 'bright innocent' smile, “Of course! Repeatedly if possible!”
Every girl at the table is suddenly blushing, even Mina. While the other girls are looking away from me in embarrassment, I send Mina a pride filled smirk, letting her know I saw her game for what it was and I won! She thinks she can play word games with me? I'm no virgin soy-boy who will get flustered at saying something with a hint of innuendo to it. I might be a virgin in this life, but that doesn't mean I was in my last life!
As for why I'm still a virgin despite being a moderately popular teenage male model? Because I choose to be. In my last life I slept around and it was fun, but I never had a nice long lasting relationship. I want that in this life. So, I'm not saving myself for marriage or anything, but I am saving myself for someone special.
Like Momo. Who, by the way, looks absolutely adorable when embarrassed.
Once the girls recover from their embarrassment at my proclamation conversation resumes and it's Momo's turn, “Yaoyorozu-san.”
Still slightly flustered, she managed to get out, “Call me Momo.”
Mina pipes in then, “Yaomomo!”
Seeing Momo blush at the nickname, I nod and continue, “Yaomomo.” she eeps a little and blushes more, “I think your Quirk is one of the most powerful and versatile Quirks on the planet. I don't think there's much you can't do with it, but how are you at combat?”
Momo takes a moment to gather herself before she answers, “I'm pretty good at using a Bojutsu and protecting myself with shields.”
“Long range weaponry?”
She shakes her head a little, “While I can make them, it takes more time than making a simple staff. I can make a staff near instantly, but something complex like a firearm would take a lot longer.”
I nod in understanding, “I've got some ideas. You can make anything you know the molecular structure of, right?” At her nod I continue, “So, theoretically, you could reproduce the same kind of sleeping gas that Midnight's Quirk produces, right?”
Momo blinked in surprise as the thought percolated in her mind. She quickly came to a conclusion and nodded her head, “I could, if I could get it's composition and memorize it.”
I grin, “What about Tear Gas?”
Momo's eyes widen in surprise, “I could do that too.”
My grin becomes a smirk, “So, you could create Gas Masks, then blast an area with seeping gas, tear gas, or any other kind of gas you can get the information on. So, in melee combat, all you would have to do is get your hand somewhere close to someones face and you could blast them with a burst of some sort of gas to render them incapable of fighting.”
Momo nods excitedly, practically bouncing in her chair with excitement. It does... interesting things to her chest, “I can do that! It's not even that hard either! Way easier than some of the things I know how to make.”
Even though it didn't directly affect them, everyone was buoyed by Momo's bright and cheerful mood along with knowing their friends for the next three years were already getting stronger. I had some advice from everyone based on future knowledge and my vast experience with a variety of Quirks. I just couldn't give it all out without having a reason. I'd not seen Jiro use her Quirk and she hadn't let me copy it yet so, logically, I knew only what she'd said during the introductions. Which wasn't much.
After that, lunch proceeded with some light chatting and came to a pretty quick end.
We all sat in our seats as the bell rang to signal our next class was beginning. As soon as I heard loud footsteps coming down the hallway I knew exactly what to expect. Though I have to admit that I am surprised it's still happening. As much as I dislike Aizawa's attitude and the way he does things, he wasn't wrong that a Quirk Assessment Test was a good way to start the year.
“It's meeeeee! Coming through the door like a normal person!”
Echoed through the silent room as All Might, in his massive muscle form came through the door in a very not normal way. He was gripping the door frame as he leaned into the room with a cape billowing around him. After his entrance, he enthusiastically made his way to the podium at the front of the classroom.
As he walked a lot of the students were mumbling about meeting All Might in person, or expressing excitement over him being their teacher. Those were the general reactions, though two of us were more restrained. Todoroki, ever the silent one didn't even react while I, myself, wasn't surprised so it was hard for me to act too excited.
I liked All Might as a hero, don't get me wrong. But as a person? Not so much. There were several things he did that made me lose respect for him in the canon story. The top three being his hypocritical rejection of Izuku on the rooftop and saying someone without a Quirk can't be a hero. The bastard was Quirkless himself and wanted to be a hero! Then there was the incident where he literallylet Bakugo get away with attempted murder during the very exercise that's coming up now. Lastly, his shit decision to waste his hero time rescuing people from small incidents before the USJ event.
Yeah, I get it, he's a hero and wants to help people. That's a good thing! But, he has other responsibilities he needs to weight against helping people with small incidents that other nearby heroes could have handled. His decision to waste time like that was basically giving the students the middle finger and expressing how little their education and futures as heroes meant to him.
I wont bring up how things would have been different with the USJ invasion if he'd been there. The invasion was not his fault. Not being there was. On that note, if he'd done like I feel her should have, he would have had his full three hours of power and wouldn't have had to push himself past his limits, which would have left him much more power to use during incidents further down the line. It would be a whole serious of domino effects that made the world better.
At the very least, it would have made hi fight against AFO easier.
All Might placed his hands on his hips and beamed a massive smile at the class, “Foundational Hero Studies! For this class we'll be building your foundations through various trials and tribulations!” He puffed his chest out as he lifted his hand to show a card with the word 'Battle' written on it, “And we'll begin that with this trial! The trial of battle!”
Everyone got a excited by that to some degree, even I did. While I'd done a ton of sparring with martial arts, I've only ever engaged in one battle where I could actively use my quirks freely, the entrance exam. This would be the first time I ever fought Quirk against Quirk with someone else and I was looking forward to it a lot!
All Might pulled a small remote out of his pocket, “For this trial, you're going to need the proper gear!”
With a push of the button on the remote, panels on the wall began to slide out revealing cases containing the costumes we all requisitioned. I felt a bubble of excitement at the sight of the case. I hadn't requested anything too ostentatious for my outfit. No way in hell was I running around in a full tuxedo as my costume. That was just stupid.
“Gather your gear, get changed, and meet me on battle ground beta!”
With his piece said, All Might took off and left us alone. I quickly got up to gather my case with a bright smile as happiness flooded through me. I couldn't wait to put this on!
-----Line Break-----
I stepped out of the tunnel leading into ground beta wearing my brand new costume. I took a lot of inspiration from the more technologically advanced versions of Batman when designing it. The whole suit was black with light gray highlights. On my chest I wore thick armor covered in plates made out of a material I couldn't name and held together with an undercoat of kevlar-like fibers. The whole point was for the chest piece to be resistant to both knives and firearms.
My pants were made of a thick black durable cloth with similar plates of armor on the essential areas, such as my thighs, to protect the vulnerable spots. I didn't want a random villain to get lucky by going for my femoral artery or something. On my feet I wore thick boots with excellent grip, steel toes, and armor to protect my ankles and tendons.
To protect my arms I had armor plated gauntlets with minimalistic gloves. Unfortunately, I needed to keep my hands clear in case I needed to copy a Quirk from someone. Even so, my forearms and upper arms were well protected.
As for my head, I had them cram as many gizmos into a faceless helmet as possible. Night vision, light filters, air filters, backup air supply, and more. There was no way in hell that I was going to go down to a Quirk such as Midnight's or get taken off guard by something like a flashbang. I wanted my senses protected so I could plow through such things and take the bad guys down.
The last part of my outfit was one that couldn't be seen but was important all the same. There were small plates of steel hidden beneath the protections I had. While they did offer some protection, they weren't that big or that thick. They weren't for protection, but rather for my Mangentic Manipulation Quirk. With these metal plates in place, I could use that Quirk to control my body, even if I was paralyzed by a Quirk or to Fly with it if I wanted.
Yes, I have a telekinesis Quirk that can do all of that too. There's just one thing. The power limit on the Telekinesis is pretty restrictive when doing a lot of things. The Magnetic Manipulation though? It has no real strength limitations, just its limited range. That means it has a higher top speed than Telekinesis, and can move objects at higher speeds and with greater force within that range.
In short, in some situations Magnetic Manipulation is better so having steel plates to interact with it is a must.
There were already a couple of people waiting when I stepped outside and soon we were joined by the rest of the class. I looked over everyone observing their costumes. Well, it was expected, but I was still hoping to see a little disparity between what I knew and what reality was. Everyone was wearing their canon costumes.
Several of them looked damned good while others looked completely useless. The biggest problem was that only a couple of them had things that were practical and useful in combat. I hated saying this, I mean I really hated to say it, but Bakugo actually had one of the more practical costumes. Between his boots, knee pads, and grenade gloves, he had a pretty good setup. Of course, he fucked up by wearing nothing but a tank top and that weird fucking thing around his neck and shoulders.
Still hated giving him any positive credit though.
Ida's costume was the exact opposite. I believe it to be one of the worst designs he could have possibly had. I get it had something to do with his brother, but that didn't make his brothers costume a good design! I totally get full body armor, case in point I'm wearing full body armor. There's a huge difference though. For starters, my armor is capable of breathing so it will let out body heat and keep me from overheating.
He's essentially wearing a giant oven over his entire body.
But it gets worse. He's a speedster god dammit. His outfit should be a light as possible while still being as protective as possible. The only places he could get away with having metal plating would the the surfaces he uses for striking. Since he likes to kick to much, that would be his toes, shins, and definitely his knees. Maybe reinforced gloves on his hands.
Honestly, I had about the same criticisms for all of students. Very few of them had anything to protect their vulnerabilities or enhance their striking power. I hated to think it, because she looked so damned hot, but even Momo's costume was garbage. I mean, a book on a bookshelf? Seriously? The fuck? A small wrist computer with voice recognition software, a touch screen, and a backup keyboard, would be far more efficient at finding what she's looking to remember of copy for her Quirk.
Hell, she was so rich she could probably get something more impressive than a wrist computer I could put together from store bought parts!
“Looking good newbies! Welcome to where your first battle trials will be held!”
Of course, Ida couldn't wait any longer for All Might to actually explain and interrupted with a Question, “Why are we at the entrance exam grounds? Will we be battling robots once more?”
All Might cleared his throat. I think he might have actually been slightly annoyed by the interruption, “Take two steps and you'll see! This will be an indoor battle trial! If you only watched the news you would think that most villain battles took place outdoors! You would be wrong! Statistically most villain battles take place inside, in the dark and shadows! For this trial you will be splitting into two man teams, one heroes, the other villains!”
In the silence that followed, Tsuyu was the one to ask, “What about combat training?”
“This is combat training! Only this time there are no robots to destroy willy nilly! You'll need to take the strength of your Quirks and Abilities into account!”
After that there was a rush of questions. I heard a few of them and wanted to roll my eyes at a few of the dumb ones. Who the fuck cares about your cape Aoyama?! Finally, All Might couldn't take it anymore and called out, “I can't hear you if you all speak at once!”
When everyone quieted down, he dug out a small sheet of paper from somewhere in his skin tight costume and began reading off of it, “For this training a pair of 'villains' will be guarding a nuclear device that they intend to detonate! The heroes must stop them before it is too late! If the heroes capture the villains or lay a single hand on the nuclear device, they win! On other other hand, if the villains capture the heroes or fifteen minutes pass, the villains win! Your teammate and opponents will be chosen by...”
He grabbed a box that I also hadn't seen before hand and held it up proudly, “By lottery!”
Ida, ever the party pooper, called out, “Is that really a good idea?”
Midoriya quickly explained the reasoning, “Often heroes out in the field are forced to team up when they don't know each other very well.”
I rolled my eyes behind my faceless mask. That's another reason I had full head protection, so I could really express my annoyance at idiots without having to deal with them getting upset over it. It's also amazing for bluffing.
“Anyway! Let's get started!”
Team A – Sato and Todoroki
Team B – Ida and Hagakure
Team C – Asui and Shoji
Team D – Jiro and Kaminari
Team E – Monoma and Aoyama (Fuck my life.)
Team F – Kirishima and Uraraka
Team G – Bakugo and Tokoyami
Team H – Ashido and Ojiro
Team I – Midoriya and Sero
Team J – Koda and Yaoyorozu
Hmmmm... honestly? First, fuck my life, again, and damn! A part of me was really hoping to see Midoriya and Bakugo forced onto the same team. It would have been a complete disaster and probably utterly hilarious. Or one of them would die. I was good with either.
Seriously though, me and Aoyama? Ugh. It's not as if I hated Aoyama or anything. He was just kind of annoying with his fake french accent and obsession with sparkling. His Quirk, on the other hand, was actually pretty cool. Though I don't think his Navel Laser actually fired a Laser. It had too much... mass? Is that the right word? I remember that it had enough force behind it to propel him through the air when he jumped and fired it. A laser is just focused light, it has nowhere near enough mass to push someone like that.
As we all grouped up, All Might produced another box and reached into it, “The first hero team will be... team D! The villains will be... Team G!”
I held back a sigh. There goes my first chance at getting Bakugo expelled and possibly thrown in jail. I even heard Bakugo let out an annoyed grunt while staring daggers at Midoriya. Obviously I'm not the only one who hope they'd be fighting each other.
All Might led Team G, Bakugo and Tokoyami to the building where they would be given a few minutes to build up some defenses. Meanwhile, Team D, Jiro and Kaminari, was left outside where they too could plan.
I... did not have high hopes for the hero team. While neither of them were weaklings, I don't think they stood a chance against two heavy hitters like Bakugo and Tokoyami. Maybe if Kaminari had the proper support equipment to snipe the pair from far away, they might have had some sort of chance. But with him either stuck using the simple Taser Fist or Indiscriminate Shock, he was kind of boned. Jiro, on the other hand, was just plain boned. She only had her sound waves and advanced hearing which didn't have much of an edge over either Bakugo or Tokoyami. One strong blast from Bakugo would be enough to deafen and cripple her.
Especially hard since Bakugo looked royally pissed off at not getting to pound Midoriya into the ground. He'd likely just blast the pair before they could do anything.
When All Might returned, he led us to a small building with monitors inside of it where we could watch the events unfold during the class. Everyone watched curiously as the two teams prepared. Or... well at least Kaminari and Jiro seemed to be preparing. Bakugo and Tokoyami were silent. Tokoyami did his brooding while Bakugo did his seething.
“And BEGIN!”
We all watched as Bakugo started to leave the room with the fake bomb in it while calling over his shoulder, “I'm going to blow the extras up. You stay here.”
After that it was a bit of a slaughter. When the heroes met Bakugo, Kaminari tried to charge into melee, blocking any chance of Jiro using her soundwaves. Kaminari couldn't use his only ranged attack without shocking his partner, that just left his Taser Fist. Sadly... Kaminari didn't seem to know anything about fighting in melee. He threw a heavily telegraphed punch with terrible form and ended up eating an explosion with his stomach when Bakugo ducked it.
Yeah, he went down like a chump.
Jiro didn't do much better at all. The explosion was something she wasn't expecting, not really knowing Bakugo's Quirk at all. She ended up grabbing her ears in pain and left herself wide open to be easily taken down.
Clean up was easy as Bakugo captured both of them.
“Villain team wins!”
Ugh, I hate saying it, but Bakugo is a decent fighter. I'd crush him like an insect but he could take on the majority of the class in a one on one situation rather easily. Even two on one, as just shown, when they're at a disadvantage against him.
The four students soon joined the rest of us. Bakugo, predictably, looked smug in his supposed superiority. Jiro and Kaminari looked a little scuffed up, bruised, and very disappointed. Tokoyami... looked as stoic as ever. It's hard to get a read on that guy.
Once we were all gathered, All might addressed the class, “Sometimes a hero must go up against overwhelming force yet not falter. Jiro-shoujo, Kaminari-shounen, you did well going up against Bakugo-shounen who had a large Quirk advantage. Learn from this experience and improve on the areas you need to improve.”
Oh, wow, that was lame. He could have just said 'get gud scrubs' and it would have sounded less condescending. He didn't even mention Tokoyami, not that there was anything to mention to begin with. Poor guy just stood by the bomb doing nothing for the whole two minutes the match took. I felt a little sorry for those three.
“Alright! For our next match the heroes are... Team C. The villains will be... Team I!”
Hoh? Asui and Shoji as heroes against Midoriya and Sero as villains? That's a much more interesting match up. Team C has the physical advantage while Team I has Sero and his tape that can be used to make sticky traps. This will be much more interesting!
The two teams did prep like you might expect. Midoriya spent the whole time mumbling to himself lost in thought while Sero actually got to work. Once they'd located the bomb he did something really clever. He took the bomb, taped it up some, and then hung it out the window so that it hovered between a pair of windows and was completely out of sight. Once he was sure he had it in the right spot, he pulled it back inside. If I had to guess, he planned to toss it back out the window once the heroes came inside. Clever as hell.
Unless Asui and Shoji actually left the building or managed to catch a glimpse of it from an unaccounted for angle, they would have a really hard time finding the bomb.
The match started after the time limit was up. Asui and Shoji entered the building hwere Shoji used his Quirk to turn some of the extra tentacles he had into ears. It was kind of amazing that he could do that. It gave him a great balance of information gathering ability and strength. Asui, meanwhile, had a whole grab bag of frog related traits that gave her a lot of different abilities. I mean, she could actually launch her tongue hard enough for it to act like a powerful punch or wrap someone in it and lift them off of the ground with it! In humans, the tongue was the strongest muscle. In her that was ramped up tens or hundreds of times.
Between the pair of them, they had a serious advantage over the much more limited Midoriya and Sero. Midoriya for... obvious reasons. He still had very little control over One For All. At least him being a coward and staying behind to do the tests didn't screw him out of that learning experience. I honestly wouldn't care if he'd left the class with the rest of us and not gotten the experience. I wasn't going to sit back and rely on that quivering mass of nerves and insecurity to save the day.
I watched the match closely and it wasn't really much to write home about. Midoriya, terrified of using OFA against a living person, was summarily captured by Shoji. Without knowledge to exploit against his opponent, as he did against Bakugo in canon, he was kind of useless. He knew what buttons to push on Bakugo and how the guy fought. He knew nothing about Shoji or his Quirk, except for what he could see, and therefore couldn't predict anything. Between his fear of his own Quirk and Shoji's superior... everything. It wasn't much of a match and Midoriya was captured pretty easily.
Sero, on the other hand, had done his level best to exploit the qualities of his Quirk and had set up roadblocks and traps everywhere he could. The guy literally worked his elbows raw. His tape was some seriously impressive stuff and made him a sort of knock-off spider man. It just wasn't enough. It took some time, but Asui and Shoji easily ripped through his tape. While Shoji took down Midoirya, Asui took down Sero. At least their fight was slightly more interesting with both of them being able to fight at medium range.
In the end, Shoji finished with Midoriya and helped take down Sero.
Okay, so it wasn't quite as exciting as I thought it would be, but it was still way better than the first match. As the four members of the class returned, All Might along with them, he spoke in his booming voice, “That was very well done! I'd say the MVP of this match was Sero-shounen.” He looked among the rest of us, “Who can tell me why?”
Momo's hand was immediately in the air. When All Might gave her a nod, she spoke confidently, “Because he did everything in his ability to achieve success. He not only set up a lot of traps, but found a clever way to use his tape to hide the bomb from the heroes.”
It was true, as soon as the two entered the building, Sero had stuck the bomb outside like he'd planned. Momo continued, “He contributed everything he could to the villains goals for this exercise. Not to downplay the excellent teamwork of Asui-san and Shoji-san, but they, essentially, brute forced their way in. Meanwhile, Midoriya-san didn't really contribute anything.”
Man, harsh but fair. Midoriya already looked slightly depressed but now he almost looked suicidal. All Might had a somewhat awkward look on his face at the mention of his successors... uselessness. He quickly recovered and continued to smile, though I could see it was rather strained, “That's correct Youtorozu-shoujo. While everyone did their best, Sero-shounen went even further and did the best he could in the situation.”
Now, it could be my imagination, but it looked to me a bit like All Might was regretting his choice of beginning exercise. So far the two matches had been rather one sided. While Sero managed to drag out the second match a bit, it was still rather short and easily won by one team over the other.
All Might quickly moved on, “For the next match, the heroes are... Team A! And the villains... Team B!”
Oh fuck me. This wasn't going to last very long. Sato and Todoroki as the heroes versus Ida and Hagakure as the villains. Everyone else looked excited since they had no idea how powerful Todoroki was. I did. This was going to be a one sided slaughter just like Todoroki's had been in canon.
-----Line Break-----
Yup, called it. The match was over almost instantly. Todoroki did was I expected and froze the entire building solid. The only reason the match took longer than thirty seconds was because Torodoki had to walk into the building and touch the bomb. Poor Hagakure had to go to the nurses office for a bit of frostbite to her bare feet. Ida was fine, but his poor choice of metal for his uniform made him extremely susceptible to the cold. He too had to go to the nurses office for a case of frost bite since his uniform just leeched all the heat out of his body.
No one had much to say about that match, though Kirishima did express his awe when Todoroki froze the whole building.
Now I'm sure it's not my imagination that All Might isn't happy with how things have been going. So far every match has, essentially, been a one sided slaughter that really only allowed a select few to get any practice or experience. In other words, his first teaching gig was looking to be a complete failure with the majority of the class learning nothing.
“Alright, we'll just move on to the next match. For the heroes we have... Team J! And for the villains... Team F!”
So, Koda and Momo as heroes versus Kirishima and Uraraka as the villains. This, might actually be rather interesting! While Koda is soft spoken and kind of, not a coward but... shy? Let's go with shy. His Quirk was actually really impressive, he was essentially Dr. Doolittle. Only, instead of just talking to animals, he could flat out command them and they would obey. Seriously cool Quirk with lots of scouting and combat ability. If only the test wasn't taking place in an empty fake city with very few, if any, animals and only bugs that he was deathly afraid of currently.
I don't even need to talk about how amazing I think Momo's Quirk is. I could spend hours just going over the seriously broken was her Quirk could be used to destroy anyone and anything, even the whole world.
Meanwhile, Kirishima was going to be a hell of a problem for the pair to overcome. His ability to already use Unbreakable this early on just meant he was a powerful wall they would have to overcome or avoid. Then there was Uraraka. Her Quirk was a lot more than it appeared on the surface. Canceling out the effects of gravity on anything she touches is already extremely powerful, especially with a weight limit of several tons. What no one mentions is its apparent ability to negate momentum as well.
My proof? Easy. Midoriya's alive. By that I mean, he had his canon entrance exam. This means he was falling through the air when Uraraka slapped him to stop his fall. The thing is, canceling out just gravity wouldn't stop his momentum. He should have continued on at speed and slammed into the ground. But he stopped with her slap. Stopped cold without any whiplash or anything. For that to happen, the momentum of his fall had to be completely nullified.
The class watched quietly as the two teams did their prep work. Together Kirishima and Uraraka set some traps for the villains. Kirishima used his transformed arms to break sections of wall and flooring. Meanwhile, Uraraka would float those pieces up into the air. Once they had a good amount, they went about setting the weightless pieces up near the ceiling around their hiding spot and on the staircase leading up to where the bomb was hidden.
Meanwhile, things weren't going quite as well for Momo and Koda. Mostly because of Koda. His shyness was making it hard for Momo to get him to talk. It took almost the entire five minutes of prep time for her to drag his Quirk out of him. Even so, she spent her time wisely and proceeded to make an array of items. One item looked like the kind of binoculars that could see heat, or something else other than regular vision. She also made her standard staff as a weapon and some other things I wasn't quite sure about since they looked like generic grenades. Probably Flashbangs, but who knows?
Once their time was up, the heroes entered the building. Mom used her created binoculars to scout the area. Koda... kind of just followed behind her. The pair spent some time exploring and looking for their targets. Eventually, we could see when Momo found them, pointing in the direction they were while talking to Koda.
Uraraka and Kirishima had spent their time in wait, watching from a vantage point where they could see the floating rubble trap they'd set. It wasn't long before Momo and Koda were beneath the trap and the trap was triggered.
Uraraka had waited until Momo and Koda were on the last set of stairs, about half way up them, before releasing her hold on the rubble. Her targets had no chance to escape the falling debris and nothing on hand to protect themselves with and were pelted by the heavy material. Koda, in a proper act of heroism, used his larer body to protect Momo beneath himself. He got a good few knocks that will likely bruise and a small gash on his head that bled freely, but otherwise he weathered the storm admirably.
From there things devolved for the heroes. Kirishima came charging out and went for Koda while hardening himself to his first stage. He tackled the larger boy off of the stairs, ignoring the still shocked Momo. Momo went to follow Koda to help him out, but was intercepted by a large piece of concrete thrown my Uraraka. This effectively split the teams into two one on one fights.
Which didn't last very long. Kirishima ended up capturing Koda pretty swiftly after talking the already dizzy larger boy. With Koda taken out, it was pretty easy for Kirishima to rejoin Uraraka and double team Momo. In the end, Uraraka managed to get a hand on Momo while Kirishima was weathering blows from the steel staff Momo had conjured. Floating helpless, Momo was unable to come up with a quick enough counter to keep the capture tape from being wound around her waist.
“Villain team wins!”
I glanced at All Might and noticed a marked improvement in his demeanor since this clash wasn't a complete one sided beat down. At least, not in the same category of one sided beat downs that the other matches thus far had been. At least the losing side had managed to fight back... somewhat.
When the two teams arrived, Koda sporting a clean bandage courtesy of Momo, All Might looks around the room and talked about the match. I honestly didn't pay any attention to him. The fact of the matter is, I was bored out of my goddamn mind. The matches thus far had been... Sad really.
Rather than listening to the pointless talk I looked over the class and noticed something. Every single student looked severely disappointed. It didn't matter if they were on the winning team or the losing team, they all had the same bland look on their faces. All Might's first class was setting the tone for the year and it was notsetting a good one.
It was so bad that even uber fanboy Midoriya looked a little disappointed in the whole thing. Then there was the other thing. Most of the matches had been so fast that less then half the allotted class time had passed. Even worse, it was now time for the final match. Mine, interestingly enough.
I looked over at my partner for the class with a bit of a grimace. I didn't hate, or even dislike, Aoyama, I just found him mildly annoying. His costume was also terrible for his Quirk. He needed something to redirect his laser from his navel to his hands so he could have better aim and utility with it. Or better yet, a way to store the energy. If he could do that, he could store small bits of the energy away for use later so he could fire far more lasers without having the side effect of his Quirk kicking in.
I looked from him to the two opponents we would be facing. Ojiro was standing to the side in his white karate gi, his 'costume'. I mean, I guess ti qualified since he had some extra fur sown in? But it was honestly pretty bad. I would expect the guy to at least add armored reinforcements on the areas he preferred to strike with.
Then there was Ashido. Her costume was a clubbing outfit. The only modification being small holes in the soles of her shoes to allow her to skate on her own acid. The only thing about it that made her look good was that it was skin tight. If it had been loose it would have been noting but an eyesore.
Good god I wanted to sit the whole class down and slap the shit out of them until they all had proper protective and useful costumes! On the bright side, I didn't have to deal with the eye gouging horror of Mineta in his diaper costume.
Yes, I am aware it's supposed to be a bowl. No, I don't give a fuck what it's supposed to be. It looks like, and there for is, a diaper.
All Might, still trying to get some energy into the class picked up the lottery box with a forced smile, “For the final match the heroes will be... Team E! The villains will be... Team H!”
So, me and Aoyama as the heroes with Ojiro and Ashido as the villains. Not too terrible. I mean, they don't stand a chance in hell, at all, but in a more fair world they'd be a decent pair. Ashido would have time to use her acid to set plenty or traps. Then, once we heroes get close, Ojiro can fight in melee with mid-range backup from Ashido as he throws acid at us.
Unfortunately for them, I'm there opponent.
I guess I could take my time, give them a chance to show off, let them fight back. But honestly? I'm so done with this class. It's been too much of a disappointment. After I win this match in thirty seconds and the class is over, I'm going to make an offer to the others. I'll take them all to our asigned training area and offer to help them all improve their abilities with their Quirks. Give them whatever ideas I can and do what All Might had completely failed to do, teach them something.
The four of us, plus All Might, head to the building. Ojiro and Ashido head inside to prep while Aoyama and myself wait outside. It's a sign of how poorly this class has gone that even Aoyama is a little down and not preening and posing now that he had the attention of the class on him. He just kind of looked at me and asked, almost plainly, “Is there a plan monsieur?”
I look him in the eyes and let out a sigh, “Well. There's two options. If you want to have a chance to show off, we can go into the building, find them, and fight them. Or, if you want this class over as much as I do, I can just win this match instantly for us.”
Aoyama took a little while to think it over before he sighed and his shoulders slumped, “This class started so wonderfully!” He posed and let his cape wave a little in a light breeze, “I look fantastique!” He slumped once more and sighed, “But this day? She is ruined. Let us end this swiftly.”
I nod in understanding, “My feelings exactly man. Tell you what. When this class is over it will still be too early to go home. What say me, you, and the rest of the class that want to, get together in one of the training rooms and get some real practice in together? I haven't had a chance to talk to you about your Quirk yet, or some of the others. It'd be a nice chance to get to know each other, yeah?”
Aoyama actually perked up and smiled brightly, “Oui! That would be magnifique!”
I gave him a smile, though he couldn't see it though my helmet. Before I could say more, All Might voice boomed over the speakers nearby, “And begin!”
I sighed and turned to look at the building while activating my Telekinesis Quirk. I used it as a radar to quickly scout through the building by 'touching' things with it to get a feel for them. It didn't take me more than thirty seconds to find the fake bomb. Once I found it, I reinforced it with a telekinetic bubble, ripped out a section of the outside wall, and easily floated it down to where Aoyama and I were standing.
I could hear Ashido and Ojiro shouting out in surprise at the bomb floated gently to my hand. There was a long moment of silence as Ashido and Ojiro had managed to catch sight of me touching the bomb by looking out of the gaping hole in the wall. Even All Might was silent for a long moment before his voice, sounding a little defeated, called out, “Hero team wins.”
Yeah, this class was all suck. Poor All Might is going to get review bombed by the class.
-----Line Break-----
AN
So I did the teams and matchups as legitimate random. I am not certain how it turned out and I tried my best to get it to match how I believe the characters would behave and act. It was... a lot of one sided slaughters. I mean, I always knew Neito would win no matter who he went up against in the class, none of them are currently strong enough to beat him.
That's not to say they wont be, or wont find clever ways to get around his tricks and techniques. But until they get used to his skills... Aside from that, there's also the issue of them not really knowing each others Quirks. Sure, they did some talking on the first day, but it was just talk. Nowhere near as visceral as seeing those Quirks in use like they would have during the assessment tests. They were all going in pretty much blind.
Anyway, let me know what you guys think and if you feel I mischaracterized anyone.
Comments
Cody S.
Then it looks exactly like I was going for! Neito has a tiny bit of an inferiority complex and ends up being a dick because of it. Keep in mind, even if he has memories of another life, he's lived the last 15 in the MHA world with classmates who HATED and FEARED his Quirk and what it could do. Even if you've got the mentality of an adult, ten years of your peers treating you badly will leave a mark. The original Neito was a dick for a legitimate reason. He'll get over it, and he is planning to help the class in the next chapter I'm working on. But he's still got some growing to do. It's not fun if the MC is perfect from the get go.
Jimmy Golden
Really liked this chapter!! The only small complaint I have, is that the MC seems to forget that his classmates are still kids at times and is quick to judge and write them off like adults. Such as when he said he wouldn’t care if either Midoriya or Bakugo would die during battle training. When he should be mentally old enough to wish to help them learn and grow up to be better people and heroes. Because the way he acts towards them now, it kinda makes him look like a self entitled prick with a better than you complex. But besides that keep up the amazing work!!
Cody S.
Well, aside from the big throw down between Bakugo and Midoriya, there wasn't all that much to take away from this section of the canon. Since I randomized things, it got even worse since the team were so damned one sided. Everyone in 1-A deserves to be there, but it's just fact that a few of them are just plain stronger than the rest. If the teams were preselected for balance, it would have gone a lot better. As just one example, Kirishima Vs. Sato, Defense Vs. Strength. I think both of them could have learned something fighting each other. So, I'll have some fun with stuff like that in the next chapter. Thanks for reading and I'm glad you liked it!
Lictor Magnus
Really appreciate you highlighting how terrible the teachers and mentors are in MHA and giving them some actual pushback. So many self inserts go yeah they suck but I’m not going to do anything about it. Also like that you covered this arc in a single chapter. Most of the fanfics I’ve read starch this way too long for what was a few chapters in the manga and like two episodes in the anime.
