The Synonym
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Aura Farming System - 40
🕑 Added 2025-12-24 21:08:48 +0000 UTC
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[Combat exercise]
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…
Once everyone was fully reunited and they had all gotten a good look at Taka’s extravagant costume, All Might began giving the instructions for the exercise right away.
In summary, the class would be segmented into several teams of two students, who would take on the roles of either heroes or villains. Two opposing teams would then face off inside the many buildings scattered across Ground Beta, each match having its own building to destroy.
The villains’ objective was to protect a mock bomb placed at the top of the building. The heroes, on the other hand, had to start from the bottom floors and reach the bomb to “deactivate” it.
The victory conditions were fairly simple.
The villains would win if they managed to protect the bomb until the fifteen-minute limit ran out, or if they apprehended all the heroes using the capture bindings they’d been given. Achieving either condition would secure their victory.
The heroes, meanwhile, would win if they touched the bomb—counting as deactivation for the exercise—or if they apprehended the villains using the same bindings they, too, had been provided.
Once the instructions were given, and a certain glassed student’s multiple questions were answered, the students stepped forward one by one to draw balls from a box, each marked with letters from A to J, to determine their teams.
As the process went on, Taka began thinking of ways to rig the whole thing so he could get matched against Bakugo or Todoroki, who were currently the strongest contenders in class.
While doing so, his turn came, and he was offered the box to take a ball out.
A moment after rummaging through it, he glanced down at the ball he had drawn.
Team I, and his partner—
‘Hagakure, huh?’ He sweatdropped, turning to look—or rather, not look—at the invisible girl at the other side of the group. ‘…Damn.’
Immediately, all of his plans went straight down the gutter.
He had hoped things would play out as they did in the show, letting him use his foreknowledge to identify which ball belonged to which team and subtly manipulate them with his aura so he could fight whoever he wanted.
But seeing the invisible girl there made something painfully clear.
They already weren’t the same.
His eyes swept across the other groups forming around the field, narrowing as his worries cemented.
The teams were different from the show. Which meant the matches would probably be, too.
That left him with no way of knowing which ball belonged to Todoroki’s team—or Bakugo’s.
And with the remaining balls hidden inside the box, right beside All Might, even trying to peek was close to impossible. He wasn’t that fast yet.
‘Well, so much for aura farming,’ Taka clicked his tongue.
If only he had a way to make something like an actual astral projection, so he could check on the box without being noticed…
He didn’t, in case you were hoping otherwise.
‘Still, it’s a pretty good idea… I might try it out later.’ He squinted faintly at the idea.
“Hello, Takahashi-kun, right?”
A voice calling out to him snapped him out of his ideas. A bit nervous, but trying to sound calm.
He turned and saw that Hagakure had approached on her own… Namely, only her gloves and shoes. The rest of her was invisible.
‘Focus, man.’
Preventing his mind from wandering into strange topics, he offered a hand.
“That, or Taka. Whatever you feel like calling me.”
It seemed that the friendly gesture had been enough to erase the nervousness from her voice.
“Then Taka it is! I’m Toru Hagakure, nice to meet cha!” she said energetically as she shook his hand.
Taka nodded faintly. However, inwardly, a smile appeared on his face.
‘Finally, someone else who takes on my offer.’
The other was Kirishima, but given his focus on aura farming, he hadn’t talked much with him.
He had to act mysterious all the time, so going to speak to others on his own volition was a no-no.
<Then you ask yourself why you have few friends.>
‘It’s the path of the aura—’
<It’s not.>
‘Pff, what would you know?’
As he scoffed inwardly at the system’s obvious ignorance on the topic, both he and Hagakure turned to All Might, who had begun the process of establishing the team rivalries, sinking both hands into two boxes—one for the villains, and the other for the heroes.
The hero’s hands rummaged through each box, his expression pensive, as if gauging which ones he should pull out first.
And as the tension rose amid the class, with each student awaiting to see who they would be fighting—
‘Hold on…’
A crazy idea formed in Taka’s mind.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
[Trouble Radar] (ACTIVATED)
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
For a moment, nothing changed.
But then—
“...!”
He felt it. For a moment, an alert had sprouted, vanishing as soon as it came.
It hadn’t been of much level—at most, a threat level of 1 or 2.
But that much had been enough to prove Taka’s theory right.
‘The moment All Might touches my team’s ball, it gauges the level of the opposite team’s ball his hand is touching.’
And as if to prove that true—
‘There goes another one, nearly level three!’ Taka’s impassive face broke into a small smile.
Instantly, he laid out his plan.
His aura, invisible, expanded and reached the boxes, entering them and covering most of the balls, as well as All Might’s hand, without him realizing.
Then, Taka simply waited.
In the meantime, All Might took out two balls, designating the first teams that would fight against each other—Mina and Kaminari as heroes, and Sero plus Aoyama as villains.
Then he went back to rummaging through the boxes, alerts popping up every now and then.
Taka simply remained calm, waiting patiently with a watchful eye… until—
‘There it is!’
A level four, nearly five.
That was the highest so far.
Whether it was Bakugo or Todoroki, it didn’t matter. Both worked.
He supposed there was a chance it would be Midoriya too—albeit, as he was now, he wasn’t much of an opponent, even if the alert said otherwise.
Quickly, he made sure to lock onto it with his aura, discreetly pushing it into All Might’s hand along with his team’s ball as well.
And, to his delight—
“The second match will be… Team B as heroes, against Team I, as villains!” All Might announced as he showed both balls to everyone.
Both the balls Taka had chosen.
‘And, if my memory doesn’t fail me, team B should be…’ His eyes darted across the class, until they landed on a particular someone… who was also glancing his way, eyes narrowed.
Todoroki.
The moment the two made eye contact, Taka snorted and glanced back ahead.
For having escaped eye contact, that would have been his defeat, and a loss in aura.
But just before looking away, Taka had shot him a cocky smirk, changing the meaning of it all completely.
Utter disrespect.
Taka didn’t quite catch what Todoroki’s expression was after that, but judging by his daddy issues, he probably hadn’t liked it much… not that anyone would like it.
But that was what he wanted.
The angrier he was, the better Taka would aura farm.
‘Albeit, I guess I’ll have to take care of her.’ He thought as he shot Hagakure a short look. ‘That guy does pack quite the punch.’
If Todoroki went on a rampage, the girl wouldn’t be able to do much.
‘Well, fighting with ease while protecting someone at the same time is even more auratic, isn’t it?’ Taka mused with a smile.
Hell yeah, everything was coming together.
Now, all he needed to do was bide his time… until his turn came.
…
°
°
°
| Minutes later… |
“Hero team, wins!!!” All Might shouted as the image of Mina touching the bomb with a smug look was projected to everyone watching the big screen in the monitoring room.
After a not-so-tough battle in which Aoyama was knocked out quickly—forcing Sero to do most of the heavy lifting, blocking most of the room with his self-produced tape, only for Mina to dissolve it all easily with her acid and Kaminari to stun him just as quickly—the first battle of the day came to an end.
Soon, the two teams made their way into the room, standing at the center for All Might’s evaluation of their performance.
“Now, ladies and gentlemen, who can tell me who was the MPV of this combat exercise?” the hero asked, scanning the room.
Yaoyorozu, ever the applied student, was the first to raise her hand.
Once given the word, she spoke. “That would be Ashido-san. Not only was she superior in combat against Aoyama-san, taking him out first, but after that, she also proceeded to weaken all the villain’s precautions with her Quirk, making it easier for her partner to make the most effective use of his Quirk. On the other hand, the villain team lacked in quite a few aspects; there was no coordination between Aoyama-san and Sero-san, which ultimately led to—”
A minute or so later, Yaoyorozu finished with her profound analysis of each team’s performances, leaving even All Might, who was the teacher, a bit at a loss.
Still, nothing of what she had said was wrong, so he simply assented and praised her—albeit, a tad intimidated.
With the review over, it was time for the second match.
“Alright, everyone, let’s change locations and go onwards to the next match!” All Might announced, and soon, everyone began moving towards the next building to destroy.
Minutes later, the class had gone towards the monitoring room of said building, while the two teams went to their respective posts on the bottom and top floors.
One of the teams being Taka and Hagakure, the villains.
The heroes—Todoroki and Sato.
‘The top, huh? Very fitting for aura farming.’ Taka thought as he watched down through the window of the room they were in, a satisfied deadpan on his face.
“Let’s do our best, Taka!” Suddenly, someone called out from behind. That being Hagakure.
“Hm.” Taka turned, giving her a brief nod.
He wasn’t sure about his best, but he for sure would put his utmost into aura farming the heck out of his opponent.
“So, do you have any plans?” Hagakure asked, her tone very earnest and somewhat urgent.
Taka took a bit to answer.
After all, he couldn’t say his plan was to be flexing while Todoroki went all out.
So instead—
“We crush them with overwhelming power.”
“So direct!” Hagakure cried out, sounding a bit exasperated.
<[+5 aura!]>
Though it seemed to have done the job Taka intended.
Still, she was right. So he added a bit more detail, so she wouldn’t feel so lost.
“I’ll take on Todoroki; his Quirk is a bit wild, so I’m gonna have to deal with that first. If I’m not wrong, Sato’s Quirk strengthens him when he eats sugar, but he gets slower mentally. So if you sneak up on him, you should be able to apprehend him before he’s able to react.”
“Alright!” One of her floating gloves did a fist-pumping motion, though her voice clearly denoted a bit of nervousness. Her invisibility Quirk didn’t aid much in combat, besides the sneaking aspect.
‘Only in the later seasons was she able to weaponize it somewhat.’ Taka mused, recalling how she became able to warp sunlight with her Quirk to blind his opponents.
Then, there was also the moment when, after Aoyama shot a laser at her, she was able to redirect it as an even more powerful attack towards some villain he couldn’t bother to remember.
And it happened again when she tanked a full-blown city-destroying laser from the final boss.
Albeit, in doing so, her Quirk bugged out, and she became visible temporarily, revealing herself as she was born to the world.
‘Hey… system, if I shot her a full-powered aurabeam of pure luminic energy… would she—?’
<Host, I thought you had moved past that already. What were these past twelve months for?>
Taka clicked his tongue. ‘It’s called intrusive thoughts. And it’s quite difficult not to have them when she’s literally naked next to me, and I have an idea of how she looks from my memories.’
<...>
‘Besides, I was asking for a moment when she isn’t naked. That’d allow her to turn off her Quirk for a moment, right?’
<I’m not very informed about the specifics of Aoyama Yuga’s Quirk, nor the properties that All For One’s laser had at that moment, but in theory, it should work.>
Taka hummed at the thought.
He was pretty sure that after both incidents, they were eventually able to develop a suit for her that would turn invisible along with her.
—That, or her Quirk bugged out so much from that last laser that she got pressured into finding a solution, given her random spasms of visibility.
Either way, he could help her get herself a suit for her condition, or at least be able to turn off her invisibility if she wanted.
<Why would you do that, host?>
‘Are you seriously an aura farming system?’ Taka asked in disbelief.
<What’d I do?>
He rolled his eyes.
‘Shouldn’t an aura farmer be able to do anything? Even helping seemingly unhelpable cases?’
<I suppose.>
Snorting, Taka gave Hagakure a brief look.
‘Not now, though. That’s not gonna end well.’
Putting the idea for later, he glanced at the door, waiting patiently for All Might to give the announcement of the exercise’s start.
Toru did the same, calmly standing in silence.
Then—it happened.
“Now… let’s start the second combat match of today!” All Might’s loud voice rang in their earpiece, snapping both teams into alert.
—RAAAAAANG!—
Then, the loud honk that announced the match’s start dropped, setting them into motion.
“Bear with this for a moment.”
“Eh?”
Taka’s red flaring aura wrapped around Toru, forcing her afloat without warning, earning slightly panicked sounds from her.
Just as she was about to ask what that was about, however—
—Tssss…!—
In an instant, a wave of frost razed the whole building, covering walls, floor, and ceiling.
“Eh?! What’s this? What the…?”
Hagakure, who had been floating, remained untouched save for the low temperatures that dropped with the coat of ice that now surrounded the,.
Taka, however, got hit directly by the wave, and ice had crept up to his knees, trapping him to the ground.
“Taka, are you okay?!” Seeing his state, Hagakure asked panickedly from the air, squirming in panic.
But Taka simply nodded, and then—
-Crack!-
He snapped apart the ice trapping him with sheer strength.
With that done, he set Hagakure down and cracked his neck.
“That should have done it for the first attack.” He mumbled, eyes narrowing. “Given the big-range attack, Sato is probably out of the building right now, so there’s no need to worry about him for now.”
Saying so, he began walking toward the room's door.
“Where are you going?”
Taka didn't answer right away.
He opened the door and shot her a small look.
"To force a direct confrontation."
…
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-To Be Continued...-
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(A/N: I am author, creator of cliffhangers.
.. Anyway, just realized I never mentioned Bakugo crashing out at Midoriya for having a Quirk after the baseball throw… So uh, imagine it happened.
I’m going to edit that chapter right away, though.
Also, I'm almost completely healed. Gotta say, I got scared shitless for a moment. During COVID I lost my sense of smell, and only recovered it gradually over the next three years.
And thanks to the flu, I lost it again.
But it's coming back now, thankfully.)
Comments
SacredLoneWolf
Those intrusive thoughts be the real demons I tell ya good ch
