ShuraZero
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Chapter 110: The Teachers' Trial
🕑 Added 2025-08-04 22:18:06 +0000 UTCThe classroom door slid open with an ominous creak. Shota Aizawa entered, followed closely by the towering figure of All Might, whose face lacked its usual radiant smile. The air in the room instantly grew heavy.
"Quiet," Aizawa muttered, and the class obeyed. "Good. Before your egos from the internships get so big they can't fit through the door, it's time to talk about final exams."
The announcement was a spark, and panic was the electric shock that coursed through the classroom.
"Oh no! It's already that time of year!" "I'm going to fail everything!"
Aizawa let the murmur of terror grow for a moment before cutting it off at the root.
"But this year, things will be… different."
Just then, a small white figure leaped from Aizawa's scarf, landing with impeccable agility on the podium. Principal Nezu, with his polite smile and black eyes like pits of unfathomable intelligence, addressed them.
"Hello, Class 1-A!" his cheerful voice was a terrifying contrast to the tension of the moment. "As Aizawa-sensei rightly says, the recent increase in villain activity has forced us to reevaluate our methods. Robots are no longer a sufficient challenge for you."
Nezu’s gaze swept over each of the students.
"From now on, your combat drills will be as close to real life as possible. And for your final practical exam, you will form teams of two and you will face... one of us in combat."
The silence that followed was so absolute you could hear the buzz of the fluorescent lights. Then, the explosion.
"WHAT?!" "Against the teachers?!" "We're going to die! This is suicide!"
Nezu laughed, a sharp, amused sound.
"Don't worry, we have decided on the teams and opponents based on a variety of factors to ensure a… fair assessment."
The mention of teams sent Izuku's mind racing. Instinctively, his eyes met Momo's, then Ochako's and Toru's. A silent question hung between them.
"Allow me to illustrate with a recent memory," Nezu said, and the giant screen behind him came to life. It didn't show the pairings, but a recording from the U.A. faculty meeting room, from a few days prior.
The image on the screen showed the teachers sitting around a large table. A worried-looking Cementoss was speaking to Nezu.
"Principal, with all due respect, isn't this too much? Pitting them against us… the power gap is abysmal. We could seriously injure them."
"Yeah!" Present Mic exclaimed. "It's not fair to the little listeners! It'd be a massacre!"
"That's precisely why we'll need a handicap," Snipe intervened, his voice calm and professional. "Ultra-compressed weights. They'll limit our mobility and speed."
Aizawa, sitting in a corner, spoke without looking up from his papers.
"This isn't about crushing them. It's about testing them. Forcing their growth. I've reevaluated the traditional pairings. This year isn't about fixing weaknesses. It's about testing the ways they complement each other and the anomalous strengths they've already shown."
His gaze on the screen lifted, meeting the camera's.
"Yaoyorozu and Midoriya have demonstrated a coordination that borders on precognitive. His Quirk," he said, referring to Izuku, "is an enhancer, and hers is an arsenal. They are a unit of strategy and creation. Therefore, the most logical opponent for them is me. My Erasure will nullify the foundation of their power. I want to see what they do when I take away their best weapons. I want to see if their coordination is solely dependent on their Quirks, or if it goes beyond that."
Then, his attention shifted to two other names.
"Bakugo and Todoroki. The two prodigies with the greatest destructive power in the class. Their problem isn't a lack of strength, but their inability to cooperate. Their arrogance is their greatest weakness. Therefore, their opponent must be the ultimate symbol of cooperation and overwhelming power. The only one who can teach them a lesson about what it truly means to be strong."
All Might, on the screen, nodded gravely.
"I should be the one to handle them."
The recording stopped. In the classroom, the silence was now one of awe. The teachers weren't punishing them. They were analyzing them. With surgical precision.
"As you can see," Nezu continued, his smile now a little sharper, "the teams have been designed with the utmost care."
The screen changed, now showing the official pairings.
- Izuku Midoriya & Momo Yaoyorozu vs. Shota Aizawa.
- Katsuki Bakugo & Shoto Todoroki vs. All Might.
- Ochako Uraraka & Toru Hagakure vs. Thirteen.
The other pairings appeared, but the class's attention was fixed on the first three. The air filled with an almost palpable tension.
Izuku and Momo exchanged a look. There was no panic in their eyes, but a flash of defiance. Aizawa. The anti-Quirk. The perfect counter to them.
"This is… a fascinating logic problem," Momo murmured, more to herself than to anyone else.
Ochako and Toru looked at each other, a mix of nerves and excitement.
"Thirteen! She's one of my favorite heroes!" Ochako exclaimed. "But her Quirk is terrifying!"
"A battle of stealth against a black hole! This is gonna be fun!" Toru said, though her voice trembled a bit.
But the most visceral, most explosive reaction came from Katsuki Bakugo. He shot up from his seat so violently that his chair screeched against the floor.
"WITH THAT DAMN HALF-AND-HALF BASTARD?!" he roared, his murderous gaze locked on Todoroki, who didn't even flinch. "AND AGAINST ALL MIGHT?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! I DON'T NEED THIS EXTRA TO CRUSH HIM!"
"Your cooperation is irrelevant to me," Todoroki replied with his usual coldness. "I'm enough on my own."
"I'LL KILL YOU BEFORE THE EXAM EVEN STARTS!"
"The exam will last thirty minutes," Aizawa explained, completely ignoring Bakugo's outburst. "You have two ways to win: either you put these handcuffs on your teacher," he said, holding up a pair of high-tech cuffs, "or one member of the team manages to escape through the designated exit gate."
The word "escape" resonated in Izuku's mind.
"Running and seeking help when the power difference is overwhelming…" Aizawa commented, his gaze pausing for an instant on Midoriya and Hagakure. "It's a lesson some of you should have already learned well from your encounter with Stain."
Izuku nodded to himself, the memory of the alley still fresh in his mind. Beside him, Toru shuddered, a gesture no one could see but that was felt in the sudden stillness of her posture.
"And so you don't feel that escaping is your only option," All Might interjected, his voice finally breaking his silence, a clap of restrained optimism. "We'll show you that all the teachers will be wearing these ultra-compressed weights!"
He held up a metal bracelet.
"They're a handicap developed by the brilliant Miss Mei Hatsume! They'll reduce our speed and power by half!"
Bakugo snorted, a savage grin on his face.
"Half? You think that's enough? You're underestimating us. You're giving us a reason to consider fighting back. I'm going to enjoy this."
After the explanation, as the class descended into a chaos of planning and panic, Izuku and Momo instinctively gathered in a corner.
"He chose us for a reason," Momo said, her voice a focused whisper. "His Erasure is a direct counter to my Creation. If he looks at me, I'm useless, and without my Creation, you can't get the tools you need for your strategies."
"No," Izuku replied, his mind already working a mile a minute. "He's not targeting you. He's targeting us. He doesn't want to nullify your Quirk; he wants to nullify mine."
Momo looked at him, confused.
"If he looks at me, you can keep giving me orders. You can analyze him, find his patterns. But if he looks at you, I don't just lose my ability to create… I lose my conductor. My Quirk is nothing without your instructions, and he knows it. You will be his main target."
The logic was flawless. And terrifying.
"But there's a flaw in his plan," Izuku continued, a manic spark in his eyes. "He assumes our coordination depends solely on our active Quirks. He doesn't know that the connection we've formed is permanent. He doesn't know I've assimilated part of your power."
Momo felt a shiver. The intimacy of that confession, in the midst of tactical analysis, was overwhelming.
"Even if he erases my 'Coach'," Izuku said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, "my accelerated cell regeneration, the part I got from you, will still work. My agility, from Ochako. My reflexes, from Toga. And my bio-vector control, from my mother. He might take away my brain, but he can't take away the body we've built together."
She nodded, a smile of pure admiration on her face.
"So, the plan isn't to avoid his gaze. It's to force it. Make him focus on one of us so the other can act."
"Exactly. We'll be a decoy and a weapon. Swapping roles. A dance of distractions."
Their eyes met, and in that instant, in the middle of the chaotic classroom, a silent pact was sealed. They weren't two students about to face their teacher. They were two strategists about to play a game of life-or-death chess.
"I have an idea," Momo said, her gray eyes shining with a brilliant light. "Something we could create. But it would need… a boost. A very precise and sustained one. To ensure maximum molecular stability."
Izuku understood instantly. Heat rose up his neck.
"I see…" he murmured. "A… an advanced calibration session. For… for science, of course."
"Of course," she replied, with a seriousness so absolute it made it all the more intimate and dangerous.
From across the room, Ochako and Toru watched them. They couldn't hear the conversation, but they saw the intensity in their gazes, the way the world seemed to disappear around them.
"Looks like our conductor is already composing his symphony," Toru said with a giggle.
Ochako didn't laugh. She just smiled, a smile of pure and absolute confidence.
"Yeah. And it's going to be a masterpiece."
