Chapter 6: For want of a Fridge
"Andersen-san. Can we go and talk about your costume for a second? There are a couple of requests that… confused us."
Hans followed All Might out into the hall, interrupting the previously passionate call to BATTLE TRAINING. Yes, in all caps and italics.
"Yes, is there an issue?"
"There isn't exactly a problem." All Might said, sweating slightly. Hans grinned to see the immaculate facade of an all-mighty hero slowly crumble before the task that laid ahead of him. "We just fail to see how some of your requested equipment is… relevant to hero work."
"The support department did approve it, right?" Hans said, slightly annoyed. "Those are very important parts of my hero costume. Of course, even if a lab coat isn't very imposing as a costume, it has practical pockets, can be used as bandages in an emergency situation, and pairs well with my quirk."
"With all due respect, those weren't the design choices the support department was curious about, Mr. Andersen." All Might said seriously. Hans felt a bit of exasperation and self-righteousness well up within him, but he suppressed the urge to begin to roast the number one hero in Japan.
"What's so confusing?" Hans said, grabbing his costume request document… before smirking in satisfaction.
None of his applications for home appliances were rejected.
"Why do you need a refrigerator, a fan, four alarm clocks, quirk-grade plant pots, a pack of pens, a phone charger, and… many other common household items?"
"It's for my quirk." Hans said bluntly.
"Even with the unique nature of your quirk, young man, I do not believe that your choices are appropriate." All Might said, sighing. "But if you can use those pieces of equipment in your battle training, I will not deny your additional request to take them home so that you can practice."
"Thank you for understanding, All Might-san!" Hans said, adding on an honorific just to be polite to the person that had effectively granted him millions of yen's worth of home appliances.
"Now, we should probably resume instruction, right?" All Might muttered.
"I don't know why you're asking me, All Might-san, but maybe that book can give you some insight." Hans said, looking at the Teaching for Dummies book that All Might had tucked into his costume.
"All right, class, let's continue from where we left off!" All Might said, settling back into a heavily rehearsed performance. "One of the most important parts of being a hero is… Looking good!"
Pointing to a wall, several racks filled with suitcases were ejected, as if on queue.
"These were designed for you based on your quirk registration or the request that you had submitted! Some of you…", he looked at Hans, who smirked smugly back, "Had requested more unwieldy items that are currently near the changing rooms."
As the class began to yell excitedly, Hans couldn't wait to exploit this school more. Because if he really got to take the fridge and various other home appliances home, then he had basically scammed UA out of one year's worth of tuition.
Looking down on his request list, Hans noticed one rejected item at the bottom.
"What's this…" Hans muttered. "Something got rejected?"
Midoriya looked over his shoulder, slightly interested.
"You have a rather long list, Andersen-san. Does your quirk need a lot of support … wait what?"
Midoriya suddenly began to stare at the list with confusion and intensity. It was… slightly uncomfortable. Hans folded the sheet of paper, glared at the overly excited teenager, and walked briskly to his suitcase, which was marked by a seventeen.
Was it weird that he was basically going to cosplay as himself from a different universe?
Probably.
Did he feel guilty for ripping off the design so as to save more time for writing webnovels?
Of course he didn't.
After all, deadlines wait for no man.
…
Before All Might, nineteen students stood, some in anticipation, others in stoic silence and one in near-murderous impatience, waiting for the last one to come out of the changing room.
At last, with an entire caravan behind him, Hans slowly walked to the entrance of the mock city. Looking around at the mock city, which even had real bushes growing out of the sidewalk, he began to curse the capitalists that ran this institution.
He should have asked for three refrigerators instead of one.
At last, Hans arrived in the center of the crowd of students that parted way for Hans and his summons. Behind him, a refrigerator was carried by what looked like a queen wearing a white dress. A tree was wearing four plant pots as a hat, and was sitting in a fifth that came from somewhere within UA's campus, giggling the whole time. A little girl held four alarm clocks in her basket.
When he finally put down a desk fan and stopped in front of Tokoyami, he slowly turned his head to look at Momo, who looked like she was resisting the urge to strangle him."Not a single word. I know what you're thinking. UA's budget is still impractical, and I don't want to hear it."
Yaoyorozu's cheeks grew red within that impractical costume of hers via an emotion that could not be interpreted as embarrassment.
Hans just smirked and turned his attention to an All-Might that was desperately trying not to let his exasperation show.
"Now that we're all here, we can begin." All Might said, flamboyance once again restored to his body language. With his speech and, again, heavily rehearsed, routine punctuated by muscle flexes, heroic poses, and a constant, unflinching smile. Hans wondered whether or not his cheeks got sore.
Hans went over the points mentally. Villains defend bomb. Heroes attack bomb. Time limit. Random teams. There are capture tapes that basically can incapacitate somebody if they're wrapped around somebody. He was just about to pull out his tablet to keep tapping away at his novel when All Might finally ceased rambling about how heroes had to be responsible and minimize property damage.
"Are there any questions?" All Might asked.
"Yes, sir!" Iida said, his hand raised straight in the air. "Isn't there a better way to decide teams than drawing lots?"
"Let's view it this way…" All Might said, an orange box filled with their names still in his hands. "Whenever you team up with a pro on the field, it's most likely going to be a random chance as to who you will be working with."
"But shouldn't villain teams get to plan their partnerships out, then?" Hans drawled, zoning in on the logical fallacy like an eagle. "And besides, heroes mostly have set patrol routes. Wouldn't a competent hero know who they would be teaming up with beforehand, just by looking at which heroes are closer to their own patrol routes?"
There was silence. All Might kept on sweating.
"Andersen-san!" Iida said strictly. "Do you think that you have more experience than a teacher?"
Hans thought back to Chaldea and was tempted to say yes. But since that would raise too many questions about his already suspicious backstory, he didn't say anything, merely lowering his head in 'defeat'. Out of the corner of his eyes, Yaoyorozu did a little fist pump.
"Don't get so cocky." Hans whispered to Yaoyorozu. "It wasn't like you defeated me in this argument."
Yaoyorozu's expression quickly soured, but nobody else seemed to mind their strange rivalry. After all, they couldn't be any worse than Bakugou and Midoriya.
"Isn't this a perfect scenario for one of those enemies-to-lovers kinda deal?" Mina whispered. "I totally ship it."
Hans shivered. Oh, god, the internet was as bad as he remembered.
Teams were finally chosen one by one. Expressions spanned a wide spectrum. Hans chronicled the flustered relief that Midoriya felt when he got paired with Uraraka instead of Bakugo, laughed silently at Iida's futile attempts to reign Bakugo in, and remembered the faint, hesitant smile Ojiro gave him as they were paired together.
"So… Andersen-san… We haven't really talked, but… nice to meet you?"
"It's a pleasure." Hans said, only semi-sarcastic this time. "Anyways, who do you think will go first?"
"I don't know, but I kinda want to go first myself." Ojiro said, looking faintly excited. "Look, All Might's drawing the lots now!"
"And our first match will be…"
"Team A and Team D!"
Hans began to cackle. Ojiro shot him a concerned look.
…
"It's almost like fate!" Hans snickered, once the rest of the teams sat down in an observation room. "Two rivals, destined to fight each other… Bwahahahaha!"
"What's so funny, Andersen-san?" Kirishima said, shaking Hans gently.
"Nothing, nothing…" Hans wheezed.
"Holy shit, this world is such a generic shounen anime!" Hans thought. "And now that I've definitely determined the fact that Midoriya was probably the protagonist back during that rigged quirk assessment test, all I have to do is bootlick him or something and I'll survive throughout the series!"
And, of course, Midoriya was sent to play the villain. With his prospective love interest, or at least a member of the opposite gender that he actually talked to, he went against his probably abusive childhood friend.
Oh, what a moment for character development. If only this wasn't a shounen anime and filled with power fantasy moments designed to hook in the reader.
"So, who do you think is going to win?" Ojiro whispered to Hans, just to find some sort of conversation topic.
"Midoriya, obviously." Hans said. "He's going to pull out some weird stunt from absolutely nowhere and somehow win the match through the benefit of luck or unreasonably accurate planning."
"...Are you sure you're not delusional?" Yaoyorozu said, smiling viciously.
"Explain to me why the mock cities now have shrubbery." Hans said, crossing his arms. "If you people think that spending millions of yen on greenery nobody even uses is sane, then I think that my thoughts are totally justified. Besides, I bet I'll be correct."
"And if Bakugou wins?"
"Then I'll stop arguing with you about UA's budget problems and you can believe that our system is totally efficient in using trillions to educate twenty high schoolers while teenage homelessness is at an all time high."
There was dead silence as everybody mulled their financial cost over.
"Can any of you contribute trillions of yen to aiding a city?" Hans said. Yaoyorozu raised her hand. "You don't count."
She slowly put down her hands.
"Then why are you even here?" Kirishima blurted out, his hot-headedness getting ahead of him. "If you're so unmanly about being a hero, and think that it's not manly, then why would you even attend UA."
"I was basically blackmailed into it because I healed a hero that was bleeding to death because of Stain." Hans deadpanned. "Unauthorized quirk usage and healing quirk stuff. You heroes are oddly intense about recruiting healers, aren't you?"
All Might clenched a fist guiltily, which did not escape Hans's notice.
"Well, whatever." Hans said, waving his hand. "These constructs existed way before me and you, and if the elites are profiting off of merchandise, why change anything?"
The planning and preparation phase was watched in silence. Ojiro slowly edged away from Hans, who finally felt the sweet relief of solitude.
…
Midoriya shouted smash once, and conveniently shattered the floor right beneath Uraraka's feet, making Uraraka's quirk actually useful.
Which meant that either he was really lucky and was conveniently fighting Bakugo right underneath the bomb room, or it was planned from the start.
Judging by the seemingly random encounter and the fact that Midoriya was still planning when Bakugou finally attacked, it was probably luck.
Midoriya collapsed to the ground, winning the match on a technicality. Iida and Bakugo were barely even scratched.
The whole class looked at Hans strangely. How did he know what was going to happen? Hans pointed at the screen as if to say "I told you so", then smirked at Yaoyorozu.
"It isn't a delusional claim if it's true, right?"
Yaoyorozu was tempted to make a blood pressure pill for herself, but thought against it. It wouldn't do to get arrested for unlawful possession and unprescribed drug use.
…
"Next we have… team B versus team I! May the students on those teams please report to the battle training grounds.
It came down to him and Ojiro… versus Todoroki and Shoji.
"Very balanced, UA. Very balanced." Hans sighed, trailing behind Ojiro with his caravan of supplies and rather short legs.
"I'm sure we'll figure out something." Ojiro said, smiling nervously.
"Oh, don't worry." Hans said, grinning slowly. "I've got the perfect plan already."
"Already?" Ojiro said, raising an eyebrow. "But you don't know what building we'll be fighting in, or what kind of street, or-"
"Doesn't matter." Hans said. "This is why I have four quirk-resistant flower pots."
"How does that even help?"
"Oh, and I have an unlimited supply of matches."
"W-what?"
…
"I still don't think this is going to work." Ojiro said, watching Hans put two ducklings into each flowerpot, before a literal child walked around the pot, pouring copious amounts of matches in a circle around said pot. After the preparations were done, Hans set an alarm on the clock that would sound about fifteen minutes later.
"Ice queen, give it the test."
"I'm still carrying a fridge."
"Then give the fridge to the tree." Hans sighed. "Seriously, it's like I wrote you with no critical thinking skills at all. Why did you put somebody under a curse that was so easily broken-"
"Shut up! You wrote me like that! I have no control over my backstory, okay? You do! If anything, you're the irrational one here!"
As the two argued, a wave of ice slowly crept towards the matches. As if sensing the ice, the matches suddenly burst into flames, stopping the ice in its tracks. The ducks inside began to chirp frantically, though they remained unharmed by the flames.
"What.. was that?" Ojiro shouted, jumping away from the spontaneously lighting matches.
The ice went around the pot instead, forming a perfect circle around the ring of matches.
"Okay, we're done here. Let's move onto the next one."
"So there's just going to be absolutely no explanation." Ojiro said, looking at the strange construct. "Okay."
There were three other pots set up like this, except on the one closest to the room with the bomb. There, Hans made the Elder Tree Mother shrink back into a small shrub and put his capture tape in with the pot, then covered the tree and the capture tape with two other ducklings and the alarm clock.
…
Yaoyorozu looked at the various boxes slowly being emptied across the building. With her quirk, she could produce unlimited items, but for Hans to use such specific household objects as what presumably were traps…
She narrowed her eyes. The flowerpots were quirk resistant to resist both the fire and temperature changes. The alarm clocks were both to keep track of the growth of the ducklings and to distract the sensory quirk Shoji had. The fridge… It was both an enclosed space to shield himself from Todoroki's eyes, and something that could empower Hans's own powers over ice. The fan's purpose wasn't clear, but the car battery was clearly there to power the devices.
"He isn't wasting UA's budget…" Yaoyorozu muttered, drawing some gazes from her classmates. "Every single purchase… Is being utilized with over one hundred percent efficiency!"
"What do you mean?" Iida spoke. "I believed that his requests were an insult to UA's generous system. To request these household appliances is a blatant attempt to take advantage of the system!"
"No, no, you've got it all wrong…"
Reluctantly, Yaoyorozu started to explain for her 'political opponent'.
…
Hans massaged his legs wearily, sitting on top of the fridge. Ojiro stood, shell shocked.
In the course of ten minutes, Hans and his summons had set up four pots, a fridge-based frost protection system, a electric-fan powered flamethrower (since Hans's matches couldn't direct the direction of the fire), and connected it all with the phone charger as an adapter. Hans sat within the fridge, a notepad and a pen out.
"Now… Do you want me to write you a backstory?"
"What do you mean a backstory?" Ojiro said, sitting within the lower part of the fridge. Even if it was slightly chilly while activated, it was still a comfortable kind of cool due to the waning heat of summer.
"Oh, I just want to use my quirk to help you against Shoji."
"You can do that?"
"My quirk…"
Hans said, sighing. After uncapping a pen and starting a vague train of thought, he finally decided to actually tell Ojiro, and thus the whole class, about his 'quirk'.
After all, the most effective lie was the one that you told without being prompted. Hans was sure that he read that somewhere, but for now he would just say that he came up with that himself.
"My quirk is called Author's Spirit. I can temporarily write in fake experiences or just strengthen you in general by amplifying character traits, along with using some famous stories as summons."
"O-oh." Ojiro stammered, thinking about his four letter quirk.
"Don't you think that I have it good, though." Hans muttered. "For every bit that my 'quirk' gives power, I also get an ailment."
Hans unraveled his sleeves, and Ojiro gasped at the burns. Lifting one pant leg, Ojiro could see the scales and the almost frosty-looking feet.
"Because of Ice Queen over there, I always have frostbite. Because of the Little Mermaid, I have mermaid scales growing on my legs. Because of the Little Match Girl, I constantly have burns over my body. All of these wounds can never be healed, and I have to constantly deal with the pain every second of my life."
Ojiro felt cold sweat run down his back, despite slowly being refrigerated by the lower section of the fridge. "I suddenly feel much luckier."
"As you should." Hans said. "Now, I'll write your backstory in so that you were attacked by an octopus while at age six, and you have been training ever since to defeat eight legged creatures."
"Will that actually work?" Ojiro said skeptically.
"Who knows." Hans shrugged. "But if you don't believe in it, it definitely won't work."
Ojiro had no words. These were literally the words of a scammer. Still, looking at Hans scribbling in an almost illegible text onto the notebook (that UA provided) with the pens (that UA also provided), he somehow got a sense of legitimacy from the whole thing.
"Does your quirk also let you write really, really fast?" Ojiro asked. "Is that how you filled out all that paperwork?"
"It's mostly practice." Hans sighed, not wanting to mention servant skills at all.
"The exercise begins… now!" All Might's voice said through the earpieces that they had been wearing.
"Okay. Good enough." Hans sighed, handing Ojiro the sheet of paper. Ojiro gripped the ink-stained notebook paper with his fingertips, noticing that it was growing slightly blue.
Hans quickly wrote "Quiet" in big letters, and suddenly, they both weren't making any noise.
Ojiro looked between the paper and Hans, and raised an eyebrow.
Hans sighed, before writing that 'It'll activate when it needs to activate' on another sheet of paper.
Now, all they had to do was take out Todoroki with a tree, six ducks, four flowerpots, and four alarm clocks.
…In hindsight, Hans thought that it sounded more serious than that.
Chapter 7: Even Side Characters have Dignity
Shoji walked into the building as quietly as possible, his arms fanning out and slowly morphing into ears. He looked right and left for any signs of an ambush, preparing to turn the ears back into fists and fight any moment.
Todoroki clunked into the room and almost gave Shoji's ears an aneurism. His left half completely frozen, he waddled awkwardly into the room.
"Leave. It'll be dangerous."
Shoji made a mouth to discuss whatever ambush Todoroki had spotted on the horizon, but then he stepped back once he realized Todoroki was using his quirk.
It started as a tiny patch of frost. Then, it spread, pouring into every nook and cranny of the building's surface. Shoji could hear the whole building crackling from the frost. The very foundations wobbled with the added weight, before it settled once more.
The building was filled to the brim with ice.
"Let's just get this over with." Todoroki sighed, a trail of mist coming from his mouth. Alone, he walked into the building, where the fluorescent lights flickered and failed under the intense cold.
Shoji stepped out of the building, allowing Todoroki his moment to shine.
…
Hans felt the cold beginning to creep on his skin, thanks to his extremely frail constitution. "On the fridge. Now." Hans whispered, taking a handful of matches from the Little Match Girl and throwing it at the door, reinforcing the ring of matches he had made around them. The ice trickled in from underneath the door crack. Ojiro watched in horror, from atop the fridge, as the ice circled around the room and was about to frost over-
A blast of flames erupted from around them in the match. The ethereal little girl with the basket fell back into Hans's equally stubby arms, almost as if she was afraid of the ice and the cold. The fire slowly grew, finally killing the momentum of the ice before extinguishing itself, leaving behind pristine matches. Hans felt the drain on his mana, but it wasn't very significant.
Thankfully that was the case, because the Little Match Girl, with fear uncharacteristic of her usual cheeriness and childishness, began to pour a copious amount of matches into the already thick lines.
"Do we still need the matches?" Ojiro whispered. Hans almost facepalmed before stopping the hand a couple of centimeters from his forehead. Whipping out a sheet of paper from nowhere, he started to write.
Todoroki is going to reapply the ice once the alarm clocks go off. Also,be quiet! they have a sensory quirk person on their team.
"How could I forget that…" Ojiro sighed, putting his own palm on his face. Hans almost ripped the paper in frustration, but thankfully, Ojiro's blunder was saved by the bell. Or, in this case, the first alarm clock.
Hans closed his eyes and dived into the consciousness of the two ducklings in group one, suppressing their growth and waiting for the opportune moment.
"I'm going to have a terrible headache later." he thought.
…
Todoroki strode through the hallways of the frozen building, already mentally congratulating himself on his victory. Then, he almost slipped on a patch of ice when an alarm clock pierced the silence of the building.
Quickly, he created a bit of ice at his feet, freezing himself in place. Regaining his footing, he began to locate the ringing. Bringing the headpiece to his ear, he finally began to utilize his teammate.
"Shoji, do you hear where the alarm clock is?"
"This isn't a good idea, Todoroki. It could be a trap."
"The best they can do to me is ambush me with Andersen's foolish appliances or summons. Where are they."
"Can you make a noise?"
Todoroki dropped a ball of ice, which clattered along the hallway.
"Okay, relative to your position, it's up a floor and opposite the direction that you just rolled that ball."
Todoroki fell silent, but kept his radio on. His teammate was being useful for once. Walking past the frozen corridors and occasionally peeking in the dark classrooms, he did not spot any signs of Hans or Ojiro.
Finally, he arrived at the sight of a large metal plant pot with the alarm clock next to it. Circled around the pot and clock were a ring of matches, Todoroki sent a wave of ice at the still-ringing alarm clock, but the matches suddenly burst into flames. Todoroki subtly flinched and stared into the fire for a bit, before he walked forward, reached out with his left hand, and slowly went to shut off the alarm clock.
"Quack! Quack!"
Out of the plant pot emerged… two ducks. One was much more aggressive, while the other looked at its leader and followed its example. They pecked and bit at Todoroki's face, ineffectively scratching the ice on his left.
"Todoroki-san, are you okay?" Shoji said worriedly.
"Enough." Todoroki muttered to nobody in particular. An aura of cold emanated from his body, impacting the ducks, which promptly exploded into a shower of blue sparks that almost looked magical in nature.
Todoroki reached for the alarm clock again, this time with his right. Instantly, flames shot up from the matches once more. He subtly flinched once more, before reaching into the ring of flames and finally stopping the alarm clock.
Only to realize that a second one was now ringing in its place.
"...Shoji?"
"On it."
He was beginning to feel the cold.
…
It took about ten minutes to finally get rid of the third alarm clock and approach the fourth. From a passing glance, Todoroki knew that this was the last one. Hans only had four alarm clocks with him.
He was honestly used to the ducks at this point. Just blast the ducks with ice, and they'll dissolve. Then, he'll be able to get rid of the noise at last, leaving just Hans and Ojiro in the building somewhere, stalling for time.
The previous floors had been completely clear of activity save for the pots.
This meant that…
Todoroki narrowed his eyes.
They were on this floor.
"They're definitely on the fourth floor, Shoji." Todoroki whispered. "Everywhere else has been clear."
He approached the alarm clock, then reached for it, closing his eyes and sighing. Finally, the ringing would stop and he could finish this annoying exercise in peace.
The ducks flew out of the pot, and Todoroki looked at the beasts attempting to flank him from behind before sighing and freezing both of them. They dissolved into blue sparks just as something wooden wrapped around him. Todoroki tried to fight it, but his left side was inhibited by his own ice while his right was sluggish. It wasn't long before he was entirely trapped in thick, deceptively powerful roots.
"I'm sorry." The Elder Tree Mother whispered into Todoroki's ears. "But I'm afraid you lose."
"Todoroki Shoto has been captured!" a PA speaker boomed out.
"H-how did you-" Todoroki stuttered. He was shivering slightly.
"My summoner heard what you said through the ducks, you know? How he's weak and can't do anything with his summons." she whispered. "Well, it just so happens that you were beaten by a fairy tale."
Todoroki stiffened as the plant slithered around his body and anchored his wrists in an uncomfortable position that made sure he couldn't use his Quirk effectively.
"I'm normally a pretty passive plant… but if you ever insult or hurt my creator again…" the tree whispered, morphing itself until a cold, icy green glare emerged, one he knew would not hesitate to deliver pain. "You will regret ever stepping into the 1-A classroom."
Todoroki lay flat on the floor as the tree dissolved into blue sparks.
"Wow…" he muttered. "Hans' trees sure are intense about him."
…
Shoji's eyes were wide when he heard the announcement echo across the mock city. He was the only one that could finish this now.
But how did they take out Todoroki? Did they ambush him? Todoroki was probably the one with the strongest quirk in their class, and his ice was almost instantaneous.
How could Ojiro have gotten him? Was the tailed boy so fast as to surpass Todoroki's ice generation?
Shoji broke his way into the final floor, where Ojiro stood barefoot on the ice, clenching what looked like a blue, transparent sheet of paper.
He couldn't hesitate. There were only five minutes left, and Hans was still nowhere to be seen. Whatever Ojiro did, he had to overcome his speed or strength, and reach the weapon.
Shoji had to prove to the people in his past that his monstrous, bulky arms still would let him become a hero.
Clenching his fist, he ran forward. Ojiro spun up and met four fists at once with a tail.
"Give up." Shoji said calmly. "You have no possible chance of winning."
"I won't know if I don't try, right?" Ojiro muttered, trying to kick some footing into the ice that was freezing the ground. Shoji, on the other hand, had sunk one arm into the ground, providing him some leverage as the physically powerful duo continued to battle.
Ojiro jumped into the air once again, spinning his tail straight at Shoji's face.
Four arms blocked the blow as four more punched him straight into the stomach. Ojiro flipped in midair and landed on his feet, only for the ice on the ground to make him fall down once again. His tail impacted the ground at an awkward angle, and he lay there, the wrinkled sheet of blue paper within his clenched fist.
Did Hans really think that his scribbled story could help Ojiro?
Either way, he really didn't have a choice.
He crushed the paper in his fist, then his eyes opened wide as somebody whispered something in his ear.
Märchen Meines Lebens.
A story just for you.
…
Ojiro opened his eyes in a void of black. Besides him, Hans was standing on an invisible ground he couldn't feel. Hans then began to look around the blank space, his gaze going right through Ojiro's body.
So Hans couldn't even see him in here?
"Seriously? No narrative potential at all?" Hans said, looking around the black void. "No backstory provided… no special character shorts… nothing? Just jokes about how ordinary he is?"
Ojiro wanted to protest. He opened his mouth and shouted, screamed at Hans about his life story. About his parents. About his old school. About his admissions test. About how he was going to be a hero, even if he was just slightly better than average.
Hans never heard. His mouth flapped endlessly in the void as suddenly, volume after volume of what looked like a manga flashed before his eyes, so quickly that he couldn't even see.
Title after title. Page after page. Midoriya flashed before his eyes, battling villains, talking with All-Might of all people. Bakugo made cool poses on the magazines, his fists alight with explosions. Todoroki looked like something out of a model photoshoot.
Midoriya. Bakugo. Todoroki. Midoriya. Bakugo. Todoroki.Midoriya. Bakugo. Todoroki.
Those three were the focus of the world. He was just…
A side character.
Everything went blank. There were only three words and a small, blue-haired boy wading through a pool of what looked like colorful ink, and one, singular character sheet.
It was a sketch. Ojiro recognized it as himself. There was one doodle of him in all this emptiness. It made him feel an emotion he couldn't identify, but he knew he didn't like it.
"It's sad, isn't it?" Hans muttered to himself. "That characters filled with life and potential are left blank. Unremembered. I was one of them, too, right? I know I was just a two star."
He paused, a blue star glowing in Hans's hands.
"I'm guilty of this too." Hans sighed. "My characters were too shallow. One dimensional. I never even gave them definite personalities other than selfish desires. Nor did I bother with their looks, for they were but a mouthpiece to throw my ideals and philosophies into the world."
Hans pulled himself out of the ink, and below him, a network of pages formed, supporting Hans as he walked towards the three big words emblazoned by the void.
By Kohei Horikoshi.
The blue star rose above Hans's outstretched hands, slowly glowing brighter and brighter as the void was finally filled. Hans's hands worked furiously, connecting broken branches and hints, scouring the pool of ink for any hints of a boy in a karate outfit.
"But at least now…" Hans said, grinning as the webs finally connected.
"We can make a start."
At last, the words shifted. The three words began to flicker and glitch, before finally disappearing.
And Ojiro felt free. He felt full. His fingers gained feeling once more. His tail flicked about anxiously, and foreign knowledge was poured into his mind.
He was no longer just a side character. He wasn't bound by the ink anymore.
He… was a human being. And the blue-haired child had given him hope.
…
Ojiro's eyes flickered open, before he blinked. The pain in his tailbone was still there, but it had dulled. His whole form was glowing blue as he stood up. He felt like he forgot something important.
Shoji continued his charge, his seven arms arcing through the air and attacking his four limbs.
Ojiro subtly panicked, and he was about to try and dodge, but-
-a young Ojiro strolled through a seafood market, wrinkling his nose at the fish and the clams that lined the ice. He held the hands of his mother and felt the little claws that threatened to poke out of his mother's fingertips reassuringly.
Eventually, he got bored wandering through the market. He broke free of his mother's grasp and wandered off to the tanks, his tail waving in the air excitedly. Eventually he approached the tank of an octopus.
Said octopus took one look at Ojiro rather intelligently, before leaping out of the tank. Its body glowed green as it began to bulk up. Its tentacles swelled and became vaguely fist like. Sharp teeth showed the orifice of the octopus, clearly showing that in the Octopus's mind, Ojiro was merely prey.
And they descended on Ojiro.
His mother tore him free from the quirked octopus, and the fisherman was given a fine.
Sniveling in his mother's arms, he vowed to never be a victim of… octopus attacks(?) ever again.
This backstory was written in about five minut-
-his body reacted differently. His gaze sharpened as his tail strengthened and he pushed off the ice into one, determined-
-Ojiro spent harsh winters and temperate springs training with his tail. Before him, a scarecrow with four more outstretched "arms" stood, battered and scratched with his chafed tail.
He remembered the buff octopus. The way it broke out of the tank. The way its tentacles waved ominously.
He pushed through the cold and the heat, the wind and the rain. He stood in front of the battered scarecrow and its reinforced arms, and whacked his tail on its limbs.
He would be prepared, when he was in a situation like this once mor-
-to spin his tail into the attacks, like how he had practiced for many, many years in his childhood. His gaze-
-Ojiro stood before a crushed scarecrow. His nine year old body ached and his tail was swollen.
But he had done it. He had broken the scarecrow. The octopus in his mind was split in half, his tail caving through its gelatinous head.
He was saf-
-hardened, and as he fully committed to the spin, he yelled one name that, for some reason, he had really, really hated.
"Damn you, Horikoshi!" Ojiro screamed from the depths of his soul. His eyes glowed blue as his mind sharpened from its sudden bouts of vertigo, and his spiraling tail sent Shoji skidding back.
"What?" Shoji said reflexively. "What did you just do?"
Ojiro gave Shoji no pause. The octopus was before him again, a bloody pulp smothering his clothes as his mother's claws ripped through the soft flesh.
He jumped into the air, spinning rapidly, his head feeling slightly faint from all the rotation. Still, his tail carried through the air and was about to descend on Shoji's head when he… paused.
In an instant, Shoji's fearfully wide eyes were staring back at his own. He shifted his tail to impact the ice right besides Shoji's face. Then, whipping out the capture tape from his belt, he swiftly entangled Shoji in it.
The P.A. system rang out across the building, declaring them the winners.
Ojiro panted, his mind somehow forgetting something about a blank void and a small, blue child delivering a blue spark to a void filled with nothing but a sketch.
What he did remember… was that he…
Was Mashirao Ojiro. He was more sure of it than ever.
That, and a weird octopus story that somehow implanted itself into his memory.
…
Hans peeked out of the room, before slowly looking at where he knew Ojiro was. Said student stood, breathing heavily and basking in his victory.
"This…is going to have consequences, I just know it." He sighed. "Min hovedpine bliver være og være."
"My headache is getting worse and worse."
Chapter 8: Generic foreshadowing attempts
Hans and Ojiro… won?
The two phrases would never collide inside Yaoyorozu's head when their opponent included Todoroki, the person with possibly the most powerful quirk in the class. Even her versatility paled in the face of the sheer scale of the ice that he could display during the recommended exam.
And Hans, the irritating, cynical midget with no heroic attitude to speak of…
Had just done the impossible?
"..." The whole class was silent as Shoji was finally wrapped up by Ojiro. Todoroki still lay on the icy floor he created himself, wrapped up in the capturing tape that a sentient tree, of all things, had been able to loop around Todoroki.
"Man, that was crazy lucky for Hans and Ojiro, right?" Kaminari said, scratching his hair and smiling. "But at least they won, so that's what counts, I guess."
"Yeah. They were pretty lucky." Sato muttered, crossing his arms and settling into a serious look that made him resemble a gorilla for some reason.
Yaoyorozu was about to nod, but then…
"No." Yaoyorozu said, suddenly. "As reluctant as I am to praise that infuriating child-"
"Yaoyorozu-shojo." All Might said, interrupting the statement. "Please respect your classmates."
Yaoyorozu thought about Hans's smug face and all the furniture she sold, and gritted her teeth. Still, she had to finish her point.
"Andersen-san's actions weren't luck at all. Do you really think that Hans would think that he could get lucky by letting a sentient tree launch a surprise attack onto somebody that also has fire as a quirk?"
Tokoyami narrowed his eyes, before looking through the monitors at Hans's appliances. Then, his eyes widened.
"He has exhibited such foresight. Surely, he must have learned how to peer into the darkness of our hearts."
"Not quite so dramatic, Tokoyami-san," Yaoyorozu said, "But Andersen-san has indeed utilized psychology to draw Todoroki-san into a routine of ease, and coupled with Todoroki-san's overconfidence and… his… hindered movement…"
"Hahahaha!" All Might's laugh boomed over the classroom, shattering the awkward atmosphere. "Young Yaoyorozu has correctly identified one important element of heroic operations, foresight! It is important to predict what villains will do based on what information you have on them. However, in real situations, Andersen-shounen might not have enough information to predict the moves of total strangers."
Soon, All Might zipped out of the room to collect the students still in the mock building. Carrying Shoji and Hans in one hand, and Todoroki and Ojiro in another, he quickly leapt back to the classroom.
Hans quickly shook himself free of the giant man's grip and smoothed out the creases on his jacket, before standing up and smiling at All Might like a loan shark would smile at an impoverished salaryman.
"Now, can I keep the fridge?"
"...We will retrieve your equipment at a later time, Andersen-san." All Might sighed, his smile faltering just a bit. "But for now, classes must continue."
"Thank you, All Might-san."
…
As students battled on the screen, so did Hans battle his will to interrupt the class and trade snide remarks. Hans closed his eyes and shook his head at the monotonous battles between a fist as hard as rock and Tokoyami's bird-like creature.
Now was a good time to recollect.
Hans… had seen some things during his brief activation of his Noble Phantasm. Despite the fact that his fingers ached like there would be no tomorrow and that he would be unable to fulfill the update schedule he had in mind for his webnovel, he had at least confirmed something.
The concept of a main character did exist. In fact, there were several that could be considered one.
However, he was now firmly in side character territory. And, with an analysis of Ojiro, so were most other people.
And an abundance of side characters usually meant… that somebody died. Or was a spy. But concerns of spying aside, Hans did not want to die. And even though his mind was too weak and unprotected to contain information about the truth of the timeline and the future events of the manga he had been summoned into, he knew that things were going to be bad, simply because he was in a shounen manga.
There were now two routes he could take to survive in this narrative. One, to be conspicuously absent on the day of whatever field trips or activities would occur. However, UA doesn't give an advanced notice of when things like battle trainings would happen, so that was definitely not a choice.
The second option?
Band together with a ton of side characters… and make them into main characters temporarily, thereby insuring his survival. His hands would suffer, but it would be crucial to his greater survival.
And if Midoriya was the protagonist, with his problematic power, Hans would never want to be the sacrifice in order to help him realize how to use it. Which meant that whenever they were in a crowd, Hans had to stay as far away as possible from Midoriya.
"Yes. That would be good." Hans nodded to himself, making sure to keep a mental note.
On the screen, Kirishima finally overcame Dark shadow, batted away Asui's tongue (which must have hurt for the frog girl), and, with one punch, turned the paper mache bomb prop into a pile of shredded paper.
Now that he was considering it, getting a couple of meat shields would be helpful too. With just the right narrative and heroic dream put into a narrative made for Kirishima, he could probably delay some imminent threat that used overwhelming physical force.
How did Hans know that there would be a threat that used overwhelming physical force?
Well, just look at the power of the protagonist. There had to be some insurmountable challenge for a protagonist to utilize their bullshit anime powers against.
…
The annoying battle exercise was finally over. Hans yawned as the many other students walked out of the room, discussing the battles excitedly.
Hans looked at their impressed and eager expressions… before slowly shaking his head.
How could anybody find enjoyment in an act they would soon be doing for at least ten to twenty years? Sure, fighting would get the adrenaline pumping, but it's not like there are entire armies of villains to stop for you all to have jobs.
Hans paused. Did he just trip a narrative flag?
Just as he entertained the possibility of there being several villain armies hidden in the streets of Japan, which by the way, had a huge homeless problem, a hand poked him in the shoulder.
He stiffened, before turning slowly to see Yaoyorozu's resigned expression.
"I lose."
"What." Hans said, flatly.
"I said, I lose!" Yaoyorozu whispered loudly. Many of their classmates filed past them quickly, Kaminari stopping to give Hans a quick wink and a pair of finger guns before swerving into a random hallway. Her hands were clenched, and her brow was furrowed. There was a hint of tears in her eyes, and her teeth were grit together just enough to express defiance. Still, her shaking body signaled her defeat.
Hans knew exactly what to say in this situation.
"I never knew there was a competition."
There was an awkward silence. Yaoyorozu took a satisfyingly slow step back, like most defeated villains would in generic mangas, and steadied herself once more.
"This wasn't?" Yaoyorozu whispered quietly.
"It was honestly just a series of me noting failures in the system that would piss off a lower-middle class person whose family is riddled with debt."
"I-I'm sorry. I didn't realize."
"Honestly, it's not even your fault that you keep arguing against me." Hans said, sighing. "It's more of a symptom of the highly hierarchical society that Japan is and your upbringing."
Yaoyorozu raised a finger. Then, she slowly put it down as her index finger curled back into her fist.
"...So, a ceasefire?" Yaoyorozu said. "No more snide remarks? No more pissing people off?"
"I should stop treating you like a spokesperson of a society that is mostly exclusive to us unorthodox quirk users, and actually as a classmate." Hans said, rubbing the back of his head. "I'll listen to what you have to say, and your side of the story…"
"And?" Yaoyorozu asked.
"I'll never change a thing." Hans said, sighing. "I'll admit that I'm an infuriating person that can't help but point out flaws like a cynic."
"...I guess that's accurate." Yaoyorozu said. "I'm normally a pretty nice person too, I think. But you…"
"I just rub you the wrong way, don't I?" Hans said. Now was the time for reconciliation number one to boost his count of side character meat shields!
He had to judge his next statement carefully.
"Well, nice to meet you, Yaoyorozu Momo. I'm Hans Christian Anderson. I hope we can get along." Hans said, spewing out a generic greeting and holding out a hesitant hand.
He really was terrible at interacting with women. Honestly, Kiara probably traumatized him.
Surprisingly, Yaoyorozu smiled, before reaching out and shaking Hans's hand.
"Nice to meet you too."
The two just walked towards the classroom for a bit, Yaoyorozu's tall figure contrasting with Hans's height.
"Still, how did you manage to plan for so many cases? I can see so many potential uses for your appliances that I can apply in my own strategy!"
Hans sighed inwardly. This girl had gotten a totally wrong impression of him, hadn't she?
…
The afternoon was quiet. Hans quietly shrugged on a jacket and looked at the train of his summons carrying the various items that he had been approved to take home. The alarm clocks were, surprisingly, not reduced to slag by the surrounding matches and Todoroki's apparently present fire powers.
He had just left the school, looking onwards as students began to flood to bus stations, bike stands, or in one certain student's case, a limousine.
Hans, however, was not going to take the subway today. Because behind him, the little mermaid was floating behind him, carrying a box of pens, while most of the other appliances, along with the refrigerator, were being dragged along by the elder tree mother. This odd combination drew several glances from UA students, but Hans paid them no attention. Instead, one other question was nagging at him.
"Does this count as public quirk use?" Hans said, scratching his head while passing an alleyway two blocks away from UA. Chansing a glance back, he saw a businessman walk out of an alleyway who cast him a weird glance.
Children walked past him, pointing at the tree woman who was carrying heavy appliances and the floating fish. Hans smirked and waved back at the little gremlins who would have adored his fairytales if only this society wasn't so saturated in hero culture.
Eventually, his twists and turns took him off the road that UA was on, and he began to wind down into the less luxurious neighborhoods. Soon, upper class homes with lawns and shrubbery gave way to crammed apartments and street food stands. Hans snagged a bit of takoyaki for the Little Mermaid, who had felt left out of all of the hero exercises.
It was honestly for the best that she didn't fight. Hans would rather that she not morph into a terrifying creature similar to a siren, considering her last transformation also ended in tragedy.
As if to mirror his thoughts, he stepped into one of his shortcuts and found… a small girl curled up in a box.
"This isn't suspicious at all." Hans sighed, looking at the girl shivering in the autumn afternoon. The girl felt almost… inorganic, but a soul, or something similar to it, was definitely present.
Being the responsible adult he was, Hans tossed the girl a match. Businessman that was apparently following him looked at the match in confusion.
"When you hold that match and think of a fire, it'll light." Hans said, walking past the girl. Sitting in the shadows, the girl's dark face looked up at Hans's features… and shrank further into the box.
Hans continued to walk down his shortcut. On the ground, he could see the marks left behind by Stain and that other chuuni fanboy as they fought that demon child thing. The roots of the Elder Tree mother flowed past those cracks and squeezed past the tight alleyways to emerge into a much smaller street, where Hans's apartment was. He turned and was just about to rest his tired legs by sitting down in the convenience store right on this street, but a sudden thought struck him.
He couldn't rest yet. There was still the businessman trailing him.
"You can stop being shady now." Hans said. "I know you have questions."
"You were more aware than I thought, UA student." the business man said. With a long, pointy nose and an orange tuft of hair, the businessman cut quite the figure. "I do, indeed, have questions."
"You could have just asked when you met me, then." Hans said, sighing. "Is this about All Might teaching at our school? Why there were five recommended students?"
"Nothing so grand, I assure you." the man smiled, and put his hands in his jacket pockets. "The question is simple. Why did you use your quirk to carry those things in broad daylight?"
Hans looked at the refrigerator, and then looked back at the businessman.
"What are you, an idiot? How was I supposed to get this stuff home from UA, then?"
"You… you… got those appliances from UA? How?" the businessman said, a glint of curiosity entering his eyes.
"Well, there may or may not be some loopholes in the support equipment request form."
"Nevermind that. As a UA student, why would you break quirk laws and use it to do something as mundane as carry something home?"
"Was I bothering anyone?"
"...No."
"Then why would anyone need to report me?"
There was silence for a moment.
"In fact, quirk restriction laws in Japan, and the whole world, for that matter, is nothing but the governments being indecisive." Hans said, wanting to cross his arms, but... failing to do so, on account of the box he was carrying. "Most people already can casually use their quirks on the streets, as long as they aren't being extremely disruptive with it. Quirk violence in schools here are common, too, but most of the time it's just treated like regular bullying. Basically, quirk use has become a part of culture when a significant portion of people have quirks and can use them to benefit or spice up their own lives. All laws restricting it are nothing but a law on paper. Also, it makes the hero industry a lot more convenient, with an easier line of laws to capture people with."
Hans took a deep breath, before muttering. "Why am I talking to this slightly suspicious stranger, anyways?"
"Yes… yes…" the businessman said, not listening to Hans's low-volume musings. "But, if one were to address this kind of thing, and force the government in to action, potentially, what could they do? Would... a revolution... be necessary?"
"Can you honestly say that some random organization can overthrow the goverment? And even if they can, other countries that also use restrictive quirk laws as their status quo will step in to reinstate order in Japan, because even if that highly improbable event occurs and those terrorists succeed, other countries will need to step in and take that organization down so that no other people in their territories get any ideas. The best idea would probably be to broadcast some sort of harmless quirk use act that helps people across national television... or something... to draw attention to how arbitrary yet over-enforced the law is. Now, are you done with asking for hypothetical political advice from a high schooler, or can I go to get my coffee?"
As Hans shook his head in exasperation and walked into the convenience store, the long-nosed man stared at the spot that Hans had been standing at. After about a minute of mental gymnastics, he took out a phone started speaking into it.
"What, violence? No, no. Just peaceful protests. Showcase how quirks can be useful to society."
There was a bit of chatter on the other side.
"But if that doesn't work… We return to our old plans."
…
A child crawled out of the box, holding the match that Hans had dropped just a couple of minutes ago. Wreathed in shadows, it was still a blurry and vague figure. Its dress rustled in the wind, before one page of it was torn away and a movie poster flew away into the dumpster.
That face… that face!
Slowly, the movie poster golem's face cracked. A dark shade emerged out of the rips on the face, oozing out of the loose collection of posters.
The child wasn't a child.
With the new, pending release of the post-quirk Little Mermaid remake, it had been sustaining itself off of the populace, draining mana from people anticipating the movie, and the nostalgia and … other strong emotions … that came with having Kiara as the lead actress.
That annoying green lizard and the human with no nose had been hunting it for several weeks now. Its birth had been delayed for far too long.
But it was born a week ago. And now, shedding the cover of the posters, it swirled and gathered around the match.
The match was delicious. Made of magic sourced from a different dimension, yet supplemented with the beliefs of this world.
But much more importantly, it was a link to its creator. The creature swirled around the match, absorbing the blotch of red into its pure black essence.
It was sourced from a little girl that feared the cold, and it yearned to take that form.
Yet, the dark energy that sourced it would not allow it. Its summoner had brought it to life with foul mana and a fairytale book while dreaming of the blue haired creator.
So, if it couldn't be the protagonist, it had to settle for being the antagonist.
The figure shivered, before it melted into a puddle of darkness that molded itself into the alleyway shadows. Slowly, a sense of unnatural cold gathered inside the alleyway, emanating a sense of dread and hopelessness.
The match was now gone, and only the red, chemical head of the match remained. It turned into a dot of red and reappeared on top of a brick.
It could now see. But it was not content with its form. It yearned to reunite with their creator. To consume their tales like they had the match. To become its creator.
And to bring the creator back to the summoner. Only then would they overtake this disgusting culture focused on heroics and silly superheroes, and the tales of Hans Christian Andersen would be everywhere. Then, it would be everywhere.
And, now with Hans's mana fueling the dissolved match's existence in it, the creature now knew where Hans was.
But it couldn't move from the alleyways that sustained the antagonist of the story which contained the match. It had to wait for another form, a more mobile form.
A poster of the little mermaid was blown away in the wind, and the red dot that was its eye looked at it enviously.
Soon.
Chapter 9: Unsuccessful Role Rejection Campaigns
Hans limped off the train, the little mermaid prying open his eyes and nudging him on his cheek. He stumbled about, his UA uniform getting some attention as he fumbled for the can of coffee that he kept on the side of his backpack. A cold hand handed the can to him, and he slid his fingers over the top of the can, trying to find the ring that would unleash a torrent of wakefulness on his sleepy figure.
The migraines from controlling six separate ducks in yesterday's exercise was really getting to him. He was really regretting not letting them do their own thing.
In the distance, he could hear some people babbling on about All Might and holding out some sort of tube to him. Shaking its head in exasperation, the little mermaid floated down and flipped the coffee can in Hans's hand. With ingrained habit, Hans found the ring of the can, pulled it, and took a swig.
His migraine slowly peeled back, revealing his vision from the haze that had been plaguing him the whole morning. He almost woke up while walking through a particularly creepy alleyway that almost seemed sentient, but he relegated that occurrence to him slowly going insane writing about Gudako's adventures in another story filled with creepy alleyways: the London Singularity.
Then, some very harsh voices finally roused him.
"What do you think about All Might's instruction?"
"How is All Might as a teacher?"
"How do you view the decision of UA-"
Hans looked up at the reporters, sighed and did the only thing that came naturally, even when deprived of sleep.
"Look, I know you all got degrees in social science and are now part of the corporate ladder desperately trying to gain readership by squeezing content out of every single thing that heroes and celebrities do. But can you not bother literal minors below the age of sixteen about it?" Hans grunted. "It's honestly getting kind of creepy how you guys keep hanging outside of the door. I almost feel like I should carry a whistle, I mean just look at that guy in the black hoodie constantly scratching his neck."
The person wearing the black hoodie promptly scurried away as the crowd of reporters collectively turned their heads. When they turned back, Hans was gone.
…
Hans Chiristian Andersen was not a person that was particularly hard working. It was the opposite, in fact.
He was incredibly lazy, and he didn't like work by any stretch.
So why was he slaving away at his trashy web novel sitting on a concrete pillar?
It was because everybody was currently trying to break their own pillar. At first, Hans had wanted to complain about how UA could afford the cement pillars, and then he learned that Cementoss's quirk was… forming concrete structures out of concrete almost instantly.
Now, he had nothing to complain about. And, coupled with his uneasy truce with Yaoyorozu, he surprisingly kept his mouth shut. This time.
Something that occupied more of his attention than his attempts at writing the London singularity while replacing a loli Jack the Ripper with an actually socially acceptable character, which was surprisingly hard, however, was an object that confused him even more than why Sasaki Kojiro called dragons swallows, of all things.
It was… an apology gift. From Yaoyorozu.
The box sat in the pocket of his blue hoodie, unopened yet slightly wrinkled because of Hans's hesitancy over opening it.
The question was… why did it exist? Hans professed himself as an expert in character analysis. This world was a manga too, so everything should be obvious and predictable, a mere rearrangement of tropes.
But there was still one type of creature that confused and terrified him at the same time: women that were engaged in a series of interactions with him. At first, it would be predictable. Then, as they talked to him, something would change. Uraraka, for example, was still completely predictable, the poster child of a female protagonist that the main character was still just friends with. Next, she would be having many adventures and finally get together with the main character at the end with a child or two and a cute series-ending picture.
However, those who talked with him, and insisted on either arguing or conversing with him over long periods of time would begin to act unpredictably. Kiara was a psycho from the start, but Yaoyorozu, the rich, ignorant onee-san type that was so common in the manga collections of a certain perverted pirate in Chaldea, had changed in an unpredictable way.
However, be it Kiara or the new, much weaker and naive challenger, Yaoyorozu, he would not bend.
He had faced Kiara in Chaldea. He had faced Kiara during a summer event, while she was a sassy lost child. He had… lost to Kiara because of a command seal once, but that didn't count!
The point is, Hans Christian Andersen was going to shore up his mental defenses.
"I'm a virgin." Hans mutters. "Don't underestimate my resolve!"
The gift would not be opened, and Hans continued to type. Throughout the day, Yaoyorozu's mood dropped further and further until even Todoroki, somebody normally emotionally oblivious, noticed something.
…
After the battle training, Hans supposed that there really wasn't much about high school that was remotely worth writing about. Everyday was a routine. Classes trudged along and life continued to stumble forward within the unending factory that was UA trying to produce 40 heroes per year.
Now, the class was doing something even more pointless: electing a leader that would probably just pass out paperwork and do literally nothing else.
Honestly, anybody could have that role. Hans would probably even trust Bakugo to do the job, considering the low amount of skill that involved passing out papers.
Oh, and communications with other classes. And signing all their forms. And doing… normal Japanese class representative stuff.
Come to think of it, Bakugo probably couldn't do it. What if his ego was poked a bit that morning and he charred the papers? What if Class 1A was singled out for Bakugo's hyper aggressive actions?
Hans sighed.
Yeah, anybody but Bakugo would be better.
As the classroom began to boil like a pot of water, hands going up and down, sleeves waving about and about, and different claims to excellency filled the air, Hans did nothing but look at Aizawa's equally dead face. For a moment, their dead eyes met, and they shared a commiserating look. Then, Aizawa tilted sideways and fell onto his sleeping bag.
Hans was jealous. He wished he had his own sleeping bag. Or a coffee. Preferably both.
"Silence, please!" Iida shouted. "The class representative office is a sacred position, given to those that are capable of representing the whole class! It cannot be given to just anybody who wants the position!"
The class, surprisingly, went quiet. Hans looked at Ojiro, the only person that didn't even try to raise their hands. They looked… conflicted about something.
In the end, the election ended up being a democracy, unlike most elections around the world. Hans slept through speech after speech, as people desperately advertised what little good qualities they had to secure an office that was basically just more busy work. In the end, even pro heroes wouldn't care about the position. According to this society, as long as you could slap somebody across the pavement and you attended four years of high school to become a hero, you were now a part of the social elite made up of a population that rarely lived above fifty, either dying in action or dying due to health complications.
The rational move was to go to college after he got his hero certification card or whatever, get an actually useful degree, and make money.
Of course, his classmates were filled with actually heroic fools that would sacrifice their college education for a couple years in the spotlight.
Hans dragged his mind back from the tangent and looked at everybody agonizing on their desks.
"Instead of turning this into a mindless, populist venue, why can't you idiots just talk it out?" Hans muttered. "We could actually have an intelligent conversation instead of campaigning for votes like baboons or oil lobbyists, or just see who can bribe others the most with candy."
"Minus the callous language, that's a great idea, Andersen-san!" Iida said right next to Hans's ear. Hans almost fell out of his seat.
"Candy?" Sato said, perking up from his seat.
"No, Sato-san." Iida said, shaking his head sternly and throwing the ballots into the trash. "We are having a conversation about this. Everybody, in a circle!"
Hans looked at Aizawa, sleeping peacefully on the floor.
Yeah, he definitely wanted a sleeping bag.
…
In the end, discussion was made almost impossible with Bakugo's snide remarks and Iida's constant attempts to maintain order.
"My...my goal to be a hero… is to make lots of money… and help out my parents!" Uraraka said, nervous and not confident.
"What kind of half-assed reason is that?" Bakugo scoffed, crossing his arms and glaring at Uraraka. "Are you just fucking around in this school too, like that useless shit Deku?"
For possibly the first time since school started, Hans spoke up voluntarily.
"Why isn't it a valid goal?" Hans said, looking Bakugo straight in the eye. Even if Hans was much smaller and looked much scrawnier, his piercing blue gaze drove back Bakugo's irritated red. "Being a hero is just another profession, no different from any salaryman or construction worker. We're just exchanging different parts of our skill sets for money. Rationally, this doesn't mean that we're automatically morally superior."
"And that's another thing. Why the fuck did UA let you in?" Bakugo roared, his palms cracking with explosions. "You're just a useless piece of shit too."
"This 'useless piece of shit' got in because he saved somebody's life." Hans said. "I normally wouldn't say anything about this, but what did you do? Beat up robots? That's something anyone with a generic Quirk can do. To imply that you are more heroic than other people is just you being egocentric."
"Why you-"
"Wasn't your goal to be the number one hero? It's like aiming to be the number one accountant. Supercomputers have already got you covered. The symbol of peace is a symbol for a reason."
"Are you saying that-"
"Yes." Hans said, crossing his arms. "I'm not a particularly big fan of All Might, but we're not even on his level."
For some reason, Midoriya clenched his fist.
"Okay, that's enough unrelated discussion! If you wish to continue, do so outside the classroom!" Iida shouted, placing himself at the center of the circle. "
"Let's just stop wasting time." Hans said. "Actual classes start in five minutes. Can we all agree that Iida should be class president?"
Surprisingly, most people nodded in consent.
"I was originally going to vote for Deku-kun, but Iida seems like he'd really fit the role, wouldn't he?" Uraraka said, a bit of gratitude in her eyes due to Hans's defense of her goals.
"Okay, any opposed?"
"Wait!" Mina said, crossing her arms and mimicking a stern expression. "But what about Yaomomo? She's-"
"Reluctantly, I have to… agree… with Andersen-san." Yaoyorozu said, to the surprise of almost everybody in 1-A. "Though I also do think I would be fit for the position, Iida-san took control of the situation and was able to wrangle us into sitting in a circle."
Then, she smirked. "Even Bakugo-san followed Iida's orders."
"I wasn't following orders, you bitch! I was just getting ready to campaign!" Bakugo shouted.
"Quiet down." Aizawa said, irritated. "You all still need a vice representative."
"Indeed." Yaoyorozu said. "Which is why I'll propose that Andersen-san should take the position."
"I don't want the position." Hans said immediately.
"But you do occasionally have good ideas." Yaoyorozu countered.
"I really don't communicate well." Hans said, grimacing. "As you probably noticed, I'm a confrontational asshole."
"Do not demean yourself so, vice representative!" Iida said, patting Hans on the back so hard he almost choked on the candy Sato had tried to bribe everybody with as a joke. "With you by my side, our class will shine brighter than ever before! Are there any objections?"
"Please… Anybody?" Hans said.
"Objection!" Bakugo shouted.
"Your opinion doesn't count." Jiro said, glaring at Bakugo.
As the class organized itself back up for English class while Bakugo seethed and glared at Hans, Ojiro shuffled over to Hans's desk.
"You should know how much of an annoying person I am, Ojiro." Hans muttered. "Why didn't you speak up?"
"That was what I was going to ask about. After the fight with Shoji, I remember something like… a violent octopus attack that traumatized me during childhood? Did your quirk do that? And, why do I remember a guy called Horikoshi?"
"You remember that?" Hans muttered, surprised. "The effect was supposed to be temporary. This could be a problem…"
"That doesn't answer the question." Ojiro muttered intensely. "How did you give me an extra memory?"
Somewhere in the class, Jirou's elongated earlobes wiggled.
"Not here." Hans said, sighing. "If I say what I know to anybody else, they wouldn't believe me. After class, in the hallway."
Then, Bakugo's hand slammed down on Hans's desk. The little mermaid, who had been sleeping on one of the textbooks, woke up, startled, and immediately blew a raspberry at Bakugo's face before disappearing to avoid retaliation.
"This isn't over, you hear? I'll prove to everybody that I can be class president!"
"Believe me." Hans said, dryly. "If I could give you my role, I would."
Then, the annoyingly loud teacher with a ridiculous haircut walked into the room and immediately shouted even Bakugo into submission, before they stood up, bowed, sat down, and immersed their brains in English.
Ojiro nodded at Hans, but Hans did nothing, still deep in thought about how to cover up his tracks.
…
"So, what are you going to tell me that will blow my mind and worldview?" Ojiro asked, his voice light yet nervous.
Hans looked at Ojiro's trembling hands hidden inside his pockets. He wasn't ready for the truth. But at the same time, he knew something. Something that he desperately needed answers for. Hans looked up at the bags under Ojiro's eyes, and knew that this person was suffering because of a simple, unexplained, foreign memory.
…Okay, that sounded pretty bad.
Anyways, Hans's only choice was to lie.
"God is real." Hans said, before wanting to slap himself. That was such a bad excuse.
"...Your explanation for this is… God?"
"Yeah. And there are several chosen ones walking the earth with us, and to put in terms that you would probably understand more, they're basically the protagonists of their own story."
"And?"
"...And there's one in our class."
Ojiro sighed, "If I believe what you're saying is true, wouldn't that be a good thing?" Ojiro asked, looking both annoyed and, very slightly, relieved.
"No, considering the fact that we're not the main character of this god's play. We're the side characters, which means that we're probably very disposable and will be used to further the development of the main character. I was going to bootlick Midoriya for plot relevance, until I realized that this was a shounen, and that I'll definitely be sacrificed."
"...How would you even know all this? Your Quirk?" Ojiro asked. "And Midoriya's the main character? No offense to the guy, but he's not exactly what I'd call Main Character material"
"I've escaped the matrix." Hans deadpanned. "Have you seen The Matrix?"
"What's that?" Ojiro said, scratching his head.
"Nevermind, that's a bad example. Basically, all you have to remember is that our lives are viewed as a play by a higher being, and that having flashbacks equals more power."
"...Is that what you did with that false memory?"
"Well, yes. But considering the fact that that memory was permanent, it means that you're even more insignificant than me, since the god that's writing this play didn't even care enough to give you a fixed backstory. Of course, we can each make our own decisions, but people with more plot relevance are more resistant to my changes."
"Again, how can you do all of that?" Ojiro said, stumbling back and leaning against the wall.
"If I said I was the reincarnation of a fairytale writer, would you believe me?"
"Fine. Don't answer me then." Ojiro muttered, determination slowly flooding back into his character. "I don't care whether or not I'm a side character! I'm going to break the mold! I'm going to surpass Midoriya and…"
"Yeah, that's not going to happen." Hans said, dowsing Ojiro's fiery enthusiasm with a bucket of water. "You're not going to surpass Midoriya. He has too much plot armor."
"But… It is possible, right? Come to think of it, why can you manipulate the narrative? Is it because you're a demon or something? A ghost? Maybe your Quirk gave you the knowledge? To sustain itself maybe?" Ojiro muttered a little at the end with a contemplative look on his face.
"Whatever." Hans said, sweating at the mentioning of ghosts. Ojiro was scarily close to the answer of heroic spirits. "Just do whatever you want with that knowledge. Don't be too close to the main character when a catastrophe inevitably comes in the next event we participate in, though."
Ojiro nodded, still looking slightly distracted by his theory of Hans' Quirk and otherworldly knowledge. "Thanks for the advice, but we're hero students. We can handle ourselves. And when I break free too, I'll come back and help you free the others trapped in this sick script."
"That's not how that works…" Hans thought, fighting the urge to face palm.
Ojiro finally left the hallway, passing Jiro on the way back to the classroom. Hans sighed in relief, and stepped towards the water fountain to-
"So… what was all that?" Jiro said, stepping into the hallway. "I knew you were weird, but I didn't know you were delusional."
"Fuck. Fanden tag mig i røven" Hans cursed, finally smacking himself in the face. "I forgot about your bullshit quirk."