Aizawa finally walked into the room, Mina clutching her skirt tight with other students. "The results are in …" They tensed further. "Get your papers from the front, i'm heading to sleep." Oh, just leave them to grab their own graves, lovely!
Bakugo walked up without hesitation, flipping through the pile until he found his pile. "Tch, still third." Of course he would complain about third. The boy grabbed his own and tossed the rest to the others. Talented assholes were the worst.
Iida took the honors of passing them out. Mina took hers and stared … C! "I passed!" She shouted out. "Yes, the studying paid off!"
"C plus!" Kaminari, her fellow dummy in the Bakusquad shouted. "Yes, I'm more than average! I'm not an idiot!"
"Debatable." Jiro muttered under her breath, before shaking her head. "Congratulations on not failing at least, Kaminari. Get your quirk working right and you may move past sidekick level eventually." Aw, she really did care about him.
"I got …" Everyone turned to the most troubling case. "I got a D! Technical pass!" He shouted with joy. "This is the highest I've ever gotten!" Well it was better than a straight zero.
"Yeah, man, up top!" She held up her hand for a high five. "My comrades in struggling grades, we've made it!" Iruma and Kaminari joined her for a group huddle. "We're not dumb! We're not dumb!" All three of them chanted.
"This calls for a celebration!" Toru, her fellow gall pall grabbed the boy. "We should meet up at my house, get some soda, pizza, and-"
"Before everyone impatiently celebrates." Their 'sleeping' sensei interrupted them. "While everyone here passed, the finals are like the Entrance Exam. There's a Written and a Practical portion." The class stayed silent.
"But Aizawa-sensei." Iruma started. "We already beat up robots before and we've all gotten so much better. This one should be no problem, right?"
"You're exactly right, Suzuki." Aizawa stated plainly. That did not fill anyone in class with joy. "Normally we wouldn't do this for first years, but given that you've all experienced real-life villain attacks, we needed to change the curriculum to match your level … so look forward to the fight with the teachers." He gave them the sadist grin. That REALLY didn't fill the class with any positive emotion.
"We will, Aizawa-sensei. Thank you for looking out for us." Except Iruma, oblivious to his doom. Aizawa trying to pretend he wasn't there was a minor comfort, probably the last one she'll enjoy before the summer ends.
==
"So this is how we die." Sero stared at his ice cream, which had trace amounts of Cellophane. "Beaten to death by our teachers … I always thought it would be a train that did me in."
"Why a train specifically?" Ashido asked him.
"Weird dream I had once. My quirk's not that useful in close spaces when it comes to swinging around, so a train tunnel would do the trick." He shuddered. Why were there so many zombie robots?
"And I worked so hard too." Kamianri was banging his head against the table. "So much effort is wasted on studying when it's teachers that will do me in."
"Hey, you're not the only one worried." Kirishima patted him. "We just gotta push through, manly style! Look at Iruma and Katsuki, they're not worried at all." Bakugo looked just as moody as ever and Iruma just chowed down on his sixth full course meal Lunch Rush prepared for him.
"Bakugo's an overconfident and talented ass, and Iruma doesn't know any better." Jiro rolled her eyes.
"What we really need to win … is fate!" They stared at Ashido. "We just have to get a nice teacher who is likely to take it easy on us. Like Mineta, but less creepy."
"Midnight … Midnight … Midnight …" Where did the shrimp even get a shinto wishing charm on such short notice?
"Ah, you do realize you're talking about pro heroes, right?" Jiro reminded them. "Who all teach at a school where the motto is give everything you got and more?"
"You all are wimps." Bakugo sat down and began eating his Fruit Salad. "You should be going after the strongest teacher so you can prove yourself the best."
"So manly …" Kirishima went into fanboy mode, great.
"So after exams we're having a break, right?" Iruma asked his group in between chomps of rice and chicken. "I've never gone to school for this long, so I don't know how everything is scheduled."
"Summer break man." Kaminari spoke distantly. "The greatest of times … one where kids reign free and have responsibility free fun … something I must resign. A goal unfit for myself." The hope was weak with this one.
"A goal?" Iruma's spirits looked like they got even higher once he heard that word. "Then it's settled! I'm going to pass the physical finals and I will enjoy my summer for once in my life! I don't care who I have to face, I will achieve my goal!" Who knows, maybe he'd win.
==
"So Suzuki." Vlad watched as Aizawa placed his file on the table. "Originally I was going to pair him against All Might with Bakugo, force his cooperative retreat with the latter's uncooperative charge, and create a compromise that most heroes would need in an unbearable situation." Seemed solid enough. "Then it turned out his grades were still too low for comfort." He heard a sigh of relief from Yagi.
"Glad you don't have to fight your love child?" Yamada snickered.
"That's not the case!" The man defended. No need to get so hasty, no parent ever wants to fight their child. "Young Suzuki has grown spectacularly in using his quirk, in such a short time too. I don't want to risk him him losing his confidence"
"He's not the smartest kid in school." Aizawa almost looked regretful. "So Nedzu, i'm tossing him and Ashido over to you." Ah, now the regret was understandable.
"Are we sure he can't just fight me?" Yes, losing to All Might was far more inspiring than losing to whatever horror the Principal had prepared.
"Ah, I'd be more than delighted to test All Might's prized pupil. I believe it'll prove to be very enlightening." He laughed maniacally as he drank his tea. "So what of Young Kaminari then, if he's not facing me?"
"His drastic improvement from his grades likely stem from self awareness, so he knows he needs to improve there. But in hero scenarios he's still too reliant on his quirk. So he and Yaoyorozu will be placed against me." The second worst fate he supposed. Well it's not like he was going to be easy on his own class.
"That's easy enough to see, but why is Hagakure facing off against me?" 13 asked. "Uraraka I understand with her fangirl moments…"
"Originally it was going to be Aoyama and Uraraka, both had quirks that overexerted and required activations that can't be done under immense pressure. But the latter has interpersonal problems, and heroes need to be able to push through those regardless of the motive."
So much drama going on in one little class. Made him glad that on most days his class didn't get the same spotlight, all their problems remained normal…except for Shiozaki, who still occasionally preached during study hall. "So who's taking Aoyama?" He asked.
"I'm giving him to Snipe, help him learn to not stand out as an easy target." The teacher in question merely tipped his hat. "And that leaves Todoroki with Bakugo. Not the most stable of combinations but I'm sure you can teach them something." They turned to the man in question.
"There's going to be so much property damage long before I even throw the first punch." All Might sighed.
"And that should finalize 1-A." Aizawa folded the papers and turned to him. "Now Kan, who am I going against for 1-B?"
==
"The fakes run free … the fakes run free … the fakes run free …" For the last week this is the mantra she's heard from the cell next to her. Sure, it was interesting to hear maybe the first five minutes, especially with the lack of human contact, but day in and day and she'd rather go back to the dead silence by this point.
"Yeah, yeah, fake heroes everywhere, what else is new?" She finally had enough and responded to the voice for the first time. "Not like you're the first person to realize it. You're just the second one to end up in a cell."
The voice stopped, for a few minutes she had genuine peace and quiet. "You've killed a fake?" The voice asked after a few minutes.
"Scores of them … scores and scores …" She looked down at her bloody hands. "The blood pools up in your soul, doesn't it?"
"It taints you everyday, and there's nothing you can do to remove the stains it inflicts on you." That was true. There was no cure, there would never be one. "What made you notice them?"
"I was asked to kill them … it was my job." For years she kept it up. Fakes, state threats, dangerous quirks. "You see them all. The greedy, the narcissistic, the deplorable, the desperate, so many desperate." The looks of guilt and shame they had when she pulled the trigger, as if she was the spirit of death coming to claim their souls.
"The desperate should never have become heroes in the first place. They ruin the title of heroes." At this she let out a laugh. A broken laugh unable to find joy.
"Yeah, well sometimes we're not given the choice at all." She remembered when the HSPC came to her, a lonely school girl who barely learned how to multiply, suddenly got offered to be a hero.
"We're all given a choice. No matter how good or how horrendous, we all have a choice in what we do." Coming from the crazed serial killer, she'll take that advice with a grain of salt.
"Well I wanted to be a hero once, but at some point you have to realize … heroes don't truly exist." She turned to the voice's wall. "We're all just living with monsters."
"Are you a monster too?" She was quiet for a spell.
"I'm just a tool. Aimed and fired." She responded. "That is the tale of Lady Nagant."
==
Iruma finished messing with his mask as he made his way to the rest of the class. "You never got the wolf theme changed?" Toru asked him.
"I don't really see a reason why I should, people don't complain as much as my original costume." Even though he didn't see why. "The claws help with climbing and running, so might as well stick with it."
"A wolf being trained by two rabbits." Ochako chuckled.
"There's a proverb there, but for the life of me I can't place it." Ojiro put his two cents in. "Maybe the smallest creatures in nature hold the most ferocity?" Nah, that probably wasn't it. Bears were really angry when they wanted to be … and whales, he still doesn't get why it wanted to eat him.
"I've heard of a wolf in sheep's clothing, but never the other way around." Ashido laughed. "That fits you almost too perfectly."
"I mean I'm not the only one with a new costume. Shoto got a new one too." He pointed to the boy who was wearing a blue suit with a belt.
"I was told my last costume was … 'horrifying' for some reason." He didn't see why, if anything, the scariest costume was Bunny-sensei. It exposed everything on his body, making that scary face all the more noticeable.
"And I've got a suit made out of hair and nails." Toru spoke up. "Still have visible gloves though, just so everyone knows where I am." He didn't see why that was necessary, she was right there.
"Not sure what changes I could add to my costume." Ochako looked at hers. "Maybe boots with more of a spring in their steps, but that's all I can really think of."
"Oh, you can get something to help you fly so you don't get super nauseous." Iruma suggested. "Mei makes a lot of jetpacks, so you could probably ask her for one of her babies."
"He means inventions." Toru stepped in from the horrified looks other students were giving him. Yeah, it confused him at first too.
"Alright then, we've got everyone here." Aizawa-sensei walked up with all the teachers. "We will now explain the rules." Oh yeah, it was time to pay attention! "You all will be facing mock city battles in pairs against a teacher. You don't get to pick." He stated when multiple hands went up, quickly shot down. "You must either handcuff the teacher or leave through the exit gate in thirty minutes. If you fail in either objective, you fail."
So they have to fight or run. He could run really well! And fighting was easy thanks to Rabbit-sama. "To make it fair we'll be wearing weights that are half of our body weights to slow us down." A lot of students breathed. "First up, Shoji and Aoyama against Snipe."
"Say what now?" Shoji asked through his hand-mouth, looking a mix of confused and annoyed.
"I see it is a duel at sundown, truely a shootout for the ages." Aoyama spoke up with a smile.
"Kirishima and Sato will be going against Cementos."
"Let's do this bro!" Kirishima raised his first.
"Absolutely, we'll crush it!" Sato proceeded to bump it.
"Asui and Tokoyami will take on Ectoplasm."
"Seems a bit tricky."
"Revelry in the dark."
"Uraraka and Hagakure will team up for Thirteen."
"WHAT!?" They shouted at the same time, before looking at each other with a variety of emotions. So in sync, they were sure to pass!
"Why can't I help Iruma-kun!" Hagakure shouted. "Now I have to team up with you!"
"What's wrong with that!?" Ochako yelled back, looking just as angry as Toru.
"Jiro and Koda will be facing Present Mic."
"Oh this is gonna be a nightmare." Koda just nodded with Jiro.
"Mineta and Sero against Midnight."
"YES! FATE HAS FINALLY BLESSED ME!" At least Minoru seemed super happy. Good for him.
"Turn it down just a little please, we're just lucky we have distance quirks." Sero deadpanned.
"Iida and Ojiro will be facing Power Loader."
"Who?" Ojiro asked.
"Oh, he's Mei's teacher. He's got big claws, no shirt, and yells a lot about her blowing stuff up." Iruma explained.
"Powerloader-sensei, you have my full sympathies, and my undivided respect." Iida bowed.
"Kaminari and Yaoyorozu …" He trailed off to the two students who blinked in confusion. "Will be facing me." He gave them his smile.
"We-we got this, right? We can to-totally take on our scary teacher, right, Yaomomo?" Kaminari shook."
"Of-of course. They likely planned this for a-a chance to win." Momo shook with him.
"Todoroki and Bakugo-"
"Hu?" Every student stated in confusion, even the two in question looking up with wide eyes.
"Shall contend against me!" Bunny-sensei landed down with his smile, a small crater where he stood.
"Against number one, eh?" Bakugo got super happy. "I'm totally acing this exam if it's the last thing I do."
"You mean we're both passing the exam right?" Shoto asked.
"You heard me right the first time, Peppermint!"
"So much damage is going to befall this city …" Iida stated like it was inevitable. Why though, they'd all be careful right?
"Hey, that just leaves me and Iruma." Mina made a good point. "Who are we up against?"
"That would be me." A white talking mouse came out of Aizawa's scarff. Wow, talking mice, now he's seen it all. "I'll be happy to test you."
"Hey Ashido, we got super lucky!" Iruma smiled. "We just have to fight a mouse, and I've eaten plenty of those in the woods."
The teachers all got really pale and super quiet. Even All Might got a wide mouth as the students looked concerned. "Ah…Iruma….That's Nedzu…our school…principal." Ashido looked really scared now for some reason.
"Oh really?" He turned back to the mouse, who just stared at him like he was food. That was weird, normally they only did that if they thought he was dead, or in swarms. "Well then he just sits on a desk with cheese right? We can just punch him!"
"Young Suzuki, please, stop talking."
"No, No, All Might…let the boy talk….it could be the last words you ever hear from him." Why would that be? He was going to pass no matter what! That was his goal!