46 Chapter 46 - It’s Just a Prank Bro
A few minutes later.
'So, he's our homeroom teacher?' Ryuji looked around the open fields.
The yellow caterpillar from back then was actually their homeroom teacher, Shota Aizawa. Ryuji also knew him as a well-known underground hero of Japan with a peculiar quirk that he finds interesting: Erasure.
Erasure's ability allows Aizawa to deactivate the quirk of whoever he looks at with his eyes. On its own, it's a weak quirk with not much offensive potential, but what Ryuji sees with it is on a grander scale. 'If I have it, then Star and Stripes is practically a powerless woman!'
His eyes remained calm and collected. He wasn't dumb enough to reveal slight traces of bloodlust, and even a slight trace of his bloodlust can be comparable to a warrior who has slain hundreds of men, so everyone would immediately sense it no matter how weak or strong they were.
As more and more of his classmates walk out into the field wearing a uniform of red, blue, and white—U.A.'s sports uniform—Ryuji wore a subtle grin and calmly walked up to them and blended in with the crowd.
…
"U.A.'s selling point is how unrestricted its school traditions are," Aizawa said with his back facing the class. "That's also how teachers run their classes."
"You kids have been doing this since Junior High, too, right?" He asked, turning to the side slightly to look at the confused students behind him. "Physical fitness tests where you weren't allowed to use your Quirks."
"The country still uses averages taken from results from students not using their Quirks. It's not rational. Well, the Ministry of Education is procrastinating."
"Anwir, you finished at the top of the practical exam, right?" Aizawa suddenly asked and stared at Ryuji.
Ryuji wasn't flustered with his name being called out without warning. Instead, he wore a smug grin and pointed his nose to the sky, "Yep."
"In junior high, what was your best result for the softball throw?" Aizawa asked.
"Softball throw?" Ryuji stared at him, now confused. "Oh, ah, wait, yes."
"Hmm?" Aizawa hummed and looked at him, curious.
"You see, Sensei, I studied at Glory Academy for junior high back in America, and we didn't have that kind of quirkless test at all," Ryuji explained with a smile, "Instead, we undergo more in-depth methods that allow us to use our quirks when undertaking the tests. Although we do have this test as well where we throw softballs with and without our quirks."
"Oho," Aizawa grunted, "Did you say all of that to simply flaunt?"
"Not at all!" Ryuji hurriedly waved his hands. "I was just explaining."
"And to answer your question, sir. My maximum back then was around 1 kilometer without using my scales." Ryuji shrugged his shoulders. "Although you can say I did it with a quirk since my body is enhanced due to my supernatural physiology."
"O-One kilometer?!"
"How strong is he?"
"Are you sure he's not lying?"
It was an absurd fact. Even if they could say that he has a mutated body that grants supernatural strength, it was still a result that is out of this world. And that's him not actively using his quirk at all.
"And what about with your quirk?" Aizawa asked.
"Ehe, well, I don't wanna mention it. It's just too embarrassing to say." Ryuji blushed and rubbed the back of his head. "But, I'm going to do it anyway, so isn't it better to show than tell?"
"Sure." Aizawa ignored his antics and tossed him a ball.
He then pointed at the white circle behind him and said, "You can do whatever you want as long as you stay in the circle."
"Hurry up. Give it all you got."
Ryuji walked up to the circle with an eccentric grin on his face. He looked back at the crowd, specifically at Izuku and Katsuki, "You two have experienced quite the power-up since we first met, huh?"
"I bet you two would experience the same mistake I did back then when I went all out with this throw." Ryuji chuckled. "After all, when you exert enough strength to destroy an entire building with one blow, the ball would obviously just explode."
"For a quick lesson to my junior disciples, one must learn how to use their strength with finesse. Learn your limits, and with that knowledge, learn to go past them."
Ryuji's golden eyes dilated like a predator ready to hunt its prey. The muscles around his arm tensed up as he got into a throwing position. Then, as golden scales appeared out of his right arm's skin, Ryuji prepared to throw the ball.
As he was about to do so, Aizawa suddenly intervened, "Stop."
"What?" Ryuji asked and looked at Aizawa with a smile.
"We're here to test your limits, not beneath them. If you don't use your full strength, then I can only put a zero as your result. And you don't want to be last place in this test." Aizawa warned. He watched the practical exam footage before, so he knew that this was merely a portion of Ryuji's true strength.
If he doesn't know how strong Ryuji truly was, then it would merely be a detriment to his learning experience and his mistake as a teacher.
"Are you sure you want to see it?" Ryuji asked with a bemused smile. "I'm pretty strong, you know?"
"You can proceed if you don't want to rank last," Aizawa answered plainly.
"Sure, sure." Ryuji snickered and looked back at the front. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Instantly, his aura shifted.
It was as if he became more beast than man. A tyrannical presence emitted out of his body like that of a domineering dragon. All throughout his body, not just on his arm, golden scales sprouted like priceless metal embedded on his skin.
"W-What is this."
"I can't breath."
"H-Help."
"A-Am I going to die?"
Within the next moment, students from Class 1-A trembled and shivered. They struggled to breathe as if the air around them turned into heavy lead. Aizawa stood there, his pupils dilating and trembling as he recalled a vivid memory within his mind, the vivid memory of a certain Symbol of Peace's almighty power.
"You asked for this!" Ryuji changed his position and flung his arm backward. His vertical golden eyes released boundless might, and his muscles roared with endless power.
"S-Stop!" Aizawa was about to activate his quirk, but it was too late.
BANG!
A bright white light engulfed the area in its divine brilliance. Aizawa felt his entire body lose its strength and, as if the gates of death opened, his entire body disintegrated in the bright white light.
…
"And that's my point, Sensei."
"H-Huh?" Aizawa opened his eyes. His entire body shivered; the vivid memory of his experience with death still fresh in his mind. Cold sweat covered his back and forehead, while goosebumps rose up all throughout his body.
"Look, infinite kilometers!" Ryuji pointed at his teacher's phone and revealed a playful smile. "Hehehe, I guess my strength is simply infinite."
Aizawa ignored Ryuji and look at his students. He also saw them shivering, some were even in the process of puking.
'Was it real?' Aizawa furrowed his brows, confused. 'Was it fake?'
What he experienced was simply too realistic to be called a simple illusion. It was like an actual simulation of reality played in his mind, yet it appeared to also be fake.
"What was that just now?" Aizawa stared at Ryuji; he pressed for answers.
"Oh, that?" Ryuji slapped his forehead. "That's my Quirk, Sensei."
"And my results say infinite!" Ryuji once again pointed at Aizawa's phone.
Aizawa looked at the time. Less than a minute has passed since whatever that was happened. Then, he remembered something.
He clicked at something on his phone, and he pulled out the live feed from the nearby camera. He wanted to know what happened and clear up the confusion. It was simply too strange and too real.
The video then soon played.
Ryuji stood there, unmoving and staring at the camera with a playful grin. He played with the ball in his hand, spun it on the tip of his finger, and stared at the still statues all around him. They shivered and trembled as if they were in a nightmare.
"See? It's my Quirk," Ryuji chuckled and, once again, reminded his teacher of his result, "And you also saw those infinite kilometers, right?"
Aizawa pulled back the result of the test and indeed saw the ridiculous "Infinite" written in bold font on his screen. He stared at Ryuji, unmoved. Then, as he did so, his eyes glowed dimly in an attempt to deactivate Ryuji's quirk.
But, strangely enough, it didn't work. The illusion was still there, with its obviously fake bold Infinite.
"See? It's not an illusion, Aizawa-sensei! You just need to accept it's real!" Ryuji wore a smug smile.
Aizawa didn't believe it one bit, but he was impressed. It was obvious that it was an illusion, and quirks like this are annoying to deal with based on his experience, but Ryuji was clearly standing right beside him, so his quirk should have worked!
Unless the Ryuji standing beside him was also an illusion!
"I'm perfectly real, sensei." Ryuji laughed. "It's just that you activating your quirk was fake."
"Oh, really?" Aizawa raised his eyebrow, impressed and surprised, and said, "Good. It seems like your proficiency with your quirk is beyond my expectations."
"Does that mean I have infinite-"
"No, you retake it."
"Ugh!" Ryuji rolled his eyes and tossed the ball up from his hand. "Fine."
He walked back toward the small circle, a small grin still on his face. While his little joke failed, he managed to gain a lot of useful info in this small little interaction.
Ryuji didn't just put everyone in an illusion for shit and giggles. It was a strategic method to browse through their memories and read their minds in one quick moment, like a screenshot of sorts. Because of that, he managed to discern a little something that made everything else a little more worthwhile.
He kept quiet and once again covered his entire arm in golden scales. This time, he didn't bother with the pleasantries and flung his hand back.
He tightened his grip and tensed up his muscles. The muscle memory once again kicked in as he recalled a countless amount of his avatars doing the same motion over and over again countless times within his mind.
Ryuji planted his feet deep in the ground and, at the peak of his power, he shot his hand forward.
The ball flew forward at immense speeds to the point it neared the sound barrier! The wind gathered ahead of it as the wind pressure quickly built up, but the ball kept flying and flying at exaggerated speeds.
It left behind a blur in its path as it traversed through the clouds and sky. In the end, the ball disappeared from their view, and only after a short while did they see Aizawa look at his phone.
"Five kilometers," Aizawa muttered.
'I'll let this be. Even if his illusion is fake, he still seems unwilling to use his full strength. Maybe he's afraid of hurting the others when he goes all out?' Aizawa assessed inside his mind and allowed Ryuji to go back.
"F-Five kilometers?!"
"How is that even possible?!"
They quickly regained their mental stability and got over their previous shivering states; a result of encountering a simulation of death that even fooled Aizawa. Ryuji made sure to not make it too realistic so that his classmates wouldn't get traumatized by his stilly little prank.
Izuku's eyes glowed brightly from the side, "I wonder what mine would be."
"Heh, you don't need to ask. I would obviously rank higher than you as always." Katsuki smugly added.
Ryuji remained silent and leaned his back against a tree. Under the shade of the tree and the rustling of leaves, he stared at the boy with a belt tied around his belly button with a mysterious grin.
'Yuga Aoyama. Fate really is absurd.' Ryuji laughed inwardly. 'To think my fist instance of having actual contact with All for One, the personification of Fear, would be in UA.'
He shifted his gaze away and looked back at Izuku, "You'll do fine. Just do the usual and don't worry about the result."
'Heh, this is the best-case scenario. He's is in the light, while I'm in the shadows!'
'It's practically the perfect situation to be in!'
AN: This chapter has 2108 words.
Now this is another instance of inspiration killing me. My ideas for Yuga Aoyama is just way too ambitious for a stupid fucking fanfic. If I poured the same effort to an original novel, maybe I'll have signed a contract with webnovel already and got a bigger fanbase alredy (if I was an adult, unfortunately, I'm an underaged minor).
Anywho, electro swing is a bop, my back is dead, I'm gonna get fat this summer, and life sucks. I don't wanna write 2 chapters a day no more bro, like, you'll see that I would rarely write 2 chapters a day anymore. Pro tip from an experienced writer, passion sucks ass and consistency is what the big boys do, so just build your discipline for that grind, but I don't have the willpower no more so fuck you.
(May 29, 2023 - 550th day of writing)
