Trial of Fools: Ch 10
An author whose stories I read just had an AN ranting about how hot it is in the UK, and how he couldn't go outside for fresh air 'cuz he gets "swarmed by insects".
*Takes a long, hard gulp of ice cold water*
I laughed when I read that.
Now I get that people's bodies adapt to whatever climate they grow up in, so for them it is blistering hot, but it's still funny to me.
London's at 80ish degrees today, but down here in the good ol' American south, it's reaching upwards of 110 degrees. (That's 43.33 Celsius for you Euro folk) AKA: It's fucking Hot- especially with the drought, total lack of cloud cover, and absolutely 0 wind today.
Lets see ya Brits making fun of us Yanks fer using AC now! lol
Anyway what really caught my attention was the insect comment.
Are lots of bugs… not normal? Are people living out there in fairy land, with no mosquitoes? Towns around here have trucks roll around spraying bug spray over lawns, whenever mosquito season comes around.
…I wonder if we could replicate that result by making it so hot down here that it kills the bugs. Hmm, food for thought.
-Rain of Sins-
-Trial of Fools: Ch 10-
Nezu smiled to himself and took a delightful sip of tea as he watched the scene from his window.
Down below, Midnight and Snipe were escorting a small group of four HPSC operatives, an infiltration squad to be exact, to an empty classroom where they would be staying for the rest of the day.
He just knew they would send something, and oh how he was always just adored being right! It was such a wonderful feeling!
Besides him Aizawa glared at the same scene grumpily, clearly not in the same cheery mood.
"What's the HPSC doing here?"
"That should be obvious! They're getting caught!"
"Nezu…" Aizawa growled, clearly not in the mood for Nezu's games. "This is the Safety Commission we're talking about, just think about what they got away with, both with Hawks and Nagant," Aizawa frowned, "They're subtle, they don't get caught, they just don't."
"Normally you'd be right, but this is a bit different, if you remember correctly. They're not dealing with conspiracy groups, or bribeable guards, they're dealing with me!" The little mouse cheered and took a sip of tea.
Mmmm. Tieguanyin.
A difficult oolong tea to get a hold of nowadays, considering the state of China, but perfect for special occasions.
"And they fell right into the mouse trap I set up for them. If the HPSC wants to watch the festival, they can watch it on the TV like everyone else." He paused for another refreshing sip of tea. "Now come on, the games will be starting any moment now, and you wouldn't want to miss your students' performance! I can't wait to hear All Might give that speech I wrote for him, it should do wonders for public morale after the USJ fiasco." The mouse glanced over at Aizawa and let out an exasperated sigh.
"I dealt with them, so stop worrying yourself about it, and go encourage your students to do well in the tournament.."
Nezu hummed a cheery tune as he turned away and jonted off, leaving Aizawa to glare out the window alone.
"If you say so Nezu…"
-Rain of Sins-
There was an ever so quiet sound of a camera zooming in, as Tanya watched the distraction team get led away by the facility's security.
"This is Bravo One, calling in." She muttered into her uniform's black collar as she pinched the microphone inside it. "The fish has been hooked. I repeat, the fish has been hooked. Continuing operation."
She let go of her shirt collar and turned to her two assigned team members for this mission, one female and a male, both dressed head to toe in the PSC's black tactical gear. It wasn't exactly on the level of a "real" government service, such as the CIA over in America, but it got the job done while concealing their identities, and that's all that mattered.
She nodded at them, and with a silent jump from the rooftop, the three slipped through the temporary hole created by the staff being out of position.
-Rain of Sins-
Five knocks echoed from the door, the first two evenly spaced, the second two right after each other, and the fifth after a long pause.
Youshi, recognizing the code, called out through the door, "You got the time?"
"As long as you have the watches." A gruff and exhausted voice replied.
He nodded to himself, and unlocked the door. Even if, for some reason, the verbal confirmation code wasn't enough, the sheer exhaustion in the voice was enough to convince him that this was one of their guys.
"I hope you brought some kinda lift with ya." He chuckled dryly as Weiss walked in, and gestured to the large crates scattered around the storage room. "'Cuz while I don't exactly know what's in these, they're heavy as Hell."
Weiss just sighed as he looked around, his back hurting just at the thought of having to carry all this junk.
"Don't worry, I'll find a way. The PSC always does."
"Good man." Youshi clapped him on the shoulder as he began making his way towards the back exit. "Keep up the good work."
Weiss waited until his colleague's footsteps had faded from earshot, before walking over and popping the lid off of the third crate to his right. He rummaged around in it, pushing aside the useless building materials that filled all the boxes, before pulling out a metal briefcase that'd been hidden at the bottom.
"Alright Dixie, let's see how far your plan for 'peace in our time' gets us."
-Rain of Sins-
"-NOT JUST TO CELEBRATE THE NEXT GENERATION OF HEROES, BUT TO TELL THE WORLD THAT OUR FUTURE SHINES BRIGHTER THAN EVER! THAT NO MATTER THE CHALLENGE WE'LL GO BEYOND!" All Might's voice boomed and he raised a fist to the sky. "PLUS ULTRA!"
""PLUS ULTRA!""
Bakugo winced, and saw some of his softer classmates cover their ears, as the crowd went absolutely ballistic, even managing to match All Might's insane volume. He actually felt bad for Earjacks, even with the ear plugs Momo had made for her when they realized All Might would be leading the opening ceremony, she was still hunched over with her hands firmly clamped on either side of her head.
Maybe it was more than just personality reasons that Mirko never attended these things.
Huh.
Food for thought.
"ALL RIGHT, LADIES AND GENTS, WHO'S READY TO RRRRRRUUUMMMBLLLE!?"
Present Mic's voice came on over the loudspeakers as All Might stepped off the central platform, signaling the shift in anouncership for the main events.
"BUT FIRST! Before we jump right into the action, let's hear a word from the young men and women you all came here to watch! Would the top scorer for the entrance exam, Bakugo Katsuki, please step up to the stage!"
…
"Huh?"
Mic went silent, the crowd died down, and every single head in class 1A and 1B swiveled to look at him.
Wait, they wanted him to speak? And they were only telling him now?
Having a student speak in front of the tens of thousands watching live, without time to prepare a speech was a recipe for disaster. Who in their right minds wou- Actually, no, nevermind, he didn't even need to ask.
Aizawa would say it was good practice for improvisation in the field, All Might would say something mushy about the best speeches coming from the heart instead of a page, and Nezu probably just found it funny.
He sighed in annoyance. Good thing he was called on, and not someone more flighty, like Ochako, Pinky, or… actually, he needed to make a nickname for that bird-talking guy.
"All right, move it, out of the way." He called out as he marched forward, making them form a path for him instead of just shoving his way through, as he made his way towards the stage and up the stairs. As he passed by All Might, the number one gave him a thumbs up, and his patented smile, alleviating any nerves he may have had.
"Sorry to spring this on you so suddenly, it's something of an unspoken tradition." Midnight apologized with a soft smile as she handed him the microphone. "Just think about your Hero journey so far, and you'll be fine!"
His "Hero Journey"? He accepted the mic with a nod, and had to stamp down a scowl as he turned to the crowd. He didn't really have one of those, for the most part his "Journey" had, from day one, just been train and study, train and study, train and study, train and study, and then fight anyone who could challenge him. And while that was efficient, it really wasn't inspiring, or speech material.
Although it had changed into more of a journey since he got to UA, hadn't it? Losing for the first time in forever, meeting people who could actually push him, then there was that whole fiasco at the USJ, messing up during practice by hurting Aoyama, Momo getting mad at him.
…Learning Auntie Inko died.
…
That she'd died because of a top Hero's negligence….
…
"Alright, I'm gonna keep this short."
Bakugo sighed and put his free hand in his pocket. He looked up to the stands, ignoring the cameras for the people he knew were here. "Everyone who came to UA, came here because they thought they had what it takes to make it big. Thought that they were strong enough to one day fight the worst of the worst and win."
He dropped his gaze back down to the fields, to his classmates, to the people who he'd be fighting against.
"To win you've gotta be strong, and to be fair, you all are- you wouldn't have been accepted otherwise, but there's a lot of ways to be strong. You could be physically strong, sure, but you can also win by being smart, by being stealthy, by being clever, being fast, knowing how to counter your opponent, or even just by having an ace that blows everyone else out of the water."
In the audience he saw a purple haired guy, one who's face he'd seen before but for the life of him he couldn't place where, nod in approval of that last part.
"Some of you think that your strengths make you better than anyone else here, that because of your hard work, you deserve this victory more than anyone else! Well this is the place to prove it!" He looked out over his classmates, nodding at Momo, and glaring at Todoroki. "May the BEST win."
The crowd roared with applause as he finished his speech and Mic began explaining the first round of the tournament, it wasn't anywhere as near as loud as they had been to All Might, but it was infinitely more receptive than they would have been if he'd done something dumb like just go up and say "I'm gonna win."
…actually thinking back to his attitude at the beginning of the school year, that might have been something he would have done in the past.
Bakugo growled and shook his head as he stepped off the stage.
He was one of the best, if not the best in UA year one, maybe even in the top of year two as well, and his numbers could back that up. But thinking like the average Victorian era British person, and writing everyone else off as beneath him, was a recipe for not only getting blindsided by underestimating someone, but also just making him look like an idiot.
Besides, why risk embarrassing himself in front of literally the entire nation, when he already knew there was someone who could beat him?
"Bakugo!" Momo waved at him as she jogged over. "Hey! That was a good speech, did one of the teachers help you write it?"
"Of course not, I didn't even know about the speech until they called me up."
"And you improvised all that on the spot?" She raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Good job! I, uh, wouldn't have done too well. I'm not that great at coming up with stuff on the spot."
"Don't sell yourself short, you would have done fine."
"Thank you, but please don't jest." Momo scratched the back of her head. "I really do need to work on my ability to do things on the fly."
"Yeah…" Bakugo trailed off, dragging the conversation into an awkward silence.
"...?"
"..."
"Bakugo?"
"Uh, good luck in the race."
"Good luck to you too?" Momo frowned as she watched Bakugo walk off.
He'd been acting like this ever since their talk, and it was honestly starting to annoy her. She was genuinely putting effort into trying to resume where they left off, but he was making that very difficult.
She just wanted him to be a better person, nicer to people, and less likely to kill someone by accident, was that really so much to ask? He was acting like a kicked puppy!
"Um…" Ochako, who had been watching nearby, walked forward. "Is Bakugo ok? He's acting weird."
"No." Momo said very bluntly. "No he's not."
"O-Oh, uh, what are we gonna do about it?"
"Slap him."
"Huh?" Ochako looked at her friend with an owlish expression.
"I'm going to slap him again, obviously." Momo huffed as she crossed her arms under her breasts. "Bakugo's terrible with emotions, but if I make it physical, he'll get his spark back."
"W-Wait, isn't that a bad idea!?" The poor cinnamon roll of a student waved her ams in panic. "That's what got y'all into a fight last time!"
"It'll be fine, he already gave his word that he'd genuinely try to change." She gave Ochako a look. "Do you really think I'd normally just forgive someone who did something so bad, just because they gave a promise? With normal people that wouldn't mean anything."
She sighed and pinched her nose.
"But Bakugo, for both better and worse, is the single most stubborn individual I've ever met, and he's more likely to die trying to live up to some vague promise, than go back on his word."
In the distance, the inner wall of the coliseum parted to reveal the start line for the race, and she immediately began walking towards it, a plan already forming in her head.
"A-Are you sure?" Ochako called out, a strange desperation in her voice. "I mean, just because someone says they'll be good, o-or even promises it, sometimes they just can't help it! Sometimes they have to!"
Momo paused mid step, and turned around to look her dead in the eye.
"I'm absolutely sure." But her stern demeanor only lasted a second before a smile broke through. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go slap some sense into Bakugo. See you in the second round Ochako!"
"Oh, uh, o-ok then!" Ochako gave a weak thumbs up as Momo began walking away again, before clutching her hands to her sides, and shivering once Momo was out of sight. "Those two have been acting more and more like each other."
She flinched as the image of Momo with Bakugo's temper popped into her head, using Create's versatility to wreak havoc. "Eep! That's scary!"
…But on the note of scary.
She trailed her eyes over the front few rows of the stands, but no one suspicious stood out.
"It's fine Ochako." She muttered to herself. "You just sold a ticket, people do that all the time, even if they aren't supposed to."
The fact that most people don't sell their marked up tickets to a mystery person online, who hacked into her Email account, and didn't leave the slightest trace, went unsaid, but seemed to weigh down on her soul.
-Rain of Sins-
Izuku only half registered the Students taking off down the tunnel as the race began. He knew he should probably be watching closer, if only to observe the various quirks at work, but as he flipped his burner phone open and shut again and again, and found no new messages, his mind wandered to other things.
The "gift" he had Stain delivering to Endeavor was a specially engineered Virus bomb that he'd made specifically for fire quirk users. The device was to be put on the ceiling of the maintenance tunnel, beneath where Endeavor's seat was, where it would cut through the concrete with a small stream of plasma, before releasing the virus.
The pathogen worked by targeting the cells and using the quirk's heat ability for its own ends, it would make the cells heat themselves up, registering as a mild fever before spiking way above the user's natural heat resistance, killing them. The stronger the heat quirk, the worse the virus.
It wasn't contagious, and was useless against anything but a heat based quirk. It would kill Endeavor and only Endeavor, without harming any innocents.
He'd kill that Bastard for what he did to his mom, he'd topple a greedy and corrupted piece of Japan, he'd make it so no one else ever had to suffer because of him again.
…he'd let Inko finally rest in peace.
Stain most likely thought it was a bomb, and wanted something "flashy" for his big announcement today, but he wouldn't get it from Izuku. (Besides, the pile of dead Heroes somewhere would probably work better than a bomb anyway.)
Stain, for all he claimed otherwise, was a Villain at the end of the day. Izuku, on the other hand, was a scientist.
The operation would be a clean cut.
No civilians would die, property damage would be kept low, and the target would be eliminated effectively and without direct intervention from the surgeon.
Well, not perfectly clean. Heroes were dying, Stain was falling upon them in the place they felt the safest, when they were relaxed and had their guards down. Like a wolf in a sheep pen.
He knew, logically, that this should be the point where his morals acted up and made him feel like a horrible human being, but, well…
Izuku leaned back in his chair and sighed.
He'd seen All Might's lies.
He'd felt the wrathful flames of Endeavor, had his family torn apart by them.
He'd been told of some of the worst corruption scandals of the Hero world, by Stain.
He'd witnessed first hand the total lack of restraint of these very students at the USJ.
He knew that last one was a little unfair, they were just acting in self defense after all, but it really wasn't when you put it with the rest of the big picture.
Heroes. They were all just like Bakugo. All so stuck up and convinced of their own superiority that they'd sooner kill an entire apartment's worth of people, than call for backup. So entitled by their quirk, that the moment that lifeline fell though, they'd just stand around and watch a Villain attack because they didn't have the "right quirks".
Maybe… Stain killing the Heroes that got in the way… wasn't the worst thing to happen in the world.
Izuku shook his head and tore his thoughts back down to reality, he had a job to do, and needed to make sure Endeavor was in the right spot when the device activated, it didn't have as big of a range as a bomb, but even if he was ok with blowing up civilians, this was a guy who'd sparred with All Might, and was basically immune to fire- what the Hell was a bomb going to do?
And besides, the place was crawling with support Heroes and police dogs, who were trained to detect and defuse explosives. Who would be dumb enough to try and plant one literally right under their nose?
-Rain of Sins-
"DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE!" Tomura screamed as he threw his All Might mask as hard as he could against the alleyway wall, and proceeded to stomp on it as hard as he could.
"I DON'T LOVE HEROES! I HATE HATE HATE THEM!"
It felt like the itchiness that plagued his neck had spread over the rest of him and magnified a hundred fold. Anywhere the hero merch touched felt like there was sandpaper under his skin! He could feel the taint seeping into his pores! A shower wouldn't do, the only way to get rid of this filth would be to set himself on fire!
"Meh, meh, meh, Tomura you already revealed your face, you need a disguise!" The villain ranted in a very bad Ujiko impression. "Why should I do my job to make you things? I know the perfect disguise, why I think you'll fit right in!"
Tomura punched the wall hard enough to chip the concrete, uncaring if he broke a finger.
"One day I'll kill that piece of shit!"
He punctuated his statement by slamming his head into the wall in frustration. Unfortunately, a head injury is a lot harder to ignore than a hand injury, and the supposed "menace of Hero society" fell on his ass, clutching a bleeding forehead.
"Ow, this is why you always need a healer in your party."
He trailed off as he eyed the wall he headbutted, and his eyes climbed up the wall, up, and up, and up. This wasn't just any wall, this was the Coliseum wall!
…A wall that he could disintegrate in a couple of seconds to get inside.
He leaned back and looked down the alleyway he was in. It was rather large, probably for maintenance, you could easily stand five guys shoulder to shoulder, and with how long it was, you could probably fit, what, 80- maybe 100 guys? All where no one could easily see them?
Master had told him to get in, put a bomb in the blond traitor's locker, and get out… but he never said he couldn't do anything between that.
A grin slowly spread across the aspiring Villain's face as he pulled out his phone and dialed a number.
"Hey Giran, yeah it's me. Hey, how many guys can you pull together in an hour or two? …No, I don't need anything fancy, I'm talking the same level as the USJ guys. … No, money isn't an issue, this is me we're talking about here, I'll pay whatever as long as it's reasonable, but they're not getting paid until after the gig."
Tomura's laugh echoed in the empty alleyway.
"Yeah, I guess you could say that I'm gonna be crashing a party!"
-Rain of Sins-
Bakugo snarled as he fired an explosion to propel himself to the side and out of the way of the giant frozen robot that was falling 50% apart, and 100% at them.
Todoroki's little ice trick, while annoying, had probably prevented a lot of injuries by delaying most everyone, and keeping them out of the robot's "splash zone". Unfortunately for half&half, It would take a lot more than a slippery road, and some falling scrap to stop Bakugo.
He planted a foot on a particularly large sheet of green metal, and used it as a springboard to jump into the air. He held his arms out behind him and blasted himself forward.
Normally flying at barely subsonic speeds, with only explosions to steer yourself, would make for a very rough ride on a good day, and turn you into a smear on a bad day. But Bakugo wasn't exactly normal, he'd trained daily for years to get to the level he was at.
An explosion to his left threw him to the right, and allowed him to fly past Ida. An explosion downwards pushed him up, right over a boulder without having to slow down or go around. An explosion above him pushed him down, to the ground, and two simultaneous ones behind him let him slide right under a giant mechanical arm, before it landed and created yet another roadblock.
He was a rocket. Mean, fast, and from what he could vaguely hear from the rapidly retreating audience's cheers, they loved it. (Or, at least whatever was on the screen right then.)
Unfortunately, the current first place in the race, didn't seem to like it anywhere near as much, going off of the death glare he gave Bakugo as the blond began to catch up.
"WHAT'S WRONG HALF N HALF?" He shouted as he flew closer. "DIDN'T YOU SAY YOU WERE GONNA BEAT ME!? THAT ICE OF YOURS IS WEAK!"
That seemed to do the trick. Shoto whirled around to glare at Bakugo, skidding to a stop on his frozen path, and threw his left arm forward, like he was throwing a baseball, and from his hand shot a rapidly growing pillar of ice.
Bakugo grinned dangerously, and flung a smoking hand forward as the ice rocketed towards him. He could feel the energy bubbling up inside him, hot, angry, begging to be released, he wouldn't even have to guide it, all he'd have to do is let it go-
"Promise me you'll be a better person."
-The ice slammed into him with enough force to knock the wind out of his chest, and he let out a breathless gasp as it encased him like a cocoon from the shoulders down.
Bakugo was stunned, frozen not only because of the ice, as he tried to grapple with what had just happened.
Todoroki, for his part, didn't seem to recognize the fact that his attack really shouldn't have hit, and just gave a standard "I'm better than you" look, before skating away.
Bakugo struggled against his binds manually, the freezing temperatures not allowing him to sweat his explosions. But despite his relatively above average physical strength, the ice held firm.
An engine roared to his left as Ida passed him.
To his right a pink haired girl with metal spider legs coming out of her back, breezed by.
On the other side of the track, he saw Ibara propelling herself forward with her vines, an annoyed scowl on her face. Clearly something was bothering her rather severely, but she couldn't afford to stop and fix it, lest someone pass her.
He figured out what it was a few seconds later, as Mineta and Aoyama screamed like little girls on a roller coaster as they were dragged along, holding onto a green metal sheet that Mineta had somehow gotten a large clump of Ibara's vine hair stuck to with his grape balls.
At this rate everyone would pass him.
…
"This is a race idiot," He sighed as he scolded himself. "The fighting part's later. Don't attack your classmates just because they said stupid things before the match."
Straining his muscles, he finally managed to break one of his arms free, good thing too, since they were starting to go numb. He had t-
BANG!
White.
Ringing.
The world slowly came back into focus as Bakugo rapidly blinked the white spots out of his eyes, but that did nothing for the ringing in his ears.
He was on the ground, sprawled out, and not stuck in ice anymore.
As his vision cleared, and the world stopped spinning, he was able to make out Momo driving by on a motorcycle at a slow speed. She winked at him, and tossed a long green tube-like launcher off her shoulder, before hitting the accelerator, and zooming off.
Bakugo blinked.
He wasn't physically harmed at all, on account of his quirk's explosion resistance, and the fact that what he'd been hit with had been built from the atomic level up to more closely resemble a flashbang than any sort of traditional explosive.
"She… shot me with a rocket…"
Bakugo blinked again, the gears in his head turning.
"SHE. SHOT. ME. WITH. A. ROCKET!"
A second explosion sounded out, this one strong enough to make a crater, as Bakugo shot himself forward. "Oh, it is fucking ON!"
Momo couldn't help but smirk as she glanced at her side mirror to see a plume of dust rapidly approaching, with a familiar mop of blond hair at it's center.
"YOU ARE GOING DOWN MOMO!"
"Keep telling yourself that!" She shouted over her shoulder with a laugh. "You've still gotta catch me first!"
-Rain of Sins-
Izuku watched the festival pass by with a reserved educational interest. The first round's race ended to cheers as the contestants came in one by one, the second round ended to applause from the audience, and the half time show was most entertaining. Nezu had clearly set it up so that the disqualified students could still show off their quirks to recruiters, but it worked just as well as a showcase for him.
It was fascinating.
Some of the quirks that UA thought would make great Heroes, were remarkably mundane, but at the same time, some of the lowest scoring students who were being dismissed by the observers, had the potential to be absolutely brilliant! If only they could think outside the box, and take off the kiddie gloves they'd been taught to handle their quirks with.
There was a girl who released spores into the air, and could grow mushrooms wherever the spores could reach. Had it really not occurred to her that people breathe? She could suffocate an entire crowd of people, block their windpipes without so much as lifting a finger! Absolutely terrifying!
There was another one, in the same class, who could split her body into fully controllable pieces that could be reassembled remotely. How small could she go, if she pushed herself on that aspect? Hand sized pieces? Marble sized pieces? Particle sized? Imagine fighting an opponent who could turn into a cloud of dust, letting any attack pass through them completely harmless. Who could slip though even the tiniest crack in some place's defenses.
Compare those quirks to the ones that had gotten to the third round.
The ability to grow your hands. The ability to have sticky balls for hair. The ability to… "get hard".
Though there were two quirks he'd initially brushed off as useless, but had the wonderful experience of being proven otherwise.
The first was a student named "Mei", and while her quirk was overwhelmingly underwhelming, her use of machines, and the knowledge she made them herself, had immediately drawn him to the girl. She was still useless to him quirk wise, but he honestly preferred that, as the young near-quirkless scientist, was who he was unofficially rooting to win the festival.
The other was a young man who simply had the quirk "Tail". That was it. He just had a tail, nothing else. But seeing the sheer usefulness of having an extra limb was a dumbfounding experience.
You get knocked over? Tail can catch you on the ground, and even push you back up. Someone's coming behind you? Tail. Your hands are full? Tail. You need to balance on a wire? Tail. Want to grab something without leaning over? Tail.
It wasn't anything groundbreaking, but having an extra limb just seemed so unabashedly useful- a feeling only magnified, when Mei flicked a button on her backpack, and five robotical arms sprung from her back, scooping up the mines from the last leg of the track, and safely storing them in her bag.
If he just had multiple arms, imagine how many experiments he could do at a time! Well, on that note, a second head that could let him concentrate on multiple things would be nice as well- ugh, but at that point, it basically came back around to the "if I could just have more 'me's" conversation he had every once and awhile with Ujiko… And they still hadn't managed a human clone…
"Uhm." Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu, the student sent to him after breaking through the safety net at the bottom of the pitfall, fidgeted in his seat. "Am I done yet, Doc?"
"Yes, you're good to go." Izuku scribbled some notes down on his clipboard, and slipped the new blood sample into his coat. "Your quirk absorbed most of the damage, but you have several internal bruises. Lay off any extraneous activities for the next week, and you should heal up without issue. But as long as you don't do anything stupid, I see no reason to keep you bedbound."
"AWESOME!" The student fistpumped, and made his way out the door. "Thanks Doc! I'm gonna go cheer on my classmates!"
Izuku halfheartedly waved him off, and turned his attention to the black laptop on his desk, and the lines of random letters and numbers that were slowly pushing their way down an open window. He wasn't a top notch hacker, he wasn't even a good hacker, Hell he wasn't even a hacker, but he had become fairly decent with computers during his time with Ujiko, even if only because they had to make new software for just about any cutting edge experiment.
Taking control of the entire system from the inside, and using it to wreak havoc, and turn UA's army of bots against them was far, FAAAR out of his league. But making a program to brute force control of a Jumbo-Tron screen for a minute or two, by just guessing every possible password for control access… Yeah, that was a bit more his speed.
Above him, muffled through the layers of concrete, the crowd whooped and cheered as Present Mic began announcing the lineup for the first round of the combat tournament.
Humming, he withdrew the flip phone from his coat pocket and frowned again at the lack of anything on it.
Stain hadn't gotten caught, he couldn't have, there hadn't been any alarm or big commotion. He was half tempted to pull up the trackers that Yuyara had put in the gear they'd given Stain, but he didn't have his real phone on him for a reason, and he didn't want to risk someone seeing him have it airdropped in via warp quirk.
Izuku sighed and sunk into his cheep provided office chair.
Oh well, a quiet Stain wasn't an antsy Stain who was tempted to jump the gun, and that was always a plus. He'd just have to sit back, and busy himself with collecting the list of quirks he desperately wanted a closer look at.
At that moment, there was a polite knock on the door as it gently swung open.
"Hello? I was wondering if I could get some more carbohydrates before the combat?"
Speaking of his list…
Izuku almost had to bite his tongue and forced down his scientific grin into a friendly smile, as one of the top three subjects on his list casually walked into his office.
"Oh that would be no trouble at all!" The scientist put his clipboard to the side, and placed his hands on his desk, to better fight off the temptation to draw the syringe from his coat pocket prematurely. "Please take a seat, Ms Yayorosu, and let's see how we can help each other."
-End Chapter-
Buildup Buildup Buildup, writing all this setup is making me antsy, someone PUNCH something!
…
Oh wait! I'm the author, I can make that do that! Next chap, I hereby decree, shall have action~!
*I Want To Drink Something Chocolate-y But It's A F*cking Oven Here*
Hmm, why do so many people freak out over Momo and Bakugo when they first read this fic?
I mean, as someone who believes in Character Development™, I kind of understand, they're cannon personalities are too different to be compatible romantically- Hell, even with the light CD done so far in the fic, they're incompatible. Which is part of the reason their character tags aren't in the forbidden [ship brackets] together. (Or whatever the A03 equivalent is)
I have them together as what they are, because they are compatible as rivals, with both of them having pride, but Momo suffering from self doubt, and Bakugo suffering from a critical lack of it. They balance each other out well in that regard, and their issues can be bent by having them continuously interact over an extended period of time.
I didn't design the plot around romance, but made it so that if any characters naturally develop together, then I could use it to support an already existing plot point.
*Shrug*
I just think it's both funny and interesting on how many comments I've got on it, lol. If I decide to pair someone major, I'll make sure to put it in the tags, to give y'all a heads up.
Though I would be interested to hear the reasons, from the people who were so against it, lol. I know there was one guy on AO3 who dropped the whole thing because I had them as friends.
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Maybe I tainted his waifu? I could understand that.