22 Trial of Fools: Ch 1
Last chapter was the most important chapter so far, and I ended it with a lenny face.
*Sips Hot Chocolate*
This is what we call, literary genius!
Also, please note that, despite common misconception, I cannot, in fact, read minds, and as such, due to being a human, I can only deem comprehensive knowledge, of your understandings, through comments, rather than mind reading, as some would imply.
To translate that technically grammatically correct sentence: Comment! (i red tem al) .
-Rain of Sins-
-Arc Start: Trial of Fools-
-Trial of Fools: Ch 1-
All for One leaned back in his chair and sighed as he stared at the video call screen in front of him, or more accurately just the [Connection Lost] that was blinking on it.
He had known that Ujiko was going to be disgruntled about him messing with his successor, but he'd apparently underestimated just how much the doctor had invested in the kid for him to be so concerned.
To put it lightly, Ujiko was absolutely furious.
The doctor had begrudgingly given his approval for All for One's plan to warp Izuku into Tomura's attack on the USJ, but only after All for One had assured him the boy could be warped out of danger at any time.
But All for One hadn't expected such a visceral reaction when Ujiko found out that he'd decided to 'expand' the test.
And speaking of the test, he had apparently also underestimated just how much the boy depended on his mother emotionally. To put it lightly, since the incident, the boy's mental state had been in freefall.
To many miscalculations, it was honestly unacceptable, especially for himself of all people.
All for One huffed and sent the next three weeks of orders for Ujiko ahead of time, changing the 'due date' to the end of this week. The doctor would complain and rant, but he would comply, and he needed to comply whether he knew it or not, it was in his best interest.
Keeping the doctor unreasonably busy would keep him away from Izuku, if only for a short time. The boy was in a very tentative situation, two steps too close to breaking, this would have to be very delicate and required precision, and for as useful as Ujiko could be, his strengths didn't lie in his speaking ability.
No. It was for the best that Ujiko be kept out of this for now, and let All for One work his magic.
Izuku Midoriya had the potential to be a very powerful tool, but right now the boy had both his feet dangling off the ledge. All for One needed to reel the kid back, not enough to repair the damage, but enough to plant one of the boy's feet on solid ground. He'd seen Ujiko's records of the boy, he was incredibly gifted and had magnitudes of potential, left too stable and he might eventually become a threat, pushed too un stable however and he became a liability.
It was a balancing act with no second chances, but All for One had played this game countless times before, and had become very good at it.
The villain hummed as he brought up yet another screen full of data. There was another chess piece that he'd had his eye on for a while now, and this was the perfect opportunity to hit two birds with one stone- or catch them in a single net, in this case.
The bigger question was one later down the line, which piece should he sacrifice to develop the other?
He tapped a button, and across the country a burner phone rang right before it's user was about to dispose of it for a new one.
The phone rang once, twice, thrice, and after a brief moment of hesitation-
The call connected.
-Rain of Sins-
"Excuse me sir! You're in UA right?" A reporter questioned, pushing his microphone forward. "Were you involved in the attack last week?"
"Uhhh…" Denki blinked at the expectant faces crowding him, "Yeah I'm in UA, and the attack was kinda scary but I, uh, AHHHH!-"
But whatever the boy was trying to say was interrupted as the crowd rushed him.
---
"Hey you're wearing UA's uniform, does that mean you go to school here?"
Shoto stared at the woman with a neutral expression and, in the most deadpan tone possible, replied "No. I'm not a student of UA." Before walking off in his full UA uniform and entering UA's gates.
---
"-so I was all like Swoosh! Splash! And then the Villains were all like 'Ahhh, Noo!'" Mina exaggerated her story to the press, throwing in all sorts of wild arm movements. "And then this big lizard thing stomps out all like ROAR ! and then All Might was all like 'I AM HERE!' POW! SMACK! And then Toderoki and Ibara went try and help but then this scientist dude came outta nowhere an-"
"A scientist?" One of the reporters interrupted, despite being shushed by his peers.
"Yeah, but like-"
---
"A scientist? Why would a scientist be at the USJ?" Kiroshima huffed. "Well I don't know what to tell you, I didn't see 'nothin."
---
"Scientist?" Ochako took a step back in reflex, unused to being the center of attention, but her head popped up as her brain caught up.
"Oh yeah! I remember Mina gossiping about something like that! But, uh, to be honest, she probably just made the whole thing up." She scratched the back of her head. "I mean, think about it, if he was real, and got caught up by accident, then where is he now?"
-Rain of Sins-
If you were to ask a child, what it is that makes something scary, you would frequently hear the answer "the noise". The scraping of branches against a bedroom window, the tense build up of music that leads up to the Movie's jump scare, the growls and hisses of the monsters as they prowl the night.
In practice however, the most foreboding sound you can ever hear is the lack of sound of all…
This was the case of a very certain lab, buried far beneath Japan
There was no music, there was no chatter, there was no laughing, no fans running in the background.
Only the quiet clicking of a keyboard, and the occasional sound of a pencil dragging across the paper echoed through the darkness.
The only light in the room was from the display of a laptop, and even that was so weak that it only illuminated a single thing.
Izuku Midoriya.
His coat was torn, charred, and stained with ash and soot. The color of the thing was closer to a charcoal grey, or black, than its original pure white. His hair was matted, as if it hadn't been washed, and his eyes were bloodshot with heavy bags beneath them, from a severe lack of sleep.
The files on his screen were hardly recognizable from the organized notes that had filled his laptop in the past. Instead these new ones were scattered, jumping from one subject to the next, frantic almost. The equations and rough pencil drawn blueprints that surrounded him looked like something made in an asylum.
But that was fine, he didn't need them to look pretty.
He just needed them to work.
-Rain of Sins-
"Congratulations…" Mummy-zawa muffle spoke to 1-A. "The class average for your first test was five points higher than the school average, and that's saying something considering most of you tried your damn highest to bring that number down. Usually I'd pass out the tests but my legs don't feel like it, so just come and get them from my desk whenever I call your name."
Aizawa shuffled over to his desk and collapsed into his chair with a pained grunt. He had been well and truly roughed over, and everyone had been expecting a substitute teacher to fill in for him, but low-and-behold when class started the stubborn headed teacher waddled into the class wrapped in all the bandages and gauze that recovery girl could fit on him.
No one had outright said anything, some too embarrassed, others too prideful, but they had all tried their best to thank him for toughing it out and coming to teach regardless. It helped give the class an air of normality. Helped them pretend that nothing had happened.
Slowly but surely the class funneled up to the teachers desk, and made their way back to their seats.
Momo sat in her seat with the polite and trained smile that her parents had trained her with, patiently waiting for her name to be called. With her last name starting with "Y" she was always the last to get her papers back, but that was fine by her, she was a proper lady and proper ladies were capable of waiting without complaint.
Her parents had been very clear about that.
"Yayorozu."
Momo stood up with a wince and made her way to the front as her name was called, doing her best to cover up her slight limp from several nasty bruises on her left thigh. She took her paper, thanked the teacher, and turned back around, but before she could sit back down at her seat she was mobbed by her fellow classmates.
"Momo!" Mina squealed. " PLEASE tutor us for the next test!"
"Tutor? A-bwah? What? Why?"
"Because you got the highest score on this one!" Toru said.
The creation user blushed and held her paper to her chest. "What makes you say that? You haven't seen my grade yet, for all you know I could have failed."
"Look, no offense," Denki smiled at her apologetically. "But you always get top scores on assignments."
"Yeah, so please! "
Mina, Denki, Sero, Toru. Momo glanced between each of her classmates before peeking down at her test, her blush of embarrassment growing harsher every second.
"N-Now listen," Her eyes focused on the wall of the classroom, unable to meet everyone's gaze. "I will admit a 97 is quite impressive from a certain standpoint but-"
"HA!"
A harsh bark cut Momo off .
"Only a 97? Please, and here I was thinking you were something special, Ms class rep!" Bakugo lazily raised his paper in the air with a smug grin, showing off his perfect 100… something he regretted not two seconds later.
"Back off ya damn extras!" He hissed, attempting to push away the rapidly growing swarm around him. "I ain't tutoring any of your fucking asses, now get off me!"
Momo looked from her 97 to Bakugo struggling underneath the dogpile of his classmates, and her facade quickly crumbled at the scene. For the first time in a long time Momo Yaoyorozu laughed.
Not a fake laugh or chuckle like she forced in front of her parents, but a real, genuine, laugh.
"YOU THINK THIS IS FUCKING FUNNY!? MOMO, GET YOUR FAT ASS OVER HERE BEFORE I KILL SOMEONE!"
-Rain of Sins-
"Fucking Hell!" Bakugo let out an explosive sigh as he slumped back down into his chair and thumbed at the bandages on his shoulder. "Why do all the extras suddenly care so much about grades? They sure as Hell didn't care when we were taking the damn thing last week."
"Stop that." Momo flicked away his hand before readjusting the bandage that was covering his stab wound. He glared at her, but didn't make any real attempt to stop her.
"And it's because everyone's trying to forget about what happened," She glanced sadly at the numerous empty seats around the room. "They're trying to fill the silence in their own ways, and this is the first big distraction they've had since the attack."
"Forget about it?" The blond raised an eyebrow at her.
"Wrong word." Momo sighed as Mina began loudly gossiping across the classroom. "Cope, everyone's trying to cope with what happened."
Bakugo just gave a 'hmm' in response and instead tilted his head, trying to listen in better. "Lost Scientist? Who the Hell is that?"
"No idea," The class president shrugged, "It's something she herself overheard from Shoto and Ibara, and now won't stop talking about it."
"A guy who wasn't supposed to be there, and was completely useless?" Bakugo chuckled as Mina went on in her story. "Ha! Kinda reminds me of Deku!"
"Deku? Who's that?"
"A quirkless nerd back in middle school, he tried to get into UA, failed the entrance exam so hard!"
"Wait." Momo blinked. "He was quirkless but still took the entrance exam?"
"Yea, I know it's hilarious, right!"
"I think it's rather inspiring, actually."
Bakugo visibly paused, and glanced at her before scowling and looking away. "Oh please, I bet that idiot's finally realized he's not Hero material, and is out doing some shitty nerd stuff. He was always good at that shit."
-Rain of Sins-
Izuku paused, his finger hovering a hair's breadth above the enter key as he scanned over his notes.
Files [Kronos] and [Entropy] were fine, but [Rapture] would need a complete overhaul of the Nomu creation process in order to be successful, it'd require alterations beginning much sooner in the base material's life cycle as to change their overall growth patterns.
Of course, in theory this should be simple, just begin operations before the material had left the clone vat, but now that he was actively looking for any information regarding the cloning process in the lab's database, he'd come up empty handed. The reason for this was obvious once he bothered to actually think about it.
Clones were clones for a reason, every one of them should be identical, and yet the bodies used for Nomu production were anything but…
Pity.
[Rapture] needed the pinpoint genetic consistency that cloning facility material would offer him, it couldn't afford any alterations whatsoever.
This just meant he had more work ahead of him.
The scientist "tsk"ed, as he opened a new tab, and brought out another stack of paper, titling the file [Mass Organic Replicators] and starting the scientific process all over again.
-Rain of Sins-
"But Miss! We're already stretched thin as is, we can't do that!"
"I don't care!" Yuyara flung her clipboard at a scientist. "Our schedule's been moved up so our production needs to move up with it!"
"Please, listen, Miss," Another man in a lab coat hesitantly walked over, a fellow low-ranking lab head. "I understand you want results faster, but please, Ujiko should know that this is a delicate process, and rushing it could have unexpected effects."
"Oh, Ujiko knows, but this isn't from Ujiko ." Yuyara hissed, yanking the clipboard from the first man and shoving into the face of the second, causing his face to pale as he read what was on it.
"Orders from above the top, our deadline hasn't just been moved up, it's already fucking here ! Ujiko expanded my authority over every lab in this entire fucking sector to make sure we hit it, while he's off doing the same thing on the other side of the country!"
"So listen up!" Yuyara raised her voice, no longer talking to the scientist, but rather the whole crowd that had gathered around. "If you want to keep your pay, your job, or whatever the fuck else you could lose if we fail the most important order of your life I suggest you all GET TO WORK!"
The mint haired girl panted from her outburst as she watched the scientists scatter back to their stations, before biting her thumbnail through her glove- a nervous habit she had kicked years ago but that had been rearing its head again due to the chaotic situation.
But just as she finished with one situation-
BZZT
-another reared its head.
"WHAT!?" Yuyara snapped as she answered the phone, her stress finally getting to her. "I thought I set everything in order before I left!"
" Y-Yes Maam, but this isn't about that. "
"Huh? Then what the Hell could be so important!?"
" Well, uh, there's a man here with entry level clearance."
"So what? We're too busy, send him away and tell him to come back next week!"
" Alpha level clearance Maam. "
Yuyara froze.
"...Are you sure? You're absolutely certain?"
" Yes Ma'am, everything checks out. We even received an email from user0 confirming it. "
Alpha level clearance, a clearance level higher than even Ujiko's, something that only a single person could give. The same person that used the administrator account "user0" in the rare instances he personally addressed people not in "the know" in Ujiko's science empire.
"...Shit."
-Rain of Sins-
A heavy impact echoed in the dark room as Izuku watched his latest attempt fall apart in the digital simulation. His face was neutral, staring at the screen with dead eyes, the only sign of his flaking temper was the cracks on his desk from his fist.
This was annoying.
It really shouldn't have been pissing him off, considering this was a technology that had eluded scientists for generations and he'd only started on it that morning, but that didn't change the fact that it was pissing him off.
In theory this should be unbelievably simple, human reproduction and early stage growth was a heavily studied and documented field, so much so that everything he could possibly need was literally only a google search away- a child could find the relevant information.
So all he should need to do is re-create the chemical and thermal balance of a womb in a tank, feed proper nutrients and antibodies through a tube of some kind, and bam, clones.
Problem was that it wasn't working .
And he wasn't the only one to run into this, during his recent search for information it turns out that while Yuyara didn't know it, she hadn't been entirely lying to him. Ujiko did have a cloning center, it just had been closed down for the past two years because despite immense funding and being headed by Ujiko himself, they hadn't made a single successful human clone in almost a decade of attempts.
"…why?"
The numbers were solid, the theory was proven correct every time a child was born, the math was right, the technology was good enough to create an environment accurate to a hundredth of a percentage, so WHY.
Why wouldn't it work?
A crash echoed like an explosion in the silence of the room as a metal desk lamp, one of the last throwable things on Izuku's desk, shattered against the wall.
Izuku sat back down into his chair without a sound, his dead-eyed expression unchanging, and turned back towards his computer, archiving his current file and opening a new one. But before he could get started, the door to his office creaked open.
"Leave." Izuku bit out, "I'm busy, can't you read the 'do not disturb' sign on the door?"
"Trust me kid, the quicker I can get out of this sketchy shit hole, the better." An unfamiliar voice chuckled from behind him. "The longer I stick around here the more I feel like I'm about to get dissected or something."
The wooden desk cracked and snapped as Izuku's fist crashed into it. "I said, leave ." Isuku's mask finally cracked into a furious scowl as he abruptly stood up, knocking his cahir over as he whirled around to find-
Red.
The scientist's eyes widened before narrowing dangerously as he identified the man easily through his infamous red scarf.
A battered and chipped combat suit, plated with metal armor across his upper body, and multiple holsters and pockets to hold a myriad of weapons. Long black wristbands, a watch on the left arm, metal knee pads, black steel toed boots. And a signature blood-red scarf and a tattered cloth worn around the face as a makeshift mask.
Stain.
A criminal, a murderer… he wasn't even suprised. And to be honest, he really couldn't care less right now, he had better things to deal with.
Stain raised an eyebrow intrigued by the boy's reaction, he had grown accustomed to dealing with fear, everyone had it when standing face to face with him, from unarmed civilians that saw him fleeing the scene to hardened Heroes that swore to destroy him for the 'good of society'.
He had garnered such a reputation that everyone feared him, the only difference was how good they were at hiding it, and what other emotion they tried to use to mask it.
But where even veteran Heroes had to steel themselves before facing him, all he got here was-
"Get the fuck out of my Lab."
… Interesting.
-End Chapter-
Always thought it was a shame that they didn't use Stain more, he really has good depth that's completely absent from Tomura at the start of the story.
