Chapter Text
The whole class, minus Katsuki, stood on the same steps as yesterday. Only Ashido and Izuku wore their hero costumes. The Katsuki-shaped elephant in the room was making everyone feel a bit out of balance. Mina bounced from heels to tiptoes, while Izuku was about to turn blue from holding back his muttering.
Finally, Aizawa-sensei and Recovery Girl came down the steps.
"Good morning; the exam will start in half an hour. The rules are the same as yesterday. The exam will last 30 minutes. Put handcuffs on your opponents or escape the place, and you pass. Questions?" Sensei lazily addressed the class.
"Are we fighting you, Sensei?" Mina asked excitedly; she really liked how he fought. His flexibility and speed were very close to how she wanted her moves to be. Since she was not the best student, she was hesitant to ask him about his fighting style.
"Not me," he stated simply. Ashido deflated a bit but didn’t lose her peppy attitude. Izuku heard a slight sigh before Sensei continued. "Please come down."
The doors to the building opened behind the teachers. At first, the students saw Present Mic, but he quickly stepped aside to reveal another person.
"Ingenium?!" Izuku’s typical straggled scream echoed through the place.
"Brother! What are you doing here?" Iida’s hand chops were quicker than usual.
"Hey, baby bro!" Iida Tensei stood in front of the class and extended his arms to the sides. "What, I can’t visit my little brother at school?"
"Of course, you can, brother!" Iida looked affronted at the implication before realizing Tensei was messing with him. "That’s not why you’re here." Iida’s annoyance was very similar to his sternness, just louder and firmer.
"You caught me." The hero made a surrender gesture with his hands. "I’m here for this troublemaker." He stood in front of Izuku and reached down to ruffle his hair. He turned to Mina and gave a slight bow. "Ashido-san, it's nice to meet you. This is going to be fun."
"It is not supposed to be fun, Ingenium," Aizawa said with a put-out expression.
"Brother, this is a serious exam and is very important to determine our future as respectable and capable heroes. You have to take this with the utmost respect and care." Iida said his hand chops got even faster.
"I know, I know Tenya. Don't worry. I'm serious." His mocked-serious face wasn’t very convincing.
"You'll go to ground beta on the same bus as yesterday. You’re allowed to plan for these 30 minutes; use them wisely." Sensei addressed the rest of the class next. "We will go to the same viewing room, and use this instance as a learning experience."
"Yes, Sensei!" They all exclaimed in unison.
"I’ll be going on the bus with you, listeners!" Teacher chaperone and all that, ya know?" Mic put his arm around Tensei and leaned down to talk directly to the students.
"Teacher? I don’t see any responsible teachers here." Tensei pretended to look around for another person.
"Hilarious, Lighting McQueen! Let’s go." Mic flicked the hero on the forehead before leading the way to the bus. Mina and Izuku shared quiet laughs at the adults’ antics.
"Sooo, Midoriya. How do you know Iida’s brother?" Mina wasn’t the type to purposely bother their classmates, but she loved light-hearted gossip. Since coming to UA, she has been a bit too busy for it.
"Ah, well…" Izuku started sweating within a second. He wasn’t the best liar, but how could he dance around the truth a little bit? It wasn’t as if he distrusted Ashido. Regardless, the truth was out of the question.
Izuku had met Tensei under unlikely circumstances. After the sports festival, Iida went to his brother’s agency for his internship. He had offered a place to him as well, but in the end, he went to Gran Torino.
Stain had killed another hero recently; his name was Native, if he remembered correctly. Not top of the ranks, but he had been gaining some publicity lately. Izuku had looked him up when he died; he wasn’t the fastest or strongest hero. He constantly took the easy parts of takedowns and never seemed to help out in other ways than the bare minimum. Nevertheless, he didn’t deserve to die. Even less in such a gruesome manner.
The morning before the L.O.V attacked Hosu, Ingenium had been called as a backup for the Stain investigation. It was supposed to only be extra patrolling to deter him from harming heroes in the city. The Nomus was a surprise, but Stain had cornered Ingenium first. Izuku was helping move people out of the Nomu’s path of destruction when he heard a struggle from an alley. It sounded too much like Iida not to check it out.
When he reached the mouth of the dark street, his blood went cold. Tensei was on the ground, unmoving, screaming at Iida to leave. To get help. Izuku reached for his phone and sent his location to all his contacts. He was glad he had set up that safety feature. Before he could approach the hero to check on his injuries, Iida yelled out and fell hard. He managed to catch him inches from the ground; thank God he had figured out how to power up his body. However, he lost his element of surprise; he just hoped someone would see his text.
"Midoriya-kun, what are you doing here?" Iida was extra heavy with his armor, and Izuku wondered if it slowed him down.
"Heard you!" He barely managed to exclaim before Stain lounged for both of them. Izuku jumped back and laid his classmate on the floor. A few feet away from Tensei.
"I have no business with you, kids. Run along and let me cleanse the world from another fake hero." Stain stood in front of them, impossibly tall, a distorted shadow of the monsters you imagined under your bed. His dark shape made his blades shine even brighter.
"I don’t understand what you mean, but I WON’T let you hurt them." Izuku stood his ground in front of Iida and Tensei. Far enough away for them not to be directly in the danger zone.
"Midoriya! Please take Tenya and run. Don’t worry about me. Please save him, please." What started as a desperate shout from Tensei turned into a whispered plea at the end.
"I’m sorry, Ingenium. I can’t do that. I can’t leave you to die. That’s not what heroes do." He hoped his voice was as firm as he tried to make it.
"Making a child save another, you’re even more despicable than I thought ‘hero’" The Killer threw a knife, while speaking, aiming for Tensei’s neck. Izuku jumped in between the weapon and the hero, hoping to catch it. He nicked his finger but stopped it. He barely caught the smirk on Stain’s face.
Many had theorized about his quirk before. A witness who managed to run away shared what he saw on a forum before it was deleted by mods.
-
‘I was hiding behind the dumpsters when he stabbed the hero. He was bleeding but fine, I thought it was going to be over. The hero was going to win. I really thought the nightmare was over when the hero tied his legs with rope and cuffed his hands. The man, the monster, licked the hero’s cheek, and he went down. He didn’t do anything else. He was fine one second and on the floor the next. I took that chance to run. I’m not proud of it, but I didn’t want to die. I still see the hero fall down when I close my eyes…’
The post continued with apologies to the family. Now Izuku puts two and two together. The licking, the knives, the smile. Stain wasn’t aiming for Ingenium; he wanted Izuku to catch it. To bleed.
Both Iida and Ingenium weren’t stabbed in vital places, just ones that bled fast.
"That’s it! That’s it, right? It’s the blood that you need." That had wiped the smirk from his face. "How do you break it? Is it a set of rules? Does the wound have to stop bleeding? A time limit?" At the last question, the killer’s mouth got tight. "A time limit!"
He felt hopeful; he just had to stall Stain until the others could move. He didn’t know how long it would be, but help should be here soon. Even if nobody saw his text, the city was crawling with heroes due to the Nomus’ attack.
"Smart, but you’re still just a kid playing dress-up. This is none of your business. Run, live another day." He was under no impression that the killer couldn’t fight him, he just didn’t want to. He may have been scared, but his legs were steady and his back was straight. He wouldn’t leave them.
"Helping when you’re not called, makes you a true hero," he said, placing his fist in front of him. The defensive position Aizawa-sensei had taught them, the last class.
Both Stain and Izuku had crooked smiles on their faces. Stain’s was wicked, and Izuku’s was trembling.
A blade Izuku hadn’t even seen being thrown cut his cheek, between one blink and the other Stain was inches away from his face. He felt his slimy tongue grace the bottom of his face before he jumped away. He was fast—too fast. Izuku couldn’t let him get close enough again. If he went down, it was game over. He needed to catch him off guard, and just knock him out long enough to restrain him. Gran Torino came to mind immediately. He tried bouncing around and got a few good kicks in before Stain got used to his newfound speed.
Izuku kicked him hard on the jaw and thought he had finally hit him hard enough when he launched for his retreating figure. His sword was out in trajectory toward his stomach.
He shivered at the exact moment a wall of ice manifested between him and the sword.
"Next time, be clearer in your messages. I was almost too late."
Izuku turned to the voice. Relief washed over him. He teared up but quickly recovered and landed softly on his feet.
"I’m so glad you’re here, Todoroki-kun."
They seemed to be able to hold out with both of their powers, but Iida and his brother finally being able to move pushed them over to the winning side. Both brothers attacked Stain from each side. Tensei with a strong punch and Tenya with a powerful kick
They tied him up and took away all the weapons they could find, but still, when they finally met with other heroes outside the alleyway, Stain managed to break free when a flying Nomu snatched Izuku off the ground.
"Fake heroes, criminals who exert their power to cause harm. I’ll purge them all. To create a more just society" After rescuing the boy, he placed him on the ground next to him. "This child is a hero, unlike you. Endeavor" The hero’s name dripping with venom.
Stain’s mere presence stopped the other heroes in their tracks; even Endeavor’s blood ran cold. Looking straight at the number two hero, he spoke firmly.
"You false hero... I'll make this right... These streets... must run with the blood of hypocrites! Hero... I will reclaim that word! Come on, just try and stop me you fakes! There is only one man I'll let kill me! He is a true hero... ALL MIGHT IS WORTHY!!!"
Stain stood frozen in front of the heroes, they later learned his broken rib had punctured his lung. Now he was in Tartarus.
Realizing he got lost in memories, he finally directed his attention to his classmate again. Mina was still staring at him, waiting for an answer.
"We ran into each other at the internship. After the Stain attack, I visited him at the hospital with Iida and Todoroki." He said this while sweating. It was the closest he could get to the truth without lying.
"That was nice of you." She sounded honest but suspicious. She decided to let him off the hook anyway. "What’s the strategy? You punch, I melt." She gestured the actions playfully.
"Actually, since we are both fast and able to fight in close quarters, we should try to overwhelm him from both sides. I notice he is very agile at turning 90 and 360 degrees even at full speed, but he loses a bit of his precision with 180-degree turns. We should jump in and out of his range from different sides. And you can make the ground unstable at his feet." He looked at Mina seriously. His resolve made her confidence in the fight harden.
"We can totally do that. I can also change the viscosity of my acid. I can lower it so it corrodes his suit but shouldn’t completely destroy it, so I don’t harm his skin."
"That’s perfect!"
"We've got this in the bag, Midoriya!" They spend the rest of their time on the bus discussing possible joint attacks and promising each other that in the worst-case scenario where only one could escape, they would take that chance.
They stood at the gates of Ground Beta, Tensei went in first, giving him a five-minute head start.
"Ready partner?" Mina extended her fist out to him.
"Absolutely, you?" He knocked her fist with his with a determined smile.
"More than ever."