Chapter Text
For once, Aizawa wasn’t sleeping when Class 1-A arrived that morning.
“Everyone, sit down.” Aizawa told the class sternly. “There is no time for your usual chatter.”
Mina Ashido immediately rose from her seat, hand high in the air. “Sensei, is this about the visitors on campus?”
Aizawa sighed. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Figures you kids would have already heard about them. Yes, our guests are here for a joint training session for Class 1-A, and later Class 1-B.”
Iida Tenya’s hand shot into the air as well. “Sir, I thought joint training sessions with other schools did not happen until second year!”
Aizawa sighed again. “Yes, that is normally how that goes. However, our guests are… very different from your average hero students. Do you all recall our lesson on underground heroes?”
There were a few mutters, but no one volunteered any information.
“Midoriya.” The teen squeaked when his teacher directed his attention to him.
“Yes, sensei?”
“You write everything in that notebook of yours. Perhaps you could briefly remind the class about undercover heroes?”
“Yes, sensei. May I use the board?”
“Go for it, problem child.”
Midoriya Izuku took the chalk and began scribbling on the board. “There are two kinds of heroes - spotlight and underground. While spotlight works for popularity and with the media, undercover heroes work in secret in back alleys and infiltrate enemy operations. Undercover heroes are not generally known by the masses, such as Eraser-”
“Briefly, Midoriya.”
Midoriya’s ears turned pink. “R-right. There are three main types of undercover heroes - vigilante-like, undercover, and assassins. The vigilante-like heroes stop smaller crimes, like mugging and murder, while undercover heroes inflitrate villain groups, such as gangs and the yakuza. Assassins also infiltrate villain operations, but their goal, instead of dismantling the operation, is to kill one or more of the operatives in discrete ways. They are usually under the orders of the government.”
“That’ll do, Midoriya.”
Midoriya bowed and went back to his seat.
“Our guests are specially trained for the last type of underground hero. You are going to be their victims for this assignment. HOWEVER,” Aizawa raised his voice to be heard over the sudden cacophony of noise. “You will not be in any more danger than our usual training exercises.”
“This really doesn’t seem all that wise.” Yaoyorozu said.
Aizawa shrugged. “Our guests need to test their methods on people with unknown abilities, as do you, with your hero-ing. With any luck, some of you may come out of this more prepared for the future.”
Knock knock.
Aizawa approached the door. “Remember, behave yourselves.”
He opened the door to reveal a large, yellow, tentacled… octopus?
“Ah, Shouta, it is a pleasure to see you again.”
“Likewise, Korosensei. How many have you brought with you this time?”
“Just the two.” Korosensei pushed two teens forward, one redhead and one blue-haired. “They hold a lot of promise.”
A small gasp of “Pretty girl!” was heard from Mineta.
“Thank you for having us.” The blue-haired teen bowed to Aizawa and the class. The redhead followed suit. “I am Shiota Nagisa. Please call me Nagisa.”
There was a beat of silence.
“Oh, I guess it’s my turn now, huh?” The redhead groaned. “Akabane Karma, call me Karma.”
“Isn’t it a bit weird they both want to go by their first names?” Kaminari whispered to Sero. But when he turned back to the front of the classroom, he was shocked by the redhead being suddenly in his face.
“You think it’s weird, huh?” Karma hummed, an eerie grin on his face. “I don’t know if you’ve ever heard, but some people just prefer to be called by their first names.”
“Karma, don’t harass the students. They aren’t used to your particular brand of humor yet.” Korosensei called.
“Aw, I was just having some fun,” Karma said, walking back to the front of the class.
Nagisa was standing in front of the blackboard, eyes scanning the detailed writing. “Who wrote this?” he mumbled to himself. “It reads like a journal entry. Someone writes a lot…”
Korosensei (who, of course, heard Nagisa’s mutterings) smiled. “Well, we should probably head down to the arena. See you there!”
And the trio were gone, with nothing left but a strong gust of wind and an open window.
“I suggest you all go put on your hero costumes. Meet me in the gym. Dismissed.” Aizawa left the classroom.
By the time the class had changed and made it to the gym, Karma and Nagisa had gotten bored. They knew it was a large campus, and they were a lot faster than most people, but they were still used to crowded schedules and constant motion.
Korosensei made a note of that in his teacher notes.
Anyway, Class 1-A was greeted with the sight of the two students fighting it out, hand-to-hand. It was swift, flash flash flash, but Karma managed to knock Nagisa off his feet. Quick as a whip, Nagisa flipped Karma overhead onto his back, so their heads were laying next to each other. Korosensei blew a whistle, and the two teens sagged, laying panting beside each other.
“Whoa,” Someone said.
“Your attention, please!” Korosensei said. The two assassins-in-training got up and made their way over to the rest.
“Now, today’s schedule is going to be very full. We must make the most of our time, after all!” Korosensei began.
“We have one group activity and two sparring matches lined up.” Aizawa said. “We will be doing the group activity first, which will be 1-A vs. E Class.”
“Sensei, I must protest!” Iida spoke up. “Twenty on two hardly seems fair, sir.”
“Trust us, it’s plenty fair.” Korosensei grinned mischievously.
Class 1-A felt a sense of doom descend upon them.
“I am going to hand out cards.” Aizawa said, beginning to pass them out. “If your card has a bulls-eye pattern, you are the target. All of the rest are blank. If your card gets taken, you are ‘dead’. Protect your cards, but the objective is to protect the target. This kind of situation happens more often than you would think, so use this practice wisely.”
“Each team has five minutes to prepare.” Korosensei continued. “Remember, do not underestimate your opponents. Let’s try to have no life-threatening injuries.”
Class 1-A gathered in a bunch, and the two visiting students disappeared to the other side of the gym.
“Let me go, Shitty Hair!” Bakugou growled. “I’ll take them on all by myself, and the rest of you extras stay out of my way!”
“Bakubro, you can’t do that.” Kirishima said. “We were told not to underestimate them, remember?”
“Actually, Kacchan, that may be one of our best moves,” Midoriya muttered.
“Deku, you really have a plan already?” Uraraka asked, surprised.
“Kind of,” Midoriya shrugged. “Those two don’t look like much, but we need to remember that they are training to be assassins. Everyone saw their spar earlier, right? They are fast. We don’t have a lot of fast team mates, just Iida-kun and Kacchan, and myself. But we have a lot of heavy hitters… I’m missing something. Oh yeah, who’s the target?”
Kaminari winced and held up his paper.
“Don’t fry yourself unless they get close. Remember, they don’t know our quirks, so we have some surprises on our side, but we don’t know theirs either. Now, I think their strategy is going to be a diversion and a surprise attack, so Jirou-san, Shouji-san, could you keep an eye out for any ambushes?”
“Sure.”
“Todoroki-san, you’ll need to freeze the floor, so Yaoyorozu-san, if you could give everyone ice-skates, that would be helpful. Kacchan, Iida-kun, try to slow them down however you can. Everyone else, be ready for anything else they may throw at us. We may-”
“Begin!” Aizawa called. The two visitors immediately ran forward. 1-A instinctively fell into defensive stances.
“Hide your cards!” Midoriya yelled.
The redhead - Karma - grinned at the defensive class. A knife flicked out of seemingly nowhere, but Yaoyorozu noticed the tell-tale glitter on his forearm.
“His quirk’s like mine!” She yelled.
“Remember the Sports Festival!” Midoriya called. “Reaction time is everything against materialization quirks!”
Bakugou screamed and pounced on the redhead. Karma twisted Bakugou through the air, trying to force him on his back, but Bakugou let loose an explosion in Karma’s face. He landed deftly on his feet.
“You’re going to have to try harder than that to knock me off my feet!” Bakugou snarled.
“Explosions, huh?” Karma sounded curious, and a tad bit excited. “Hm…”
“Are you ignoring me??”
Karma opened his hand and a grenade popped into his hand. He pulled the cord and tossed it at Bakugou’s feet. Just as a smoke screen erupted into existence, Iida crashed into Karma, pinning him to the ground with all his strength.
Todoroki stepped forward to freeze Karma in place, but… something was bugging him…
“Where’s the blue guy?” Mina asked.
“Wait- where’s Midoriya??”
Meanwhile, on the sidelines, Aizawa was facepalming for some reason.
Karma managed to escape from Iida before Todoroki could freeze him. With a blaze of light, he was dual-wielding AK-47s and releasing a wave of bullets on the students.
There were shrieks and screams, students ducking to the ground, arms and legs flailing as they scrambled to do something, anything. A glimpse of Aizawa starting forward, a shocked and furious expression on his face, before Korosensei stopped him with a single tentacle.
The gunfire suddenly ceased, and Karma dropped his guns to the ground. Just before they hit, they dissolved into ash. With all the calm of a satisfied predator, Karma easily began collecting cards, ripping them in half as he went.
Soon enough, the students began stirring.
“Rubber bullets.” Karma explained. “Not enough to kill, but they hurt like a bitc-”
Kirishima reared up as Karma reached for Kaminari’s card. He was in his Unbreakable state.
“That was totally unmanly!” He roared, batting away Karma’s hands. “We totally thought we were gonna die!”
“Interesting quirk,” Karma mused. “Total defense, but you’re mobile. Seems like you’ve got Korosensei beat in that department!”
Kaminari lashed forward and flattened his palm across Karma’s chest. There was a sharp bolt of light, and Karma fell to the ground, unconscious.
A blur of blue fell to the ground, landing directly on top of Kaminari. The blue-haired teen, Nagisa, quickly found Kaminari’s card and ripped it.
“Game over, right Korosensei?” Nagisa asked.
Korosensei’s face lit up with a red circle. “Correct, Nagisa. Splendid performance!”
“Thank you, sir.” Nagisa smiled. He looked down at the blond groaning beneath him. “Are you alright?”
“Fine.” Kaminari gasped. “That really hurt.”
“Sorry,” Nagisa grinned sheepishly. His gaze flicked over to his fallen friend. “What did you do to Karma?”
“Don’t worry, he’s just knocked out. 400 volts isn’t enough to kill someone.”
“Hey!”
Everyone looked up to see Midoriya waving down at them from the rafters. “Can someone help me down?”
“Coming!” Uraraka called back. “One moment!”
Korosensei pulled away his two pupils, tentacles waving excitedly as he went over his criticisms and praise. Aizawa turned and faced his own class. Uraraka and Midoriya landed neatly on the ground with the rest of the class.
“What could you have done better?”
The class collectively winced.
“Remembered to look up.”
“Not gotten distracted by other fights.”
“Not lost our best strategist.”
“You are perfectly capable of making your own plans.” Aizawa scoffed. “Midoriya is a great strategist, but do not rely on him. And so, Midoriya, you are banned from making plans for the others for the next few lessons.”
“...Yes sir.”
“Aizawa-sensei, I have a question.” Jirou said. “We - Shouji and I - were listening for Nagisa, but we couldn’t find him anywhere. There wasn’t even a heartbeat.”
“Yes, I suppose I should explain those two’s quirks now.” Aizawa said. He flicked through some papers. “So first, Shiota Nagisa. His quirk is called Absolute Silence. You would never be able to hear him make a sound, besides speaking. His footsteps, his clothing, even his heartbeat makes no sound.”
Midoriya’s eyes lit up like he understood something.
“Akabane Karma’s quirk is called Arsenal. He can, like Yaoyorozu, create anything he can imagine, as long as he has the intention of using it as a weapon. However, instead of using proteins in his body, the weapon will dissolve eventually. The larger it is, the sooner it will dissolve.”
Aizawa shut his papers and looked at the class. “You all did exceptionally well against such high-level assassins. Korosensei starts training them from junior high, so they already have at least a year on you. Normally, I’d be disappointed by the lack of everyone’s participation, but you came up with a plan you tried to follow through. Next time, please remember that plans will always, always, go sideways in some way or another, and be prepared for that.”
“Yes sensei.” The class chorused.
Aizawa grinned. “For the sparring matches, Korosensei has picked out two of you to fight Karma and Nagisa. All you are trying to do is incapacitate them. They will fight until they deal what would be considered a killing blow.”
“Who is fighting, Aizawa-sensei?” Someone asked.
“Yaoyorozu is fighting Karma, and Mineta is fighting Nagisa.” Aizawa said. “Everyone else go change back into your normal clothes. Yaoyorozu, Mineta, start planning your strategy against your opponent. They do not know your quirks."
The rest of the class shuffled off.
“Wow!” Mineta drooled. “I get to fight the girl!”
Yaoyorozu stepped sideways away from the tiny pervert. She opened her mouth to correct the grape on Nagisa’s gender, but she caught eyes with the blue-haired assassin, who shook his head minisculely. Yaoyorozu stayed quiet.
Now, what could she fight Karma with? What was the best first move? A shield sounded good, but she didn’t want to waste precious time.
What were her advantages? Karma’s weapons dissolved after some time. Hers did not. Karma didn’t know her quirk’s specifics (because he DEFINITELY heard her shout earlier) but she knew his. She needed to stop him from using his weapons...
Ah, that was it!
Aizawa waved the two teens to stand in the arena. Glancing up, Yaoyorozu could see Class 1-A up in the second floor viewing area.
“I have to ask, how much conditioner do you use in your hair?” Karma asked.
“What?”
“Begin!” The teachers called.
Karma immediately surged forward. Yaoyorozu’s eyes widened, a little thrown off by his question. Karma created a rubber knife and slashed toward her throat; Yaoyorozu just barely managed to lurch backward. Karma followed after her.
She quickly created a rope, managing to catch his next attack. She quickly wrapped the rope a few times around his wrist and used the rope to pull his knife hand away.
Karma smirked, dropping the knife and catching it with his other hand. Yaoyorozu blocked his next attack with the rope. But Karma was ready this time, harshly pushing down against her block.
Luckily, hero training makes one pretty strong. Yaoyorozu could easily match Karma’s strength. Karma snarled, then swiped Yaoyorozu’s legs out from under her. She gasped as she hit the ground, Karma coming crashing down on top of her. He was still tied up in her rope.
Yaoyorozu gained her bearings faster than Karma did - clearly he wasn’t expecting to fall down as well. She flipped their positions-
Karma continued rolling with the momentum and flipped them again. Yaoyorozu attempted to kick him off, but the redhead just winced.
Yaoyorozu took the opportunity to wrap up his other hand. Karma growled and twisted the rubber knife in his hand, attempting to stab Yaoyorozu’s head. Unfortunately for him, the rope stopped him from “finishing” Yaoyorozu off.
She twisted her arm, trying to use a disarming move Uraraka showed her. Karma attempted to counter, but the pseudo-knife clattered to the floor. Yaoyorozu wrapped her legs around Karma’s own and flipped them over again.
Karma hissed and tried to shove her off of him, but he was thoroughly pinned in place. Yaoyorozu looked up at the two teachers, waiting for approval.
Korosensei blew his whistle, signaling the end of the match. Karma stopped struggling with a defeated sigh.
Yaoyorozu untangled the rope from Karma’s hands and moved so he could stand. Karma stood, scowling, while they waited for their teachers’ reviews.
“Oh, yes, what a wonderful match!” Korosensei said. “Such similar quirks, I just had to see how you two would handle such a match-up!”
“You both handled the challenge to the best of your abilities. However, Karma, I would suggest creating a flash-bang or something of the sort should you ever end up in a position like that again.” Aizawa said. “Yaoyorozu, the rope was not a bad idea, but had Karma had an actual knife, he could have easily escaped. I recommend you find a stronger material and/or a different tactic.”
“Sir, if you don’t mind, may I see the chemical make-up of your capture weapon?” Yaoyorozu asked. “For the future.”
Aizawa grunted. “I will see if it can be arranged.”
“I must say, a rope is an interesting choice of weapon!” Korosensei praised. “Why did you choose that?”
“Our goal was to incapacitate,” Yaoyorozu replied. “It was the first thing that came to mind in the short time we had to prepare. It was simple enough to make without needing to think and it’s very strong.”
“Irritating, too.” Karma muttered, rubbing at his wrists. Yaoyorozu created some soothing lotion and handed it to him.
“Take some time for self-reflection. You are free to go join the rest of the class upstairs.” Aizawa dismissed them.
The two walked away, passing Mineta, who was quaking in his boots.
Karma awkwardly followed Yaoyorozu into the observatory. He suddenly felt like a chicken in a fox den. All of his senses were in high alert - this was a place he did not belong.
“Dude! That was totally manly!” Kirishima cheered.
“Where did you learn to fight like that? Wait, you have a teacher-”
“Can you show us your quirk?”
Uraraka pushed her way to the front. “You have got to show me how to flip your opponent like that!”
Karma almost took a step back at the sheer enthusiasm of Class 1-A.
“Everyone, give him some space!” Yaoyorozu spoke up. “Plus, Mineta’s about to fight Nagisa.”
“Oh yeah!” The class scrambled to have a good spot to view.
Yaoyorozu easily claimed a spot at the window. Karma stood next to her.
“He’s going to get his ass kicked by Nagisa, you know.” he said.
Yaoyorozu smiled. “I’m counting on it.”