Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

My name is Wazawa Sotoki, and I will change the world.

It isn’t some arrogant boast, nor an oath I have sworn. It isn’t a wish of mine, and it isn’t a duty thrust upon me. It is simply the truth. Ever since I awoke my power — my quirk — my fate was sealed, though I did not know it at the time. For good or for bad, the world will change as a result of my existence.

When I first awoke to my quirk when I was 3 years old, I thought nothing of the strange feeling I got looking at certain things. I merely thought it was cool how I could open up holes and gain extra appendages on my body. Things like the year, news of heroes, or even just the word quirk evoked a odd feeling of unease. I also never paid much mind to the way my thoughts changed whenever I used my quirk.

I would go over a decade shrugging these oddities as nothing important, until one fateful day when, fuelled by the stupidity of puberty, more than just a tendril emerged from my powers.

~X~

“Ahh, why is there nothing to do in this backwater town?” I complained. I’m sure that city kids could do so much more when on break, while I could only walk around a small rural town that I had already fully explored years ago.

Being 14 really sucked here. I was too old to entertain myself at a park like the preschoolers did, but I was too young to start working. And god, doesn’t that sound weird? A teenager wanting to work because he had nothing to do during summer break.

I couldn’t even rely on my usual pass-time of browsing the internet and posting rants on various forums, because someone had caused damage using their earth-manipulation quirk and broke the internet lines. So until the service provider could get around to sending someone out to the boonies to repair it, I was stuck with no internet and nothing to do.

What do people who don’t spend much time online do? I glanced over at the squealing I heard to see a bunch of little kids messing around in the park. One had a mutation quirk that gave him wings and was hovering chasing after his friends. Heh, reminds me of better times. When I first got my quirk, no one could stop me from using it to swing from anything I could wrap around.

Huh, that might be fun, actually. I could go into the forest and test how well I did now compared to my younger self. I never found any drawbacks to overusing it either, come to think of it. I mean, I could have a quirk with amazing potential that I never fully realised until now! Then I could become a hero and move out of this dull place.

I went about ten minutes into the forest at the edge of civilisation and ran a finger down my bicep. With instinctive ease, a dark slit appeared where my finger ran, before it expanded to roughly the width of my hand, revealing a black void. Within less than a second a tentacle over a meter long erupted out the hole, pitch black. It kind of reminded me of those pictures of vantablack, a substance dark enough that it doesn’t look real. Despite knowing my tentacle was three dimensional, it was hard to tell it was so dark.

I wrapped the appendage around a low hanging branch that looked sturdy enough and ran, swinging myself upwards with my momentum. Finally some form of excitement! At the apex of my swing, I opened another hole on my opposite forearm and wrapped that tendril around a different tree, continuing my swing even further. I kept swinging, wind sweeping through my silver-blue hair. I nearly crashed into a tree that had partially fallen, but managed to use two tentacles to grab on to a tree on either side of me, bringing me to an abrupt halt and winding me.

I dropped back to the ground, catching my breath, and decided to try something new with my quirk. I know that I can use it to swing from tree to tree, but what about lifting? Every kid dreams of becoming a hero at least once in their life, and rescuing is an important part of hero work. I wonder how much I can lift with just my quirk? And lucky me, I have a very heavy object in front of me that was partially collapsed.

I sent out an average sized tendril, this one almost 3 meters long, and wrapped it around the middle of the trunk. I tried lifting but to no avail. How about two then. The second joined the first and began to make some progress. Sweat began to drip down the side of my face and I strained with concentration.

The tree began to groan as it broke under the pressure of my tentacles. That was no good, I needed to be able to lift debris without it breaking. I sent out another ‘arm’ and supported the upper part of the trunk. When I was younger, I could only send out three tentacles at a time, but now it seemed I could do so much more. The tree was still was cracking under the pressure. I began to feel an odd sensation in the back of my head. Another one to support the third. The trunk was stable now, but to fully lift the tree, more power was needed.

We sent out another two of our limbs, wrapping around the bottom of the object. 6 gates were now open on our body, more than we had ever needed before. Our physical muscles began to quiver from the focus we were putting into our task. With a almighty groan, the plant was fully uprooted and held aloft purely by the strength of six of our arms.

Since we already had an object in our grasp, we should probably test the grip strength of our black arms. It was a relatively simple affair, just applying more pressure on the limbs that held the once-planted tree. The wood began to groan as it was slowly crushed under the sheer pressure our limbs could exert. And then, with a pop, it shattered.

Time seemed to slow down. We had not considered how close our physical form was to the tree. A sharp chunk flew towards our eye, the size of a small rodent. We had to protect ourselves. The foreign arms couldn’t move fast enough. The physical limbs were too weak to stop it.

We opened a gate over our face.

The seventh gate opened.

The world went dark.

~X~

I drifted through the empty nothingness, unable to move my body. Or more precisely, having nothing to move. I was in a world where nothing existed. Until it did. With a burst of light, the world became more than just the black void it once was, now filled with limitless potential. The light spread out, and eventually more than just light began to form. Small specks flew at nigh-impossible speeds and collided with each other, release a smaller blast of light. More and more started to appear, before they eventually slowed and clumped together.

At first, they were just balls of light, but eventually other objects began to form. I watched as massive balls formed, burnt, and exploded, and from their remains more matter began to form.

I looked back to where I started — where the light first appeared — and saw the endless darkness waiting in its centre. It was the centre point of this world, and also every at the same time. It reached out to me with its abyss-like limbs, not just dark, but devoid of anything at all, like the world it once inhabited. The tendril touched my head and I knew.

I knew how my world once was, and what it will become. I knew of people I had never known, of people I could never have met, and events long lost to time. I knew what the world was like before quirks, and how it should have gone had they never appeared.

I most importantly, I knew something that would shake the most rational of academics. A fear long possessed but dismissed due to its impossibility. I knew that my world was nothing more than the thoughts of a person put to paper.

~X~

My eyes shot open. I was stood in an unfamiliar environment. It looked like a war zone, the ground cut in deep troughs as if shot by a cannon, trees upturned and shattered. It took me a good minute to realise I hadn’t moved at all from when I fell unconscious. This was just the destruction I had caused.

And then I remembered the… dream? vision? I had. Already the details were beginning to slip, but the most important thing remained. Whatever that thing I saw was, it somehow gave me some vague memories from another person. A person who had lived in the 21st century, nearly 200 years ago. Someone who lived in a world without quirks, but vaguely knew about them.

My Hero Academia. That’s what the series was called. A world that seemed to perfectly match up to my own world. One that by what I could tell, was going to get a lot worse. Too bad the guy I got my memories from barely watched or read the series at all, so I have no clue what was in store for the future.

Well, I did say I was bored. I looked around at the destruction I had caused while out. I struggled to clearly remember what exactly happened after the fourth hole I opened, it was a bit foggy, but I knew that I had a total of seven before falling unconscious. That was the limit I could do safely. Probably shouldn’t use that many around other people though.

I let out a low whistle. “That’s quite some damage, though. Complete devastation in a what? 10 meter radius? If I can figure out how to control that I could be a great hero.”

Ah, yes. I probably should become a hero. I knew that UA would be the place to be, assuming I wasn’t massively before the… story. It feels weird calling it that. But anyway, UA. Even if I was early, UA was nationally known as the most prestigious hero academy. The education I could get there was top-notch.

Hm, though the entrance exam might be a bit tough. I needed to prepare mind, body, and quirk to make it in. I was pretty confident in my brain. Not to brag, but I believed myself to be quite intelligent. Probably best to study just to be sure. And my quirk just needed more testing like I did today to get me used to using it in an active situation — probably not as destructive though. And then came body. I looked down at my lanky and stick thin arms and sighed.

Well, no pain no gain. I began to jog back into town. It was going to be a long six months, but if I could help prevent the damage that was coming in the future it would be worth it.

Chapter Text

“Out for your morning run again dear?” Mrs. Fujiwara, the old lady who used to teach at my elementary school asked.

I paused my jogging, hopping from foot to foot in place. “Y-yes,” I panted out. I had been doing this for three days now, getting up at 5:30 in the morning and jogging around town as long as I could to build up stamina. Needless to say, I still sucked.

“Keep it up dearie, don’t stop until you’ve reached your goal,” she smiled before turning back to watering her flowers. I gave a slight bow — more of a nod due to me still running on the spot — before continuing on. One more lap around the block and then I’ll take a break.

I came to a stop outside my house and began some post-workout stretches. We still didn’t have internet so I wasn’t entirely sure what I was doing, just stretching whatever muscles felt like they needed it while I cooled down.

I headed inside to grab some more food having only eaten a small amount before running. Then I went up to my room to study. Again, no internet so I was still limited in breadth, but I could still revise over the first semester’s work as well as studying some books I could get from the local library. The selection was very limited, but I found a pretty worn out book on how hero society functions. It was quite interesting from what I’d read so far, detailing the role of Hero Public Safety Commission as well as individual agencies and the variety of jobs they can perform. All information I needed to know if I was to become a hero in just two years time.

When I finally got internet access, I was definitely going to find out what the written portion of UA’s entrance exam would entail. Would it test basic school subjects, or include some reasoning and ethics? I mean, I would base it more on the ability to analyse a situation and make the correct choices to ensure all students who pass would have the mental qualities needed to be a hero, but I could also see the benefit of the other way around. I knew how UA had a general education course, one that could take students who failed the practical portion of the hero exam, so just testing core subjects to a high level would keep the gen ed students at the level required for a prestigious institution.

Got a bit off track there. At the very least, it would be good for me to brush up on all academic areas even if it wouldn’t be needed for the entrance exam. If I could breeze through the next 18 months at school, I’d have much more time to physically improve.

‘Speaking of which,’ I thought, looking at my clock, ‘time to head out.’

I ate some lunch and put my runners back on and headed out to the shed at the side of our house. I grabbed what I needed and awkwardly tried to jog out to the forest I initially trained in.

One benefit of the utter destruction I had caused when I lost control was that there was now a clearing I could train in, once I spent a few days patching the scars I carved into the earth. Another was a fallen tree that hadn’t been completely pulverised.

I hefted the axe I took from the shed and began lining up against the trunk. ‘Where’s a good starting point? 1 meter?’ I lined myself up, lifted the tool above my head and came swinging down. Luckily, I hit the tree, albeit a bit off centre and at a slight angle. But it still went in a good third of the way. I placed my foot next to it, struggling to pull it out, before readying my next swing.

It took another five swings to cut all the way through; a decent number of those missed my original spot. In the end, I was left with a log roughly the width of my waist and a bit under a meter long. A good starting point for my training.

I wiped my hands on my shorts and tried to lift the log. For whatever reason, I always think wood is lighter than it actually is. Thankfully the trees in this forest were fairly light in terms of wood, but it was still a massive undertaking to lift such a small part of a larger whole.

I finally raised the log above my head, arms fully extended, face red and dripping with sweat. And then I threw it as hard as I could. It only went a short distance away before rolling to a stop. I took a deep breath and walked towards it to lift it again.

It was going to be a long half-year and a bit.

~X~

I followed that schedule for the rest of the summer break, oftentimes forgoing the log lifts for other training to give those muscles a rest. Sometimes I would just run back and forth across the clearing at a full sprint until I collapsed, other times I would use some other pieces of wood I cut and try and jump on top of them from a standstill, going as high as I could. And of course, I would practice with my quirk. I didn’t manage to come up with any new applications for it, but I spent time improving what I already had — swinging, crushing, grabbing, et cetera.

By the end of August, my progress was noticeable. Where I once struggled to lift the log a single time, I could now heft it with only a slight strain and then throw it a good 5 meters. I knew my progress was going to slow down significantly now that school was starting back up again, but at this rate I wouldn’t be surprised if I could defeat some basic criminals without quirk use.

~X~

“Heading to school, are we?” Mrs. Fujiwara greeted.

“Ah! Yes,” I nodded and continued jogging. Just because school had started back up and I needed to cut back on the exercise a bit, doesn’t mean I couldn’t get in my time running during transit.

I kept going, and passed by the school three times before it was late enough for me to show up. Even then, most morning clubs were still deep into practice. I wandered over to the running track to watch my peers.

Honestly, they almost seemed normal to me now. Who knew that a month and a half of rigorous training would make the ones whose motivation once astonished me seem regular.

~X~

“Shit man, have you been working out?” Kaiji, one of my few friends — and also amusingly one of the people who I used to envy for being so motivated — asked during recess.

“Yeah, decided I should get into shape.”

“Cool, cool. Hey maybe you should join the judo club next year!”

Of course. He’d been trying to get me to join for ages now, especially since he’ll likely be the club’s captain. Although… I was starting to build up strength, but I needed to know how to utilise it….

“Yeah, sure,” I shrugged.

“Hey, don’t diss it before you try it. You never know, you might like… wait what?”

“Yeah, sure,” I repeated.

He eyed me suspiciously. “Who are you and what did you do to my friend? The real Sotoki would never agree to do anything physical.”

“You wound me Mitoma-san,” I drawled, deadpan.

“Ouch, so formal,” he winced. “But really, this is odd for you. First getting in shape, then agreeing to a physical activity? What caused this change?”

I made a show of pondering about it. “Oh, you know, studies showing a healthy amount of exercise leads to a more satisfying life, wanting to mix things up a bit…” I waited until he started to take a drink, nodding along. “Also I’m planning on applying to UA.”

The room went quiet. Kaiji’s mouth hung open, which wasn’t a good idea considering he was still pouring orange juice into it. Everyone within earshot seemed to be staring. A few moments passed, until:

“Mitoma! Close your damn mouth, you’re spilling juice everywhere!” a teacher barked out.

Kaiji jerked out of his stupor. Unfortunately for him, he also breathed in at that moment and inhaled a mouth full of liquid. He slumped forwards coughing while some nearby students tried not to laugh too hard.

The rest of the room, however, seemed to erupt in quiet conversation, no doubt talking about me. A small town like this rarely had any hero action at all, and not many students ever moved far away. In fact, just two years ago everyone was talking about… some guy who’s name I forgot who got into a fairly high up high school in Tokyo focusing around business management. Declaring that I was planning on applying for one of the most prestigious schools in the country definitely counted as news as far as this middle school went.

Kaiji seemed to recover a bit, tears in his eyes from coughing. “R-really? UA? One of the hardest schools to get in to? That UA?”
I nodded. “That one.”

“Jesus. Don’t you know their general course has some of the highest entry requirements in the country?”

I hummed, putting a finger against my chin and looking up slightly. “I suppose it’s good then that I’m going for the Hero course.”

Kaiji just stared. And stared. And stared.

And then he slammed his face down into the desk with a groan.

“You’re pranking me. This is all just a prank. You got me, jokes over,” he mumbled, voice muffled by the wood.

I picked a bit at his abandoned food. “Nope, I’m serious.”

He looked up at me with a glare. “When have you ever been assertive in what you plan to do?”

“Hey, I always do what I say I will,” I sniff.

“Yeah, you do,” Kaiji agreed, “you just don’t say you’ll do anything. Like every year when I invite you over for my birthday, it’s always “I might show up.” Or when I ask you to hand something over, it’s “I could.” You never say anything like, oh I don’t know, that you’re applying to become a hero! There’s a reason we called you ‘Can’t do Sotoki.’”

“You never know, I might have had a change of heart and underwent a character development arc where I learnt to be more decisive and be there for the people around me,” I argued.

“In two months?”

“Yes.”

Kaiji flicked a grain of rice at me and rolled his eyes. “So… can I see where you’ve been training?”

“Eh. If I feel like it.”

~X~

In the end, I relented to Kaiji’s whining — he called it persuading, but it was whining — and led him to my self-made clearing.

He let out a low whistle. “Damn, how did you find this place? I thought I would have at least seen this place with how often I went out here as a kid.”

“You probably did at some point. I may have had an… accident when using my quirk — and don’t even think about making that joke,” I glared as a shit-eating grin began to form on his face.

“Fiiine, take all my fun away,” he grumbled. “But what do you mean by ‘accident?’”

“Well you know how most quirks have a drawback that either prevents over use or counteracts their benefits?” He nodded, knowing well from his own experience. Kaiji’s quirk  was a mutation quirk that allowed his bones to split apart and move around inside his body. It was quite the annoyance when we were kids and he could slip out any time anyone tried grabbing him; it’s hard to keep a hold of someones arm when they can twist it into knots.

However, because his bones are designed to split easily, he can’t brace against impacts well. One time he got into a fight with a kid older than us and a single punch was able to knock him back nearly two feet as his shins broke apart as he was forced back.

“Well what drawback does my quirk have?” I asked him.

“The fact that you talk weird once you bring enough tentacles out?”

I blinked. “Huh? Weird how?”

“Really? You don’t remember? Whenever we played together as kids, once you brought out two or three tentacles you would stop using peoples names and start referring to everyone by titles. Like, you usually called me ‘One With Segmented Bones.’”

“Huh, don’t remember that at all. Anyways, my point is, when I was testing the limits of my quirk I used more than I had before. My memory becomes fuzzy after four and becomes more vague the more I brought out. But once I released a seventh, I fell unconscious and found the area around me like this, just more of a dump.”

“Cool, cool. Hey, have you been lifting these logs?” he asked, pointing at my stack.

“Yeah, among other things. I also rotate between sprints, pull-ups, quirk training, and jumping.”

“You’re really serious about this, aren’t you? Becoming a hero? I mean, good for you and all, but why?” he leaned against a log.

I shrugged. “Why not?”

He levelled a flat stare at me. “I’m serious here. For you of all people to suddenly wish to become a hero is really weird. I already mentioned your… wishy-washy personality, but being a hero also means dealing with other people, you know?”

I sighed. He wasn’t going to let this go. “I know I have to deal with others. And I still can’t stop the feelings of hate I feel whenever I look at them, but this is something I have to do.”

“Why do you have to!” he yelled. “You’re really worrying me here, just dodging why you suddenly want to help others, when you’ve always wished they didn’t exist.”

There was no way out of this. I had to really tell him. “You know what my parents’ quirk are right?”

He nodded. “Yeah, your mum can create small portals to somewhere in eyesight and your dad can phase his arms through himself, right?”

He was close enough considering how sparingly they used their quirks when around him. My mother could make a portal slightly larger than her hand to somewhere else nearby, no further than the other side of a room, while my dad could push a part of his body into himself and have it come out somewhere else, like pushing his hand through his chast and having it come out of his earlobe.

“Yeah, well where does my quirk relate to either of those? I can sprout tentacles on my body, according to the specialists.”

“I mean, I can kinda see a similarity to your dads? Maybe the tentacles come from a extended family member?”

I hummed. “That’s what I thought initially too, but now I’m not so sure. When I had that accident, I had a weird vision. I can barely remember it anymore, but I realised something.”

Kaiji had begun to lean forwards. “What is it?”

I sucked in a breath. It wasn’t the full truth — I wasn’t even sure what that was anymore — but it was enough. “At some time, somehow, something big is going to happen around UA, and it’s going to destroy hero society as we know it.”

Chapter Text

Kaiji didn’t take that news too well, at first. In hindsight, telling your friend that you believe the world will end in a few years’ time in full seriousness is a source of concern. After a good while calming him down and explaining why I thought as such — something that was somehow more difficult than placating him — he seemed resolute.

“So how are we going to fix this?” he asked.

“We?” I raised my brow.

“Well, yeah. Of course, I’m gonna help however I can. I mean, we’re currently the only two people who know about this, right?”

He brought up a good point. How was I going to stop something that I have no idea when, where, or how it will happen? The only thing I could really tell was that UA would be involved, if I were to base the future events off of a story structure. And based on the name “My Hero Academia” I could assume the events would take place entirely within high-school years — maybe even just one year.

But in terms of how society was going to fall, I had no clue. Mass destruction, revolution, exposing government corruption, alien invasion, World War IV… all possible causes, maybe even multiple of those. So, I really only partially knew where, and a maybe on when.

“For starters, I’m going to need to become a student at UA,” I reaffirmed.

“Right. I’m guessing that’s so you can be in a position to stop whatever threat is around there.” I nodded. “What’s the backup plan, then? What’re you going to do if you fail to get in?”

I gave him a flat stare. “I won’t fail, simple as that.”

“I’m serious here!” Kaiji yelled, eyebrow twitching.

I sighed. “So am I. I won’t allow myself to fail, no matter what happens on the day.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. He held that pose for a good thirty seconds before opening his eyes again. “All right, then I guess my part in this will be making sure you’re up to snuff before then.”

~X~

From that day forth, Kaiji joined me whenever he could for my training. As a veteran active person, as I liked to call him, he knew of ways to improve my current exercises as well as some new ones to cover the muscles I had unknowingly been neglecting.

When we weren’t training or studying — or more accurately, when I wasn’t studying, Kaiji never joined me for that aspect — we discussed my future as a hero. Whilst my primary motivation was preventing societal collapse, I would still need a career afterwards, and being trained as a hero kind of left a fairly obvious choice as to what that career would be.

Also, I think that being a hero would be really cool.

“Well given your quirk, I think you could work underground or publicly, though you would be one of those creepy pro’s that only have edgelords as fans,” Kaiji said one day at lunch.

Creepy, am I? I grew three tentacles under my clothes so no one could see them before saying, “Under what reasoning do you make such a claim, One With Segmented Bones? Would my superior good looks and vast intellect not attract the adoration of the masses, and not just this small group you speak of?”

Huh, I really do start to talk differently when using my quirk. I had completely forgotten all occurrences of that from my childhood. Kaiji just flicked some food at me as I smirked and retracted the tentacles.

“Hey, hey! You’re Sotoki right?” I heard a high-pitched voice call from behind me. Immediately all my amusement vanished. Coldness seeped into my blood and my face muscles started to tense up. Kaiji shot me a pitying look for half a second before putting on his facade of sociability.

“I am,” I intoned, voice completely flat.

“You’re the one applying to UA! That’s like, so cool!” the girl stepped forwards to be on my left and leaned over, her blonde hair spilling down to almost touch the table.

I paid her no mind, never looking away from my food as I hummed an affirmative.

“Hey, like, are you doing anything this weekend?”

I suppressed a sigh. “Training.”

“Right, right. Well, if you change your mind a bunch of us are hanging out on Sunday, you should really come!” the irritant said.

“I probably won’t,” was all I said as she left. Once her attention was away from me, I finally relaxed my grip on my chopsticks, the wood close to breaking. I don’t even know why, but ever since I was young, I’ve had this hatred that simmers inside me. I just hate nearly everyone I meet, even some of those that would consider us friends. The main reason Kaiji and I hang out as much as we do is because he’s one of the few exceptions to that rule.

“Man, if you weren’t you, I’m sure every guy in the school would hate you right now,” Kaiji chuckled.

“Really? Why?” I asked, confused. Like I understood that the girl was trying to flirt with me, but I don’t see why so many people would hate me for that.

He just groaned. “God, that is so like you. Did you even realise who that was? You pretty much just rejected the most popular girl in the school,” he told me in a whisper.

Oh yeah, I think there was some girl a lot of guys were pining over that had blonde hair. What was her name again? Eh, doesn’t matter. She’s just another voice that suddenly gained an interest in me once the news spread of my plans. She wasn’t the first, and definitely won’t be the last. Unfortunately.

~X~

“U-um, is what everyone is saying true, Wazawa-san? That you want to become a hero?” another girl stuttered out behind me a few days later.

I bit the inside of my cheek to suppress the instinctive grimace. I couldn’t seem to go more than a few hours without someone bringing it up. I was really beginning to regret ever saying anything.

Turning towards the voice to respond, my irritation subsides somewhat when I saw who it was. It was a short girl, with stark white hair covering her eyes.

“Morning, Tsuchigumo-san,” I greeted neutrally. We were decently well acquainted due to my hatred for her being much less than usual.

“O-oh, sorry! Good morning,” she startled. “Ah, so is it true?”

I let out a long, drawn-out sigh. “Yes, I’ll be applying for UA next year.”

She looked up at me in surprise, a strange glimmer in her eight eyes. “Really? W-well good luck then!” she smiled before rushing past me with her head ducked down.

I think part of the reason I could stand her presence was due to her shyness. I wasn’t entirely sure, but I don’t believe she had many friends — probably due to her spider mutation giving her an appearance that many consider “creepy.” And sure, being looked at by a pale girl with eight red eyes was a bit uncomfortable, but many people thought my tentacles were terrifying too, so I couldn’t really judge.

With a shrug, I turned away from the retreating girl’s form and headed to my next class.

~X~

“Have you thought of a hero name yet?”

I sighed. “No, Kaiji, I still haven’t thought of a name, and I still wouldn’t have given even a moment’s thought to it when you ask me tomorrow, either.”

He slapped me on the back. “Come on, that’s like, number one priority for becoming a hero. You need a cool name!”

“Well, I’m open for suggestions, what name would you give me, o’ great wise one?” I asked mockingly.

“Tentacle-man.”

“And this is why I don’t listen to your ideas.”

As Kaiji began to poorly justify his reasoning — at least, I assumed so, wasn’t actually paying attention — I spotted a white flash out of the corner of my eye. When I turned to look at it there was nothing. But I knew it wasn’t a trick of the light. I might have if it wasn’t the ninth time it had happened today.

“Is there something you needed, Tsuchigumo-san?” I called out. Kaiji flinched — he had still been talking when I interrupted him — and a soft ‘eep’ came from behind a nearby corner.

The spider mutant shuffled out from her hiding place with her head bowed, ears visibly red. She seemed to tremble as she stood before us, and Kaiji looked incredibly uncomfortable.

“U-um, well, since you are applying to UA and all,” I closed my eyes in irritation, “I was wondering if… ah…” she began to fidget, looking anywhere but where I was.

“Wondering what,” I asked — no demanded. I was getting really sick and tired of all these questions about UA, especially since so many of them would just serve to distract me from my preparations.

She let out a high-pitched sound, almost a whine. “I was wondering if you had put any thought into your costume design! A costume serves so many purposes in hero work, from brand recognition to merchandising to picking which heroes should do which job to even public perception on how heroic your actions are. And colour also matters greatly in that, bright colours attract a lot of attention, but they also need to complement both each other and your quirk, so a more grey-scale would be better for you because of your hair being nearly white and your quirk being black. And even if you want to do underground work, costume design is still incredibly important, so you can blend in with your surroundings and stuff. Oh! You also need to consider functionality as well, making sure you can effectively move and use your quirk at the same time as all of those other factors makes professional costume design really difficult and interesting and…”

She continued her rambling about materials, colours, and design. Kaiji snorted in amusement, so I punched him in the ribs. Huh, pretty sure I dislocated one of his bones with that. I’m not sure what he was finding so funny about Tsuchigumo constantly talking about clothing, but he was at least trying to hold back his laughter now, based on his cheeks turning red.

“…And despite what popular media likes to spout, spider silk is not an effective material for combat costumes. Sure, it’s quite flexible with a good tensile strength, but it will also melt off your body under high temperatures and also is far too sticky unless you specially treat it with other expensive materials. So, it’s only really used by high-end companies that can afford it and they won’t offer their services to students,” wow, she’s still going. She finally looked me dead in the eye, an ominous gleam in her red eyes. “So? Can I see your design ideas? I always wanted to see the blueprints for a hero costume, and yours is as close as I’ll get.”

I rubbed the back of my neck, maybe the stalking would have been preferable. “Sorry, no can do. I haven’t really thought much into my costume. I’ll probably go with a basic jumpsuit design and add some flavour later.”

She recoiled as if burned. “No! No, no, no, that can’t do at all! A hero costume is the most important part of a hero! You can’t be an inspiration to the world with such a bland design. You need to put some thought into it, it’s not like designing costumes is difficult. I could do better than a jumpsuit. In fact, come with me. We’re going to design you a proper costume.”

As she dragged me off, Kaiji trailing behind with a dumb — dumber than usual, that is — look on his face, I wondered where the shy, tiny girl who struggled to walk towards me a few minutes ago went. And also, how the hell I had managed to get two PR people within a few weeks.

As loathe I am to admit it, her designs were pretty good. Almost like she had an interest in the subject or something. Unfortunately, my acceptance of her skills only encouraged her to hang around us and continue talking about how I could be a better hero.

~X~

“Honestly, I don’t get why branding is seen as such an integral part of heroics,” I waved a chopstick in small circles as I ate. Kaiji and Tsuchigumo both had a look of immense pain at my words. “I mean, the media already follows civilian sightings of popular heroes, and their names and quirks are all public knowledge, so a second identity is kind of useless, right?”

Kaiji began to look like he was considering my point. Tsuchigumo, however, was rather strongly opinionated towards the benefits of PR. She had only been hanging around us for a few days, but I could already consistently get a rise out of her by dismissing the necessity of separate identities.

“Heroes are an inspiration. Their costumes, names, even their very presence should tell everyone around them that a hero has arrived. They should be paragons that are larger than life!” she began to rant.

“Look, Tsuchigumo—” I began.

“Please, call me Orime.”

“… Tsuchigumo, I think you’re looking at heroes as the classical Hero, instead of the more modern hero profession. Capital-H Heroes are traditionally paragons of righteousness that serve the public selflessly, while professional heroes are a job that earns money, and is thus not fully selfless.”

Tsuchigumo hung her head at my refusal to use her given name. “I disagree.”

“Oh?”

“I said that heroes should be paragons, but that doesn’t mean the person behind the mask should also be one. I think costumes and names are important because it separates the hero from the person, so a bad person could still be a good hero.”

Kaiji was uncharacteristically quiet during our exchange. He seemed to turn both our arguments over in his head. “…I think Orime is right,” he finally declared after a solid minute. “I mean, a bad person really shouldn’t be a hero at all, but the disconnect is probably a good thing. Sure, secret identities aren’t a thing anymore, but being able to hang up your mask and be off the job is something that, I don’t know, helps with mental health or something?” he smirked a bit and leaned a bit closer to Tsuchigumo. “Also, don’t be dejected by this guy’s forced formality, I’ve known him since we were kids, and it was still three years into our friendship that he started calling me Kaiji.”

Tsuchigumo covered her mouth as she began to giggle along with Kaiji’s snickering. I couldn’t help but slightly smile along. These days with my friends could last forever and I would have no complaints. I would cherish every moment I could before the world around us began to collapse.

Chapter Text

At last, I stood before the massive gate holding the prospective UA students from the mock city of the practical exam. Tsuchigumo, Kaiji, and I fell into a sort of routine after our initial meeting; I would either train or study most days, during breaks at school we would discuss the parts of my hero identity that I wasn’t so inclined to focus on, as well as hang out like regular friends. Then, on weekends we would be normal teenagers, watching movies, going to the park, doing study groups to prepare for finals and entrance exams. It was some of the best few months I had ever experienced, just spending time as the three of us.

Many of my teachers were understandably concerned when they saw I had only applied for UA, not even any of the surrounding hero schools. The guidance counsellor even tried convincing me to put more options down even if I wasn’t considering them, at the very least the general education track. I got a revolting feeling of satisfaction when I stubbornly refused every step of the way.

It was as I had said: I was going to join the hero course. I wasn’t going to try and get in, because I would accept nothing less than success from myself. I wasn’t a complete fool, though. I did have a plan if I failed, just not one I could exactly tell others. If I were to prevent or mitigate the fall of society, I would need to work against the villains of this story. Ideally, I would do so as a part of UA, where most of the events would no doubt be centred around. If that wasn’t an option? Well, there was always another way to be around the villains whenever they attacked.

My quirk has always been considered creepy and almost villainous.

I shook my head. I couldn’t be thinking those things at this time. Plan A first, figure out the details of plan B when it’s needed. First and foremost was getting as many points as possible in the practical. I’m confident in my own intelligence and rigorous preparation that I could pass the written portion capably, so now I just had to destroy a bunch of metal.

Something I had never been able to test my quirk on before.

Well, they shouldn’t be that difficult to break, right? I mean, I’m pretty sure there was a girl who’s whole shtick was invisibility, so there had to be some way of easily breaking them. Plus, my Shadow Tentacles could crush a whole tree when I used six of them at once and going to seven wrought devastation on everything around me. Oh, but that probably would be bad if I hurt another participant. If I lost control, would I lose points?

I clapped the sides of my face twice. I was getting stressed there, going on a rambling spiral of thoughts.

“All right, when on my signal, you are free to start,” the proctor announced. I jumped slightly at the sudden loud voice. I hadn’t even realised the gate had opened I was so distracted.

The proctor — who wasn’t anyone I recognised, though that was probably due to the sheer height he was stood at — raised his arm. The tension in the air was palpable. “And… GO!”

All was still for half a second. And then all hell broke loose.

I immediately ran my fingers over my forearms and brought out two long tendrils. The stampede made it hard to manoeuvre in the seemingly intentionally narrow street, so I latched on to a lamp post and launched myself higher, sending the second tentacle to latch on to a windowsill.

One who controlled their weight drifted by me, an intense look of concentration on her face. I was not the only one with some aerial capability. I brought out a third ‘arm’ to create a pseudo-slingshot using two tall buildings as supports, the last one keeping me in place against the window.

An exhilarating rush of air hit my face as I soared dozens of meters to a nearly untouched part of the city. Some one and two pointers were stood idly, not reacting to my presence yet.

Time to test the limits of a trick Kaiji came up with.

I crashed down on the concrete at breakneck speed, using all three tentacles to brace the impact and slow me down. We found that the black tendrils come out of my body, but aren’t truly attached, so force that they experience does not translate to me. Hence, I could slam them into the concrete at a high enough speed that they broke through the paving, and no strain would be put on the arms they sprouted from.

The robots reacted instantly to my landing, but I was already on the move. Using the tentacle connected to my lower back as a pivot, I swung one of the arm tendrils in a wide arc. The nearest robot — only a one-pointer — was cleaved cleanly in two. The second one was not as clean but still bisected, before my swing was finally stopped halfway through a two-pointer. 4 points so far.

More robots streamed towards me, ceaselessly chittering threats. My left arm’s tentacle was still stuck within the husk of the two-pointer, so I closed its portal, the dark shape dispersing in a fine black mist.

We brought out two more limbs. One to replace the destroyed arm and another to join the one on our back. We walked forwards towards the congregation of metal, not with legs but with two tentacles to prop our body up. The ones on our arms lashed at the lifeless robots indiscriminately — piercing, cleaving, crushing any that came close. 5 points. 7 points. 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 16.

A wasteland of scrap laid around us once we finished. 2 minutes had passed, and the first examinees limited to only travelling by foot were arriving in the area. We took a brief moment to study them. None sparked any recognition within us.

Taking to the skies once more, we began to hunt for the elusive three-pointers. All the robots in the horde were worth one or two points only. How would the larger bots handle against the force of our extra limbs? The smaller ones were disappointing, their exterior easily rent. The more valuable automatons would likely be more durable and a more worthy test of our abilities, in addition to their greater size.

Unfortunately, we were not so lucky so as to find a large congregation alike the one we initially reaped. Our body was limp as we rocketed across the cityscape, the shadows doing the work for us in terms of mobility.

We landed back on the road. We would have to take down the targets as we saw them. I closed the four portals that were on my body and began to run, shaking my head to clear the slight feeling of disorientation.

More and more small robots began to fall around me, a single tentacle cracking out of my newly opened portals like a shadowy whip before returning from whence it came. My breath began to run ragged from the constant running. 7 minutes had passed by the time I finally found one.

Its bulk clearly set it apart from the rest. Where the one-pointers were thin and agile, and the two-pointers were squat and insectile, this one was pure bulk, standing at near double the thickness of its counterparts. The red ‘3’ emblazoned on its side gave away its status.

I observed it for a few seconds, looking for a weak point. Generally, the joints were the best place to aim, as the panelling could not fully cover it without hindering motion, but the designers seemed to keep this in mind for this one in particular. Its limbs did have joints, but they were mostly vulnerable under the main body where I couldn’t get to them. I could also tell at a glance that the metal plating was a higher quality than the weaker bots.

My analysis was interrupted by what I saw as the machine shifted. Another examinee was on the ground quivering in fear. He looked close to tears as he stared up at the hulking metal contraption above him, blood trickling down his head.

One moment I was watching from ten meters away as he turned to hysteria. The next I was speeding horizontally towards the robot that I had no clue if I could destroy as easily as the one and two-pointers. The third moment, we opened five portals simultaneously, wrapping the tendrils around every spot they could to hinder its movement.

The tank creaked to a halt, the free moving head swivelling to locate the source of its unintended stop. We tried dragging it back, but it was taking all the strength available to our limbs to keep it from advancing.

The small student was still frozen in fear. We opened another gate and let through a long but relatively weak arm to manoeuvre around the heap of metal and darkness and wrap around the other test-takers waist, pulling him to safety.

We were at six gates now; we couldn’t allow any more to open for the next two and a half minutes. We could not be sure of the safety of the other humans in the area if our actions were left to the subconscious mind.

With the only potential victim out of the way, we began focusing our efforts not on containment but on elimination. Our extra arms were all located on the natural handholds of the blocky machine, but none were in a good position to destroy. If we could strip away one of the leg panels, the tendril that was over said panel could create an opening with which the entire system could be destroyed from within.

We pushed down with the black arms as the three-pointer tried to reposition itself to lift us into the air. Our motion was now at the whims of the machine. A scream behind us reminded us that The One With Adhesive Hair was still being held by tendril #6. We landed atop the robot and used one of the less useful tentacles to dig into the slight ridge between the motor and the plating. The black arm slithered down into the gap, forcing itself thinner and thinner as it dug further in.

The three-pointer bucked wildly trying to jostle us off its back, but the four evenly spaced tentacles still wrapped around its limbs anchored us to the machine. Our body began to shake as a presence became known in the back of our head. The fifth tentacle digging into the leg found purchase and we began to heave, applying force for within and on its exterior to rip the appendage off.

A disgusting groan reverberated through the area as the limb stretched before snapping. The robot spun out of control with the loss of one of its wheels, to which the One With Adhesive Hair screamed even louder. The constant churning of distaste in our gut flared up at his continued noise.

With the machine temporarily out of commission and a glaring weak spot exposed, it took barely any time to utterly destroy the innards of the once mighty robot. Three more points for us. Not long left.

We placed the One With Adhesive Hair down on the road — if he landed a bit too harshly and caused a jolt of satisfaction to rush through us, no one will tell — and looked down upon his quivering form.

“Run along, One With Adhesive Hair. We have no time to deal with your unbecoming cowardice.” With that, we launched ourselves away, looking across the metal strewn waste of the street for some more points.

Of course, that was when the sirens and screaming started.

Examinees started fleeing en masse as the hulking form of the zero-pointer appeared out of nowhere, one massive hand coming down on the roof of a building and causing debris to drop down. It moved slow, but its sheer size made up for it, letting one step which took a full two seconds to take out pace the frantic adrenaline fuelled sprint of the average test-taker.

We scanned the area. If a student was too close to the behemoth, they would be in serious danger. Even if there were teachers waiting in the wings for emergencies, they may not be fast enough.

There. A duo, a girl and a boy, were hanging off each other, their gaits awkward. No doubt one or both of them were injured and couldn’t perform at their best. They could not outrun the massive machine.

We had no other choice. The physical body was reaching its limit, overuse of our quirk placing a strain on all the muscles. But we could still move. One last time we launched our body forwards, above the fleeing crowd.

We landed behind the injured duo and wasted no words before wrapping them both up in separate tendrils and dashing off. The presence was whispering now, trying to forge the connection. We couldn’t lose control now, not around so many people, and especially not when holding two inside the danger zone. I had no other choice but to close four of the portals to stave off the loss of consciousness.

The boy — who I noticed had his foot facing the wrong direction — tried to say something, but I just ran, ignoring the complaints of every muscle in my body, trying to reach the exit.

Alas, despite all my training in stamina and endurance, I never trained for extended quirk use plus a sprint afterwards. A dozen meters before the exit gate, my legs finally gave out. I tried calling another tentacle out to drag me along, but instantly the feeling in the back of my head returned, warning me off that idea.

The loud booming of the zero-pointer’s footsteps grew ever louder as I awkwardly shuffled forwards, my bones rattling with the vibrations. What resources did I have? My body was practically non-functional, I had two small tentacles holding injured students, I couldn’t open any more portals without losing consciousness. I was left with one option.

“Sorry for this,” I muttered. The girl whirled her head around, opening her mouth to question my words. All that came out was a shout of surprise as I sent her and the other examinee flying towards the exit with a toss.

A shadow loomed over me. All other students seemed to have made it out already, it was just me and the iron giant.

I took a deep breath and started to tap different parts of my body. Left arm, right arm, left thigh, right thigh, chest, lower back, and finally forehead.

Seven gates opened all at once and it all went dark.

Chapter Text

I once more floated in the endless expanse of the void, unfeeling and unknowing. At the edge of the infinite plane, I could see flashes of memory. Cringing at the first taste of coffee, stressing over the final exams before graduating high school, lying in bed thinking of the latest story that had been consumed.

A shape passed in front of the light, indiscernible in appearance other than how it obscures the memories. Long and thin, coiling around (almost like a tentacle) it grasped the light and drew it near, making the memories clearer.

A skeletal blond sat on a rooftop and lifted his shirt, revealing a gruesome scar.

The same man stood in front of a young boy on his hands and knees, the setting sun creating a picturesque scene enhanced by the stylisation of the memory.

The young boy stands on a hill of scrap facing the rising sun shirtless, his muscles that weren’t there previously on full display, eyes covered by dark green hair.

The green-haired child floats for a second in the air, face contorted in pain and surprise, his arm a different colour to the rest of his skin.

Over two dozen different faces, with their own unique styles and individualities, quickly pass by a fast as the eye could see as thousands of people create their own art.

The light begins to dim, plunging the plane back into nothingness.
_______________________________________________________________________________

“Hm? Oh, finally awake, are we?” an elderly voice asked.

I cracked my eyes open to see what seemed to be a school nurse’s office. An old lady was sat at her desk, tapping away at a computer. She seemed familiar, but the fog covering my mind made it hard to tell. Why was I even here?

Last I remembered, I was taking the practical exam. I destroyed a decent number of robots, then went on to hunt some more. I only got a few more points and then found a three-pointer.

Then it became a bit more difficult to remember. I’m pretty sure I brought out six tentacles — hence the fuzziness of my memories — and then I’m guessing I took down the three-pointer.

What next? Ah, that’s right, the zero-pointer showed up and for some reason I had to go down to two portals. Perhaps an undiscovered drawback? I grabbed two (was it two?) other students and began to run for the exit but collapsed. Why did I fall? Did I just trip over a rock or something?

I got my answer when I tried sitting up. Every muscle burnt like being stabbed by a fire poker. Obviously, I had over strained my muscles. So, I fell and couldn’t move. I couldn’t remember why I didn’t bring more tentacles out to drag me to safety, but the only other thing I could remember was the shadow of the zero-pointer falling over me after I tossed the two students I was carrying.

And then I had another vision. They definitely felt familiar, like a part of me had seen them before, but I couldn’t quite place it. There were the general memories like I got last time I fell unconscious due to quirk use — memories of a different life without quirks — but also there was that weird light that was brought towards me. It’s hard to explain, but it had a different feel to it. The other memories were coloured by a worldview, but these ones felt greyscale, or perhaps detached.

“How long was I out?” I asked the woman.

“Oh, about half an hour. Normally unconsciousness for even that long is a sign of something being wrong, but it seems you were just over-tired. How are you feeling? Any pain?”

I groaned slightly. “Only in 90% of my body. I must have strained my muscles too much.”

“Hm. Well you seem lively enough. I’ll just use my quirk on you to speed along your recovery and send you on your way. Make sure to get plenty of sleep tonight and don’t overwork yourself for the next few days, just in case.”

Before I could react, she had grabbed my arm and kissed it. I forcefully stopped my other hand from spasming at the sudden contact. It wouldn’t do to attack the faculty before I could even be accepted.

After fighting through the sudden exhaustion as my muscles repaired the tears within them at rapid speed, I got up to leave. “Actually, can I ask something?”

“What is it?”

“Well, you see, my quirk has some mental drawbacks when using it too much which knocks me unconscious for a while. Do you know what happened after I threw those two students I was holding? I know that my quirk can be quite destructive when I’m not in control.”

“Let me think… ah! I think one of those students you helped came by with a broken foot, he talked quite a bit about his test. I didn’t see it for myself, but according to him, your quirk completely destroyed one of the legs of the robot before it stopped, but no harm came to any other students, so don’t worry about that.”

I nodded. At least no one was harmed this time. But I would definitely need to get that aspect under control as soon as possible.
_______________________________________________________________________________

“How did it go? Tell us!” Kaiji exclaimed as soon as I got off the train. Three hours on an old run-down vehicle that made it impossible to sleep on while fighting off severe exhaustion made for a pretty unpleasant trip.

I loudly yawned. “Pretty confident on the written, wasn’t anything too hard. Practical portion involved fighting robots. Did pretty decently, tore apart some metal, stopped a few people from getting flattened and then overused my quirk. I’m going to go nap now.”

As expected, he followed me all the way home asking about the small details of the exam — even about some of other the people there, which he should already know I wouldn’t have paid attention to.

“Well, give me a call tomorrow. Orime is getting antsy about finishing your costume design and it has to be done by the time the acceptance letters come,” Kaiji said when I reached the door. If Tsuchigumo was acting normal beforehand, I did not want to deal with her being “antsy.” I got the feeling I was in for many a lecture on design principles.

“I’ll decide later whether I will,” was all I said as I walked inside. I briefly registered the bark of laughter from my childhood friend before I slipped into the sweet embrace of sleep.

~X~

“Is it here? Is it?” Kaiji was practically dancing on the spot.

After a week of waiting and endlessly submitting costume ideas to Tsuchigumo before finally having one be accepted, a letter arrived addressed from UA. I hadn’t opened it yet, choosing to have my “support team” with me when I did. Hence why Kaiji was impatiently nattering about the letter. Seriously, you’d think it was his letter based on how he was acting.

On my other side was Tsuchigumo, who was the opposite. Since we sat down, she hadn’t said a word, just intently staring at the innocuous envelope on the table. Likewise, you’d think it was her letter that she was waiting to spell out her doom by her behaviour.

I just sighed. Here goes nothing. I tore open the envelope to let the small black disk within clatter down onto the wooden tabletop. I flicked it on.

“Greetings! Am I a bear? A dog? A mouse? What matters is that I’m the principal!” the creature known as the principal of UA greeted as he appeared as a hologram. “But more importantly is that you are Wazawa Sotoki. You scored above the average for the written exam, a total of 84% when the running average over the past 5 years has been hovering around the 52% mark. Of course, this year did see an overall increase in that average to 57%, but that still puts you a solid foot ahead of the other entrants.”

Kaiji leaned back and muttered, “This guy is worse than Orime when she starts talking about textiles.”

He got smacked for that.

“Given that you didn’t miss the cut-off for the academic portion of the heroics course, let’s talk about the practical exam,” the principal continued. “Your goal was to accumulate as many points as possible by destroying marked robots in the span of 10 minutes. Of over 200 applicants this year, 173 made it to this part of the exam. Of course, we only accept the best of the best, the ones that we deem truly epitomise the phrase Plus Ultra, so only 36 of these students will get the chance to join the prestigious ranks of UA’s heroics course. During your practical exam you scored 31 villain points. Our lowest scoring student to be accepted this year got 29 points. So, Wazawa Sotoki, congratulations on making it into UA.”

Kaiji whooped and slapped me on the back — I briefly noted that if he wasn’t somehow exempt from my hatred, I probably would have throttled him by now — and Tsuchigumo smiled wider than I thought was possible, practically buzzing in excitement.

“But isn’t that a bit boring? I mean, anyone can destroy some chunks of metal, even ones made by us!” somehow, the rat-thing was still going on. “So, while you have gotten in already, let’s talk about the secret portion of the exam.”

I had a strange feeling that there was something else to the test, some way that those without the capability to destroy metal could pass.

“If you were observant, I said that you scored 31 villain points, but that our lowest accepted score was 29 points. That’s right, there was a second source of points in this exam… Rescue points!

“You see, being a hero isn’t just about being flashy and strong; we at UA wish to cultivate those with the true heroic drive into something greater, and what better way to show that heroism than by saving others without apparent reward! If we just look at villain points, our rankings look like this,” he pressed a button on the remote in his hand and a table popped up with a list of names with numbers next to them. I spied my name third last on the list. Ouch, I needed to step up my game.

“But you due to your actions during the exam, there were two moments we awarded you rescue points. This moment,” he pulled up footage of when I grabbed the small child-like student and held him out of reach as I fought the 3-pointer, “got you 19 rescue points. You would have gotten more, but some of the judges were concerned with how you kept the ‘civilian’ so to speak close to danger while you fought a villain instead of taking him to safety,” he pushed a button again and my 31 became a 50, putting me just below the middle of the list.

“The second incident was here,” cue footage of me grabbing two injured students, running, collapsing, and then throwing them down the street. Kaiji broke out into guffaws while Tsuchigumo covered her mouth to hide the smirk. Somehow the throwing part must have slipped my mind when I recounted the exam to them.

“You immediately jumped into the fray towards danger to save two students who were competing against you, and even when your body couldn’t move anymore you still prioritised their well-being over your own, moving them as far from the danger as possible. Of course, said moving them could be considered a bit violent, so points were deducted for that, but the fact of the matter is that you risked your own safety for two others. For such an act, we awarded you with another 30 rescue points.”

30? That was… a lot. It brought my total up to 80, which meant…

“And since I’ve seen you written exam results, I trust you are capable of simple addition to realise that this places you as the top student for this exam. We will watch your future with great interest, Wazawa Sotoki. Welcome to your hero academia.”

The hologram shut off. We were all silent.

Top student. At UA.

What the fuck?

“W-well, that was a… surprise,” Kaiji was the first to speak. “Say, this means you have to speak at the sports festival, right?”

I groaned. I did not like where this is going.

Kaiji grinned evilly, “You still have a few weeks until you have to leave, so I guess we’ll just have to drill in public speaking skills as much as possible.”

Tsuchigumo patted me on the back reassuringly, and for once, my hatred for Kaiji in that moment was great enough that I didn’t even mind her touching me.

~X~

Two weeks passed — two weeks of Kaiji poorly trying to make me smile and speak with exuberance — and the day finally came for me to move out of home. I’ll admit, I wasn’t particularly close with my parents. We weren’t estranged or anything, just that I was a very reserved person, and I don’t think they really knew how to deal with that. So, leaving home wasn’t something that bothered me too much, though many tears were shed on their side.

I was able to secure an apartment not too far from the campus, one that was recommended in the paperwork that came with my acceptance hologram for housing students whose family lived far away. So that was where I was, unpacking boxes of personal belongings into a bare apartment.

“You know, I really don’t have much to unpack, you didn’t have to come and help.”

“But we will anyway. We’re friends, it’s the least we could do,” Tsuchigumo replied.

“I don’t remember ever agreeing to us being anything more than acquaintances.”

Her face fell a bit before she realised, I was joking.

Kaiji then walked in carrying another box, “Well, at least you have a friend in me, right buddy?”

I looked at him deadpan, “I know for sure I never agreed to us being friends.”

He dramatically gasped. “Et tu? Have you just been stringing me along all these years? Just what am I to you?”

“If I were to describe our relationship it would be… the bond between a person and their fungal infection.”

Tsuchigumo was trembling in barely contained laughter at this point. But Kaiji wasn’t done yet, “So you’re saying I’m growing on you?”

I shook my head. He won this round. I’d let him have this one small victory before leaving him to deal with the horrors of design lectures. Actually, he might not suffer too much, he always paid a lot of attention whenever Tsuchigumo was going on one of her rants, plus he held very similar opinions to her on those topics whenever I argued about my costume ideas.

I watched as he walked over to help Tsuchigumo lift a particularly heavy box — I think that one was where I put all my weights. He smiled with a strange look on his face and grabbed the other side of it.

Wait… did he...?

Huh, didn’t see that coming. I shrugged and continued unpacking more boxes.

Another hour passed before we were sprawled out on whatever furniture we could use. We only had a few more boxes to go before it was all done.

“I feel like ice-cream. What flavours do you guys want, I think I saw a shop down the street,” Tsuchigumo eventually sat up, sweat plastering down her white hair.

We gave her our preferences and also stood to finish our job. She left once we gave her some money for our shares.

“…I’m not really one to give relationship advice, but I do think you two would suit each other,” I blurted out.

Kaiji jumped, flustered. “Wha- er I mean… ah… huh?”

“You and Tsuchigumo. You aren’t exactly subtle, you know.”

He let out a long, pained groan. “Please don’t tell me you just figured that out from us unpacking boxes.”

“I did.”

His head dropped down. “I’ve had a crush on a girl for two years, been friends with her for six months, and you are only just now realising?”

Wait. Had I missed something? I had no idea until I thought about them only having each other as friends.

“And to think I had been so grateful to you, thinking you were supporting me by calling out to her that one time and getting us introduced. And now I find out you didn’t even know what you were doing for me.”

Was he mad at me for this? I mean, this was mostly just a misunderstanding right? “I’m sorry?”

“I’m mad at you. Actually, I really should have expected this from you. You really are bad at telling when people like each other. I mean, you are the guy who turned down three different valentine’s confessions saying you don’t like chocolate.”

“Wait three? I realised a few months later that those two girls were trying to confess, who was the third?”

“My point exactly. You are pretty oblivious when it comes to romance.”

“What’s this about romance?” Tsuchigumo walked through the door, three cups of ice-cream in her hands. We took ours off her and began to eat. Kaiji hurriedly filled her in on what we were talking about, sans the details of his interest in her.

We finished off our treat and unpacked the last box.

“Shall we take a group photo for our last time being all together for a while?” Tsuchigumo asked, pulling out her phone.

We huddled together for the selfie, which I made sure I was at the back and subtly pushing Kaiji and Tsuchigumo closer together. If she ever asked, I could just say I was the tallest, so it made sense for me to be at the back. And after the conversation Kaiji and I just had, he would be second guessing whether anything I did had an ulterior motive.

My friends left around 4pm to catch the train back to our hometown and still arrive at a reasonable hour. It wasn’t until I was sure they hadn’t forgotten anything, and they were definitely gone that I pulled out my phone and set the photo Tsuchigumo sent me as my lock screen.

Chapter Text

It was a surreal experience, standing at the gates of UA, beige uniform neatly straightened. Sure, I had been here before for the entrance exam, but it was a totally different feeling to be standing at the entrance to what had been my sole goal for over 6 months.

Let’s see… Class 1-A. I wandered the halls, relying on the map of the campus I had been sent after confirming my attendance. The school was laid out completely differently to any school I had seen before. Where my middle-school was set out fairly traditionally, with each year separated by the three floors, just the main building of UA was easily a dozen storeys high with two towers connected by a passageway.

I managed to reach the door to my class with little difficulty — I made sure to come early so there weren’t many people in the hallways. When I opened the door, I was immediately struck with a sharp pain in my temple. It was so severe that my vision went dark, and I began to lose balance.

And then, just as suddenly as it appeared, it began to lessen. I could still feel the veins in my head pulsate uncomfortably, but it was nowhere near the blinding pain it was.

“Hey man, you alright?” some guy with spiky red hair asked.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts as the pain briefly spiked again. “Mm. Just a headache,” I responded before heading to my assigned seat. Luckily for me, none of my neighbours were here yet. A stern-looking boy approached me.

“Good morning! I am Iida Tenya, it’s a pleasure to meet you! I must say it is good you are here early, we must hold ourselves to a high standard as future heroes and never be tardy,” he enthusiastically waved his arms around mechanically.

“Wazawa Sotoki,” I nodded at the loud boy before dropping my head onto my folded arms. His face seemed eerily familiar and caused a pang of pain in my head whenever I looked at him. He didn’t seem to mind my antisocial behaviour as another student proceeded to enter, to which he left to repeat his spiel to them.

More and more of my classmates trickled in as the minutes passed and the clock ticked down to the start of the orientation day. Eventually the class was almost at capacity, so I decided to lift my head and at least pretend to be a functional human being.

As I looked over all their faces, the same pain surfaced with each of them like that boy — Iida, I reminded myself — from earlier. I felt like I had at least seen them all somewhat recently, but the memory was far too foggy. Plus, when would I — someone who only recently came to this city — have met all these people who are coincidentally in my class?

I realised why when the door opened for the final two students to arrive. As Iida was berating another boy for his manners, a familiar shock of green hair stood in the doorway.

The green-haired child floats for a second in the air, face contorted in pain and surprise, his arm a different colour to the rest of his skin.

It was the boy who I had seen in what I could remember of that vision when I fell unconscious during the entrance exam. And the rest of these students. They were the among the other faces I briefly saw towards the end.

What were those visions then? My very first one revealed the artificial nature of my world, but the second showed a bunch of random images, which just so happen to be of some of the people I was now sharing a class with? Were they omens of the future? No, one of the images was clearly of the entrance exam, so it would have been around the same time I went under.

Perhaps the past then? But if I was getting snippets of the past, how would I have the faces of all the students that still hadn’t been enrolled at the school? Which only left one option. I was getting memories or images from the series that seemed to describe my world. And given the frequency they showed the green-haired boy in said images, I could presume he was the main character.

That still left the question of why I was shown those images in particular. I didn’t see any events that were yet to happen, and in fact, the most recent image would have been almost simultaneously with my spell of unconsciousness. What was deciding which images I saw?

I shook my head. I already had a headache and thinking about how my quirk works was a pain in its own right. I was interrupted from my spiral of thoughts by the appearance of a man in a yellow sleeping bag chastising the class and telling us to change and meet him outside.

Sometimes I wonder how my life changed to the point where that didn’t really phase me. I blame Kaiji.

~X~

Changing was a thankfully quick affair, my rather plain looks for this world allowing me to change in peace without needing to deal with the idle chit-chat of my peers. Thankfully, now that I knew why I recognised them all, their faces no longer caused me a headache.

Well, no more than any other face, that is.

Once we had lined up on the field, our task was explained to us.

“You’ll be doing your standard physical aptitude tests like you did in middle-school. However, this time you’ll be using your quirks to their fullest potential to aid you,” Aizawa — I suppose it should be Aizawa-sensei — explained. “Wazawa, you scored the highest on the entrance exam. What is your best pitching distance?”

Shit. He really just outright told everyone that I was the highest scorer. I mean, all the acceptance letters would have shown my name at the top, but they wouldn’t have put it together so quickly and I could have made it with potentially a whole week before the others caught on and the questions started. Also, what was my best pitch?

“Uh… 31 metres… I think.”

He stared at me for a while. “Try throwing this ball using your quirk.”

He handed me the baseball. As long as I didn’t step outside of the circle, I was allowed to do whatever I could, huh? The obvious answer would be to throw using one of my tentacles, but was that really my limit? I placed all five fingers on my forearm and swiped down towards the wrist, opening five separate portals. We brought out an arm from each and coiled around the ball.

Whilst we could just throw the ball even with five arms acting in tandem, there would be diminishing returns on how much each tendril could add to the speed of the ball. But what if we were able to use the full power of all five to contribute? The longest shadow stretched back with the ball 12 metres, almost touching the crowd of hero hopefuls watching. Two other tentacles grabbed onto the base of the one holding the projectile began to pull it towards the pitch. The remaining two pushed the end of the ball-holder down to stop it from moving. Power was building up in the system, three arms using all their might to throw the ball, two holding them back and building tension waiting to spring.

We reached the maximum possible power and — instead of letting go — we closed off the gates attached to the bracing tendrils. I tilted my body forwards as the three remaining tentacles shot forth with a crack, releasing the ball a bit under 45 degrees from the ground.

All was silent for just a moment, before:

“216.4 metres,” The One Who Interrupts announced. “As you can see, clever application of your quirk can allow you to achieve results beyond what you could do normally. Wazawa, care to explain why you chose to use a more complicated build up instead of just simply using your quirk to throw the ball?”

I dismissed my remaining tentacles. “Well, there would be diminishing returns on the amount of force I could apply with each additional tendril, and since they weren’t powerful enough individually to destroy a 3-pointer at the entrance exam, I decided to emulate a catapult to utilise as much of the strength each one could exert as possible. If I had just used all five to throw, I’d expect I would only get around 100 metres.”

“My point exactly. The first lesson you should learn is to not rely on just the simplest use of your quirk. Without clever thinking, you will become predictable and lose. And losing means civilians will die. That’s why the lowest placed student on this test who has shown no potential in using their quirk will be expelled immediately.”

The thought of one of my classmates losing their spot in this class and having their dreams crushed before they could ever come to fruition caused a rush of excitement that I fought hard to push down.

~X~

“Hey… uh, Wazawa, right?” the guy who with red hair approached me while we were both waiting for our turn for the 50m dash.

I turned my head towards him and just nodded.

“Cool, wanted to make sure I didn’t mishear sensei earlier,” he grinned, showing off his sharp, jagged teeth. “Hey, mind if I ask you about your quirk? I couldn’t really tell what it was from the ball pitch, and if you got the highest score on the entrance exam, it must be pretty good.”

And already the entrance exam was being mentioned. Looking around at the other students in my class, I honestly couldn’t tell how mine managed to outperform the rest. If it wasn’t for the rescue points, I still would have made it in, but had nowhere near as good of a score. And even then, I was aware that my villain points were largely due to luck at finding such a large congregation of robots early.

Nevertheless, I didn’t really have a choice in whether I shared the details of my quirk, not with so many people with their eyes on me. I sighed slightly, “My quirk is called Shadow Tentacles. By running a finger along my body,” I demonstrated, swiping my index finger across the nook of my elbow, “I can create a tentacle out of that spot.”

The black tendril drifted back and forth idly. The red-haired kid stared at it with an unreadable expression on his face. Other classmates were paying attention too, mostly a curious glance to see what quirk the supposed top of the class possessed. There were three who seemed to pay more attention, though. There was the green-haired protagonist (I should really learn his name) who was trying to subtly move closer to get a better view. A bird-headed student was talking to his quirk and taking the occasional furtive glance before going back to his hushed whispers.

And then there was Aizawa-sensei, warily looking at me as if trying to judge whether I was a threat. I met his gaze, unblinking and we stared at each other for a solid two seconds before he broke eye contact, returning to watching the next two students line up for their dash.

“Man, that’s kind of weird to look at,” the redhead commented, breaking me out of my thoughts. “Uh, no offence, of course. It’s just, it’s like it’s 2-D, even though I know it isn’t. But it’s super cool regardless. Mine’s a lot more boring. It’s called Hardening, it allows me to just harden my body. Pretty bland, right?” I hummed and turned to watch the dashes. “Oh, I’m Kirishima Eijiro, by the way.”

“Wazawa Sotoki.”

“Cool, nice to meet you! Oh, looks like I’m up next,” he replied, uncaring about my disinterested tone before running off to the start line.

~X~

The tests went by with little of note occurring. I was able to creatively use my tentacles in numerous ways to improve my capabilities. I risked using six tentacles on the grip test, for the pull-ups I was able to use them to lift my body with no strain placed on me, and the long jump I shot a large tentacle out of my stomach and planted it on the other side of the pit, vaulting over the entire test.

For the sit-ups and long-distance run, however, I was unable to find any way that my quirk could help me, and I just had to rely on my rigorous training to carry me through. I ended up placing in the lower half of the class for those events, but it was still close. It just goes to show that quirks can provide an advantage in certain situations that no amount of training is able to overcome.

At last, we were up to the pitching test, one that I already completed. I was the score to beat in all the others’ eyes, the one point of comparison they could think about while doing every other test.

One by one, each student stood in the circle and gave their best throw. Some, like the invisible girl or the guy who I’m pretty sure had an electricity quirk, had scores that would be considered above average in a test without quirks. Others were able to launch the ball farther than I had (or in one case, further than the reader could pick up).

Then it was greenie’s turn. I had already lost all interest in this portion of the test, with only the exceptional (or exceptionally loud) ones grabbing my attention.

I was actually physically fine, even after all my quirk usage. The entrance exam was only ten minutes long, but I had managed to overuse my quirk so much in that time that it strained every muscle in my body and limited me to two tendrils at a time. This test had been going on for at least an hour at this point and yet there was no sign of overuse.

Was it because I was using it for a shorter burst of time? Or maybe the fact that I was limiting myself to only five portals for most of these tests. The only other options were the fact I was in a combat scenario, or that I had strengthened my quirk without me realising after the exam.

I began to sprout tentacles under my uniform to test my theories. One or two didn’t seem to affect me much, three I began to think differently. Four was when we started to really change in thought process.

We still did not feel any drawbacks that wouldn’t be immediately reversed upon closing the gates with fours shadowy arms coiled around our body underneath the cloth. Did anything change when we had a fifth? Nothing seemed off so far. We briefly noted The One Who Interrupts berating The Ninth Bearer over something as he stood in shock at the ball that was just a dozen or so metres ahead of him.

Something was odd about that name. From the green one’s exclamations, The One Who Interrupts held the ability to disable others’ quirks. The One With Segmented Bones held the ability to break and rearrange his own bones, and a spider mutation belonged to The One Who Weaves. Our thoughts seemed to think of other as their quirks, so what quirk did The Ninth Bearer possess to grant him such a title?

A chill ran down our spine, unrelated to our current thoughts. Something felt amiss, like there was something there shouldn’t be. We counted heads. 20 students, one teacher. A total of 21 people. So why did we feel like there were 22 here?

We discretely looked around, checking every dark corner, every overlook of the field, until we spotted it. A flash of ridiculously shaped blond hair and shining white teeth was peering around the corner. The Once-Bearer seemed to be paying close attention to our class, something that was odd considering we did not know he was even in this city.

I closed all the portals on my body in deep thought. Black wisps floated briefly out of my sleeves before dissipating. If my quirk truly made me think of others in terms of their quirks, then what did it mean when I referred to All Might as The Once-Bearer? I got a sinking feeling when the greenie threw the baseball, causing a shockwave and breaking his own finger. But that wasn’t what drew my attention.

What drew my attention was All Might doing a small fist-pump before ducking back around the corner. The so-called Once-Bearer held a very vested interest in the Ninth Bearer.

Chapter Text

Aizawa Shouta smiled behind his scarf at his students’ cries of relief when he told them that no one would be expelled. The ‘logical ruse’ he claimed the threat was did do as he said, once the kids realised their futures were on the line, most of them gave it their all to perform as good as they could. Of course, just because the threat of expulsion pushed them to do their best, does not mean that he wasn’t planning on expelling at least one student by the end of the assessment.

And he was so very close to doing so. Midoriya Izuku was the only student who never attempted to use his quirk once throughout all the tests leading up to the pitch. It was when the green-haired boy walked up to the plate with a grim look of resignation on his face that Aizawa realised what he was planning.

He was one of two students who destroyed the school’s zero-pointer robot sent out in the entrance exam beyond repair. And in doing so, he shattered all the bones in three of his limbs. His movements were wasteful, untrained, and uncertain. It was obvious from such a short display that he was not at all accustomed to his own quirk, like he had never used it before that day. It was for that reason, Aizawa suspected, that Nedzu placed the boy in his class. He always seemed to get saddled with the potentially dangerous quirks that Erasure could shut down.

He still held some hope for the boy, however. Perhaps he had simply never used his quirk in such a stressful situation before, or had just misjudged the amount of force needed to save Uraraka Ochako. Or maybe, he would learn to properly utilise his quirk in the month between the entrance exam and the start of school.

Said hope was promptly squashed when he watched the short boy struggle through every test given to him. Not once did he use even the most minor applications of a super-strength quirk, almost as if he was afraid of ever using it. Even then, past students who had been fearful of their own powers had been able to work around their limitations.

Midoriya didn’t even try.

Despite what the students of 2-A might say, Aizawa Shouta did not feel joy from crushing the hope of his students. But he would not allow another young face to appear in an obituary because of their own reckless actions.

But, Midoriya had come through in the end. He had shown the potential to grow, and that despite not learning to properly harness his own power, he could work around it until then.

So there he was, with a full class of 20 walking back to the changing rooms in high spirits. Other than Midoriya, they all showed a brand of ingenuity on how to utilise their quirks to enhance themselves in some way. Even the second-lowest scorer, Hagakure Tooru, had performed admirably in some aspects. He was somewhat interested in how a normal girl who was invisible would use her natural-born gifts to improve her physical scores. He really wasn’t expecting her to trick the cameras recording the long jump by taking off a shoe and throwing it to the other end of the sand pit.

Aizawa was about to leave and head back to his classroom when he noticed one student who had lingered back. Wazawa Sotoki. The other student to cause irreparable damage to the zero-pointer. He was also on his list of four students to keep a close eye on to make sure he doesn’t snap or cause lifelong damage to himself.

Midoriya was of course on that list. So was his classmate from junior high, Bakugo Katsuki. The explosive boy definitely had a personality to match his quirk, and would need intervention later down the line if his current behaviour continued. There was a valid concern that he may turn to villainy if given the chance.

The third on the list, and the only one that was added today, was Todoroki Shouto. The boy was difficult to get a read on. He seemed disinterested in interacting with his peers, and barely ever emoted. There was also his refusal to use half of his quirk. The quirk registry listed him having the quirk Half Hot Half Cold, yet he only used his ice. But whilst he wasn’t using his full strength, he still had enough proficiency in using the ice that he managed to place second on the test. If he showed no sign of using the fire part of his quirk by the end of the semester, then Aizawa would have a talk with him about it, but for now he would just keep a closer eye on the boy.

And lastly, potentially his most dangerous and definitely most confusing student. Wazawa Sotoki. Like Todoroki, the boy rarely emoted, but rather than coldly brushing off his classmates, he seemed to avoid them ever approaching him, and had a brief look of irritation — one so small that it was only in his extensive experience dealing with both children and suspects that he noticed — whenever one did.

And then there was the issues with his quirk. He was also holding back during his tests, albeit much less than the other two issues that were doing so. He didn’t display the strength that could rip apart one of UA’s best robots without moving a muscle, nor did he use as many of those tentacles as he had during the exam.

And then there was the much bigger concern he had about Wazawa.

~X~

1 month ago

Aizawa peeked out tiredly from his yellow sleeping bag at the screens. One for each participant, miniature drones would follow the prospective students and record all their movements and transmit them to the observation room. Already he could spot some children who would no doubt be saddled with him due to how much Erasure could assist in managing him. The one with explosions coming out of his hands, a boy with a powerful and uncontrolled electricity quirk, a few with super strength.

Then with the utmost glee one of the teachers (his bet was on Nemuri) unleashed the zero-pointers. Students in all test zones scrambled away from the sudden threat causing stampedes. He could already tell that most of them, if they made it into UA, would never be able to pass his standards with how irrational they were being about getting away from the behemoth.

“Hey, is that girl trapped there?” someone asked.

Indeed, there was a girl pinned under a pile of rubble, unable to move. He prepared his remote to buzz the nearby stationed examiner to rescue her if she didn’t make it out in time. Before he could, a green-haired child rocketed up and, in a surprise twist punched the robot so hard its head caved in.

Aizawa quietly scoffed to himself. The display of strength was impressive, sure, and it was admirable to jump into danger to save a stranger, but he could see the damage the boy had caused to himself. It was like he had never used his own quirk in his life.

It was with a sinking feeling of dread that he realised that the boy’s actions would have scored him enough points to pass the exam, and given his self-destructive showing, the green-haired child would no doubt be another source of pain assigned to his class.

While half the room was glued to the screen displaying that show of power, the other half was dead silent staring at another student’s feed. Aizawa shuffled closer to see what was going on.

Once more, it was a participant who had taken down the zero-pointer. The camera feed wasn’t great quality, so he couldn’t make out the student’s face nor even their gender but he did catch the expression partially hidden behind straight silver-blue hair.

There was no emotion.

Working in underground heroics, Aizawa had come across many people — villains, heroes, and civilian alike — who had masked their true feelings. He himself did it often, hiding behind as visage of harshness and cruelty. But never had he seen a face so extremely blank. He hoped as a shiver went down his spine that he was mistakenly filling in the blanks left by the low resolution.

And while the teen had a completely neutral look, they slowly and systematically tore apart the massive zero-pointer made from some of their finest materials like it was paper mâché. Long streams of darkness so dark it looked like the screen was off came out of their body, seven in total. One on each of their limbs, one over the heart, another near the base of the neck, and a final one on the forehead. They wrapped around whatever part of the long since deactivated machine they could access and easily tore the metal apart, discarding the scraps as he made quick work of it.

The teenager showed no sign of stopping, moving further and further up the wreckage. Seeing that they held no intentions leaving a piece of Power Loader’s work behind, Aizawa figured it was time he intervened.

He quickly headed down to the testing zone, thankful that they had the foresight to keep the teachers so close in case of an emergency. When he reached the student, having quickly got into favourable position via use of his capture scarf, his suspicions were confirmed true. The boy displayed no emotion at all.

It was much easier to feign an emotion than to mask the presence of any at all. And even the finest of masks had their cracks. This facade, however, betrayed nothing. It was emptier than the face of the dead, eyes completely unfocused, like they were unnecessary. Even their posture gave nothing, limply hanging with no care as to how their limbs shifted as the pitch-black tendrils moved him around.

And through it all, they continued to slowly and methodically destroy. Pulling up the student’s information, Aizawa approached at a reasonable distance. Wazawa Sotoki, male, 15, came from a rural town down south. Looking at the boy, it wouldn’t be hard to mistake him for female at a certain angle. The only traditionally masculine traits in his physicality were his height and hair. And even then, Aizawa had seen female students who were taller and had shorter hair. The teacher stopped a few metres away from the unresponsive boy.

“Wazawa Sotoki. The exam has concluded, you may stop now.”

The boy didn’t react. Not even a millisecond of hesitation as he continued his task.

“Wazawa! Stop what you are doing right now,” he warned with more intensity.

Still nothing. Seeing as the teenager was unwilling to listen, Aizawa resorted to erasing his quirk.

What he expected to happen was the boy, suspended six feet in the air by his quirk, to drop in surprise as his support suddenly disappeared, and potentially need catching. Aizawa would then chew him out for not obeying instructions before threatening to have any chance of him passing get revoked.

What he was not expecting was for Wazawa to drop down without a reaction, but not have his quirk disappear. Instead the tendrils starting violently lashing about, slamming into buildings and the pavement and kicking up debris in a wide area around him. He briefly glimpsed through the dust cloud more and more black shapes taking form out of the places Wazawa already had tendrils coming from.

The dust kicked up caused Aizawa to have to blink away in a coughing fit, wishing in this moment he had his goggles on.

Wazawa stood up from the ground and finally seemed to acknowledge his presence. “How interesting,” the silver-haired student spoke monotonously. There was some unnatural quality to his voice. He mostly sounded like an ordinary teenager, but there was some other sound that was underneath his voice, like a low pitch grating of stone on stone. The more human-like voice was soft and level, with a higher pitch than what Aizawa was expecting. The unnatural sound was rumbling, rough, and seemed to randomly shift in pitch every so often. “It would seem our connection works differently than how we expected,” he turned to Aizawa. “We would suggest you don’t attempt to block our channel again, One Who Interrupts. The subconscious mind cannot control what it has no link to, after all.”

“What are you, and what have you done with Wazawa Sotoki?” Aizawa demanded. The way the being in front of him talked was wrong. It was talking as if it wasn’t Wazawa himself in control, but rather something else using him as a puppet.

“From a certain perspective, one might say we are Wazawa Sotoki, as much if not more so than he himself is. As for what? We are what we are.”

“That isn’t an answer,” Aizawa growled. In a flash, his capture scarf had wrapped around the body of Wazawa and pinned his arms and tentacles to his sides. “You aren’t going anywhere until you tell me what exactly is going on.”

The being tilted Wazawa’s head, the first sign of any emotive body language it had shown. “Sotoki would learn a lot under you, One Who Interrupts. It would seem, however, that our time is up and he will be taking back control.”

Without further explanation, the black shapes all dispersed into a smoky mist and Wazawa’s eyes suddenly became alert a look of confusion on his face. It was only due to his many years as a hero that Aizawa was able to fight past his own confusion and catch the boy before his head hit the destroyed pavement.

~X~

Present Day

Wazawa Sotoki was an enigma. He seemed to have no memory of destroying the zero-pointer, but was also not surprised when he was told by Recovery Girl. When he talked, there was no sign of that grating sound, and he seemed to at least possess emotions, even if he hid them well.

And then there was the way he spoke at the entrance exam. Talking about a connection, how he could not control what he had no link to, speaking as a plural, and referring to his given name as a separate person. It all pointed to a sentient quirk. Sentient quirks were nothing new, Tokoyami had one (and the name Dark Shadow made the irrational part of Aizawa’s mind try to link it somehow to Wazawa’s quirk) but it was basically unheard of for the wielder to be unaware of it. If anything, it was almost like he went under the effects of a possession quirk out of nowhere.

And wasn’t that a scary thought. That there might be someone who is able to take full control of another with the affected unable to recall a single moment of it. But ultimately, he had no proof, only speculation. Speculation of something that would be hell for information security, but speculation nonetheless.

Aizawa initially wanted the school to not allow Wazawa in at all, just with how suspicious that conversation was. The thing was evasive in giving any answers, and it’s display on strength was far beyond anything Wazawa had shown himself. He had struggled to even damage the exterior of a three-pointer, but then had gone on to utterly annihilate a third of the zero-pointer. The risk in allowing such a student near so many students, when that other being could very well take control at any moment, was far too great in Aizawa’s eyes.

But alas, Nedzu was adamant the boy be accepted into UA. Not only that, but as the highest scoring student of the year. The little rat also accepted no requests for him to be in 1-B, insisting that such a student needed to be in Aizawa’s presence. Whatever that meant.

“Sensei?” a voice asked behind him. Speak of the devil, Wazawa was waiting for him. Whatever he wanted to talk about was obviously private, as he waited for all his classmates to be long gone for the changing rooms before approaching.

Aizawa turned to him, gesturing for him to talk. “I… wanted to inform you about some of the… difficulties regarding my quirk. Since you’ve accepted me into your class, I think there’s things you might need to know,” he fidgeted slightly. The boy was obviously uncomfortable talking about this. Most people are, when discussing the in-depth details of their quirk. Quirks are an integral part of someone’s identity and exposing that part of them is opening them up to potential harm.

“I am aware of the incident at the entrance exam. I was the one to take you to the medical tent after you calmed down.”

“Oh, that makes things marginally easier, I don’t have to explain too much on that.” Aizawa started to feel like this was going to be a troublesome conversation, if the destruction of a zero-pointer was only a small part of what he wanted to talk about, this was going to be interesting.

“I should preface this by saying I only became aware that my quirk has an effect on me about half a year ago. So, uh, how do I word this. I think my quirk changes how I think as I use it. It wasn’t until my friend mention it to me that I realised, but the first noticeable effect is when I have three tentacles I start talking differently, like giving people weird titles instead of names. Like you, I think earlier I thought of you as—”

“One Who Interrupts?” Aizawa butt in.

“Yeah, I’m guessing I called you that at the entrance exam? Well anyway, when I have a fourth I start thinking of myself as multiple? It’s a bit hard to explain but I start using we instead of I. And then I realised during our test just now that when I use my quirk more I can kind of sense how many quirks are around me, like earlier when… I think his name was Midoriya? Was throwing the baseball, I could tell there were 22 people nearby, and that’s when I realised All Might was watching.”

Aizawa pinched the bridge of his nose. Wazawa was right, knowing about the entrance exam didn’t make this much better. Just what was this quirk? Psychological effects were often speculated to be an aspect to quirks, and there were some papers on it — though those were promptly discredited years ago when they were found to be funded by the Meta Liberation Army who were trying to push a narrative that some quirks needed to be used and should be exempt from the law. But never had he seen a quirk with a drawback that was changing how the user thought like this.

There was also the fact that one of his students had seen All Might a day before he would officially be revealed to be a part of the staff. Aizawa had also spotted him — he was an underground hero after all, and the number one hero was not exactly the epitome of stealth — and planned to confront him after this.

“…Don’t tell your classmates about All Might yet,” Aizawa ordered with a sign.

“Yes sir. Anyway, the only other thing I should mention is I fall unconscious when I use seven tentacles at once, and I have no control over myself while like that, hence why I ended up destroying my surroundings at the end of the entrance exam.”

That was an interesting detail. He was not aware of the other being that controlled his body while he was unconscious, but with how he talked about his quirk, it was an intentional decision to use all seven and let the being take control. That eased some worries, namely that there was some villain out there able to mind control one of his students without leaving any evidence. Now it seemed like an extremely unusual sentient quirk.

“Thanks for telling me. For your classes, you seem to be able to handle using five tentacles consistently, so keep that as a limit for now and test with the true limits on your own time. You can book a training room at the school for personal use when you want to. Now go along, get changed and head to the classroom. We still need to go over everything you missed at the opening ceremony before you can go home.”

Wazawa nodded and jogged off. It was only noon and Aizawa already felt the need for booze. Wazawa certainly earned his place on the watchlist, he was quickly becoming one of the most problematic students, and it was only the first day. And now, he had to go talk to the number one hero about the need for staying hidden when his presence is meant to be a secret.

At least Wazawa didn’t find out about All Might’s time limit, so that’s a silver lining.

Chapter Text

After my brief discussion with Aizawa-sensei and getting changed back into the school uniform, I re-joined my classmates in the homeroom to wait for our teacher to show up. The ruckus in the room could be heard from down the hall. I felt vaguely envious of the one girl who had headphones on, blocking out the cacophony of a bunch of relieved teenagers.

So, All Might is going to be teaching at UA, is he? That’s sure to create quite the stir among the public. I mean, sensei didn’t explicitly confirm that he was, but I was told not to tell anyone yet. And he wasn’t surprised that the hero was on campus either.

Hm. It is quite convenient that All Might began teaching right after a student with a suspiciously similar quirk that’s somehow connected with his starts at the same school. Just what was the connection between All Might and Midoriya? Secret love child? Doubtful, they look nothing alike. Though it would explain the interest and similar quirks. But why ninth bearer? Ninth generation in the family line with that type of quirk? That seemed unfeasible in the 200 odd years since the emergence of quirks. Assuming the average of 25 years per generation, for a ninth-generation quirk user, the quirk must have been expressed in every generation for 225 years.

But that still wouldn’t make sense even if all holders had children young, as All Might isn’t the Eighth Bearer, he’s the Once Bearer. I don’t know how much I can trust the names I give people, but Once Bearer would imply that he no longer has something that Midoriya now has. There’s some half-baked conspiracy theories rolling around in my head, but I needed to do some research once I get home.

Aizawa-sensei walked into the classroom, somehow looking less asleep than when he was in a sleeping bag. The room went silent immediately, the ever-looming threat of potential expulsion still fresh in everyone’s’ minds. Whilst we had all passed the test, he made sure that we all knew that not taking heroics seriously would result in being booted from the program.

Luckily, there was no bombshells dropped or sudden tests of ability. For the rest of the day he went through all the orientation material we had missed during the entrance ceremony. Stuff like what facilities can be booked and how, guidance counselling, and an introduction to all the staff. I noted that our hero studies teacher was intentionally left blank, and that All Might was never mentioned in the book.

After skimming the book, I unintentionally began to tune out, staring down at the pages unfocused as my mind tossed ideas back and forth as to the relationship between Midoriya and All Might.

~X~

The class passed fairly quickly after I stopped paying attention, and before I knew it, I was on the train heading home. Thankfully, I didn’t need to pay a train fare every time, I just spent a small bit of money to get me an annual pass to go between UA and my apartment.

I was fiddling with my keys trying to get the right one when I heard a voice off to my side. “Oh, you’re uh… Wazawa Sotoki right?”

There was a girl with brown hair cut in a bob and pink cheeks two doors down, likewise, messing with her keys. I think she was one of my classmates. What a pain, she better not try and talk to me every day just because we are neighbours.

“I am. You are…” I thought for a moment. A brief flash of a girl vomiting on the ground after throwing a ball passed through my mind, “You’re the girl who vomited everywhere, right?”

Her cheeks flushed red and she let out a sheepish laugh, “Eheheh, I really didn’t want people to associate me with that so early. Name’s Uraraka. Uraraka Ochako. Guess I’m your neighbour.”

“Seems like it,” I replied curtly.

“Well at least I’ll have someone else who lives alone in my class. I was worried that I’d be different because most students either live locally or had their families move with them. Mind if we share tips on saving money from time to time?”

Man, this girl talks a lot. I always thought a conversation was a two-way street, but I barely needed to participate in this one, and she didn’t even seem to notice. “If I feel like it,” I responded before opening my door and entering my apartment.

“Wait, what does that mean? Wazawa-san?” a muffled voice called after me. I ignored it.

~X~

The next day was the first day of classes. Knowing Uraraka would talk the entire train trip if we left together, I made sure to leave much earlier than I normally would. The girl was far too cheery for my liking, and just looking at her face made my hands begin to twitch.

When I made it to school, I was (very loudly) greeted by the glasses boy. What was his name again? Lida or something? Whatever. He also praised me for punctuality and whatnot, but I was already trying to tune him out.

Decisions, decisions. Should I continue to come early and deal with the noise, or leave later and deal with the chattering? I’ll have to see how I feel at tomorrow. It wasn’t long before another student walked in and drew Lida’s attention.

“Good morning, Yaoyorozu-san!” he greeted with his usual vigour.

“Oh, Iida, was it? Good morning to you too,” the ponytailed girl replied. Wait, so his name was Iida? Could have sworn it was something else.

More students poured in as the minutes passed, and soon the room was nearly at the noise it was yesterday before Aizawa-sensei had walked in. Which is impressive considering there isn’t a shouting match going on at the moment.

The rest of the day passed as a normal school day, being introduced to all the teachers — each of whom were a pro hero in their own right. I was a slight bit concerned by having my education be solely from non-professional teachers, but I was surprised. It was still too early to be sure, but all of them at least held a teaching license and were competent at their jobs so far. Looks like I won’t have to worry about self-teaching as well as continued training.

Speaking of which, I needed to either find a new place to train, or book one of the facilities on campus. Probably the latter. I was lucky to have a heavily wooded area near where I lived back home to train in away from prying eyes, but in the city it would be much harder to go undetected.

I breezed through the first half of the day. With it being the first real day of schooling, the workload was very light and half of each period was spent getting to know the teacher. After having a quick lunch alone, it was time for the most gruelling and anticipated part of the hero course. The hero studies.

~X~

“Man, I can’t wait to find out who our teacher will be!”

“Yeah, it’s kind of odd that they weren’t listed in the handbook.”

“Maybe they value their privacy, like Aizawa-sensei?”

I listened, amused, to my classmates speculating on who the teacher will be. Their ideas were pretty outlandish, ranging from an old secretive veteran, to a top 10 hero, to even a reformed villain. None, however, thought to guess All Might. And why would they? As far as they knew, All Might was maintaining his place at the top of the world saving hundreds of people a day. He would have no time for first-year students.

I did some research into the man last night. The information regarding him was very sparse, no name, only a rough guess of age, even his quirk was completely unknown. That was all the official information. Then I went to message boards. Those were filled to the brim with speculation, some were so absurd they became in-jokes among the rest of the users.

But from the muck of baseless speculation, I was able to obtain some useful data. One user had compiled every showing of All Might over the past decade, and every incident he was known to have assisted in. Looking at the map was a sight to behold, for someone with no form of mobility enhancement such as flight, he was able to bounce across the city map in impressive times.

From those maps, it had been noted that since approximately a year ago, his area of patrol shifted to the area around UA. Not only that, but the frequency of incidents had also drastically changed. It was still absurd how many one man could resolve, but the incidents had been clumped together. Where he once would resolve three incidents in an hour, he would now do eight. But the total number per day would be roughly the same.

For whatever reason, he would only show up for a few hours concurrently, and resolve some other crimes one at a time randomly. Much speculation was roused about the man’s life, but no one could come up with a good enough reason for the change.

And speak of the devil, he arrived with a booming “I AM HERE” from outside the door. I briefly noted the exclamation from Midoriya, almost drowned out by the rest of the class, seemed to sound like he was intimately familiar with the voice. So it really wasn’t just All Might watching someone with a similar quirk, or an illegitimate child with no knowledge of his parentage. Midoriya had known All Might before UA. More fuel to my fire of conspiracy theories, and it just further proves that my visions from my quirk may truly have some basis.

~X~

We were quickly lead to the changing rooms and given our costume lockers. I had to admit, I was fairly excited to see how Tsuchigumo’s vision panned out. I honestly didn’t get much input into the design. I mean, she made sure to ask me for my thoughts, and anything I would add, but apparently I have no eye for art, and all my ideas were quickly thrown out. In the end, my only contribution was for the ‘mask’ so to speak. It was something Tsuchigumo was uncertain about, but was finally convinced by the fact that it was easily removed from the costume.

Much of the design was built around misdirection without hindering combat potential. The plan was to give the image that my quirk had a specific limitation, only to surprise enemies by not abiding by said limitations. For that reason, I wore a long dark cloak with sleeves that just let my fingertips poke out from the ends. The first misdirection was to make it seem like the tentacles were coming out of the sleeves. Whether others would think it was a transformation, or that I summoned them from my palms didn’t matter too much.

The next part was the costume under the cloak. The cloak was designed to be easily removed in a fight, revealing the tight bodysuit with near invisible slits in the arms. After discarding the cloak, the next thing would be to imply that I needed skin contact to grow the tentacles. I could run my fingers inside those slits and open a portal on my arms to sell the illusion. We only designed holes on the arms as a possible third surprise in making them think I could only use the quirk from my arms. Whether I would use that is up in the air — I had since gained a fondness for using one or two tendrils out of my lower back for better mobility.

The rest of the design was fairly stock standard. Black fingerless gloves, combat boots, slim pants that aren’t skin-tight and are designed for stealth. The colour scheme was designed by Tsuchigumo with no input from me. I couldn’t get a grasp on what she was talking about with colour theory, but I think she was saying that the colours are meant to be dark to match with my quirk, but also have some lighter elements to match with my silver-blue hair and give off a more heroic vibe.

“Hey, Wazawa, looking cool. Totally matches with your personality and all,” the spiky haired one — Kirishima? — complimented.

I couldn’t help my response, “And what is that supposed to mean?”

I enjoyed his brief flailing as he tried to explain without coming off as insulting. He eventually gave up and continued on like I said nothing. “I kind of expected you to be one of those who wore a mask, like Kouda.”

“Hey what about me?” The tape boy — Sero, I had to remind myself — complained, face obscured by a pitch black visor.

“I didn’t think you’d have one, to be honest,” Kirishima responded

I hummed. “Well, I suppose I should finish the outfit,” I said with a slight smirk. This was the one part of the costume I could truly call mine, not only because I was the one to design it, but also because I was the only one who could do such a thing.

I slid a finger from my forehead all the way down my face. And then, I opened a portal, covering it all. I had discovered an interesting property of my quirk a few months back, where I could actually see through the portals even though they completely replace my eyes. The feeling is hard to explain, but it’s a bit different from seeing. The best analogy I could give was like when you can see the reflection of your eyes in a pair of sunglasses while wearing them. That combined with a slight grayscale filter is the closest I could get to explaining how my vision changed.

I also discovered that if I focused enough when opening a gate, I could prevent a tendril from appearing. It gave me my first unobstructed view of the hole itself. Contrary to expectation, the portal is not pitch black like the tentacles, instead it was a swirling dark purple with specks of blue light dusted through it.

This was also another form of misdirection. Most would assume based on my quirk that the portal face was just an intricately designed mask. So, when someone tries to prevent me from opening gates by restraining my arms, I would still have a portal open at all times. And with the size of my head, the strength of the tentacle that I could use should be able to break me out of any bind when combined with the surprise factor.

After brushing aside the empty words of my peers I exited the changing room to join my peers who had finished getting changed already. Many of them had simpler costumes, hence why they were ready so quickly, but there were some with more complex designs. The guy with the explosive temper, for example. His costume could only be described as loud, but he, like me, avoided talking to anyone else while getting changed and finished up quickly.

Once we were all there, All Might explained our first test. A way to gauge our current battle skills, through live combat against each other. It would be my first time fighting against something with true intelligence. The UA robots had some semblance of intelligent programming, but their reactions were very muted and measured. Humans are anything but, and it would be interesting to see how my skills apply against the surprises a person could bring out.

After getting my team number, I checked where the matches were written.

Match 1: Midoriya Izuku and Uraraka Ochako VS Aoyama Yuga and Bakugo Katsuki

Match 2: Tokoyami Fumikage and Shoji Mezo VS Jiro Kyouka and Kirishima Eijirou

Match 3: Kaminari Denki and Todoroki Shoto VS Asui Tsuyu and Iida Tenya

Match 4: Hagakure Tooru and Wazawa Sotoki VS Sero Hanta and Ashido Mina

Match 5: Ojiro Mashirao and Sato Rikido VS Yaoyorozu Momo and Kouda Kouji

Chapter Text

I looked around. Who was Hagakure again? I guess I’ll just have to stand and wait for my partner to find me instead. In the meantime, I could think of possible ways to combat my opponents.

Luckily, I had reminded myself earlier of who Sero was. He was the one that dispensed tape out of his elbows. Based on how the crowd was organising itself, his partner was the girl who was very pink. Can’t remember what her quirk was.

Tape would be a very dangerous quirk in this situation. Enclosed space, meaning close quarters is incentivised, and thus a quirk that can be used to eliminate opponents and set up traps was one that had much more potential than a long ranged one. Add in the unknown factor of his partner’s quirk, and there was a lot to consider.

“Sorry, struggled to see you in the group! It’s odd to be on the receiving end of that,” a feminine voice chirped besides me. I turned to see a floating pair of gloves.

Wait no, that was an invisible person wearing only gloves and shoes. Not going to question that, some people have weird ideas about how they wanted to present themselves. In terms of partners, she was probably one of the best for this task. Despite it being a so called battle trial, stealth and surprise were the two most important elements for both sides.

“You’re Hagakure?” I asked.

“Yep! Looks like we’ll be partners.”

I nodded. We had plenty of time to discuss, being the second last group to fight. We could also get ideas from the teams before us. “Know anything about…” I quickly glanced at the board again. “Ashido’s quirk?”

“Oooh, are you already thinking of a game plan? Nice. Let’s see… I think Mina mentioned that her skin was pink because of the acid her skin releases, but I don’t really know anything more than that. Sorry”

I hummed. “It’s fine, that’s more than I knew.” Acid could be a problematic ability. If she could secrete enough of it to cover the floor, it would make traversal difficult. And if it was potent, close quarters combat would be out of the question. So that made two opponents that were best to avoid direct confrontation with.

The first match was starting, with Midoriya and Uraraka on the hero team, and, uh, Aoyama and Bakugo as the villains. We all watched the TV screens that showed the bomb and the locations of each participant. Midoriya and Uraraka entered the building and immediately split up. Not sure how good of an idea that was in an unfamiliar environment, but they could have a plan to make up for it. Meanwhile Bakugo had immediately bolted with a feral look, like that of a starved predator.

It was interesting watching the fight that ensued when he inevitably ran into Midoriya. Didn’t they know each other beforehand? Eh, not my place to question it. It was a game of cat and mouse, with Midoriya running between pillars and in and out of rooms to avoid Bakugo’s constant explosions.

“Wow, that Bakugo is intense,” Hagakure murmured. “I don’t think Midoriya can last much longer like this.”

It was true, Midoriya was just running. With Bakugo destroying ever cover the smaller boy tried to hide behind, he would eventually run out of hiding spots. I looked over at what the other half of their teams were doing. Uraraka had discovered the bomb, but Aoyama was fending her off with a laser beam from his stomach. Both fronts of battle were at a stalemate.

“Maybe, but this doesn’t seem right. Why would the hero team split up if they didn’t anticipate this situation. Them sticking together would be the best option in all cases, unless they knew Bakugo would do this and it’s a trap,” I replied.

But if it were a trap, how was this going to play out? Draw away Bakugo from his teammate and stall him for long enough for your partner to get into position. The next move I would take would be to somehow turn the battle near the bomb into a 2v1, and put Bakugo in a situation where he could not interfere in time. But how? First would be a distraction, keep him preoccupied someplace else. I could probably go out a window and up the side of the building, but Midoriya hadn’t displayed such a skill. He couldn’t go through the window, and the stairs were positioned such that Bakugo would be able to catch up before it made a difference.

The only option would be through the roof. I probably wouldn’t be able to punch a large enough hole through solid concrete even if I used six of my largest tentacles, but Midoriya had displayed single use bursts of extreme strength. Enough that a sudden strike upwards could blow a hole through the roof, and provide enough of a distraction for it to matter.

As soon as I thought that, it happened. Midoriya uppercut the ceiling, blowing an enormous hole in it, and distracting Aoyama with the debris just long enough for Uraraka to touch the bomb.

Not precisely how I expected it to go, but close enough. I thought there would be another fight after the strike, but Aoyama wasn’t as competent in the face of a surprise as I had anticipated.

The next match continued after a brief discussion on the MVP of the match, a discussion where I kept my observations to myself, and Midoriya being carted off to Recovery Girl. Again.

A wide range of strategies were employed through all the matches, and I got to get a decent look at every one of my classmates’ quirks. Even the frog mutant and Iida got to show a bit of their abilities, which was impressive considering Todoroki turned the entire building into ice. It’s a bit of a shame that each battle took place in different buildings, even if they appeared mostly the same from the outside. Some of the property damage — especially the hole courtesy of Midoriya — had some potential for use in my own battle, but alas, it was not to be.

Though speaking of my classmates quirks, maybe I should take a leaf out of Greenie’s book and start keeping notes on them. I could already see some points that I could exploit in their usage to gain an advantage in future fights, especially if I were to come up against any of them in the sports festival. Oh, and I suppose it would help if we were to work together in the future. Have to keep that part in mind.

After two more rounds of the hero teams securing a fairly one sided victory, it was our turn to head down for the five minutes of prep time.

~X~

“Alright, five minutes, any other capabilities of your quirk other than the invisibility?” I asked as soon as our time started.

“What? Oh, no. Just regular old invisibility for me, nothing special.”

“My quirk allows me to create portals to grow black tentacles out of. I can choose the length and strength beforehand, and I could probably break through a concrete wall and keep my momentum if I used multiple at the right moment. Currently I’m capped at five.”

Hagakure bounced her fists. “Right, right. You were thinking up plans earlier, weren’t you? Have anything good?”

I cupped my chin. I had been thinking of possible ways to combat our foes, that is true, but I kept stumbling into road blocks due to the limited information we had. “Nothing too concrete. We should avoid direct combat as much as possible. If Ashido can secrete acid anywhere on her skin, then we don’t want to make contact, especially without knowing the potency of the acid. Sero’s tape can be used to count as a capture, and the elbows are harder to keep track of in a fight compared to hands and feet.”

“Wow, you’re pretty smart. I don’t think I could have come up with that by myself, I’m not the best at planning and stuff. Though I’m all for avoiding combat, I’m pretty suited for it, don’t you think?”

Come to think of it, I hadn’t actually considered Hagakure in my planning. All I thought was how I could beat the other team, and frankly I don’t think I have the skills to do so yet. I had no experience in stealth, and taking on two opponents at once when one could easily disable me in a moment while I dealt with the other made for a nigh impossible situation, especially when going in with so many unknowns. The only way to gain an advantage would be to somehow scout out the whole building without being spotted.

…Wait. Without being spotted. “How would you go about finding the other team in this situation?” I asked her.

"Well it would be easiest if we split up, right? Cover more ground?”

“But that opens us up to facing two opponents at once if we get caught out,” I retorted.

“Then the most obvious would be for me to go ahead into a room and bring you through if it’s clear.”

“Exactly, most obvious. There’s a good chance they’ll account for that.”

“Well how else can we do this? It’s not like we can just appear in the middle of the building,” she said, sounding faintly irritated.

Appear in the middle…

“I think I have a plan.”

~X~

“Clear?” We murmured softly, just loud enough for The Refractor to be able to hear us if she focused.

A gloved hand formed an ‘O’ with its fingers, signifying the room was empty. We used our three free tentacles to manoeuvre us up, using a window sill as leverage. The fourth tendril was wrapped around The Refractor’s waist, holding her up to the glass pane to look through.

This was the scouting plan we had come up with. We would lift The Refractor up to a window to check for our opponents, and if they were not present, we would ascend a floor and repeat. So far we were up to the fourth floor with no sign of them. The only evidence of their presence was the tape covering some of the doorways.

Fifth floor now. We asked our question once more.

A closed fist. The Refractor had found them. Now for the next stage of the plan. Careful to avoid moving in front of a window, we rose up quickly to the roof of the building. Luckily, no tampering had been done up here and it was safe to discuss.

I dispelled the tentacles and closed the gate on my face. Hagakure was rubbing along her waist slightly.

“They’re in the middle of the building, but every surface is covered in Mina’s acid. The only spot I could see that wasn’t was where the bomb was, but Sero was also standing there,” she reported.

Now came the difficult part. Ashido had coated the entire room with an acid whose potency I did not know, and Sero, the one who could eliminate either of us in an instant was standing near to our goal. Ideally, Hagakure would sneak over to the bomb and tag it, winning us the match, but with the acid it would not only be dangerous to walk over, but also show her footprints.

“How about the ceiling?” I asked.

“Also covered in acid. Do you think we should go with you carrying me again?”

“Don’t see how it would help. They would be able to see the tentacle wrapped around you.”

“Then why don’t you curl your other ones to look like they all are carrying me? They won’t know which one to expect!” her gloves did a little pump.

“And your costume?” I had a feeling I knew the answer to that one, but I kind of wanted to see how she responded.

“I just won’t wear anything, then they won’t be able to see me!” she immediately began fiddling with the velcro on her gloves. “Hey, no peeking,” she chided, half-jokingly.

“One last thing. How are we going to enter the room. I could probably go through the window, but that’s probably not the safest for you.”

“I don’t think they barred the door from upstairs to them, so we can come from behind while they expect an attack from the front,” she said, now undoing her shoes. “Okay, I’m ready, let’s go!”

I shook my head at her enthusiasm and opened the portal over my face again. We made it down the stairs, me leading — as far as I knew at least — until we made it to the stairs on the sixth floor.

Without a word, we summoned two tendrils from each arm, stretching them out to the sides for The Refractor to secure herself to. The lower right one began to curl without our input and we wrapped it around her, mimicking the shape with the other three.

Once fully secured, we crept down the stairs, barely making a noise. Just outside the door we could hear brief small talk between The One Who Secretes Corrosion and The Dispenser of Bindings.

We waited for one of them to be in the middle of a sentence — when their guard was down the most — before kicking open the door and rushing in.

Thankfully, the acid was not so corrosive that our clothing melted immediately, so there was no need to sacrifice the ploy with holding The Refractor to elevate ourselves.

“Shit! How did they get above us?”

The Dispenser of Bindings rushed towards us, white tape shooting out of his elbows. We deflected the first shot with our left, only for a glob of acid to impact against it shortly after. Black smoke began to drift off the tendril as the acid slowly corroded the shadowy material.

“He’s holding Hagakure!” The One Who Secretes Corrosion yelled out. They caught on faster than we were hoping. And they knew that it was likely on our right side with how we blocked earlier. Change of plans, then.

We whipped one tentacle towards The Dispenser of Binding’s face, only to hit him in the ribs when his arms. His breath came out as a wheeze as he was tossed a few feet along the ground, rolling through the acid.

He immediately began wincing as the acid stung his exposed arms and waterlogged the tape that was hanging out of his elbows. We were thankful that we had chosen to keep our face covered, else the others would see the wide satisfied smile we had at the scene. One down for now, but The One Who Secretes Corrosion was standing between us and the bomb.

We had enough breathing room without the current threat of a melee to be able to clear some space from the ground. We swept the tendril that had been hit earlier — it had begun to dissipate slightly — along the ground, sweeping away the acid. We then quickly closed the attached gate and opened another one, letting a new fully formed and undamaged tentacle to appear.

On the now free ground we lowered The Refractor, murmuring near where she should be, “Don’t take the obvious path we make.”

We got no response, she was smart enough to not give her precise location away. Slowly, we began to walk towards The One Who Secretes Corrosion, sweeping tentacles in long lines across the acid to create pathways. We heard soft taps of bare feet on concrete behind us, signifying that The Refractor was walking in the spaces created by our shoes, just as we had hoped.

The One Who Secretes Corrosion began spraying acid both at us and at the troughs we made. Four tentacles shot together into a criss-crossed pattern to completely shield us from the corrosive substance. Once we were sure no attacks were coming, they returned to their previous positions.

We made a show of clearing a large space a short distance away, small enough that the average person could make a jump across it with ease. As expected, The One Who Secretes Corrosion immediately focused on that spot and sprayed acid towards where she believed The Refractor would be. Unfortunately for her, The Refractor still had not moved from where she was stood behind us.

The distraction left an opening for a four-pronged strike at the remaining foe. In the ideal world, she would be overwhelmed by an attack coming from four directions while she was busy attacking in a different direction.

This was not that ideal world, however, and she managed to weave in between all four tendrils in an impressive show of acrobatics. We lifted a tentacle to sweep at her legs, hoping to force her to jump and be unable to manoeuvre out of the way of a second strike.

The tentacle refused to come down. A strip of white was wrapped around it, keeping it from moving forwards. The Dispenser of Bindings had recovered from his tumble, and trapped the tentacle in his tape, skin a bright pink from the irritation.

A shot of acid came towards us in our distracted state, and we attempted to block once again with the tentacles. Somehow, the single strip of tape had managed to slither its way down to the other tentacle on our left side, leaving us with only two to block with. A small glob of acid collided with our cloak. Thank the Void it was meant to be disposable.

A tap on our back reminded us that The Refractor was still there, waiting for an opportunity. With barely any options left, and probably only a minute left to secure a win, we had to take a risky move. “Prepare to jump off us,” we quickly muttered, hoping The Refractor could hear us.

Without warning I closed the four gates my current tentacles were attached to and fell to my hands and knees. Hagakure wasted no time before a weight struck the middle of my back for just a moment. I looked up as Ashido began to prepare a wide ranged spray of acid.

Either she dodged this, or she didn’t. The end result would be the same. One of the largest tentacles I had ever created erupted out of my face, shooting straight towards her abdomen. She saw the attack and twisted out of the way, but it caused her attack to completely miss, only hitting me slightly.

“Hero team wins!” a voice boomed in my ear.

Chapter Text

My fingers tingled a bit as I stood up, wiping the acid from my hands. It was quickly becoming an itch, the corrosive substance slowly reacting with my skin. I walked over to the fake bomb that Hagakure launched herself at.

“Woo! We won!” she cheered from somewhere. “High five!”

I still had no idea where she was standing, so I just held up arm up, humouring her. A slap echoed through the room as an impact hit my hand.

“That was super cool how I used you as a platform to jump, right? And your attack keeping Mina away from me was also — Ah! That stings.”

I hummed in amusement. “You probably shouldn’t ask the guy who was just touching acid for a high-five in the future.”

“Are you smiling?” she asked. I had forgotten that I dropped the portal covering my face and she could see my expression.

I immediately forced my face completely neutral. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“You were! So, you can smile, after all!”

I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Do you want a lift out of here or not? I can just leave you to walk through the acid yourself.”

“Mean,” she said with what I assumed was a pout. She once again took the tentacle I offered her and wrapped it in a loop. Nearly imperceptible wisps of black smoke rose from where her hands were, the residue of the acid burning through the mystery material.

“You better not be copping a feel while I’m like this,” Hagakure joked.

“I will drop you,” I warned. “Besides, I can’t actually feel anything my quirk touches.”

Without any further delay, I began to walk out the room back to the roof where what constituted as Hagakure’s costume was left, before we returned to the monitor room.

Immediately, we were assaulted by the exuberance of the number one hero congratulating us all. We were sent to quickly wash off any residue before the discussion began. I was content to let the rest of the class decide on the MVP as usual without any of my input, until…

“Well, Sero went down really easily and Hagakure didn’t contribute much, right? So it has to be down to Ashido and Wazawa, and ultimately Wazawa was able to secure a win, so it should go to him.”

“I disagree,” I blurted out without thinking. The whole class turned to me, surprised I actually spoke. “While Sero did fall after a single hit, the reason he stayed down for as long as he did was due to the acid on the floor irritating him and interfering with his quirk. Despite that he was able to delay my attacks against Ashido at the end and may have been able to eliminate me from there.

“Then there was Ashido, whose acid countered Hagakure’s invisibility and quick thinking nearly caused us to lose. When Hagakure made a move for the bomb, it was only luck that she ended up missing, and we would have been quick to lose if she hadn’t.

“Lastly, Hagakure was an integral part of our strategy. If it weren’t for her, we wouldn’t have been able to find what room the bomb was in undetected, and it was also her plan to jump for the bomb. Meanwhile, I mostly acted as transport and as a target for Sero and Ashido to aim at. Without the assistance of Hagakure I would have been unable to succeed, so I don’t believe I should be considered the MVP.”

Everything was silent for a moment.

“Ahem,” All Might cleared his throat. “That was a very good analysis of the battle. Sometimes there are things you can only notice in a fight by being a part of it. From an outsiders perspective, young Wazawa was the only one on his team contributing, but from his perspective, he was the one not doing much.

“Though, young man, I will say you are selling yourself short. While you are correct in your assessment of your peers, your assessment of your own contributions was wrong. Can anyone elaborate why?”

A few moments passed as the class thought, before the ponytail girl — Yaoyorozu — answered. “From what we could tell from watching, Wazawa was the one to come up with both their scouting and infiltration plans, so he provided much more than he said. Not only that, the MVP shouldn’t be who would have been able to win by themselves, but who added the most to their team, so needing Hagakure’s assistance shouldn’t preclude him of the award.”

All Might’s smile somehow grew wider. “Exactly, strategy is the most important part of a battle like this, so an effective strategy is worth more than a capable fighter. When you all become pro’s, you will undoubtedly come across situations like this one, where how you even enter a building can be life or death for civilians,” he paused for an uncomfortably long time, as if waiting for a response, before clapping his hands. “Now, who is our last group for today?”

~X~

After getting changed back into our normal school uniforms, we were released for the day, with a promise from Aizawa-sensei that we would go over all the battles in more detail tomorrow.

“Hey, Wazawa, wait up!” a voice called.

 I turned to see Hagakure running up to me.

“What station are you going to?” she asked. I told her the stop that was closest to my apartment building. “Cool, I’m further down on that line. Mind if I walk with you?”

I exhaled audibly. “Do what you wish.”

We walked out the school gate and began to head down the street towards the train. No words passed between us. I felt no need for conversation, and Hagakure quietly hummed an unfamiliar tune.

I heard a familiarly chipper voice behind me and glanced back. Uraraka was walking with Midoriya and Iida, having an animated conversation between the three of them. I suppose I’d have to deal with her when we got off the same station, won’t I?

I wonder if there was a way to avoid that. Take the earlier train? I’d have to go at a full sprint to make it in time, and I wasn’t at my best after the fighting earlier. Delay and take the train after? I’d have to find a reason to stop and let them pass without being too suspicious about it. If Uraraka were to realise I was trying to avoid her, she would no doubt ask questions I don’t have the energy to deal with. Plus, I had to account for Hagakure. I didn’t particularly want her to ask why I was avoiding my neighbour either.

Speaking of whom, the invisible had stopped humming and was shifting a bit. It was hard to tell with the fact I couldn’t see her head, but I’m pretty sure that she was looking behind her at the other groups of students. Suddenly, she bounced slightly and jogged over to a nearby store. “Hey, we should get a drink. I need some sugar to recover.”

It was a decent excuse. I shrugged and walked over to the shop, Hagakure looking at the selection animatedly. Something about her movements felt off, as if they were forced. Uraraka spotted me standing off to the side as she passed and waved with a wide smile. I gave my best unimpressed stare in response. Thankfully, she didn’t stop. After our exchange, she turned back to the two she was walking with and chatted as normal.

Hagakure ended up getting some form of low sugar orange soda, I just bought a bottle of water.

“Are you fine with just that?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t drink anything else.”

“You’re a pretty odd guy, Wazawa.”

“Hm,” I grunted in response. A silence fell over us. I had nothing to talk about, and Hagakure was acting strange, like she was putting on an act.

A few minutes passed in silence, just us watching groups of students walking down the street from the shade of the shop awning. I decided to cut through the awkwardness with a knife. “So, what did you want to say to me that you don’t want anyone else hearing?”

“H-huh?” she startled. “I, uh, I don’t know what you mean.”

I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. “You’re trying too hard to act normal, all your movements are too exaggerated. You checked behind you five times in a single minute before you suddenly decided to get a drink.”

She made a small noise as if to speak.

“And,” I interrupted before she said anything, “you said you wanted a drink to get some sugar but chose a drink with no sugar. You wanted some excuse to get away from the large number of people and have been trying to say something ever since we started standing.”

She was quiet for a few seconds. “Heh, I should have guessed you would have figured me out. You’re pretty smart, aren’t you? I mean, you came up with those strategies earlier, and you pointed out how everyone acted through the fight afterwards.”

“Doesn’t mean I have a clue what is so important you have to tell me like this.”

“Well, it’s kind of embarrassing how difficult it is for me. It’s not even a big deal, but I wanted to be sure I worded it correctly, and I don’t really want others to think differently of me.”

“How about you just say what comes to mind?”

She took a swig from her soda. “Okay. First, did you mean what you said to the class after our battle? About how much I contributed?”

“The only part I will admit I was wrong about was my own contribution. Everything else I said was the truth.”

“I see. Okay then, now for what I wanted to say,” she took a deep breath and prepared herself. “Thank you for speaking up.”

I blinked. “That’s what you’ve been stewing on this entire time?” A thank you? Seriously?

“I said it was embarrassing,” she said with a whine. “It’s just… it really hurt when the entire class thought I did nothing, and that you did everything. And when you spoke for the first time to the whole class, to defend me it felt…” she trailed off. “It made me feel like I was seen, you know?”

I didn’t know how to respond to that. From the way she said seen, I got the impression she had issues with being overlooked. Being thanked for such a simple thing, though. It felt odd. I had never been sincerely thanked like this before, and I had no idea what you were meant to say in this situation.

“You shouldn’t thank me,” I responded. “I didn’t do it for you. I just hated how their assessment was wrong.”

Hagakure let out a small laugh. “But you still said something. So, thank you again,” she turned towards me, and I got the impression she was smiling. “I’ve decided! From today on, we are friends.”

“Don’t I get a say in this?” I asked.

“Nope! Ooh, since we are now friends, can I call you Sotoki?”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” I replied with a deadpan.

“Oh, come on. I’ll let you call me Tooru.”

I somehow managed to force my face into even more of a deadpan. “I’ll pass.”

She huffed. “I’ll wear you down eventually.”

I just shook my head and began walking again. At the very least, enough time had passed that I wouldn’t be stuck in a social situation against Uraraka.

~X~

It was almost dark by the time I got back to my apartment. Hagakure had slowly become more cheerful as we rode on the train. I wasn’t sure why, but even after thanking me she was a bit out of it. My usual self-induced isolation made me a bit inept when it came to understanding the emotions of others, and an invisible girl was even harder to read.

But she did seem to be better by the time I left, and there was no sign of the acting she had displayed earlier. Maybe I had unintentionally dredged up some bad memories. Something felt odd about her, sure, but it was more an issue with me, I felt.

I pulled out my phone as I entered the still bare apartment. Without much money to spend on furniture, all I had was a cheap tv, a desk for studying and eating at, a laptop, and an ordinary desk chair. I saw I had a text from both Kaiji and Tsuchigumo.

Kaiji: WTF??? All Might is teaching at UA??

Attached was a link to a news article breaking the news that the number one hero would be fostering the talents of the next generation. I quickly sent back a reply.

Sotoki: Found out yesterday but was told not to say anything. Had him teaching heroics today.

Kaiji: And??? How did it go? Man, I should have applied for UA, high school here is the same as junior high, just the teachers are already putting more pressure on us.

I thought back to the lesson. The booming voice, the very scripted way he talked, the pauses that were just a bit too long.

Sotoki: The man has no idea how to teach. He’s obviously experienced and is a good hero, but he has no idea what he is doing.

Kaiji: That… makes a lot of sense. Guess he’s human too.

The talk of All Might reminded me of the issue of his quirk. I had almost forgotten about it in the excitement of battle, but if he no longer had his quirk — or was losing it through some means — what did that mean for a society built upon his shoulders?

My phone buzzed again. Just a weather update. Though, Tsuchigumo also texted me, didn’t she?

Tsuchigumo: How was the first proper day? Did you get to use your costume? Was to specifications? What about its function, were you able to move well?

No mention of All Might, despite the fact that Kaiji would have no doubt shared the news with her. She seriously only had costumes in her brain.

Wazawa: Had a fight in full costume. Misdirection couldn’t be properly tested with everyone already knowing I could use my quirk from anywhere on my body. Mobility was completely fine. No issues as far as I could see. Even used the mask tentacle to attack.

Tsuchigumo: Pics plz. Need to see my child.

Wazawa: Wasn’t able to take a photo, maybe next time.

Tsuchigumo: D:

I just shook my head and locked my phone. It was kind of odd. When we were seeing each other in person, I was only able to tolerate Tsuchigumo for a short while, much more than what I could say for most of my peers, but over text was much easier to enjoy her company. I used to think that because she was meek and didn’t talk much that my ire was more subdued, but even after she came out of her shell more nothing changed about my instinctual hate.

Honestly. My hate for others is just another great mystery in the pile for me. Why did I hate pretty much everyone I saw? Where did my quirk create portals to? What happened to me after using seven tentacles? Why did I receive these visions of both the past and the future? How did I even get the memories of another person who lived in a completely different universe?

I closed my eyes and thought about my classmates. If this world were a story, they would be the main cast. They were varied in their abilities, but all of them had some abnormally useful quirks. The majority of the population had quirks that barely changed their daily lives, but my class all had life defining ones. I suppose any student in UA’s hero course would have that, though.

I then made the mistake of trying to picture their faces. Something I usually avoid. I thought of how Uraraka’s face would look like with a black eye. Midoriya with his entire body twisted and purple. Iida with his legs bent the wrong way, pushed by his engines in a way that was not humanly possible. Yaoyorozu with a half formed object protruding out of her skin, stopped by a hole in the middle of her gut, wide enough you could see directly through it.

I bolted upright, rushing to the bathroom. It must be getting late, because I can usually avoid thinking in that way. That was my hatred taken to the extreme. If I continued, the images would only get more and more graphic and extreme. It was part of the reason why I was able to be friends with Kaiji; as someone who was exempt from my hatred, I had never pictured him injured or dead.

As much as I felt hatred for the people around me, that all paled in comparison to how much I hated those feelings. I returned to my bed and tried to get some sleep.

I didn’t get a single moments rest.

Chapter Text

I crawled out of my bed at the alarm, still wide awake. The hateful thoughts had died down at around 3 AM, but sleep still escaped me. I got up and took a quick shower, the heat soothing my aching muscles and freshening me up. Looking in the mirror, I could see the toll the sleepless night had on my body.

Dark bags sagged under my eyes. My eyelids were perpetually half-lidded, and my sclera were red with cracks. I slapped my cheeks as hard as I could and splashed cold water in my face to try and force myself awake more.

Sluggishly I got ready for school, putting in extra effort to make sure I didn’t mess anything up in my sleep deprived state. I might look and feel like shit, but at least an immaculate uniform will mitigate how bad I look to others.

I walked out the apartment and locked the door behind me.

“Morning Wazawa!” an unfortunately familiar voice chirped.

I turned to look at Uraraka, who herself was just leaving. Unlike me, she seemed wide awake and ready for the day, her eyes—

Uraraka ’s face beaten and bruised. A black eye puffed up and swollen on her face, her teeth chipped and blood dribbling down her lip.

I recoiled back despite myself. Just looking at her was enough to cause my hatred to flare up, and with how tired I was, I couldn’t stop my mind from drifting to those images I conjured up.

“Um, are you alright?” Uraraka asked. “You don’t look so good.”

I grunted in response and started walking to the train station. Uraraka followed behind, and for once I was grateful towards her because she made no attempt at conversation the whole way to school.

~X~

In homeroom, I was immediately hit with a wave of noise after a single sentence from Aizawa-sensei.

Class president.

Something about leadership roles always seems to make even the quiet ones clamour for a position. And being the figurehead for a class of the most watched future heroes in the country meant that they coveted the position even more.

I hate being in a leadership position.

There was one time in middle school where I was voted as the class president against my will for some reason. For an entire semester I was stuck in that position, until the role would be passed down onto someone else to give them a shot. I don’t think I even did anything in those months, I mostly acted as a teacher’s assistant whenever one remembered I existed.

So when it came down to everyone voting for two people to be the class president, I knew who the one person I was definitely not voting for was. But that left me with two people to choose out of a remaining 19. And frankly? I knew basically nothing about any of my classmates.

After a few minutes of deliberating, I wrote down the two people I thought could lead the class without being too much of a nuisance to me

Yaoyorozu

Todoroki

Yaoyorozu was the one who gave accurate assessments of the battle trial the most frequently and seemed to hold herself in high esteem. Todoroki was quiet and calm, and given his probable relation with a pro hero would likely know how to lead.

The votes were collected and counted, and the scores written on the whiteboard.

Midoriya Izuku: 3

Yaoyorozu Momo: 3

…

Wazawa Sotoki: 1

Immediately a re-vote was held to break the tie. I really did not care and voted for Yaoyorozu again. But who the hell had voted for me? I looked at each person in the room. Most were focused on who would be the class president, and none of them had any reason to vote for me.

When I looked at Hagakure, she turned and her sleeved moved in a wave. Of course she did. I just sighed and put my head in my arms.

In the end, Yaoyorozu was voted as president, with Midoriya as the vice-president.

~X~

Classes were horrid. Even with it only being the third day and the workload being light because of that, my exhaustion kept piling up through the day and I almost fell asleep in half of the lessons.

It’s good that UA’s policy on the heroics classes is to alternate between practical and theory lesson to let the students recover. If I was put into another combat situation like I was now, I would surely make a ton of mistakes.

And those mistakes might not affect only me. The entrance exam showed me how using six tentacles for an extended period would push me further to unconsciousness, but how would sleep deprivation play a factor? Could I lose control using only five? Less? Would I be aware of the imminent danger in enough time to stop it?

Losing control amongst allies is one of the main things I wished to never do. Ever since I first overused my quirk in the woods out of town, I knew that such a state could only be used as a last resort away from civilians and allies. The sheer destruction it wrought would endanger everyone nearby.

But before heroics class was lunch. And I was not prepared for the sheer mayhem that would unfold.

It all started fairly normally. I grabbed some food from Lunch Rush, and sat down at an empty table. The first event to differ from the previous day was when a certain invisible girl walked over with a tray.

“Don’t you have some friends to bother right now?” I asked as she put the tray down.

“Yep!” she chirped. “That’s why I’m sitting here.”

“We aren’t friends, we’re acquaintances.”

“Oof. And right after the touching heart to heart we had yesterday.”

“Touching?” I ask, a bit incredulous.

“Yep, I had this whole emotional moment and you stood there stone faced.”

I just stared at her blinking for a few seconds before shaking my head and continuing to eat. Hagakure started eating as well, and we sat in silence for a few minutes.

“So,” she spoke up after a while. “I noticed you only had one vote this morning.”

“Yeah, thanks for that,” I groused.

“Why didn’t you vote for yourself? You were great at leading yesterday!”

“That was different. Yesterday was a battle situation. It was like solving a puzzle or playing a game of chess. I just moved the pieces around until we could win,” I explained. “Something like a class president is completely different. You don’t control the situation, you act as a trusted figure, a liaison, a symbol of the ideal for your peers to aspire to. I don’t wish to be that.”

Hagakure put down her chopsticks. “But isn’t that what a hero is meant to be? Someone to aspire to be and trust? Shouldn’t you try and become like that for when we become full time heroes?”

For a moment, Kaiji’s face flashed in my mind. That sounded exactly like something he would try and drill into my head. I huffed out a breath and pushed my tray away, clearing a space for me to rest my head in my arms. My eyes were beginning to droop from the exhaustion catching up.

“Honestly I’m more focused on making sure none of us die before we graduate,” I mumbled.

“What?!” she asked, voice pitching up and cracking somewhat in surprise.

Shit. I accidentally let that slip. I quickly tried formulating some lie to ease her growing concern.

Luckily, I was saved by the bell. Or rather, the siren.

I heard a shout that it was the intruder alert, and immediately the entire cafeteria erupted into chaos. Students were screaming and pushing trying to figure out what was happening.

I sighed. “I suppose we should evacuate.”

“H-how can you be so calm?” Hagakure asked, voice trembling. She must still be surprised by the chaos.

I just shrugged. “I’m too tired to give a shit right now.” I went to stand up but got hit in the back by someone running past, almost knocking me to the floor. This really just encapsulated why I hated these people. One small alert and they all lose their minds like it was the end of the world. And yet when there’s a villain attack on the side of the street where they are out of danger then they just pull out their damn phones and record it!

No, calm down. I couldn’t lose my temper at this time; a level head was needed. I just needed to wait for the mass hysteria to pass and then orderly evacuate.

Over all the shouting I saw Iida somehow fly through the air and crash into the wall above the exit. How did he even do that? He flew at least thirty meters there, spinning completely out of control.

“EVERYBODY, IT IS ALL RIGHT. IT’S JUST THE PRESS!” he shouted in a ridiculous pose. Almost immediately, it seemed as if the crowd forgot all about their previous panic and just reverted back to ordinary students. Apparently, there was a use for Iida’s extreme audaciousness.

Once everyone had settled down and the crowd dispersed, I approached the uncomfortably posed student, still stuck on the small platform above the exit. I stared at him for a few seconds, and eventually he made eye contact, face contorted in concentration.

“…Why that pose, exactly?” I asked. He was positioned in an almost exact replica of the man on an exit sign, balanced on one leg.

“I-it needed to be audacious and eye catching so that everyone would listen!” he replied, wobbling a bit.

I just stared for a few seconds. By now the cafeteria had returned to a drone of casual chatter as everyone had calmed down and returned to their seats. Iida still posed stock still.

“You can’t get back down, can you?”

He flushed red. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted Uraraka, who was a bit banged up, and Midoriya, who was shaking like a leaf, discussing something. No doubt how to get the third member of their trio down.

I sighed and opened a gate on my hand, letting a tentacle rise up to Iida’s level. “Grab on tight,” I instructed. Once he had a firm grip, I lowered him back down on to the floor.

“Thank you for the help, Wazawa-san,” he said, legs trembling from the strain.

I just flapped my hand in an off-handed wave as I walked away, stifling a yawn. “Whatever.” This whole lunch period was just even more exhausting. Maybe I could take a nap until class started again.

~X~

I actually started to feel a bit better by the time heroics rolled around. The excitement of lunch seemed to wake me up a bit more, and I was actually able to pay attention to what Aizawa-sensei was saying. Of course, I still felt like shit, but not as much as I had earlier.

The day came to a close without much fanfare. We went through our performances in the battle trial, got some feedback which mostly consisted of things I had figured out myself, and then were dismissed for the day. The only mildly interesting thing was Midoriya abdicated his position as vice-president to Iida, despite the latter having even less votes than I did.

I was walking to the exit, Hagakure talking about something or other, when we came across the front gate. Or more precisely, what remained of it. The entire gate was utterly destroyed, with there not even being any debris left over. It was like someone had just removed the gate from existence.

“Wow,” Hagakure breathed, “this must be how the press got in. Wonder why they even bothered, they were never going to get anything out of All Might in the first place.”

I hummed. “It is a bit strange. I mean, all of them would have their quirks registered, so the school could easily find out which one damaged the gate, so it’s odd that they would risk their job for basically nothing.”

“It just feels like one thing after another this week. I mean, this is our third day, and there’s been some major incident on all three days. Like, everyone said that high school was hectic but I never thought like this,” she huffed with a slump of her shoulders.

“I just want to go to sleep. This week had felt way too packed, like how a story will be filled with dramatic events far too frequently to…” Wait a minute.

Like a story. I don’t like thinking this way, because it is too limiting of a mindset, but if I thought of this world as a work of fiction, then something like the front gate being mysteriously annihilated had to have some relevance.

“Sotoki? Heeey? Earth to Wazawa?” Hagakure’s sleeve moved back and forth.

I shook my head. “You know, waving your hand in front of my eyes is much less effective when I can’t see it,” I remarked. “I just remembered I was going to book out a training room this afternoon, so you go on without me.”

“Oh,” she said, a bit of an odd tone in her voice. “Well, you better show me all the cool new moves you come up with soon!”

I bobbed my head a bit and hurried off to where the many domes that littered the campus grounds. There was something I needed to test.

~X~

Luckily, there were many buildings free for use this early in the year. In a few weeks’ time they would all be fully booked out by third-years leading up to the sports festival. But only a third were occupied, given that it was currently only the third day.

I booked out one of the smaller, featureless domes. What I was doing didn’t need any equipment, just a space where I could be alone and the area around me was allowed to be destroyed.

I sat down on the floor in the rough centre and took a deep breath. And then, in an instant, I opened seven portals simultaneously.

The world went dark, and when I came to, I was in a familiar void. Well, as familiar as entirely dark nothingness could be. I spotted the lights floating in the distance and drew myself towards them, submerging myself in the memories.

All of a sudden I was someone else. The scenes jumped rapidly and were a mess of information.

Receiving a graduation certificate. Shaking hands with a middle-aged man. Sitting in a lecture hall, reading something on a phone. Standing behind a store counter late at night all alone. The feeling of a knife sliding into a bicep. Tracing fingers over a long scar.

They were pretty mundane scenes; the world was almost painfully bland. Everyone’s hair was dull, muted colours. Heir face structures all similar, and no obvious mutations. A world without quirks.

I still don’t know who the person I was in those memories were, or why I see them in the first place. But at the moment, none of that mattered. They weren’t why I was here. I dove back into the memories.

I knew instantly that these were the ones I wanted. The colours were boisterous, the images were nowhere near realistic, being heavily animated. I saw those who I knew now to be my classmates. Going through a battle trial set by All Might, but this time the teams were different. And more importantly, I was nowhere to be seen. Instead there was a vaguely familiar looking lumpy purple kid.

It was pretty interesting to see my classmates going through different fights, and seeing how they matched up against different opponents. And while some of my questions about these visions was now answered, I still wanted something else.

The memories finally reached today. Compared to the battle trial, they were pretty basic. The press harassing students as they entered, something I arrived early enough to avoid. Voting for the class president — huh, Midoriya got the most votes this time — and then the alarm going off at lunch.

I could feel myself beginning to wake. Just before I returned to the real world, I got a brief flash of someone standing in the crowd of reporters, but wasn’t one himself, and reaching out to touch the metal barrier.

My head snapped up. I was awake in the same place I was before, not even a pebble on the ground having moved an inch. And I now knew that whoever destroyed the front gate was not one of the reporters, and whatever they were planning was undoubtedly going to come and affect my class in particular.

Chapter Text

I spent the next few days on high alert. From what I could gather about my visions, it would appear that I receive images of the “proper” timeline, the one where I either never existed, or never applied for UA. I had a sneaking suspicion just based on the images looking more like drawings than photographs, but the scenes of a battle trial without me in it sealed the deal.

And based on that, I could gather that in the series depicting this world, someone intentionally destroyed the gate, letting the press enter the school. The question was why. It obvious wasn’t just to have the reporters enter, they were stopped within a few hundred metres and were mostly just a nuisance.

My first thought was to probe the response time of the school and how strong the defences were. If the perpetrator was planning a large-scale invasion of the school, knowing that whatever they used to break down the gate worked and how fast the teachers responded to the threat would be valuable information. But to so blatantly annihilate the entrance would put the staff on edge and ready for another attempt, perhaps even fixing the security flaw that had been exploited. Furthermore, there was essentially no point in the press being there for that plan. The alarms would have still gone off and the staff would have responded just as quickly if the culprit was alone. All the press did was provide a distraction for a few minutes.

Which leads to the second possibility: that the incident at lunch was an infiltration. While the teachers were busy dealing with reporters asking for All Might to make an appearance, whoever broke down the gate would slip in unnoticed and scope out the school. For what reason I have no idea, but it was unnerving to think that they very likely got what they were looking for.

I was high strung the next day, waiting for any sign that an attack was coming. Nothing. The day was completely normal, with the only hint that something happened being a bit more security waiting at the entrance. The gate itself had even been completely rebuilt.

Friday and Saturday came and went too without incident. As more time went on, the less confident I was in my vision’s accuracy, and the more threatening a potential incident would be.

If they were waiting so long between attacks, they must be planning something big. Waiting a few days was understandable to allow the school to lax their security again. But that had been done Friday morning, and still no peep from the perpetrators.

That left two options. Either they were waiting for a specific moment to strike when it would be most effective, or they were gathering their resources for a big attack. Worst case scenario, it was both. But without knowing exactly what their goals in breaking into the school were I had no idea when or where they would attack.

My high-strung state was even starting to draw notice from others. I could see multiple teachers giving me concerned glances, and a few peers noted my somewhat increased viciousness when training.

I couldn’t tell them, though. What would I say? My quirk — which should only create tentacles — gives me visions of an alternate reality? Best case scenario they think I’m joking and ignore me. Worst case, they think I’m working for the enemy and limit my actions.

I kept a close eye on the news over the weekend for any news, hoping that maybe the plan was a burglary when no students would be there. It was wishful thinking, given they already infiltrated the school, but it was a distant hope. Nothing regarding UA was mentioned anywhere, not on the news, nor on the internet. Even the press breaking in had been largely forgotten (though I suppose it’s not surprising that wasn’t heavily covered on the news).

Without any further incident, and my worries growing ever more, Monday rolled around. I suppose that should have been the first sign that shit was going to go down. Nothing good could ever come from a Monday.

~X~

“Today we will be testing your abilities at rescuing,” Aizawa-sensei told us that afternoon. Immediately I tensed up, like many times before. This would be the third heroics class that set off alarm bells in my head. It just felt like every time we do something like this is a chance for something to go wrong.

Perhaps it’s because I’m still thinking of this in terms of a story. As future heroes, a class about being heroes would be the time for something plot relevant to happen. But all our classes since the lunchroom invasion have been very close to campus, and any danger would be swiftly neutralised by all the nearby staff.

Of course, my fears only grew tenfold once Aizawa-sensei continued. “Since some of you might not have costumes designed for rescue, you may use your gym uniforms instead. Get changed and meet me out by the bus.”

A bus meant going a long distance, maybe even off campus for whatever reason. In other words, away from much of the security of the school and a prime location for attack. I still didn’t know why we would be attacked but going to an important place for a lesson shortly after a mysterious break in set off far too many alarms.

I made sure to grab my costume. It wasn’t great for manoeuvring rough terrain like you’d see in disaster zones, but if deadly combat was a possibility, I would need every tool possible.

With a shaky breath, I calmed my nerves as much as possible and headed out to the bus.

~X~

1, 2, 3, 4… 19, 20, 21. 21 quirks nearby. No danger.

I counted for the fifth time as we rode the bus. Under my costume I had five tentacles coiled around my limbs, compressing my muscles. It did little to soothe my nerves, but little was still something.

“Mind if I ask you something?” the plain looking boy next to me — Ojiro — asked.

I snapped my eyes open and stared at him for a few moments. “Sure.”

“Why exactly are you wearing your hero outfit? I mean, isn’t it a bit too baggy to be usable in a rescue environment?”

He really had to ask one of the hardest questions for me to answer. By all means, I should be using the gym uniform. But I need the combat potential given by the costume, just in case.

“Also why is it so colourful?” Ashido turned around and asked. “I pinned you for a guy that only wore black and grey.”

“I think he would wear red!” Uraraka called out.

I shot a brief glare at her. She had seen me going out for groceries yesterday in a red shirt and was obviously alluding to that. I figured it would be best to give some kind of answer to their questions.

“Even if my costume isn’t great for rescue, shouldn’t I learn how to compensate for it? And as for the colours, a friend of mine designed that part.”

“You have friends?” Ashido asked, almost a bit incredulous.

“I’ll take that as the insult it was,” I deadpanned.

The conversation sort of died there, as Bakugo started screaming about some slight or another against him, drawing the entire busses attention.

1, 2, 3, 4…

~X~

19, 20, 21, 22.

There was one additional quirk in the area as we approached the massive glass dome. That was odd, we were told there would be three teachers managing our class for this lesson, where was the 23rd?

We all entered the grand building to see a lone hero in a spacesuit-like costume. 13 began their explanation of what our purpose was at this facility, the USJ.

“Where is All Might? I thought he was meant to be here,” Aizawa-sensei asked.

The two heroes began to have a hushed conversation, far enough out that no one could hear them. 13 held up three fingers and Aizawa-sensei sighed. Whatever they were communicating in regard to the number three, what I could conclude was that we were stuck with only two teachers here. In a situation that could go to hell at any moment. Great.

I began counting again.

1, 2, 3, 4… 20, 21, 22, 23, 24… 55, 70, 100, 150, 200, 207.

That. Was not good.

“Sensei!” We called out. The One Who Interrupts snapped his head towards us, face looking a mix between irritated and concerned. “207,” We managed to choke out. We were expecting an attack, even a bad one, but not this strong.

The teacher, for his part, looked confused for a brief moment before he saw the five tentacles that had forced their way out of the holes in our cloak. He immediately got the message and jumped back towards the class, right as a black fog filled the centre of the plaza, right in front of the water fountain.

I dismissed the tendrils for the time being as dozens of people, many with very dangerous looking mutations and savage grins. I counted each one as they came through, and sure enough, there were over 150 villains. Assuming my “quirk sense” as it were was accurate, there should be 185 enemies, against 22 of us. That would mean that we would each need to take down at least eight villains of unknown strength as students with only six days of official hero training. Even if I considered the two teachers as worth ten students in capability, that still was overwhelmingly bad odds for us.

“I see,” a man made entirely of the fog the villains stepped out of said. “According to the schedule we stole, All Might was supposed to be here today, and yet…”

Of course, the break in was right after it became public that All Might was at UA, that was why the press were at the gate in the first place. So, they broke in to find a time where All Might would be away from the main campus, where reinforcements wouldn’t be readily available, and where he would be preoccupied with protecting a group of students. Of course, he wasn’t here for some reason, which means…

“Why isn’t he here?” the pale-haired man with hands all over his body whined. “After we went through all this trouble to gather a party, the main boss isn’t even here?” he began to scratch at his neck. Something about his hair seemed familiar, like I had seen something very similar.

That’s right. The vision. The final thing I saw was the back of someone’s head and their arm reaching towards the school gate. And the hair was a similar enough that they could very well be the same person. Just to be sure, I summoned three tentacles under my clothes, out of sight from the enemies, and thought about them.

The main three threats that stood out to me was The Apathetic Destroyer, still scratching at his neck, The Many Who Shifts Through Mist, who brought the villains here and was likely their escape plan, and the hulking Many That Extinguishes Hope. The many part of those last two was a bit confusing, as my quirk often seems to use the phrase “The One” to refer to others, but “Many” wouldn’t make sense. It’s not like they can be multiple people or anything.

But that aside, the title Apathetic Destroyer further solidified my suspicions about who infiltrated the school.

“I wonder,” The Apathetic Destroyer continued, “if we kill enough kids, do you think All Might will show up?”

The One Who Interrupts reacted immediately. “13! Start evacuating immediately! Try and contact the school! You too, Kaminari, try using your quirk to call for help.”

I began to think of ways the rest of us could help. One on one fighters would get overwhelmed here, and even I, who was able to take on a dozen of robots at a time, would not be able to face the sheer force in numbers we were up against. So, the large scale fighters would be best, the ones that could hit multiple at a time.

Let’s see… That would be Todoroki, Bakugo, and Kaminari. Midoriya, Jiro, and Ashido could also potentially be useful, but were more limited in their scope. It would seem that our class was overwhelmingly stacked with single target fighters or limited to a small group. If we could somehow break them up, we might stand a chance, but as it were most of us would be sitting ducks.

While I was figuring out a battle plan, Aizawa-sensei prepared to attack. He was a pro hero who was experienced in taking down villains in their shock of being without their quirk, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he could take down most of the group by himself. Although…

“Sensei,” I spoke before he could kick off.

“Wazawa, get back and leave the building if you can. Let the pro’s do their job. Your early warning has already helped in knowing what we are up against.”

I shook my head. “The one with the hands is The Apathetic Destroyer and is likely the one who destroyed the school gate.”

“Noted. Now get out of here, you headache,” he ordered with a slight smile in his voice.

I did all I could to help for now. I can’t say I liked the man, in fact, I found him rather unlikable. But between him and them? Well, their plans falling apart will be a treat to watch.

“Wazawa! Come on, we need to get out of here!” Iida called.

“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,” the mist man said as he appeared out of nowhere between us and the door. “Greetings. We are the League of Villains. We were hoping to find the Symbol of Peace, All Might here today, and if possible, we would very much like to kill him.”

The black fog made an exaggerated sigh. “Although it would seem that won’t be the case. Nevertheless, I have a role to play.” As he said that, the fog expanded into a massive cloud that moved to envelop us.

Three figures jumped towards the man in the middle and struck. Midoriya flicked a finger, causing a great gust of air to explode outwards and blow a hole in the gathered cloud, while Bakugo caused a massive explosion aimed at the villain and Kirishima, able to weather the blast from Bakugo’s explosion, sought to punch the villain in the face.

“Hah,” Bakugo spat. “You didn’t think we’d be able to beat ya before you got the chance!”

All that remained of the man was his body. The head had been completely obliterated, only wisps remaining.

“Hmm. It would seem — despite being mere students — that you are rather dangerous already,” the wisps reformed into the shadowy mass that was the villains head, returning him to how he was before the attack, none worse for wear.

“Just run! Get out of here as quickly as possible!” 13 yelled, panic clear in their voice.

“It would seem you are too late. Goodbye, golden eggs of UA. You will be scattered. You will be tortured. And ultimately, you will be killed.”

The cloud surged forwards once again, and this time, no one was there to stop it. I rushed forwards to grab someone, anyone, to see if I could throw them out before it was too late, but because I had lagged behind to talk to Aizawa-sensei, the only one close to me was Aoyama, and he was still too far for me to do anything.

The darkness fully enveloped me, and almost immediately, as if a curtain had been pulled open, the shadows receded to reveal I was in an empty city with torrential rain pouring down.

Chapter Text

Where the hell was I?

The black mist villain obviously had some form of teleportation quirk, based on his title and the sudden appearance of nearly two hundred thugs. But what was still unknown was just how far he could send someone. For all I knew, he could have sent me to the other side of the world.

A quick look around confirmed my suspicions that I was alone, at least as far as I could see. None of my classmates had been placed nearby to where I was. But across an entire city, there were dozens of places someone could be placed where I couldn’t see them.

It was a bit odd that there was no sign of life nearby, but I could have been put in one of the many cities that were completely vacated for some reason during the years of conflict after the rise of quirks. The buildings were even in disrepair, further supporting that theory.

If we were all in an abandoned city, the first step would be to locate the others, and then figure out where we were. Survival would be easier with more people. But how to locate them? I couldn’t just loudly announce my location, there were probably enemies planted here. The mist man did say we would be scattered, tortured, and killed. So, I needed a way to locate others subtly.

Of course! I created five tentacles, and immediately was able to sense nearby quirks.

15 in total, not including myself. And one of them was right behind me.

I threw myself to the floor, almost instinctively. A throwing knife flew by right where my head had been.

15 nearby people, and who knows how many are hostile. I shot back a tentacle out my sleeve to attack where the knife had come from, but no one was there. There was, however, fourteen other people with savage grins emerging from side-streets and alleyways. I immediately ran a finger from forehead to chin and opened a portal on my face to serve as a mask

“Well, well. What do we have here?” a giant man with rocks growing out of his flesh sneered. “A little hero all alone just for us. Honestly, it’s like that Shigaraki is insulting us, giving us such an easy job.”

I eyed them all. They had formed a loose circle around me, fourteen in total. There was a mixture of quirks. Most I couldn’t tell just by looking, but there were a fair few with obvious mutations. The street was a two lane road with a sidewalk on both sides, coming to about 15 metres in length.

And although there were fourteen people around me, I could feel a fifteenth somewhere nearby. But for whatever reason, I couldn’t tell where exactly they were. So safe to say a full fifteen enemies, and little to no chance of help coming.

I took a breath and sighed. “Surrender now and you might get off lightly,” I ordered.

I only got laughs and jeers in response. “Aww, is little hero going to beat all the bad guys?” the guy with rocks coming out of him mocked. “Nice try, kid. But that only works if you’re actually a threat. If you were All Might, or even Endeavour, it might have been worth listening to.”

I shrugged. “Well I figured it was worth a shot considering you all have been too afraid to attack me even in my blind spot this whole time.”

That got the intended reaction. The snickering stopped immediately and they all started shuffling, waiting for someone to make the first move. I was an unknown to them, they had no idea what my quirk was or how strong I was, so no one wanted to be the first to attack and go down.

There was a splash to my back left as one of the thugs ran towards me. I turned side on to him and raised a hand letting one of the tentacles that had been writhing underneath my sleeve shoot out, end curled up, to essentially punch him in the stomach.

The man staggered back, winded. The tentacle I had used was one the largest I could use on my arms, being almost as thick as my leg. I had to make sure to curl the ends of the tentacles when going for a straight strike, as I couldn’t be quite sure how sharp the tip was, and there was enough force behind each one to pierce concrete.

The man’s charge was enough to break the figurative dam wall, and the other thirteen all charged at the same time. The first few that reached me were easily repelled. Block the lead pipe with a tentacle, dodge under a right hook, hit that one with a tentacle, drive my knee into another at the same time. Those guys didn’t seem to have quirks suited for combat, they were more like cannon fodder, distractions so the real threats can do their work.

I jumped back as a massive stone hand rose from the road. Finally, someone was using their quirk. There was one guy in the back of the group with his arm stuck into the pavement, obviously the hand was his doing. The one with the rocks in him flexed his muscles and a hail of sharp stones shot out, forcing me to cover myself using both the tentacles I had out at the time.

Thankfully, I had left more gates open and just didn’t pull a tentacle from them yet, as while I was blocking a woman suddenly appeared behind me, knife in hand. She swung down to dig into my neck, but a third tentacle ripped through my cloak, emerging from my shoulder and taking the hit for me. Black smoke rose out of the “wound” and The Living Liquid jumped back, landing in a puddle and promptly turning into water and splashing against the road.

She must have been the one to throw that knife earlier. The Living Liquid obviously had some ability to turn into water, and possibly move between pools, effectively teleporting between water sources. And since it was still heavily raining, there were puddles everywhere for her to go to.

I stepped back, slightly out of breath. My opponents were in worse shape than I, but they were all still standing. The ones I had hit particularly hard were barely able to stay upright, hunched over, and one was even clutching his stomach.

I straightened up. “Just want to confirm something. You attacked first, right?”

“What?” a woman asked. “Are you slow? Yes, we attacked first.”

“Just wanted to confirm,” I replied and immediately launched two tentacles into the middle of the road, forming a V. I jumped, kicking off the wall behind me and wrenched my body forwards, launching at high speed towards the group.

I shot feet first towards one of the more tired villains, striking him right in the chest. He flew back and slammed into the building behind him, slumping over.

“One,” I declared, smile hidden under my face portal.

I used the tentacle on my shoulder to prop myself up and stop my fall. I ripped off the cloak to reveal the underlayer to my costume, throwing the discarded fabric at another’s head, blinding him, and then punched him in the throat. He too went down and didn’t get back up.

“Two.”

We summoned another tentacle, this time on the left shoulder to match the other and grabbed the knife that we had blocked earlier. We ripped it out of the shadowy shape, inky black smoke flowing out of the wound like blood in water. The One With Stone Spikes charged towards us.

We used a single tentacle to block his strike, but the fist tore straight through whatever substance it was made of, rocks grown on his knuckles shredding through any obstacle. The fist collided with our face, despite the portal in the way, and we could feel a crunch as bones shattered.

We reeled back, blind with pain, only managing to recover just in time to avoid another stone hand shooting out of the ground courtesy of The Moulder of Rock. We rolled to the side and were immediately put under fire by a combined barrage from The One With Stone Spikes and the woman who spoke earlier, The Prismatic Launcher.

We were able to hold off most of the damage through deflection with four tentacles working in tandem, but a few shots made it through, the stones tearing fabric and grazing skin, and rainbow crystals singing and burning. We couldn’t keep up for long, so we had to use our final prepared gate, this one on our lower back.

As soon as the fifth tentacle sprouted, we could sense the quirks around us, and once again there was one behind us. Our left shoulder tendril bent back, knife in hand, to deflect the swing that was no doubt coming. The brief moment it took for the back tentacle to replace it allowed multiple stones to make it past our defences, and a particularly large one struck our left arm and pierced into it. That arm was going to be useless for now.

The left shoulder tendril intercepted a horizontal knife swing from behind, just as we had predicted. We heard a European-accented — French, perhaps? — swear before a splash signified The Living Liquid had gone back into hiding.

The barrage came to a stop, the two villains either giving up or running out of whatever their fuel source was for their attacks. We weren’t given a moments reprieve, however, as right as they stopped The Moulder of Rock attacked once again. He seemed to have abandoned his original plan of catching us from below, and instead rose a hand out of the ground a few feet away and swung the arm down to crush us. Luckily, the attack was slow, and he didn’t seem to be able to attack often, with a long delay between each attempt.

We easily sidestepped the massive stone arm, and were face to face with the one with the lead pipe. He took another swing, but it was useless as a single tendril could counter it easily. We ripped the improvised weapon from his hands kneed his stomach, following up with a uppercut with our remaining good arm.

“Three.”

Once again, we started to get dogpiled, any usage of quirks forgotten in lieu of force in numbers. We swiped left with the tentacle holding the knife, slashing one woman in the thigh. She dropped; her leg not able to support her weight anymore.

“Four,” I announced, smile growing larger. This is what a fight really is. We barely came to blows in training, but this? This was taking out all my hatred on acceptable targets, and there was no better a feeling.

We whipped the knife around again, throwing it into the flesh between the chest and arm of another thug. He too dropped, a scream tearing out of his lips.

“Five.” That was a third of them down.

A space had cleared out for some reason. We found out why when the ground opposite it rose up once more. It swung down in the place where no other villains were. We quickly launched ourselves forwards and up, planting our feet on the shoulders of one man who had been trying to trap us in the ropes created by his quirk. We jumped off him, kicking him back into the path of the descending arm. The stone crashed down on him, pinning him to the ground.

“Six.”

Using the momentum off our jump from The Rope Spinner’s shoulders, we kicked another villain in the face, instantly knocking him out.

“Seven.”

We had to dodge as a blast came from The Prismatic Launcher. The rainbow-coloured gems shattered against the concrete building, leaving scorch marks. We then had to duck under a swing from The Living Liquid who tried a leaping strike from the side this time. As we were doing so, however, a kick from The One With Stone Spikes sent us reeling back, slamming painfully against a light post. There was an audible crack as our ribs were bent in ways they weren’t meant to.

It was getting hard to breathe. A shattered nose, who knows how many cracked or broken ribs, a bit of blood loss, and non-stop movement was beginning to catch up. Half of our opponents were down now, with a further half of the remaining on their last legs. One had even given up entirely.

The villains were beginning to close in, even The Living Liquid had stayed out of her hiding place to saunter over. We would struggle to run now, and there were still far too many to deal with. We had to even the playing field more. Reaching our right arm to our back, we drew another line along the skin, and summoned a sixth tentacle. We were told to limit ourselves to only five, but these were extenuating circumstances.

Now with six tendrils, we could try and replicate one of our first feats with this quirk. Each one reaching back behind us to grab the light pole, they coiled around it, covering the base in complete darkness.

We began to lift, the bolts fastening the fixture to the pavement groaning from stress. The group stopped their advance, watching us and wondering what we were planning.

Finally, the bolts gave way, and the ten metre long pole was now free to move in our grasp. The villains stood in shock, watching as the metal beam tilted in our grip until it was horizontal.

“DODGE!” The One With Stone Spikes yelled, seeing what was coming.

We swung the pole, faster than anyone was expecting. A whooshing sound was audible as it approached the group who had placed themselves in a line. The first was The Living Liquid, who’s eyes widened before she turned to water again, joining the puddle at her feet. The next man was not so lucky. He coughed as the metal collided hard with his side. Same with the next one. The One With Stone Spikes, in an impressive display of acrobatics for someone his size, managed to jump and lift his legs high enough to avoid being hit.

The woman to his right was not so lucky. She was ducking when the weapon came to her, and her shoulder didn’t get out of the way in time, clipping her and sending her sprawling. Last was The Prismatic Launcher, who had the most time to dodge and escape unharmed.

“11,” we said with a smile. That left only The One With Stone Spikes, The Prismatic Launcher, The Moulder Of Rock, and The Living Liquid.

“Bastard,” The One With Stone Spikes spat.

Discarding the light pole, we used the two tentacles coming out of our back to raise us up off the ground, allowing for mobility without needing to move our body. We took a large step towards the currently prone form of The Prismatic Launcher. She noticed our approach and raised her hands, palms against each other to use her quirk.

We stabbed the road in front of her, piercing through the bitumen with ease. “Cease,” we commanded.

The Prismatic Launcher placed her hands on the ground and made no effort to stand up, trembling as she stared at the hole we had created. A single strike to the back of the head, slamming it to the ground, was all that was needed to send her into unconsciousness.

“12.”

Another volley of stones came our way, and we easily blocked them all. Without the help of The Prismatic Launcher, the attacks from The One With Stone Spikes were of little issue now. Not only that, but the rocks themselves weren’t as sharp and flew much slower than before.

As we expected, another hand began to rise out of the ground. The Moulder Of Rock was attacking whenever he could, so each attempt was evenly spaced out. The hand went vertical, then bent 90 degrees, aiming directly for our chest. We simply dropped down below, completely avoiding it. From the corner of our vision, we could see The Moulder Of Rock grimace and slowly try to move his arm out of the road where it was currently elbow deep.

We ducked under the wide swing from The One With Stone Spikes, ribs screaming in protest. In fact, everywhere was protesting. Just like the entrance exam, every muscle in our body felt strained, and an uncomfortable feeling began to surface in the back of our mind. We were running out of time. Despite fighting for a shorter period than in the entrance exam, we had six tentacles out almost constantly, and we still couldn’t handle that stress.

Using four tentacles, we scuttled across the ground at high speed to where The Moulder Of Rock had been kneeling for the entire fight. He had made some progress in removing his arm, now half of his forearm was free.

He saw our approach and his eyes widened.

“No, please! No!” he pleaded, raising his free hand in a feeble attempt to stop us.

We coiled a tentacle around his arm and lifted. His body was quite light, and it took no effort to move him so he was suspended on his side, one arm in the ground and one outstretched to the air.

Then with no remorse, we kicked just below his elbow, gaining a bit of extra momentum using the other tendrils. The Moulder Of Rock let out a guttural scream as the bone snapped, unable to do anything to move out of the way.

“Lucky number 13.”

We turned to the last visible opponent. The One With Stone Spikes was right where we had left him. He was also on his last legs, blood pouring out of the places where rocks had once grown. He had overtaxed his own quirk, like we were.

“What the hell are you!” he yelled, swaying as he spoke. The blood loss obviously was getting to him. “This was meant to be an easy job. Just kill some helpless scared hero students while the others kill the Symbol of Peace. So just what the fuck are you?”

I had no choice but to drop all the tendrils. The presence in the back of my head had grown to a thunderous roar, and it felt as if a connection was being forced between us. This was as far as I could go for now.

I said nothing to the thug as I stumbled towards him, muscles aching, ribs burning, left arm completely limp. The villain also started to shuffle forwards. We met in the middle of the street, standing face to face for a moment.

“Just remember I gave you the option to surrender. You were the one to attack first. This is all your own fault.”

The larger man’s eyes flashed with anger and he sluggishly swung for my head. Hissing in pain, I managed to duck under the attack and land a punch on his stomach. He stumbled back. I ran a finger along my chest and created a new tentacle which I used to punch him in the face. Another step back. A right hook. Then another tentacle strike. Then an elbow to the chest.

Slowly I beat him until his back was against the wall. Then I wrapped the tentacle around his neck.

“This is for my nose,” I told him before slamming his face into the wall.

“This one is for my ribs.” Slammed again.

“This is for even thinking of trying to kill me.”

“And this,” I looked him in the eyes. He was barely conscious, face a mess and eyes unfocused. I smiled, “this is because I feel like it.”

With one final slam, the villain slumped over, fully unconscious.

I heard clapping from behind me. The woman who kept turning into water was standing in a pool of water in the middle of the road. She had been absent for a while, not interfering at all since she dodged away from my attack using the light pole.

“Bravo,” she congratulated. “I must say, I’m pleasantly surprised at the sheer brutality you showed. And here I was thinking all hero students wanted to be the next All Might; a paragon of righteousness.”

She began to walk forwards, knife in hand. I still needed to recover a bit before I could properly move, so I couldn’t run. “While I would love to play with you a bit, I was told to kill any hero student I came across,” she was now only a few steps away. “So goodbye, little hero.”

She raised her knife arm, poised to throw it at my head. Her smile grew as her arm moved forward.

Now!

A tentacle shot out of my face portal and wrapped around her neck at just the moment her guard was fully down. I lifted her up off the ground and her aim went wide. The knife clattered harmlessly against the wall. She didn’t turn to water.

“Heh,” she coughed out, voice quite literally strangled. “How’d you figure it out?”

“The one time you leapt to attack me, you didn’t immediately hide again, instead you only turned to water while standing in a puddle and I attacked afterwards. And just now you walked forwards, but stopped just four paces from me and threw the knife instead of coming right up to me and stabbing. You just happened to stop right in the nearest puddle. You need contact with a body of water to use your quirk, don’t you?”

She hacked out a weak laugh. “Looks like I’ve been had. Mind if I ask you a question before you brutalise me like the last guy? You almost killed multiple of us, and you were enjoying every second of it. Aren’t you guys meant to be the good guys?”

I tilted my head, thinking. “I’m simply not a good person. I’m fully aware of that. I don’t need to be a good person to do good things. So what if I hate everyone around me? So what if I take pleasure in hurting others? If I feel like being a hero, I will be. That’s all that matters.”

She started to laugh hysterically. “It’s a shame that monster Shigaraki brought is going to kill you all. I would have loved to kill you myself.”

I tightened my grip around her neck, blocking the arteries on either side. Within ten seconds she had gone limp, not trying even once to escape. I dumped her body on the ground and began gathering rope. One of the villains had a rope quirk, though he wasn’t very good at using it and never came close to hitting me.

I made sure to tie up all the villains — sans the one guy who was still pinned under a stone hand — and move them into a bunch away from any puddles. Once done, I very quickly brought out five tentacles to count the nearby quirks.

Yep all thirteen I could sense were right in front of me, except of course the one under the hand.

I looked up at the sky. Come to think of it, where exactly was I? I initially thought it to be an abandoned city, but that woman said I’d be killed by the monster… Shimadari? brought. So I must still be at the USJ. Looking closely, I could just make out black lines through the clouds. I was in one of the rescue zones. Likely every student was.

I had mentally recovered enough by now to use two tentacles simultaneously, and using them to prop myself up, I walked towards where the edge of the dome would be.

Chapter Text

It took a while, but eventually I was able to reach the edge of the dome. Luckily, I had chosen the correct direction, because just a few metres away from me was the exit door. I stepped through to get my first look at what had gone down while I was busy.

The main plaza was right in front of me, the massive fountain a beacon to orient myself by. Scattered along the ground between the entrance and the fountain were dozens of bodies, taken down by Aizawa-sensei. The teacher was currently engaging the guy with hands everywhere, the one that had some form of disintegration quirk.

“Oh, thank god. It’s just you,” A voice said a bit behind me. I whirled around as quickly as I could, which given my poor range of motion in my torso and reliance on tentacles to act as legs, wasn’t that fast. Stood on either side of the door I exited from was Sero and Ojiro, poised to attack. And completely soaked.

“Whoa, man. Are you okay?” Sero asked.

I had closed the gate over my face, so they could see what was likely the mess of my nose. And the rock still stuck in my arm.

“I’m fine, I can still move. Where did you two come from?”

“The flood zone,” Ojiro answered, pointing to my left where there was a large lake. “There were a bunch of guys with quirks like shark mutations, so we barely made it out after distracting them with Sero’s tape. We were planning on sneaking around to the entrance while avoiding the battle in the middle.”

“So, did everyone get sent to a different zone, then? There was no one else in here,” I tapped on the glass of the dome.

“Don’t think so,” Sero replied. “Look at the entrance.”

I looked to where we had been intercepted by the mist man and saw a bunch of figures, around five in total.

“It looks like Midoriya, Tsuyu, Kirishima, Ashido, and—” a loud explosion could be heard with a flash of light in that direction. “And Bakugo,” he finished.

Something seemed familiar about that list. Wait, weren’t they all the closest to the exit when we were warped? If my memory was correct in that, that would mean that those close together were warped to the same location, and since I was separate from the group, I was unlucky enough to be alone.

The shadowy mass of the mist villain appeared next to the hand guy, no longer guarding the entrance. Aizawa-sensei had made it through the majority of the small fry, and now only the hand guy, mist man, and the hulking thing with an exposed brain remained.

“Let’s go, seems like no one is guarding the entrance now,” I told them. “Make sure to keep low, they’ll probably attack us if we are spotted.”

We started crawling around the outside careful not to bring any attention to ourselves. The space between the edge of the downpour zone and the fountain where the three main threats still were was not much, and if even one of them noticed us, they would no doubt aim straight for the kill.

“The amount of time you can erase our quirks is decreasing, isn’t it Eraserhead?” Shimabari said. He lurched over as Aizawa-sensei, or I suppose he is Eraserhead at the moment, punched him in the gut. Shimabari’s hand reached for the extended elbow, but it would seem that Eraserhead heeded my warning and jumped back before contact could be made.

“Tch, what a pain,” the hand man whined. “I missed my opening.”

“Shigaraki Tomura,” the warper spoke. Wait, so that guy’s name wasn’t Shimabari? “It would seem that one of the students managed to escape to get help.”

Shigaraki began to scratch at his neck. “Seriously? I gave you one job, and you just ruined our entire mission. This place will be swarming with pros in no time. I didn’t even get to try using Noumu.”

We shuffled forwards a bit more. We were in the most dangerous spot now, where the three villains were only about ten metres away.

“Though, I suppose we have a bit of time. Might as well break the Symbol of Peace’s pride,” Shigaraki’s head turned, and he looked directly at us. We had been caught. “Noumu, kill them.”

Instantly the black creature vanished, reappearing in an instant in front of use fist cocked back for a punch. I leapt to the side, ignoring the pain in my ribs, and knocked Ojiro and Sero to the ground. I cried out in pain as the rock in my arm was pushed further in from the impact.

A massive gust of wind passed over our prone forms as the force of the punch rattled the glass of the dome and kicked up dust. A single hit from that thing would instantly kill any student, perhaps except Kirishima.

Ojiro jumped back up as soon as the wind stopped, swinging around to smack the Noumu with his tail. The strike connected cleanly with its neck. The monster didn’t even seem to notice, retracting its fist slowly from its punch. It didn’t even seem to be thinking.

Luckily, Ojiro escaped any retaliation courtesy of Sero grabbing him with some tape and dragging him out of the way. I opened a third gate to try my hand at attacking, hoping there might be some weak point.

[Merge?]

The tentacles holding me up spasmed, dropping me back to the ground. The presence in my head was stronger than it had ever been, and “spoke” just that one word. It wasn’t verbal, it didn’t even really say a word, more like it conveyed the intent in a way I instinctively understood.

I tried to lift myself up, but my tendrils seemed almost like they were unsure whether to move as I wanted. My left arm was useless, and my right would cause my ribs to flare in pain, knocking me back to the ground.

“Wazawa! Come on, run!” Sero called out. He and Ojiro had taken the opportunity to run as far as they could. It would ultimately be useless. The Noumu covered far more ground in a second than they could in ten.

The creatures beaked mouth hung limply open as it looked down at me, laid on the floor helpless. It was taking its time to attack, and if it weren’t for the complete lack of intelligence in its eyes, I’d think it was enjoying it.

My hands began to tremble. The black beast lifted an arm up to crush my skull. This must be a first for me. I’m afraid.

[Merge?]

Once again, the thing in the back of my mind made its presence known. It was useless. This was beyond anything I had faced before. This creature was nothing as simple as a tree or a particularly large machine. It was a killing machine designed solely to kill us. It truly was The Many That Extinguishes Hope.

“Noumu, get the ones that are running first, that one is practically dead already,” Shigaraki ordered.

The arm stopped a few inches from my face. The creature spent no time processing the order, immediately bounding in a single step to Ojiro and Sero, who had frozen in fear. Eraserhead had broken through the defence of the mist villain and was running as fast as he could to them, but he wasn’t fast enough. My classmates waiting at the entrance had started to sprint over, Bakugo even using explosions to propel himself forward. They were too far away.

I had only one option. It wasn’t ideal, it might not work, I might even harm those I’m trying to help.

But it ’s better than doing nothing as they died.

“I really hope I’m right about this,” I said as I willingly dropped into unconsciousness, letting the presence take over.

I want to protect them.

~X~

I once again was floating in a sea of nothing. This time, however, there was no far off light of memories. There truly was just nothing but the far-off twinkling of stars, far more numerous than I had seen before. They were like little flares, blinking in and out of existence. This was my fifth time in this place, but this was the first time I didn’t even have visions of a life of mundanity.

Surrendering my consciousness was a risky move, I really had no idea how I act in that state. I used to think the tentacles I summoned just lashed out and destroyed everything nearby without me to control them. Then I destroyed the zero-pointer during the entrance exam, further supporting that belief. Looking at it now, I don’t actually know if I destroyed anything else, only the immediate threat I had been thinking about at the time.

Then there was last week, where I lost consciousness twice to find out as much about this attack as possible. At the time, I was more focused on the new information I had learnt, but I later realised how odd it was that not a single pebble was out of place. It was the first time that I was not in immediate danger, or in any danger at all, and my quirk didn’t act out during either of my stints in this plane.

That left me with two possible conclusions. Either my quirk has an autonomous self-defence, protecting me from danger while I’m incapacitated, or it acts in accordance to my wishes at the time of losing control. The former was more likely, but I was hoping for the latter in this case. My priority was to prevent my classmates from dying here, and hopefully any time in the future. Blindly attacking the enemies would achieve that, assuming I was successful, but it was less effective than responding to attacks against them.

But this all just added yet another mystery to my pile of confusing things about my quirk. I still didn’t know why exactly I got the knowledge of another world in the first place, nor what the plane I was currently in even was. Now I have a presence in my head that can attempt at communication, and an autonomous function? It was so absurd it was almost like it was multiple quirks.

“We assure you, Sotoki, that you possess only the one ability your people call ‘quirks,’” a mysterious… voice? said. It was less a voice and more a collection of sounds mimicking a voice. It sounded like stones scraping together, the roll of far-off thunder, the ominous wind through a cave, and the sound of steel groaning under strain all mixed together to create a rumbling sound that formed words.

A void seemed to form, blotting out all the stars in a certain direction. Something huge and unseeable was before me, expanding endlessly.

“What are you? And for that matter, where exactly is this place?” I asked. No doubt this was the presence in the back of my head, the lack of proper speech was common between the two.

“This is our personal part of existence, a world where we exist and also one that is our existence itself. As for us, we believe it would be better just to let you figure it out yourself.”

The darkness shifted somewhat, a long line of pitch-black darkness reaching out to me. I hesitantly grabbed a hold of it, to find a familiar texture. It felt almost smooth and metallic, but at the same time, rough enough that my fingers couldn’t slide across them. It wasn’t cool to the touch, nor was it warm. If anything, I’d say it had no temperature at all. I don’t mean that as in it had no heat — not only would that be physically impossible, but it would be so cold that it would kill my cells — but rather that concepts such as hot and cold held no weight against the material, like I could light it on fire for an hour and it would feel the exact same.

It was a familiar texture to me. It was exactly the same as my tentacles. That combined with the impossibly black surface led me to just one conclusion.

“So, you’re my quirk, then? I’ve got to say, I wasn’t expecting you to be sentient, much less like this.”

“We are not your ability, Wazawa Sotoki. We have existed for far longer than you have been alive, and we will continue to exist long after your death. This realm is where your portals connect to, and a fragment of our form is lent to you for a time.”

What? I know I once theorised that my quirk was just to create portals, but how did that explain controlling the tentacles, or the visions, or anything at all really? And if this thing wasn’t my quirk, then what the fuck was I talking to?

I asked as such. “What are you then, if you aren’t my quirk.”

The void was silent for a moment, as if thinking about it. A large star burst into life — flanked by a smaller one with a thin beam between them — completely encompassing the surrounding lights in its intensity. “It would seem your goal has been achieved. The Once Bearer has arrived, and your allies are no longer in danger. What do you wish for us to do now?”

That’s… good. If All Might had shown up, then we might have a chance against that Noumu thing. Then again, it was brought specifically to kill the Symbol of Peace. “If you are in control of my body, then give me back control.”

“You will regret this. Very well, if that is what you wish.”

My vision began to darken, the remaining stars I could see were fading as I was losing consciousness. Or was it regaining consciousness? Before I fully faded, I asked one more question. “You never answered me: what are you?”

A deep rumbling sound was made, almost like laughter. “We are.”

~X~

A scream tore from my lips immediately. My muscles burnt and my bones rattled. I fell to my hands, knees shaking with the pain.

“Wazawa! Wazawa, are you alright?” a voice asked.

“Didn’t you say that wasn’t Wazawa, sensei?” another commented.

I took a deep breath and coughed up some bile. “What a fucking asshole.”

“Language,” Aizawa-sensei admonished lightly.

I wiped at my mouth and slowly twisted so I was sitting on the floor. At some point I had moved to right outside the entrance. The only one on the battlefield now was All Might, grappling with the Noumu. Shigaraki and the mist villain sat back and watched the fight between physical equals.

I looked around. It would seem only the five who were left here, Ojiro, Sero, and Aizawa-sensei had made it here so far. Well, plus the limp body of 13-sensei. I was somewhat glad to see that Ojiro and Sero had escaped unharmed. It would seem that whatever was piloting my body followed my wishes. Aizawa-sensei was not so lucky. Before I surrendered control, he was relatively unharmed, only having a few scrapes. Now he had one arm twisted and limp, and a leg bent the wrong way.

Midoriya was standing next to me, eyes intently focused on the ongoing fight, trembling with nerves. Good, I needed to ask him something. “Midoriya, help me up, I can’t see properly from down here.”

He jumped slightly and hurried to gingerly lift me up, arm hung around his shoulder as he supported my weight. I suppressed the sudden discomfort I got when someone touched me. My legs were constantly shaking in strain, unable to support even the limited weight they had to. I leaned down next to Midoriya’s ear and spoke quietly.

“You have some form of connection to All Might, right?” I asked, making sure that no one else could hear us.

“Huh? I-I don’t—”

“Don’t bother trying to lie, I already figured it out, and frankly I don’t really care.”

He was completely still, like a rock, as he processed what I said. Eventually he nodded slightly.

“He also has a time limit as well. 3 hours?” another nod. “And you think he has used up all his time already?” Midoriya was trembling now. That gave me all the information I needed to know.

“Sensei,” I said louder. “Do we have permission to interfere if there’s a chance All Might will lose?”

I couldn’t see him from where I was, but I could imagine the look he was giving me. I subtly showed three fingers, like 13-sensei had earlier. He sighed.

“You have my permission,” he conceded. “But! You are only to engage if I tell you to.”

I nodded. “All right. In that case… Midoriya, you can create blasts of wind by flicking, right?”

“Ah, yes! But it breaks my finger afterwards,” he answered holding up a hand with three broken fingers.

“Okay, if we need to fight, aim for the one with all the hands. He seems to be the one ordering that Noumu thing around, so it will probably defend him if he is in danger. Ashido, you too, try spraying acid at him. Make sure not to get close to him, he has some form of disintegration quirk. Sero and Asui—”

“Call me Tsuyu,” the frog girl interrupted.

“Right. Sero and Asui will be on rescue duty, you’ll need to make sure they get out after they attack,” they both nodded. “Bakugo, you’ll be attacking the warper, make sure he can’t redirect any of the attacks. Your explosions can dissipate the mist.”

“Don’t fucking tell me what to do!” he yelled. He would do exactly what I suggested. My head began to swim, and the ground was spinning.

“What are the rest of you doing, then?” Ashido asked.

I shrugged and flopped to the ground, ignoring the pain in my everything. “Not sure. Ojiro and Kirishima are better close range, they can’t really get close against our enemies. And I’m going to spend my time trying not to bleed out.”

I pulled at the shoulder of my now torn costume. The arms had somehow been essentially shredded. My left shoulder was in a bad shape. I hadn’t removed the rock stabbing it without anything to plug the wound, so when I dove to the ground to avoid the punch from the Noumu, it had been pushed further into the flesh, almost flush with the rest of my arm.

A lot of blood had gushed from the wound, coating my entire arm. There was probably a lot on my face as well, coming from my brutalised nose. The blood loss would certainly explain the dizziness. Lying back, I focused on breathing through my mouth, trying my hardest to stay awake.

I must have focused hard enough to block out all other sounds, because I barely noticed Aizawa-sensei barking instructions to my classmates. The next thing I knew, there was cheers of relief and I was being picked up off the ground.

I cracked open my eyes to see a blurry figure telling me everything would be all right before I succumbed to the call of sleep.

Chapter Text

Wazawa Sotoki was weird. He was like a confusing combination of Todoroki and Bakugo. He was unnaturally quiet and private, but also made no efforts to hide how much he disliked everyone around him.

Which made it even more confusing when he went out of his way to help people.

It had been Ojiro’s idea to try and sneak around the fight and group up with the rest of the class. Even after he knew that Wazawa couldn’t walk.

It was him that the Noumu targeted when they were spotted. Him who didn’t react fast enough to dodge out of the way and had to be tackled by Wazawa. Him who wasn’t strong enough to injure the creature when he had an opening.

And now, he could do nothing as his fellow student was rushed off for emergency treatment because of the injuries that Ojiro’s actions made worse. He could only hope Wazawa survived. Ojiro felt guilty as it was, he didn’t want to think about being responsible for someone’s death.

Especially not when that person had saved him twice now.

~X~

The first time was during the entrance exam. Ojiro had found the test fairly easy so far. The robots were designed to simulate untrained enemies, so his martial arts experience, plus the strength of his tail made quick work of them. He was doing decently, but was struggling to do much better than the average. He was confined to the ground, and had no way to move any faster.

He was pretty sure he could get in as he was, but it once again reminded him that he was nothing special. He just had a slightly stronger extra limb, and too much dedication for his own good. It was made all the worse when a girl flew past him, carrying one of the robots and dropped in on top of another one, destroying it instantly and laughing with joy.

A flashy power and one she could use to be as free as she liked, not confined to the whims of gravity like the rest of them. She would obviously be chosen to be a hero student over boring, plain Ojiro.

Of course, he was reminded of one of the first lessons he ever learnt when it came to fighting. It doesn’t matter how special you are, how much stronger you are than your opponent. You can never let your guard down, or you will lose. The girl, still laughing and boasting about her strength, suddenly was swatted from the sky by a 3-pointer she hadn’t spotted. She was knocked down to the ground and didn’t get back up.

Ojiro rushed towards her, checking she was alright. The exam was coming to a close and the other participants were beginning to panic, going all out against the robots to score a few extra points. He had to dodge back and forth as debris and broken machines flew across the street they were on.

A few metres from where the girl had collapsed he had to jump over a robot arm that had been sent sliding. He vaulted over it easily but landed poorly. An upturned piece of concrete had been left in the middle of the road and he landed on top of it, twisting his foot in an unnatural way. Ojiro couldn’t tell if it was broken, but it definitely wasn’t meant to point that way.

He painfully hobbled over to the girls collapsed form and shook her shoulder. “Hey, are you alright? You fell pretty hard there.”

The girl groaned slightly and cracked open her eyes. “Did someone get the number of that truck?”

He chuckled a bit. “Do you need help standing?”

She held her breath and tensed a bit, slightly sitting up, but fell back down. “Yes please.”

Ojiro offered a hand and helped her stand, and then balanced her when she began to tilt forwards. He draped her arm across his shoulders and slowly they began to walk down the road, hopefully to somewhere less chaotic.

He supposed it was only natural that it was then that the zero-pointer came crashing down the road behind them. They redoubled their efforts leaning off each other and moving as fast as possible.

“You almost need more help walking than I do,” the girl joked.

“Sorry about that.”

She obviously found that hilarious, as she burst out in loud laughter. It was a nice sound.

It was then that Ojiro first saw Wazawa Sotoki. Above the sea of prospective students running away, a single figure flew over their heads. The silver-haired boy landed a short distance away from them.

At least, Ojiro thought he was a boy. His features actually made it a bit difficult to tell. He looked them over briefly, a slight look of distaste on his face. He said nothing before wrapping a black tentacle around each of them, the other four floating around him fading into a puff of smoke.

The tentacle was wrapped very tightly, so tightly Ojiro was struggling to breathe properly. He was about to ask for some more breathing room when suddenly they were off, running away from the massive robot.

They were making good distance, slowly increasing the gap between them and the robot and drawing closer to the exit. Then their transport collapsed to the floor. The boy’s arms and legs were practically vibrating with how quickly they were twitching. He slowly dragged himself forward, but the zero-pointer was drawing closer faster than he could move.

“Sorry about this,” he said, the first words he had spoken this entire time.

The girl Ojiro tried to rescue looked at him panicked. “What do you mea—”

She was cut off by the rush of wind as they were thrown all the way to the exit gate. Ojiro instinctively grabbed on to her and placed himself between her and the ground as they went tumbling across the bitumen, scraping the skin off of his arms.

“Oww. What a… holy shit.”

Ojiro groaned as he sat up and saw what she had reacted to. That boy was stood completely straight, posture better than when he had come to grab them. He was held off the ground by two tentacles, and there was a black blur as however many other tentacles he was using moved so fast it looked like there was a hundred of them, all piercing and tearing at the zero-pointer, breaking it apart with ease.

~X~

He would later find out that by helping rescue that girl and shielding her from damage when they were thrown gave him enough points to comfortably be accepted into UA. It filled him with an small bit of pride to know that while his strength and ability was not special, his heart and morals had been noticed and rewarded.

He was also not surprised to see Wazawa again. It was all but guaranteed that someone who could effortlessly destroy that giant machine would score high enough to be accepted. Ojiro did want to approach him when he saw they were in the same class, but a single look from his classmate convinced him not to.

Wazawa had looked around at the entire class, that same disgusted look on his face, and passed right by Ojiro. Throughout their first day, it became increasingly obvious that Wazawa did not like any of them, being very short in his responses to questions, giving veiled insults to those he found particularly annoying, and rarely showing any expression on his face when people could see. Not only that, he didn’t remember Ojiro at all.

He supposed it was only natural. He wasn’t very noticeable. Compared to Bakugo’s explosions, Midoriya’s extreme strength, or Todoroki’s ability with ice, Ojiro was just… him. Why would Wazawa, the top student from the entrance exam, remember that random boy limping down a road?

So as much as he felt compelled to thank Wazawa, Ojiro refrained. It would only serve to irritate the other boy who only seemed to be fine with Hagakure’s company. It grated, but if Wazawa didn’t care to interact with him, he would respect those wishes.

That was until he willingly put himself back in danger to save Ojiro and Sero.

~X~

The figure of the creature the villains called Noumu appeared instantly in front of them. It had just been seconds away from crushing Wazawa’s head against the pavement. The taller boy was collapsed on the ground, muscles vibrating, much like at the entrance exam. That combined with his injuries rendered him completely unable to move an inch.

The monster had wild eyes, completely unfocused and a beak-like mouth hanging open. Ojiro wouldn’t consider himself quirkist, but this thing was the furthest thing from being human possible. It had no intelligence, and followed orders without thinking. It was more like a machine than a person.

The Noumu raised both of its fists, intent on crushing both him and Sero like insects. He couldn’t move, not that it would do much. The creature was faster than he could ever be. It took his strongest hit directly to the neck without even noticing. There was no fleeing, no fighting back. He closed his eyes, accepting the inevitable end.

Schick

A squelching noise came from the Noumu, who then gargled. Ojiro cracked his eyes open. A black protrusion was coming out of the Noumu’s chest, right about where its heart would be. It was somehow even darker than the Noumu’s own skin, and whatever it was managed to lift the beast off the ground, its back arched backwards.

“What an unorthodox desire from you,” a strange voice spoke. It was Wazawa, upright and held a metre off the ground by two tentacles, exactly like he was at the entrance exam. Now he was closer, Ojiro could tell some things he hadn’t noticed last time.

For starters, Wazawa’s eyes were empty. Not literally, but rather he wasn’t looking at anything, like he wasn’t using his eyes to see at all. Secondly, he was tense. Even more than people under stress normally. No, every visible muscle was flexed to their maximum capacity.

He had a tentacle coming out of his right arm, piercing through the Noumu’s torso. That was odd. Wazawa needed to run a finger along where he created tentacles, but his left arm was too injured to even move.

The Noumu howled, it’s voice gurgling and screeching, and clawed at the tentacle.

“Many That Extinguishes Hope, your actions are futile. Our goal is to prevent harm to any students. We will not fail.”

Wazawa’s voice was unnatural, like there was a person and something very not human talking at the same time. His posture, speech pattern, even his strength was completely different. Ojiro knew for a fact that his tail was stronger than Wazawa’s tentacles, the quirk apprehension test proved that, but he had somehow impaled the creature that took Ojiro’s strongest strike without flinching.

He was brought out of his thoughts by the boss of this invasion shouting. “Noumu! Leave them and help me, you worthless summon!”

Aizawa-sensei had used the time they were holding back the Noumu to engage the two remaining villains. The one with all the hands was dodging as best he could from the relentless onslaught the teacher was applying.

The Noumu redoubled its efforts, leaning backwards in an impossible feat of flexibility and crushing the tentacle, causing it to vanish in a puff of smoke. As soon as the monster’s feet touched the ground, it vanished, appearing in front of the villain that ordered it.

It grabbed a hold of Aizawa-sensei’s arm, and with a loud crunch that was audible even from the distance they were stood, his arm was crushed completely. Impressively, their teacher barely made a noise in pain, and tried to use his opportunity to kick at the monster’s head.

Wazawa hadn’t moved an inch in this entire time. Ever since the Noumu broke out of his hold, he just stood stock still. “Why aren’t you helping sensei!” Ojiro demanded. He had the strength, he was able to injure the creature, he had protected them. So why was he just standing there?

Wazawa didn’t react. Ojiro was just about to go over to him and give Wazawa a piece of his mind when a loud bang came from the entrance.

All Might had arrived. And he looked pissed.

Like the Noumu had, All Might disappeared, moving faster than the eye could see. Before Ojiro could even process it, the number one hero was in front of the three of them, holding the barely conscious Aizawa-sensei who had been tossed by the Noumu just before the hero showed up.

A blur and rush of wind later, they were surrounded by their classmates at the entrance. All Might said something that he didn’t quite get, before going to fight. And win.

Because he was All Might. He always wins, right? Ojiro didn’t feel as confident on that as he once was. The Noumu was unbelievably strong and durable, and he could see the hole in its chest had rapidly healed.

“Hey, man,” Kirishima rushed over. “Are you guys alright? We saw that thing go to attack you.”

Ojiro was unharmed, miraculously. After escaping from the flood zone, where he was essentially useless, to almost being killed by that Noumu thing twice, not a single injury had been sustained, only a bit of exhaustion. He pointedly ignored the shaking of his hands and legs, that had to be a side effect of running around for so long.

They gently lowered Aizawa-sensei to the ground, careful of his shattered arm and leg. Ojiro felt the respect he had for the man increase slightly at how aware he was, despite the extreme pain he had to be in.

The rest of the class began fussing over them, making sure they were all okay. It was when Ashido went to check on Wazawa that Ojiro noticed something odd. Wazawa still hadn’t moved. He had been placed down on the ground facing away from the ongoing fight, and he didn’t even turn to watch. Eyes blank, muscles taught, face still, blood gushing out of his arm, he was like a statue. A heavily injured and bleeding statue.

“Hey, Wazawa? Are you okay?” Ashido asked, jumping a bit to reach up and wave a hand in front of his eyes. No reaction. “Did you have a stroke?”

“That’s not Wazawa,” Aizawa-sensei said. Ojiro was confused. If this wasn’t Wazawa, then who was it? He recalled the sudden shift in speech pattern, the odd quality behind his voice, and the different posture. It all made sense, but it didn’t answer who had been using Wazawa’s body.

“It would appear you are not happy to see us, One Who Interrupts,” not-Wazawa said, and now Ojiro could tell what exactly felt off about his voice. It was not only completely devoid of all inflection, but there was a low whistle — like a breeze going through a cave — underneath each word.

"Sensei, if that’s not Wazawa, then who is it?” Midoriya asked, eyes still transfixed to All Might fighting.

“Who indeed,” the teacher murmured. “You’re his quirk, aren’t you?”

Not-Wazawa tilted his — their? — head a bit at that. “Interesting, Sotoki thought the same thing. We are not what you call a quirk. We said it once and we will say it again. We are that which we are.”

Aizawa-sensei growled, though the intimidation factor was notably lessened with him being on the floor. “Stop dodging the question.”

The thing controlling Wazawa was silent for a few seconds. Ojiro could see All Might standing face to face with the Noumu, sizing the creature up in the background. Finally, not-Wazawa spoke. “It would seem you are out of luck, One Who Interrupts. Sotoki has decided our job is complete and he wishes to be in control.”

The being lowered Wazawa’s body to the ground, and with the tentacles turning into mist, he fell to his knees, a bloodcurdling scream erupting from his lips. Ojiro could do nothing but stare in horror. He sounded like he was in excruciating pain, and there was nothing any of them could do to help.

~X~

After that, Wazawa had somehow recovered from his pain and immediately started spouting orders. The rest of the class must have been just as shocked as Ojiro, because sans a small outburst from Bakugo, no one objected. And it was a solid plan, which was impressive considering the numerous pauses Wazawa had to take after spells of dizziness.

Except he forgot Ojiro. Kirishima wasn’t given a role either, but that didn’t matter in the moment. Looking back on it, it was obvious that he had no role to fill as someone who couldn’t attack from a distance, but at the time all he could think was that Wazawa obviously didn’t trust him. And why should he? Ojiro had fled from the villains in the flood zone. Wazawa stood his ground and fought, even when injured. Ojiro didn’t dodge out of the way of the Noumu, Wazawa reacted for three people and saved all of them. Ojiro’s strongest attack was completely ignored, Wazawa managed to impale the Noumu with just a single tentacle.

Compared to an injured Wazawa, Ojiro was next to useless.

And when the situation he had foreseen came to pass, and he was left with two injured teachers, an injured student, and only one other classmate, Ojiro was forced to watch as everyone else was able to contribute in their own way. His classmates saved All Might, gave him an opening to launch the Noumu into the air and out of the entire facility, and then Iida returned with the entire school staff in tow.

So there he was, watching as the guy who had saved him twice — or is it three times now? — was quickly put on a stretcher and carted off, and all Ojiro could think was of all the mistakes he had made.

“So… toki?” a voice asked, trembling. Hagakure had been rescued from wherever she was sent to, and had just seen the bloody unconscious body of Wazawa. His face was coated in blood, nose was pretty much flat, his arm looked terrible, and he was covered in bruises. It looked bad, and it obviously had to be if the school were carting him off so quickly. Even Aizawa-sensei and 13-sensei had been checked over and left in favour of treating Wazawa.

Ojiro thought of what he could say to the invisible girl. How Wazawa had obviously fought over a dozen villains all alone and came out victorious. How he willingly saved someone who he had shown nothing but mild disdain for, making his injuries worse. How he used what obviously was a last resort move to save them again. How he came up with a plan that likely saved All Might’s life in the midst of being in extreme pain and bleeding out.

In the end, all Ojiro could do was stand there numbly and stare alongside her.

Chapter Text

I groggily opened my eyes. An unfamiliar white ceiling greeted me, and a scratchy sheet was covering my body. The smell of antiseptic clued me in to where I was. A hospital.

All of a sudden, everything came back to me. The paranoia heading to the USJ, being separated from my class, fighting off over a dozen villains single-handedly, being caught by the Noumu, talking with my quirk. Or, whatever that was if it wasn’t my quirk.

“Ah, you’re awake. Good,” a gruff voice to my left grunted. Sat in a wheelchair at my bedside was Aizawa-sensei, an arm and a leg wrapped in a cast.

I groaned as I tried to sit up. Every muscle was complaining from being strained, much like how I felt after the entrance exam. I had to wonder what exactly the being that piloted my body did considering it managed to strain even the toe muscles.

“How long have I been out?” I asked.

“A couple of hours, it’s currently…” Aizawa-sensei awkwardly pulled a phone out of the pocket on the side of his broken arm. “7:15 PM. You were treated for mild blood loss, and your wounds were patched up. Recovery Girl will be by later to fix up the broken bones.”

I had noticed my nose was still broken. I was forced to breathe through my mouth, just because the airways in my nose had been completely collapsed.

“How was everyone else?”

“We were the only ones sent to the hospital. 13 was treated on the scene, and most of the class just had scrapes and bruises. Uraraka had mild smoke inhalation and burns, Sato had taken a pretty hard punch to the face, and Midoriya—”

“Broke multiple fingers?” I interrupted.

Aizawa-sensei just nodded, slight amusement on his face. “They all were quickly healed by Recovery Girl and sent home for the day. The school will be closed tomorrow to make sure nothing like this happens ever again.”

“And All Might?” I asked. “Was he fine despite fighting beyond his time limit?”

The teacher levelled a harsh stare for a few seconds, before sighing and closing his eyes. “I’m not even going to ask how you found out about that. I trust you know not to tell anyone about this?”

At that moment, doctors and police entered the room, accompanied by Recovery Girl. The doctors started to do a check-up, checking the wound on my arm wasn’t infected, whether I had any more injuries they hadn’t realised, and confirming that I had in fact cracked four ribs on my right side.

“I think it would be best if you were here overnight. Recovery Girl’s quirk will be quite draining, and you might have to undergo a couple of treatments before everything is healed fully,” one of the doctors said.

“In that case, mind if I ask a few questions while you’re still awake?” a detective jumped in. He had what I’d describe as a very generic face. In fact, it was so plain that he could probably just change his clothes and he would seem like a completely different person. Wonder if that was his quirk.

I nodded my assent. The doctors all left the room to leave us in privacy, only Aizawa-sensei remained to supervise.

“Thank you. My name is Detective Tsukauchi Naomasa, and I’m leading the investigation on the attack on UA and the group calling themselves the League of Villains. Can you start by telling us everything you can remember.”

I told them about how I was suspicious about the press breaking in the other day, and how I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I left out the part where I had a vision showing the back of the head of the culprit.

“… and once I found out we were taking the bus somewhere, I was on high alert, because if I were to attack a class of students, I would do so when they are separated from the rest of the school. So, the entire bus ride I was… ah, do you know how my quirk works?”

“I gave them the rundown you gave me on your first day when giving my report, they know about you sensing others,” Aizawa-sensei confirmed.

“Okay, well the entire time I was bringing out five tentacles under my clothes and counting the number of quirks around me. It was all fine until shortly before the attack started when I counted… I think I said 207? Yeah, 207 quirks. Of course, that number was counting all of us as well as the villains, so there would have 185 villains there.”

“Okay…” Detective Tsukauchi murmured. “That seems to line up with what we have already. Mind if I ask why you say you can sense the number of quirks? Why not the number of people?”

That was a good question. A very good question. Why did I just assume I was counting quirks? I’ve never even met a quirkless person, let alone used five tentacles in their presence, so I had no evidence as to whether it would work on one.

“I don’t really know,” I answered. “I guess it just came naturally to me. I mean, my quirk makes me think of other people in terms of titles, oftentimes referring to their quirks, so maybe I just linked the two in my mind?”

“I see,” he said, scribbling something down in a notepad. “Well, continuing on, when your class was separated, you were the only one in the downpour zone, correct?”

“Apart from the fifteen villains hidden there, yes. I believe what zone everyone was sent to was grouped where we were stood, and I was away from everyone else.”

“Fifteen villains, you say? We only found fourteen, and one of those was on the other side of the zone to the rest.”

That must have been the one that ran away. “Most were basic thugs, but there were a few that were more of a threat. Let’s see… there was one guy who used a lead pipe, one who ran away pretty early on, one who had a quirk relating somehow to ropes — I used those ropes to tie them up afterwards — and the guy who made those stone hands with his quirk. The only ones that were notable at all was a woman who shot rainbow crystals out of her palms, a big guy with stones growing out of his skin — he was the one behind all my worst injuries — and a European woman who could turn into water when in a puddle.”

“Can you run that last one by me again?” the detective asked.

“She was the last one to go down, and she kept trying to stab me. I’m pretty sure her quirk allowed her to turn into water whenever she was touching a large enough pool and then essentially teleport between water sources. She kept appearing behind me and attacking, and only went down because I had lifted her off the ground, so her quirk didn’t work.”

Detective Tsukauchi stilled for a moment. He quickly began searching something up on his phone before turning it to face me. “Is this who you were talking about?”

On his phone was a picture of a blonde woman. She had short hair on one side, and the other side flowed down to roughly her neck. I wasn’t entirely sure because I couldn’t quite remember her face, but she looked very much like the woman who I choked out.

“I’m pretty sure, her hair might have been a bit different, but she looks close enough.”

Tsukauchi sighed. “Damn. We found no trace of her in the entire facility, so she must have gotten out somehow. That woman’s name is Nagashi Yaiba, also known as the Storm Assassin. She’s a contract killer, killing anyone for the right price. She usually strikes when it rains, making it nearly impossible to catch her in the act. Though, we didn’t know about the limitation you exploited, so we might be able to now.”

“Is there anything else you wanted to know?” I asked.

“Let’s just quickly run through your encounter with the supposed leaders of the League of Villains. Please tell me anything you noticed, no matter how small.”

I took a moment to gather my thoughts. “As I’m sure sensei told you, I got a title for the guy in charge — Shibarashi, I think? — before being sent to the downpour zone.”

“Are you referring to Shigaraki Tomura?”

I snapped my fingers. “I knew I had something wrong about his name. Anyway, he was The Apathetic Destroyer, and I’m pretty sure his quirk was touch-based disintegration, probably five-point activated. Then there was the guy made of black smoke, uhhh…”

“Shigaraki called him Kurogiri,” Aizawa-sensei told me.

“Hm. Creative name. Well, he was The Many Who Shifts In Mist.”

Tsukauchi startled slightly at that, but schooled his features quickly and motioned me to continue.

“The last one of note was that Noumu thing. It was The Many That Extinguishes Hope.”

“Those last two where different from the titles I’ve heard about. Have you encountered anything like that before?”

“Well, I don’t think the titles always refer to quirks, so there have been a few that stood out like that, but this was the first time I’ve seen someone have ‘The Many’ at the start. It normally is ‘The One’ or nothing at all.”

Detective Tsukauchi wrote what I said down. “All right then, unless anything else comes to mind, let’s move on. I understand you impaled the Noumu to save your classmates?”

I blinked. “I’m sorry, I did what?”

Aizawa-sensei grunted. “Page three.”

Tsukauchi flipped through what must have been my student records and read for a second. “Oh, I see. So, your quirk took control of you at that time. When did you regain control, exactly?”

I went through the rest of the incident from the moment I regained control and everything I noticed.

“… and then I believe I told Bakugo to attack the mist guy, uh, Kumoshiro?” Aizawa-sensei let out a choked cough. Must have gotten that name wrong. Kumokiri? Yeah, that sounds better. “Sorry, I told Bakugo to attack Kumokiri to stop him from diverting the attacks from Midoriya and Ashido, and then I laid down and fell unconscious.”

Detective Tsukauchi pinched the bridge of his nose. “Eraser, your student really needs to get better with names.”

Well, that was a bit rude. I honestly just didn’t care enough about others to actually pay attention to their names. The detective continued to talk.

“I think that is all for today, I’ll get out of your hair now. If you remember anything of any import relating to the League, please let me — or rather your teacher — know,” he said before standing up. He left the room, and shortly afterwards, Recovery Girl re-entered.

Aizawa-sensei grunted and began to wheel himself out. “Since you’ll be staying overnight, I’ll contact your guardians to let them know.”

I huffed out a laugh. “Good luck with that.”

Chances are no one would pick up, especially not at this hour. Both of my parents had been working overseas for two years now, and the contact we had was minimal.

Recovery Girl shooed the teacher out of the room and began to check over me once again for injuries. “I swear, kids these days have no sense of moderation. This is twice now that you’ve somehow overexerted every muscle in your body, let alone your other injuries. You kids do know that you don’t have to go Plus Ultra on everything, right. You’re almost as bad as that Midoriya boy.”

Honestly, that was a bit unfair. My injuries weren’t caused by a lack of control over my own quirk. Well, actually, I don’t know how my muscles got strained and I wasn’t in control of my quirk at the time, so maybe she had a point.

The healer tutted. “You’ll definitely need a second round of healing. I can fix up the broken bones and start on your arm, but I’ll swing by in the morning to patch up the rest. You’ll be sore in the morning, and you’re going to have to be careful for the next few days, especially with your arm and ribs, but you’ll live.”

I gripped the guard rails of the bed as hard as I could to prevent myself from instinctively lashing out as she kissed my arm. Immediately, I could feel the effects of the quirk taking place, skin itching as it knitted itself back together and my energy rapidly draining.

The Youthful Heroine began to waddle out of the room, her job finished for the day. My eyelids grew heavy, and I could feel the call of sleep. I could very briefly hear part of a conversation between Aizawa-sensei and the detective from earlier.

“I noticed… didn’t mention… two found…”

I would have tried to eavesdrop more, but the urge to sleep was overpowering and I succumbed before I could hear any more.

~X~

I fumbled with the key, struggling to get it in the lock. I had been discharged from the hospital shortly after midday and another healing session from Recovery Girl. The last of the damage had been healed up, but I was warned that my left arm would be stiff for a few days. Apparently, the damage to the muscle had been pretty severe.

“Oh, Wazawa! You’re out of the hospital!” Uraraka greeted from her door.

“Mhm,” I grunted.

“Yeah, everyone was really worried, you know? I mean, I was with Todoroki and Yaoyorozu, and it was still pretty rough. I can’t imagine having to face that all alone. It must have been scary, right?”

“Something like that,” I muttered. This key just wasn’t going in. I held it up. Huh, that was my old house key. That would explain things.

“Hey, you should trade numbers with the rest of the class, so we know you’re okay in the future.”

I finally got the proper key in the lock and opened my door. “I’ll think about it.”

I shut the door behind me, leaving Uraraka in the hallway by herself. Speaking of phones, mine was still turned off from yesterday morning. I held down the power button and the screen came to life.

99+ unread messages

I sighed. Of course, Kaiji and Tsuchigumo had heard about the attack by now. I scrolled through the mass of messages, asking what happened, was I hurt, why wasn’t I answering, whether I was the unnamed student taken to the hospital.

I sent them both the exact same message.

‘Just was discharged from the hospital. Just a small amount of blood loss and a few broken bones, nothing too bad. Was unlucky and had to fight 15 people and then use the 7-gate card. Going to take a nap now.’

I was locked my phone and collapsed on my bed. I barely registered the vibrations as I got a response before, I fell back asleep.

~X~

It was dark out when I woke. I stumbled groggily to the fridge and pulled out some leftovers to eat for dinner. Once the simple curry had reheated in the microwave, I sat down at my sole table and turned on the TV while I ate.

Despite over 24 hours passing, the only thing on the news was the attack yesterday. The information revealed to the press was minimal, only saying that a group calling themselves the League of Villains attacked one of the campus’ further off facilities, with one student and one teacher sustaining injuries that required medical attention. No names were mentioned, nothing about how the League got in, not even their goal was confirmed.

Though, if it had been made public that they utilised the news crews trespassing on campus as a diversion to prepare for their attack, I can’t see many stations being eager to publicise that.

Bored with the same story playing repeating ad infinitum, I opened a portal on the palm of my hand and used a small tentacle to hit the off button on the TV. That reminds me, my quirk just seems to get more and more confusing. I had just begun to believe that my quirk might be intelligent in some way, hence why I still functioned when I fell unconscious. But then I talked to it, and it said it wasn’t even my quirk. If that being was telling the truth, then that left a major question; what was my quirk?

I sighed and shook my head. There was no point in trying to figure out something that I lacked necessary information for. At least I knew now that I could talk to that thing when I let it take control. Maybe I could interrogate it later to get answers, despite it being a cryptic ass about anything important.

Despite having just woken up, I decided to try and sleep. I had a feeling I was going to need all the energy I could get tomorrow when I would no doubt be pestered about my injuries.

Chapter Text

I woke up early the next morning, having gotten a lot of sleep over the past few days. In fact, there was still 2 hours before I would normally leave for school, and I usually came early. So, I had plenty of time to kill.

I began slowly getting dressed, still careful of my ribs. I gave them a gentle poke. Yep, still a bit tender. I was probably fine to do any of my normal exercises so long as I didn’t get hit in that spot, but it was still painful.

Next, I tested the range of motion in my left arm. Apparently, the rock that had stabbed into it, and then later was pushed even further in had torn most of the muscle apart. Even with Recovery Girl’s healing, the flexibility of the muscle was shot. I lifted the arm as high as it could go. About 10 degrees off of being vertical.

I continued my morning routine, getting breakfast, checking the news, responding to some more messages from Kaiji and Tsuchigumo asking how I was. I looked myself over in the mirror before leaving. The only lasting sign I had been badly injured two days prior was a small scar on the side of my nose where that rock guy’s fist had impacted.

Despite my efforts to waste as much time as possible, I still had an hour before needing to leave. I sat back down on the floor and began to scroll through my phone, reading any news stories that interested me.

The shock of an attack on UA had worn off by now, and people were seriously beginning to question how such an attack was possible. They were being raked over the coals, even more so than usual due to the news that a student had been badly injured. It definitely could have been worse, though. The school’s reputation would barely take a hit from just this one isolated incident. It would be forgotten in a few weeks’ time, especially once the hype towards the sports festival came around.

Speaking of which, I saw there had been an official statement saying the event was going ahead. That had to be only a few weeks away at this point. No doubt the class would be told about it sometime this week, so we’d have the remaining days to prepare after school. I should start training harder as soon as possible. Ideally, I would figure out some way of using my quirk better in that time, maybe increasing the time I could spend using six tentacles at once before suffering from backlash.

I held up my hand, creating a small tentacle the size of a finger and letting it gently sway back and forth. I was too tired yesterday to really think about it for too long, but what was my quirk, exactly? Officially, it was Shadow Tentacles, a quirk that allowed me to create black tentacles on my body after drawing a line with my finger.

There were multiple things wrong with that. In fact, pretty much none of it was true. Like with how I thought of my sixth sense as sensing quirks, I naturally thought of the places the tentacles came out of as portals or gates. I think I mentioned it to Kaiji once before, but what exactly was it a portal to?

The obvious answer was the void my consciousness was sent to when I wasn’t in control, but that just begged the question: where or what was that place? An endless black expanse of nothingness only interrupted by far-off flashes of lights like stars didn’t exactly sound like a place on Earth.

Wherever it was, the fact I was creating portals to somewhere had to mean my quirk was portal creation, right? But why did the tentacles act like an extension of me, acting exactly how I want, sometimes without me even needing to think? If I were to believe the entity in the void — which I kind of had to, given that it was the only one that actually seemed to know what was going on here — my quirk was a single ability, meaning that I wasn’t both creating portals and controlling tentacles. And then there was the quirk-sensing, which was a third ability that somehow had to fall under a single quirk.

I looked at the time. Somehow over an hour had passed in my musings, so I quickly rushed out of the apartment, hoping I hadn’t missed my train.

~X~

I had, in fact, missed my train. Not that it was much of a problem, given that I leave early, but it did mean that the road was more crowded leading up to UA. I thanked my lucky stars that Uraraka normally took two trains after my usual one, so I still didn’t have to deal with her attempts at conversation.

Security at the gate had tripled since the attack. The school had probably learnt their lesson and it wouldn’t lax for quite a while this time. When the gate had been destroyed, only a token effort had been made to improve security, and it all went back to normal pretty quickly. Now, the security was tighter than it had been before. Two teachers were standing on the other side, and half a dozen regular guards were stationed in sight. As I passed through, I heard rapid footsteps and panting from behind me.

“Geez Sotoki,” Hagakure panted out, coming up beside me. “Why do you walk so fast?”

I shrugged. “Avoidance.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Anyways…” she said, drawing out the sound. “It’s good to see that you’re okay. None of us knew what was going on, or whether you’d even be at school today.”

I hummed, a bit intrigued. “That’s odd, I would have expected Uraraka to have told everyone by now.”

“Huh? Why would Uraraka know anything? Are you guys like friends or something?”

“Hmm. No, I think I rather hate her. She’s unfortunately my neighbour.”

Hagakure snorted a little. “Sorry, just the way you said that is so funny.”

We continued walking in companionable silence, Hagakure humming a soft tune quietly. We made it to the shoe lockers, where dozens of students were loitering nearby.

“It gets quite busy here at this time,” I commented.

“Oh yeah. How come I’ve never seen you walking to school before? You’ve always been sat at your desk by the time I arrive.”

“I got distracted thinking about something this morning and missed my train.”

“Oh really?” she turned to face me. “You kind of strike me as the type of person to always stick to their schedule. What were you thinking about?”

I raised an eyebrow at her. She was a lot more talkative today than usual. Normally our exchanges were pretty short, and the majority of the time was spent in silence. I shrugged. “Just thinking about my quirk. It really doesn’t make much sense most of the time.”

“Hmm… yeah I can’t help you there,” Hagakure laughed awkwardly. “Mine is pretty basic in the grand scheme of things, I’m just see-through. And I don’t control it either, I’ve just been like this since I was three.”

Something about what she said felt off to me, but before I could think on it more, we had arrived at our classroom, and I braced myself for the endless barrage of questions. At least Hagakure was considerate enough to mention the attack once and then continue on as usual. I couldn’t say that about the rest of my classmates. They would likely ask multiple questions. What was it like? How many villains did I fight? How did I get my injuries? What zone was I in?

I was certain most of the class — especially the more talkative ones — would ask at least one of those questions. I mean, even Kaiji asked some of them, and he had one, not been there, and two, knew that I hated being asked that sort of thing.

I walked into the classroom and was immediately assaulted by noise.

~X~

How could they ask so many dumb questions? Seriously, despite only a third of the class being present, and most of them being the ones I would expect more intelligence from, they managed to surpass all the questions I had come up with in stupidity. Seriously, who asks if having your nose broken and being stabbed in the arm hurts? Iida apparently.

I could kind of understand why they were so worried. They had no way of knowing my condition, and some of them might not have even seen me, just heard from the others about my injuries. If it wasn’t for the fact that I really didn’t want to, I’d have given them my phone number to avoid such irritating questions.

Luckily, there were a few who didn’t come up to check on me, knowing I valued being left alone. After about half an hour, Aizawa-sensei entered the classroom, still confined to crutches. Recovery Girl was extremely effective, but the teacher’s bones were more dust than a solid structure. He would be stuck with only one arm and one leg functional for at least a few weeks.

“Good to see you’ve all settled down already,” he said. “I hope you enjoyed your day off, because you won’t be getting a moment’s rest from now on. The sports festival is fast approaching.”

The class erupted in chaos, some asking if it’s really going on — obviously they hadn’t seen the press release — others cheering at their chance to show off.

“All right, quiet down the lot of you. The sports festival will be in two weeks, and the first years will be doing their events on Saturday morning. Heroic’s classes will be focused on theory until then, and you are expected to spend some time after school preparing for whatever you may face.”

I could already feel the excitement building up within me. My memories of fighting at the USJ were a bit blurry after using my quirk, but one detail I could clearly remember was how fun it was to properly fight. I had to wonder if it was a bad sign that I found competing in such a way so enjoyable.

The sports festival was split up in three stages, the first two of which were random each year. They did have general patterns, though. The first round was usually an individual task that the participants had to finish as quickly as possible. Students would be competing against each other, but not directly. They all had the same goal, and it was just a question of who did it best.

The second round was almost always a team-based event, where four groups of four would be able to go to the next round. The exact manner of the event varied much more than the first event, ranging from a sumo competition where all team members were tied together, to capture the flag.

And lastly, the final round was always a 16-person tournament. The top four teams from the second round would all pass on to the final round of one-on-one battles. That was the event I was looking forward to the most. The first two would still be enjoyable, being more alike a puzzle, but they couldn’t compare to the joy that came with fighting. It was a perfect mix of a puzzle on how to win combined with the stress relief of violence.

~X~

The classroom was practically buzzing with excitement all morning, and whenever there was a gap between classes the sports festival was all they would talk about. The news had to have come at the best possible time, because suddenly everyone was focused on the upcoming event and the questions directed towards me had all but disappeared.

“Man, I’ve really got to step up my training,” Hagakure said as we ate lunch.

I grunted in response, thinking of ways to train myself. “What sort of training do you do anyways? If your quirk is always on, you can’t exactly train that.”

“Yeah, I just do general exercise. You know, stuff like building muscle and improving flexibility.”

I suppose that made sense. When you had complete invisibility at all times, the main thing you needed to capitalise on the natural stealth is the strength to take out your enemies in an ambush as quickly as possible.

“I assume you also practice general fighting skills as well?” I asked.

She just shrugged. “Not really. I mean fighting is basically just hitting the other guy as hard as possible, right?”

There were so many things wrong with that. So many that I was stunned for a few seconds at the sheer stupidity of that sentence.

“Please don’t tell me you just said that,” a voice groaned from behind me. Ojiro sat down at our table, food tray in hand.

That’s right, he was some form of martial artist, wasn’t he? “Glad to see someone else agrees,” I said. “Fighting isn’t just about hitting hard. It’s a game of strategy, trying to capitalise on the mistakes of your opponent and attacking in a way they don’t expect!”

Now it was my turn to get stared at.

“That’s… certainly one way of putting it,” Ojiro eventually said. “Personally, I don’t see it that way, but there were a lot of differing opinions on fighting in my dojo. I can’t say I’ve ever heard someone call it ‘just hitting the other guy as hard as possible,’” he pointedly looked at Hagakure, who awkwardly chuckled. “You do know there’s a reason it’s called martial arts, right?”

“Eheheh… you guys are really ganging up on me here.”

We both sighed in unison. Ojiro turned to look at me. “What about you? Have you got any formal training?”

I shook my head. “Nah, I just go with whatever comes to mind at the time. I did try judo once or twice, but I kept accidentally punching my friend in the face.” Kaiji was really pissy for the next week after that incident.

“I kind of guessed after the other day. Maybe we could spar from time to time to prepare for the festival.”

I hummed in response, going back to eating. It would be useful to train against someone who actually knew how to fight. Not to toot my own horn, but I believe myself to pretty good at imitation, so I could probably use some of Ojiro’s moves after being on the receiving end a few times.

I was brought out of my thoughts by clacking on the table. Hagakure had dropped her chopsticks. I closed my eyes for a moment and sighed, running a finger along my palm. A tentacle shot out to her sleeved forearm, wrapping around it and yanking towards me.

“Wha— hey!” she protested.

I ignored her complaints and began touching her hand, feeling the surprisingly soft skin. “You’ve winced five times while eating today.” I started applying pressure to each knuckle, waiting for a reaction.

“What does that have to — ow!” she yelped.

As I thought. She had injured the base of her thumb somehow, and the pain made it so she couldn’t use chopsticks properly. I let out an exasperated sigh, before standing up, still with a firm grip on her arm, before dragging her out of the cafeteria.

“Wait! What about my lunch?” she tried to argue.

“Don’t care,” I replied.

Ojiro gave a look that was a mix between bemusement and concern as I forcibly dragged Hagakure away from her food. After about a minute of struggling she eventually gave up and let herself be taken away.

“If I let you go, are you going to try and run back to your lunch?” I asked.

Hagakure grumbled a bit. “No.”

“Good.”

We walked in silence down the halls towards the infirmary. The invisible girl next to me had her shoulders hunched and was gripping her wrist.

“USJ?” I eventually asked.

“…Yeah,” she confirmed. “Me and Sato were in the mountain zone, and it was pretty much a straight up brawl. Nothing like the fights you and Ojiro were talking about. I punched a guy in the face at one point and my hand’s been hurting ever since.”

I smiled a bit at that. “I’m guessing you never learnt how to throw a punch. Here,” I raised my fist, “your thumb should be over the first two fingers, and you should lock your wrist tight so that your entire arm from the elbow down is a single straight line.”

“Huh, never knew that it just felt natural to punch like this,” she held up a hand.

We arrived at the entrance of the infirmary. “I’m not sure how you keep forgetting I can’t see you.”

We entered the room, where Recovery Girl was sat eating her own lunch.

“What? Didn’t I see you just yesterday. If you keep getting injured like this, I’m going to stop healing you,” she groused.

“Not me this time. Give it a few weeks and I’ll be back,” I retorted. “This idiot here didn’t know how to throw a punch and hurt her hand.” I pushed Hagakure forward, but not before she punched me in the arm with her good hand for the idiot comment.

I left the infirmary and waited outside for the treatment to be done. After a minute or two, Hagakure came out, shoulders sagging a bit.

“I got scolded,” she said.

“I thought you would. That woman honestly has terrible bedside manners. Why did you wait so long to get your hand checked out anyway?”

“I meant to!” she whined. “I thought it was just bruised at first, and then the school was closed, and then I meant to go this morning, but I got distracted talking to you, so I was going to go after school!”

I just sighed and continued walking.

Chapter Text

Heroics class was — as we had been told — purely theory, this time covering rescue operations in much more detail than usual since our practical lesson had been interrupted. I was packing the last of my books into my bag when I heard a commotion outside the door.

Bakugo had been the first one to try and leave, and he was face to face with the massive crowd that had formed.

“Oh, this is going to be productive,” I muttered. I briefly noted Jiro stifling a giggle at my words. It was honestly a coin flip whether Bakugo would try and attack one of the students or insult them all.

Aand insult it is! I sighed in exasperation as I slung my bag over my shoulder and walked towards the door.

“You know, there’s a lot of guys in the gen ed course who failed to get into the hero course, you know?” a scrawny kid with purple hair said. “And there’s a chance that one could be transferred into heroics, and vice versa, depending on their performance at the sports festival. So, consider this a declaration of war. I’ll pull the rug out from under you hero students and knock you off your high horse.”

I closed my eyes. I really shouldn’t say anything, especially not in front of a crowd. Bakugo already made our entire class look antagonistic, anything I’d say would just make it worse. I shouldn’t bite back; I should just ignore the simmering hatred. I really shouldn’t say—

“If you couldn’t even score highly on the entrance exam, why do you think you have a chance of doing well at the sports festival?”

Oops. Immediately, all eyes were on me. Someone still in the classroom groaned. The purple-haired kid just scoffed.

“You were just lucky to be blessed with a flashy quirk. Some of us weren’t so lucky, and it shows that some of you clearly don’t belong in the hero course, especially after the other day. Should the supposedly great hero students really be getting hospitalised in their first fight?”

The room went silent. Even the casual chatter from those ignoring the crowd from inside the classroom stopped. I could feel all of my classmates’ eyes on me. This guy obviously didn’t know I was the one to get injured, such information was never made public, and the staff would want to keep it very under wraps to avoid leaks, so it was intended as a general insult to the entire class.

But intentions aside, I couldn’t ignore that statement. “You know, I really hope you get to the final round. Maybe I’ll get to show you what it was like to get those injuries,” I said, pushing through the crowd. They seemed to part to let me through, and it was only after I left that anyone started to talk again.

Seriously, what bullshit. Of course I got injured, I fought fifteen fucking people at once! Sure, he kind of had a point about the whole flashy quirks and the entrance exam, but Hagakure got in, and she was had pretty much the opposite of a flashy quirk. And who does he think he is, thinking he actually has a chance of getting in while looking like that. He had to be one of the thinnest people I had ever seen, a general sign that someone either doesn’t care or relies solely on their quirk.

I heard some footsteps coming up from behind and turned to see Ojiro jogging up to me. “Hey Wazawa. Sorry about that, that guy was seriously out of line. Wanna take me up on that offer to spar?”

I took a deep breath. “Yeah, sure. That sounds like the perfect way to release some pent-up aggression.”

~X~

We stood a few metres apart in one of the training fields, wearing our gym uniforms. “So, any rules before we start?” I asked.

Ojiro continued his stretches, warming up his muscles. “How about for the first round we keep to no quirks.”

“Sounds good to me, anything else?”

“Try not to impale me,” he joked.

We got into our fighting stances, his a much more orthodox stance, while mine was whatever felt most comfortable. We began to slowly circle, inching closer and closer together as we completed dozens of loops, analysing the other.

Once we were a few feet away, I stepped forward with a quick jab, stepping backwards immediately before contact. I was mostly testing how Ojiro would react. The other fighter easily brushed my hand aside and returned with a strike of his own, but by that time I was already out of his reach. I had the size advantage, being over ten centimetres taller and with a longer reach. However, he clearly had the advantage in skill, and probably knew how to fight someone with a longer reach than him.

Ojiro went on the offensive next, aiming a punch at my sternum. I moved an arm in the way, blocking the strike, only to have to duck as he followed up with a roundhouse kick. As I went down, I tried sweeping his other leg out from under him, but he managed to dodge by doing a backwards handspring.

Once again, we were at a standstill, waiting for the other to make the first move. So far, the only hit that had landed was his punch I blocked. In hindsight, I might have been able to deflect it like he had with my initial strike. How did he do it again? Placing his forearm on the inside of my punching arm, just below the wrist?

When Ojiro came in for another punch, I tried copying his movements. I still got hit, but instead of the centre of my chest, instead it was a hit to the shoulder. Our exchanges continued, with my deflections slowly improving until I could create a small opening, while his attacks grew stronger and faster. It was clear he was holding back, testing my limits and pushing me further with each attempt.

It got to a point where it was no longer a spar, but a coordinated dance. He would go in for a punch, I’d deflect and punch back, which he would dodge and do a leg sweep, which I’d jump over.

Our dance went on and on, speeding up before…

CRACK

Ojiro’s leg crashed into my ribs when I wasn’t fast enough to bend backwards to avoid it. I was knocked to the ground, the air leaving my lungs completely.

“Shit!” Ojiro cursed, running over to me. “Sorry about that, you alright?”

I waved in off gulping down breaths. “It’s… fine. Ribs hadn’t healed fully yet, is all.”

“Why did you agree to fight then? You really should have waited until you were healed.”

I gave him a flat look. “You were much more tolerable when we were fighting.”

He twitched a bit at that, and I felt a small bit of sadistic satisfaction at his reaction. He flopped down on the ground a few feet from me. “You weren’t kidding about not having any formal training. It was kind of obvious that you were doing whatever came to mind. Granted, your instincts are good, and you adapted quickly, but I think anyone above an orange belt would be able to take advantage of that.”

I hummed in agreement. “It’s good that not many people choose to hone their fighting skills nowadays.”

“Yeah, I can see how using your quirk you could take down a group of low-level thugs. From what I heard, most of them were small fry, some of them only had petty theft on their records.”

I probably shouldn’t mention the hitwoman then. I stood up and rolled my shoulder, trying to loosen up the newly grown muscle, before saying a brief farewell and leaving.

~X~

“Make sure to step forwards as you punch. The strength comes less from your arm and more from the motion of the rest of the body,” I instructed. After a few days of both independent practice and sparring with Ojiro, Hagakure asked for help in learning to fight. I was giving her a crash course on the basics, things I had either read or figured out myself, with Ojiro practising nearby to make sure I didn’t teach anything wrong.

Despite her initial lack of any fighting knowledge, Hagakure was a very quick study. I only ever needed to correct her on something once, and she would never make the same mistake again. At this rate, I was going to run out of general fighting knowledge that she could learn. Everything else I knew applied directly to my quirk.

“Well, I think you’ve got the basics down now,” I said. “I suppose your next step would be to find a way of fighting that suits your quirk.”

“Huh? What do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean, direct punches and kicks are all fine and good, but you’d be much more effective in combat if the way you moved was enhanced by your quirk. Take how I fight. I can either use my tentacles for mobility,” I raised myself off the ground, “or I can use them to attack from unexpected angles. I’m a bit fond of ducking under an attack, and then hitting the enemy while their guard is still down.”

“So, I need to find a way to attack that is a good match with my invisibility?” Hagakure brought a gloved hand up to her chin in thought.

I was silent for a few minutes. Carefully considering my next words. “Mind if I give a few suggestions?” I asked. I had to be very careful in this type of thing, it was considered a major faux pas to tell someone else how to use their quirk unprompted, especially if you don’t have a similar quirk. It was generally fine to give pointers in how to improve what they were already doing, but new ways in using the quirk was a big no-no.

“Please,” she groaned a bit. “I’m not smart enough to come up with this stuff myself.”

“Well, the main goal is to be unpredictable. Because you’re invisible, your opponents won’t be able to see your hits coming, so they’ll have to rely on anticipating your next move. If you can move in a way that they have no clue where you’re going to hit next, they can’t defend or counterattack.” I paused for a few moments, thinking. “How flexible are you?”

Hagakure responded by lifting a foot and extending it to try and tap my nose. It was impressive considering I was pretty sure I was around a foot taller than her. I was not impressed, however, at how she decided to show that. “Please never do that again, your shoes are filthy,” I said as I rubbed my nose, despite the fact I had moved out of the way before she made contact. “You might be able to use that to your advantage, bending in unexpected ways and kicking higher than your opponents would expect possible.”

Hagakure thought for a few seconds before hitting her fist against her palm. “Yeah! I think I try that out. Thanks, Sotoki!” she said before running off to train on her own. It was a smart choice. Despite me giving her the idea, she needed to make the fighting style her own, plus there was still the chance we could be facing each other in the final round. In that case, she wouldn’t want me to know beforehand how she fought.

~X~

“Thanks for helping with this,” I said begrudgingly. I really hated showing gratitude, it always felt so fake.

Hagakure and Ojiro were sat roughly ten metres away from me in the forest on campus. I had asked them to help test my quirk. In reality, it wasn’t exactly testing. I more wanted other people around to see what would happen.

“It’s cool,” Hagakure replied. “You taught me how to fight, it’s only fair I help you with… this. Speaking of, what are we doing here?”

I sat down cross-legged and began tracing my index finger over certain points of my body. “I want you two to try and have a conversation with me.” Left arm, right arm, left thigh, right thigh, chest, lower back. Six tentacles grew out of those six points.

“Have a conversation?” Ojiro asked. “What do you—”

We opened one last portal on our face and were dragged into the void.

I was once more faced with a sea of darkness speckled by flashing orbs. I waited for a moment, but no visions came. Shame, I had hoped that my theory on when I’d see those images was correct. Since I only got the ‘canon’ events of things that had already happened for me, I was hoping that after the attack at the USJ that the visions would return to show me how else it could have gone. But I got nothing.

“I’ve come to talk,” I called out to the entity living in this place.

“We know why you’ve come Wazawa Sotoki,” the rumbling voice replied.

“What happened to those visions? Why stop all of a sudden?”

“We thought you were bored of seeing memories of… how did you put it? Dreadful mundanity?”

“That’s not the visions I was talking about.” This thing was being almost deliberately obtuse at this point.

“But it is. The memories you seek do not exist, the only ones you have yet to see are the ones you do not wish to see.”

Was it saying that the visions of the ‘proper’ timeline were just memories of another life, same as the other ones that were so incredibly boring? In that case, is the reason I stopped receiving new visions because the life I was seeing never watched past that point?

“Fine then. How about you explain exactly where this is. It’s clearly not reality, and I can somehow exist here simultaneously with my actual body.”

“You,” was all the being said.

“Me?” I asked.

“Yes, this is you.”

“I’m not even going to bother asking for what you mean by that. You’ll probably just dodge the question anyways. How about this. If this place is me, then what are you?”

“We are.”

“Again, with that! What do you mean by ‘we are?’ You are what?” I asked, practically yelling now. My vision started to darken, a sign that I was ‘waking up.’ It seemed that every time I asked this thing for what it was that I was given back control.

A tentacle shot towards me, poking me in the forehead. “8:58”

Before I could ask for clarification, everything went black, and I opened my eyes to see the forest just as I left it. Hagakure and Ojiro were stood up, on guard as I gasped for breath.

“What a cryptic asshole,” I muttered.

“Hear, hear,” Ojiro grumbled.

“How did it go on your end?” Hagakure asked. “Did you get what you were looking for?”

I sighed. “Not as much as I hoped, but more than I expected. Though that isn’t saying much considering I expected nothing. I asked it what exactly it was, and it just gave the same reply as always. Only this time, I asked for an explanation and got 8:58.”

“As in the time?” Ojiro asked.

“Somehow, I doubt it. You guys manage to get anything out of it?”

“Well, when your quirk took over, we initially asked who you were and you just said, ‘We are,’” Hagakure explained. “Then we asked what happened to you and your quirk just kept talking about the thin line between sleep, unconsciousness, and death, until you came back.”

So, none of us got anything of use. My visions were memories of another life, I won’t be getting any more information about the so-called canon timeline, the plane I go to when I’m not in control is meant to be me somehow, and my only clue to what the entity behind this all is 8:58.

Wait. If it’s not a time, then what else has two numbers separated by a colon. I pulled out my phone and searched up the numbers. I felt my eye begin to twitch at the first result.

Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”

“That arrogant, obtuse, piece of—”

~X~

Shit. Did I leave my keys at school?

I patted down my pockets. Nope, not there. Must have left them in my locker. I walked over to where there was a small gap in the grout of the brick wall next to my door and opened a small portal on my fingertip.

The thinnest tendril I had ever used came out, looking like an exceptionally long, pitch black worm. I directed it into the hole and began to dig around. I had put my spare key in there, in such a way that I was essentially one of the few people able to access it.

“Evening, Wazawa!” a chipper voice called. Damn it, I was hoping to get in before she showed up. “Ready for tomorrow?”

I grunted in response. It was the day before the sports festival, and the entire class had been practically buzzing with excitement, and the teachers didn’t even bother trying to get anyone to focus. It would be our first chance to show the nation our skills and could very well influence our entire future as heroes.

“I’m kind of nervous, having to get up in front of so many people, you know? I keep thinking, what if I mess up. And I really don’t want to throw up on national TV,” Uraraka continued. I’ll never understand how she could keep a conversation going without any input from me.

I continued fumbling around for the key. It’s at times like this that I wish I had some form of tactile sense through my tentacles.

“Uh, what are you doing?” Uraraka finally asked.

“Grabbing my keys,” I replied.

“Your keys are in the wall?”

“Yes,” I said, hearing the slight clink of metal. There it is. I wrapped the tentacle in a loop, hoping that it grabbed hold, and slowly dragged it back. The sound of the key scraping told me I had grabbed a hold of it. In hindsight, this was a fairly inconvenient way of accessing my spare key.

I low growl rumbled near me. I turned to see a red-faced Uraraka. “You should eat more,” I told her.

“Y-yeah. I’m trying to save up some money, so I skip meals. I just eat a lot during lunch.”

I looked at her once more before shrugging and entering my apartment. It’s not my problem what she chooses to do.

I went about my evening routine, cooking dinner, getting changed, checking the news. I would normally study for a few hours, but I figured that it was best to sleep early to be well rested for the big event.

I checked my messages one last time before going to bed. I had a few scam messages plus one from both Kaiji and Tsuchigumo wishing me luck.

Wait. I was forgetting something. Something to do with Kaiji. Was it his birthday? No that’s not for another six months. Come on… what was it…

Oh.

Oh.

I quickly texted him a message.

Sotoki: What am I meant to say in my speech?

Chapter Text

I woke up early the next morning, still having no idea what I was going to say for the pledge. Kaiji was good with people and could give tips on how to speak, but he was not creative at all and had no ideas. And Tsuchigumo pretty much had a one-track mind for clothing.

I started preparing my breakfast, opting to go for a heavy meal to have enough energy for the first two rounds, instead of my usual light meal.

I’m trying to save up some money, so I skip meals.

Shut up. It’s not my problem. If she wants to sabotage herself, that’s her own choice.

…Fuck. It pisses me off just thinking about fighting someone not at their best. Without even thinking about it, I had prepared enough for two people. I ate my portion and put the leftovers in a container.

I could just put it in the fridge, have something to eat when I didn’t feel like cooking. I really didn’t need to go out of my way to help someone whose presence was nothing but an annoyance to me.

I sighed. I hate this. I left my apartment.

BANG, BANG, BANG! I heavily knocked on Uraraka’s door.

“Who is i— Wazawa? What are you doing here?” she answered.

I shoved the container of food in her face. “Eat.”

“Oh, no, no, I’m fine,” she spluttered quickly. “I’m used to not eating so—”

“Eat the damn food. If we’re going to be competing against each other, I don’t want to beat you because you were sabotaging yourself,” I ground out, before turning and walking away.

“Thank you!” she called after me.

“Just bring back the dish by tomorrow morning,” I grunted.

~X~

“Everyone!” Iida yelled. “Are you all ready? We are going out in 5 minutes time!”

The whole class was crammed into the waiting room for 1A. The nerves were palpable, some were stretching again and again to give them something to do, others were sitting down acting all casual, but I was clear it was just a facade.

I walked over to where Hagakure was taking deep breaths. “How’d you go with creating you own style of fighting?” I asked.

Her shoulders jumped a bit in surprise. “I think I’m happy with it. I can already tell that I’m much better at fighting now than I was at the beginning of the term.”

I nodded. “Good. I’ll be watching to see how you do.”

Suddenly the entire room went silent as Todoroki essentially declared war on Midoriya. The son of the number two hero challenging the… something of the number one? That just sounded like it would be a very destructive fight. Though whether the destruction would be the arena or Midoriya’s bones was up to debate.

Hagakure snapped her fingers. “That’s right, I almost forgot!” she began to rummage through her bag. She pulled out a single blue glove, the same one as in her hero costume, and threw it down at my feet.

I raised an eyebrow. “Really?” I picked up the glove, accepting her challenge. “You better make it to the final round then,” I told her, handing back the glove and turning to leave.

The booming voice of Present Mic introduced each class one by one, making sure to spend the most time hyping up our class. Just based on ticket sales, this was one of the most watched first-year competition in years. A lot of people only choose to watch the third years, and maybe the second if they had the time. The first-year competition featured students who had a grand total of four weeks of schooling, so most chose to skip it.

Now, though? We had just gone through a villain attack, an event still fresh in the mind of the general public. More hero agencies had their eyes on us than normal, wanting to get a glimpse at the kids who fought villains and won.

Midnight came out on to the stage. “Now, now, settle down kiddos. We want fair play here today. Before we announce the first event, a word from our student representative! Uh…” she looked at the palm of her hand. “Wazawa Sotoki!”

I sighed at the fact she had to write down my name to remember it and headed up on stage. I still didn’t have any idea what I was going to say, so hopefully I didn’t accidentally insult everyone.

People started muttering among themselves as I walked up. I’m pretty sure I heard Ashido comment that she had completely forgotten I was the highest scorer on the entrance exam.

“I pledge to do my best in every aspect of this competition," I started, tone even. “Many people have taken time out of their day to watch us all, so I hope at least some of you manage to make this festival somewhat entertaining for them in some way.”

I walked off stage to the rest of my class, where many of them had their faces in their hands. They almost looked like they were in despair. Someone muttered, “That went about how I expected.”

Did I insult them somehow? I got the odd feeling my phone was currently buzzing in my locker with a text message from Kaiji.

Midnight cleared her throat. “Well, then… on to the first round! The first event of destiny for this year is…” she made a dramatic flourish and pointed to the screen. “An obstacle race!”

We all turned to look at the large gate leading out of the stadium which would act as our starting line. It was probably about 5 people wide, maybe six could fit through in a squeeze. Let’s see, every first-year class was required to participate in at least this round, and classes were from 1A to 1K. With a class size of 20 students, that would mean there are 220 students trying to get through that gate at the same time.

It would surely cause a gridlock where the first through the gates could get a massive head start on the race in its entirety. And wouldn’t you know, the hero students just so happened to be the closest to the start. I always thought the sports festival seemed a bit rigged, but being here in person is really starting to show it.

“All right kiddo’s, the students who can complete this course in under 40 minutes will advance to the next round. Now on my marks… 321 GO!” she finished quickly, the entire crowd rushing forward in a stampede.

As I expected, once we reached the gate, it became a pit of flailing limbs as everyone was crammed together. How could I get out of this? If I forced my way through, there was a good chance someone would get trampled. It would be best if I were to somehow completely remove myself from the crowd.

I looked up. The gateway was roughly square, and since multiple people could fit through the width at the same time, there was plenty of room above the crowd. I could only hope that light property damage wasn’t grounds for disqualification.

I grew a tentacle on each shoulder, unable to move the rest of my body enough to be useful. Impaling the concrete of the roof in the edges and lifting myself up.

And not a moment too soon, as well. Right after I left the ground, ice crept up and froze the feet of those in the front of the crowd as Todoroki glided forward on a path of ice. I slingshot myself forward, landing on the ice and barely keeping my balance. How could Todoroki move so easily across this. Part of it probably had to do with knowing where the ice would be, but his stance had to help.

Slightly bent knees, perpendicular to the intended direction, arms out to the side for balance. I copied his stance, and immediately began to slide much smoother and I felt in control.

I could hear the shouts of my classmates behind me as their found their own ways to counter Todoroki’s ice. I’m pretty sure I heard Hagakure yelp “Cold!” though, so maybe she didn’t manage to avoid it.

“Looks like they’re coming up on the first obstacle. The Robo-pocalypse!” Present Mic yelled over the loudspeaker. Did that man not realise he had a microphone in front of him?

A wall of machines seemed to appear out of nowhere, with a dozen of the zero-pointers standing ominously. I knew I could take one down, I had apparently done so at the entrance exam, but doing so probably needed me to relinquish control over my body, and I had no idea if the thing that took over understood the concept of an obstacle course. Besides, that was meant to be a last resort, not the very first thing I do.

Luckily for me, Todoroki had no problems freezing them all in place, even if they were clearly about to topple. I chased after the two-toned boy, briefly pausing to deflect a bit of metal that came my way once they did fall. It felt so much easier to rend through the robot than I would have expected, just basing it off how difficult it had been to destroy that one three-pointer. Either I had grown exponentially stronger, or these robots were much weaker.

I was willing to bet it was the latter.

“Looks like 1A’s Todoroki has taken the lead and left the rest behind! But he’s closely tailed by his classmate, Wazawa!”

I was slowly gaining on Todoroki, my physique a bit better suited to running than his was, but my progress was hindered a bit more than his with the slight delay I had in clearing nearby robots. I was sure by now that at the very least the rest of my class had made it past the first major obstacle, and probably some of class B too.

“Since the first obstacle was a breeze for you guys, how about your second obstacle, the Pitfall of Doom!”

I seriously doubted that’s what this obstacle was meant to be called, especially not after Aizawa-sensei’s exasperated sigh. A bunch of rock pillars jutted out of a black pit with ropes connecting them.

This was a terrible match for my quirk. Without any walls to attach the tentacles to I could just leap across the pit, and the plateaus were far too small to slingshot myself.

I slowly began to walk across the first rope. Meanwhile, Todoroki was able to quickly clear the entire pit, and Bakugo had come flying by with a look of rage. They were both able to self-propel themselves over the course, something I wasn’t able to do. I could hear faintly the sounds of the rest of the students coming up to the first ropes.

If I couldn’t go over the pit, could I go under? Falling was an instant disqualification, but I could probably manoeuvre in such a way that I wouldn’t touch the bottom.

“And Wazawa… jumps off?” Present Mic said, confused.

We opened two more gates on our hands, using the tendrils to wrap around the connecting ropes and swing off them. It was good we had spent so much time swinging between trees as training, these ropes were essentially just thinner branches that were actually designed to hold the weight of a person.

“Is that allowed?” The Screamer asked.

“As long as he does not touch the bottom of the pit, he is allowed to do whatever he wishes,” The One Who Interrupts clarified.

We swung from rope to rope, making good distance and catching up to the ones that had cleared this stage already. We scrambled up the cliffside of the end of the pit, and I closed the four portals currently on my body. The shoulder ones became a bit redundant once the robots were no longer an issue, though I kept them for additional balance. The ones on my hands were detrimental when not in use and made running a bit awkward.

“And it looks like more participants are coming up on the final obstacle. The Minefield from Rambo 3!”

Did that man ever speak quieter? He was unfortunately just as loud during English classes. Also, what the fuck was a Rambo?

I came up to the nearly 200m long dirt patch that was no doubt filled with explosives. Todoroki and Bakugo were both around halfway through, and past the field, I could plainly see the finish line.

We brought out two tentacles on the sides of our legs, and one in each hand. The leg tendrils lifted our body off the ground, and we tested the power of the mines by stabbing at a random point in the earth.

“Ooh! You do not want to be hit by one of those, folks!” The Screamer yelled as we blew up a mine. We brought up the tentacle that was hit and saw a lot of smoke coming out from it. The blast had utterly annihilated roughly a foot of the tendril, but we were unharmed. And there was now a crater where the mine had once been.

We dismissed the damaged tentacle and brought forth a new one, and used one of the leg tentacles to step where there was no longer a mine. We continued that pattern, stabbing a random spot, then stepping into that spot. Sometimes we wouldn’t hit a mine, but the act of stabbing the ground marked a spot that was mine-free for us to step on.

Our progress felt painstakingly slow, but a quick glance back showed that the rest of the racers were moving forward much slower. One benefit of stepping with the tentacles was our stride was so much longer that the others were barely helped by the spots we had already cleared.

A massive boom came from around the start of the course, much larger than what should have been possible with just a single mine. The cause was quickly apparent as The Ninth Bearer flew by, riding on a piece of a robot that he had obviously taken from the start of the course. We had the brief urge as he flew by to grab his leg, just to see what would happen.

The Ninth Bearer shot forwards, about to land right in between The One Who Sweats Explosives and The Stifled Flame, before blowing the mines beneath them as well and flying through the finish line.

We picked up the pace, eager to finish as quickly as possible, and hopefully capitalise on the brief moment that the current second and third place were stunned.

The three of us exited the minefield at roughly the same time, and we had just a 50m dash to finish. Unfortunately, I had to pause for a brief moment to lower myself to the ground and dismiss the tentacles — I could run much faster with my own feet than I could using the tendrils. In that time, Todoroki and Bakugo had already covered half of the distance, propelled by their quirks.

In the end, I came fourth. It was a respectable position considering the three that had beat me. One by one, the ending platform filled up with more students, at first being mainly from my class, but then others I didn’t recognise, probably from class B. In the end, 42 students managed to finish the course in time.

Looking at how they all grouped up, it would seem that all 40 of the hero students had passed, then two others. There was nothing in the course to suggest it was rigged, but looking at the results, it certainly felt that way. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure this was fairly normal for the sports festival — all the hero students would make it at least to the second round, and those from other tracks would only get one or two in a year.

Hagakure stumbled over to me, panting. She had been one of the last ones to come through before the cut-off. Ojiro, noticing us both, wandered over as well, looking much more composed than Hagakure was.

“Hah,” she puffed out. “That was the worst.”

“I suppose your quirk couldn’t really help at all, could it?” Ojiro mentioned.

“No, the robots didn’t even ignore me. In the entrance exam they all just—”

“Where are your shoes?” I interrupted.

“Oh, that?” Her sleeve raised up a bit as she moved to rub the back of her head. “They got frozen to the floor by Todoroki, so I took them off.”

“And you ran the whole course barefoot.”

Hagakure bobbed down a bit and hummed in confirmation. I just sighed and shook my head, turning my attention towards Midnight, who cracked her whip and announced the second event.

Chapter Text

"Looks like 42 of you kids managed to pass!" Midnight cheered. "But don't rest now; the second event is right around the corner."

She pointed to the large screen once more, where a bunch of words scrolled down faster than the eye could see. "'Round and 'round and 'round it goes. Where will it stop? I actually know! It's a cavalry battle! You have 10 minutes to form a team of two to four people, and here are the points each of you have."

The screen changed to a list of our rankings from the first event, with points in increments of 5. Since I came fourth, I had 195 points. That would make me a bit of a target to the teams with lower point totals, especially the teams consisting solely of 1B students. Though not as much of a target as…

"Ouch, a million points? Midoriya has it rough," Hagakure commented.

I hummed. "And it's made worse by the fact that both Bakugo and Todoroki already would have targeted him. I think he'll struggle to find teammates."

"Speaking of which, wanna team up?" she asked.

"Oh?" I raised an eyebrow. "Trying to get carried by my higher point total?" Hagakure had come 38th, giving her only 20 points. If we teamed up, we'd have 215 points. Plus the points of whoever we managed to rope into our team.

She playfully punched my arm. "Jerk. I challenged you to an honourable duel in the next event, so us being on the same team makes sure we both get through. Besides, isn't it better to work with friends?"

"We're not friends, we're acquaintances," I replied without thinking. "Who else do you want on your team, then? Just two of us won't work too well."

I looked around, spotting each of our classmates already forming groups. Ojiro had wandered off shortly before the event was announced and had already seemed to have joined a rather odd group. Bakugo and Todoroki quickly managed to form a team, and many people flocked to them as the standout heavy hitters.

"What about Kyoka?" Hagakure suggested.

I frowned in thought. "Who?"

"Oh, uh, Jiro," she clarified.

"Ah." That made a bit more sense now. Her heightened senses would be useful as a backline to warn us of impending attacks. "Unfortunately, she seems to already be in a group."

Though I really did like the idea of having someone who had keen senses. I could handle offence, my tentacles being good for this type of thing, and Hagakure would probably be the rider, so a third to act as the defence would balance our team out. And luckily the one who I had in mind was still without a team.

~X~

"Three!"

We were all tense, watching where the other teams were, and where they were planning on going.

"Two!"

I bent my knees slightly, ready to take off at a moment's notice.

"One!"

I heard the telltale popping of Bakugo readying his explosions. Ojiro was stood, face completely blank while holding up his rider. Midoriya was tensed up, watching every direction at once, ready for the inevitable onslaught coming his way.

"Start!" Midnight cried.

Chaos broke loose. As I had expected, both Todoroki's and Bakugo's teams went straight for Midoriya, along with around a third of the much less interesting teams.

"Who do you want to target?" I asked.

Hagakure was silent for a moment. "Let's go for the class B teams to start with."

We marched forwards, edging around the ongoing chaos around Team Midoriya. I had advised Hagakure on resisting the temptation to go after the obvious goal of the million points, instead, we would try to scrape by on the smaller point totals and avoid the much more capable and balanced teams.

"Oh? What's this? You class A losers couldn't even form a full team? Even though you supposedly have such great teamwork? Isn't that strange, huh?" an annoying blond laughed maniacally.

We clashed, Hagakure and the blond grappling to grab each other's headbands. From memory, this team had around 300 points combined, compared to our 355. We were on roughly even footing, all things considered, and whoever was able to grab the most points from the other would have more of an advantage.

"Hey, did you know?" the annoying one continued. "You class A guys were so eager to place highly in the first round, but anyone with a brain could tell that they wouldn't eliminate too many so early on, so we of class B…"

He continued his delusional ramblings, but I really couldn't care enough to listen. Instead, I used one of the pre-prepared portals on my arm to create a thin tendril and shoot it towards his neck, hoping to grab one of the bands while he was distracted.

He seemed to realise what I was doing a split second before I could grab one and leaned back. "You really thought I would fall for such a simple trick?" he said batting at the weak tentacle. He paused for a moment and clicked his tongue. "You 1A losers must really think of yourself so highly to— Gah!"

While he had his hands busy evading my tentacle, Hagakure had yanked his headband, and we were off. Before we got too far, I commented, "You talk too much." Much quieter, I murmured to our third member, "Keep an eye out for their retaliation."

"You might want to focus on in front of us," Shoji replied.

While we had been distracted with the class B group, Midoriya's team had managed to fly into the sky and were hovering out of reach of everyone else for the time being. Which left the ones targeting him to find new targets.

Case in point, Todoroki was right in front of us, ready to attack.

"Can we flee?" Hagakure asked, aware of the sheer threat the two-toned boy represented.

"I do not believe it would be possible," Shoji said gravely, motioning with an appendage behind us, where the annoying blond was no doubt waiting.

 "We have two options: try and make an opening and escape, or attack and try and get some of their points," I pointed out. "Which should we do?"

Hagakure was quiet for a moment before she took a deep breath. "Charge!"

We marched forwards as I sent out three tentacles to attack their team. A frontal assault wouldn't work against Todoroki, I trusted he was smarter than that, so I was left with coming in from the sides.

The Stifled Flame also had his ice powers, which could be deadly to us, being able to immobilise our team and make our points free pickings. The One Who Manifests was too versatile for me to predict how she'd respond, which just left The Discharger. If I could get him to overuse his quirk, the left side of their team would be left defenceless, which just so happened to be the side of The Stifled Flame's body that couldn't use ice.

The three tendrils weaved towards The Discharger, who predictably started to use his quirk while an insulating blanket fell over the other three. I braced for the inevitable shock that would come my way as the tentacles transmit the electricity to my body.

No shock ever came. I could see the ends of the tendrils twitching from the electricity running through them, but after about half a metre they stopped. The tentacles must have some form of insulating property.

"Now!" I called out. The blanket was still covering the rest of the team, so they were left blind. Even though my initial plan to make The Discharger lose rational thinking by quirk overuse hadn't worked out, there was still a window of opportunity to be able to take a band or two from The Stifled Flame.

We got closer to the team, close enough for The Refractor to reach out, as I sent a tentacle under the blanket that was slowly being removed. With one fell swoop, we could take their points and then we'd just have to play defensively to hold our large point pool.

Ice shot out from the opening, coating all three tentacles. It was only due to my foresight in having the tendrils be smaller than the portals that came through that saved me from being frozen all over.

The blanket fell to the ground to reveal The Stifled Flame with his right hand crossing over to cover the sudden weak point I had created. I underestimated him for a moment and got caught out because of it. I dispelled the three tentacles, letting the ice casing drop to the ground and shatter, while Hagakure reared back, responding to the sudden and very real threat. If she got frozen here, we would lose the main benefit of her invisibility, not to mention all of our points.

I immediately began to call forth a tentacle to defend, while calling out, "Shoji! Defend!"

Webbed arms began to come around the sides, blocking most avenues of attack. In the brief period it took for my tentacle to come back out, Iida's engines roared and his team rocketed forwards.

We stood no chance. My sole tentacle wasn't able to block them, Shoji's arms couldn't cover our front, and Hagakure just wasn't fast enough. Todoroki flew by, grabbing hold of the three bandannas around Hagakure's neck.

I couldn't block them in time, but there was one thing I could do. As our points fluttered in Todoroki's hand, my tentacle grabbed onto the loose ends and yanked. The cloth was made of a similar material to the one used in hero costumes, meaning it would slip out of Todoroki's grip before it could ever tear.

Two bands came free, and the momentum from Iida made it so Todoroki had no chance to retaliate to get them back.

"Shit," I muttered looking down at them.

"Good job!" Hagakure cheered. "Which ones did you get back?"

"They took the 195," I said gravely. That was our highest point band. In a moment we had lost half of our point total, and unless we stole some points from other teams urgently, we had no chance of placing in the top 16.

By now, Midoriya's team had landed back on the ground, meaning all the focus was back on him. We would have no chance of getting the points from any of those teams, so we instead had to manage with the stragglers.

I communicated as such to Hagakure. "Who should we go after?"

She thought for a moment. "I don't think we should go after the class B teams — we don't know what they can do — so that leaves Tsuyu's team."

I said nothing for a few seconds.

"…Asui's team," she clarified.

We rushed over, conscious of the fact that only a few minutes remained. Explosions shook the field as Bakugo flew across the arena, only to be pulled back to his team by Sero, point band in hand.

A tentacle shot out just in time to collide with a flying tongue.

"You have good reactions, Wazawa," Asui commented, tongue withdrawing back into her mouth.

"Sorry, but we'll be taking your points now!" Hagakure said, a smile clear in her voice.

"Ehh, you probably have a better chance of winning than we do," she admitted. "But we won't give up, Tooru." They only had a single band wrapped around Asui's neck, reading 115. With that, we'd be up to 310, still less than we started with, but hopefully enough to make it to the top 16.

"Left!" Shoji called out. Without thinking, both of us jumped to the side, narrowly pulling Hagakure out of the way of a purple-haired kid. He seemed somewhat familiar, but I struggled to actually pin down why.

He clicked his tongue in irritation and sneered at Shoji before ordering his team to retreat. Surprisingly, Asui never tried to take advantage of our brief moment of distraction.

Without any words, we clashed. I tried my best to keep up with the attacks lashing out towards us, tentacles meeting tongue and… ear lobe? Are the earphone jacks still considered part of the ear lobe?

We were at a standstill. Koda and Sato were acting as pure movement and offered nothing in the way of combat, and every attack from Asui and Jiro were slapped down by my two tentacles. On the other hand, Hagakure couldn't get close with all the flailing appendages, and I had no opening to grab the points either.

I briefly heard whispering coming from behind me, but it was so quiet that it barely even registered. It might have even just been the wind. I suppressed a jump when I felt something enter my ear.

"Hagakure wants you to grab her when she gives the signal, and then I'll pick you up and turn around," Shoji's voice murmured, the sound coming from a freshly grown mouth. Just the feeling of someone's voice being so close to me felt disgusting.

Moments passed with no signal, before a three-way pincer came our way from the other team, trying to overwhelm my defence. I batted them away and felt pressure on my shoulder. Dark blue passed my eyes as a school uniform flew towards Asui.

No. As Hagakure jumped off of me to grab Asui's points. The bandanna crumpled as an invisible hand grasped it. The deflected tongue and earjacks tried to make their way back to their owners, but they weren't fast enough. I used my face portal to create a third tentacle, which wrapped around the tracksuit leg of The Refractor, pulling her back.

Hands grabbed me by the waist and I clenched my fists to stop the instinctual lashing out. The One With Redundancy moved me, who moved The Refractor, so his back was facing the team we had just stolen from, and his webbed arms splayed out to form a barrier.

"Only 30 seconds are remaining!" The Screamer… screamed. A quick look at the scoreboard showed we were currently 6th. The other five teams were all made up of four people, meaning we took up positions 21 to 23. But the space between us and 4th was less than 200 points, something that a quick steal from a high-scoring team could easily overcome. If only I could think of a way to guarantee we could get those points quickly.

"Uh… Sotoki? You can let go of my leg now," The Refractor said.

"No," I replied. 4th place was currently team Tetsutetsu. So, a class B group. I scanned the field, quickly counting the number of headbands each team I didn't recognise had.

There. Near the conflict we had been avoiding involving Midoriya was a team with a lot of headbands, and some of them seemed pretty high-value.

"If I swing you, do you think you can grab most of the points from that team?" I asked, gesturing with a spare tentacle to the group.

"I can try."

"Ten!" The Screamer announced. We began to jog over to the mess of teams fighting each other for dominance.

"Five!" We drew nearer, just out of range of my tentacles.

"Four!" We came within 10 metres.

"Three!" I swung The Refractor without notice, hearing her exhale sharply in surprise.

"Two!" She flew by without making any noise, coming in through their blind spots.

"One!" The bands strained against their owner, who desperately grabbed at them to save as many points as possible.

The headbands came free, the majority clenched in The Refractor's hand.

"And that's time!"

I dismissed the two free tentacles and continued Hagakure's momentum to fly back at me. I may have made a slight lapse in judgement there, forgetting that while my tentacles could catch her and had the strength to lift her with ease, my body did not. She crashed directly into me, and the only reason I didn't go flying back was Shoji behind me halting both of our momentum. We both fell to the floor, slumped over.

"Oww…" Hagakure groaned.

"My bad," I grunted out. "How many points did you snag?"

She showed me the ones in her hand. Counting them up came to a total of 205 points stolen, bringing our total to 515 points. Higher than Midoriya's team the last I checked, and since we took the points from team Tetsutetsu, we would be placed fourth at least.

"Looks like we had a huge shake up in the last few seconds there!" Present Mic said. "Let's take a look at the results! In first place… team Todoroki! In second, team Bakugo! In third, team Shinso!"

Huh, who was that? They weren't in the top four earlier. I saw that purple-haired kid wearing a self-satisfied smirk. Oh, that's the team Ojiro was in.

"And in fourth place… team Midoriya!"

What?

I looked at the scoreboard.

Team Midoriya: 520 points

We lost.

I stood up, head bowed. "Sorry," I said, not looking at the other two. "It's my fault we lost those points."

"No! Nonono!" Hagakure shot up, waving her arms crazily. "I also screwed up. I was the one who didn't move out of the way. We wouldn't have come nearly as close if it weren't for you!"

I shook my head. "Doesn't change the fact that my mistake was why we lost."

"Bu—"

"It's fine," I cut her off with a heavy sigh. "Let's just go get lunch."

Chapter Text

I picked idly at my food, stewing over the cavalry battle. The biggest mistake I had made was underestimating Todoroki. The time it took for me to replace the frozen tentacles meant that we lost 195 points. Had it not been for that, we would still be in the running.

But then there were the smaller things. I limited myself to only three tentacles the entire time. If I used more, if I had tried my hardest, I probably could have snagged some other points along the way. No matter how low the headband was worth, it would have given us enough points to be in the top 16. I also took a step back for most of the decision making, letting Hagakure act as the leader. Maybe if I—

No. I shouldn’t think like that. Going down that route just leads to me blaming others when the blame should solely be on me.

I don’t even know why I’m so hung up on all this. The main purpose of the sports festival is to advertise the potential of the hero students, and get existing pro heroes interested in our futures. I was perfectly content in fading into the background, being just another student in the class. My sole desire right now was to prevent societal collapse, and hopefully graduate without anyone close dying. I didn’t want the attention of the sports festival. But I also wanted to make it to the third round. I had actually felt excited for this. Whether I just liked fighting, or wanted to hurt others free of critique didn’t matter. Especially not since I wouldn’t be able to compete.

“Attention all students. Please gather on the main stage for the announcement of the third round and some recreational activities.”

I sighed and stood up from the table, lunch long since eaten. I had to swallow this disappointment and move on. At least I’d have top-notch seats to view the fights.

~X~

“Listen up, kiddies!” Midnight called out once we had all gathered on the main stage. “As you’ve probably guessed by now, the third round will be a one-on-one tournament! Before we get to the recreation games, we first must draw lots to see who fights who. So, without further ado—”

“Excuse me!” Ojiro called out; hand raised. Just what was he doing? “I’m withdrawing.”

What.

Why would he drop out here? Unlike me, Ojiro actually wanted to be noticed by the pros watching. It was almost insulting to throw away that opportunity.

“Truth to be told, I don’t remember anything of the cavalry battle. I just can’t accept getting by without putting in any effort myself.”

“Still! You shouldn’t throw away this opportunity!” Hagakure yelled. “As long as you show results in the tournament no one will care—”

“It’s not about other people,” I interrupted her with a hand on her shoulder. “This is about him. His pride.”

Ojiro nodded in thanks.

“I wholeheartedly disagree with the decision, but my opinion doesn’t matter in this,” I continued.

“U-um. I’m dropping out too,” another boy from class B called out. I think he was also a part of Ojiro’s team with that purple haired kid — I think his name was Shindo?

“How youthful…” Midnight muttered with a creepy smile. “Very well, I accept your withdrawal. Since we still need 16 participants, two members of the fifth-place team will move up!”

The fifth-place team. Which was ours.

I turned to Shoji and Hagakure. “Which of us should go ahead?” I asked.

“I didn’t do much in the last round, you two should go,” Hagakure said.

I shook my head. “You weren’t the one who screwed up and lost half of our points, I should sit out.”

“You two were the ones that got us all of our points, I am fine ending my participation here,” Shoji said.

I sighed. “This is going nowhere. Rock paper scissors?”

We each shot our hands out, I chose scissors. Shoji went with paper. Hagakure…

“I can see the issue here. Be honest, what did you choose?”

Hagakure was silent.

“It was rock, wasn’t it,” I said.

“It was rock,” she admitted.

“Enough,” Shoji said calmly. “We are never going to agree on this, but I will not go into this next round. It is simply the truth of the matter that no matter how well I perform, I will receive very few offers. You two have something to gain here. Besides, did you two not want to fight each other?”

I just sighed. “Fine, you win. I’m not stubborn enough for this.”

“Are you done now?” Midnight asked impatiently. I nodded. “Great! Then allow me to present the first round!”

Sero Hanta vs Hagakure Tooru

Wazawa Sotoki vs Shinso Hitoshi

Kaminari Denki vs Hatsume Mei

Tokoyami Fumikage vs Yaoyorozu Momo

Kirishima Eijiro vs Aoyama Yuga

Bakugo Katsuki vs Iida Tenya

Uraraka Ochako vs Midoriya Izuku

Todoroki Shoto vs Ashido Mina

…Who was Shinso again? Well, it had to be either one of the two students who weren’t in my class.

“Aw man, I’m first?” Hagakure whined. “This sucks.”

“Why does that matter? It’s not like the order affects anything.”

“It’s the principle of it. Going first is always a sign of bad luck!” she cried.

I was about to respond, asking how any of that made sense, but before I could, Ojiro interrupted.

“Wazawa. We need to talk.”

~X~

Ojiro had led me to one of the preparation rooms, a grim look on his face. “What I said earlier about not remembering anything during the cavalry battle was true. That Shinso guy… he walked up to me out of the blue, asked to team up, and I went to respond, and that’s it. Next thing I know, ten minutes had passed, and we had come third.”

I sat down on the bench opposite him and folded my hands in front of my mouth. “So probably some kind of brainwashing quirk, then. To be able to still move around with you under the effects of the quirk means he could order you around.”

“It’s likely activated by his voice since I was about to respond when I went under. I also snapped out of it when someone from another team bumped into me, so a jolt might be enough to break out of it.”

“So, voice activated brainwashing…” I mused. “His plan will likely just be to try and get me to respond to him, and then order me to forfeit. Should be able to beat him by not speaking.”

“Actually,” Ojiro said, looking a little uneasy, “I want to ask a favour of you.”

I turned to face him head on, straightening a little. “What is it?”

“If you were anyone else, I’d just ask that you win, to get back at him using me like that,” Ojiro said with a scowl, no doubt thinking of his lost opportunities. “But I know well enough by now that you’re good enough to win against him, so I’ll ask something different. I don’t want you to just win, I want you to beat him. To show that someone who only gets by on the work of others doesn’t deserve a spot on the stage.”

I hummed in fascination. “You seem to have a bit of a vicious side to you,” I commented. “Nice.”

His face reddened a bit at that. “W-well, there should be about half an hour left before the matches start, so I’ll leave you to prepare.”

Ojiro got up to leave, as I thought of how to utterly destroy my opponent. Physical violence wouldn’t be enough. Sure, it would prove how much better I was than… Shinko? It would show that I was stronger than him, but more would be needed to show he wasn’t deserving of being there. Plus, victory would be so much sweeter if I made my opponent believe he was undeserving as well. That would be true defeat.

But how could I do that without talking? Or more accurately, how could I destroy his will to fight without him activating his quirk against me. Breaking out of it might be possible with an impossibly strong will, but I had no way of testing that beforehand, and it wasn’t like I could have another person shake me if I ever fall under his brainwashing.

I stopped Ojiro before he could leave, an idea forming in my mind. “I need your help testing something.”

~X~

“Well, everybody! After that exciting first match, we have the shocking standout Shinso Hitoshi from 1C! Versus the most likely student to glare at you during an English lesson, Wazawa Sotoki!”

That was… okay, the only real surprise there was that I beat Bakugo in that category. I had spent the remaining time before my match with Ojiro, fully plotting out how to deal with this Shinso guy’s quirk. I had missed Hagakure’s fight against Sero, but did hear that she managed to win, so I’d be facing her in the next round.

The two of us entered the arena from opposite ends of the stadium. The purple haired kid — I swear I’d met him before — seemed to perpetually glare at me. Using my pre-prepared portals, we brought out five tendrils beneath our uniform and analysed The Verbal Puppeteer before I dismissed them again. Based on that title, it was safe to assume the voice-activated brainwashing assumption was true.

“All right you two,” Midnight said, standing on the edge of the arena. “The match will end whenever one of you falls off the stage, forfeits, or gets knocked out. Other than that, just try not to kill each other or yourselves. Fight!”

“That dumb monkey talked so much about his pride,” the other boy immediately said. “But don’t you agree that he’s nothing more than a chimp-brained loser for throwing away his chances?”

I said nothing, just staring at him with a bored look. I did agree somewhat that it was a dumb choice to drop out — especially since he asked me, the person who replaced him, to win against this guy — but on the other hand, I understood that some people had their pride.

“Tch. I bet that fucker told you all about my quirk. I bet he told you about how evil I must be, how only a villain would have a quirk like this. Bunch of high and mighty hero students,” he spat.

Wow, this kid had issues. A lot of projecting and assuming going on here. I continued to stare silently, scratching the inside of my ear for show.

“I bet you must see yourself as so much better than the rest of us just because you were lucky enough to be born with a heroic quirk. You have no idea what it’s like to live where everyone naturally thinks you’ll be a villain.”

I snapped my fingers in recognition. “That’s why I recognise you! You’re that weak looking kid from the other week!”

Everything went dark as the quirk took hold.

I was once again surrounded by pitch black with a bunch of lights flickering in the distance, far more numerous than usual. A shape obscured the lights and brought one of them forward.

“I want you to make me pass out.”

“Yes, yes,” I spoke into the void. “I remember, that was like 20 minutes ago. Will you just hit me already?”

A deep rumbling sound akin to a chuckle was my only response.

“— yourself out of the ring.”

CRACK!

“Ow!” I complained, bringing a hand to my cheek.

“And Wazawa uses his quirk to… hit himself in the face?” Present Mic announced, confusion clear in his voice.

The dick took my instruction to hit me and chose probably the second worst place to do so. If it wasn’t for the fact that I’m pretty sure the only emotion that thing could feel was mild amusement, I would say it hated me.

“Anyways,” I continued, “are you ever going to actually fight, or are you content to rely solely on your quirk?”

“H-how?” he asked, eyes wide.

I shrugged. “Dunno how it works either, to be honest.”

Surprisingly, I wasn’t affected by his quirk this time. Perhaps he needed to activate his quirk while talking, and the response just makes it take effect. So, he hadn’t used it in his momentary surprise.

“Are you two going to start fighting yet, or what?” Midnight called from her seat on the sidelines.

“Depends on whether he decides he’s going to actually fight for himself or not,” I called back.

“You fucking hero course students,” Shinso growled. “Thinking you’re so much better than the rest of us.”

I took a deep breath and sighed. This guy had a one-track mind, it seemed. “You know—”

Darkness enveloped me once again. I told the entity within to hit somewhere else this time.

“—for someone who complains so much about the hero course,” I continued with a grunt as a tentacle whipped my shoulder, “and about how we all have such flashy quirks, you sure do love relying on your own.”

“So what? Why shouldn’t I use my quirk, the only reason I failed the entrance exam is because they rigged it in favour of you people with flashy quirks, so that people like me had no chance of getting in!” he shouted, getting more and more irate, approaching in a jog.

It felt like every line that came from his mouth I had heard already, just repeating and repeating ad infinitum. I didn’t move an inch as he broke into a run, seemingly enraged by something, and threw a wild punch.

It would have been so easy to avoid. There was no form, no misdirection, telegraphed ages in advance. The punch weakly collided with my chest, only making me need to shift one foot slightly back to keep balance. As I thought, he was horribly weak.

“You know, the person I’m fighting in the next round’s quirk only makes her invisible. And yet she still passed the exam.”

“Shut up!” He began to try and push me out of the ring.

It took all my willpower not to punch him in the face right then — just to stop him from touching me — but I needed to say one more thing before my retaliation. It would seem that words were no cure for stubbornness, and my only option was to beat my point into him.

“Tell you what, since I supposedly only got in due to my quirk, I’ll beat you completely quirkless.” I grabbed Shinso’s wrist and twisted, breaking his grip. A quick knee to the gut sent him staggering back with a rush of elation going through me.

A step forward, a punch to the chest. Deflecting a jab so it passed over my shoulder, using the opening to land another punch. Ducking under a wild swing, and then his side was completely exposed. It only took a hard hit to the ribs, and Shinso staggered back even more, gasping for breath. It was good that I had habitually used a gate to cover my face, otherwise they would all be able to see how much I was enjoying this.

“You know, I can almost sympathise with you about having everyone assume you’ll use your quirk for villainy. But you never even tried to work with your ‘teammates’ earlier, just taking away their free will and coasting by on the efforts of others. That seems pretty villainous to me.”

“…Fuck… you…” he gasped out, struggling to catch his breath.

I could have ended this fight in so many ways. He was nothing more than a free target. But there was one way that just felt fitting.

I swept at his legs, knowing there was next to no chance he could keep his balance as he was. Grabbing the front of his uniform, I pulled him forwards as I dropped to the floor, having him fall nearly on top of me.

All it took was wrapping one leg over the back of his neck, having the other leg on the opposite side of his head, with the crook of the knee over the other foot. A pull on his arm was all that was needed, and the hold was complete.

To test whether my quirk could still move when I was knocked unconscious by something that wasn’t my own decision, I had Ojiro put me in a triangle choke hold. But as an experiment, we redid the test half a dozen times just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. And in that time, I became intimately familiar with the hold.

“Yield,” I told Shinso. He squirmed a bunch, trying to wriggle his way out, but he was locked in. If he were to somehow break the hold, it would be quite painful to him.

He refused to answer, so I pressed my knees together, compressing the arteries on the sides of the neck. Within ten seconds, the struggling stopped, and Shinso fell unconscious.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, the winner of the second match is Wazawa Sotoki!” Present Mic cheered.

I stood up off the ground, and without a second glance at the limp form of my opponent, left to the seating area to watch the rest of the first round.

Chapter Text

I sat down next to Ojiro while the “fight” between Kaminari and that support course girl continued. I say “fight” because it was more the girl giving a presentation while Kaminari was played like a fiddle to her tune, forced to show off all the tech he’d been given.

“…Thanks,” Ojiro muttered.

I nodded, saying nothing.

Kaminari’s match continued for a few minutes before he eventually got fed up and started glowing with electricity.

“Nooo! My babies!” the girl presenting cried out, loud enough that she would have been heard even without her microphone. The electricity from Kaminari had obviously fried the tech, causing some of it to smoke dangerously. The girl slumped her shoulders and just walked out of the ring, effectively forfeiting.

The next round was Tokoyami against Yaoyorozu. It was a match to keep an eye on, as the winner was likely to be able to beat Kaminari after how much the blond had used his quirk so far. And then, assuming I won against Hagakure, I would be facing the winner of this match in the semi-finals.

“Wazawa,” a voice croaked behind me. Asui was sat in the seat directly behind me, having not made it through the cavalry battle after we stole a chunk of her team’s points. “You were very violent against your opponent.”

Even though I really didn’t like how she kept on insisting on familiarity, I could at least respect how Asui never danced around what she meant. I just shrugged in response. “He irritated me.”

“Why did you barely use your quirk?” Sato chimed in.

“To prove a point. He kept talking as if quirks were everything, so I beat him quirkless.”

“But doesn’t that mean the pros don’t know what you’re capable of?”

Before I could respond, Present Mic interrupted with the call out for Tokoyami and Yaoyorozu. The two students faced each other in the ring, and after a brief word from Midnight — which wasn’t audible from our seating — the match commenced.

And then the match was over. In less than ten seconds, Dark Shadow had attacked Yaoyorozu, who blocked with a small shield, but wasn’t able to respond the second strike and was knocked out of the ring. Compared to my match and the comedy routine that was Kaminari’s, it was blazing fast.

So, I would likely be up against Tokoyami if I made it to the semifinals. That was going to be an interesting fight. Dark Shadow outranged my tentacles, so I’d need to get close, though doing so against its impressive capabilities would be difficult. Plus, like my quirk, it had a will of its own, so even if I distracted Tokoyami with something, Dark Shadow would still be able to defend him. It was essentially a two versus one fight.

But that was for later. Right now, I had to plan for my fight against Hagakure. Though, it’s hard to exactly plan when I haven’t seen her capabilities since her training. I was in the preparation room while her match against Sero happened, but considering she would have seen up close how Sero fought back in the battle trial, she could probably avoid his initial attack and surprise him with invisible punches.

As I planned, the match between Kirishima and Aoyama took place. It was fairly bland, with Kirishima being pushed close to the edge of the ring multiple times by the force behind Navel Laser, but able to resist any major damage using Hardening. The fight came to a close when Aoyama doubled over in pain from using his quirk too much, leaving allowing Kirishima to eliminate him without much resistance.

The next match, however, would likely be anything but bland. I hadn’t gotten much chance to see Iida’s speed in action, though what I did see was impressive. And I had seen quite a bit of Bakugo’s Explosion. It would likely be a close match, but Bakugo probably would come out on top.

Immediately upon starting, Iida shot forwards with a quirk boosted kick, which Bakugo dodged by using an explosion to move out of the way. The fight quickly became a game of cat and mouse, except both were simultaneously the cat and the mouse. Both used their quirks to avoid the other, while trying to close in for an attack of their own.

Suddenly, a flash of light came from Iida’s legs. I had briefly noticed a similar sight during the cavalry battle, followed by an astonishing burst of speed. And just like before, Iida practically blurred out of sight, reappearing in front of Bakugo and tackling him to the edge of the ring. For a moment it looked like he was going to win.

And then the entire stadium shook as Bakugo blew up. The sheer concussive force from the blast knocked both of the contestants to the middle of the ring, and also managed to practically destroy the edge they had been on.

The match was short lived after that. Iida had been taken by surprise by the sudden blast, and from the puffs of smoke coming from his legs, he couldn’t use his quirk anymore. Bakugo only needed to throw him off the edge to win.

“That was intense!” Kaminari commented from where he had just sat down. “As expected of Bakugo.”

“Iida was super cool too,” Sero said. “He almost won for a second there.”

I hummed in response. “He might have had he not used that technique earlier. He ruined the surprise by using it during the second round.”

Midoriya and Uraraka walked out for their match on the debris covered stage. Despite Cementoss being right there, they opted to leave it in its partially destroyed state for now. The stood across from each other, Uraraka looking determined, and Midoriya seeming more nervous than usual.

The match started, and Uraraka charged, hands low to the ground. Her main strategy was obvious: get in close and use her quirk on Midoriya, removing his ability to control his direction.

Midoriya obviously knew this, as when she got within a few metres of him, he flicked his finger and knocked her back with a blast of air. It wasn’t powerful enough to eliminate her, but she skidded back a couple of metres, hand on the ground to support herself.

The same exchange happened a few more times, Uraraka getting close only to be knocked back by an air blast. The real question would be which would happen first. Would Uraraka tire and be knocked out, or would Midoriya run out of fingers?

Uraraka started attacking from a range, picking up the rubble left by Bakugo and Iida’s fight, and tossing it at Midoriya, who was forced to dodge out of the way of the weightless projectiles. As he did so, Uraraka took the opportunity to jump in and just managed to graze him with all five fingers.

Midoriya began floating upward, legs flailing for purchase on the ground no longer in reach. If he didn’t pull something out of his ass quick, he would definitely lose this. As he floated over the edge of the ring, Uraraka brought shaking fingers up in the pose she takes to stop her quirk, waiting for the perfect moment.

Suddenly, I caught a brief flash of determination in Midoriya’s eyes, as he reared one arm back. Due to how he had spun in the air, he was faced directly towards our class’s seating.

I got a very bad feeling about what was to come.

Midoriya thrust he arm forward, releasing a blast of air much stronger than the ones he attacked Uraraka with. The propulsion, combined with his current weightless state, sent him rocketing straight to Uraraka, who was struggling to stand.

Watching the match was not on my priority list, however, as I quickly opened three gates to use the tentacles to shield myself from the gale of wind. I was one of the lucky ones. At least I could use my quirk to block some of the wind. From the sounds behind me, my classmates were struggling to cope.

By the time everything settled down, the match was over. Uraraka was sprawled out of bounds, knocked over by Midoriya’s sudden flight. Midoriya had also collapsed… on top of Uraraka.

I stood up from my seat, intending on preparing for my match with Hagakure, while Midoriya realised the position he was in and jumped up, no doubt blabbering a thousand apologies. As I twisted my back, popping it a bit — the seats were really uncomfortable — I could see the effect the wind had on the rest of the class. Hair was everywhere, thrown every which way and making them all look like they had just been skydiving.

With a suppressed smile, I left the stands before the match between Ashido and Todoroki could begin.

~X~

“Not going to watch the match?” Hagakure said, sliding into view as I walked to the preparation room.

“Nope,” I replied. “They’re on the opposite side of the bracket, so the chance of me fighting either of them is low, and even if I do, there will be two more rounds to watch.”

“But why leave so early? There’ll be a break before our fight starts either way.”

I just shrugged. “Stretching.”

We walked side by side in silence. Despite the fact that Hagakure needed to be on the other side of the arena to start the fight, she decided to follow me into the preparation room and do her stretches there.

After a few minutes, the muffled voice of Present Mic announcing that Todoroki was the winner. I pretty much expected that, no matter how skilled Ashido was, she couldn’t overcome the gap in sheer power between the two.

“And with that, we are on to the quarter finals! We’ll be taking a five-minute break before the next round starts, so contestants, please make your way to the marshalling area.”

I straightened up. “Well, you better head off,” I told her. “You still need to go to the other side of the stadium.

“It’ll be fine,” Hagakure waved me off.

We left the room together, but before we could part, Ashido rushed out from the main stage, shaking and an odd shade of purple.

“Eh? Mina?” Hagakure asked, rushing over to her and grabbing on to her arms. “You’re freezing!”

“T-T-Todoroki f-froze me… in a g-glacier,” she stuttered out through chattering teeth.

That would do it. It would also explain the purple skin. I kind of had to wonder whether that was the upper limit of Todoroki’s strength, since he had shown he was capable of freezing an entire building over during the battle trial, but an entire glacier was far beyond anything he had shown before.

There was a fairly decent chance that if I made it to the finals, I would be facing Todoroki. In that case, could I avoid an entire glacier? It would of course depend on the size, but my tentacles should be able to break through the ice, it was just a matter of if I could do so fast enough.

As I was thinking to myself, Hagakure had wandered off with Ashido in the direction of her marshalling area. I was left all alone to think of how to approach this coming match.

To be honest, I hadn’t thought much on how to fight Hagakure. Unlike some of our classmates, she had no flashy abilities to watch out for, so it would be a fairly straightforward fight. And though I had experience with sparring with her during our two weeks of preparation, I also was aware that she must have improved leaps and bounds since we last sparred. If she hadn’t, I don’t think she would have been able to beat Sero.

The ten-minute break was over, and I was called over to enter the ring.

~X~

“You know the drill already, you lose by forfeiting, ring out, or falling unconscious. Don’t die, and please don’t spend half the match having a conversation,” Midnight said, directing that last part at me. “Well then, let the first match of the quarter finals… Begin!”

Immediately, I opened a portal over my face, and grew a tentacle out of each shoulder. Hagakure ran in, body low to the ground as she initiated combat. I held back on any counterattacks for the moment, partially because I wanted to see if there was any pattern to her hits, but it was mostly because I wanted to see how her fighting style had changed.

She went for a punch, which I easily brushed aside with a tentacle, being able to see the trajectory due to her sleeves. She followed up with another punch, which I dodged, and then I quickly hopped over the incoming leg sweep. I could see in the stands some people were muttering to each other.

To be perfectly honest, I was sort of… disappointed. It felt so similar to how she was fighting before that I could already almost predict what her next move would be.

When the expected right hook came I caught the fist with a tentacle and landed a solid punch across Hagakure’s jaw. She was knocked away by the hit, tripping and landing sprawled on the floor.

Something was different. Not about Hagakure, no she was definitely the same as usual. But when I punched her, there was no rush of joy, no pleasure at seeing her knocked down. It didn’t make any sense, I’d been feeling that pretty much all day, and especially so in my previous fight, the only thing different now was…

Oh. How hadn’t I realised? The only thing that was different about this time was the fact that it was Hagakure that I was fighting. I’d initially put it to the side, thinking that because she was invisible, it caused a similar effect as to how I could tolerate Tsuchigumo a lot more over text. But no.

I didn’t hate Hagakure.

Boos and shouts came from the stand, voices undecipherable from this distance but no doubt directed at me. I tuned them out, ignoring their idiotic cries. They came here to watch teenagers fight; they shouldn’t complain when exactly that happens.

Hagakure began to pick herself up off the ground. Her shoulders were bent forwards and shaking a bit, her posture closed in and completely open to attack. I couldn’t ignore that, especially not after my realisation.

“Fuck them.”

“Huh?”

“They care more for their performative display of morality than they do about you. They were never going to see you as capable. So just forget the rabble exists for the moment and focus solely on the fight ahead. Prove yourself to you.”

She straightened up a bit and sniffled. “You are horrible at cheering someone up.”

I briefly noted Aizawa-sensei saying something from the announcer booth — which was essentially the first time he had spoken into the mic — but I ignored it in favour of watching Hagakure closely for the moment she chose to attack.

She rolled up the legs of her pants, making it so I couldn’t tell where she would be stepping. She also didn’t have any shoes on still. I really hope she hadn’t just left them from where they had been frozen during the obstacle race.

Seeing that she was now taking this more seriously, I stepped it up a notch myself, creating two more tentacles which came out of our lower back. We both stood facing each other for a moment, waiting to see which of us would strike first.

This time, it was us who went on the offensive. Launching ourselves forward with the tentacles acting as a slingshot, we closed the distance in an instant between us. Our tentacles had a range of roughly ten metres. We stopped five metres away from The Refractor.

The two shoulder tendrils attacked The Refractor simultaneously, one going high, the other low. She twisted in a way that was difficult to tell and cleanly avoided the strike, before jumping to the side with a handspring. She bounced in close aiming for a punch which we could deflect easily.

Another punch came, which we ducked under, only to be kicked in the side. The movement from that punch into a kick was unnatural. Impressive. The Refractor kept wailing on us, doing an almost random assortment of punches and kicks. The logical follow up for a strike was often foregone for a different attack, or even nothing at all.

That being said, it wasn’t truly random. The human mind is not really capable of making random decisions, always having some reasoning behind it. For example, The Refractor would never go for three punches in a row, she would always do something else after the second punch. And when there is a pattern, there is a way to exploit it.

After we took a kick to the shoulder, the next move that The Refractor would likely take would be a low punch. Before it even had a chance to come, a tentacle was ready to block her fist. As expected, the punch came for the stomach, but was pushed to the side. In that brief moment where her guard would be down, we sent out a tendril from our face, rocketing towards the Refractor.

We did not expect her to lean backwards far enough that she was basically folded in half. The tentacle strike went way over her. It made some sense; she had seen us use the same trick before. Even though our initial plan was not a success, The Refractor was still in a compromised state, and it would be easy to—

Our thoughts were cut off by an impact on the jaw. The Refractor had done a backbend kickover to attack using the momentum from her dodge and had hit us hard enough our feet briefly left the ground.

We shook our head, clearing the dizziness that came from the hit. Just as we regained our bearings, The Refractor jumped in again. Caught a bit off guard, we blocked the obvious attack coming, but it was just a feint.

Everything went dark as a jacket was thrown at our face. We blindly struck out with all four tentacles, hoping to catch The Refractor before she could move, but based on the lack of a sound, we must have missed.

We removed the article from our face to find nothing. The Refractor had vanished. It shouldn’t be too surprising considering she was invisible, but she was still wearing pants at the very least, so her position should still be visible.

A kick landed on the back of our neck, sending us stumbling forward. It was only through the use of the two tendrils from our back stabbing deep into the concrete that we did not stumble off the edge of the arena.

She had used our moment of blindness to climb on one of the tentacles. Clever. We had mentioned it only offhandedly that we couldn’t feel anything they touched, but she had obviously remembered that.

We saw a brief flash of dark blue as The Refractor swung off a different tendril before a fist impacted with our jaw, much like how we hit her earlier. This was a proper use of invisibility. We couldn’t tell where she would be coming from, or how she would attack.

Too bad for her we had a counter. A fifth tentacle slithered out of our face, and we could now ‘see’ everything. It was somewhat distracting to feel all those quirks in the stands watching us fight, but we were able to focus on the one that was closest.

The Refractor was swinging around on the tentacle coming from our left shoulder, about to kick at our head again. Right at the correct moment, we dropped to the ground, letting the kick fly over us.

Normally, she would have probably jumped off that tendril and onto a different one. But we were aware of this, so when she aimed so that her feet went right to the right shoulder’s tentacle, I closed all five gates on my body.

Immediately, the tendrils turned into smoke, and I watched as the pair of rolled up pants that was all that was visible of Hagakure passed right through the gas and out of the ring, rolling as she hit the ground.

“Wazawa Sotoki wins!”

Chapter Text

I scooped up the discarded jacket before walking over to Hagakure, who had seemingly flipped over onto her back and was letting out a drawn-out groan. I could just leave her there to wallow in her loss. But…

“Need a hand?” I asked, reaching my arm down to her. She provided an entertaining fight and was actually a challenge for a moment, so it was the least I could do. Plus, I was still holding her jacket. It makes things a lot easier if we left at the same time.

I felt a hand touch mine as Hagakure pulled herself off the ground. Surprisingly, the crowd started cheering, a far cry from the booing and jeering from earlier.

“What a brilliant display of camaraderie to end that great match!” Present Mic shouted as we both left the arena.

“That was great!” Hagakure chirped. “I really thought I had you there for a minute.”

“Once you started taking it seriously, you actually did somewhat decent,” I told her.

“Wow, you really can’t just give a compliment, can you?” she laughed. “So, what did you think of my fighting style?”

I thought for a moment. “Your movements could do with being more actually random, right now you are choosing what feels random, but it actually isn’t. Other than that, you just need to get stronger, so your hits are more impactful.”

“Yeah, you took so many hits there that I kinda figured I need to be physically stronger. I really wish I could have put up more of a fight.”

I sighed a bit. “Look on the bright side. You have now hit me more than anyone else has in a fight. Even at the USJ, I only got directly hit three times, I think.”

She giggled. “Was that meant to be comforting?”

I shrugged and we continued walking in comfortable silence. My next match would be against the winner of the fight between Tokoyami and Kaminari. Though to be honest, I don’t see Kaminari being able to win. Not much time had passed from the previous round, and he got close to his apparent limit with his quirk earlier. Tokoyami had shown to be a formidable foe, and if Kaminari got close to losing a match where his opponent didn’t try and fight, I don’t see a world in which he wins. So that just meant I would be facing Tokoyami in the semi-finals.

“… Thanks,” Hagakure said out of nowhere. What she was thanking me for went unsaid.

I paused for a moment, thinking about how to respond, before biting out, “They were pissing me off.” The ‘you’re welcome’ also went unsaid.

“But did you have to hit so hard?” she whined. “My jaw still hurts.”

“It was a fight, you should have expected that much,” I shot back. “Though it might be good if you stop by the infirmary, just in case.”

“Yeah, I really don’t want to be scolded by Recovery Girl again.”

“Hm,” I grunted. “I get the odd feeling she’s not going to be happy with me by the end of today.”

I scratched at the back of my neck with my free hand. Oh, that’s right. “By the way, do you want your jacket back?” I asked.

“Huh? Oh! Right.” Hagakure took the offered article and slipped it on.

I had to wonder why exactly Hagakure was also exempt from my hatred. Kaiji I could excuse it as being a one-off special case, but a second person? That suggests there is some sort of reason behind it. I was 90% sure by now that — like most of my problems these days — my hatred for others was caused by the entity linked to my quirk. So why were those two the exceptions to the rule?

Was it because they were important somehow? Kaiji was essentially my only friend for 15 years, and Hagakure is probably the person I was closest to at UA. Was their importance to who I am play a role in my feelings towards them? No, that doesn’t make sense. The reason those two are close to me is because I don’t hate them, not the other way around.

I suppose the only one who would know is the tentacled asshole, but I got the feeling I would receive no answers if I asked. If it weren’t for the fact that it was pretty much the source of my power, I’d much prefer it if we had nothing to do with each other.

Hagakure took a breath as if to say something but seemed to change her mind before saying anything. I sighed. “You’re doing it again. What do you want to say? You’ve already thanked me, so it can’t be that this time.”

She huffed out a laugh. “Caught me again. Never mind, it’s not important.”

Seeing we were at the infirmary, I stopped and turned towards her. “Why does importance matter? If you want to say something, say it.”

“It’s really nothing. I just wanted to say you’re a good friend.”

“We aren’t friends…” I started.

“We’re acquaintances,” Hagakure finished, smile clear through her voice. She fidgeted a bit before quickly stepping in close, wrapping her arms and squeezing for a brief moment before jumping back, reaching for the door. “Thank you.”

She quickly entered the infirmary as I stood there, confused. What was that all about? She already said thank you, why did she feel the need to do so again?

I shook my head. I had the semi-finals to prepare for.

~X~

I didn’t bother going back into the seating area before my next match. Present Mic was loud enough that I could hear the results just fine from the prep rooms, and it gave me time to plan.

As I had expected, Tokoyami won his fight fairly quickly. That made two of his battles end in such a manner, though I believe Kaminari lasted longer than Yaoyorozu had. He would most likely attempt the same strategy against me, so I could probably exploit that.

Let’s see… when the match starts, he’ll send Dark Shadow to try and push me out of the ring. I could block the shadow with my tentacles and try and pivot between it and Tokoyami. Once between them, I could engage Tokoyami hand-to-hand, while using my tentacles to keep Dark Shadow at bay.

Had Tokoyami shown any skill in close quarters yet? We were somewhat kindred spirits in our shared desire to fade into the background, so I can’t say I’ve ever noticed him being in close range, he normally relied on Dark Shadow.

“Well, folks! That was an explosive end to the quarterfinals!” Present Mic announced voice dulled through the many layers of concrete between the speakers and me. “Next up, we will have a short break before the first match of the semi-finals.”

I sighed and finished up my stretches a bit earlier than intended. The break would be about 10 minutes long, so I had a bit of time to kill. I pulled my phone out of my locker and checked the messages.

As I expected, Kaiji had sent a constant stream of texts over the course of the day.

Kaiji

Good luck!

Wtf

What was that speech

Thats the best you could come up with?

Woo! 4th place!

Oof. Thats rough

You did well though!

Wait you still got through?

Stop talking and fight already

Where did you even learn how to do that

Ouch that punch looked like it hurt

The crowd really hates you now

Your teacher is right! They shouldnt be treating you so harshly

The last message consisted of just a smirking emoji.

Sotoki

What does that even mean?

Kaiji

Your here!

Has someone made a friend???

Ah, he must be talking about me helping Hagakure up. I should have figured he would see it that way.

Sotoki

We ’re not friends. We’re acquaintances.

Kaiji

:O

You *have* made a friend!

Im so proud!

Sotoki

I ’m leaving.

Kaiji

Dont go!

Kaiji

Btw me and Orime were planning on taking a train over there tomorrow

You should bring your new friend

Or is it friends?

Sotoki

If I feel like it.

Kaiji

…

I should have expected that

I locked my phone and put it back in the locker. A meeting between the three of them sounded like an utter nightmare. Kaiji was bad enough by himself, but adding the opportunity to share a bunch of stories from when we were kids would just make him so much worse. Plus, Tsuchigumo would probably go feral if she ever found out about Hagakure’s costume.

I sighed and cracked my neck before walking out of the prep room to my fight against Tokoyami.

~X~

I almost shivered from the sudden cold upon walking out onto the arena. Just what happened in the fight between Midoriya and Todoroki? The break between rounds was even longer this time because they apparently needed to repair the ring, and the air temperature just felt off.

Tokoyami faced me, face unreadable. Or more accurately, I have no idea how to read his expression. I’d get it down eventually. Maybe.

Midnight called the match to start, and immediately Dark Shadow appeared and flew towards me. I had already begun to move, rolling to the side. It was the exact same approach he had done previously, making him predictable.

Dark Shadow followed up without much delay, and I had to duck lest I get grabbed and dragged out of the ring. Tokoyami still hadn’t moved, keeping a sizeable distance between us. I used the brief reprieve in Dark Shadow’s assault to grow two tentacles out of my upper back, ready for their sweeping lunge from the air. A black arm drew nearer, and I stood ready.

Closer… closer… Now!

Once the sentient quirk was close enough, I struck. The plan was to block Dark Shadow’s attack with one tentacle, and then use the other to grab the cord between them and Tokoyami and pin them to the ground. My maximum length with the tentacles was roughly ten meters, and Tokoyami was probably about fifteen meters away. Once I got my ten-meter head start, I would have plenty of time to eliminate him before Dark Shadow could catch up.

Though, as they always say, no plan survives contact with the enemy. Quite literally so in this case. As I brought up the tentacle to block, Dark Shadow’s yellow eyes flashed, and they roared. The arm vibrated and stretched into a massive claw, sweeping across my chest.

Fabric tore as Dark Shadow’s rampaging strike slashed me. Drops of blood hit the white concrete. Curiously, the tentacle I used to block was still intact. It wasn’t that Dark Shadow had managed to tear through the tendril, but rather that they somehow moved right through it. Probably some form of quirk interaction weirdness.

Dark Shadow drooped and let out a warbling noise. Tokoyami looked off balance, surprised at the sudden bloodshed, no matter how minor. Not exactly as I planned, but this situation was still workable, I’d just need to strike quickly before Dark Shadow or Tokoyami could recover.

I stretched the two tentacles to their maximum length and pierced the concrete, forming a V-shape. It was a risky manoeuvre, but with my chest scratched as it was, hand-to-hand wasn’t ideal anymore. I slingshot myself towards Tokoyami, whose eyes widened as I rocketed towards him.

“Dark Shadow!”

“A-Aye!”

The slight delay in response was all I needed. I could hear Dark Shadow chasing after me, but I was going too fast for them to catch up. Tokoyami, realising this, tried to move out of the way, which would have made me fly out of the ring.

I impacted his chest with my shoulder, my own chest screaming in pain. I smiled under the portal on my face as I heard Tokoyami cough as the air left his lungs.

I knew I couldn’t trust the assumption that Tokoyami wouldn’t be capable in close range after my movements became hindered by the cuts on my chest, so the only solution would be to end the fight in a single hit. If Tokoyami had reacted faster and got out of the way or if Dark Shadow caught up to me, it would have all been over, but I likely would have lost if I let them recover from the shock of Dark Shadow’s sudden violence.

Tokoyami hit the floor outside the ring, and moments later I landed a few feet away.

“And with that sudden finishing move from Wazawa, we have our first finalist!” Present Mic screamed. Honestly, his title probably fits him the best out of all of them I’ve seen.

I groaned as I stood up, chest aching. Poking at the wound, I found out that it was luckily fairly shallow. Nothing Recovery Girl couldn’t fix — even though she’d likely grouse about it. I paid no heed to Tokoyami being fussed over by his quirk as I left the arena to head back to the infirmary once again.

~X~

“Why am I not surprised?” Recovery Girl sighed. “I just finished with that Midoriya boy and now you’re here.”

“Hey,” I argued, “I told you I wouldn’t be injured for a few weeks. It’s been a few weeks. Besides, this one isn’t even my fault.”

She huffed. “Fine, just don’t come back here requiring surgery.” She kissed my arm — something that I still needed to focus on just to stop my instinctive reaction — and the torn skin began patching itself back together.

Also, requiring surgery? Just what happened in Midoriya’s and Todoroki’s fight? I couldn’t help but feel as if I missed the most explosive battle of the entire tournament. Bakugo wasn’t even in that one.

Speaking of, I would need to go up against either him or Todoroki for the finals. Honestly, my chances of winning were low. My eyes were feeling heavy after the healing, and both my body and mind were reaching their limits from exhaustion. In comparison, both Todoroki and Bakugo had a relatively easier time throughout the entire festival. They were much fresher. If it was an even match, I think I’d have a decent shot at beating them, even if I had to rely on one of my trump cards, but as it stood my chances weren’t great. And even then, I didn’t want to reveal those secret weapons in a public event. It would be better to leave it for a life-or-death scenario.

The walls rattled a bit from the shockwave of one of Bakugo’s explosions. So, the fight’s already started? I shuffled over to the marshalling area, feet dragging along the ground.

I wonder which would be worse to go against. Todoroki has already shown that he can freeze my tentacles solid and would likely go for the same strategy. Bakugo, however, had his explosions. Whilst I once may have believed my tentacles could block his attacks, that guy at the USJ punching through them proved that someone like Bakugo could easily overcome them. Ultimately, Bakugo would probably be worse, purely because I had at least experienced going up against Todoroki, no matter how briefly.

“It looks like we have our second finalist! Bakugo Katsuki from 1A will go on to fight in the next round, right after our most helpful Cementoss fixes the ring once more!”

Well…

Shit.

Chapter Text

After resting up as much as I could, I walked out into the once again reformed arena. Bakugo walked out on the other side, looking even angrier than usual. And I thought he was always running on maximum anger.

The crowd was still in anticipation. The finals had almost always been the standout matches, and they were all eager to see how the supposed two top students would fare against each other.

After the usual spiel from Midnight, Bakugo spoke in a low voice, “You better go all out. If you don’t, I’ll kill you.”

It was said without his usual bravado. He was serious. I cracked my neck and let out a yawn that wasn’t even faked. “I’ll consider it.”

That seemed to piss him off even more, and once the match was called to begin, Bakugo rocketed towards me, hand outstretched. Despite my exhaustion, I was able to lean to the side as an explosion went off right next to my ear. I lashed out with a tentacle while he was close, but a second explosion turned it into wispy smoke.

Bakugo retreated a bit, searching for an opening to strike. I didn’t allow him any rest. The longer this fight went the lower my chances of winning. Two tentacles rushed towards him, one aimed at his legs and the other at his head. Bakugo deflected them both with his own quirk.

I needed to up the ante. With a quick swipe, we created two more tentacles — four in total, now — and sent them towards The One Who Sweats Bombs, lashing out in pincer manoeuvres. Our foe used his explosions to move to the side, and continued dodging whenever our tendrils drew near.

The One Who Sweats Bombs blasted a tentacle that almost landed a hit, and in the brief opening while we replaced the destroyed tendril, shot forwards. The three remaining tentacles managed to land more hits now that he was closer, but they weren’t able to halt him. We sent out a new tentacle to replace the damaged one. It was ducked under as he continued his advance. When he was within a meter, we sent out a fifth tentacle from the face portal. That too, was dodged as The One Who Sweats Bombs seemed to anticipate the attack.

All five tentacles had their tips behind our opponent now. He was far too close for comfort, and our body was too strained as it was to handle hand to hand. In a last-ditch effort, the five tendrils raced back to us, hoping to wrap around him. A crackling hand came up right below our chin.

BOOM

A point-blank explosion launched us up into the air, flying back to the outside of the ring and knocking the five tentacles away. We quickly opened a sixth gate on our back and pierced a tentacle into the concrete of the ring. We came to a halt mere inches away from the edge.

With our new verticality, we once again sent the five free tendrils to attack The One Who Sweats Bombs. Even if he dodged to the side now, we could see where exactly he would go and intercept. The tentacles drew nearer, and our foe realised he couldn’t get out of the way in time. He raised a hand with an explosion ready, but he’d only be able to deflect one, maybe two.

We fell down from our elevated position. Our tentacles had spasmed uncontrollably. There was no more strength left in our body, and our quirk wasn’t responding. Why was this happening now? We had only been using six gates for five seconds at most.

[Merge]

“Haah?” The One Who Sweats Bombs sneered. “Are you mocking me!? I said go all out! Where’s that power you showed against that Noumu thing? STOP HOLDING BACK ON ME!”

We supposed that was one way for us to win. It would be the first time we had merged against another person. We glanced up at the announcer booth, where The One Who Interrupts likely still was. We couldn’t see him, but felt it necessary to at least ask permission, even if we couldn’t get a response.

“We didn’t want to do this, but the villains would have learnt of it eventually anyways,” we said, as our trembling hand came to our chest. We already had six gates open: left shoulder, right shoulder, left elbow, right elbow, face, and back. And now, chest. We opened the seventh gate.

~X~

“I’m really getting sick of this place,” I groaned into the void. This was the fourth time I’ve been here in a single day.

The entity presiding over the empty space didn’t respond. It could tell that it was still there, its massive form blotting out the myriad of faint lights. It was a bit strange. Why were there so many more lights today? Yet another question regarding my quirk.

I audibly sighed. “Well, since I’ll be here for a while and you seem capable of multitasking, why do I experience backlash when using six tentacles?”

“The connection is still unstable. Straining it for too long lets through too much power.”

“And how do I make this ‘connection,’” I motioned quotation marks, “more stable?”

The being was silent. Great, as unhelpful as always.

“Look, if you’re not going to be helpful, could you at least show me what’s going on?”

A light was drawn towards me, much like how I was shown memories previously. A hazy image washed over me, the details of the scene a bit obscured but the general gist was still there.

Bakugo was panting heavily and had a bunch of small scrapes over him. He obviously was having a harder time against… me? Having a harder time in the fight. A tentacle flew towards him faster than anything I had been able to accomplish, and it was only due to Bakugo’s quirk that he managed to get out of the way in time.

A chunk of concrete was flung right towards him, being blasted apart with relative ease and kicking up a smokescreen of dust. Bakugo put himself in a disadvantage there. Sure, the dust would obscure the entity’s vision, but it also interfered with Bakugo’s vision. And if I could sense people’s location when using five tentacles, then the entity using seven surely could too.

Sure enough, when Bakugo came flying out of the dust — literally flying — with an explosion at the ready, three tentacles came at him: two knocking away his hands and the third punching him in the stomach.

Bakugo stumbled back, clutching at his stomach and mouthed some form of curse. No… not mouthed, I just couldn’t hear whatever he said. Huh, how hadn’t I noticed that earlier? I can see what’s going on, but not hear. The explosive blond rocketed up into the air, aiming higher than what I could reach, even with the entity having my body suspended above the ground by a tentacle.

“Quick! Grab him before he gets out of range,” I commanded.

I got no response, and the tentacles just drifted in place for a moment. Eventually, they all shot towards Bakugo, but by that time he was already too far away.

What just happened? It was like there was some sort of delay between what I say and what happens. Or maybe… was there a delay in what I was seeing. This fuzzy image isn’t current, it’s showing me what happened in the recent past. That would explain why everything was a bit unclear, and why the light was brought to me like a memory. Because it is a memory, just of a couple of seconds ago. While the delay was pretty short, even a single moment delay can mean a lot in a fight.

I clicked my tongue in irritation. “Why are you just standing there!? Jump up and catch him, or something! Just don’t let him pull off his attack!”

The being made a grating noise that almost sounded like a grunt, and moments later I saw as it launched into the air, quickly catching up to Bakugo, who had just turned around and was preparing to make his descent. I could almost hear the “what the fuck” in Bakugo’s expression as tentacles latched onto his arms and pinned them to his sides.

Both my body and Bakugo began to fall headfirst towards the concrete. I really hope that the entity controlling my body had some semblance of a plan with this move, otherwise the sports festival was going to end with two snapped necks. We fell closer and closer to the ground, and the teachers were scrambling to make a snap decision on whether the match should proceed.

About ten metres from the ground, the tentacles suddenly let go of Bakugo and all stabbed into the concrete, slowing our descent. For his part, Bakugo managed to use his newfound freedom to blow up the ground beneath him, landing somewhat safely.

“All right,” I said, “you can just throw him out of the ring now.” Bakugo was panting and barely standing. He wouldn’t be able to dodge the attacks like he could before, and even if he could stop himself from being rung out, it would be only a matter of time before he lost.

This kind of felt… anti-climactic. The fight itself has definitely been explosive and bombastic to an outside perspective. Definitely the most visually exciting of my fights all day. And yet, I wasn’t satisfied with this. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t the one fighting.

A tentacle swept at Bakugo’s feet faster than he could get out of the way. The appendage wrapped around his ankle and lifted him off the ground. A simple toss now would be all that is needed to win. The tendril swung, bringing Bakugo’s half limp body along for the ride against his will.

The concrete of the arena cracked as the entity slammed Bakugo into the ground instead of ringing him out.

“What are you doing?” I demanded. “Just eliminate him already!”

“No,” was the only response.

Bakugo was lifted by the ankle and held up before my face, eyes glazed over. I once again tried to order the entity to finish the fight, but I was ignored. Bakugo’s eyes suddenly cleared, and his face twisted in rage.

The image became pure white as he used his close proximity to blast us right in the face. That was going to hurt once I got control of my body back. Futilely, I tried to brink away the spots in my vision, but it did nothing to clear the distorted image.

Eventually, the fuzzy memory I was being shown cleared up. Bakugo was still suspended by his ankle, barely conscious. He must have used the last of his energy to try that last attack. Blood was trickling down his arm from his shoulder.

His shoulder that had a pitch-black shape going through it.

I immediately started trying to pull on the connection to my quirk, knowing where this was going. I had felt the presence multiple times before — that feeling in the back of my mind that pulled me to this void when I had overused my quirk. If I could be pulled into here by that point, it should work the other way around. I should be able to pull my consciousness back in control.

“I am in control,” I growled. If my quirk had a will of its own, then I just needed to overpower that will with my own. “You’re my quirk, you obey me.”

A tingling sensation came over my body, as the floaty feeling subsided. It was starting to work. Immediately, I willed everything to stop, hoping doing so would halt what was coming next. I continued tugging on the connection, and more feeling came back to my body.

It was a lot of pain. My muscles all felt torn yet again — I really need to figure out how my quirk was able to cause so much damage to my body so easily — and my face was burning courtesy of Bakugo.

One last mental tug and I could see through my own eyes again. Six tentacles were fanned out of my back, tips pointed towards different places of Bakugo’s limp but still conscious body, ready to pierce all of his vitals. A seventh was still wrapped around his ankle.

Quickly, I mentally commanded a gate to close. Nothing changed. The six tendrils were still waiting, not moving while I still had control, however I couldn’t control them myself. In fact, I was still “me” and not “we,” despite having seven tentacles in use.

“I am in control,” I insisted once again, my quirk partially taking over as I spoke. I still wasn’t in full control, it would seem. It was like my body was currently being shared by two minds.

A metallic taste filled my mouth as I continued to struggle against my quirk. I guess Bakugo must have hit harder than I thought. My vision was swimming, dark spots filling my peripherals. I didn’t have much time left, I had to throw Bakugo out of my quirk’s reach before I lost control again. But I couldn’t consciously move my tendrils. It was taking all my focus just to stop them from piercing Bakugo six times over.

But maybe I could control just one.

I took a shaky step, the world around me swirling and twisting in confusing shapes. Another step. I ignored the pain of torn muscles, nausea, and a potential concussion and continued walking. Away from Bakugo.

2 metres. 5 metres. 10 metres. My tentacles moved with me, except for the one holding Bakugo by the ankle. They were all still poised to strike, but now they were far enough away that they won’t easily hit him.

Bakugo had regained his senses in the time it took me to stumble away, but he didn’t try to attack. He just stared, confused and a little dazed.

“Try not to die,” I told him, voice so quiet that it was mostly just to myself. I closed my eyes, focusing on the one tentacle that had hold of the other boy.

I let go of my control with a single thought in my mind. All I was thinking of was that singular tentacle throwing him out of the ring.

Everything went black once more as the remaining tendrils rushed forward to continue their attack. This time, I did not awake into the void.

~X~

The first thing I noticed was the smell of antiseptic. And then the pain.

Needles pricked into every cell and injected both ice and fire, burning and freezing my entire body at the same time. It was bad before, but somehow the thing in my quirk managed to mess my body up even more in the time.

I let out a dry cough as I sat up, my chest screaming in pain as it protested against my movement. I was still in my sports uniform, although the arms had been completely shredded. As I expected, I was in the infirmary again. Twice in one day. Recovery Girl must be pissed.

“You’ve got that right,” the old woman said, coming into the room. “At least you didn’t require surgery. But you need to stop ending up here. I can only do so much, I can’t fix a broken brain, so you need to get that quirk of yours under control.”

Yes, I really did. It was becoming increasingly obvious that whatever that thing in my quirk was, it wasn’t benevolent. My body being damaged could be chalked up to aftershocks of using the quirk, but the destruction it caused to my surroundings? The disobeying of my orders and hedging around its true nature? The attempted murder?

Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was responsible for the hatred I feel.

Whatever that thing was, it was far too dangerous to continue using as I had been. Especially since I hadn’t actually tested it against other people before. Trees, robots, whatever a Noumu was, those were the only things I had let the being loose against in the past.

After being not so politely told to leave by Recovery Girl, I cautiously stood up from the bed. A gold medal dropped down and dangled from my neck.

That’s weird. For this to be here, I had to have gone to the award ceremony, something I likely was unconscious for. If I hadn’t gone, it would have just been placed next to the bed, but it was around my neck. The only way I could have gone to the ceremony was if the other thing (which I should really think of a name for) had gone in my place. The clearly malicious, violent, and uncontrollable intelligence. Went to the awards ceremony.

“Damn it. Couldn’t you at least have the decency to be consistent?”