Chapter 42: Approaching Finals
"Do you mind explaining to me exactly what was going through your head when you decided to make this deal with Principal Nezu and U.A?" President Takako Fujiwara was doing her damnedest to keep her tone of voice calm even if her words and body language were not. Takako had often been told that between her angular face, tightly tied back hair, and searing glares, she could come off as quite intimidating, and that was exactly the effect she was going for right now. Unfortunately, it wasn't having quite the impact on the man standing in front of her desk that she had hoped it would have.
The agreement that Katashi Oh had made with U.A was, above all else, simply unnecessary. While there were possibilities for upsides from it, they were slim, and not guaranteed. Wasting political capital on an agreement like this would only make other, more important negotiations with U.A in the future, that much more difficult.
"As Director of Education and Training, it is well within my purview to make agreements like this."
"And it's well within mine to replace you as I see fit. Remember that you serve at my pleasure." The director looked suitably chastened by the reminder. Takako took a deep breath before easing up on her glare. "Now please, explain yourself."
"Nezu is planning on having all of the first year heroics students take part in the next provisional license exam." That wasn't an explanation. It was, at best, a statement of tangentially related fact.
"Yes. It's a great move. I would have pushed him to do the same if he hadn't suggested it. We need more active heroes, and having All Might as a teacher, even if he is going to retire, offers some legitimacy to first years taking the exam." Not every idea that came out of U.A was automatically something to be opposed, after all.
"Coming so soon after U.A spearheaded the Midoriya rescue just pushes their prestige higher and forces us to negotiate with them from a position of weakness. And you know how bad heroes from U.A are about working with us. Imagine another twenty Eraserhead students injected into the system a year early." Takako suppressed a shudder at the thought. The only saving grace of that man remaining on faculty at U.A was the assumption that he would expel most or all of his class once again. The fact that he hadn't must have been Nezu's doing in some capacity.
"Earlier exposure to the realities of villainy will dampen Eraserhead's influence." The longer Eraserhead's students worked in the field, they often became more open to the HPSC, although never to the extent of a well-trained hero from Shiketsu or Seiai. Starting that process earlier could only help.
"The internship plan did not seem to do much." Oh pointed out.
"Their internships only lasted three days. Even if they lasted seven they wouldn't have done much. Work studies last much longer." Most students only performed work studies in their final year, if at all. Having three years of work study was unheard of. Takako was sure that it would only make U.A students more amenable to the commission.
"We're getting off topic." Oh wisely realized that he wasn't going to convince Takako on this and diverted. "The fundamental issue is that I would rather have first years from Shiketsu be the ones to take and pass the provisional exam. If they do it and first years from U.A do not, it shifts the conversation. It frames the faculty of U.A as good heroes, but not necessarily good teachers." Not the worst plan overall, all things considered, but a minor gain at best.
"My plan gives away nothing." Oh continued. "We don't have any reasonable path to prosecution with regards to Hosu since the police aren't on our side. While Yoroi Musha is upset with his intern, there's nothing prosecutable there either, and going after Midoriya for attacking a kidnapper is just asking to get destroyed by the press." At least he was clear-eyed enough to understand those obvious facts. "But asking U.A to take this more difficult final in exchange for something we were going to do anyways gives us the chance to seize initiative.
"Initiative?"
"The final I've proposed will be all but impossible for all of their students to pass, and so prevent them from taking the licensing exam. That means we will be able to get our chosen Shiketsu students through it first." Takako resisted the urge to rub at her eyes. It felt like Oh was getting hyper-fixated on this one issue, making it far more important than it was.
Even worse, it seemed like he was already assuming the best outcome. "And if all of the U.A students pass the final?"
"Then we're back to where we started and we've lost nothing." And that was the problem. It seemed like he actually believed that.
"I disagree. We will fall into an even weaker position for dealing with U.A than we are now as well as burning favors with much of the top twenty. All for a potential improvement that is minor at best. There's no going back now, but you should consider yourself on thin ice, Oh. Do not make any more trouble for U.A or All Might for the time being." Rather than being suitably obedient, Oh's face took on a stubborn cast.
"What happened to the Fujiwara that wanted to consolidate our control of education? To bring U.A more under our control." Takako didn't answer that question immediately, instead fixing Oh with another icy glare. The fact was that the man couldn't see more than one month in the future. Everything that Takako was doing was to ensure the long-term stability and influence of the HPSC. Squabbles of this sort with U.A were just not necessary in the long-term.
All of Oh's ploys and games were good for short, immediate bursts of influence, but nothing beyond that. If he was as talented at spycraft as he was at politics, it suddenly made sense why he transferred away from the Division of Intelligence and Surveillance. Yes, the Hawks experiment had been very successful, but that had truly first been pioneered with Lady Nagant. Hawks may have been ranked higher in popularity, but Takako, at least, thought that Lady Nagant was a far greater asset to the HPSC.
Ultimately, instead of answering the question, the president went in another direction. "Tell me, Oh. What do you know about the villain that All Might killed last week?"
"Not much." Oh scoffed. "He had an impressively versatile and strong energy manipulation quirk. Strong enough to injure All Might. Aside from that, nothing special I'd say."
"His name was All For One, and he was the legendary quirk thief." If Oh didn't know about All For One after his time in the Division of Intelligence and Surveillance, then Takako's opinion of him would plummet even further. Perhaps low enough to where it would be a greater liability to keep him on than remove him.
"He was supposed to be dead!" Oh exclaimed. Ah, so he wasn't a complete idiot, at least. Small mercies.
"A lot has happened since you left the world of intelligence, Oh. Just remember that All Might put perhaps the single largest threat to hero society into a well-deserved grave. The public may never know, but I, for one, am deeply grateful to him for that." And that was the truth. Beyond that, All Might and U.A were riding high after such a successful mission, and had the public on their side as well due to the untimely death of Vlad King during the operation. Now was not the time to try anything.
"Gratitude does not imply letting him and U.A do whatever they want." If anything, Oh sounded petulant, like a child who was not getting his way.
"You don't get to where I am, to where we are going, by burning every bridge."
"You don't get there by refusing to burn any at all. Sometimes you have to make a sacrifice for the greater good."
"Believe me, Oh, I know." She knew better than Oh did, Takako reckoned. After all, she was considering sacrificing quite a bit if her brother's current mission ended successfully. If it did, then there would be a clear path to HPSC dominance both now and in the future. She had even lent him use of her personal agent for the time being.
Oh didn't need to know any of that, though. There were a great many things that he did not need to know.
---
Every single part of Yosetsu's body was sore. Apparently now that All Might didn't have to spend any time patrolling or acting as an active hero, he was more than willing to spend it drilling lessons into the skulls of the first years.
Sometimes, Yosetsu wondered if it would be less painful if it were performed with actual drills.
Every so often, he had to remind himself that he had survived ten months of All Might led training the year prior, even if he hadn't known it at the time. However, the trick now was that it wasn't just All Might. It was Mirio, Nejire, and Amajiki from the Big Three. It was Ryukyu, Edgeshot, and Kamui Woods as guest lecturers.
But most of all, it was Gran Torino. The elderly man had more energy than a caffeinated toddler and his favorite pastime appeared to be traumatizing teenagers. If the rumors about him being a previous faculty member of U.A were true, it meant that he could have had decades of practice.
There was one thing that All Might had brought up, though, that Yosetsu had resonated very strongly with: the importance of support gear.
As Midoriya was more than willing to tell anyone unfortunate enough to get caught by him, All Might used plenty of support equipment in his early years. The famous David Shield had even been his first (and for quite some time, only) sidekick, and had built plenty of devices for him. He'd had to build so many because All Might was so strong that he kept breaking the damn things. Eventually, All Might decided that it was more effort than it was worth, and downsized to just one (admittedly very high-tech) hero costume.
Unfortunately, All Might's forty year stint atop the hero rankings had some cultural effects on Japanese hero society. Apparently, when All Might had started his career, support items were everywhere for heroes. The longer that he lasted on the top of the rankings, the more people assumed that his way was naturally best. Now, among the top ten, the closest thing any of them had to non-costume support gear was Yoroi Musha's armor, and even that was arguable. It certainly played a much larger role in protecting him than any of the other top ten heroes' costumes.
In the lower ranks support gear was more common, but still lacking compared to where it had been. All Might had spoken of support gear being seen as a crutch, that the common wisdom nowadays was that a hero's quirk was all they should need. If you used support items, the logic went, you couldn't be that strong of a hero in the first place.
Even Eraserhead, who prided himself on cold logic and ignoring public sentiment, only had minimal support gear: his capture weapon, his goggles, eyedrops, a knife, and some caltrops. Yosetsu felt that he could have much more variety, or at least more advanced goggles.
Since U.A was one of the few hero schools remaining in Japan that possessed a serious support program, it made sense to make use of their facilities. Yosetsu knew all too well through his parents that once most of these students graduated, they would be hired by one of just a handful of companies, all of which had significant ties to the HPSC. Anyone who wanted support gear after that would have to use the HPSC as an intermediary. It made for a neat source of control for the commission.
The only other options were to place an order from a foreign company, which was rampant with its own issues, work with a non-heroics support gear company like Detnerat, and risk the gear breaking at the worst possible time, or get your equipment made while you were in school and have it grand-fathered into your costume upon graduation. So, despite his earnest desire to just go back to the dorms and sleep, Yosetsu was going with Sen and several of his other classmates down to the support labs to see what possibilities lay out there.
Immediately after his internships he'd decided that he needed some sort of weapon (or weapons) to better defend himself. After his sorry showing versus Stain, that much had been obvious.
The first place Yosetsu had gone was to Kamakiri. They'd proven that Yosetsu could use his quirk to make one of Kamakiri's blades permanent over a month ago. From there, it was just a matter of finding the right size and shape of a blade to fit what Yosetsu wanted. He'd even begun extra training with Snipe, U.A's resident weapons master. He carried the blade with him to the support studios as it was technically now part of his hero costume, and he wanted the entire costume with him for reference.
He still wanted extra gear on top of it, though, and he knew exactly who to get it from. After entering the support classrooms, Yosetsu and Sen beelined directly towards a familiar head of salmon-colored hair. Right now, though, most of it was directly underneath some sort of monstrosity of metal and plastic and wires. And unless Yosetsu was mistaken, it was smoking in a few places as well.
"You there!" Hatsume called out as soon as Yosetsu and Sen drew near. "Hand me baby number seventy-three, quickly!" Sen looked at the variety of tools and gear scattered around the workstation with an incredulous look on his face. Yosetsu, however, glanced about before picking up something that vaguely resembled a welding device and handed it to the girl.
She took it and glanced at it with some sort of shock before turning to face Yosetsu. "You got it right. No one ever gets it right. How did you know?!"
Yosetsu never really liked putting his thought process into words , but really didn't want to just say that it was obvious. "Well, uh, you called it a baby, so it was obviously something homemade. That narrowed it down a lot. Then it looked like you were trying to connect the plastic outer layer of whatever that is to the metal frame. I saw something that looked like a homemade ultrasonic welder, and guessed that was it." The crosshairs in Hatsume's eyes shifted as she focused her gaze on Yosetsu a bit more carefully. "But, uh, I can do that with my quirk if you want. It's generally stronger than any sort of mechanical weld, as well."
"I remember you!" Hatsume jumped out from underneath her project and got way too close to Yosetsu for his comfort. He tried to take a step back but she just followed him. "Welder Boy from the sports festival! You helped me advertise all of my cute babies!"
"Uh… yeah." Yosetsu looked towards Sen for support, but he was just laughing openly at him.
"What can I do for you?! Are you here for my super cute babies?!" Hatsume at this point had forgotten that she had even been working on a separate project.
"Yes." Finally, a question with a simple answer. "First, I need help with this." Yosetsu hefted the sword that Kamakiri had made for him. Thankfully it got her to take a step back, if only to avoid being cut.
"You need an upgrade?" Hatsume asked. "I could set you up with a vibrating electrified blade! It runs off of a single AAA battery!"
"That's… thanks, but no thanks." Yosetsu repressed a shudder at the idea of the weapon Hatsume had proposed. "I need a sheath for this thing. It has cut through everything I've tried so far. Leather, metal, you name it."
Hatsume tilted her head and looked at the blade curiously. "Really? And you weren't sharpening it between attempts?" Yosetsu shook his head no. He knew that blades needed sharpening occasionally, but why would he do it if his sword was obviously still sharp?
The crosshairs in Hatsume's eyes shifted again as she focused her attention on the sword. With no warning, she reached out and exclaimed, "Quick, hand me something to cut." Yosetsu obliged, handing her a scrap piece of plastic nearby. With a quick swipe of the sword, Hatsume sliced it in half before focusing on the blade once again.
After a moment, Hatsume spoke again. "This is amazing! I can't zoom in quite far enough, but I'm willing to bet that the edge of this blade is monomolecular. Normally that makes the blade super susceptible to deforming and losing its edge, but this one doesn't seem to deform or lose its edge at all!" Hatsume looked up at Yosetsu, focusing on him once again. "How did you make this?! It could be revolutionary!"
"Uh, a classmate made it with his quirk. His creations normally fall apart, so I used my quirk to hold it together." That was the simplest explanation Yosetsu could think of. No need to get into the weird energy transfer mechanics.
"Think he'd be willing to produce more? Even if we don't sell any, having one or two of these around could help in the lab."
"I'll talk to him. Now, the sheath?" Sen was still chuckling slightly in the background as Yosetsu tried to steer Hatsume back to the matter at hand.
"Hm? Oh, yeah, I can whip something together. Just need to grip it by the crossguard, cause that's not sharp. Easy peasy! Anything else you need?"
"Well, I could use some sort of ranged weapon. Non-lethal, if possible." It turned out that his sword was far more dangerous than he had originally thought. While he had a non-lethal melee alternative, Yosetsu wanted to make sure any other equipment he had was strictly non-lethal.
"Oh, I have a dozen babies that could work! How do you feel about net guns?" Hatsume asked.
"I have no strong feelings one way or the other." Yosetsu assumed that was true for the vast majority of people.
It took some time, but eventually both he and Sen were able to come to agreements with Hatsume about new gear. All it cost them was agreeing to work with her through their time at U.A (and beyond if she got her company off the ground). Minor concessions for the level of work she could provide.
All of that meant that the next time that Yosetsu found himself in a dangerous situation in the field, he would be prepared.
---
For the first time in the weeks since All For One had died, Kyudai felt as if things had finally turned a corner for the better. He still hadn't managed to track down where Kurogiri had disappeared to, but he had people working on that. Aside from that, everything seemed like it was going his way.
Giran had managed to put him in touch with two groups that had proven to be very interesting indeed. The first group had been a modern recreation of the Meta Liberation Army. This neo-MLA wasn't a speck on the original, but it was still far larger than Kyudai had expected. Keeping an organization that large under wraps in this day and age took some true organizational wizardry. They were quirk supremacists through and through, though, unlike the original MLA which had merely advocated for the free usage of quirks.
None of that particularly mattered to Kyudai, though. What mattered was that they were willing to pay him, in both money and quirks, for nomu to fill out their forces. None of the quirks that they had offered yet had been anything terribly strong on their own, but with a bit of augmentation and mixing, the nomu that they had produced had been nothing to sneeze at.
Nine and his two followers had officially joined the MLA, although they were loyal to Kyudai, not this Re-Destro. Nine still labored under the assumption that there was a quirk somewhere out there that could cure his cellular degeneration, and Kyudai was more than happy to encourage that belief.
Before Kyudai had given him the first copy of All For One, Nine had been a chimera formed when a variety of air and water control quirks fused to form a fantastically powerful weather manipulation quirk. The first copy of All For One, though, was not as stable as needed for transfer into a standard human, so Kyudai transplanted it into Nine to see if it would take. Instead, the chimera was only able to steal a total of eight quirks and had to deal with severe cellular degeneration from holding two powerful quirks at once.
If Kyudai had really wanted to, he could have altered the chimera's biology to use his copy of All For One to its fullest potential. It would have removed both the limit on the number of quirks he could steal as well as the cellular degeneration that plagued him. For the time being, though, it seemed prudent to have a method of controlling the chimera beyond his mental conditioning. The situation with Kurogiri was proof enough of that, let alone that Yurei was no longer responding to contact requests.
The other group that Giran had put him in touch with was a yakuza group, the Shie Hassaikai, currently led by a young man named Kai Chisaki, although he preferred to go by the villain name Overhaul. The man was, bluntly put, a biomedical genius. Working entirely on his own, with no true support system or proper lab space, had managed to both create a more potent version of trigger and a functional pharmaceutical quirk suppressant. Either of those alone would have been enough to catch Kyudai's interest. Both together were irresistible.
The secret behind the enhanced trigger was nothing special, just a reformulation of the same basic idea that Kyudai had originally had oh so many years ago. The quirk suppressant, though, was something entirely new. It had some secret ingredient that the man still hadn't shared, but Kyudai had managed to offer enough suggestions and useful information that the man had been willing to offer him a vial of the suppressant for Kyudai to experiment on.
Overhaul's final goal was perfecting the suppressant, using it to completely eliminate quirks. Kyudai, of course, wanted exactly the opposite. And what better way to achieve that than by figuring out a countermeasure. Or perhaps by leading Overhaul down the wrong path entirely.
Or both.
Fingering the vial of quirk suppressant in his pocket, Kyudai hummed happily to himself as he entered the tunnels under the Jaku General Hospital. Even the prison break operation freeing Muscular and Moonfish that had been too late to call off had gone well. The rescued villains were far too gone in their insanities to be useful as anything other than spare parts, but their quirks had made for a very powerful nomu indeed.
On reentering his laboratory proper, Kyudai considered his next two personal projects: the creation of the first, true, free-thinking nomu, and deciding what to do with Stain's corpse. From All For One and Midoriya's DNA, he knew what had to be done to make a perfect nomu, but every attempt so far had ended in failure. And with Stain's corpse, the issue was that he didn't have the right quirks to make a useful nomu. Blood-based quirks were rather rare in the grand scheme of things, after all. Perhaps there was something he could do to merge the two…
All of his planning ceased, however, when he arrived at his central computer only to find a man already sitting in his chair. The eyeless nomu, whom Kyudai had named Mugsy, was standing placidly nearby, idly watching the intruder go through Kyudai's sensitive files. That particular computer was air gapped from any outside network, so his communications with the MLA and Shie Hassaikai were not on it, but everything else was.
Kyudai attempted to call for Mugsy to attack the intruder, but found himself unable to verbalize the command. Some sort of quirk at play? Before he could inspect the phenomenon further, the man removed a thumb drive from the computer and spun in his chair (Kyudai's chair) to face the entrance.
"Ah, Dr. Ujiko. Or Dr. Garaki, I suppose. I was wondering when you would show up. Your shift at the hospital ended nearly half an hour ago." There was precious little about the intruder that was noteworthy: average height, average build, black hair and eyes, no distinguishing features like scars or moles or freckles. He might have been in better shape than the average middle-aged man, but it was hard to tell under the clothing.
"What have you done to me and Mugsy?" Kyudai was not a fighter, he was a thinker. If this man was from the MLA or Shie Hassaikai just checking up on him, then he would probably tell him. If he was with the heroes, then all bets were off. The man was not wearing a hero costume, though, simply a trench coat over a button down shirt and slacks. While waiting for the answer, Kyudai looked about the room for Johnny. If worse came to worse, he'd want to be able to evacuate as quickly as possible.
"That would be my quirk, Sanctuary. Aggressive actions simply cannot be taken on me or anyone within ten meters of me. This one," he pointed at Mugsy, "appears to only have aggressive impulses. My quirk has made him quite calm indeed."
The man opened his trenchcoat slightly to reveal Johnny sitting on his lap. Unfortunately, the man also had a gun in his hand, aimed at Johnny's head. "However, I could very easily convince myself that killing this thing would be an act of mercy, not aggression."
This was bad. Johnny was in possession of the only warp quirk that Kyudai still had access to. The MLA was being cagey about whether or not any of their members had a warp quirk of any sort, and Kurogiri was still missing. "Who are you, and what do you want?" It seemed prudent to do what he could to keep Johnny alive.
"My name is Taro Yamada." Obviously a fake name, Kyudai noted. "And I'm here on behalf of Hisashi Midoriya and the HPSC."
Midoriya? Wait, shit. The heroes had found him. Kyudai weighed the likelihood of being able to escape, and found it wanting. However, what the intruder said next took him entirely off guard, enough to temporarily drive the surname Midoriya from his mind
"Of course, though, this visit is strictly off the record. I'm here with a proposition."
Kyudai blinked. That was not even close to what he had been expecting. But then, if the commission had wanted to arrest him, they would have sent a cadre of heroes to do it. "I'm listening."
"Your work here is really quite extraordinary. You are truly one of the most brilliant minds of our generation. Or a previous generation. I haven't been able to figure out quite how old you really are. Regardless, it would be a shame to throw all of that away simply because you were manipulated by All For One, wouldn't you say?"
If Kyudai didn't know better, it sounded like he was being given an out. The only question was what the HPSC wanted in return, and whether or not it was something that he'd be willing to part with.
Seeing that Kyudai hadn't responded, Yamada continued. "So, if you were to provide services to the HPSC, we would see that as an attempt to atone for your misdeeds."
Kyudai narrowed his eyes. "What sort of services?"
"The work here on mental conditioning is fascinating, although I understand it's not your main area of expertise. We will talk more on that later. For now, if I read your notes correctly, you are planning a nomu based on Stain, correct?" If Yamada hadn't already explained his quirk, Kyudai would have thought he had a mind-reading quirk of some sort. All For One had searched for one of those for quite some time, and never found one that he had deemed powerful enough to use.
With nothing better to say, Kyudai decided to play things close to the vest. "Yes."
"How human-like could you make it?"
An odd question. Kyudai had never really considered how human he could make the nomu look. He had to some extent with the chimera, although it wasn't clear if Yamada knew the difference. As he thought, Kyudai hummed. "It depends on a number of things, which all depend on a number of things."
"Such as?" Yamada prompted him.
"Decomposition of the main body, how many quirks you want added, what quirks I use in building it. Having more blood-based quirks would help, but I am without a consistent supplier right now." Well, neither of those two statements were exactly true. Similar quirks could help form a chimera if necessary, but didn't really impact nomu at all. And the MLA was providing him with some blood to extract quirks from, but nothing powerful yet.
"How convenient, then," Yamada pulled a vial of blood out of the inside pocket of his coat and tossed it to Kyudai. "That I happened to be carrying this. Consider it a token of our goodwill."
Kyudai nearly fumbled the vial, but managed to secure it. Looking at the label on the side, he saw the name "Kan" written in large letters. He smiled, for the first time since meeting Yamada.
"I'm sure that I can provide something that will satisfy you." Kyudai responded, and Yamada smiled back, for the first time that Kyudai had seen. If the man had been nondescript earlier, the smile was anything but.
It was the smile of a soulless killer.
---
Looking around the common room, everything seemed to be in place. Momo had arranged the tables from the dining area into three large collections, large enough for three dedicated study groups. At each table sat all of the materials needed to study for the final exam in any of their classes, as well as pencils, paper, whiteboards, markers, and more, all produced with her quirk.
Everything was absolutely perfect.
The idea of a classwide study session for the final exams had been Kendo's idea at first, but it made perfect sense. It made even more sense for Momo, Midoriya, and Kendo to organize it. After all, not only were they the class representatives, but they were also the top three scoring students in the class after midterms. Momo herself was the top student in the class, naturally, while Midoriya held second place over Kendo by just a hair.
The rest of the class had been relatively easy to convince to take part in the study session. Given the massive step up in time dedicated to All Might's practical heroics class, nearly everyone's grades had suffered somewhat since internships. Midoriya's grades had slipped more than anyone else's, with Midoriya nearly falling behind Kendo in overall grade. Even Momo's average had dropped by a tenth of a percent, something she was eager to earn back.
Two hours later, Momo was pleased at how invested in the material some of her classmates were, but dearly wished that they would be a little quieter. Over at the table that Kendo was in charge of, Kaibara and Kamakiri bickered loudly over the exact definition of 'death of the author'. Apparently Kamakiri was taking the phrase far too literally. Meanwhile, Kirishima attempted to play mediator while Kendo, Koda, and Kodai were simply staying out of the matter entirely.
Perhaps Momo should have thought a little harder before putting all of the students whose surnames began with 'K' in the same study group. It had seemed like harmless fun at the time.
While she may have been foolish enough to let spelling dictate the groups, Momo had not been foolish enough to try and split up Midoriya and Kyoka. They at least seemed to feed on each other, pushing each other higher than either would have achieved on their own, and Momo hoped it would help Midoriya regain some of his earlier success. It was a distinct contrast to Mina and Kirishima, who needed to be separated or else they would not get anything done.
Midoriya's group also included Tokoyami, Shiozaki, Honenuki, Shoji, and Mina. Between Midoriya, Honenuki, and Kyoka, there were several students near the top of the class to help out. They were currently discussing mathematics, though, which had Kyoka throwing her hands up in defeat alongside Mina. Kyoka raised her voice just loud enough for Momo to hear over the background din, "There is nothing 'natural' about logarithms!"
Momo's own table held the remaining students in the class. She had placed Rin and Pony with herself because she was passable in Chinese and fluent in English, and so was able to help both of them in their native tongues. She had placed Tokage with her mostly to keep her from interacting too much with Mina. Todoroki was still slowly coming out of his shell, and having known him for years, Momo wanted to make sure that he got as much out of this session as possible.
It was pure selfishness that had led Momo to include Awase and Ochako in her group. She had been interested in picking Awase's brain about his quirk and how it might work with hers for weeks now, but had never found a chance. This seemed like the best opportunity so far. Ochako, on the other hand, was one of her best friends, and Momo simply wanted to spend more time with her.
Their current topic was history, particularly the early history of quirk usage and organized heroism. They had just finished reviewing the Rhode Island Accord and the first seven heroes, and how they led to a sea change of how quirks were viewed in the United States, or rather what remained of them at the time.
Pony had quite a lot to say about how that had influenced the hero system of the (now re-) United States. Perhaps Momo would pick her brain another time, in English. It would be good practice, and it was always interesting to get a different view on heroism as an industry than the standard Japanese one.
Unfortunately, their exam wouldn't be covering anything on modern American hero society, so Momo had to cut Pony off for the time being. "Thank you for all of your input, Pony, but we need to keep moving if we want to cover everything that we need to cover." The American girl looked disappointed, but also understanding. She wasn't the lowest ranked student in class, but only because of her English scores. Pony needed as much help in history as anyone else in the class.
"So, does anyone want to explain some of the ways that the foundation of the Japanese system differed from that of the American system?" Momo prompted the group. It was a topic her parents had drilled into her at a young age. The Yaoyorozu corporation had been founded during the same period, and the only reason they grew to the size they were now was a deep understanding of the politics at play. Momo's mother wanted to make sure that her daughter was just as educated on politics as she was, regardless of whether Momo planned to be a hero or take over control of the company.
It was Ochako that broke the silence first. "Well, it was a lot later. Japan's initial laws were some of the latest." It was true. America, China, the East African Federation, Brazil, the Scandinavian League, all had fully functioning hero societies well before Japan set down even their first laws. Her mother had always said that Japan took the best features of each of those systems, seeing what worked and what didn't, before committing anything to law. She often claimed to run the company like that. Her favorite saying was that they might not be first to the market on an item, but they would always be last.
"Japan's initial laws legalized far more vigilantes than any other country." Tokage chimed in.
"They also pardoned a lot of vigilantes that had been arrested earlier." Awase added. That was an understatement. The government had actually released essentially all of the prisoners who had been solely convicted of vigilantism.
"All true." Yaoyorozu replied. "And all important to understanding Japan's hero system. But that wasn't the answer I was looking for." What she was looking for was actually the unique, at the time, hierarchy of the heroism industry. When it debuted, it was unheard of for heroes to run their own agencies and operate as essentially free agents. It was far more common for heroes to act in the direct chain of command of pre-existing police and military structures. While the Japanese model was still unusual, it had spread to the United States as well as several smaller South American and Oceanian countries.
"The Japanese system was founded during the war against the Meta Liberation Army." Rin supplied. "Every aspect of the system was designed to essentially draft the existing vigilante community into the armed forces against the MLA."
Momo's thoughts slammed into a brick wall at that. While it was true that the MLA still technically existed when the hero system was formed, she'd never really thought that there was any connection between the two. The war would officially be over just days after the HPSC was founded, after all. "Could you… expand on that, Rin?"
"The Japanese vigilante community had always been sympathetic to the MLA and their free quirk-use ideals. The hero system was formed as part of an explicit compromise to ensure that the majority of those vigilantes did not join the MLA instead. If they had, the war might have gone very differently. While the hero system was not formally founded until the outcome of the war was obvious, it was agreed upon at the height of the insurrection, when Kyushu and Shikoku were still completely under MLA control."
"I didn't know that!" Tokage exclaimed. In all honesty, Momo didn't either.
"I'm not surprised." Rin replied calmly, taking a sip of tea. "History class is often biased away from uncomfortable facts, no matter the country. You can still see the wartime origins in the modern day hero system. Japanese hero agencies are essentially legalized mercenary outfits, kept in line by the HPSC. The HPSC offers money, recognition, and equipment through a handful of cooperative corporations." Momo flinched at the accusation, even if it wasn't directed at her. "In exchange, hero agencies maintain the status quo with violence."
"Where did you learn all of that?" Todoroki quietly inquired, eyes sharp. "It sounds awfully similar to some of what the hero killer was spouting."
"Please." Rin scoffed. "The whole world is better off with that maniac dead and gone. And it's not like other countries are better about the violence part. But they at least don't have popularity contests amongst their heroes."
"Why are you even at U.A if you're so fucking cynical?" Awase brought up a point that, had Momo been a little less stunned by Rin's monologue, she would have asked herself. If perhaps with less profanity.
"It's still the best hero school in Asia, one of the best in the world. And I want to change the Chinese system. I figured in the same way my outside perspective helps me see the issues with Japan's hero industry, getting an outside perspective on China's hero system would help me change it from the inside."
It was a reasonable response, but Momo wasn't exactly listening to Rin at this point. How much of what he had said was true, and how much was simply misinterpreting the system from the outside? Momo knew that some of it was true. After all, even as insulated as she had been growing up, she had seen some of her mother's work as CEO of the Yaoyorozu corporation, and all that entailed. Rin's accusations of the HPSC using corporations to keep hero agencies in line was… not entirely unfounded.
Eventually, their group managed to get back on topic and Todoroki gave an explanation of the history of the hero system that Momo was looking for. However, the concerns that Rin had swirled within Momo lasted long into the night.
---
"Oh my god I am so fucking glad to be done with finals." Kyoka flopped down onto Izuku's bed. Physically she was feeling the effects of the past several weeks of additional training, but mentally, she was even more exhausted than normal. Their finals had run into the late afternoon, as their practical heroics exam would be tomorrow. Kyoka knew they were supposed to be preparing for the practicals, but she didn't think there was any additional prep she could do at this moment that would help at all.
"After all that studying, I didn't think they were too bad. None of the finals were unfair, I thought." Izuku replied as he took off his jacket and tie, hanging them up neatly in his closet.
"Izuku, I love you, but I didn't say they were unfair, just that I'm glad to be done with them. After all, you spent most of the last week drilling math into my head." Although she kinda wished he'd been drilling something else into her instead, especially as he was shedding layers. Not that she'd ever say that out loud to Izuku any time soon. Their relationship was still relatively new, and she knew that they weren't moving particularly fast on that front. Even given how Kyoka felt, it would still be a long while before she felt comfortable saying anything along those lines to Izuku.
"Did it work? Do you think you passed Ectoplasm's final?" Izuku was down to his undershirt, although he didn't take that off, instead throwing a t-shirt on over it. He was notably more comfortable now than he was the first time he had wanted to change and Kyoka was over. He'd hidden in the bathroom that time until Kyoka had said she didn't mind if he changed in front of her. It still took another three or four times before he even tried. And after that he'd still been stiff and uneasy for another couple of weeks. Now, though, changing his shirt in front of her (at least his overshirt) didn't seem to bother him at all.
"Yeah, I do. But I still don't understand what the hell ' e ' is, or why it shows up everywhere." Seriously. Ectoplasm had never given a good explanation as to what it was.
"That's… I mean…" Izuku looked around the room as he struggled to put words together.
"You don't understand either, do you Green?" He almost looked offended before his face fell.
"...No. But I know how to use it, and that's almost as good!"
"Right." Kyoka seriously disagreed. What was the point of math if you didn't know what it represented? If you couldn't connect it to something in the real world, it was just mucking about with numbers for no reason.
"But seriously, I know that some of that math is behind really cool stuff you could do with your quirk." Izuku tried to go back to the same excuse he had given earlier in the semester. Kyoka, though, hadn't really seen anything that interesting come up as Ectoplasm's class had carried on.
"You've said this before, but what's an example? I've got the sonar going, the resonance idea you had was metal, but neither of those really need the shit we just learned." She'd already been introduced to the idea of frequencies through music, so even those showed up in some of the math, it wasn't really anything new to her.
"Well, you could probably cancel out any sound you wanted to if you put your mind to it."
Kyoka's train of thought stopped with a crash. "...What."
"Uh, I said you could probably cancel out…" Izuku repeated himself, less confident than before.
"I heard what you said, doofus. What are you talking about and why haven't you told me this before?" Seriously, she'd been wishing for something like that ever since her quirk came in. It would be so nice to not have to listen to everything all the time.
"I thought I had…? I'm pretty sure it was somewhere in the notes I wrote on your quirk for All Might."
"...Oh." That made sense. It also made sense why Izuku hadn't brought it up again.
"Oh?" Izuku tilted his head as he asked, and just for a moment, Kyoka could see some of the adorable innocence that he'd had so much of when they first met. She wasn't unhappy to see him grow into a more confident person, but it was nice that some things never truly changed.
This was going to be a somewhat uncomfortable explanation. "Yeah. I haven't really read that since we started hanging out. I figured since I had the source right here, I didn't need to." Not to mention that there were tangents and side comments galore in the notes that made reading them a difficult experience at times.
Izuku, though, just nodded. "You know what? That's valid." He took a step back for a moment, muttering under his breath as he worked out exactly how he wanted to explain things. Kyoka did her best not to eavesdrop, figuring it would just get her more confused. "Ok, so we talked a lot about sines and cosines in Ectoplasm's class, right?"
"Don't remind me." Kyoka groaned. All of those trigonometric identities were a real pain in the ass.
"Well, when you plot them, you get a wave, right?" Izuku drew with his finger in the air. "That's basically what sound is: a wave of vibrations in the air. In general, sound behaves like a sine wave, and the frequency of the wave is the pitch that you hear." That made sense, and it connected the frequencies she already knew about to something in math, but she was still missing something.
"Ok… and this is helpful, how?"
"What happens if you add two sine waves with the same frequency together?" Izuku looked at her like this was the key to everything.
"I know this, I know this. We reviewed it for the final." Kyoka, against her better wishes, sunk back into her math knowledge, dredging it up bit by bit. "It depends on the… phase… of the two waves. You could get a stronger wave… or nothing at all… Oh." Kyoka sat up at the realization.
"I think you see it. It's the same basic idea as the sonar you've been developing: listen with one earjack, use the other to output the same frequency but with an opposite phase. It might take some doing to figure out how to mess with the phase you output, but I don't see any reason why it won't work. You might not be able to cancel out something as loud as, say, Present Mic, but you could certainly bring him down to a more manageable volume. Anyone else with a sound-based quirk, you can just turn it off."
That… could actually work. Kyoka had never tried altering the phase of her output, but given the flexibility she had over the frequency of the output, it should work. "...Have I told you recently that I love you?"
"Literally three minutes ago." Izuku replied with a smile on his face.
"Then it's been too long." Kyoka closed her eyes, falling back on the bed and allowing herself to imagine what she could do with the ability to cancel out sounds.
Just a few seconds later, though, Izuku spoke again. "Are you alright, Kyo?"
"Hm?" Kyoka opened her eyes, blinking rapidly. Izuku was sitting at his desk, looking back at her after checking something on his computer. When had he turned that on?
"You were just lying there for ten minutes. I'm pretty sure you had fallen asleep." A quick glance at the clock showed that it had been closer to fifteen minutes.
"Shit, I guess I had." Kyoka sighed. Time for another unpleasant explanation. "Alright, Green. Full disclosure, I haven't been sleeping great lately. Add in extra studying for finals and the ramp up in All Might's training, and I've been dragging for a while."
Izuku just grimaced and nodded before moving to lie on the bed next to Kyoka. "Honestly? Same. I haven't slept well either. More than just lately. It's been… well… It's been since Kamino." Kyoka wasn't entirely surprised. Izuku was many things, but subtle was not one of them. The bags under his eyes and the jaw-cracking yawns from the past few weeks were new.
"Nightmares?" That's what had been bothering Kyoka, at least.
"Some nights." Izuku had a far off look on his face. "Sometimes I'm back in the room with All For One and the Doctor. Sometimes I'm facing off against Shigaraki or Stain or a nomu again. Other nights I can't even fall asleep in the first place. My mind just keeps cycling through everything I should have done differently or better. I know it's just stupid and I need to just move on, but I just…" He trailed off, mouth stretched into a grim line.
"I know, Green. I can't help but dream about what might have happened if All Might hadn't found you in time, if All For One had decided to just kill you, or if All Might hadn't been able to block that laser blast. I know you won't believe this, but you didn't do anything wrong. It was a shitty situation for a lot of us."
"But if I had just been stronger or faster or better, then All Might would still be…"
"Green." Kyoka put her hand on Izuku's to stop his self recrimination. "If I had been faster, or less afraid of Stain, I could have prevented you from getting captured in the first place. Is Kamino my fault then?"
"Of course not!" Izuku looked almost offended at the thought.
"Then it's not your fault either." Izuku looked away, obviously still not believing her. "The only people who are to blame are the villains." And the worst of those appeared to be dead for good, although she wasn't going to bring that up. She knew that Shigaraki was a sore point for Izuku, if not the full depths of his feelings on the matter.
"I guess." Kyoka wasn't going to push that line of conversation any more tonight. It was going to be a slow thing, helping Izuku realize that not everything was his responsibility.
Before she realized it, though, Izuku had wrapped his arms around her, spooning her, and another five minutes had slipped by. In response, Kyoka wrapped her earjacks around his wrists, and clutched them to her chest. It was incredibly comforting to feel him right there behind her, to hear his heartbeat and his breathing. Both were slowing down, though, as he seemed to be falling asleep. "This is dangerous, Green." They hadn't done this since the night he had come back from Kamino. It had been a wonderful night, but the awkwardness in the morning had been almost too much to bear.
"Yeah, it is." Izuku drowsily agreed, but made no move to disentangle himself. Ultimately, Kyoka didn't end up moving either, instead simply enjoying the reminders that Izuku was safe as she drifted off to sleep next to him.
---
Waking up the next morning and finding Kyoka in his bed had shocked Izuku to wakefulness incredibly quickly. They had still been intertwined, Kyoka curled up in his arms, pressed tight against his body, her earjacks snaking their way around his wrists and arms. She had woken up shortly after him and, after some initial embarrassment (to put it mildly), it turned out that both of them had slept better than night than they had at any point since the night Izuku had come back from the hospital.
Izuku hadn't had any trouble falling asleep, any dreams of his time with All For One (especially the one of being trapped in a room with Shigarki's corpse and blood on his hands), and didn't even spend any time in the One For All quirk space. Part of him had been worried that if he did get a chance to sleep well, he would fall right back into the quirk space and into another argument with the third user. While he didn't regret or disagree with anything he had said in the wake of Kamino, he still wasn't looking forward to talking with the vestige again. Izuku also wasn't sure how the other vestiges would take his blanket refusal to use Fa Jin, and if their disapproval was why he hadn't manifested any of the other quirks yet.
He'd been looking forward to getting Nana's quirk in particular. Float, even if it wasn't explicitly flight, would be a powerful addition to his movement capabilities. Plus, what kid (or teenager, or adult) didn't want to be able to fly?
There was also the fact that it would be far easier to explain Float in terms of his already existing quirk description than some of the other quirks from the previous users. Blackwhip and Smokescreen in particular would be nearly impossible to explain as offshoots of an energy stockpiling quirk.
He also knew that he couldn't really get away with not using Fa Jin forever, at least through his education. Aizawa had already brought up questions as to why Izuku wasn't using it, although not in so many words. While Izuku's excuse of focusing on building up his base level with his quirk had satisfied the man for the time being, it would not last forever.
On the plus side, All Might's intense training had helped Izuku get comfortably up to eighteen percent with his quirk. If he kept improving at this rate, he should be able to use the entire quirk before he graduated.
Barely.
Regardless, after their first good night of sleep in weeks, both Izuku and Kyoka were sure they were ready for whatever the faculty were going to throw at them. Even after skipping dinner the night before, a solid breakfast gave them both all the energy they thought they would need.
That confidence was somewhat shaken when, instead of meeting inside one of the standard gyms on campus, Aizawa had class 1-A meet in one of the remote observation rooms on campus. Unlike the rooms that the class had been in before, this one was much larger, at least two stories tall, with screens and monitors taking up one entire wall.
In addition to their homeroom teacher, All Might, Snipe, Recovery Girl, Ectoplasm, and Cementoss were all also present, all except All Might dressed in their hero costumes. Recovery Girl was already at the controls of the room, adjusting camera angles in several different training grounds. Izuku could see the telltale flora of Training Ground Omega, as well as the extended pipe work and heavy machinery of Training Ground Gamma
"Do we, uh, want to know what's going on?" Kirishima asked, to no one in particular. A glare from Aizawa was enough to silence the boy, as well as any possible responses.
"I'm glad you asked, young Kirishima!" Principal Nezu popped up out of Aizawa's capture weapon, a gleeful glint in his eye. It was a testament to their weeks of training with Gran Torino that none of the students so much as flinched at the principal's sudden appearance. "This will be the staging ground for your final exams. Now, what do you all think that your final exams will entail?"
Initially the only response from the assembled students were nervous mutters. Eventually Kendo worked up the courage to actually respond to the principal. "Well, we've heard from some upperclassmen that the exam would be against robots, but we were all pretty sure that wouldn't be our final."
"Interesting! What was your reasoning?" Nezu focused his gaze on the girl, who remained remarkably calm under his attention.
"Given the intensity and variety of heroics training that All Might has been putting us through, an exam against just robots seems too simple and straightforward. Also, given that our class has had multiple villain encounters already, it would make sense for the finals to be more involved and varied." Kendo replied. They had had other hints, such as unusual work being done by certain support students and Todoroki's reports of his father behaving oddly, but Kendo had covered their main reasons.
"Wonderfully reasoned!" Nezu chirped. "I will let Eraserhead explain your finals, but I look forward to seeing all of your performances!" With that, the principal hopped off of Aizawa's shoulders and went to help Recovery Girl with the camera setup.
Aizawa sighed before launching into his explanation. "You are correct that you will not be facing robots, and that you will have multiple goals for your final exam. We have divided your class into five teams of four students each. Each team will take their final in a different training ground while the rest of the class can watch from the monitoring room here." Izuku briefly wondered how they had decided on the order of the exams. The students taking the earlier exams would be at a disadvantage, unless the later exams were more difficult somehow.
"Each training ground will have a target that you must protect from a villain attack. You can achieve victory in one of three ways. First, you can keep the target intact for thirty minutes. Second, you can incapacitate the villain and restrain them with a provided pair of handcuffs. Last, if one member of your group is able to escape the training ground via the designated exit, you will win. Remember that sometimes the best course of action is to retreat and wait for backup. That is what this victory condition represents."
Izuku was already racing a mile a minute taking in all of this information. It seemed almost too good to be true. They would get to work together in groups of four, and with so many ways to win, it seemed like each group would have a very good chance of coming out on top. It all depended on who the villains were, and the more that Izuku thought about it, the more he came to the horrifying realization of who was most likely.
"Who are the villains, then?" Awase asked.
Instead of answering immediately, Aizawa walked over to the control panel that Nezu and Recovery Girl were sitting at and pressed a button. The largest screen shifted to a view of a conference room, and Izuku's fears were confirmed.
Nine of the top twenty heroes in the country sat inside the room, reading files that appeared to be dossiers about their class. Gasps went up amongst Izuku's classmates as everyone realized exactly what their final was going to entail.
"Each group of four will be up against one of the heroes you see in this room. Before you complain, they will each be wearing a set of mild quirk suppressants as a handicap. They will be restricted to roughly three quarters of their full strength." Well, that was something, Izuku supposed. Most of the heroes in the room were strong enough, though, that even seventy five percent was a terrifying prospect.
"The teams and matchups are as follows, and in the following order. First, Wash versus Kaibara, Kamakiri, Kirishima, and Kendo. Second, Gang Orca versus Koda, Shoji, Jiro, and Tokage. Third, Yoroi Musha versus Awase, Uraraka, Kodai, and Yaoyorozu. Fourth, Hawks versus Ashido, Shiozaki, Tsunotori, and Rin."
Izuku's stomach dropped at the process of elimination and who he was most likely to face. The order had generally been so the teams facing the lower ranked heroes went first. The later teams would have a chance to refine their tactics, but would also be facing a higher ranking hero. Hawks was the third ranked hero, and All Might was retired. That meant there was only one possible hero for his team to face.
"Last will be Endeavor versus Tokoyami, Todoroki, Honenuki, and Midoriya."