The bus came to a halt at the wide front plaza of the Unforeseen Simulation Joint—otherwise known as the U.S.J.
The domed building was ginormous, and the students of class 1-A found themselves with gaping mouths at the sight.
"All right, everyone off the bus," Aizawa Shouta ordered as he walked toward the other four pro heroes waiting at the entrance: Snipe, Cementos, Midnight and Thirteen.
Thirteen stepped forward and gave a warm greeting to the students. "Welcome to the U.S.J., everyone! Today, you'll learn how to rescue people in multiple disaster scenarios, using your Quirks responsibly and effectively!"
The students gave a short, excited applause to Thirteen's welcoming.
Behind her, Aizawa scanned the perimeter. Cementos approached with a stony expression. "Thirteen's been setting up the zones since this morning. Everything's in place."
Aizawa gave a short nod. "Good. Let's get this started. Clocks ticking."
"Looks like she's about finished up by now," Snipe said. And true to his words, Thirteen began leading the students into the U.S.J.
ZZT! Rumble!
A sudden tremor ran through the dome as Aizawa saw the lights go out. Then, at the centre of the U.S.J., a hope opened in the air. A swirling, purple-black mass formed. And a moment later, a foot stepped through.
Then a dozen, then a flood. Villainous figures poured out from the swirling dark portal.
"Has the training started already?"
"No, stay back! Those are villains."
Midnight and Thirteen immediately rushed to the students, shielding them.
"Cementos! Snipe! With me!" Aizawa commanded as he launched himself forward, landing between a large number of villains.
One charged at him with chainsaws for hands, but Aizawa's eyes flashed red, and they slowed to a stop. Before he could react to his quirk failing, he had been delivered a kick to the face.
Another villain tried to stab him from behind, but was caught in a cage of cement.
Bang!
Snipe's bullet tore into the shoulder of another.
As the three dealt with the swarm of villains. Aizawa saw another portal being made by his side.
A chill ran down his spine, and he dashed back in alarm.
Shing.
He narrowly avoided a glass-like sword that almost cut his arm clean off. Aizawa saw a white silhouette stepping out of the portal.
"It's a bit of a shame All Might isn't here. But I don't mind a few appetisers before he arrives."
Eraser Head braced himself as Cementos stood beside him, now having dealt with a majority of the villain swarm, and judging from the sound of gunfire, Snipe was still picking off the hanging pieces.
His eyes narrowed as he studied the young man in front of him. 'He can't be much older than the students. Why is he here?'
Aizawa brushed away the thought for now, as it didn't make a difference. He brandished his capture weapon.
"And who the hell are you supposed to be?"
The white figure casually rested the glass-like, colourless sword against his shoulder.
"I haven't decided on my villain name yet. Give me some time, man."
Aizawa's eyes widened as he leapt to the side, barely dodging another strike, a stab to the back. He looked back to see another white figure.
"You have some good senses, Eraser Head. Is this what they call 'An experienced soldier's intuition?'"
The hero didn't bother responding to the villain; instead, his eyes glowed red, and the first white figure standing by the now closed portal shattered into glass, along with the swords in their hands.
Cementos didn't need to be told; he already began to move. He slammed his hands down, and a cage of cement encased the white villain.
But Harbinger wasn't going to stand still and watch as he did so; he leapt into the air, escaping the cage. Kicking up a cloud of dust as he did so, obscuring Aizawa's vision for a brief moment.
"Got'ya." Snipe muttered from his vantage point, as his scope zoomed in on the white figure in the air.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Three shots rang out in perfect sequence—one aimed at the leg, one at the shoulder, and one straight toward centre mass. Snipe never missed. But all three were blocked by a sheet of glass.
Harbinger created a glass platform to jump back, behind the cement cage meant to trap him. And with the shield from Aizawa's eyes, Harbinger created a glass javelin and threw it toward Snipe. Aimed directly at his head.
Snipe dodged as fast as he could, but the javelin still tore into his shoulder.
Harbinger tried to create two more to throw, but he felt nothing as he tried to activate his quirk. It was as if his entire body was being encased so that nothing could come out.
Which soon came true, as Eraser Head's scarf wrapped around him, throwing him back into a wall created by Cementos.
BOOM! Crash!
Chunks of concrete exploded outward as Harbinger slammed back-first into Cementos's wall. A cloud of powdered cement and dust clouded the area.
Aizawa kept his eyes open, waiting for a single sight of Harbinger jumping out of the dust cloud. But nothing came.
"Man... pros really don't mess around. If I'm struggling this much against you guys. I'm really quite far from challenging the top ten."
Cementos gritted his teeth and slammed his palms down, reinforcing the stone coffin with another layer, tightening the walls inward.
Snipe dragged his tired body toward Cementos and Aizawa, clutching his bleeding shoulder.
"I didn't think he got you that bad. Are you alright?" Aizawa asked in concern.
Snipe waved it off. "I'm alright. Now that we're finished here, we need to get back to the students."
"You're right, but before that..."
The three heroes walked to the wall that Harbinger was quite literally cemented into.
"Start talki—"
But before Eraser Head could begin interrogating the white villain in front of him.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
Aizawa turned back as thunderous footsteps approached from behind.
A man twice the size of Harbinger and about three times as wide was charging toward Snipe, Cementos and Aizawa. The figure was a hulking mass of muscle, with an exposed brain, dark purple skin and a bird's beak.
"Three on one seems a little unfair, doesn't it? Let's even it out a little." Harbinger's voice came from behind. But by the time Aizawa looked back. He had already turned his cage into diced cubes of brick.
He held two colourless glass swords in his hands. Which promptly dissappeared as Aizawa's eyes glowed red.
Harbinger turned into a white blur as he appeared before Snipe, biting his ear off and spitting it out onto Eraser Head's face. He closed his eyes as blood splattered across his face.
The titan Nomu reached the heroes and slammed its ginormous hands into the Cement hero. He made a wall to take the force of the blow as quickly as he could.
Harbinger took that time to kick Snipe into Aizawa, sending them both tumbling across the ground.
The two crash and skid backwards in a spray of dust and blood. Snipe groaned, clutching the side of his head, blood pouring from the place where his ear had been.
"Damn it...!"
Aizawa forced himself upright, with ragged breath. His eyes were burning red from overusing his quirk. He snapped his head around, trying to find the white silhouette. But the villain had already vanished.
'Did he run?'
Cementos staggered to his feet, holding a massive stone dome, guarding his two colleagues. The Nomu's monstrous arms raised high over them.
Aizawa dashed forward, his scarf lashing and coiling around the Nomu's neck as he pulled as hard as he could away from Cementos. His eyes glowed an even brighter red, and blood ran down his cheek from his eyes.
But no matter what he tried, the creature barely flinched.
"It's... not working...!" Aizawa gasped.
Snipe braced his smoking gun against his good arm and fired round after round into the Nomu's body. Bullets tore into his flesh, but they stopped after barely pricking his skin.
With Aizawa's quirk activated, the wounds weren't healing. But they weren't significant enough to cause major damage.
As the Nomu finally broke through Cementos's defences, he lunged for the hero. Grabbing him in both enormous hands. And squeezing slowly.
"Let him go!!" Aizawa shouted, but no matter how hard he shouted and how hard he pulled, he couldn't move the Nomu.
Suddenly, a white blur appeared behind the Nomu. Aizawa caught a glimpse of the absurdly large sword in Harbinger's hands.
And with a single smooth motion, Harbinger swung his colourless sword in a sharp arc. The blades slicing through the Nomu's thick neck like paper.
SHHHHINNGG!!
A massive spray of dark blood exploded in the air as the Nomu's head was severed cleanly from its shoulders.
But the Nomu wasn't the only one without a head.
Cementos's corpse fell lifelessly along with the Nomu, his head rolling by Aizawa.
"Two for one... That's a good deal. Isn't it, Eraser Head?"
Aizawa stared, frozen, as Cementos's stone head rolled across the shattered floor towards his feet.
"C... Cementos...?"
The hero's chest heaved, and he could feel the vibrations of his heart beating in his throat. His eyes were still glowing red, but tears and blood clouded them, streaming freely down his face.
Harbinger's sword shattered into glass, but not because Eraser Head had cancelled his quirk. Instead, he let it dissolve and in its place formed a large colourless glass axe. As he stepped toward the hero slowly.
BOOM!!
Suddenly, a loud boom exploded to Harbinger's left. The sound was as loud as a canon shot. In the dust cloud, a colossal silhouette appeared in the opening.
It wasn't as large as the Nomu, but this figure had an even greater presence.
"THAT'S ENOUGH!!"
The voice was like thunder to Harbinger's ears. It reverberated across the entirety of the U.S.J.
Every fight happening across the dome stopped in that instant, and the moment the students heard that voice, they knew: Hope had arrived.
But for the few villains that remained, that voice was despair.
Harbinger barely had time to react before a large fist slammed into him.
WHAM!!
His body launched like a bullet, flying across the U.S.J., tumbling across the water and onto the land on the other side.
But, Eraserhead, from the side, saw something in that moment when All Might's fist crashed into Harbinger.
Aizawa's eyes widened as a white arc brushed past him.
'Wait... that trajectory—'
"Snipe!!"
Aizawa's gaze snapped behind him to his friend. But it was too late.
The white axe had embedded itself deep into Snipe's skull. The gunslinger collapsed with a thud.
Aizawa stared in horror, blood poured from practically every orifice on his face. And he found himself too exhausted to even scream as another one of his friends died before his very eyes.
All Might lowered his fist, and in that moment, Aizawa saw something he never thought he'd witness in the heat of combat. All Might wasn't smiling.
It appeared that someone else noticed this as well.
From the crater where his battered body lay, Harbinger let out a laugh, scraping the back of his throat, a manic cackle that grated the ears.
By his side, a swirling mass of black and purple opened in the air.
"Tch... you finally decided to arrive, All Might." A scratchy voice came from the portal as Tomura Shigaraki stepped through, scratching his neck roughly.
His red eyes took in the sight of the devastation.
The Nomu's decapitated corpse was lying in its own blood.
Two heroes lie dead. Snipe with an axe in his head, and the decapitated head and corpse of Cementos.
A gravelly wounded Eraser Head, barely conscious.
Harbinger, half-buried in rubble, coughing blood and laughing like a madman.
And at the centre of it all, All Might, with not a single scratch on him.
Gasp!
Aizawa woke up with a start as he sat by the tree near the Forest Training Camp.
'I must've dozed off... How unprofessional.'
His eyes then fell onto the short figure with purple balls on his head that seemed to have woken him.
"Sorry to bother your nap, Teach. But do you know when All Might will be here?"
Aizawa's face scrunched up, his eyes weary in exhaustion.
"I already told you, kids. All Might won't be here for the Training Camp."
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