Chapter 14: BNHA (1)
A/N 1: Mb for the delay everybody, I fell asleep. Having said that, If you are enjoying my story I'd appreciate it if you bookmarked it or threw your free power stones my way, it does motivate me to keep going.
A/N 2: Just a heads up, but I will not be covering the complete original story of BNHA in my story. Cus A) As you might've guessed by Damian's interaction with Deku, I don't fucking like this anime (I used to hate it when I was younger, but now I just kind of respect the work from a literary standpoint, meaning I don't fucking like it, but I can appreciate it's good points) and B) Damian is here to learn (I won't say all of the things he wishes to learn but you can infer it more or less), not to play the weeb self inserting himself in his favorite anime. That will come later-*Cough**Cough*
That's all. We will be returning to Marvel sooner than what you might think. So yeah, enjoy!
...
Damian sighed, muttering under his breath as if to diffuse tensions. "My name's Damian, by the way."
Straightening up again, All Might looked at Damian while putting on his characteristic smile. "Oh, Young Damian it is!" He said while bleeding from his mouth in an exaggerated manner, which wasn't funny to him in the anime to begin with, and now seeing the man who literally was giving his every breath away in the name of heroism try to act nonchalant about his precarious state really unsettled him.
Sighing again exasperatedly, Damian said in a tired voice. "You can just revert back to your skinny form, Mr. All Might, there's no one else around."
Finding the youth in front of him scolding him out of worry bemused the gentle giant who couldn't help but laugh boisterously while shrinking back to his skinny form. Saying: "Is that so!"
Remembering to act his part, Damian told All Might. "Well, I don't know if you have anything else to do here with moss-hair, but I'll get going already. Gotta prepare for the entrance exam."
While Midoriya looked awkwardly at Damian after hearing his new nickname, All Might simply nodded in thanks, understanding that Damian wanted to give them both some privacy.
Walking away, Damian heard Eva in his mind: [I guess it's time to check out our new house for the next who knows how many weeks.]
'Yeah, good news is that I'll finally have some time to stop worrying about my social life and can just concentrate on the main task.'
With a teasing tone Eva spoke again. [If your friends heard you they might actually think your outgoing attitude is actually a facade.]
'The older version of me was an introvert through and through because he didn't like most humans getting close, he was just good at hiding it. The younger version was the opposite and since both of them are me, I am somewhere in the middle,' he answered more seriously than she expected, more pondering out loud–so to say, than anything else. 'And while the outgoingness is genuinely me, the quick-to-burn social battery is also me.'
As he walked through the seaside drive of the once fictional city of Musutafu, Damian admired the beautiful and foreign view while thinking to himself in the quietness of dawn, something he has rarely done these past months with all the hectic changes in his new life.
His new powers, the mystical arts, Natasha, MJ, Peter, his new self imposed responsibilities… everything has absorbed the totality of his time, thoughts and energy, so much so that he hasn't had the time to appreciate it all.
His new chance at life, of a life that might actually be meaningful and fulfilling. His morning breakfast with Natasha, hanging out with Peter and the gang after classes, even training with the old man, Wong and the occasional back and forth with Strange.
All the new people in his life whom he has been able to connect with in a genuine manner for the first time across both lifetimes. His newfound abilities to actually create a better future for himself and his loved ones.
It was now, away from everything that he actually had a chance to appreciate how blessed his new life has been so far-
*CRACK* *BOOM*
But of course, as if to remind him that shit ain't that sweet and that this world was in fact one about heroes and villains, a sudden explosion interrupted his train of thought as a shop on the other side of the road had its window explode by what he assumed was a quirk related to sound and vibrations judging by the grating noise.
Thankfully it was still too early for people to be walking around the place so there was no worry about innocents getting hurt but likewise, it seemed a bit too early for heroes to be patrolling around as he couldn't see anybody with a supersuit in the vicinity through the CCTV cameras.
As a boy around the same age as him jumped over the shattered glass with a duffle bag of what he again assumed was either cash, jewelry or both by looking at the inside of the store, he lamented seeing someone so young already on a path of villainy.
He contemplated what to do while searching up his face on the web to see if the boy had a criminal record and sure enough; Watanabe Inosuke, made the local news for leaving another highschooler in a vegetative state when his powers went out of control during a fight. Digging around more, Damian found out that the boy was the subject of relentless bullying in high school for having a "weak and useless quirk" by the same guy he put in a vegetative state. He's been on the run for weeks now.
'How ironically cruel,' he thought while sighing.
[And sad,] Eva added in a low voice.
While making up his mind, Damian saw what he assumed was the owner or a clerk of the store get out while looking for the boy as Watanabe made a run for it. He really treasured the fact that it took only a second for him to analyze the situation and decide, his new mind was one his greatest blessings.
Seeing the man about to scream for help Damian winced as he knew there was a workaholic just around the corner with super hearing waiting for such a call.
'Haa, let's not make the old man's overwork himself any more,' he said remembering the mouth bleeding symbol of peace, the show couldn't really express it as it was an anime, but Damian's enhanced vision could see the subtle signs of exhaustion when the man assumed his muscular form after he lowered his guard when he determined Damian wasn't a threat.
So while erasing the footage of any nearby cameras, he teleported next to the store owner, putting a hand on his shoulder before he could scream. "Hello there, uncle. No need for calling for help, it's all right now."
Getting startled by the sudden touch and voice next to him, the man jumped as he turned to look at a smiling young foreigner that spoke fluent japanese. Speaking in an unsure tone, the man asked: "A-Are there any heroes coming?"
Chuckling at his words, Damian spoke confidently. "Something like that," before flying towards the fleeing boy, leaving the store owner baffled at the turn of events.
It only took a couple seconds for Damian to reach the boy and during those seconds Damian pondered how to neutralize him without the use of brute force, so he took the most direct approach. Leveling himself to the height of the boy's eye, he appeared in his peripheral vision.
"Hi there, what are you doing with that bag?" He asked nonchalantly to the startled youth, who reflexively used his powers to attack Damian's hearing, probably to disorient or incapacitate him.
Sadly for Watanabe, his quirk's vibrations would hit nothing but a shield of raw energy as he suddenly tripped to an uneven part of the road that wasn't previously there. While thinking he would fall face first to the concrete, he closed his eyes and braced for the fall, but after waiting for seconds on end and feeling no impact, he opened his eyes just to realize he was standing in an alleyway, his duffle bag nowhere to be seen.
"That was rude, you could've hurt somebody with that attack," said the westerner in front of Watanabe.
Thinking he was being made fun of triggered a reaction out of him as he screamed: "S-SHUT UP!" While clapping his hand together, attacking again. Though this time the attack felt stronger, the vibrations in the air went wild. Bouncing between the walls, leaving no room for dodging.
And Damian being Damian, decided this was as good a time as any to train himself, so he deactivated his energy barrier and on the spot created a new solution for dealing with his foe.
'Mm, his quirk seems to be about controlling the vibrations produced by sounds, a little similar to the punk girls quirk but without the cumbersome headphone jack's disadvantages. Interesting quirk, I wish I could copy it, but now it's not the time. Too bad you found the worst match up possible buddy.
Spending a bit of his origin energy, he manipulated the air density around him, creating a negative refractive bubble, which was fancy jargon for saying he basically created an adaptive pocket of stillness where sound cannot propagate. Since sound requires a medium to travel; by thinning and stiffening the air molecules in specific micro-pockets, Damian erases the resonance path, creating a temporary anechoic zone.
At the same time, he manipulates molecular bonds in the air to increase damping coefficients, the equivalent of turning the alley into a room lined with acoustic foam. As a result of this, the boy's sound waves die out within a meter of Damian.
And it seems like Watanabe noticed the difference, as he previously felt his attack be rebounded by Damian's energy barrier, so thinking that if he increased the potency maybe he could overwhelm his barrier he used his current strongest attack, yet this time his sound attack didn't rebound, it simply disappeared before reaching him.
Confused, frustrated and a bit scared, the young man chose to attack again and again yet the outcome would not change.
Trying to calm him down Damian remained in place as he spoke in a calm tone. "You know, a wise man once said the definition of craziness is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. How about you stop so we could talk for a bit, Watanabe Inosuke?"
And hearing his name finally got a reaction out of him, one of fear more than anything else, but at least he stopped attacking. The youth adopted a threatening tone, but sadly his stuttering diffused any threat he might spew beforehand. "H-How do you k-know my name? Who are y-you?
Rising his hands to his eye-height in a sign of peace, Damian responded with a smile. "I'm no one of importance, really. You can consider me just a noisy person. What about you, Inosuke…-san," as he added the last part, Inosuke felt it was weirdly comical how Damian winced at saying honorifics, making him chuckle at the bizarre situation he was in. "Why are you running from the police?"
Hearing these words, Watanabe immediately went on the defensive, frantically trying to explain himself. "B-Because they wouldn't believe me!"
"Who wouldn't believe you?" Asked Damian carefully.
"Everybody! Everyone thinks I attacked Kitagawa on purpose, but it was an accident! I swear! I didn't mean for that to happe-"
Seeing him in person, Damian's fears became true. Watanabe wasn't a cruel murderer who seeked revenge, just a scared teenager who doesn't know how to deal with the trouble he's in.
'Haa, this is so fucked up,' he thought, and Eva merely nodded at his words.
Keeping the same smile and lowering his voice to a more mellow tone, Damian said: "Hey, calm down, calm down. It's okay buddy, I believe you. Can you explain to me what exactly happened?"
Seeing Damian's attitude, Watanabe felt glad and sad that a stranger of all people was more willing to hear him out than his own friends and family.
However, before Watanabe could explain the whole story, both heard a feminine, remarkably imposing voice, her tone cutting through like a blade, sharp and demanding. "What are you two doing?"
Without looking up, Damian sighed at the situation. 'Haa, I'm really just a rookie, aren't I.'
[On the bright side, we learn what else to do for next time,] added Eva, trying to find the good in the bad.
He scolded himself mentally as this was his oversight, while he did check the cameras for any patrolling heroes on the streets, he didn't account for any heroes that can fly or jump long distances so he did not isolate the area properly. Though in his defence, the headstrong bunny shouldn't be in this zone of Japan at this time according to his meta-knowledge.
Looking up, Damian saw one of the worst case scenarios for his situation. On top of the building there she was. Standing at 159 cm (5'2) tall, her toned and muscular body denoted the hours and hours she spent honing herself, though it seemed no amount of exercise could erase the perfect curves she possessed.
Her sun-kissed, bronze skin was highlighted by the first rays of the dawn. Her wild mane of white hair that cascaded almost to her thighs looked logic-defiantly smooth and mesmerizing for someone that jumped around for hours on end at high altitudes. Atop her beautiful hair were two rabbit ears, twitching subtly to every sound around her, betraying her heightened awareness even when her expression gave nothing away.
And yet, the most striking feature were her eyes; A striking carmine red, fierce and unwavering, radiating the kind of fearless energy that made villains hesitate even before she moved.
Had he been any weaker in mind, he might have been lost in those beautiful eyes as she quite frankly looked perfect in every aspect in Damian's attractiveness scale. It also didn't help that her hero costume highlighted her frame perfectly.
Breaking his increasingly scattered thought process, Eva spoke with mirth in her voice. [Hey, pts, pts, pts. Focus buddy.]
'Shit, not now, you shitty teenager hormones,' he cursed internally, feeling even more embarrassed with Eva laughing at him in the background.
Still, he let none of his thoughts show on his face, his expression as calm as ever. "Oh, us? Nothing much, just playing around," he spoke smoothly, waving a hand like it was no big deal. "Boys being boys, y'know?"
Inosuke froze. His whole body tensed like a cornered animal, fidgeting nervously but saying nothing.
Mirko's eyes narrowed as her ears flicked again. Her gaze settled on the quivering boy beside Damian. "…Kid, have we met somewhere before? You look familiar."
Damian felt the flicker of realization in his gut. 'Shit, Watanabe's incident happened in Osaka and it made the local news. And she patrols the whole Kansai region…'
Realizing he was on a timer, he acted fast, not giving her time to focus on Watanabe. "Now, now-" Damian stepped forward casually, sliding one hand into his pocket and tilting his head toward Mirko with his trademark grin. "I'm flattered that you're giving me all this attention, Ms. Hero. But I have to say, up close, you're even prettier than on TV. Is it okay for a hero on patrol to be stealing hearts, or am I an exception?"
Mirko blinked, visibly caught off guard for half a second. Her lips curled into a sharp grin. "Heh. Got guts, brat. I'll give you that. But don't think flirting's gonna-"
Her words cut off as her instincts screamed. She whipped her head back toward Inosuke, but it was too late.
Damian was already standing beside the boy, his hand resting lightly on Inosuke's trembling shoulder.
"Sorry, Ms. Bunny, I really like you," Damian said, his grin widening, though his tone carried a quiet finality. "But we were in the middle of something, so we'll have to cut our fated encounter short. Promise I'll hand him back after we're done."
And as Damian finished his little speech, Mirko leaped down and landed hard on the alley floor, cracking the concrete where she stood. However, both Damian and Watanabe vanished in front of her very eyes, nothing but her memory and their scents could prove they were even there. Her fists clenched as she jumped up and scanned every rooftop, every shadow, her ears twitching furiously. Nothing. No trace.
"Goddamn cocky brat!" she spat, grinding her teeth. "Nobody makes a fool out of me and gets away with it…"
For the first time in years, the Rabbit Hero had been outmaneuvered and in the way she hated it the most, by way of underhanded tactics. "Don't let me catch you again, you damn smooth talker," she begrudgingly muttered before jumping away.
…
In another part of Japan, both Damian and Watanabe appeared atop an apartment complex. As Watanabe counted his lucky stars at being able to escape the famous Rabbit Hero Mirko, Damian pondered internally. 'Hm, so viewing a place through the internet and having its coordinates is enough for instant transmission to work? Damn, google maps is busted.'
Looking back to the scared boy, Damian spoke. "It's alright now, buddy. Here, have a sip and calm down," he said as he pulled a water bottle seemingly out of nowhere.
Baffled at the western looking youth that became more mysterious with each passing second, Watanabe grabbed the bottle and uncorked it before gulping a quarter of the bottle in one go.
Not for a moment he doubted if the bottle was tampered with, maybe because he was a naive teenager, but the easily scared Watanabe felt at ease with Damian.
Unlike all the heroes he has escaped from in these past weeks, he didn't feel scared of Damian, in spite of having realized he had no chance of escaping him. His easygoing smile, his kindness and patience towards a 'villain' was unlike what he had seen out of any Pro-hero so far.
Taking a moment to calm himself, Watanabe asked: "A-Are you going to hand me over like you said to Ms. Mirko? C-Can you p-please not, I beg of you!" Said the youth with a pleading tone.
Sighing to himself yet again, Damian thought. 'This job blows.'
"I'm sorry, buddy, but like I said, I'm a wannabe hero so I can't make promises. However, if you tell me your story, I promise I'll do my best to help you. Name's Damian, by the way," he said, motioning for Inosuke to sit down on the little bench made for employees below a parasol.
"O-Okay," responded Inosuke before sitting down next to Damian, starting to recount how things had come to this point. "Y-You know this but my name is Watanabe Inosuke and m-my problem started in my first year of high school…"
And the following explanation was more or less as Damian had deduced with the help of his deductions and the news coverage. Inosuke had been a victim of bullying due to both his quirk that seemed weak at first and his meek personality, all aggravated by the stutter he had due to his low self-esteem. A young boy harassed at school and invisible at his household, overshadowed by his older brother's achievements. A bystander in his own life.
"…Kitagawa used to push me around. Nothing new–he bullied h-half the class. One day he was being e-especially harsh… so in m-my desperation I snapped. I shoved him back by pushing him by the face, and my quirk… it reacted stronger than it ever had. He hit the wall, but he didn't get up a-again."
His voice cracked. "They said I w-wanted it. That I was dangerous. Even my p-parents… they looked at me differently. Nobody believed I didn't m-mean it."
His fists clenched tight, trembling. "And maybe I am dangerous. Maybe they're right. I just-I didn't know what to do. So I ran."
Damian let the confession breathe in the quiet. He could see the fear etched on the boy's face. Not fear of punishment, but fear that the whole world had already written him off.
"…You know," Damian said at last, his voice lower, steadier, his expression serious and a tad melancholic. "I used to think the world was just that. Hostile. Cold. Something that chewed you up and laughed while you bled. I was alone, too. And I thought that was all there was for me. All there was to life."
Inosuke's eyes flicked to him.
"But then," Damian continued, this time with a smile on his face. "I met people, good people, much better than me at least. People who showed me that there is more to life than surviving, that life can be kind, sweet even–worth fighting for."
He leaned forward, meeting Inosuke's gaze. "You made a mistake, yes. A seriously bad one. But that doesn't mean you're a dangerous beast. It means you're human. What matters is what you do now, not what people whisper about you."
For a long moment, Inosuke just stared, lips pressed tight. Then, slowly, something shifted in his expression. His shoulders loosened. His jaw set with resolve.
"…I'm tired of running," his voice shook, but his eyes burned with newfound fire. "When I was younger, I dreamed of being like the heroes I idolized. I want to be a hero.. like you. Like All Might. I want to stand tall. To… to be a great hero, no matter what anyone says."
He inhaled sharply, as if summoning every shred of courage left in him. "So… help me. Help me turn myself in. If I'm going to be a real hero, I have to face what I did first. Even if it scares me."
Damian blinked, surprised at how quickly the boy's spirit had steeled and how he had not stuttered once while professing his goal. Then a smile tugged at the corner of his lips. Not his usual smirk, but something softer. Warmer.
"Now that's sounds more like it," he said, rising to his feet and extending a hand. "Alright, Inosuke. Let's do this the right way. Together."
Inosuke stared at the offered hand for a beat, then grasped it firmly. The rays of early morning reflected in his eyes, no longer full of fear, but of a dream reignited and the determination that refused to let go.
Interrupting the touching moment, a teasing voice spoke in Damian's mind. [Is it because this world was an anime? The talk no jutsu is lethal here.]
'And the moment's ruined,' said Damian. 'There's no such thing as a talk no jutsu in real life. Just desperate people that needed a nudge in the right way. Someone to tell them that it's not too late to change. Of course this only works if the person is predisposed to do the quote on quote right thing.'
…
After helping Inosuke turn himself in with the local police, Damian decided to finally check his new apartment out as there was still time before the exam took place, so he took out the Link Card given by Kaleodor. Thankfully, as the man had said, the device was fairly intuitive to navigate so he rapidly scrolled through the tutorial before finding his new address.
Funnily enough, he also found his new temporal identity for his enrollment at U.A. Same name, his supposed japanese mother passed away giving birth to him and his father was a U.S soldier stationed in Okinawa where their fictitious parents met. Said father tragically died during an incident with a villain attack.
'After my father's sacrifice a month ago japanese government officers visited me, asking me to stay as a japanese citizen and in exchange I'd get to enroll in U.A. High. How fucking noble of them,' he thought in jest.
It was obvious the japanese government wanted him to stay as he was a valuable asset. As Kaleodor wrote following his instructions, he was registered as having a fairly powerful quirk, which wasn't a lie. So, before the U.S noticed, they snatched him right up by making use of his 'longing' for his parents, convincing him to stay where they met and where he was raised.
Checking the apartment out, Damian thought it was decent enough for a lone teenager to live in. He had lived in both worse and better places, so he was satisfied as long as his basic needs could be met. The only place he could call home anyways was a universe away.
…
As he flew to the entrance examination, now showered and in a different get up, flying high enough to not be bothered by any noisy heroes this time. He was multitasking, using technokinesis to the full extent of his current capabilities.
[Ugh, how can teenagers be so vicious for no reason,] said Eva as they both looked at the footage gathered from the smartphones of Kitagawa and his goons inside Damian's mindscape.
'You'd be surprised at how evil humans can get when they are being watched by their peers,' spoke Damian with coldness in his tone.
Making good on his promise to help Inosuke as much as he could from his side, he used his technokinesis to hack into the phones of his bullies to see if he could find any incriminatory evidence, which of course he found as these stupid teenagers thought it was funny to film their acts of mindless harassment and violence.
Making copies of all the videos and with access to their phones thanks to Inosuke giving out one of his bullies e-mail addresses, Damian quickly cracked down on their social, noting in mild surprise that they didn't have any measure of protection, no 2 step verification, back up e-mails, barebones security, if it could even be called that. Mind you, it wouldn't have stopped Damian, but at least they might have been notified that their accounts have been logged in from a different location.
Shrugging off their stupidity, Damian collected any chat messages mentioning their acts of harassment towards other classmates. What surprised Damian and irked him profoundly was that, like Inosuke said, they harassed and bullied almost half of their classmates and other underclassmen, Damian even saw Kitagawa textually said in a group chat that 'he could do absolutely anything and nothing would happen to him, that he was untouchable thanks to his father.'
Smiling coldly at the arrogance of the vegetal, Damian lost any possible pity he might have had for the comatose teen. Creating a website to put up all the crimes that the teenagers have done over the years, Damian neatly arranged everything to be interactive and easy to navigate through.
This only took 5 minutes of his time, which were enough for him to get close enough to U.A. to have to get on foot in a close by alley as he knew the director did not play any games when it came to the security of the school.
Cracking his neck as he unbuttoned his uniform jacket, as he was wearing a generic high school uniform, Damian walked leisurely to the fairly big entrance gate. 'Well, let's make a back-up of the page in case I need to reupload everything and let's get to business.'
[Want me to make one for his dad too?] Asked Eva, though she started to dig information before even asking.
'I'll leave it to you. I can only imagine how putrid the father must be solely watching his child's behaviour.'
As he walked into the gate, he saw Midoriya being ignored by his little boyfriend before being helped by a cute girl with two long bangs framing her face as he then proceeded to fumble horribly, not being able to mutter a single word to her.
As she walked away, he walked to the moss-haired youth with a stupid expression on his face and gave him a firm palm to his higher back, making him stumble.
"Get yourself together, Moss-head. What are you gonna do if when you have to save an attractive woman if you freeze like that,' said Damian without stopping.
"E-Eh, Damian-kun? Wa-Wait for me!" Said Midoriya as he tried to catch up to Damian.
…
"For all you examinee listeners tuning in, welcome to my show today!"
"Everybody say hey!"
As he looked at a blonde man obnoxiously screaming while rocking a hairstyle that defied gravity, Damian was seriously reconsidering if he could learn anything useful from this institution.
Still, he did his best to stay put and ignore the over-the-top antics of everyone in this place. Instead, he focused on helping Eva find more useful dirt on Kitagawa's parent, but the search proved more difficult than expected, as his technokinesis was not even at 30% of its max potential and unlike his stupid son, the father was a seasoned politician and knew how to hide his information a bit better.
'Look's like it will take some time to get to him,' commented Damian.
[No biggie, at most it will take longer. Unless he has ties with top notch support companies or underground genius inventors, he can't escape us,] said Eva reassuringly.
…
After the introduction of the 10 minute mock battle test was over, everybody was allowed to change into more comfortable clothing to be able to move around more freely. The metal gate loomed tall and imposing as Damian walked in a relaxed manner, looking almost oblivious to the buzz of anticipation and nervousness the group of aspiring heroes were immersed in.
Following instructions, he had changed outfits, ditching the school uniform for a black compression shirt and loose white sweats and all black running shoes. Some might say he was cosplaying a certain dead-beat dad, though he'd rebuke he looked ten times better and was no dead-beat father.
Looking at everybody around him, Midoriya had a nervous expression as he muttered. "Mock… Battles…"
His eyes darted around anxiously as he walked robotically, that's when he saw the nice and helpful girl he met at the entrance and he decided to go up and thank her for her earlier help, that's when he was suddenly stopped by a hand on his shoulder.
Looking back, he saw a taller guy with glasses and a serious expression. The guy looked at Midoriya and then at Uraraka, speaking in a tone as dead serious as his gaze. "That girl appears to be trying to focus. What are you doing here? Are you taking the entrance exam to interfere with everyone else?"
Hearing him, Midoriya tried to explain himself, yet all it came out was an "O-Of course, n-not!" among stutters.
And as others took notice of him, everyone started to murmur something about being lucky he was taking the same entrance exam.
Then a firm slap cracked against his back.
"Gah!" Midoriya nearly stumbled forward, wincing as his whole body rattled. Spinning, he found Damian standing behind him, casual as ever.
"What's with the long face, Midoriya? Giving up already? I thought you wanted to be a hero." Damian's words carried no softness in spite of the smirk on his face, yet there was something sharp and grounding in the way he said it, like a command meant to drag him back into the moment.
"I-I wasn't! I mean-" Midoriya stammered, cheeks flushing as he tried to explain himself.
Not waiting for any explanation, Damian turned to the bespectacled guy with exhaust pipes in his calves, the smile on his face gone.
"Hey," his voice was calm, but there was a knife-edge beneath it. "I know you speak with no ill intentions, but can you have some fucking tact?"
The blunt curse cracked the air, silencing a handful of whispers at once. Iida blinked, flustered, caught completely off-guard.
"Who the fuck asks someone if they're taking the hero exam just to be a nuisance?" Damian stepped closer, his gaze unwavering, his words delivered like precise strikes. "What type of hero are you supposed to be if you can't even think before opening your mouth?"
Iida stiffened, his hand twitching at his side as if ready to argue, yet no words came out. The rebuke hung heavy in the air, and even the muttering students quieted, eyes darting between Damian and the rigid boy.
Before tension could rise further, a booming, electrified voice cut through all of it.
"OKAY, START!" Present Mic's shout blasted from the speakers, his enthusiasm rattling the very gates.
The massive doors clanged as they began to rise, sunlight spilling through onto the sprawling mock city beyond.
Damian smirked, rolling his shoulders as he glanced at Midoriya. "There's your chance, kid. Time to prove them wrong."
Midoriya swallowed hard, fists clenching at his sides—but in his eyes, for the first time that morning, a spark of resolve flickered.
And then the gates fully opened.
The horde of aspiring heroes surged forward like a wave of determination and adrenaline.
Without saying more, Damian grabbed Midoriya by his collar as he took to the skies, leaving everybody in the dust. For a second, everybody looked stupified at seeing a peer fly before rapidly recovering and taking off again.
Looking at the far away ground, Midoriya looked like a nervous mess, making Damian doubt if he had vertigo on top of all his pre-existing issues too.
Speaking in a confident tone, Damian said to Midoriya: "Calm down, kid. You're not gonna fall," while lowering himself closer to the ground, now close to the heart of the fake town in a place surrounded by robots. "Time to prove you are more than empty words, Midoriya."
As the green haired boy looked around anxiously, a muttering mess while trying to ascertain the best course of action, Damian clicked his tongue as he decided to help him out a little.
Slapping the boy on the back of his hair just enough for the pain to pull him out of his thoughts, Damian spoke calmly. "I told you already, calm down. A hero needs to stay focused at all times. In the real world, one mistake is all it takes for you or an innocent civilian to pay the consequences," as he spoke, he raised his palm towards one of the robots closing in and less than a second after a construct akin to a spike made out of earth appeared in his hand as he compressed the air around his hand, making the spike spin faster by the second.
Releasing the spike, it shot with the speed of a bullet, piercing a robot in a zone deemed a core component of the robot's structure by his technokinesis.
"See? The robots are no big deal, you just have to charge in and trust in what All Might gave you."
Listening to Damian's words, Midoriya managed to calm down somehow. Now, he actually started to analyze the best way to hit the robots in order to take them down.
Seeing him finally start to act properly, Damian couldn't help but smile like a proud uncle. "Last bit of advice. Don't use your quirk recklessly, if you try to use the strength of All Might's 'smash' you'll probably tear all your muscle fibers. So try to use just enough to break down the robots. Don't worry, I'll give you a hand, just this time," said Damian before taking to the skies again, not without destroying half of the robots surrounding them by either slashing them with wind scythes or making big spikes grow from the ground to impale the robots.
As for the other half, he used his technokinesis to mess with the robot's programs, not enough to make them useless, but just enough to make them sluggish and slow to respond.
Now high in the air as the second minute went by, he analyzed the ground with the help of his enhanced spatial perception. Sniping robots from high up while keeping an eye on Midoriya.
Sometimes he would shamelessly kill a robot others were about to attack, then he would help struggling contestants to escape or reposition when they chewed more than they could swallow. He racked up points in the following minutes without almost moving, trying out different applications of his spell-casting.
Seeing Midoriya take his advice to heart and try to hold back as much as possible, Damian couldn't help but smile. Though he was still hurting himself, he did not cripple himself after a single use of OFA. 'Mm. I know he barely qualified to contain OFA the day of the exam, but All Might could've at least told him how to fucking use his quirk, for fucks sake.'
Damian sighed while looking at the still reckless use of OFA in the hands of Midoriya, who had racked up 29 points or so at the cost of his left fingers and right hand.
Curiously, he noted that he unknowingly made his way to the same area where Uraraka and Iida were fighting.
[Destiny, huh?] Commented Eva off-handedly.
Damian fell silent at her words, somberly observing how fate seemed to twist things back in place. Maybe they were being paranoid, but he kept this occurrence in the back of his mind as he kept blasting robots while also thinking what a waste of resources this test was. Probably costing the institution millions of dollars each year.
While he leisurely thought about a multitude of things as he slowed down, thinking he probably had more than enough to come in first place, inside a chamber with multiple live camera feeds on a different side of the school there were teachers discussing the performance of the examinees on the ground.
"Doesn't this year's group look promising?" Asked one of the professors.
"Well, we can't know for sure yet," responded another professor as he pressed a big red button on the console in front of them. "Their true test is still to come."
As a beep sound came off the console while simultaneously a group of giant and imposing, green colored robots were released on the fake town.
'Mm, the anime really couldn't do justice to how imposing it is to see real mechas taller than office buildings. These things gotta be at least 25 to 30 metres tall,' mused Damian as he watched with surprise the same situation repeat just like in the show.
Then, he saw Midoriya scared witless as everybody ran away before he saw Uraraka trapped in the rubble. Which made him wonder why didn't she use her quirk to liberate her leg instead of staying there doing nothing like a damsel in distress, chuckling it up to her inexperience or simply destiny's designs.
Seeing Midoriya's body move in spite of his fear, Damian had to admit that even if he was an insufferable wuss when not in hero mode, his attitude in the face of adversity was one worthy of respect.
Then, he used his magic to decelerate his fall, letting the scene of Uraraka saving him repeat itself like in the show while being ready to intervene should anything go wrong.
Thankfully that went just as he remembered, and after Present Mic enunciated the end of the test, Recovery Girl made her way to Midoriya, who hadn't passed out this time as he had more than enough points to pass. Though her healing of his injuries at the cost of his own stamina made him pass out anyways.
For the rest, it all went more or less as he remembered. The written exam was easy enough–if a bit basic–as he had revised the required knowledge in his apartment before coming, it mostly revolved around general studies and basic hero protocols in a multiple choice style. He wouldn't get a perfect score, but he only cared about passing, as this exam result would only be important if he wanted to enter the support or business courses.
…
A week had gone by, this time with no anxiety and defeatism in Midoriya's part as he had done plenty enough to pass in second place if he received the same amount of points for rescuing Uraraka as he did in the show, only behind Damian as he had scored 90 points off of destroying robots alone by his calculation.
This might seem like overkill or selfish towards the other students, but from his high vantage point he saw there was a quarter of the fake town that was untouched by other students, and even then there were still plenty of robots left.
As he mused about the test, he was teaching Midoriya how to go 'full-cowling' mode by way of beating the daylights out of the poor boy. Though he had not taught him any 3D movement as he couldn't really replicate that effect with physical strength alone, the moss-haired boy was already integrating some three-dimensionality to his moves by instinct after the fourth day, it seemed he really had that dawg in him, it was just buried beneath layers of anxiety and social awkwardness, product of years of bullying and self-doubt, just like Watanabe.
Interrupting his thoughts, the alarm on his phone went off, signaling the end of today's sparring session.
*Huff* *Huff* "Haa… haa…" As he picked his jacket up, Damian looked at Midoriya panting on the ground, his lungs heaving yet his eyes remained determined and focused.
"Good job, kid. Now you can fight for a couple minutes without crippling yourself," said Damian while looking at his phone, muttering. "I just ordered you a cab, I just found out y'all have your own version of Uber here, that's handy."
While he did not know what Uber was, Midoriya assumed it was a westerner thing, yet he still understood the first part. Getting up, he spoke to Damian. "There's no need for that, Damian-san. I can walk-"
But he was cut off by Damian before he could reject his help in that annoying polite-japanese-man style. "I told you to just call me Damian, I don't like the honorifics. Also, too bad, I already paid so you better get up and wait for the cab," then, without waiting for a response, he turned around and started to walk away towards the closest alleyway to teleport to his apartment.
[Is this what they call a tsundere?] Said Eva teasingly in his head.
'Kill yourself,' he answered as she laughed at him.
…
As the morning rays of the April hit his face, Damian yawned while making his way towards U.A. High, today was the first day of classes for the hero course yet he had spent another night exploring and marking every part of Japan, doing some vigilante work here and there as part of his training too.
Although he has made sure to not be filmed, much less recognized, there had started to be rumors in some hero dedicated forums about a nameless vigilante hero patrolling the streets of Japan. Appearing in different regions each night as well as another cyber-vigilante, an untraceable ghost that unmasked the dirty deeds of politicians and the wealthy across Japan.
As he crossed the gates of U.A., Damian felt satisfied looking at his self-made status sheet, this time better adjusted as he had acquired much more data to compare his stats, as opposed to when he first created said status sheet months ago.
————————————————————————————
— STATUS —
————————————————————————————
Name: Damian Rossi
Age: 17 → 18 years old
Race: Homo superior
Threat Level: Undefinable → City Level (Subject to change depending on the environmental conditions)
————————————————————————————
— BASE STATS —
————————————————————————————
*(Current iteration doesn't account for external alterations-The rough average score for a human ranges between C-/D+/D) → [Currently the scales don't include any active enhancers–The average score for humans ranges from E- to D- (after data corrections, C being above a top 10% human in the respective category and B being an a top 1% human. A- represents the upper limits for human beings with no artificial enhancements like super soldier serums or the Hercules Method, etc. From here on, each minor increase in category represents an exponential increase in the respective category)]:
*The original score is corrected after a single arrow "→" and the updated score follows after two arrows "→ →":
STR: C → E- → → A
DEX: C+ → E- → → A
DEF: C- → F+ → → A
VIT: C+ → E → → A+
INT: A- → C → → S
WIS: A → C+ → → B+
WIL: A → C+ → → A
————————————————————————————
— PROFICIENCIES—
————————————————————————————
*(Iteration accounts for mastery independent of race or age. Not enough data to determine the average for humans. Scores based on vague estimates) → [Iteration accounts for mastery over the category irrespective of other factors. For Mystical Arts E- to D- equates to a novice, D to C equates to a disciple, C+ to B+ equates to the average master, A- to A equates to a Sorcerer Supreme candidate, A+ to S to a Sorcerer Supreme and S+ and beyond equates to an elder god (Though from A+ and beyond are mere estimates as there is not enough data). For Martial Arts the categories follow a similar structure, though A and above go beyond conventional martial arts, entering the category of cultivation arts. For mutant abilities, the classification follows a similar pattern]:
Mystical Arts: - → C+
Martial Arts: - → A-
Technokinesis: - → B
Telekinesis: F* → -
➡…(Click to expand)