Chapter 6: Notoriety

Katsuki Bakugo was standing before a massive set of doors, and gathered all around him was a crowd of maybe 30 or 40 people. Right now Bakugo was about to take the practical entrance exam for UA High School. He, just like everyone here, and at the other exam locations, had been briefed on what they had to do. It was simple, when they entered their city arena, they just had to destroy as many fake villains as they could before time ran out.

Bakugo was actually excited to be here, because today he could let loose and prove himself. He had lived his whole life being told that his quirk was dangerous, and that he had to restrict his use of it in public. But today he would get the chance to blow everyone away, and show all these

lame side characters how truly awesome he was. He smashed his two fists together and produced an explosion upon their collision, this was going to be the beginning of his heroic legend.

"AAAAAANNDD BEGIN!" shouted the eccentric voice of Present Mic, signaling the beginning of the trial.

As soon as the signal was given, Bakugo wasted no time in moving with his legs, and instead he shot himself forward using his quirk. He sped across the streets of the fake city, ahead of every other contender, the popping sound of explosions went off directly behind him as he did so. After he had gone a fair distance down the main street without any encounters, he pointed his palms downward, and used his quirk to launch himself higher into the air, and then he pointed them to his right, which spun him to face his left.

As he rounded a corner, he noticed something green down on the ground, it was a fake villain shaped almost like a scorpion, it was a 2 pointer. Bakugo smirked to himself, as he prepared to smash this piece of junk with an explosive right hook. But as was about to blow it into bits, he hesitated for a second, as something about the robot made him freeze up. But as soon as he realized that this was happening, he steeled himself once again and smashed his fist into the bot.

Only he didn't make contact with the fake villain, but instead he slammed his fist into the ground, and left behind a human sized scorch mark, but failed to do any damage to the bot. He looked up and saw that the 2 pointer raised it's tail preparing to strike him down, but before it could do so, Bakugo pointed both palms towards the metal combatant and let loose a powerful blast, taking the thing down.

Despite this triumph there was no satisfaction in his expression, only anger, and confusion. Why had he hesitated to take down the robot, what was going on with him?

Bakugo shoved all thoughts of his shortcoming aside and blasted himself back into the air to look for more opponents to destroy before time ran out. After he got back up in the air he quickly spotted a cluster of 1 pointers gathered on the street below him. Bakugo moved through the air until he was positioned directly above the fake villains, he spun around in the air once and dropped down on them like an explosive comet. But the bots were not the only thing that were blown back by Katsuki's quirk.

"HEY! What the hell man!" Shouted the voice of a kid whose skin shone like steel. "I totally had those bots!"

"Huh, what the hell are yapping off about, tin man?!" Katsuki retorted. "Why don't you get lost and find your own damn targets?!"

Apparently the steel kid had engaged the bots as soon as Bakugo attacked, and he had gotten blown back by his explosion. The two gazed angrily at each other before they both turned away in opposite directions, and ran off in search of more points. Katsuki was getting angry, angrier than usual, things weren't going well and he knew that he had to step up his game before time ran out.

Rounding a corner of the fake city, Bakugo then set his eyes on what appeared to be the jackpot of fake villains. Like a cornucopia, a large group of 1 pointers, pointers, and even a few 3s, all gathered around a one person ready to attack.

He smiled to himself, if he destroyed all these bots, he would be able to rack enough points to get a passing score, and still have the time to find more and set a school record. With thunderous fury he dashed through the air to annihilate the horde of bots, but before he got within range, a storm of yellow lightning bolts exploded out from the person in the center of the horde. The bots themselves weren't destroyed, but the red lights that acted as their eyes had gone dark, indicating that they had been defeated.

When Bakugo maneuvered himself above the deactivated robot swarm, he didn't see the badass hero aspirant whom he'd expect an attack like this to come from, but rather he saw a bumbling yellow haired idiot, with snot running from his nose.

"ARE FREAKING KIDDING ME!" Bakugo shouted. After having points stolen from by some buffoon, he was officially pissed.

About two minutes had passed since Bakugo had gotten robbed by the electric idiot, and he had now found a new stomping ground, full of bots to destroy. He was standing in the middle of a fake street, and there was a large number of all kinds of robots, he wasn't the only person there either. The whole street was a battlefield full of people the same age as Bakugo all competing with each other for the chance to be accepted into UA High School.

As the kids aggressively worked to destroy their artificial foes, Katsuki too had been using his quirk to gain points in the practical exam. By now he had destroyed over a dozen bots, and was sweating hard, but things still were not going well by his standards. While was more than capable of defeating these bots, it had become clear to him that for some reason he was not in his element when he was fighting against the green robots.

He didn't know what was exactly wrong with him, but each and every time he saw an enemy move towards him he just froze up. It was like he was somehow afraid of these scrap heaps, or maybe he was just startled, or maybe it was something that he had eaten. He had made sure to eat a healthy breakfast this morning, but he tried to think back to this morning and wondered if there was something wrong with the eggs he'd eaten.

Just as he blew apart the chassis of a 1 pointer he felt something hit him in the lower back, it didn't hit him hard, but he felt something nonetheless, as he turned to see what it was, he saw a purple fist-sized ball stuck to his black tank top. Annoyed, he tried to pull it off of his clothes but as soon as he made contact with it he found that his left hand too, was now stuck to the sticky object.

"What the hell?!" Bakugo shouted in annoyed surprise.

"Ugh! You got in my way!" shouted a frustrated voice.

Bakugo looked behind him and saw the one responsible for throwing the sticky purple object. It appeared to be some midget with those same sticky balls resting on his head in a mohawk-like fashion.

"I got in your way?!" Bakugo screamed. "You're the one who's in my way, you little creep!"

Bakugo was about to teach the little punk a lesson, when all of the sudden a massive rumbling in the ground was felt, and the eastern section of the fake city began to crumble. Every single person there, including Bakugo, halted their fighting and turned their attention to the source of the destruction.

It was terrifying, eight glowing red eyes, metal hands crushing entire buildings, and a green chassis that stretched dozens of meters high, it was a 0 pointer. A few people screamed in its wake, and everyone had a look of fear plastered onto their faces. Bakugo tried to propel himself upwards with his quirk, whether he did so to fight or flee, he wasn't sure himself, the fear of the situation clouded his judgement.

But his attempt was in vain, and he only ended up falling down, and hurting his back and hand, which were still stuck to the purple ball. He forced his body back up with his free hand, he looked back up at the 0 pointer, as people ran past him fleeing for safety. When his gaze met those eight mechanical eyes that were built into the rectangular face of the mechanical monstrosity, he was suddenly overcome with an intense, paralyzing terror that he hadn't felt for months, not since that day, when Izuku was kidnapped.

When he finally regained control of his limbs, he managed to get himself up, and he turned himself around and ran. Just like a victim, like a person who needed saving, he ran for his life.

After the exam…

41 points! 41 stupid points! That was all Bakugo had managed to score during the whole stupid exam.

Of course 41 was by no means a bad score, and in fact it was actually a passing score, however 41 was nothing close to the record score that Bakugo had aimed to set. In fact, he didn't even make it into the top 10. But the thing that annoyed him more than his score, was the fact that he ran away like a coward, he ran like he was some scared child, and now he would be roped in and associated with all those useless extras.

He punched a wall in frustration. He had to get over this strange sense of fear, and he had to outshine everyone.

Somewhere in Mustafu…

It had been almost a year since the murder of Glintfist, and "Deku" had now become a pretty well known name, to both the public, and the underworld. Right now, Deku was back in his hometown of Mustafu for the first time since his debut as a villain, he had only arrived from Kamino last week, and he was now spending the night in an illicit apartment building of the rougher side of town. The reason he was back here was that he had plans to kill another hero, specifically the pro hero "Death Arms", whom he had been stalking for the last several days.

His plan was that in two days, he would find a way to isolate Death Arms from his team at night, and engage him at a specific construction site he had in mind. He wanted to lure him down to the basement of the construction project in order to keep his teammate, Mt. Lady out, and to set fire to the incomplete building to compromise it's structural integrity, to keep the heroes Backdraft, and Kamui Woods occupied. And while all the chaos happened, Deku would be able to duel Death Arms underground, in a situation where the amount of strength he could fight with would be limited, what with the unstable environment overhead. The only major concern however would be how he would prevent any other heros from showing up, as that would spoil the entire plan for sure.

Since his first fight with Glintfist all those months ago, Deku had continued to pick fights with heroes, each fight provided him with valuable lessons. One of those lessons, one he had learned the hard way, was to stay on the move, and pay close attention to external factors. When Deku had successfully killed his first hero, he had immediately made the error of taking his beginners' luck for granted, and becoming dangerously arrogant, it was a common mistake among newer villains that often ended in arrest, or deathh.

One week after that first victory he had then decided to go after the pro hero "Bluerail", a hero in the same city who had the power to elongate her noodle-like limbs up to 7 meters. Even though he evaded arrest, he had still lost that fight because he had failed to be fully aware of the surroundings of the junkyard they fought at, and his foe's ability to make use of it. Another week after that, he failed once again against "Ultra Eggshell" when he failed to anticipate the proximity of other heroes, who had come to back him up, forcing Deku into retreat. And after three attacks in the same city, he had become predictable, and was almost apprehended by a whole strike force of heroes and police.

So far in his career he had successfully killed six pro heroes, and had suffered an equal six failed attempts. But whether he won or lost it didn't truly matter in the long run, because so long as he still remained free, he could always learn from past mistakes and come back stronger.

But heroes were not his only targets, as he still world to hone his combat skills by picking fights with minor crooks, and villains like "Alpha Wolf", who had fought with the unpredictability of a vicious animal, and "The Burlap Crow" who was basically immune to knives, forcing Deku to burn him alive. He had even undergone a couple minor robberies to obtain some quick cash. He had also become more well acquainted with the likeness of Japan's underworld, and had learned skills like basic lockpicking and how to scale buildings.

Whenever he heard his moniker mentioned on the news, in the headline of an article, or on the top of a wanted poster, it always filled him with satisfaction. To tell the truth he didn't actually care about what his name was, because as long as the name stirred up fear, and could be associated with a monster it served its purpose. Hell, he could call himself "Evil Boy" and as long as it carried that monstrous association, it would be a good name.

But the reason he had chosen "Deku" was a personal one. For basically his whole life, that name had been used to torment him, and he was always called that when he was pushed to the ground, and was reminded of his powerlessness. And so he associated it with that pain, and his own weakness, and it reminded himself of what he sought to overcome. But it wasn't just for memories of pain that he had chosen the alias.

The last time he had been called "Deku" by his tormentors was on the same day he had been kidnapped, and his life had changed forever. It was the day he had finally fought back, and saw terror in the eyes of those who made his life hell. Of all the memories that moniker brought back, that one was the most prominent, the one he reveled in the most.

Deku's schmeing was interrupted as something buzzed in his pocket, and with a badly scarred hand he pulled out a cell phone. It had a plain black case, and according to Giran whom he acquired it from, it was completely untraceable. He had set the phone to give him an alert whenever one of the major news sites published a story about him, and sure enough this was what that alert was about. Only instead of seeing an article about a kill of his, or a speculation on his true identity, what he saw on the phone almost caused him to crack the screen in anger.

"Who the hell does this person think they are?! He yelled, probably waking the people in the adjacent apartments.

He wasn't sure if this was a challenge, or a threat Deku wasn't sure, but whoever they were, Death Arms could wait. Deku leaped up from his seat and grabbed his mask and readied to depart.

Whoever this person who dared insult him like this was, they would pay in blood.

Meanwhile in Kamino…

Tomura Shigaraki was seated on a red barstool, and carefully open in his hands was a two week old newspaper.

"Tch, I don't understand Kurogiri, what am I missing" Shigaraki muttered in his raspy tone.

"What do mean Tomura? Kurogiri responded in the same nurturing voice that he always used. "Is the Nomu not to your liking?"

"Nomu is perfect, but every grunt in our ranks is just a no-name wannabe" the grey haired villain responded. "What we need is someone who has a name."

"Do you have someone in mind, shall I fetch them for you?" Kurogiri politely inquired.

Frustrated, Shigaraki kept glancing through the newspaper looking for a potential recruit. As he reached the final page, he finally saw a candidate with promise. Shigaraki reduced the paper into a small pile of ash, having served its purpose, it no longer had any use to him.

"Yes, I do." the villain said, as a wicked smile formed beneath the severed hand resting on his face.