Izuku in Black

by DarkenRaichu

Quirkless can't be Heroes. But All Might isn't going to end the sentence there. He knows there is something Quirkless people excel at, something that will save people. Izuku, on the other hand, really didn't expect to find out Aliens are real, get recruited by a mysterious agency, and get partnered up with another young agent. But if this can save people, he will do it.

14. HASC Trainees Civil Warfare

Ah, here we are. Sorry for the delay folks, this was one hell of a week.

(XX)

Lunch proved a complex affair. The HASC cafeteria was utterly packed with Trainees, and the line for the food was quite long. Thankfully, Izuku had finished his morning examinations quickly, so he had arrived early enough to get everything he wanted to eat. And he did need it, considering the earlier test.

More people were trailing in. Izuku watched a young Seroshia, his insectoid appearance making him easy to identify, sit next to a tall blue-haired girl covered with a red exoskeleton and sporting ten arms, each ending into two large black fingers… no, those were pincers. The crustacean-looking girl ordered a ton of shrimp, Izuku realized, watching her for a few moments as she ate a whole bowl of the crustaceans.

"You shouldn't stare." A tired voice said, and Izuku instinctively gasped, Komori sitting down in the open seat in front of him while he recovered, a wry smile on her face. Her tray contained a few pieces of meat and bread, that Izuku found appetizing for all of one second before he noticed the mold and fungi that were rapidly spreading on Komori's food. "People will think you are creeping on some alien girl." She continued.

"S-Sorry…"

"I mean, it's fine, just don't do it again." She replied with a chuckle that turned into a yawn mid-way through, "Ugh, it's midday, I'm so tired…" She whined, leaning on the table and tiredly eating more food, munching on fungi, mold and meat alike.

"Must be hard to never sleep."

"Midoriya, remind me again what I said about not knowing what that's like…"

"Right, sorry."

She chuckled, but then she went silent for a bit. "So, how is it going?"

"I was in the middle of my group for most tests in the physicals." Midoriya replied, "Though I might have gotten first at the Obstacle Course… Or botched it horribly." He gulped, "I really hope it's the former."

"What did you do?"

Izuku sighed and told her everything. Komori stared at him – or he assumed she stared at him, it wasn't exactly easy to tell with her hair drooping over her eyes completely – and then started to laugh. "Oh my god, I can't believe you did that!"

"It made sense!"

"Midoriya… Yeah, it made sense, but I would have never even thought of that! Oh my gosh… Please tell me if you get first place, I need to know." She kept giggling for a little while, Izuku turning bright red, then she yawned, leaning forward on the table, "I like it though." She said, munching on her last bread, "It's ballsy and unexpected. I bet you were right."

Izuku sighed, "I hope so. How are you doing, by the way?"

"Bored and tired, of course."

"You shouldn't be bored by this!" A voice declared loudly, as Shishikura sat down next to Izuku, "This is an excellent exam so far, truly worthy of the institution we aspire to be part of. Why, far better than the last exam."

"You are just salty because the last physical exam was just a series of one hundred pushups and a quirkless marathon, and you dropped out at the thirtieth kilometer." Haya replied, sitting next to Komori.

"Thirty-second and a few hundred meters, thank you." Shishikura grumbled, a novelty as far as the older teen's emotions went. Izuku was fairly sure he had never seen the teen embarrassed before.

"Why would they do a marathon for the physical?" He asked instead, "This exam was well planned, seems odd to replace it."

Haya shrugged, "Well, the physical mostly to figure out if we are healthy, how well we are doing, and how well we adapt to different forms of physical exertion. This time they let us use our Quirks, but we have to be adaptable. They always mix it around, maybe next time it will be a Quirkless test, or it will allow Quirks and powers again."

"Right." Izuku nodded, "Well, I should be happy with being in the middle of the pack, I suppose."

"Yeah, you should. Remember, everyone here has been training hard for their spot. Middle of the group for someone that has just started training a few months ago means you put a lot of effort in it." Shishikura said, nodding amicably.

Izuku blushed, an Haya grinned. "So, did you tell Hatsume and Hado how you are doing?"

"Not yet, Hado said she wants to hear everything at once when I'm done, and Hatsume is 'building something important'."

"Should Midoriya even tell Hatsume?" Shishikura asked, "She might be the heir of Hatsume Steelworks, but she is still not part of the HASC."

"I mean, it's not like it's anything classified." Haya replied, shrugging, "Since she already knows about the HASC, telling her about some training isn't much of a problem. Now, Midoriya better not go tell her about anything important…"

"I know. Hatsume only hears what I am sure I can tell her." Izuku replied. He hadn't even told her about his latest mission except that it took place in Tottori. Well, that and he had answered the question of 'did you see any interesting weapon?' with a no, which resulted in Hatsume pretty much deciding the whole mission had to be boring anyway.

Typical Hatsume really.

"Good, good." Shishikura nodded, "While having relationships outside of work is fine, it wouldn't do to forget what we can and can't talk about."

"I-It's not a relationships!" Izuku shouted, jumping up, drawing several eyes towards him. He looked around to see many, many people staring, and immediately dove right back into his seat.

"It's not?" Shishikura looked genuinely confused, "I was under the impression you were friends."

Izuku blushed furiously realizing that was what Shishikura meant, while Haya did her best to hold back a laugh. Komori didn't, though she did look amused. Izuku sighed, "Yeah, we are friends. You knew he would say that, right Haya?"

"Eh, I guessed Shishikura was going to do something like that." She shrugged, "But hey, you are a bit more relaxed now, right?"

Izuku blinked. He was, actually. He had been thinking about the exam, but that had been a good distraction. "Thank you, Haya."

"No problem, I can embarrass you as many time as you want." Haya replied with a grin.

Izuku was sure she meant it.

-x-

After lunch, Izuku reunited with his group, Uraraka and a few others welcoming him back, while Kitamura glared daggers at him and a few others weren't that far behind in hostility, chief among those Kanamoto.

"Alright." The woman that came forward was none other than Chief Konoe. The woman looked at them. "You twenty are with me, move it."

"Yes ma'am!" Izuku said, along with the others, as they followed Chief Konoe toward another room. Izuku had no idea what to expect.

He definitely didn't expect to step into a city. He looked back at the door, then back forward at the set of large buildings and paved streets. Only when he looked up at the sky he realized they weren't outside, but inside a gigantic room. Similarly to him, the others were staring, eyes wide.

"First time stepping in the Simulation Room?" Chief Konoe asked, "Not that surprising, they are expensive to run, so even the Central Office only has three."

"Why is it expansive?" Izuku asked, "I-I mean, besides building them…"

"Everything inside this room is actually a hard-light simulation. It's some super-expansive technology we got years ago, and we can't replicate it yet. But it means that we can set-up anything we want in this room. A forest, a sea bank… The room's hard-light projector will replicate both the appearance and the consistency of any object they represent. Plus, building a five square kilometers large bunker in secret isn't easy, let alone several."

"That sounds like magic." Kitamura pointed out. Izuku couldn't help but agree.

"Some of you use hard-light weaponry. If it can make a sword or a spear, why can't it make a building or a fake tree?" She shrugged, "If you manage to become full-fledged Agents, you will see a lot of stuff that looks like magic but is just advanced technology, centuries beyond what we can make. You better get used to this."

It was clear several of them wanted to ask more questions, but the chief just looked at them. That was when Izuku noticed her right eye. It looked real, identical to the left one, but there was a small light in the back, a shining red dot like the pointer of a laser beam that lighted up when she was studying them, only noticeable due to the lower lighting of the room. The chief didn't show she had noticed, and instead pointed at the Simulation Room.

"This is the area where we will hold the combat exercise. The set-up is that ten of you have gone rogue and the other ten are here to capture you before you sell a cargo of weapons off to the best bidder. Unknown to the rogue Agents, a tracker was placed on the cargo, and the other Agents can follow it to find them. The ten that form the selling crew are allowed half an hour to hide the merchandise somewhere in the city and prepare to defend it. The ten that are hunting them down must capture all defectors and recover the merchandise in the following hour. Any questions?" A forest of hands shot up in the air, and she sighed. "Alright. You."

Izuku nodded "Uhm, I was wondering, what is the main objective in the time limit? Are we supposed to prioritize recovering the weapons or capturing them? Am I right it's the latter?"

"Yes. We can always recover the weapons later, but an Agent going rogue can cause far more damage. We know that by experience. On the other hand, for the 'rogues', the main objective is keeping the merchandise safe. Any other questions?"

"What about our weapons?" Kitamura asked.

"They have already been prepared according to your requests. We switched out lethal charges with non-lethal equivalents, but people hit with those will be expected to act as if they have been removed from the exercise. We will inform you of that."

"How are we expected to coordinate?" Kanamoto asked.

"You will be given communicators for the duration of the exercise, the two sides using different frequencies, and the attackers will have trackers to follow each other and the weapons. A digital map connected to them was sent to your phones." She shrugged, "We will also use those communicators to inform you on whether you are out of the exam for good. Aside from that, you will have to form pairs within the group you are slotted in too, acting like you would with a partner on the field. You are expected to form pairs of an Earthling and an Alien of Half-Alien, by the way."

Everyone nodded. There were a couple more questions about what counted as eliminating the rogue Agents – 'death' or capture were confirmed to be valid, with an encouragement for both sides to go all out without worry, since all their lethal weapons were switched to non-lethal equivalents so they wouldn't cause too much harm to their opponents – and on whether they could hide the weapons and themselves anywhere – to which the answer was that it had to be an hiding spot that was 'reasonable' for a cargo of weapons.

And with that, the teams were drafted.

-x-

Izuku strapped on his weapons, that he had been given, and looked at the group of ten he was a part of. Uraraka, Kanamoto, Umisaka, Kita and Kumogami were people he had already talked with at least once during the day, while the other four were people he had never spoken to.

"Alright, round of introductions, I suppose." Umisaka said. "Who is an Alien or Half-Alien here?"

Four more people besides him raised their hands. Izuku had hoped Uraraka would be among them – since she had been more on his side than anyone else in their group – but she didn't. Instead, besides Umisaka, the ones that raised their hands were Kumogami, Kita, the Trainee with a monkey tail, brown fur on his arms and pointy ears called Kobe, and a guy with an elongated mouth clustered with pointy teeth and a grey fur covering his face, merging with his orange hair.

"I'm pairing with Umisaka." Kanamoto said.

"You know each other?" Kita asked.

"Since we were kids." The teen admitted, "We just got sent to the opposite sides of the country when we were assigned our offices."

"Good, that means you can work well together." Izuku said. "What else can everyone do? It will make it easier to pair up if we know what each can do."

Everyone spent the following ten minutes explaining their abilities. Unsurprisingly, Izuku was the only Quirkless person, that was why he got recruited in the first place. He did show the Orgue and his other weapons, then listened as the other Earthlings explained their own Quirks. It ranged a lot, from Uraraka's Zero Gravity and her weapon of choice, a pair of alien knuckledusters that could extend to cover her whole arm in a suit of armor that strengthened her hits, to a blue-skinned teen named Adachi, whose Quirk made his skin work like that of a chameleon, depending on his emotions, going from a scared green to an angry red to the current neutral blue. With a bit of effort though he could force it to switch to a full black, a natural skin color of his choice, or a pure white, at least when he was in a neutral state of mind.

Hidenori Hara, a teen with black hair and a bit on the pale side, could eat and digest stone, his teeth hard enough to crush it with no ill effect. Kanamoto's Vision allowed him to change his eyesight, switching from heat vision to night vision, to x-ray vision. He grumbled a little bit when the girls instinctively covered their chest, rolling his eyes and pointing out that even if he was using his x-ray, he would have been watching their skeleton, not their chests. The girls all apologized while Umisaka got a good laugh out of it.

The Aliens and Half-Aliens ranged just as much in ability. Besides Umisaka, that as an Octovian was familiar to Izuku, the others were all from species he had never met. Kita was a Half-Alien. Her mother was a Displacen, a very unimaginative Earth name for a species that could teleport. Her dad's Quirk hadn't passed on to her. Kobe was also an Half-Alien, apparently a Primevan – a species of elf-like, blonde haired and gold-skinned Aliens – from which he had inherited exactly one trait, his heightened hearing that came with the pointy ears. For the rest, it all came from his father's Quirk, Monkey.

Kumogami was a Nembiver, a kind of Alien capable of climbing in a spider-like fashion and with excellent eyesight, paired with a venom he could emit from his teeth. He was also a sniper, apparently, which made sense, although Izuku hadn't expected him to just pull from behind his back a sniper rifle. As for Kiyoshi Endo, he was a Shadokian. Uraraka squirmed a bit when she heard that. "A Shadokian was the first Alien I was ever sent to capture." She admitted when Izuku asked, "He was… dangerous."

"Shadokians are really strong." Endo confirmed, "Although we aren't that smart."

All they got out of him was that Shadokians were apparently physically strong and counted on base five, which Izuku wasn't sure was all that useful.

"With that in mind, we probably want to pair up based on the roles we will play. For example, Kumogami needs someone to cover for him while he fights at range." Izuku said.

"I can do that. My fighting style isn't really based on mobility anyway." Uraraka replied, and Izuku nodded.

"I can team-up with you, Midoriya." Kita offered, Izuku nodding as well.

"I guess I can go with Adachi." Kobe said, "He can cover for me while I keep people away from him, and we are both learning stealth."

"Seems good. Endo, Hara, you two are fine pairing up?" Kanamoto finished. The stone-eating teen and the Shadokian looked at each other, then gave one another a thumb up.

"Alright." Izuku nodded, "Now we need to plan how to find them. Kanamoto, you and Umisaka are training to specialize in recon, right?"

"Yes?"

"Then you two should go first, with Kumogami and Uraraka covering you from a distance." Izuku suggested.

Kanamoto seemed ready to argue for a moment, before he scoffed. "Alright."

"Good for us." Kumogami nodded as well, "What about the others?"

Kanamoto spoke first, "They should probably follow us from a few hundred meters away, enough that if we are caught in an ambush they will be able to intervene."

"Right. We can fan out a bit in pairs, maybe." Izuku added.

Kobe nodded, "Probably a good idea. And about our opponents…"

-x-

They spent the remaining time coming up with plans to deal with any enemy, and then the exam started. Kanamoto and Umisaka rushed in first, Kumogami climbing a building with Uraraka grabbing on one of his legs. With her Quirk, the girl could make herself weightless, thus allowing him to carry her when needed. Izuku just hoped her side effects wouldn't kick in too soon.

The remaining three pairs fanned out. They knew the direction they were supposed to take, thanks to the signal on the weapons. It was a smart way to organize this, Izuku supposed. Since they only had one hour, giving them a starting point to find their targets made sense, and gave them ample time to hope they could reach the target. They followed side alleys, rather than the main route. It was a higher risk of an ambush, but moving in the open would make them far too easy to spot in the projected city, since it wasn't like there were people around to blend in a crowd. Clearly, even the best simulations had limits.

They had been advancing for a while when their comms sounded to life for the first time.

"We have spotted Nana Kitamura and a Yukio Mikazuchi." Kanamoto said, "And I think they have spotted me." Izuku looked up, since he was coming in just three hundred meters behind Kanamoto, and sure enough he could see Kitamura's figure in the sky, vanishing back behind some of the building. She had moved right on time, as a shot broke the silence, and Izuku could figure out that Kumogami had fired and missed by an instant.

"Don't fire if you don't have a clean shot, Kumogami! They will spot you." Another voice – Kobe, Izuku recognized a moment later – shouted back.

"We are already moving, and the shot was clean enough that trying was worth it." Kumogami replied. Izuku bit his lip. It wasn't his place to lecture someone on sniping, since he still had to even try his hand at it properly. Kugisaki had introduced him to the idea, but for now he was averagely skilled at normal range, let alone sniping.

"Move closer to each other." He said, instead, "Kanamoto, Umisaka, you two ok?"

"For now, yes." Umisaka confirmed, "We are going to continue toward the weapons, unless we run into- ambush, two people!"

The two had just turned a corner, so Izuku wasn't sure what exactly was going on, but 'ambush' was all the information he needed, and the gunshot that immediately followed was the seal on their decision.

"Kobe, Adachi, Endo, Hara, keep following the tracker!" He shouted, "We are going to help out Umisaka. If you run into too much resistance, fall back toward our position. They want to keep the weapons safe, so they probably won't pursue! Kumogami, Uraraka, go with them!"

"I hope you are right Midoriya." Kobe called back, before all four agreed. Kita had already pulled out her own weapon, a gun of some sort, and he opted to do the same with the Goo Gun. They turned the corner and immediately assessed the situation.

It was bad.

Kanamoto was fighting Kanamoto, an electrified baton similar to the one Izuku had seen before clashing against a weapon that looked roughly like a sword, though it was bright red. Meanwhile, Umisaka was facing his own opponent, a blonde girl armed with a bizarre apparatus Izuku didn't recognize connected to a small knife. She was skilled with it, easily scoring several cuts on both Umisaka's mechanical body and his actual arms, while dodging the kicks he was using to try and force her at range long enough to pull out his gun.

They both immediately rushed in and opened fire the second they were in range. Seeing Kita had aimed at the girl, Izuku fired at the Kanamoto with the electrified baton, since he knew which the real one was from the weapon… Only for the teen to shapeshift into Umisaka, his lower body disappearing upward, leaving the real Kanamoto with barely the time to dodge the Goo Gun projectile himself.

"We have Kashikoka Shiko!" He called in the communicator, and the Umisaka hissed, before shifting shape again and turning into the usual appearance of all Kashiks. The only distinction between him and Kashi Kokashi, Kugizaki's partner, was that Shiko looked a lot younger. Kanamoto tried to rush in, but the girl whistled and he nodded, suddenly growing in size and turning into Kumogami. He jumped dodging a shot fired from Kita, who had hoped he wouldn't see it coming, and climbed up the roof, vanishing from view. Izuku turned toward the girl, but she was gone already. "Are you ok, Umisaka?!" He called.

"Yeah, just some nasty cuts on my tentacles." He said, sighing, "Just when I had managed to pull out my gun." He added, showing his own weapon, held in one of his side tentacles as another hovered above the trigger.

"Kobe here!" The other teen called, "We have been engaged by Sugiyama, Asai, Fujihara and Fujimoto, plus Kitamura and Mikazuchi were here until a moment ago, sending the coordinates!"

They checked the map. It was the same road they were planning to take, and they could see their teammates moving in the street – or on the roofs, in Uraraka a Kumogami's case. It looked like it had turned in all-out city warfare.

"Should we go help them?" Kita asked.

"No." Both Kanamoto and Midoriya said at the same time, before looking at each other.

"Why?" Umisaka asked.

"Because right now they have the advantage. With Kumogami covering them and Uraraka covering him, this should be winnable." Kanamoto summarized. "With the exception of Fujimoto, and only a guess of what Mikazuchi can do, we know what those people are capable of."

"More importantly, we are on a time limit. If eight of them are out here, it's because they want us to drag until the time runs out. Force us to retreat, try to stall us as much as possible, and then win the exercise." Midoriya continued, "Technically speaking, their win condition is easier to achieve, all they have to do is run out the timer."

"So what do you two suggest?" Kita asked.

"We go for the weapons through another route. They likely have those people guarding the cargo itself, after all. They likely expect us to do this."

Kanamoto nodded, "I'd say they planned for us to. They broke the ambush immediately after all."

"Wouldn't that make it a trap?" Kita asked.

"They probably want us to split up, yes. But it doesn't really matter, because we don't have a choice. It's this or defeat. All we can do is trust the others to break through and reinforce us before we get caught in whatever trap we are springing."

Izuku nodded. He was pretty much of the same mind. He sent a silent thanks to Kodai, Shishikura and Hado. Those three were adamant about drilling into him strategic thinking, and it was coming back to help a lot here. "Alright." Umisaka said, "You know, you two are working pretty well together."

"Only an idiot would put his own issues above the exam." Kanamoto replied, and with that he moved forward. Izuku followed, Kita and Umisaka to his left and right.

"Say, are you sure you know nothing about that girl?" Izuku asked.

"Nothing at all. She keeps away from other Trainees at the headquarters. Frankly, sometimes we forget she exists. Not because we are trying to exclude her, mind you, she just wants to stay away from everyone except her Trainer."

Izuku grimaced. He wasn't sure that was how an Agent was supposed to behave, or just how a person was supposed to. He had been a loner, true, but had been happy to find friends, while this girl was still trying to avoid that. Then again, she was clearly skilled enough to beat Umisaka easily if she tried, so he supposed there was a point for it. Maybe they were planning to address her behavioral issues later. He wasn't sure what the HASC policy on their Agents' personality was, honestly, but he knew they would have gotten screened before joining, like he had, so he doubted there was anything really terrible going on.

'Focus on the exam Izuku.' Hado's voice told him, and he shook his head. He knew this wasn't exactly the time or place to worry about another person's probable problems. Right now, they were the opponents. He checked the notes on their various opponents.

He wasn't sure why the blank lines under 'Himiko Toga of the Ryukyu Office' worried him so much.

(XX)

Me: I'm telling you, this isn't a harem story!
My brain: I don't care.
Me: *Adds Himiko to the characters roster*
I swear I'm not doing it on purpose, it's not my fault the MHA girls are cooler. That's just why they got their own short stories collection.

Ah, the practical exam. You can probably tell this one is a mix of a few different ones from canon MHA. Mainly the first combat exercise and the Entrance Exam rolled into one, now with more OCs. It was fun to design it, and it was fun to design the OCs in it. Some got more work than others, of course, but I do like them, which I think works fine enough. Of course, some of those OCs are there as background characters or to introduce specific species that will be important later, while others are more important. Don't consider them a new Class 1-A, just making that clear.

That said, look at that, our dear blonde vampire is back again for more mischief... Hopefully on the side of the law. Place your bets on what she is doing here.
No stop saying 'shipping' what the fu-