Rule #41: Anything can be a weapon if you polish it enough
I bust the windows out ya car
After I saw you laying next to her
I didn't wanna but I took my turn
I'm glad I did it cause you had to learn
I must admit it helped a little bit
To think of how you'd feel when you saw it
"…The tango was revolutionary in the mid 19th century—" Nejire lectured as Oishii and Toru spun around the dance hall, dancing along to the chosen song that blasted from the speakers. Both dancers were pressed close to one another, which was a problem since a fair amount of toe-stomping seemed to be going on. "—Because it was the first time a melting pot of cultures from every working class came together when they danced. It was a scandalous display of public intimacy"
"Public intimacy? I like it" Smirked Oishii as the pair danced passed Midnight, Amajiki Tamaki, Hado Nejire and Togata Mirio of UA's Big Three. (Really, it was only Nejire who needed to be there having volunteered her dancing expertise, but the other two had followed after her like puppies).
I didn't know that I had that much strength
But I'm glad you see what happens when
You see can't just play with people's feelings
Tell them you love them and don't mean it
"COUNT!" Midnight called.
"1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3—" Toru and Oishii chorused as they twisted once more.
"Ow! Stop bloody stepping on me!" Toru complained when her vulnerable toes came in contact with the underside of Oishii's loafers. "He's doing it again!"
"That's not true! You just keep putting your feet underneath mine when I lift them up" Oishii retorted as he ignored the soft chuckles coming from the third years.
"Oh yeah?! Y'know where I'm gonna put my foot next?" Toru fired back.
"Why are we doing this?" Oishii squeaked a little as he turned to the group gathered off to the side.
You'll probably say that it was juvenile
But I think that I deserve to smile
I bust the windows out ya car
"Because you two need to face each other and try to work together" Nejire explained.
"We do work together" Toru replied, sweaty, tired and sore from all the (accidental) toe stomping they had been doing over the passed couple of hours. School hadn't even started yet.
"Yes, but not always harmoniously" Midnight added; her thoughts drifting to the earlier lessons where the two had fallen into similar toe-stomping and sailor-cursing patterns.
"Can't we do something like synchronised swimming instead?" Oishii suggested.
"Oishii!" Toru glared at her partner.
"What? It's just like this, except you'd be in a bikini" Oishii grinned dreamily as his thoughts turned inwards.
"Ouch! Hey!" Toru whacked Oishii up the back of the head, grabbing his attention when the teen stepped on her again.
"Grace!" Nejire called.
"Sorry! I was…thinking about bikinis" Oishii defended weakly. Toru held no qualms about hitting him again. "I'm listening!"
You know I did it cause I left my mark
Wrote my initials with the crowbar
And then I drove off into the dark
I bust the windows out ya car
I bust the windows out ya car!
"Ready?" Oishii started up the count once more, "1, 2, 3, 4…"
"Posture, grace, floating as one" Nejire coached as the two spun passed.
"It's kinda hard to float when you're in stilettos" Toru complained, memories of torturous dance lessons with Bitch-Sensei flitting through her mind.
"Think of your partner"
"Well, it's kinda hard when all she keeps talking about are stilettos and bikinis" Oishii replied.
"M-maybe Hagakure should lead?" Tamaki suggested, his eyes flitting around the room.
"Isn't that what she's doing?" Mirio joked with a grin.
"Really?" Nejire turned on her two friends with a wicked gleam in her eye, " 'Cause I would love to teach the two of you the traditional Viennese Waltz, with each other as partners"
"Ha ha!" Oishii and Toru had stopped dancing by this point and were both tentatively laughing at the image Nejire had painted.
"She's kidding…right?" Mirio laughed, turning to Tamaki for reassurance.
"She's not kidding" Tamaki replied, as Mirio's face dropped at the implication of what was about to happen.
"Mirio…" Nejire stalked closer to the blonde, "…Take your partner by the waist; back straight…" By this point Tamaki had grown rather red in the face as Nejire continued on, cool as a cucumber, "…Do I need to repeat myself?"
"Neji…!" Mirio whined.
"N-Nejire…!" Tamaki warned, backing off slightly as the bluenette grinned.
BRRRING! BRRING!
"Looks like you'll have to torture them another time, Hado" Midnight chuckled as the warning bell sounded, letting the students know they only had a couple of minutes until class officially started.
"Saved by the bell!" Tamaki muttered under his breath as he shared a look of relief with Mirio. The blonde was usually up for anything (particularly as his Quirk resulted in him getting naked more often than not), but they both knew their friend well, and what that wicked look usually meant. Images of Mirio in scarlet heels sent the ravenette spluttering as the group began to gather their things.
"If you two hurry, you might be able to wash up before you get to class—" Midnight called over her shoulder as she swept out of the dance hall. "And make sure to clean the heels, Hagakure!"
"Yes, Sensei!" Toru sighed happily as she peeled off the sky-high torture devices and pulled a face at the glorious rings of sweat staining soles when she peered inside.
"C'me on, Sunshine! Race ya to the showers! Last one there's a rotten egg!" Oishii suddenly rushed passed with a teasing grin playing on his lips.
"HEY! CHEATER!"
Following the announcement of the ever-approaching exam week, Toru found herself locked inside the furthest toilet stall from the door, in one of the rarely used bathrooms at lunch. Her packed lunch sat in its paper bag atop the toilet paper dispenser and a half-eaten bacon, tomato and lettuce sandwich slumped in her hand as she watched the rather morbid video on her phone.
Eight silhouettes flash onto the title card one at a time with the name of the villainous group listed along the top in both English and Kanji. This was soon wiped clean by the sound of a blade being drawn and blood dripping down the screen, transitioning from the title card to the first frame.
"Do you enjoy getting your hands dirty? Do you want to destroy the very heroes who threw you aside? Then the League of Villains wants you!"
Headshots of several well-known Pro Heroes flashed across the screen including All-Might, Eraserhead, Present Mic, Endeavour, Midnight and Hawk amongst others. Images from newspaper clippings, news & magazine articles and fuzzy video clips showing the heroes in a bad light flashed across the screen; too fast for you to figure out if they were real, but slow enough for you to understand what was going on.
The androgynous narrator continued on.
"Throughout the decades, Heroes have advocated for children to join their ranks and dirty their hands without even acknowledging it. They're taught to hit hard, but not to care about the consequences"
Here, images of young heroes were shown in conjunction with bruised and broken civilians. Homes and buildings that were destroyed beyond repair, fires that stroked the sky and painted the heavens red behind the grinning heroes. Bloodied bodies were shown strewn across streets and the cries of tearful parents who were reunited with their children only to bury them in the ground.
"These hypocrites preach the very laws that they break in their daily life, holding themselves above the law like God-given angels"
Various clips of the recent fight against the Nomus in the streets of Hosu coupled with the League of Villains attack on the USJ facility, crowded the screen almost in an attempt to overwhelm the viewer in the numerous examples of these so-called atrocities. With a transitional wipe, the screen faded to black and was replaced with a single sentence of white lettering in both Kanji and English.
"Join the League of Villains today, and help to bring end to these hypocrites!"
Falling back against the toilet with a sigh, Toru mindlessly fiddled with her earphones as she flicked through similarly recommended videos that had popped up on the side of the dark site. She couldn't help it, the first video she had watched had been taken down multiple times, but it just seemed to keep popping back up along with other similar videos. It was like falling down the rabbit hole.
Toru knew she shouldn't be watching them, but she just couldn't help herself. Hidden deep in the dark web were people of likeminded value. And, she reasoned, I'm only watching these vids, it's not like I'm actually doing anything…
The following days were filled with stress-inducing exams from the finicky laws of informatics to the menial repetition of English grammar; speckled with sweaty hours of dancing in sky-high heels. Until finally class 1-A was gathered in front of a selection of the teaching staff in preparation for their final exam.
"Now then—" Aizawa slouched (without his obnoxiously yellow sleeping bag, for once), "—Let's begin the last test. Remember, it's possible to fail this exam. If you wanna go to camp, then don't make any stupid mistakes"
"Uh, why are all the teachers here?" Jiro questioned.
"I expect many of you have gathered information and believe you have some idea of what you'll be faced with today" Aizawa steamrolled on.
"We're fighting those big ole metal robots!" Kaminari cheered.
"Fireworks! S'mores! Here we come!" Mina added.
"Actually—" Nezu popped out of Aizawa bandage-scarf like a rabbit from a magician's hat, "—this year's test will be completely different for various reasons"
"Principal Nezu?!" Chorused Jiro, Sero and Ojiro whilst many others began to become rather nervous at what the headmaster was implying.
"You're changing things?" Yaoyorozu asked.
"The tests now have a new focus" Nezu replied as he slid down onto the floor, "There will be Hero work, of course, but also teamwork and combat between actual people"
"Wait! You mean…" Toru trailed off as her eyes widened in alarm.
"That's right!" Nezu chirped, "You students will be working together in pairs and your opponents will be one of our esteemed UA teachers! Isn't that fabulous?"
"We're…fighting…the teachers?" Ochako reiterated.
"Additionally your partners and your opponents have already been chosen" Aizawa picked up the explanation, "They were determined at my discretion based on various factors including fighting styles, grades and interpersonal relationships—"
What?! Toru panicked. Admittedly she hadn't really trained as much for the physical exam as she should have, instead focusing on her written exams, where she hoped to place higher than her original sixteenth place.
"—First Yaoyorozu and Todoroki are a team…against me. Then we have Midoriya paired with Bakugou and their opponent is…"
"I AM HERE!" All Might declared landing in front of the two startled teens, "TO FIGHT! You're going have to work together boys…if you want to win!"
"Next is Kirishima and Sato against Cementoss, then Asui and Tokoyami against Ectoplasm. Ojiro & Iida versus Power Loader, Uraraka & Aoyama against Thirteen and Kaminari & Ashido against Nezu. Jiro & Koda are fighting Present Mic, then Hagakure & Shoji are fighting Snipe and finally Mineta & Sero are up against Midnight"
"To complete the exam you'll have thirty minutes in order to win your objective is to put these handcuffs on your teacher—" Nezu held up a pair of hexagonal handcuffs, "—Or you can win if one of you manages to escape from the combat stage"
"So we've either got to capture the teacher or run away. It's basically like the combat training" Kaminari summarised.
"Yeah, but is it really okay to just jet?" Mina questioned.
"Yep" Nezu replied
"It's gonna be much different than that combat training you went through earlier" Present Mic tacked on, "After all, you're up against people waaaay better than you!"
"Better? Really? Wait! Aren't you just the announcer?" Jiro questioned.
"HEEEEEEY! GIRL! WATCH YO MOUTH! HAVE SOME RESPECT!"
"This time your exam will be very similar to a real battle" Thirteen explained, "As strange as it is, please think of us as villains"
"Assuming you come across your enemy, if you think you can win against them, then fight. However—" Snipe continued.
"—In instances where you're outmatched, it would be smarter to run away and find help. Todoroki, Iida, Midoriya, Hagakure; I'm sure the four of you understand" Aizawa continued. Toru went pink at being called out so flippantly.
"So we fight to win, or run to win" Midoriya summed up.
"That's right! It's a test of your decision-making skills! But with these rules, your probably only real choice is to flee! That's why the Support course made these super cool accessories for us!" All Might replied, pulling out said item from behind him.
"BEHOLD! ULTRA-COMPRESSED WEIGHTS!" Said Present Mic, showing the item to the students.
"These babies will add half our body weight to our current physiques" All Might continued to explain whilst the other teachers placed the metal cuffs around their ankles and wrists. "It's not much—" Yeah right! Toru snorted at the number of cuffs that All Might had put on himself. "—But they will eat up our stamina and make it hard for us to move around!"
Toru felt a ping of worry when she watched All Might's wrist bound in metal cuffs suddenly drop into his lap like a sack of potatoes falling to the floor. "Oh shoot! These are heavier than I thought!" All Might muttered before turning back to the students before him, "We had a contest to come up with these designs and young Hatsume ended up winning it!"
"Wow! Good for Hatsume!" Midoriya gasped, eyes going wide at whatever thought was rolling around in his brain.
"You think we need a handicap to beat you? Well, think again." Bakugo predictably demanded of the number one hero.
"Ha ha! This'll be fun!" All Might grinned; the typical expression seemed darker than it usually was.
"Let's begin, we have a stage prepared for each of you" Aizawa cut in before the trio could delve into further conversations that would likely drag on forever. "Sato, Kirishima, you're up"
"Yessir!" The two boys chorused.
"Those waiting to fight can either watch the exams or strategise together as a team. It's your choice. That'll be all" Aizawa followed the teachers into the building behind them, where their exams would be taking place.
Toru was washing her hands in the bathroom when the announcement came over the loudspeakers. "SATO AND KIRISHIMA HAVE BEEN KNOCKED OUT. EXAM OVER"
"Seriously?!" Toru gasped at her reflection in the mirror, "Shit! They're really not pulling any punches with this, are they? Well, we better give 'em a reason to, eh?" This time, her reflection grinned back at her, strong and confident in the wake of the first exam.
After cooking up a series of half-baked plans and strategies with Shoji, Toru found herself standing in the monitor room where she could watch her classmates take their own exams. Shoji had preferred to stay in the waiting room with some of the other students.
Holy shit! They really aren't holding back! Toru watched bug-eyed as Thirteen, Ectoplasm and Nezu when all out against their assigned students, pushing them passed their limits, both mentally and physically. Currently the headmaster was manically laughing as he directed large pieces of scrap metal to rain down upon Mina and Kaminari, who ran around their arena like rats in a maze. Which is probably why he's enjoying it so much.
Soon enough, Toru found herself alongside Shoji as they hid behind the tall cement structures of their arena. Snipe had situated himself at the other end of the room nearby to the gate and was currently penning them in with constant, and well-aimed gunfire. He seemed to be aiming to rundown the clock; keeping the pair from passing by not letting them move.
"Shoji! At this rate we'll be trapped here forever!" Toru worried as Shoji peered around the corner with one of his extended arms.
"Don't worry, he's only one man" Shoji reassured her, "Still escaping this will be a herculean task. The only advantage is that our opponent's movements are slowed by those weights"
"Now" Snipe's voice echoed around the cavernous room as he tossed a canister out onto the floor, "Let's see whose better at hide and seek?"
"Smoke bomb" Shoji registered as voluminous smoke began to fill the area, "He's trying to blind us! But at least it's going to affect his vision at the same time"
"Shoji!" Toru suddenly perked up as an idea came to mind, "Can I have your belt? I have an idea"
The gunfire grew closer as Snipe crept closer, using the smoke to hide. Shoji swiftly handed Toru his blue belt in exchange for the handcuffs, just in time for the rapid gunfire to knock through the structure the pair had been hiding behind. Shoji went one way, and Toru went the other.
After pulling her goggles down over her eyes, Toru quietly drifted through the smoke until she was standing behind their opponent, owing to her stealth boots and cautious footsteps. She wasn't sure how she was going get any closer without alerting Snipe; thankfully however, Shoji had seemed to have cottoned on to what she was planning to do.
Whilst Toru waited in the smoky shadows behind their gunslinging sensei with belt clutched tight in hand, Shoji charged out into the smoke, straight into Snipe's line of sight, distracting him. "Don't be rash, kid" Snipe scolded, firing the bullets down at Shoji's feet making the tall teen stop in place with all of his hands raised in the air. "Aren't you giving up a little too easy for a hero?" Snipe walked forth with gun in hand as he held his student at gunpoint.
Taking that as her cue, Toru wasted no time in vaulting out of the shadows and up onto their gunslinging sensei. "Ack! What the hell?!" Snipe demanded. With legs coiled around his upper body, Toru wrapped Shoji's belt around his throat and pulled tight, choking him. She refused to let him go even when he tried to shake her off.
"SHOJI!" Toru called out as she was banged up against one of the concrete structures. The shock of the hit, knocked the breath from her lungs and in her surprise, she dropped Shoji's belt to the floor. Thankfully, however, her legs remained locked around Snipe's chest, and mindless of the grabby hands trying to remove her from his person, Toru heaved herself upright once more and slapped her sensei into a tight chokehold. "SH-SHOJI!"
And then Shoji was there, cuffs in hand as he tried to find an opening that allowed him to stick the metal cuffs onto Snipe, who continued to thrash and spin like a bucking bronco ride. Eventually, Shoji was able to slap one of the cuffs onto his wayward wrist, ending the exam with seconds to spare.
"TEAM HAGAKURE AND SHOJI HAVE PASSED THE EXAM" Announced the interface over the loudspeaker. Slipping from Snipe's back, Toru moved to join Shoji at his side where she blinked back into view. Meanwhile, Snipe used the reprieve to suck in lungfuls of air that Toru had deprived him of.
"Why…choking?" Snipe gasped.
"The human body can only survive so long with oxygen to the brain" Toru replied factually, "It only takes five-ten seconds for unconsciousness to occur and sixty seconds for death to follow. It seemed the most logical option…aside from breaking bones" Both Shoji and Snipe looked at her as if she had grown a second head. "What?"
