Chapter 6

On the fated day, I went to UA quite a bit earlier and knocked on the principal's door. What I was about to do was definitely and predominantly stupid but hey, I had to find a way to deal with the stupidity I pulled in the previous chapter!

The door opened to reveal the mouse in all his glory. "Ah, Korai Haru. How can I help you?"

I stared at him for quite some time, unable to speak. While I did consider him to be a mouse primarily, the creepy mix of animals that he was made it difficult to stomach the fact that in this life, he was a real entity in front of me. Eventually, I shook my head to keep myself from distracting.

"Nezu-sensei, I needed to talk to you about something."

"Go ahead."

"Not so easily. What I want to tell you is something that I want only you to know. No one else must know, period."

The mouse eyed me without any expression on his face. I was not prepared for it but I actually felt nervous in his presence while he observed me like that. His quirk was not physically dangerous but that damn rat could kill me with his brain and his ability to manipulate chances in his favour through sheer intelligence.

At length, he nodded and pressed a button underneath his table. I heard some noises around me but nothing changed visibly. Once the noises stopped, he gestured towards me. "It must be pretty important if you're coming before school starts and are directly coming to me."

I nodded, and prepared to reveal myself. But before that…

"Do you read manga?"

"…"

The pin-drop silence was ironically deafening.

"Was that the important thing you wanted to tell me?" The principal finally asked, his voice betraying his disbelief.

"No, but it's necessary for me to know so I can explain in the right way."

"In that case, yes."

I nodded again; then paused. Would it be best to be blunt? Perhaps. But I had to make sure he would believe me without me having to tell him everything. After another short while, I looked at him in the eye. "Well then," I said, keeping my voice extremely serious. "I must tell you that I got transmigrated here."

If the previous silence had been pin-drop, this one was from the quietest room in the world. Neither of us spoke, letting the words hang in the air. I didn't because I didn't want to unintentionally divulge information that could reduce my ability to predict things (although I suppose, it was too late now to care). He didn't because…

"I find that hard to believe, Korai-kun," he said finally. "Are you hinting that you transmigrated into this life from a previous life where—if I am deducing correctly—this world of quirks existed as a manga or something like that?"

I nodded, not daring to speak. I needed time to process his words.

"I find that hard to believe," he repeated again, a paw tapping against his desk. "I hope this is not some joke you're making, Korai-kun. While I always make time to teach my students, I do not appreciate my time being wasted. Not in the morning when I am doing most of my work."

I chuckled at the veiled threat in his words. "Don't worry, Nezu. Do you want me to prove it to you?"

He eyed me again with those beady, knowing eyes of his boring into my very soul. "I will give you one chance since you did say that you wanted only me to know."

I nodded, readying myself. Taking a deep breath in, I said a few words.

"One For All."

To say Nezu was thunderstruck would be an understatement, given the rigidity of his body structure. It was for barely a moment, but I could see I had made my point.

"You could have overheard it," Nezu replied slowly. "All Might did mention you had practically figured out what had happened."

Ah, I could see what he was implying. He was implying that I only figured it out because of that. Fine, I will play that game.

I shook my head at him. "I didn't overhear the name of the quirk, you see. But more important than even that"—I grinned and lowered my voice to a whisper, watching his body language change— "is the fact that All For One is still alive."

"…"

"…"

"…"

"…"

"You're not lying," the principal said finally, staring me straight in my eyes. "While I still have my doubts regarding the exact information, I know for a fact that that name has been erased from public records completely. I also know you have no relatives that handle top-secret info so there could have been no way you could have known that unless"—he leaned back to stare at the ceiling— "what you are telling is true."

I chuckled as the tension in the room receded. "Believe me, it is true. I had wanted to share this… burden with someone so I could do something about it. There's only so much I can do alone. I decided to choose you because you don't seem to be the type to use such crucial information for your own gain."

He looked at me critically. "And do you think I will be the same even now? Now that I know?"

"If you don't, I will kill you," I said straightforwardly. "No way am I letting shit like that get out of hand."

Both of us sat in silence, letting the words hang in the air. I, for one, could not believe that my mouth had spouted that. Did I just make a death threat to someone who could very well ruin my life in this world? God, how could I be this reflexive and this stupid?

"So, if you're approaching me today instead of on the first day," he said as if the exchange before just hadn't happened, "I'm guessing something is going to happen today."

"Yep," I obliged his decision to ignore my threat. "Call All Might and tell him to completely ignore any and all calls for help when on his way here. We're going to USJ today for rescue training, right?"

Nezu nodded, calmly hearing me out.

"Well, a group of villains will attack today there. They call themselves League of Villains." I paused for a moment. "One of them has a warp quirk so he might try to separate us students from teachers. One of them, called Nomu, will have multiple quirks—Shock absorption, super regeneration, and some more. That one is an artificially created creature with the sole intention of killing All Might. That's why we want All Might to be there at his full strength, given the reduced time he has."

"Hmmm… is this the attack planned by All For One?"

"Yeah. And let's keep the schedule as is. The only people who should know anything are the teachers." I narrowed my eyes at him. "And all they should know is that you have intelligence, and not the source of info or anything else. Don't change things other than acting on them in the least obvious way. That way, I will be able to predict things more accurately."

"I got it."

He didn't seem to appreciate being talked to like that but I had to make sure I made my conditions known.

I got up and slung the backpack on my shoulders. "That's about what I wanted to say. Let's keep things as they are for now with the only difference being teachers being ready for shit happening here. I will tell you more after school today to give a full debrief about what's happening."

"Alright."

As I left his office to go to the class, I was unnerved. He was definitely taken aback with the info I knew but our deal was a bit too easy for me. There was no way someone as intelligent as that rat could agree so easily with my demands. Something felt fishy. Wrong.

But that was just a feeling. What was I supposed to do with just a feeling?

I could only grumble as I took my seat in the class.

"Did something happen, Haru?"

Surprised, I looked up to see Momo and Shoji. Momo was the one to ask the question; Shoji simply looked up to our voices.

"Somewhat," I replied vaguely. "I can't explain it unfortunately."

"Oh, was it bad?"

"Not really. Just… concerning."

The two eyed me critically but neither made a comment. It was surprising to me for some reason; I didn't know why I thought they were going to react like Mina would have. In any case, they chose not to say anything and focused back on the door as more people poured in.


Later, after I had given a basic idea of what to expect from the approaching attack to Nezu, we sat in the bus that would take us to USJ. I noted the presence of All Might alongside Aizawa. He didn't look particularly tired; I could only presume Nezu had managed to assert the importance of his presence that day.

Relieved, I leaned back into the seat, lazily listening to the conversation about everyone's quirks. It was nothing new but seeing it all happen in front of me was an extraordinary experience altogether. Some quirks—Kirishima's Hardening for instance—deformed the body in ways that made me queasy but overall, seeing it modify their bodies was something I would never be able to experience just from a manga or an anime.

Stuff like this was a major reason why I found being incarnated in this world such a lot of fun.

"Haru."

I glanced towards Asui who had called me. It seemed like it brought everyone's focus on to us. Why? Was she about to point out something curious?

"Yes?" I said, inclining my head in her direction.

"Your quirk controls air in some way, doesn't it?"

I blinked in surprise before I could stop myself. My action must have been obvious because Mina and Satou leaned in, excitement evident on their faces.

"What makes you think so?"

"Because of the way the ball moved in the throwing test," she replied, as straightforwardly and evenly as a person could. "It seemed obvious with the way it moved suddenly."

She was an observant person, I decided. She pointed out the obvious, of course, but many would have thought that I was controlling the ball, not the air.

I asked as much. "And what makes you think that I am not controlling the ball?"

"If you were, the moves of the ball wouldn't be so jerky."

"Fair enough."

"Wait, wait, wait," Kirishima cut in, looking between the two of us. "That doesn't explain it."

"It does though?" I said, cocking my head towards him.

"Ah, I guess, if you actually had the ability to control some object," Momo said as she thoughtfully glanced at us, "you would have moved it way more smoothly. There wouldn't be any reason for you to move it the way you did."

I pointed at her. "That's it."

Momo simply smiled.

I smiled at everyone—they were all looking at me—and raised an eyebrow. "Well, with all that information, surely, someone must have figured out what my exact quirk is?"

"Air Control?"

Asui and Momo were the ones to answer. The others, although they didn't answer, seemed to have figured it out anyway. If they hadn't, they wouldn't have deserved to be a part of the top university's top class. At least, that's what I thought.

I simply smiled in response.


While Thirteen was explaining everything about the USJ—which, I must admit, was incredibly ridiculously gargantuan—I sneaked a glance at All Might and Aizawa. While there wasn't much to be seen as such, if I looked closely, both of them seemed tense, their senses alert.

Yep, Nezu had been thorough alright.

Now, the main issue was to see if my prediction would be right or not. Sure, I knew, but my presence could have very well changed things a lot. Butterfly effect and stuff, you know? I was fairly sure though that I didn't have to worry about much just yet.

I stood by the railing, staring down near the fountain where their appearance was going to be. There were no real disturbances even as I stared hard and felt with my quirk. Thirteen continued with his instructions which I easily ignored. What I couldn't ignore was All Might's shout as he came to a stop beside me, dust flying at his feet.

"Korai-shounen, is something wrong?" He boomed. "You seemed to not be paying attention."

"Ah, nothing is wrong, All Might," I replied bashfully, suddenly finding myself the center of attention. I was still not used to it. "I just had a bad feeling so I couldn't focus."

If my words made the teachers concerned, they didn't show it. But that fake mask could last only a second.

The next moment, the air moved.

I whipped my face downwards, as did the three pro heroes.

And just like I had predicted, the black misty warpy substance appeared near the fountain, and Shigaraki, in all his creepy glory, walked out.

Well, he only managed a step.

Then, air whooshed as All Might appeared in front of them, his punch already landing into Nomu's face, right beside Shigaraki. Shigaraki's stunned expression would have been a sight to behold if not for the amputated hand stuck on his face hiding it. Sheesh, I should have really bought a camera just to take photos of those ridiculous expressions.

Everyone could only gape as they watched the number one hero already on the move with Eraserhead and Thirteen following behind.

My forewarning must have been really useful, for the three moved in sync as if they had always been a team.

As soon as All Might had punched Nomu back into the warp hole, Aizawa activated his quirk and disabled the warp gate, cutting off the villains' entry into the USJ. The few villains who hadn't completely walked out had their bodies cut off cleanly, blood sprouting out of their bodies like fountain. Thirteen in the meantime took care of the villains that had already entered by absorbing them with his quirk, effectively destroying them completely. At the same time, Eraserhead had already cuffed Kurogiri with quirk-nullifying handcuffs.

The entire process took less than a couple of minutes, rendering the attack useless.

"What is this?" Shigaraki said when he finally understood everything that had happened. "How are you cheating? You guys should not have been able to predict our attack at all! How were you ready to handle us before we had even stepped in?"

"Do not worry about that, villain!" All Might boomed, his displeasure evident in his voice as well as his expression. "For now, you will come with us and answer our questions."

As if to prove their point, Eraserhead activated his quirk again to disable Shigaraki's quirk and cuffed him as well. The moment that was done, the three pro heroes looked around. Thirteen took another moment to clear off the cut pieces of the dead villains with his quirk, before the three relaxed.

None of us students had looked away during the entire fight—if it can be called that—except for the moment when some of us were throwing up due to the gruesome sight of villains getting cut in half due to the warp quirk deactivation. I chanced a glance at my classmates and wasn't surprised to see the horror on their faces.

Being a part of the top university meant you had the necessary money to stay away shielded from the dark side of humanity.

And now they were all being slapped in the face with it.

Of course, the manga had not been this brutal or uncensored. But that was to be expected in a shounen manga aimed at teenagers. The reality was of course going to be different. And now that I had seen it myself, I knew what I was going to be getting into.

It worried me, it unnerved me. But most importantly—and most worryingly—

It thrilled me.


Well, I suppose I should clarify that this is supposed to be a first-person story with an unreliable narrator. Therefore, inconsistencies will be there. I will try not to let any be but this is a long story so chances are, I will miss quite a lot of things. Figured I should warn my readers upfront!

See ya all around next chapter!