The match continues...


I do not own My Hero Academia, it is owned by Horikoshi.


Chapter 8 - A Guest Teacher's First Day Part 2/ Underground Mall Arkham Style Part 2


Ceiling of 2nd Floor:

"Well looks like we're gonna catch their scout," said Uraraka directly underneath where Bakugo was watching, he signalled for Tokoyami and Midoriya to stay back with hand signals as he also saw Asui there.

"Hope Mineta doesn't get too badly hurt, ribbit," Asui commented, at that moment the ceiling exploded above them and before they could react Bakugo had taken both girls down hard.

"Asui report..." came a voice over a walkie-talkie, "Yaoyorozu, there was an explosion on the 2nd floor, Ashido and I are investigating."

"Bakugo is likely there, he's probably on his own, take him down..."

Bakugo grinned, 'If she only knew, I guessed that's what they'd expect me to do, now you better keep up your end nerd...'

"Bakugo!" called out Todoroki only for the ceiling to cave in above him as he tried to react.

"SMASH!"

"I got you!" Ashido sprayed acid at Midoriya only to be intercepted by Dark Shadow as she was then slammed into the wall.

"Finish taking care of Bakugo then we can track down the others..."

'Oh she's gonna pay for under-estimating me,' he smiled and gestured for the other two to keep quiet then pressed down on the talk button, "Did you seriously think those four losers would be enough to take me on?" he asked calmly.

"Holy shit! Did he take down all four of them, by himself?" came Sero's shaky voice over the microphone, he sounded terrified. "Cut the chatter, switch to station 2," came Yaoyorozu's voice,

"Well Bakugo, did you leave your team behind or send them ahead?"

"Next time, bring everything you've got to try to take me," he switched off the walkie-talkie.


Teacher's Station:

During the course of all of this Ectoplasm had finally arrived and he sent some clones to pick up the unconscious class members.

"That wasn't a good idea for Bakugo to taunt the other side," Aizawa commented.

"It can be both good and bad," commented Rocky, "He's subverting expectations, he's seemingly going along with what people think of him, while he's really doing something else."

"This is seriously out of character," Toshinori commented, "He normally doesn't work with others, I mean it's good that he is, but he normally doesn't."

"You forget he and Midoriya got thrown to the same location in USJ and had to fight a bunch of villains together," Aizawa answered calmly, "While Bakugo still believes he's the superior combatant of the two of them, he has acknowledged that Midoriya can certainly hold his own in a fight and can be trusted to watch his back. Additionally, Tokoyami placed third in the sports festival, so he realizes that Tokoyami doesn't have to be carried either."

"I think he's being cautious given they are underground, he doesn't want to go all out and have the building crash down on his head," Hawks replied, "He's also at least somewhat recognized that his two teammates have experience that he doesn't have, and the purpose of the exercise isn't just to charge in like a maniac. I'm just surprised he can be quiet when he wants to be."

"So why are you really here?" asked Nezu.

"The HPSC had a complete physical evaluation done on Izuku Midoriya, some of the results are shall we say interesting, but we're keeping them from Midoriya at the moment," Hawks admitted.

"Why?" asked Toshinori Yagi.

"It would worry the kid needlessly cause in this case it appears to be beneficial to him," Hawks shrugged.

"Let's take this elsewhere," Nezu commented, "I'll brief you later if it is anything I deem relevant."

The two left and Nezu led Hawks into a side office. "What did the tests find?" Nezu asked his voice sounding conflicted. 'I really don't want the boy to have been treated like a lab experiment,' Nezu thought.

"There weren't any painful tests like what you endured as a lab animal don't worry," Hawks reassured him causing Nezu to relax slightly, "his body is apparently adapting to One for All fairly well..."

"What is the issue that would cause the boy concern?" asked Nezu.

"His brain activity is identical to what one would see in a case of genuine DQMS," Hawks stated.

"And that is odd how?"

"Well it wouldn't be if he were born with One for All," Hawks stated perking Nezu's curiosity, "Medical records concerning Toshinori's brain activity are entirely different. Areas of the brain that ordinarily wouldn't deal with the processing needed for governing one's own quirk are handling the processing, but for Midoriya it's very different."

"Could he have an unawakened quirk?"

Hawks shook his head, "There is no other quirk factor not associated with One for All."

"So the suspicion is that his original quirk was stolen or destroyed at a very early age," said Nezu starting to put the pieces together, "this however is beneficial in the respect that one would not be able to tell from a brain scan that he isn't someone that had DQMS and his body is treating One for All as though it was the quirk he was born with. So he's extremely compatible with the quirk, probably the most compatible holder for the quirk since the first holder, far more compatible than Mirio Togata would be."

"Pretty much," Hawks commented, "It's almost like the quirk was made for him, given a few years and people wouldn't even be able to tell that he got the quirk in adolescence."

"The fact he's so compatible with the quirk, means that All Might made the right choice, much to my chagrin." Nezu commented, "Hopefully we can find children in the future with his same issue, or his decedents will end up being perfect candidates to pass on the quirk."

"Hopefully, the exam did provide enough information that if the secret did come out, we can pass off the fact there is a compatibility factor, and the kid is more compatible for the quirk than All Might and it may only be safe for a quirkless kid to inherit," Hawks shrugged before getting serious, "There's something else, the Nomu that tried to abduct Midoriya in Hosu, they identified the individual it was created from, a kid Hiyato Tsubasa; he had been reported missing a year ago by his Grandfather, deemed a run-away by the police. Well guess we know what really happened now. He is a former classmate of Katsuki Bakugo and Izuku Midoriya."

"So was it operating under orders, or did some part of it recognize him?" Nezu wondered aloud.

"I think we need to interview both Bakugo and Midoriya about the kid," Hawks stated as they left the room to walk back to the Teacher's station, "Oh and I intend to rib Sir Nighteye about all of this, maybe he'll get off his high-horse."


Duct Work: (between floors 2 and 3)

Mineta listened carefully using the noise canceling headphones, he'd temporarily ditched his pursuers. Then he heard Sero's voice and boy did he sound terrified.

"Calm down," said what could only be Shinso.

Mineta carefully climbed out of the duct-work and locked the door to the Maintenance room he was inside of.

"Did you hear that?!" There was a bang on the door, "It's locked!"

'Need to find the access ladder,' Mineta thought and located it fairly quickly as the banging came louder he thought he heard Kirishima's voice and he just opened the hatch to the 2nd floor as the door to the room gave way. 'They're not going to catch me, I won't fail Midoriya!' He just managed to get through the hatch as Sero's tape missed his ankle by little more than a centimeter. He tried to close the hatch, but Ojiro stopped him.

"Got you!" said Ojiro triumphantly grabbing his leg, only for Mineta to kick him in the face with his other leg, forcing Ojiro to let go. At that moment, Mineta took off running through the door out into the rest of the second floor.

'They're on this floor, if I can find them, they can help,' he tumbled and rolled to dodge more tape, and threw some of his hairballs back in response, however his opponents knew to dodge them and Shinso picked up poster frame and used it as a shield. He saw Sero's tape out of the corner of his eye coming at him, too quickly to dodge, 'Midoriya... I'm sorry.' A green form darted between him and the tape, like a green bolt of lightning.

"Midoriya!" Mineta cried out happily as Midoriya yanked on the tape yanking Sero towards them.

"SMASH!" Midoriya decked Sero throwing him back into Kirishima though Ojiro leaped in and managed to kick the headphones off of the green haired youth.

"Get him," called out Shinso.

"I won't..." Midoriya's eyes went dead, but there was an explosion as Bakugo blasted into Kirishima from the side, while Ojiro went to capture Midoriya. Mineta ran to try to stop it, he knew he would be too late, but then something extraordinary happened. The glow in Midoriya's eyes re-ignited and there was a snapping sound that Mineta could hear through the headphones, as the boy he considered to be his brother snapped into motion with Ojiro's capture tape only hitting empty air while Midoriya kicked Ojiro through a table.

"What the hell?!" Ojiro coughed. Midoriya on the other hand was panting looking shocked.

"REGROUP!" Bakugo called out throwing a smoke Grenade to conceal their movement, Dark Shadow grabbed Mineta and Midoriya. When the smoke cleared to the dismay of the Ojiro, Kirishima, Sero, and Shinso their quarry was gone, somehow Mineta had even snatched up the headgear.


Villain Team HQ: (4th floor)

"What do you mean you lost him?!" demanded Yaoyorozu.

"I'm sorry we nearly had him, but then Midoriya appeared out of nowhere, Ojiro managed to knock off those headphones that he was wearing and Shinso brainwashed him, but he must have gotten clipped by debris from Bakugo's explosive entrance, it was freakin insane! Then they disappeared like Ninjas!" Sero stammered, clearly intimidated by Bakugo.

"Get back to floor 3 and keep them from advancing," Yaoyorozu was furious, Mineta had managed to evade all his pursuers long enough for his teammates to come to his rescue.

'Tokoyami couldn't have been far, he's probably protecting Jiro who heard the ruckus of the pursuit. Damn it, I don't even know what that rat managed to scout out.' She made a decision for the bulk of her forces to assemble on the 3rd floor, they had to keep Hero team from advancing.


Quickmart: (2nd floor)

"What the fuck just happened?" Bakugo demanded.

"I'm sorry," Mineta stated glumly, "I took a calculated risk to see if I could take down their leadership and they detected me, so I led them away from Jiro."

Bakugo was rather impressed that Mineta had the guts to not only deviate from his plan, but to take initiative to see if he could set up for a gutsy play like that, not that he would ever admit it. "Not that..."

"I saw them again, only this time," panted Midoriya, wincing and still half-dazed.

"Izuku your finger! I'll get some first aid stuff till we can have you see Recovery Girl!" Mineta stammered frantically and took off going through the first aid products.

"Saw who again? Who are they? How did you fuckin break your own finger?" Bakugo demanded.

"I'll be fine," Midoriya said evenly, his long experience with being bullied had given him an unhealthily high pain tolerance.

"Damnit Deku, don't ignore me!"

"He's not ignoring you, we can't talk about it here," said Tokoyami having finally come to a decision, "This place might not be secure."

"Tokoyami..."

"You said it yourself when Hawks had to be told to demonstrate why you couldn't be a spy for the villains, that Bakugo would probably figure it out on his own eventually," Tokoyami retorted.

'Why the hell would anyone think Deku would help willingly help villains?' Bakugo thought then it hit him, "How did you get that quirk?"

"Move aside," Mineta demanded, "This is not the time. Tokoyami is right, we don't know who may be listening in."

"No more secrets," Bakugo demanded, "I want answers."

"This is Aizawa-sensei's call, he made me promise not to tell," Midoriya looked torn, "Aizawa-sensei and All Might are so going to kill me for even saying this much."

"Okay, so All Might and the Hobo already know," Bakugo watched his teammates nod, 'This is about what the Hobo told me after that match. Okay, so that means even if Deku got the quirk from a villain, he isn't working for the villains. That means he may have witnessed something that the villains want to take him out over.' He sighed, "Okay we're confronting the Hobo over this later," said Bakugo as Mineta continued to splint Midoriya's finger whom barely reacted, even though Mineta knew it hurt like hell.

"I can keep going," Midoriya stated after Mineta finished with the splint.

"Like hell!"

"We know for sure I can snap out of Shinso's quirk!"

"By breaking all your fingers," Mineta snarled at him, "or lets include your toes too..." He was shaking, "Take your own health into account for once, you're no good to anyone if you cripple yourself."

"We don't know when they'll realize Jiro isn't with us," retorted Midoriya, "This is nothing."

Mineta sighed, "You'll need those," Mineta pointed to the floor at the noise canceling headphones that he'd retrieved. "You know I just thought of something?"

"What? You screwed up by not following the plan..." Bakugo started.

"Shut up, this is important," Mineta challenged Bakugo, "If it isn't, then launch me into orbit."

"Okay, I'm listening..."

"Shouldn't the security stations for mall security be operating, even with a power outage? There should be one on each floor, couldn't we tap into those cameras and we'd be able to essentially locate where everyone is?" Mineta asked.

"I'm such an idiot," Midoriya groaned it was so completely obvious.

"Deku I'd call you that but none of us thought of that, for that matter I'm surprised Ponytail didn't either. Do you know where it is?"

"I might," Mineta grinned.

Bakugo grinned, "Good job, lead the way."


Teacher's Station:

"What happened to the Hero team?" Toshinori asked.

"They're probably getting briefed by Mineta," Aizawa stated since Ectoplasm was in the room, 'Midoriya snapped out of the quirk on his own, though he looked shaken up.'

"They went into the Quickmart," Rocky stated, but we don't have a camera with a good angle where they're at, "Mineta was rummaging through medical supplies though."

"Someone got hurt?" asked Nezu as he and Hawks re-entered the room.

"Yes not sure who," Rocky commented.

"Probably Midoriya, though it would be a fairly minor injury," Aizawa answered, given what Mineta is grabbing.

"Wait the hero team is moving out," Rocky said as he watched them head purposefully to a location that said Security over the door, "Well it's about time!"

There was suddenly a really loud sound from the speakers covering the room with the hostages on the sixth floor.

"And Jiro has taken the room with the hostages..." Rocky commented and hit the button for the speakers, "Okay the hero team has managed to take the room with the hostages, I think this concludes the exercise before this dissolves into a brawl and people really start to get hurt. Get to the locker rooms get changed, and we'll meet back at class."


Class 1-A Homeroom:

After Midoriya's finger had been healed by Recovery Girl and other people's injuries were dealt with, class reconvened.

"Okay let's go over what people did right and what people did wrong," Rocky began, "What did the hero team do right?"

"It was like they were better prepared than we were," Ashido commented with an ice pack on her head.

"Well that was more of having some knowledge about how to do this kind of operation than an average first year would have," Rocky stated, "Ordinarily, for something this scale, Villains would take weeks to plan something like this minimum. Unfortunately, we couldn't give you that level of time to prep. Yaoyorozu did a good job setting up with the limited prep time she had."

"They were taking advantage of areas we didn't close off," Kaminari commented, "or we couldn't without suffocating ourselves."

"True, Mineta was leading Jiro around taking advantage of his small stature until they had to split up," said Rocky, "Which leads into something Mineta did wrong, and let me be clear it was only wrong in this case ordinarily he would have made the correct call, in deviating from their plan cause Shoji might not have noticed them otherwise, if Yaoyorozu had anyone else present, his gamble may have paid off. At the same time Mineta then made the correct call by leading the people that were after him away from Jiro on a wild goose chase so she could stay on mission."

"Those support items from the sporting goods store," Ida commented, "given the lights going out both sides needed ways to see."

"True, but I noticed you guys picked up Night-vision goggles while we picked up thermal vision," Midoriya replied.

"Yeah, that's why Hagakure got caught fairly early," Mineta snickered, "I thought you were supposed to be the 'master of stealth, 'Some master, you got caught in under 10 minutes."

"You PERV! You just wanted to see me naked!"

"Give it a rest I was just seeing a thermal image," Mineta rolled his eyes, "Not like I could see anything but weird colors anyways, they weren't exactly high quality thermal goggles..."

"Mineta, you nearly got caught yourself," Yaoyorozu pointed out from behind, "especially with all the noise you were making."

"Point is I didn't, I took a calculated risk since Jiro identified your voice where you were giving your team orders," Mineta explained, "She couldn't identify who you were with because they weren't talking. I was banking that Shoji would be watching the hostages and you had Koda with you. If we could take out the leadership, it would break the back of your team."

"Also Mineta made all that noise when retreating to lead his pursuers away from me," Jiro pointed out.

"Wait you mean?" Sero stammered, "You planned for us to chase you?! You were leading us by the nose the whole time?!"

"I wouldn't say planned, I didn't plan on Shoji detecting me anyways," Mineta shrugged.

"It's called a decoy play, or a sacrifice play," Rocky spoke up to get the class to turn their attention to him, "Thankfully very few heroes have to use that tactic anymore cause it is one that few heroes manage to pull off and come away unscathed, at best they avoid getting killed and come away with serious injuries, often career ending ones. The fact Mineta actually pulled it off and held off his pursuers long enough for support to arrive and made it out unscathed is a job well done."

"I don't believe it we got played like idiots!" Ashido cried.

Rocky shook his head, this really wasn't what he wanted people to focus on, "What did the hero team do wrong?"

"The taunting toward the end," Yaoyorozu commented.

"That may or may not be something wrong, it is risky though," answered Rocky, "Given Bakugo's role for the Heroes, he got your attention, you were distracted by him at a critical moment. He was taking a calculated risk and making you think he was the only one there when two teammates were on hand. That was also the correct course of action by the way. Given the noise your quirk generates, you couldn't go for silent take-downs. Also I noticed the intimidation factor gave away some critical intel to Mineta so he knew where his teammates were."

"I've got a question," Shinso asked, "Why did the hero team go with the picks they did? We know they couldn't pick Yaoyorozu, but some the picks didn't make much sense."

"I made our first choice, and that was Jiro," Tokoyami answered, "we wanted someone with an ability to detect our adversaries, while Shoji has the more diverse sensing arsenal, Jiro's hearing is more acute. She is also smaller than Shoji and we were looking at infiltration in some confined areas."

"Yeah, but she was the only one that made sense," Shinso commented, "Hagakure would have been perfect for stealth cause she probably wouldn't show up on Night-vision, most of us wouldn't suspect she would be visible to thermal. Asui is also good at stealth and can even cling to the ceiling."

"We chose Mineta because we wanted someone that could access the duct-work with ease," Midoriya answered, "You couldn't block the air vents for obvious reasons. Also Mineta would be able to trap opponents fairly efficiently, and this kind of scenario is where he's at his strongest. The final reason for Mineta has to do with some things you wouldn't know about, he was my teammate in our first Hero versus Villain training exercise, we work well together, so having him on the team is a no-brainer."

"But why Bakugo?" Todoroki asked.

"That's easy, it boiled down to us needing either you or Kacchan due to Dark Shadow," Midoriya commented, "The reason why we went with Kacchan is he and I can predict each other fairly accurately, and that would defeat the purpose of the exercise because it would essentially turn into a fight between the two of us. I trust you Todoroki, I know you're strong, but Kacchan just knows me too well."

"I also noticed you let Bakugo take charge," Jiro commented, "when it should have been you or Tokoyami."

"Someone had to be in charge, and his orders were making sense," Tokoyami commented, sparing Midoriya from having to answer, "He was also demonstrating a willingness to work with us, so letting him come up with plans that could be tweaked instead of butting heads allowing us to move rapidly."

"In other words, it let us hit them hard and fast," summed up Bakugo, "and keep the pressure on."

"That's what Heroes in that situation often have to do," Rocky summed up the situation, "In certain circumstances you have to make sure the villains are kept on the back foot, not allowing them to take stock of the situation. What else?"

"We completely forgot about the Mall's security cameras, it would have allowed us to track down where the villain team was," Midoriya admitted.

"I'd ding you for it except nobody on the Villain side thought of it either. So what did the villains do right?"

There was an awkward pause and finally Ida asked, "Was it us getting supplies?"

"That helped," Rocky stated, "You did do quite a few things right, but the thing that hurt you all badly was the heroes just struck faster than you could set up and fortify. From what I saw, Bakugo is the kind of strike team leader that likes to hit hard and fast, while the others slowed him down some, they essentially went from one plan to another in rapid succession. Another thing that really hurt you guys was the difference in experience. This is why I was tempted to have both Tokoyami and Midoriya sit it out. That's why the things you did right aren't as readily apparent. Against average first years, the villain team would have trounced the heroes in this exercise, that's how experience can make a huge difference."

"I'll say," muttered Kaminari, "It was like we got played the entire time."

"Okay now as far as assignments. I'm going to want each of you to right up a report as to what you think you did right, what you did wrong, and what improvements you could make based on this exercise. It will be due tomorrow," Rocky smiled at the groans, "Look, it doesn't have to be super long, just long enough to show you've given this some thought. Then tomorrow is essentially going to be a movie day because you all get to watch class 1-B stumble around like complete idiots through the exercise unless they have the wisdom to say ask some people from 1-A to help them. I'll make sure there is plenty of popcorn and soft drinks." The class started chuckling at that comment, "Dismissed."

Bakugo stopped Midoriya from getting too far as people cleared out of the class room. "Not here," said Midoriya, "Come with me."


Undisclosed Location:

"It has been a long time old friend," greeted All for One.

"It has, however time is money, I know this isn't a simple social call, what do you want?" a voice answered over the phone.

"Ever the mercenary, I know of your little scheme, I was wondering if you wanted to make a special detour in exchange for an enhancement quirk."

"I'm listening..."

"I know you have likely heard the rumors of a boy that is All Might's secret love child..." Of course All for One knew the truth that Midoriya wasn't All Might's love child, but it would be so much fun playing it up to potentially drive a wedge between the 8th and 9th Holders, or more accurately fill them both with despair.

"You want me to eliminate him?"

"No, I want the boy alive for now..."

"All Might's woman then?"

"Indeed, there is another boy staying with them, that boy's mother might pay to have them targeted though I would prefer that boy not be killed at this time."

"He one of yours, or you think you can twist him to your own ends."

"You know me too well, but in this case I think I can either twist him or he can serve as bait eventually..."

"When do you want it to happen?"

"How about around when U.A. traditionally has finals?"

"I see, a welcome home present for All Might's whelp."

"Indeed..."

"I can do it," Wolfram promised, "a pleasure doing business with you old friend."

"Indeed, old friend," All for One grinned as he hung up, "It's such a pity, she's such a sweet woman too."


Notes:

I was debating back and forth as to whether Bakugo would pick up on things earlier than canon, but he was clued into things earlier.