30.12.2020

It's me the guy-who-doesn't-care-what-name-you-call-him-by back with another chapter! I was originally planning to post this tomorrow, but it's been over three months since the last update so I thought 'ah, fuck it' and here it is!

But first, the comments!:

RandomReader867 - I see that you're a man of culture yourself. The Doge memes are great imo, shit get's me to laugh all the time! Glad you enjoy the story ;D

your most adictive fan - (Had to do it xD) I'm glad you enjoyed my work so much! It always brings me joy to find out all of your opinions. I hope that you'll stick around till the very end and maybe check out my second active fic - Champion to Slay the Gods

JL1723 - Ask and your question will be answered, probably. Honestly this chapter should've been posted way earlier but I didn't realize how long it has been since the last update. I'm going to try my best in the upcoming year to stick to posting at least one chapter per story per month, no matter what. Glad to have you here as always!

Notasavior - Well, I can say that he is certainly visiting some special that has yet to appear in this story, but will do so in the next couple of chapters, try and guess ;D As to the fluff, it's going to lead to maybe a smut (not really sure on that one), love triangle, death and stuff, y'know the usual romance way of things xD

And now, the chapter!:

PS. Sorry in advance for the cliffhanger.

Flight back to Japan was as uneventful as the previous one, with Midoriya sleeping through most of it and not paying attention to Nejiro complaining about their short stay in the US. She was apparently a big fan of Detroit for some unknown to him reason and was pretty bummed about not being able to go sightseeing.

They arrived in Japan a couple of minutes after midnight, so Midoriya had to sneak inside his dorm without waking anyone up. Which he managed to do with everyone heavily asleep after their intense training the day before.

Their Class Rep may not have been there to oversee them, but they weren't about to disappoint by slacking off right before their Final Exam.

The greenette had to put up with being slightly interrogated by his classmates in the morning, since he did leave in a hurry without telling them anything, so he did understand their curiosity.

Both classes decided to relax and regain their strength before their Finals, which were about to begin.

Most of their Monday was spent on being lectured about Finals by Aizawa, who explained thoroughly what it will look like.

The Final Exams were scheduled to take up the rest of the week. With Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday occupied by the written portion, whilst the practicals were to be held on Friday. This way, the students would have a chance to catch their breath over the weekend.

The fact that their teachers expected them to be so exhausted after the Finals unnerved the students greatly. Despite that, they promised to do everything they can to pass and make their teachers proud.

The students thought they were prepared for the written tests. They were… partially right? Whilst the very top of both classes, including Midoriya, Yaoyorozu, Tokage, Kendo and a few others had little to no trouble with answering every question on their sheets, the more…. mentally lacking students like Kaminari and Mineta had to skip more than a couple of their own questions to finish their exams in time.

All forty students released a fully synchronized sigh of relief once the final bell rang on Thursday. Most of their brains were fried from being overused over the three days as if they had Kaminari's Quirk active for an hour.

Now, clad in their Hero Costumes, students from both Class A and Class B were standing in front of their teachers, all of their teachers.

This raised several questions and made some warning lights flash between the gathered teens. What have they planned for the practical portion that needed so much supervision?

Their question was about to be answered, as Nezu popped out of Aizawa's scarf.

"Hello my lovely students! How are you feeling after your theoretical exam?", the rodent asked politely and the students groaned collectively in response. "That's the spirit! I hope that you'll feel even better after the practicals!", his joyous tone made a few of his students start sweating already, even though they were just standing in place.

"Are there any questions so far?", Vlad King asked as he eyed the students. Few moments later, one hand rose up. "Midoriya?", it was more of a question than permission to speak, but the greenette started talking anyway.

"It's not as much of a question than a statement, but… Principal Nezu", Izuku made a short pause to turn to the rodent before continuing. "Merchant of Death says 'hey'"

"Ah, yes, I was waiting to hear from him for quite some time. Thank you for delivering the message Young Midoriya. With that out of the way, let me explain the practical portion of your exam"

If any member of the faculty was unnerved by the 'Merchant of Death says 'hey'' stuff, they didn't show it. Maybe they knew him? UA had one of the most advanced security systems in the world, so it was possible that Kravchenko was the one who designed it.

"For your practical exam, you'll have to fight against a teacher in groups of two!", the statement elicited surprised gaps from the crowd of students. "The teams and match ups have already been decided, so there's no use complaining over them"

"But there's way more students than teachers. Even if we have to fight in pairs", Kendo pointed out and her classmates agreed with their reasoning.

"I'm aware of this. That's why I've asked for some… assistance for this year's Finals!"

As soon as the words left his mouth, a big shadow appeared from the sky, prompting the students to look up as something descended.

Few moments later, they heard the silent humming of an engine as the shadow grew smaller and smaller, finally piercing the clouds and preparing to land.

Back doors of the aircraft opened and someone jumped out, doing a flip and falling face first towards the ground. Some students were about to rush and catch the stranger, but before they could move, the person did another frontflip mid-air and something shot out of their soles, slowing their descent and allowing them to land safely.

As the dust settled slightly, the students could look over the stranger.

They were wearing a complete suit of black armor with red highlights on the helmet, chest arms and legs. The mask covered their entire face with two red lights acting as eyes. There was also a green, glowing circle in the middle of the chestplate, probably a power source of some sorts.

The VTOL finally touched down and two more people emerged from the inside. People that Midoriya instantly recognized.

"Kairo! Kuse!", he smiled and waved at the two Pros.

"'Sup kid?!", the woman waved back along with her brother.

"You know them Midoriya?", Todoroki asked from behind his Class Rep.

"Yeah, they are Blackout and Puppeteer, I've had my internship at their agency", Cybrex explained as he recalled the week he spent with them.

"Hey! It's my agency!", Blackout yelled as his sister started cackling.

"So do you also know the third person?", Momo inquired as she stood beside Midoriya.

"I'm afraid not"

"Oi, you wound me deeply y'know?!", the armored stranger shouted as the suit's plates started moving around, revealing a chestnut haired man. "How could you forget someone as iconic as me, THE Merchant of Death?! We've literally seen each other not a week ago!"

His overly dramatic way of speaking didn't match his wide, teasing grin as he walked out of the armor with his arms raised in the air as if he was trying to cosplay as the letter Y.

"Long time no see my friend", Principal Nezu addressed the rambling man, who turned around, his grin becoming more friendly than teasing, as he approached the rodent.

"Long time indeed!", Martin agreed and then proceeded to bump fists with THE principal of UA. Mad respect.

"Excuse me Principal, but why are these people here?!", Tenya questioned whilst doing his best hand chops.

"They are going to help us in grading your performance, by fighting with you just like your teachers!", Nezu announced happily. "We are only waiting for one more person before we begin"

Suddenly, another, much slower and smaller, shadow appeared and landed right next to Kairo and Kuse, raising a cloud of dust in the process. The person didn't even wait for it to settle before speaking in a loud, boisterous voice.

"I am the Number Five Hero Miruko and I'm here-!", the cloud settled enough to reveal the Rabbit Heroine, striking a confident pose and pointing a finger at the students. "- to kick some ass!"

Another set of gaps, this time full of excitement at seeing the Number Five Hero in the flesh, sounded from the gathered students, some of them already shaking in their boots at the thought of facing off against the Rabbit Heroine.

"Now we have all the participants. And before any of you dare to question the fairness of this exam. All of your opponents will be wearing weights, which will no doubt dampen their abilities. They may have advantage over you in terms of experience, but you have the numbers. Rely on your teammates and work together to either restrain your opponent or escape the arena through a gate on the other side. Look at the screen to my left to see your matchups and the order in which you'll be taking the exam", the Principal gestured towards the giant screen, that the students could've sworn wasn't there before, as it lit up and showed the eighteen fights.

Yes, eighteen. Yaoyorozu, Midoriya, Todoroki and Bakugo couldn't find their names on the board. 1-A's Class Rep was about to ask Nezu about this, but the rodent beat him to it.

"As you've probably noticed, four students of Class 1-A are not posted on the screen. That's because they will be the last one's to take their exam and I have planned something special for this year's best trainee's", Nezu was grinning, and it was unnerving as hell.

The four could only be sure of one thing - they weren't going to like whatever it was that their mad principal prepared for them. And boy were they right about that.

Not knowing your opponent meant that you couldn't really prepare a strategy to counter their strengths. That's why Midoriya did the most logical thing to do - he started developing plans for the most problematic encounters.

He didn't want to talk shit about his teachers, but they weren't the most dangerous opponents to go up against in this situation.

Aizawa was a master in hand-to-hand combat, but had no Quirk to aid him in a fight. This meant that Midoriya could fight him on equal terms, having a power advantage over his teacher's honed skills.

Midnight had her whip for middle-range combat and the sleeping gas for close quarters, which made it hard for Midoriya to fight her safely. BUT, all three of his potential partners had long range capabilities. Bakugo had his explosions, Todoroki his ice and fire, and Momo… was Momo! Incredibly smart with an overpowered Quirk!

Vlad King was, again, very dangerous up close, but considerably slower than Aizawa and lacked Midnight's one-hit-KO potential.

Ectoplasm could be tricky to fight, but his clones were easy to destroy with wide range attacks.

Snipe was an excellent marksman, but he was not as strong in hand-to-hand combat, so all Midoriya had to do in this case was get up close and personal with the Pro.

Cementoss had a brilliant defence, but lacked in the offence department, which made him not all that scary to fight.

Nezu, however, was an enigma so there was no way to tell what he was going to do. He obviously wasn't going to fight them up front, opting probably to just place traps everywhere and use his over the top intelligence to gain the upper hand.

Now, Midoriya wasn't stupid. He knew that even though his teachers were less dangerous than the active Pros, they were still dangerous and overconfidence could lead to a quick and crushing defeat.

But come the fuck on!

Kuse, could hijack his companions Quirk to - blast him away, freeze him in a glacier or create an electric net made out of diamond weave.

Kairo, if they even got near a shop with household appliances they were going to be overwhelmed by an army of mechs made out of fridges and washing machines. And it wasn't a good idea to punch a fridge!

Miruko, could probably crush your head AND your ribcage in one kick if she tried. Do I need to say more to that?

And then there was Martin who could… Actually, Midoriya had no fucking idea what he could do! He was super smart, that much was clear. And that armor probably wasn't for show. But beyond that? He was a wild card. Even more so than their rodent of a principal.

Four incredibly dangerous opponents to potentially face off against. And only one viable strategy to win - escape through the gate.

There was no way to beat any of them in a 2v1 fight.

Midoriya sighed deeply and opted to just watch the ongoing matches. Students who already completed their exams or were waiting for their turn, were gathered in one room, with several screens transmitting the current bouts.

Kuse was having a blast using Kaminari as a meatshield after she forced him to short-circuit his brain with one discharge and was probably dragging the match out to see if Mineta would finally man up and do something instead of crying whilst throwing his Quirk at her.

Tetsutetsu and Kirishima were trying to brute force their way towards Cementoss who just kept calmly backing up and summoning more and more concrete walls to tire out his opponents.

The last bout was Asui and Tokoyami versus Ectoplasm, who was chasing them around a maze with his army of clones.

As more and more pairs finished their exams, Midoriya started to worry more and more.

His initial plan was to prepare a strategy for the opponent he was going to face, whilst including the potential input of his companion. He had no idea who he was fighting with or against though, so that plan quickly went down the drain.

This forced him to move onto his backup plan - observing the most dangerous enemies that he could possibly face in his own exam and make a loose plan on how to beat them.

It was a good plan on paper. In reality? Not so much.

Midoriya spent almost a whole week with Kairo and Kuse, meaning that he had a generally good understanding of their basics and could use their matches to see how far they were going to push themselves today.

Miruko was a well-known Heroine that Midoriya had previously done some research on. So he didn't really have to watch her that closely. She relied on devastating kicks but her punches were nothing to sneeze at either.

Those three weren't his main targets, no. He was mostly interested in seeing Kravenchko's fights. That's the problem. He didn't fight at all!

This was a great and terrible information at the same time.

Based on this, Midoriya could confidently say that Kravchenko was going to face off against one of the two final pairs, which narrowed the list of potential opponents.

But the green haired trainee had no idea what the man was capable of, which made him the most dangerous out of the four.

For a split second, Izuku realized that there were four powerful Pro's and four students without a matchup.

"Surely they wouldn't make us fight a Pro in a 1v1, right? Even Todoroki with all of his destructive power couldn't take on a Pro by himself", he tried to reason with himself.

The last fight, Miruko versus Kendo and Mashirao began. Thirty six students gathered in the waiting room tensed as Nezu cleared his throat.

"Now that the last normal match has started, let me explain your final", the principal spoke as he turned towards the four leftover students. "I'll cut straight to the chase so that we can get on with the program. You four are going to fight together against Blackout and Avenger"

Kairo stepped forward and bowed slightly as Martin casually strolled next to him and waved at them with a smug smirk.

"This… This just got a whole lot more complicated…", Midoriya thought to himself as he looked towards his opponents.

Before any of you even think about reaching for the torch and pitchfork, I'm starting the next chapter right after posting this one and should have it done before the end of the week, since I have the next four days all to myself.

It may sound weird but... I have nothing to ramble about...

Anyway, come back for the next chapter, because Midoriya is here to kick gum and chew ass, and he is all out of ass!