Their Hero Academia – Chapter 61: Final Exam Part 3: Short Answer
Through her connection to Frog-Shadow, Asuka felt the world spin. Whatever it was, it wasn't affecting her directly, but it was affecting Frog-Shadow and Haimawari. It couldn't be the winged Villain—his Quirk was obviously some kind of wind manipulation—which meant there had to be another Villain somewhere that they weren't seeing.
Asuka dove for cover, drawing Frog-Shadow back into her body. Haimawari veered towards the wall, swerving wildly. But rather than try to break, he jetted forward, putting up his hands at the last moment so that he traveled up the wall. He pushed himself off it with another pulse of his power, executing a flip in the air, before making a three point landing. He shot a fist into the air.
"Wooo! Did you see that?! I did it!"
"Pretty fancy, Hero," the winged man sneered. "But it's going to take more than that to take down the Raptor!" His wings spread out behind him, then flicked forward again. The resulting blast of air should have knocked Haimawari of his feet, but despite being buffeted by the winds and flailing against them, he wasn't moved from his spot. Looking closely, she could see a faint glow surrounding his feet and Asuka realized he must have been using his Quirk to adhere to the street.
Ready, Frog-Shadow? she thought. If they were going to try again, there wasn't a better time than while Haimawari still had the Villain—Raptor—distracted.
Ready! I don't know what he did last time, but this time, I'm going to kick his ass! Just you wait and see!
Asuka rolled her eyes for a moment. Ever since she'd almost lost her during the Internship, she'd been trying not to be as annoyed by Frog-Shadow's antics and bravado. And she'd been letting Frog-Shadow out more often under casual circumstances, incorporating her into what was going on. It had felt… right. Frog-Shadow was a part of her, but was also her own self. And in trying to suppress that, to make Frog-Shadow conform to what she considered to be proper behavior standards, had she not been suppressing part of herself? And more trust in her familiar had resulted in better coordination during training. It was a benefit to them both, especially since Frog-Shadow actually acted up less when she felt she had more of an outlet and voice.
Then go! she commanded.
Frog-Shadow flew from her body towards Raptor, but the moment she got close, the disorienting feeling of dizziness returned, the world spinning as though someone was turning it around and around in every direction. Asuka fell to her knees, while Frog-Shadow flitted about in the sky going every which way. She couldn't see clearly with the world spinning, but it looked like Haimawari was dodging this way and that, occasionally firing a burst of power at Raptor.
This time, the dizziness was overwhelming; she was now clearly a direct target of it, making her feel as though she was going to throw up her breakfast. Even closing her eyes offered only limited relief. Every time she tried to rise, she found she couldn't. The mere thought of moving made her ill.
Hang on! came Frog-Shadow's thoughts. Her thoughts were shaky too; being hit with whatever was causing the dizziness directly and feeling it through Frog-Shadow was possibly making it worse than it could have been. I'm coming! I see him!
Frog-Shadow zipped unsteadily through the air back to her, briefly entering her body, before shooting out the other side of her again. Take that, you big meanie!
A mighty thwack filled the air, the sound of Frog-Shadow smacking into something, followed by the sound of someone hitting the ground. The nausea immediately stopped, her head and stomach clearing quickly. When she was able to open her eyes, she saw a hideous figure trying to get to its feet, a humanoid cockroach. She very nearly let out a cry of alarm, but kept her beak clamped shut. Such a reaction was unbecoming of a Hero and considering her own avian appearance, hardly appropriate as a person either.
Frog-Shadow, meanwhile, was still raining punches down on the bug-man, eliciting a groan. "Call it off! Call it off! She's crazy!" the bug-man cried out, multiple arms waving in the air in a show of surrender. But Frog-Shadow pressed her attack and decked the man, who collapsed in a heap on the sidewalk.
It was only now, when she had a moment to think, that Asuka realized she'd lost track of Raptor and Haimawari. And she had no idea what had become of Sero and Ojiro either…
Takiyo's head was killing him, his ears still ringing, so he was fairly certain that he could not possibly have heard Shota Shinso say what he thought he'd heard. Then again, the short boy was rather obsessive in his fanboy tendencies. If anyone could recognize whoever the school had gotten to fight them for their exam, it would be him.
He knew he should not have been so embarrassed. The fact was, their assailant could have just as easily shot any of them. True, Iida's armor might have protected her, but the rest of them had no such protection. But being shot and having to be rescued like some civilian ate away at him all the same. How was he ever going to make a name for himself if he could be taken down so easily?
"You don't know shit, kid!" the woman in the catsuit shouted, waving her rifle about as she tried to refute Shinso's claims. "Shut up!"
Somehow, having a gun pointed at him did not deter Shinso from talking. Takiyo suspected that, were the boy somehow trapped in a soundless void, he would find a way to continue to talk.
"I do too! You're the Shadow Thief! Mom and Dad fought you!"
The woman looked so startled she nearly dropped her gun. "Shit! I knew that purple hair looked familiar!" She recovered her grip on her weapon quickly, but before she could fire a shot, Koda threw seeds which quickly grew into vines. As the vines ensnared her, she and her weapon vanished, melting back into the shadows from whence she came.
The Shadow Thief reappeared immediately, behind Shinso. She struck him with the butt of her rifle, knocking him to the ground. Before Koda could react, the Shadow Thief fired a shot directly into her center mass, knocking her down. She spun to fire again and Takiyo let out a cry of alarm. But when he did, he unleashed a blinding flash of light.
"Argh!" the Shadow Thief cried out, this time dropping her weapon, which fell to the ground with a great clatter. She stumbled backwards, one hand covering her eyes. "Dammit…"
Quickly, he fired a laser beam of light at her weapon, the heat slicing it in half cleanly. He took some smug satisfaction in that. At least he wasn't so hurt that he couldn't still aim. He started charging up another shot in one hand, while projecting blinding beam from the other. This woman had appeared from the shadows and had taken him out first. It stood to reason that dark things like her feared his light.
"The next shot is for you, witch. Stand down."
"Can't… do that," she said, between gritted teeth. She kept slowly trying to edge backwards, out of the range of his light. No doubt looking for more shadows to escape to. "I've got too much at stake... to let some pissant lightbulb like you stop me…" Her hands strayed to her belt and she removed something he couldn't see from a pouch there. She let whatever it was drop and dark, obscuring smoke began to rise, hiding her from him and obscuring even his bright beam.
A scream from behind him, acting as a wedge of force, pushed the smoke aside. But when it did, the Shadow Thief was gone. Takiyo released the energy he was building up and turned, seeing that Shinso and Koda were recovering from her assault. Shinso was rubbing the back of his head and Koda had one arm draped protectively over her chest. She'd taken one of those shots full center of mass. His head ached enough from merely being clipped by one. How much worse were her injuries?
"Mademoiselle Koda, are you all right?" he asked. If that Villain had hurt her…
She held up her free hand. "Sore, but I shall live. Thank providence for my thick hide."
"I'm fine too," Shinso said, though he hadn't asked. He touched the back of his head gingerly. "Oooh, that's gonna be a lump."
Takiyo's mind was still reeling. Had they gotten actual Villains for their exam? Surely not even Aizawa would unleash something that dangerous upon them. It had to be a joke. A trick! Shinso had to be mistaken! And yet, Takiyo realized there was no possible way that Shinso would be mistaken about the identity of a Villain. But then, what did that mean? If there were real Villains, their teachers would be riding to their rescue. And she was only firing nonlethal ammunition…
"What… what was that?" he demanded. "What was she talking about? 'Too much at stake'?" He waved his arms in a gesture of confusion.
"Beats me," Shinso said.
Iida's voice crackled through their head sets. "No sign of the Villain… Izumi says that Toshi wants us to pull back and regroup as soon as we are able. Check for remaining civilians, I will maintain a lookout. Then we can go."
Takiyo no longer felt quite so confident in this exam. If there were real Villains about, if this was something other than what it seemed… then what was going on?
"'Too Much at stake'," All Might repeated, turning to look at Aizawa. "Just what did you tell them, Aizawa?"
"Only what was necessary to properly motivate them to give the students a real challenge," Aizawa replied, not looking at All Might. His tone of voice seemed to imply that this should have been obvious. His eyes remained fixed to the various screens in front of them. "A rationale deception designed for the optimum effort from both sides." He declined to elaborate further.
Koharu swallowed nervously. Was the Hero Course really this nuts and unregulated that one of the teacher's had called in actual Villains to fight students during the exam? Why were the Villains going along with it? What was keeping them from just killing everybody? If she booked it out of the control room, maybe she could give Class 1-A some kind of warning?
Vice-Principal Midnight seemed to sense her discomfort. She gave Koharu a kind smile. "It's all right," she said. "Eraser personally vetted each and every Villain for this exam. They're all model prisoners who would have been up for parole in a year or two anyway."
Koharu's antenna popped up and she tried to smooth them down. They always did that when she was nervous. "Is this normal?" She waved her hands in vague circles in the air, unable to properly articulate what "this" was.
That got a laugh out of the Vice-Principal for some reason. "Oh, honey, nothing with Eraser is ever normal. He likes to keep all of us on our toes."
"If you can't handle the unexpected," Aizawa said, not bothering to turn to look again, "you've got no business being in this line of work."
"Understood, sir," Koharu said, unsure if he was talking to her or Midnight.
She returned her attention to the Vice-Principal. "Can I ask about who these Villains are then?"
Midnight smiled again. "Asking questions and gathering intelligence already," she said. "Good job. Shinso already identified Shadow Thief, a very talented cat burglar and practitioner of corporate espionage. As her name implies, she can travel through any shadow to any other."
She pointed to one of the other screens, where the giant woman was pulling herself out of the ground. The group that had been battling her had already moved on, clearing out what civilian-robots remained in their area, all the while keeping one eye behind them in case she came after them again.
"That's Kamuy," Midnight explained. "Guilty of political agitation, destruction of government property, and kidnapping a government official, some of which would have garnered her a slap on the wrist, if she hadn't used her Quirk to do it. Still, it's the last one that really hung over her. She's Ainu and has fought rather violently against encroachments on her people's culture. Her Quirk lets her absorb kinetic and other forms of energy and uses them to fuel her own strength. Sato there almost figured it out… it's an active Quirk, not a passive one."
Another screen showed the bird-headed girl and her frog… thing… restraining a small man who looked like a cockroach. There was no special shared love among insect Quirks, but it did look like the frog-thing had smacked him around more than was probably strictly necessary.
"Nauseous," Midnight said. "Guilty of multiple counts of theft and disruption of public events, whose Quirk allows him to disrupt the workings of people's inner ear. And apparently that of Quirks that act like people too. Not a terrible guy, all things considered. When a robbery he was involved in went south, he stayed with the injured guard rather than make off with the money like his friends."
Koharu winced at the frog thing gave Nauseous one last smack.
"Hmmm," Midnight said. "Looks like he's out of the fight. That's one for our kids, anyway."
Another screen showed the metal sumo wrestler that Midoriya had uppercutted into the stratosphere climbing out of the rubble of a building. It had come down when he'd crashed into it. "Remind me to deduct points from Midoriya for that," Aizawa said. "That kind of carless destruction could cost lives."
"I'll work with him on that," All Might said sheepishly. "I may have regaled him with a few too many stories of one final Smash…"
"Of course you did."
"Jawbreaker," Midnight went on. "Ridiculed for his appearance, he tried to live an honest life, despite the temptations of crime. He ultimately turned to crime and theft in order to pay for his father's medical bills. Anything he eats, he can take on the properties of. The kids haven't seen half of what he can do yet."
Koharu's eyes widened. "You're really letting somebody like that fight them? He looks like he could give Deku a rough fight!"
"It's fine," Midnight assured her again. "Like I said, model prisoner. And besides, we made it very clear what happens if they step outside the boundaries we set for them."
And then there was the winged man, who was leading Haimawari on a chase across the skyline. Haimawari was doing his best to dodge the wind attacks and return fire, while the winged man kept trying to blow him over unsuccessfully.
"And lastly," Midnight finished, "Raptor. The son of Chinese immigrants, who grew up in the Triads. It's a little romantic really, but he turned state's evidence against them when he fell in love and started a family. It got him a reduced sentence and now he's up for parole. His wings let him manipulate wind, not to the extent of, say, Gale Force, though his overall destructive output might be higher."
A rare flying Villain. Koharu gulped. As a flying Hero, it would someday be up to people like her to fight people like him. A sobering thought.
"So, Kocho," Aizawa said, still not taking his eyes off the screens. His voice was deadly serious. "What would you do if you had to fight these Villains?"
No one told her this would be a test!
"Look out!" Takuma shouted, jumping into the air while firing a strand of Acid Tape. He swung and quickly grabbed a pair of child-sized robots with his free arm, getting them out of the way just in time to avoid being squished by falling rubble. That had been entirely too close!
"You two okay?" he asked the robots when he set down again. Both nodded and gave him a thumb's up, the lights on their chests turning green to indicate a successful rescue. "Good. Do you know where you parents are?"
The robots didn't respond, but instead took off towards a taller, vaguely woman-shaped robot, who briefly embraced them before running off. "Artificial intelligence is getting way too real," he said aloud.
He popped the faceplate on his helmet, wiping some of the sweat away from his brow. He and Kimmie had done a good job getting people away from the fight and the winged guy, but that was getting harder and harder now that Haimawari was chasing after him. He spotted the winged guy jetting from one spot to the next, always pushing off something at one point or another in his flight. Maybe he couldn't actually fly? He looked heavy. If his Quirk was really the air thing, maybe the wings were just glide and steer?
And if that was the case, what did he do with that information?
He watched, just for a minute, as Haimawari dodged out of the way of a blast of air, sliding up the side of the building backwards, then bringing up a hand to pepper the Villain with pulsing energy bolts. It didn't look like they were doing much damage, but they were definitely knocking the guy around a good bit. He'd give Haimawari credit, he had great control of his Quirk.
"That's the last of the civilians," Kimiko said, running up him. "Everyone's evacuated." She looked up at the on-going fight between Haimwari and the Villain. "Should we do something?"
Takuma winced as Haimawari narrowly dodged a blast of wind that blew out the remaining windows of the building. It shattered the remaining windows in the tall building, showering everything below with glass. Haimawari blasted a few shards away from himself, but was started to slow down in dodging the wind bursts.
He nodded. "Yeah. Climb on my back. Can you make us invisible again?"
Takuma couldn't see her eyes or her expression, but the rest of Kimiko's body language just radiated a "yeah, duh" response of such intensity he was surprised he wasn't on fire from it. Rather than continue with his commentary, he snapped his visor back into place and bent down and allowed Kimiko to climb on his back, wrapping her legs around his chest and her arms around his neck. She was pressed up against him tightly enough that he was glad he was gay or he'd probably have a lot of trouble thinking straight.
'Straight.' Even in the middle of an exam, he was funny. But why was he always at his funniest in his own head?
"Okay!" Kimiko announced. "Time to disappear! Let's go kick that guy's ass!" There was no feeling as she used her Quirk, making both her costume and him invisible, only the colors of the world losing some of their edge, everything going a little bit gray. It was always weird and he swore his peripheral vision was a bit wider with his skull being invisible. And that wasn't even getting into how he shouldn't have been able to see if his eyes were invisible.
Kimiko's Quirk did not bear deep thinking if you wanted to keep your sanity. Was this how she saw everything, all the time?
It also required absolute concentration to use in teamwork. Without his ability to see his body or even his Tape when he fired it (as it was still a part of him until he released it), he had to be absolutely certain of any move he made while invisible. Thank goodness they'd put in plenty of practice.
Takuma fired off a strip of Tape at the side of the building, making it good and sticky, tested that it was secure, then launched himself and Kimiko into the air, reeling himself up to the side of the building. Quickly, he fired another strip of Tape, pulling both of them up to where Haimawari was struggling to maintain his grip on the building against the winged Villain's winds. The winged-Villain had amped up the pressure and intensity of his attacks, leaving their classmate no opportunity to fight back.
Even not being directed at them, he could feel the air currents. Kimiko let out a shriek as they were nearly dislodged. Takuma quickly secured them with another strand.
"This was a bad idea," Kimiko whispered in his ear. He wasn't sure he disagreed. Raptor was moving fast, bouncing from perch to perch, never letting up the pressure on his wind attacks.
"You're persistent, kid, I'll give you that much," Raptor growled, wings flapping hard as he bounced off the side of a building, readying another volley of wind. "But you're just out of your depth."
Haimawari withstood the barrage again, his hands and feet glowing as he poured his Quirk into adhering to the building. But he was starting to slip, Takuma could see that much. It was now or never if they were going to do something.
"Hang on, Kimmie," he whispered. He fired off a strip of Tape again, and swung himself upwards. As he soared up through the air, he fired off another Tape strip, giving his wrist a hard flick. With perfect timing, the Tape itself wrapped around Raptor's legs, pinning them together.
"What the?!" Raptor cried out. He was in motion, gliding through the air before starting his next attack, leaving him no opportunity to try and dislodge the Tape.
Takuma grunted and pulled with all his might. He was definitely going to be feeling the stain tomorrow, but taken by surprise, Raptor slammed into the building, hard. But the Villain pushed off with a grunt, flapping his wings hard and propelling himself with blasts of wind. Takuma was forced to cut the strip of Tape loose, lest his arm be pulled out of the socket. When the strip broke away, it became visible. Raptor tore it loose, flapping his wings hard and reversing direction in mid-air.
His wings flared again as he prepared to fire another blast of air. But their attack had given Haimawari the precious seconds he needed to actually return fire. He sped up the side of the building, then turned and snapped up, his feet still clinging to the building but bother his hands now in firing position. "SLIIIIIIDE-BUSTER!" Haimawari unleashed a powerful looking, pulsating blue-white beam of energy, looking stronger and bigger than the small bolts he usually fired. The beam struck Raptor dead on, blasting him into the ground below. He made a rather satisfying thud when he hit.
Kimiko let the two of them fade back into visibility. Takuma looked up and gave Haimawari a wave. "Niiiice, dude!"
Haimawari gave them a little wave in return. "Figured that had to be you two. Thanks. Wasn't sure what I was going to do there."
"Hey, if you two are done congratulating each other," Kimiko interrupted, "the bad guy's getting away!"
Takuma looked down and saw she was right. The Villain was back on his feet but running away, not taking to the skies. He saw him slip between an alleyway and then lost track of him.
"Ugh, great," Takuma said. He wondered if that was going to cost them points. Beating the Villains was only the number three priority, but… "Should we go after him…?"
"Are you three all right?" Tokoyami's voice over the comms cut off that line of thinking. "I've," she stopped suddenly, as though she was arguing with someone he couldn't hear. Probably Frog-Shadow. It was a shame Tokoyami didn't have any interest in fame. A straight man who could supply their own co-host to argue with? That was comedy gold there. "Pardon, we've captured one of the Villains and Gravi-Might wishes for us to regroup."
Well, that answered that at least.
It didn't take long for everyone to make it back to the civilian defense shelter and gather in front, and Toshi was glad to see that everyone was still standing. Some looked a little worse for wear than others though. Both Sora and Tensei had dents in their armor; there was a massive dent in Tensei's chestplate that was shaped like a fist and Sora's armor looked like someone had been shooting at her (He had to try really hard to separate the boyfriend concern from teammate concern there.). Aoyama and Shota were both nursing head wound and several others like Shoji and Koda looked more than a little beat up.
Ojiro quickly went to work checking over the wounded. They were all versed in basic field first aid now, but with the additional training she was receiving from Aunt Eri and her Quirk, she made the most sense as the team medic. She quickly pronounced that there were no broken bones or internal damage, though she loudly professed that they were all probably going to be sore tomorrow.
Toshi was sympathetic to that. Smacking into the building, even in a state of high gravity, had hurt like hell. He was lucky the rest of his team had been so quick to act. It had kept them from being injure and left the three of them—Izumi, Mineta, and Kaminari—along with Sato and Ojiro, as the only people who weren't hurt or put through the ringer.
"Toshi!' Shota piped up. "Toshi! Toshi! It was Shadow-Thief! We were fighting a real Villain! It was the Shadow Thief!"
"That's great, Shota," Toshi said, his attention on the broader group. "Okay, so we've all had some contact with the Villains and it looks like we've beaten them back. And Asuka's got us a prisoner."
He looked back at the unconscious form of the cockroach-like man Asuka had brought back with her, bound with what looked like a street lamp wrapped around him, courtesy of Frog-Shadow. She'd also dumped a garbage can on his head, explaining that the Villain had some kind of Quirk that could cause extreme dizziness. She'd guessed it was based on sight, judging by how she and Haimawari had been affected. Izumi was already working on forming a cube of ice around him, a little miniature prison cell. Maybe if he woke up they could interrogate him for more information. He could play good cop and he was pretty sure Katsumi would jump at the chance to play bad cop.
"And that's Nauseous!" Shota said, pointing excitedly. "Wow!"
…Wait. Toshi stopped mid-thought to stare at Shota, mouth agape.
"Loud Kid," Katsumi snapped, saying what they were all thinking, "why the hell do you know who these guys are?"
"They're real Villains!" Shota explained again. "I mean, I thought both of them were supposed to be in jail, but they're still real Villains!"
At this pronouncement, chaos broke out among the rest of his classmates, except for Koda, Sora, and Aoyama, everyone talking at once and over each other.
"The fuck?!"
"I am certain our teachers would not willingly subject us to danger like that without failsafes…"
"We're gonna die! We're gonna die! Villains have overrun UA! I'm too hot to die! There's so many people I never hit on!"
"You! Have! A! Boyfriend! I'm the one who's going to die alone!"
"I beat a real Villain! GO ME!"
"Yes, you did. You can stop bragging now."
"I helped take down a real Villain and I couldn't get it on video?! This is the worst thing that ever happened in the history of ever!
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HELPED?! WHAT AM I, CHOPPED LIVER?!"
"Really, this is what you two are arguing about now?"
"This is truly improbable, and yet Shinso has a statistical record that makes his identifications very likely…"
"Guys, think for a second. It can't possibly be what it looks like."
"Hey, guys, ah, maybe we should listen to Midoriya…?"
Haimawari's words, at least, seemed to calm the class down for the moment. Everyone quieted down and gave Toshi their attention again. He once again realized how much everyone looked to him in the figurative sense as well. It was a sobering burden. And one that was starting to remind him of something Dad had said once, about how he only tried to do so much (which was, admittedly, a lot), because he didn't want people relying on him like they had on Grandpa Might. It was why he was the Symbol of Hope, not Peace.
He was really going to have to do something about that.
"Okay," he said. They could dissect the implications later, but he trusted in their teachers not to put them in danger. …Okay, he trusted Aizawa not to put them in too much danger. "So all that really means is that we're fighting people who are experienced fighting Heroes. But they're probably holding back some. We don't know if they were briefed about us or our Quirks, but I'm betting we have the best source on the planet for figuring out what they've got."
Toshi pointed at Shota. "So we're going to fill Loud Kid in on what we've got and who we fought. Shota, it's time to put your knowledge to the test."
His eyes scanned the cityscape behind the others. "Because make no mistake… this isn't over. First round went to us. But there's at least four Villains still out there. They know we're here, they know where we are. And since this is where their target is…
"They're coming for us."