Author's Note #1: The chapters are also a lot shorter than my other stories. No more the two thousand words.


My Bloody Academia


"So, this is it, huh?"

"An entire city!?"

"Geez, UA sure has everything!"

"There are supposed to be robots, right?"

"Oh man, robots are resistant to acid, aren't they?"

"This is going to be awesome!"

"Hey! Hey! Hey! What's the holdup!?"

Excitement, nervousness and apprehension electrified the atmosphere.

Students who'd spent years buried in hero programs – studying, practicing and training – stood outside a large-scale replica of downtown Musutafu.

"Ugh!"

Standing by herself, February not-so-subtlety slapping her across the face, Ryuko glared at the gates, demanding they open through sheer willpower, "Can't they do this inside?"

She'd watched the weather and looked at her phone before catching the bus to Musutafu. She'd chosen the warmest tracksuit in her closet. But her tracksuit might as well have been a bikini for all the good it did. She shivered. Goosebumps spread down her arms. Her breath was visible. Her teeth chattered. She tried imagining being somewhere warm, like a beach or in a volcano. But then she remembered stumbling out of bed at five in the morning. And whatever warmth remained vanished. God damn, it was cold! She had to keep moving or the blood would freeze in her veins.

Once her blood started flowing, she'd warm up real fast.

But the dumbassary was wearing down her patience.

Group C.

One hundred people.

One hundred Quirks.

And that was only at this gate.

There were six other gates.

Yet she was the only one who seemed to notice it was freaking winter.

"C'mon," bouncing in place, Ryuko redoubled her efforts to mentally force time forward, "What's taking them so – "

"WHOOPS, SORRY ABOUT THAT, FOLKS!"

Somewhere far away, Present Mic chuckled.

"THERE WAS A LITTLE SNAG WITH ONE OF THE BUSES, BUT GOOD NEWS! EVERYONE'S JUST ABOUT REACHED THEIR RESPECTIVE BATTLE CENTERS! CAN I GET A 'YAAAAAAY'!?"

The silence was downright deafening.

"Geez," she didn't know if it was Present Mic's Quirk or UA put speakers under every rock. For all she knew, it could be both. Because this was UA, where students fought killer robots in not one or two, but seven, full-size neighborhoods, "Could he be any louder?"

With a crooked scowl and cheeks blushing bright red from the cold, Ryuko shivered.

Three months.

Three long months.

Three months and less than nothing to show for it.

At first, she'd wanted to believe All Might would find the villain who took her dad. He was the greatest hero in the world. The strongest and fastest and toughest badass. He could do anything. And more than anything, she wanted closure. But as weeks stretched into months, her hopes dimmed. She stopped caring about All Might's updates. She stopped listening to his messages. Eventually, she blocked his number altogether. What was the point if day after day, week after week, nothing changed? That, more than anything, tore at something primal inside her chest. Three months and nobody knew anything about the villain who killed her dad. Not even their name. Not even their damn Quirk.

How was that freaking possible?

Nothing about the villain's Quirk made sense.

It should have made her easy to find!

And yet…

"Tsk," she removed a hand from her pocket. The cold against her bare knuckles served its purpose. As her skin blistered red, her anger dissipated. "No point thinkin' about it now."

It wasn't over.

And it wouldn't be over until she brought that villain to justice.

One way or another.

With or without All Might.

For the tenth time since rolling out of bed, Ryuko wondered if she should have burnt her application to UA.

Her mouth twitched.

Four levels of robots with increasing difficulty. Some possibly armed to the teeth. Others programmed to neutralize villains. Everyone would obviously go for the one-pointers, which meant as long as she focused on the two and three-pointers, racking up points would be straightforward. But what if destroying the tougher robots required teamwork? Her eyebrow twitched. If teamwork was necessary, she needed someone to complement her Quirk. Someone who could keep up. Someone fast on the uptake. But who? She looked around, eyes shifting from one person to the next. There was the guy made of metal. He seemed pretty tough, yet his yelling would probably give her a headache. Then there was the girl with the massive hands. Eh, maybe. Oh, and the bone porcupine who'd apologized for skewering his seat on the bus.

So many different Quirks and so few options.

"Everyone sure looks really tough."

Someone was standing next to her.

But she refused to acknowledge their existence in the hopes they'd go away if she kept ignoring them.

"I mean, UA's one of the best schools in the country, so that sorta makes sense," but apparently someone didn't get the hint. Because they kept talking, "Well, Shiketsu's pretty good, too. So is Ketsubutsu. And Seiai's alright, if you have loads of money. But ever since a nasty villain took down one of the second-year classes without breaking a sweat, their reputation nosedived straight into the toilet."

A gurgle forced its way up Ryuko's throat.

But surprise quickly gave way to anger, which surrendered to frustration. Her knuckles cracked. Her fingernails pushed into her palms. She turned around, expecting someone idiotic enough to believe blackmailing her was a brilliant idea. Instead, she found herself face-to-face with a brown-haired girl with matching eyes and a bright pink tracksuit smiling like she was a puppy.

She tried.

She really tried.

But no matter how hard she tried, Ryuko felt the anger trickle from her heart, "Uhh…"

"Oh, right!"

The girl slapped her cheeks, leaving red prints across a blossoming smile, "Mako Mankanshoku! Third Year at Dathomi Middle School! And my Quirk makes weird stuff happen!"

Ryuko didn't quite know what to make of that.

"…I'm Ryuko," but she settled on pretending the last twenty seconds never happened, "So, your Quirk makes weird stuff happen? Sounds neat, I guess."

"Well…yes, but no. And also…yes."

If she expected Mako to explain her Quirk, Ryuko was left hanging when the girl instead crouched onto the ground and began drawing something in the dirt, "I've always been really good with numbers. Numbers are fun. Numbers are life. That's why mom said I should become an accountant. Because after the feds realized I'd been filing our family's taxes, it was either going to college or visiting dad in jail for the next ten years."

"…huh?"

Ryuko listed sideways, her brain lurching to a crawl.

"That's why I applied to UA's normal people program. But I must've taken the wrong test," counting individual pebbles around the stick, Mako mumbled into her knees, "Because I'm about to fight killer robots and stuff. Oh man, mom's seriously going to kill me if I end up dead."

"Huh!?"

It was confusing. Everything about Mako was confusing. Was she stupid? Or a genius? Was she giving away her Quirk because she had a big mouth? Or was her Quirk a distraction to keep her off-balance? Any other day, Ryuko would have believed the latter without missing a beat. But when she looked at what Mako was drawing in the dirt – a weird caricature of All Might riding Godzillo like a horse while Endeavor tossed wheels of fire at them – she reconsidered. Besides, if Mako was telling the truth, UA would have caught their mistake.

Wouldn't they?

"Right," scratching her neck, Ryuko tried ending the conversation before it reached a level of weirdness she wasn't prepared for, "It was nice meeting you and all, but –"

"So, what's your Quirk?"

And Mako was back in the game, all smiles and no grumbling, "You're super serious, so it's gotta be something amazing, right?"

Ryuko felt her cheeks flush red not from the cold, but embarrassment, "Ain't that a bit personal?"

"I told you about mine."

"Well, for all I know, you lied."

"Why would I lie to my new bestie?"

"Your new – " Ryuko started, stopped herself, then restarted, " – we just met, and you want to be friends?"

"I'm not cut out for this hero business," still holding onto the stick, Mako matched Ryuko's frown with a smile, "But that's not a problem! It just means I've gotta stay positive! Always search for the bright light in life! That's what mom says! Even if it's from the sidelines!"

"AAAAND START!"

Yet nobody moved.

"WHAT'S THE MATTER? THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A COUNTDOWN IN A REAL BATTLE! RUN! RUUUUN! CONSIDER THE BATON TOSSED!"

Screams and shouts.

Shoving and pushing.

Quirks activating.

A tidal wave of nervousness and excitement.

"Err, uh, stay here, Mako," she didn't activate her own Quirk, but feet bouncing against the ground, caught between a rock and a hard place, Ryuko hesitated just long enough to look around before stampeding towards the doors and the mechanical carnage waiting inside, "Someone from UA will pick you up!"

Co-captain of the track and field team came with perks.

Some good.

Some bad.

Waking up five in the morning for ten-mile jogs. Special diets. Lectures on how to overcome competition without speed-based Quirks. And the ability to go from zero to holy shit she's fast in less than a second. Some people were naturally fast. Others had Quirks that made them faster. But as Mako vanished into the rearview mirror, waving and cheering like there was no tomorrow, she passed a pink-skinned girl struggling to catch her breath. She overtook a half-lizard, half-dragon. Every step carried her closer to the front. Every slap of a bright red sneaker against pavement propelled her forward a little faster. And soon enough, she was keeping pace with the obnoxious idiot who'd banged his fists on the doors like a moron.

A pause.

"Huh, you're pretty fast."

Another pause.

"Focused, huh? Awesome! The name's Tetsutetsu!"

She kept ignoring him.

"Hey! What's your problem!?" one silver eye twitching, Tetsutetsu growled, "Here I am being polite and you're just gonna ignore me!?"

As he kept shouting – at her, around her and through her – nonsense, her mouth twitched.

"HEY! GET BACK HERE! I'M NOT DONE TALKING WITH YOU!"

Her lungs burned. Her cheeks flushed bright red. And there was a tightness in her chest from the cold. But Ryuko couldn't care less. She forced his voice to the furthest corner of her mind and ran that much faster. The sooner she couldn't hear him, the better. Because she was starting to have seriously tempting 'anti-heroic' ideas involving planting her foot where the sun didn't shine, disqualification or not.

Something caught her eye.

It resembled an insect. Or maybe a scorpion. Or one of those weird bugs she'd read about. Standing six feet at the shoulder, a dark shade of green, two tails, the number 'two' painted in yellow. The two-pointer diligently marched into the middle of the street, soulless red eyes tracking her position.

And then they came.

The same shade of green. A single red eye on an elongated neck. The number 'one' painted in bright white. The one-pointers surrounded the two-pointer. Five of them. No, six. One was hiding behind another building. Out of caution, Ryuko recounted, realizing there weren't six robots, but seven of them. Now there were eight.

One heartbeat.

A cool warmth trickled through her body. A tingling spreading to her fingers and toes. Her heart pulsed. Her thoughts quickened. And when she was close enough to the one-pointers to notice the scratches on their green paintjobs, blood, thick and viscous, gushed into the cold February morning. More than two liters of blood blossomed from her skin. The crimson liquid undulated to unheard music. Individual droplets burst outwards only to quickly reunite with the whole.

Two heartbeats.

The thick fluid – her blood – solidified into a blade three feet long.

Another heartbeat.

Blood sliced through metal.

A fourth heartbeat.

Ryuko waited until the world stopped spinning and her heart steadied before standing up. Breathing slightly heavier than normal, she swallowed the metallic bile rising in the back of her throat, dizziness slowing her thoughts. Even so, she smiled. Behind her, frozen in their last moments, the one-pointers and two-pointer convulsed before collapsing to the ground, metal sliding against metal while arcs of vibrant electricity sparked between cleanly-sliced limbs. Eleven points in less than a minute?

At this rate she was going to pass UA's stupid practical exam without –

"GAAAAAGGHH!"

A pulverized two-pointer soared overhead.

Followed by Tetsutetsu, sharpened teeth twisted into a vicious snarl, "DIE YOU STUPID ROBOTS!"

First Mako. Now this moron.

As Tetsutetsu or whatever his name was recklessly charged another group of robots, Ryuko winced, "Man, is everyone here weird?"