Beneath the Hero's Mask

Chapter 12

"Izuku Midoriya is the first one to make it back to the stadium and the winner of the Obstacle Race! Todoroki is right behind him, Amamiya following and finally Bakugo in fourth place." The commentary of Present Mic sounded through the television speakers.

"Yes! Go Izuku!" Inko cheered as she jumped from her seat at the bar, almost knocking over her coffee cup.

She and Sojiro were watching the broadcast of the U.A. Sports Festival on LeBlanc's television; the latter of the two had closed the café for the day to enjoy the event without disturbances.

"I'll be damned. Who would've thunk that after all these years Izuku would one day awaken a dormant Quirk, get into U.A. High School, and come first in the obstacle race of the Sports Festival." Sojiro said.

"My baby…" Inko wiped a happy tear from her eye. "And Ren came third too! They already did so well. We can be proud of them getting this far."

The barista shook his head. "To hell with that! This was just round one, my Ren is bringing that trophy home."

Inko smiled at him knowingly. "Your Ren, huh?"

Sojiro tried his hardest to hold back a blush. Even though it originally started off as distant, his relationship with Ren quickly evolved into an intimate, almost familial one; he would never admit it outright, but the man couldn't deny that he was a big softie at heart.

"You've always had a habit of collecting strays." His friend said. "Speaking of, where is Futaba?"

Sojiro shrugged. "Cooped up in her room. You know how she gets; when I told her that there would be no mechs or virtual idols, she lost all interest in watching the Sports Festival."

"You could have still lured her out with some instant yakisoba." Inko said with a giggle.

"And we are back, ladies and gentlemen! Ready your bodies for the second round of our exhilarating Sports Festival–The Cavalry Battle!"

Their conversation was cut short by the return of the broadcast. The two of them put all their focus on the screen, eager to see the next trial their children would face.

"Alright, let's talk Quirks." Ren said while addressing his newly-formed team. "What's yours exactly, Shinso?"

"My Quirk is Brainwashing." Shinso said. "It allows me to take control of anyone who verbally responds to me. I can then make them obey any command I give them."

"Whoa, that's an incredibly powerful Quirk." Ren exclaimed with great surprise. "I guess it must have some limitations, though. And you probably can activate it on command, right? I assume because I responded to your request for joining our team and I wasn't brainwashed."

"That's correct, but…" Shinso awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. "…I did try to use it on you. I was running out of time for finding a team, it was nothing personal. But my Quirk didn't work on you for some reason."

Ren contemplated what his teammate just said. He was somehow immune to the influence of Shinso's Quirk. He wasn't one hundred percent sure of the reason, but he had a pretty good idea. There was a very specific way his mind differed from everyone else's.

"It must be because of my personas…" Ren thought out loud.

"What do your personas have to do with anything?"

"Oh, uh… that's…" He stammered when he realised that he spoke inadvertently. He tried to change the subject. "It's not important. You already know what you need to know about my Quirk. I have different personas, each one with its own strength and weaknesses; it is pretty taxing to constantly be swapping between them though, so I try to avoid it when possible. That is why Todoroki is going to be a problem… I usually gravitate to Arsène–my strongest persona, but he is weak against ice attacks. If I have to swap back and forth to a fire persona then I'm not going to be at the top of my game."

"I think I can help with that." Haru chimed in. "My Quirk is Deluminator. I can remotely extinguish and light up different light sources. It is not very useful in combat, but I hope I can contribute to the team in a different way."

That's when they all noticed Haru had a large suitcase by her side. She laid on the ground and kneeled next to it to open it.

"I dabble in the creation of support items." She said as she rummaged through the contents of the suitcase. "I don't have much experience with Hero items, but I believe we can repurpose some of my old gadgets during the Cavalry Battle… Now where did I put them… Here they are!"

She turned back towards the team and held her hands behind her back.

"You know how in the winter it gets too cold to exercise outdoors? You could wear a coat, but working out with too many layers of clothing would be too uncomfortable. That is why I invited these!" Haru whipped out a pair of metallic bracelets; they were cobalt blue and had a ruby coloured stripe centred around their circumference.

"These bracelets turn kinetic energy into heat. They can be worn on the wrist and they warm you up as you exercise."

"That's very cool and all, but how are those bangles going to help us?"

"You are saying to put the bracelets on Arsène" Ren said when he caught on to Haru's plan. "Since he's way faster and stronger than a normal human, his kinetic energy would generate enough heat to melt Todoroki's ice… Haru, you're a genius!"

Ren promptly summoned the persona in question to equip him with the heating devices. They were too small to be worn by Arsène on the wrists but they fit him perfectly as rings, decorating his dark claws.

Haru looked quite pleased with the assessment of her invention, but she wasn't done. She took out another gadget from the suitcase. "I also have this for you, Jiro."

"For me?" Jiro took the gadget in her hands. It was a small metallic box with mesh on the front, and a couple of audio sockets on the back.

"Ren has told me a bit about your quirk. This is a regular speaker monitor, but I have made a few modifications. If you plug your earphone jacks into it, you can reverberate the sound of your heartbeat into a frequency capable of temporarily paralyse someone." Haru explained.

A wide smile formed in Jiro's face. "Awesome."

While Haru filled Jiro in on the functionality of the speaker box, Ren browsed her creations inside the suitcase. He spotted a number of tiny opaque spheres that struck him as familiar.

"Haru, what are these?"

"Oh, those are just a prototype. One day I was experimenting with different chemicals when I unintentionally came across a specific reaction that would create a large volume of smoke–"

"So these are smoke bombs, aren't they?"

"Essentially, yes."

Ren grinned. Smoke bombs had been an integral part of his toolbelt during his time as Joker; he could certainly make good use of them.

"These will come in very handy…" As Ren laughed wickedly to himself, another one of Haru's items caught his eye. It was a large, silver cylinder with a leather strap attached to both ends. He reached to inspect it closer, but Haru hurriedly closed the suitcase.

"That one is just a personal project. It's nothing useful, really."

The voice of Midnight interjected. "Three minutes left!"

Ren abandoned all thoughts about Haru's mysterious gadget and focused on the upcoming event.

"Listen up, team. I have a strategy. First of all, Jiro and I will be horses, since we can fight without our hands; I'll go in front and Jiro on the right. Haru, I think you should be a horse as well, and you Shinso should be the rider." Ren took a brief pause to give room for any objection from the others. They remained silent and he continued with the plan. "Most teams are going to go after the 10 million headband. On paper it makes sense; just that headband is enough to win the whole thing, but we have our sight in something else… Instead of going for one high-value headband, we'll go for many low-value ones. No one else will be going after them so they will be uncontested, and their carriers won't be expecting us to attack. After we have enough points, people will catch wind of our strategy and turn onto us, then we will shift to defence and hold onto the headbands until time runs out."

"It sounds like you've got it all figured out. Let's rock this!" Jiro said.

"Time's up!" Midnight said. "The Cavalry Battle is about to start. Remember, any direct attack to make another team fall will be penalised with an immediate disqualification. Now get in positions, teams!"

In the end, there was a total of 12 teams. They all got in formation around the field and the final countdown began.

"Stay focused. Just stick to the plan and we've got this in the bag." Ren said.

"…three… two… one… begin!" Midnight announced the beginning of the game.

As predicted, the bulk of the teams pursued Izuku's team, aiming for the 10 million points, causing a large melee in the middle of the playing field. Jiro grabbed a pair of smoke bombs with each one of her earphone jacks and threw them into the ground. The devices detonated on impact, unleashing a cloud of thick smog.

"Pixie."

Ren summoned the mischievous fairy and activated the Third Eye to guide his team. Navigating around the smoke and confusion of the scuffle, Ren used his persona and Jiro her prehensile earphone jacks to swipe the headbands of the distracted competitors; they managed to escape the commotion with 4 new headbands, instantly jumping to second place in the leader board.

"Nice one, Jiro." Ren sent pixie to high-five Jiro's jacks. "Now we can–"

*Boom*

Out of nowhere, the team was jumped by a loud explosion right next to them.

"Bakugo, he's here!"

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't mistake me for 1-A trash."

The smoke of the explosion cleared, revealing a team of class 1-B students led by Monoma.

"He can make explosions too?!"

"You class A halfwits never learn. Did you even stop for a second to think about why most of class B ranked so low on the Obstacle Race? It's because we didn't use our quirks at all. We took the opportunity to observe the competition, learn as much as we could about the powers of the other participants without having to reveal our own. And now we hold all the cards."

Ren felt like a fool for showing off during the first stage. Indeed, the result of the race did not actually matter much on later rounds, and now they had no idea what the Quirks class B were. Although, in the case of Monoma, there was one likely candidate.

"He can copy other Quirks." Ren said.

"Correct! At least you're putting your single braincell to good use. I can copy other powers, and I must admit, I've been looking forward to sampling yours."

Monoma leaned in and tapped Ren on the head. Monoma's eyes then flashed an unnatural yellow colour.

"So this is your Third Eye? Pretty trippy. Now on to the main event… Persona!"

The blond boy yelled expecting to manifest a monstruous creature, but instead was met by whole lot of nothing.

"Huh? Why is nothing happening?"

"Sorry to rain on your parade, but I almost fell asleep listening to your whining."

Jiro intervened with Haru's speaker in hand. She plugged one of her jacks into it and unleashed a high, screeching noise. Monoma and his team squirmed in pain and immediately put their hands to their ears to try and block out the sound.

"I'll be taking this, if you don't mind."

Shinso took advantage of their paralysed state and nabbed the headband off of Monoma's neck before swiftly making an escape with his team. They ran to the other side of the field and took a moment to catch their breath.

"We've got a pretty good lead. We have to shift to defence, people will start targeting us now." Ren huffed.

"You mean like them."

Ren followed Shinso's finger and saw a team approaching at great speed–Todoroki and his teammates: Kaminari, Yaoyorozu and Ida.

"Don't worry, team. I got this."

Jiro pulled out the monitor speaker again and blasted the disarming tone towards their attackers' direction, but their advance did not cease.

"It's not working! Is this thing broken?"

Before long, team Todoroki was upon them thanks to Ida's speed. From up close, they were able to see how the other team managed to trump Haru's invention; they were all wearing sound-blocking earplugs, created by Yaoyorozu.

Kaminari took the speaker from Jiro's Hand and fried it with an electric pulse, rendering the gadget useless. Before Ren had time to react and change personas, Todoroki reached for the headbands Shinso was carrying and got away with a handful.

After successfully stealing the points, Todoroki looked directly at Ren.

"I told you I would beat you." He said with chilling brevity. He then raised an Ice barrier behind him to squash any attempt at retaliation and fled with his team.

An atypical anger started to invade Ren; after weeks of friction and clashing with Todoroki, the two-tone boy was starting to get under his skin. He took out his frustrations by punching the Ice wall in front of him and leaving a noticeable crack in it, which startled the rest of his team.

"It's alright, Ren. We've still got a couple of headbands left." Haru tried to console him.

"We do, but they took the most valuable ones. We are now on the bottom half of the ranks." Shinso clarified.

"Oh shit, this is bad. What are we going to do now?" Jiro asked.

Ren looked at the scoreboard. The encounter with Todoroki's team had indeed caused them to drop significantly. On top of that, ten minutes had already passed; they only had 5 minutes left to get back into the game.

Ren concentrated all of his brainpower into coming up with a new strategy. His plan to obtain as many headbands as possible in a blitz attack would not work again, and they might not have enough time to steal back the headbands they lost. He saw the 10 million points headband as their only hope, but then an intrusive thought crossed his mind.

It was a plan that first came to him before the start of the Cavalry Battle but ultimately discarded, knowing that his teammates would be against it. Ren turned the idea over in his mind, considering whether it would be worth it. He carefully regarded his situation; he couldn't afford to lose, he made a promise to everyone that believed in him. Given the dire straits they found themselves in, he decided it was necessary, and he hoped the others thought so too.

"Guys, I have a plan."

Jiro, Haru, and Shinso turned their heads and looked at him expectantly.

"We might not have enough time to steal enough headbands to make it into the next round." Ren took a deep breath and close his eyes. "That is why we're going to increase our chances by taking other teams out of the competition."

The three of them didn't react immediately, almost as if they had trouble believing Ren actually said what he just said.

"You can't be serious. You heard what Midnight said, Ren; We'll get disqualified!"

"We are not going to make anyone fall… they'll do that themselves." Ren said.

"And how exactly are they going to do that?"

"I have a couple of ideas, but this plan needs you all on board to work out. Are you with me?" He extended his hand behind him towards them, hoping for the support of his teammates.

Jiro put her hand on his without a second thought. "You know I'm ride or die, Renren. And besides, what's more punk rock than breaking the rules?"

Haru hesitated for a moment, but she eventually added her hand as well. "I trust you, Ren. I'm also in."

And then the eyes were on the only member of the team yet to agree on the plan.

"What about you, Shinso?" Ren asked.

Shinso looked to the ground and shoved his hands in his pockets. "I can't do it."

"Why not?"

"Because If I do that, I will be confirming what everyone already thinks of me." He said. Small hints of bitterness tainted his usual deadpan voice. "All my life people have been telling me that my Quirk is better suited for a Villain, cracking jokes about all the evil things could do with this power. That's all people see me as, a potential criminal, but I never wanted anything more than being a Hero. If I use my quirk to pull a dirty trick like that, I will be fulfilling those expectations."

Ren did not expect to see Shinso wear his heart on his sleeve like that. Nevertheless, despite barely knowing him, his feelings struck a chord. He realised that their struggles weren't all that different.

"Shinso, I know we just met, but believe me–I know exactly how you feel. When people fear you without even knowing the real you. I remember what you said that time you came to my classroom; you failed the entrance exam for the Hero course, didn't you? You have to work twice as hard to go half as far as those with more heroic Quirks. The system is rigged against you… and yet you are still here. You enrolled in the General Studies course and kept trying to get into the Hero course. That is why you participate in this Sports Festival; you want to prove wrong all of those who doubted you, and you will stop at to nothing to reach your dream."

Ren wasn't trying to convince Shinso anymore, just having a heart-to-heart with a kindred spirit.

"I promise you, with this plan we will win. And you'll have your chance to prove yourself on the next round."

Shinso didn't lift his gaze from the ground, but after a few second he responded. "You're a good speaker Amamiya. Let's see if you can also put your money where your mouth is." He said.

Ren smiled and gestured Jiro and Haru to lean in closer. "This is my plan…"

The team consisting of Toru, Ojiro, Aoyama, and Koda was scrambling around the field trying to secure another headband. Koda had used his quirk to call a small flock of pigeons to aid them, which was now flying over them.

"Watch out, here comes another one." Ojiro said to warn about an incoming offensive.

Ren's team was coming their way looking for a fight, or so they thought; just as they were a few metres away, the attackers stopped right in their tracks, and the boy mounted atop their formation spoke.

"Nice belt, to they come in men's sizes?" Shinso asked.

"Merci! I'm afraid not, this beauty was custom made for moi."

"Um… I don't think that was supposed to be a compliment, Aoyama."

But Aoyama didn't respond. His eyes seemed vacant and his body unresponsive.

"Would you mind a demonstration? Go ahead and shoot your laser." Shinso said.

The flamboyant student obeyed the command and shot a couple blasts with his naval laser at no target in particular.

"Why don't you aim a little higher?" Shinso added

Slowly, Aoyama began arching his back, directing his navel at the open sky above. The same area occupied by the helper pigeons.

Koda was quick to parse the trajectory of the laser, which would eventually reach the birds. "No! My little birdies!"

"What?! He can talk?! Since when–woh!"

Koda bolted towards Aoyama to stop the untimely demise of the birds. His hurried dash caused the rest of his teammates to lose their balance and accidentally drop Toru to the ground.

"Team Hagakure has let their rider touch the ground. They are disqualified!" Midnight called from the sidelines.

"No fair! It wasn't our fault, it was them." Toru complained while pointing next to their side, but she was signalling at the empty air; Ren's team had already skedaddled.

Ren looked at his teammates to assess their status; they all exchanged silent glances. They weren't exactly pleased with themselves, but they didn't have time to worry about sportsmanship. They pressed on and continued employing scheming and trickery in equal measure to disqualify the competition without penalising themselves, which proved much faster than stealing the headbands the conventional way; in just four minutes they were able to rise on the scoreboard back to third place.

The team started celebrating their comeback; they were clear from elimination, nevertheless Ren remained staring at the scoreboard. He noticed that Izuku's team had fallen from first place down to fourth, and the top position had been appropriated by team Todoroki; they had stolen the 10 million headband from Izuku.

Ren tightened his fists and clenched his jaw. Seeing Todoroki rank above him was bothering Ren to an unreasonable degree. All the previous run-ins with his seeming rival flashed through his mind. He definitely did not like him, but he had tried to take his hostility in stride. However, Todoroki decided to make things personal with his threat before the festival, and now Ren wanted to knock him off of his high horse.

"We're not done yet." He said.

"What do you mean?"

"We're going for the 10 million points."

"But we already have enough points to qualify, and there's only one minute left!"

"Trust me. We have to do it." Ren said shortly. There was determination in his voice, but it wasn't his usual confident one. Ren wasn't playing around anymore, he was out for blood.

The rest of the team looked at him with slight concern, but ultimately they were all willing to trust him until the end.

Jiro nodded at him. "In for a penny, in for a pound."

"I hope you know what you're doing, Amamiya." Shinso said.

The team rushed towards team Todoroki, who were still recovering from their ploy to steal the 10 million from Izuku; Ida had stalled his engine, and Kaminari had jammed his brain. They had nowhere left to run.

"Arsène!"

Ren was finally prepared to use his predilect persona. The Pillager of Twilight advanced towards the enemy team. When Todoroki detected the aggression he readied to guard their headbands.

"Yaoyorozu." He said.

The ponytailed girl heeded the implied instruction, she created a staff and handed it to Todoroki. He stabbed the ground with it and channelled a wave of ice to stop the persona.

"Brave Blade!" Ren commanded.

Arsène winded his arm before destroying the incoming ice attack with one swooping slash of his claws. The demonic gentleman flew over to Todoroki, who counterattacked by striking with the staff, but failed to land a hit as Arsène caught the weapon in his hand and immobilised him. Todoroki tried to freeze Arsène by transferring cold through the staff, but the heat generated by Haru's bracelets melted the ice just as quick as it was forming.

"Cover me."

Ren let go of Shinso without warning and ran towards the other team; Jiro and Haru fumbled to catch the rider before he touched the ground. Meanwhile Ren climbed on Arsène's back, vaulted over the persona, and landed on Ida's shoulders. His Third Eye highlighted the 10 million headband; he reached for it and ripped it off of Todoroki's neck.

"You're mine."

Todoroki felt overwhelmed by Ren's charge. He lost his composure; his instincts kicked in and without even realising, his left side was suddenly engulfed in flames. The unexpected outburst made Ren stagger, he narrowly dodged the fire and dismounted from on top of Ida with a somersault before returning to his own team.

Before team Todoroki knew what hit them, time ran out and the announcers marked the end of the game.

"And with that concludes the Cavalry Battle. Let's take a look at our top four teams." Present Mic commented. "With an impressive last minute comeback, In first place… Team Shinso! Team Todoroki is dethroned and takes second place. Blasting into third place is Team Bakugo, and against all odds, Team Midoriya manages to squeeze into fourth place! These four valiant teams will move onto the final round, but before that, it is time for a recess."

Ren and his team were both overjoyed and relieved by their victory in the event. They were congratulating each other when Shinso began walking away.

"Guess we'll meet again in the final round."

"Shinso, wait!" Ren said to get his attention. Shinso turned around and looked at him quizzically, unsure about what was left to be said.

"I just wanted to tell you to not give up on your dream of being a Hero. You may not have the flashiest Quirk, but you have a lot of talent, and it's only a matter of time people start taking notice."

Shinso simply gave him a hint of a smile. "It's been a pleasure, Amamiya." He said before finally making his exit.

"I wonder what the next event is going to be." Haru asked.

"The final round is always some sort of one-on-one competition." Jiro answered.

"Yeah, it's going to be interesting…" At that point Ren felt a deep rumbling emanating from his abdomen. " Oof, I'm starving. I'll go get something to eat."

"Let's go to the cafeteria."

"I actually have my own lunch today. You go ahead, I'll see you guys later."

Ren made his way back to the waiting room, which was currently empty since most people were having lunch in the cafeteria. He let out a sigh charged with relief for the peaceful moment. From his bag he pulled out a bento box and a thermos full of coffee that Sojiro had prepared for him that morning. He opened the box and found a sticky note attached to the lid; upon closer inspection, he saw the note had a message scribbled in lazy handwriting–'Give 'em hell, kid.'

Ren smiled briefly, but he didn't have much time to appreciate his guardian's affection; his senses were overpowered by the ferocious growling of his stomach.

Using his personas in combat drained a lot of energy; he could recover after resting overnight, but eating was the fastest way to replenish stamina in a pinch. Ren had come to learn that LeBlanc's coffee and curry were a particularly efficient source of fuel. He sat in one of the tables, broke apart a pair of disposable chopsticks, and dug right in.

Ren was halfway through his lunch when Toru, Jiro, Uraraka and Ashido walked into the waiting room; for some reason, they were all wearing cheerleader uniforms.

"Oh, hey Ren!"

"Hello there." He returned the greeting and did a double take of their attire. He was surprised, but he didn't really mind. "You all look great in those outfits."

The compliment earned him a wave of blushes from the girls, with the exception of Toru, who gleefully did a pirouette to show off her costume.

"I know, right? They're so cute! I think I might make a formal petition to start a cheerleading squad for real."

"Then I might finally start taking an interest in sports."

"You should join too! I bet with your acrobatic skills you'd be a great cheerleader."

"Mmm, I don't know if I could pull off the skirt…"

They both shared a short laugh, but there was something bugging Ren. He couldn't help but feel guilty about their encounter during the cavalry battle.

"Hey, Toru. I'm… I'm very sorry about tricking your team into dropping you."

"As you should, that was so mean! And it actually hurt a lot." Toru moaned with an exaggerated pout.

"I'll make it up to you. How about some free LeBlanc coffee?" Ren said while shaking the half-full thermos.

"It's a start."

She took a seat next to Ren and accepted the drink. She didn't seem too bothered by the incident. Ren knew Toru wasn't the type to hold grudges, but he still felt guilty.

"I am seriously sorry."

"Don't sweat it. We only had a couple headbands anyway; I doubt we were going to win either way." She reassured him. "But the others didn't seem to take it so well though, especially Ojiro."

Ren nodded silently. It made sense, since Ojiro was an outspoken critic of his past vigilantism and put a great deal of importance on honour. It dawned on him that he didn't stop to consider how his plan would affect his reputation at school.

The rest of the girls joined them at the table and a conversation started about their performances during the cavalry battle and the possibilities for the final round.

As time passed, more students trickled into the waiting room to stand by until the reveal of the next event; the entirety of class 1-A was currently present and awaiting the final phase of the Sports Festival with a mix of anxiety and excitement.

Kaminari approached Ren and wrapped an arm around his shoulder

"Hey, Amamiya. Great moves out there. Pretty sly to use those guerrilla tactics to take out the competition. Even though you beat us, I can't really bring myself to be mad; it was honestly kinda cool."

Upon hearing that, Ida jumped up from his seat to reprimand him. "Kaminari! How can you say that?! There is nothing cool about unsportsmanlike behaviour."

"Relax, man. I'm just saying; credit where credit is due and all that."

"Yeah. Take a chill pill, Ida. Besides, it's just a high school game." Toru added.

Ojiro chimed in to voice his opinion. "It's the U.A. Sports Festival, it is much more than a mere high school game. But even if it was, does that mean we should abandon sportsmanship? There is no honour in cheating."

Sensing the incipient debate, Ren felt the need to defend himself. "I didn't break any rules."

"Oh, so now you care about the rules?" Todoroki cut into the conversation. He stood up and marched up to Ren until he was right in front of him. "Whatever, it doesn't matter; you want first place? Fine, take it, but make sure you enjoy it while you can because you won't be here for much longer."

Ren was reaching the end of his rope with Todoroki's personal attacks; he was at a loss trying to make sense of the apparent vendetta Todoroki held against him. He stood up as well to meet him face to face.

"What the hell is your problem with me? You don't even know me."

"I know all about the likes of you. You think you are untouchable, that you are free to do whatever you want because your hubris has lead you to mistakenly believe that your selfish motives are enough justification. All without ever giving a second thought to the broken pieces you leave behind, only caring about your ego."

Ren scoffed. "You're one to talk about egos. You are just throwing a tantrum because for once in your life you didn't get your way. You were born with your life already sorted; an influential family name and a powerful quirk. All your life you've been told that you are better than everyone else, and you were naïve enough to believe it. You are just a sheltered brat with no idea of what the real world is actually like. You only hate me because you think I have defiled your idealistic idea of Heroism; you don't really give a damn about the people, the victims, those in the streets who actually suffer."

Ren closed the distance between him and Todoroki until they could feel each other's breath. He had been steadily losing his patience until he finally threw any semblance of caution to the wind; he shot his next words like a bullet in cold blood.

"You are just like your father."

Todoroki's eyes widened at Ren's comment, ire taking over him. He covered his entire arm in razor-sharp icicles and clenched his fist. Mirroring the action, Ren summoned his dagger into his hand and gripped it tightly. For a brief instant electricity suspended the moment in time, and then both of them swung at the other simultaneously with wholly harmful intent.

Their classmates gasped, appalled by the violence between the two, but before the attacks could connect, Sero shot out a strand of tape to bind and hold back Ren's arm while Shoji grew extra arms to restrain Todoroki. The two boys struggled trying to free themselves, wanting to finally settle their fight once and for all.

"Stop this, right now!" Izuku cried. "Can't you see that we are all on the same side? Violence won't solve anything."

"I beg to differ." Ren said.

"That's one thing we can agree on". Todoroki added. "I'm sorry, Midoriya. But I can't go another second being around him."

"Leave him alone! Ren hasn't done anything wrong."

"How can you keep defending him? He's a convicted criminal!

"He was allowed into U.A. for a reason. He's not a criminal, he's one of us."

"So a dangerous vigilante shows up to our school and you expect us to trust him and accept him after just a few weeks?"

"It doesn't matter how long it's been. If you got to know him you'd see that he's a good person"

Things started to heat up within the waiting room, and soon enough a full-blown argument erupted between the students of class 1-A.

Once Ren snapped out of the heat of the moment, he came to his senses, and his previous anger was replaced by guilt. He dropped his dagger and thought about what would have happened had their classmates not intervened. He couldn't let things go on like this; as much as he disliked Todoroki, all his qualms were completely valid. He had hoped it wouldn't come down to this, but he knew what he had to do.

"Enough!" Ren shouted, attracting the eyes of everyone present.

"Ren?" Izuku asked.

"It's true." He said. "They don't really know me, but… none of you do, and that is my fault; I never told you the whole truth… and I think it is time."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that I can't ask people to put their trust in me when I haven't been completely honest. Todoroki was right, I have been playing pretend; I thought I could just bury my past and move on while acting as if never happened. But I see now that I can't run away from it forever; my time as a vigilante is and will always be a part of me. That is why I'm going to tell you everything."

The entire room went dead quiet. Regardless of their side of the argument, they were all curious about Ren's past. Truth be told, they had all speculated about it behind his back, but now they were about to hear the real story directly from the source.

"Grab a sit, everyone. It's going to be a long one." Ren sat down and the rest of the class gathered around him with open ears. "This is the story of how I became Joker…"