Chapter fifteen, here we come!

Let's do this!

)=(

Izuka stood outside of ground delta with a stupid grin plastered across her face.

"Please stop smiling like that, problem child…"

Izuka laughed and turned to Aizawa. "Sorry, this is one of the classes I've been looking forward to for a while. I've always loved rescue heroes like Thirteen, Cementoss, and Lunch Rush!"

Aizawa nodded. "Cementoss is joining us today. Thirteen won't be here until next month. She's finalizing the blueprints for a facility that will hopefully be done within a few years."

Izuka's eyes sparkled. "Woah… is it a rescue training facility?"

"You hit the nail on the head." Aizawa sighed. "Thirteen is getting their dream facility, 'the unforeseen simulations joint'. Or USJ."

"Huh, don't tell the classes that you're going to the USJ, they'll think you mean universal studios."

Aizawa snickered as the rest of the class showed up.

"Alright everyone. Today we'll be running a few rescue exercises. We're set up here in ground delta, as well as over there at ground Alpha. First, we'll be working as a single unit. You will be tasked with rescuing as many civilians as possible. Any questions?"

"Sir! Are we competing with each other for the number of civilians saved?"

Aizawa rolled his eyes. "As much as the rest of the world would have you believe, heroes should not be at each other's throats when it comes to stats. Now, you will all be working side by side to save as many as possible."

Aizawa looked up. "That being said, please note that you will not be able to save every one of the civilians. You are only twenty one students in a sizable chunk of the city. Civilian dummies have a light on them, indicating whether or not they can be saved. Green means they are alive, while red means that they have died. Any further questions?"

Iuka raised a hand. "Are we all entering at once, or will we be let in a little at a time, adding in that simulation of heroes arriving at different times."

Aizawa nodded. "Good question. For this exercise you will all be going in at the same time."

"Are there villains?" One student asked.

"In this exercise, no." The tired pro yawned. "No more questions, we're wasting time. Go get started."

The students nodded as the gates to ground delta opened.

Izuka ran into the training area, lagging slightly behind the group as she looked around.

Ground delta as a large city. Several buildings were partially destroyed. Izuka could see fires in some building windows, as well as a few rescue bots.

They looked like crash test dummies, but bore a large blinking light on their face. They were easy to spot from a distance even if the light malfunctioned, due to their bright orange color.

Izuka quickly got to work as she made it to a reasonably stable area near the center of the city zone.

Within a half hour, Izuka cleared out the first floor of the fake building, and began using it to bring the rescue bots.

Aizawa watched with approval from the training grounds viewing room.

'Setting up a medical area. A good first task. While it may net her less points in the long run, it is what we covered in our hero scenario lesson yesterday.'

The man looked at the other cameras, only finding two others that were doing the same.

'I'll have to lecture them later… ugh.'

Izuka had run out of space in her first building, so she quickly began moving outside, clearing the area as she went.

"OH SHOOT!" The young woman heard. "WE WERE SUPPOSED TO SET UP AREAS!"

Izuka turned to see a young man sitting on the edge of a rooftop. She smiled and called up to him.

"My area is open for use! It'd be nice to have someone working with me."

The young man disappeared, before he and a few other students reappeared several minutes later, civilians in tow.

"We found them in a burning area. Do you have a burn injury section?"

Izuka nodded, motioning to an area closer to the center of the street.

"I sealed off the roads with tape. If one of you could put up road barriers as an extra cautionary measure."

"Yes ma'am!" One student shouted. Izuka smiled.

"We've got five of us here. I'll stay and keep watch over the injured. Three of you go save civilians. If you find one who has passed, bring them back so we can give a proper burial."

The group nodded and began working hard on their objectives.

Every few minutes, the three students would bring by a 'dead' bot they had found. Izuka quickly set up a 'deceased' area to lay them in.

After the other student finished setting up barriers, he returned and helped Izuka with making space, as well as directing.

Izuka grinned as her makeshift team made progress.

"Hey you! Name and quirk!" She called to a passing student.

"Um, Kori Nakamura. My quirk is called 'Stasis'."

Izuka nodded. "Get over here, I need your help really quick."

Kori leapt over to Izuka.

"You're captaining one of the rescue sites?"

Izuka nodded. "I set it up at the beginning of this. I have a few others helping me, but we've had a problem."

"What is it?"

Izuka pointed to a cloud of dust rising from a collapsed building.

"Three of our own went in there and it collapsed. It was a good minute after they entered, so maybe they haven't noticed yet. My associate over there has a strength enhancer, but he can't hold the building up for long enough, while getting any injured out."

Kori nodded. "I'm on it."

The young man ran over to the bulked up student by the collapsed building.

"I'm here to help. Any way that you can lift it up?"

"Lifting is the easy part, keeping it up is going to be hard for me."

Kori nodded. "I'll use my quirk to freeze it in place, then we can get some support underneath."

The student grinned. "Nice. Thanks for the assist!"

Kori and the other student quickly got the buildings entrance clear, before placing several stones as pillars to keep it from falling.

"This will only buy us a tiny bit of time. Let's go make sure they're okay."

Kori ran into the building to find a few dead bots. The students Izuka had mentioned were huddled in a corner.

"You got in! Thank goodness!" One turned.

"Are you all alright?"

"We are, but Selmie dislocated her shoulder when the front collapsed."

Kori nodded. "We'll need to move quickly. I can keep your arm in place with my quirk, but it's time limit is starting to wear down on the entrance. Once it wears off, I don't know how long it will hold."

"Understood. Come on guys! We're getting out of here!"

The students carried their injured classmate to safety. The building creaked as Kori's quirk was released, before it crumbled down to an irreparable state.

Izuka greeted the students as they returned. She quickly too the injured student and handed the injured student-Selmie- a length of cloth from a pouch on her suit.

"I've corrected injuries like this before. Bite down."

Selmie looked up at Izuka's hard stare and nodded, taking the cloth.

"On the count of three. One, two, three!"

Selmie grunted as Izuka corrected her shoulder, before taking the length of cloth from the girls mouth.

"Sorry, but until I restock, this is the only bandaging material I have. Here."

Izuka took the cloth and wrapped it around Selmie's arm, pinning it to her body. "It's not the best, but it'll do. Have Recovery Girl look at it afterwards."

"Thank you so much Izuka."

"No prob! Now, what happened in that building?"

"We walked in and got caught on a trip wire. Selmie got caught by the brut of the shock charge, I guess it was supposed to simulate a situation like that."

Izuka nodded. "They'll be tricky about the way they set things up. Does that mean that the bots are buried in there?"

"Yes. We checked them over when the building collapsed. They were all dead."

Izuka nodded. "The precariousness of that building, plus what Aizawa had said before, makes me suspicious. If all of the hostages were dead, it would most likely mean that something had happened beforehand… Keep your guards up, he may be pulling his 'logical ruse' bullshit on us."

The group nodded and got back to work. Izuka had the four individuals air up into groups of two, based on their quirks. They all figured that they were the best pairs possible for the time being.

Izuka and her partner at the recovery site continued to clear space, before they stumbled across a smaller scene.

Prop guns were hidden in the back of a decoy car. Izuka figured that it meant the staged faulty building casualties were a result of one of the civilians.

'So, on top of the normal assessment, we have small cases to solve. This is the hidden mechanic for this test, why we can't save everyone.'

Aizawa smiled as he watched Izuka's mind start to turn. He could see the puzzle pieces shifting into place.

"But I wonder, will you expect it to be one of your own?"

Izuka was already looking through the civilian bots for any sign of one being a 'traitor'.

Her search yielded a few more clues. One bot had signs of being tampered with. Izuka was ready to brush it off as a teachers job, but she found that the wiring and tampering was sloppy.

'This isn't Power Loaders work.'

The young woman watched as her part time team members brought in more civilians. She too out a notepad and began jotting down observations.

'One of us is planted in here as a secret objective… We've only seen each other once or twice. You'd expect us to remember each other, but nobody's memory is perfect… maybe Aizawa snuck other students in.'

Izuka began to run through every event that had transpired in the training operation.

'We entered. I split off from the group and began to set up my own area. Four came in together, it couldn't possibly be them. Unless one snuck into their group.'

"Hey Kuji," Izuka said to the strength enhancement student helping her. "You and your friends, did you stick together for this entire event?"

"Until we found you." The young man nodded.

Izuka nodded with a quizzical look. "Maybe one of you was alerted before hand…"

"You think that one of the students is this secret killer?" Kuji blinked.

Izuka's eyes were drawn to a bright spot on Kuji's costume. A color that clashed with his design palette of blue and white.

A messy orange handprint.

Izuka shot up and looked around. "I'm such an idiot. Quick, I need you to check me. Is there any sort of painted handprint on my shoulder or back, where someone could have patted me?"

The young man looked Izuka over. "Not that I see."

Izuka looked up. "Did anybody touch your back?"

"Do I have something on my back?"

Izuka nodded. "An orange handprint. I assume it's the way that the 'killer' is supposed to mark us."

Kuji's eyes widened. "The only one was that Kori kid. He held my back to stabilize me when I was lifting up the building."

Izuka nodded. "A worthy strategy to determine flaws."

Izuka watched as Selmie and her friend got back with two more civilians. They each had between two and five handprints scattered across them.

'How had they not noticed. This guy's good.'

"Izuka, are you okay?"

Izuka nodded. "I know who it is. Kori, he showed up just in time, with the perfect quirk. He had access to you all, to stamp you with the handprint when you wouldn't expect it. Keep your guard up Kuji."

The young man nodded. Izuka informed Selmie and her friend, and they decided to spring a trap.

"One of us will go to either side of him and his poor partner, who most likely has over ten stamps by now… We'll cut off his flank. You confront him."

Izuka nodded. "I gotcha."

As Kori brought back another civilian bot with his partner, the plan was sprung.

"Hey Kori, I need your help with something." Izuka nodded.

"Oh? Sure. I'll be just a second."

Izuka watched as the boy set the civilian down, before walking up to the young woman.

"What's up?"

Izuka pointed to the car with false weapons. "I think there's an investigating portion of this exercise. I have my suspicions that one of our friends is a traitor, selected by Aizawa. I'm telling you this because I trust you. It has to be one of them."

Kori nodded. "Understood. I'll come and report in as soon as I have more information!"

"Thanks so much!" Izuka smiled, before turning her back to the boy. "I'm going to the dead bot area to see if there are any more clues."

Kori nodded and ran up behind the girl. "Here, let me come with you! I can see what I'm looking fo-"

Izuka spun on her heel and caught the young man's hand right before it was to touch her.

"A fake opening. Good one." Kori smiled.

"Aizawa planted you in here, didn't he?"

"Yep, the name's Kori Kaku. Second year. I won't give you any more information until you defeat me, or the exercise ends."

Izuka smirked. "We've got you surrounded."

"Do you?"

The hero students sneaking up to surround Kori dropped to the ground as the handprints left on them pulsed, stunning them temporarily.

"Touch based quirk. It isn't paint." Izuka nodded, leaping back.

"Very good! He told me you were pretty smart! I hope you're more fun than your friends."

Izuka smiled, unhooking her collapsible staff from her hip.

"Bring it."

)=(

So there's chapter fifteen! I'm making these next few chapters about classes before we go to the meeting of Mustards family and the first quirkball game.

If you haven't figure this out yet, the story is way ore of a slow burn story. The entire villain part is the main part of the story itself, and I haven't even covered Izuka's whole backstory.

It's going to be fun when you guys get to read how everything ties together.

Until next time!

Sushui Out!