Gold Plating and Silver Lining

by Butterfly Chikage

Shinraikai Academy is a brand new hero school, open to all high schoolers aiming to be a legendary hero-but it also has a secret reform program for troubled children! As the two classes come to a head, the students with a gold plating and the students on a silver lining will have to learn to work together to defeat the villains Shinraikai has attracted! SYOC CLOSED

6. Entrance Exam III

Entrance Exam III

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TRIGGER WARNING: Continued (brief) mentions of anxiety and panic attacks

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Previously on GPSL (because it's been a hot sec, sorry):

- The entrance exam has begun!

- The Gold Class is fighting puppets in groups of five, and they may obtain either villain or rescue points for it

- The Silver Class is fighting robots in groups of three, navigating an underground labyrinth

- Riri, Mikita, Haru, Hotaru, and Karma have spotted the final boss, pro hero Marionna!

- Wait, what do you mean "Mari is beating the shit out of the students"?! Aina! Explain!

- Meanwhile, Tooka, Hisoka, and Mitsuki are having teamwork troubles!

- Mitsuki? Having a panic attack in the middle of an exam? Nooooo, who would have guessed? - _ -

- On that note, "hey! Where are you going?! You can't go there! You're going off course! Yah!" ~ Aina probably

---

Out of the five of them, Haru genuinely hadn't thought that he'd be the one to find her.

He knew about Marionna from the media, of course.

She'd always been a fairly hot topic in hero news, with her brash style and carelessness for societal norms. For every person who adored her, there were at least two or three who hated her, saying she was a bad influence. Haru had seen a few videos of her battles before, and if there was one thing that he did respect about her, it was the fact that despite her ridiculously powerful Quirk, she still had no problems with getting up front and personal with her bare fists alone. There was no denying her hand-to-hand combat prowess—he'd even used some of her videos as reference for his own training before.

And then you factor her ridiculously powerful Quirk back in…

Haru might have been confident in himself, but not that confident, thank you.

Unfortunately, whether or not he wanted to, it seemed like it was going to happen—because rather than saying he found her, it would be more accurate to say that she found him by dropping out of the sky like a bullet, straight at him.

He barely managed to lunge out of the way in time before she slammed her fist into the hardened earth with so much force that the ground cracked upon impact. He rolled to his feet quickly to face her, taking on a defensive stance. He took in the signature purple ribbon standing on her head and the line of miniature teru teru bozu puppets strung around the waist of her long coat while she eyed him critically at the same time.

She surprised him by snarling, "Dammit, what the fuck are all you high schoolers so tall for?!"

…what.

In his surprise, courtesy flew out the window as he said, "Uh, I'm literally only 5'4", that doesn't even count as tall—"

"That's still two centi—fuck not centimeters, INCHES, TWO INCHES TALLER THAN ME AND I'M TWENTY-TWO, THAT'S STILL TOO TALL!"

Several thoughts passed through Haru's mind at once.

Isn't that a you problem?

Wait until you meet the rest of my team—they're literally all taller than me, but especially six-foot-tall Karma.

I thought the media was exaggerating when they were slandering her, but wow, they really weren't at all.

But most prominent of all:

What is happening and why.

"Well whatever," Mari huffed. She stomped one foot in front of her aggressively in a clear show of intimidation, deepening the cracks in the dirt floor, her smile razor-sharp. "Makes no difference to me—I'm here to pummel you all the same."

Haru swallowed. He eyed her carefully, looking for even the slightest opening that he could take advantage of to either attack or escape, but there was no denying Marionna's status as a pro hero.

Despite her careless demeanor, with her hands on her hips and one foot planted in front of her, it was apparent that she was ready to jump into action at any given time. He was completely outclassed.

"But that doesn't mean I can just give u—"

Mari was in front of him before he could even finish the sentence. Her hand seemed to come flying forward in slow motion, aiming for a backhand blow straight to the head, and it was only the instincts he had honed from his martial arts training that allowed him to dodge it in time. He bent backwards to the point where his torso was pretty much parallel to the ground before catching himself in a bridge with his hands. His legs snapped outward, connecting painfully with her shin. The attempt to push her back at least a few steps failed as she didn't even budge; instead, it backfired on him pitifully when she grabbed him by the ankles in the middle of his attempted back walkover and flung him into the air mercilessly.

He grabbed a tree branch as he flew past it, grimacing as he felt splinters pierce through his palms, but there was no time to dwell on it as Mari was right on his tail. He flipped around once to kill his forward momentum and then swung to the side slightly so that he could use the trunk of the tree as a springboard.

Snap.

Haru barely avoided another close call when the tree branch he had just released was obliterated into two separate pieces with a single strike. Seeing the hero's strength in videos and experiencing it firsthand were very different, and Haru found himself in awe mixed with terror once again at the amount of strength that Mari carried in her tiny body.

But there was no time to dwell on either of those feelings, as his blue eyes flashed to show him a slow motion snapshot of Mari swinging her arm in a clear throwing motion. Even having seen the action ahead of time, he still only barely managed to move to the side in time to avoid the half of the tree branch that she hurled at him.

Kazama Haru!

Quirk: "Slow Motion!" With this ability, Haru can see the actions of his opponent before they happen! But just because he can see them doesn't mean he can react to all of them, and he also can't predict objects or Quirks!

Mari used the branch below her to push off towards him again, and this time Haru was much more prepared. He dodged the fist coming for his head and then used one hand to block the other hand coming low for a strong palm strike to the gut by pushing at her forearm. The block failed due to Mari's monstrous strength, but he was at least able to offset some of the momentum to decrease the amount of damage dealt. It still felt like his internal organs had been punched straight out of his body as he slid back a few feet, however, and he didn't even have time to fully process the pain before he was forcing his body to twist to the side again to avoid the next blow.

Haru saw Mari's leg sweeping up before it even happened, and he ducked under it at just the right angle before sweeping in to deliver a strike of his own to her stomach while she was off balance, successfully pushing her backwards slightly.

Not letting the advantage get away from him, he pressed forward, keeping his Quirk activated. As he expected, he barely had a second to process the visions he was receiving. His punches were blocked swiftly, and he tried to trace Mari's blocking patterns as he searched for an opening, any opening—

"And where the fuck do you think you're looking?"

Fwoosh.

"—OOF!"

Haru was thrown backwards by a sudden punch straight to the gut, and he found himself sprawled on the ground, choking and doing his best to catch his breath again. I didn't see that coming at all…! Shit, that hurts…did something break…?

"Quirks are fine and all, but don't use them if they're hindering you instead of helping you!" Mari barked at him. "Your fighting isn't half bad for an inexperienced runt, so don't willingly handicap yourself! You're fighting me right now, aren't you? Then keep your fucking eyes on me or you'll get pummeled to a pulp."

Haru's eyes widened as the meaning behind her words hit him, and, well. There was nothing he could say to that now, was there?

He inhaled sharply, ignoring the stab of pain in his chest, and then exhaled. When he looked back up at Mari with a new determination in his eyes, she gave him a cocky smirk and beckoned him over with two fingers, almost mockingly.

I might not be able to win, but that doesn't mean that I can just give up!

He lunged forward. His first strike was, as expected, swiftly deflected. Having anticipated that, he stood his ground, allowing him to dodge Mari's follow up strike. The relief that came with it didn't last long when Mari utilized his distraction to sweep his legs out from under him in the next moment. As he fell backwards, a flash of green passed his vision, and it was on sheer instinct that he reached out to grab the low hanging branch dangling in front of him. The splinters dug deeper into his hands as he heaved his entire body weight up and over, spinning around it as if it were a gymnastics bar and dropping straight towards Mari.

Mari grabbed his foot as it came towards her. Haru didn't let that stop him, twisting his body around to launch his other leg in a second sideways kick, one still packed with a decent amount of force despite the slightly awkward angle. Mari whistled sharply, impressed, but promptly caught his incoming ankle with her other hand and threw him against the floor. Already having gotten used to being breathless, Haru immediately rolled backwards onto his hands, pulling himself into an easy handstand and then landing back on his feet. Somehow, entirely out of gut reflex, his arm flew out to partially deflect the incoming strike and partially use it to throw himself out of the way.

Completely on the defensive now, Haru relied on his combat instinct, trained through many years of martial arts practice, to react to Mari's fast strikes and avoid them however he could. He tried to use his Quirk intermittently but strategically to buy him some time when he needed it. Still, there was still no denying the difference in strength, as he was continually being forced back by the brute strength of Mari's endless assault.

And then—

His vision turned upwards and he found himself flat on his back.

…he'd tripped.

Not having ever fought on an outdoor terrain like they were in before, the hyper focus on ensuring that Mari didn't absolutely pulverise him had caused him to neglect his immediate surroundings, and he didn't even realize that there was a tree root protruding from the ground behind him until he'd fallen over it. Naturally, Mari was pouncing on him in an instant, and it was with a delayed sense of dread that Haru watched Mari's fist grow closer.

CRACK!

There was a brief flash of pink, and then Mari had leaped back to avoid Karma's powerful ambush. The ground cracked under the force of his punch, and Mari landed just out of range of the direct impact zone.

She immediately prepared to charge back forward, but the moment her feet touched the grass, another figure dropped next to her.

"And take off!"

Riri activated her Quirk as she landed, leaning her full weight down so that she perfectly used the trampoline rebound to launch Marionna in the opposite direction.

But as Haru watched Marionna soar through the air, an image began to play in his mind in slow motion of the hero turning a flip in midair with one hand outstretched before launching herself back off something he couldn't see (it seemed to be something elastic, similar to Riri's Quirk, the way her feet dipped) to rocket back their way again.

"She's coming back!" He yelled out, only milliseconds before Mari executed the same flip he had seen in real life, with one hand outstretched just like he had seen. There was a bright flash of purple against her palm before a giant bouncy green slime monster shaped in a cube dropped to the ground, looking as if it had come straight out of a video game. Mari used it to propel herself back forward, her hands in front of her and her palms glowing purple.

Riri immediately cleared the distance between them in one bound and grabbed them by the arms, creating another trampoline at their feet when she landed and pulling them both into the air with her.

Pak!

All of them flinched at the loud clapping sound, and they braced themselves for the next oncoming attack. Haru was fully expecting a new puppet to fly from Mari's hands, but to their surprise, the opposite happened: the slime monster was reabsorbed in a burst of purple particles before the glow faded from her hands. Mari dropped to the ground with her hands on her hips. Then she flashed them a shark-like smile and yelled, pointing a finger at them rudely, "All right, I've decided! I'll give you punks sixty seconds! Regroup, talk strategy and shit, and find an environment you like. After sixty seconds, I'll come find you. Do at least try to entertain me now~"

And with those ominous parting words, she let them escape.

They landed in a clearing a short distance away, and Hotaru and Mikita were already waiting for them. Hotaru didn't even bother waiting for them to land before interrogating, "Didn't we say not to engage?"

"It wasn't my fault!" Haru retorted hotly. "She attacked me!"

"She did seem very fixated on fighting us," Karma mused. "She said to find a suitable terrain and talk strategy and then promised to come after us after a minute."

"Why?" Mikita blinked.

Riri raised her hands in a shrug. "I don't know! But we just gotta do it! It'll be a good opportunity for us too!"

"Then we should find a new environment," Hotaru said decisively. "I remember passing through a cityscape not too long ago, we should move there. The grass and trees here are too much of a fire hazard for me."

An unfamiliar female voice cut in suddenly, "Not so fast."

They all turned to see a navy-haired woman approaching them, her white lab coat fluttering behind her in the wind and her heels not wobbling in the slightest despite the uneven terrain. She wasn't smiling, and although her face looked rather stern, there was also something comforting about her. She didn't stop until she was right next to them, kneeling next to Haru.

"You're not going anywhere with this one's ribs like this."

The teenagers' voices immediately overlapped one another with questions.

"Who are you?"

"Are you a doctor?"

"Can you fix it?"

"Were my ribs really broken then?"

"Dr. Yoshino Akemi—I'm a licensed physician and the acting school nurse for Shinraikai Academy," She answered as she placed a hand to Haru's stomach. A sudden poke elicited a sharp yelp, but she released the pressure just as quickly. A flash of pink emitted from her hand, and then there was a strange sensation that felt like a cold balm being spread along his skin before being absorbed inward—and in the next moment, all of the pain was gone. "There we go. And no, they weren't broken, yet, because Mari thankfully has some restraint, even if it's not even the bare minimum of what she should have. Now let me see your hands. And the rest of you, I'll heal you all in one go and then you can move on. It won't take long, and I'm sure Aina would be willing to make an exception and lead you to where you want to go."

"Why are you helping us?" Riri questioned curiously while watching her work. "Not that I'm complaining! I'm thankful, really, it's just that we're technically still mid-exam…"

Dr. Yoshino shrugged. "I was patrolling the exam site when I saw you; this was my own decision to do so. Technically I'm only supposed to be healing people who have already dropped out, but well, you're about to go up against that Marionna—you'll want to be at full power to guarantee your survival at least. I'm sure the headmistress will understand."

Finally, Mikita voiced the question they were all wondering. "Why does she want to fight us so badly?"

Dr. Yoshino's smile was almost as razor-sharp as Mari's had been, even as she finished healing Haru's hands and tugged on Hotaru's hand to access burns on her forearms that her teammates hadn't even realized were there.

"Isn't it obvious? She thinks that all of you have potential, and she wants you to prove to her that she's right to think so."

---

BOOM.

Hikara Nozomi whirled around at the sudden sound of an explosion, gold eyes immediately seeking out her third teammate. Hadn't Sagi been in that direction—

She let out a breath of relief upon seeing that he'd jumped out of the way to avoid the admittedly rather controlled flames licking away at the walls. Then her attention immediately caught on a new figure curled up next to the opening of the walls (that definitely had not been there before) and the two others rushing up behind, and her eyes narrowed in thought. Was that another team? Were they supposed to be here?

"Hey! Don't get distracted—"

Nozomi turned back at Sekoia's voice just in time to see the short girl sprout a giant Venus flytrap from her head that perfectly snatched around a robot charging towards Nozomi and threw it against the wall. Nozomi didn't think twice before calling out a genuine "Thanks!" before turning to face another incoming robot—

Fwip.

There was a flash of black followed by a slight whistling noise, and then the robot promptly broke down. There was something that seemed to be a black metallic javelin-like object sticking out of it. In the next second, it broke down into a small stream of metallic liquid that then flew outward alongside multiple others before combining into a large glob. Looking around, Nozomi noted that all of the remaining robots had been swiftly dispatched, and her eyes followed the liquid as it was swiftly reabsorbed by a dark-haired girl (who looked just a little bit familiar…was it her imagination?) standing at the entrance of the room.

Well, okay then.

Feeling slightly unnerved by the display of strength from a fellow classmate but trying to play it off, Nozomi made her way toward the new source of commotion, closely followed by Sekoia.

"Hold on!" Sagi said suddenly, holding out a hand towards her. She stopped moving immediately. "Don't come any closer. Give us some space. Please."

"What—"

The new girl's onyx eyes stared fiercely into Sagi's purple ones, but Sagi didn't even flinch. A message seemed to be passed between them before the girl seemed to concede, throwing out a wave of metallic liquid in front of the blue-haired boy standing next to her to prevent him from moving forward. "Got it."

"—I—I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I—did I—I didn't hurt you, did I—"

"No, you didn't," Sagi answered in a gentle tone. "See? Not a single scratch. …hey, is it okay if I come closer?" The boy's breath hitched in fear the moment Sagi twitched, so he backtracked immediately. "All right, I won't, sorry. Can you listen to my voice then? Try to breathe…"

Is that…a panic attack? Nozomi thought in slight bewilderment, completely thrown off by the sudden change of atmosphere. Still, it seemed like Sagi had it under control, and she'd seen enough at the Institute to figure that it would be best to give them some space. So she made her way towards the other two newcomers instead.

Still, to already be having a mental breakdown on the first day, in the middle of the entrance exam…is he going to be okay in this program?

But that thought was quickly cast aside when Nozomi realized why the new girl was ringing some bells in her head.

"You're the one from the lobby duel."

The girl snorted. "Oh, that was hardly a duel. Trust me, if we'd actually dueled, one of us wouldn't be alive right now. Unfortunately, as you can see, that's not the case."

Nozomi couldn't help but raise an eyebrow, impressed at the girl's unhesitating dark humor despite their position. Not to mention the fact that she couldn't decipher how much of that actually was humor.

"Whatever, more importantly, what's going on?" Sekoia interjected, her expression tainted with frustration. "Who are you and why are you here? What's his problem?" She pointed to the black-haired boy still curled on the ground as she asked the last question.

The dark-haired girl gave her an unimpressed glare, but Sekoia only glared back at her. (Nozomi couldn't help but find the staring contest amusing, with the new girl being six foot and Sekoia being under five foot. Even then, neither of them backed down). The blue-haired boy shrugged and gave an airy "who knows," which prompted the girl to finally look away from Sekoia to give him a strange look that Nozomi couldn't decipher.

"Mitsuki led us here. It was an accident. And since we might as well get this out of the way now—that's Mitsuki," the girl gestured in Sagi's direction briefly. "I'm Kunitaro Tooka, and this is Ketsu Hisoka."

"Fujimori Sekoia," Sekoia said, albeit a bit begrudgingly.

"Hikara Nozomi," Nozomi followed. "And that's Mahou Sagi."

"All right, so what are we going to do now?" Hisoka asked.

"Are you two done over there?" Sekoia shouted in lieu of an answer. "We don't have time to be chit-chatting around!"

"Was that necessary?" Nozomi demanded at the same time Tooka scowled, "What's your problem?"

"What? We don't," Sekoia huffed. Although clear annoyance was tinged in her voice, she somehow still carried a fairly bright tone, as if she was obviously right and everyone else was being unreasonable, and it pissed Nozomi off. "We're supposed to keep moving, aren't we?"

"We could just leave them behind," Hisoka added. "Save us the trouble. It's not like we need them anyway, and we technically don't have any rules, meaning no one said we have to stick together."

The giant sprout on Sekoia's head twitched slightly at that. Nozomi glanced towards Tooka, noting that the girl looked as equally annoyed as she felt.

"All right, you two do that," Tooka snapped. "And while you're at it, you might as well take your march right on back to the Institute too because no one needs or wants you here either."

Oof, even Nozomi wasn't sure she'd go that far.

But that didn't mean she didn't have her own two cents to give on the matter.

"I thought the rules were rather implied, but I guess I can't blame you if you don't have enough brain cells to pick up on them."

"And? Why should I care about someone who doesn't care about the exam either? Isn't that what we're here for?" Hisoka challenged.

Nozomi had thought that the level of hostility she'd had with Sekoia upon their first meeting was impressive, but adding Tooka and Hisoka to the mix had caused it to become stifling. She genuinely thought that things were going to end up in either a full on brawl or a dramatic separation for a moment, but once again, the mediator was there to step in calmly and just on time.

"Okay, okay, let's all calm down now~" Sagi chirped as he walked up to them. Mitsuki was trailing behind him, as if trying to hide, still looking visibly nervous and with his hands still trembling noticeably as he fidgeted with the sleeves of his hoodie, but at least he seemed to be breathing now. "Sorry about that, but we're all good now, right, Mitsuki-kun?"

"Um…" Mitsuki's eyes flitted over them all frightfully before he ducked his head into a 90 degree bow, first in Nozomi and Tooka's direction and again in Hisoka and Sekoia's direction, staying down the second time. "I'm…I'm sorry, I caused you trouble…I won't—I won't do it again, so…I'm sorry…"

Sekoia looked two steps away from rolling her eyes, and Nozomi barely caught Hisoka's mutter of "Tch, as if that makes up for anything—we're already behind…"

"It's fine, it can't be helped," Nozomi reassured in place of all of them.

Mitsuki looked up hesitantly, his helpless gaze wandering once again and then lingering on Tooka. To Nozomi's surprise, the girl's expression immediately softened (it was minuscule, but it was definitely there), before simply giving him a short nod.

"Whatever, let's just keep moving." Having said that, Sekoia made for the smoking opening with determined steps. The canisters on her belt clacked as she moved, and she placed a hand over it to silence the noise. "We've wasted enough time as it is."

"Um…" Mitsuki said timidly, so quietly that Nozomi would never have heard him if she weren't standing right next to him. But when she, Tooka, and Sagi turned to him, he immediately faltered and stopped talking, shaking his head instead. "I…it's nothing, never mind, sorry…"

"No, go on. What is it?" Tooka prompted.

"If it's nothing, then it's nothing," Sekoia said irritably from where she was still a few steps away, clearly wanting nothing more than to keep moving. "He's clearly done talking and no one cares, so let's hurry up and move on already."

Tooka didn't even bat her an eye as she snarked back, "Did you just become deaf, or were you always deaf to begin with and I just never realized it over your incessant chattering? I asked him for his opinion, and on the contrary, I certainly didn't hear anyone asking for yours, so stop sticking your opinions where they're clearly not wanted."

Sekoia's gaze darkened slightly, but before she could open her mouth—

"It's!" Mitsuki interrupted loudly, clearly frantic. Upon successfully drawing the attention back to him, he immediately shrank back again but continued quietly, "It's…it's a dead end…that way…"

"A dead end?" Nozomi repeated with a frown. "But where else can we go?"

"Well why didn't you just say that?" Sekoia whined.

"Can you take us to the correct path then?" Tooka asked.

"What do you mean 'can he'—of course he can, we just watched him," Hisoka muttered.

"Um, I…I don't know if it's…correct, but…" Mitsuki fumbled.

"But you can keep us moving somewhere?" Tooka finished, and he nodded minutely.

"And you'd be okay with doing so?" Sagi added.

Mitsuki hesitated but then nodded again, murmuring, "It's the least I could do…after…everything…"

They all made their way across the room, around the still sparking robots lying around and watched as Mitsuki swallowed before tentatively placing a hand against the wall. He closed his eyes and inhaled shakily. On the equally shaky exhale, the wall lit up under his touch, and a circuit pattern traced itself outward in gold before the walls slid open silently.

Mitsuki walked faster than Nozomi had expected. It was at least partially thanks to that that nobody made any more comments as they moved along, even if there remained a clear aura of distrust among them. So Nozomi let her thoughts wander instead, wondering what Mitsuki's Quirk was (it was clearly very powerful—an electric manipulation Quirk of some kind, maybe?), as well as what Tooka's probably overpowered Quirk was (it seemed like mercury, but then Nozomi certainly hadn't passed chemistry). She also couldn't help but question if it was really going to be that easy, already mentally preparing for an ambush.

She wondered if the six of them were going to be okay as a group, and if they had broken any exam regulations at all. The fact that they were able to walk so smoothly after the constant barrage was honestly kind of jarring and anxiety-inducing.

All of a sudden, Mitsuki came to a stop, frowning to himself. It almost seemed as if he'd forgotten they were there entirely when he murmured to himself, "…what is this…?"

The circuit patterns turned red then, and some kind of notification panel popped up on the wall. There was no time to read it, however, as a second one appeared on top of it in the next second, followed by nearly a dozen more flashing all over the wall before they all turned green, the circuit patterns included, and then disappeared.

The walls slid open, and Nozomi immediately knew that they weren't supposed to be there.

The circular room was a lot larger than any of the other ones they'd been in, and it was a lot darker as well. Lighting up the walls were three large projection screens, each one showing a different scene.

They're the other groups, Nozomi realized. Then this must be a monitor room, which means—

The projections vanished suddenly, and the lights turned back on. Nozomi glanced towards Mitsuki instinctively, but the boy seemed just as startled, his hands back to fidgeting with his sleeves. When she turned back, her attention immediately caught on the figure standing in the middle of the room.

He was a tall, unfamiliar man, with piercing silver eyes staring straight at them, and he oozed an intimidating aura that was setting off all of Nozomi's alarm bells in her head, telling her to stay away. She tried to draw her eyes away from him so that she could collect herself, but she found herself unable to accomplish even the first step.

When the man spoke, his voice was deep and rumbling. "You shouldn't be here."

"I-I'm sorry, I just—I'm sorry—" Mitsuki immediately panicked, and the wall flashed again under his touch before attempting to slide shut once more. To the students' surprise, they jolted to a stop halfway to closing. With a loud creak, they suddenly bent outward instead, as if having pried apart by a great force and flattened easily, but the man was still standing at least twenty meters away, in the center of the room.

Mitsuki froze before jerking back, clearly frightened by the action. The only thing that stopped him from running again was the man's authoritative tone ordering, "But since you are, stay."

With those words, the floor tiles they were standing on shifted to push them all into the room before the walls were forcefully molded shut again. Then the walls opened on the other side of the room, and Nozomi swallowed involuntarily at the sight of the red glare filling her vision. Countless robots slid in, all of various sizes, and they lined up behind the man in a clear battle-ready position.

"I'm Kuguriyama Yusuke. I'm going to be your homeroom teacher for the year, so I suppose I see no problems with testing your power levels for myself. Come—fight me to the best of your abilities. I'll determine whether you pass this exam or not."

---

"There she is."

The team peered around the corner of the building they were hiding behind to stare at the woman who had landed in the streets just in front of them.

Riri took in a deep breath and then slowly let it back out, letting any remaining nerves she had go with it. There was no need to be nervous. She didn't have to treat this like an exam—she could simply move forward as if this was one of her every day spars with her peers in karate class.

But then, none of her peers had ever been on the same level as a pro hero.

Riri's heart pounded in her chest loudly, and she could feel adrenaline starting to rush through her. Well, here goes!

Giving her teammates a brief nod, she was the first one to leap out of their hiding place, stepping back a few feet to allow herself a running leap. She aimed a flying kick straight for the young woman, who, as she expected, turned expectantly at her arrival. The hero was fast as she whipped to the side to avoid her kick, and Riri yelped as she felt her leg being grabbed before the world suddenly spun and she was being thrown to one side.

"Oof!" Her head knocked against the wall harshly, and her vision and thoughts spun wildly at the impact. Fuck, that hurt! She'd come in expecting Mari to be strong, of course, but damn was she strong!

Riri barely had time to regain her bearings when she saw a streak of purple and ducked her head back down, rolling aside just in time to avoid being smashed alongside the wall that was just behind her. Mixing the momentum of her roll and her Quirk, she kicked to her feet in a swift moment, turning an easy flip both to put some distance between them and regain her balance faster. The trampoline under her feet carried her further than she would have gone under normal flooring.

Mari honed in on her like a missile, barely allowing her to land before she was being charged at again. The pro hero's speed was unfathomable as she crossed the distance between them in a single lunge, her hand pulled back and ready to sweep forward in a heavy palm strike. Riri twisted her body to the side, feeling the wind pressure of the strike against her waist, and grabbed the woman's (buff!) arm as it passed her. Using it to hold the hero close, Riri planted her left foot forward, softening the floor in hopes of throwing Mari's balance off even slightly, and at the same time swept her right leg forward in a high kick.

Mari's lips curled into a familiar battle-hungry smirk, her violet eyes glistening with mirth. "Not bad, shrimp—but you're—still—green!"

Mari threw her weight downward in a forward slide, using her small stature to slip through the vacant space between Riri's legs that she had opened with her kick, yanking her arm with her. Riri's firm grip on the woman's arm caused her to lose her balance and be thrown in the air with a startled yelp, but she quickly readjusted, spinning in the air and raising herself into a handstand with her entire weight on Mari's arm. Mari was strong—she didn't even budge an inch. Just as Riri was preparing to swing her legs downward in another attack, she felt an unexpected weight on her legs, forcefully detaching her from the hero with a single yank and carrying her through the air. Channeling all of her experience with aerial mobility from her gymnastics classes, she swung her upper body upwards to switch their positions. Then, without even bothering to acknowledge who had hindered her attack, she kicked out and slammed them into the ground with the entire force of the free fall. Her foot hit the floor with an explosion of purple particles.

She turned back just in time to see Hotaru appearing from behind one of the cars, immediately closing in on Mari with a speed she'd yet to showcase. She threw a punch for the hero's face that was swiftly deflected, but still, Mari yelped in surprise at the contact, her skin sizzling slightly, and then cackled, "Ouch! You're a nasty lil firecracker—huh!" On the last word, she thrust her hand forward, as if aiming a strike for Hotaru's undefended stomach. Hotaru smirked, but it swiftly vanished when instead of making contact with her hand, the head of a puppet suddenly popped out of her hand and harshly head-butted the navy-haired girl in the gut, sending her flying backward a few feet.

Ouch. Riri winced in sympathy, a hand hovering protectively over her own stomach. Judging by the impact, those things are probably not as soft as they look...

Haru appeared suddenly while Mari was still distracted, aiming a punch for her undefended back. Mari didn't give any signs that she was aware of his presence, but the slightly smoking puppet flew from her hand as a fully formed teru teru bozu doll and, in a motion too fast for them to track, traced a white arc right over its creator's head and slammed Haru into the ground as well with another headbutt to the boy's back.

"Come on, come on~ Is that all you got?!" Mari smirked. She glanced toward where Mikita was still crouched, grey eyes narrowed analytically. The hero's eyes were mischievous as she gestured with her finger for Mikita to come out in a mocking manner.

Mikita's eyes darkened and she charged.

Riri prepared to charge back in as well, but a hand on her shoulder stopped her. She reflexively threw it off and spun around, ready to punch her assailant in the face, but her attack was swiftly caught and held in place.

She startled. "Tamotsu!"

"Sorry about that," Karma said apologetically. "Can I help lift some of your nervous burden, Riri?"

There was no hesitation in her response.

"Of course," She grinned, extricating her fist from his grasp and lightly tapping it against his chest once, roughly where his heart was. "Take as much as you need!"

Karma smiled in return. "Thank you."

The presence of a Quirk activation was obvious as he suddenly vanished from where he was standing, and when Riri whirled around at a cracking noise, she found Mari in the air with a slightly maniacal smile, having leaped aside to dodge an attack, and Karma in the middle of the street, with his fist in the asphalt. His bright pink hair was tinged green at the tips, and there were neon green swirls along his arms.

Riri felt herself smile in awe as she watched Karma proceed to pull his fist from the street and launch himself upward in a chase for the hero. "That is still so cool," she breathed, and then promptly remembered that she should be helping her teammates out as well.

There was a strange fearlessness to her as she pushed to her feet and raced across the sidewalk. She was usually fairly confident and reckless, but this was different. Must be Karma's Quirk, she figured. She ran past Hotaru as she did, who was heading in the direction of the fight. As their gazes met, Riri pointed up to signify her direction, and Hotaru nodded, and they split without a word.

Riri let her momentum carry her into another running leap, using her Quirk to propel her forward and straight towards the tree in the middle of the sidewalk. She nimbly hopped through the branches of the tall tree like a monkey, activating her Quirk on every branch to spring herself higher. Once she reached the tallest branch, she didn't let her momentum pause at all, throwing herself forward unhesitatingly and aiming for the top of the tall lamppost. She easily grabbed the metal and used her momentum to swing herself upward, putting her gymnastics skills to use, and then flipped through the air expertly, landing perfectly on top of the lamp post with both feet, her arms outstretched for balance.

She waited patiently for the right time, carefully keeping an eye on the battle, and she could see Hotaru doing the same from the corner of her eye. The speed of Karma and Mari's attacks had started to reach an anime-worthy level, with the two of them appearing and disappearing every so often. Neither appeared to be doing much damage to the other, only to their surroundings, but Riri could see Karma tiring out faster than the pro hero was. The boost he had received from her emotions seemed to be fading. With one last push, he kicked upward, managing to throw Mari into the air with a knee to the gut amidst a flurry of movement, knocking the wind out of her briefly. He followed after her with a leap, his fingers glowing slightly as the only sign of the physical enhancement. The finger jab cut into white cloth and nearly ripped it apart, as Mari defended herself with another puppet popping out of her hand. As the flowy white fabric of the teru teru bozu threw itself around Karma and effectively blocked his vision, Mari then reared back, her hands clasped over her head, and without restraint, knocked Karma and the puppet back into the ground together. Riri winced when the road cracked for a second time at the impact.

Bump. Bump. Bump.

Riri startled at the sudden series of noises, and then almost toppled from her place atop the lamp post at the sight of her teammate. Mikita's silver hair had morphed into an inky black, curly and long and sticking up at various angles. Some strands spilled over her pale face, and her eyes had become entirely black, her mouth open in a silent scream. She looked particularly nightmarish, almost like a banshee, and she seemed to glitch every so often, fading in and out of reality. Several objects in the area were shuddering and moving as if responding to her presence, creating a frightening series of noises. Mari looked pleasantly surprised, even as she started free-falling from the sky—up until the car right next to her exploded. Her hero worthy reflexes kicked in, however, and she threw up a puppet as defense. It was immediately swallowed up by the flames, but she used the momentum to shove herself backward and away from the fire, catching herself on her feet easily a few feet away.

Riri saw her chance.

In the next instant, she was freefalling from the sky, maneuvering herself expertly in the winds. She activated her Quirk as she landed and forced her weight down, preventing the usual rebound. The elastic force of the newly-formed trampoline street launched the barely steady pro-hero in the air instead, where Hotaru was ready to meet her with a sparking fist. To Riri's surprise, Haru was there as well, throwing himself at the pro hero from the opposite side of Hotaru.

Hotaru's fist flew high, aiming for the hero's head, and Haru's came low, aiming for her gut. It was a perfectly timed double strike, but Mari, with a prowess worthy of a pro hero, twisted her body sideways so that she was parallel with the floor, levitating between both attacks. Hotaru's fist blew off a piece of her long hair that fluttered at the sudden movement, and Haru's attack tore a piece of her flowing jacket. There was a slight glow to Haru's blue eyes, and at basically the same time his fist missed, his leg snapped upward. The unexpected kick caught Mari in the back, sending her straight into Hotaru's flaming fist, and she let out a choked cough. Not missing the opening, Hotaru reached out with her other hand, a blue flare propelling her elbow forward and allowing her to drive her fist straight into Mari's hasty guard. The force threw the hero even further through the air, and Hotaru shifted the flames to her feet to give chase.

Mari suddenly barked out a slightly hoarse laugh, the crazed battle-hungry glint burning in her eyes. "Not bad, shrimp, not fucking bad at all!"

Then there was a purple glow in her hand again, but instead of her usual teru teru bozu puppet, a giant blue whale leaped out of her hand, flying across the sky freely. It barely avoided crashing into the buildings in the tight space as it looped around to catch the falling hero on its large head. Then it spun around and smacked the two midair students across the sky with its tail.

"No!" Riri was moving before she even realized it, launching herself off the metal guardrail. A second bound allowed her to soar approach the incoming building at the same time that her teammates did. It was through sheer adrenaline that she spread the area of her Quirk activation just in time, allowing all three of them to bounce harmlessly off the side of the building instead of crashing through the windows like they had been about to. That didn't prevent them from dropping to the floor like rocks, however, and Mari's giant flying whale took advantage of their fall to try to smack them into the ground with its tail again.

Riri narrowed her eyes and, grabbing her teammates' arms in either hand to make sure they didn't separate, threw her legs upward to meet the tail's strike. Obviously, she couldn't stop it, but the surface of the tail turned elastic upon contact with her feet, allowing herself to create an extra boost that had them hitting the ground even faster. The ground softened at the contact with her back as well, and she used the rebound force to throw herself into a back tuck. The flip allowed enough distance between them that they avoided the direct strike, but her knees bent a bit too much from the improper starting angle and refused her a proper follow-up jump, so they were still thrown a little further away by the wind pressure.

"You two okay?" Riri glanced at her teammates as they all picked themselves up again.

Hotaru grunted, her blue eyes still blazing with determination (and literally blazing with Quirk usage), which Riri translated as a yes, but Haru suddenly yelled out, "Move!"

Hotaru reacted the fastest, grabbing both of them by the arm harshly and lighting her feet on fire. Or wait—were her feet turning into fire? That was so cool—Riri yelped as she was suddenly dragged backward, out of her thoughts and away from the missile that was the pro hero Mari. The sidewalk cracked from the force of her punch, exactly where the three had been moments ago, and they probably would have been flattened had it not been for Haru's warning.

Before Mari could give chase again, Karma was suddenly on her again, grimacing slightly in pain and this time with grey markings painting his limbs. He threw forward a flurry of punches, but Mari easily dodged all of them and ducked down for her retaliation. Karma gritted his teeth and then changed his trajectory and just managed to clip her in the shoulder, thwarting her attack. Then he swept his leg across and threw her into the middle of the street, where she was immediately met by a flying car.

The moment she regained even a little of her balance, Mari leaped backward to put distance between herself and the heavy item. In the next moment, the giant tail of the flying whale that they had all but forgotten about came down and smacked the car into the ground. To all of their surprise, as the car was smashed into a slab of red metal, there was a flash and Mikita suddenly appeared, her ghostly form still flickering in and out as she scowled. She stumbled as she landed, and her body became more solid for a moment, her normal silver-haired school girl appearance flickering in for a second. The giant whale tail swept upward again, aiming to attack her on its way back up, but it only phased right through her. Even the resulting wind pressure passed through her harmlessly.

"Ha…ahahahaha! Interesting, how fucking interesting!" Mari doubled over in a maniacal laughter. "You pipsqueaks are better than I thought, oh boy, this is going to be a lot more fun than I ever thought! That's it, come on—give me more, come at me more! This fight is only just getting fucking started, so don't get tired on me now!"

She was asking for a bit much. Mikita's ghost form was clearly becoming more and more unstable, and Karma was wincing with one hand over his stomach protectively. The glow to Hotaru's eyes was flickering as well, and Haru was scrubbing one hand over his eyes absently. Riri could feel her own limbs trembling from her over usage of her Quirk, and there was an exhaustion filling her body that had her wanting to just collapse on the spot and sleep for the next twelve hours.

But as she looked at her teammates again, not a single one of them had lost the spark of determination.

Yeah, Riri thought to herself, grinning, we can do this!

"AND TIME'S UP~!"

"…eh?"

All of their eyes turned upward as Aina's voice echoed across the speakers. Riri's legs gave out under her and she yelped as she plopped down onto the sidewalk unceremoniously.

"Thank you everyone for participating in Shinraikai's hero course entrance exam!" Aina continued. "Your final team points are displayed on your watch! If you will now follow the lights at your feet to the exit, your watches will be collected at the entrance and you are free to leave! You will be mailed about your results within a week, and I will see you all then!"

"NO! FUCK YOU!"

Riri blinked at the pro hero's unexpected holler. The previously mischievous glint in the hero's violet eyes was now absolutely murderous. Riri wasn't entirely sure who she was talking to until a light projection blinked into existence on the side of one of the buildings, and the AI gave the hero an exasperated, "Come on, Mari-rin—"

"Spoilsport! I wasn't done yet!"

"Follow the exam rules!" Aina whined. "Haruko-san said—"

"I don't give a flying fuck what senpai said, I said I was going to beat some combat ability into these kids and that's what I'm going to do—"

"Save that for combat class!"

Mari scowled and clicked her tongue. "Fine, you shitty piece of data." She raised her hand casually, and there was a swirl of purple light before a series of purple particles gathered around her hand from all over the dome to form a large glowing orb. The giant flying whale also disappeared to be sucked in as light, and then the orb, a sphere so large that Riri could probably fit inside it if she tried, was absorbed back into her hand. There was a brief moment where she was shrouded by a dark purple aura, and a burst of pressure exploded outward that reminded Riri, oh. Right. She was only toying with us…that was nowhere near her full power.

So this is the strength that a real pro hero holds…

Mari spun around with a childish stomp of her foot and a dramatic swish of her long hair. But then she paused and turned back around to say brashly to the students scattered all over the street in varying forms of exhausted, "I better see all of you runts in class when it starts! No fucking exceptions, or I'll hunt you down and drag you out by the ears!"

"And she's a teacher?" Hotaru muttered by Riri's side, clearly skeptical.

But as Riri watched Mari turn and start down the street, she could only feel a mix of awe and excitement. Before she could think twice about it, she called out loudly, "Thank you, Marionna-sensei!" The pro hero stopped, clearly having heard her, but didn't bother to turn around. "I'll see you next month!"

Riri could feel Mari's smirk even if she couldn't see it, and the pro hero gave a casual wave of her hand before she vanished in the distance.

---

"The hero world isn't fun and games. At all. It never has been, and it never will be. But don't worry…I'll be there to whip you in shape and thoroughly teach you brats how to survive firsthand—that is, assuming you're able to survive through me first~"

---

The Puppet Hero: Marionna. Real name, Hiitsugi Amaya!

Quirk: "Requiem of the Puppeteer!" With this ability, she can create a huge army of puppets under her control! The weakest and most common puppets will manifest in the form of teru teru bozu (rain dolls), but she can also make them as detailed and specialized as she wants! However, they all have to be created solely from her imagination and can't be modeled after real people! For that reason, she carries a little notebook of all her puppet designs!

Furthermore, she is the one who supplied all of the rescue and villain points in the Gold Class entrance exam—talk about powerful!

---

The moment those words left their future teacher's mouth, everything erupted into motion so quickly Nozomi could barely keep up.

Sagi and Hisoka were the first to launch themselves forward, although Hisoka was notably faster, his body encased in a red aura.

As Sagi lagged behind slightly, he slipped something from his pocket, and in the next instant, his arm had once again transformed into one made of shiny black metal. The action took him less than five seconds total, and yet when he refocused his attention outward again, he was immediately ambushed by a barrage of metal claws shooting out at him from the robots behind them. It was instincts alone that allowed him to dodge, with a few edges scratching skin here and there, but then a shower of bullets forced him to back away from Kuguriyama (…sensei?), dodging where he could and using his metal arm to block where he couldn't.

Meanwhile, Hisoka continued to power forward, the bullets flattening and claws snapping against the red aura shrouding him, launching straight into close combat with the silver-eyed man. Hisoka's attacks were powerful, but Kuguriyama-sensei didn't even flinch as he swiftly stepped to the side. There wasn't even a single moment of hesitation or wasted movement as he dodged the incoming series of attacks with lightning speed, not even batting an eye at the powerful wind pressure being blown straight into his face. A wave of his hand resulted in the white metal floor rising from the ground, forming a thick barrier between the two of them that Hisoka smashed through easily. Kuguriyama-sensei jumped backward to put some distance between them, spamming several spikes from the floor in the newly empty space and also manipulating some of the pieces of broken debris as projectile attacks as well. Hisoka twisted his body at an angle that shouldn't have been possible to avoid the spike coming straight on, and then threw his right leg upward to smash through it. His balance twisted and he caught himself on his hands in a handstand before throwing his feet downward, and upon contact with the floor, there was a rippling flash of red light expanding outward. In the next moment, the area he was touching caved inward while the area around him erupted outward, disrupting the creation of the spikes. Hisoka then took the opening to lunge forward, grabbing two different spikes as he passed by. Under his touch, the metal warped and then changed direction to launch back at Kuguriyama-sensei, but as expected, they were unable to hit as they only diverged further upon getting close to him.

The two were slowly traversing across the room as they fought, and just as Hisoka was charging back in with one fist drawn back, Sagi took advantage of the newly closed distance and Sekoia's coverage to move in for a surprise attack from the back.

Kuguriyama-sensei dodged Hisoka's punch at the last second, seemingly putting himself in the way of Sagi's—but then Sagi yelped in surprise when his metal arm twisted to the side and veered into Hisoka's shoulder instead. The metal warped again upon contact with Hisoka's psionic field, and then Sagi released the metal from his body. Kuguriyama-sensei didn't hesitate before manipulating the small piece of crushed metal (that had just emerged from Sagi's arm) into a sharp barb and launching it towards the now undefended Sagi, all while easily dodging Hisoka's attacks. Sagi dodged to the left, but the ninja-star-like attack followed him—

A shield of silver liquid burst into life in front of him and swallowed up the barb before carrying it away at lightning speed. Kuguriyama-sensei's gaze traveled over the rest of them before settling on Tooka, who narrowed her eyes and launched a volley of senbon-like attacks in his direction but was also easily blocked.

Nozomi was forced to draw her attention away from the fast-paced battle (she felt dizzy just watching it—this was on a level she had never seen before) upon hearing a sudden crash from the other side, and she noticed Sekoia spamming another vine attack at the robots. While she wasn't doing much damage overall thanks to the protective armor over the mega-sized robots, she was still able to push them back slightly and hold them off. Nozomi was just moving to see if she could help when—

A choked cough echoed in the room.

Nozomi whirled back around just in time to see Kuguriyama-sensei knock Sagi to the side with a particularly harsh punch to the gut. Something was shifting in the background, and Nozomi focused her gaze to find a moving white dome rising from the floor. At some point, the dome even randomly elongated vertically, almost in a comical manner. Added with Hisoka's sudden disappearance from the battle, it wasn't hard to put two and two together. It did seem like Ketsu's Quirk was contact-activated, but even then…a moving cage?

Those two seconds of distraction were all the time Kuguriyama-sensei needed to close in on Tooka, and she somehow managed to avoid being grabbed for a whole ten seconds. The metallic liquid hardened into a sharp blade in her hand, which she swung forward in a counterattack when the teacher reached out towards her again. Kuguriyama-sensei easily caught the incoming blade between three fingers as it came towards him. Tooka jerked backwards when the silver metal suddenly lightened a shade before curving and launching back at her face. In the time that it took her to dodge, Kuguriyama-sensei had thrown her backwards and encased her feet tightly into the ground.

When his sharp silver eyes turned in Nozomi's direction next, she controlled a flinch and braced herself for the incoming strike. She couldn't beat him, but maybe she could at least weaken him…

A now somewhat familiar spritzing sound rang out in her ear, but Nozomi forced herself to keep her eyes forward. She'd expected to see roots or some other kind of giant plant launching forward immediately following the sound, but instead all she got was the sound of Sekoia swearing. There was no further time to process the reason behind that (even if Nozomi had a very good hunch)—a single blink found Kuguriyama-sensei barely two centimeters in front of her. Panic seared through her veins as she moved out to dodge out of sheer instinct, but she wasn't nearly fast enough and her vision went black, only moments before pain ripped through her stomach.

Nozomi had gotten into her fair share of fights before, but they had all been petty scrabbles between classmates. Nothing quite like this, with real force and intent behind it, knocking all of the air out of her in an instant and even bringing a hint of bile with it. The white-hot pain wiped all semblance of thought from her mind for a few long seconds. At the very last minute, she managed to grab onto the offending arm to keep from being blown back, but her grip was too weak to properly—

No, at the very least she could—

She tightened her grip, not enough to stop her backward momentum, but enough to channel a familiar energy into her fingertips. She barely felt the effect kicking in before her attention was pulled back away by the feeling of her back crashing against—

"Hwah—oof!"

Sekoia's cry of alarm rang out in her ear as the two girls crashed into one another in a pile of tangled limbs, her small figure nearly completely buried under Nozomi's.

"Get off of me—"

"I'm sorry, god—"

Sekoia shook the canister in her hand aggressively, pursing her lips in a clear show of concern. There was a suspicious feeling in Nozomi's mind that she knew what was wrong, but before she could ask, their (future) teacher's voice from nearby distracted her.

"Why aren't you fighting? Kannou Mitsuki."

(Out of the corner of her eye, Nozomi saw Sagi dropping on top of the moving domed cage Hisoka was trapped in Spider-Man-style. He pressed his hand against the top of the dome, and without even a single flash of warning, a perfect hole carved itself into the metal, nearly two thirds of the cage vanishing instantly. The red aura that was dripping off of Hisoka was about as murderous as his gaze, and it only darkened even further when the two of them were immediately blocked by the wave of titan-sized robots).

"D-Don't touch me—ngh—"

Ignoring the boy's protests, Kuguriyama-sensei opened the fist that had stopped inches away from his face to grab him by the throat and lift him in the air instead, sneering at him. "All of your teammates are, and yet you aren't even trying to defend. I know what your Quirk is, so there is no reason you shouldn't be. This is your second chance, isn't it? Then fight for it. Show me how much you want it. Because as it is, I know what your circumstances are, and to be frank, I don't approve of it."

"Fight…you…want me to fight…?"

Nozomi tensed incomprehensibly. Something in Mitsuki's tone had…changed, but she couldn't place exactly what it was that was causing the chills in her blood. It was still the same soft tone; the only real difference was that the tremors to his voice were gone. But the ominous feeling wasn't just her imagination either, because Kuguriyama-sensei had also stiffened. When Mitsuki slowly raised an arm towards the hand around his neck, the black-haired man swiftly pitched him to the side. The way the boy's body thudded against the wall showed that the throw had been executed at full force (or at least, an extremely powerful force), but the only indication of pain that Mitsuki gave was the clenching of his jaw and a low grunt.

The series of spritzing and clattering sounds next to her became increasingly aggressive, and it was punctuated by a series of Sekoia's swears.

"Do you need that for your Quirk activation?" Nozomi guessed.

Sekoia had a slightly pouty expression as she grumbled without looking up, "I have more, but they didn't let us carry bags so I could only bring so many with me. I didn't think I'd go through them this fast…"

"May I?"

Both girls startled when Sagi suddenly cut in with a smile, holding his hand out towards her. Sekoia still looked sullen, but she tossed him the empty can anyway. Sagi deftly twisted off the cap before flipping the can upside down. A single drop of clear liquid trickled down the metal can slowly, before dropping onto Sagi's outstretched finger. It was immediately absorbed into Sagi's skin, and with a satisfied smile, Sagi flipped the can back over and—

"What the fuck."

At first, Nozomi had thought that the liquid was coming out of his finger as if being projected by a nozzle, but then she realized that his fingertip up to the first knuckle had entirely vanished, instead turning into the same clear liquid that had been absorbed. Sagi flashed her a smile at her remark, and then commented, "Your eyes are black." Sekoia also threw Nozomi a glance at that, but when Nozomi just shrugged without providing an answer, neither commented further.

After filling about a fourth of the can, the liquid spray stopped even if Sagi's finger remained a liquid barely holding its shape. He spun the cap back on the spray can before shaking it and throwing it back at Sekoia.

"There you go, that should last you a while now, right?"

"Ewww," Sekoia made a face at the can even as she caught it. "Isn't this like using your bodily secretions on my plants? That's disgusting."

"That's not—" Sagi blinked, a genuinely bewildered expression appearing on his face. "I'm just absorbing the material and creating an extension of it—"

"Yeah, yeah, what-fucking-ever," Sekoia scoffed, spraying the plant growth substance across her leaf anyway. "Just get back in there, Frankenstein."

And without another moment of delay, Sekoia's leaf warped into a familiar flurry of brown roots, thicker than the ones she had shown last time, lunging for Kuguriyama-sensei in a powerful offensive. But Kuguriyama-sensei remained unfazed, drawing the metal floor up in a thick barricade. The roots landed harmlessly against it before attempting to curl around it, but they were stopped in their tracks when spikes then ejected from the side of it, piercing through them easily despite their increased thickness. Sekoia winced, but she still pressed on, trying to find a way to move around the metal obstacles, but Kuguriyama-sensei easily met her move for move.

Okay, Nozomi decided abruptly, that's enough energy to help.

She moved forward then, ducking under the root that split off from the majority to swing around at her head and ignoring Sekoia's demands to back off. Once she was close enough, she slapped her hand against Sekoia's back, probably with more strength than she needed to.

"Hey—" Sekoia's snap was cut off by a sharp inhale of surprise. She sniffed in Nozomi's direction but said nothing else, instead redoubling her efforts in spamming her Quirk at where Kuguriyama-sensei and Hisoka were engaged in combat.

Literally doubling her efforts, in fact.

The roots sprouting from her head suddenly expanded into a greater length, thickness, and quantity than anything she had shown before the night, penetrating through the barricade as well as the floor entirely to tear the metal apart with the ease of a toddler ripping through the wrapping of their Christmas presents. Having successfully deprived Kuguriyama-sensei of his primary attack source, several more roots then rose upwards to launch a second attempt at an offensive. After successfully overpowering him briefly, a few more of the thicker roots immediately lashed out at lightning speed, wrapping around him in a suffocating cocoon.

Nozomi smirked to herself, her eyes glowing gold.

Hikara Nozomi!

Quirk: "Hornet's Syphon!" Nozomi can provide energy to amplify her allies' physical strength or Quirk strength, and she can steal it from her opponents too! The effects can stack up to five times the more she touches someone, but she has to be careful about her energy supply as she can't generate it!

Crack.

"No!" Sekoia cried out in an anguished tone. She tried to withdraw her roots immediately, but she wasn't fast enough. With a loud crackle, a sheen of silver spread over the roots starting from the inside, consuming them entirely within a few seconds. Nozomi winced when they shattered entirely, her mind flashing back to Sekoia's passionate lecture to Sagi. Subconsciously, she expected Sekoia to possibly withdraw a bit as a result, but even then, the way that the roots curled away slightly from Kuguriyama-sensei seemed almost…sentient.

Kuguriyama-sensei didn't care about that in the slightest, however, as he reached out to grab some of the roots still near him—

His eyes slid to the side suddenly, and without a moment's delay, silver overtook the root he was holding entirely, at a speed much faster than it had before, before he snapped the large, newly metallic section off from the rest of it. He then took a calculated step back and yanked the root in front of him, where it instantly exploded into another shower of spikes, changing from the appearance of a plant root to something more like that of a mace. With another loud boom, the three-meter-tall robot that had been thrown at him exploded upon being attacked like a pin cushion.

Cloaked by the resulting thick cloud of smoke, Hisoka thinned his Quirk slightly to prevent the glowing psionic aura from giving him away, but it didn't help as Kuguriyama-sensei seemed to sense his presence nearby immediately. His first punch was dodged—but he had expected that. The strike had been a feint, meant to lure the teacher to the side instead. Emerald eyes glinting triumphantly, his other hand shot forward without delay, grabbing Kuguriyama-sensei's arm the moment it came within reach and mercilessly shattering it with a mental command.

But instead of the crunch of bone and spray of blood that he had been expecting, he received a crunch of metal and a spray of debris instead, Kuguriyama-sensei's real arm dropping from the crudely made metal dummy barely a few milliseconds after it had warped under his grip. Glancing briefly at Kuguriyama-sensei's now exposed arm and catching sight of the small strap floating to the floor, Hisoka realized that he must have been wearing a metal arm guard that he had manipulated to sacrifice at the last moment.

This entire exchange happened over the span of two seconds, and Nozomi had only finished processing everything that had happened nearly ten seconds after the two had long moved on from that single exchange. It was clear that Hisoka was an extremely competent fighter, although his style was much rougher on the edges. Nozomi didn't know much about actual martial arts or fighting or anything, but even then, it was clear to her that Hisoka hadn't had any formal training before either, instead carrying through with battle-honed and possibly street-honed instinct instead. Still, despite that, he miraculously still carried an aura of grace with every movement; his body and his Quirk both flowed effortlessly, moving or activating where he wanted to with extreme precision and no wasted movements. The aura at his feet would spike every so often, and it seemed to tear into the floor like claws every time it did so. Upon further scrutinization, Nozomi realized that the attack wasn't random at all, but instead triggered every time the floor seemed to shift even slightly under his feet, intended to disrupt any possible retaliation Kuguriyama-sensei might be trying.

In the end, however, there was still no comparing the abilities between the two. While Hisoka threw each and every attack precisely but aggressively, clearly displaying his determination with each strike, Kuguriyama-sensei didn't even seem to blink as he easily dodged. He'd drawn the conclusion that direct contact with the boy was dangerous after having seen the effects of Hisoka's Quirk up close previously, and he put in enough energy to sidestep just the right amount of distance to narrowly avoid each attack, never giving Hisoka the opportunity to touch him. Although every attack he tried to pull up from the ground was swiftly shattered by Hisoka, Kuguriyama-sensei didn't seem stressed in the slightest, and if Nozomi wasn't seeing incorrectly from the distance she was at, it was highly possible that the man's silver eyes were barely even focused on the blue-haired boy at all, instead flickering across the room sporadically, taking in the various fights happening throughout the room.

Fwish.

A new wave of Sekoia's roots curved around to attack the teacher from behind, sweeping across the floor with only a whistle of wind as cue. Not one to be taken by surprise, Kuguriyama-sensei turned to keep an eye on both sides before the roots were even within striking range. As he turned, he made a mild tugging motion with his left hand alone, and a piece of the nearest section of still undamaged flooring nearly ten feet away shot upward and outward, rising at a nearly 45 degree angle with the floor with lightning speed. Reminding Nozomi vaguely of a jack-in-the-box, there was nothing there until there suddenly was, the icicle ramp-like metal beam sliding neatly between Kuguriyama-sensei and Hisoka's oncoming strike at an angle before suddenly cutting in a 30 degree angle to slam against the back of Hisoka's forearm like a hammer. To Nozomi's surprise, the beam did not shatter on impact like most had, instead successfully sending Hisoka's arm snapping to the side at such a speed that Nozomi could've sworn his shoulder should have popped right out of its socket.

If it didn't work when he wasn't expecting it, then does that mean it's not so much of a strength or force-related Quirk like I thought but rather more of a mental one…? Nozomi thought to herself.

Hey, maybe that means if you can catch him by surprise, your hand won't immediately shatter and you can apply your Quirk! A voice in the back of her mind suggested out of nowhere.

Or we could not risk the possibility at all and just fucking ask instead, a seemingly different voice retorted.

Ask? With that personality?! Are you kidding?!

Why am I even thinking about this, it's not like I'm ever going to be able to get close enough anyway, never mind stay close enough, Nozomi batted the thoughts aside irritably.

Meanwhile, Sekoia's roots looped around Kuguriyama-sensei's ankles and yanked, but they only succeeded in tightly encircling the metal pole that sprouted from amidst the tiny piece of metal flooring that was still barely intact at Kuguriyama-sensei's feet, lifting him nearly two meters off the ground. The roots began to wrap themselves around the pole like Christmas lights, traveling upward at an alarming speed. The pole, somewhat predictably, exploded in spikes, and Kuguriyama-sensei raised an eyebrow in curiosity when the roots split themselves into two halves with perfect timing to avoid them and continue growing around them.

"What the fuck."

"Don't destroy them!"

Sekoia was too late, however, as a flare of red created a rain of withered root pieces, and Hisoka swung his gaze to her coldly, "If you don't want me to destroy them, then fucking aim properly."

"I see you're in quite the relaxed state, to still be arguing like this. Am I going too easy on you?"

"Wha—" Hisoka had only barely blinked, and then Kuguriyama-sensei was suddenly right in front of him. His visual processing hadn't even fully finished before his body was soaring backward, being thrown nearly ten meters back before colliding bodily with a robot, so hard that the robot was immediately flattened under the impact and the floor cracked open around him. Still, he had to force himself to ignore the pain in favor of activating his Quirk again, as the ground immediately curled upward and attempted to bury him.

Sekoia's roots attempted to close in during the moment of distraction again, but they immediately faltered upon being confronted with a shrill screech as a drill-like weapon formed in Kuguriyama-sensei's hands, the top of it spinning so fast that Nozomi could nearly see sparks. She somehow got the impression of a knife being held at one's throat, further reinforcing the possibility that Sekoia's plants were as sentient as she claimed they were.

A streak of red tore across the room once again as Hisoka recovered abnormally fast to launch another counterattack, crushing the impromptu weapon upon contact when it was spun towards him instinctively. His strike forced Kuguriyama-sensei a few steps back, where Sekoia's roots immediately lashed out again to push him further.

Thus, a cat and mouse chase began as Hisoka and Sekoia seemed to reluctantly fall into a crude sort of teamwork. Hisoka smashed any attempt at weapon formation with almost a single touch, and Sekoia exploited the newly created openings to try and grab at the man, the both of them playing off one another to try and corner him. Occasionally, one of Sekoia's roots would still launch towards Hisoka, but Hisoka would rip through them easily and neither would say a word about it. Nozomi could clearly see the strain of effort appearing on both of them, and she added another stack to Sekoia's Quirk amplification mark that she was funneling energy into.

Is this an attempt at a Naruto live action remake? Nozomi thought wryly as she watched the afterimages of red and silver flashes blur across the room at lightning speed, chased by brown streaks of whip-like roots.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

A series of chain explosions drew her attention to the other side of the room, just in time to see an entire sector of the room light up in flames. Her mind flashed to the scene of Konan and Obito at the waterfall, and she decided then, yep. I'm definitely a civilian in a Naruto live action right now, this is fantastic and totally not destructive for my self-esteem.

"Kunitaro!"

"My bad!" Tooka yelled over to Sagi completely unapologetically. She swore when another robot opened fire over her, quickly throwing out more blacksilver to shield herself. "This is so annoying…it's not even like they're hard to defeat, there's just so fucking many of them and their attacks overlap too much—fuck, where are they even getting the budget for this, I swear…"

Sagi glanced at the tears and burns riddling his shirt with a rueful sigh, and Nozomi vaguely recalled him mentioning in passing that the shirt had been new, mostly because she remembered scoffing internally at the idea of making athletic clothing the first thing you buy after getting out of prison.

But then we did all just get out of prison, she conceded, so it would make sense if some people came out of it with nothing at all.

He had no time to dwell on it, however.

Crack!

The floor splintered with a single strike from the heavy claw. The mini earthquake threw his balance off slightly, but Sagi purposefully used the stumble to fall forward. He caught himself on the slowly rising metal claw of the robot, and before it could yank itself out of his grasp, absorbed a large chunk of the metal through his palms. He fell through the nearly opened space but didn't stop, instead flipping upwards into a handstand, and then he transformed his hand into a metal block—no, it was expanding; block wasn't accurate, it was closer to a pillar now. The robot released some other metal grappling claws to try and catch him in midair, but his other hand transformed into a thin, flexible metal cord almost identical to the ones attached to the robot's claws, and he swung it around once to capture all of the incoming attacks in one fell swoop. Before any more attacks could be launched, the growing pillar that was Sagi's left hand made a sharp ninety degree turn, pushing him onto the top of the robot that had first attacked him.

Sagi pressed his hand against the iron armor piece protecting the top of the robot, and the entire piece disappeared before Nozomi's eyes. The robot's sides opened more small panels that more metal claws protruded from, and all of them began to rise upwards alongside the robot's actual arms. They were clearly aiming to knock off the unwanted passenger, but—

Schwing! Schwing!

Sagi morphed his right arm into a giant metal blade that just barely scraped the floor, slicing through several robot arms with one clean circular slice. With barely any delay, he transferred the integrated metal into his left arm and performed an identical swing on the other side. All of the robots' metal limbs crashed on the ground loudly.

Talk about a fucking broken Quirk, Nozomi thought to herself helplessly.

Meanwhile, Sagi himself sat peacefully at the top of the robot, purple eyes glinting at whatever he was looking at. "Hm, is that how it is…"

Then he let out a shout of alarm and threw himself backwards just in time to avoid the white spikes that dropped down from the ceiling and straight at him. (Nozomi shifted her gaze briefly to Kuguriyama-sensei, but the teacher didn't even glance in their direction despite the obvious Quirk usage). Sagi managed to twist his body so that his back hit the floor first, and although he rolled a few times on the floor due to momentum, it seemed as though he didn't break anything. The moment he regained his bearings and raised his head, however, he was met with a barrage of (BB) bullets. Both of his hands automatically warped into a shield, but before the barrage could even make contact, a series of metallic clangs rang out. The bullets were strangely deflected in various directions in midair, a swish of silver darting swiftly through the air. Although the bullets seemed to be scattered wildly, Nozomi noticed that they never flew in the direction of Sagi or herself.

The distance the bullets were able to travel became shorter and shorter before vanishing altogether when the liquid invaded the muzzle entirely, transforming into spikes once inside to ruin the mechanisms. At the same time, more blacksilver invaded the robot that had taken a step towards where Nozomi and Sekoia were standing, ripping it apart from the inside in ways Nozomi couldn't see and leaving an empty shell in its spot.

I stand corrected, Nozomi thought helplessly as she took in the full battlefield in front of her again. Talk about broken fucking Quirks, plural.

No, she wasn't jealous. Not at all.

…okay, so she was a little bit jealous, but could you blame her, really?

If I train hard, I'll be able to do more too, she reminded herself, I just haven't had the proper training for these kinds of situations, and my Quirk works differently from theirs. It's okay, I have time now.

"Why are these things so hard to corral?" Tooka grumbled. "It'd be so much easier if I could blow them all up at once, but it's as if they can read my mind and keep avoiding me. Fuck, are robots really supposed to be this intelligent?"

"I thought so too," Sagi answered as he came near her, helping to defend her back with his iron shield made from his hands. Tooka grunted as thanks, continuing to throw her blacksilver around, although there was some visible sweat beading on her forehead. Sagi's integration was also slowly becoming clumsier, though he continued to block incoming attacks without hesitation. "I don't know how robots are supposed to work, but when I checked the top of the robot, there wasn't even a control panel hiding up there. So I was wondering if they were being manipulated externally instead? It would make more sense that way. The AI would be the logical guess, but it might be another teacher as well."

"Well fucking hell, that's annoying," Tooka scoffed. Then, her expression suddenly changed to a sharp one. "…and there we go—"

She snapped her fingers as she muttered this line to herself. In an instant, the room seemed to explode at once, blacksilver expanding in her immediate surroundings in a sea of spikes. Each pierced a robot's leg perfectly, striking at the exposed, weak knee joints. Nozomi vaguely thought that it seemed reminiscent of a mess of skewers on a barbecue grill.

Sagi whistled sharply upon seeing several robots closest to them stop moving and keel over at once. But he didn't let his guard down, reacting quickly when the robots all continued their offense with various projectile weapons sprouting out of their backs. He smoothly blocked and dodged several attacks in a row, occasionally integrating another piece of metal where he could and adding to his own attack arsenal. As Nozomi watched, his attacks became more and more complex, metal flashing all over his body as he stopped creating a shield with his hands and simply transformed his entire body instead. With what seemed to be a completely metal body deflecting attacks, Sagi stepped forward to the nearest robot that was still immobile from Tooka's attack and integrated a piece of metal from the top of its leg. A mess of electrical wiring was revealed, and without hesitation, Sagi released his metal absorption before stuffing one hand inside. Nozomi didn't understand what happened, but in the next instant, the robot suddenly crackled loudly and exploded from the inside, leaving only Sagi standing there with a satisfied expression.

While Sagi was growing increasingly steady as he went along, Tooka seemed to be slowing down. Her attacks came slower due to her frequently pausing to reabsorb her blacksilver. The amount of blacksilver that left her hands with each attack was also much less than before, and it didn't seem to travel as far as Nozomi remembered it used to. However, the sudden weakening of her Quirk showed her true physical prowess, as she was left to rely solely on her instincts and combat-honed physique to physically dodge all incoming attacks directed at her, maneuvering around bulky robots gracefully and without receiving a single scratch. She used her blacksilver much more decisively, dealing careful, controlled damage instead of the widespread attacks she had been conducting before.

The robots, however, also seemed to be adapting as the battle continued. It was almost as if they were indeed watching and strategizing, and it made Nozomi much more convinced of Sagi's theory of them being controlled by the AI. So in the moment that Tooka launched her next attack, throwing out a handful of blacksilver at the nearest damaged robot in an attempt to explode it, one of the robots in the distance seemed to notice the open space between itself and Tooka—and launched an attack.

"Kunitaro, behind you!"

Tooka immediately whipped her head around at Nozomi's shout, eyes instantly locking on the metal whip flashing towards her. In a flash, she'd leaped back a few steps (but not far enough), attempting to withdraw her blacksilver from its attack simultaneously to switch into a defensive position—

Fwip.

To Nozomi's surprise, the whip-like metal tentacle that had launched out from the robot swooped clear over Tooka's head by over a foot, slashing across the room and whipping straight for Kuguriyama-sensei instead. The surprise attack slipped between Hisoka and Sekoia's endless bombardment, with Sekoia reacting quickly to use her roots to block off the immediate escape routes. Kuguriyama-sensei grunted as he barely caught the attack with one hand before it made contact with his chest, turning it into that same silver metal and shattering it instantly. The force still threw him backwards and straight into Hisoka's waiting fist. A metal barrier spawned right before contact, but it wasn't enough to stop Hisoka's enhanced strength, and the teacher was sent flying bodily across the room.

…is that the first time we've landed a hit? Nozomi realized suddenly, and it left her slightly dazed.

A sudden yelp of surprise drew her attention to the other side, not before the smoke thinned and she noticed Kuguriyama-sensei still with an (irritatingly) unfazed expression, hand outstretched. She turned her head just in time to see the black armor on the top of the robot that had just attacked explode in spikes.

"Watch out!"

She heard Sagi's yell moments before a figure tumbled from the top of the robot. Sagi was there in the next moment, clasping his hands together before they molded into a strange, multicolored blob—and, wait, is that the insulating silicone or whatever it is from the robots' electric wiring?! Is that from earlier…

Mitsuki tumbled onto the soft surface with a slight oof, barely missing the block of metal that had risen out of the floor, and then Sagi quickly guided his bounce to propel him in a safer direction. However, as the boy landed, the moment his hands came in contact with the ground to steady himself, it immediately lit up in sparks and he barely had the time to scramble back before it exploded.

Something changed again in Mitsuki's eyes as he stared at the billowing flames and smoke in front of him—it was the same look he'd carried when she'd first caught sight of him: a raw, swirling emotion of pure fear. Sagi's expression immediately became concerned, and Nozomi could tell that they were both on the verge of rushing over to attempt to coax him out of it because of how young it made him look.

Then, as if sensing her gaze, Mitsuki suddenly turned and met her eye, and she had to suppress a flinch at the intensity of the sudden eye contact. Something akin to realization dawned on him then, and then in the next moment, he was suddenly dashing across the room in her direction. Nozomi could only watch in mild disbelief as he nimbly dodged every attack thrown in his direction, crossing the large room in seconds before skidding to a stop in front of her. Upon coming face to face with her, some of his usual anxious energy seemed to return; his gaze floated somewhere around her jaw, unable to meet her eyes as they had only just moments ago.

Nozomi quirked an eyebrow in confusion but kept her voice casual as she asked, "What is it?"

"Your Quirk…" Mitsuki started slowly, seeming to consider his words carefully. Nozomi almost wanted to throttle him to get him to hurry up. "Can you decrease the power of a Quirk too?"

"Huh?"

"Decrease the power of a Quirk…like how you took away some of, um, Kuguriyama-sensei's strength earlier…?"

He noticed that? Truthfully, Nozomi had nearly forgotten about the brief Quirk activation that had happened when she'd first been struck herself.

"Yeah, I can," Nozomi answered, "but it activates through contact, and I don't know if I could get close enough to Kuguriyama-sensei to try again—"

"Then," Mitsuki shoved his hand at her in a surprisingly aggressive manner for his usual timid self, "take some of mine away."

Nozomi had to have misheard that. "…excuse me?"

"Please, I just…I don't want to hurt anyone," Mitsuki insisted, some of the nervous energy having returned to his eyes in a swirling ferver. "Please."

Nozomi was unconvinced, but well, she was starting to run out of energy to spend, and it seemed like there was no changing his mind, so if it made him feel better…

"Gimme a sec, Fujimori."

"Yeah, whatever, it's not like I need your help—"

Cancelling her Quirk application on Sekoia momentarily, Nozomi reluctantly took Mitsuki's outstretched hand and activated her Quirk again, this time creating a grey handprint—

A surge of energy washed through her, and it almost felt as if she was on a morphine trip with how much of it there was. She staggered, caught completely off guard—I only siphoned off a little bit…just how strong is his fucking Quirk?

The slightly maniacal glint to Mitsuki's eyes hadn't faded in the slightest, but some of the tension seemed to have escaped his body, even as he murmured, "More?"

"You…" Nozomi barely managed to get out, deactivating her Quirk quickly. She shook her head. "No. No more."

Mitsuki had the look of a kicked puppy, and that was completely unfair. Besides, wasn't he underestimating their teacher a bit too much? Even with Sekoia and Hisoka's powerful combined offense, they were still only barely holding their ground.

"Hikara, Kannou, look out!"

Sagi's warning rang out, and Nozomi whirled around to see a mega-sized robot charging at them, arm drawn back in a swing. She narrowed her eyes, drawing her hand back in a fist. With the amount of borrowed strength she had now, she could probably take it down, given a few proper hits…

"Don't move."

"Wha—"

Whoosh!

In one moment, the robot had been completely locked onto her for its next attack. In the next moment, the exact piece of flooring that the robot was standing on shifted three feet to the right. The robot's claw attack swiped the air directly next to her, only succeeding in blowing her to the side a few steps. The robot didn't stop there, however, as the floor continued to sweep it along as if it were on a moving walkway, running it all the way into the wall before it erupted in an explosion.

Nozomi hurriedly took the opportunity to apply her Quirk to Sekoia again, this time using the plethora of energy that she had received from Mitsuki to add a second boost. Ideally, she could grant everyone an energy boost (aside from Mitsuki), but she wasn't sure if she would be able to find the time to touch them amidst all the fighting, never mind keep them within her Quirk range after activation.

Can I really not help increase his abilities…or at least give some of it back? Nozomi cast Mitsuki a skeptical glance by instinct. She wasn't used to not supporting a teammate with her Quirk, and she definitely wasn't used to doing the opposite instead.

As she watched, Mitsuki's hands glowed slightly against the wall, and gold pulsed through the faint circuit patterns briefly. She followed his gaze just in time to see the floor under Kuguriyama-sensei's foot shift ever so slightly, perfectly pulling exactly one leg backwards and causing him to lose his balance just as Hisoka was launching his next attack.

With a wave of his hand, the ground rose up, forming the shape of a flattened hammer at the tip. Hisoka swiftly changed the direction of his punch on instinct, but even though he successfully cleaved a dent into the metal, there was no way to block the endless supply of platinum that Kuguriyama-sensei continued to push at him. The teacher roughly threw Hisoka aside and then turned his gaze on Mitsuki—

Mitsuki yelped and threw himself backward just moments before the ground launched upward, protruding like a totem. His hands flashed upon contact with the floor again when he caught himself, and then another piece of the floor separated to carry him back a few feet, reaching the wall. Almost immediately, the wall shot outward at him, as if greeting him—Nozomi let out a shout of surprise when the entire circular floor rotated two degrees to the left. Immediately after Mitsuki had shifted out of strike range, the piece of the wall with the protruding edges lit up in an explosion.

Before Kuguriyama-sensei could retaliate again, three bright beams of light suddenly lit up from the wall and straight into his eyes. While he was blinded, a beeping noise was heard under Mitsuki's fingertips, and at the same time, Tooka swiftly scattered some droplets of her blacksilver around the teachers' feet—

BOOM!

The explosion was on a scale that Nozomi had never seen before, and definitely not from this close; she winced as she and Sekoia were both thrown back from the force of it. She could hear several other explosions going on around her, most likely from robots, but she couldn't focus on it. Her pained gasp upon landing had her immediately choking on the thick smoke billowing above her, and the level of heat made it feel like she was being baked alive. Sekoia was cursing somewhere near her, but Nozomi didn't have the ability to look at her.

As Nozomi recovered her breath, coughing out whatever smoke she had inhaled forcefully, a wind blew across the room and the smoke slowly began to thin. Her eyes watering slightly, she lifted her head to look around, but she was unable to see anything—

—and then the wall was right in front of her face.

"Uwaah!"

She ducked her head with a speed she didn't even realize she possessed, and the wall slammed against the back of her head and shoulders with a force that made her dizzy but only for a few brief moments. Still, there was no time to even think, as she felt her entire body being thrown to the floor and shoved forward harshly. Her limbs immediately came into collision with other limbs, and she cried out in pain when someone kicked her in the gut.

The room was shrinking, she realized. We're all going to get squished together like a fucking Twinkie—

The floor suddenly tilted, approaching nearly a 45 degree angle, and she yelped again when she felt herself sliding downward. She scrabbled for a hold, but the floor was still painfully smooth—there was nothing she could use, and she could only squeeze her eyes shut and brace for collision.

…the collision never came.

Instead, the world suddenly went dark around her. For a moment, she had to double check that she wasn't just closing her eyes out of fear, as the sensation of falling had yet to cease. The metal at her back was smooth, but she was pretty sure that the friction would leave nasty burns on her clothing and skin. If it weren't for that, she could have pretended that it was one of the tubed water slides from a water park.

Then there was a faint twinkle under her feet, and she couldn't help herself when a voice started singing in her head, And at last I see the light—aw fuck that's bright—

"Oof!"

The next thing she knew, the floor disappeared from under her and she thumped to the floor from about a foot or so in the air. It took her a few moments to catch her breath and remember how to move her limbs, so she twisted her head from her position on the floor just in time to see the green lights flashing faintly through the thin circuit lines decorating the area of the wall right around the square hole that she must have just emerged from. The wall pinched together again to close the hole at the same time another one opened a few inches next to it. Tooka shot out and smoothly landed on her feet completely unscathed, blacksilver floating at her back. Silver droplets seemed to peel themselves out of the back of her shirt before disappearing, giving her a perfectly clean and dry appearance.

Nozomi pulled herself to her feet, grimacing at the pain that immediately twinged along her ankle. She spun her gaze around the room, noticing that Tooka had been the last one. With the exception of Mitsuki, who was still crouching with a focused expression, hands against the glowing floor, everyone else was also standing already. Various emotions flashed through their eyes, all holding determination, anger, or concentration, but also all with just the slightest hint of fear.

The glowing lights pulsed under Mitsuki's hands, and he narrowed his eyes before announcing quietly, "He's coming." His soft voice echoed in the pin-drop clear silence, making his statement even more ominous. As if on cue, something thudded faintly in the distance, drawing all of the students' attention instantly. Despite their clear exhaustion and various states of physical disorder, many of them activated their Quirks again.

Nozomi eyed the distance between herself and everyone else as well, wondering if she could share some energy with each of them before the fight started, and if they would let her. Did she even have enough energy to support that many people anymore? She still had a decent dose of what she had siphoned off of Mitsuki, but she could always include her own energy as well if necessary…

Crackle.

As they watched, the metal wall they had emerged from suddenly crinkled as if it was an old piece of scratch paper, curling tighter and tighter before finally ripping apart altogether and exploding outward. Nozomi's eyes narrowed, and then shut entirely when she was immediately attacked by another wave of heat, but even then, that was nothing compared to the immense pressure of withstanding Kuguriyama-sensei's dark, almost murderous gaze. Nozomi cringed back, barely noticing that her breathing had stopped, and every step forward he took sent palpitations of fear to her heart.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

"You have some nerve…"

His voice came out in a low growl, rolling across the room menacingly despite its quiet volume, seeming to penetrate straight through her soul. The walls of the room were pulled towards him like Play-doh as he walked, slowly forming a myriad of different shapes around him, many of them glinting with how sharp the edge was. Nozomi knew that she should move, try to think of a way to counter, to escape, but her body was completely overtaken by fear and refused to listen—

"And TIME'S UP~!"

Everything in the room came to an abrupt stop, Aina's cheerful voice washing over the tense atmosphere like a balm. Nobody dared to make the first move, caught entirely in a stalemate. Then the wall flashed and a screen flickered on, still buzzing with static. A few moments later, the screen smoothed out before Aina's avatar appeared clearly on the wall, pink eyes dark and a frown on her face. Nozomi's gaze flickered down briefly in curiosity, and she noted with interest that Mitsuki's hands were no longer pressed against the floor like they had been a moment before.

"That's enough, Yuu-kun," Aina said in a hard tone, and it took Nozomi a moment to realize she was talking to the teacher, "Haruko-san wants to see you."

"…I apologize," Kuguriyama-sensei said finally, without a single change in expression. But the pressure was gone, the darkness fading from his eyes, and the metal slowly slid back to where it belonged, reshaping the room again so perfectly that it seemed like nothing had happened. Nozomi let out her first breath in a solid minute, her expression souring slightly when she noticed that the most damage the teacher had taken were several scratches and singes of clothing. "I went too far. Nonetheless, you fought well. I will take my leave first then, Aina will instruct you from here."

"Wait," Hisoka called out before he could leave. "What about our results? Did we make it or not? You said you'd be deciding, right?"

Kuguriyama-sensei stared for a few moments, and then nodded once. "That's right, I did say that, didn't I? I apologize, that was a lie."

A what.

Various noises of surprise spread across the six students.

"The one who actually decides whether or not you make the cut isn't me; I only said that to ensure that you would fight your hardest," Kuguriyama-sensei went on impassively, like none of them had spoken. "While I commend each and every one of you for having such combat prowess at your age, that isn't what determines your entry at all. That being said, I hope to see you all again soon."

The moment he left the room, Mitsuki collapsed on the floor in a dead faint, and honestly, Nozomi wished she could have done the same.

---

"It's never too late to save someone…or to be saved by someone."

---

Kuguriyama Yusuke!

Quirk: "Platinum!"

This powerful Quirk allows him to generate and manipulate anything containing the elemental property of platinum as an extension of himself! He can control the physical properties such as density or malleability, or even the chemical properties such as creating the element entirely by manipulating different elemental structures of platinum at will. However, overuse of this Quirk can bring great biological harm, such as a depletion of white blood cells or iron in the body, so use it wisely!

---

Updated Quirks (on bio): Haru, Karma, Hotaru, Mikita, Nozomi

A very, very special thank you to A.J. Aviary for encouraging me and inspiring me to finish this chapter (finally)~ And also to Roggi, Yngvarr Frey, and TheBloperM for PMing me to cheer me on! Thank you all! :D

Six (now seven (eight?) ;w; it was going to be six until I started almost failing my classes and looking for jobs bleh) months who what no it hasn't don't look at me—

OKAY BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE PLEASE HEAR ME OUT! I know I only covered like a third of the character introductions from both classes, although I've hinted at far more Gold Class students than Silver Class students because I had much more leeway there (as in the Silver Class had a plot to follow (thanks Mitsuki). The Gold Class did not, and I'm apparently bad at repetitive team battles). I'M REALLY SORRY TO THOSE WHO WERE EXPECTING TO SEE THEIR CHARACTERS THIS ARC AND DIDN'T. This is going to be a lengthy explanation as always, but if you're interested in hearing it, here it is:

So you'll see from my stories list that this isn't my first SYOC rodeo. I can argue that my first one technically doesn't count because I'd only entered one SYOC at that time and had no idea what was happening except that I loved the idea of it, so I made a lot of mistakes and I'm not really surprised that it died. But one of the biggest mistakes I made was trying to cram all of my character introductions into two chapters, and I told myself that I was not going to do that this time.

I'm afraid I may have overshot, and I'm leaning too far on the other end now. But at the same time, writing this entrance exam was already a struggle, and if I tried to shed focus on every single team from every class, this entrance exam arc alone would take literally forever. So I made the decision that I want to stretch all of my character introductions across what would be considered the first "season" in terms of canon timeline—meaning that between the upcoming combat training arc and the first villain arc, I hope to allow everyone to have their capabilities showcased and all Quirks introduced to some extent by then. I'll probably end up having more extended intermission arcs between these three arcs (just general school day scenes of classroom bonding and stuff) and introduce much more character personalities that way, so I hope y'all will be okay with that (as you can already tell, I love fluffy arcs filled with casual banter uwu).

Tl;dr, characters will be introduced SLOWLY (I regret a bit, sorry), and our next action-heavy arc (the combat training arc!) will focus on a different handful of characters from both classes. Of course, the characters we saw here will continue to be featured, just to a lesser degree. Also do keep in mind that I write in very limited third person POV, so there's a bit of an unreliable narrator factor for every character's impression of other characters.

Okay, now that that's out of the way! AT LONG LAST. IT IS HERE. HUZZAH.

Sorryyyyy yeah this is way, way, way later than I expected, but what's new~ I'd actually wanted to post this by my birthday (November 12) since I'd already had most of it pre-written…but life happened, and that didn't happen :V It has been so stressful for me recently I want to cry… ;w; Hopefully I can get my shit together and start actually planning and restructuring this story's plot hhh—

But yeah, this wraps up the action-heavy sections of the entrance exam arc! I probably just have an epilogue chapter for this arc left, just to show some acceptance letters and hint at home lives and all that fun stuff. After that, we get into some aimless slice of life before starting combat training, which I started planning recently and am SUPER hyped for~ Before that, I do have to get through all the character arcs though bleh hopefully that won't take too long—

But on other news—I'll soon be opening villain submissions like I promised! After next chapter! I'll probably need a lot of side villains because of the way I'm taking my villain plot, but I think I want a total of eight…? Main villains? Well, it's subject to change depending on the submissions I get and how my plot gets adjusted as I keep planning but it'll be a minimum of eight and a maximum of twelve—anyway I'll talk more about that at the end of next chapter or on my bio so look forward to that!

Well have another two page A/N I guess…may as well commit to it while I'm here! :D So I wrote the climatic battle with Mari and the Gold Class kids a looooong time back actually (in like…April 2020 lol) but it still remains one of my favorite team battle scenes I've written to date, so I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!

I'm…honestly iffy about the Silver Class sections? I hope the characters (mainly Sekoia and Hisoka) didn't come off as too harsh, but it's a high-tension situation for them (the entire Silver Class I mean), and not everyone will get along at first, so…they had their reasons? I'll probably be amping up the Silver Class tensions waaaaay more than the Gold Class tensions, and at least half of that can be attributed to the difference between Riri and Mitsuki's personalities aha~

Not to mention the final battle was a bit lackluster for the SC maybe…since I was focusing primarily on Nozomi who is support because I've already showcased a lot of the strong attackers' abilities…it's hard to show everyone in a six-on-one fight ;w; Plus, some of these kids actually haven't had any fighting experience before (like Nozomi) so I think it makes sense. But also ngl, I picked the Gold Class focus team for their abilities, in preparation for their fight against Mari, and the Silver Class teams more for their personalities and interactions, because that was what the exam was more geared towards, so there's that too~

Also y'all I actually didn't even realize I wrote both SC sections from Nozomi's POV until I finished writing them lmao…POVs usually depends on whose thought process I think flows best for the situation and whose I feel I can do a decent job of, and I guess Nozomi just really vibes with me haha. I suppose I'll try not to do that again, but I do hope it's not that big of a deal?

So ummm…yeah, I think that's all I had to say~ Hope you enjoyed, and hope I can crank out this fluffy epilogue chapter faster than this one at least rip. See you all again soooooon~

Oh wait! Last note! I can't believe I almost forgot—Thank you so much to arans, A.J. Aviary, ComplicatedYetSimple, Roggi, LDOLDAL, Yngvarr Frey, Starblitz1312, ThalioTP, and San Wolves for your incredibly sweet reviews! I really appreciate them with all my heart~

Okay now that's all! Until next time~!

Chi-chan

PS. Lesson learned: no more robot fights because I absolutely hate writing them blergh

PPS. I have been on such a Genshin obsession recently ahahaha if anyone else plays and wants to gush with me about it or even co op please feel free to talk to me through PMs~