Volume One — Interlude

He Who is Aloof

"The First Generation of Heroes were eight in number, each ones Sovereigns and Sovereigness' of a certain Element; Fire, Wind, Thunder, Earth, Light, Water, Ice, and Dark. It is said that it is thanks to their nature as Special Mutations that the First Generation of Heroes were the strongest around, but to those of us who were not born into the families of a Special Mutation, we know next to nothing of what their nature is beyond what they dine to tell us of themselves.

However, it is also more than likely that what they have told us is only a partial truth or a complete lie—we know not, and it is equal to Death to question the words of our Gods, so we will likely never know the truth of the matter, nor will we ever know more about them."

Hironaka Minori, The Woman of Truth

- » ⊹⊱ «The Supreme One» ⊰⊹ « -

Sliding along her Acid, using the expulsion of more in order to propel herself forwards, Mina swiveled around the fist that was aimed at her stomach and retaliated by coating the offenders arm in a layer of her Quirk at a mild acidity—enough that it would burn through the skin and damage muscle if not treated within fifteen to thirty minutes depending on their pain tolerance and toughness of skin. One thing that was certain about her use of Quirk, however, was that her Acid would feel like a raging fire since nobody had special skin like her own.

Her offender proved her point as barely a second after the layer settled on their skin, they screamed and fell to the ground, raving about how it felt like their entire arm was eroding away. That was the special thing about Mina and her Quirk, her Heteromorphic features were because her body was specially made to produce acid from any orifice that she desired at any viscosity and acidity that she so desired, while also having a secondary feature of being extremely painful when in contact with anybody that was not her own, as her Heteromorphic features were a byproduct of her body adapting to the Quirk in order to ensure that she could not be negatively harmed by it.

It was a major advantage, especially considering that she could make her Quirk have the acidity of something like soda and the secondary feature would still be active at the bare minimum level—making a person feel as if their skin was slowly melting. The only real downside to her Quirk—if she could call it that—was that she felt a near crippling compulsion to use it if she went a certain amount of time without using it in any fashion, leading her to have a handful of incidents in the past because her doctor was unaware of that part of her Quirk, neglecting to have her undergo any brain scans, through Quirked means or otherwise, in order to determine if her Quirk changed any part of her brain in some manner.

Smoothly shifting into a slide after ducking under the swing of a grunt, Mina swept their legs out from under them, letting that person fall on their side into a small pool of acid, splashing half their face and making them scream and writhe in false pain as their nerves were assaulted with a substance that created a vicious pain response to all skin except her own.

While Uraraka-San, Katsumi-Chan, and Midoriya-Kun had managed to move away quickly enough to go support Thirteen-Sensei in fighting the grunts and Villains down in the Central Plaza, Aizawa-Sensei and the rest of Class 1-A were quickly forced to focus on the Villain who had some form of Teleportation-Type Quirk. He, for his voice and way of speaking was that of a more formal and servant-esque male, had introduced himself as Kurogiri of the "League of Villains," and went on to announce that they were looking for All Might.

Mina had been in the middle of the crowd of students, meaning that she couldn't release her Acid for fear of it coming contact with one of her classmates, and even if she had there was no way to know if the Villain known as Kurogiri had any skin for her Acid to come into contact with, as he looked more like a gaseous cloud than an actual person. The presence of the neck armor around him beggared Mina to try it should the opportunity come, but right then had not been the time.

Kirishima-Kun had, in a so called "manly rush," attempted to subdue the Villain, which had only resulted in him falling into the gaseous Villains body and the sound of a crash some distance away from the rest of Class 1-A. Before any of them could panic, Kurogiri had engulfed them all, even Aizawa-Sensei who was focused on keeping everyone calm and giving out a Rules of Engagement to them. Before Mina could even blink, she and Tsuyu had been deposited into the Ruins Zone—an area that simulates a destroyed city, with buildings seemingly ready to fall and collapse into themselves at any moment.

Now, here they are, fighting the grunts that had been waiting for them inside the Ruins Zone and had started trying to kill them—or sexually threaten Mina, as her "Exotic features" were exciting for some of them. Tsuyu and Mina had wasted little time talking—most students underwent combat training. If she released her Quirk at a higher acidity, it could be blamed on the fact she hadn't seen combat like this before, totally not because she was mad at the grunt's sexual advances, right?

- » ⊹⊱ «The Supreme One» ⊰⊹ « -

Lightly panting, Tsuyu swept the legs out from under a grunt and sent them flying into three others with a powerful spartan kick to his chest—changing the output of One for All to three percent in order to make sure the man didn't have his chest caved in but would be hard pressed to get up for a couple of minutes. They all bowled over, and Tsuyu immediately boosted the output of One for All back to fifteen percent and started dashing back to Mina in order to offer her any support she may need.

Ever since Toshinori-Sensei had revealed the truth to her, she had been training to up her tolerance to One for all, perfecting her control of it, and on perfecting her fighting techniques for a potential fight against Izuku Midoriya—her own classmate, someone who had saved her from eating dirt on the first day of her high school experience, someone who was carried a Prescence so suffocating that even her Sensei had warned her that fighting him was beyond her without full control of One for All.

Tsuyu had been avoiding Midoriya-Kun's group ever since, more out of Instinct and some fear of Midoriya-Kun's demeanor. Tsuyu had meant it when she said that she'd never seen Midoriya-Kun truly look at something—his eyes were Hollow, like there was something inside his mind that kept his attention, and he only partially paid mind to the real World. Pair that with the fact that part of her seems to almost react to him, and she had more than enough reasons to avoid the teen like most of her classmates seemed to do.

Shaking her thoughts clear, Tsuyu came back to where Ashido-San was handling goons, using the ruined buildings as push-off points in order to move quickly and strike from unexpected directions. Ashido-San was showing a masterful use of applying her Quirk in combat, and an excellent display of control that made Tsuyu almost wonder if Ashido-San had been in some underground fighting ring before she applied to U.A. to prepare for the combat courses.

Ashido-San ducked under two consecutive strikes from some grunts and swiped her arm to her left, generating an acid wall that stopped a barrage of some projectile expelled from an Operative-Type Quirk. She then quickly spun around, expelling acid from her arm to land on the grunts that surrounded her, which upon contact sent the two writhing and convulsing onto the ground. Tsuyu honestly felt bad for the two of them, as they landed in more Ashido-San's Acid, which would render them in more pain if what Ashido-San said about her Acid was true.

Ashido-San seems to have the close-ranged grunts under control, but the interference from the long-ranged ones is probably going to eventually cause her to slip up. Tsuyu called, analyzing the situation in her own head while she hung by one arm off an exposed piece of rebar. The long-ranged ones are split up into four groups of ten, equally spaced around Ashido-San's area of operation. If I up the percentage of One for All to my maximum and pair it with the leg strength from my Quirk, then I can maybe take out...three of the groups before they notice I'm there?

Spinning herself around the rebar until she could plant her legs on it, Tsuyu singled out the group she would start off with and focused on One for All. Toshinori-Sensei had explained that One for All needed a Mental Trigger in order to be activated—Toshinori-Sensei's Mental Trigger was a flame that built in relation to the level of One for All he put into his smashes. Tsuyu's Trigger was different from her Sensei's, as the two of them had different ideas on how One for All worked, though she did agree with most of what her Mentor had told her about the Quirk, but the teachings of her Father for that superseded Toshinori-Sensei's views regarding One for All.

Searching inside of herself, she found those two familiar Cores of Power that resided within her. Ignoring the Core of an undulating tsunami, Tsuyu pulled on the Core that resembled a broiling Storm, and slowly let the electric power of One for All infuse her bloodstream until she felt her blood cells reach the point of almost imploding. Her body could only hold up to fifteen percent of One for All now, but the more she pushed herself while using One for All, the more her body would be able to handle higher percentages.

Opening her eyes—an electric green color to them, now—Tsuyu pushed off the rebar and became a left a trail of what looked like flowing water behind her. Since One for All was a power that partially considered the interpretation of the Holder, as she grew able to use it at higher percentages One for All would also grow to represent her own unique interpretation of the power as well.

Landing on the ground among the first group of ranged grunts, Tsuyu kicked her leg forward in an arc, taking out three of the ten grunts with one move. Quickly readjusting herself, Tsuyu jumped forward, grabbed another grunt, and threw him into four others, sending them flying into a wall with a sickeningly loud thud.

Offering an apology in her head for any potential severe injuries those three suffered, Tsuyu opted to give the second to last grunt a swift and brutal jab to the jaw, and grabbed the last one by the waist while she dashed off to the second group. It only took four loping gaits for her to reach the second of the four groups, and with a brief grunt of exertion Tsuyu threw the man she had by the waist directly into one that was getting ready to shoot at Ashido-San.

A brief, fleeting amusement seized Tsuyu as her ears registered the heavy impact of two people colliding at an aggressive velocity, but it left her quickly enough as she punched another one in the gut and then swiftly used her other hand to punch him right in the cheekbone, sending him on a crash course with the ground. She easily moved over to the next two, knocking one unconscious with an axe kick straight to the shoulder, and then used him as a foothold to jump straight towards the fourth one and grab him by the shirt. Without a second though, Tsuyu used her legs to send her lower half up into the air and used more than enough force in order to send her upper half into the air and take the man with her. It was child's play looping the rest of the way to slam the man into the ground back first, and only a mild effort to resituate herself so that she could move forward and sweep the next grunts leg out from under them.

With no care for the grunt, Tsuyu shot out her tongue—all twenty meters of it—and grabbed onto their leg. Twisting her head to the left in order to pull her tongue taut, Tsuyu shifted the momentum upwards and then threw her head down, sending the grunt slamming down into two others with—what she was pretty sure was—concussive force.

Ugh, when was the last time they washed their clothes? Or themselves? Tsuyu grimaced to herself as she did her best to ignore the taste of dried mud in her mouth.

It was times like this she found herself wishing that her Mutation gave her tongue a reduced sense of taste, instead of the enhanced one she was given. It meant that using her tongue, a very useful tool in her arsenal, would always have the downside of literally leaving a sour taste in her mouth for hours after the fact. Right then and there, Tsuyu decided she would ask Toshinori-Sensei to give her some ice cream, something that she could just let melt in her mouth would be helpful in getting rid of the terrible taste that pervaded her mouth right now.

Shaking herself from thoughts for later, Tsuyu quickly dispatched the remaining two of the group, kicking one in the back of the neck and back fisting the other one before punching them in the gut. The third group of grunts was further away from these two, so it took her a handful of loping steps to reach them—unfortunately giving them enough time to at least take notice of her, if not prepare to react to her fast approach. Tsuyu mainly considered it unfortunate because it meant that she couldn't go easy on them like she had the other groups, Aizawa-San's Rules of Engagement only allowed for that if they had the element of stealth on their side—now that Tsuyu no longer had it, she no longer had the luxury of choosing to be gentle in taking them down.

Tsuyu really did feel bad for the grunts that had accompanied the Villains here, they thought they were facing off against kids who had zero combat experience—a completely wrong thought process. Students applying for the Hero Course of any school like U.A. had to have some form of combat and live combat experience or they'd be denied even participating in any of the entrance exams except for the Business Course. Even the students in the Support Course required combat experience, as they were expected to be able to test their Gear in mock combat trials, along with being expected to know how to defend themselves in the event of an attack in their workshop. Since the Hero Course students needed both combat experience—as in having trained in some form of combat style—and actual live combat experience, everyone the grunts were dealing with here was more than capable of handling twenty or so of them before starting to run dry on stamina.

Besides, if Tsuyu was right, then most of the grunts were being handled by Midoriya-Kun's group while Midoriya-Kun took on that creature that made both the Cores inside of her pulse in anger at how unnatural it was. Despite her want to avoid her fellow classmate, Tsuyu truly hoped that Midoriya-Kun could hold out against the beast until Toshinori-Sensei arrived, caused no matter how she looked at it, All Might was needed in order to defeat that creature. That's just how much Power the thing seemed to give off.

Blinking back to reality, Tsuyu cringed at the sight of the third group of grunts—her body had gone on autopilot while she was lost thinking, letting her disable and break the bones of the group without her really noticing much of it. She was consumed by a splash of remorse as she found it rude to dispatch grunts like this without even paying attention to them—she had probably looked like what she imagined Midoriya-Kun did when taking out these villains—Hollow eyed and expressionless, breaking them apart and sending them into flight mode as they tried to get away from her, only to be mercilessly caught and broken just like the rest of their pals.

...Huh, do I really think Midoriya-Kun is that scary? Tsuyu wondered to herself, partially weirded out by the brutal imagery of what she imagined her classmate looked like while dealing with the enemy.

Saving finding the answer to that question for later, Tsuyu dashed off towards the final group, but quickly entered evasive maneuvers as her enhanced perception let her react quickly enough to dodge the projectile aimed at her shoulder. A salvo of projectiles soon came afterwards, forcing her to back off towards a building, swing off a piece of rebar, and dig her fingers hard enough into the ruined building's exterior to let her swing herself along the side of the building into a hole that let her have cover from the Quirks being fired at her.

Shit, I thought I'd at least be able to get close enough to where I could move towards them while I avoided their Quirks. Was I too loud in my takedown of the third group? Or was I just unlucky in one of them having enhanced sight and seeing me sooner than I expected? Tsuyu glared at nothing as she lamented her current situation. Being stuck like this, I won't be able to help Ashido-San for at least a couple of minutes while I wait for them to let their guard down enough for me to risk charging them. Hopefully she'll manage to route them into her Acid and that my removal of three of the four groups will put her in an advantageous enough position to hold out until I can come offer support.

- » ⊹⊱ «The Supreme One» ⊰⊹ « -

Huffing slightly, Mina slid along her Acid while avoiding a punch, kick, and back fist aimed at her. Mina, comparatively, was in a significantly much better position than before. Thanks to Tsuyu taking out most of the long-ranged grunts and drawing the attention of the last group, Mina was able to fully focus on handling the close-ranged grunts without any worries about her backside. However, after taking out most of the grunts, there was this singular grunt that was more skilled than she was expecting. On top of that, he had Heteromorphic Quirk like her that seemed to have given him skin that looked more like armor and was extremely resistant to her Acid, along with giving him strength and endurance that left her on the back foot while she figured out how to deal with him.

Shifting her weight and moving her feet to a more linear position, Mina looped around his jab and sent a splash of Acid to his back, one of a much higher acidity than she had previously used. Much like her previous ones, her Acid elicited little reaction from his Heteromorphic skin. She knew that he felt the pain her Acid generated as he flinched every time it hit him, but it seemed like it was at a reduced level, or he just had a strong mentality or ability that let him simply ignore the pain it was constantly inflicted on him.

Time was on her side, that was obvious from how the guy was always trying to stay on her heels, trying to hit her and give her no time to breathe or generate Acid. Unfortunately for him, she had trained for something like this, and had created something of a counter to it—she just needed to figure out what the limit of his resistance was.

Throwing her head to the side, Mina pushed backwards, further into the Acid she had generated fighting the other grunt, in order to keep some distance between her and the grunt. Not one for slow build-ups, Mina increased her Acid by three orders of magnitude and sent it at her opponent and felt a twinkle in her eyes as the grunt hissed in pain and briefly looked like he wanted to back off.

Close enough! I'll increase it by another magnitude just in case. Dashing back and putting several dozen feet of distance between them, Mina began to relax her hold on her Acid while simultaneously expanding her senses.

Tsuyu wasn't nearby, having managed to pull the last group of long-ranged grunts further into the ruined buildings, leaving just the grunt and his downed teammates in her range.

That was perfect.

From her entire body, Acid began to bleed from her entire body, thick and dripping from her like mud.

The Acid along the ground undulated, slowly gaining more movement as she strained for the minor control, she had over it.

The grunt was two dozen feet away and closing, charging with reckless abandon that told Mina he knew something was going on and wanted to cut her off from doing it.

Too bad he was already too late.

Her Acid rose, forming shoddy representations of flowers and trees that dripped loose Acid. She felt her stamina drain as she pumped more Acid into the floor before cutting off as she left herself with only a quarter of the stamina, she had started the fight with.

She smiled as she watched the grunt stop and quickly swiped off the Acid that had fallen on him from one of the many trees, revealing his burned skin to her.

"The fuck is this!?" he screamed; pain tinged in his voice.

"A Technique that'll slowly increase in acidity until it burns you down to the bone within seconds." Mina spoke, not bothering to hide the pride in her voice, it was her Special Move, and her current peak with her Quirk. "Welcome, Mr. Grunt, too—"

«The Acid Garden»

"Now then," Mina continued, staring the grunt straight in the eyes, "Shall we continue?"

Far off in the distance, past Katsumi-Chan entering a Berserk state, past Ochaco-Chan breaking bones and Thirteen-Sensei sending them flying, past her classmates facing off against other grunts, Mina Ashido heard crackling Ice and a shaking roar.

"▂▃▅▇███▇▆█▅█!"

- » ⊹⊱ «The Supreme One» ⊰⊹ « -

Alright, so, I know I said it was going to be like one more chapter until the end of this Volume, but my mind has been spinning this one around for a while now, and the final chapter to this Volume refuses to come out unless I got this out of my head, and I figured you lads would enjoy a good old' Bonus Chapter that would give you some info from Mina-Chan, and help set the expectation of getting Tsuyu-Chan's viewpoint as a recurring thing every once in a while.

Hope you all enjoyed it and prepare for your mind to be graced with the final, climatic, chapter to end the first Volume of my The Supreme One.