Chapter Three: Rinse and Repeat
Friday morning brought about no significant changes to Iida's morning routine. As of six-thirty that morning, the alarm systems back at their dorms were working again, meaning that an hour before classes started, everyone still asleep was woken up so they had time to eat and make themselves look presentable before homeroom.
That left Iida with enough time to hustle back to his room, clean himself up, brush his teeth, eat a hasty but filling breakfast, and return to Class 1-A, all with a solid twenty minutes to spare. Furthermore, his timeliness proved the rule, not the exception: today, each of his classmates occupied their respective seats a full five minutes before the school day started.
Scythe didn't have anything to say during homeroom. Instead, she went straight to her seat and delegated any authority she had that period to Eraserhead. However, after taking attendance, Eraserhead didn't have much more to say than Scythe did, meaning most of homeroom passed in silence.
While Iida's morning remained the same as always, his note-taking routine did not. His notes remained as comprehensive and detailed as ever; however, the time between jotting down bullet points became dedicated to observing the rest of his class, attempting to determine how they were adjusting to Scythe's presence.
By the end of first period, he already noticed quite a number of changes among his fellow members of Class 1-A. Bakugo refrained from using foul language. Koda didn't speak at all. Kaminari's posture had never been straighter. Tsuyu blushed whenever her tic went off. Eraserhead drank more coffee than Iida thought possible for a single person to consume: by cup number six Iida worried he might suffer cardiac arrest right in front of them before the day ended.
Scythe still stopped class every once in a while to raise a question, usually (although not always) regarding the coursework or the curriculum. While it altered the pacing of each lesson a bit, each teacher adjusted well to it, meaning their contents remained unchanged as far as he knew.
Besides the questions, she made her presence known in a few other ways, not all of them positive. The most notable instance came during the middle of their math lesson, Cementoss halfway through explaining the graph of a complex equation and its first three derivatives. Izuku had jolted in his seat, his right arm reaching for the stratosphere. When Cementoss called on him, Izuku asked for a chance to explain what Cementoss hadn't gotten to yet, which was allowed. From there, he launched into a gradual theorization about where Cementoss was going, and based on Cementoss' nodding, he was at least on the right track.
After about twenty seconds of this, Scythe brought Izuku's answer to a screeching halt. "Could you speed things up a little?"
Cementoss shot Scythe a look but said nothing, as did Iida. Meanwhile, Izuku stopped, took a deep breath, then returned to his explanation, trying to keep things more concise this time. However, between his new answer and Scythe's interruption, they'd likely wasted more time than if Scythe had just let him finish.
He took the time to address Scythe once he concluded his explanation. "Sorry for taking so long…"
"Rein it in next time and things will go better," Scythe said.
Izuku bowed his head and returned to taking notes. Iida took notice of this: sure, Izuku might benefit from learning how to condense his answers into something more concise, but on the other hand, he never intended to waste time: everything he said worked toward his answer. He wasn't too worried about it, though: even if Izuku hadn't gained enough confidence to bring up the point himself, Bakugo had no problems being blunt. One of them would handle it if an issue arose.
The only other point of note in this regard came during their physical education lesson, although it lasted almost the entire period this time. While Iida couldn't keep as close an eye on Scythe this time around due to the nature of the class, in between exercises, especially ones involving running where he possessed an inherent advantage over everyone else, he snuck peeks at her on the sidelines with Eraserhead. Although he was too far away to hear anything they said, judging by Eraserhead's body language, they didn't seem to get along very well.
Iida didn't expect to learn anything more about their relationship past that point; Eraserhead had spent his entire career staying hidden, so keeping his true feelings from a group of teenagers was child's play by comparison. And at the end of the day, did any of that really matter?
Scythe didn't come with a quality guarantee. But at the same time, she was still a teacher and here to do a job, both of which set firm limits on how low she'd stoop. Furthermore, barring any catastrophic events occurring, her position wouldn't survive their upcoming Hero License Exams; obtaining even a provisional license required a fair share of both athleticism and common sense. A hero possessing both of those traits thwarted eight out of every ten kidnapping attempts, and no amount of either foiled ninety percent of what remained.
If nothing else, Iida could use that knowledge to steel himself: there would always be a light at the end of this tunnel.
After classes concluded for the day, Shouto shut himself away in his room. Despite his supposed aloofness he never minded socialization with his peers, but he couldn't chip away at the mountain of homework in front of him while surrounded by distractions. Therefore, he put on the temperature-resistant headphones that had been his birthday present from Natsuo the year before, pulled out his computer alongside all the pencils and paper he could ever need, turned on a subdued soundtrack, and got to work.
That homework commanded his full attention for about half an hour or so. However, in the middle of determining an appropriate thesis statement for his Japanese History essay, the lights in his room started pulsing a bloody red, and accompanying those pulses was the loudest blaring noise he'd heard in quite some time, the combination making him seize up for a terrifying second before he realized their cause.
Accompanying the lights and senseless noise came a collected female voice Shouto didn't recognize; perhaps it came default with the alarm system. "Warning. Warning. Evacuate the building immediately. Do not go into the basement, repeat, do not go into the basement."
The end of that statement raised Shouto's eyebrows, even as it began repeating itself. One of the more discreet features of their dorm building, tucked in a corner of the basement, was a bunker designed for potential emergencies such as this one: it contained a sink, a shower with an attached curtain, and several cabinets loaded with bottled water, canned goods, and first-aid supplies, all of it surrounded by walls Eraserhead once classified as "functionally everything-proof." Therefore, anything capable of bypassing those walls represented a formidable threat at the very least.
After a deep breath, he returned to himself. Panicking and ruminating over his options wouldn't solve this problem, taking action would. Thus, he grabbed his cell phone and wallet from his desk, turned off his computer, and hurried out of the room, not even bothering to remove his headphones.
The hallway remained clear enough, allowing him to charge for the stairs without any trouble. However, the stairs became a noticeable choke point due to the alarm. Even with some of his classmates speeding things up by either sliding down the railing or skipping the stairs entirely, by the time he made it outside, Shouto had reached his jostling threshold for the day.
His classmates had all broken into small groups, trying to face every direction at once to prevent any potential ambushes. A handful of them exchanged terse words, but most remained stone-faced and silent.
Kaminari asked a question to them all. "Does anyone know what's going on?"
"I have no idea," Shouto said. "I'd be prepared in case there's a breach, though."
As if in response to Shouto's question, the campus intercom came to life once more, Nedzu holding a microphone somewhere out of sight. "Attention, U.A. students: A Warp portal has been discovered a short distance from U.A. grounds. Your faculty is currently investigating the affected area; please remain with your classmates and on campus pending further announcements."
Something sharp and heavy lodged itself in Shouto's stomach. He'd been there when Bakugo had been dragged through a similar portal into the League of Villains' hideout, watched as his classmate disappeared from right in front of him, helpless to stop it. Its purple hue slithered in and out of his nightmares already; a second encounter threatened to send him to therapy.
None of his classmates took the revelation well either. In particular, Bakugo started swearing with reckless abandon, a torrent of anger and calls for vengeance launching from his mouth. Shouto had half a mind to tell him to quiet down, but he dismissed that as an exercise in futility: if the League of Villains attacked campus, they'd have known where they were before Bakugo's shouts reached them.
Several more minutes crept by this way, the lights and sounds continuing as everyone prepared for the worst. All conversations died in their tracks, replaced with blank silence as they awaited further instructions. As much training as he'd done, Shouto felt far more like a bystander than any hero ever should. He could only imagine that everyone else felt the same way.
All at once, the alarm ceased and its accompanying strobe lights faded away to nothing, leaving only an average late evening sky in its place. Class 1-A breathed a collective sigh of relief; even if they didn't know whether or not someone else had been the target this time, at the very least, none of them had been captured.
"The portal has disappeared, and therefore the alarm has been turned off," Nedzu's voice boomed. "However, in light of this event, we will be requiring all U.A. students to remain on campus for the rest of the night. I apologize for the inconvenience, and let me reassure you that U.A. will get to the bottom of this at all costs."
A handful of his classmates returned to the dorm once Nedzu's announcement finished, but Shouto wasn't one of them. If he knew Eraserhead well, he'd be here any minute to explain what had happened, perhaps with Scythe in tow this time.
Sero approached Shouto. "Well, I'm glad that's over."
"I'm going to stay vigilant," Shouto said. "Once is a coincidence, twice is a pattern."
A short while later, Eraserhead exploded into view all at once, the cocooning shadows falling away from him like his sleeping bag. Scythe reached the scene less than a minute after him, her hair limp and her face bright red. Neither of them needed to get their observers' attention: Shouto turned to face the new arrivals as soon as they arrived, and if the shuffling sounds he heard meant anything, all his nearby classmates had followed suit.
Without wasting a second, Eraserhead explained what he knew. "I doubt someone other than Kurogiri is responsible for this, but we have no concrete proof. The portal closed before any of the faculty could get a good look at what was on the other side of it. Furthermore, if anything went into or came out of that portal, none of us saw it. Our cameras don't go out that far, so we'll have to get a warrant from the government for the footage from their cameras and see if there's anything we missed."
"A defense mechanism to prevent a Quirk like Kurogiri's from penetrating U.A. is among the things your principal requested funding for," Scythe added. "However, no such mechanisms exist yet, although a few attempts at solving this problem are currently in beta testing."
That statement reassured Shouto not one bit. In all honesty, he didn't understand how someone like Kurogiri could be blocked from entering campus. What prevented him from opening a portal anywhere he wanted?
"If any updates about this situation concern Class 1-A, I assure you that I'll let you know as soon as possible," Eraserhead said. "For now, just remain wary in case this happens again."
It was going to happen again. As long as Kurogiri remained free and the technology Scythe discussed remained prototypes at best, nothing prevented the League of Villains from depositing themselves in the center of campus and going on a rampage other than their mood. All he could do was prepare himself for the inevitable, and when it happened, he wanted to make the League of Villains regret ever considering him as a target.
After U.A. suffered two major incidents in as many days, an outsider might have expected things to diverge from the norm, at least for the time being. However, U.A., Class 1-A in particular, had been through far more than your standard class, so nothing changed. Not yet, anyway.
Therefore, the next morning, Yaoyorozu came into class prepared for another messy Heroics lesson with Scythe. To her surprise, that messiness never came to fruition; the disaster of Scythe's first Heroics lesson hanging over her head led her to keep the second one far less aggressive. Most likely, she didn't want both of her first two stints at teaching to be marred by serious injuries.
This time, Scythe stuck with a handful of the basic exercises Yaoyorozu recognized from their physical education classes, followed by some simple self-defense training. They didn't even use any human targets this time around: Scythe demonstrated the move, and each Class 1-A student replicated that move on a training dummy. She also involved both Eraserhead and All Might far more this time around, both to give additional advice about each move and help each student use their Quirk to complement it whenever possible.
Halfway through the lesson, Scythe called a water break, which Yaoyorozu took alongside the rest of the class, draining most of her bottle in seconds. Her thirst managed and her energy refreshed, she took a minute to see what some of her classmates thought of the new direction Heroics lessons had taken.
"It's not the most interesting thing in the world, but there's nothing wrong with it," Hagakure said.
"I want to see where it goes before I say anything definitive," Jirou said.
"No one's in the infirmary this time, so I'm not complaining," Ashido said.
In other circumstances, she would have surveyed the entire class, but Scythe called them all back to finish their lesson before she had the opportunity. Chances were, no one's opinion changed too much, because the second half of their lesson felt almost identical to the first. To be frank, it got quite boring toward the end, but just this one time, boring and safe beat exciting and dangerous.
Forty-five sweaty minutes later, they wrapped up the last exercises Scythe had planned, at which point she addressed the class once more. "Your Heroics lesson for the day is over, Class 1-A. However, given recent events, one of my overarching lessons will start sooner than I planned to, so please don't leave yet."
The notice of her sticking around long enough to teach an overarching lesson filed itself away in Yaoyorozu's brain. Perhaps Scythe was a less-temporary addition than she initially believed. With the date of the Hero License Exam nearing whether she wanted it to or not, a change to her instruction this close to the deadline set off warning bells. Her nerves spiked enough every time she thought too hard about it already; anything that added to it earned her distaste.
She, like many of Class 1-A's members, got jolted out of their thoughts by Scythe calling them all to attention. Even the teachers followed suit: Eraserhead noticeably jerked in place before turning to face her.
Once her gaze swept the entire class to ensure full participation, Scythe launched into what had to be a preplanned speech, every sentence she spoke stretching her grin wider. "As I said before our first Heroics lesson, villains won't be so kind as to announce their presence. Furthermore, as evidenced by yesterday's… event, you can't expect them to time their attacks in a manner convenient for you. Therefore, until the next Heroics lesson, we're going to play a little game."
That sounded ominous. The last game Scythe created ended with one of her classmates in the infirmary. Maybe she hadn't learned her lesson from that incident after all.
That picture became clearer as Scythe explained the rules of the game, one which sounded way too similar to the last game for comfort, albeit maybe less likely to end in violence. For the next few days, Scythe would be carrying around stickers. Her goal was to put stickers on as many of them as possible, which she could do at any time: however, she was only allowed to try for each of them once.
Before she could continue from that point, All Might interrupted her. "As much as I understand your desire to prepare them for the unexpected, could you please refrain from interrupting their academics? Heroes must rely on their knowledge just as much as their instincts."
Scythe took All Might's statement in stride. "You make an excellent point, All Might. In light of that, I will not attempt to tag you during school hours. Any other time, however, is fair game."
She picked up steam again right afterward, explaining that her attempt to tag one of them could be foiled by either incapacitating her or avoiding her line of sight for ten minutes. "And one final warning: if you get tagged during this game, there will be consequences. I'd recommend putting your best effort into this game, it'll be more than worth it."
To everyone's surprise, Scythe ended things there, leaving Yaoyorozu with more questions than she'd started with. Even after all that, she had no idea where Scythe had access to during this game, the means she'd use to win, or what the consequences of getting tagged were.
Not wanting to base her plans on faulty logic, Yaoyorozu raised her hand. Scythe didn't seem to see her, but after several of her classmates got her attention in a manner they probably thought was subtle, Scythe called on her. "Was I not clear about how the game worked?"
"Mostly, but I still feel like I'm missing something," Yaoyorozu said. "Might I ask what your intent is with this game?"
"Smart villains won't telegraph their attacks, they can happen anytime and anywhere," Scythe said. "Therefore, I deemed this game useful to teach your class to stay vigilant at all times."
"My apologies, but that's not what I meant," Yaoyorozu said, wanting to keep this conversation in pertinent territory. "I understand the purpose of this game from a lesson standpoint. However, I'm not sure what the purpose of the consequences you described are, nor what means you're willing to use to tag us. Would you mind clarifying that a bit for me?"
Scythe remained evasive, the smile starting to slide off her face. "That defeats the purpose of the exercise, does it not? I'm supposed to be preparing you for the real world."
Yaoyorozu didn't give in that easily. "I understand that, but—"
"There are no buts here. If you're trying to figure out how I might come after you or what happens when I get you, just use your imagination."
In response, Yaoyorozu began imagining Scythe had a more satisfying answer to her questions, but that accomplished nothing.
With Scythe stonewalling any attempts to make her further explain the rules for her game, a few minutes later Class 1-A stopped trying and began to disperse. Yaoyorozu did the same, splitting off from the others to beeline for the cafeteria: all that exercise had left her ravenous, and with several potential threats on the horizon putting extra calories into her system never hurt.
After all, if this game was anything like what Scythe said it was, she'd need all the help she could get.
I don't have much to say this time, other than that Chapter 4 is well underway, so the next update will be on November 12th at the latest. NaNoWriMo starts this week, too, so I hope I'll be able to make more progress on this.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I hope to see you on the 12th for the next one!