…I'm honestly out of creative juice to write a funny Author's Note for this chapter. This was pretty tiring.
-SpiritOfErebus
Hagakure was… very tired.
Her breath came in sharp wheezes. Her lips were dry and cracked, and every step felt like rubbing her feet on sandpaper, which, given the fact that she was walking with bleeding feet on moist grass… wasn't that accurate.
"If you have the energy to think about weird metaphors, you can keep walking." Hagakure rasped.
Just then, she saw a man driving an electric bike down the road. With her blurry vision, she could see a blonde man wearing a dark suit.
"Sir!" she yelled. "Please help! The USJ is under attack!"
She began to see spots, before collapsing onto the ground. She reached up an invisible arm and did not see the difference in the sky.
"Did I… do it?" she muttered.
"Did I save everybody?"
"Wait, who said that?" the blonde man said, looking around. His skinny limbs and sunken, blue eyes swerved around in confusion, before he spotted the depression of the grass, as if someone was lying down in it.
"Hagakure-shojo!" he shouted, getting off his bike.
…
"Andersen isn't getting up!" Sero muttered, aiming his elbows at a villain and tangling up his legs.
"Guys, can you at least try to hold these villains back?" Sero asked the newly reformed villains. To be perfectly honest, he was very skeptical of their actual loyalty, but at this point, he was grateful for the help.
He snuck a glance at a big guy as he sent out yet another string of tape, entangling a villain's wrist as he tried to sneak up on an unarmed fighter. The villain that had switched sides nodded gratefully at Sero before picking up the knife-wielder and throwing it at the mist villain, who just teleported the body away. The knife the villain was holding sank into the ground, inches before Shigaraki's shoes.
"We're doing our best, okay?" the frankenstein-looking man said, gripping his fist to create a small burst of electricity. "But we don't know why that big guy isn't jumping in."
"Do you really think I would fall for that kid playing dead?" Shigaraki yelled. "Quirk exhaustion doesn't work like that! Your taunt won't work, miniboss!"
Sero looked at the still very passed out Hans on the ground, and sighed. The kid was… small. His attitude may be that of a cynical old man, but Hans still looked like a ten year old. His face was pale, and his limbs were as thin as twigs.
How did somebody live like that? And if somebody like that had worked hard enough to pass out… then how could he die without giving it his all?
Sero looked up at Aoyama's face, which was frozen in shock, conflict and fear evident on his face.
"Come on, dude!" he yelled, "Get it together!"
Aoyama yelped nervously, adjusting his red visor, before gritting his teeth and firing his laser into somebody's gut. The strange position Aoyama ended up in was just… odd… before the normally flamboyant student collapsed onto the ground, holding his face in his hands.
"W-why is this happening…" he muttered. "I shouldn't have… I don't even want to…"
"Hey, hey. It's fine." Sero muttered. "We're still learning. But we first have to get out of here, alright?"
Aoyama stiffened. He stopped shaking, and clenched a fist. "Monsieur, thank you for reminding my sparkling self about the fact that… we must continue. We've all come too far to be stopped now."
"Yeah, right?" Sero said, grinning determinedly. "If we can survive the entrance exam, what can't we survive? The zero pointer was terrifying, but we all still ran away from it… Wait a minute…"
"Yes, monsieur?" Aoyama said, standing up and grinning weakly. "What is it?"
"Run away!" Sero grinned. "We may not be able to get out of the building, but we can keep them chasing us! Even if they have a teleporter, if we just hide well enough, they won't be able to find us!"
"Students…" a muffled voice mumbled.
"Thirteen-sensei!" Sero gasped, running up to the collapsed hero and helping her up.
"Get me up." she said, her hands trying but failing to get her off the ground.
"Of course." Sero said. "So, should we still… try to run?"
"We can't." Thirteen said calmly. "Andersen-san is injured, and I'm too much of a liability. The teleporter can send goons all over to look for us over the base, so our advantage would be pointless. All we can do is hope for rescue."
"Are you done with your little pow-wow?" one of the reformed villains shouted, dodging a stab with a frantic sidestep, before retaliating with a sledgehammer to the attacker's face.
With a loud cry of pain, another one of their allies were hit in the chest with a machete. Thankfully, being made of… what looked like an eldritch combination of at least three different animals in the shape of a human, it didn't do that much damage.
"Enough." Kurogiri said, sending in his clouds. "Young master, you may still be wary of the blue child, but they are all defenseless now. No barrier remains to stop my mist."
"No, no, Kurogiri, wait-"
Hans slowly got up, looked at the approaching clouds, and sighed. With his blue tablet flashing in front of him, he tiredly typed a series of words, and a tree rose from behind Hans, blowing out a green wind from her leafy palm. The mist was curtailed as Hans looked at the conscious Thirteen, and sighed.
"I know it's probably been said somewhere…" Hans said, looking at the injured astronaut cosplayer, "But Apollo Thirteen was a catastrophic failure."
"At least they all made it home in the end, didn't they?" Thirteen said, a slight hint of humor in her voice. "Now, can you heal me?"
"...I only really have two actions left before I collapse again, but okay." Hans said, ceasing his flow of mana to the elder tree mother. "Hopefully, you won't be taken out instantaneously. Again."
Kurogiri's body stopped blowing in the wind, and Shigaraki rounded on him. "You see? I knew that he was just playing dead."
"Yeah… sure…" Hans muttered. "Now, can we move?"
Thirteen's backside stopped glowing blue, and she stood up shakily. "Students, run!"
"But how are we supposed to-"
A great iceberg appeared on the stairways, pushing its way up the incline and impacting the walls of the great dome.
"Thirteen-sensei." Todoroki said impassively, frost slowly creeping up his right side. "I hope I made it in time."
"Oh, thank god." Hans said, sitting on the ground. "We're saved."
"Are you, though?" Shigaraki shouted from across the clearing, grinning past the semi-transparent ice formation. "Nomu, get rid of this irritation."
The glacier rattled for a moment, cracks webbing throughout the ice formation, before it crumbled as a black blur flew out of it. Its mouth was open, tongue salivating as it received a firm order to attack. Hans began to step back as he tried to dive for cover. Its muscles bulged as it clenched its fist tight, sure to turn Hans's body to paste.
Hans slowly closed his eyes and let himself fall to the floor.
"In the end… I'm just another side character, right?" he thought. His backstory didn't affect anybody. The ramblings he wrote online influenced almost nobody. His only published book in this world was canceled by the hero association for encouraging vigilantism. His fairytales were a piece of a forgotten past weaponized by a megacorporation for profit and propaganda, without even bothering to credit him.
As he felt the back of his head hit the sharp tiles, and the dizziness that spread throughout his body after that, he grinned slightly… as the fist came down on him right next to his right arm.
The moment stood still. He had… survived?
"Am I not important enough… to die?" Hans said, looking into the Nomu's emotionless eyes. It had only been his small body and unpredictable motion that saved him.
And just as the Nomu's fist was raised once more…
He was pulled out from under the beast's clutches. He looked up into the eternally smiling expression of the hero, no, the symbol known as All Might.
"Do not fear… For I am here!" he proclaimed, Hans limp in his grip.
"Whoa!"
"It's All Might!"
"We're saved!"
Hans looked around the clearing, still suffering lightly from the whiplash of almost dying and staying alive despite everything. Almost every other villain in the vicinity was knocked down and would probably suffer from permanent brain damage.
"Oh? The final boss arrives?" the hand fetishist said, grinning as he flexed his fingers.
"Nomu, defeat All Might. I've grown tired of clearing all of these stages."
Hans freed himself from All Might's grasp, before forcing his body into a jog towards the other students and reformed villains, just in time for an impact to blow him-and everybody else in the clearing-off of their feet.
Flying back, his head nearly missed a tree and a fence post, before he hit soft grass. He looked down at his grass and bloodstained lab coat, lying straight on the ground, and laughed.
He was saved.
They all were going to live. After all, this was just the first arc. And there was no way that a figure as important as All Might was going to lose. He was placed on the grass besides where the rest of his classmates congregated.
"Oh, thank goodness." Yaoyorozu said, lifting Hans up from his position on the grass. Sero and Ojiro ran forward to check Hans for injuries, while Aoyama seemed frozen as he stood there, looking at the Nomu like it was a demon dragged out fro hell.
"Are you hurt?" Ojiro said, looking at Hans from head to toe.
"I… probably have a concussion. But is now really the time to care about me? We might still die here, you know?"
The two titans traded blows, the wind making any speech All Might may have been making inaudible. Hans narrowed his eyes at the inspiring scene, however, and looked at the Symbol of Peace… bleeding?
It wouldn't be a painless victory, Hans reasoned. Clearly, in the source material, there would be something like a going beyond moment where All Might would use the school motto and defeat the monster almost three times his size. However, on the off chance that this was more realistic than a shounen anime and the act of going beyond 100% did not actually exist, because one hundred percent was marked with percentage marks for a reason. There was nothing beyond one hundred percent, considering a servant couldn't really go plus ultra on the amount of mana they had, because it was extremely finite.
Unless, of course, you were an archer class that used the cheat skills known as Independent Action… or you were just a future version of the main character.
Other literature aside, Hans still had one action left after healing Thirteen, and he was going to use the last bits of his mana to let All Might go above plus ultra by buffing him.
He closed his eyes, and was immediately stopped by the obstacles of overcoming not just one, but seven different pieces of narrative significance.
"What… the fuck?" Hans muttered. "Is this an epilogue? Are we in an epilogue?" Because All Might has so much significance that… It's almost like he's the main character.
The more time Hans spent contemplating his existence in a spinoff series, he realized that…
All Might actually was losing the battle. The other students may be distracted by the immense winds or the fact that it was All Might fighting, but Hans had watched Cu Chulainn battle it out with Karna, a literal demigod.
This battle… was incredibly simple. It was basically the black monster and a paragon of justice throwing fists at each other. It wasn't a very exciting fight.
If this were an epilogue, then Hans would have nothing to worry about. The hero would walk away, victorious and with fist held high in the air, and he didn't need to act. He wouldn't need to burn out the rest of his mana to try and strengthen All Might, fall unconscious, and then remain comatose until somebody fed him blood. Or, worse, he would finally fade away when people would inevitably pay more attention to the other injured students or All Might's fantastical feat than remember that he needed mana to stay in this world.
But… if there was another way that he could help…
All he really had to do was restrain the Nomu so that All Might could use his finisher punch earlier. Hans narrowed his eyes at the Nomu's flesh, adjusting his glasses, and noticed that All Might's punches really weren't making an impact. Which meant that either the Nomu was wearing plot armor, or that the Nomu had a power that related to absorbing punches. That just seemed too simple, maybe shock absorption instead? Yes, that seemed plausible. Hans had to restrict his use of Human Observation to look deeper, as the skill actually used some degree of mana.
However, as All Might grabbed the Nomu's side and suplexed it into the dirt, Hans grinned. The Nomu could be affected by physics, which meant that if Hans surprised the beast with the tree's roots and lifted it into the air, All Might could-
The Nomu abruptly surfaced in a portal in an area close to All Might's feet, before lifting him up into the air. Hans facepalmed. They had the audacity to steal his plan!
Now, Hans had to act early. With a wave of his hand, the Elder Tree Mother surged forth from his feet, snuck through the underground, and emerged right next to the Nomu.
"Kurogiri-"
Right now, however, the Nomu couldn't move. It wasn't actually anchored on any solid surfaces, and a simple tug from the roots were able to throw it into the air. The Nomu didn't loosen its grip on All Might's side, but a quick punch from All Might was able to send its exposed brain to a jiggling status, loosening its grip. The tree was then able to string up the Nomu like it was being crucified.
"Punch it now, you buffoon!" the tree shouted uncharacteristically. The portals surged again just as All Might clenched his fist, opened his mouth, shouted Plus Ultra, and sent the Nomu flying out of the USJ, where it disappeared with a cartoonish glint in the sky. Shigaraki and Kurogiri looked at each other and disappeared just as All Might jumped at them again, fists raised.
Hans sighed in relief and recalled the tree, who had one of its branches blown off because of collateral damage.
"Honestly… if only Endeavor was here…" Hans muttered, drawing the attention of Todoroki. "I'd like to see what the villains could have done against fire."
For some reason, Todoroki's glare hardened as he walked away, right side stiffening even more.
Hans looked up to the sky through the hole in the wall and sighed, massaging his wrists. He would definitely have to get a checkup for carpal tunnels.
…
As All Might ran off into the distance, possibly to look for more villains, Hagakure finally returned, riding an electric bike with many of the teachers of UA right behind her. Well, nobody could really see her riding the bike, but with how the bike operated itself, Hans could only really assume.
Once the bike arrived and the entourage of pro heroes stopped before the burnt, frozen, stabbed, scraped, and bloodied students, Hagakure stumbled off the bike, feet still bleeding, and collapsed right in front of Hans. The meaty slap of knees hitting stone echoed throughout the entrance of the USJ as Hagakure sobbed.
"I'm sorry… I'm sorry…"
"Don't worry about it." Hans said, wanting to lift her up but not knowing where to put his hands. Seriously, the invisible girl was a walking mine of involuntary sexual harrassment. "At least we're all alive, aren't we?"
Midoriya hobbled out of the USJ both broken arms looking as if they'd been through a meat grinder.
"On second thought, we probably need an ambulance." Hans said, looking at him contemplatively.
"Good job on sending somebody to help, listener!" Present Mic said.
"Well, it didn't do much in the end, did it?" Hans sighed. "All Might still solved everything on his own. We almost died. Yeah, yeah, yeah."
"Okay, students!" Iida shouted, his armor sloshing with water. "Let's do a head count!"
The students slowly congregated in a gaggle, swirling around the tied up and unconscious villains on the ground and waving goodbye at the reformed villains that were taken aside by some of the Heroes to discuss what to do with. Nezu at least had a worrying glint in his eye while looking at the group.
Iida slowly counted to himself, pointing at students and muttering as water dripped out of the gaps in his armor.
"Wait a minute…" he said. "Why do we only have eighteen?"
"I'm still here, you know?" Hagakure said.
"Yes… but that's only nineteen." Iida slowly said. "Does that mean that… a student was-"
"Oh, god damn it." Hans shouted. "We forgot about Kirishima!"
…
After digging Kirishima out from the walls of the USJ, all twenty class 1-A students were corralled onto the bus from which they came, all in various stages of injury. Over half of them had bandages wrapped around at least one limb, and others had to be given food to satisfy quirk dietary requirements. Aizawa was placed in the center of the bus on a stretcher, wrapped thoroughly in bandages, and Present Mic began to drive them back to UA.
At that point, everybody looked up at the sun, still shining bright at the time of noon.
"Will UA still charge us for lunch… or will I have to actually buy something?" Hans said. "Because I thought that today's field trip would provide food, and thus did not bring anything."
Yaoyorozu chuckled weakly, her form gaunt and thin.
Hans looked at her, confused. "What? What's so funny?"
Besides him, Ojiro began to laugh.
"Are you guys okay?" Hans shouted, standing up in his seat and holding onto one of the metal bars with both hands to prevent himself from falling over. "Did you all suffer brain damage or something?"
The whole class began to laugh uproariously, except for a few outliers. Todoroki looked to be as confused as Hans was, while Shoji,suffering from collagen deficiency, looked at his half-formed arms and sighed, not really wanting to talk through his actual mouth.
"What? What is it?"
"Nothing, Andersen-san." Yaoyorozu said, stifling her giggles. "We're just glad to be alive."
"Well be glad without freaking me out. I thought for a second you'd all gone insane." Hans muttered.
"Don't ruin the moment." Jiro muttered, prodding Hans in the ear with her earphone jacks.
It was Hans's turn to sigh. "I almost die saving your asses, and I end up being a source of amusement. Truly, a hero's career is akin to saving a snake in the winter."
"And how… Is that an appropriate metaphor?"
"It still comes back to bite you in the end."
Hopefully, you enjoyed the first multip-chapter action scene that was the USJ. I can only imagine what sort of abomination the sports festival will be.
Hans barely survives, and the class begins their trip into gallows humor. How nice…
I still have trash gacha luck in fgo. I got mushroom head boi tho. His NP damage is… depressing. Lostbelt 5.5 was honestly pretty easy. Haven't finished it tho… I just got past the snek god.
Discord link: discord . gg / 9t9MK3jHmV
-SpiritOfErebus