It's time for some of the third round. I'm not going to finish all the fights in one chapter, so I've piecemealed it up into update-sized chunks.
Have fun.
-SpiritOfErebus
Staggering off of the field and into the cafeteria, Hans sighed in relief.
Around him, everybody stared at him with… confusion. After all, nobody actually expected Hans and his three compatriots to do that well.
But Hans didn't mind the talking. Or the derision. Because today?
The food was free.
Could it be true? Could it be real? Looking at the nonexistent price tag for all of the different options, Hans restrained himself from salivating.
Slowly, he stepped forwards. The tiled floors felt firm yet comforting beneath his battered school-provided school shoes. There were, of course, some special snowflakes that brought their own shoes, like Bakugo's combat boots or Midoriya's red shoes.
But did Hans look like he had that kind of money? Obviously not. Anything free was free, after all, and the only constraint was how many hands and feet you had to take the material back with you.
Thus, Hans walked up to Lunch Rush, looked at his masked face looking down on him with a holy benevolence, and spoke.
"Five standard bentos, please." Hans said, smiling and raising up his tray as high as it would go.
"...Five?"
"Yes." Hans said. "Five. And can I have a bottle of cooking oil? One of my friends needs it to recover for her quirk."
"...Okay…" Lunch Rush said, returning with five of the meal sets in plastic boxes, and a bottle of cooking oil.
With the judging stares of others, Hans walked away from the food stand. His arms shook under the weight that he was carrying, but he had no regrets.
There was a holy concept. And free was its name.
Behind Hans, another brown-haired, round-cheeked girl looked at the price tag, at Hans's retreating figure, and said something even more unbelievable.
"Ten bentos, please."
As the girl walked away carrying five bentos in a simple stack, Hans noticed that all of the bentos in her hands were floating just a bit off of her hand.
"You're a goddamn genius, Uraraka." Hans muttered. "A goddamn genius."
Slowly, Hans shoved through the crowd as he met again with Ojiro, Kirishima, and Yaoyorozu at a table in the corner, each carrying one bento.
Hans slammed down the bottle of sunflower cooking oil in front of Yaoyorozu.
"Drink." Hans said, looking at Yaoyorozu's gaunt figure.
"...That is disgusting." Yaoyorozu said, grabbing a pastry from her plate and demolishing it in a fashion that almost rivaled a certain blonde ahoge-wielding servant.
"Pastries are high in sugars. And I don't have to be an A-student in biology to know that sugars are not lipids." Hans said. "Seriously, this was in the first unit. You should also consider carrying some of this stuff around."
"Drinking oil is a health hazard." Yaoyorozu protested. "That's how people get… fat… And you don't see other people needing to eat strange things to get their quirks to work."
Hans stared back at Yaoyorozu. "Remember USJ?"
Yaoyorozu thought back to the scene of Hans drinking blood, and sighed.
"Okay, at least it's not as bad as drinking blood. But still, carbohydrates can eventually be converted into lipids, and-"
"Do you want to win, or not?" Hans said. "Because you're not going to be able to recover that many lipids with just your bento and a couple pastries. Also, drinking lipids is probably faster."
As Yaoyorozu reluctantly uncapped the sunflower seed oil and proceeded to drink it down sip by sip, her grimaces occasionally disrupted by her taking large bites of cake to dilute the greasy feeling of oil trickling down her throat, Hans turned to the other two.
"Kirishima, you okay?" he asked.
"...I guess I am." Kirishima said, looking down at his fresh shirt. "I wasn't really even scratched, to be perfectly honest. I just took a chemical bath and got rid of all of the purple balls stuck to me. My skin's… still a bit red."
"Will that hurt your quirk performance?" Hans said, looking him up and down with a critical eye.
Kirishima shrugged. "I can deal with it. Besides, not everybody else is going into the event fresh."
"I'm still okay, Hans." Ojiro said. "Recovery girl healed me back up, and all I had were scratches anyways. But you did use your quirk a lot this morning. Are you sure you don't need… you know…"
Ojiro mimicked holding a knife, before making an imaginary incision on his arm.
Hans closed his eyes and gauged his mana reserves.
"I'm down to about half power." Hans said, shrugging. "I didn't use more than one summon at a time, so I didn't actually exhaust myself that much. But it should still be enough for… how many fights were there again?"
"You'll be fighting five fights, max." Yaoyorozu informed Hans. "This year, since thirty two people will be entering the competition, to win the competition or get second place, you'll need to fight five times."
Hans shrugged. "I'm definitely not getting there. And before you say something like encouragement, do you need me to remind you that my quirk depends on supporting others to be used to its maximum potential?"
The three looked at each other, before Yaoyorozu, designated intelligent speaker amidst the three, spoke again.
"...Couldn't you just, well… support yourself? Increase your physical attributes?"
Hans sighed. "I wish I could do that, but my buffing also has a basis on self image and… I guess… something like destiny. It's less effective… on certain people, like All Might or Todoroki. And because I think that I'm still a piece of shit, I can't make myself not a piece of shit."
"But Ojiro was able to win first with all of our efforts!" Yaoyorozu argued, "And we didn't lose our headband in the second round! We ended up third place compared to all the other teams. Isn't that great?"
"Yeah, sure, that was with arbitrary rules." Hans argued. "This doesn't actually translate to ability as a hero. Remember the courtroom? We were all close to dying there."
"Hans, I think you're misunderstanding something." Yaoyorozu said. "Just because we were beat up pretty badly this time doesn't mean that we'll be ineffective in an actual combat environment."
"Why?" Hans said.
"Because we were also constrained by arbitrary rules." Yaoyorozu said, grinning like a shark. "At any time, I could have eaten something to replenish lipids and provided you all with more tools if this were a real combat scenario. I could utilize more dangerous chemicals."
"And martial arts were never meant to be wielded empty handed." Kirishima said. "Even though a spear may not be the greatest match for my quirk or Ojiro's quirk, considering the fact that we should be undergoing close combat to exploit our advantages, with equipment, we would definitely be a step above the rest."
Hans thought for a moment, before nodding.
"I guess." Hans said. "I'm not our resident quirk nerd, after all. I guess that extra month of training really did something for all of your skill levels and awareness of your own abilities. After all this is over, want to do another month's worth of training? Maybe next weekend?"
"...If it wouldn't be too much trouble, Hans." Yaoyorozu said, standing up and bowing. Ojiro and Kirishima did the same, as if on cue.
"Just sit down!" Hans shouted. "You're weirding me out! And what's with the first name usage?"
"...We've known each other for three months." Yaoyorozu said.
"Two." Ojiro said. "That training doesn't count."
"Oh, right. two." Yaoyorozu said, scratching her head.
Hans sighed. Maybe being too involved was a bad idea after all.
…
After Yaoyorozu had chugged down two bottles of cooking oil and looked sufficiently rotund for combat again, the group left the noisy cafeteria for one of the quieter break rooms. As robots let them into the room, considering the fact that they were going to take place in the third round, and thus allowed to do whatever preparations they pleased, Hans watched on the in-room television as various students ran about like headless chickens trying to impress people with their quirks even though they had been eliminated.
And honestly? If a hero student was eliminated, it was sort of on them. Considering the fact that seven teams consisting of only hero students and one team of gen-ed students had qualified, there were only twelve hero students that would have been left out of the final thirty two.
Hans, meanwhile, turned over to the trio. Yaoyorozu had pulled out her phone and began to recite the steps to making drones and high explosives, Kirishima was limbering up, and Ojiro was meditating on a chair.
It almost made him feel like he would need to do something, but he honestly didn't feel the urge to do so. Pulling out his own phone, he texted his parents to say that he wasn't injured and had some spare bentos to bring home, before taking a picture of the stack of four boxes that was on the table beside him. He was just about to send the picture when Kirishima pointed out the television.
"Hey, Hans! Look at the half of the competition that you're in. It's a pretty manly lineup, if I do say so myself!" he exclaimed.
Hans looked up. On the bracket list, he was within the same group as the three, Midoriya, Bakugo, and Todoroki.
Only one of the three would advance to the finals. And as Hans looked at who he was up against first, he smiled sinisterly, his mind already going through scenarios and combinations of summons he could use.
"This is going to be more fun than I expected."
…
"And for the first match of the last trial … we have a most unexpected student!" Present Mic shouted. "Hans Christian Andersen! Without the exquisite teamwork of his group, will his summons be able to do the job instead?"
Hans slowly walked out into the light of the bright early afternoon sun, shielding his face a little. The applause was scattered, indicating that his popularity wasn't exactly high, which made sense, considering the fact that most people in this event were looking for high levels of individual strength.
And his opponent, one of the people that would need to be targeted the most to derail the narrative… was….
"Welcome our other contestant! He hasn't really done much with his quirk, but his actions still net him fourth place in the cavalry battle! Welcome… Midoriya Izuku!"
"Andersen-san!" Midoriya shouted. "I know that you don't exactly think that our system of heroism is practical, but I'll make it possible by becoming the next symbol of peace! By showing the world that… I am here! So just watch me! And believe in me!"
"Do you know what you shouldn't do in a fight against another person?" Hans said, grasping his fist tightly in his ill-fitting UA uniform.
"What?" Midoriya asked, a bit confused.
"Proclaim your ideological intentions." Hans said coldly. "Then, it makes it seem like winning the fight is what'll decide the clash of ideals."
"And… start!" Midnight shouted, waving her flogger and causing certain… distractions to be set into motion.
However, Hans would not be underestimated. He was a virgin, and thus, he remained concentrated. As the elder tree mother encircled his ankles and anchored him in place in case Midoriya pulled out one of his signature finger-breaking wind gusts, Hans snapped his finger and brought out another summon:
The poor girl that chopped off her own feet.
As Midoriya sprinted forwards, fist cocked back, the summon appeared right before him. As he furrowed his brow in confusion and analyzed the summon, the little girl hissed and lunged at his ankles, hands propelling it across the ground faster than a toddler getting into trouble.
Midoriya, to his credit, tried to dodge it. However, there was one thing on him that would make sure he couldn't escape.
His red shoes.
After all, no matter where you went, the summon's attention would inevitably be attracted to red shoes, just like the townsfolk were in her fairytale.
"What's this? With a rather gruesome summon, Andersen has forced Midoriya to continuously dodge! How will Midoriya fight back?" Present Mic shouted.
"Doesn't he think that shouting this loudly will distract some people?" Hans muttered. As Midoriya ran around the summon, Hans motioned for the elder tree mother to take action. Said summon laced her roots into the soil, causing cracks and bumps to emerge in the concrete around where Hans was standing.
As Cementoss sighed, Midoriya tripped on the protruding ground and was successfully possessed by the wraith.
Then, he began to dance.
"What is this? Andersen's summons are forcing Midoriya to… do the ballet? How will Midoriya turn this around?" Present Mic shouted.
"Okay." Hans said, ankles still tied down by the elder tree mother. "Now that I've gotten you exactly where I wanted-"
"Smash!" Midoriya yelled.
As Midoriya's dancing figure bent one of his fingers to create a gust of air, the elder tree mother's roots shot up from the ground, bracing for the impact of the winds. After the roots were destroyed by the high winds, Hans fell back onto the concrete, only his ankles keeping him from flying away into the air. As he tumbled back, he saw Midoriya shooting another gust backwards to keep himself in place.
That was already two fingers broken on his opponent. Eight more to go.
Slowly, Hans stood up and summoned the ice queen now summoned to create an icy barricade behind him… just in case. After dusting himself off, Hans turned back to Midoriya.
"Screw trying to be polite!" Hans shouted. "Let's be honest here, did you really think you were special?"
Midoriya's steely look faded a bit as he actually turned amidst his dance routine to look at Hans.
"Yeah. You aren't special at all." Hans said. "Bakugo said you didn't have a quirk until you used it stupidly during the quirk assessment, right? That means that you just awakened your quirk, huh? And just because you got into UA, do you really think that you're somehow special?"
Midoriya said nothing.
"My terrible existence aside, people have been training their entire lives for entering this doomed career." Hans shouted.
"Most people in this profession die before they're forty, and stop thousands of crimes over their lifetimes. So how are you going to stop crimes at the same rates as all the other heroes? Rely on your luck? Break your fingers thousands of times just to function in your career"
"Smash!" Midoriya shouted, another gust of wind buffeting Hans. He was immediately forced back onto the ice barrier that the ice queen had made, but Midoriya didn't do much better. With the lack of footing that came with the package of constantly being forced to dance in place, Midoriya used yet another finger to stay in the arena.
Six fingers left.
"Hell, I bet you didn't even try to train before you unlocked your quirk or knew you were going to unlock one." Hans shouted. "But just because you won the genetic lottery and got a quirk that could destroy a building with a flick of your finger doesn't mean that you deserve to be a hero."
Midoriya's hair matted with sweat as his injured fingers were swung by his arms while his feet performed a complicated pirouette, and didn't respond.
"The word 'hero' doesn't even mean anything anymore." Hans said. "By saying that you want to become a symbol of peace, you really mean that you want to either satisfy your desire for glory and fame, or satisfy the demands of your inferiority complex because you were quirkless for most of your life and insulted for it, don't you?"
"That's not true!" Midoriya shouted back, and Hans grinned. Finally, a response.
"I'll become a hero… to save everybody with a smile!" Midoriya shouted. "I'm not doing it for fame or glory!"
"That's even more stupid, then." Hans said, smiling like a shark. "To borrow a phrase from a priest, to wish to be a hero means that you wish for somebody to be in danger. So that you can save them. Smiling while you save somebody doesn't matter, either. Would you be happy if there was nobody to save? If you were born into a world that was perfect, where nobody needed to be saved and you were still treated like you were, you would still want to become a hero, right?"
Midoriya looked like he was in physical and mental pain, which made sense, considering the fact that nearly half of his fingers were broken.
"Heroism isn't shouting that you'll go beyond one hundred percent, nor is it about winning every fight. Being a hero means wishing for a world that doesn't need heroes anymore, foolish child." Hans said, crossing his arms and shaking his head. "So, rejoice, boy. You're aiming for a profession that destroys its own meaning… Unless, that wasn't your goal at all, was it?"
Midoriya gritted his teeth, before using his ring fingers to send yet another gust of air at Hans.
"Smash!" Midoriya shouted.
It still had absolutely no effect.
"Saving people isn't an inane response. It isn't out of your own sense of justice. You based your entire principal on one person, right? All Might is your idol, after all. And everyone knows that. You're just a broken mirror trying to badly reflect what somebody else thinks is justice out of a desperate desire to prove your own self worth. You aren't a hero. You're just a broken child chasing what you think will make your life have meaning."
As Hans waved his hands, roots began to shoot towards Midoriya.
"How pathetic." Hans sighed, closing his eyes.
And then? Midoriya's shoes burst.
…
Hans's insults hurt. They really did.
Even though a sinking part of Midoriya thought that Hans was right, the pain in his fingers distracted him from his more dangerous thoughts.
Thus, instead of focusing on Hans's psychological tactics, he focused on how to win the fight.
He couldn't disappoint All Might. He had to prove that he could save people with a smile. That he could become the next symbol of peace.
That he… could become a hero.
Hans's summon controlled him by spreading itself out in Midoriya's body. That meant that he would have to do the same to overpower the incredible force trying to drag him around and force his body to go through the motions of dancing.
But One for All's power was too great for his body to handle. He couldn't distribute his power everywhere and survive.
Heroism isn't shouting that you'll go beyond one hundred percent nor is it about winning every fight.
That was what Hans said, right?
As the roots in the ground laced towards him, Midoriya's eyes closed.
Was this really it? What would All Might do? What did All Might say about his quirk?
My quirk, One for All, is the fullest physical ability of many people gathered into one. An unprepared body cannot inherit it fully. The limbs will come off and the body will explode.
Then, his mind flashed through all the training. All the blood and sweat. All the tears of joy and the cries of pain.
His path wouldn't end here.
One for All depended on the strength of the vessel, right? So if his body wasn't prepared for all of One for all, he would just have to use part of it.
It was just like Hans said. Heroism isn't shouting to go beyond one hundred percent.
He had to be smart about it. He had to use some of his power. Control the endless tide of power.
But how much would he use? Fifty percent? No, too much. Ten percent? It would have to do. Slowly, as the roots were almost about to touch him, his quirk coursed through his body. Then, he forcefully lowered its output instead of trying to maximize it. It was the opposite of what he had been doing with his fingers.
Every joint ached. His broken fingers pulsed in pain. But as Hans said a short phrase that Midoriya couldn't hear, he could feel his whole body vibrate with excess power. As it met some resistance from within his legs, another pulse of power was able to make it through. The pant legs below his knees and his shoes burst, and suddenly, he felt free.
Hans's influence was gone.
A chill crept up his back, as if multiple voices tried to whisper and talk to him. What were they? The voices of a young man and a woman could be heard, but Midoriya dismissed it as just the residue of Hans's influence on his legs. He calmed himself, cycled his power through his body once more, and stabilized his breath.
Then Midoriya opened his eyes… and punched the ground. The shockwave shook Hans's supporting ice structure and shattered it, making Hans fall to the ground. However, he could feel his bones protesting. His tendons squeaking.
He took another deep breath, and toned it down to five percent. Everything was much more comfortable now. Focusing on maintaining the pulse of power throughout his body, afraid of Hans reapplying the mysterious force, he looked up.
Then, Midoriya began to slowly walk forwards.
"I didn't hear everything you said, Andersen-san." he said as he trudged forwards, wary of the control he had over his own body. One misstep and One for All's power could take him out of bounds.
"But no matter what, my goals won't change."
"Yeah, that's about what I expected." Hans said, shrugging as he got up from the ground.
Midoriya brought his hands up, using his thumb and pinky to prepare for yet another Smash.
"But consider this…" Hans said, smirking as a gigantic tin soldier materialized in midair.
"You should have started working hard earlier if you really wanted to become a hero. Then you'd be more prepared… for this."
As Midoriya was forced to punch the falling tin soldier aside, Hans threw a match at Midoriya's feet, which promptly exploded.
Despite not being a particularly large explosion, it still shook Midoriya's form, sending his internal energies out of control. As he hastily stopped channeling his quirk, more roots sailed up to ensnare his arms and legs. Then, as Hans walked up to him and waved his palm, a gigantic hand was summoned.
"You know what?" Hans said, looking at Midoriya's still-determined eyes. He just had to do it. He had legs. He could just use his quirk and-
"You really just don't know when to quit."
The roots disappeared, and as Midoriya used his legs to produce a prodigious gust, the giant hand was also able to use Midoriya's momentum to slap him straight out of the arena. Buffeted from the winds that came from above, Hans was forced violently onto the ground. Yet, despite everything, despite the improvements he made on the fly to his quirk control, Hans had won.
As Midoriya looked up towards the blue, blue sky, the fingers of his right hand causing excruciating pain by being beneath his body, he resolved to work even harder than before.
Even if he had lost, his journey was just beginning… right?
…
As Hans put his hands on his knees and caught his breath, trying to ignore his slightly itchy throat, he heard it.
Cheering.
The whole arena, surprisingly, cheered for him.
Hans.
Hans Christian Andersen had beaten the protagonist in a one-on-one fight, despite the protagonist miraculously gaining some control over his quirk through what was no doubt multiple flashbacks to a mentor figure.
And how? Through a predetermined set of conceptual advantages and mentally rehearsed sequences of actions. Basically, just planning.
Slowly but surely, the genre was changing.
…
AN
There, I gave Midoriya two powerups. First Full Cowl, and then Shoot Style's beginnings, but he still lost to preparation and planning :D
Before you say it's BS, Hans has the red shoes CONCEPTUAL advantage. Look at what happened to Shiggy with the red shoes treatment in the USJ. The fact that Midoriya was able to overcome it at all is a protagonist move.
Next up? The other three's battles. Ojiro, Yaoyorozu, Kirishima, and then Hans's round 2. That'll also take a while, considering it's probably going to be longer than this chapter.
Discord link: discord . gg / 9t9MK3jHmV
-SpiritOfErebus
PS: To address the lack of quirkless societal commentary, I've written a fun personal project thing. An Ip Man in BNHA cross. It should be slightly more serious than this fic. It's on my profile. Check it out! :P