I only own this fan fiction. May contain Out of Character moments.
It was just the day after their End of Term Exams and they were exhausted. Somehow, it was even worse than their first term final and forced them to REALLY go beyond. The written portion contained more open-ended, free response type questions that technically had no wrong answer, only a more correct one. And the practical portion… It involved all 20 of them managing the crisis of a cruise ship sinking.
Normally, Todoroki would've been enough. Just freeze the breached areas and that was that, exam over. But no, the teachers considered that and made the breach several dozen meters long and in an area that's difficult to keep frozen due to the presence of several vital devices like the engines and the main electrical compartment. And thanks to the presence of professional victims, like those during the provisional license exams, that stood in for civilians and the crew, 1A was very busy when it came to handling the situation.
Needless to say, they all passed with an acceptable amount of errors. Normally this exam would be used on 3rd year students as it was as close to a real life crisis as possible. However, given how 1A have already been through several disasters themselves, the teachers judged it appropriate to give them something to really test their limits. And if Minoru was being honest… It was a pretty good experience, all things considered.
They got to experience the cruise life for the first half of the day and an expensive dinner after the exam ended. But they all agreed on one thing though…
"Did I mention I never want to go on a cruise ship again anytime soon?" Mina asked.
She had emerged from the pillow fort she and the other girls put together in the common room. It was quite large, but there was a strictly 'no boys' policy on it. This caused the guys, except Bakugou who just stayed holed up in his room, to put together their own pillow fort next to it, making the whole place look like an impromptu sleep-over. And given that classes were pretty much over and how they were all so tired, it was an appropriate response.
"Oui… Cruises are no longer appealing to me…" Aoyama replied, emerging from his sparkly fleece blanket burrito.
"It was so fun… Then it wasn't…" Uraraka murmured into her pillow.
"Perhaps, if we all have time in the future, I could reserve a proper cruise for all of us. It shouldn't be too hard to charter a private vessel for the 20 of us, 40 if we decide to bring along Class 1B." Yaoyorozu said, looking up from the book she was reading.
"And there Yaomomo goes, hitting us with money none of us can hope to have…" Jirou commented. Her gentle strums on the acoustic guitar providing some very relaxing background noise for the weary class.
"Wait! What about the money we've got from all those paintings? Maybe we could use that for our eventual big vacation! Also, I direct attack for game." Kaminari asked, making a reasonable suggestion before ending his game against Kirishima. The electric blonde, feeling nostalgic thanks to Hatsume's UA Heroes Battle, broke out his old card game from middle school and began playing it with anyone interested. And like the other card game, he was destroying everyone with impressive combos.
"Man, you really are the King of Duels… But no really, how's our giant nest egg doing? It's been a while since I thought about it." Kirishima commented, turning to Yaoyorozu. The regal girl placed her bookmark in and began fiddling with her phone. Not too long after, she presented it to everyone, once again bombarding them with all the zeroes they earned from digging a giant hole.
"As you can see, it's growing nice and steadily from interest. Also, if you don't mind, I put some of my share into various investments to further increase our overall account. If all goes well, this amount should triple or quadruple by the time we graduate." She replied with an innocent smile.
"That's way too much!"
"Even on a relaxing day, we can't help but cause chaos." Minoru commented. He then sat down by Izuku with the oblong rat plush he borrowed from Tsuyu. He wanted to see if it could help him sleep better, seeing that it was large enough to hug throughout the night.
"I honestly prefer it that way. It doesn't feel like home unless something fun's going on with someone. It makes me feel like I really belong here with you and everyone." Izuku replied with a small smile, flipping through the pages of his Hero Analysis notebooks. He had landed on two pages, which didn't have any notes on them, that were full of the signatures and doodles of his classmates. Each one of them was telling a subtle story on how they ended up there.
"I know what you mean. I don't think I could ever go back to the days before I met you. It all felt so… Shallow and everyday..."
"It certainly feel's a lot less painful and despair-filled, doesn't it? Even Kacchan is so much different because of this class. Things changed so much." Izuku said, smiling growing wider as if nothing could ever stop his rising mood. His green eyes then looked up and found a grim looking Bakugou, who was marching through the blankets and pillows towards the TV.
That did it, for Izuku and everyone in 1A.
"Bakugou-kun? Is there something wrong?" Iida asked, adjusting his glasses as Bakugou inserted a disc into the DVD player.
"I hate to break up the party, but I've got bad news."
"This better not be another one of your super violent shows! The Kingdoms of Softness and Safety does not approve of those sorts of vibes today!" Hagakure shouted with a pout as Ojiro put his hands on her shoulders to calm her down. Bakugou looked over at the kitchen and saw that Satou was preparing snacks with Kouda and Tsuyu. Shouji had just returned to the pile of blankets and pillows with bottles of soda and juice as well as cups. Sero and Tokoyami emerged from the bathroom. The door to the courtyard opened and Todoroki came in, slightly drenched with sweat from the exercises he finished.
Combined with everyone on the blankets and pillows, Class 1A was present and accounted for.
"Hey! Get all of your asses here right now! This is something you've got to see! Something serious!" Bakugou ordered, causing all of them to quickly hustle over. Yaoyorozu handed Todoroki a towel she generated, no doubt wanting to save as much time as possible.
"Kacchan, what's all this about?" Izuku asked, his expression growing more and more serious by the second.
"What the hell did you see that you needed to hand deliver it to us?" Minoru added, his expression doing very much the same.
"If you dumbasses weren't so keen on staying in your 'Kingdoms of Softness and Safety', you would've been online to witness this shit appear firsthand. I had to make a copy of the videos in case we couldn't find it later, the Hero Commission has tendency to scrub the internet of stuff like this." Bakugou answered as he took the remote, walked away from the screen, and hit play.
It immediately opened up to footage of an underground facility in modest fidelity, a common characteristic of decent security cameras. A chill ran up both Izuku and Minoru's spine as this just reminded them of the Shie Hassaikai raid. A rather eerie narration then began as the footage began flipping in time with it, like it was a demented documentary.
"Welcome to the Magatsu Runoff, the largest black market in the Ishikawa prefecture. With former ties to the Villain All for One, this location deals with local and foreign criminal elements everyday in 3 primary products…"
"Steel." The footage showed a truly impressive armory full of military grade ordinance.
"Powder." The footage changed to a chemical lab where illegal drugs were synthesized.
"Flesh." The footage then changed to shots of the inside of multiple cells, all of them containing people of varying ages, genders, and appearances. All of them chained up and dressed in old tattered clothes. Naturally, this is the scene that made everyone's body run cold, especially Izuku, Minoru, Uraraka, Tsuyu, and Kirishima since all they thought of was Eri.
"For years, this nest of evil remained rooted deep within the port city of Kesseru. The Hero in charge of the investigation, the Digital Hero Firewall, has long since been breached by the corrupting promises of ill-gained wealth. He misleads his ignorant sidekicks and fellow Heroes, making them go around in circles, all so he can continue his lifestyle of excess." The narration continued, switching to a shot of the Hero in question accepting a bribe. Izuku tensed as he could easily recognize the circuit-board style armor Firewall wore, this was real.
This was really happening.
"Should this continue, who knows how many more lives they will ruin beneath the noses of everyday people like you… Which is why, today, our sword shall fall upon their sinful heads."
Minoru's heart stopped to the phrasing of those specific words, sensing his partner's heart stopping as well. The footage then cut to a long and large corridor with one single metal door on one end, and mass of people equipped with body armor and assault rifles on the other. They stood behind concrete barriers and other such fortifications, with four heavy caliber machine guns aimed squarely at the door. No one can just walk in without some kind of pass code, lest they get pumped full of lead…
But all that firepower would soon prove useless against the thing that burst through the door.
"Hey! Is this where scum collects!?"
They recognize that voice. They recognize that armor. They recognize that sword. They recognize that empty-eyed mask…
"It's him…" Izuku said through gritted teeth as the footage erupted with gunfire. But despite the amount of ordinance hitting the armored giant, not a single scratch or dent appeared on the armor. Even the machine guns were doing nothing as the armored giant broke out into incredibly fast sprint towards them.
"You know him Midoriya?" Tokoyami asked, staring in shock as the armored giant closed the distance in seconds.
"He's the guy that ruined us during our internship… Damocles!" Minoru answered, shouting the name he could never forget. And as if punctuating the name being uttered by the shorter boy, Damocles swung his massive sword and cleaved through several guards effortlessly. Before anyone could express the shock at such display power and gore, Damocles lunged at his next target and utterly slaughtered them. Every swing, every stab, every punch, and every grab took a life, painting the armor and expressionless fatherly mask of Damocles in deep red.
Guards using their Quirks swarmed him, but there was completely no effect on his armor. And all defensive Quirks were rendered useless the moment Damocles's sword swung into them, splattering them all over the walls, ceiling, floor, and himself. In 3 minutes… Just 3 short minutes… All the guards were dead and only Damocles stood, dripping with the blood of men.
"How did he survive all that without a single scratch? Those Quirks and guns did nothing against him." Todoroki asked, gritting his teeth as Damocles casually proceeded further into the compound.
"His armor and sword… They're like my baton; it weakens the effects of Quirks, but faster and better." Minoru explained, clenching the grip of his baton as all eyes immediately falling to the shorter boy. He can already feel their questions, dancing around on the tip of their tongue. But it was Yaoyorozu, who noticed another detail, who got her response out first.
"That armor though, it survived sustained gun fire! No suit of armor could do that unless it was crafted by a genius smith! Could the metal it was made from been supplemented by a Quirk during the forging process?"
"I don't know… But it's not infallible. When Minoru-kun and I first fought him, the Villain he killed then managed to pierce a single portion in the armor. We had to drive rebar into it to make him take a knee… But even that wasn't enough to stop him. In fact, it only made him fight even harder." Izuku answered. The squelching sound of the rebar entering and leaving Damocles had not left the shorter boy's mind. In fact, that whole battle in the Hassaikai base was still fresh like it happened the other day.
"Bakugou, if this guy's here, did Stain show up too?" Minoru asked. This time it was Iida's turn to flinch as the explosive blonde silently skipped ahead in the DVD. The same narration as Damocles's portion played out, only when it ended, it showed the Hero Killer slipping out of a vent and brutally stabbing a guard from behind with a long, serrated knife.
"Stain! So you're still up to no good!" Iida said. His fists were clenched so tight, Minoru swore he saw blood drip down onto the blankets still lining the floor.
"That's… The Hero Killer? He certainly looks the part…" Kaminari commented. Stain was still wearing the black version of his original costume, though it seemed far more streamlined now. No excess cloth could be found, even for the mask around his eyes, and his weapon harnesses fit much closer to his body. Now there's nothing on his person that could get snagged or grabbed by something or someone.
"He's scary…" Hagakure muttered, Ojiro gently hugging her from behind as Stain assassinated a scientist in the drug lab.
"You think he's bad? Just wait until you see this lady… The others look perfectly sane compared to her." Bakugou said, moving the video forward again. They were in a large loading dock, products and people ready to be shipped off to God knows where… And tearing through the security, despite receiving bullets and Quirks to her body, was a young looking tan-skinned woman with metal spines protruding from her body.
She screamed in agony every time an attack hits her, but that only seemed to make her faster and stronger. The woman proceeded to bulldoze her way through the various armed guards and Villains in the area, wounds healing faster and faster as she impaled them upon herself. It was like watching a walking iron maiden catch people in its sharp embrace.
"She's absorbing their blood to heal…" Shouji said, fully disturbed by the discovery. No one said anything as they looked more carefully at the footage, their feelings of squeamishness slowly dying as they studied it. The longer people were stuck on her spikes, the more desiccated they became and the more quickly this screaming woman's wounds closed up.
"A creature of the night… A vampire…" Tokoyami said without a single hint of amusement in his voice.
"Ugh… This is getting to be too much…" Kouda commented with a fist over his mouth. It seemed he almost threw up on the spot the moment he saw the screaming woman disembowel another guard with her teeth. Aoyama nodded in agreement, looking the most green and sickly out of everyone. Honestly, if those two left, no one would blame them… But it was too late to back out now, which is why no one was moving.
"But why are they here? What are they after?" Sero asked as more dried husks hit the ground. Bakugou didn't answer that and simply allowed the next segment of footage to play. It featured a man dressed in a long coat and a fearsome metal mask, teleporting around and stabbing guards with a short sword. This was outside the cells, bodies lining the floor as the masked man shot the last guard through the eye with a handheld, self-loading crossbow. He then walked into a cell that belonged to a severely injured boy that could barely move.
He raised his blade…
And expertly cut the chains off the boy's body.
The man then crouched down and reached into his pocket and pulled out a vial of red liquid. He gently cradled the boy in his arms and made him drink the liquid. In mere moments, the boy's wounds began to heal and color was slowly returning to his face. In fact, the boy became well enough to speak, albeit weakly.
"Who…?"
"It's okay, you're saf– !" The masked man began before aiming his crossbow at the door. There was a guard standing there in the doorway… One without their head on their shoulders. The corpse fell over as a black man with dreads and a dusk mask over his mouth stepped into frame, his sleeveless leather duster swaying with every move. This did little to distract Class 1A from the massive rifle he was effortlessly carrying around.
"Thank you, Ulysses." The masked man said, putting his crossbow away.
"Abyss, we're to wipe out all hostile elements, not perform rescue work." Ulysses said, his voice sounding deep, powerful, but worn-down.
"If these people perished before the Heroes arrive, then I consider this mission a failure." Abyss replied, gently laying the child back down onto the floor. The two of them glared at each other momentarily before a long sigh escaped Ulysses throat.
"Fine, people are the blood of a nation. A flag is meaningless without citizens to pledge to it. I'll cover you, but make it quick."
"Thank you." Abyss said, nodding his head before rushing into the other cells.
"They're helping them?" Jirou asked, confused by the contrasting acts of bloodshed and kindness.
"If you looked carefully at that crazy spiked bitch tearing through people, not one of her spikes were near the prisoners there. She even made sure the bodies hanging off of her didn't swing into those people. Whoever these assholes are, they're trying to help people in their own fucked up way." Bakugou explained. The footage continued to play as Abyss helped free the prisoners and drink the red liquid, healing their wounds. And with the advice to stay in their cells, Abyss and Ulysses went off to another part of the compound.
"But they're no Heroes… Just look all this…" Satou said as he looked at all the carnage.
"Deku… Mineta-kun… You met them before, talked to them even… What was it that they want?" Uraraka asked, placing her hand on the green haired boy. All eyes went to them again as Bakugou paused the video. The two partners were silent, thinking of a way to voice what they know based on what they saw. But it's best to just be direct about it, no beating around the bush with these guys.
"They want to better the world… By removing those who exploit others for their own gain or regresd any progress we've made as a species… The big armored guy, Damocles, called it 'The Road' and he'd do anything to protect it from people he deems unworthy." Minoru explained.
"That's no different from what Stain was doing before! They're just hunting and hurting people out for some arbitrary ideal!" Iida replied, becoming more and more heated over this.
"I wish I could agree with you Iida-kun… But this is no longer arbitrary or subjective. You know those murders that kept popping up in the news? The ones with the evidence of the victim's misdeeds? Minoru-kun and I are certain those were from Stain and Damocles. They're going after people who have dirty secrets that are dangerous to the safety of our society." Izuku said grimly.
"But this isn't going to help anyone, not in the long term. All this will do is damage trust in authority, in Heroes!" Yaoyorozu argued.
"Then what do you suppose we do? We can't exactly do anything about the fact that there will always be people that always take advantage of others. Not mention the thousands of people harboring dark secrets that lead lives to ruin." Tsuyu asked, gesturing to the carnage on screen.
1A looked upon the ground, clutching the various blankets and pillows around with some doing it more tightly than others. But the comforts of their bedding did nothing to comfort them from the terrifying consequences wrought by Stain and his band of murderous vigilantes. Izuku and Minoru too, they were once again cowed by the ferocity and bloodlust of Stain and Damocles. But unlike the aftermath of the raid, they no longer have their friends' support…
All of them had the hanging sword above their heads.
"I'll tell you what we're going to do Froggy. We're going to be the God damn Heroes."
All eyes went to Bakugou, whose eyes were burning brighter and stronger than ever before. Out of everyone here, he has not let the hanging swords burden him. The explosive blonde simply walked forward in spite of it all.
"H-How can you be so calm dude? We just witnessed some real messed up stuff! People getting treated like things, criminals and Villains being butchered, and worst of all, the Hero meant to stop all this being part of it!" Kirishima asked, panic shaking his voice. Bakugou simply grabbed the red-haired boy's collar and dug his knuckles into his chest.
"So what? That's on them, not us. If they're going to be the ones ruining lives and committing crimes, we'll be the ones to stop them. We're Heroes! Ones that are far better than those fucks who were lured in by fake-ass glory and blood money! When life throws bullshit like this at us, we throw it back in its face! So let them come; they'll just find Bakugou Katsuki ready to tear them a new one."
Minoru, Izuku, all of them were stunned by the force of his words. They exploded like his Quirk, holding a strength that they all can rely on. The shorter boy swallowed his fear and began resolving himself, tightening his grip on his baton. Did he and his partner not learn their lesson fighting Gentle and La Brava? No matter what happens, they'll press on together. This holds even truer with their friends by their side.
So standing up…
"Get in line Bakugou, Izuku and I have a rematch with that armored asshole." Minoru said resolutely, extending his baton.
"Sounds like Rat Bitch found his spine! How about the rest of you!?"
"I lost something important to them once… I'm never losing it again! Never!" Izuku shouted, the sparks of One for All shining for a moment as he stood.
"I still have to repay Stain for what he has done to my brother. But even more so, I must stop this poison from destroying all we've built!" Iida replied.
"I concur!" Yaoyorozu said as she, Kaminari, and Jirou nodded in agreement. And one by one, the solidarity of Hero Class 1A was once more reinforced as they all joined together in spirit against this new foe. The last to rise was Aoyama, still bundled heavily and fearfully in his fleece blanket. But upon witnessing the courage displayed by his fellow Heroes, he unwrapped himself and stood.
"My friends, I must admit… I'm afraid, terribly so… But if I were to stand by you all, then I may be able to shine ever brighter."
"You're not alone dude… I'm actually terrified!" Kirishima said with an uneasy, but brave toothy grin.
"I think all of us are…" Satou agreed.
"We stand at the precipice gazing, the abyss gazing back at us…" Tokoyami commented with a solemn nod.
"Then we won't look away; we'll crush everything that comes at us!" Bakugou shouted to the motivated cheers of his classmates.
"Yeah!"
And so, the swords that hung over 1A didn't seem as overbearing as they once thought they were. But their presence was still felt, so much so that they all slept in the common room that night, bundled up close together. Even Bakugou was there, seemingly sleeping with one eye open in silent vigilance. Minoru could tell, the videos have affected him just like the rest of them.
But he could also tell that the class's resolve has been strengthened. Before it was just to become Heroes… Now, it was to become the best they could possibly be.
Both as Heroes and as people…
And that has been Chapter 128!
Looking back at this, I've gotten Bakugou pretty involved with the rest of 1A, going out of his way to motivate them. With his line of thinking, it's probably like "You extras keep dragging me into your shit, so I'm not allowing you to drag your fucking feet.". I think that's my ideal Bakugou, harsh but fair. Do you think I succeeded in doing that this chapter?
As for Crimson, they've made themselves known. A band of highly skilled, heavily armed vigilantes are now roaming around the world of My Hero Academia with the intent of purging any corruption found. I will tell you now, this is the group I am most excited to share with you as several events will revolve around them. So stay tuned for that.
But that is all I have this week. So...
Until Next Time. T1.