Kapitel 36: Realizations.

All Might drew the names and the respective teams started to make their way towards the locations, they were given a few minutes to devise a strategy. Being the first groups up, All Might wanted to give them a few extra minutes as they wouldn't have any other matches to reference like the others.

"Um…..Excuse me sensei?" One of the students came up to Alex. It was Momo Yaoyorozu, she had the nifty ability to create non-living things she understood the molecule composition of through her fat cells.

"Hello, what can I do for you?" Alex asked.

"That blade you used the other day that stopped Bakugo from moving, do you mind if I take a look at it?"

They all saw him throw a blade into the boy's shadow and he suddenly stopped and was unable to move in an awkward position. She more so was astonished at the object with her ability to create items, it peeked her interest.

Alex thought for a moment before opening the gate and retrieving one of his black keys to hand over to the girl. "Be careful, it is very sharp."

She hesitantly took the blade at the hilt and held it at the other end by the flat of the blade as to not cut herself.

"How does it work?" She asked.

"It needs to impale a person's shadow to bind them." He replied.

At this point a few of the other students were taking a bit of an interest. His ability wasn't exactly subtle as a moderately sized glowing portal would suddenly open in space.

He took out a second black key and pushed it into the girl's shadow.

To her astonishment she could not move an inch.

"This…..how are they made!?" She asked in excitement. If she could make her own copies of these, that would tremendously improve her combat ability.

"I'm afraid your ability will not be able to copy these specific items. They were made using a quirk by attaching a concept onto them." It was a lie, but also not entire inaccurate, and he didn't want to say they were magic swords.

"You may begin in 30 seconds." All Might announced over the speakers, of which also connected to ear pieces that both teams were currently wearing.

It seemed as this point both groups worked out a rudimentary plan.

Though it all pretty much came to a fault when Bakugo became enraged and charged towards Midoriya.

The fight went pretty well for the previously quirkless boy. Without drawing the power from his quirk, one for all, he was able to disable Bakugo initially with a few grapple techniques. Though, this only further enraged the already unstable explosive hero. He took it as a personal insult that Midoriya was not using his quirk and thus went beyond what was acceptable in their little match.

Bakugo's costume had large grenade like bracers, they stored the excess nitroglycerin that his palms secrete and with a pull of the pin on the bracer, it fires an excessively large explosion, potentially killing its target.

The explosive blast blew a large hole in the building, even the students outside were starting to freak out at what was supposed to be a friendly match.

Alex met All Might's eyes. Truthfully, he could have called it there and stopped the match, but the hero was somewhat invested in this. Maybe it was faith in his protégé.

It finally culminated into a final confrontation, Midoriya had activated his quirk and went for a punch while his opponent also followed up with an explosive blast.

Just as All Might was finally going to call it, something surprising happened. Midoriya aimed the force of his punch upwards towards the ceiling while using his other arm to block the incoming blow.

The force of the punch set loose debris on the top floor where the duo's partners were currently going at each other. Midoriya's partner used her quirk to remove the gravity on a nearby stone pillar to knock large pieces of rubble at her opponent before jumping and grabbing the bomb, thus winning the match.

"That was interesting." Alex couldn't help but comment. The brat knew that Bakugo would come at him and lured him in away from his partner so they could secure the win.

All Might sighed as he looked towards the destroyed building.

"I'll take him to the nurses and get him patched up while you deal with this mess." Alex said.

The hero just nodded as he sighed again, looking at this whole situation and realizing he was going to have to sort it out.

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A few hours had passed since the class earlier. Alex was only supposed to shadow either hero through some of the more hands on classes. There was no reason for him to sit through the mundane classes that taught things like math of history.

So, he just skipped out for the day after leaving a message.

He had stayed with Midoriya in the nurses office for awhile and went over what he did wrong and the things he did right. He felt an impulse to have a sit down with the boy and talk about the things that were occurring with him and his childhood friend beyond that…..but he just felt like it wasn't his place.

With nothing to really do, he just walked around until he ended up on a certain beach. It was rather beautiful now after what the kid did to it. Rarely would people come though, I would take a bit for word to spread that it was a place worth visiting now.

It was nice, the sun would be setting soon and the air was cool. He was sitting down in the sand as he held his arm out infront of himself.

His left hand was going through a clutching motion as he was applying reinforcement to his entire arm. It felt a little….stiff, but otherwise there was no other negative side effect. Its amazing as fast he was now progressing with a proper direction.

Even his tablet had told him that his proficiency with the craft had ranked up to [ D+ ]. His schedule was relatively clear for the next couple days at which they would be going to some special location to practice rescue missions. So he could have time to continue practicing, maybe even dabble in Bounded fields and see where he can rank from there.

Alex let out a sigh as he collapsed into the sand, dispelling the reinforcement on his arm. A mild tingling lingered. Something to be rectified later.

Some unsavory thoughts still drifted below the surface.

He did not belong here. It became clear with his interaction earlier with the brat.

And it wasn't in the sense that he wasn't from this world.

In the previous world when he stayed in Academy city, he felt almost welcomed like he was apart of that place. But here....he felt so distant to everything. He didn't really feel comfortable being a mentor like he had previously.

Even when he pulled his head out of his ass and stopped being so aggressive, he still just couldn't connect with anyone here meaningfully. He got along well enough with the heroes and even favored a few of the students, but it just felt so hollow.

He didn't belong here.

No one needed him here.

No one wanted him here.

His whole existence was counter productive to what this world achieved. It was…..peaceful. It's not like he was someone who could only prosper in battles, he would like to one day retire with his loved ones, but this was different.

They didn't need what he fought for.

He did not enjoy killing, but he took lives. Many of them over the course of his years. He would not hesitate to cut someone down if they would bring death to others, but they looked down on that here. They despised that. He could understand it, he didn't wholly agree but he would play by their rules. He was a guest in their world and was merely completeing a job.

No, people here didn't look up to the heroes of old. The ones who would slay armies and cut down the evils of men. They aspired to be the heroes that saved everyone. They didn't like to think about the fact that people could die. He wouldn't insult them by saying that they just shoved their heads into the sand to pretend such things didn't exist. They as a society just decided that they would completely strive towards the idea that everyone can be saved.

Alex had accepted this aspect long ago. People would die, most likely on his own blade. To protect one was to kill another. How many people did he cut down to protect his homeland? People say that there becomes a point where you stop counting and its true. But what most people don't realize, there is a point where you start counting again.

He had cut down over 10,000 invaders, rebels, and criminals personally. He never regret that they died by his blade.

The heroes of this world, if they knew he what he had done what would they say?

With regards to all of this...he didn't hate this world. It was beautiful in its own way. Their collective will to pursue such a whimsical idea of Justice.

No, he didn't hate it. He just didn't conform to it and thus, did not belong here.

He did not regret coming to this world, he learned something valuable that he had forgotten. But he did hope that his time here would come to an end soon and his intuition was telling him it would indeed.

"But for now, I need something to cheer myself up." He said with a leap onto his feet.

He mentally selected a blade he found in the gate the other day. He had come to love going through the gate and finding all items and sorting them. This particular blade he was rather fond of and wanted to 'master' it soon but hadn't had the opportunity until now.

It was a bit ironic that he fell in love with a blade that gave him such a sense of foreboding.

It was a dragon slaying blade and he held an aspect of a dragon inside of him with his core. It's properties of dragon slaying did have an effect on his being.

The hero who wielded this blade was truly one to admire. He slayed a dragon, not because he sought glory or riches…..but because some helpless people begged for assistance from the evil dragon that plagued their lives.

The hero was known for not being able to turn down an honest request. He was like a prototype for Shirou.

Siegfried had met the beast in battle and slayed it beyond all odds and secured himself a place in legends.

The blade was related to his own mythos in a way. It was reforged form the broken Gram which was said to be the prototype to his Caliburn. He actually had Gram in his gate but never took it out. It was rather menacing compared to its reforged counterpart. It's dragon suppression was also a bit more aggressive.

Alex held the long black sword in his hands. It was larger than Excalibur or Caliburn but it held a similar ability within.

It was not adorned with gold or jewels except for the singular one in the hilt that is the core of its activation. No, the simplicity in its design only added to its beauty.

He did a quick double take to either end of the beach, making sure no one was nearby. The beach itself was a good distance away from any kind of buildings so he was decently isolated.

A few swings with the two handed sword had allowed him to get a feel for it. It felt…..odd to hold a blade whos existence was almost curtailed to slay beings like him but it accepted him all the same.

A smile adorned his face as he held the blade aligned with himself.

"O sword, let thee be filled."

With a tug on the hilt, a jewel was revealed in the middle. It collected his magic energy and converted it into True Ether from the age of gods. The energy was released into a pillar as it shot towards the sky.

"The Evil dragon will fall..."

"And the world will now reach the twilight."

"BALMUNG"

With a swing of his blade the energy shot off in an arc at the horizon.

The energy had calmed down a moment later. The sword also settled down as he opened a portal up and tossed it back in.

It was a magnificent blade. He would train with it more often and not just because he liked it so much. It's anti-army ability was surprisingly quick to activate and its prana cost was not as high as he expected. It wasn't as quick as if he used Merodach, but that blades prana consumption was ridiculous. Excalibur could be activated faster, but that was only if he didn't go through the mechanism which left it around a [ C ] rank and thus was a bit weaker.

No, it boasted the perfect balance between power and prana consumption. The only blade that could really rival it in that department would probably be his Caliburn of old.

He was broken from his thoughts as he heard sirens in the distance.

"Welp, better make myself scarce." He said with a chuckle as he quickly departed.