章 50: Part II - Purgatory - Chapter 49 : Entrance Exams
I breathed in and took in the view my position afforded me.
Perched atop the tallest building, I could take in the entirety of Training Area I with a single glance.
Teenagers were running back and forth, trying to defeat as many of the robots as they could along the way. I closed my eyes and let myself be carried away for a moment by the sound of destroyed machines and the screams around me. I soaked up the sounds and let myself be enveloped by the power of the moment.
From now on everything began - from now on history unfolds - and there would be no coming back.
I'll keep going forward and win, no matter the cost.
I opened my eyes and let my eyes take in everything in front of me. And then, slowly, I raised my arms until both palms were stretched toward the sky.
My chakra roared within me and my Alter responded, the two merging until they became one. As if answering my call, the sky rumbled and the clouds turned black.
I heard panicked screams, the questioning of teenagers wondering what was going on.
A slight smile tugged at the corner of my lips.
A drop of water fell on my cheek and I savored the feeling of freshness it gave me.
Let them watch; this moment marks the arrival of the world's new protagonist.
I exhaled, releasing all the power I'd accumulated.
And all hell broke loose.
*
UA STAFF ROOM
Many of the teachers were puzzled as they watched young Todoroki calmly climb the stairs to the roof of the fake city's tallest building.
A stopwatch was ticking away at the bottom of the screen, and they knew that young Todoroki - like all the other participants - could see it on the watch he had been provided for the occasion.
"Does he understand the rules ?" asked Present Mic.
Normally, they weren't supposed to give their full attention to a single student, but he didn't have the time.
The boy was Shoto Todoroki, the only son of Endeavor and heir to the Todoroki legacy.
"Makes you wonder if he's stupid" Midnight agrees, her eyes never leaving the screen.
But knowing Endeavor's character, if he really was, it would have been beaten out of him long ago.
Everyone could only nod at these words.
They - all of them who had been to UA - had known Endeavor in their youth and knew that the hero was a perfectionist at heart. If he had a son who wasn't, at least exceptional, he would never have allowed him to take the entrance exam for UA.
Aizawa, for his part, watched the young man in silence, feeling anxiety rising in his chest at seeing him so calm and collected, even though his face remained completely neutral.
He'd seen the boy in the company of his nephew - and their other best friend - often enough over the past few years to know that he shared his... strange behavior. He'd even picked them up from school a few times - at his sister's request - when their parents weren't up to dealing with the crisis the three teenagers represented. Each time, he remembered an angry principal and boys completely impervious to his cries.
He didn't know about their parents, but when the three of them were with him, they always behaved impeccably.
Well, maybe it had something to do with the fact that every time he was forced to deal with them, he'd gently "offer" them some combat "training" and then slaughter them.
Literally.
Maybe part of him should have felt bad because they were just teenagers, but they were the reason he had to ruin his naps to get them back.
Nezu watched the situation, whistling happily, and carefully noted the reactions of each of the teachers in a corner of his mind.
And then his intelligent little black eyes landed on Aizawa and he was startled by the way his left eye blinked nervously.
It had been short, but Nezu had seen it and Nezu knew Aizawa well enough to know what it was about.
"Is something wrong, Shota?" the headmaster asked innocently.
The dark-haired man gave him an annoyed look. He grumbled into his beard and then said aloud:
"I just hope Cementos is around to pick up the pieces after that kid does what he's about to do"
His colleagues were surprised by his statement.
"Do you know him ?" asked Present Mic
Aizawa shrugged.
"He's a friend of my nephew"
And he didn't elaborate, because Aizawa never elaborated.
But that wasn't a problem for Nezu, because Nezu knew about the distant relationship between the Todoroki and the teacher even before the exams.
Nezu knew this and much, much more: after all, what kind of genius principal would he be if he didn't know the latest details, such as what each of Yuei's teachers had eaten this morning ?
Yes, otherwise he would have resigned out of shame.
"How does he usually behave ?" asked Midnight.
Aizawa wanted to pull out his sleeping bag and wrap himself in it to avoid having to answer, since he barely knew the boy and he wasn't going to write a thesis about him, but he decided to calm down and answered as laconically as possible:
"Let's just say he has..."
Destructive tendencies.
"... showmanship"
Which wasn't really wrong: you just had to understand what kind of show Aizawa was talking about.
He secretly hoped that the heroine would leave it at that and stop pushing him to talk, and luckily, she did.
Everyone turned their attention back to the screen and saw young Todoroki raise his arms, palms open to the sky.
The previously blue sky became black with clouds. The loudspeakers had no trouble transmitting the roar of the charging lightning.
"Ho ho ho"
Nezu was amused beyond words.
He tapped on his computer and an overview of field I and its surroundings appeared on the screen to the left of the young Todoroki. At the top, it could be seen that the lull the boy had conjured was strictly limited to Field I; beyond that, the sky was as clear and the sun as bright as ever. Half the faculty gasped.
"What a remarkable mastery of his Quirks, especially for someone so young!"
Nezu exclaimed happily.
"How exactly did he do it?" asked Present Mic, pulling up the glasses that had almost slipped from his nose in shock.
"He suddenly heated the air and then cooled it down, speeding up the formation of clouds," the headmaster explained. The length of time it would have taken him to complete such a large-scale project suggests that he had already prepared the ground before entering..."
"What he's doing is dangerous," countered Aizawa. "He's not just conjuring up rain, he's conjuring up a real storm - and as far as I know, he can't control lightning. He's endangering himself and the other students. He should be disqualified"
Vlad King nodded at these words of wisdom.
"It's true. A hero who acts without regard for his teammates or his surroundings should never get his license"
Nezu shook his paws to calm them.
"Come on, what's the big deal ? Let me remind you that we let hundreds of teenagers enter an arena to beat robots, the lightest of which easily weighs five hundred kilos. Wouldn't it be hypocritical to say that young Todoroki endangers the lives of hundreds of teenagers while we do no better ?"
No one could think of an argument.
Aizawa knew, however, that Nezu would never have allowed a student to be in mortal danger in one of the fields - he must have had at least half a dozen different plans to shut down the simulation at the slightest problem, and had surely programmed the robots so that none of them could actually harm the children.
They looked threatening, and rightfully so, but none of them had the potential to be dangerous.
The headmaster smiled at Aizawa to show him that he knew that Aizawa knew: so the teacher decided to turn his attention back to the screens. Nezu surely found the young Todoroki fascinating and it was best not to stand in his way if his interest was aroused.
His eyes went back to the young Todoroki, whose image was shown on the largest screen of all; the rain had stuck his hair to his face and ran from the palms of his hands to the hollows of his elbows.
He took a deep breath, his eyes still closed.
"Through heaven and earth, I alone am the honored one"
Present Mic raised his eyebrows.
Todoroki opened his eyes and lowered his hands.
It was as if the sky had split in two.
Rain poured down as if buckets were being thrown. In a fraction of a second, the streets were flooded and the robots swept clean. Students screamed, trying to escape the masses of metal that crackled with electricity as the water blew out their circuits. The rain intensified in violence and some students were washed away.
The entire faculty stood stunned by the spectacle unfolding before their eyes.
Never in the history of Yuei had there been such destruction on one of their training grounds, let alone by someone who wasn't even a student yet.
'I think you should intervene," Nezu suggested, bouncing slightly. Some of the students don't look like strong swimmers to me.
At these words, the teachers woke up from their torpor and rushed outside to save the teenagers.
But Aizawa just stood there with his eyes glued to the screen. It wasn't the scale of the disaster that held his attention - even as lightning began to strike buildings, causing some to collapse - but the boy.
Standing at the edge of the void, he stared at the chaos he had created without even pretending to help anyone. His heterochromatic eyes looked smugly at his work of destruction, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
Why does he want to be a Hero ?
"What an interesting boy, don't you think ?"
Nezu's voice pulled him out of his near-trance. Except for the two of them, the room was empty.
I hope this little feat has given you a good idea of his personality. He's going to need a teacher with a good head on his shoulders to guide him on the path to heroism that lies ahead.
The words registered in his brain and he recoiled immediately.
"No" Aizawa frowned.
"Yes" Nezu insisted. "I want it, so that's how it will be."
If Todoroki was - and he suspected that he was - at least a tenth as bad as his father, then Aizawa was sure to have the worst year of his life.
He felt the weight of the world on his shoulders just thinking about it and preferred to leave the room rather than endure the terribly amused look Nezu gave him.
*
Author's note :
Purgatory : "A state after death according to Roman Catholic belief in which the souls of people who die are made pure through suffering before going to heaven"
Heaven...
Any thoughts on the chapter ?
Remember the power stones goal everyone : 185 and we get the bonus chapter sunday. We're doing good, let's keep this rythm.
P@treon : Nar_cisseENG where you can read up to 50 chapters ahead (and where you can check some of the first drafts I wrote for this story in the public space).
See you in the next update everyone !
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