章節 14: The Tests Continue
Eventually, everyone was able to recover enough to continue with their runs. Kai let everyone go ahead of himself while he recovered. He didn't mind the looks they were giving him now. His Quirk was naturally monstrous and disgusting. Not to mention his… different perspective. He felt it was better that everyone got to know about it and what kind of person he was quickly rather than getting surprised later on. They might feel like he was betraying their trust if that happened.
Like getting used to cold water, it was better to just jump in and get it over with, rather than suffer step by step and never fully adjust.
In any case, it had been about a year since he had had that much fun terrorizing someone.
As he waited for his turn, Kai reviewed the tests in his mind again. Since the tests had to be completed by himself, it was going to be hard to find ways to stand out. He had a couple of ideas, but they weren't going to be fun. Still, the fact that Quirks were allowed here was for everyone to showcase their creative ability as well as their power. Even if he didn't care much about the results, he still wanted to show a little bit of what he was capable of.
Of course, he had had his little show just a few minutes ago, but that was just him being a little impertinent. He was only going to be able to "help" just this once, after all.
The next test was grip strength. As far as Kai could tell, there was no way to inspire a little extra strength out of anyone. As there was a limited number of test devices, Kai waited to go last, getting closer to everyone and observing what he could of their Quirks.
Yaoyorozu at first glance wasn't doing anything special. However, as he looked closer, Kai realized that she had created a band of metal to hold the grip for her. While it wouldn't be able to boost her much more than half past her base strength, it was a clever way to apply her Quirk to the situation.
Then, someone else took the device, and Kai did a double take. This boy had his hair split down the middle, with white on the right side and crimson on the left. His eyes also contrasted, with a brown eye on the right, and a bright blue eye on the left. But the more striking thing was that surrounding that blue eye was a deep red scar.
Kai couldn't believe that he hadn't noticed him before. Especially considering he had been told specifically to look out for him. He was one of the few calm faces in the tests. Utterly confident and powerful. Shoto Todoroki. He matched the description that Kai's mother had given him. Not seeing any sign of Quirk usage on him, Kai walked past him, quickly advising him as he did so.
"You know, because of thermal effects, you would get better results with the other hand, Shoto."
Shoto's eyes snapped to him, but before he could ask Kai anything, Kai had moved on. Kai decided it wasn't quite time to introduce himself. There would be plenty of time in the year. Now was the time to make a quick assessment of everyone's abilities. A huge guy with strange, webbed, branching arms was taking the test, and had the highest grip strength on the charts at 540 kg of force.
"Dude, what are you, a gorilla? No, more like an octopus," a boy with tape dispensers at his elbows shouted in surprise.
"Someone say octopus? .....hot," ball boy said.
Kai looked up to the heavens and sighed a long, tired sigh. He closed his eyes and suppressed the urge to slap the pervert upside his tiny little head. No, perhaps he could punt the kid and help him with the long jump. Or he could let the girls find out about the pervert in time and just leave it to them. Ayako would be more than willing to… recondition him. Perhaps he would take the hint to at least not be such an open pervert. If he hadn't proved himself adept during the entrance exam…
"Herr, wirf Hirn vom Himmel. Oder Steine Hauptsache er trifft," he muttered. A few curses from various languages also came to mind, but he was trying to be civil.
Trying to get his mind to move on, he looked at Midoriya. His eyebrows were scrunched together from the effort to clench his fist around the test device. However, he wasn't able to peak higher than 57 kg. Kai sighed once again. But, he couldn't help with this test.
Seeing Kai standing nearby, Midoriya shyly offered him the device. Most likely, he felt self-conscious between the others' results and Kai's earlier "help." Like everyone else, he had no idea how to react to Kai, but unlike the others, Midoriya had the sense that Kai had good intentions. After all, it was all for the cause of "helping" him. Kai smiled.
Wonder how long that good faith will last. At least a week should be doable, right?
Before accepting the device, Kai bent over and touched the ground. As before, a changeling in its original form climbed out of the ground. Midoriya was definitely a little disgusted, but in the end, his Quirkology drive won out.
"What are these things?"
"These ones are called changelings. Helpers from another world. Specialized in impersonation and espionage. And haters of chocolate. Real jerks, eh?"
"… What?"
Kai shrugged. His reaction of confusion was quite understandable. Most of the time, when a Quirk made something, it was more like Yaoyorozu's Quirk, where it was totally inanimate. On the rarer occasion, it was something more like a puppet, and usually classified as a golem or puppet type Quirk. In fact, there was something a bit like that going on a little way away, where a bird guy had a symbiote projecting from his chest. But, in one sentence, Kai put his Quirk into a completely different field. Dimensionalism, or control of travel between worlds. While Midoriya got the implication, it was too much to handle. Add on the fact that Kai made it (accurately) sound like that wasn't the only thing he could summon, and his Quirk got stranger.
Then again, there was another possible source of the "what." That would be Kai putting his plan for the grip test into effect. At his mental command, the changeling spread its form out. As it did so, Kai turned around and put his back to it. Then, the observing class collectively shivered in disgust yet watched in fascination as it wrapped its form around Kai's. It applied itself in as thin a layer it could around his body, adding its arms to his, and transforming its oozing lower half into a thick mass of purple muscle around his legs and back. Its head remained poised a few inches above Kai's own, twisting around to get a good look at the class. While their reactions were as he expected, they were also somewhat subdued, all things considered.
Well, having made a small bloodbath before, it makes sense this would have a lesser reaction. Looks like we are right on track, he thought.
But in this case, he agreed with them. As much as this increased his grip strength to 78 kg, being completely wrapped in living flesh was a bizarre sensation. And it was hot. As soon as the result was registered, he dismissed the changeling. Hopefully, he would never have to do that again. Still, now that the technique had come to his mind, it brought up the possibility of disguising himself by wearing a changeling. The idea had enough merit to be experimented on, but later.
Turning to Midoriya, Kai tried to act nonchalant.
"So, tell me about your Quirk. Is it a broad physical enhancement, or does it help out with other things like reaction speed?"
Midoriya was surprised and flustered by the question. He still couldn't get over Kai's actions. First a gruesome scene of carnage, now wearing a living monster as a suit, and then he strikes up a conversation like nothing happened. Just who was this guy?
"I'm just trying to find the details so I better understand how you might be able to use it. I mean, from what I hear, you self-destruct every time you use it. It's like you just got your Quirk," Kai concluded. He noticed that Midoriya was abnormally reactive to that last statement. He wasn't sure what to make of that just yet, so he set that aside and continued. "I can't afford to lose a potential ally so quickly. From what I hear, you saved Uraraka just based on being a genuinely good person. Which the hero industry is in dire need of. I can't do anything more to help you with these tests. Raw terror is best with speed, after all. I could give you a jump scare, but that won't really improve your standing long jump. Of course, my own plan for that test isn't very good," he finished with a shrug.
"What's that?"
"Getting kangaroo-kicked by a zergling going up to 120 kilometers per hour. Kinda depends on how much warmup distance it can get. We'll just have to see on that."
Midoriya was stunned. He quickly deduced that zerglings were the other creatures he had seen, but that plan… He had no words, but his face said it for him. Was Kai insane?
"No, I'm not insane. I just can't think of a better way. Of course, I could just jump like a normal person and get the score of a normal person, but why would I do that? These tests aren't here for us to show our physical capabilities, it's a Quirk Apprehension test. He wants to see how we will apply ourselves and our Quirks. He wants us to show our potential. Besides, I can heal fairly quickly. And if I'm wrong, I've got a friend to help with that. And the nurse."
Midoriya wasn't sure if that made things better, but Kai seemed confident enough. Still, that was his plan?
"Being a hero, you have to get used to injury and taking risks. Otherwise, you will only be doing a job anyone can do. I'm pretty sure all of us will be injured on the job sometime. The question is how you can limit the damage so you can keep moving on," Kai finished, looking at Midoriya pointedly.
Midoriya nodded in agreement after a short pause to think about it.
創作者的想法 
Tvrkm
Tvrkm Ugh. Not my favorite work. But at this point, I just want to move on. I have things I want to do:
Slap All Might
Slap old flame face
Slap weird hand face
Cure cancer
invent better cancer
release Corvid 20, my cyber-crow weapon
Figure out who in Class 1-A is expendable enough to kill
And get everyone good weaponry
Between those, school, fooling around, video games, and the quarantine, I'm swamped.
Next chapter is mostly done, I just need to either get it to where I like it, or am tired of it to the point I just want to move on, like what happened here.
Writing as a hobby can be annoying sometimes.