TᕼE ᗰOᑎᔕTEᖇ IᑎᔕIᗪE [1]

practical hell

"now, we will begin the practical exam," aizawa states as we stand across from the teachers in our hero costumes. i don't think we're gonna be fighting robots...

"of course, it is possible to fail this exam. if you want to go to the training camp, then don't make any stupid mistakes."

aizawa goes on talking about other stuff, but my attention is hooked when we're told that we'll be fighting the teachers.

oh fuck

"fuck me gently with a chainsaw..." i mutter, causing bakugo to look at me as if i'm insane, and kyoka sends me a slightly worried glance.

i listen for my name to be called, and i'm pleasantly surprised to hear that i'm on a team with tsu and tokoyami against ectoplasm. we have three people only because i'm the odd student out, which only serves to make me think about how much of a bother it must be for the teachers to deal with an uneven number of students.

keep the depricating thoughts to a minimum, we can't deal with any distractions for this or else shit won't get done

the three of us go to a room to prepare and come up with a strategy we think will work. the two are still kind of confused as to what my quirk is, but i brush it off and say that it's kinda like enhancing my mobility with enforcing my appendages or some bullshit like that.

and that, my friends, is how you bullshit

'shut it i need to concentrate on the plan'

once the first match is over, we move to our designated battle area, looking around warily and somewhat in a triangle formation with our backs to each other in a defensive way.

the horn goes off to signal the start of the exam, and i tense as we wait for ectoplasm to make his appearance.

his clones form almost immediately, and he starts talking about how the teachers are trying to crush us or something, but i tune it out and just wait for tokoyami to start the plan.

dark shadow surges out, wrapping around tsu and throwing her up onto a higher level of the building, and i grab hold of tokoyami as i let venom do his thing and swing us up with her.

"good thing we figured this out beforehand."

"yeah."

i nod, and we move along to find our way to the escape gate. clones continue to appear in our path, and dark shadow and i move to take care of getting rid of most of them while we keep moving. venom's ecstatic to actually be getting some action in, but because of his loud ass, i accidentally leave tokoyami open from behind. fortunately, though, tsu literally jumps in and kicks the clone away, it being finished off by dark shadow.

"sorry for not taking care of that, tokoyami-kun," i apologize, but he waves me off.

"it's alright, you were occupied."

more clones sprint at us, but tsu wraps her tongue around the boy and launches him up, so i grab hold of her and bring both of us up with him, where we see some weird tunnel thing filled with clones waiting for us.

"they just keep coming."

"indeed."

tsu swings ahead of us to start destroying the clones, dark shadow up with her, and i stay back by tokoyami to make sure that none of them sneak up on him again as we reach the other end of the tunnel in a quicker amount of time than i'd thought we would.

"tokoyami-chan, rin-chan, i can see the goal..." tsu points out as we reach the edge and look down to see it being guarded by ectoplasm.

"... and what is probably his real body."

i can hear him praise us for getting past all the other clones, but then he shouts, "-but what'll you do against this!?"

he uses his quirk, and a giant clone towers above him and is staring at us.

"giant bite detention!" he exclaims, the clones' mouth opening tall and wide.

"i can't put out clones now, but as long as i can see you, this one will be enough." the clone bites or whatever into the structure of the building, and somehow we end up trapped in its' back or something? what the fuck???

i could bulk us up

'no, i feel like tsu has a plan'

fine, but next time, we do what i want

i do actually allow venom to make it easier for me to get out of the monstrous clone as tokoyami sends dark shadow down to try and get through the gate, but wait to see if tsu really does have a plan before doing anything else.

and thank sweet baby jesus she does, because i have no fucking idea where to go from getting out of this thing.

"but if he can reach, then we have a chance. have dark shadow take this, tokoyami-chan."

"'this'? what?"

"don't... look too closely... the teacher will notice... besides... it's... really... gross..."

tokoyami calls dark shadow back, and he takes the object discreetly from tsu, who has drool slipping down her chin and a dazed look on her face.

"calm down. it's fine. because tokoyami-chan and dark shadow...

"are strong!"

dark shadow goes down once again, but ectoplasm brutally ended up forcing him away.

"if we became unable to move, then this would be the only way to win, so i swallowed them right away. i can take things in and out of my stomach," tsu says, and i look down to see the handcuffs attached to ectoplasm's weird legs or hands or whatever.

he releases us from his huge clone thing and approaches us, saying, "that was wonderfully clever. you deserve to be commended."

i smile slightly along with tsu, but as we leave the small battle area, i can't help but notice how i barely did anything during that.

"are you alright, rin-chan?" the girl asks abruptly, and i startle a bit but smile wearily.

"i didn't really do much during the exam. it was mostly you and tokoyami doing everything."

"do not say such things, sasaki-chan," the boy says sternly, and i look at him wide-eyed. "you did well in fending off the clones, especially when they found blind spots we left unchecked. your mobility was also very helpful in getting us to ectoplasm-sensei as quick as we did. we all did our fair share of work in this, so you do not need to feel incompetent over this."

i stare at him in shock and awe, not exactly used to someone being so straightforward or fully believing when saying i did something competent or good. i smile brightly at him and tsu.

"thank you for saying that. it means a lot to me."

tokoyami nods and tsu merely flushes and smiles a bit before we head back to regroup with those that have either finished or are waiting to start their tests.

today has been more exciting than nerve-wracking for once, and i can't believe that i'm saying this, but i'm actually enjoying life right now. whatever happens, i'm just ultimately glad that i'm finally starting to grow.