《Fighting Spirit (MHA)》Chapter 4: Battle Trial

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Stepping into the classroom for his first full day at UA, Katsuki felt prepared for anything.

What followed however, was very much underwhelming.

The entire morning was just filled with standard classes, like English.

Katsuki would admit the language wasn't his forte, but he was decent at it.

It was a definite improvement to have an enthusiastic teacher like Present Mic compared to the droning teacher from middle school.

Moving on to lunch, Katsuki waited through the lineup to reach Lunch Rush and held up his student card.

"Bakugou Katsuki. My family paid for the high calorie meal plan?"

The lunch themed hero looked up from his work.

"Alright then! Just scan your card on the scanner in front of you and I'll whip you up something quick."

Katsuki scanned his card with a beep, and moments later a highly nutritious meal was placed in front of him.

"Enjoy your food!"

As Katsuki looked around the cafeteria, he noticed Kirishima waving him over.

Not seeing a reason to refuse, Katsuki walked over.

The red haired boy was sitting next to the pink girl and the Dude with multiple arms.

"Bakugou! Hey! This is Mina and Shoji!"

Katsuki nodded as he sat down.

"Nice to meet you both."

Mina smiled towards Katsuki while Shoji nodded.

Mina spoke up first.

"Nice to meet you Katsuki. You did really well yesterday. You were all 'zoom', and 'whoosh'!"

Katsuki answered as he started to eat his food.

"You guys all did pretty well too."

The conversation slowed down quite a bit while everyone dug into their food.

Say whatever you would about how Lunch Rush wasn't a high-profile hero, but damn if he didn't make good food.

Mina spoke up again.

"So, what do you guys think we're doing this afternoon?"

Katsuki swallowed, then answered.

"Class schedule says that we have hero basic training during our afternoons."

Mina seemed to light up at that.

"Who do you think our teacher is gonna be today?"

Katsuki shrugged as he swallowed another mouthful.

"Apparently they rotate it between different teachers. So it's anyone's guess."

Shoji was the next to speak.

"No matter the teacher assigned, we must all endeavor to do our best."

Katsuki nodded along.

Before they knew it, Lunch was over and all the students hurried back to class.

They were confused when there wasn't a teacher present at first, but a minute later, they all heard a loud exclamation from just outside the door.

"I AM-"

The door slid open and the massive frame of the number one hero filled it.

"Coming through the door like a normal person!"

The class erupted into gossip as the number one hero moved towards the front platform.

"It's actually All Might!"

"Wow, he really is a teacher!"

"Isn't that his silver age costume?"

"The different style is giving me goosebumps."

Katsuki sized up the number one hero.

Katsuki had told himself ever since he found out he was quirkless that he was gonna become a hero no matter what the opposition.

He was going to claw his way up the hero charts, quirk or no quirk, with his own strength.

That made All Might not just a teacher, but a goal.

Probably an impossible one, but when had that ever stopped him?

Reaching the front, the number one hero continued his introduction.

"Greetings future heroes! I am here to teach Basic Hero Training. It is a subject where you train in different ways to learn the basics of becoming a hero."

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All Might flexed as he continued.

"You will have the most units of this subject, with multiple Teachers assisting, however I will be your primary teacher in this subject."

All Might straightened up.

"Let's get right into it! This is what we'll do today-"

All might pulled out a card with 'BATTLE' written on it.

"Battle training!"

Everyone in the class once more broke out into whispers, but All Might continued without delay.

"And for that…you need these!"

Tapping a pad on the front desk, All Might gestured to the side as multiple racks filled with cases extended from the wall.

"Costumes made based on your quirk registrations, and the requests you sent in before school started."

Everyone got super excited at that.

All Might faced the class.

"Now, all of you get changed and meet up at the bus so we can all move to Ground Beta!"

Pulling on the gloves for his costume, Katsuki flexed his fingers to test out the gloves.

Finding them the right size, Katsuki checked his appearance in the mirror.

Katsuki's costume was mostly just a simple black suit with a large 'X' across his chest, however it also included combat boots, a pair of reinforced bracers, and of course a new bat.

Testing out his bracers by hitting them against each other, Katsuki was satisfied by their durability.

The reinforced boots also fit nicely, though Katsuki would need to test them in combat to be sure.

Picking up the bat he had added to his costume request, Katsuki gave it a couple test-swings to get a feel for its balance. He had no idea what the support company had made it out of, but his one request had been extreme durability without any bells or whistles.

Time to do some combat training.

Stepping out of the exit heading towards the bus along with his classmates, Katsuki heard All Might commenting on their attire.

"They say the clothes make the man, ladies and gentlemen. Be fully aware, that from now on, you are Heroes!"

As they stopped in front of the bus, All Might continued.

"You all look so cool! Now then, shall we begin you zygotes?"

All Might gestured for everyone to board the bus.

As they drove towards the training ground, All Might explained the basics of the exercise.

"Here at UA, practical exercises are used to teach you the basics of hero work. Whether that means cityscape exercises like the entrance exam, or…"

The bus pulled up in front of the entrance to the training ground.

"Indoor anti-personnel battle training!"

As the class started clamoring, All Might cleared his throat.

"All will be explained inside the battleground."

As Katsuki got up to leave the bus, he noticed All Might reading off a small paper he pulled from his pockets.

Gathering with the rest of the students, his bat held across his shoulders, Katsuki turned to face All Might who had put the paper away.

"Ahem. In teams of two, villains will be hiding a nuclear weapon within their hideout. And equally sized teams of heroes will be required to go in and take care of it! The heroes have a limited amount of time to either capture both villains, or secure the weapon.

"The villains on the other hand, must either capture the heroes, or protect the weapon until time is up.

"These encounters will have a ten minute time limit, and the bomb will be considered secured if either of the heroes can touch it."

Everyone in the class started muttering about the exercise as All Might continued.

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"The pairings for this exercise will be decided by random lots!"

Iida called out at that.

"Is that really the best way?!"

Katsuki snorted before answering.

"When do pros ever get to pick who they work with during a big emergency?"

Iida put a hand to his face.

"I see…! I apologize for getting ahead of myself… My mistake!"

All Might shook his head.

"It's fine! Lets just get to it!"

All Might reached into the box and drew out the team pairings, and then the first matchup.

Team A: Kirishima and Iida

Team B: Aoyama and Tsuyu

Team C: Koda and Jiro

Team D: Kaminari and Momo

Team E: Ojiro and Tokoyami

Team F: Ochaco and Shoto

Team G: Mina and Mineta

Team H: Bakugo and Sato

Team I: Shoji and Midoriya

Team J: Tooru and Sero

Guiding most of the class into the observation room near the entrance to the training ground, All Might sent a message over the comms he'd handed to every team.

"Team G vs Team F Start! You have ten minutes to secure your objective Heroes!"

As the other group started their battle, Katsuki moved over to talk with his new teammate.

The dude was pretty tall, about an inch taller then Katsuki himself, and from what he saw yesterday, had some kind of boosting quirk based on ingestion.

Katsuki and his new partner Sato discussed his quirk and both of their combat skills for a bit before they got back to watching the matches.

Turned out his was based on eating sugar, though it made him a bit dumber for the duration.

First match wasn't too interesting, with the exception of the fact that the midget couldn't stop making passes at his teammate.

Still, he did a half decent job of trapping the hallways.

Then that was all rendered moot when the half and half bastard proceeded to ice the entire building.

The next three minutes were fairly anticlimactic, as the midget kept freaking out.

Pinky on the other hand seemed to try something for a second, one of her hands generating a grey fluid inside the ice, only to wince and stop a minute later.

The round ended when Todoroki and Uraraka walked past their opponents and touched the bomb.

The following match wasn't really as interesting, aside from an interesting event, where Aoyama attempted to hit Tooru with his laser only for it to go right through her.

The invisible girl quickly captured her opponent while he was off-balance, and together she and Sero were able to evade Tsuyu and reach the bomb.

After that, Katsuki's team was drawn as villains. And facing them was going to be Izuku and Shoji.

Looking over at the opposing duo, Katsuki noted Izuku's hero suit was patterned red and green.

Izuku and Shoji seemed to be discussing their opponents.

Katsuki turned to Sato and nodded towards the exit, the two of them headed towards the exercise building.

Katsuki thought through their options as they walked towards the building.

The had a few minutes to prepare, but to be honest, Katsuki was pretty sure that he and Sato weren't really the trap setting types.

Their best bet was to force their opponents into a straight fight. That meant choke points.

Neither of them really had much material for that however. Then Katsuki had a thought.

"This building only has like two staircases right?"

Almost immediately after, Katsuki dismissed the idea of splitting up to block the stairs. That probably had one of them facing both heroes. Bad idea.

But what if they could block one of the staircases?

Katsuki thought back to what he'd seen of Shoji and Izuku so far.

Shoji seemed really strong. Given time, he could probably force his way through a barricade.

Then Katsuki's thoughts took a turn.

'Neither of them seem to have any real movement options…'

Then Katsuki grinned.

Rushing towards the closest staircase with Sato in tow, Katsuki's grin only widened as he saw it was just standard concrete.

Turning to Sato, Katsuki told him the plan.

"Near as I can tell, neither of them really have quirks that let them fly at this point. So, if we can't defend both staircases to keep them from moving up, we can try to destroy them both. Think you can crack the concrete with your quirk?"

Sato paused for a second, then smiled.

"Probably. Lets do this!"

Pulling a packet of sugar out of his costume, Sato downed it and started pouding away as Katsuki moved up to check what the landing of the next floor looked like.

Fairly standard doorway, and landing, not much he could do here.

Before heading back down to help Sato destroy the staircase, Katsuki lined up and gave his bat a swing, bending the handle on the door severely.

Testing it with his hand, Katsuki smiled. No one was getting through that door without serious work.

Heading down the stairs to where Sato had made good progress on the stairway, Katsuki joined him in swinging. About a minute later, Katsuki was fairly confident that neither of their opponents would be able to get to the second floor this way.

Swinging his bat over his shoulder and sneezing at the dust in the air, Katsuki gestured to Sato and started running.

"Come on, if we hurry we can probably finish the other one too!"

The destruction of the other staircase went much faster this time, though complicated by the fact both of them wanted to remain on the second floor after the destruction.

Carrying the bomb up to the second floor, the pair of them made much faster work on the second set of stairs, leaving the way up impassable to anyone without a mobility quirk.

Closing the door to the staircase behind them, Katsuki gave this door a couple swings as well, fairly confident it was jammed shut.

Moving the bomb into an open room on the floor, Katsuki settled in with Sato to wait.

Only a moment after they got into position, Katsuki heard All Might call out over the comms.

"Team H vs Team I Start! You have ten minutes to secure your objective Heroes!"

Katsuki had to admit, this was kind of boring so far.

I mean, the plan seemed like it was working perfectly, and this basically was the ideal scenario.

Katsuki just felt pretty bored as he waited for something to happen.

As they were getting towards the end of the timer, Katsuki vaguely thought he smelled something burning in the distance. Shortly after, they heard the sound of smashing glass from their floor.

A bit after that, Sato and Katsuki heard someone rushing through the corridors.

Just before the timer ran out, Sato and Katsuki were treated to the sight of a winded and covered in sweat Izuku rushing past the entrance of the room, only to double take as he saw the duo inside with the bomb.

Katsuki turned to Sato.

"You make sure he doesn't get near the bomb."

Getting his bat into a ready position, Katsuki rushed towards Izuku before the greenette could catch his breath.

The coming confrontation was interrupted by a voice from the comms however.

"Time is up! Team H wins!"

Stopping his swing, Katsuki moved it back to his shoulders as Izuku fell to his knees and panted for breath.

Moving back to the top of the stairs, Katsuki found himself met with a glowing door handle.

Shrugging, Katsuki lowered his bat and gave the door a swing, smashing it open. It let out a slam as it impacted the wall, still on its hinges.

Looking down into the destroyed stairwell, they found themselves looking down at the face of Shoji who was waiting there.

Katsuki gave the big man a wave.

"Hey. You mind helping us down?"

Leting out a shrug, Shoji moved forwards to help the three of them down when they hung from the bottom of the doorway.

Izuku was being really quiet as they made their way back to the observation room.

As they stepped in, Kirishima rushed up.

"Destroying the staircase was just so smart man!"

Momo also spoke up.

"The denial of access to the upper floors was an inspired idea. Though part of that was your opponents team composition, it was a valuable use of preparation time well suited to your team's strengths."

All Might coughed to gain the class' attention.

"Now, lets review this battle! The MVP of this match was young Bakugou! Can anyone tell me why?"

Momo raised her hand.

"It's because Bakugou made the greatest use of his environment, and employed tactical thinking to limit his opponent's options.

Sato's strength was definitely instrumental in accomplishing the plan as shown, but the original plan and strategy was clearly Bakugou's.

Very few would see the limited number of stairways within the building as an option to destroy rather then barricade or guard them.

On the other side, the hero team spent far too much time and effort on their efforts to open up the stairwell, leaving the only member capable of reaching the next floor exhausted when an alternative route was suggested by Shoji.

Even then, Shoji spent far too long simply following Midoriya's lead instead of suggesting his own ideas."

All Might seemed a bit awkward about what to say following Momo's critique, but soon recovered.

"Excellent review young Yaoyorozu. Top marks! Now, lets move on to the next trial!"

Katsuki mostly kept to himself after that, though he did keep an eye on the other fights.

Katsuki changed into his gym stuff and got ready to exercise.

The rest of the fights had been fairly standard, with no real upsets, and then All Might had ended the class in a rush, the number one hero acting like he had somewhere else to be.

Katsuki stepped into the gym and found a familiar face running on the treadmill again.

"Heya Kohai! Did your second day go well? Anything cool happen? You ready to workout again?"

Katsuki scoffed.

"Like you even need to ask senpai."

The blunette paused for a second at Katsuki's remark, then dragged Katsuki over to the bench press, practically skipping there.

"You called me senpai! Yuyu always said that I'd never get anyone to call me senpai with how I act, but you did! This is so awesome!"

Nejire shook her head.

"Anyway! In order to bench you need a spotter, so for today we're gonna have to take turns. I'll start first since it's already set up for me!"

Katsuki looked around the empty gym.

"And what were you gonna do if I didn't show up?"

"Oh please, like my new kohai was gonna let a bit of running stop him! Do you know how rare it is for first years to actually take advantage of the campus equipment without being told to! Super rare!"

Katsuki grumbled a bit as he moved into the spotting position, a small smirk on his face.

Katsuki got into position and helped Nejire lift the bar off the rack.

Once she was in position, Katsuki let go and let her get to work, watching her form and cadence closely for any sign of trouble.

He wasn't the asshat that that was gonna lose focus while they were spotting someone else.

After a few minutes of lifting, Nejire called out.

"Your turn!"

Soon after Katsuki helped her shift the bar back onto the rack.

Hopping off the bench, Nejire moved into the spotter position.

Before Katsuki got ready, he walked over to the weights, grabbing 200lbs for each side.

Carrying them over, Katsuki added them to the bar, pinning them in place as Nejire watched on, a teasing glint in her eyes.

"Oh, is someone trying to impress their senpai?"

Katsuki grunted as he got onto the bench.

"Your bench press is just way too light."

Nejire pouted as Katsuki started lifting.

"That's mean kohai!"

Katsuki was smiling as he walked home after the workout he'd spent competing with Nejire.

UA was perfect for him so far. Best training facilities in the country, competitive rivals. It was perfect.

3 Years to get ready to enter the world of pro heroes.

What could go wrong?

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