Chapter 45: Trial of battle (III)

He looked in the direction of Shido, who sat on the opposite side of where he is, and said,"We are here today to discuss with Shido-san about his candidacy. I personally have already spoken with him."

Then looking at the heroes gathered in the room, he continued,"I gathered the rest of you here, to understand if you wanted to ask something to him, but mainly to meet Shido."

Shido was confused about Nezu's statement. This was the first time he was meeting face to face with the principal, not counting the times where he assigned clones to collect information on him, but he didn't point that out. He waited to see what Nezu was playing at.

After a few seconds, someone spoke while licking her lips seductively,"I don't think there is any need to say anything if the principal has already confirmed it, so I don't see why I need to say no. Furthermore, I don't see any problems with his character, with him being a pro hero and all."

Turning his head, Shido noticed that the person who said this was a tall, curvaceous woman with sky blue eyes and abundant spiky dark purple hair.

"Thank you." Shido said with a smile. There was no harm in thanking others for speaking up for him.

The other professors also nodded at her words, silently agreeing with the woman's words.

Seeing that everyone confirmed, and nobody wanted to add anything else, Nezu said,"Perfect. Shido-san, now Nemuri-sensei or the hero 'Midnight' will accompany you to go to the room where you will take the written test. In an hour and twenty minutes, we will go by taking a bus to the field test site."

As everyone stood up and prepared to leave, Nezu's voice rang out again,"Shido-san, please stay back for a while, I want to talk with you alone."

The other professors got the hint and started leaving. They wondered what the principal wanted to talk to Shido about, but did not question it. All Might also left, but not before leaving a worried expression on his face. He was worried that Shido did something wrong, but seeing that he could not do anything about it, he just hoped that everything would go smoothly.

Seeing that everyone has left, Nezu started talking.

"So, Shido-san."

"Yes? What is it that you needed to lie to the others about us meeting?"

"Oh, that was nothing more than an excuse so that the other professors would have an easier time accepting my decision. But it wasn't like it was completely false either. You do have everything that is required to be a teacher at my school, from your theoretical knowledge, to knowledge about being a hero despite not having a hero license to having a good character. But there is just one thing that I find weird about you." Nezu leaned forward with his hands clasped together in front of him.

Seeing that Shido remained silent, he continued,"Call it hunch, a feeling, an instinct, but something tells me that you are hiding something inside you. And I'm just curious about what exactly a rank 0 hero could be hiding within."

Shido continued to smile,"What can I hide when Uncle Toshinori is constantly looking after me?"

"Then please tell me, are you related to any of these incidents?" Nezu took out a bunch of papers and gave them to Shido for him to read what was written on them.

List of Missing Gangs

1) Beehive gang

2) The grizzly reaper crew

3) Crimson Toads

4) ...

Shido continued flipping through the lists, and showed the detailed information on each and every member of each gang. From their names, quirks and birthday to the crimes they committed.

He was not very surprised why Nezu was showing him this. Nezu probably already knew about his deeds, but he was curious. How did Nezu manage to link all these incidents, which seemingly has nothing in common with each other, to him?

Shido returned the files to him before smiling at Nezu and asking,"Why?"

"Why as in why did I know that they are related to you?"

"Yes. I'm sure that the perpetrator did not leave behind any trace of him being in the crime scene." Shido nodded and explained his confusion.

"Indeed, he did not leave behind any evidence, but this is where the mistake laid. First of all, the disappearance of each and every gang was very similar. They just suddenly disappeared from the trace of Earth. Now, that would have been nothing, but some of the gangs that you were involved in were not small. Some of them are big enough to affect the economy of some smaller countries, yet none of them survived the disappearance.

No pro hero I know could do something like that. Even if All Might were to do that, there would at least be some commotion happening, like blood, screams, escapees. But all of these were absent. The entire hideout was so clean it was...scary." At this point, Nezu paused for a while to take a sip of his coffee.

"No hero or vigilante I know could do this. And that leaves either a new person which got into fame recently, or a totally random killer. But I placed by bets on the former, and chose you, the most mysterious 'hero' to ever rise in fame."

It was only by a coincidence that he stumbled upon a major gang's hideout, and found that every member had disappeared mysteriously. There were traces of struggle, but it was so minor that if he did not observe carefully, he would have missed them. And this led him to investigate all of the gangs that he knew, and realised that almost half of them had mysteriously disappeared as well.

"Now, the question is, did you do it? And if so, why did you do it?" He paused and looked at Shido sternly. He had already anticipated this result, but he still planned to hire him. However, if the reason that came out of his mouth was something along the lines of 'I just felt like it', he might just reconsider his decision.

"Reason? Did you not see the evidence left behind? And I only targeted one type of gang, the gangs who did experiments on children. Don't tell me that's wrong?"

Nezu heard his reason and sighed,"But why did you not send them to prison? Why not give them a second chance?"

"Second chance? Those trash has connections in the upper echelon, and would easily get out of jail only to continue torture and experiment on people again. And even if they don't, how would they repay the lives that they had ruined and killed? So tell me, do they deserve a second chance?" Shido's usual smile wasn't present on his face anymore.

Shido knows that there are a lot of problems in society, and no one could ever fix them all. But the one thing he cannot tolerate are tortures and experiments on children. Children were the source of innocence and naivety in this cruel and black world. If even the pure is tainted, then the world was as good as gone.

Eri was one of their subjects and victims. If he had not saved her that fateful night, he could not imagine what would have happened to the cheerful and outgoing girl.

Children were supposed to be pampered, loved and cared for. Of course, there are exceptions as well, but most children should receive those treatments. People who abuse them for their own sick desires or needs deserve more than just death.

Nezu and Shido stared at one another for a minute before Nezu sighed,"Nevermind, you can go for the test now."

Just as Shido was about to leave, Nezu's voice rang out,"I'm only going to say this once, so remember it."

He turned to look at Nezu who was currently looking out the window.

"This matter will remain anonymous and unsolvable for the time being, with the excuse of 'lack of evidence and suspects'. But the moment the evidence points to you, you'll have to quit the school, do I make myself clear?"

"They won't." Shido answered confidently, his smile already returned to its rightful place on his face.

"Good."

*****************

Shido soon made his way towards the room where he would be taking the written test. He entered it and found a desk in front of her, positioned in the center of the room with a pen and a questionnaire above.

Nemuri, who had been waiting for a while, looked up and said,"This is the room where you will take the test. When you pick up the pen, a timer will start, and after exactly an hour, your test will conclude."

Afterwards, as she left for the door, she continued,"If you need anything, call me in the next room and I will arrive as soon as the timer is finished." As soon as she said that, she licked her lip seductively and winked at him before leaving the classroom.

"..." Shido was speechless at her actions towards a ten year old boy, but did not pay any further attention to it. He watched Nemuri enter a room, closing behind her immediately afterwards. He decided to enter the room as well, starting the test.

The test wasn't difficult at all. There weren't any true or false or correct or wrong answers. The questions were mainly aimed at seeing the examinees' true thoughts and psychology. It was geared towards what kind of hero you are, or aspire to be and therefore, to understand your character and personality.

Seeing it, Shido decided to compile it in a good way. In a case where he knows that the answer that he provides would be considered an 'extreme' answer, he would change it slightly so that it could 'match' with the expectations of people. Not too much that it became completely false, but enough to ensure that he wouldn't be considered 'abnormal'.

In this way, after a precise hour, Nemuri entered to check the situation and nothing that Shido had finished, she nodded and said,"Perfect, come with me. We're taking a bus to the next test site. As for the test, leave it on the desk."

Therefore, Shido started following Nemuri again. This time, however, she was taken out of the institute where a bus was present. Nemuri subsequently got on the bus and with her was Shido. The first thing he saw was that inside the bus several teachers were seated, the same teachers that were previously in the meeting room.

Seeing this, Shido thought,'The teachers will look at me during the exam to judge me, or...they would be the ones I have to face.'

Shido thought that he might be facing robots, but then again, no pro hero would do badly against a robot, much less the rank 0 hero. So that possibility crossed out of his mind, leaving the possibility of him fighting against the teachers.

And he was correct. Nemuri revealed the answer. Truly, a robot wouldn't be able to verify the skills of a person who would become an assistant professor. And thus, for this reason, they decided to organise this.

Shido stepped out of the bus and found himself in front of a city, complete with many skyscrapers, apartments, parks and malls. The bus had stopped inside a square, positioned below all these buildings. Around the place, there is a circle made of metal, suspended through metal pillars.

Seeing the place, Shido was amazed at the money they had. Building an entire neighbourhood just to test the fighting skills of students was something he could not afford, even with the non-existent salary of a rank 0 hero coupled with his concerts.

Furthermore, Shido recognised the place. In fact, it was the Underpass in Shinjuku in the city of Tokyo.

Seeing Shido observing his surroundings, the pro hero, Snipe said,"The field test will take place here."

"How will it be done?" Shido asked.

Before Snipe could answer, Present Mic already offered the answer,"Shido-san, you will be placed in a situation where you will have to face a group of robbers who had barricaded themselves inside a building, with some hostages."

Seeing that Shido was listening intently, he continued,"Your test consists of two parts. You will have to save the hostages, and put the thugs out of the game. In this case, we heroes will do both of heroes and the hostages."

Then, giving double thumbs-up, he said out loud with excited air,"Cool, right?"

Cool...Shido cannot confirm it. If it was anybody else, the situation would have certainly been challenging. But in front of Shido, the hostages might as well be non-existent. In front of his shadow manipulation, as long as they are shadows around, hostages would be easily saved.

So the main challenge in this test would be the fight against the hero. The question is, who would be the heroes he would need to fight against?

And which quirk should he use? He didn't want to use everything; it would be overkill. He wanted to use the minimum number of quirks, so that when principal mouse looked at the recording of his test, he would be forced to have even more speculations.

"Yoshinon, wouldn't that be fun? Leaving behind clues to keep others guessing what our quirks are." Shido smiled as he said to his rabbit on his left hand.

Yoshinon didn't reply as he was busy chewing an apple, but his head was nodding and a smile could be seen on his face.

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A/N: Any good light novels with female yanderes to recommend? Something like 'What is a yandere?'. What do you think of having Yanderes in DxD world?

And if you're wondering, yes. I used Throne of Time to write these few chapters. Sue me.

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https://www.patr eon.com/spirits_everywhere