Chapter 43: Trial of battle (I)

"Hey, did you hear about how we're going to start a new course this afternoon?" A tall, lean young man with chin-length black hair, spiked downwards, with jagged bands coming about halfway down his face asked.

"Yes, I heard that today, we would start the course with All Might." Said a boy with a muscular build, hair that was reasonably short and dyed a bright red spiked away from his head at all angles forming spikes.

"I cannot wait for it to start." He continued, closing his eyes with excitement.

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

Before noon, the entire class went through the day like any other ordinary school. The first period was an English lesson taught by Present Mic or Yamada-sensei. The second period was a Mathematics lesson taught by Ectoplasm-sensei before they headed over to the grand mess hall to sample some first-rate cuisine for cheap.

Finally, after a lunch break, the lesson which all the students in 1-A looked forward to...

"IT'S MEEEEE...THROUGH THE DOOR, LIKE A NORMAL PERSON!"

"I can't believe it! All Might really gonna be teaching us!!!"

"That design's such a silver age! The art style clashes so much it's giving me goosebumps..."

Once he reached the podium, he started talking."There is no time to waste because the course I am teaching will make you real heroes...and as the first lesson..."

"The trial of battle!" The hero exclaimed again, showing a ticket to the class.

At this point, Shido, who usually stayed behind the class to ensure that they were all doing their work and not causing trouble, spoke up, "And to go with your first battle...what do heroes need?"

To the question asked by Shido, all the students answered without even a second of thought, "A hero costume!"

All Might immediately point a thumbs up in the direction of the students and said, "Exactly, so we prepared the gear we had you send in requests for to match your quirks! Get changed, and we'll be ready to go! Everyone gather at Ground Beta."

Right after his words, four strips appeared on the wall, each containing five briefcases, which in turn had the costumes required by each student when they entered UA.

"The garb you bring into the battlefield is vitally important, boys and girls! And don't forget, the moment you put them on, you're all officially heroes!"

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

At Ground Beta, Shido and All Might were already there, waiting patiently for their class to arrive. All Might was in his classic hero costume, while Shido wore an... impressive outfit, to say the least.

He was currently wearing a white shirt underneath a sizeable green raincoat with a tail with a pink ribbon attached to it, with a pair of a rabbit-ear hood. There were triangles at the unbuttoned raincoat's edges and has long sleeves that entirely covered his entire hands. There were also bunny eyes made with large buttons at the end of the ears located at the top of the hood.

Yoshinon was currently on his left hand, chewing on an apple.

[A/N: If you can't imagine, just search Yoshino's spirit form. It would show her green raincoat, which is precisely the same as what Shido is wearing.]

To be exact, it wasn't really a human-made costume. Shido could change into different types of costume if he wishes to do so. His current form/appearance was a costume that complemented Yoshinon, who was on his left hand, both being rabbit-themed.

As time passed, he discovered what his quirk could genuinely offer. He had already found the different costumes he called 'Astral Dresses' for each weapon he could summon. But he had the feeling that he still had more to uncover, more weapons to summon, but he did not know how to. For now, he could only continue pushing his limits in hopes of discovering his potential.

Clearly, it wasn't the first time he had shown this form, seeing that All Might did not particularly react to his costume. However, his eyes could be seen moving to Shido's figure every once in a while.

'No matter how many times I see it, he still looks so cute...' Under that calm expression, All Might was currently thinking. 'I wonder how many of these costumes he has under his quirk.'

[A/N: All Might is not a pedophile, so don't worry.]

It couldn't be helped. Shido was naturally as cute as a twelve-year boy could be. Coupled with his cute rabbit raincoat, he was eye candy for both men and women alike.

"Seems like you're very talented at giving inspirational speeches." Shido complimented him genuinely. He wasn't a very social hero. After all, he did

what he needed to do with speed and efficiency.

He was not required to comfort and assure victims that everything was fine. The job was left to All Might, who could quickly calm people down with just his smile.

"Truly, the symbol of peace."

"It's a lot of pressure, you know? All the expectations that are placed on us, all the hope that we carry on our backs." All Might just sigh at Shido's words, but he accepted the compliment since he knew he was a natural at giving inspirational speeches.

"Not really, no. Unlike you, who have been in this business for decades, I have been saving people for less than five years. And unlike you, I don't really care about what people think of me. If they see me as a villain, so be it. I'll still be saving people whether they like it or not. If they see me as another symbol of peace, then so be it. I wouldn't reject it, but I wouldn't accept it either."

At this point, Shido glanced at All Might, who was deep in thoughts. "You, on the other hand, accepted the job as the 'symbol of peace'. You placed yourself in this situation."

"You're right. I placed all this pressure on myself. However, if I was given another chance, I wouldn't change a thing. Everyone needs a symbol of peace, and if no one could take up the mantle, I would gladly do so to instill hope in people. Because only with hope can society function the way it currently does. Without it..."

All Might didn't finish his sentence, but Shido knew what he was about to say. The duo didn't continue their conversation and just waited for their students to finish changing, and not long after, they arrived.

Shido took a look at their outfits. They were all pretty good and necessary, enabling them to use their quirks to their highest potential. Well, apart from Shoto, of course.

Shoto had what appears to be a material resembling ice covering his whole left side. 'A way of rejecting his left?' Shido didn't pay any further attention to him. If Shoto continued rejecting his left and limiting his potential, he would soon fall behind the others and then be forced to change. It wasn't a matter of if, but when. Sooner or later, he would be forced to use his left.

'Well, we have a long time together, after all.'

He then shifted his attention to the explosive boy. Katsuki had two grenade-like structures attached to both of his arms, which helped collect and store his nitroglycerin-like sweat. Once filled, he would pull the grenade pin to release a large blast, temporarily increasing his battle prowess.

Although Shido felt that he looked a bit villainous with the multiple grenades hanging around his waist and the sizeable inconspicuous X across the middle, he didn't mind it. As long as the outfit helped utilize their quirks to their highest potential, he wouldn't even care if they were carrying a nuclear missile around.

'There's no point of having an outfit just to make you look cool if it doesn't do anything to help you.'

He took a quick glance at the rest of the boys and saw some of the most basic outfits ever. Rikido wore a yellow full-body suit, covering his body's entirety, the only exceptions being the holes around his mouth, each of his eyes, and his hair. He wears white gloves and boots, and a utility belt around his waist, small quantities of sugar stored inside its pouches.

Mezo wore a tight blue tank top, six white markings resembling eyes, connected at the top to a darker, more indigo-colored mask. He had a belt with another, larger eye shape embedded into its center, this time yellow, below which he wears slightly baggy trousers to match his shirt, two darker lines running down the sides of his legs, and indigo boots.

'Pft...' Shido couldn't help but snicker when he saw Izuku's costume. He alternated his sight between All Might and Izuku and felt that they were pretty similar at this time. Both had the same rabbit-like features and had the same smile. Or at least Izuku had a respirator with a makeshift smile on it that reflected the smile of All Might.

All Might had a hard time stifling his laughter, and if one looked closely, they would be able to see All Might's smile twitching uncontrollably.

Shido looked at the girls' costume now and saw a scene that would have captivated many men.

There was Momo, with her very revealing outfit, Mina and Tsuyu, whose costumes showed their curves and Toru, completely naked. If not for Raphael's innate ability to sense the wind currents passively and acting as a radar, he wouldn't even have realised that Toru was present.

Unfortunately, Shido was just a twelve-year-old boy and did not have much interest in them or their bodies. 'Eri is still cuter.' Shido nodded his head as he compared them internally.

Of course, he didn't dare to compare them outrightly. He knew women were competitive about it, and he wouldn't want to be in the middle of an argument about women.

Unknown to Shido, the girls and some of the boys were looking at Shido with earnest eyes. The only reason why they weren't pouncing on Shido and tightly cuddling him was due to his status as a teacher. If Shido wasn't a teacher and wasn't required to give him his due respect, they would have pounced on him when they laid their eyes on him.

His slightly childish yet mature expression coupled with his rabbit-like outfit proved to be a dangerously cute combo.

A few seconds have passed as they all admired one another's costume or ogling them in some people's case before All Might let out a cough and started speaking.

"All of you look fantastic! Now, it's time for combat training!"

Tenya, who in the meantime looked around in his robot-like suit, asked All Might, "Sensei! This would seem to be the same ground on which we carried out our entrance exam. Would this mean that we will do cityscape maneuver again?"

All Might shook his head, put his hand forward and then raised two

fingers to indicate the number '2'.

"Not at all. Today, you will go to phase number two..."

"Indoor anti-personal battle training!" All Might continued after a few moments of pause.

"Or at least it should have been..." He said embarrassedly.

The students hearing this revealed a confused expression.

All Might saw how the students looked confused and coughed before continuing his explanation, "You see, after talking to another teacher, we decided that the first challenge will be precisely against a teacher. This is to make you realise what could happen every time you go on a mission."

Every single student opened their eyes to the new, and then, after a few seconds of silence, they shouted, "We don't have to face you All Might, do we?!"

All Might revealed a smile, made a small laugh and then shook his head.

"Not at all. The teacher you have to face will be Shido." Thus indicating Shido, who was there to look from aside with a smile.

All the students took a breath of relief, listening that Shido would be their opponent.

This was human nature. Unless shown in front of their very own eyes, they would refuse to believe otherwise. They still did not know who Shido was and only knew he was a kid. And by their logic, a kid will always be a kid no matter how strong he was. To them, it would be much easier compared to fighting against All Might.

If they knew that Shido could fight evenly with All Might and even suppress him if he chooses to use everything in his arsenal, they would have vastly different thoughts. Unfortunately, they don't.

All Might, seeing the gesture of the students, made a slight smile. Shido had an even larger grin than usual, seeing their sigh of relief.

'They look down on me, huh? Time to play with these kids.'

'They can't imagine what awaits them...' All Might thought to himself as he looked at Shido's large grin.

"Anyways..." All Might continued, "The situation will still be the same as we planned before the current changes. There would still be two teams, the bad guys and the heroes."

"Now, each of you will extract a piece of paper from here." All Might stated, but noticing how everyone started asking questions on questions, he immediately looked at a note on which he marked things.

"Okay, above each paper, there will be a letter, and the letters will be in pairs. So there would be two A or two B, the people who have the same letter will team up and whoever took the letters A and B will team up to face Shido."

Seeing that they had a slightly uncomfortable face when he mentioned that four people will be up against someone younger than them, he smiled a little but didn't say it and just continued.

"Let's start..." All Might said, holding out the box from which the students subsequently extracted the various numbers.

Team A Pair: Shoto Todoroki, Izuku Midoriya

Team B Pair: Tenya Iida, Katsuki Bakugo

All Might subsequently announce the results, but Iida, noticing this composition, immediately raised his hand.

"Sorry sensei, aren't these compositions against us too?" Apparently, he had noticed the angry look Katsuki was currently giving Izuku.

All Might nodded at Tenya's question and then answered with a smile, "The heroes have to face everything in every possible situation. This also means teaming up with people with whom you do not have a certain affinity. Remember, there is no such thing as impossible. Every situation is possible."

Then, after a cough, he continued, "As I have said before, the heroes will have to try to catch a villain who has just finished an exchange of dangerous weapons with another group. Either that or take the case containing the weapons protecting it from the villain and bringing it to the delivery point."

"Remember that the villain can once again take the case once you have captured it, so you have to always be careful what is going on around you. This is my advice to you." All Might concluded with this.

Tenya raised his hand to this, "This means that we will have to face Itsuka-sensei inside an enclosed space, but why?"

"Battles with the bad guys are always seen outside, but statistically, the most dangerous villains and criminals appear inside closed spaces most of the time. So there could be all kinds of cases."

Seeing that the students no longer had any questions, All Might said, "Well, I see that you have no further questions. So let's move on to the practice immediately. What do you say?"

At All Might's question, the students nodded. In this way, All Might, together with the students, went to the test site.

Arriving at an intersection, Shido, who had remained silent the whole time, said, "The two teams that will have to face me come this way, the others can continue to follow All Might."

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

"Do you see that building over there?" Shido indicated a nearby building to the four people behind him.

Looking at where Shido pointed, the four nodded, then Shido went on to say, "That is where you will have to deliver the briefcase, while that building is the field of action." Shido indicated another building.

"Are you ready?" Shido asked them.

At his question, the four students nodded thoughtfully, apart from Katsuki, who just casually nodded his head. A teacher was still a teacher, no matter how weak (they thought) he was. They needed to take this seriously.

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

In the meantime, the students and All Might positioned themselves in front of the screens on the wall.

"Quel spectacle, sensei, so we will see this battle from here?"

All Might nodded at the question asked by the boy with long blond hair and then said with a smile, "Exactly, Aoyama shounen, we will soon witness the battle between Shido and groups A and B."

"Sensei, will Itsuka-sensei be okay?" A muscular young man with pale grey hair swept forward and covered most of his face asked.

"I heard that Todoroki-kun is the son of the second hero in the ranking, Endeavor, and Izuku is ranked first in the public examinations..."

All Might did not immediately answer the question asked by the student. He was looking at the screen that featured Shido. Shido stood still, waiting for the two groups at the moment with a briefcase on his feet.

"You know..." All Might started by saying, "to enter UA as a student, you must either pass the public exam or have a recommendation. However, to be a teacher..."

"One must either have a professional hero license or take a much more difficult than the first option, and when I say difficult, it truly is nigh impossible."

Then with a smile, he turned his gaze to the students, who, in turn, looked into his eyes and continued, "Shido is the second option. Although he is a professional hero, he didn't become one true the conventional way. His way of becoming one was...a bit more...weird."

"Weird in what sense? And we still don't know what his hero name is." Tsuyu asked bluntly. Shido's identity wasn't made public, so unless one had the influence and connections similar to the Yaoyorozu family, they wouldn't know that Shido was the rank 0 hero, Phantom.

"Do you know who has risen up in the ranking in the past five years?"

"Of course! Who else apart from the mysterious Phantom had climbed up the entire ranking board?"

"Then do you know why he was originally rejected to have his name on the ranking list?" All Might continued asking.

Seeing that the students remained silent, he said, "He was rejected because he wasn't officially recognised as a 'hero'. Perhaps the more accurate term would be 'vigilante'. Phantom started helping people without a hero license, and of course, the government did not like that and started hunting him down. However, after two years of fruitless endeavors, they gave up catching him since he was too powerful. They couldn't even find him, much less trace him down. And if they managed to find him by chance, all of their attacks would just phase through his body."

Gasps of surprise could be heard among the students except for Momo, who knew all of this long ago.

"Yep, Phantom was voted by the civilians to be the rank 0 hero, not the government. By now, you can probably guess what Shido's hero name is."

Momo nodded her head. She tried to research a lot about Shido and his past but could not find out anything from before five years ago. She hoped that she would be able to find out in the future.

After the initial surprise, Ochco asked another question, "Sensei, can you explain more about the second method to be a teacher in UA?"

A few other classmates also turned to look at All Might. They were all interested in how Shido became a UA teacher despite being younger than them. Now that they knew his hero name, no one dared look down on him any longer.

Unfortunately for the four at the battle area, they could not listen in to the current conversation, causing them to lose out on much important information.

"He had to face five professional heroes whose combination could allow them to get the better of practically everyone. Not only did he finish the mission set by the commission, but he also utterly pounded all five heroes for good. It was a one-sided slaughter..."

Pausing for a few moments, he continued, "Not to mention the fact that the strongest hero from UA before I came in was within that five-man group."

What All Might said amazed everyone. They would never have expected that Shido, a young boy and much more youthful than them, was already so monstrously strong.

As All Might turned his head back to look at the screen, he couldn't help but think back at what happened two years ago...

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A/N: In my opinion, there are three types of writers/authors present on this site.

1) The type of gives extra chapters on festive seasons (which we all like).

2) The type that gives no shit to anything and continues on with his schedule (which we all don't mind).

3) The type that takes the day off and stops writing because it is a festive season (which we all hate).

So, as I'm type two, I'm not going to give you extra chapter, but I'm going to increase the length of today's chapter.

Have a happy, merry Chistmas!

If you want to support me or/and want 14+ chapters in advance, link:

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