[The Fox and the Hare] Chapter 23 - End of the first term (Patreon)

Chapter 23 - End of the first term

The news of yet another UA High freshman student dying shook the entirety of Japan. However, this time around, the blame could not be placed on the school because the victim had been in the middle of his internship with a Hero Agency. Furthermore, it wasn't only Teniya Iida who lost his life; his patrol partner, Pro Hero Manual, was killed by Stain too, and Pro Hero Native lost his life as well.

Having already killed 20 people, of whom one was a child, and permanently crippled another 24, Stain's brutal end at the hands of Mirko, the Rabbit Hero, did not raise any complaints from the public at large. After an innocent child was killed once again by the villains in the span of two months, even the organizations of nutjobs advocating for the Villains' human rights were not crazy enough to directly denounce Mirko's use of deadly force and kept their silence instead. At least for the moment.

The killings that had happened over the week dampened the 1-A class students' excitement about being reunited with their friends and classmates when the internship period ended. Even the more easy-going ones like Kaminari and Kirishima could not simply look past what happened anymore. It was still only the first term of their first year at UA High, yet two of their classmates were killed by villains. Furthermore, unlike Mineta Minoru, Teniya Iida was a serious and responsible boy, and he had a powerful quirk. He had been the class representative too.

⁂

Pro Heroes Native and Manual died in the line of duty.

Hero Killer critically injured Pro Hero Ingenium and also killed his younger brother, Teniya Iida.

The Rabbit Hero, Mirko, battles and kills the Hero Killer.

The Rabbit Hero is rising up the rankings once again, right behind All Might and Endeavour.

[...]

The one-week-long internship with the Rabbit Hero ended, and another week passed since Naruto came back home, but the mass media in Japan was still furiously discussing the events from two weeks ago. The death of one of the worst serial killers in Japan's recent history was a hard-to-exhaust subject, and the fact that he also killed a young aspiring hero fanned the flames of mass media's interest further.

Whereas before quite a few people on the internet openly talked about their admiration for Stain's ideology - that of eliminating fake heroes - very few dared to say the same things nowadays after the Hero Killer showed that even children weren't spared by his blade. On the contrary, Teniya Iida's death gave birth to a new movement where people started asking for harsher punishment for villains, with many demanding a higher number of death penalty sentences for villains and shorter death row waiting times.

'But this isn't something that can be done that easily. Unless villains commit some large-scale atrocities, the laws won't change any time soon,' Naruto thought, putting his smartphone back in his pocket.

Turning his attention to the children frolicking in the playground, his expression involuntarily turned into a smile when he saw a white-haired little girl sliding down a slide and laughing out loud when she collided against another girl ahead of her.

Little Eri had missed Naruto terribly when he had been away on the internship, so now he was doing his best to spend more time with her. As the end of May came closer, so did the term exams. Therefore, Naruto wanted to give Eri attention now, when he still had some free time. In a few days, he would have to start cramming for the exams, and he would barely have any free time left at all.

"Naruto-nii-san, come play with us!" Eri let out a shout, making him grin at how adorable she was.

Wearing a short-sleeved pink dress with a big cat motif on the chest, dark blue tights underneath, and a diadem in the shape of rabbit ears on her head, in Naruto's biased point of view, little Eri was the cutest girl in the world, ever. He could not refuse her whatever she asked.

In the next few minutes, the playground's level of noise increased by several folds as the children's squeals of excitement could hardly be contained. All of them would climb onto the highest level of the playground house and then jump off for Naruto to catch them. They loved it especially when he caught them with his fluffy fox tails.

"Ow!" a child suddenly let out a cry. While rushing to the highest level of the playground house, the little boy missed a step when climbing up the stairs and fell.

As the kid started bawling his eyes out, his mother quickly rushed out to see what had happened to him.

"What happened, sweetie? Are you alright? Let mommy see what happened," the mother said and took him in her arms before going to the side of the playground and sitting with him on a bench.

The boy was cradling his left wrist with his right hand and crying out loud, clearly in pain. But kids getting injured at the playground was nothing uncommon, especially among boys.

"Oh no, I think he sprained his wrist," one of the mother's friends said from the side.

"Thank god it wasn't something worse," the mother said while caressing her son's head and embracing him in an attempt to soothe him.

But while the boy was still crying a river from pain, Eri came close and told the mother.

"Obaa-san, I could heal him with my quirk!"

"Eri! No!" Naruto said, startled, but before he had the chance to stop her, the horn on the side of her forehead glowed with a yellow light, which then engulfed the boy's entire hand and forearm.

"Huh?!" the little boy gasped and abruptly stopped crying. "...It doesn't hurt anymore?"

The parents and the children alike all crowded around the bench where the mother and the son were sitting, all of them gawking at the boy who was rolling his wrist in amazement.

"...Oh, man!" was the only thing Naruto could say, and he groaned as he made his way through the crowd to take Eri away.

⁂

"Whoa! My son is wayyy too cute!"

"Naruto-nii-san is the best!"

"But Eri-chan is even cuter! Mom is so proud of how you helped that boy!"

"Really?"

"Really! You're the most adorable girl ever!"

Not long after Naruto and Eri returned home, a video of what happened at the playground had already popped up on the profile of one of Kushina's friends on CrossChat.

Hearing his mother and his little sister gushing over him was not a new occurrence for Naruto, and while it was, in general, in equal measure, both embarrassing and endearing, this time he covered his fox ears with his palms and let his head fall on the desk with a thud.

A few moments later, he stood up and opened the door of his bedroom before yelling:

"Mom! I'm trying to study here! You're all being way too loud!"

"Sorry, Naruto-chan," came Kushina's voice from downstairs, but she was obviously unapologetic. To further prove that, Kushina and Eri started watching the video again, their voices not any less loud than before.

Naruto closed the door to his bedroom in annoyance and let out another groan. The term exams were only a month away, and he had yet to cover at least half of the material he was supposed to study!

Whether it was his previous life or his current one, he had never been good at studying. He wasn't exactly the dead last in his class this time around - he was spared of that shame thanks to Mina Ashido and Kaminari Denki, who looked like they were competing for the dead last and second last positions, respectively. Nonetheless, he was still on the lower end when it came to his grades in regular classes, just above Yuga Aoyama, who was the third last. It was low enough for him to worry about failing.

Seeing as his mom and his little sister were in an especially good mood today, he reckoned they weren't going to pipe down the noise level any time soon. That, combined with his laziness and inborn aversion to studying made Naruto give up on cramming for the exams at the moment. Instead, he changed into his sports clothes and grabbed his gym bag.

"I'll go to the gym and get a good workout first. I'll study when I get back, in the evening."

Spoiler: he didn't study at all when he came back from the gym.

⁂

While Teniya Iida's death at the beginning of the month left his classmates in shock, two weeks later, things were back to normal for the most part. At the end of the day, people couldn't mourn the deceased forever, especially if they weren't even that close to begin with - they weren't family, they were just classmates.

These days, most of the students seemed to have moved on and were preoccupied with other things. Those who hadn't quit UA High after Mineta Minoru's death at the beginning of the year had already resolved themselves to become Pro Heroes no matter what. Teniya Iida's unfortunate demise did not convince them to give up on their dreams. It only served as a warning and a reminder of what they were going to face on their paths. All Might in particular had noticed a stark difference in 1-A class students' motivation and earnestness during their Combat Classes.

In the present, they were stressing over their normal struggles as teenagers - for some of them, it was their studies, while for others, it was their social life and romance. Ashido Mina was part of the latter category. Although she was in danger of failing her term exams, the girl had something completely different on her mind.

"Ah, he's so dreamy!" she said wistfully as she watched a clip on her smartphone.

Kyoka Jiro and Uraraka Occhaco were standing next to her too as they watched the video together with her - it was a video of Naruto playing with the little children at the playground yesterday. Considering his popularity, people's interest in him was off the charts. The moment that the parents who had filmed the scene posted their clips on their profiles, it quickly went viral. Only a day later, those clips were shared all over social media.

But then Jiro blew out a sigh and told Mina:

"Just give up, girl. You've seen that pic of him and Mirko too, haven't you? It's a lost cause."

She was talking about the photo that Mirko had posted on her social media account with Naruto giving her a piggyback ride with a caption that said 'Stamina training with my first pupil'. Suffice to say that the tabloids had a field day with that one. It was only due to the far more attention-grabbing things that happened - the whole Hero Killer fiasco - that Naruto and Mirko's close relationship wasn't talked about more.

"We're underage, and she's way older than him! I'm sure there's nothing of that sort between them!" Mina said stubbornly.

"Not yet," Kyoka retorted, and Mina glared at her. "But seriously, you should leave that for now and focus on studying. You're really going to fail the exams at this rate, you know that, right?"

Unlike Mina, who was dead last, Kyoka was in the 7th place on the midterm rankings.

"Ahhh, why do you have to remind me about it?!" Mina said while pulling at her pink hair in frustration. "Nevermind that; how come it's only now that I find out he had a little sister?"

"Is she really his sister? They don't look much alike," Occhaco said.

"I just asked Naruto about it and he confirmed it," Kaminari suddenly butted into their conversation and said. "His parents adopted her not long ago."

"What was that quirk, though? Did you see it? She healed that boy's wrist instantly!" Kyoka said in amazement.

While they were talking about the video and Eri's quirk, Naruto was in his seat alone, wearing a custom-made pair of headphones, and reading his English textbook. There were only a few weeks left before the exams, and he was close to panicking. English and Maths were the subjects he was the weakest at.

'Then again, maybe it won't be that bad to fail?' Naruto said to himself.

If he failed, that meant he would have to come to remedial classes during the summer holiday - which would make him unable to participate in the training camp the school had planned out for the first-year Hero Course students. And he was quite okay with that.

'I'd rather stay home and dote on Eri-chan and help Izuku with his new quirk,' Naruto said to himself.

But then he shook his head as if to banish those thoughts. Doing that would just mean taking the easy way out. Besides, he couldn't afford to slack off. The training camp was a good opportunity for him to receive direct guidance from the teachers on how to further develop his quirk.

'All Might's days as a hero are numbered. I need to get stronger before the chaos that will come once he retires.'

Having come to that decision, he stopped daydreaming and returned his attention to the English textbook in his hands.

⁂

While UA High's students were cramming for the term exams that were only a few weeks away, several hundred kilometres away, a white-haired youth was dealing with far more pressing matters. He was screaming hoarse with rage, and the skin on his neck, face, and forearms was an angry shade of red and marred with nail marks and scars all over.

"It's all because of the damn Heroes!" Shigaraki screamed, and the nightstand at the side of his bed suddenly collapsed into a pile of dust on the floor. "All Might! The Rabbit Hero! Uzumaki Naruto! Damn them all! I'll kill them all! I'll destroy them all!"

His yells became inhuman as he started aggressively scratching his neck with both hands.

"Cut it out! You're mutilating yourself!" someone shouted as they entered the hospital room with a syringe in their hands. It was a slightly overweight old man with a bald head and a bushy moustache.

"I'm in a very shitty mood now, doctor, don't get in my way!" Shigaraki yelled and swung his hand towards the doctor who was trying to inject him with another serum.

However, two nonhuman beings suddenly grabbed Shigaraki by his arms and pinned him down to the bed. As the doctor inserted the syringe's needle in his neck and injected the serum inside, the white-haired man's struggle became weaker by the second until he finally fell asleep.

The doctor wiped his forehead with a handkerchief as he left the patient's room and returned to his lab. As he took a seat in front of his supercomputer, a deep voice came from its speakers:

"What are the results? Is he going to recover?"

"I'm afraid not. The injury to his spinal cord cannot be fixed with orthodox methods. Unless we reconfigure his body and give him a self-regeneration quirk, he'll be stuck in a wheelchair for life. But his mental state is too fragile currently, he won't be able to handle a second quirk."

For a moment, the voice at the other end of the speakers was silent.

"Has he not calmed down yet?"

"No. I was forced just now to give him a sedative. He is hysterical."

A deep sigh came from the speakers.

"There is one other method," the doctor said. "I have been informed about a young girl with a very potent healing quirk, one that can be used to heal others. By the looks of it, it seems to be similar to Recovery Girl's quirk."

"I sense a 'but'. What's stopping you from acquiring it?"

"There are too many eyes on her family at the moment. She is Uzumaki Naruto's adopted sister. In the current circumstances, after the Hero Killer's deeds, if anything were to happen to any of them-"

"Are you worried about the population's outrage? Since when has that held any weight for you?"

"When cornered to the extreme, even the sheep would fight back against the wolf," the doctor said pensively.

"Shigaraki Tomura is a piece too important for me to care about such trivial things."

"What about Uzumaki Naruto?" the doctor asked. "I have not forgotten about what he did to the Nomu we had created to counter All Might. The rest of the Nomu that we have at the moment wouldn't stand a chance against him. Nothing short of a High-End would be enough to guarantee victory against that freakish boy, but they are still far from ready."

A few seconds passed before the voice spoke again:

"There is no need for you to attack Uzumaki Naruto's family head-on. Make use of Kurogiri. With his ability, you could kidnap the girl covertly without exposing yourself or the Nomu. According to our spy at UA High, the 1-A class will have a training camp in the woods during the summer holiday. You can strike at that time to remove all variables. With Uzumaki Naruto away from home, there will be no one left to protect the girl. Kurogiri should be more than enough to handle his quirkless mother and his weak father."

⁂ One month later ⁂

"Now, we will begin the practical exam," Professor Aizawa said, and the students all cheered. "Before you start celebrating, keep in mind that you can fail this exam too. If you want to go to the summer training camp, be sure not to make any stupid mistakes."

It was the beginning of July, and with the written exams out of the way and only the practical exams left, the students of the 1-A class were already half drunk with the smell of the summer holiday.

"We'll be fighting robots again, won't we?" Kaminari asked in high spirits. "This is going to be a piece of cake!"

Others, like Mina and Occacho, were already celebrating at the thought of all the fun they were going to have during the holiday, especially at the training camp.

"Unfortunately for you, this year we decided to give you a different exam," the principal, Nezu, popped out of nowhere and said. "From now on, we want to focus on person-to-person combat, hero work, and stress teaching that is closer to actual fighting. Therefore, we'll have you form teams of two to fight against one teacher!"

The new development threw the 1-A class off completely. They had expected an easy practical test where they could go wild against robots. Quite a few of them did not even look at it as a test but more as an opportunity for them to let loose and use their quirks without holding back in fear of injuring someone.

"The pairs have already been decided," Aizawa said. "These were determined at my discretion based on various factors, such as fighting style, grades, and interpersonal relationships, as follows:"

"First, Todoroki and Yaoyorozu are one team, and they will be fighting me."

The teenagers in question both gulped at Aizawa's menacing grin.

"Ojiro and Kirishima will be fighting Cementos."

"Tsuyu and Tokoyami will be fighting Ectoplasm."

"Uraraka and Aoyama will be fighting Thirteen."

"Kaminari and Ashido will be fighting Nezu."

"Shoji and Sero will be fighting Snipe."

"Kyoka Jiro and Uzumaki Naruto will be fighting All Might."

"The time limit for the exams is thirty minutes. Your objective is either to put these handcuffs on the teacher or to have one of you escape from the stage."

When he heard about the teams and the professors they were going to face, Naruto immediately understood the criteria used to split them up. It looked like everyone was going to face the professor against whom they'd have the most challenging time.

At first, when he saw all the professors gathered in one place and heard the principal's words about the new practical exam, his greatest fear was that he would have to fight against Professor Mic. But the reality turned out to be even worse: he would have to fight against none other than All Might while also having Kyoka Jiro on his team, and she was no different than Professor Mic in terms of how bad was their compatibility - she had already knocked him out once, at the beginning of the year.

"God, I'm so screwed!"

AN: Just a reminder: Mineta and Iida are dead. Bakugo was expelled. Rikido Sato, Hagakure, and Koji Koda quit after USJ.

Another reminder: Mirko kicked the shit out of Shigaraki at USJ. Now, he is paralyzed from the waist down.