The campus medics wheeled Izumi and Katsumi toward Recovery Girl's office while Cementoss stepped into the ruined building.
Walls shifted.
Broken support pillars rose from the ground as fresh cement flowed through the fractured corridors.
Within minutes, the worst of the structural damage had been stabilized.
All Might clapped his hands together.
"Excellent!"
"The building is safe to use once again!"
The students straightened.
"Our next match will now begin!"
The monitor flickered to life.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
TEAM B
Shoko Todoroki
Mezo Shoji
VS
TEAM I
Aoyama
Toru Hagakure
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Several students turned toward Aoyama.
"So you're up next."
"Good luck."
Aoyama smiled as he stepped forward.
"Lucky me."
Beside him, Toru nervously adjusted the sleeves of her trench coat.
"I've... never actually played the villain before."
"It feels kind of wrong."
Aoyama chuckled.
"Think of it another way."
"We're not villains."
"We're simply the final obstacle the heroes have to overcome."
Toru blinked.
"...That actually makes me feel a little better."
All Might pointed toward the repaired office building.
"Young Aoyama! Young Hagakure!"
"You'll begin inside with the mock bomb."
"The heroes will enter once you're ready."
"Understood."
The two walked into the building together.
A few minutes later...
The reinforced office floor was quiet.
The mock bomb sat in the center of a spacious conference room.
Toru looked around nervously.
"So..."
"What's the plan?"
Aoyama slowly circled the room.
His eyes traced every doorway.
Every window.
Every air vent.
Every blind corner.
Then his gaze shifted to the Slime-Biot resting in Toru's hands.
A translucent panel appeared before him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Quirk Analysis Complete]
Target: Toru Hagakure
Quirk: Invisibility
Scan Progress: 100%
Genetic Archive Updated
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
A satisfied smile crossed his face.
"Well..."
He held out his hand.
"First, I'd like to have my pet back."
Toru tilted her head.
"...Huh?"
"Oh!"
She gently placed the tiny Slime-Biot back onto his palm.
"There you go."
"Thanks."
The little green creature crawled back onto Aoyama's shoulder.
He turned toward the doorway.
"We defend the routes leading to it."
He pointed into the hallway beyond.
"If they reach this room..."
"We've already lost."
He crouched beside the entrance.
"Heroes always think about the objective."
"So naturally, they'll rush toward it."
He looked back at Toru.
"I'd rather they never find the correct path."
"...You're setting traps?"
"Exactly."
He stood back up.
"If we head down a few floors, I can station clones throughout the building."
Blue mana gathered around his hand.
He pressed it against the doorway.
The mana solidified into a translucent blue barrier, sealing the entrance.
"...Like this."
Toru's eyes widened.
"My clones can create barriers to block hallways and stairwells."
"The idea is to seal every route leading up here."
He folded his arms.
"But there's a weakness."
"My clones become weaker the more of them I create."
He lightly tapped the glowing barrier.
"If someone finds the clone maintaining this barrier and lands a solid enough hit..."
"The clone disperses."
"The barrier disappears."
"They continue climbing."
"So I can't have my clones fighting them directly."
"They need to stay hidden."
He looked at Toru.
"And that's where you come in."
"...Me?"
He nodded.
"I'll admit..."
He smiled sheepishly.
"This plan might fail completely."
"We could end up wasting precious time."
"But I think it's worth trying."
Toru listened carefully.
"You see..."
He gently stroked the Slime-Biot on his shoulder.
"There's something unusual about my pet."
"...Or more accurately..."
"...about this aspect of my Quirk."
"It allows me to copy some of my abilities..."
"...and temporarily share them with someone else."
Silence.
Toru stared.
"...You can..."
"...give people additional Quirks?"
"Not permanently."
"And only certain abilities."
"But yes."
Her jaw slowly dropped.
"That's..."
"...that's incredible."
"And terrifying."
Aoyama chuckled.
"That's why I'd appreciate it if you kept it a secret."
She nodded automatically.
"Of course."
She blinked.
"Wait..."
"If you give me your cloning ability..."
"Won't everyone watching realize something's going on?"
Aoyama smiled.
"How would they?"
She tilted her head.
"...Huh?"
"You're completely invisible."
"The cameras won't see multiple copies."
"They'll only see..."
He gestured toward where she stood.
"...nothing."
Realization slowly spread across her face.
"Oh..."
"So they'll just assume there's only one of me."
"Exactly."
As if responding to Aoyama's thoughts, the Slime-Biot suddenly shimmered.
Its green body faded.
Within seconds...
It disappeared completely.
Toru gasped.
"It turned invisible?!"
Aoyama nodded.
"It copied your Quirk the moment I lent it to you."
"Sorry about that, but now. It's able to stay hidden while it transfers my cloning ability to you."
"No one in the monitoring room will see a thing."
The invisible Slime-Biot quietly slipped from Aoyama's shoulder.
Neither the classroom monitors nor the security cameras showed anything unusual.
From everyone else's perspective...
Only a single invisible Toru Hagakure stood beside Aoyama, discussing strategy before the match began.
For a moment before a grin spread across her face.
"...You know what?"
"I'm actually getting pumped up!"
She clenched her fists excitedly.
"This plan might actually work!"
Then she glanced at the invisible Slime-Biot.
"...Though..."
She scratched the back of her head.
"I still don't really like that your pet copied my Quirk without me knowing."
She sighed.
"...But..."
A smile returned to her face.
"I'll forgive you if we win All Might's class."
Aoyama laughed awkwardly.
"To be fair..."
"I didn't even know it could do that."
He glanced at the invisible Slime-Biot.
"I only knew it could copy my own abilities."
He shrugged.
"Maybe..."
"It just liked you a lot."
It was a complete lie... Every single bit of it.
The Slime-Biot was simply following his commands.
Fortunately, Toru didn't seem to question it.
"Aww..."
"That's actually kind of cute."
She clapped her hands together.
"Alright!"
"Let's not waste any more time."
Without another word, she slipped off her long trench coat and folded it neatly against the floor.
Next came her gloves.
Then her boots.
Within seconds...
Nothing remained but a neatly folded pile of clothing.
To anyone watching...
Toru Hagakure had seemingly vanished from existence.
Aoyama smiled.
"Already on it."
He glanced toward the invisible Slime-Biot.
"This girl's already been scanning me since this morning."
"I'll just have her prioritize the Quirk you need."
Another translucent screen appeared before him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Quirk Analysis in Progress]
Target: Aoyama Hikaru
Quirk: Silver-Double
Scan Progress: 87%
Priority Updated
Current Objective:Silver-Double
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The invisible Slime-Biot gave a tiny, affirmative wiggle before silently continuing its work.