Our Teacher is a Devil (Youjo Senki x BNHA)

[AlyrLin]

Ugh, the presence of being X in any crossover story with Tanya always feels weak to me. I love stories that shape around Tanya's mental ingenuity and hard-earned skills, a holdover of a so called god shadowing her and just waiting for a prayer always feels like a cop-out and like a narrative dead end. Cross overs already present plenty of strife without the need of being x, the 'mental pollution' kills character development imo.

 

[Qaw]

That may be due to my own frustration with the slow pace

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We either have very different perspectives or you just have an author bias. You're only 50k words in and you've already got halfway in several plot and character arcs, took Tanya from a new sub teacher to a promotion, and introduced several different factions.

Compare this to... I don't know what stories you read, and I don't want to badger you with giant tomes like Dungeon Keeper Ami. A Young Girls's Guerrilla War, a currently running excellent Code Geass cross is 120k words and some main characters haven't even entered the scene yet. A Young Girl's Quirky Retirement, which is also a BNHA fic (funnily enough also featuring Tanya x Himiko,) which had excellent pacing before dying, went to 55k words and didn't reach high school.

So no, your pacing is not slow. In fact, you may be speed-running some things to get to your already written scenes.

The best thing would have been to flee and recuperate which was impossible due to Himiko being missing.

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Oh, I doubt Tanya would be fleeing even without Himiko around. After all, it could affect her image! That doesn't mean charge in through a mine-field like a crazed berserker. Again, there are several very different criticisms I am giving you. When I question what was preventing Tanya from generating blades without disrupting the Nemu, or even straight up ignoring jackass's warning because he's already been wrong once and she doesn't believe him, it is one thing. (And the issue still stands.) But when I say that you haven't sold Tanya to us, that refers a lot less to any specific action (though those count) and more to the image of Tanya, shown through the itty bitty details like the style of your writing and word choices and tiny actions that are extremely difficult to show without proper editor work.

- I truly think that Shigaraki did not plan this whole scnerio out. He is a rather impulsive person who by random chance decided to take his revenge "now" despite being freshly healed and with an unstable Nomu.

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I think it is him finding her that quickly is the question, not the planning. Considering that Himiko was his trusted asset and he would've totally ranted to her about 'oooh Imma gonna get her when I find her'.
But not the biggest deal overall.

- Himiko could have acted better, but the love of her life was nearly killed in front of her by the man she despises the most in the entire world. I explictly brought up her mental instability in this chapter for that purpose and you will see more in her own POV of the situation.

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Replace Himiko with any other character that had the love of their life nearly killed in front of them by a man she despises the most in the entire world and see what changes. As a thought exercise. That is, again, not a plot hole. It is literary criticism, and I may even be wrong on this specifically. I just, personally, see very little 'Himiko' there.
Not sure why we'd need a POV switch.

- Why would she check the tourist with a camera? She would have to check hundreds of people per day then. Even so, what is there to check? Her quirk is not technomancy.

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-Because she's already been treating her job like a low-key warzone. Lemme tell you, having to watch for every passing civilian to keep their distance with you because they might grab for your gun gets really exhausting really quickly. You still try to do it because you don't want to be easy meat.
-Has recently been almost killed.
-Has been privy to making hero ambushes
-Has already had several embarrassing pictures taken
-Has several recent rumors floating around already
-Doesn't want her date stalked
She could've checked that it was not a news crew, and relocated with Himiko to a different table that isn't as visible from outside.

 

[DariusBlack]

You naturally leave a chapter on a high point to lead the reader into the next. That is basic and good writing you should have learned in school lol

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I'm going to assume this is directed to the point about cliffhangers. What I'll tell you is that that is only true when there is a next chapter to move to. In narrative episodic series, it's a lazy writing technique, because it's intended to force the reader to come back to have a satisfying conclusion to a story arc or beat, instead of letting the piece rest on its own merits. Its generally looked down upon in scholarly literary criticism, even if it works extremely well from a marketing perspective. And I learned that in Creative Writing in college, so I'm pretty sure that's accurate.

 

[Vanbers]

You naturally leave a chapter on a high point to lead the reader into the next. That is basic and good writing you should have learned in school lol

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While not a writer myself, that seems more for chapter to chapter things. Not book to book ones.

Like, it's good to lead into the next chapter when the next chapter exists, or will imminently exist. When the next chapter does not exist, and may not ever, it is more frustrating that anything else, especially when it happens repeatedly. It's a quirk of the typical fanfic method of writing, going update-by-update. Leaving every chapter ona cliffhanger gets tiresome and makes people less invested because the cliffhangers never feel resolved.

Cliffhangers are useful writing tools, but overuse, as with every other kind of tool, is bad.

It's important to keep in mind the intrinsic limitations of the update-by-update writing style used in most forms of fanfiction/quests.

I'm going to assume this is directed to the point about cliffhangers. What I'll tell you is that that is only true when there is a next chapter to move to. In episodic series, it's a lazy writing technique, because it's intended to force the reader to come back to have a satisfying conclusion to a story arc or beat, instead of letting the piece rest on its own merits. And I learned that in Creative Writing in college, so I'm pretty sure that's accurate.

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Basically what this dude says.

They're definitely useful, and not inherently bad, but just a tool. And like all tools, it has it's time/place to be used.

They're just also typically the most overused kind of tool because they're a cheap and easy way to get people hyped for the next chapter. They're not so bad in something that updates very frequently, but in other things overuse leads to people just... not bothering to keep reading, because there's never that ever-so-important catharsis that comes from the conclusion to one, since there's always a new one when they're overused.

Just posting this little rant because I've seen far too many promising fics/writers where I abandon them due to overuse of the trope. Then again, I could be an outlier and overly whiny/bitchy. /shrug.

TL;DR Cliffhangers can be useful, but lose usefulness depending on how long before the reader can get to the conclusion of that cliffhanger (i.e. the next chapter), and require catharsis from completing/concluding the cliffhanger, instead of just ending on another one.

 

[Greatazuredragon]

Time for the annoying ROB X to make its appearance!

 

[Winchester]

I may be alone in feeling this way, but this chapter felt narratively unsatisfying to me. I'm struggling to pin down why (aside from the frustrating cliffhanger, which is a terrible writing technique that is seriously overused at this point), and the best I can come up with is that I don't really think the loss was 'earned'. It's realistic, in that I could see it happening logically, but narratively it seems like there was next to no buildup, and this came immediately on the tail end of the battle at the sports festival. I think the story could have used more breathing room between the League of Villains attacks, as well as more foreshadowing about Shigaraki stalking Tanya. I don't really care that she effectively 'lost'. I just wish the route to her loss was longer and better paved.

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Shigaraki being a sore loser who'd do anything to get back at the person who maimed him was fairly obvious and "patient" was never an adjective I associated with Shigaraki from the manga (at least up to this point, I stopped reading half way through the "rescue Bakugou" arc because I ran out of manga and then never picked it back up), and I spotted at least two hints that someone was following them in the text (the "pretty bird" that Himiko mentions when she changes the subject after Tanya threatens her with a refresher course, and the "paparazzi").

It may be that I'm reading this right after the previous four chapters, but I didn't feel like it was rushed...

I am sincerely curious as to what form the "answered prayers" end up taking though - Hero interrupt, Villain Interrupt, or surprise Type 95 in her hand...

 

[TheGrog]

They were being followed in the forest, I think. Note that 'pretty bird' that Himiko mentions. That's how they knew where Tanya was.

 

[Ibskib]

Nedzu

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I believe it should be spelled Nezu, at least that's the official translation. The different spelling you kept using kinda bugged my internal spellchecker, and took me a bit out of an otherwise enjoyable story.

 

[Morte_Perpetua]

I believe it should be spelled Nezu, at least that's the official translation. The different spelling you kept using kinda bugged my internal spellchecker, and took me a bit out of an otherwise enjoyable story.

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Look at how the tag is written on AO3. There is no "correct" version.

 

[Ibskib]

I don't really think AO3 tags, or any tags for that matter, should be considered arbiters of what is correct spelling.
Your story is the first MHA story I've come across that uses that spelling, so even at best it seems like a minority choice and therefore 'less correct' which hurt the reading flow.

Maybe I'm the only one it bugs, but for me at least the story would read better if it was fixed.

 

[Organmonkey]

I don't really think AO3 tags, or any tags for that matter, should be considered arbiters of what is correct spelling.
Your story is the first MHA story I've come across that uses that spelling, so even at best it seems like a minority choice and therefore 'less correct' which hurt the reading flow.

Maybe I'm the only one it bugs, but for me at least the story would read better if it was fixed.

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It looks like it's the literal Japanese character translation. Nedzu is closer to the name as written in Japanese while Nezu is closer to the name as said.

 

[Morte_Perpetua]

I don't really think AO3 tags, or any tags for that matter, should be considered arbiters of what is correct spelling.
Your story is the first MHA story I've come across that uses that spelling, so even at best it seems like a minority choice and therefore 'less correct' which hurt the reading flow.

Maybe I'm the only one it bugs, but for me at least the story would read better if it was fixed.

Click to shrink...

There is nothing to "fix". It is a different interpretation at worst.
And I just checked the 3 most popular MHA fics on AO3 and they all use "Nedzu". We are talking about millions of readers and hundreds of thousands of words here. Are you really saying that I am in the minority lol?

 

[Venyr4434]

Please tell me that Tanya does not have a Loli body. That she is a grown woman, just short, like 5'1 short.

 

[Stillness]

If All Might shows up to save the day I'm going to be disappionted.

 

[TodaBruh]

[More information is available by following this link to our website.]

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Ha! I learnt that link by heart. You won't fool me!

 

[Morte_Perpetua]

Chapter 18

Himiko's life had always been controlled by others. Her parents were the first who came to see her as merely a monster that needed to be leashed. Then came her teachers who forced her to sit silent and still, work hard, study stuff that interested her not in the slightest and scorned her should she ever fall out of the range of what they perceived as 'normal'. Other children in her school had not been much better. They were vicious and cruel whenever they believed they could get away with it, so Himiko had to hide even more of herself in order to not be singled out for being 'freaky'.

The urge to just let the mask slip and be free grew stronger with every day that she was starved by the alleged experts who told her to 'simply ignore the thirst' at the back of her throat no matter how nauseating it became. Countless nights she spent crying into her pillow at night, because the desire to drink was unbearable. Back then she did not want to disappoint her parents who thought her to be finally 'cured'.

Now she understood how heartless and self-absorbed all these adults really had been. Her plight was merely an inconvenience for them. Nobody cared who she actually was and what she required to live a happy life. Perhaps someday she could have learned to tune out the constant agony and dizziness, found a boring, fruitless job and slaved away with a hollow smile on her lips. That certainly would have made her begetters proud.
Fortunately the one time that Himiko took her fate into her own hands turned out to be the best decision she had ever made.

Running away from her prison, blinded by the desperate, all-consuming need for blood she found the shining hero whom she had yearned for. If following this angel meant that she was about to be bound in even thicker chains then she would gladly do so and that was exactly what happened. Once again most of her life was beyond her control as she was used as a tool for faceless bureaucrats in service of obscure goals.
Yet she never regretted it.

Together with Tanya she felt free and unburdened. Because they could see each other face to face and be themselves in a thousand little ways. Because they had each other's back in spite of a dangerous and uncaring world. Because Himiko's personal hero was capable and strong, unbroken by the cold brutality of the HPSC. No obstacle was too great and no enemy was too strong for her. Regardless of how many times her senpai emphasized that she was not invincible, Himiko was of a different opinion.

Fate however, in its endless ironic mockery, decided to prove her wrong today.

Everything went perfectly. Together they went out into the woods and then found a super cute cafe. She even managed to feed her love a piece of cake! In public no less! And that was where she had made her first mistake.

Without her insistence on fooling around, Tanya would not have been distracted enough to be caught off guard by that Nomu. Normally Himiko would have relished the smell of such sweet blood, but in this case it made her so sick that she wanted to bite her tongue off. How she had to watch for the briefest moment how her beloved's entire left side deformed under the blow of that accursed beast broke her heart into tiny pieces.
And it was entirely her fault!

The sun of Himiko's existence, her reason for living, had gotten hurt directly because of her!

She tried to make things right and put that fucking bastard into the grave, but her incompetence messed it up again!

If she had been a split-second faster... If she had been more composed and thought her situation through like Tanya hammered into her mind after every lesson... If her hatred had not compelled her to strike right there and then... If she had been better...

Then things would have turned out another way.

It was purely her fault.

Hers alone.

She brought shame on her beloved by being too weak when it mattered the most. An angel fell from heaven today, because of her greed. What a horrible disgrace...

Now, as a last shame, she would soil her senpai's eyes with her pitiful death. Shigaraki was a pathetic pushover who should have been as easy to split open from chin to belly as a gutter rat. How could she be overwhelmed by a man-child like him? No way...

Himiko refused to let her years of suffering be in vain!

She would not lie down and take this humiliation!

She would defy the expectations placed upon her by the world!

She would fight back and wrestle for control over her own destiny!

She would avenge her beloved even if it was the last thing she ever did!
Tanya taught her that there was always another option if one searched hard enough. Those rough hands which held her in place were merely part of a human being and all humans possessed exploitable flaws. What could she do, naked and pressed to the ground?

A slurry of thoughts raced through her head, all the while her hands tried to find purchase against the stone of the street. Seeing Shigaraki's hand close in on her face renewed her strength to struggle free, but it was not sufficient to throw off the guy on her back.

In a last vengeful attempt to get back at the man who she despised more than anything else, she stilled her movements and drew her neck in as far as she was able to. Judging from the sneer on his ugly, cracked lips he believed that she was avoiding him to buy herself another second at life.

How wrong he was...

There was only one continued existence that held any importance to Himiko in the world.

And it was not hers.

With her eyes searching a last time for her senpai, she lunged forward, her jaw nearly unhinging itself by how fast she opened her mouth to bite down on the dusty fingers coming her way!

What she had not expected was for everything to suddenly erupt in golden light.

~[#҈#]~
​

Time appeared to freeze for one Tanya von Degurechaff.

A few leaves which were swept up in the summer breeze were stuck midair.

Terrified passersby remained standing in place, holding their poses like a horde of carefully arranged mannequins.

Long ago the sight of such a motionless world would have filled her with impotent rage and loathing. Now she could only feel indescribable relief. For once the cause of this anomaly was not appearing at an inopportune moment to bring unwelcome news, but was rather called by herself in desperation. She had been unsure if her distressed pleas would work, if her thoughts could even be heard over the ether or if the entity she was trying to reach cared enough to respond.

After all, they had made peace with each other and vowed to never meet again.

"You surprised me, my child."

There it was again. A voice made up of a million other voices speaking in harmony. Utterly inhuman and simultaneously a culmination of humanity as a whole.

Tanya knew not how to respond, so she nervously awaited whatever judgement was coming. There would be a price to pay, yet she was determined to bear it; for what was living if not constant sacrifice?

"Indeed." chuckled the formless voice. "Nothing good usually comes without consequences. You showed that to me in an impressive display of courage. Do you remember what happened next?"

How could she not?

The war... the dreadful war... the Great War as the historians called it, had neared its end. Savaged and mutilated the nations fought themselves to a mutual loss. Nothing prevailed and nobody except those far away from the slaughter profited. It was a disgrace. Nearly one hundred million men, women and children wasted to satisfy the pride and greed of a few short-sighted elites. A billion more would feel the impact of this global travesty for the rest of their lives, be it in lost friends and property or wounds and sickness.

At the end, only fields of ash and ruins of former grandeur stayed behind. Broken husks, hollowed out by raging fires and violent explosions reached to the skies with long, blackened fingers as if they were begging for divine intervention to save them from this man-made hell.
Help that never came.

Tanya saw the famished peasants crowd inside the churches in hope of deliverance! She smelled the festering wounds of her fellow soldiers entreating to be forgiven for their sins and released from this mortal coil! Cries of faith from the charging enemies were still as fresh in her memory as the sermon of the military chaplain making his rounds through the hospital!

If Being X wanted her to believe...

If he was willing to give her extraordinary power in return...

If he granted Mary Sioux magic capable of toppling mountains for the purpose of testing her...

Then why did his help not extend to those who were actually deserving of it? Those that praised him with all their heart and fully entrusted their souls to his care? Where was he when his loyal followers had to feast on garbage and began to rot from the inside out?
What was the glorious reward for their devotion aside from additional suffering?

During their last meeting she asked him exactly that. Before he could answer she had followed up with an even more burning issue:
What made her so special that she was exempt from this neglect?

Tanya never saw herself as anything special. In her first life she was an ordinary human who was particularly unlucky enough to encounter a being beyond her comprehension. Before that however she took control of her life as much as she was able to. College, working her way up the corporate ladder, bettering herself... it all served to secure her standing and not get trampled under the heavy boot of society.

Her second one was no different. Riding the wave was preferable to getting washed away with it, so she joined the army and tried her damnedest to become irreplaceable to the general staff. While not working as intended, her plan succeeded and she climbed the ranks of the ruling social order again. Every person with common sense would do that. Purely the advantage of her reincarnated knowledge gave her a leg up above the competition.

Hence arose the question, why was her fate more of a concern to Being X than that of others?

His little experiment to see if he could convert her was meaningless. When he was not willing to support all his believers then concentrating on a single individual would change nothing in the long run. She compared this fallacy to a CEO who underpaid his workers, but tried to raise company morale by forcefully relocating one of them into a luxury villa without food or water. No one would be happy about that and ultimately the boss was wasting money on underutilized real estate.

Contrary to how she had worded it during the last moments before her male body was crushed by the incoming locomotive of the Tokyo train station, Tanya did not abhor the concept of god's existence itself. What got under her skin were people who claimed credit for achievements they did not commit. Laziness, narcissism and baseless entitlement were sins she could not tolerate.

Should God bring about actual value for society then she would happily repay his service with a form of worship of his choosing (appropriate to the amount she benefited from it of course). However, letting humans do the work and then requiring them to laud him for that was disgustingly abusive, comparable to the Yakuza squeezing protection money out of innocent citizens.

Choice needed to be free and unhindered on an open market. If god wanted to be competitive then he better provide the best deals around and if he wanted to be fair then he had to be accepting of people who selected other options that they liked more. Monopolies led to stagnation which was probably why religion was failing nowadays.

Oh, how she had ranted on that moonlit night...

Impassioned arguments between the two of them were the norm rather than the exception, but surrounded by the devastation of their collective failures all pretences of personal pride were lifted. Together they had brought a calamity to these lands, feeding the flames of destruction in their own ways. For what?

The voice of her supernatural acquaintance continued: "I saw into your soul and noticed the change to it. Although I regret what I have done to you, I also appreciate how you have grown from that tragedy. Many would consider the difference miniscule, yet for me the disparity between the man you once were and the woman you are today is like heaven and earth."

Well, he was certainly the only person who could draw such comparisons, so Tanya accepted his evaluation without resistance. It would have been illogical if the circumstances of her multiple lives did not have some sort of influence on her. Humans were malleable creatures, as demonstrated by her voluntarily praying for the first time ever.

"Yes, that is true. But I doubt you have invoked my name to reminisce about the past or discuss philosophy. What is it that you require assistance with, my child?"

Anger briefly flared up inside her, because he made her spell it out despite the obvious reason for her despair.

"Toga Himiko, my... friend... is in grave danger. I was reckless and overconfident and I alone cannot prevent her... demise. Please, save her."

Admitting her powerlessness physically pained her.

"My, my... It seems your heart has finally thawed near-completely. You yourself are in quite the precarious position; don't you want me to help you too?"

"I... will find a way."

"Oh, I know that you are strong. Of that I have no doubt. To defy me year after year was as impressive as I found it annoying back then. Luckily for us both, we could come to an agreement, right?"

Unbidden memories of her orphaned childhood and the relentless training under the HPSC rose in her mind. Being X made it sound like he did her a huge favour when in reality her feelings on this new life were far more mixed.

"Yes. But I was under the impression that you promised to not purposefully make me suffer." she remarked perhaps a bit too passive-aggressively.

Unaffected by her indirect accusation the indescribable voice appeared to smile.

"That was the deal. I also said that I would bring you to a world like your home. The Empire as well as Japan had left their marks on you, so I gave this planet elements of both. You wanted to retain your experiences, which meant that you were reborn in a similar body as compensation. I admit that I took some... creative inspiration with your quirk from the computation magic you were already familiar with, but there were no malicious intentions behind its creation. Anything else is pure coincidence or a result of your actions."

Unfortunately, he was most likely sincere. Deflecting blame would get her nowhere anyway.

"I know. It was my responsibility as her superior to keep Himiko safe and I failed at that. Please give me a chance to make things right."

"Ahh... And what would you be willing to pay for your friend's wellbeing?"

"Anything." Tanya answered without hesitation.

"Fascinating... I could have never foreseen you putting anything above your own life. I am proud of you."

What? Being X was proud of her?

"Truly. You showed me the error of my ways; that I must be equal in the dispersion of my love and cannot force anyone to reciprocate my feelings. Now, after decades of war and crime have you understood that there are more important things than merely continuing your existence."

"I was never that simple-minded."

"Of course not. Yet at the centre of all your plans stood always your survival. Often you have helped others, but only for selfish gain. This is your first absolutely one-hundred percent altruistic choice and choices are the most powerful aspect of mortals."

"Hmph. So what is your price? My soul? Praying twice per day? A body-part? Founding a church?"

"Far simpler, my child. I want you to remain on this path. People who are supposed to act in the interest of the Greater Good, who put themselves in the line of fire and protect the innocent, are called 'heroes' here. A true hero fights for those weaker than them, sacrificing their all regardless if they get rewarded or not. Basically, try to do what is right."

How was that any simpler than just setting up a charity for a church building? This was suicide with extra steps! Then Tanya remembered why she was having this conversation in the first place and her resolve instantly steeled itself. Her friend's companionship would make the upcoming trials hopefully bearable.

"I swear I will do my best to live up to what the concept of 'hero' is meant to be."

A satisfied presence enveloped her being, wrapping around every cell of her body like a warm blanket.

"Then go forth my Harbinger of Justice! Let me awaken what was inside you all along!"

Shining lightning flooded her nerves, burning her, remoulding her, improving her.

And entropy resumed once more.

~[#҈#]~
​

[OMG OMG WATCH THIS OMG] was the extremely descriptive title of the stream Sero had linked in the group chat.

Toru opened the video feed mostly because she was bored and whatever had excited the duct tape swinging boy so much was probably more entertaining than her English homework that she still needed to finish before next week.

A window popped up on her phone and she wondered what in there required three 'OMGs'. All she could see was some villain- oh...

That was the hands guy from the USJ; the same man who attacked them a second time at the sports festival. And he was threatening a young girl.
Oh, no.

Her invisible hand cramped around her smartphone, accidentally raising the volume of the stream. The audio quality was abysmal, but it was enough to make out what he was saying.

"- mean something to you? Your girlfriend, ey? Hehe... I'll make her suffer. Like you made me suffer!" he grinned and Toru feared for the worst.

Where were the heroes to stop that fiend? Her eyes were glued to the screen, despite the overwhelming urge to glance away and spare herself of the scene that was sure to follow.

"Noooooo!" screamed a familiar voice and it only took Toru a split-second to recognize the face of her diminutive, blond teacher, now restrained by some giant ball of black goo. The normally composed and collected woman looked so different that she would not have been able to identify her without hearing her voice.

Ms. Argent's bloodied mouth hung open, her eyes were widened in terror and she fought against her slimy prison with animalistic fury. None of her usual calmness was present at the moment and that made the whole state of affairs even scarier. Their teacher had lost control of the situation and was about to witness the torture of her girlfriend.

Toru felt like she was being choked. This was beyond horrifying.

She wanted to vomit as all her fears came true. The civilian's entire face melted into sludge while the grey-haired villain withdrew his hand quickly.

Wait... Why was there another face underneath?

Strangely enough, it appeared that the criminal responsible for the shocking reveal was as bewildered by this outcome as her...

Soon after a completely new person laid in a puddle of unidentifiable slosh. Blonde hair, yellow eyes and fairer skin were the main differences of the transformation. However, the hands-wearing man seemed to recognize this individual now for some reason.

"Blood Dancer? What are you doing here?" he asked, barely audible over the howling of the wind through the microphone.

"GO TO HELL!" roared the unknown girl with an almost tangible amount of venom carried by her voice.

"Don't tell me... You're with that bitch? No way..."

Did they know each other? How? Wasn't this a friend of Ms. Argent?

"Let me go! You pig! You disgusting fuc-"

"SHUT UP! You're a shitty traitor and I can't tolerate this!"

Toru was highly confused, but the fact that her teacher was still trapped by a murderous psychopath made these finer details look irrelevant. The villain flexed his fingers again, obviously going in for the kill and the invisible girl was not ashamed to admit that she nearly began to cry at the sheer helplessness of the situation. Whoever this person on the ground was did not deserve such a fate.

Meanwhile, Ms. Argent's wide, disturbingly expressive eyes seemed to glaze over for multiple seconds, making her abrupt motionlessness appear like she had just died herself. Then, in the time it took for Toru to blink, those same cerulean orbs started to glow ominously with golden light. More blinding beams exploded outwards from her form as she ripped herself free and blurred across the street.

Walls of shining energy slammed into the gathered villains, throwing them away like ragdolls. They crashed into the destroyed shop window where they would certainly land on many unpleasant pieces of broken glass.

It went too fast for the Toru to properly track, so she could merely observe the aftermath of her teacher's blitz strike. Only when the intensely shining hero fell to her knees to examine the girl who had been an instant away from dying could Toru make out more features of her appearance.

Besides the mesmerizing golden light, cascading in radiant waves around her like some set of magical armour, Ms. Degurechaff's wounds were the first to draw attention. Her left arm bent in places it should not have been able to, only held in place by the barrier surrounding it, and a fresh gush of blood steadily leaked from the corner of her mouth. No doubt more grievous injuries were hidden behind the sheen of pulsating energy that obscured her body.

Regardless of her own constitution though, the hero bent forward and gently cradled the victim in her embrace. Heavy breaths racked her chest, yet she still managed to carry the strange girl in her unmistakably broken arms. With nary a glance in the direction of her downed opponents she took off and flew out of range of the camera.

For the next minute nothing happened before the feed cut unexpectedly off.

Alone in her bedroom the static of her speakers was deafening for Toru.

[Holy shit]

Toru jumped in surprise as the ping of a new message alerted her to the group chat.

[uihriffewhfgkdds]

[What the hell]

[This can't be real]

[WTF]

[I don't know what to say]

[It's on TV!!!!!]

A torrent of similar expressions was shared by every online member of her class. Numbness was spreading through her chest as she realized that what he had seen was not some weird dream, but reality.

[Guys at the end... Was that a new quirk?]

[Wow]

[As if]

[Maybe?]

[No I think it was a Quirk Awakening]

That was from Midoriya, their resident quirk expert and the biggest hero nerd she ever met. If anyone in 1-A knew what was going on then it would probably be him.

Shaking herself out of her stupor Toru hesitantly typed: [What is that?]

[Yeah never heard of it] added Kaminari.

[I also only read about it in textbooks, but under extraordinary concentrations of emotional stress, quirks can evolve into more powerful versions of themselves. It is very rare and I have never seen it happening, but that is how it looks to me.]

Man, how could he type so fast?

[Cool]

[I am more interested in who that girl was] wrote Mina.

[Shigaraki seemed to know her which means she is a villain]

[Is that the name of that guy?]

[What]

[Why was she together with Ms. Degurechaff then?]

[Have you forgotten that she was disguised]

[You think a villain impersonated Argent's girlfriend????]

[OMG]

[No way]

[Are you all ignoring that our teacher nearly died just now?] posted Todoroki in a rare fit of talkativeness.

[Yes]

[No, but what are we supposed to do?]

[It's not like this is something new]

[]

[She survived and we should be happy for that]

[I will buy her a bunch of flowers]

[Yeah let's!]

Toru put her smartphone down and sank deep into thought. Becoming a hero meant that she could end up in a spot like that. No, she would definitely experience something similar to this attack someday. Would her family, her friends also get drawn into the crossfire?

Would she, the invisible girl, the forgotten one, be able to stand such perils?

Especially without super-strength or speed to rival a sports car?

Did she even want that?

 

[Terrabull]

I know it is silly.

Why do I imagine Tanya's new evolving is going to be called "Being SEX"?

 

[JD.Forums]

Interesting thing with being X I didn't expect you to handle it like that!

 

[Morte_Perpetua]

I know it is silly.

Why do I imagine Tanya's new evolving is going to be called "Being SEX"?

Click to shrink...

I have no idea how to reply to that honestly. I will most likely not do smut if it does not massively add to the story. (I hope that answers any questions you have regarding this topic XD)

 

[WeissSaber]

You think a villain impersonated Argent's girlfriend???

Click to shrink...

Lol, they still think Toga isn't Tanya's girlfriend.

Tanya willing to sacrifice anything for the one thing that matters most in her life, even call on being X and put her all to following the path of a hero. That's commitment (also love that she still thinks it's friendship)!!!

 

[DarwenGwein]

Did she even want that?

Click to shrink...

Man, I love me a fic that'll actually make these kids ask that question. Nice work on the dialogue with Being X; it's a rare treat to have Him and Tanya come to an agreement.

 

[Morte_Perpetua]

Man, I love me a fic that'll actually make these kids ask that question. Nice work on the dialogue with Being X; it's a rare treat to have Him and Tanya come to an agreement.

Click to shrink...

Thank you! On the risk of sounding pretentious... I want to explore the psychology and of MHA more to give a more "real" take on how it sctually feels to live in that world. The show has dark themes, but the tone is still very happy (which I want to keep) but shining a more critical light on hero society is pretty interesting for me

Lol, they still think Toga isn't Tanya's girlfriend.

Tanya willing to sacrifice anything for the one thing that matters most in her life, even call on being X and put her all to following the path of a hero. That's commitment (also love that she still thinks it's friendship)!!!

Click to shrink...

Slow burn is the best burn hehe
(Although I am going pretty fast with the relationship development already because I am terribly impatient lmao)

 

[Terrabull]

I am curious how the relationship between Tanya & Himiko will develop in the Future.

Tanya was down, then Fought On, body broken & bleeding to bust through the enemy to carry the girlfriend away.

I admit I had no real reason beyond using the "Being X" Evolving to "Being SEX" except being silly.

 

[Dragonslayer Ornstein]

So Tanya is a Valkyrie now? Sick.

 

[FallQM]

Great chapter as always. I did not expect to see Being X get involved I thought that it would be something like Hawks but I am satisfied with the narrative shifting around being X you have displayed in this chapter.

 

[Akuma-Heika]

I have no idea how to reply to that honestly. I will most likely not do smut if it does not massively add to the story. (I hope that answers any questions you have regarding this topic XD)

Click to shrink...

For some reason, I read this and the image of the Teen Titans Go Starfire speaking the line: "The Betrayed" popped up lol

 

[JOJOBRN]

I have to admit, I did not expect to see the story going in this direction when it suddenly disappeared on sb (I was happy to see it again, though).

 

[guisniperman]

I did not expect Being X to receive character development. It's a nice surprise.

 

[wasprider]

Enjoyed this greatly.

 

[Draconikan]

Just found this over here, and I'm glad to see it still going.
I have to say, I was very impressed with you having Aizawa apologize for his accident, and Tanya's response; too often do things like that get glossed over in fanfics, so seeing it addressed appropriately was positively delightful.
Regarding the recent events, I am curious to see whether Tanya's "Argent d'Or" (sorry; heraldry joke) transformation is temporary, permanent, or conditional.
Also looking forward to the Hero response to this: law enforcement tends to be hypersensitive to off-duty personnel being targeted. Ah, the dilemma; at what point does justice for the justice system become base revenge? What will the Heroes let themselves get away with? I love it when hero stories get to this point.