My Swarm Academia: Call Of The Void

Surprisingly, the threat of academic demerits appeared to be effective on Bakugo. Instead of trying to one-shot Deku again, he went in for close combat. This time, instead of pure rage that was easily countered by Deku's knowledge of Bakugo's style, he showed his own talent for battle. He used new moves and Deku's own knowledge against him, changing things up and hitting him with a barrage of blasts and punches powered by explosions. Now, even as they criticized his actions, so unbefitting of a hero, the class could admire his talent and battle sense.

But even though he was anxious about the outcome, little made it to Kai. He was working. At this point, someone was likely to die, and it would go down on All Might's head. While he was okay with All Might falling, he couldn't simply sit back and do nothing while Deku died.

He had done a lot of experiments finding and expanding on his limits. While it was easiest to think about using his power from his hands, what made it different from a foot? It was convenient to think he had to use the direct surface he touched, since that was what always happened, but why would that be the only way? Why couldn't he reach further?

Kai's mother had taught him from the old stories, from the time before Quirks. The time where people only dreamed of superpowers. When they had tried to figure out how they would work in real life. Ever asking questions about the hows and whys. That had been the only way forward. Now Quirks made those questions almost impossible to answer, and so the asking went quiet.

But Kai had always been taught to not trust what "everyone" said. Whether it be to not ask more questions about Quirks, or that a superpowered society was as wonderful as they thought.

Or that All Might was the greatest hero that ever lived.

They all lied. He was not worthy of the name. Not even the title of hero.

Not to Kai. Not anymore.

Teacher? Even less so. He clearly couldn't be trusted with his students' lives, so it was up to Kai.

Kai prepared his Quirk, his eyes glowing a brighter purple than before. He was channeling a lot of energy down through his foot to the floor, and then further. Struggling to keep it from dispersing, he fed it as far as he could, trying to reach up to the fight. He couldn't send a Zergling running up, with the way the building was set up, it would take too long.

Besides, zerglings didn't have much in the way of nonlethal options. But Kai did have one, if he could summon it directly into the fight.

Upstairs, Deku was running for his life. Having found an opening to break Bakugo's combo, he ran. With a determination that was hidden by his fear, he ran. But of course, with his opponent's speed, he couldn't possibly get much of a lead.

The final confrontation was coming. The clock was ticking down, but not fast enough to prevent these last attacks. Equally slow was Kai's Quirk. Seeing that Deku had stopped running despite having room, Kai knew that he was reaching the levels of desperation that would call for using his Quirk. He dropped to the floor and channeled energy through his hands, hoping that it would be fast enough to finish the job. There was just one floor to go….

All Might saw Deku's determination and, hearing the determination of both Deku and Bakugo, realized that it was time to intervene. While it had been good for their development, things were getting too dangerous. If Deku's power was directed at Bakugo, it would be messy, to say the least. He reached for the intercom microphone.

"Attention both teams," he started. But it was too late. Before he could finish saying, "The match is suspen-" they were already charging at each other. At that same moment, the floor next to the point they would collide started to ripple. Kai had a migraine just from the effort that it had taken to get there, but he had finally made it. Perhaps he could still do something and save them….

And then, against their predictions, Deku's fist changed course, turning to punch upward through the building. The observation room shook again as a hole was punched through all the floors above the Deku and Bakugo's fight. Everyone was stunned as in the ensuing chaos, Uraraka drifted across the resulting chasm and took the objective. The match was over, and everyone was fine.

Kai sighed in relief and dismissed the monster he had been summoning. Neither Deku nor Bakugo even noticed it, as it had barely emerged before sinking back into the floor without a sound. Kai started to laugh. A lot of it was relief, but some of the laughter was directed at himself. Of course nobody was going to die up there. Deku had shown restraint the entire time, even with Bakugo's unbridled killing intent hitting him the entire fight. Bakugo had shown that he was at least sane enough to not go for the gauntlet's one-shot-total-annihilation move again. Deku just didn't have it in him to reduce Bakugo to a fine mist of blood, even as he was getting barbecued.

And barbecued he was. After the smoke cleared, Deku was only able to murmur a few last words before collapsing to the ground from the pain of the fight and the use of his Quirk.

All was well. All Might left the room and went up to check on the fighters. The whole class applauded everyone's skill and the unexpected victory that Deku and Uraraka had managed to snatch from the jaws of defeat. Or, in Asui's words, "they lost the fight but won the war."

Once Kai's laughter faded, his mind reviewed the match, and his conclusions about All Might's judgement. Should he hold on and put some hope in him again? Then, he noticed the look on Bakugo's face. There was no remorse, no enlightenment. There was shock, and anger. He wasn't looking at Deku and his injuries, but at the hand he had made his final attack with. Not both hands, which would indicate thoughts like, "what have I done," but just the one hand. If there were regrets, it was not about what he had done.

Kai's resolve hardened. He hadn't been wrong about All Might. He just wasn't completely correct. All Might's judgement was better than he had thought, but not by much. There had been too much collateral damage. If things had been the slightest bit different, the first major lesson Class 1-A would have learned would be that even training exercises could be fatal.

Something had to be done. But now that the crisis point had been crossed, the urgency of action had gone down. For now, Kai could wait and give All Might one last chance. If he did good, then perhaps Kai wouldn't have to do anything.

If not, well, destroying All Might was no problem. Kai even felt lucky that, of all the teachers to face, All Might was the one that was a potential problem.

If things went south- well, more than they already had- dealing with things would be easy.

Soon enough, All Might returned with Bakugo in tow. Deku had been taken by a pair of robots to the infirmary.

Time for the breakdown.

"The best in this match was young Iida!" All Might announced, much to the surprise of the class, including Iida.

"But weren't the winners Ochako and Midoriya?" Asui asked.

"Well, I wonder why that is," All Might said with feigned innocence. "Who know why?"

Yaoyorozu raised her hand. "It's because Iida was the one who adapted the most to the situation. Having watched the fight, Bakugo's behavior was clearly driven by some personal grudge, and thus totally arbitrary. Furthermore, just as you told us earlier, sensei, a large-scale attack in an indoor arena is just idiotic. The same reasoning goes for Midoriya. Uraraka's game got loose halfway through and her final attack was too reckless.

"We were treating that papier mache thing as an actual nuclear weapon, so that kind of attack wouldn't have flown."

"Actually," Kai interrupted tiredly, "that wouldn't have been a problem. Nuclear weapons especially have many redundant systems that keep them from going off accidentally. I mean, have you ever felt a missile take off? Those things shake like crazy. If that wasn't going to set off its payload by accident, nothing Deku or Uraraka did had any chance of setting it off."

The class was startled both by the rude interruption and Kai himself, who had shifted to laying down on the floor, hands folded on his c.h.e.s.t. In that position, and behind the class, they had almost forgotten about him.

"Anyways, Iida did well in preparing for Uraraka's arrival, and wisely kept from direct conflict and her Quirk. So, to recap, Bakago is an idiot, Iida did well, Uraraka and Deku were reckless but effective, I called it, and it's someone else's turn, unless All Might has something more to add. I mean, I would really like things to move along." Finished and tired, Kai turned his head to All Might and flared his Quirk to bring the glow back to his eyes.

All Might felt a chill, but just coughed and moved the class on to a new building to continue.

Kai's hope was dead again. Well, there hadn't been much to begin with. Clearly, there was no intent to punish Bakugo for so much as class disruption. The "nice" plan had lost its place. It was time for something a little more… extreme.

In accordance with his deal with Principal Nezu, Kai was not to disrupt school with his own agendas. It would be best to allow everyone else to learn from their own battle trials anyways.

But once that was done.... he he heh.

The clock was ticking.