MHA: Horizon

Chapter 48: (Gold Medal Challenge)

Chapter 48: (Gold Medal Challenge)

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CHAPTER START---

Running at full speed Law feels the cool night air crash against him. Breaking what would have been mythic Olympic records before the advent of Quirks 300 years ago.

Wearing just his UA blue and white PE pants and the white reinforced dress shoes from his Hero Costume he sprints shirtless and without a body glove, a thick layer of sweat glistening on his body, sticking his short spiky black hair to his face and head.

Sword at his side, already drawn, he rushes down street after street under the moonlight, hearing loud clanking in the distance ahead of him.

'Last one...' he reminds himself, picking up the pace. Rounding the corner he sees a long street of four-story buildings, unpainted, blank, as if this was an abandoned construction site, even the roads were concrete and had no lines, just a vague form so you'd know what they were meant to be.

"Gotcha," he smiles viciously, looking up at the Zero-Pointer, a massive 60m -196ft- tall green robot with four legs and a rectangular head reminiscent of a cannon.

"Inferior! Human!" The robot yells, nearly shaking the street as it rushes Law.

Breaking into a full sprint once again Law feels the soreness in his legs begging him to stop.

He raises his left hand and flicks his pointer finger upward.

TAKT!

Chunks of concrete from the road, rough and unrefined but large boulders either way are ripped out of the ground.

He runs from one to the next to the next, ascending like a staircase until he's 30m in the air.

The robot's large clawed hand comes down to slap him out of the air.

BOOSTER SHOT!

INCISION!

The healing energy floods his body, not finding any wounds it once again boosts his physical might.

His sword connects to the metal and cleaves the hand in two, 10m of metal and wiring slashed in one smooth motion.

Flipping in the air he reaches down while upside down and grabs the robot's arm with his free hand.

BOOSTER SHOT!

His fingers try and fail to grip into the metal, sliding off "shit," he mutters. Until he finds a groove between the massive plates to grip onto.

He pivots and finds his footing, running up the robot's arm toward the shoulder, only for the other arm to come out to swat him like a bug.

Another slash divides the massive palm, and he feels himself barely hanging on, exhaustion catching up to him.

He ignores the sound of metal crashing to the ground below, falling to the roof of a building and collapsing a floor or two, nothing Cementoss couldn't fix.

Making it to the robot's head he slashes down with both hands, once again amplifying his slash as much as possible.

CRAANG!

The robot splits directly down for a dozen meters, "shit..."

He warps away as the now deactivated robot collapses, destroying a few buildings. On a nearby rooftop, he looks back at the collapsed robot, frowning at the damage of his last attack.

"My physical attacks are still so pathetic..." he deactivates his Quirk and begins taking a relaxing walk back to the front of this training ground.

---Minutes Later...

Sitting on the roof of the ten-story concrete control tower at the entrance to this training area, Law has his feet dangling over the edge.

The shirt of his PE Uniform and his body glove were neatly folded beside him, both sporting Horizon's logo on the back. His sword lays sheathed beside them along with his cards as he enjoys a drink from his water bottle. Accompanied by the cool night air and the sight of the full moon above this training area.

A square concrete jungle 300m wide. UA's newest addition to their list of massive training areas that puts them a cut above all the other Hero Courses.

CLICK!

Law hears the door to the roof open behind him, he instantly opens his room, then relaxes as the door opens, deactivating his Quirk once again.

"So how was tonight's training?" Nezu asks, casually closing the door behind him and walking up to Law, standing beside him at the edge of the roof.

"Same as always, but getting better," Law shrugs.

"That's good to hear, plus I'm sure Cementoss will appreciate not having to rebuild this entire training ground first thing in the morning, a welcomed change I'm sure from the past week..." Nezu takes out a sandwich from behind his back and hands it over to Law, "steak."

"Thanks," he begins unwrapping it and eating.

"Well it's almost 9 PM, you should eat something, and considering how much you eat I figured you could use it."

"Mhm," Law swallows and takes a drink of water, "trying to bulk up is a real pain in the ass, how come you're here?"

"Well it's already Friday night, just one more day until the Sports Festival, I figured I'd come see how the new move you've been developing is going."

"Surprisingly well," Law admits. "Usually it would take months or years to figure out a new one, but since I've got a lot of space and freedom here to move around and get rowdy it's a lot faster, but that's probably because of how simple the new move is..."

"Well, I'm happy to hear that," Nezu sits at the edge of the roof with Law. "It's certainly good that Training Ground Zeta is useful, since it was built to your specifications."

"Mhm," Law takes another drink of water. "No cameras or pests to bother me, that's the best part honestly, my own little playground. Especially since working out in the body glove is a nightmare, way too sweaty, it basically becomes a wetsuit."

"Gross."

"Exactly, but thanks to this place it's ready for use...just nowhere near as efficient as my other abilities."

"So you just, what, decide to do something and your Quirk makes it happen?" Nezu asks, still trying to understand what Hand Of God does.

"Mystery class, beyond human and scientific comprehension," Law shrugs. "As far as you need to know I can do whatever I want."

"Aha, but I'm not a human," Nezu points out.

"Still not saying."

"Oh well, it's not like you need help training it, so you can take care of your own Quirk training."

"Exactly, only three people in the world know how my Quirk works, so I'm keeping it that way," they both settle into a comfortable silence for a moment, until Law continues. "Is everything ready for the Sports Festival in two days?"

"Oh, of course, Pros from all across the country have been hired as security, and even if he isn't technically working at the Sports Festival, Endeavor has already called me and confirmed that he'll be there."

"So the rank one and two heroes, assuming you can even count on Yagi..."

"We can, he is still hell-bent on being the Symbol Of Peace, but between those two and you being present the League of Villains should be smart enough not to show their faces."

"Mhm, and speaking of Yagi, what's up with him and Deku?" Law asks without even looking over at Nezu.

"What exactly do you mean?"

"Well, I noticed him using his Quirk to talk to Deku a few times these past two weeks, seems like a waste of his time using his energy on that loser," Law says.

'He's only doing that because he knows you can 'sense' him,' Nezu thinks to himself.

"Well he's fulfilling his duty," Nezu says. "He's trying to help Midoriya to control his Quirk, he knows the importance of the Sports Festival, especially for Hero Course students, and he wants all of you to have the best possible chance of leaving a good impression during your debut."

"Well he should be more discrete about it," Law says. "It's a bad look having the number one hero constantly having meetings with one student."

"Says the student so well connected with the school Principal," Nezu points out.

"Yeah, but if I didn't know better I'd think All Might was his dad or something, at least with us nobody will make such a stupid mistake," Law chuckles, looking down at the Bear-Mouse.

"And why couldn't Yagi be his dad?" Nezu asks, curious as to exactly what Law thinks about the mentor and successor connection.

"Because I've seen Yagi's medical records, no kids, plus he's told me that," Law says. "But if someone doesn't know better it's the logical conclusion, since at face value their Quirks look identical."

"You think they aren't?" Nezu is both curious and amused by where this is going, half expecting Law to have figured it out by now, but grateful that Midoriya has avoided physical contact with him until now.

"Well they look similar, but I know Yagi's Quirk makes his cells like steel that's somehow elastic and swelling to contain more and more energy. It lets him accumulate and stockpile power, right?"

"Right," Nezu doesn't bother trying to hide that fact.

"Right, that means he started weak and became stronger over his lifetime, but Deku said he broke his arm as a kid using his Quirk, that it's always been strong. So it can't be an accumulation if it starts that strong, because he would have had time to learn it while it was stockpiling power, but to other people who don't know about Yagi's Quirk they may look the same."

"True," Nezu says. "His Quirk did start with rather insignificant and unnoticeable strength, while Midoriya has such incredible power from the beginning." A technical truth, as One For All the Quirk, did start weak.

Nezu simply plays along with Law's theory. Realizing that the idea of trading and passing on Quirks was so impossible to all but the very few who knew of All For One and One For All that even Law didn't consider the possibility. Especially since Yagi does in fact have an accumulation Quirk, but Midoriya was able to skip the long accumulation process by having all the stockpiled energy transferred to him.

"That makes sense," Nezu says. "Atleast you're the only one who noticed, thankful nobody else can see through walls."

"I can't technically see through walls, but no, everyone noticed."

"What?!"

"Oh yeah, he interrupted Deku and his friends in the hall and Uraraka mentioned it, pretty much everyone knows Yagi is training him."

"Oh...I hope they aren't jealous or resentful of it," Nezu says genuinely, making a mental note to scold Yagi for his carelessness.

"Doesn't matter," Law chuckles. "Yagi is just one big veiny bicep, he doesn't have the brainpower to figure out what Deku is doing wrong, as obvious as it is..."

"And I still can't convince you to help?" Nezu asks.

"I rather deep throat a whole cactus that help that trash."

"That's excessive..." Nezu sighs.

"Not like I care what happens to them at the Sports Festival, I'm just gonna win, have some food from the stalls, launch my career, and wave for the hero-worshipping trash in the stands," Law shrugs. "Gotta make sure I look good for the cameras after all."

"Well if you're so confident I'm sure you'll be fine, but don't underestimate your opponents, it could cost you, maintaining the top spot at UA is difficult for countless reasons."

"If you say so..."

"Have you considered who you'd like to intern under? I'm sure the moment you start warping about everyone will flood us with requests, not to mention you're already famous with how you've worked the press thus far."

"Well ideally I'd get Endeavor, but he famously never takes interns or work studies students," Law shrugs. "Hawks is rank 3, but...I don't think that'll go well for anyone involved..."

"It would be a shame to lose a top ten Pro so young," Nezu nods in agreement. "Jeanist is rank 4, him?"

"Yeah we'd probably get along from what I know, but I prefer people who are a bit more active, I'm starting from a better spot than the other students but I still need to rack up a lot of credit by stopping villains, can't do that sitting in Jeanist office all day."

"So you want to go looking for trouble? Well, Endeavor has the highest number of resolved incidents in history, globally that is."

"Until I go Pro at least," Law smirks at the thought of watching those numbers climb. "But I think Miruko will be best to intern and have my work studies under next year."

"She isn't interested in working with anyone," Nezu says. "And even if she was, I can't trust someone of her disposition with one of my students, same with All Might, not that teachers are allowed to host internships."

"Yeah but, I can handle her meathead terrible decisions, consider it?"

"I'll think about it, but that woman only has one brain cell and all it does is lift weights and punch villains, not a role model for my students..."

"Yeah but her being a meathead will let me run around and handle villains," Law shrugs. "After her would probably be Ryukyu and Gang Orca, I'd be shocked if I need anyone outside of the top ten."

"You forgot Edgeshot, your Quirk would be perfect for his stealthy style."

"Yeah but I need cameras around to boost my popularity, kinda works against the whole ninja thing he has going for him."

"That makes sense, well I'm sure you'll have your pick of the litter when they see what you can do."

"Yeah, and the gold metal will look good on me," Law chuckles. "But you know, there is one thing that would really help my 4-year plan..."

"Oh, what's that?"

"A Provisional Hero License," Law says. "I know normally Hero Courses only sent second-year students to take the test but, if I get it in year 1 then the three-year trial will be done just a few months after graduation, and I'd be able to do some freelance hero work whenever I'm not stuck in UA."

"Well that is normally the case, but I intended to have you take the exam in June to get it."

"Really? Wait, 'intended', you changed your mind?" Law asks.

"No, with the War On Heroes declared by the villains we've decided to have a summer training camp for the first years, we intend for all of you to take the September exam, just a few days before that semester starts."

"Why not just have me take it in June anyway?" Law asks. "You know I'll pass anyway so what's a few months early? Plus that way I'd get all summer to fight villains."

"I'd rather have your entire class take the exam together, teamwork is an important component in passing the exam."

"Do you honestly think between now and September I'll suddenly want to help those idiots pass that exam?" Law asks with a blank expression.

"Good point," Nezu says. "But keeping you with them is currently vital, we believe that the main reason the villains haven't launched a second attack at UA is because you can shut the Warp Gate Quirk down."

"I can't babysit them forever Nezu, and I'd like my summer free..."

"Hmm," Nezu thinks for a moment then nods, giving Law a brilliant smile. "Alright, if you can keep your word and win the UA Sports Festival, I'll let you take the license exam at the end of June. But it has to be a perfect and absolute victory..."

Law laughs at this easy challenge, "one gold medal coming up..."

END CHAPTER---

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