Chapter 23 - Hidden Secret!

Mai stared in amazement at the spectacle that can be seen from the fully opened giant gates, even though she has already seen it from the anime in her past life.

She had just reached the test site where she was assigned to with a bus, and found herself standing outside what seemed to be a miniature city surrounded by tall wall.

There were many buildings, streets, and so on inside of it. The dozens of other students who had come to this test site were also amazed.

'They truly spend so much investments just for the future hero candidates, huh?' Mai thought to herself. She took notice that there was someone who was wearing a cowboy costume on top of the wall. She just simply guessed that it was one of the hero teachers.

Mai already took off her witch hat. The system warned her that it would be difficult for it to stick into her head if she were to move at a fast speed because of the air pressure. Her hat was merely a cosplay item, only the real one may have that otherworldly function. She could have just moved slowly while leisurely defeat the villain robots along the way, but...

She shifts her gaze to another bus that had just arrived here. From there, many more candidates came out. She focused on one of them, Katsuki Bakugou, and slowly walked closer to him.

"What a coincidence..." Mai said flatly while looking upward when she was right in front of him. She then heard a low growl voice and the stepping sound of someone walking past her. Therefore, she quietly followed him from behind.

"It must be fate..." Mai mumbled as if it was intended not to be heard by anyone, but she knew that it was heard by the brat in front of her because he stopped in place. He then turns around and stares at her with his usual unsightly expression.

"What do you want now?!" Bakugou asked her with a loud voice. He's been completely pissed off.

"Nothing..." Answered Mai with a flat tone while she turned her head away.

"Hmph! You better pray that we didn't meet each other while in the exam area! My explosion quirk's radius is quite wide, they are rather hard to control..." Bakugou told Mai with a threatening grin. He's literally dying to roast her alive.

"Why would we meet each other, later...?" Mai asked. It's not that she didn't know the answer.

"Of course, after we split up, there's still a slim chance that we're going to meet each other..." Explained Bakugou.

"Split up? What is that?" Mai asked, pretending not to understand.

"Huh?" Bakugou somehow felt that he's going to have a bad time.

It was then that Present Mic's voice could be listened to from the speaker on the wall. "Aaaand Start!!!"

Hearing that, Bakugou knew that he didn't have time to ponder about the meaning of Mai's statements. He quickly uses his explosion quirk to blast himself so that he could move faster into the gates of the miniature city. He was the first one to proceed out of all his other contenders before they also started rushing after him.

"Eh?" The hero candidates in all other exam areas stood still and remained confused about what to do.

"What's the matter? There's no such thing as a countdown in the real battle! Run! Ruuun!!!" The same voice can be heard from the speaker. It was then that they all panicked and started running as if their lives were on the line.

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Inside one of the exam areas, a boy could be seen using his explosion quirk to propel himself and navigate through the air at high speeds. His spiky blonde hair was fluttering because of the strong wind blow.

Katsuki Bakugou is the furthest to go into the test area. He felt that it was to be expected. He knew that he was special. There was no way he could lose to the rest of those lowlifes.

He then takes a look at his back, all he can see is the smoke that came from his own explosive quirk. There's no one else. He thus looked straight ahead once more, feeling proud of himself. That's when he realized something.

'Wait a minute,' Bakugou thought to himself. He thinks that he saw a figure with a demon mask running with both of her hands behind her back right beside him.

He then turned his head to the side to see if what he saw just now was true or not. As he stared at the figure, the figure also stares back at him. He knew that it was Mai. Then, he saw the figure pulling out her right hand and made a peace sign right toward him.

"F#CK!" He put more power into his quirk, creating a greater blast, pushing him to proceed faster. The robots are very concentrated in this area because the two of them are the only ones who had reached here. Bakugou didn't realize that he destroyed many robots on his way because of what he's doing.

Mai took notice of that, feeling a tiny bit amazed at his powers. 'As expected of someone of his calibers. He does have ground for his arrogance if it was compared to other children,' she thought to herself.

However, Bakugou could not endure long in such circumstances. Because of the heavy energy expenditure, he wore himself out quickly, and he was aware of it. That's why he decided to stop, even though he knew that Mai was still right next to him.

"Damn you, woman! Don't follow me anymore!" He cried out with all the energy he still had left. He wanted to just focus on the exam and not deal with anything else. Mai simply nodded her head to show that she understood.

Bakugou grinned. He thought that he finally made Mai scared shitless. Without further ado, he went to the closest villain robot that he saw. From its design, it was just a one-pointer. Well, not that he cared about that. He would just destroy everything in sight.

Just as he positioned his hand to blow the crap out of the villain robot, it quickly became a scrap of metal because it got cut in multiple locations. Behind the falling metals, Mai can be seen holding two kitchen knives in both of her hands.

"Y-You! That was mine!" He screamed at Mai. A variety of bad emotions stirred up inside of him.

"But, I killed it first..." Mai countered him straight to the point with a flat tone without any care about what he felt at all.

Bakugou can only grit his teeth with that logical answer and just decided to search for another robot. In just a moment, he found another one right behind him. But different from the one before, this robot was a three-pointer. He felt glad and already forgot about what Mai just did toward the one-pointer robot previously.

However, before he could even position his hand, the robot already got torn to pieces by Mai again, just like before.

"AAAAAARRRGGGHHH!!!" A scream of agony can be heard around the nearby area, with Bakugou as the center.

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In the viewing room, the teachers were actively observing the student candidates doing their exams from the numerous screens on the wall. Some of them saw what Mai just did.

"Poor boy... Mr. Principal, should we do something about it?" One of them decided to ask Nezu, the humanoid mouse principal.

"No, just let her be..." The principal answered the curious teacher and stopped for a second, before he continued, "From what I've seen, that boy has an extraordinary quirk for a hero, but he had a shitty attitude. Perhaps, our little vigilant could help him change into a better person..." Said the principal while grinning from ear to ear. Almost everyone in the room shuddered.

"I think I should've not asked..."

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It just keeps happening and happening again while the massive zero-pointer robot was rampaging somewhere else. Also, when the other would-be heroes approached the area, they quickly went to another spot far away to keep themself out of trouble. They can only silently pray for the vigilant's victim and hope that he'll be alright.

But even when facing this kind of hardship, Bakugou still didn't give up. He has a dream to accomplished, to be a number one hero. He will keep on fighting. He is filled with . . .

D#t*rm:n@t!©n

I WILL BE THE ONE!

I MUST BE THE ONE!

I WILL BECOME THE WINNER!

THEN, I, THE GREAT BAKUGOU...

WILL GET ALL THE THINGS I UTTERLY DESERVE!

POWERFUL! POPULAR! PRESTIGIOUS!!! THAT'S ME!!!

A knife with a reddish hue and a heart-shaped locket appeared in both his right hand and his neck accordingly. Additionally...

-

( o╹ ᴗ ╹ o)

-

But, it only happened for a split second before they disappear and Bakugou's expression changes back to his usual grumpy self. Even he himself didn't realize what had just transpired.

Mai didn't see it happen because she's on her way toward the robot that she thought Bakugou had his eyes on. Neither do the teachers. They concentrated themself on seeing something else because they didn't want to witness his suffering, even Nezu.

But there's one individual who saw what had just occurred. He was sitting on the top floor of the highest building in Musutafu city.

Looking through binoculars, a young man stroke his long, invisible beard, while pushing his glasses upward, reflecting the sunlight.

"Interesting... Very... Interesting... Well, I'll let it happen for just this one time. Maybe she'll learn something out of it..."

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"The test is OVERRRR!!!!!"

Present Mic's voice can be heard through all the exam areas. Some candidates were brimming with joy while the others were filled with distress.

Bakugou is the latter one. He slumped down on the ground and, cried... His dream has been shattered just like that. Before this, nobody knows, that behind the strong outside self that he showed to others, he actually quite soft on the inside.

"UUWWAAAAA!!!"

'Wait, what?' Mai couldn't believe what she saw. She wasn't even sure whether now, she was in reality or just dreaming. This wasn't what she remembered him to be. The crying noise is getting louder and louder. She can feel that many eyes were staring at her.

Mai doesn't know what she's supposed to do. So she just did the first thing that popped into her head, that is, approaching Bakugou and patting his head. Of course, Bakugou instantly slapped away her hand.

"Don't touch me! UUWWAAAAAA!!!!!"

Mai pulled her hand back and decided to ask, "Why are you crying?"

"F*ck you!!! I just want to be a hero and win! UUWWAAAAAAA!!!!!"

Mai didn't understand what he meant by that. She thought that he already received enough points to at least join the hero course. What she didn't know is, Bakugou believed that he barely got any points out of this exam because he hasn't yet realized that he had demolished many robots when he was racing with Mai at the start.

Mai felt super duper tiny bit guilty. She knew that she had to at least do something. So, she picks up her witch hat out of her inventory, earning her a gasp from everyone who saw it, before she throws it away into Bakugou's head. It landed perfectly.

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In the viewing room, All Might stood up from his seat. He knew that no one was naturally been born with more than a single quirk. Even someone like Todoroki, who got an official recommendation only has one quirk, called Half-Cold Half-Hot.

The exception for that is One-for-All, which can be passed on from one user to the next. If there's anyone else who has more than one quirk, then that only means one thing. They were associated with his long-lasting enemies, All for One.

The known quirks for the infamous Vigilant Yaksha were Super Invisibility and Hyper Speed. Even then, the heroes only thought that she got some sort of random quirk that was different from either parent, in which can do both of those things. Even though they still haven't really sure what it was. Oh yeah, they already fished some information about her parents.

But now that she could also make things appear out of nowhere, All Might thought that it meant she had more than one quirk. Just as he was about to go out of the room and went into the exam area to confront Mai, he was stopped by the school principal, Nezu, and taken to a more private area.

"I don't think there's any evidence for what you're assuming right now..." The principal said teasingly, as if knowing something.

"What do you mean? Does she having multiple quirks has another meaning to it?" All Might asked. He trusts the principal knowing his character, so he'll hear him out first before deciding on what to do next.

"Space and Time Manipulation... I think I just found out what her quirk really is..." The principal said with a smile, he felt really proud of his own intelligence.

"W-What, that's really dangerous!" Exclaimed All Might.

"Yeah, that's what I think too. Also, it would've been even more dangerous if..." Nezu trailed off.

"If what?" All Might asked. But then, he quickly found the answer himself. "Oh, no!"

"Anyway, it would be bad if All for One somehow gets his hand on her, so we must protect her at all cost!" The principal concluded before he went back to the viewing room.

All might, who was left alone, looked at his hands before he clenched them.

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"Yosh, Yosh... Even if you somehow can't become a hero, you can still just be something else, such as... an Archmage who mastered explosion magic or something..." Back to Mai, after she gave out her witch hat to Bakugou, she said that with a flat tone before she shamelessly ran away from her crime scene. "Well, I think that's enough for my compensation, goodbye..."

Bakugou kept on crying until he heard someone's calling out his nickname.

"Ka-Kachan?!"