For want of a Fridge

"Andersen-san. Can we go and talk about your costume for a second? There are a couple of requests that… confused us."

Hans followed All Might out into the hall, interrupting the previously passionate call to BATTLE TRAINING. Yes, in all caps and italics.

"Yes, is there an issue?"

"There isn't exactly a problem." All Might said, sweating slightly. Hans grinned to see the immaculate facade of an all-mighty hero slowly crumble before the task that laid ahead of him. "We just fail to see how some of your requested equipment is… relevant to hero work."

"The support department did approve it, right?" Hans said, slightly annoyed. "Those are very important parts of my hero costume. Of course, even if a lab coat isn't very imposing as a costume, it has practical pockets, can be used as bandages in an emergency situation, and pairs well with my quirk."

"With all due respect, those weren't the design choices the support department was curious about, Mr. Andersen." All Might said seriously. Hans felt a bit of exasperation and self-righteousness well up within him, but he suppressed the urge to begin to roast the number one hero in Japan.

"What's so confusing?" Hans said, grabbing his costume request document… before smirking in satisfaction.

None of his applications for home appliances were rejected.

"Why do you need a refrigerator, a fan, four alarm clocks, quirk-grade plant pots, a pack of pens, a phone charger, and… many other common household items?"

"It's for my quirk." Hans said bluntly.

"Even with the unique nature of your quirk, young man, I do not believe that your choices are appropriate." All Might said, sighing. "But if you can use those pieces of equipment in your battle training, I will not deny your additional request to take them home so that you can practice."

"Thank you for understanding, All Might-san!" Hans said, adding on an honorific just to be polite to the person that had effectively granted him millions of yen's worth of home appliances.

"Now, we should probably resume instruction, right?" All Might muttered.

"I don't know why you're asking me, All Might-san, but maybe that book can give you some insight." Hans said, looking at the Teaching for Dummies book that All Might had tucked into his costume.

"All right, class, let's continue from where we left off!" All Might said, settling back into a heavily rehearsed performance. "One of the most important parts of being a hero is… Looking good!"

Pointing to a wall, several racks filled with suitcases were ejected, as if on queue.

"These were designed for you based on your quirk registration or the request that you had submitted! Some of you…", he looked at Hans, who smirked smugly back, "Had requested more unwieldy items that are currently near the changing rooms."

As the class began to yell excitedly, Hans couldn't wait to exploit this school more. Because if he really got to take the fridge and various other home appliances home, then he had basically scammed UA out of one year's worth of tuition.

Looking down on his request list, Hans noticed one rejected item at the bottom.

"What's this…" Hans muttered. "Something got rejected?"

Midoriya looked over his shoulder, slightly interested.

"You have a rather long list, Andersen-san. Does your quirk need a lot of support … wait what?"

Midoriya suddenly began to stare at the list with confusion and intensity. It was… slightly uncomfortable. Hans folded the sheet of paper, glared at the overly excited teenager, and walked briskly to his suitcase, which was marked by a seventeen.

Was it weird that he was basically going to cosplay as himself from a different universe?

Probably.

Did he feel guilty for ripping off the design so as to save more time for writing webnovels?

Of course he didn't.

After all, deadlines wait for no man.

…

Before All Might, nineteen students stood, some in anticipation, others in stoic silence and one in near-murderous impatience, waiting for the last one to come out of the changing room.

At last, with an entire caravan behind him, Hans slowly walked to the entrance of the mock city. Looking around at the mock city, which even had real bushes growing out of the sidewalk, he began to curse the capitalists that ran this institution.

He should have asked for three refrigerators instead of one.

At last, Hans arrived in the center of the crowd of students that parted way for Hans and his summons. Behind him, a refrigerator was carried by what looked like a queen wearing a white dress. A tree was wearing four plant pots as a hat, and was sitting in a fifth that came from somewhere within UA's campus, giggling the whole time. A little girl held four alarm clocks in her basket.

When he finally put down a desk fan and stopped in front of Tokoyami, he slowly turned his head to look at Momo, who looked like she was resisting the urge to strangle him."Not a single word. I know what you're thinking. UA's budget is still impractical, and I don't want to hear it."

Yaoyorozu's cheeks grew red within that impractical costume of hers via an emotion that could not be interpreted as embarrassment.

Hans just smirked and turned his attention to an All-Might that was desperately trying not to let his exasperation show.

"Now that we're all here, we can begin." All Might said, flamboyance once again restored to his body language. With his speech and, again, heavily rehearsed, routine punctuated by muscle flexes, heroic poses, and a constant, unflinching smile. Hans wondered whether or not his cheeks got sore.

Hans went over the points mentally. Villains defend bomb. Heroes attack bomb. Time limit. Random teams. There are capture tapes that basically can incapacitate somebody if they're wrapped around somebody. He was just about to pull out his tablet to keep tapping away at his novel when All Might finally ceased rambling about how heroes had to be responsible and minimize property damage.

"Are there any questions?" All Might asked.

"Yes, sir!" Iida said, his hand raised straight in the air. "Isn't there a better way to decide teams than drawing lots?"

"Let's view it this way…" All Might said, an orange box filled with their names still in his hands. "Whenever you team up with a pro on the field, it's most likely going to be a random chance as to who you will be working with."

"But shouldn't villain teams get to plan their partnerships out, then?" Hans drawled, zoning in on the logical fallacy like an eagle. "And besides, heroes mostly have set patrol routes. Wouldn't a competent hero know who they would be teaming up with beforehand, just by looking at which heroes are closer to their own patrol routes?"

There was silence. All Might kept on sweating.

"Andersen-san!" Iida said strictly. "Do you think that you have more experience than a teacher?"

Hans thought back to Chaldea and was tempted to say yes. But since that would raise too many questions about his already suspicious backstory, he didn't say anything, merely lowering his head in 'defeat'. Out of the corner of his eyes, Yaoyorozu did a little fist pump.

"Don't get so cocky." Hans whispered to Yaoyorozu. "It wasn't like you defeated me in this argument."

Yaoyorozu's expression quickly soured, but nobody else seemed to mind their strange rivalry. After all, they couldn't be any worse than Bakugou and Midoriya.

"Isn't this a perfect scenario for one of those enemies-to-lovers kinda deal?" Mina whispered. "I totally ship it."

Hans shivered. Oh, god, the internet was as bad as he remembered.

Teams were finally chosen one by one. Expressions spanned a wide spectrum. Hans chronicled the flustered relief that Midoriya felt when he got paired with Uraraka instead of Bakugo, laughed silently at Iida's futile attempts to reign Bakugo in, and remembered the faint, hesitant smile Ojiro gave him as they were paired together.

"So… Andersen-san… We haven't really talked, but… nice to meet you?"

"It's a pleasure." Hans said, only semi-sarcastic this time. "Anyways, who do you think will go first?"

"I don't know, but I kinda want to go first myself." Ojiro said, looking faintly excited. "Look, All Might's drawing the lots now!"

"And our first match will be…"

"Team A and Team D!"

Hans began to cackle. Ojiro shot him a concerned look.

…

"It's almost like fate!" Hans snickered, once the rest of the teams sat down in an observation room. "Two rivals, destined to fight each other… Bwahahahaha!"

"What's so funny, Andersen-san?" Kirishima said, shaking Hans gently.

"Nothing, nothing…" Hans wheezed.

"Holy shit, this world is such a generic shounen anime!" Hans thought. "And now that I've definitely determined the fact that Midoriya was probably the protagonist back during that rigged quirk assessment test, all I have to do is bootlick him or something and I'll survive throughout the series!"

And, of course, Midoriya was sent to play the villain. With his prospective love interest, or at least a member of the opposite gender that he actually talked to, he went against his probably abusive childhood friend.

Oh, what a moment for character development. If only this wasn't a shounen anime and filled with power fantasy moments designed to hook in the reader.

"So, who do you think is going to win?" Ojiro whispered to Hans, just to find some sort of conversation topic.

"Midoriya, obviously." Hans said. "He's going to pull out some weird stunt from absolutely nowhere and somehow win the match through the benefit of luck or unreasonably accurate planning."

"...Are you sure you're not delusional?" Yaoyorozu said, smiling viciously.

"Explain to me why the mock cities now have shrubbery." Hans said, crossing his arms. "If you people think that spending millions of yen on greenery nobody even uses is sane, then I think that my thoughts are totally justified. Besides, I bet I'll be correct."

"And if Bakugou wins?"

"Then I'll stop arguing with you about UA's budget problems and you can believe that our system is totally efficient in using trillions to educate twenty high schoolers while teenage homelessness is at an all time high."

There was dead silence as everybody mulled their financial cost over.

"Can any of you contribute trillions of yen to aiding a city?" Hans said. Yaoyorozu raised her hand. "You don't count."

She slowly put down her hands.

"Then why are you even here?" Kirishima blurted out, his hot-headedness getting ahead of him. "If you're so unmanly about being a hero, and think that it's not manly, then why would you even attend UA."

"I was basically blackmailed into it because I healed a hero that was bleeding to death because of Stain." Hans deadpanned. "Unauthorized quirk usage and healing quirk stuff. You heroes are oddly intense about recruiting healers, aren't you?"

All Might clenched a fist guiltily, which did not escape Hans's notice.

"Well, whatever." Hans said, waving his hand. "These constructs existed way before me and you, and if the elites are profiting off of merchandise, why change anything?"

The planning and preparation phase was watched in silence. Ojiro slowly edged away from Hans, who finally felt the sweet relief of solitude.

…

Midoriya shouted smash once, and conveniently shattered the floor right beneath Uraraka's feet, making Uraraka's quirk actually useful.

Which meant that either he was really lucky and was conveniently fighting Bakugo right underneath the bomb room, or it was planned from the start.

Judging by the seemingly random encounter and the fact that Midoriya was still planning when Bakugou finally attacked, it was probably luck.

Midoriya collapsed to the ground, winning the match on a technicality. Iida and Bakugo were barely even scratched.

The whole class looked at Hans strangely. How did he know what was going to happen? Hans pointed at the screen as if to say "I told you so", then smirked at Yaoyorozu.

"It isn't a delusional claim if it's true, right?"

Yaoyorozu was tempted to make a blood pressure pill for herself, but thought against it. It wouldn't do to get arrested for unlawful possession and unprescribed drug use.

…

"Next we have… team B versus team I! May the students on those teams please report to the battle training grounds.

It came down to him and Ojiro… versus Todoroki and Shoji.

"Very balanced, UA. Very balanced." Hans sighed, trailing behind Ojiro with his caravan of supplies and rather short legs.

"I'm sure we'll figure out something." Ojiro said, smiling nervously.

"Oh, don't worry." Hans said, grinning slowly. "I've got the perfect plan already."

"Already?" Ojiro said, raising an eyebrow. "But you don't know what building we'll be fighting in, or what kind of street, or-"

"Doesn't matter." Hans said. "This is why I have four quirk-resistant flower pots."

"How does that even help?"

"Oh, and I have an unlimited supply of matches."

"W-what?"

…

"I still don't think this is going to work." Ojiro said, watching Hans put two ducklings into each flowerpot, before a literal child walked around the pot, pouring copious amounts of matches in a circle around said pot. After the preparations were done, Hans set an alarm on the clock that would sound about fifteen minutes later.

"Ice queen, give it the test."

"I'm still carrying a fridge."

"Then give the fridge to the tree." Hans sighed. "Seriously, it's like I wrote you with no critical thinking skills at all. Why did you put somebody under a curse that was so easily broken-"

"Shut up! You wrote me like that! I have no control over my backstory, okay? You do! If anything, you're the irrational one here!"

As the two argued, a wave of ice slowly crept towards the matches. As if sensing the ice, the matches suddenly burst into flames, stopping the ice in its tracks. The ducks inside began to chirp frantically, though they remained unharmed by the flames.

"What.. was that?" Ojiro shouted, jumping away from the spontaneously lighting matches.

The ice went around the pot instead, forming a perfect circle around the ring of matches.

"Okay, we're done here. Let's move onto the next one."

"So there's just going to be absolutely no explanation." Ojiro said, looking at the strange construct. "Okay."

There were three other pots set up like this, except on the one closest to the room with the bomb. There, Hans made the Elder Tree Mother shrink back into a small shrub and put his capture tape in with the pot, then covered the tree and the capture tape with two other ducklings and the alarm clock.

…

Yaoyorozu looked at the various boxes slowly being emptied across the building. With her quirk, she could produce unlimited items, but for Hans to use such specific household objects as what presumably were traps…

She narrowed her eyes. The flowerpots were quirk resistant to resist both the fire and temperature changes. The alarm clocks were both to keep track of the growth of the ducklings and to distract the sensory quirk Shoji had. The fridge… It was both an enclosed space to shield himself from Todoroki's eyes, and something that could empower Hans's own powers over ice. The fan's purpose wasn't clear, but the car battery was clearly there to power the devices.

"He isn't wasting UA's budget…" Yaoyorozu muttered, drawing some gazes from her classmates. "Every single purchase… Is being utilized with over one hundred percent efficiency!"

"What do you mean?" Iida spoke. "I believed that his requests were an insult to UA's generous system. To request these household appliances is a blatant attempt to take advantage of the system!"

"No, no, you've got it all wrong…"

Reluctantly, Yaoyorozu started to explain for her 'political opponent'.

…

Hans massaged his legs wearily, sitting on top of the fridge. Ojiro stood, shell shocked.

In the course of ten minutes, Hans and his summons had set up four pots, a fridge-based frost protection system, a electric-fan powered flamethrower (since Hans's matches couldn't direct the direction of the fire), and connected it all with the phone charger as an adapter. Hans sat within the fridge, a notepad and a pen out.

"Now… Do you want me to write you a backstory?"

"What do you mean a backstory?" Ojiro said, sitting within the lower part of the fridge. Even if it was slightly chilly while activated, it was still a comfortable kind of cool due to the waning heat of summer.

"Oh, I just want to use my quirk to help you against Shoji."

"You can do that?"

"My quirk…"

Hans said, sighing. After uncapping a pen and starting a vague train of thought, he finally decided to actually tell Ojiro, and thus the whole class, about his 'quirk'.

After all, the most effective lie was the one that you told without being prompted. Hans was sure that he read that somewhere, but for now he would just say that he came up with that himself.

"My quirk is called Author's Spirit. I can temporarily write in fake experiences or just strengthen you in general by amplifying character traits, along with using some famous stories as summons."

"O-oh." Ojiro stammered, thinking about his four letter quirk.

"Don't you think that I have it good, though." Hans muttered. "For every bit that my 'quirk' gives power, I also get an ailment."

Hans unraveled his sleeves, and Ojiro gasped at the burns. Lifting one pant leg, Ojiro could see the scales and the almost frosty-looking feet.

"Because of Ice Queen over there, I always have frostbite. Because of the Little Mermaid, I have mermaid scales growing on my legs. Because of the Little Match Girl, I constantly have burns over my body. All of these wounds can never be healed, and I have to constantly deal with the pain every second of my life."

Ojiro felt cold sweat run down his back, despite slowly being refrigerated by the lower section of the fridge. "I suddenly feel much luckier."

"As you should." Hans said. "Now, I'll write your backstory in so that you were attacked by an octopus while at age six, and you have been training ever since to defeat eight legged creatures."

"Will that actually work?" Ojiro said skeptically.

"Who knows." Hans shrugged. "But if you don't believe in it, it definitely won't work."

Ojiro had no words. These were literally the words of a scammer. Still, looking at Hans scribbling in an almost illegible text onto the notebook (that UA provided) with the pens (that UA also provided), he somehow got a sense of legitimacy from the whole thing.

"Does your quirk also let you write really, really fast?" Ojiro asked. "Is that how you filled out all that paperwork?"

"It's mostly practice." Hans sighed, not wanting to mention servant skills at all.

"The exercise begins… now!" All Might's voice said through the earpieces that they had been wearing.

"Okay. Good enough." Hans sighed, handing Ojiro the sheet of paper. Ojiro gripped the ink-stained notebook paper with his fingertips, noticing that it was growing slightly blue.

Hans quickly wrote "Quiet" in big letters, and suddenly, they both weren't making any noise.

Ojiro looked between the paper and Hans, and raised an eyebrow.

Hans sighed, before writing that 'It'll activate when it needs to activate' on another sheet of paper.

Now, all they had to do was take out Todoroki with a tree, six ducks, four flowerpots, and four alarm clocks.

…In hindsight, Hans thought that it sounded more serious than that.