Peak and Nadir

## Epilogue

Summer vacation was only one day away and the juniors of U.A. High were just as excited as any other sixteen and seventeen year old students. And just like those regular students, the last days of school have been dedicated to final exams. Each day was different; testing a different skill or aspect of being a hero. But most were excited about the last day, today. Today was combat testing.

Last year they had fought their teachers as a pair and most succeeded. But this year was different. After two years of honing their abilities and advancing their quirks, it was about time they were challenged. Outside of their teacher, the students themselves have observed each other progress for the past two years. Well aware of each other's strengths, weaknesses, and other skills, fighting each other would successfully give them the challenge they deserved.

The Gray Hero Ryūhime arrived to the classroom half an hour before the test started and bided her time by watching the students arrive to the classroom one after another with an almost bored expression. This would be the end of her first year as a teacher and she was just as eager to the end of the year as the students because of how exhausting it was. When the last student arrived Otohime stood up and escorted the students to the training center. When Otohime arrived at the entrance to the training center she turned around to address the students to say, "Today is the combat testing portion of the final exam and you will be paired off to fight each other in one on one fights. Do I have any volunteers who would like to go first."

"Raise your hand dummy!" Ryū Higuchi heard Dodo say. While raising his right arm in the air, Ryū used his left arm to pull a fried chicken leg from his pocket. "I've been waiting for you all night!" He whispered to the piece of chicken right before taking a huge bite out of it. "Request the bald one, bald guys are always trying to stand out by being bald." Dodo said. "Pointing the chicken leg at Bhaskar Devesh, Ryū said, "I'm tired of your head always shinning it's glare into my eyes, I'm 'bout to kick the baldness off your head!"

While tempted to laugh, Bhaskar Devesh remained stoic; he glanced at the man who challenged him. "With a due respect, I have no interest in fighting you or any of my classmates for that matter." Bhaskar then turned to his teacher. "Is this part of our final exam mandatory? While I understand the purpose of it, we should try to avoid conflict not encourage it." he spoke. While considered one of the top students of his class and probably the most likely to become one of The Big Three, Bhaskar made an effort to avoid combat exercises as his beliefs aren't in accord.

Otohime's tail twitched sporadically from side to side, one of the best known indicators that her patience was wearing thin, in response to the attitude of both students. "There is a big difference between encouraging violence and preparing for it so yes it is mandatory," Otohime began, her voice dripping with bitterness due to her annoyance. "Heroes are people who protect civilians. Sometimes that involves taking peaceful actions like rescuing people from disasters or conflict resolution. Other times it requires you to be a bit more selfless and abandon your morals for the sake of the people who it is your job to protect by taking up arms and fighting a threat that will not listen to reason. Remember, we do not live in a perfect world and odds are there will come a time where nothing you do will allow you to avoid conflict and if you are not willing to do whatever it takes to protect people when that time comes whether it is because you hate violence or supposedly "boring missions" like disaster control then you don't deserve to be a hero," Otohime spoke. "Just to show you what I mean. You will be facing off against Ryū now. If you can win by talking things out than more power to you, but it seems like his only goal is fighting," Otohime finished.

Completely unconcerned about what was being discussed, Ryū instead chose to finish eating his chicken leg. After finishing the leg Ryū began to speak to one of the voices in his head, "Yo Dodo, best bald joke gets to choose what we eat for dinner tonight." "Challenge accepted my good friend. Yo baldy, I got a new quirk. Let me rub on your head so I can see the future!" Dodo replied. "HAHAHA Hilarious, tell me what you think of this. YOOOO Human Dildo, are the batteries to make you vibrate sold separately or do you come with?" After giggling up a storm for about five minutes, Ryū then changed his attention to the teacher. "So, just how far is this little practice fight supposed to go? What are the rules and how do you win? And what about my weapons?". A completely new attitude had suddenly awakened after he finished asking his questions. Ryū stood with a face filled with anger, staring with his scarlet red eyes into the eyes of his opponent. "Okay Kira, wake up, it's time to fuck this little faggot up!" He stated as he sharpened his Katana.

Bhaskar stood silently for a moment. He began to recall his time spent with his teacher and favorite hero, the Dark Magician. Similar to Bhaskar, his mentor also believed in the teachings of a pacifism. He then remembered what Abeo told him, "Sometimes we must fight for the peace we desire." But Bhaskar was a bit different. He did not often agree with the military pacifism his teacher preached. After thinking about his answer for several seconds, he gazed back at his teacher. "You seem to misinterpret, I have no intentions of settling this through words." Bhaskar then made his way to the center of training field. Since his method of combat was more "peaceful" than most, he did not wait for Otohime to respond to Ryu's question.

Otohime took a deep breath to calm her nerves before responding to Ryū's question. "Yes you are allowed to use weapons, but don't take things to far. The fight will end when someone surrenders or I announce the fight is over." With Ryū's question answered she told the rest of the students to follow her and walked off toward the location where they will be watching.