Viridian: The Green Guide

Chapter 69: Opportunities

Shouta watched the exam in shock.

With how insistent Viridian was that he couldn't be a hero, the UA entrance exam was the last place he'd expected to find him, and yet, he was currently watching a kid with an extremely distinct fighting style blow through robots like they were nothing. It was surreal, and Shouta really wanted to get his hopes up and run down to the field so that he could arrest the kid as soon as the exam was over, but he couldn't help the nagging realization that a few things just didn't match up.

First of all, Viridian was the type of person who always gave his all...or at least Shouta thought he was. However, even after ten months, Shouta had never once heard of him using an electricity quirk, even in fights where using a quirk like that could have made the difference between victory and failure. A few vigilantes chose to hide their quirks, of course, but those were usually planning on being vigilantes long-term and Viridian hadn't been in that mindset when he was first establishing himself. He'd been planning on dying within the first few months, so there was no reason for him to hide a quirk, even if it could have identified him. Which brought Shouta to his current question: if the kid he was watching take the exam really was Viridian, why had he completely ignored a powerful potential weapon that would have helped him fight and save people?

However, even if Shouta ignored the whole quirk inconsistency, things still didn't add up. He'd asked to see the file and this Denki Kaminari didn't look anything like his problem child. That could be explained away too, of course, by saying that he might know someone with a quirk that switched faces or changed someone's appearance, or even that he knew enough about makeup and cosplay to be able to pass for another person in the low light and high adrenaline environment that was nighttime heroics, but again, the only people who would think about disguising themselves like that were those that were capable of planning for the future. Viridian hadn't been planning on living long enough for being recognized to ever become a real problem.

Which left the obvious conclusion that this kid wasn't Viridian at all, but that somehow seemed the most illogical possibility that Shouta had considered yet. As far as Shouta knew, Viridian didn't have any formal combat training. He had learned to fight on the streets watching pro-heroes take down villains and then taking them down himself, so his fighting style was one of a kind and wasn't something that Shouta had ever seen anywhere else. It was completely unique to the problem child and it would stand to reason that the only person alive that would fight with a style identical to Viridian's was the vigilante himself.

The longer he watched the exam, however, the more Shouta had to begrudgingly admit that the fighting styles weren't exactly identical. Kaminari used many of the same moves and techniques that Viridian did, but he heavily incorporated electricity and he didn't use pipes or a slingshot, even though pipes would probably prove useful in the long run if he knew how to use them. Viridian moved the same way Kaminari did, but he relied primarily on weapons and improvised strategies instead of his quirk, which was why his file was full of theories about various mental quirks rather than something more combat oriented.

By the end of the exam, Shouta was still only about 50% sure that he'd actually found Viridian's civilian identity. He would need to actually confront the kid to be sure, but even though he tried telling himself that this whole situation was too good to be true, he couldn't help getting his hopes up. If this kid really was his problem child, this would be the perfect opportunity to get him off the streets, out of dangerous cases, and into therapy. It was almost too much to hope for.

When the final bell announced the end of the exam, Shouta cleared his throat, "I have a few questions for one of the examinees. Is there any way we could ask Denki Kaminari to stick around for a few minutes?"