My Hero Academia: Thunder God

Chapter 365: Chapter 364: The Idea of Grading Villains



"Alright, I'll take you to the training location now. I'll explain the specific training methods once we arrive."

Just as everyone was still talking about Kaminari's performance earlier, Class A's homeroom teacher Aizawa turned around and walked slowly into the forest after finishing his sentence.

"Uh, teacher!" called out Class Rep Iida.

"Let's hurry and follow," said Momo.

"Ugh, I'm still kinda sleepy..." Mineta rubbed his eyes groggily.

Regardless, everyone followed closely behind their homeroom teacher. After all, they were all aspiring Heroes.

But the forest trail was hard to walk through, thick with vegetation and fallen tree trunks. Occasionally, creepy bugs would scurry out, making girls like Ashido and Uraraka scream in surprise now and then.

"Kaminari, what level do you think your strength is at now?" Momo asked quietly as she walked beside him.

Her question also drew the attention of Kyoka on his other side. Faced with the curious gazes of the two girls, Kaminari scratched his chin and thought for a moment.

Yeah... what was the actual level of his strength?

In the end, he could only shake his head helplessly and answer, "I'm not really sure. There doesn't seem to be a precise way to classify combat strength."

Even though modern society divides Pro Heroes into newcomers, second-rate, and first-rate, those rankings are still just public opinion.

The Hero rankings published by the Hero Public Safety Commission are based on popularity and social contribution—not actual combat ability.

In other words, a Pro Hero who specializes in fire rescue might rank higher than one who specializes in capturing villains.

"Combat classification?" Momo repeated, momentarily stunned.

"Yeah. I actually think there should be an official system in place. Because villains are often highly dangerous and destructive."

"To respond to them, you'd need Heroes who are also capable in battle. But how do we assess a villain's strength, and which Hero is capable of handling them?"

"If a villain is too strong, then sending weaker Heroes could lead to unnecessary sacrifices. But if the villain is too weak, sending a top-tier Hero would be a waste of resources."

Kaminari's calmly spoken reasoning left both Momo and Kyoka stunned—and even Aizawa, walking ahead, was lost in thought.

For a while, aside from the rustling of footsteps and the chirping of insects, the forest was completely quiet. But since everyone was caught up in thought, no one commented on the silence.

"Indeed, the current classification system for Pro Heroes is flawed," Aizawa eventually said as he continued walking.

"As you pointed out, we should have a ranking system for combat-focused Heroes and a danger rating for villains."

As someone who had worked in the Hero industry for decades, he'd seen too many instances where Pro Heroes were seriously injured—or even killed—by villains due to mismatched strength.

A Hero's job is to save others, but if a Hero hesitates or fails to act when confronted with a villain, they aren't a Hero at all. Still, a rating system could help reduce unnecessary casualties.

At the very least, if there's a clearer classification, Heroes on the scene would have more information to work with.

For example, if a villain is rated high-level, Heroes could approach with more caution and preparation.

Aizawa's words snapped Kaminari back from his thoughts, and he nodded. "That incident where Ingenium was stabbed by Stain could've been avoided with a system like this."

"My brother…" Iida lowered his gaze, sadness flashing in his eyes.

"For example, let's say Stain was rated as an S-rank villain, while Ingenium's combat ability was only A-rank."

"By regulation, Ingenium would not need to pursue him and could instead report to the Hero Public Safety Commission, which would dispatch an S-class combat Hero to take over—like Endeavor."

As he said this, Kaminari subconsciously glanced at the person ahead of him—

Todoroki Shoto.

"Yeah… Ingenium's mistake was going after Stain without knowing how wide the strength gap really was," Momo said, clearly agreeing with Kaminari.

"Pro Heroes are generalists. Each Hero is good at different fields, but villains are almost always focused on combat and destruction..." Kyoka added quietly.

The conversation resonated with many of the students. As they made their way through the forest, everyone chimed in with their own thoughts. Still, they all agreed with the idea of classifying combat Heroes and villains.

"Kaminari, since you brought it up, you must already have a rough classification system in mind, right?" Tetsutetsu called out from the front.

Kaminari nodded with a smile. "It's just a simple idea. A real system would need a lot of technological and organizational support."

"Then spill it!" Kirishima said eagerly.

"Teacher, how much farther is the training site?" Kaminari asked, glancing toward Aizawa's back.

"Three minutes," Aizawa replied without looking back. Truthfully, he was also interested, which was why he had started to slow his pace on purpose.

"Alright, then I'll share my thoughts," Kaminari said, smiling.

"Let's start with villains. Based on their threat level and potential damage to people and the environment, we can assign disaster-level classifications."

"If they only cause minor injuries and aren't capable of major harm or destruction, they'd be classified as Wolf level."

"In these cases, even without Pro Heroes, the police could handle them with stun batons and net guns. These villains also make good training targets for rookie Heroes."

"Next is Tiger level—these villains can inflict serious injuries or even death and cause significant damage to public property or infrastructure, like arsonists."

"Then comes Demon. Villains at this level are terrifying. Killing comes easy to them. Ordinary Heroes are no match, and they're capable of devastating entire cities."

At this point, Kaminari paused and said, "Stain, based on this system, might seem like a Tiger…"

"But if allowed to keep targeting Heroes, the rising death toll—even without property destruction—would bump him into Demon level in terms of threat to Pro Heroes."

"Also, this system doesn't only apply to individuals. If a large number of Tiger-level villains appear in one city, the overall disaster rating could also be raised to Demon level."

Midoriya, walking beside Kaminari, raised his head and pulled out a notebook and pen.

"Kaminari-kun must be talking about the USJ attack and the Hosu City incident."

"Exactly," Kaminari nodded.

"Is there anything above that?" Momo asked.

"There is, but I'm not sure if villains or man-made disasters of that scale even exist in this world yet," Kaminari said with hesitation.

From his perspective, even someone like Wolfram on I-Island was only Demon level—after receiving Quirk amplification.

So he was really curious whether All Might and All For One, back in their prime, could surpass the Demon level and reach Dragon.

"?!"

Everyone was surprised. What level was Kaminari referring to?

"There are also Dragon and God levels. The former can destroy multiple cities. The latter… threatens the survival of the entire human race."

"Hah, yeah, I might be overthinking things." Seeing everyone stop in stunned silence, Kaminari chuckled at his own words.

"What about the classification for combat Heroes?" Aizawa, who had been silent until now, suddenly asked.

He was curious about what level Kaminari would assign him and what level Kaminari believed himself to be.

(To be continued.)

***

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