Characters / My Huntsman Academia Team RSBR

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Team Raspberry (RSBR)

In General

Team Raspberry

Team RSBR (pronounced "raspberry", after the fruit) is a first-year team that consists of Ruby Rose, Shoto Todoroki, Katsuki Bakugo, and Lie Ren. As dysfunctional as it is effective, it proves to be one of the strongest first-year teams at Beacon.

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• Color Motif:
  • Ruby has red and black, to go with her "Little Red Riding Hood" theme.
  • Katsuki has black, orange, and yellow due to his explosion motif.
  • Shoto has red and white, reflecting his fire and ice sides.
  • Ren has green and pink.
• Dysfunction Junction: Pretty much everyone on the team has their own deep-seated issues that causes them to butt heads with each other, Katsuki and Shoto in particular. Ruby barely manages to keep everything together with some advice from Izuku on how to deal with Katsuki and Ren's help in calming him down.
• Fire-Forged Friends: For all their dysfunction, they come together as a team as they continue to fight alongside one another. By the time they fight the White Fang at Vale's docks, their teamwork is good enough to completely crush their opponents with coordinated, overwhelming brute force.
• Foil: The strength of Team RSBR's individual members is only matched by how different they are in personality.
  • Ruby and Shoto. Both of them are the children of famous Huntsmen, have Missing Moms, and are incredibly talented and powerful as well as socially awkward. But Ruby was raised in a loving household by her father and half-sister and took up her dream of becoming a Huntress of her own volition. Because of this, her awkwardness manifests mostly as shyness and outlandish excitement. She also loves her family, who nurtured her into developing her Semblance as well as her own unique weapon, fighting primarily in close combat with her superior speed and Crescent Rose. Shoto was consistently abused by his father, isolated from his siblings and mother, and railroaded into becoming a Huntsman for his father's ambitions. Shoto has only recently gotten to know his siblings and he downright despises his father, refusing to use the part of his Semblance that he inherited from Enji and fighting primarily at long range with giant waves of ice that are supplemented by solid Dust crystals. His social difficulties result from his lack of tact and inability to pick up on social cues.
  • Ruby and Katsuki. Both of them are incredibly talented for their age and are strong close-range combatants with powerful Semblances that greatly enhance their mobility. But Ruby is a bubbly, dorky girl who fangirls over Hunters and wields a highly complex HCSS due to her lack of training in unarmed combat. Katsuki is ill-tempered, foul-mouthed, and relies primarily on his Semblance and self-taught hand-to-hand combat skills. Ruby is embarrassed at being called a genius in any shape or form, while Katsuki is obsessed with being number one and refuses to admit that other people could be as good as him if not better.
  • Ruby and Ren. Ruby is loud, excitable, has a Semblance suited for direct combat, and wields a highly-complex and powerful HCSS as her weapons. Ren is quiet, The Sneaky Guy, has a Semblance that has no direct impact on his combat performance, and has a comparatively simple weapon with low stopping power. Ruby grew up in a comfortable household on Patch, while Ren spent his childhood on the run with Nora after Kuroyuri was wiped out by the Grimm.
  • Katsuki and Shoto. Both of them have powerful Semblances that form the basis for their respective fighting styles. Katsuki is loud, brash, and prefers to lord himself over those whom he feels are beneath him. He fights extremely aggressively in close combat, using his Semblance to give himself great aerial mobility to outmaneuver his opponents before blasting them away with fire and explosions. Shoto is quiet, stoic, and hates it when his lineage is brought up. He explicitly refuses to use his fire powers unless absolutely necessary and keeps his distance while using his ice powers, rarely moving more than necessary and freezing huge tracts of land along with any Grimm unlucky enough to stand in the way.
  • Katsuki and Ren. Katsuki grew up in the sheltered city of Mountain Glenn, one of the safest places on Remnant. During this time, his physical and intellectual merit along with his powerful Semblance made him extremely aggressive and arrogant as he spent his entire life being praised up to the point that he entered Beacon. Ren had to constantly dodge Grimm and fend off bandits while living on the run with Nora after Kuroyuri was sacked by Grimm. His Semblance is not suitable for direct combat and forces himself and others into a state of calm.
  • Shoto and Ren. Both of them are quiet individuals with troubled pasts. Ren was forced to fend for himself in the wild with only Nora as company, learning to fight out of necessity to survive. Shoto was raised in isolation by his father, who gave him brutally regimented training in hopes of turning him into someone who could surpass Toshinori. Ren doesn't rely on his Semblance heavily in combat due to its lack of offensive applications, while Shoto relies almost exclusively on his Semblance to fight. The colors they're associated with (Shoto's Red and White versus Ren's Green) are also opposed.
• The Stoic: Ren and Shoto are this of the team. Because they're both examples of this, they're able to have entire conversations with one another without saying a single word.

Ruby Rose

Ruby Rose

The leader of Team RSBR and Yang's half-sister. Ruby is a cheerful, idealistic young girl who always dreamed of becoming a Huntress to help people, much like Izuku. Having been trained by her Uncle Qrow, a famed member of Team STRQ, her prodigious skills with a Sniper Scythe inspired Ozpin to invite her to attend Beacon two years before she normally would be allowed to.

Her weapon is Crescent Rose, a "High-Caliber Sniper Scythe" (HCSS) that fires high-velocity rounds for ranged attacks and to propel Ruby along on top of serving as a powerful melee weapon that can easily bisect multiple Beowolves with a single swing. The blade can also be swiveled in order to change the angle of the cut, allowing it to be used as a war glaive.

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• Absurdly Sharp Blade: Crescent Rose can effortlessly cleave through trees, but Grimm can require additional effort if they're larger and more powerful.
• Ace Custom: Ruby designed Crescent Rose all by herself, which is apparently expected of all Signal Academy students. Her experience in weapon design also gets Izuku to ask her for tips on how to upgrade the Emerald Gust.
• Anchored Attack Stance: Because of Crescent Rose's intense recoil, Ruby Sword Plants the blade to keep her aim steady when she's using it as a sniper rifle.
• Badass Adorable: She's the shortest member of her team and is a hyperactive, cheery young girl. She also carries around a scythe longer than she is tall and rips through Grimm like it's going out of style.
• Badass Bandolier: She carries extra rounds for Crescent Rose in a bandolier wrapped around her waist
• Badass Cape: She's always running around with a red cape even in her school uniform.
• BFG: While Crescent Rose is in its gun form, it's almost as long as she is tall. In its scythe form, the blade alone is as long as she is tall and it can still be used as a gun.
• Birds of a Feather: Ruby and Izuku hit it off pretty quickly because of how similar their personalities are. She even says that awkward kids like them should stick together and is ecstatic to see him after spending all of Initiation with Katsuki.
• The Blacksmith:
  • Downplayed. Ruby isn't a dedicated smith like Mei, but she designed and built Crescent Rose entirely on her lonesome as per Signal Academy's curriculum. Izuku goes to her for tips on weaponsmithing and possible upgrades for the Emerald Gust as well as to work the metal into the necklace he wants to give to Pyrrha as a birthday gift.
  • Later on, Izuku asks Ruby to theorycraft upgrades for the Emerald Gust in the middle of the Long Night party while they were both tipsy to amuse them. The following morning, he's stunned when he finds that the blueprints were all amazing and plausible upgrades for every part of Emerald Gust, from the gloves to the braces to the boots.
  • But Mei points out that while Ruby is a whiz at weaponsmithing things she knows like guns and scythes, her designs are primarily guesswork because she doesn't know the forces that go into Izuku's Smashes, so a lot of the math is likely wrong.
• Blade Brake: When she's flying around either by her own power or by an enemy attack, Ruby often stops herself by slamming Crescent Rose's blade into the ground.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Ruby is an amazingly talented Huntress who managed to get into Beacon two years early thanks to her skill with a HCSS. But she's also a young girl who enjoys scarfing down cookies and ice cream and goofing off when she should be studying. Katsuki regularly chews her out for this.
• Companion Cube: Ruby is very affectionate towards Crescent Rose, calling it her sweetheart and gently caressing it while it's in hand when she isn't using it as a weapon.
• Confusing Multiple Negatives: Izuku takes Ruby out to an ice cream parlor when he notices that she's feeling down and homesick. When Ruby realizes that he suspects that she's homesick, she furiously denies it with a confusing set of negatives that confuses her as much as it does Izuku.
  Ruby: [taking a spoonful of ice cream] Ooooh yeah... that's the stuff...
  Izuku: [grinning] Feeling better?
  Ruby: Yeah, thanks... hey, wait a minute! [points her spoon at him accusingly] You didn't just bring me out here so I'd stop feeling that feeling that I totally wasn't feeling at Beacon because you thought I was feeling it, right?
  [Beat]
  Izuku: [confused] No?
  Ruby: I knew it! [Izuku jumps back a bit as Ruby pauses] Wait, did I even say that right to begin with...
• Companion Cube: Ruby treats all weapons very respectfully and gently, referring to them as girls and boys and calling Crescent Rose her sweetheart. She goes so far as to cuddle and caress it.
• Covert Pervert: Ruby accidentally reveals to Weiss that she borrows Blake's smut and asks that Weiss never tell Yang.
• Crash-Into Hello:
  • Ruby meets Izuku when she steps on and trips over his prone form after he already tripped over his own feet.
  • She later crashes headlong into Katsuki during Initiation, making them partners.
• Crippling Overspecialization: She's a force to be reckoned with when she has her Crescent Rose in hand, but she's easily overwhelmed by a more experienced combatant if she's ever disarmed. She starts working out with Tsuyu to alleviate this somewhat.
• Cute Bruiser: She can casually sling Crescent Rose around even though it's as long as she is tall when fully extended. The fight that got her into Beacon also consisted of her punching a mugger across the room and dropkicking one of his associates through a window. She later starts working out to overcome the fragile part of her Fragile Speedster skillset.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Her gothic wardrobe and use of a Sinister Scythe belies in the fact that she's a very bubbly, optimistic, and idealistic young woman who dreams of kicking Grimm ass and helping people as a Huntress.
• Demoted to Extra: Ruby is the protagonist of the original RWBY series. While she makes regular appearances in this story, the focus of the narrative is squarely on Izuku most of the time.
• Don't Say Such Stupid Things!: In the sidestory, "Nope", Izuku, Ruby, Tenya, and Coco are discussing which among them have the greatest potential as a leader. When Izuku starts going into his usual Heroic Self-Deprecation and tries to downplay his own achievements and growth over the course of the semester, Ruby cuts him off with a "Nope." This continues for a while as he tries to rationalize his thoughts, but Ruby isn't having any of it.
• Dramatic Gun Cock: Crescent Rose is a bolt-action sniper rifle. There's no explicit reason as to why this is the case when it's technologically advanced enough to seamlessly switch between its gun and scythe modes other than to possibly sound even more intimidating.
• Entertainingly Wrong: During one canon omake, Yang brushes Ruby's concerns that she's been acting strange as "something serious, but I don't want it to have an effect on our holiday family time." What Yang means is that she's had her faith in her father shaken by multiple revelations about Raven she received over the past few months, and feels hurt and betrayed that her father wasn't the one to tell her these. What Ruby gets out of "something serious" is "Yang and Izuku are soulmates."
• Fairytale Motifs: To Little Red Riding Hood. She is a naïve, idealistic young woman dressed mostly in red, complete with a cape and a hood. She's strongly associated with wolves and slays numerous Beowolves during her personal trailer, "Red".
• Fragile Speedster: Although she's incredibly fast and hits hard with Crescent Rose, Ruby is helpless in hand-to-hand combat and can't take hits well. Katsuki and Tsuyu have been working on that, though.
• Friendly Rival: When Izuku declares that he's going to be the greatest Huntsman in the world, Ruby refutes him because she's going to be the greatest Huntress in the world, declaring the two of them to be rivals. It doesn't make their relationship any less friendly though.
• Friendly Sniper: While Ruby spends most of her fights in close-range, she is still a skilled markswoman armed with a sniper rifle and is bubbly and friendly to those she meets.
• Generation Xerox: According to Toshinori, Ruby is almost a carbon copy of her mother Summer. They're both Huntsman fangirls who are exceptionally talented but somewhat irresponsible and short-sighted.
• Grade Skipper:
  • Ozpin let Ruby attend Beacon two years before she'd normally be able to, making her 15 when compared to her 17-year-old classmates. Katsuki is irritated by this, since it would mean that she's even more talented than he is.
  • This is deconstructed in a sidestory titled "Ambition?" Because she skipped grades, she skipped over material that would be basic for her peers as well as the classes that are meant to prepare her for the academic rigors of Beacon.
• Hilarity Ensues: The author has said the partners (after the players selected Pyrrha as theirs) were rolled randomly, but he knew that it was going to be funny when he rolled Katsuki and Ruby as being partners.
• Humble Hero: She just wants to attend Beacon like a normal person and not be put on a pedestal for being a Grade Skipper, brushing off Yang's attempts to congratulate her by saying that she wants to be "a normal girl with normal knees".
• I Call It "Vera": Ruby designed and built Crescent Rose herself, calling it her girl and treating it affectionately. When Izuku comes to her and Tenya to help him theorycraft upgrade ideas for the Emerald Gust, she isn't sure whether to call it Izuku's darling, girls, or boys.
  Ruby: Come on, don't leave us in the dark; what are you gonna do to your darling... girls, boys, I don't know how you'd classify Emerald Gust.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: She doesn't want to be known as a genius Grade Skipper. She just wants to attend Beacon as a normal student like everyone else.
• Impossibly Cool Weapon: Her Crescent Rose is a bolt-action sniper rifle and a razor-sharp scythe in one. Ruby is able to use its high recoil and her own small stature to propel herself across the battlefield and cleanly slice through trees with little effort.
• Innocent Gray Eyes: Ruby has uniquely silver eyes among the cast and is a Wide-Eyed Idealist who wants to protect others from the Grimm just like Izuku. Ozpin immediately takes note of her eyes when they first meet and believes that it will take small, honest souls like Ruby's along with her hope and optimism to make the world a better place.
• In the Hood: Her cape comes with a hood.
• Large Ham: When she gets worked up, she can be quite hammy.
  Ruby: [right before digging into an ice cream sundae] Justice will be swift! Justice will be painful! It'll be- delicious!
• The Leader: Of the Headstrong variety.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Ruby tends to run headlong into situations without thinking, which gets her into trouble on numerous occasions.
• Leitmotif: "Red Like Roses" and "Red Like Roses Part 2".
• Missing Mom: Ruby's mom, Summer, disappeared 13 years ago, a fact that haunts her and Yang to this day.
• Motor Mouth: She can run her mouth as much as Izuku when she's feeling excited or distressed, like the time she runs into Izuku arms after Katsuki becomes her partner. The following exchange has no spaces in the original work, but it literally doesn't load completely when uploaded here because all the words are stuck together.
  Ruby: [hurriedly] OH MY GOD IZUKU I'M SO SORRY FOR EVER THINKING THAT YOU MIGHT BE WEIRD I MEAN I SHOULDN'T JUDGE BECAUSE I'M WEIRD TOO AND AWKWARD KIDS SHOULD REALLY STICK TOGETHER BUT I DIDN'T REALIZE HOW BAD I MIGHT'VE MISJUDGED YOU BEFORE I MET KATSUKI I MEAN HE'S SUCH A JERK I MEAN HE GOT US ON THE TRAIL AND EVEN FIGURED OUT HOW FAR OFF THE RUINS ARE BUT HE'S BEEN SO MEAN ABOUT IT AND-
• Recoil Boost: Ruby makes use of this more than anyone else in the story, explicitly designing Crescent Rose to propel her along with its powerful recoil to augment Crescent Rose's already sharp blade.
  • As of the omake "Semblance Testing: Ruby," she's begun experimenting with using the recoil to propel her on new directions while moving at high speeds, allowing for rapid course corrections (similar to how Katsuki or Yang will use their weapons or abilities to rapidly move around via explosion).
• Red Is Heroic: Her outfit is primarily red and she's a very bubbly, kindhearted, and altruistic person.
• Retractable Weapon: Crescent Rose neatly folds up into a more compact package so she isn't whacking people in the head with it while she's walking around.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl:
  • She's the Energetic Girl to Izuku's and Katsuki's Savvy Guy, both of whom often end up playing the Straight Man to her.
  • To a small degree, she's this to her entire team, given that she's extremely energetic, while her team consists of Katsuki (an aforementioned savvy guy), and two boys who count as The Stoic to a degree they can have entire conversations through facial expressions alone.
• Ship Tease: Ruby gets some with Katsuki because they spend quite a bit of time together and they're both have massive Sweet Tooths.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • When Yang makes Ruby swear to secrecy about the fact she’s dating Izuku from Taiyang, she comes to realize just how similar they are. From their weapons, their kind personalities, their lame humor, even their semblances. Right then and there, she becomes convinced that the two are soulmates.
  • While spying on Izuku and Yang while they're out for a night in Vale, Ruby begins shipping the two together after seeing them having fun together on stage at a karaoke lounge. By the end, Ruby barely stops herself from screaming for the two of them to kiss already and is extremely disappointed when they don't.
  • While helping him shop for Solstace gifts for Yang, she annoys him by humming the wedding march the entire time, as by this point she is convinced that the two are soulmates, down to believing that Izuku was born a day after Yang (seriously, that's canon - Yang was born July 14, and Izuku was born July 15, that's canon for both series) because, "The gods saw she was lonely and made her someone to ease it."
• Significant Birth Date: Ruby was born on the Long Night, the story's equivalent of Halloween. This also means that the Long Night party in the story is the first time she gets to drink as it's her sixteenth birthday.
• Sinister Scythe: Ruby was trained in the use of a Sniper Scythe by her Uncle Qrow, making her exceptional enough to enter Beacon two years early. Izuku notes that the Sniper Scythe is incredibly dangerous and difficult to use, leaving him awestruck while seeing her in action.
• Skilled, but Naive: Ruby is incredibly skilled for her age but is still just a young girl with big dreams and a mostly rosy view of the world.
• The Smurfette Principle: She's the only girl on her own team and of the three main team leaders.
• Something about a Rose: She leaves rose petals in her wake while she's dashing around with her Semblance. Her last name is also Rose.
• Super-Speed: Her Semblance allows her to move incredibly quickly for short bursts, leaving rose petals in her wake.
• Sweet Tooth: She loves cookies and gobbles them up whenever they're placed in front of her, even having a secret cookie jar to satisfy her cravings. When Izuku starts making pancookies for her, she screams "More!" after being given a satisfying pancookie.
• Teen Genius: Ozpin admitted her into Beacon Academy two years early because of her incredible proficiency with Crescent Rose.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Subverted. Her cheerful and excited demeanor make her prone to reckless decisions that her more level-headed compatriots might not make, like rushing ahead during certain exercises and getting blasted for her troubles.
• Young and in Charge: Downplayed, but she's the leader and the youngest member of her team.

Shoto Todoroki

Shoto Todoroki

The son of the #2 Huntsman, Enji Todoroki and Ren's partner. Shoto is gifted with a powerful Aura and Semblance from his parents, but almost exclusively uses the ice aspect of it. His rough and regimented upbringing has left him with little experience with people his own age and starts reaching out to Izuku and Weiss to help him overcome his own coldness and awkwardness.

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• Above the Influence: While helping Port rescue Weiss and Tsuyu after they were caught in a frigid blizzard, Shoto has to strip an unconscious Weiss naked to get her cold, wet clothes off as he used his Semblance to warm her up. He doesn't do a thing to her afterward, but the revelation of this information leaves her so embarrassed that she passes out.
• Adaptational Badass: Zig-zagged. Like the rest of the transplanted My Hero Academia characters, Shoto benefits from having an Aura. However, he needs ice Dust to use his Semblance when his Quirk-using counterpart can produce it endlessly at will. While it's not seen on screen because of his aversion to using his fire abilities, it can be assumed that he needs fire Dust to accomplish the same effect for that part of his Semblance.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: In the beginning of My Hero Academia, Shoto was a cold Jerkass, threatening Ojiro with frostbite, saying that he would only avoid killing villains because it would hurt his reputation, and dropping a giant frozen robot on the competition at the Sports Festival. Here, that's mostly skipped over and he's presented as awkward and insensitive at worst and a genuine Nice Guy once he starts having actual social interaction.
• Archnemesis Dad: Shoto hates his father and doesn't want anything to do with him. The worst part is how people bring up his father to him all the time (the equivalent of rapid-fire pushing his Berserk Button). He enjoys his new job at an ice cream parlor, as it not only does it emphasize to his father that he's not using his fire abilities (the ability to practice with his powers in a new setting is a bonus), but it happens to make Enji look worse because the general reactions that fall under "The poor son of the Number Two Hunter has to take a job at a low-level ice cream parlor. How cruel for him not to provide for his son!" make him smile.
• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: His hair colors perfectly represents which part of his body his fire (red) and ice (white) powers originate from.
• Bad Job, Worse Uniform: Downplayed. Shoto ends up taking up a job at an ice cream parlor Ruby and Katsuki frequent to develop some people skills. While he actually likes the job, the pink and white apron and little paper hat he has to wear is humiliating for even someone as stone-faced as him. The fact that people tend to assume the worst about Enji while seeing Shoto at work makes it bearable.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: With Weiss due to their numerous tense encounters with each other.
• Berserk Button: Anything involving his father, especially being compared to him, tends to set off the normally stoic Shoto.
• Character Tic: He tilts his head to the side when he's confused.
• The Comically Serious:
  • When Izuku takes Shoto out to an arcade to hang out, they decide to play air hockey to pass the time. Shoto gets unusually competitive and even starts cheating with his Semblance when it looks like he's about to lose. This prompts Izuku to respond in kind, leading to a tense back-and-forth that ends with the destruction of the air hockey table and damage to the wall from Izuku's overly enthusiastic smash, which ended up shattering the puck as well.
  • He somehow manages to get along with Nora and wholeheartedly appreciates Nora's paper hats in his own way.
  • Later on, he tries to spoon-feed Weiss ice cream in the hospital while she recovered from frostbite and a tonsillectomy with complete and utter seriousness, oblivious to how intimate most people would consider the gesture.
• Defrosting Ice King: Shoto gradually loosens up over time, becoming warmer and more talkative as he spends time with Izuku and Ruby. The former is especially surprised when Shoto becomes so competitive during a game of ice hockey that he starts using his Semblance to cheat. Despite being on rocky ground with Weiss, he's genuinely concerned for her health and brings her ice cream while she's recovering from frostbite and a tonsillectomy in the hospital.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: After Weiss gets sent to the hospital, Shoto reflects on how he used his fire to save Weiss, despite his vow to never use fire. He also starts wondering why it bothers him so much that Weiss being hurt made him break that vow; why it bothered him so much. Instead of coming to a reasonable conclusion (Weiss means a lot to him, or that "Perhaps my hatred of my fire is holding me back and I can do good with it"), he ultimately concludes that it means that he needs to get even more skilled in using his Ice, since if he was better with it, he wouldn't have needed to use his fire at all.
• Fire/Ice Duo: This is the true nature of his Semblance, but he refuses to use his fire side out of spite for his father.
• Foil: In some ways, Shoto is even more of a foil to Izuku than Katsuki. They're both socially-awkward with incredibly powerful Semblances. Izuku was born Broken and raised by his loving mother who was too concerned for his safety to put actual stock in his dream of becoming a Huntsman while his father worked overseas to send money home. Shoto's mom is nowhere to be found and his father bred him for the specific purpose of becoming a Huntsman to surpass Toshinori, subjecting Shoto to such regimented training that he began to hate his father. Izuku is primarily motivated by his idealism and hope of following in Toshinori's footsteps and struggles to control One For All, while Shoto distances himself from Enji as much as possible and stubbornly refuses to use his Semblance to its full potential out of spite. They both want to have friends but are awkward about it and even share a Character Tic, tilting their heads to the side slightly when they're confused.
• Hand Cannon: Katsuki says that Shoto uses "weak ass .45 caliber gun", which would be massive and seriously lethal in real life.
• Heroic Lineage: He's the son of the second greatest Huntsman in the world, giving him an appropriately powerful Semblance.
• Heroic RRoD: Despite his assurances to the contrary, Shoto suffers from frostbite when he overuses his Semblance, putting him at serious risk in protracted fights as the ice encrusting his body slows him down and increases his chances of succumbing to hypothermia.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: He and Izuku start hanging out together when Shoto starts asking questions about what it's like to live in a normal household, with Izuku taking him out to do "normal" things like watching TV and going to the arcade.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Type B. Being secluded from others his age for most of his life and never meeting his own siblings until recently has made Shoto withdrawn and quiet in social situations. Despite this, he genuinely feels camaraderie with his teammates and classmates and wants to be friends with them, but is too unsure of himself to ask. It's not until he has a conversation with Izuku that he starts opening up more and he is grateful to have him as a friend.
  Shoto: I find that I, too, would like us to be friends... So how much more do we need to do before we become friends?
  Izuku: Well... I suppose we only really have one thing we need to do before we become friends. [extends a hand forward] Hi. My name's Izuku Midoriya. Would you like to be friends?
  Shoto: (utterly perplexed) Is that it?
  Izuku: Yep!
  Shoto: [blinks in confusion before shaking his hand] Hello. My name is Shoto Todoroki. I'd... enjoy that.
• An Ice Person: He almost exclusively uses his Semblance's ice abilities, which allow him to directly interface with Dust crystals to generate powerful waves of ice that can freeze most Grimm solid.
• In-Series Nickname: Katsuki calls him "Icy-Hot" or "Half-and-Half".
• Lamarck Was Right: He inherited both his father's and his mother's Semblances and was specifically bred for this to be that way.
• Long-Range Fighter: Shoto relies almost entirely on his Semblance to fight, carrying Dust crystals to use as a conduit for his Semblance rather than weapons like his peers. Because of this, he is unskilled into close combat but can easily ice huge tracts of land, which makes fighting alongside him difficult due to how wide-reaching his Semblance can be.
• Mundane Utility: Shoto's ice Semblance and reputation as the son of the Number Two Huntsman quickly nails him a job at an ice cream parlor at Izuku's suggestion. The ice he makes with his Semblance ends up making already phenomenal ice cream even better. He also relishes the fact that people instantly assume the worst things about his father when they see Shoto working in a small business.
• No Social Skills:
  • His lack of contact with others his own age makes him withdrawn and come off as cold and rude to others. He isn't actively malicious, but his lack of tact easily rubs people like Weiss the wrong way. Even when he's trying to be nice, his dialogue is stilted and overly formal. Weiss even says that Shoto makes Izuku look savvy by comparison. Oddly enough, this actually helps Weiss get along with him better, as it helps her recognize that he's not trying to be rude, he's just really, really bad at this.
  • After quarreling with Weiss, Shoto asks Izuku why he'd get try to get them to reconcile. Izuku has to explain how people can have an effect on other people, even when they're not the one being interacted with (using the example of how Izuku and Yang are friends, but if Izuku hurt Ruby, whom Yang cares for, that friendship would be over).
  • Shoto ends up feeding Weiss ice cream he made to cheer her up while she recovered from a tonsillectomy. He is completely confused when Weiss starts balking and blushing over being spoon fed by a boy as Ruby immediately darts out the door at the sight.
  • Izuku finds him staring off into space in the middle of a snowstorm, Shoto says that he uses days like this to clear his head of troubling thoughts. When Izuku points out the obvious by asking if he was trying to clear his head right now, Shoto is surprised and says that they must be closer friends than he initially thought. Izuku has to resist the urge to facepalm as Shoto's inability to understand social cues sinks in.
    Oh Shoto. Just when you thought you were the most awkward person at Beacon, and just when you thought you dived into the depths of how socially awkward Shoto could be, he proved you wrong on both counts.
• Oblivious to Love: Tying into his No Social Skills, he has no idea when he's accidentally making a gesture that could be considered intimate and doesn't seem to register why Weiss is so fidgety around him after he took off her soaking wet clothes while she was unconscious, or the potential connotations of him feeding her ice cream (due to her arms being too weak to lift). The narration even calls him thicker than a sack of bricks.
• The Quiet One: Shoto doesn't talk more than necessary. This is part of the reason why he and Ren get along so well. The narration even lampshades it when they first become partners.
  And so the most deep and manly of friendships was forged that day, the rock on which it had been made being composed primarily of talking as little to each other as humanly possible.
  • This gets taken to its logical extreme when he and Ren have a complete conversation with nothing but facial expressions, translated into inner thoughts by the narration. This is especially impressive given how stone-faced Shoto tends to be.
• Ranged Emergency Weapon: Shoto carries a pistol for when the strain of using his Semblance becomes too great. However, his Semblance is far more effective and he rarely has to rely on this.
• Required Secondary Powers: His Semblance comes with a resistance to cold and heat, which keeps him perfectly comfortable while standing in the middle of a blizzard. This is downplayed, though, as he's using it wrong - overusing his ice powers can actually give him frostbite and severely hurt him. If he used his fire side in conjunction with it, he wouldn't have this problem.
• Sacrificed Basic Skill for Awesome Training:
  • Shoto's lack of social skills stems from his regimented training under his father and lack of contact with others until coming to Beacon. At the same time, his training has given him plenty of practice with his Semblance, allowing him to easily flash freeze most Grimm, proving to be one of the strongest members of his team. Izuku doubts that he'll be able to take on Shoto in a straight fight, which Nora agrees with.
  • Shoto considers not going home for the holidays out of fear of ruining it for his siblings with his poor social skills and the general atmosphere he exudes as Enji Todoroki's perfect heir. Izuku manages to talk him out of it with the advice Toshinori gave him about doing things "for the greater good".
• Scars Are Forever: He has a serious burn over his left eye and refuses to comment on it.
• Ship Tease:
  • He gets some of this with Weiss due to their similarly awful family backgrounds, similar ice motifs, and his complete inability to understand when he might be doing something romantic (like spoon-feeding her ice cream after she gets a tonsillectomy and she's too weak to lift the spoon).
  • It's implied that to save Weiss' life after she got soaked in the winter, he actually used his fire for the first time (significant, given his normal refusal to use his fire side period thanks to his father- its use in canon was a huge turning point for the character, and involved Izuku nearly crippling himself).
  • The ship finally sails during the Beacon dance when Weiss accepts his courtship.
• The Stoic: Shoto doesn't emote much due to being out of his element in social situations. It takes a lot to get a response out of him, but his father is a sore spot in particular.
• Superior Successor: Shoto was groomed to be this for his father, Enji, in order to surpass Toshinori.
• Superpower Lottery: Shoto's ability to produce ice alone is so powerful that he can easily freeze most Grimm solid. This is on top of the fact that he can produce searingly hot flames if he so desired, but refuses to do so because of his upbringing. His Semblance is so powerful than Izuku, for all his progress, admits that he'd probably lose badly in a straight fight against Shoto.
• Superpowerful Genetics: Shoto's Semblance is a result of the combination between his father's and his mother's Semblances.
• Troubled, but Cute: He has serious Daddy Issues and can be unintentionally cold and callous, but he's genuinely nice when one gets to know him and is quite handsome even with his scar.
• Uncle Pennybags: Shoto is happy to use his father's wealth to his friends' advantage, such as renting out rooms for the Long Night party his friends had planned. He also ends up covering the 1,000 lien bill when he and Izuku destroy an air hockey table by accident. On the other hand, he plans on cutting loose from this father's influence (and wallet) the first chance he gets.
• Willfully Weak: Shoto rarely uses his Semblance in spars because of how dangerous it is, which leads Katsuki to the initial conclusion that it's pitifully weak.
• Youngest Child Wins: Played with. Shoto is only the youngest of his siblings because he was the one with the Semblance that his father wanted... and given how he was raised, "Winning" doesn't really seem like the right term.

Katsuki Bakugo

Katsuki Bakugo

Izuku's longtime bully and former Childhood Friend. Katsuki was gifted physically and academically from an early age, eliciting praise from everyone around him, including Izuku. This gave Katsuki a colossal ego after his powerful Semblance manifested, causing him to put down "Deku" for being Broken and useless. Despite this, Katsuki genuinely desires to be a powerful Huntsman and follow Toshinori's example as a shining exemplar of strength.

His weapons are King Explosion Murder and Lord Explosion Murder, a pair of large gauntlets that help him focus his explosions and empower them with Dust on top of being durable melee weapons to supplement Bakugo's in-your-face fighting style.

---

• The Ace: Deconstructed. He was this in Mountain Glenn, having the best grades, the strongest Semblance, and best physical performance among his peers. He faces much stiffer competition at Beacon, a school for the best of the best, and is infuriated when he realizes that he might not actually be the best Huntsman around and quickly loses his status as one. Despite this, he can still clean the clock of Team CRDL on his lonesome and tears apart Beowolves with ease.
• Adaptational Badass: Like the rest of the transplanted My Hero Academia characters, Katsuki benefits from having an Aura.
• Affectionate Nickname: Izuku still calls him Kacchan, his cutesy childhood nickname. Izuku is the only one allowed to do this at the start of the story, but eventually Katsuki begrudgingly lets Ruby refer to him as Kacchan as well. Izuku calls him this so much that when he calls Neo and introduces himself by his real name, Neo doesn't recognize "Katsuki Bakugo".
• Ambition Is Evil: Zig-zagged. On one hand, Katsuki's desire to be the very best is what fuels his colossal ego and aggressiveness, going out of his way to make Izuku as miserable as possible for daring to challenge him. On the other hand, this same desire is what pushes him to constantly improve himself and work hard at Beacon when he realizes that he can't coast along anymore if Izuku managed to beat him in a fight. This is considered the most positive part of his personality and is the primary reason why Izuku looks up to him despite their past.
• Anime Hair: His hair is sandy blonde and spiky to resemble a comic book starburst.
• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: His spiky, starburst-like hair resembles an explosion, just like his Semblance.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: He defaults to this much of the time thanks to his Hair-Trigger Temper and it usually works due to his raw offensive power. But this can work against him as it drains his Aura rapidly, which can leave him at risk of getting taken down if he isn't careful.
• Bait-and-Switch: Bakugo grabs Izuku and tells him to hurry, there's a little girl who's going to be badly injured. When Izuku presses him for details, he yells that a) the girl is Neo and b) the injuries she's about to suffer will be coming from him.
• Berserk Button:
  • The feeling that he's being looked down upon or pitied by others will instantly send him into a frenzy. Izuku in general seems to be able to push this button down constantly without trying simply by being concerned for and admiring Katsuki despite Izuku's former status as a Moon Child.
  • Neo also became one for Katsuki after she stole his prize belt and managed to kick his ass.
• The Berserker: Katsuki's Hair-Trigger Temper can quickly turn him into this, making him Attack! Attack! Attack! when he's pissed at someone.
• Blood Knight: Not quite to Nora's extent, but Katsuki is in his element in the midst of a brawl and often picks fights with people who simply annoy him.
• Born Winner: Katsuki is naturally gifted academically and physically on top of having a powerful Semblance. This contributed to his belief that he is The Ace until he came to Beacon. And to be fair, he is somewhat correct- even in an environment like Beacon, he is still quite skilled for his age. The problem is that Birch, as a school, was not the best when it came to teaching combat skills- most students who did well there were those who already had naturally good combat skills or Semblances, so him rising to the top there wasn't that unusual. Beacon, though, is where the best of the best go, so he isn't automatically the best now.
• Broken Ace: He spent his entire childhood being praised for being the strongest, bravest, and smartest kid around. This made him a Jerkass with a colossal ego due to his stubborn belief that he's the best there is. His aggressive behavior doesn't fly nearly as well at Beacon and he quickly realizes there are people like Ruby and Pyrrha who are just as talented as him if not even more so. His reputation goes even further down the drain when both Izuku and Ruby manage to win their respective spars against him (albeit via his Aura running low rather than actually beating him), which contributed to the assumption that Katsuki is all bark and no bite.
• The Bully: He was this to Izuku back at Mountain Glenn, leading choruses of his classmates in putting Izuku down for being Broken, resulting in Izuku's lack of self-esteem and social awkwardness. He simmers down over the course of the story, particularly after Izuku manages to beat him in a spar.
• Clear My Name: After the boy's bathrooms are detonated, eyes immediately drift over to the boy with the explosion-based Semblance and Hair-Trigger Temper, Katsuki Bakugo. Katsuki himself is too annoyed to bother solving the mystery himself, following instructions from Ozpin to bear with the rumors until the official investigation is complete. Izuku is having none of this, rallying his friends to look into it themselves and clear Katsuki's name.
• Close-Range Combatant: While his explosions can cover considerable distances, Katsuki does almost all of his fighting in point-blank range to maximize his damage output and take advantage of the superior mobility his Semblance offers.
• Combat Parkour: Due to his ability to maneuver himself in mid-air with his Semblance, Katsuki has become especially skilled at this.
• Comical Overreacting: Katsuki's Hair-Trigger Temper makes him prone to this on his best days, screaming and seething at the slightest provocation.
• Crash-Into Hello: Ruby crashes headlong into Katsuki during Initiation, making them partners.
• Death Glare: Katsuki is almost perpetually pissed and he flashes these at people who talk back to him.
• Demoted to Extra: Like his team lead, it's not a strict case of this, merely a downgrade from his position from his home series. In My Hero Academia, he was The Rival with Izuku, had his own character arcs and growth, and was arguably the second protagonist of the story. Here, while he does play a role as part of the three-team circle of friends and a rival to Izuku, he's nowhere near as important to the story.
• Determinator: Katsuki is hellbent on becoming the greatest Huntsman in the world. He despises the idea of running from a fight and will fight to the bitter end until he either wins or is knocked unconscious.
• Encounter Bait: A rare example of this trope that's also a person. Grimm are attracted to negative emotions like anger and hatred. Katsuki's baseline emotional level is best described as "smoldering, hateful rage." When he gets into a wilderness setting, Grimm are naturally drawn to him. But considering he's a Blood Knight, he's not too disappointed.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Katsuki may be a colossal Jerkass who constantly puts Izuku down and belittles all of his teammates, but he has no patience for those who are explicitly racist against Faunus, telling CRDL to buzz off when they invite him to join in their antics and beating the crap out of all of them when they turn on him.
  • To clarify, he will never bully you for having a weird Semblance, or for being another race. He will absolutely crush you if he thinks you're useless, but even that has a weird sort of logic to it - if you're useless, then at best you're cannon fodder and at worst you'll drag everyone down around you. In a world like Remnant, it even has a bit of sense to it.
• Explosive Propulsion: Katsuki can achieve a surprising amount of aerial mobility by projecting his explosions behind him while he's in mid-air.
• Fatal Flaw: His Pride and Wrath are his two biggest flaws, both of which prevent him from getting along with others and impede his better judgment.
• Foil:
  • As per their original appearances, Katsuki is this for Izuku. They grew up together in Mountain Glenn and both admire Toshinori above all. But Izuku was the Shrinking Violet Nice Guy Un-Sorcerer until he met Toshinori, who named him his successor and gave him the opportunity to achieve his dream of becoming a Huntsman who saves others. Katsuki is a Jerkass Born Winner with a Hair-Trigger Temper who felt that he was born to be a Huntsman, desiring to become number one to prove his strength to everyone else, just as Toshinori did.
  • To Neo. They're both self-assured, strong brawlers with powerful Semblances who love ice cream. But while Katsuki tends to overwhelm his foes with overwhelming offense, Neo specializes in being nigh-untouchable before striking her foes when they least expect it.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Izuku is the only one who seems to be able to tolerate Katsuki's highly-aggressive behavior at first. Even Katsuki's own teammates don't particularly like him that much and he rarely gives them reason to. Several heaping of Humble Pie and Laser-Guided Karma start to mellow him out and he starts doing nice things for others of his own volition. Izuku invites him to Pyrrha's birthday party while Ruby offers to hang out with him in their downtime. Even with all of this, both Pyrrha and Yang are seriously tempted to beat the crap out of Katsuki for his treatment of Izuku and Ruby at the start of the semester.
• Genius Bruiser: While it's hard to tell with his tendency to be The Berserker, Katsuki's grades are excellent and he's skilled and creative with the use of his Semblance.
• Genius Sweettooth: One of the smartest people in his age group and as detailed below, enjoys sweets.
• The Gift: Katsuki was born with a talent for pretty much everything he puts his mind to, being born with a powerful Semblance, a naturally athletic body, a strong Aura, and a gifted mind.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Katsuki has serious anger issues and he can be set off by a single stray comment about him, his abilities, or his attitude. This makes him extremely unlikable among his peers and the sheer amount of rage he's able to produce tends to draw the Grimm, which only makes it doubly troublesome. Case in point, by the time he and Ruby reach the Ruins, they had to fight their way through eleven Beowolves and an Ursa.
• Hand Blast: Katsuki primarily projects his Semblance through his hands. Lord Explosion Murder and King Explosion Murder are explicitly designed to concentrate these explosions and grant him fine control over them.
• Having a Blast: His Semblance allows him to turn his Aura into powerful explosions.
• Heroic RRoD: Overusing his Semblance causes his arms to cramp up and briefly renders the limb and his Semblance unusable. His gauntlets are meant to mitigate this by allowing him to safely charge up his more powerful attacks and absorb some of the recoil.
• Hey, You!: He almost never calls Ruby by her given name, just referring to her as "Runt". Much like in the original canon, him remembering and using a character's proper name is an implicit sign of respect.
• Hidden Depths: Katsuki admires strength above all, but that's because his hero is Toshinori, just like Izuku. But instead of focusing on the "saving people" aspect, Katsuki focuses on Toshinori's Showy Invincible Hero image and decides that he wants to be the strongest Huntsman, just like him.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Katsuki ends up burning through his own Aura with his Semblance during his spar with Izuku, which allows the latter to put him in the red at with a well-placed shot from Emerald Gust, thus making Katsuki lose.
• Humble Pie: He ends up losing to both Izuku and Ruby in their respective in-class bouts, albeit barely. The experience starts to mellow Katsuki out as he realizes that he does have things to learn and he even starts doing genuinely nice things for others. He's even willing to ask for (well, demand) Izuku's help in hunting down the thief who took his ice cream eating contest prize belt.
• I Call It "Vera": Like most personal weapons in the RWBY setting, his gauntlets have names - "Lord Explosion Murder," and "King Explosion Murder." This is a Mythology Gag to his failed hero name choices in canon.
• Implausible Deniability: Katsuki insists that he isn't at Pyrrha's birthday party for "Deku's shitty cake"... while stuffing four slices of cake in his mouth.
  Weiss: JUST ADMIT YOU LIKE THE CAKE, YOU BRUTE!
  Katsuki: OVER MY DEAD BODY!
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Katsuki is obsessed with being the best at everything he does. So when he falls into a river and Izuku rushes to help him despite being Broken, he takes this as Izuku believing that he's better than him, which causes their relationship to sour.
  Katsuki: It doesn’t matter who, whether it’s half-half bastard, the runt, the runt’s sister, Deku’s partner, or even Deku himself. It doesn’t matter who stands in my way. I will crush them all and I will become the strongest. That I swear.
• Innocent Innuendo: When he first meets Neo, she asks him what flavor of ice cream he would choose for a contest. He replies that "He could eat [Neopolitan] all day." She throws this back in his face later, after he learns her name.
• Irony: The hot-headed guy with the Explosion Semblance loves ice cream more than anything.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Katsuki brutally chews out Ruby for her poor work ethic by mentioning that she'll end up dying like her mom if she doesn't try to improve herself or keep up with her studies. He also deconstructs the Relative Button, saying that Ruby has no business being a Huntress if pushing it is all it takes to throw her off guard. While Katsuki isn't mincing words, Tsuyu knows he's doing this to make sure that Ruby is properly trained rather than trying to sabotage her, which is why she doesn't intervene while witnessing all of this going down.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • While he can be a colossal pain-in-the-ass because of his enormous ego, Katsuki is far from evil and can even manage to do nice things for others when he's feeling up to it, like using a coupon he won from a competition he entered to buy Ruby an expensive sundae at no real benefit to himself. He also has no tolerance for anti-Faunus racism and beats the crap out of CRDL for suggesting that he join in on their antics.
  • In one sidestory, Katsuki notices that Shoto is standing alone and not eating anything at Pyrrha's birthday party. Katsuki ends up handing Shoto a slice of cake.
  • In another sidestory, he and Ruby are watching football before he notices that her excited sweating is letting her lingerie show through her white shirt. He immediately goes to grab a jacket to cover her.
  • Katsuki ends up using the rest of the coupons he won from the ice cream eating competition to buy dozens of bowls of ice cream for Ruby's birthday party during the Long Night. Izuku is surprised by this and thinks that it was cool of him to be so considerate, even as Katsuki insists that it was just to make dealing with Ruby easier.
• Laser-Guided Karma: The years he spent bullying Izuku get paid back in full. Even before the story begins, Katsuki is nearly killed when a sudden Grimm attack manages to infiltrate Mountain Glenn, only being saved by Izuku's rash decision to help him, which in turn inspired Toshinori to intervene. After this, he loses to both Izuku and Ruby during their in-class bouts. Then he gets his ass handed to him by Neo, who also stole the prize belt he won from an ice cream eating competition.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: He actually manages to interrupt the narration in his haste to get into battle in the Emerald Forest. He also pulls his canon line about calling people "Side Characters".
• Leeroy Jenkins: He's confident enough in his strength to rush into battle without a second thought, which can get him in trouble on numerous occasions.
• Malicious Misnaming: He calls Izuku "Deku" for being Broken and useless in his eyes, which only infuriates Katsuki more when it seems like Izuku was lying about being Broken the whole time.
• Mirror Character: Ren sees him as this way (to a very small degree) to Nora after an argument where Katsuki claims that civilians are weak and should get out of the way of Hunters when the Grimm or other threats show up, because at best they'll just be cannon fodder, at worst they'll get in the way and make things worse - an opinion that Nora has said about Ren when it became clear that she was physically stronger and more powerful than him (though in a nicer way).
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: Katsuki is frequently left out of group announcements because of how irritable he is.
  Yang: Okay ladies, gentlemen and Bakugo-
  Katsuki: Go to [gets punched in the gut] OMPH- Hell!
  Yang: Already there whenever you're around there, Sparky.
• The Nicknamer: He never really remembers people's names, always giving them derisive nicknames like "Deku", "Runt", "Half-and-Half", "Ice Bitch", and "Hammer Girl" (Izuku, Ruby, Shoto, Weiss, and Nora, respectively). Mitsuki advises Ruby to not be bothered by this and to replace whatever nicknames he throws out with a less offensive one like "kid", as he continues to do this even after he starts getting along with the rest of RSBR.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Katsuki was The Ace in his hometown, which fed into his own ego and belief that he was the best. After coming to Beacon, an elite Huntsman Academy, he finds that he has a lot more competition and has to struggle more to stay ahead. He also can't command respect the way he did at Birch because there are people who are as good as him if not better.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: We don't see how Katsuki defeated Team CRDL, only that he came away the victor.
  Ruby: [seeing Katsuki walking in while covered in bruises] What happened? What gave you those injuries?!
  Katsuki: It doesn't matter. I won.
• Personality Powers: His personality is as explosive as his Semblance.
• Power Fist: King Explosion Murder and Lord Explosion Murder are designed to help Katsuki focus his explosions and make them more powerful. They're also incredibly durable, allowing him to bat away most Grimm with them and use them to block oncoming attacks.
• Pride: His colossal ego is one of his two biggest vices, causing him to talk down to people he feels are beneath him and refuse to accept or heed the warnings of others. Several helpings of Humble Pie and Laser-Guided Karma have made him simmer down a little, but his arrogance never completely goes away.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: He has bright red eyes that serve as a reminder of how outwardly unpleasant he is.
• Screaming Warrior: He's constantly yelling while fighting, to the point that his enemies tend to hear him down the block if he isn't trying to be stealthy.
• Self-Deprecation: Ruby at one point walks in on him training, and he starts screaming that he's weak and that everyone else will pass him by if he doesn't keep pushing himself to the limit.
• She's Not My Girlfriend: People tend to mistake Katsuki's grudge against Neo for romantic interest, which he's quick to refute. It's hard to tell if he's lying or not. He also screams at his mom when she suggests that he and Ruby should hit it off.
• Ship Tease: He gets some with Ruby for their shared appreciation for sweets and the amount of time they spend together either training or studying. He gets even more (albeit with huge loads of Belligerent Sexual Tension) with Neo, whom he constantly insists he “super hates”. Though to be fair, he says he hates nearly everything, including things that he is actively enjoying (such as the time when he declared that a cake Izuku made wasn't that good, while he was eating his fourth slice), so he's not exactly a reliable source.
• Signature Attack: According to Izuku, Katsuki always opens his fights with a big right hook.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: It's rare for Katsuki to finish a sentence without using at least one profane word.
• Smarter Than You Look: It's easy to forget that the smug, hyper-aggressive Katsuki is serious about his schoolwork and gets near top marks in all of his classes.
• Sour Supporter: Katsuki hates the fact that Ruby is the team leader and chides to the moon about it. But after she managed to beat him in a spar, he begrudgingly starts following her orders (but not without extensive criticism). He also screams at Izuku to not tell him what to do when they're chasing Sun, but still ends up following orders anyways.
• Spectacular Spinning: Katsuki's strongest attack, Howitzer Impact, consists of him spinning in mid-air while firing off his Semblance to trap his opponent in a twister of fire and explosions.
• Strong and Skilled: Battle-wise, he has few real weaknesses. He's strong, fast, packs a powerful Semblance, a good amount of Aura, and has incredibly good reflexes. Most of his losses can be attributed to his personality flaws than his training.
• Sweet Tooth:
  • Ruby discovers that one of Katsuki's weaknesses is his insatiable sweet tooth; devouring almost as many of Ren's pancakes as Nora and stuffing four slices of Izuku's "shitty cake" in his mouth at Pyrrha's birthday party. He also knows about Ruby's hidden cookie jar and frequently raids it without her knowledge. Shoto is impressed by how hygienic Katsuki's morning routine must be because of how he hasn't rotted all of his teeth out with his diet. This is in contrast to his canon counterpart's preference for anything spicy.
  • Katsuki has a particular appreciation for ice cream, entering an ice cream eating competition every year during Hunter's Day and winning. He also admonishes single-flavor purists and Izuku's liking for mint chocolate chip and surprises the reporters on site when he says that his favorite flavor is Neapolitan.
• Swiss-Army Superpower: On the surface, there isn't a whole lot you can do with shooting explosions out of your hands aside from destroying stuff. But Katsuki has adapted it to use for Explosive Propulsion by projecting out of his hands and to change direction in mid-air. He can also manipulate his explosions to create smokescreens, project them as bullets of explosive energy, and trap people in a twister of fire and smoke.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: He does not like his teammates and is happy to let them know that. Even after he begins to simmer down, he's still coarse and ridiculously angry most of the time.
• Tricked-Out Gloves: Lord Explosion Murder and King Explosion Murder are a pair of durable gauntlets that allow him to charge up his explosions more safely while also working as armor and bludgeoning weapons.
• Tsurime Eyes: To emphasize his arrogance, pride, and aggressiveness.
• Toxic Friend Influence: In one non-canon omake, Yang beats him up because she thinks he taught Ruby to drop F-bombs. He denies this, but doesn't help his case by swearing twice while doing so.
• Underestimating Badassery: Katsuki has been on both sides of this trope. On one hand, he heavily underestimated Ruby and Izuku's ability to fight him in their respective spars, both of which end in Katsuki's defeat. These defeats contributed to the opinion that Katsuki is all bark and no bite, which causes Team CRDL to underestimate Katsuki in turn.
• Unskilled, but Strong: While Katsuki is a proficient melee combatant, especially when compared to Izuku, his technique is still rough and he's overly reliant on his Semblance when compared to someone like Yang, Weiss, or Ruby due to attending a combat school ill-suited for producing trained Huntsmen.
• We Used to Be Friends: Izuku used to follow Katsuki around when they were younger and they played together in the woods of Mountain Glenn. According to Mitsuki, hey were practically siblings due to how often they were seen together. But their relationship soured once Izuku was outed as Broken, leading to more than a decade of bullying and misery. Despite all of this, Izuku continues to believe that they could still be friends and gradually starts mending the bridge with him during their time at Beacon.
• The Worf Barrage: He pulls out his Howitzer Impact attack for the first time against Neo, obliterating the surrounding area and seemingly leaving her down for the count, only for her to come up from behind and strike him down in one hit.
• Worthy Opponent: He considers Neo this, as he's never managed to beat her and somewhat respects her combat prowess. Oddly enough, this is reciprocated, as she says that she'll stay away from him so that their skill levels can equalize.

Lie Ren

Lie Ren

Nora's Childhood Friend, he is one of the few survivors of Kuroyuri, a village in Mistral that was ransacked by an especially powerful Grimm. Quiet, contemplative, and calculating, he's the opposite of his best friend in every way.

His weapon is StormFlower, a pair of fully-automatic pistols with collapsible blades attached to the barrel. While the pistols have low stopping power, they seriously damage Grimm if aimed at weak spots and are useful melee weapons.

---

• Adaptational Badass: Ren's Aura is among the most developed of his peers at the start of the story, giving him far more stamina and staying power than his canon counterpart. His Semblance also has the ability to buff his friends' firepower and sharpen their focus, compared to only masking their emotions in canon.
• Bayonet Ya: StormFlower's melee component is a pair of collapsible blades positioned along the barrel.
• Berserk Button: During an argument with Katsuki, he actually snaps at him when it inadvertently brought up the Nucklelavee and the destruction of Kuroyuri.
• Breaking the Fellowship: Both Ren and Nora are shocked and disappointed that they didn't end up on the same team, but they're still the best of friends.
• CamelCase: StormFlower is named this way.
• Childhood Friend: With Nora. They've spent the last decade of their lives together through thick and thin, be it stowing away to Vale, surviving in the slums, or defending each other from Grimm.
• Clark Kent Outfit: Ren's flowing and loose-fitting Chinese-style clothing apparently makes him look scrawny according to members of the Monochrome League. But given that Izuku's own chiseled body is only an 8.5/Ren according to Nora, Ren is probably much more toned and muscular than he looks with his clothes on.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Downplayed compared to the original series, but Ren is pretty much the only one who can totally understand Nora through all of her babbling and is used to her antics. For instance, he totally understands when Izuku blurts out that Nora will break his legs if Ren walks any closer to him and only confronts Izuku about it when they're alone again.
  Izuku: Ren, Nora's threatened to break my legs if you come over here right this instant, so I'll have to ask if you could please stay right there for a minute or so?
  Ren: [pauses for a moment to think] Alright, take what time you need. I'll just hang out over here in the meanwhile.
  Izuku: (internally) ... Excuse me... what? Excuse me, what?! EXCUSE ME, WHAT?!!?!? THAT WORKED!? THAT! THAT WORKED?! OF ALL THE.... UH.... BU-.... WHA-... YOU... WHAT WAS UP WITH THESE TWO!?
• Combat Pragmatist: Ren doesn't really care about fighting "fair" and will gladly sink his blades into vital organs if it means getting a leg up over someone.
  Ren: I'll admit, I'm not amazing in a fight. I'm not my friend, Nora. However, this should concern you more than amuse you... [slips inside of the man's guard to stab him in the kidneys] Because that means to stand a chance against thugs like you, I've had to learn to fight a bit dirty.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Ren is sadly on the receiving end of this when he faces Sorahiko. While he tries to surrender immediately, Sorahiko still decides to beat him into the ground.
• Even the Guys Want Him: One of his traits is "Rensexual", instigating these feelings from other guys due to his androgynous features.
• Fights Like a Normal: Ren relies primarily on his Gun Kata in combat since his Semblance doesn't have any offensive applications.
• Gentleman Snarker: He tends to snark at people (Katsuki in particular) without ever dropping his usual, polite tone.
  Mook: [after getting stabbed in the back by Ren] You psychotic little bastard! Get the hell off of me!
  Ren: I do take exception to that. While I'll admit that I might not be completely well adjusted, I hardly think I'm psychotic. I think you're just being what my friend Nora might describe as a "sore loser".
• Guns Akimbo: How he wields StormFlower.
• Hammerspace: Ren's sleeves aren't that loose yet his guns can comfortably slip inside without a problem.
• Heroic Build: Ren is apparently shredded if Nora's comments are any indication, given that even Izuku's hard-earned abs are only an 8.5/Ren. Of course, she's pretty biased.
• Kung-Fu Wizard: He's skilled enough in the use of Aura to stop a King Tajitu's attack and make its head explode by projecting his energy through it. His Aura is also more developed than Izuku's, Ruby's, or Weiss'.
• Last-Name Basis: He's always referred to as "Ren" and never by his first name. Even his Childhood Friend, Nora, only calls him Ren.
• Living Emotional Crutch: Nora is utterly lost without Ren and she can't spit out her feelings for him because she's terrified of driving a wedge between them.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: He has hair that goes past his shoulders but is tied into a long ponytail. He also has noticeably more angular features than say Izuku and carries himself in a far more graceful manner than the rest of his male peers. His character sheet even says that he has androgynous features.
• Mix-and-Match Weapon: StormFlower is a pair of fully automatic pistols with collapsible blades attached to the barrel.
• More Dakka: Compared to his other gun-toting peers, Ren's StormFlower is fully automatic and can fire a spray of bullets when most of his friends are shooting one round at a time.
• Mundane Utility: Ren is frequently seen using his Semblance to keep Katsuki from flipping out at people.
• Nerves of Steel: Ren's Semblance masks negative emotions like panic, fear, and anger, forcing Ren and those within his Semblance's area of effect into a state of calm, which is useful for keeping one's cool in a stressful situation. It also renders him and those near him invisible to the Grimm, as they rely on negative emotions to detect Humans and Faunus.
• Ninja: Ren is by far the best at sneaking around and gathering information among his peers, eclipsing even Blake in this regard. He's also an adept and agile martial artist who primarily relies on stealth and Combat Pragmatism to get ahead in a fight, while his Semblance renders him invisible to the Grimm while it's active.
• Not So Stoic: He snaps when an argument with Katsuki brings up Kuroyuri and the Nuckelavee.
• Nothing Up My Sleeve: Unlike his teammates who constantly wear their weapons or keep them in holsters when in the field, Ren just keeps his guns up his sleeves.
• Odd Friendship: He and Nora are polar opposites in their temperament and abilities, but they're the closest friends anyone could possibly imagine.
• The Quiet One:
  • Ren doesn't talk much, even when he's hanging out with his best friend, Nora. This is part of the reason why he and Shoto get along so well; they're both anti-social.
    And so the most deep and manly of friendships was forged that day, the rock on which it had been made being composed primarily of talking as little to each other as humanly possible.
  • This gets taken to its logical extreme when he and Shoto have a complete conversation with nothing but facial expressions, translated into inner thoughts by the narration.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Blue to Nora's, Katsuki's, and Ruby's Red, as a calm, quiet individual who sneaks around more than charging in.
• The Sneaky Guy:
  • Ren is one of the best trackers among his peers, which Aizawa takes special notice of, and he does the bulk of the investigative work while Team MNVW, RSBR, and TABY are trying to hunt down the true culprit behind the destroyed bathrooms.
  • Ren apparently studies Izuku in his free time due to their pancake rivalry, slipping Blake a notebook filled with everything from the time Izuku gets up in the morning to what underwear he puts on on different days.
  • More seriously, he started stalking Team MNVW when he realized that for the first time in a long time, he wouldn't be able to watch over Nora.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Ren has a tendency to pop up out of nowhere and greet someone, which can freak people out. He doesn't even do this intentionally.
  Ren: [suddenly from out of sight] Lien for your thoughts?
  Izuku: [nearly has a heart attack] AAAAAAAAAH!
  Ren: Sorry, didn't think that I was being that stealthy.
• Support Party Member: Ren's Semblance has no direct offensive applications, but after he develops his Aura to a certain point it can increase the focus of allies within his effective radius, potentially increasing their damage, hit rate, defense, or skill checks.
• Supreme Chef: His "decent" pancakes are considered damn near divine by everyone else. Nora rates the things she eats on her usual scale of 0 to Ren, so that's telling about how good his cooking is. Izuku is determined to catch up to him in order to keep Nora happy. This leads to a friendly but competitive rivalry between them. This is in stark contrast to his Cordon Bleugh Chef status in the original series, as his "health drinks" were disgusting enough to make Pyrrha hurl. Even Nora didn't want to go anywhere near them.
• Weak, but Skilled: Ren's relatively paltry 9 mm pistols don't possess penetrative rounds like Ruby's, meaning that they don't punch through Grimm quite as well when used at anything but the head and can't deal with especially tough armor. It's implied during week five's weekend phase that he learned to use them for self defense against other people. His Semblance is also the only one on his team without a direct offensive application. Despite this, Ren can handle Grimm just fine and is sometimes even more dangerous when he's disarmed, as seen when he detonates a King Tajitu's head with nothing but his Aura and his bare hands.