Chapter 17
"There's a chance that these villains got around the sensors!" Aizawa called and Kazuki really didn't like the grim feeling he was getting from the man. Especially combined with the… resolute way he was walking towards the villains in question. "Thirteen, evacuation procedure and try to call the school. You too, Kaminari, try to use your Quirk to contact someone!" Right, the guy had commented that he got some comms device from support with his costume, right? Kazuki had to give the teacher props for remembering that.
A second later Aizawa launched himself at the villains. They couldn't see a whole lot of the ass kicking their teacher delivered though, shame that it was. 'Pull it together,' he thought, feeling the emotions shift for the worse on the villains' side, together with the fear from his classmates.
"Come on, Aizawa said to evacuate, let's move!" he called out.
"Over here!" Thirteen followed with, already guiding the class away from the villains. However, it was not to be, it seemed. Barely a few steps into their escape, the dark, purple mist that had appeared before moved around him until it blocked their way.
A pair of bright, yellow eyes looked at them from within the wispy figure.
"I'm afraid I can allow that," the villain said, casually, almost politely. "Greetings," the man continued then, in the same eerie tone. "We are the League of Villains," he introduced himself and the group that was currently fighting with their teacher.
Kazuki was only half hearing though. His mind ran a mile a minute as he tried to find something he could do. Aizawa wanted them out of the place, but that wasn't looking very likely at the moment. Besides, if they did get away, the man would be alone with the small army of villains…
He had faith in Aizawa, truly he did, but Kazuki didn't like their teacher's odds in that situation.
'The crazy bastards are really after All Might?' he couldn't help but wonder incredulously as the misty villain confirmed what the other guy had said before. What kind of crazy maniac willingly went after the Number One Hero? Were they just insane or were they that overconfident? Even with All Might's condition… But that was supposed to be a secret.
'Do they know?' Kazuki wondered then, feeling dread creep inside him.
"No- Wait!" he called, seeing Bakugo and Kirishima rush the villain that kept blocking their path.
"Just run!" Thirteen told them all then, when the attempt proved to be less than fruitful. 'But where?' Kazuki wondered, considering the path they had been taken was blocked.
"The side!" Yaoyorozu exclaimed and sure enough the sides were clear… Until they weren't. The shadowy mist extended from the front until it started encircling them.
"You will be scattered," the villain said then and the mist closed in on them. His classmates started panicking and it was all Kazuki could do not to follow right after them. 'Come on, think!' he demanded of his brain, but he received nothing. "And tortured," the villain continued. Soon, the darkness was surrounding them, covering them, wrapping around them. "And slain," the villain punctuated before the floor seemed to disappear under Kazuki.
The next thing he knew, he was falling down somewherebefore hitting the ground so hard it knocked the air out of his lungs. Coughing, he pulled himself into a sitting position. Looking around as he placed his feet under him, he noticed, through his sense as well as his eyes, that he was surrounded. Surrounded by villains.
There were destroyed buildings around him, fake ones considering that they seemed to still be at the USJ. There was earth all around in a slope that led to the center of the joint. Unfortunately, that direction was also the one with the most villains. 'Because of course it is,' he thought.
Looking around warily as the chuckling criminals approached, Kazuki tried to use his sense further away. The fear of his classmates and friends was very different from every slight fright that the villains might feel. With that in mind, he grimaced as he realized that they'd been scattered all over the place.
"You will be scattered and tortured and slain," the villain had said. 'First step taken, it seems,' Kazuki realized grimly. 'But not a single one more,' he added, determination flooding him.
"Just like in juvie, huh?" he mumbled under his breath as he took in his specific situation more than the general one. It was almost a familiar sight. Evil looking people circling around, ready to take advantage of the weak, be it of body or mind.
"If you surrender peacefully," one of them said. 'Monologue guy, huh? There's always the gloater, I guess,' Kazuki thought, pulling from the pool of negativity in him. Once he summoned the first Grimm, shit would hit the fan. Before then though, the villains didn't know what he could do, and he needed to take advantage of that. "I promise we won't hurt you… much."
Looking between them, Kazuki noticed that most of them either seemed to have mutation quirks or generally bulky builds. It was a little risky to guess that they were all physical fighters from just that, but it was what he had. Thus, his mind warily worked with that information.
And then he grinned.
It was show time.
"It's cute that you think I'm trapped here with you," Kazuki replied, his shadow extending backwards before a beowolf formed behind him, to cover his back. With the growling beast seemingly appearing out of nowhere, all the villains shifted where they stood. Not quite frightened, but certainly wary. As they well should be. "When it's you guys that are trapped here with me."
[}-o-{]
[Toru Hagakure]
She hit the water before she even knew what was going on.
Instinctively, her hands and feet started flailing around, trying to get stability that they wouldn't find. For a brief, panicked moment, Toru thought that'd be it, that she'd just drown. Just like that, as if she weren't a hero student or something.
That moment passed as fast as it came though, her mind finally catching up before she started swimming up. Not before her eyes noticed something swimming in the water around her. Several somethings, actually, but she couldn't really make out what those were.
Considering what was going on around her before she appeared on the water, Toru didn't like the chances of those things being good.
Breaking through the surface of the water, she looked around as best she could. There was the boat in the middle of the water and then… Just more water, as far as she could see, or at least far enough that she couldn't realistically get anywhere too fast. Starting moving towards the ship, though, Toru made the mistake of looking down at the artificial lake.
There was something swimming in the water alright. 'The villains,' she realized, watching as a person with shark-like features moved entirely too close to her. 'I have to get out of here, I have to,' she thought, panicking as she started desperately swimming towards the boat. She was invisible, sure, but the water around her wasn't. It'd be painfullyobvious that something was going on where she was if anyone send more than a passing glance her way.
She counted herself lucky that there was a fair bit of chaos going on around.
'Yes!' Toru thought, barely stopping herself from exclaiming that celebration out loud. It'd have been bad if she gave herself away, especially when she noticed that there were a lot more villains swimming around the ship. '... Oh no,' she thought then, her gloved hand hitting the side of the boat.
Looking around, she saw no way to get on the thing.
'No, no no no, nonononono-'
Her panicking mind ground to a halt when she saw a portion of the artificial body of water freeze over. 'Todoroki?'she thought, ecstatic. That was her chance. She just needed to get on the newly made platform and she'd be safe!... Or, at least, out of the water. 'Come on,' she urged herself as she started swimming again. She didn't have time to waste, not when she could be noticed at any moment.
It didn't take her long to reach the edge of the frozen surface. Her hands slipped and the thing was cold, but she persevered. Anything to get out of the water and out of the villains' reach.
'Come on, come on!' she thought, more and more desperate with every failed attempt to get out of the water. And then, one of the worst things that could have happened did just that.
The ice platform extended.
Freezing her in place.
"No!" she cried out, her everything feeling even colder than it had before. It was cold, it hurt, it- "Help!" she pleaded, screaming as loud as she could. Breathing was hard, speaking even more so. The least said about shouting, the better. "Help me, please!"
"Bubbly?" she heard then, and she didn't know who it was, but Toru couldn't have been happier that there was someone to hear her pleas.
"Help!" she called again and heard some strange slipping sound before the voice returned.
"Bubbly!" they answered, and it took Toru no time at all to place the voice. A second later, her guess was proven right as Ashido appeared in front of her frozen body, in all her pink, black and yellow-eyed glory.
"Pinky, help me, please," she said then, her fear and desperation so very painfully clear in her voice. She must have sounded pathetic, she was sure, but she couldn't have cared less at that moment.
"Todoroki! Ease up on the ice!" Ashido called over her shoulder. "Hagakure is trapped in it!" she added, before crouching next to Toru. "Don't worry, I'll get you out… This might not be pretty though."
"Please, get me out here," she mumbled, looking as Ashido used her Quirk to try and melt the ice around her. A corner of her mind was suddenly very wary of the acid that was being used to free her. It was, however, very firmly overwhelmed by the sheer desire to be free of the ice. She'd never felt so helpless.
Were her legs in the water still? Was she completely encased by ice? Could the villains get to her if the former was true? She couldn't feel her legs very well, were they moving? Were they frozen?
She was… fairly sure that she could move her feet, but the cold was so… numbing.
"Pinky," she mumbled, her voice coming out a lot weaker than it would have before.
"Todoroki!" Ashido shrieked, and suddenly she was sounding very afraid. Toru could relate.
Although, she wasn't feeling as afraid as she had before, weird that.
She was feeling tired and cold.
"Am I going to die?" she asked, her mind feeling sluggish and cold. Who'd have thought being frozen over would feel so… calm after a little while.
"No, you are not! Bubbly?! Bubbly, come on! Hagakure! Toru!"
[}-o-{]
[Momo Yaoyorozu]
They were surrounded.
"What do we do?" Kaminari asked from beside her and Momo could honestly say she didn't have a single idea. None of them had the firepower to take on so many opponents at once. There were more villains than she cared to count and that said quite a bit.
"You think we can hold on until help comes?" she heard Asui ask as the three of them stood back to back, facing the criminals around them. "Because things aren't looking so good."
'You can say that again,' Momo thought to herself grimly. They were students, barely so, really. They weren't ready for this kind of scenario. They might have some fighting training, but not to face as many opponents, proper villains. 'How I wish Endo was here,' she thought. 'Or Todoroki, or Midoriya. I'd take Bakugo too…'
Those people would have an easy time. They had more powerful, more battle oriented Quirks. As for Momo? Asui? Kaminari? They were no weaklings, for sure, but they couldn't take a small army of villains by themselves.
She blocked an attack with the staff she'd made and let her mind run. Kaminari did have quite a bit of power, if she remembered well from the Battle Trials. However, he couldn't control it, and if he used too much, he overloaded and basically incapacitated himself. That was something she could work with though.
With narrowed eyes, she created another staff with her Quirk.
"Kaminari!" she called, passing him the weapon.
"Is this…" the boy started asking, before electricity cackled around the object. "Oh, now this is cool," he said with a grin, smacking a villain that was going for an attack and giving him a good shock that left him smoking and twitching on the ground.
Momo couldn't bring herself to be too upset about that, if she were completely honest.
She could hold her ground well enough, but she was worried about both the number of villains and the criminals that were staying far back. Some of them looked like they might have a Quirk that did more than just make them a close combat threat. They didn't have anyone with range, however, except maybe Kaminari if he went all out. Momo could probably make him something to use at close range, a wire or chains, but he probably wouldn't be able to use that effectively.
She was very against letting the blonde go overboard with his Quirk. If anything happened afterwards, then he'd basically be helpless, after all… It was the last resort, the option to call on if everything else failed, basically.
Asui was more or less in the same boat as Momo herself was. She was holding up well, jumping around and kicking villains left and right. However, sooner or later, she'd slip up, making a mistake… And then what? They couldn't hold on forever, Momo knew.
They had to try at least.
And hope it'd be enough.
[}-o-{]
[Minoru Mineta]
Fear gripped at his heart.
They were screwed, he knew that. There was no way they'd get away from that place. USJ was flooded with villains all over the place. And now, the hero that was supposed to help them reach safety, Thirteen…
She fell to the ground, her space suit costume torn apart at the back, where the mist-Quirk seemed to have wrapped even her black hole power. She'd barely screamed before going silent. And now the hero laid on the ground, unresponsive.
What were they supposed to do?
What could they do when even a pro hero had fallen in the face of this enemy?
"Where's Ida?!" Ojiro called and Minoru had absolutely no idea. Most of the class wasn't around anymore and he could only wonder where they'd gone. Were they fine? Were they in an even worse situation? The mist villain could have sent them literally anywhere! "He could run and get help! We have to get help!"
It was easier said than done, however.
Ida was nowhere in sight, after all, taken to wherever the villain might have taken everyone else.
Then Minoru's mind was snapped out of its haze by a loud sound that seemed to shake the surroundings. Turning to the side, he saw Jiro, with her lobe-jack's connected to her boots. The latters seemed to be the source of the noise that he heard, which he wasn't even sure he could place what it was.
"I'm not just gonna roll over and die, I can tell you that!" the girl shouted at the mist villain while her attack hit him. Minoru couldn't help but be in awe, even as he looked around fearfully. What if the man did the same thing he'd done with Thirteen and hit them with Jiro's attack? Fortunately, that didn't seem to be the case.
'For now,' a pessimistic corner of his mind mumbled, but he pushed that aside.
'We can't get away from here with that guy,' he thought, looking at the mist villain that seemed mostly unaffected by the sound attack. The criminal was just floating, moving around as if nothing had happened. If anything, it seemed to be a mild inconvenience at most. 'What can I do against something like that?' he wondered despairingly.
He just had stupid sticky balls for a power. He didn't have something cool, like creating monsters or invisibility or sound attacks or making himself indestructible. He was a short piece of shit with stupid sticky balls.
But he had to do something.
He couldn't just wait there to die.
And what about his friends? Endo, Hagakure and Yaoyorozu were who the fuck knew where, probaby fighting for their lives. Maybe even in worse situations than the one he was in. Jiro was right there with him, fighting. Was he going to let her do everything and sit on his ass until the villain attacked her?
'Ain't no way you are gonna pick up chicks like that, Tiny,' a voice said in his head, which sounded annoyingly like Endo. Still, it wasn't wrong. He had to do something. He was a hero-in-training dammit all.
'That's the spirit, Tiny!' another corner of his mind called and he imagined Hagakure enthusiastically bouncing on her feet. She was easily excited like that, after all.
If Endo could take all the fear in the school and still be cool with the press incident, then he could deal with his own fear no problem. He had classmates with him. He wasn't alone. They could at least put up a fight, right? And if everything went well, then they'd have a cool story that might get him a girl…
Yeah, that'd work, for sure.
No reason to fear…
'Fuck it all, I've gone crazy,' he thought, even as he grinned through the crippling fear that gripped at his heart. 'Fuck it all,' he repeated as he pulled off two of the balls on his head. 'Might as well go down kicking and screaming, right?' he decided with a delirious chuckle escaping his lips.
Minoru looked at the mist. Surely there was somethingthere he could hit, right? No way it was all mist. There were the eyes, but looked just about as solid as everything else. However… There was the metal thing that peeked through sometimes.
'Yeah, that'll do,' he thought, narrowing his eyes. He'd practiced his aim since forever ago. It was the one thing that could turn his useless power into something half-decent. There was no way he wouldn't practice that.
So he pulled his arm back and threw the ball when he saw a good chance.
It hit, and for a single second, Minoru was almost happy. It wouldn't do anything though, he knew, but he had to do something… Even if it was useless, if he just sat there and something happened to him, to the others… He didn't want to be useless anymore…
"Uraraka! Ojiro!" Midoriya called then, his voice cutting through the haze in Minoru's mind this time. "Help me get rubble! Jiro can you send it flying at the black mist?!"
"Sure, just get it between me and the villain!"
"Mineta!" the green-haired boy called with more authority and power than Minoru had ever heard from the guy. "Stick more of those to him!"
"Sure thing!" Minoru thought, feeling a rush at the fact that he might be able to do something. 'Take that, Junior High bullies! I can do shit!' he celebrated, even if it felt somewhat shitty due to the circumstances.
[}-o-{]
[Izuku Midoriya]
Was what they were doing enough?
Sure, Mineta had managed to land another of his… things on the villain, and Ojiro and him had worked with Jiro to send some rubble so it got stuck too but… It didn't seem to be doing anything, really. Furthermore, even if they were buying time… What was that good for? Everyone else was in probably worse situations, wherever they had been sent by the warping mist.
Worse still, Thirteen probably needed medical assistance quickly and Aizawa was facing who knew how many enemies on his own. If these villains were really there to fight All Might, surely they had at least one strong person, right? What if Aizawa wasn't enough to fight against those people?
They needed help.
He needed help.
Because as much progress as he'd made, he was still useless. Just like he'd always been.
Once a Deku, always a Deku.
But maybe, just maybe, he could do something.
"Uraraka!" he called then, earning himself the girl's attention once more. Normally, he'd be panicking right about then. How was he to even talk to a girl? What to say, what to do… But not then and there, because he needed to do something.
He could panic and be nervous later.
"Use your Quirk on me, please!" he asked, moving to be closer to the girl. Fortunately, she did so immediately and without hesitation, which saved them some time. Time was definitely something they could use as much as possible, after all. "I need you to not let go for as long as possible, ok?... U-Unless you need to, of course, then feel free-"
"Ok," she interrupted, giving the slightest of smiles despite the circumstances and nodding firmly. "What are you gonna do though?"
"I'm going to get help," he said, determination settling in before he sprinted for the door. Ida wasn't around to make the run himself, so he had to do it, Izuku decided. Someonehad to call for help because… Because they weren't good enough against the odds they had stacked against them.
He wasn't good enough, despite being All Might's chosen successor.
He was still a Deku…
But he could do something, still. He could run, he thought. One For All coursed through his body towards his legs, much like how he'd channeled it through his arms for the Battle Trials. Using it on both limbs lowered the strain, even if it was still painful and his legs felt like they'd explode at any moment. 'I'm sorry, Endo,' he apologized in his head.
Although, the other boy probably had many other things to feel besides Izuku's pain.
It wasn't a very reassuring thought though.
That wasn't important at the moment though, even if it made Izuku feel very bad to think about. No, the important thing was to get help from other heroes. He needed to get back to the school, that was where he was sure he'd find at least someone and surely they'd know what to do. Maybe they'd call someone, or maybe-
"How rude of you to just leave," Izuku heard the mist villain say. Worse still, he sounded close. "I won't let you get out-"
"Over here, you freak!" someone shouted and it took the green-haired boy a moment to realize that it was Mineta. Turning slightly, against his better judgment, he saw the purple and white-clad teen flying through the air somehow with a series of his purple beads stuck together into some kind of makeshift chain. "Got you!" the boy celebrated when the end of his creation attached itself to the rubble they'd thrown on the villain.
'This is my chance!' Izuku exclaimed in his mind as he reached the door. One For All no longer ran only towards his legs but his arm this time too. He needed to get past the door and quickly, else the villain caught him. A diminutive part of his mind noticed that the strain on his legs seemed to lessen when he did that, but he needed to focus on his objective.
"Smash!" he shouted, breaking apart the gates. With the opening made, he jumped, putting as much power behind his legs as he could without completely destroying them. He'd need them working if he wanted to be able to get to U.A., after all. He couldn't afford to break them, he couldn't. 'Tone it down, spread it… Spread it more,' he realized, channeling One For All through his arms, his torso, his head…
It worked, the strain went away. The power was low, of course, but he didn't feel like he'd explode at the smallest twitch!
'Focus,' he told himself then, frowning as he continued running as fast as he could. 'Everyone depends on me now…'
And was it bad, that thinking that made him feel good?
Chapter 18
[Shoto Todoroki]
Throughout most of his life, his stance in regards to his Quirk had been very solid. Fire was bad and Ice was good. Fire would burn and destroy anything and everything. Ice, on the other hand, was safe, for the most part. He was determined to prove that to the world and rub it on his father's face that his fire was good for absolutely nothing, just like him.
And yet, there he stood.
The sight before him froze him better than even his Quirk could have managed when he overused it. Hagakure, the invisible girl of his class, was trapped in his ice. His careless use of his power had locked the girl in place and practically frozen her into the artificial lake.
"Please don't forget that each of you possesses a Quirk that can go awry. One wrong step is all it takes to kill others accidentally."
Thirteen's words rang through his mind as he looked at the odd way the ice shaped itself, showing the space Hagakure was in but not her, since her Quirk was still active. Ashido was panicking, using her acid to try and free the girl but it wasn't enough. Not nearly enough, that much was evident with but a glance.
Shoto stood there, for what felt like ages but instead was more likely to be seconds, if that. Intellectually, he knew the answer to the problem at hand. It was laughably easy to do too, almost making the whole incident irrelevant, really.
And yet, he stood there.
Part of it was the shock. He was good at using his Quirk. His father might have been terrible at a lot of things, but teaching him how to use his Quirk hadn't been one of those. Despite his hatred of anything related to the fire part of his Quirk, Endeavor had made sure that he could at least use the part of his power that he actually wanted to use well enough. It'd been a long time since he'd done something he didn't intend to with it, really.
Even this time, it wasn't really a mistake. Shoto had wanted to freeze the water, after all. The fact that Hagakure had been submerged in it had been the part that was an accident. He hadn't known. He couldn't have known, could he? He'd checked as best he could and there were villains around and…
And the girl was trapped in his ice.
It was like suddenly everything was wrong with the world.
"Todoroki, help me! We have to get her out!" Ashido shouted and it snapped him out of his thoughts really quick. Because the girl, Hagakure, had been speaking before, but her voice had grown weaker as time passed. Worryingly so. 'Is she dying? Hypothermia?' a horrified part of his mind whispered.
'No,' another part all but shouted. He refused to cause harm with his ice. Ice was supposed to be good. His ice was supposed to be the antithesis to Endeavor's fire. This couldn't happen. He wasn't going to be the reason someone died. No, he refused.
Gulping down his reservations, nerves, fear and so many other emotions that he wasn't about to start sorting out at that moment, his left hand burst into flames. It wasn't a huge fire, to be sure. It covered his arm and little else, but it'd be enough… It had to be enough.
Moving forward, careful to keep the heat close but not tooclose as he set out to free Hagakure and also help her against the cold. The last thing he wanted was to add burning her to the seemingly growing list of mistakes he was making that day. Encasing a classmate in ice, hesitating to help her and burning said classmate alive. Yeah, that'd be something, he was sure.
Despite him knowing it was the right thing to do… It felt wrong to use his fire. He half expected to cause damage anyway, despite being careful and going slow. As far as he was aware, nothing good could come from him using the fire part of his Quirk. It'd only do damage… And yet, it'd been his ice that hurt one of his classmates and his fire that could help her.
'Get it together,' he told himself. What did it matter if he felt bad when his classmate might be dying? God, he was aware that he was likely some sort of messed up already, but he really didn't need the reminder. He needed to get his priorities straight, apparently.
It seemed to him like the sort of bullshit Endeavor would worry about. Something else entirely other than doing his actual duty as an actual fucking hero. Popularity, rankings, power, that was all that his father had ever cared about.
And there was Shoto, worrying about using an aspect of his Quirk that he hated instead of focusing on saving his classmate with it. For a moment, as he finished melting the ice around Hagakure's torso, he felt terrible. What sort of person was he, if he was thinking that kind of stuff while a girl was likely dying? What sort of person was he, if he cared more about his own problems than he did someone that was in front of him, in need of help, in need of saving?
"You are gonna be fine, Toru, you are fine," he heard Ashido whisper to the girl. In response, the invisible teenager mumbled something he didn't quite catch. "You are fine, don't worry. Todoroki is helping you," the girl added then.
She was unaware of how much worse that made Shoto feel. Because he could have helped a whole lot more if he hadn't decided to have a crisis instead of starting to melt the ice right away. He could have helped more but no, instead he'd let his hatred of his father and all things Endeavor make him hesitate.
He was a failure, he realized. After so long cursing the man and doing his best to be all that Endeavor was not… He'd ended up doing the exact opposite of what he wanted. He'd done what he had sworn he would never do. He'd been like Endeavor.
'He won in the end,' Shoto thought bitterly.
[}-o-{]
[Momo Yaoyorozu]
Things were getting out of hand, and fast.
Asui had been hit, repeatedly. The girl had continued to stand up despite that, but the wounds were accumulating and there was even a cut on her costume that was staining it away from its green color into red. Fortunately for her, none of the wounds were serious, at least as far as Momo could tell. However, that wouldn't remain the case. They were nowhere near done with the villains, after all, and that meant the battle of attrition was lost if they went for it.
So was the case with Kaminari too, it seemed. The boy had done a wonderful job at keeping up his taser-staff fighting going, for sure. However, there were only three of them and a whole lot of villains. That meant that sooner or later there'd be an opening for the group of criminals to take advantage off. There was just no way for them to cover each other, let alone cover themselves. Not with Asui having to move around to be effective and Kaminari being a risk of electrocution for anyone close by.
Momo herself wasn't holding up so well either, if she were honest. She was doing better than her two classmates, that was for sure, but that wasn't saying much. She had a very ugly bruise spreading over her thigh and several other places hurt too. She'd almost ended up like Asui, only barely dodging the bladed arms of a villain.
As it was, their chances were looking worse and worse as time passed.
"Yaoyorozu!" Kaminari called and she hesitated. She knew what he wanted. He'd already asked for it several times. Each time, Momo wondered if it was the right call or not.
Should she allow the teenager to take out as many villains as he could and risk them all once he overloaded? It was a difficult question, especially since she didn't know how effective that move would be to begin with. Maybe it'd take most of them out… Or maybe it wouldn't. What then? Asui and her were already having enough problems without having to worry about covering Kaminari because he'd fried his own brain.
On the other hand, they couldn't afford to wait forever. Things were looking worse and worse by the second. It was a possibility that they'd run out of time and then not even Kaminari's last resort attack would be able to help them. What if it was already too late? What if Asui and Momo were already too tired and injured to cover for the boy, contrary to how it would have been if they'd gone for it to begin with?
What if she had already failed?
"We can wait some more!" Asui called, her voice flat even as she shouted from where she jumped on the face of a villain. "We can wait!" the frog-girl repeated. Maybe it was the wrong call, but Momo envied the decisiveness she put into her words regardless.
It was certainly better than her, overthinking things in the situation they were in. It was much better to make a quick decision and stick to it than second guess her every thought. They just didn't have the time to ponder on things as if it were a homework exercise for heroics. They needed to make a decision quickly.
"We can wait, Kaminari!" Momo shouted her agreement. They could wait… The true question was if they could wait long enough for help to arrive.
Because help was coming, right? Surely someone must have noticed that things weren't going well with them. Surely there was a security protocol or something that would pick up on their situation. Surely someone had been able to call or get help or… Surely they weren't on their own…
Right?
The thought made Momo be even more afraid than she'd already been. She didn't want to consider that, but it was inevitable. What if nobody was coming? What if they wereon their own? What if they'd have to get themselves out of their situation?
Heroes-in-training they might be, but they had only been part of U.A. for days. They were certainly not ready for something like this. Momo knew they'd join actual pro heroes later to help them learn and such but this… This was too much, too much for them to be expected to do much themselves.
A fist hitting her side snapped her out of her thoughts… Or as much as something could do that, at least. Her mind had always been good, but it had also sometimes been toogood. She could think a lot, and that meant she got easily sidetracked. Especially when she felt like she had to think a lot, such as the situation at hand.
After all, Momo had to focus on fighting back against the villains. She also had to look after her two classmates, in case they needed help or they could lean on each other. She also had to try and find a way out of their current situation too, else they might end up at the mercy of villains.
All in all… It was turning out to be quite the shitty day, if Momo allowed herself the bluntness and the language. It was also not looking like it might get better anytime soon. And that wasn't even considering what would happen if things didn't work out for her and her classmates.
She'd been doing a remarkable job at keeping thosethoughts out of her head, at least.
All of a sudden, there was a commotion behind her. It took a great deal of effort not to immediately turn to look, and she only managed because from the screams and shouts she heard, none of them seemed to come from either Asui or Kaminari. Finally, after realizing that whatever that was had gotten the attention of the villains around her too, she dared to glance in that direction.
She blinked then, before her eyes widened and a grin appeared on her face.
There were black feathers falling from above like a deadly kind of rain.
[}-o-{]
[Minoru Mineta]
Breathing was getting harder and his limbs were feeling heavier.
'Should have done more physical training before U.A.,' he lamented to himself, plucking yet another one of the balls from his head. It hurt, which was a telltale sign that he'd been using his Quirk too much. That was nothing new though, he'd been feeling that for a while already.
Glancing towards his hand, he saw the bead in his hand stained with red, same as his fingers. He felt the blood running down the side of his head too. 'So, today officially sucks,' he thought, looking at the mist villain. 'Come on, just gotta keep going…' Minoru urged himself.
They were fine, they just needed to keep going.
And that was the problem, he knew.
Minoru looked at the rest of his classmates, who had been trying and failing to do any real damage to the mist villain. At most, they had managed to be annoyances, covering him in trash and rubble with the help of Minoru's Pop Off. In exchange for that, they'd only tired themselves out. None of them had anything to do any real damage to the criminal, after all.
To make things worse, he was fairly sure the guy was toying with them. After all, he'd taken out Thirteen, a pro hero. Sure, he'd used the woman's Quirk against her, but surely he could attack them too. Why wasn't he though?
He was grateful for that, he really was, but it still worried Minoru. Was there a plan going on? Was the guy buying time because that was all he needed to do? Were they helping instead of hindering their efforts?
Minoru knew he didn't have much going for him, but he'd always taken pride in being intelligent. Maybe not smart per se, but intelligent. He knew a thing or two and he had a good head on his shoulders, he knew. Maybe not so much when there was a pretty girl involved but… But there were more important things to focus on at the moment…
Just a bit more important.
"Come on, guys!" Uraraka cheered them, even through her own exhaustion. If Minoru wasn't so tired and probably suffering from some blood loss, he might have gotten more excited with the effect her little jumping in place had. As it was, it was barely an afterthought as the teenager tried to cling to consciousness.
'Come on. It'll be really lame if I pass out right now,' he thought, trying to motivate himself. Instead, all he got was downtrodden thoughts about how he was lame regardless. Because his brain sucked, even if he wasn't a complete idiot.
Then, a laugh caused Minoru to freeze. Turning slowly, he saw a group of villains making their way towards them. Was that the misty one's plan? To buy time so someone else would deal with them?
"Guys!" he called, his fingers digging into the ball he'd pulled off a moment before. He was more of a capture hero – in-training, but whatever –, he wasn't fighter material, not really. What'd he even do against a group of villains? He wasn't that good at fighting! That was Endo's thing!
"Shit," he heard Ojiro curse behind him and, quite honestly, he fully agreed with that statement. It seemed they were screwed. 'Man, and I didn't even get to have a girlfriend before dying. This sucks,' Minoru lamented to himself.
He'd go down swinging though. Maybe he could be cool in his last moments, if not any other time. Or, that's what he thought, before something interrupted his pessimistic mind. The same thing that gave pause to his classmates. The same thing that stopped the mist villain and all the others.
The criminal that was the closest to them, warping villain not included, was tackled to the side by a dark figure. A very familiar one, for Minoru too. Hell, he'd fought one of those terrifying things himself… Once, and never again.
'Thank you, Endo, I could fucking kiss you…' he thought, sighing in relief to have some reinforcements. Besides, he knew from experience that his friend's creatures were pretty goddamn hardcore.
Then Minoru paused.
'Not literally though,' he corrected, even if he hadn't actually voiced his previous thought.
With a grin on his face as he watched at the beowolf biting onto the villain's clothing and throwing him towards another one, Minoru decided that he couldn't leave all the fun to his friend. Thus, he threw the ball that he'd been holding in his hand. The thing flew true – because his aim was just that amazing, obviously – and smacked a poor bastard in the face, covering one of his eyes.
'Sucks to suck, idiot,' Minoru thought to himself as he pulled another bead. It hurt and it made him grimace, but there were more concerning things going on. Better a bit of pain on his head and some bleeding than a lot of both courtesy of villains, after all.
[}-o-{]
[Kazuki Endo]
Someone kicked the back of his knee, making him kneel down. Unfortunately for the poor bastard, a beowolf had Kazuki's back… Or front, as it turned out at that moment, because when he went down, the beast gave a swipe with its paw and sent the villain flying back. He was still surrounded, but group fights weren't quite as bad when you had someone by your side too. Especially if you could coordinate perfectly with that someone because you basically shared a hive-mind kind of deal with them.
Controlling his Grimm was still weird though.
Furthermore, he might be pushing things a little too much. He could easily keep three of them out, of course, but Kazuki didn't usually spread them out like he was doing at the moment. Most of the time his creatures stayed in his close proximity, where he could kind of mesh the incoming information into one thing for easier processing.
No such luck when he had a beowolf helping out Mineta and company and a nevermore flying over Yaoyorozu and the other two. He'd wanted to help everyone but… Well, there were logistical problems with that idea, obviously. He'd done his best to pick up the most desperate groups of students to send his two extra Grimm too and as it was Kazuki wasn't sure it was a good idea.
Of course, he was perfectly willing and happy to help out his friends and classmates. That kind of thing was expected and what he wanted to do as a hero, for sure. However, doing that was leaving him with only a single Grimm as back up.
On the other hand, Kazuki had done his best to take out as many villains in his "area" – for lack of a better word – as to be somewhat safe himself before sending reinforcements for others. Things had been a little close though, and he'd had to rush things a little bit. Enough that he could easily get in trouble himself if he wasn't careful.
Which was kind of difficult when he had to keep a close watch on three different and unrelated fronts. He would have loved to give the Grimm far away from him some more freedom and focus on his own situation. He couldn't do that though. Somehow, he was sure it would look kind of bad if he caused another massacre, even if it was villains in this case…
Just a lil' bit.
As it was, he had to strain his multi-tasking capabilities to their limits and hope it'd be enough. 'Something else to train on after we get out of this mess,' Kazuki thought to himself, grabbing the arm of a villain and throwing them over his shoulder. There was an "if" supposed to be used somewhere there, but he didn't feel like being pessimistic.
He was already plenty angry-tired-hurt-afraid-worried and so on courtesy of the fucking shitshow that their training trip had turned into. There was no need to add more negativity to that, quite honestly. So he decided to channel some of the fury he was feeling and use it to push everything aside.
It made for quite the cathartic experience whenever he got a hit on one of the assholes around him. Like the poor bastard he kicked in the nuts or the bitch his beowolf slapped into the ground. Why did the second sound worse than the first one, he wondered idly as he kicked another female villain in the stomach.
"No mercy for women? Some hero you are," another female commented and he almost paused to stare at her. Instead, he had his beowulf claw at another criminal while he turned towards the one that spoke.
"My creatures and I are rated E for everyone, lady," he replied incredulously. "Especially fucking idiots like your lot… Sorry, villains. I get confused, they are so similar," he said with a chuckle that grew a little manic as someone took advantage of the distraction to punch his face.
Kazuki barely registered that enough to punch the guy back, first on the jaw and second on the stomach. He kicked the poor sod away when he went down. On the bright side of his shitty Quirk, he was already feeling quite a bit of pain through his classmates, the villains and what not. A punch was barely a drop in the ocean at that point.
"You really tried to take a moral high ground while attacking a school trip for teenagers?" he asked then, feeling himself getting oddly fixated on that issue. "Are you fucking stupid or what?" he continued, still laughing as he and his beowolf made their way towards the woman in question. He really wanted to give her a piece of his mind.
And by piece of his mind he meant some punches and kicks.
"You, are, fucking hilarious, you know that?" Kazuki said, laughing out loud. "God, and you are all getting your asses kicked by teenagers too. Must be embarrassing, huh?"
"Shut-" a criminal to his side started, before getting interrupted by Kazuki's beowolf tackling him to the ground. The creature's sharp teeth hovered menacingly right over his face then and he remained silent.
"I'm really tired of all of your shit, I gotta say," Kazuki continued talking. He was so done with the whole thing. These assholes couldn't even let him make it into an actual patrol or something before having him fight villains? What was their problem? Wasn't there something else they could do with their fucking day other than attacking a school? Why not just rob a bank or something that made a little more sense, at least?
Nooo, they had to attack fucking teenagers.
"I have half a mind to just mess you all up," Kazuki said, his control slipping as another beowolf formed beside him. He was tired of having to hold back. These bunch of idiots deserved whatever happened to them. He was weary, angry, fearful and a number of other very shitty feelings and his friends were in danger. He had zero shits left to give, if he was honest.
'Just one more Grimm. What's the harm? I can keep it under control,' he thought to himself, grinning widely. 'Maybe another, for extra ass kicking,' he decided then, laughing loudly as another beowolf formed before the first was even done. Rushing was a bad idea, but fuck that. He just wanted all those idiots to suffer.
With as much malice as they were bombarding the place with? Kazuki couldn't bring himself to feel bad about letting his control slip through his fingers. That is, until a sharp peak of pain broke his concentration, or lack thereof.
It came from somewhere in the center of the USJ, he noticed. That was where Aizawa was, but surely the man was fine and it was a villain that felt like that. The man was a pro, after all. Surely…
Except, he saw it then, the silhouette of a monstrous thing standing on top of a dark figure. It was the flash of a small object, a bright yellow one somewhere around the latter's head. Just like Aizawa's goggles.
Kazuki froze.
He remembered then, in a second, the afternoons he spent with the man. Idle moments of the man grumbling in a way that made it look like he hated teaching. Complaints that Kazuki knew to be mostly fake.
"I can already tell you are going to be a problem child."
He remembered the push the man had given him with the vice-president thing. Reminding him that he was supposed to be a normal student, not a villain pretending to be a hero. Reminding him that his past didn't have to define him in his entirety.
"We offered you a chance to be a student here, to become a hero. That's what we are going to give you. As far as we are concerned, you are just another student."
He remembered that moment when the man had told him that his goal might be achievable. That he could be a hero. One of those few, precious few people that gave him hope. Those few people and comments that made him think that maybe he had a chance of being more than a monster and a criminal in the eyes of everyone.
"You did a good job, Endo."
"You helped someone today, Endo."
"You were a hero."
And that man was currently looking to be at death's door.
If he wasn't dead already.
Kazuki's shadow exploded outwards from under him.