The trip down the mountain was unnaturally quiet. Yuta walked near the center of the formation with Hagakure beside him. His head still felt like someone had driven nails directly through his eyes
The backlash from forcibly manifesting an incomplete armored Susanoo with barely enough chakra reserves to sustain it had left his entire nervous system feeling scraped raw.
'Definitely overdid it.'
Well, no.
That implied there had been a healthier amount of "summoning a giant chakra skeleton to fistfight a mountain monster." There probably wasn't.
The departure was similarly the same as the students soon all filed into the escort buses that had brought them here in the first place. Outside the reinforced glass, the silhouette of the Nagano mountain range slowly receded into the late afternoon haze, but the oppressive silence inside the vehicle remained entirely unbroken.
In the middle row, Toru Hagakure sat perfectly still, her chin resting in the palm of her white-gloved hand as she stared fixedly across the aisle. Or, more accurately, she was staring at the back of Yuta Akutami's head.
Under normal circumstances, Toru prided herself on being the undisputed mood-maker of Class 1-A. She was not, by nature, a suspicious person.
Her preferred attributes used to describe herself were bubbly, lovable and enthusiastic. And she had once spent forty-five minutes convincing herself that the weird smell coming from the common room fridge was definitely not her yogurt going bad, because thinking otherwise would ruin her afternoon and she had a good afternoon going back then.
She was also her mother's daughter and as such, kept her teachings close to heart. One such teaching Toru's mother had hammered into her head since she was a child was particularly memorable. "A woman's intuition is never wrong, Toru. If your gut tells you something is weird, you believe it."
Her mother had meant this in the context of bad dates and suspicious salespeople. Hagakure was currently applying it to a boy with spooky red eyes who had just looked directly at her face. Well, this wasn't the first time either.
She turned this over in her mind as she settled into her bus seat, gloves folded in her lap.
Okay. She was possibly overthinking it. She did that sometimes. She was aware of this about herself.
However, one thing she couldn't overthink and was used to was the unique social mechanics of being an invisible girl. It was currently the driving force behind her gut feeling that the rational part of her brain kept trying to explain away and failing. People didn't look at her.
They looked at her clothes, or slightly past her shoulder, trying to guess where her center of gravity was. It was a clumsy, awkward dance that even her closest classmates like Mina, Jiro or Asui still stumbled through occasionally. There was just nothing there to see visually and Toru had grown accustomed to it directly from day one.
She had spent her entire life developing a very precise reading for the difference between someone looking at her general direction and someone actually finding her, and those were two completely different experiences.
Now, her gut was practically screaming at her that what had just happened on that slope was the second one. Yuta ... Had definitely looked at her face. And then he'd said it was nothing but a sun glare. Hagakure's invisible eyebrows, which she was fairly certain existed even if nobody could see them, drew together. Sun glare? Sure. Perhaps she wouldn't have thought much of it if he had looked at her with regular eyes on a normal day. However everything that happened and the bleeding, she was reminded of the sports festival, that Yuta's eyes were special.
That was the reason behind her suspicion. She was sure he had definitely looked her in the eyes. She simply had no proof yet. Which was ridiculous. Obviously. Probably. Maybe.
Hagakure slowly slumped further into her seat.
'Okay, Toru. Let's think logically here.' Yuta's eyes clearly did weird things. That much had been obvious since the Sports Festival. Would that include being able to see her?
Well, come to think of it, he had never actually looked at her with it before, had he? So did that serve as any basis? Maybe he had looked at her previously when she wasn't aware? Well, considering their past encounters, that alone was grounds to make her even more suspicious.
Now though…
Her invisible face warmed slightly.
Wait. Hold on. If he could actually see her this entire time ... "Nope." Hagakure immediately buried her face into her gloves. "Nope nope nope."
That line of thought was being rejected immediately. Her soul physically could not survive processing every embarrassing interaction she'd ever had around him under those conditions.
Especially because based on his character, if he had seen something, Yuta was exactly the kind of person who absolutely would not mention it.
That somehow made it worse. Much worse. She quickly turned her mind back to the earlier encounter.
He seemed surprised though, so perhaps this was the first time he was actually seeing her? He looked sufficiently startled enough. That was not the face of someone experiencing sun glare.
'Should I confront him about it?' The thought made its way to her head. She swallowed hard, instinctively leaning forward in her seat, half-tempted to cross the aisle, poke him in the shoulder, and demand the truth. After all, she was, generally speaking, a direct person and directness had served her well.
However, looking at him now, the words died in her throat. At the moment, Yuta looked completely dead to the world. His head was slumped heavily against the cool glass of the window.
The absolute exhaustion radiating from him was palpable.
He looked entirely drained and something told her he wasn't in any condition to be interrogated by anyone, let alone her, about a weird look. Well, clearly walking up to him and saying 'hey did your weird eyes just see my face' wasn't the right move right now. So. Later then.
Toru let out a soft, deflated sigh, sinking back into her seat. The suspicion remained, brewing quietly in the back of her mind, but for now, she would have to keep it to herself. Further down the aisle, the heavy atmosphere of the bus was slowly collapsing under its own weight.
The normal hum of conversation, complaints, jokes, someone inevitably starting a music debate, none of it was happening.
The quiet lasted until Musutafu's outskirts began appearing in the windows, the first edges of the city replacing the mountain landscape with buildings and traffic.
"…So are we just not gonna talk about any of that?" Mineta's voice emerged from somewhere in the middle of the bus.
Silence. Then Kaminari, from two seats back: "I mean. I've been waiting for someone else to start."
"Same," said Sero.
With permission from one, the silence finally dissolved as everyone fell into conversation.
"What even was that thing," Kaminari said. "Like. What was it."
"Giant quirk user," Todoroki said from his seat. No additions.
Well, what exactly was there to say? Yes, a giant mutant caveman had erupted out of a mountain and tried to atomize them.
Yes, Yuta had manifested a glowing skeletal war machine larger than most office buildings. Yes, the mountain currently had a hole in it large enough to qualify as a geological landmark.
Perfectly normal Tuesday activities. Midoriya's muttering could be heard faintly several rows ahead.
"Um ... Midoriya, are you ok?"
"Huh?" Midoriya looked over stunned. "Oh, yeah, I'm fine. It's just ..." He turned his head away slightly, brows furrowing deeper. "I just .. I had a bad feeling about that giant."
"Huh?" The tired Yuta cracked an eye open from against the window. Did Mr. Son of Heroism know something?
Bakugo clearly had the same thought process. "What?" he snapped. "You know something you aren't saying, nerd?"
Midoriya shook his head quickly. "No! Not exactly, I just..." He hesitated before looking toward Yuta. "Yuta-kun, what did it feel like?"
The entire bus quieted slightly.
Yuta blinked slowly. "…What?"
"When you fought it," Midoriya clarified. "You were the only one who actually engaged it directly. What was your evaluation of it?"
Yuta stared at him for several long seconds. Then tilted his head slightly toward the ceiling, genuinely thinking about it.
"…It's strong."
A moment of silence passed.
Kaminari nearly choked. "THAT'S your analysis?!"
"What do you want from me?" Yuta replied flatly without moving from the window. "It's a mountain-sized mutant that claws shockwaves through forests. There's not exactly a lot of nuance there."
"No, but, that's still too vague, isn't it? Dude, you built a glowing skeletal war machine larger than most office buildings and fired an energy cannon at it!"
Yuta closed his eyes again. "Look. I've fought giantification quirks before," he said, voice clearly tired. "This thing wasn't comparable."
That got everyone's attention immediately.
Yuta didn't explain much. He had run into one back during Manila, and had run into another the morning of All For One's death. He was confident enough to say that normal gigantification quirks were on a completely different league.
"If you want an estimate, let's just say I could beat those pretty easily before I could make a sketelal war machine. They would practically die if I used that shot on them." The bus became very quiet after that.
Because everyone on that mountain had seen the damage from that cannon shot.
The giant's shoulder had practically exploded open.
And apparently Yuta considered that to be overkill for others?
"So?" The irritable voice broke everyone out of their thoughts. Bakugo's eyes were glaring venomously.
"So what are you saying, we can't beat it"
Midoriya's brows furrowed even deeper.
"I see. Then that would mean it's not just bigger but also stronger and more durable than other gigantified villains that we've seen. His height is even taller than Mount lady's before the incident." Midoriya's fingers tightened unconsciously atop his notebook as his thoughts continued spiraling forward at dangerous speeds.
"And then, there's the way it moved. Most gigantification quirks suffer from proportional drawbacks. Increased body mass creates mobility issues, balance problems, slower acceleration. It's hard to believe such a large villain can move like that without any problems. If a quirk like that existed in Japan's registry, the HPSC would have flagged it decades ago."
He looked up, scanning the faces of Class 1-A.
"There has never been a public sighting of a villain like that. Not in the news or any reports. It's a complete ghost. The exact same way the public never knew All For One existed prior to a few days ago. Plus it clearly mentioned it had a master, didn't he?"
The words caused their eyes to widen. "The blasphemer against my master thing?" Sero asked weakly. "Yeah, that was super creepy.
Yuta's brows furrowed. "You mean that thing ..."
"It's something I would rather be wrong about ..."
Midoriya hesitated, his voice carrying a slight stutter.
"But I suspect he's somehow related to All For One." He finished his hypothesis. From his view, a monster that strong with no prior appearance was impossible.
However, All For One could hide his own existence for over a century while accumulating power... who's to say he didn't have independent, high-tier enforcers hidden away in the mountains or something? Of course this was all Midoriya's hypothesis.
A rather alarming one that he would have to share with All Might once they got back to U.A.
Ojiro rubbed the back of his neck uneasily. "…You think that giant was working for him?"
"I don't know," Midoriya admitted immediately. "But… The timing feels wrong otherwise."
"Yeah, after all, everything that's happened recently has been related to him. The prison breaks… The League .. The attacks on U.A, and now some giant hidden monster shows up from nowhere." Iida said while adjusting his glasses.
Nobody dismissed it. Because after the last month, none of them really had the luxury of assuming the worst-case scenario was impossible anymore.
"… Damn! Is it just me, or does anyone else miss the days when our biggest problem was failing math quizzes and Mr. Aizawa's tests?"
"You failed those spectacularly," Jiro replied without thinking.
"It is the hand fate has dealt us." Tokoyami said, arms crossed as he leaned back on his seat. "All we can do is strive to push forward."
"Says the guy who likes to "revel in darkness""
Listening to all of this, a frowning Yuta turned his gaze outside the window. "I really can't get a break, can I? Don't tell me it's over already."
---
Hours later, same day, deep within the ruined forests.
The mountain remained scarred open. Noticeable trenches carved through the landscape across shattered earth and uprooted trees.
The forest itself had gone silent. No birds.
Then—
BOOM.
The ground trembled violently. Massive clawed feet crushed boulders flat against the earth while entire tree trunks splintered apart from incidental contact with broad shoulders.
Gigantomachia walked forward in silence.
The enormous wound blasted into his shoulder earlier by Yuta's attack had already partially closed. Thick muscle tissue twisted unnaturally beneath exposed flesh as his body regenerated.
His white eyes scanned the forest floor, searching for something.
Then he stopped. The remains of the earlier massacre still littered the clearing.
Broken trees and blood soaked earth. The pieces of escaped convicts lay scattered across the area where Gigantomachia had slaughtered them hours earlier. The giant ignored it completely.
Instead, he crouched slightly before reaching one massive hand toward the ground. His fingers closed around a metallic object half-buried beneath overturned dirt and crushed foliage.
A voice box.
The thick communication device looked absurdly tiny in his hand. Noticing this, the giant's body shrunk by a large degree.
Judging his size was small enough, Gigantomachia stared at it silently for several seconds before fastening it back around his neck with surprising care compared to the destruction surrounding him. Mission complete.
The blasphemer had been eliminated. With that, his thoughts returned to his last given directly. Wander around and remain hidden. With the commotion caused, there was no longer any reason to remain here.
The giant slowly straightened to his full height before turning toward the deeper parts of the forest.
Then the voice box crackled. Static hissed through the damaged speaker. Gigantomachia stopped instantly.
"…Machia…" The distorted voice echoed faintly from the device.
"…Machia…"
The giant's pale eyes widened slightly. Then slowly narrowed. "…Doctor."