Chapter Text
The bus is loud as we leave, while I expected as much, it still grates on me slightly.
I hurry to take out my headphones and turn on some music, planning to ignore Bakugou beside me the entire way there, much like he intends to ignore me and the rest.
After an hour's drive, we step out for a rest stop, except there isn’t any place to rest.
“To say there’s no ulterior motive would be a lie…”
Aizawa remarks as the class starts to question the surroundings.
“Heeey! Eraser!”
“It’s been a while!”
“With sparkling eyes, we rock on!”
“Cute, cat, stinger!”
Two women with cat themed costumes yell, one has blonde hair, and the other a brown bob.
“The wild, wild…
Pussycats!”
I notice a kid with a spiked cap beside them. He seems grumpy.
“I’d like to introduce the professional heroes, the Pussycats.”
Midoriya then nerds out and gets hit for it.
“The place you’ll be staying is on the base of that mountain…”
The one with the bob points to the other end of a very large forest separating us from the place. I ready some contempt at my fingers.
“It’s 9:30 AM right now…if you kick it into high gear, it’ll be about 12…”
Some of the class try to scramble away from our fate.
“The kittens that don’t make it before 12:30 won’t be eating.”
The ground beneath us rumbles and moves, throwing us off the cliff. As I fall, I hear Aizawa’s last remarks,
“I’m sorry everyone… but your school trip… has already started.”
You sure as hell don’t sound sorry.
Trying my best to orient myself in the air, I manage to claw into the cliff, slowing my descent so that when I reach the others, I’m the only one on my feet.
Yelling at us the time limit of three hours, they permit us to use our quirks against so-called ‘magic beasts’,
Once Kouda confirms his quirk doesn’t work on them, we begin fighting our way through the giant dirt beasts.
I managed to gather more contempt today than ever before, so, small victories.
As time wears on, I feel pain start to accumulate in my head, gathering into a pounding headache as I keep punching through with the contempt.
“Fi~nally, you’re here.”
The sun has lowered, and if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say it’s about five to six o’clock.
“Looks like there wasn’t much point in threatening to deprive you of lunch.”
As her words strengthen my contempt, my headache screams at me to stop feeling.
“You didn’t feel sorry, Aizawa-sensei.”
I glare at him.
“‘Little over two hours’ my ass…” Sero complains, Kirishima groans a similar complaint.
“My bad, I meant by our standards.”
The blonde one then complements Bakugou, Todoroki, Midoriya, and Iida before attempting to pounce on them.
“I’ve been wondering for a while…
Are one of you that child's mother?”
My attention turns towards the spike hat kid, and I pull my quirk in a bit.
“Oh, no, that kid is my nephew. Kouta! Come say hi, you're going to be living with them for the next week.”
Midoriya then walks over to him.
“Uh, my name's Midoriya, I’m studying hero studies at the hero academy. Nice to meet you…” As Midoriya leans down to shake hands with the kid, Kouta pulls his hand back and punches Midoriya in the balls.
My laughter overrides the previous contempt as I shock the people around me with bubbles.
I hold my stomach as I laugh my ass off. It only doubles as Kouta declares us all as corny ass losers. The pain in my head recedes as I stop feeling contempt.
After that, we put our stuff away in our shared dorms before heading to dinner.
The food tastes divine, and the company isn’t too terrible.
After that, we head to the bath.
“Oh, damn this is nice…”
Bubbles float off me as I sit in the bath.
The girls are chatting about something, but I zone out as I look up at the walk, dividing the boys' and girls' baths.
There I notice a figure, squinting at it, I realize it’s Kouta. He seems to be watching for any peeping toms, good on him.
It’s then that I notice him lose his balance slightly, and before I can think, black tentacles shoot up and steady him.
“You alright there, Kouta?”
As I release my grip on him, he turns to look at who saved him.
“Holy cr…”
He leans away as he looks at me.
“Ah…”
I’m not fast enough as he falls down to the other side.
I grab my towel, wrapping myself up to go check on him.
Turns out Midoriya caught him, and we brought him to his aunt together.
“Looks like he just passed out from the fear of falling. Thanks…”
“I thought it might be best to keep an eye out for any perverts, girls these days are rather well developed, y’know” As I look down at my double a’s, I can’t bring myself to agree.
“Kouta… he… doesn’t seem too keen on the concept of heroes…”
I sigh internally as Midoriya begins to pry into Kouta’s life.
“Yeah… it shouldn’t come as a surprise, but there are many out there who aren’t fans of heroes… if he had a normal upbringing, he probably would’ve idolized heroes as well.”
“Normal…?”
“Mandalei’s cousins… Kouta’s parents, they used to be heroes… but they lost their lives on the job.”
I feel a shock of sadness for the kid, and I can see it weakly materialized around Midoriya’s arms.
As the tale continues, I feel a knot in my throat as the blue arms wrapping around Midoriya begin to pull at him.
The next morning we get called outside at 5:30 AM.
Aizawa starts us off with Bakugou doing a repeat of his original physical strength test throw, with the results barely being higher than the original throw.
He then explains that this is a training boot camp for our quirks, by lashing us far enough to break in order to make us stronger.
“Alright, Mori, in order to train your quirk, you will be listening to this,” he hands me headphones and a music player “And your goal is to keep a single emotion all day, no matter what. To monitor this, you will be floating on a bubble above this water. If it pops, you fall.”
I swallow down my nerves as I think happy thoughts, summoning a big enough bubble and sitting on it, I begin to listen to the story from the headphones.
It causes me to nearly immediately fail because of the way the person reads, his voice grating on my ears.
I fall a total of twelve times, three out of anger, six out of indifference, and three out of contempt.
We then change clothes and make dinner as a group. It ends up edible.
As I finish my plate, I notice Midoriya sneaking off, giving in to my curiosity, I follow him.
Turns out he was following Kouta. After watching an extremely awkward conversation, Midoriya leaves.
“Hey, can we talk, Kouta?”
“WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?! CAN’T YOU LEAVE ME ALONE?!”
I walk towards him and sit down, dangling my feet over the cliff.
“We’re all self-righteous assholes, so no, we can’t.”
“Just leave me alone!”
I heave a sigh.
“When I was a kid, I had this friend. She was one of the only people who actually treated me like a person. I loved her, but she got sick, and she passed.” I say, trying to make sure the lingering grief doesn't affect Kouta. “I remember being so mad at my parents for not saving her. They were heroes, after all, so why didn't they save her?” I breathe in deeply. “That day, I learned that heroes can't save everyone; but I also learnt that holding in grief and blaming the wrong people didn't help. It just made it hurt more.”
It's at times like these, I wish I was better at reading people because his face is scrunched, yet he isn't yelling, and I don't know what he's feeling.
“The food really isn't that bad, I suggest you try it yourself.” I say as I stand up. “I'll leave you and your spot alone now, sorry for invading… uh, the view is nice.”
“See you around, Kouta.”
The next day goes by rather calmly, I do notice Kouta keeping his distance, but seeing as he already did that before our chat, who knows how pissed he is at me.
Today was spent focused on training the tentacles, it turns out that extended use of them leaves bruises where they emerge from my back.
It turns out that we're going to be doing a test of courage after dinner, the two classes scaring each other, class A being the first to be scared.
I ended up grouped with Ojiro, group six.
While we're waiting for our turn, the unexpected happens.
The League of Villains shows up.
We're ordered to retreat while the heroes take care of things, but as Midoriya stops and notifies Mandalei of something, I realize that there's no way I'm letting him go off on his own
Which is easier said than done as he immediately disappears into the forest, but an educated guess tells me he's going to get Kouta.
I sprout some tendrils and start swinging through trees to reach there as quickly as possible.
As I reach Kouta’s hiding spot, I see a muscled man stalking towards Kouta, Midoriya lying on the ground behind him. The man is a villain, then.
“THAT PRETTY MUCH SUMS UP YOUR PATHETIC MOM AND DAD!”
I jump in front of Kouta as the man lunges at him, I send out all of the tentacles on my back in preparation to block his blow, even as more gets added to them by the second.
“THE FAULT IS YOURS!!”
Midoriya lunges at the man and traps his hand in the man’s steadily generating muscles in an attempt to lessen the gaps in their speeds.
“AND WHAT NOW?! YOU GONNA HIT ME WITH THAT OTHER WEAK INFERIOR ARM OF YOURS?!”
I shoot my gaze back to Kouta as I prepare myself to attack if Midoriya’s plan falls through. The kid can’t take his eyes off the scene.
“IT'S NOT A MATTER OF WHAT YOU CAN OR CAN'T DO…
FOR A HERO…!!
RISKING OUR LIVES…
AND WALKING THE WALK IS OUR JOB!”
Midoriya then throws a punch that sends the man flying into the cliff and a blast away from the area of impact. It’s all I can do to latch onto Kouta and the ground to keep us from flying straight off. Midoriya then turns to us.
“Let’s get back to the facility. It’s not too far from here…”
I step in front of us and wrap around them as the man stands back up.
“Starting off with a little jab, hrm? Not half bad… Midoriya!!”
As the man taunts us, stalking closer, I whisper to Midoriya.
“Get Kouta out of here, I’ll stall until I can run.”
“KOUTA, GRAB ON!!”
Kouta and Midoriya leap into the air as the man punches the ground beneath us, making it crumble. I hurry and attack him, but he flings me further away before jumping at Midoriya again. He seems determined to fight him only.
As I pick myself up, I see Midoriya beneath the villain, barely holding out against the villain's strength. I rush over as Kouta sends out a burst of water at the villain, just enough to distract him.
I gather all up of my tentacles into one as I use it to punch the villain away from Midoriya. Midoriya rises to his feet, a fire in his eyes as he declares:
“LIKE… ID EVER LET YOU KILL HIIIIIM!!!”
The punch the villain is hit with is stronger than any I’ve ever seen Midoriya throw, and it reminds me so much of All Might that I almost feel proud of him.
Midoriya catches himself as he begins to fall.
“I’m fine…! I still have more to do…”
“No, you’re not fine, Midoriya. But the others may be even less fine. If that was the strength of someone posted so far away from the others… then the class may be in real danger.” I look over at Kouta. He seems shaky on his legs.
“First, we need to get you to safety, Kouta. Honestly, you’ll be of more use than most.” Kouta looks away from Midoriya for a bit. “With your quirk, you’ll be able to help with the forest fires spreading through the forest. You’ll need to become our saviour.” I crouch down so that we’re face to face. “I wish you didn’t need to be…” I sigh. “Climb on my back, Kouta.” He complies.
“Can you really move with all those injuries?” Kouta shoots a worried look at Midoriya, I follow it with one of my own. “That’s what I saved these legs for!” Midoriya shouts as we get moving.
As we shoot through the treetops, Kouta brings our attention to Aizawa running through the woods.
“Sensei!” Midoriya and I shout in tandem.
“Midori-…” he trails off as he sees his beat-up appearance.
“Sensei! thank god!” I hand Kouta over to Aizawa as Midoriya rambles to him. As Midoriya goes to shoot off, Aizawa stops him.
He gives us the order to notify Mandalei that he authorizes everyone for combat.
As Midoriya stops an attack on Mandalei and recounts Aizawa’s command, I feel a pit settle in my stomach, and with Midoriya’s next sentence, it increases tenfold.
“They’re after Kacchan!”
“They’re after Bakugou?!”
I shout as I run after him.
We hear gunshots when something lunges at Midoriya, him barely being saved by Shouji at the last second.
Tokoyami’s dark shadow is on a rampage.
Midoriya makes a plan. We follow it.
Running away from dark shadow is difficult, having multiple close calls.
“BAKUGOU! TODOROKI! ONE OF YOU, PLEASE-… MAKE SOME LIGHT!!”
Shouji shouts as we meet the two
Some villains get easily beaten by dark shadow before Bakugou and Todoroki calm it down.
We brief Tokoyami as everyone begins to surround Bakugou, I stand beside him, I wrap a tentacle near his waist as he protests the plans to protect him.
We walked for a while before we ran into Uraraka and Tsuyu. There was a villain messing with them, but she ran as soon as we got closer.
“Huh? You're escorting Bakugou?”
“Why isn't he with you, then?”
I feel a chill run down my spine as I realize he's gone.
“If you're talking about him…”
My eyes darted to the person talking, a creepy guy in a top hat with a mask and trench coat.
“I just used my magic to take him. Somebody like that has no business being on the side of the heroes, not when we have a stage that can make him shine even brighter.”
There's two crystal looking things in his hand. That's probably what he meant.
The yelling between the others feels like background noise. I failed. I was supposed to keep an eye on him, and now they got both him and Tokoyami. I can't let him get away, not with Bakugou.
I snap out of it when the situation quickly escalates, Todoroki sending a huge wall of ice after the guy which only manages to make the fucker retreat.
I know I shouldn't go off on my own, but I've been practicing my movement in these trees for so long I might just catch him. The wind whips past my face as I keep him in sight, reaching him when I see Midoriya, Shouji, and Todoroki slam down on top of the guy.
That's when I noticed the other villains present, a girl and two other men. I see one of them raise an arm, and I try to tackle him, only for the girl to slice at me.
“Oooh! You're Mori-chan, right?” She asks as we roll to the ground, her knife at my throat.
“I wonder how your blood tastes?” She asks, licking her lips. I don't let her ask more questions, I need to get to Bakugou. The tentacles from my back wrap around her and toss her at a tree. Looking up, I see Shouji holding two crystals, only to realise they were decoys.
The damn warpgate appears, and I toss myself at him, eyes widening slightly as Aoyama's belly beam hits the mask off of him, making the two real marbles get spat out of his mouth. I almost reach one when I feel a sharp pain from a tentacle, but I can't stop, not when they aren't safe yet. I get hold of one, and Shouji has the other.
But then pain laces it's way up my arm as one of the other villains, a burnt man, attacks me. I try my best not to let go, but he grabs my hand and pries it open before kicking my stomach and sending me away.
As I look up again, I see Bakugou disappear.
We failed.
It's at that point that I start to feel the pain from my back, feel the liquid dripping down it, and I'm grateful for the rain because it'd help with the fires. But there is no rain, and there is no water.
As I sit up, I hear the muffled voices of Tsuyu and Uraraka, feel them lift me up to my feet and carry me to safety.
When I see Aizawa-sensei, I feel myself start to fade out of consciousness.