A Big Cat on Campus [MHA]

7734 · Feb 9, 2021

NCRTrooper said:
Good chapter. Always nice to see some interaction between Arsenio and Izuku. Curious to see how Arsenio will fare once once Midoriya starts properly controlling OFA and leaves the rest of 1-A in the dust along with the other next Big Three (Bakugo, Todoroki), though I see his general experience advantage keeping him relevant for a while yet.

Arsenio's always releveant, and to paraphrase what I said some months ago on SB...

Arsenio was designed from the getgo to be a lot more of an Everyman who has to leverage his body and mind together and would still loose against a lot of his peers in a solo match, but can clean house in team fights because of what it takes to work with other people. His cat heteromorph status was born out of that, combined with my wanting to play around with what a conformist culture does when you physically cannot meet their absurd expectations.

...which still holds true. On an open field, mano y mano, like the Sports Festival, Arsenio will loose. As Hoshikori likes to throw out there the few times he plans out his villain fights, though (read: most of the notable non-cinematic fights) there is no clean fight. Stain shanks people in back alleys, Overhaul's minions trap people in tunnels and suffocate them, even at his least competent ol' Handsy manages to grasp the concept of divide and conquer. It's in these situations that someone like Arsenio has a chance to shine as a fighter- and more importantly in my mind, shine as a character. Fight scenes where there's more on the line than the show are amazing tools to say things about people, and a lot of my motivation to write this fic was to use those fights to say things.

This caught my attention. Given that Arsenio said that his mom was a little distant to him in his childhood, and this tidbit, it seems like Mama Veracruz is a bit of a Tiger Mom. Can't imagine Papa Veracruz being much more lax, given that Arsenio is his heir and all.

I've said this before, but I can't wait for the Veracruz family to be introduced in the story proper, particularly the parents. One thing I've been curious about is why Arsenio's mom didn't pass down her culture among her children, since Arsenio identifies solely as Mexican, not half Mexican and Japanese. Was that a conscious decision on her part?

I mean... yes? It should be obvious that Arsenio has been driven like a horse in a lot of things, and not a lot of it comes from his father. Remember, he's coming to Japan fluent in three languages- Spanish, English, and Japanese- was considering applying to a school explicitly for the upper crust (by his mother's machinations), and aside from some difficulty reading kanji has no problems jumping straight into an honors track school, as well as being a technically proficient fencer (in saber, which is what translates closest to his chosen weapon). This is above and beyond skills he picked up working with the field parts of his family: boxing and knife-fighting, basic horticulture, intimidation, chemical processing, social entertaining, busking, swindling, smuggling, fencing (as in sale of stolen goods), burgalry, arson, and a host of other asorted illegal and semi-legal skills.

As for Arsenio's mother? Heh. I'm keeping tight-lipped on her first appearance for a reason, since she does show up before Cesar and Hector. I can safely say that it's going to be kind of a mess trying to write her in, though, since the segments she shows up for are going to be fucking messy. I've got to juggle her, Momo's developments, Arsenio's developments and his emotional state when he finds out the iceberg he's staring down, Kyoka's developments, costume changes, and the silent pressure that is Aizawa throwing bombshells around like he's aiming to knock Curtis LeMay off his propeller-driven throne for domestic disturbances in Japan.

Because hooo boy, by the end of that chapter Recovery Girl bringing out the Strong Medicine to keep some idiots off their feet before they make another panic. Fear the medical department!

Pathos said:
In fairness, skill and cunning is what allowed Allmight to defeat All-For-One. So not wrong, just missing the, "So long as your opponent can't literally walk through your attacks or brute force their way out of an arm-bar."

This, this, so much this. From moment one, it's always been about skill and cunning, just because it lets fights be so much more dynamic- with one of the great examples being Izuku vs. Katsuki round 2, after the Kidnapping Arc. Great fight, and more importantly one fought entirely in the mind and the practice before they even start to hit each other.

geogio13 · Feb 9, 2021

Quick aside, the word should be "lose" not "loose" as the latter is not correct.

Lose:
verb

1.
be deprived of or cease to have or retain (something).
"I've lost my appetite"

Loose:
adjective
adjective: loose; comparative adjective: looser; superlative adjective: loosest

1.
not firmly or tightly fixed in place; detached or able to be detached.
"a loose tooth"

7734 · Feb 26, 2021

Nursing my thermos of coffee, I stared at Aizawa blankly as he delivered the homeroom announcements.

"And finally, we have a class on Disaster Response booked today instead of your afternoon block, so everyone should just not come back to the classroom after lunch, and just report to the Class 1-A armory and suit up. Because of this, classes on Saturday will be extended this week to include missed core classes. As usual, anyone who skips extended classes will be in detention and receive demerits, so don't." the caterpillar said, sighing. "Don't make a ruckus, now."

Naturally, the class exploded into chatter, and I stared at the thermos in front of me. The Pussycats had a new intern- Owl Eye, from Shiketsu- who was, while not an unfriendly person, both completely nocturnal and entirely too interested in talking my ear off. We'd been up till two in the morning playing some ancient trading card game I only theoretically understood with lots of incredibly wordy descriptors, very weird summoning rules, and the lunacy that was having your graveyard be a more useful place for playing cards than your deck. Now I was praying to the God of Caffeine hoping to be blessed by his presence and not damned by his gaze, and it was not working. I still needed to get eight or more hours of sleep a day, and just because I didn't have a fixed sleep cycle didn't mean I could shrug off a twenty-hour day yesterday!

"Someone, please, put me out of my misery." I muttered, leaning into my desk.

"No." Kirishima replied, passing me a water bottle. "Drink this."

Cracking it open, I poured from the wide-mouth nalgeen into a smaller cup I could get my lips around, before drinking. Moments later I gagged, sticking my tongue out to wipe it off on the back of my hand.

"God, christ, what the sanctified fuck Kirishima?" I asked, still trying to get the feeling of drinking tannic acid and oolong off my tongue. "You use that as hide softener or some shit?"

"Nah, it's my mom's pick-me-up tea!" he laughed, taking a swig from the bottle. "It'll bleach you white if you're not careful."

"No, drinking bleach is entirely more pleasant than that overbrewed cold leaf juice!"

Sniffing, the redhead turned up his nose. "You don't appreciate culture."

"Could I try some, then?"

Turning, we both looked at Todoroki, who had walked over to join the conversation. "Ah, sure!"

Pouring a cup into the cap of my thermos, Kirishima handed it to Todoroki, who smiled quietly and took a sip. His face was calm as glass as he processed the flavor, before finishing it with a hint of a smile.

"It's not overbrewed." he said softly.

"Excuse me?" I asked.

"It's concentrate, not overbrewed. Mix it with four parts hot water and it'll be quite wonderful."

"I'll be sure to try that!" Kirishima said, smiling. "Thanks, man."

"It's no problem."

After that… surreal… conversation, the rest of the day passed without note until lunch, at which point I managed to power through a tall cup of coffee and finally join the land of the living. Along the way, I was also getting brushed by Hagakure, which at this point I deemed acceptable. Free grooming is free grooming.

"Did I miss anything in class?" I asked groggily, picking at my food.

"Training exercise today, so we're going to be hitting the armory after this." Kyoka said to my left.

I took a look at my half-eaten chicken and rice dish, considered my options, and made sure to pay Momo back for when I swiped one of her calorie bars later. Then I laid my arms down, and sighed. "Wake me up when the bell rings, then."

Unfortunately, my nap was not peaceful. Something or someone jostled me, and being semiliquid in my sleeping state, I sort of crumpled over. Then, someone was petting me. Normally I'm fine with this, but when someone's going over the back of my head and nape of my neck- you know, the one spot I don't actively trim my coat down- and keeps catching snarls, it will naturally disrupt a nap. Plus, someone- not sure who- was stroking my tail. I had a nice tail, yes, but c'mon. Don't do that shit.

When the bell rung, I was so out-of-sorts I didn't even notice the snarly look on Kyoka's face for using her lap as a pillow after the shove, and I just pushed for the armory. The caffeine nap had managed to get me back to mostly full power as a slim benefit, though, so I could slip into my costume without too much grief. The pistol plates had been replaced, at least, and a few tests made sure the macuahuitl was working properly. It was, so onto the belt it went. Once we were done changing, Aizawa was waiting outside.

"The training will be at an offsite facility that is part of the detached campus." he explained as the class milled about. "As such, we will be taking a bus down. Please proceed to the transport loop."

With a general murbling wander, the class proceeded down the great elevator, to the transport loop, and to the bus, at which point Iida started… something. There was a lot of arm waving, and general speaking in spreadsheets, and the moron didn't even bother to take his helmet off. Seriously, c'mon. Your family should have taught you this already: faces make the business spin.

One thing a lot of heroes, and villains, and police and soldiers and even rescue workers tended to learn really quickly is that people are dumb, and fall into instinctive patterns under stress. They look for humans; real or imagined. Now, while imaginary humans were all well and good- see the massive amounts of anthromorphisizations that happened to cars, robots, boats, and computers- in a panic situation, people look for faces. A normal human face is massively expressive, and just by looking at it someone could determine both what the person they were interacting with was thinking, as well as identify with complete certainty this person was alive and real. There was a reason so much of dehumanization focused on static, unchanging appearances! The Mask of Evil wasn't a hamfisted part of theatrical language, it was hard coded into the brain. This was why All Might never used a helmet: his face, his smile, hell, the ridiculous rabbit-hairs of his all sold his humanity. When you were a nigh-immortal demigod striding into a hellish accident to come out draped with survivors, that presentation, the ability to wordlessly communicate that you are here to help was priceless.

"-so I'm sure we can get into the bus in class order-" Iida continued as I neatly stepped under his waving arms towards the bus. "-Hey! Stop that!"

I turned around to shoot him a piercing glare. "No."

"Don't you want to get on the bus in a neat and orderly fashion?"

"Also no."

As Iida just deflated like I'd stabbed him right in the dignity or something, I leaned up by the closed bus doors. "We're heroes in training, we can board a bus without starting a riot."

As the robotic arm motions resumed, I went in for the kill. "Besides, class seating order won't help anyone. It doesn't take into account Ojiro-san or I and our tails, the fact your armor has more jutting out components than a stack of caltrops, Bakugo, or any arrangements the girls might need."

My hit to the dignity and the follow-up smack to the logic managed to shut the idiot down, just in time for the bus doors to open. Wonder of wonders, it was a lounge bus, with a large central open area and some rows of standard seats in the back. Looking over at Ojiro, I raised an eyebrow.

"Tail buddies?" I asked rhetorically, and he nodded. We both took traditional seats across from each other, sprawling out in that distinctly lionine manner those with tails often did to handle bench seats. No matter where you went, things were always the same somehow.

The idle conversation of the ride over was just that- idle. Some discussion on Quirks that I passed on, a few remarks about future heroism, our local scheduled classroom UXO detonation, and finally blessed quiet as we arrived. Shuffling out, I looked around at the gigantic dome, frowning. Why would they need to enclose this? UA was generally reasonably logical, so to what end was there a massive structure over this whole affair?

"Ahem!" a voice, slightly female, came from in front of us. "Can you all hear me?"

And then the Michelin Man (Woman?) started talking in front of us. Apparently, she was named… Thirteen? In English? Alright, so as a space hero it made sense to speak English and use it a lot, but c'mon. Quirk safety, your quirk is a dangerous tool… did they never cover this here?

I was honestly getting concerned. This was elementary stuff- literally. I could still remember being six, getting told to lay into the sandbag at school, just to show us what we could do if we were careless. When Maria's Quirk came in, she had to practice with animals to prove she wouldn't accidentally drink a person dry: three goats proved she certainly could, if she got careless. Xochitl had cried for a week when she had attacked in her sleep, throwing a bone spear that pinned a stuffed fish to her footboard as she woke in a panic. A Quirk was fundamentally part of you, for better and worse, good and ill. You needed an intimate familiarity with it, to be as much a part of you as tooth and hair, eye and foot and finger.

If my classmates had never been given room to learn how easily they could gift weal and deal woe, were they peers of mine in truth?

Walking in the door, trouble grew in my thoughts like bad metaphors from Tokoyami in Japanese class- and then I saw the interior of the dome.

Take a moment to imagine a staircase, at least covering forty meters in the vertical and ninety in the diagonal, wide enough for the class to advance eight abreast. At the bottom is a plaza that you could hold a festival for a thousand, without any person bumping elbows without being of their own free will, topped with a topiary garden around a fountain. To my left, first was a section of ruined series of skyscrapers, pitched and canted as if drunkenly stumbling towards the revelry of the plaza with ruin caked across them. Continuing counterclockwise, there is a place of mud and disturbance, great hills artfully reproduced to allow some manor of training I couldn't comprehend with this scale. Some kind of tectonic practice, judging by the forlorn remains of office buildings and homes sticking out? Across from my stairs, and third from left, meanwhile, a tall, towering series of plateaus and peaks stood, for mountaineering training obviously.

The view to my right was imposing, if less obvious in purpose. A great blue dome decorated with patterns of thunder and rain stood tall, for what reason I could not discern. A similar one, next to the mountains, was in red with flame marks, and likewise was unknown in purpose to me. Between the two, however, was a small lake, backdropped with a faux-yacht (or what I hoped was a faux-yacht) and waterslide.

"And now that I'm done with the lecture," Thirteen the Space Hero said, clapping her hands together. "Now, if you'll just follow me-"

An ill wind swept through the facility, with the sickly-sweet smell of rot and death on it. My hands fell to my shield and sword, and when a black pool appeared in the center by the fountain, both came out.

"Inbound, twelve low by the fountain." I yelled, moving to the front of the class. I had a ballistic shield and armor. I could take a hit- most of the class couldn't.

"Is this part of the exercise?" Kirishima asked as Thirteen and Aizawa both started getting ready to hit it in high gear.

"Gee, Kirishima, bunch of assholes with skull masks come rolling through a portal in the center of the rescue exercise building, and you think they're gonna be our designated victims or something?" I snapped back, stress raising my voice. "We need to get the fuck out of here."

"You seriously chickening out now?" Bakugo roared, laughing. "I figure we just get some free target practice in before we get to the exercise."

Aizawa's hair lighting up kept me quiet as he unlimbered a few meters of his capture scarf. "Get back to the bus." he said, flatly. "Thirteen and I will cover you. Hurry."

I nodded, and threw my head back. "You heard the man, move!"

One thing I will never complain about, for all the time I spend here in Japan: when told to move, people do not fuck about it, they run. Iida led the pack towards the doors, and Bakugo and I brought up the rear. We were a handful of meters when the carrion-stink reared again, and a throaty chuckle came from in front of us.

"Hate to say it," a cloud of mist mentioned offhandedly, "but I'm afraid you're not leaving the party yet. Can't let the bait out early, after all. The League of Villains would hate for our work setting this little tete-a-tete up to go for naught, especially since the star of the show seems to be in absentia."

Naturally, that's when Bakugo and Kirishima charged in, screaming. As a series of explosions rang out, I swore. They could hit shit later, now we needed to-

-a nauseating sensation, a thrumbing, unworldly heartbeat, the feel of a dream denied-

-escape. As the mist and fog surrounded us, Thirteen was blocked by the two idiots. Running forward, I slammed the sharps out on my blade, and dove for Momo and Kyoka.

"Get down!" I roared. In my flight, though, I heard a faint chuckle.

"Noble, selfless, and entirely too smart." it said, not entirely unlike the fog-beast's voice. "The mark of a true hero. I'll let you stew with your lesser ilk, no?"

As a branch of mist blew towards me, I felt the filth pour over me, and then all was smog.

I was in an inferno, artificially controlled, with a backdrop of flame and skies of red. Surrounding me were the scum of the earth, villains to the last. As the faint laugh of the teleporter faded away, I grit my teeth. We came here to learn to rescue, yet we would need to be saved in turn. A bitter irony, made worse by the empennage of evil.

"First, last, and only warning." I hissed out. "You can run now, and you'll probably be fine."

One of the villains laughed, and my bared teeth quirked up into a smile as I banged my macuahuitl on the face of my shield. "You think we're afraid of one kid?" a villain asked.

My hissing laugh rebounded in the ruins. "Never say I didn't warn you."

And with that, battle was joined.

Itsune · Feb 26, 2021

7734 said:
"You think we're afraid of one kid?"

Macaulay Culkin : You should be.

CupswithsomeDude · Feb 26, 2021

Why does it say that voting is open? I don't see anything to vote on?

Byzantine · Feb 26, 2021

CupswithsomeDude said:
Why does it say that voting is open? I don't see anything to vote on?

Probably a misclick. To my understanding it is annoyingly easy to activate by accident.

CupswithsomeDude · Feb 26, 2021

Byzantine said:
Probably a misclick. To my understanding it is annoyingly easy to activate by accident.

Oh, okay. Thank you.

NCRTrooper · Feb 27, 2021

Arsenio and Iida's relationship is something to look out for as the fix progresses. With how different their personalities are, it's little surprise that they came into conflict in this chapter. It's also interesting since their backgrounds are fairly similar to each other, with both having a family history of heroics, with both having a relative who are renowned heroes in their countries (though the Veracruz's heroism is more compromised, to say the least.)

it was also nice to see Arsenio's first real case of culture shock since his arrival in Japan. Japanese attitudes toward quirks and their usage may be baffling to Arsenio, but I have little doubt that his classmates would view Mexico's attitudes towards quirks equally as perplexing. I wonder how much of Mexico's attitude towards quirks can be attributed to it's general instability compared to Japan, though Mexico and pre-All Might Japan might have been more similar than one would think...

7734 · Feb 27, 2021

NCRTrooper said:
it was also nice to see Arsenio's first real case of culture shock since his arrival in Japan. Japanese attitudes toward quirks and their usage may be baffling to Arsenio, but I have little doubt that his classmates would view Mexico's attitudes towards quirks equally as perplexing. I wonder how much of Mexico's attitude towards quirks can be attributed to it's general instability compared to Japan, though Mexico and pre-All Might Japan might have been more similar than one would think...

Well, yes and no. Pre-All Might Japan was bad, but it wasn't some lawless wasteland. The worst it got (in my mind) was Detroit in the 80s, which to be fair ain't great, but isn't "the country is tearing itself apart" quite yet. Mexico's attitude on Quirks, however, comes from when their Quirk Law was written, versus Japan's.

When I wrote/rewrote world history for this fic, Quirks came into society somewhat slowly, with a pretty constant 20% increase in occurrence per generation. Japan's Quirk Law was written very early in their history, at when about 15% of the pop had Quirks. It was a fast, knee-jerk reaction, with the core motivation being to make the freaks police the freaks. From there, it expanded, and as the Dark Age of Quirks happened things evolved as the tools to cast shadows got flipped over and turned into mirrors to push back at the old order. A lot of IRL Japan's historical radical movements and groups cut their teeth in MHA in this time period, and Quirk Progressivism is baked into their manifestos just as deeply as any other social and policy issue. This is what Destro and Re-Destro grew out of: the early student Communist movements bred a hotbed of expirienced radicals, and when the Soviet Union went to shit a lot of the black-hat break shit and run crowd went over to him to keep fighting the good fight.

By contrast, Mexico wrote their quirk law at about 40% occurrence, and wrote less law in total (mostly material clarifying quirk use in relation to other misdemeanor and felony crimes) in the first pass. The second pass, at about 80% and within living memory of Cesar and Hector's generation of the de la Veracruz family, was the movement to track, analyze, and bring Quirk Support into the general medical and social establishment. This means education, health and wellness support, Quirk counseling and therapy, and licensing for special and unique Quirk instances. This also formally established the finer points of Heroic Law, and is why Mexican heroics licenses don't transfer anywhere: heroes there are commissioned officers of the law at the state or federal level first, and heroes second. Considering the state-level fuckery that goes on there, this is also why the villian rosters aren't distributed: it isn't uncomon at all for federal and state heroes to catch the other with their hands in some flavor of bear trap and try to take each other out, or for heroes to pursue interstate grudge matches over issues in policing and enforcement.

CupswithsomeDude said:
Why does it say that voting is open? I don't see anything to vote on?

I probably pushed a button somewhere.

Isomin · Feb 27, 2021

7734 said:
I probably pushed a button somewhere.

A little bit of poking around tells me that the poll was started on Jan 8th 2021, in post #153 (Chapter 4.3). Make of that what you will. Perhaps it'll be helpful for closing the poll.

Itsune · Feb 27, 2021

7734 said:
By contrast, Mexico wrote their quirk law at about 40% occurrence, and wrote less law in total (mostly material clarifying quirk use in relation to other misdemeanor and felony crimes) in the first pass. The second pass, at about 80% and within living memory of Cesar and Hector's generation of the de la Veracruz family, was the movement to track, analyze, and bring Quirk Support into the general medical and social establishment. This means education, health and wellness support, Quirk counseling and therapy, and licensing for special and unique Quirk instances. This also formally established the finer points of Heroic Law, and is why Mexican heroics licenses don't transfer anywhere: heroes there are commissioned officers of the law at the state or federal level first, and heroes second. Considering the state-level fuckery that goes on there, this is also why the villian rosters aren't distributed: it isn't uncomon at all for federal and state heroes to catch the other with their hands in some flavor of bear trap and try to take each other out, or for heroes to pursue interstate grudge matches over issues in policing and enforcement.

I would say that Mexico's Quirk laws were Written by people most likely to use them, or the people that could pay to have them used. I would also say that Mexico doesn't call Pro Quirk user's "Heros" as other nations define the "Term", but probably something along the lines of Luchidores, possibly just call them what ever the term for Masks.

7734 said:
I probably pushed a button somewhere.

[x] Voting is set to Open by default.

7734 · Feb 27, 2021

Itsune said:
I would say that Mexico's Quirk laws were Written by people most likely to use them, or the people that could pay to have them used. I would also say that Mexico doesn't call Pro Quirk user's "Heros" as other nations define the "Term", but probably something along the lines of Luchidores, possibly just call them what ever the term for Masks.

On one hand you're right, in that the laws were designed around quirks being used. On the other hand, no, the professional quirk-based law enforcement are heroes. This is what happens when you're twenty years behind everyone else in developing legislation and policy: terms are created that you get stuck with. Now there's different terms for the LE at large that are the pro hero equivalent versus dudes in the federales who can use their quirks when shit gets hot, but to most people that's splitting hairs. The concept of the large, friendly face of quirk use got established early, so it's here to stay.

NCRTrooper · Feb 27, 2021

7734 said:
This also formally established the finer points of Heroic Law, and is why Mexican heroics licenses don't transfer anywhere: heroes there are commissioned officers of the law at the state or federal level first, and heroes second. Considering the state-level fuckery that goes on there, this is also why the villian rosters aren't distributed: it isn't uncomon at all for federal and state heroes to catch the other with their hands in some flavor of bear trap and try to take each other out, or for heroes to pursue interstate grudge matches over issues in policing and enforcement.

That would explain why you characterized one of the key tensions among heroes in Mexico being Centralism vs. Provincialism. If villain rosters aren't distributed, does that mean there aren't any hero rankings in Mexico like there is in Japan? Or are there regional rankings in lieu of a national one?

All in all, if Arsenio thinks Japan's attitude towards quirks doesn't prepare their students enough, his classmates might think Mexico's heroes are too decentralized to meaningfully combat villainy. The difference could also be chalked up to Mexico's federalist structure of government in contrast to Japan's Unitary government, though.

7734 · Feb 27, 2021

NCRTrooper said:
That would explain why you characterized one of the key tensions among heroes in Mexico being Centralism vs. Provincialism. If villain rosters aren't distributed, does that mean there aren't any hero rankings in Mexico like there is in Japan? Or are there regional rankings in lieu of a national one?

There's no official, national ranking, and attempt to make one would come down with a violent case of federal audits. Trying to have there be a "number one" is intensly against the national ethos, much less practical concerns. Mexico, in my writing, is very much the sort of place that says "no gods, no kings, only man remains" and then both understands the cost and consideration of the human condition, as well as the fact that democracy is a tool, not a solution.

(Looking at you, great white cheeseburger in the north)

This is again just pure contrast to Japan, which is just pillars all the way up and I really don't have the time for a rant on this.

7734 · Mar 30, 2021

There was something undeniably familiar about leaping into a fight. Blood was pulsing in my ears, a war-warmth insulating my body and soul as my sword sang. A simple click dulled my blade, and then it drove into a shoulder. Death- or in this case, broken collarbones and dislocated shoulders- from above. As my target, a man with spiked hair and vampire fangs, started to scream, my shield slammed into his face. The rim rung like a bell, teeth flew, and I considered him knocked out as blood stained the blue and lime of my shield.

Artfully twirling the macuahuitl, I kept barring my teeth. There were six of them I now saw, lesse one. They were hesitant to move, comparing their fists, tonfas, and a bo staff to my blade and shield. I knew no such fear, though, and roared. This was no polite sound, no: this was the depth of my lungs, the exaltation of years of breath control in learning to fight, orate, and sing. The building rumbled under my breath, and then I charged. The bo staff wielder was my target, his ineffectual swipe doing little to slow me down. His friend with the tonfas, though, did, as one cracked into the back of my head and another my jacket. Stumbling, I blocked the first bo strike with my sword, and the tonfas with my shield. Three steps sideways bought me some time, I thought, until a cold sensation pricked the back of my neck and I twisted.

The knife aimed for my kidneys cut through my jacket, scoring the pistol plate under it as I whipped out with my sword. My assailant caught the brunt of it off his face, but another knife was coming in, and this time it was my shield's turn to parry. This dance of blades was unsustainable, and I had to take a risk- so I ran out of their circle.

I wasn't an amazing runner, but I didn't have to be to break their group up. As long as only one person was stabbing or bludgeoning me instead of six, I was winning. As they followed me, screaming, I kept going until I didn't with a hard heel turn, swinging out with my macuahuitl, eye twitching as the shock of a broken arm travelled back up the blade and into my hand. Looks like my first pursuer had the shit luck of too much speed and not enough sense.

No matter. A punch with the rim of my shield cracked his nose, and he was down for the count. The next one tried poking at me with his bo staff, but a ball to the face blinded him and he missed. Reaching up to brush it off, his hand got stuck to it, and I grinned. He was wide open! A thrust to the stomach knocked the wind out of him, and a follow-up hit put him on the ground, where more balls secured him there. The rest of the goons, seeming to understand the playing field had been leveled, fell back in good order, slinking off into the training area.

"Mineta?" I called out, before the purple kid came out of what looked like an overturned ramen stand.

"Oh thank god you're here." Mineta said, panting. A thin line of blood dribbled down his scalp, and soot-stains covered his metal bowl. "There's villains everywhere!"

"Kinda figured that." I replied, taking a moment to bounce on my feet and re-settle my plate carrier, before reaching inside to adjust a strap. "How many did you see?"

"Not sure. Hagakure said there were thirty-ish?"

I stared. "Thirty?"

"Thirty shapes in the fog. It's hard to see, because there's so much of it."

Frowning, I took a sniff. The air might have had a thin haze of smoke, but there was something else in there too. It took a few tries to figure it out, but when I did I had to chuckle.

Mineta starred, before he started muttering. "That's it. Veracruz has gone around the bend. I'm gonna die here. I mean, I kinda expected to die a virgin, but this is just pathetic!"

I facepalmed. "Most of this isn't smoke." I said, sighing. "It's… fuck… niebla de glicerin… fog machine smoke? That sounds right. Which means most of these buildings aren't on fire."

"So what does that mean?!" Mineta yelled back.

"It means we can stay off the streets. Where's Hagakure?"

"Two blocks west, she found an exit, but it's guarded." Mineta said, gulping. "But why do you want to try and save her? She's not a fighter! We just need to run-"

Cutting Mineta off, I stared at him with the weight of far too much experience. "Never, ever, leave a man behind."

Turning away in disgust, I headed for the nearest building west; some kind of shop. Moving through it gracelessly, I got into a back alley, staring for another door. The grape kid was hot on my heels, understanding that whatever credit he'd gotten for getting me out of that scrape had been spent with his ill words.

There were few things my family held sacred, but the trust of comrades was one of them. If Papa didn't trust Hector, the entire operation would have foundered twenty years ago when Abuelo Chuy was too close to a car bomb and had to leave the cartel for a year and change for medical recuperation. This trust had to fall down the chains of command, too. Our accountants needed to trust the farmers to put out enough avocados to sell in bulk to hide funding trails. Our farmers needed to trust our suppliers to short-deliver stocks as part of the money laundering to get cash down to the cocaine plantations. Our cocaine planters needed to trust our smugglers to get the cocaine into the US and Canada. Our smugglers needed to trust our farmers to hire them for the one-way trucking gigs that got them back across the border. It was a circle of faith.

Mineta had earned a measure of trust from getting into UA: it meant that in some respects, he was on my level. He then burned that trust being a pervert who could not keep a civil tongue in his head. Now, he had helped end a serious fight, and then burned the bridge he built the minute he was done by not understanding what we had to do. I could spout practicalities- safety in numbers, many hands making light work, dedicated recon that only an invisible girl could provide- but that hadn't a thing to do with my decision-making.

I would do myself the honesty of admitting why I was doing this, after all.

Once we were through the store on the other side of the alley, I scurried across the main drag and into the next line of stores. "Which building?" I asked, frowning. I could almost smell something familiar, but the glycerin fog and some real smoke covered it up.

"That one." Mineta replied, pointing to the one that was, dum da daaaah, on fire. Go fucking figure. "The fire escape should probably be clear, but watch the steps. They're creaky."

Making our way to the office building via another back alley, I coughed lightly. Damn, that thing was putting out smoke and heat like nothing else. Still, Mineta managed to get me up a fire escape to the third floor as the fires blazed on the fifth, and shortly later I got to lay eyes on Hagakure.

The faint sheen of sweat that highlighted her near-nude form didn't fill me with confidence, and for a moment I kicked myself for not including a water bottle in my kit. Both pink gloves and shoes were stained with soot, and a few streaks highlighted her face in an uncomfortable half-shadow.

"Hagakure?" I asked carefully. She just snorted, and grabbed my shoulder. One glove flopped uselessly at waist height, and I could tell she was in pain easily.

"I think you can call me Toru now." she said, trying to hide a shudder.

"And I think you got hurt." I replied, digging around in my belt until I got a length of flat bandage out. "What happened?"

"Screwed up the landing roll when the shadowy thing dumped me here." she admitted, wincing. "Caught myself on my arm; I think I wrenched something with my collar or shoulder."

"I'll splint up your collar then." I replied, squatting down. "Good thing Recovery Girl covered this last week, eh?"

Holding her arm tightly, Toru tried not to moan in pain as I started tying it down. Collarbone splints were two part messes: part one being a simple arm sling to keep the arm from jostling the shoulder around, and part two being to tie the upper arm to the body as an insurance measure to keep the shoulder from rolling around. By the time I was done, she was reasonably splinted up, although far less invisible.

Of course, then my brain had to run backwards and drape my jacket over her, earning a sour look from Mineta and a confused head-tilt from Toru.

"It's protection." I said, rubbing my head carefully as I started back towards the fire escape. "Won't stop a stab-" as evidenced by the scratch in my backplate "-but it might slow down shrapnel or a cut. Buffalo leather is tough."

"Alright." Toru said, nodding. "I'll show you to the exit."

Sure enough, we found the door out a few moments later. It only had one guard, a titan of a man, with pale skin and a pristine white suit. More importantly, he also had a clear zone around him of about five meters radius, perfect for seeing someone coming. Anyone or anything fighting him would have to have a good, clean fight.

I hated clean fights.

The worst part was, there wasn't really anything I could do about it. I didn't have any ranged weapons (my Quirk for a pistol here, seriously), I couldn't trust my teammates, and I didn't know my target. This was a recipe for disaster.

"Mineta, how's your head holding up?" I asked, still thinking. I needed an edge, damnit.

"Pretty good." he replied, nervous.

I had the inklings of a plan, but it was shit. "I'm gonna have to fight that asshole in white." I muttered. "Toru can provide lookout, but I need backup. Can you try and flank him and stick him down, Mineta?"

The purple dwarf twitched. "Maybe."

"I need a yes or no."

He winced, curling up on himself. "Maybe is maybe for a reason! I don't know if his quirk does anything to mine, and if he comes after me I'm not very fast. If he gets too close to me, he'll probably kill me!"

I smirked, and tapped my sword on my shield. "If he turns his back on me for a minute, he's going to be taking a hell of a hit- and I am fast."

"I don't like this." Mineta bitched, and I sighed. Fuck it. Standing up, I watched my jacket follow me up on Toru, before she stopped and grabbed my shirtsleeve with her good arm. Then a pair of lips were pressing into my whiskers and the fur of my muzzle, and I started to flush.

"Just don't die." Toru asked, and I nodded. Walking out towards the villain, I breathed in and out. Just stay calm, Arsenio. Just stay calm.

The villain saw me, sure enough, sunglasses glinting with an evil light. "So you're one of the kids, huh."

I shrugged, bringing my macuahuitl off my shoulder. "No, the boss didn't tell you about me. I'm a spy."

My white-clad opponent laughed. "Then I kill you and take your share anyway. Boss didn't say anything about spies."

Walking in casually, I just kept talking. "Didn't expect that to work, really, but you never know. Your boss is dumb enough to hit a school, after all."

"Eh, money's good enough I can handle the risk."

"Is that all it boils down to? Money?" I asked, eyebrow raised. I had closed to about five meters, now, and the dude wasn't moving. If his Quirk had a ranged component, his behavior wasn't showing it. Good. "Nothing else?"

"Well, I mean if you weren't heroes to be, this would be a little awkward, but." the villain replied. "I figure that makes you fair game. Nothing personal, you understand."

"Of course. Nothing personal." I lied, as easily as any other breath. Three meters, and then I attacked. Lunching forwards in an aggressive fleche, I felt my feet cross without a moment of hesitation. The point- toothless and bare as it was- of my macuahuitl was still a potent weapon for subduing someone, and with a kilo of blade and my own fifty-seven kilos behind it at a leap it would hit like a truck.

My opponent knew this, dodging out of the way and slapping my shield with his left hand. Still, I followed through with the fleche, and pivoted back into the fight with a powerful forehand that landed with a dull, meaty thump. Grinning, I watched as the villain in white stumbled back, a bloody line on his suit where it had tore from the blow.

"Not bad, kid." He said, grinning. Then he snapped his fingers, and I recoiled as something hammered my shield. It must be his Quirk- but how? No matter. Setting my shield right, I went in again, this time scoring another crack into his leg. He wasn't even trying to block my strikes, though! This was ridiculous!

Still, he was down. Looking over at the buildings, I grinned. "Mineta, come over and bag him so we can get out of here."

It wasn't long for Mineta to make his way over, balling up the guy's pants with a smile. He was decently stuck to the ground, so I walked around him and looked for the sling that would be Hagakure coming back. Then next thing I heard was a slap, and the sound of ripping cloth. Shield coming up, I narrowly blocked a thin knife, and grimaced. Bastard had cut himself out of his pants!

"You really don't know how to stay down, do you?" I asked rhetorically, lunging in again to slam him. This time, the blow struck true in his diaphragm, sending him flying back again.

"I love fighting rookies." he gasped, before coughing. "Always cocky. Always ready to scrap. And most importantly-"

Those fingers snapped, and Mineta screamed, flying across the pavement bleeding from a nasty head wound. What the flying fuck had hit him?

"-they never try and figure out what your Quirk is." the villain said, grinning. "Of course, now that I've got your little buddy tagged, you might want to stop for a minute and hear me out. After all, don't want you picking up my paycheck for killing the brat."

I squinted, growling. "Start talking, then."

"My Quirk is fairly simple- Impact Re-initialization. I get hit, and I can transfer the blow in its entirety to something I've hit." the villain smirked, dusting off his hands. "As many times as I want."

I shuddered, looking over at where Mineta was trying to hold himself off the ground, before he puked. I hit like a truck in the lunge- and he'd taken that hit straight to the side of the head. That was at least a concussion, if not a fractured skull.

Tensing up, I kept talking. It was what I was good at. "Clever. Think it'll help much when I kick your ass?"

"I don't know." he replied, grinning. "Want to turn your friend into roadkill? Every hit you send me goes over to him, now."

Cracking my neck, I just grinned, before unstrapping my shield. Dropping it and my macuahuitl, I cracked my knuckles, and breathed in deeply. I was good at talking, all right- and he'd spilled his own weakness right there. Every hit went over to Mineta, right? Well, good luck making an arm bar transfer over. All I had to do was choke him out, and we'd be done with this bullshit.

I had a plan, now, and that was the first step to victory. Now all I had to do was see it through.

7734 · Mar 30, 2021

Speaking privately, I know I'm not a very threatening person most of the time. I'm short, my build is reasonably well-hidden by my fur and my uniform, and I have a cat head. Second coming of Death, I am not. Being cute was more my forte if genetics had its way, or worse, my sisters managed to enforce it on me again. My costume was designed to offset this, mixing bright, dangerous colors and patterns over protective equipment that would ideally square out my body lines so I didn't look like I did dance.

The point I'm setting up is that if I'm walking barehanded at a villain? It's not exactly going to make him piss his pants. Which was good! My blood was up, and since I couldn't beat the shit out of him for hurting my classmate- and that was the absolute closest degree of relationship I'd ever apply to Mineta without a gun to my head- then I'd have to just do the next best thing. Closing my hands to keep my claws sheathed, I ducked in close, winding up for a punch as Chuckles the Villain left himself wide open.

Of course, I didn't deliver. He still took a step back, though, and I smirked.

"You know, I'm always wondered why everyone thinks about Quirks in fights." I said casually. "Does my Quirk beat his Quirk? Can my friend's Quirk beat his Quirk? It just takes away from the artistry of it."

I took another step towards the door, faking out another punch. Sure enough, the villain rolled away frantically, getting closer and closer to the rear wall. "Sometimes," I reminisced, letting my canines show, "Sometimes you just want to let your fists speak for you. After all, it can just be so boring to throw powers against powers. Besides-"

"God, do you ever fucking shut up?" the villian in white yelled, before running towards me. "Self righteous heroic pricks-!"

I smiled, not bothering to show my teeth as he threw a punch. A sloppy, wide right hook I could see coming from days away. My feet were feathers, tiptoing over the asphalt floor as I stepped into the punch. It felt good, like coming home after a weekend painting the town with Maria. This was how a counter was supposed to feel. My right hand pushed the blow further out; my left grabbed at his shoulder. There was some blood- not much- when my claws slipped out and cut him, but I couldn't care less.

Now, I had him. Pulling across myself, the villain started to see my plan, frantically bringing his left arm up. It wasn't hard to tell I was going for a submission hold here, and he managed to bring it up alongside his neck before I could seal the deal. Fine. Windpipe hold it is.

Even if I couldn't properly nail the carotid hold with the crook of my left elbow, I still tried to give this guy a non-crushed windpipe by focusing on the side of the neck. It was working, too: he was sputtering and gasping, hauled down to my level from the bar as I kicked his legs to get him lower. Pulling back the blocking arm would earn my enemy a quick and inglorious knockout, and with only one hand he didn't have a way to get me to let go-

-until I saw a flash coming towards my head, and I reflexively ducked in. With a harsh scrape, a knife skated off my helmet, before clipping my right ear. Bastard! I had to get that knife out of play, and I had to block his still-swinging arm with my right. Slamming it down, I gasped as he reversed the swing to try and put the blade in my gut before my pistol plate caught it and turned the stroke. What it didn't turn was the force, though, and my arm started slipping. Grasping, I tried like hell to maintain the hold, but it wasn't meant to be.

Then I made a mistake. As the villain spun out of the hold, I reached, trying to get a new hold on him by any means possible. My hand reached for his neck, and my fingertips barely brushed his throat in my grasp.

My claws, however, were not so distant. They were not long- a centimeter at their longest- but they were sharp, and well-pointed to pierce and tear. I only had eight after having my thumbs declawed, but eight was more than enough for my daily life. And now, the four of my left hand were more than enough to go seaking for their primal purpose, to let blood fly.

The villain's spin let each claw dig into the side of his neck, and by then he was committed. Rotation had occurred, and so too would the spin. My hand, my claws; both were mere accessories to the maneuver. I could feel the flesh part, and a bump as the cartilage in his windpipe nudged each finger apart oh-so-perfectly to rip through. That was when I knew he was dead, as my claws cleared the first jugular and the blood started to spurt.

I watched his eyes fly open in time with mine as the realization struck us both. His hands flew up to his throat, and I tried to step away from the spraying flow. Both arteries of the neck, perfectly cut, coating both myself and the ground with that red guilt.

Mother would be proud. A treasonous voice said to itself, letting me hear out of discourtesy. Quick, clean, and even better than deniable- a recorded act of self defense! No judge would convict.

I shook my head, trying to keep my bile down as the villain- no, just a man now- bled out in front of me. The only consolation was that it was quick.

"Arsenio?"

A voice came from behind me, and I turned around. A floating sling- Hagakure. Pushing a voice, any voice, I shook my head. "You don't want to look."

Of course she looked, and then she was crouching over, vomiting. "Your hand." she said, shaking. "You… you killed him."

I couldn't think of anything to say, so I just nodded. I couldn't deny that. Vomiting again, Hagakure tried to suck in air after. I wish I could give her water; something to take the taste of vomit out of her mouth. She must not have seen the nod.

"Yeah." I muttered. "Tried to chokehold. Didn't work."

Absentmindedly, my hand drifted up to my mouth, and out came my tongue. Cats groomed themselves, and my body language was more feline than I could ever imagine some days. Being human, that was too much an act. I couldn't perform now. Then the taste of copper and lightning hit my mouth, prompting me to see what I was doing. A trail of red had been pulled from my fur, licked clean. It tasted like copper and lightning, it felt more heady than any drink I'd ever had. Something in it spoke to me of power and reward. If the blood was strong, the flesh would be stronger. The temptation to reach down and take a bite suffused me, and I shook my head.

If I could have, I would have thrown my hand away in disgust. I had power, and this was still an emergency. Chasing highs was bad for life: it would ruin fighting, destroy business, and ruin relationships. Hagakure was still watching, and Mineta-

-Oh god. Mineta. Thoughts abandoned, I ran over to where he lay, bleeding from the head. Neither eye was focusing, and he lay insensate from all I could tell. Consciousness hadn't fled him, thank whatever angels I had left, and his neck was still in line. Taking his too-small form in my arms, I picked him up and moved for the door, opening it with a foot easily.

The clear air of the rest of USJ floored me, and I took the time to get about ten paces into the decorative trees and shrubs before laying Mineta down. Pulling my macuahuitl, I marked a tree next to his, and resheathed it. Helping Hagakure out next to him was next, and then I had to breathe deeply of the unscented air. Strapping my shield back on my arm, I breathed deep, letting my right hand settle on the hilt to the macuahuitl.

"Are you going?" Hagakure asked, worried.

Two thoughts were warring in my head. I could stay here and protect them- and they were both injured. They both needed it. Or, I could rove afield, and try and get more of the class together, and find someplace safe to wait out the storm of villains. The latter option was stronger: if I had to fight a group again, I needed a way to protect my flanks, be it with walls or additional help. If we were in the Mountain Zone or Landslide Zone, there would be places I could turn into Thermopalye, but we weren't.

Then a cannon-shot sounded from the Flood Zone, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt it was Momo.

"Yes."

I couldn't run from killing that man for very long, but for now I could run into the next fight. As long as my friends survived this, I could sleep easy tonight, but if any of them died then everything would be for nothing.

Please, don't let this have been for nothing.

(AN: Reminder the Spacebattles copy is the master, and sometimes I will absolutely forget to update this one. Since I'm not posting at 3am tonight, I can get this fixed and get y'all a double feature to boot.)

NCRTrooper · Mar 31, 2021

7734 said:
Mother would be proud. A treasonous voice said to itself, letting me hear out of discourtesy. Quick, clean, and even better than deniable- a recorded act of self defense! No judge would convict.

Interesting that Arsenio thought of his mother when he killed the villain, rather than his parents in general, since it's fair to assume that they both personally killed before, given their professions. Arsenio seems to have some unresolved issues with his mother, given the way he speaks of her in general. I look forward to them interacting in the future, it should definitely prove to be interesting.

I'm also assuming that this was Arsenio's first time killing someone? Because Arsenio did not react like someone who's taken a life beforehand. I wonder how his teachers and classmates will react to this, even if it was a legitimate accident.

7734 · Mar 31, 2021

NCRTrooper said:
I'm also assuming that this was Arsenio's first time killing someone? Because Arsenio did not react like someone who's taken a life beforehand. I wonder how his teachers and classmates will react to this, even if it was a legitimate accident.

Yes. Arsenio's been in fights, but this is the first time he's ever directly killed someone (versus doing things that'll potentially kill someone). It has An Effect.

As for Sra. de la Veracruz? Well, she's... complicated. Fortunately, she's also coming into the story reasonably soon.

7734 · Apr 19, 2021

So this got delayed by a week because Google Docs fucked up. Sorry guys.

The cannon in the flood zone boomed again, and I hissed under my breath. Momo was in danger. Making my way towards the pier, the lack of boats didn't help my tenuous position: I would either need to swim, fly, or find some other way across to the sinking yacht. Since I couldn't fly and there were obviously going to be villains in the water, I needed that third option.

"You know, I didn't expect this to be nearly so entertaining!" a voice said from behind me. Turning around, I stared at a thin, paper-pale young man with an unhealthy blue tinge to him. Judging by the dozens of served hands decorating him, he was obviously some flavor of villain, but I couldn't really afford to be starting a fight when it was ancillary to my goals.

"I don't know, I figure I could find a better goon squad than this." I said, faux-yawning. "I mean, already fought my way out of the starting area, and the midfield encounter design seems to be glitching out."

That earned a dry, rasping laugh from Captain Handsy over here. "That just means you're building a sloppy army. Don't you know they put the best units in the Special sections?"

"Force multipliers like a teleporter only work when you have a force to use them with."

The villain huffed, before grinning. "And what if I am a- heh- a Hero unit?"

"Then you'd better be a good one."

Cracking his real hands, the villain just leered at me before reaching out to brush a tree. With that movement, just a simple brush, the tree started rotting away, a black dust weaving in the faint breeze.

"Good enough for you? Not that I have to explain myself to a jumped-up miniboss, but you know, you got out of the initial encounter. Good for you."

A jumped-up miniboss, huh? "You'll regret having that low opinion of me. This Arsenio de la Veracruz does not take lightly such insults."

"Mah, you even sound like a useless lieutenant! Man, Sensei's gonna laugh his ass off!" my opponent said, grinning like a child. "Can't even be the main character of your own story? That's all right, we all live in the shadow of All Might, stealing all the screen time and good voice actors! That's just one of the injustices against this twisted wreck of a society I, Shigaraki Tomura, will solve by killing him!"

This clown was planning on killing All Might? Really? "You know, I have to question the wisdom of this plan, since your tarpit couldn't even hold down a few half-baked heroes, much less the rest of the school's quick reaction force." I said, smirking.

"I mean, I don't particularly care about the chaff." Shigaraki shrugged. "Why would I? You hit the nail right on the head: they're here to keep the students out of the picture, maybe stir the pot and see what you're made of."

"And this tells you… what?"

"That you're exactly what Sensei's friends in Columbia said you were. A killer from a family of killers."

My blood froze, and he just kept talking with this dry, rasping voice. "Don't think I didn't see that, little kitty-cat. Tres Cruces might not be the biggest fish in town, but we know you're hiding under that log. Sensei keeps track on all sorts of useful substances, and you're far too good at moving things around for your own good."

"If you needed a line, you could just ask." I said, trying to get my conversational feet under me. He knew who I was. He knew what the family were. And most importantly-

"Nah, I don't snort anything. Bad for the skin." Shigaraki said, calmly pacing back and forth before taking a moment to idly scratch under his chin. "I really have to ask, though. 'Three crosses', really? I mean, I like Christian symbolism, the whole memento mori thing looks amazing if you know how to go balls deep on it, but naming the business after the family? This isn't some cheap LN you know!"

"If it was, I'd have asked you if you needed a hand instead." I snarked, before another boom rang out from behind me. Flinching at the noise, I took a half-second to look back at the boat. Then, I felt the wind move, and only a whisker-length saved me. Shigaraki's hand was reaching for my face, a morbid smile showing his teeth as he tried to kill me. Bringing my shield up, I felt it lighten on my arm as his off-hand slapped it, the disintegration starting fast.

I couldn't block this Quirk, and my wrestling wasn't up to risking a grapple. Instead, I ducked down, pushing up with my shield to try and flip him over me. It worked, too- until a hand came swooping past, hitting the top of my neck.

The burning was intense, my fur only giving me a moment's respite before the pain hit. I had once, in a blood-deprived state, accidentally stepped upon a hot grate barefoot. This was the same pain, but worse; ten thousand times worse. Blood oozed down my back and into my coat, and moving my neck sent a thousand screaming razors around the edge of the wound.

"First blood goes to me-" Shigaraki proclaimed, before I charged forward. Sabre had taught me, much to my chagrin, few actual maneuvers I could actually fight with when it came time to match my macuahuitl against another's steel. Today, however, the fleche would forever earn it's place in my manual of arms. A strong step with my right foot, leaping over to cross it with the left, and a powerful, full-body thrust. The strike came to rest right in Shigaraki's solar plexus, and he went flying off the end of the dock with a wheeze, hitting the water.

As Shigaraki's head came up and what little of his eyes I could see screamed 'murder', a thick corpse-stench came drifting past me.

"As much as I agree that the Young Master needed a bath, it may have been more helpful to handle it another way." the teleporter said, with a slight grin in his voice. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to prepare for the main event."

"At least pick up your trash when you go." I huffed. "I do have people to rescue."

"Some lovely students? Seems well worth the hassle, I suppose." the teleporter said, his wretched scent overpowering. "I always did love a good school romance."

At that moment, a dark fog rolled over the lake, picking up not only Shigaraki, but also several other odd… I hesitate to give them a name, except putrid holes, from whence the stench of that damn teleporting shadow emanated. Wrinkling my nose, I stared at the now-still water. Of course, there still wasn't a boat.

"MOMO!" I yelled out. "WATER LOOKS CLEAR!"

A flag wig-wagged at me from the boat, but I couldn't tell who was waving it. To the surprise of nobody, Momo managed to squeak out a raft, rowing Ojiro and Tokoyami out to the pier. Just because I couldn't see anything in the water- and believe me, I looked- didn't mean there was still a risk.

Still, Momo got to shore, panting, and looking absolutely famished. I didn't have any food for her, but I could help her out of the boat and give her a pat before helping Ojiro and Tokoyami. In the distance, a few crashes and what sounded like one of Bakugo's large explosions sounded out, but I couldn't focus on that.

"You guys alright?" I asked, helping them out of the boat. Momo was first, obviously, and Ojiro and Tokoyami were both in little better shape than her.

"A couple of bruises, nothing serious." Ojiro muttered, dusting himself off. "Do you have any idea where the Villians went?"

Grumbling, I made sure to keep an eye out for anyone missed by the teleporter. "I have no-"

With a roar and crack, I felt my ears pop and the wind shift as I spoke, a towering glacier forming over one of the zones- the Mountain Zone, if I remembered correctly.

"-idea."

"As peturbing as the enemy's current decision to focus their efforts on Todoroki is, we need a plan." Tokoyami muttered, squelching down the dock as he looked at the thin strand of tree cover that separated us from the courtyard. "de la Veracruz, can you hear anything?"

I shook my head. "Not particularly. There may still be some fighting going on in the center, but I can't make anything out."

"Then we go up and see if we can't help anyone else." Tokoyami muttered. "This mad dance of shadows needs to end before we end up dancing at the end of a villain's rope."

Pinching my lips, I gestured back towards the Fire Zone. "I don't know which zones they pulled manpower from, but I landed with Mineta and Hagakure and neither is in fit shape to fight now."

"Then it is more imperative we press on. If they catch us defending the helpless, then those vultures will circle to strike at us. Even our valorous hearts will fall before such a tide of darkness."

My instincts to shelter down and protect what was mine roared against the urge to fight and strike out before they could close and threaten those helpless to resist. Hagakure was naked except for medical supplies, Mineta was still reeling from a concussion from hell, and even with four combat effectives we'd be hard-pressed to fight a horde of thugs.

"Anyone else have enhanced senses?" I asked, not rhetorically. Anything we could use would be worth it. Alas, three negatives were all I got in reply, with Momo taking the time to print herself a new bo staff. "No? Fine. Follow me, then."

Four meters to the thin tree strand, and then another three to push to the thinning brush on the other side. Never had so short a distance felt so long, as we moved into the sounds of violence intensifying. Once there was a clear view, I hissed, holding out my hand for our little line to stop, before signalling left and right to form a skirmish line. Naturally, they all clumped on me instead. I could dream, it seems, but not today. With eyes laying into the fight, my frown only grew larger.

Dancing in the midst of the hordes of now-summoned villains, Aizawa danced like a dervish. It was rare for a melee to last more than ninety seconds- this had to have been going on for at least seven, possibly eight minutes, and in the short ten seconds I'd seen him work there had been no sign of flagging or error. He was a machine, tape shooting and glare paralyzing as the minions went down. From his place by the fountain, I could hear Shigaraki screaming orders, hands quivering.

"Ground team, I see you trying to wander back, get in there! Yellow team, quit fucking around when your Quirks are down and relocate before he uses you as ninepins again! Water Team, if I see one of you check your fucking radios again, I'm going to turn it into dust! We have four minutes left before we hit mandatory ditch, and I don't care if I leave you fucks behind because you can't handle a single mummy on his retirement gig!"

In front of us, Aizawa slammed a villain into another villain, before throwing the second off our way. Crashing into the brush, the minion, the mook, the absolute useless piece of waste he was, tried to scramble towards us, fleeing the scene.

"Shigaraki, we have a runner." the teleporter said calmly.

"Bring him to me since apparently this actual dumpster fire of a raid team needs some goddamn motivation." Shigaraki growled, still loud enough for me to hear. Next to me, Ojiro cocked his head.

"Can you make that out?" he asked, and I just held up a hand.

"Yeah, shush. We don't want to get involved."

The runner was charging towards us, and barely seemed to notice us at a meter or two away when the black mist came in again, swallowing him up to dump him next to Shigaraki.

"You see this?" Shigaraki yelled, and I could tell that now, now the people with me could hear. "This is what happens when you run! I paid each and every one of you rat bastards, and either you're helping me kill the Symbol of Peace, or you're with him! We all know what happens to heroes, but the damn rats who can't pick a side?"

Grabbing the back of the man's neck, a faint, almost imperceptible hissing broke over the area, with a scent of rot stronger than the lavender that Momo wore or the bushes we were hiding in. Screaming, the poor mook thrashed, and the fighting started to lull as everyone heard a man die. It took a minute for the kicking to stop, and another for the reek of death's final release to flow through the body, but as Shigaraki threw it away a mad smile overtook him.

"Such is the price of betrayal! Now fight- he might not kill you, but I will!"

Someone yelled something, perhaps not even in Japanese, and charged Shigaraki. What was going through his head, we'll never know, since at the snap of those too-pale fingers, a portal opened, revealing a titan of black muscle. Humanoid, with a head composed of a trepaned skull showing an array of brains, a monstrous bird-beak ripping forth with an unholy scream.

"Now you're making me reveal my trap cards? Pathetic. Kurogiri, if I ever come up with an idea this stupid again, remind me that 'hordes of conscripts' doesn't work."

"Of course, Shigaraki."

"Good. Now, with that out of the way: Nomu, kill."

Another corpse was tossed aside moments later, the remaining chunks splattering the ground in time to another bestial roar. Whatever that thing was, it had forsaken humanity long ago. That, that I could have no problem killing in my mind. My body, however, was liable to give up long before then. With two meters on me at least, no sword swung by my amature hands would be enough- before considering any Quirks that it had to even the fight.

"de la Veracruz, over there." Ojiro said, pointing across the square. Not too far from where the second corpse had hit the ground, a bush shook. "I think I see pink."

"I can't see it." I grumbled. "Momo, check?"

"Yeah, that looks like Uraraka's visor." Momo confirmed, after whipping herself up a spyglass. "I think that's Midoriya in there with her too, and… Kirishima?"

"Shit." I muttered. "We have to link up."

"Any attempt would take time, or be unstealthy. Even assuming our superiority over those foot-soldiers of the enemy, that beast would eat us alive." Tokoyami said, letting Dark Shadow billow out from his cloak a tad. I couldn't argue with him, considering the blood on its beak or the source thereof.

"Then we pick stealth." I whispered back. "One at a time, four meters back, and start working your way to Uraraka. Keep some distance, and stop occasionally."

The rest of my group nodded, and quickly enough we were moving. Everything was going well, right up until a sound like thunder echoed out.

"Kurogiri, you remembered to lock the door in when you scattered the brats, right?" Shigaraki asked casually.

"Of course."

"Then it seems our raid boss was merely late, not completely unavailable! Alright people, get ready for the big one!"

The door, for now I knew it was the door, boomed again, creaking on its hinges and making the dome rattle.

"Fuck stealth, run!" I said, breaking cover as I started to sprint. It didn't take long for Momo and the rest to follow suit, and we only barely made it to the strand of bushes Midoriya and his team were using for cover. "All hell's about to break loose!" I said, trying to hold myself together.

With a third, final, tumultuous blast, the door to the USJ flew in off its hinges, bouncing thrice on down the stairs and hitting the field below. An idol to many walked through, feet shaking the ground in such a way that I could feel it from here, nearly three hundred meters away. Someone had gotten word out, help had arrived. And now, terror prevailed all of evil heart, hope given to those of justice who knew that the price of their allegiance was to be repaid in full a hundred times over. From the top of the stairs, a voice called, echoing throughout the dome of USJ.

"I AM HERE."

defenestrator · Apr 19, 2021

7734 said:
I couldn't block this Quirk, and my wrestling wasn't up to risking a grapple. Instead, I ducked down, pushing up with my shield to try and flip him over me. It worked, too- until a hand came swooping past, hitting the top of my neck.

The burning was intense, my fur only giving me a moment's respite before the pain hit. I had once, in a blood-deprived state, accidentally stepped upon a hot grate barefoot. This was the same pain, but worse; ten thousand times worse. Blood oozed down my back and into my coat, and moving my neck sent a thousand screaming razors around the edge of the wound.

Wait, so he not only 1.) survived contact with Mr. Creepy Hands, he's also 2.) Still standing after a debilitating injury at his neck and/or spine, and later 3.) able to shrug off and hide the intense pain that Momo, Ojiro and Tsukoyami that they've yet to react on his injury?

Cecylene · Apr 19, 2021

7734 said:
The burning was intense, my fur only giving me a moment's respite before the pain hit. I had once, in a blood-deprived state, accidentally stepped upon a hot grate barefoot. This was the same pain, but worse; ten thousand times worse. Blood oozed down my back and into my coat, and moving my neck sent a thousand screaming razors around the edge of the wound.

Shigaraki's quirk seems to treat the fur as possibly a separate object, which makes some sense since it does the same with clothes. Leaving hundred to thousands of seeping/bleeding pinpricks along his back. As suddenly exposed nerve ending at the base of the skin get hit with dust.

Unless it's supposed to be the fact that Shigaraki decided to toy with him, then it's just Shigaraki being cruel as usual to be "nice" to someone who he thinks might "get him".

Spectre · Apr 19, 2021

defenestrator said:
Wait, so he not only 1.) survived contact with Mr. Creepy Hands, he's also 2.) Still standing after a debilitating injury at his neck and/or spine, and later 3.) able to shrug off and hide the intense pain that Momo, Ojiro and Tsukoyami that they've yet to react on his injury?

Pathos said:
Shigaraki's quirk seems to treat the fur as possibly a separate object, which makes some sense since it does the same with clothes. Leaving hundred to thousands of seeping/bleeding pinpricks along his back. As suddenly exposed nerve ending at the base of the skin get hit with dust.

Unless it's supposed to be the fact that Shigaraki decided to toy with him, then it's just Shigaraki being cruel as usual to be "nice" to someone who he thinks might "get him".

also remember this is S1 Shigaraki, who took 15-20 seconds to eat through the skin on Aizawa's elbow. This only looks like a momentary 1-2 second graze, so I'd be surprised it was worse than a second degree burn. As for how he's still moving. Adrenaline is one hell of a drug. I've seen guys on firegrounds impale their hands on glass shards and exposed nails and not notice anything until after operations had wrapped up and they took their gear off to find a waterfall of red pouring out.

7734 · Apr 19, 2021

Spectre said:
also remember this is S1 Shigaraki, who took 15-20 seconds to eat through the skin on Aizawa's elbow. This only looks like a momentary 1-2 second graze, so I'd be surprised it was worse than a second degree burn. As for how he's still moving. Adrenaline is one hell of a drug. I've seen guys on firegrounds impale their hands on glass shards and exposed nails and not notice anything until after operations had wrapped up and they took their gear off to find a waterfall of red pouring out.

More like half a second, but yeah: not enough time for the disintegration to do much more than a bad second degree or nominal third degree burn. There's no serious muscle damage, much less any impacts on the function of the spinal cord.

Pathos said:
Shigaraki's quirk seems to treat the fur as possibly a separate object, which makes some sense since it does the same with clothes. Leaving hundred to thousands of seeping/bleeding pinpricks along his back. As suddenly exposed nerve ending at the base of the skin get hit with dust.

Unless it's supposed to be the fact that Shigaraki decided to toy with him, then it's just Shigaraki being cruel as usual to be "nice" to someone who he thinks might "get him".

Little of A, little of B. Consider: Shigaraki knows who this guy is. Early series, apathetic shitbird Shigaraki at that. That's got to get somebody's brain to roll over and fire, right?

defenestrator said:
3.) able to shrug off and hide the intense pain that Momo, Ojiro and Tsukoyami that they've yet to react on his injury?

Between adrenaline, fur, and his helmet decorations, yeah, he's hiding the hit pretty well. Remember, he's got a decorative coif on his skull bucket.

Young Pyromancer · Apr 21, 2021

Just so you know, Shigaraki doesn't need to keep touching something for it to continue disintegrating. I used to think he did too, but someone pointed out to me that he doesn't. It's not super clear in his initial appearance, but when he talks to Overhaul he explains it. Only reason it stopped on Aizawa is he canceled the ongoing effect. This is apparently clearer in the manga.

7734 · Aug 30, 2021

When All Might entered the field, few sane men dared to stand. Unfortunately, we weren't dealing with sane men: we were dealing with the mad and the desperate. Even in the depths of insanity, some of our foes were still smart enough to start to flee. As I braced for three brutes to hit our position, a flash of yellow swept in front of us, and the thugs were on the ground, moaning and crying.

"Nomu, attack!" Shigaraki cried, and with one great stamp, the yellow streak was interrupted. Moments later, it tried to swing at All Might with a limp-wristed haymaker, but my attention was torn off it with the enemy leader's next words. "Kurogiri, get the water guys and go after that underground hero, then get ready for All Might to give you an opening."

I kept straining my ears, struggling to hear. My focus was absolute, which was of course when Midoriya jogged my arm lightly. Spinning around, I looked at him, face in the level, feline set my nature dictated I used whenever I couldn't spare the time to amplify my emotions. "We're moving to Sensei." he said, voice tight.

"Good plan. And then what?"

"We ask him what next." Deku said, and I nodded once.

"Good enough. Let's go."

We couldn't stop to watch, and I couldn't track the clash of titans by sound. As fists flew, our group finally closed to Aizawa, whom the mooks were giving a wide berth as he snarled at their masses. With our appearance, though, they scattered. One on many they could win; but a full scrum against our better gear would be nearly impossible.

I ended up on Aizawa- no, Eraserhead's right, hefting my battered shield up to cover the blood on my sword-hand. To his left, Deku got ready, and behind us both Tokoyami and Momo started getting ready to fight.

"Sensei, do you have a plan?" Deku asked, and I rolled my neck. This ought to be good.

"Make sure you've got everyone you can get, and run." Eraserhead said simply. "All Might's here and- shit!"

A portal came open in front of us for a half-second, reeking of death, before it snapped shut as Sensei's hair flew up.

"Damn teleporters." he muttered. "I can't cover you, but make sure we get at least somebody out to make sure the rest of the faculty is coming in."

"You can't cover the teleporter and the crowd, though." Deku interjected. "You need backup!"

"And I don't need to worry about you more!" Eraserhead snapped. "Go to the Urban Zone, I'm pretty sure I heard some of Bakugo's explosions there. Link up, and get out of here."

"But-"

"Deku, listen to the man." Ojiro snapped. "There's twenty of them, and five of us!"

"Thirty." I corrected, that corpse-stench increasing as more villains stepped out from behind their compatriots, seeming to double like shadow clones. "The teleporter figured out one of your tricks, Sensei."

"Not the first time." he muttered, palming a few capsules from his belt. "On my mark, turn, and run like hell."

"But Aiz-" Deku started, pleading, before I smelled saltpeter in the air. Why would Aizawa be throwing fireworks?

"MARK!"

Turning, I grabbed Deku by the collar, and hauled on him as I started running. The costume's hood ripped off in my hands, and the snap-flash of smoke and cracking light behind me told me exactly what those were: noisemakers designed to distract. It didn't take much for Deku to keep running with me, though, and the short (for this titanic facility) forty-meter dash to the rubble of the urban zone.

Then I stopped, looking up, and whistled. I could see the fresh scorching on the sides of some of the buildings, as well as what looked like a purple cape dangling out the window. Stopping, I pointed to it, before Uraraka groaned. "Please tell me we don't have someone up there." she muttered. "I hate going into condemned buildings!"

Fortunately, she didn't have to as Kyoka yelled from an apartment window. A not-insignificant part of me was happy it was a different window from the cape, too. "Guys, can you get up here? Aoyama got hurt, bring a rope!"

"Alright!" I called back, before I heard someone hurk and fall down. Turning around, Momo was holding a few meters of rope, lying on the ground curled up in the fetal position around it.

"Sorry." she muttered. "Force of habit."

I didn't really bother to emote, but mentally I was fuming. You said you were running out of gas, Momo! That doesn't mean you should blow it all now! Worse, this was someone I literally couldn't leave behind. Hagakure had been hard enough, but Momo was my friend. Above and beyond any other feelings, and I could be mature enough to say there were other feelings, she was my friend.

Taking the time to sheathe my macuahuitl, I took off my shield and started fucking about with the back. My rope was held in place with six simple side-folding clips, and the blocks were on the lower portion with the same retainer. Once I had it all out, I was looking at forty meters of about a quarter-centimeter thick cord that felt like paracord.

"Is there a way in from the ground?" I called up to Kyoka.

"No! Bakugo blew out the stairs!"

Great, alright, fine. Grabbing the rope, I grumbled. "Uraraka, Deku, we're gonna need a fastball special."

Nodding, Deku grabbed my plate carrier and belt, while Uraraka looked at us. "A what?"

"Fastball specials are when a hero throws another hero." Deku said, smiling under his face guard. "What am I aiming for?"
"Kyoka's window." I said, rolling my neck as Uraraka slapped the gravity off me. It was the work of a quick second to tie the rope to myself, and I flexed my claws. "Throw me in, I grab 'em, then pull me out. Wash, rinse, repeat until rescued."

"The zero gravity isn't going to give you issues?" Fumikage asked, stroking his chin.

"It didn't last time" I said, before nodding at Deku. Taking a very judo stance, which was both new and kind of interesting, he moved up to grab the collar of my plate carrier and my belt.

"Sure this'll work?" he asked. I just grinned.

"C'mon, if you can hit a giant city-eating mecha, you can hit a window in a building. Just throw me-!"

Before I finished the last word, Deku had, in fact, thrown me. It was a pretty good chuck, but pretty good wasn't going to keyhole me in through that window as I frantically ran through corrections. My jacket would have been really helpful here to get a little more area to correct with air drag, but nope. As such, I landed about three meters up and one to the left of the target, sinking my claws out to grab out on the concrete.

Crawling down the wall to get to the window, I carefully pulled myself through, keeping the rope tagline steady as I positioned myself on the ceiling. Inside were Bakugo, Aoyama, and most importantly, Jirou. For once I was wearing a natural smile- whiskers straight out, mouth slightly open- as I introduced myself.

"So out of curiosity, why are you all upside-down?"

"Hardy fucking har, you overweight nekoshou." Bakugo bitched naturally. "You got anyone else besides Roundface down there helping you out?"

I nodded. "Momo, Deku, Uraraka, Fumikage, and Ojiro are with me. Anyone get hurt?"

"A couple of villains, nothing serious." Bakugo grumbled. "Better have a damn good plan, they've got a few wall-climbers and this one sneaky sonofabitch who seems to think we can't find him."

Jirou held up a finger, before pointing at a specific spot at the wall. Rising, Bakugo kept talking, pacing angrily.

"Fuckers haven't realized yet they're dealing with the best of the best. You'd think the King Extra would bring a little more muscle, but nope. Has to scrape the god damn barrel-" he said, punctuating his words with a blast into the wall hard enough to crack the concrete.

"-because they think we're dumb enough to fall for the same trick more than once!" he crowed.

"I'll get Aoyama and Jirou out of here then." I said, nodding. "Can you get yourself out?"

"Yeah, but it'll be a bit of a bitch." Bakugo grumbled. "You gonna loose your lunch if you need to make two runs?"

"No."

"Then make a second trip for me."

Nodding, I went over to Aoyama. Looking at what was obviously a straight-splinted leg, my lips pursed up. "Do you think you can get upright?" I asked.

"No, est fracturé." Aoyama muttered. "I think my knee-"

"Sí, esta fracturado," I replied back. "Don't count hard on it, but Spanish and French are kissing cousins. I can understand a little if I don't think about it."

Now that earned me a real smile as I got my arms under him and hefted him in a decent princess carry. "Finally, another comrade in arms of Romance languages."

"Yeah, sure. Just don't kiss me with Momo watching."

"Monseigneur, I would never." he insisted with a pained smirk. "Unless, of course, she's into it. Most girls are, no?"

"I will actually puke." Jirou grumbled as she got behind me. Now that Aoyama kept my feet mostly on the floor, Jirou could easily jump up behind me and piggyback ride. It wasn't terribly hard to move, since I didn't weigh anything, but it was clumsy since my center of gravity was now way out of whack. Of course, that's when we found out the window was too small- right until Bakugo just blasted a few chunks out.

"HEY, NERDS!" he yelled. "READY?"

"Give us a second!" Uraraka yelled, as Deku punched a villain into next week while Fumikage did his best Josuke Higashikata impersonation with Dark Shadow as Crazy Diamond. Once that was finished up, I felt a tug on the line around my middle.

"Jump!"

I wasn't sure who said it at that point, but I took the best flying leap I could off the building. That's about when I realized the issue with this plan: it depended on Uraraka being able to haul me in faster than gravity pulled me down. She realized it too, thankfully, since Deku got conscripted to help pull. This did nothing to stop the fact we were falling, but it did mean we'd be falling into turf rather than landslide fill. Since the window was only two stories up, I wasn't hideously worried, but that didn't stop my passengers from screaming like chickens.

I want to say I dramatically stuck the landing, but that would be a lie, since 'the landing' was a giant dogpile of sexual confusion as Uraraka slapped Jirou to cancel her mass and hit her ass on the way, I hip-checked Deku in his gut so we went sprawling with me in his lap, and Aoyama just sort of skidded out of my hands in his sequined cape to slide across the grass next to Momo in an incredibly cliche Prince Charming pose. The only way this could get worse would be someone with photographic evidence- and then I saw the hint of a camera flash from the rubble. Looking back, I didn't need to see him clearly to tell Bakugo had a shit-eating grin and a disposable camera. Why would he even have one- wait. Crime scene evidence. Shit.

Picking myself up out of my parsley-haired friend's lap, I cracked my neck between floating upwards and figuring out if I could destroy that damn camera. Unfortunately, since it probably had actual evidence on it, the answer to that question would be 'no'.

"Right, round two." I said cheerfully, as Ojiro stepped up to be the pitcher this time. "Remember, aim for the ugliest motherfucker in the building."

"Sorry, but Kirishima's covering our back." he shot back, grinning. "Now, on three!"

"One! Two!" I shouted, before getting whipped around like a javelin before the first syllable of three left my lips. Along the way, I considered that perhaps if I was going to do this more, I needed a parachute, because holy shit I was aimed right at Bakugo!

Fortunately, I didn't get an explosive deceleration. Unfortunately, those grenade gauntlets fucking hurt as he caught me, and getting one rammed up under my chin as he threw himself over my back was Not Fun.

"You owe me one." I grumbled, before yanking twice on the rope: the universal signal to pull me up.

"Save the catnip accounting for after we get the fuck out." he grumbled, at which point I seriously considered the pros and cons of leaving him. He said it himself- he could probably get out of this building without help. Still, Deku started hauling away, and the choice became moot. At least this time the landing was more controlled, with Bakugou dismounting and doing a pretty decent paratrooper roll while I just got a big green hug again. Then gravity returned, and I took two steps left, just in time to fall right the fuck over.

Ground, I know we have a rough relationship sometimes, but thank you for not letting go of me unless the Gravity Witch over there gets up in arms.

"We are never doing that again." I declared calmly. "It sucks."

"Seconded." Aoyama said as he winced at his leg. "Also, I think my splint came loose in the landing."

"I'll handle it." Momo said, while I glared at the central square. Bakugo and Deku joined me, before I snorted.

"Aizawa is going to pound our asses like sand, but we're not getting out of here unless we do something about that." I said calmly.

"Then we damn well do something about it. Handsy is right there at the back-" Bakugo said, before I cut him off.

"-and he's got a finger-five disintegration Quirk." I said, pointing to the bloodstains at the back of my neck where the injury still throbbed a little. "We can't afford to fuck with that."

"Then we go cover Sensei then. He's getting surrounded every time he changes targets." Deku suggested, to my nods and the sort of aloof huff from Bakugou that I suppose meant he would asquece to the plan.

"Alright then." Bakugo grunted. "Then we'll leave Miss Ten Thousand here, the French Disconnection, and probably Shitty Hair and Round Face to cover their asses. That'll leave us with Tailboy, the Copyright Free Batman, me, Deku, and Veracruz."

"What, no nickname for him?" Kirishima asked, grinning.

"Nah, can't be arsed. His name's enough of a pain in the ass."

I grunted, and just mounted my shield back up, before drawing my macuahuitl. "Right, if we're through talking, we've got a teacher to save."

"Good luck!" Kirishima said, prompting a nod from Bakugo. At that, we were off.

The distance we had to walk was short, but it didn't take long before the outer edge villains were engaging us piecemeal. There wasn't anything to write home about, since they had the tendency to charge in ones and twos. Versus a group of five? They were dead meat. It was practically a race to see who could get them down, after which Ojiro or Fumikage broke out their capture tape. Despite being thin as hell, it did make a decent way of subduing them- especially with one hand tied to an ankle. Nobody was getting out of this.

Of course, Shigaraki noticed us before Aizawa did. "Goddamn brats- you just had to come back, didn't you?"

"Like your discount ass could keep us down!" Bakugo shot back.

"I'd banter, but I have more pressing matters. C team, go handle the kids. I need to worry about this teacher personally."

Naturally, that's when ten muscled thugs came towards us, and I grinned. As Deku and Bakugou split off to the sides, I just waded in, smiling. As the first one blundered towards us- some giant centaur dude- I just made sure I was set to dull on the sword and brushed off his initial hit with a mace. Was that thing made of styrofoam, or was he not putting his back into it? Iida hit harder, for heaven's sakes! Still, a few good sword strokes had him starting to back up, right when I felt a knife slam into my backplate.

Right, tick that 'number of times armor has saved my life' clicker up to three for today. Spinning around with a shield bash, I clonked a spiky-looking moron in the nose hard enough to break it, right before Ojiro went in with a viscous joint lock into a flip that sounded like it broke something. The centaur had fled, thankfully, and Deku's lightning-sparkies were actively turning some lardball into swiss cheese. Three down-

BOOM!

-Four down, six to go. Moving in on another one, this guy being the clean-cut sort, I didn't bother with going in direct. Instead, I went for the ankles, forcing a hop back before the lunge caught him under his breastbone and sent him flying into someone else- just in time for Dark Shadow to grab him kicking and screaming into a face full of tail from Ojiro. The dazed mook behind him didn't get a chance- sword, meet kneecap. Ignoring the crunch, I just kep moving.

Six down, and Deku's heavy hits were running another one straight towards me. The correct form of assistance, therefore, was a pommel strike right into the villain's kidneys, followed by a giant cross-cut across the gut to wind him and me stomping on it to boot after he went down. As another one tried to sneak up on Bakugo, though, I did my classmate the courtesy of keeping him from getting backstabbed with an arm-breaking crunch, followed by a large left hook. Normally, I wouldn't trust that to take someone down. Normally I also wasn't putting a heavy-ass shield into it to boot: the blow sent him down to the ground, right in time to eat a diving slam from- a rock?

No, I noticed as the sound of another rock came whistling down, that was Uraraka providing fire support, with Aoyama knocking the rocks down with his navel laser. With a giant two-handed sling, she would hammer throw the lightened rocks up, and then they'd come down like the fist of an angry god.

The fist of god which was smiling down on me, since another rock nailed the centaur bastard who had gotten a lance from somewhere. Saluting with a smile, I turned back to the fight, just in time to bounce one of Deku's ropers into a backhand swing that left him wide open for a hit from Bakugo.

At this point, I could feel the field clearing. Most of the minions were spent- and as good as the teleporter was at bringing them in, he couldn't snatch them fast enough to make up for our team ripping through them like a hot chainsaw through butter.

Naturally, that's when the portal guy finally managed to work with the monster- the Nomu?- and get All Might pinned. Sure, the Nomu had to be in a giant-ass portal to get the overhead pin to work, but All Might was pinned. Right up until the portal shut, that is.

Score one for Aizawa- and another for me, as we ran up behind him and I cracked a broadsword-carrying chuuni dumbass in the ribs for the sin of breaking his guard position way too early.

"So about that 'get out' order." I said, panting lightly. "Turns out, the only way out is through."

"We'll talk about this later." Aizawa muttered as he nullified the Nomu again, before Shigaraki desperately charged All Might. Our giant of a teacher's response to deal with a villain he couldn't touch? Simple- a very formal palm strike kata. When I did them, I could feel the air resisting my motions, pushing back on me.

When All Might did it? The blast of wind sent the wannabe supervillain bouncing away, right back to where he started.

Growling, Shigaraki looked over at his teleporter. "We're going to need to pull the Escape Rope. Nomu! Plan Custer!"

The half a Nomu left screamed mightily, before diving at Aizawa. It took All Might doing a dive into some technical wrestling move I couldn't name to stop it, and by the time he had it pinned the villains- the real villains, not the dollar-store hired help- had escaped.

I felt like I could cry. Might have a little when the doors got blown open, again, for the Principle's rescue party.

When Shiretoko, Shino, and Ryukou showed up with the parade of paddy wagons and ambulances? That's when I didn't bother to hide it. My own parents, who had told me they managed to reach Japan safely, couldn't come to make sure I was safe after a villain attack. They were even in Tokyo, damnit! I hadn't seen them in three months now, and they could come talk to me any time they wanted, and they still weren't here!

By the time my eyes cleared up enough to tell I was getting blood and snot into Ryukou's costume, I didn't care. If this was all I had left to hold on to, so be it. Family was there for family, after all- and if this little team of feline heroes wanted to take in a stray, who was I to deny them the part when so obviously abandoned?

A Big Cat on Campus [MHA]

Trust and verify.

Trust and verify.

Eldritch horror, Ship's Cat, Emergency Gunner.

Very Tired

Very Tired

Wishing For A Nuclear Winter

Trust and verify.

Consistently sleep-deprived

Eldritch horror, Ship's Cat, Emergency Gunner.

Trust and verify.

Wishing For A Nuclear Winter

Trust and verify.

Trust and verify.

Trust and verify.

Wishing For A Nuclear Winter

Trust and verify.

Trust and verify.

Eternal Idea Engine

eternal servant to the Fire/EMS gods

Trust and verify.

Trust and verify.