MosesArk Reborn2000
patreon
Chapter 2: Time to get to Work
🕑 Added 2024-01-15 15:12:38 +0000 UTCThis chapter is both fast, but also slow as I’m taking it as a chance to explore a little more of her character and how its changed.
Chapter 2: Time to Get to Work
The school year might have started up, but for most adults, it was business as usual. Even away from the lights and life of the city center, that rang true, one might say it was worse for those that found themselves on the fringes of society as the work they did would get them arrested at best, or killed by rival gangs. That was the case inside one building, an old warehouse which was being used as a transport hub shipping something that Midoriya didn't know, but didn't care to ask. All she cared about was that this was their mission, to get inside and get the cargo before it could be taken, as she had been trained for, there were to be no survivors to report this theft to their bosses or to clue in the pros as to what happened.
Watching from a nearby rooftop, Midoriya and Toga observed them using a couple of binoculars, Midoriya wearing her mission suit which covered her body, came with a half mask, and special contacts that gave her brown eyes and blond wig. Toga for her part, wore a skintight hot pink and red suit, one she had helped design which could work with her meta-ability so she didn't need to worry about being in the nude, an idea Izuku was very much okay with as she didn't need any more questions on her sexuality.
“Oh, this will be so fun, our first team-up mission!” Toga jumped up and down, her excitement oozing off her even if Izuku couldn’t see her fanged smile thanks to the mask the girl wore, one connected via tubes to blood vials on her side which all but one was empty.
"I know, I'm a little nervous but I'll do my best," Midoriya replied as she stretched her legs, getting herself limber for the coming task. Would she enjoy the blood as much as Himiko? No, but she wasn't bothered by either. They were in the way and slanted for death, she was merely the gal that was going to carry that out? Was that a weird way of thinking about it? Possibly, but she wasn't in the mood to think any deeper about that.
Toga latched onto the taller girl, feeling up her muscles through her form-fitting dark blue and purple mission suit. “You got nothing to worry about, those chumps won’t know what hit them.”
“It’s a shame that they aren’t any cute ones, I would have thought one of them would have been hot but, nope!” Midoriya added, as she knew Toga's type and had hoped they'd be able to get her their blood but from their first through fifth checks of the place and the thugs running it, none were above a 6/10.
“We’ll just have to head back to the club later, that one guy was all over you.” Toga waved it off, as that part of their previous message exchange had been true. She had asked the teachers for permission to step off campus and head out with a friend, Toga, submitting forged documents of who she was of course so that the staff had it on record. Once her mother had returned to collect Eri, she had said her goodbye and returned to her room to get dressed for her 'night out', the other girls were thankfully not asked to come with, citing that they didn't plan for it or have anything to wear.
Good for them, as it made it easy for them to leave campus and go to a club, one that Toga recommended and make sure they made a show of themselves in case someone was to look into it, after that, they snuck out through a back entrance and made their way to the drop site to collect their gear, which led them here. As far as anyone was concerned, they were still out partying the night away.
“Don’t remind me, he was drunk off his ass, how you talked me to go to that place over where I wanted is beyond me.” Midoriya shook her head as Toga said she knew a great place, she didn’t know that it was a rave club and its thumping music was so intense, that she made a note to never bring Jiro there else the girl's ears might bleed.
“It’s cause you love me.” Toga giggled, not ashamed of her little trick, she liked that place. It was pretty fun, had loads of cute people and it was easy for her to follow one out to see if she couldn’t express her love. Though she hadn’t done that last part in a while.
“Do I? Yes. Yes, I do.” Midoriya agreed as she activated her meta-ability, increasing her size as she clenched her fingers, feeling the power flowing through them as she nodded towards Toga. The blooddrinker smiled as she jumped off the roof and sprinted towards the warehouse. With a move worthy of sleight of hand, Toga activated the tiny pump in her one full blood vial, sending it through the tube to her face mask where she took a nice, big sip of the crimson liquid and let her meta-ability take it from there. In seconds, she was gone and in her place was a middle-aged man-one of the villains that was meant to be there who they jumped earlier.
Watching from a distance, Midoriya saw her calmly walk towards the door and loudly knock on it, with it opening later as she and whoever was on the other side got into an argument, no doubt wondering where 'Sanemi' had got to and why he was so damn late to this important job. Between her impeccable acting, half-truths and misdirection, she was let inside without issue. Midoriya used the chance to step up, using the shadows to approach the place unseen till she got to the side and scaled up a ladder, reaching the roof. She peered inside, seeing that they were loading crates into a large truck and almost done. Good, it meant they didn't need to load up as much.
Looking around, she took in where they all stood in the moment, what meta-abilities they might have, and how she'd handle them till she spied Toga, still in disguise walking towards the back, where they knew the circuit breaker was. As if feeling her gaze on her, she turned to look up at the overhead window and broke character for just a moment to give her a big smile and a thumbs up before she grabbed the lever and pulled it down.
Immediately, all the lights went out as shouts quickly followed as Midoriya tapped the side of her half mask, her contacts glowing as they went into night vision mode as she quickly opened the window and jumped down, driving her knee into the back of some poor sod before she grabbed his face and slammed it into the hard concrete for extra measure, an audible crack as his skull fractured. Getting up from the corpse, she ran to the closest person, ramming her fist into his chest hard enough to shatter ribs, sending them flying into some boxes she turned on her heel and kicked another in the knee, shattering it as the man screamed in pain, alerting the others to the unseen fight as she silenced him with a right hoof to the temporal.
As she went to work dropping bodies with bone-crushing blows, Toga was having the time of her week. Wearing a similar pair of contacts to her partner and friend, she had no issue seeing as she danced around, light on her feet and near impossible agile as her knife, a modified hunting knife, sliced through the air and bodies, severing major arteries with single, fluid strikes which left their prey shocked as they reached for their necks, wrists and thighs, trying to stem the bleeding in desperate battles as confusion gave away to rage and fear, the latter coming to dominate as in the darkness.
Few could even see what was happening, less could try and fight back as in the few rays of moonlight that got it, all they could make out was two witches slaughtering them through fists or blades. Looking at her bestie, Toga sliced open a man's neck with glee, his blood spurting out like a fountain for just a moment before his corpse fell over. "You having as much fun as I am?"
Midoriya, who just slammed the head of a female heteromorph who had the head of a gorilla, turned to her, her hands coated in dust and blood. Dropping the corpse, she couldn't help but admit, "It is fun not having to hold back like in training," She picked up a crowbar from the floor that had been dropped, and without warning, threw it over Toga's shoulder towards someone trying to sneak up on her, the steel embedding itself into their eye socket and sticking out the other end having destroyed the left side of their brain. "And they're much more fun to fight than those stupid robots!"
She saw something in Toga's eyes and immediately dodged, same as the blood lover which came not a second too soon as right where they were standing a blast of flames raced out. Turning, she could see a villain that had survived their earlier onslaught trying to tag them as they jumped in and out of cover, letting the man scream himself hoarse from fear and rage at seeing them waste so many of his allies.
Deciding to scare him a little more before he died, Midoriya jumped out of the corner where he could see her, with the man smirking as he let loose another gale of fire towards her. Midoriya didn't bother dodging and instead, raced through the flames, using her arm to shield her face as he came out the other hand, her gear partially burned but her smile was as wide as a demon's horrifying grim as she grabbed the terrified man before he could react and pulled him in to give him a brutal knee to the gut, making him throw him as he dropped to his knees, holding his gut as he tried to get his breath again.
“Wha-what are you?! Why are you doing this?” He managed to get out as Midoriya cocked her head to the side, her wig slightly charred.
“Does it really concern you?” She swiped her fingers through his neck in a single quick gesture, her fingers proving the stronger of the two as they severed arteries, windpipe and gullet with all the finesse of a blunt knife, a quite gruesome display as his head, only connected to his body by his spine, titled back as blood sprouted from him, coating her before his corpse fell back, joining the rest.
Seeing something out of the corner of her eye, she raised her hand to block, only for it to be impaled by a porcupine-like quill, the girl instinctively flexing her muscle to stop it from getting any deeper. While the attack hurt her, it wasn’t as bad as she would have expected as she inspected the wound and saw that it had nearly struck bone.
Hearing a pained whine, she turned her bloodied face to see that Toga had also caught one, having caught the poor woman by surprise and slashed her tendons, bringing the woman who at her full height might have been an amazon, to her knees as Toga held a blade to her neck, her smile having abated this entire time, if anything, it had only grown more twisted and wilder.
It suited her.
“Nice try, lady but I’m the only one allowed to make Izu bleed," Toga told her, her blade digging just a little deeper into the thoroughly terrified woman’s flesh as she nodded as best she could without risking the blade slicing her. It didn’t save her as with that agreement, Toga split her neck ear to ear and let her drop to the floor into a growing puddle of her blood. With the last of them dead, Toga rushed over to fuss over her injury and maybe get a little blood.
What could she say, she couldn’t help herself.
“Are you okay, that looks pretty deep?” Toga eyed the wound as Midoriya lifted her hand to let the girl see it.
“I’m fine,” Letting the venom in her blood subside, she shrunk to her normal height and with it, came more pain from her wound which she ignored as Toga gave her pleading kitty eyes which had her nod. With her consent, the girl started to lick up the blood from the wound. "Some quick first aid and a good night's rest will have to be right as rain comes Monday."
Finishing the unorthodox cleaning process, Toga picks up the bloodied quill to dispose of it later, and can't have their DNA easily found after all. “Won’t the others notice?”
Midoriya shrugged, it was true that the other girls kept eyeing her wieldy when they changed, but that was easily handled. "I'm covered in scars, a long-sleeve compression shirt won't be out of the ordinary for me."
"Never mind that I took out 11, what about you?" Wanting to direct the conversation to something else, she asked another question.
“I stopped counting after 24.” Toga shrugged her shoulders as the two walked towards the nearly fully loaded truck.
“You’re unbelievable, I still have a ways to go to catch up to you.” Midoriya praised her, knowing that this wasn’t even Toga serious, if she had been, then she would have been lucky to get half those kills.
“You’ve gotten better,” Toga replied as they reached the truck and opened it up to see the price for their evening's efforts, which confused Toga as she had been expecting cash, drugs or gear but what they got was a lot of medical equipment. Midoriya wasn't as surprised as she jumped onto it and went through it, recognising some of the equipment as high-end medical equipment, the kind of stuff first-rate hospitals or labs used.
Finding a computer terminal near the back, she pulled out a flash from her utility belt and plugged it in. The program that Skeptic's people cooked up worked without issue for direction from her as it booted up the terminal and broke through its weak security before downloading everything there was. In a couple of minutes, the copy had been done as she pulled it out and walked back to find Toga casually scrolling on her phone.
"We're taking what we can, destroying all the rest." She pointed to the bulky stuff that hadn't yet been loaded.
“Got it.” Toga gave her a cheeky thumbs up.
Line Break
20 minutes later, they were driving away from the scene of the crime as the entire place burned, even if the firefighters showed up in the next 10 minutes, they had been sure that nothing could be recovered, the blaze was just them being sure…and because they wanted to set the place on fire. At the wheel of the car, Toga was once more in disguise, wearing the skin of the man she used to get inside so if someone saw them and talked, they would think that one of their victims had betrayed them or had managed to escape with the goods in the confusion.
"That was fun but tiring," Midoriya cracked her neck.
"What to get something to eat, pretty sure Golden Arch is still open," Himiko suggested, her words being a bit weird coming out of the lips of a middle-aged girl.
“It’s always open, Himi, that’s what 24 hours means.” Midoriya laughed from her hiding spot where truckers normally slept.
"I know, but I wish it was a Waffle House, imagine the kind of fights we could get into." Himiko joined in on the chuckling as that would be fun, if a little dangerous for them both as no way they'd be able to hide how dangerous they were in one of Waffle House's famous 2 am brawls.
“Just remember we need to sneak back to the club so we’re seen leaving it at…midnight.” Midoriya, who was still in her mission gear, looked towards the watch on her wrist. “Shit.”
“Curfew?”
“Curfew.”
Line Break
The blaring of the alarm made her want to grab it, crush it and throw it halfway across campus, but the annoying thing did its job of forcing her out of the world of dreams. Her crusty eyes slowly opened as she recalled that night, and the thorough chewing out she forgot from Aizawa-sensei for showing up 2 hours late. As punishment, she had spent the entire of Sunday handling chores around the main campus under the watch of Midnight, who said she understood the desire to cut loose but didn't give any further mercy to her. By the time she got back to her dorm, the sun had already set and she was exhausted.
Made even worse by the fact she missed the girl’s movie marathon but that was the price she had to pay for her work, at the very least, Yaomomo had said she was invited to the next one as Mina wanted them to watch the entire Alien franchise, including the 4 different reboots the thing went through.
Also, she received confirmation before she passed out that the truck, its contents and the flash had made it to its expected place without issue, so what happened now was above her and frankly, she didn’t care enough to ask as she crawled out of bed and went towards her closest to grab a fresh uniform, compression shirt, tights and the like, laying them on her bed which she’ll make when she’s not dragging her feet.
Meeting with the other girls, she went about her morning routine.
"Maybe you shouldn't have planned a day out the same day Eri came to visit," Yaomomo advised her as the girls came down from their rooms, most wearing their full uniforms and others carrying their jackets rather than wearing them.
"But the best places are closed on Sundays," Midoriya complained, if she had waited for Sunday, then their options of cover stories would have been limited.
“The struggles of being a teen mom I guess.” Jiro joked as Midoriya playfully shoved her.
Mina smirked as she got close to the resident music lover. “You say that, but the real question is when you’re going to give dunce Kaminari a chance to turn you into one.” Jiro's face went red as Kirishima's hair, not helped by the fact most of the boys were already done and very much heard that as Kaminari nearly choked on his cereal.
“Like hell!” Jiro yelled back as Mina laughed at her, and Sero helped Kaminari breathe, the electric blonde muttering that they were not even dating yet. With that little performance done, the class finished their breakfast and made their way to class, with Midoriya stopping her conversation with Uraraka and Yaomomo for a second when she spotted Aoyama, walking like a dead man and as pale as one.
Excusing herself from the conversation, she walked a little closer to Aoyama and poked his side to get his attention. “Are you alright? You look like death warmed over.”
Aoyama jumped a little from fright, making her frown more pronounced as she hadn’t hidden her approach, had he not noticed her? “I’m fine, just a bit of a head cold.” His words did little to dissuade her.
“Just a bit? Seems more like an entire bucket’s worth, maybe we should get you to Recovery Girl.” The boy, despite his looks, vehemently opposed that.
“Non non, it’s nothing so serious, I assure you.” She thought that she should just ignore that and drag him anyway, but she had to trust her classmates to know their states best.
“If you’re sure…But if you get worse, I’m dragging you to the nurse’s office, no discussion.” He nodded, accepting that deal from her as Sero snickered while he walked ahead.
"She is the group mom." The tape user joked as Midoriya threw her nose into the air in faux arrogance.
“Don’t make me take you over my knee and smack you!” She waved her finger at him, her smile giving the game away as the class laughed at the scene.
“Yes, mom!” Most of them replied as they continued, her earlier concern for Aoyama momentarily forgotten as they reached the main campus and made their way to their class.
That didn't remain as throughout the day, when she had a chance, she would look Aoyama's way and see that he looked better, but was still sweaty and nervous, like he was scared something was going to happen. Asking the rest of the girls hadn't been much help either as the class had long slipped into groups with subgroups, like how among the guys, Bakugo typically hung out with Kirishima, Kaminari, Sero and Shinso and Yaomomo preferred Jiro and her own company over the rest of the girls-Aoyama was the exception as he didn't hang out with anyone outside groups.
It wasn't to say he wasn't relatively well-liked or anti-social, she had seen him interact with them enough times to understand that but he tended to bounce from group to group, even joining in with the girls from time to time. The only people he seemed to avoid were Bakugo, which made sense and Mineta, which made her respect him all the more. Yaomomo admitted that they tried to include him in their group stuff since he had a knack for make-up and fashion, probably due to his dedication to his look and looking good, it hadn't worked out as he started to drift away from them, in her words it was like he didn't think he belonged despite their words to the contrary.
All that left her even more concerned for him as he was dealing with something, so she resolved to seek him out during lunch. She had time before she had to meet up with Present Mic for her extra English lessons, that'll be enough time to at least get a read on him.
“Hey, has anyone seen Aoyama?” She asked her group as she ate her lunch, the rest of the table, being Yaomomo, Jiro, Uraraka, Hagakure, Koda and Tokoyami looked up at her.
"He doesn't eat lunch in the cafeteria," Jiro replied, surprising her with how nonchalant she was with that.
“Really?”
She couldn’t see her face but her shirt’s shoulders shrugged as Hagakure took a bite of her caramel cake. “I’ve never seen him here, maybe he eats up on the roof in the garden.”
“Why do you ask?” Tokoyami asked her, pausing in his meal.
“I’m concerned for him; he didn’t look good all morning.” She replied as the group hummed, as they noticed it as well but knew Aoyama enough to know he wouldn't just tell them what the issue was. The truth is he got like that from time to time but always bounced back, so they didn't look that deep into it.
Still, they could tell she wouldn’t let up till she saw it for herself so Yaomomo offered a solution. "Tell you what, we'll keep an eye on your lunch while you try to find him. That sounds good?"
Midoriya smiled as she scooped up another mouth of her katsudon and got up. “Thanks, girls!” As she rushed off, Koda and Tokoyami were left muttering that they were boys much to the amusement of Uraraka.
That fell through for her as a few minutes in, with the halls largely deserted, he realized that she had no clue where to start. She had already gone up to the roof and found some 2nd years but no Aoyama. The gardens yielded similar results as she saw Komori and Shiozaki eating in the shade of a tree and waved at them, but they hadn’t seen him either.
Now, with lunch almost over, she wondered where else she could check for him. "I would have thought I'd have better luck than this…" Maybe she should try the class, right as she turned the corner, she saw All Might in his hero form leaving the teacher’s lounge in a hurry, his hand still holding onto his phone as he seemed to be in a conversation with whoever was on the other end.
“Oh All Mig-!” She tried to flag him down but he gave her a quick wave and smile, a strained one.
“Apologies, young Midoriya, but I’m in a hurry, we shall talk again later!” She wasn’t able to say anything more as the man zoomed down the hallway, leaving her in the dust.
'What was that all about? The man looked like he was late to his wedding.' Did he have an important class coming up…no, that couldn't be hit, he wouldn't be in that much of a hurry, not when he could start moving as the bell rung and still get there in time, there was something else going in and she bet it had something to do with whatever he heard on that phone call.
Letting her curiosity take her from there, she shelved her search for her wayward classmate to follow after All Might, finding him soon enough, she saw that he was looking around for staff and students and opted to stay hidden. Seeing that he was still on the phone, she reached into her pocket and pulled out some ear-buds, completely indistinguishable from any regular store-bought ones produced by Feel Good Inc, patting the left twice then the right once before the left again 3 times in quick succession activated their secret function of allowing her to better listen to her surroundings, they weren’t as good as Jiro’s meta-ability, but they were good enough for the situation.
With them on, she pulled her phone out and pretended to be listening to music as she listened to the number one address of the person on the other line.
"Are you sure about this, Tsukauchi…Of course, I understand that you all put in more work than you've done in years but this is the League, we need to crush them quickly…."
"An informant, are they credible, I wouldn't put it past that monster to have pawns act like they're giving away information…Good, good." "My time limit is only an hour, it's declined much faster now that passed One for All to young Togata…”
"If we get this right, it's all we need…With this then we'll crush the League, too many people have suffered because of them, I refuse to attend another funeral of a bright young student whose life was cut short by that monster's schemes…"
“I’ll meet you there, Kamino will be the League’s final resting place…see you soon.”
Hearing him end the call, she made herself scarce, keeping the earbuds to keep the appearance up as she thought about what she heard. She had figured that the pros and police hadn't stopped looking into the League, not after the exam attack and it seemed like they finally found them. Kamino, that was where they'll set up their attack on them.
But what was this talk on One for All? And how was Togata-sempai connected to it? Was All Might his father? Maybe but no, that wasn't how meta-abilities worked, a parent didn’t lose theirs so that their child could gain it. But…
Thinking back on it, all the times she'd seen Togata fight, he wasn't glowing with electrical power like he had been when he fought her. She had seen him spar with her classmates enough times to be sure of that, whatever he did in their match-he hadn't been done since, not in front of them anyway.
If she had to guess, it was a power augmentation, one he only used when he saw that she wouldn’t go down as easily as the rest…just like All Might. Coming to a stop in the middle of the hallway her eyes widened a little as she started to construct a theory in her head. No one knows what All Might’s meta-ability is, despite being in the public eye for close to 40 years, there has never been a single mention of it. All Might told her that his limit in his hero form had fallen to just 3 hours when they first met, and it's fallen to an even lower singular hour now. The only difference she knows of is that he passed this…One for All to Togata.
Was All Might’s power, the power that made him a near God among men…transferrable? It didn't make sense, it broke all the rules she thought she knew on meta-abilities but then again, didn't she do the same by existing? How many people could not only survive dosing themselves on bad drugs but also come out stronger for it? If she could do that, was a meta-ability that could transfer really impossible? Tons of powers worked on a similar scale, requiring a build-up of energy before it could be used, like how Fat Gum needed to build up fat to make use of his, or how Yaomomo had to eat the same as 5 people to keep up in training.
Line Break
“Oh, there you are, Aoyama.” The boy looked up as Midoriya walked into class, approaching his desk while the rest filtered in now that lunch was over.
“Were you looking for me?” He asked as she smiled his way, it was nice and suited her quite well.
“I was. I was pretty concerned but you seem like you’re doing alright now.” He frowned at that first part but smiled when she finished as he supposed he must have given her a little scare there.
"Yes, it was just a little bug, it passed after I had my lunch." He did his best to assure her, as his issues were his own and he couldn’t bring them into this, they were involved enough as is.
Midoriya cocked her head to the side. “In the class? Why not sit with others in the cafeteria, or outside? I’m sure we’ll love to have you at our table.”
He chuckled, trying to give out a more confident air than what he felt. “I appreciate the gesture, madam Midoriya, but I’m comfortable with what I have.” It was easier this way.
Lucky for him, she seemed to buy it as she went to her desk, where Tokoyami was waiting for her with a small tub in hand. Handing it to her, he explained its contents. “Here’s some of your lunch, we couldn’t carry it all.”
Midoriya continued to smile as she graciously accepted it from him and sat down, reaching into her bag for the spare chopsticks she carried. “Thanks, Tokoyami. How long till class starts?”
“A couple minutes at best, so you should hurry and finish.” He advised her as she nodded her head, shoveling her food into her mouth as fast as she could, her manners momentarily forgotten as Yaomomo sighed but didn’t object. “Though I must ask, why did you not return to lunch?” They had waited for her but she never returned.
Swallowing the food she had in her mouth, she answered him before going back to eating. “I wasn’t looking for Aoyama for most of it, so I went to the bathroom before returning.” She replied, with the boy nodding as that fit, U.A was a pretty big place so she must have gone to a restroom further away than the one next to the cafeteria. As she finished her meal, the door opened and Cementoss walked in, explaining that he'll be handling their hero class for the day as All Might was called away. The rest accepted that without complaint, but she was the only one who knew more as to why he was summoned.
As she got up to fetch her costume from the rack with the rest of them, her mind worked to figure out what she had uncovered. ‘I wonder…what is to become of Hosu? The League is a target, and I did my duty in reporting almost all of what I heard.’ She didn't know why, but she had neglected to put her theories on All Might's meta-ability in the quirk report she sent returning to class. It would only benefit if she did, knowing who to focus on for recruitment for containment but…she didn't know, a part of her objected to that and insisted she play it close to her chest, at least for the moment.
'All Might…how strong is this threat that you had to be called in? Or is it merely for a show of force after all the stunts the League has pulled over the year?' There was another bad feeling in her gut as she thought about it. The pros might have been surprised this time, but the League was a different breed of villain, one that made use of those monsters as line-breakers. However, that wasn't her job, and she couldn't intervene even if she wanted to, so she'd have to trust that one enemy eliminated the other.
Line Break
“De-Midoriya.” Midoriya looked up to see Bakugo standing at her desk. The day had just ended and while she needed to remain longer for catch-up classes, the rest were on their way out to return to the dorms, head out to the gym or meet with 3rd years for more training. Because of that, there was a sizable audience that saw Bakugo approaching her.
She met his gaze head-on, refusing to buckle to him. “Bakugo.”
For once, it looked like he was the uncomfortable one, which she didn’t care about. She had been his punching bag and happy little follower for years and she had made it clear since she joined class A that she wouldn’t tolerate him if she didn’t have to. In a way, she and Uraraka shared that trait in hating the class power-houses, probably for similar reasons. That being said, she didn’t take any real joy in seeing him struggle to form words when if she were anyone else, he would just spit it out. “We need to talk.”
Raising an eyebrow, she continued to pack the last of her things and got up, ready to walk past him. “And why should I even entertain it?” Only for him to grab her arm, right where she had been hit a couple of days prior which made her reaction a little more animated than she would have liked.
“Please,” Right as Kirishima was going to step in, he along with the rest paused when they heard Bakugo Katsuki of all people plead. Looking at him with surprise and suspicion, she could see that he was being genuine. “It’s important.” She kept her gaze on him, thinking it over before she broke free of his hold and made her to the door. He thought she had refused till she stopped and looked at him over her shoulder.
“My extra class starts in 15, make it quirk.” Needing no more prodding, Bakugo followed after her as the two quickly found a quiet spot to speak, that being the roof. The irony was not lost on her.
Leading against the wall and looking out towards the campus, she waited for him to collect his words. Another change from the boy she knew as he wouldn't have been acting like this, and would have declared what he wanted to say whether it was well-liked or not. But now it was like the guy was walking on eggshells, and it was only ever related to her. “Why are you different?”
“What?” She blinked, wondering what the hell he was going on about by stating such an obvious fact.
Bakugo knew he sounded like an idiot but dammit, he wasn’t the best at this feeling of touchy stuff and was making it up as he went along. "I know that you went through some fucked up shit under those Yakuza bastards and that you can now get super jacked whenever you damn well please but still," He stopped before he went on too long.
Looking at her, right in the eye, he continued. “There’s something different about you. You don’t act like the same girl I used to know.”
Midoriya’s eyes narrowed as she crossed her hands. “I’m sorry that I’m not the same doormat for you to walk all over, Bakugo.” She spat out his name like it was an insult, which seemed to phase him as he winced, somehow still not used to her refusal to use that old nickname to address him.
“Trust me, that part I know well but that’s not the damn point!” He replied, taking a breath to calm himself. His anger wouldn’t help him here. “I knew you’ve changed, that you’ll be-but still!” Grabbing at his hair, he nearly pulled it out as he sighed, releasing his hold on it as his arm fell to his side.
“Ever since I saw you on TV, telling the world what happened, even at the provisional license exam and in training, I’ve seen it. The light in your annoying eyes…it’s different, no longer that irritating bright and pure puppy look. It’s darker, dangerous…” Stepping forward, she leaned back into the wall as he seemed to see something that she didn’t like people seeing, the side of her that she hadn’t dared show her mother.
“Like there is something broken inside of you, like the person that wanted to be like All Might is gone.” Her breath hitched as Bakugo of all people managed to see through her. Of course, he could, he knew her the longest and knew of her desire…her old desire to be like All Might. But he also knew she gave it up, so why was he reminding her of it? It wasn't like she was a different person, she just wanted different things, that's all. She could still help people, that didn't need her to be a hero!
“…I,” She smelled copper and bile and felt the splash of crimson on her skin, the feeling of crushed bones underneath her fists and recalled the joy of it. Was that what a hero felt? Should a hero feel such joy when the cause of such carnage? No, they shouldn't…Which meant she was no hero.
She had made her bed, and was prepared to sleep in it but…did she indulge too much in the madness? Bakugo was right, there was something wrong with her. What she did, what she did, it was a job but she took joy in it. Loved to use her power. Taking a breath, her crossed arms moving to hug herself, she finished her response. “I already said it, I’m not that same girl you used to know. Not after what I’ve seen, what has happened.” She hated how weak she sounded, she didn’t want to sound weak, to be weak ever again as she got up to leave.
Reaching the door, she didn’t reach for the handle, instead saying something extra. “I wish that I didn’t have to go through it, that Eri could have been happy even if I wasn’t in her life but, that’s not how things went…The cruelty I witnessed, the pain, the sorrow, it was almost overwhelming. Some days I would nearly drown in it and I…” She couldn't tell him that she had returned that cruelty and pain 10 fold, that would lead to questions she didn't want him to ask.
Grabbing the door handle, she prepared to leave. “If that is all, I have to get to class.”
"Have you spoken to anyone about it?" She turned to look at him, his face returning to what she was used to, but there was still a glow of concern in those red eyes of his.
“My therapist…and Mom.” She wasn't lying, as she had a therapist that the MLA set up for her. He was the one she split her heart to, and the one that helped her create a narrative to feed her HPSC-appointed therapist lest they create a profile on her that could implicate her.
“I’m sorry.” Hearing Bakugo say something like that made her let out a bitter laugh.
"Things did change…and they will continue to, see you later, Bakugo." She opened and closed the door behind her, leaving her old friend on the roof by himself.
This chapter was meant to be longer, as there was more stuff to put in, but I saw that I was already well past my word limit, so I had to cut things here. Don't worry though, I'll work on what should have been here in the next chapter as it's pretty important to the flow of things.
