Chapter 12: Slip away
Ashido shrieked and tried to back away. It didn't work, of course, because her hand was stuck in Todoroki's ice. "What are you doing? Let go of me!" Todoroki didn't reply, he began heading somewhere, Ashido didn't know where. They didn't go to the exit, and it concerned her pretty much. She held out her right hand and started to melt the ice. Todoroki added more ice every time Ashido was going to get free. Something was very wrong.
"Todoroki!" Ashido said gritting her teeth. "Stop!" But he didn't listen. Ashido frowned and tensed her muscles. "I. Said. Stop!" she yanked as hard as she could, and fell over with Todoroki. Guests around them stepped away in confusion of what was happening, some of them shouted in surprise. Ashido quickly began to melt the ice again but Todoroki recovered fast and froze her arm up to her shoulder. It hurt Ashido but she didn't give up. Todoroki tried to pull her up but she fought against him.
Suddenly Todoroki twitched and his feet gave in. He fell down, Ashido managed to grab him before he would hit himself on the floor. She looked up in surprise and saw Kaminari. He had a taser in his hand, and he looked shocked. "I didn't mean to hurt him!" he rushed frightened. "But something was wrong and I..."
"Thanks, Kaminari!" Ashido gave him a smile. "You're right, something's wrong", she looked at Todoroki, who still had a blank expression on his face. Ashido took the chance and began defrosting their hands apart.
Kaminari came by them and helped them up by grabbing Todoroki and pulling him up. He held his limp friend by left side, so he wouldn't be able to freeze him. Ashido stood up, she was almost free from ice but Todoroki froze her again. Kaminari shouted from pain as flames touched him. Instantly he let go of Todoroki, who fell on his knees, almost pulling Ashido down again. "Ouch!" Kaminari shook of the flames on his sleeve. "Really?!"
Now the guests near them started to panic because of the flames. It confused even more people around them. Asui jumped out of the crowd and saw the situation. Ashido and Kaminari looked at her, clearly uncertain of what should they do. Asui thought furiously for a second. "Kaminari! Make him unconscious! We have to get away from here!"
"What!?" Kaminari hesitated but Asui looked at him firmly. He turned to Todoroki, who was fully concentrating on struggling Ashido. "I'm sorry!" he hit Todoroki with the taser close to his neck as hard as he dared. In an instant, Todoroki fell on the ground, this time out cold. Kaminari muttered many apologies to his classmate as he pulled him up.
Asui helped Kaminari support Todoroki, and finally Ashido got herself free, though she still had a thick ice layer on her arm. "Okay! We're out of here!" Ashido said and led them towards the exit ignoring all the confused guests, who were staring at them.
"You're not going anywhere!" Shadow Maiden came out of the startled crowd right in front of them. Ashido gasped and jumped back. Shadow Maiden reached her hand trying to grasp her but Kaminari shoved his friend aside and held out the taser. He hit the villain with a powerful shock, completely catching her off guard. She shrieked and fell limp on the floor. Kaminari let out a triumphant cry, being proud of himself.
"Now!" Asui shouted, Ashido grabbed Todoroki from the other side. They ran past Shadow Maiden, who wasn't able to move at all. Kaminari went first, ready to defend them if someone else would try to attack them. Asui didn't see Queen, maybe she was further away. She decided to focus on getting out of here, if the villain attacked them, Kaminari would hopefully be able protect them. She hadn't seen what Queen's quirk was or how it worked but it must have made Todoroki act weird.
The students run to a corridor out of the hall full of people. Guests outside of the hall didn't seem to have noticed what just happened, their conversations made much noise after all. There were many doors on the other side of the corridor close to each other. "Should we go hide in one of these?" Ashido asked as he took a better grip of unconscious Todoroki.
Looking behind them, Asui frowned. "They'll probably try to search for us as soon as that villain gets back on her feet", she looked at Todoroki. "But it would be difficult to run away while he is still unconscious. We should try to wake him." Ashido and Kaminari nodded, and they tried a door closest to them but it was locked. They tried out a couple of more doors, which must've seemed suspicious. Then one of the doors was open, and the group went in.
It turned out to be a guest room, which was pretty obvious. Luckily it was empty, though it had signs of living. There were a leather bag on a fancy bed, and used glasses on a wooden table, one of the chairs around it were moved closer to a sofa. "Why was this door open if there's nobody here? Oh boy, we have to be quick!" Kaminari muttered as he took a look of the room and then stayed next to the door, listening in case someone was coming in.
Asui and Ashido laid Todoroki gently on the floor. Ashido kneeled next to him and shook him. "Todoroki, wake up!" Todoroki didn't react in any way, so Ashido slapped him hard on the cheek. "Wake up!" she repeated but when it seemed that he wouldn't wake up, she rose her hand to slap him again. But the second slap wasn't needed because Todoroki opened his eyes, looking very confused.
"What?" Todoroki said baffled and looked up at Ashido. "What happened?" Then he saw the ice on Ashido's arm, and instantly sat up and started to melt it with his left side. "Did I..?"
"Yup", Ashido said, waiting, until Todoroki had melted the ice on her arm, and the melted ice wet the red mat on which they were. He apologized and stood up. "It's okay. It wasn't your fault... I think?" she said, thinking about Queen.
"Are you okay?" Asui asked calmly but worried.
"Todoroki, how do you feel?" Kaminari asked looking at his classmate. "I'm so very sorry that I hit you with the taser you gave me!"
"You did? I'm fine, don't worry about it", Todoroki said. He put his hand on his forehead. "I feel weird. It's like my mind became misty, and I couldn't think clearly. I had no idea what I was doing", he paused and looked Ashido. "Did I hurt you?"
"Nope", Ashido stated grinning. "Your ice doesn't feel good on bare skin but I toppled you on the floor and slapped you on the cheek, so I guess we're even."
"Oh... It's strange that I can't remember any of that", Todoroki marveled silently, his body felt sluggish, and his head was aching. "Expect I can feel your slap you gave me", he stated, and Ashido nodded proudly. Todoroki looked at her contemplatively. "I guess I deserved it."
"It must be her quirk", Asui wondered. "You know, the one, who talked to Todoroki before he started to act differently."
"Yes, I remember her", Todoroki said, recalling the situation before his mind went blank. "She blew something on my face, after that I must've lost control over my body."
"It's like she can mesmerize her victim", Ashido said slowly. "And when you lost consciousness and woke up, you were yourself again!" she sounded happy to have realized it by herself. "We have to make sure she won't catch us. It'd be very annoying to deal with any of you!"
"I feel you", Kaminari stated and sighed. "I don't want to hurt you guys. I already feel bad because I had to hit Todoroki twice. I'm sorry..."
"It's okay. You helped me, and I'm grateful for it", Todoroki said, trying to mitigate Kaminari's compunction, but he didn't seem much less sorry. Todoroki closed his eyes and sighed. "Come on, you did it because you had to. We'll be more careful from now on, so relax."
Kaminari frowned. "Yeah. Guess I'll have to bear with it. Next time you're allowed to hit me if something happens, right?" he looked around the room. "By the way, should we get going? I don't want to—"
He couldn't complete his sentence because the door opened, and a middle-aged man in a dark suit stepped in. For a moment they just looked each other in silence. Then the man recovered from surprise. "What are you doing here? Who are you?"
Ashido pulled Kaminari along and casually walked past the man, who stepped aside in confusion. "Don't mind us, we just came into a wrong room. I'm so sorry!" she apologized smiling brightly.
"Yes, we're sorry", Todoroki stated, and Asui nodded as they left the room.
The man looked at Todoroki concern in his eyes. "You're a guard right? Why are you so beaten-up like that?"
Todoroki looked at his clothes. Left side of his guard's coat was burnt, and his cap was gone. He still had his guard's bag and was happy about it. "Um... There was a little accident but don't mind it", he turned around and started heading away together with the others, leaving the confused man behind. "Let's pick up the pace", he said with low voice.
The group walked past people, who were talking in the corridor, there wasn't as many of them as in the hall. When they were going to turn left, Kaminari took a look over shoulder and saw Queen talking to the man they had encountered just a moment ago. The man explained something to Queen and then pointed at the students' way. "Okay, now we should hurry!" Kaminari said urging his friend to move faster out of the villain's sight. "That beautiful but crazy woman is coming this way. Go, go, go!"
They started running, dodging guests they quickly made their way around a couple of turns, before they slowed down. Ashido looked behind but couldn't see anything suspicious. "I think we should be okay for now", she said panting.
"I hope so", Asui said and took a deep breath, thinking about their next move at the same time. Then Todoroki's coat caught her attention. "You should probably get rid of that, Todoroki."
"You're right", Todoroki agreed and took off the half-burnt coat. He also cast his guard's gloves and hid them behind a large stand that was supporting a big, blue flower pot. "That's good enough." he stated and looked back at Asui. "Do you have something in mind?"
Asui thought awhile. "Yes. I suggest that we make a plan for escaping this castle. I know we have to save our friend, who got caught, and find the others, but once we have an escape plan, we should be able to advance a little more confidently. And we also should make a backup plan in case something goes wrong", she explained carefully.
"That's a good idea!" Ashido cheered. "So, where do we start?"
"I don't even want to know what happened here", Yaoyorozu couldn't believe her eyes as she looked at almost completely collapsed corridor. She, together with Midoriya, Iida and Kirishima, had finally arrived to the other side of the large rock pile that had blocked the corridor, only to see that something terrible had happened meanwhile. "This is awful!"
Midoriya stared at the horrible scene. Something terrible had happened while they had wandered around trying to find their way just to see all this. It was quiet, only some tiny pieces of stone made a little noise as they fell off the floor and walls down to the lower floor. Midoriya swallowed and jumped down. A dust cloud rose from the ground when he landed. Without words, he began to search the place just in case Bakugo still was in here. He could be under those heavy rocks but Midoriya didn't quite believe that, he didn't want to. It would take too much time to look for him under every rock. Part of him was a little scared to find him because that would mean something had happened to him. On the other hand, even if he didn't find Bakugo, it wouldn't mean he was okay.
"Do you see anything?" Kirishima asked above from the edge, watching as Midoriya scoped the place.
"I can't find him or the villain", Midoriya answered, concerned and angry. He hated to be in this kind of situation.
"So either he got away or he..." Iida said but didn't end his sentence. They all knew what he was going to say. Either he escaped or he got caught. Or worse.
Yaoyorozu bit her lip and made ropes and hooks so the three of them could get down to help Midoriya. For a while they searched for any signs of their classmate. But they got nowhere. Bakugo was gone.
"This is useless", Midoriya sighed crestfallen.
"I'm sure he's fine", Kirishima smiled to Midoriya, who looked very troubled, hoping to cheer him up. "He wouldn't die in a place like this. He's Bakugo after all."
Midoriya smiled faintly. "You're right about that." Suddenly he slapped himself on the cheek. "Right! We can't let this get to us. Kacchan's strong and talented. We shouldn't worry too much", he said, mostly telling that to himself. He was more worried than he showed to the others, of course he was!
"You're absolutely correct!" Iida rose his hand determined. "Shall we head back?"
"What if he went to the lower floor?" Yaoyorozu wondered.
Kirishima looked to the silent corridor ahead. "I don't think so. We came from this floor, so he has no real reason to be here. Surely he can get up there if he fell, right? I doubt he's down here."
"Yes, you're right", Yaoyorozu replied and looked up to where they had come from. "He could be anywhere by now. We shouldn't waste any more time in here."
Midoriya, Kirishima and Iida nodded in agreement, and so they headed back up, climbing the ropes Yaoyorozu had made before. Iida led them forward, thinking. Then he noticed something. "Midoriya, you never told us why you wear a guard's uniform, did you?"
"Oh, yea, I didn't", Midoriya remembered. "Let me explain..." He told them about everything he knew, about Shigaraki and the other villains he had overheard, while the others listened closely. "...and that's why I wear this costume", he said and paused. "Oh no! I totally forgot! We were supposed to meet the others some time ago! Now they must think that something happened to me— to us!"
"Oh my", Yaoyorozu frowned. "Where is this place?"
"It shouldn't be too far away. But I don't think that they're there any more", Midoriya said. "Why did I forget it? Well I know why but still! It was stupid of me!"
Kirishima patted Midoriya on the back. "It's fine, man. Even if they don't know about us, they're smart enough to know what to do... at least most of them", Kirishima added as he thought about Ashido and Kaminari wandering around the castle alone. They all felt nervous, thinking about it.
"About Shigaraki", Iida mentioned, changing the topic. "You said he had some kind of plan that included us. What could it be?"
"Good question", Yaoyorozu said. "Whatever it is, it's bad. I wonder if pro heroes are looking for us. Well, probably yes but how can they find us? I don't have the slightest idea were we could be."
"I'm sure they find us", Kirishima nodded firmly. "They're pro heroes after all. We should just focus on getting out of here with the others."
"That's just what we must do", Iida stated. "Let's keep on going, we'll find something eventually!"
Chapter 12: END
