Chapter XIV
There and Back Again
It was weird being back at the USJ, as I stared at the large dome building, I felt a shiver run up my spine the moment I set foot off the bus. It came as a shock to the class that Mr. Aizawa would have us return to USJ so soon, even if it was only a couple of days. On the ride to the USJ, I sat next to Shoto my leg bouncing like it was running a race I couldn't control it even if I wanted to the idea of returning to the place of my greatest failure stung. Even as we entered my eyes were instantly drawn to the large hole, for a second I was confused at it.
"All-Might sent the giant creature out of the USJ," Shoto said quietly as I stood next to him, I didn't say anything only nodded my head as I continued to stare at the hole in wonder. All-Might was truly something else if he was able to send that large creature into the air.
"Welcome back to the USJ." Came the cheery voice of Thirteen, snapping me back into reality, as I looked down my eyes scanning passed the students landing on the very hero I thought would have suffered the worse injury, yet here he stood in all his glory acting as if he had never gotten hurt in the first place. I blinked a couple of times quickly pinching myself to see if what I was truly seeing was real, but a hand grabbed my wrist stopping me, quickly I looked down at the hand my eyes slowly gazing up at Shoto who held a frown.
"What are you trying to do?" He asked as he released my wrist quickly, I pulled my hand to my chest as I stared back at Thirteen.
"I thought he had…" I couldn't even finish my sentence as I tried to swallow a lump in my throat, suddenly finding the floor highly interesting at the moment. "I thought I wasn't fast enough," I mumbled catching Shoto's eyes frown as he looked back towards the rescue hero.
"My back hurts a bit but it's nothing compared to Mr. Aizawa nor your fellow classmate who had the wings." Thirteen said most likely answering a student's question. I looked up at Thirteen to see him point at the bandages of Mr. Aizawa who only grunted as he turned around.
"We are ready to begin class, so let's start already we are wasting time." He grumbled lowly as he started down the steps.
"Mr. Aizawa, All Might is supposed to meet us as well," Izuku shouted taking a step forward this caused Mr. Aizawa to stop on the first step only half turning to Izuku. "Where is he?" Izuku asked but Mr. Aizawa only turned and started walking down the steps.
"I don't know. Forget about him." Mr. Aizawa said leaving Izuku frozen for a second but shook his head as if he was disagreeing with something his mind had said. Frowning the rest of the class begin to walk down the stairs with Thirteen taking up the rear next to me and Shoto.
"Young Hero, may I speak with for a moment?" Thirteen called out making both Shoto and I pause before reaching the second flight of stairs, we both turned to look towards Thirteen as he approached stopping three feet in front of me. "I would like to personally thank you for not only saving my life and the lives of your classmates but also the life of Mr. Aizawa. I am deeply sorry that it costed you, your quirk, I'm certain that you would have made a fine Pro. If you would like you can sit out the training…"
"Thirteen, I am grateful that you are still alive, but I still plan to be a Hero…" I paused in cutting off Thirteen. "My mother once told me that I don't need power to be a Hero. So, I will become a Hero, maybe not the number one hero but someday I will be a hero." I said watching Thirteen, as he took in my words before nodding his head.
"Good then let's catch up to the rest of the class." He said as he turned and begin to walk down the stairs. I watched his back for a second before my eyes wandered over to the large creator in the ground before the water fountain, next to it was a large red stain, that caused my jaw to clench my eyes closed tightly, I dropped my head, as memories of the fight came back. Memories that I watched through red vision, memories of my classmates screaming out my name as I passed out.
Swallowing a lump in my throat my body tensed up when I felt a hand on my shoulder, opening my eyes I looked at Shoto out of the corner of my eyes, while his eyes held concern his face remained neutral. Taking in a deep breath I rolled my shoulders back holding my head high as I took one last glance at the creator before walking down the stairs. It was so hard to not look back at the fountain as we passed it on our way to the mountain range, just the thought of it caused a small amount of pain to flare up on my back where my wings once rested.
Once we reached the mountain range it was a small walk up a set of stairs and across a bridge, that stretched over a large chasm, once we were across, Kirishima and Kaminari walked to the edge of the cliff shouting down into the chasm, commenting on the height causing Tenya to briskly walk over the edge kneeling down, he leaned over the edge and shouted down into the chasm.
"Everyone gather around!" Thirteen called out catching everyone's attention. "Let's start the training! Rescue! There will be three students at the bottom of the chasm one of them will be unconscious, another will have a broken leg and the last will be in distress." Thirteen said making Uraraka jump with glee as she bounced over to Izuku, causing the poor boy's face to turn bright red as he hid his face in his hand trying his best to rub the redness off his cheeks. "The Injured will be," Thirteen paused before pointing towards Izuku, Uraraka, and Tenya.
"Alright, you four are the ones who will rescue them." Mr. Aizawa said pointing to Momo, Takoyaki, Shoto, and Bakugo. "You may also use these objects." He added pointing towards a rope and gurney. While Shoto and Takoyaki remained neutral to the pairing Momo looked down casted at the idea as Bakugo blew a gasket.
"Wait! Why do I have to save Deku?" Bakugo shouted glaring towards Mr. Aizawa who looked like he really couldn't care.
"Because we are in the anime festa, Bakugo." Tsuyu said ending it with a small ribbit this caused Bakugo to shout towards the girl making her jump slightly, as Kirishima quickly stepped in the middle of the two saying something softly to the Tsuyu as Bakugo turned and walked towards the edge of the cliff along with Shoto.
Sighing I moved to the face of the mountain and sat down watching as each group went, a small ping of guilt racked through my body when I would look at the back of Thirteen or even over to Mr. Aizawa. Pulling out a small notepad and pen I began to draw a picture of my little sister from the dream last night. The Elder women's voice was so frustrating it felt familiar and yet at the same time I couldn't seem to remember where I had heard her voice.
"Mara are you paying attention?" The voice of Mr. Aizawa snapped me from my thoughts quickly I looked over to him then glanced away just as fast when I saw the bandages. "Just because you are injured doesn't mean that you don't have to pay attention to the lesson." He stated sounding rather tired "We are heading to the Ruins Zone for the next part of the class, now let's go we are wasting time." He finished as he was the first to turn and leave the mountain area with the rest of the class following behind as I trialed towards the end.
"Now we will continue in this setting, unlike the first training, there's different situations here. The purpose of this scenario is to give a more genuine experience. The injured can be anywhere and we don't know what state they may be in. Four of you will be the rescuers, the rest of you will have eight minutes to spread out and hide in whichever place you wish." Thirteen paused pointing to Jiro, Shoji, Mina, Kirishima, Kaminari, Aoyama, Sato, then finally to me making me frown as I looked towards Mr. Aizawa, but he only shrugged and looked away causing my shoulders to drop. "You eight will not be able to speak."
"We are playing hide and seek!" Shouted Mina as she smiled jumping for joy.
"To be precise, almost. Okay, the four that will search, are them…" He said pointing to Bakugo, Izuku, Uraraka and Mineta. This once again caused Bakugo to become enrged by the idea of having to work with someone he didn't like or in this case Izuku.
"Why do I have to do it with Deku?" He shouted out in anger small explosions coming from the palm of his hands.
"There's no helping it, we're in the Anime Festa." Uraraka mumbled forcing his anger to turn towards her.
"What the hell is that?" He roared making Kirishima quickly jump in between the two holding his hands out to stop Bakugo from taking his anger out of the poor girl.
"Calm down, calm down. Let's research it later." Kirishima told Bakugo which seemed to cause the angry pomeranian to calm down just a little bit.
"Alright you have two minutes to hide and remember an injured person could be anywhere." Thirteen said as we nodded our heads and took off in different directions.
I decided to run left my eyes scanning the buildings for a place to hide, if only I had my wings this would be much faster. I thought bitterly as I took a turn down an ally way seeing a fire escape, I decided to hide inside, on the fifth floor of the building, I was surprised to find that the building was fully furnished as if it was an actual office. Quietly I wondered around the floor going from room to room as I took in the details of the office building. It wasn't until I reached a back room that held a long oval table with a couple of chairs missing with a large hole in the wall leading to what looked like the break room. Picking up one of the chairs I dusted the rumble off and sat down, to my pleasure I found that the chair could spin around. With childlike excitement I began to spin around in the chair, closing my eyes to avoid becoming dizzy, as I didn't allow myself to slow down, while I waited for my rescue, silently preying that it wouldn't be too long.
I was so wrong, it seemed like no one was coming to rescue me, it felt like an hour had pasted as I rested my head against the round table. A small huff escaped my lips as my eyes scanned over the empty room for the thousandth time with a small groan I rolled my head to the look at the other wall, as a dull throb at the base of my shoulder blades appeared once again, this was proving to be harder than I thought just sitting and waiting. I would spin in the chair again had I not somehow broke the damn chair and all of the other chairs were either broken or missing a part that prevented me from spinning. I was about to give up on being rescue and start wandering the streets, but the building started to shake violently, causing a frown to form on my face as I watched dirt start to fall from the ceiling. I froze for a second my heart pounding in my chest. Was this an earthquake? I thought for a second as I stood up rushing to the window my eyes widen in fright when I watched as the buildings before me began to clasp kicking up dust everywhere. It wasn't until the building I was in started to shake and faulter that I realized it was going to fall along with the others.
Time seemed to slow down as my mind raced I was on the fifth floor of a ten story building if I jumped out the window I'd die, I wouldn't even make it to the stairwell, nor the fire escape in time, diving under the long table could get me crushed. Looking up at the ceiling once again I watched as a large chuck of it clasped onto the table practically destroying it, and anything that would have been underneath. Taking in a deep breath I knew my only choice was the window, grabbing a medium size piece of rumble from the floor I weighed it in my hand checking if it would be the right weight before throwing it at the window causing it the shatter. Though pieces of glass still reminded I pushed out the small bits before climbing out stepping on the narrow ledge I gripped the top of the window biting my lip in pain when I felt glass dig into my palms. Pushing the pain to the back of my mind I waited for the building to clasp, which didn't take long as the building violently shook before it began to fall backwards. My eyes widen in fright as the violent shaking made the window ledge break apart causing me to fall. I reached out trying to grab onto anything that I could, but everything was just the right distance away. Closing my eyes, I let my body relax for once begging my wings to appear, but they didn't as I hit the ground.
Pain that's all I felt, searing hot white pain, something that I could only considered to be similar to the blinding pain I felt when the Nomu took my wings. It crawled up my back shooting up and down my spine like lightening before settling at the base of my shoulder blades. Causing me to grit my teeth as my hands tightly gripped the rough blanket that held me firmly to the ground. I frowned my hand releasing the rough cloth as I listen to my surroundings, the sound elder lady yelling at someone reached my ears. Quietly I attempted to hear what she had to say, where was I anyway, why was I wrapped in a blanket.
"All-Might your rash decision to create such a creator, almost killed a student I expected better from you." Hissed the elderly lady, there was a long pause the only thing that filled the air was the breathing of everyone in the room before someone let out a sigh.
"Yes…" A man spoke up sounding nothing like All-Might, then the image of the weakened All-Might that I met once, while looking for Izuku after the slug-villain attack, appeared in my head. "I know, and I should have paid better attention to who had shown up, I only wanted to keep the students on their toes, they thought that the USJ attack was nothing more than a one-time thing. I wanted to teach them that Villains are lurking around every corner." All-Might said sounding almost like he was more upset with his actions.
"You should be lucky that she was found when she was, any longer and the damage would have been irreversible." The elder women scowled, "She's already been through a lot I don't think being paralyzed would help…" She paused for a second when the sound of a door opening, "Aizawa, so glad you are here, saves me from having to call you." The elder lady said, this was followed by a tired sigh as the sound of footsteps moved a person from what I assumed was the door to my bed side.
"How is she?" Came Mr. Aizawa voice I wanted to gasp at how defeated he sounded, though my jaw did clinch at the sound of a chair squeaking.
"She will live, though I was surprised to find that she didn't have near as much damage as someone would when jumping from a five-story building." The women said, "Though one quick use of my quirk and she should be up and running around here soon." The Elderly women said, "I'm surprised she hasn't woken up yet." She added "Have you notified her parents?" She asked waiting for an answer to come from the tired pro-hero.
"Her parents were murder in a villain attack a week after she left for Japan." Mr. Aizawa said softly as the sound of a bed creaking came from my left. "We were only recently informed of this after the USJ attack, when we attempted to contact her parents." He added with a sigh.
"Poor dear, to go through so much at such a young age. I'm surprised she has returned to school so soon." The Elder women spoke up, once again everything went quiet causing me to zone out which apparently was a bad thing as the pain swiftly returned with more force. I tried to bite my lip to avoid announcing that I was awake, but the pain began to increase once again to a blinding white pain, a sharp gasp tore past my lips as I gripped the edge of the mattress my nails digging deeply into the bedding as my back arced off the sheets in hopes that it would rid myself of the pain. Yet it only seemed to cause the pain to explode even more, rolling over on my left side a small yelp escaped my lips as I fell to the ground knocking over a tray next to me before curling up into a ball letting small groans and hiss of pain escape my lips.
"Young Sanders?" I heard All-Might say as I felt a large hand gently grab my arm which I returned the gesture but gripped his arm much harder, as I tried push the pain away. I didn't know how long this lasted until I felt my head become heavy as a sweet scent filled my nose. My grip on reality began to slip as I felt the arms of the dark void wrap around my waist pulling me into the darkness that I feared, that I never wanted to return to again.
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