Chapter 27: The Storm
The following day Katori manages to completely avoid everyone who saw her kiss Bakugo the night before. Kirishima, Mina, Sero and Sato are easy to avoid as they are in the remedial class since they didn't pass the midterm exam, and the others don't seem to bother her as most are focused on strengthening their Quirks. So luckily, even if anyone were going to talk about it, no one has the time to do so with the rigorous training that Aizawa has then undergoing.
With Aizawa focusing on training the remedial class, she is able to concentrate on her sprint and run as far away from Bakugo and the others. She woke up that morning wishing it was all a bad dream, but when Mina teased her this morning about it, she was reminded that it was far from a dream.
As the day comes to an end, Katori even manages to avoid most people at dinner as she focuses on lighting the flames of the grills with Todoroki's Quirk, while Midoriya fills the pits with wood. If either of them heard about what happened the night before, neither of them is the type to ask her about it.
Once they are finished with their dinner and dishes, the students are advised that they will have to gather for a test of courage. She wears an unzipped purple bomber jacket, a white tank top, high waisted leggings, and white sneakers for her training outfit tonight with her hair tied in a high ponytail. Her shoulders sling downwards at how many testing opportunities they can throw at them before they break. She yawns as they begin explaining the concept of the test.
Pixie-Bob informs them that Class 1B will act as scarers while Class 1A travels in groups of two around the woods. The students will retrieve their respective nametags within the woods and return to camp in order to complete the assignment.
They all draw numbers to see who their partner will be when Katori pulls the number eight. She looks around as everyone teams up with one another, looking for the person with the matching eight. She notices that Midoriya stands looking around and waves at him.
"Eight?" she asks him and he lights up at her.
"Yeah!" he calls out happily. "Looks like we are a team!" he tells her and she is just grateful that she wasn't paired with Bakugo, whom she's refused to look at all day.
A few moments pass as Katori and Midoriya patiently wait for their turn. They will be the last students to enter the forest, so they will be waiting for a while.
Katori picks at her fingers aimlessly when something fills the air. She sniffs, smelling the familiar smell of a campfire. Her head lifts up when she sees that everyone around her seems to have noticed the smell as well. "You see that?" Midoriya asks next to her and her head shoots up to the sky, "Black smoke."
Katori's eyes widen and her mouth falls slightly when she notices the blue embers lifting into the sky. 'No… they're here.'
She gulps up at the horizon with a shake in her legs as she glances over at Midoriya. They are after him, and they are going to kill him if they get him.
"Woah!" Katori hears Pixie-Bob cry out as she's engulfed in a red aura that pulls her from the group.
All their eyes shoot over to the culprit to see someone holding the hero down as she's knocked unconscious. "First, let's get rid of these feral cats," the villains says as two of them stand over the hero; one holding a large metal rod, while the other reptilian one holds hundreds of blades tied together.
"I thought no one was supposed to know we were here!" Mineta whimpers, "So why the heck are the villains attacking this place!
"Pixie-Bob!" Midoriya yells as he tries to run after the hero to retrieve her, but the other members of the Wild, Wild, Pussycats hold him back. Katori watches the boy as a look of utter dread overcomes his features and he turns towards the horizon as something is clearly bothering him beyond the appearance of the villains.
Mandalay uses her telepath Quirk to communicate with everyone about the villain attack and Katori wonders how long it will take for Aizawa to join them since he took the remedial class to their studies.
She turns to the two villains in front of her, not recognizing them from the League of Villains' lair, and figures they must be another group of villains that Shigaraki paid for. The reptile begins speaking with them, introducing themselves as the Vanguard Action Squad. He mentions Stain's principals and Katori stiffens at the name. So they are clearly from the League of Villains, but these are not her father's men, so she is not safe from the attack of these two.
The reptile informs them that his name is Spinner, and he is here to fulfill Stain's ideology, which makes the situation they are in all the more worse. The Pussycats force the students to stand by as he unsheathes his weapon with the threat of hurting the students.
Mandalay informs the students to make their way back to the base camp where Aizawa and the others remain, instructing Iida to take point in the rally. Katori nods as she turns with her classmates when she notices that Midoriya hangs back.
"Mandalay! Kota, I know where he is! Please let me go get him."
"Not a chance!" she turns to him sharply. "You need to get to safety with the others. I will use my telepath to reach out to him!"
"But what if he's hurt? Or worse?" Midoriya lingers on the thought.
"Get back to camp! Now!" she commands him sternly and Iida instructs him to get moving.
They all begin running with Iida in the lead towards the camp. Katori glances behind her when she notices that Midoriya is no longer behind them. "Iida!" she calls out to the class rep as the dark-haired boy turns around.
"Where is Midoriya?" he shouts as he turns towards her and halting his course.
"He must have strayed off to go help that kid," she tells him. "He's in the woods out there somewhere.
"We need to go back and find him!"
"What? Are you crazy?" Mineta wails! "Are you blind? There's villains out there!"
"Mineta's right," Katori begins. "Someone needs to get to Aizawa and Vlad King and get the pros out here. You guys head out that way and get to safety. I will get Midoriya."
"What about your Quirk? You won't be able to fight!" Iida counters.
"I can copy Midoriya's and hopefully whatever villain I come across if it comes to that, but you guys need to get back to the camp! Don't worry about me!" she says turning away from him before he can argue with her any further.
"Be safe!" she hears him call out through the tree line as she pushes her body deeper into the woods.
She grits her teeth, knowing that she is responsible for this attack, and if they end up killing Midoriya here, it is all because she sold him out to All for One. She bites down on her lip, knowing that she has no other choice. It wasn't right what she did—telling the League about him, and she needs to make up for it one way or another.
She begins searching the area, wondering where Kota would hide during an attack like this, and how Midoriya would know where the boy would be. It must be a secret hideout that he's found while here. She thinks about where she would have a hideout if she was a kid like him and she figures that he has to be somewhere high up or underground to hide from the Pussycats—the more likely of the two being the former since he would have a vantage point of spotting them coming towards him.
Katori looks up, trying to find a good vantage point when she hears a deafening crash from above her. Her head shoots up to the sky where she sees debris being kicked up at a cliffside above her. "Midoriya!" she cries out, hoping that he can hear her.
She groans, looking around for a way to get up the cliff. If she had Todoroki and Bakugo's Quirk, she'd be able to launch herself up there with their firepower, but she will have to do this the old-fashioned way. She begins running up the mountainside as she ascends the mountain. She quietly thanks Aizawa for putting her through such excruciating training so that she has the stamina to run as long and as quick as she can.
"Hold on Midoriya!" she yells as she continues to hear the crashing booms of a battle waging before her. She doesn't know what the situation is up there, but Midoriya still hasn't built his body up to withstand his Quirk, and with the knowledge that it's All Might's Quirk, and the villains are here to kill him, she doesn't know how much longer he will last in a fight.
She runs up the hill, seeing the top of a blonde head when a massive gust of wind blows in the area, sending Katori flying backwards on her back. She grunts at the pain, wondering if that was Midoriya's Quirk, but it felt way too powerful of an attack for anything the boy's body can handle.
Lifting herself to her feet, Katori runs as quickly as she can towards the fight as she feels the tremors of the fight shaking the ground below her.
"Midoriya!" she shrieks as she approaches the curve of the uphill. She sees the small boy being crushed by what looks like a pile of exposed muscle.
"Let him go!" she hears Kota wail with his hands extended out in front of him.
"I won't let you hurt Kota!" Midoriya cries out as he lifts himself from the pile of muscle coming from the villain atop him.
Katori begins running in a full speed towards the Villain when he looks up at her. She catches his eye instantly and begins draining his Quirk. She is too far from them to be of any use in copying his Quirk and using it, fearing that if she does, she might crush Midoriya, so instead she focuses on draining the Quirk as much as she can.
The villain staggers off of Midoriya a bit, feeling his power draining with her Quirk. She doesn't dare take her eyes off of him, knowing her threshold for draining his Quirk and going beyond it as she weakens him. "Go Midoriya!" she cries out as her eyes begin to water. "Do it now! Hit him with all you've got!"
"Delaware Detroit Smash!" Midoriya cries out as a supermassive wave of air punches at the muscular man, sending him flying into the mountainside with a colossal force.
She looks onto Midoriya as his body shakes, but he stands tall, crying out to the sky with a victorious shout as his blackened arms flail mangled at his sides. He pants as blood trickles down his face, and he begins to teeter from exhaustion. Katori jumps in, ready to catch him but he stabilizes his footing.
"Midoriya, you're hurt," Katori states, moving her hands up to grab for him.
"I thought I would inflict more damage," he grunts as he attempts to walk. "I seriously underestimated how powerful he was. If every villain tonight is on the same level as he was, all of our lives are at stake."
Katori gulps at his assessment, knowing some of the talent that is here and aware of just how powerful of a threat they pose. "We can leave him here," he says glancing over at the unconscious villain. With my smash and you draining his Quirk, I don't think he'll be conscious anytime soon, plus he probably won't be able to fight if he does wake up."
"Midoriya, you need to rest," she says with her hands up in the air, trying to aid him, but too fearful to touch him.
"No, I can't. If there are people out there that I can save, I have to try," he grunts as he attempts to move. "I have to get to Kacchan. They're after him."
"Bakugo?" she questions, taken aback by his comment. They shouldn't be after him, they should be after Midoriya. She shakes the idea out of her head and focuses on the task at hand, glancing at the forest burning before her. "The forest is on fire, and most likely the rest of our class is trapped in the flames," she begins, turning to Kota. "You have a water Quirk. We will need your help extinguishing these flames," she says with a smile on her face at the scared boy, feeling terrible for expecting this from someone so young.
"Yeah, we can get him to base and he can help the Pussycats," Midoriya nods firmly.
"Midoriya, listen, you should get him back to camp. I will move on ahead and find Bakugo," she tells him with upturned brows and he looks onto her, seeing the passionate look in her eyes.
"Okay," he nods with a gulp. "But take some of my Quirk to get down this hill faster. Use it as much as you can."
"Thank you," she says taking just enough of his Quirk to copy it. "Are you going to be alright?"
"Yeah, go!" he tells her and she moves from him, leaving the boys behind as she launches herself towards the burning forest, heart contrasting in her chest with the fear of what the League of Villains would possibly want with Bakugo.
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