Chapter 20
"You can't go that way." Tomura jabbed his monitor for the fifth time that night. "You're worse at this than I am at shogi." He complained.
"I see a gold chest though, didn't you say they had money and weapons in them? I want an axe, like the one you have for your blademaster." Sakura protested. "Maybe if I knock this wall down…" She clicked left then right trying to get her wizard to blast apart the wall that separated her from the gold chest.
"Idiot, if you do that all the vampire bats will start attacking you, and you're squishy, you'd be dead in seconds. Besides, wizards can't equip axes." Tomura laughed at her. "You're really terrible at this, you know that?"
"Hey, be nice, we didn't have video games in Konoha!" Sakura continued to click on the screen, her nose wrinkled up in frustration. "I'm new to this virtual, that's what you called it right, this virtual game stuff." She threw her hands up in the air and pushed back from Tomura's computer.
"Do you miss it? Konoha, your village?" Tomura asked her, picking up the mouse and closing out of the game.
"Sometimes. I try not to think about it." She looked down at her hands, ran her finger over an old scar, one she had gotten before she was taught how to heal using her chakra.
Tomura was silent beside her.
"Do you miss your parents?" She asked him.
"Sometimes." He told her.
"Do you wish you could have them back? Do you ever wonder what your life would have been like if they were here?" Sakura looked up, Tomura was looking down at his hands, flexing one finger at a time.
"No." His voice dropped. "They're gone and I can't get them back so it doesn't matter what I want."
"What about your parents, they aren't dead but do you miss them?" He asked her, moving to the couch on the other side of his room.
Sakura turned in his gaming chair to face him. "I miss them. I would like to see them again if I could."
Tomura watched her, she was being honest and he could tell she had fully accepted her situation. He hadn't told her that Master had brought her here of course. He let her question Kurogiri for hours and hours about his quirk, as she wrote everything down in a notebook, reading and rereading what she had written as he sat beside her at the bar.
Would she ever give up? Would she ever want to stay? 'What if you can't go back', he had asked her many times before. It was always the same. She said she would find a way but he could tell, the lack of progress was wearing on her. Her goal was getting farther and farther away from her.
"I hope you do." Tomura saw the shiver shoot down her spine. Waited for her to move or speak, to do something.
"Thank you." Sakura looked back down at the scar on her hand. "I like that I can…" She shook her head at herself. It was still hard to talk about her past, even if he knew more about her than most, even if his sensei knew about her kind of shinobi.
"Just say it." He hated it when she did this, second guessed herself, it made her appear weak and she was anything but weak. It was an insult, to both her and himself. "Stop getting all emotional on me." He complained.
"I was going to say I like that I can talk to you about my village, that it's comforting to me to have someone here that knows I don't belong here, that I'm not supposed to be here, you jerk." Sakura stood up from his computer chair with her hands on her hips leaning forward slightly. "I was going to thank you for being my friend, asshole."
Tomura resisted the urge to scratch his neck. She thought of him as a friend now? He was so pleased! Wait, was this another trick of hers? Was she trying to get him to let his guard down?
"You think I'm your friend?" He asked her cautiously.
Sakura blinked. "Well, yes?"
"...but I attacked you." He pointed out.
She felt ridiculous. "I don't know, there must be something wrong with me but you're, I mean…that was before we knew each other better."
Sakura flopped down at the other end of the couch from Tomura. "We got off on the wrong foot. Okay? You were just trying to help. I think, and besides we get along now that you stopped being all creepy stalker guy. Don't get all weird on me now okay. I was just saying I like that I can talk with you about things I can't talk about with anyone else."
Ah, so she hadn't told that kid about her past. It made him feel good. It made him feel warm and…
"Yeah, you talk a lot. It's really annoying." Tomura got up from his couch. "I want a drink, I'm going down stairs, you coming?"
"You drink a lot, has anyone ever told you that?" Sakura laughed and followed him out of his room.
"...and lived after? No." Shigaraki motioned for her to go down the stairs before him. "Don't worry Sakura, I won't kill you. Yet."
Sakura snorted. "Right. So is that your big plan? Don't tell me you don't have one either. I heard those two guys talking as they left last week, the ones that were here when I came to see you? I know you're planning something illegal." She poked him in the shoulder once they were sitting in their usual booth.
"You weren't supposed to hear that." Tomura watched her out of the corner of his eye. "How much more did you hear?"
"Enough to know you've got something planned that involves a lot of other people." Sakura took the drink Kurogiri set before her with a nod to the misty man.
"Sakura." Tomura turned to look her in the eye. "You don't need to know. Just know, I 'm not going to hurt you. It has nothing to do with you."
The sarcastic tone was gone. He was being serious.
"Tomura, what's going on?" She licked her lips. "Are you, I mean...do you need help?"
He almost laughed. Kami if she only knew what she was offering to help him with. "No." He shook his head. "Just make sure you stay out of my way. I won't have time to keep track of you."
That sounded ominous.
"What does that mean?" She narrowed her eyes at him.
"I told you Sakura. I'm a villain." He waited but she didn't say anything so he continued. "I kill people and I hurt people, but I don't want you to get hurt."
"...but." She started to protest. What people? She hadn't seen him hurt anyone since she had come here.
"Some people matter and some people don't." They had never spoken like this before and he suspected that she had forgotten, during their games of shogi, while playing video games with him in his room, that he was a villain, that he had murdered people and that he wasn't part of normal society.
"You matter." He picked up his drink and waited for the questions that he knew were to come, to come, but none came.
"Okay." Sakura turned her head back to look at the shattered mirror behind the bar. "Okay." She repeated herself, to reassure him, yes, but also herself. Who was she to judge him, after all he wasn't the only one sitting at their table that had killed before. Could she really judge him for killing when she had killed numerous people before she had met him?
No.
"It's your world." She tried to smile.
"Our world Sakura. You have to stop thinking of yourself as an outsider." He set his drink down on the bar. This is what he wanted. Laughing with her and playing games with her was nice but the sooner she realized where she belonged, the better.
"Right." She didn't argue with him, but she didn't agree with him.
She always fell silent when she was thinking hard. He had noticed that right away. The more time they spent together, the less guarded she was with her expressions and right now he could tell she was confused.
"We don't have to talk about that right now though." He wouldn't push her.
His patience had served him well, he had made considerable progress in the last two weeks with her and he didn't want to ruin it now, like he had almost ruined things with her that night on top of the industrial building.
Kurogiri set a fresh deck of cards on the counter in front of Tomura.
"Let's play cards." There will be plenty of time to talk later." Tomura handed Sakura the deck of cards. "I can't shuffle them, you know."
A month later, classes at UA High began.
"It's so much larger than the academy." Sakura walked next to Shouto to their classroom. "There weren't that many my age in the village compared to here though so I guess that makes sense."
"Are you nervous?" Shouto asked her, his hand on his messenger bag strap instead of holding hers.
His sister told him to be on his best behavior, that holding Sakura's hand in school was a bad idea since the school said they would allow them to be in the same class, he needed to be careful. She didn't want one of them to get switched to a different class and knew Shouto didn't want that either.
"I'm not nervous." She assured him, her head moving left and right taking in everything around her. "I knew this would be different than what I'm used to. I'm just not looking forward to people treating me like a kid again." She grimaced at him, making him smile.
"Think of it as a way to relive your academy days and do it right this time." He tried to encourage her, knowing how her academy days weren't her best.
'Do it right this time', she wanted to laugh, recalling how foolish she and Ino had been chasing after Sasuke, but she couldn't. All she could see was her and Ino fighting over a man that cared nothing for them, that had done nothing but hurt them and betray their village. Do it right this time, yeah. She would do it right this time if she could, but that wasn't why she was here.
Shouto watched Sakura's face darken and her eyes go cold, had he said the wrong thing again? Sometimes in the middle of their conversation he would say something and her whole attitude would change, even her body language would change sometimes, and he wondered what it was she was thinking about, wondered what it was he had said to trigger such a reaction from her.
Over the past two months he had learned many things about his girlfriend, one of which was that she didn't hide her emotions very well, not to anyone with eyes at least. Sometimes she would try, and if he hadn't gotten to know her so well, he might have been fooled.
The one time he asked her about it, he regretted it. The fake smile she had plastered on her face was shocking in its intensity. She didn't want to tell him and she didn't want him to ask her, so he didn't anymore but he'd never forget that smile, that fake lonely smile.
"Here." Shouto pushed the door to Class 1-A open and let Sakura step inside first. "You can choose where you want to sit. I'll sit beside you."
Bakugo sat at his desk, his feet up, as he leaned back against his tilted chair. The door to the classroom opened, he leaned back, turned his head and fell to the floor, his chair shooting off in the opposite direction.
It was that girl, the one he had seen at the bus stop, the one he had seen standing at the peak of that insanely tall tree in the forest behind his house. What the fucking hell was she doing here?
"That's why you don't put your feet on your desk." A guy with glasses was reprimanding a blonde as Sakura walked to the back of the classroom, Shouto right behind her.
"It's only the first day and you're already disrespecting school property by scuffing up your desk." Glasses continued to chastise the blonde who looked vaguely familiar to Sakura as she chose a seat by the window.
"Huhhhh? You're kidding me right?" The blonde was half grinning, half smirking. "You're old school put a stick up your ass or were you born with it?"
Sakura covered her mouth and snorted. Shouto gave her a bored sort of look. Sakura watched as the blonde continued to talk back to Glasses, even going as far as threatening him. She laughed quietly to herself, Glasses was out of his league.
"You would threaten your own classmate? Are you sure you're in the right place?" Glasses clapped one of his hands to his chest, staring at the blonde as though he were dangerous.
Sakura rolled her eyes and snorted again. The blonde turned his head to her, gave her a once over, then looked at the door to their classroom when it opened again revealing a green haired guy with freckles. Sakura noticed the blonde glower, his shoulders tightening, as all heads turned toward the door.
She too looked at the newcomer. He was short, like her and rather plain looking. He also looked incredibly nervous. Sakura wondered why everyone was staring at him when Glasses rushed over to the kid to introduce himself.
Green hair held his hands up in front of himself, in a defensive manner, and smiled with his eyes closed as though he were overwhelmed. "I'm Izuku Midoriya. It's super nice to meet you."
Sakura looked out the window next to her and only caught bits and pieces of Midoriya and Iida's conversation. Feeling something brush her hand she looked back into the classroom, Shouto was patting her hand gently, his eyes concerned.
"You okay?" He asked her, leaning closer to her. "You look like you're not really here."
"Oh, sorry." Sakura tried to smile at Shouto. "It's been a long time since I've been in a classroom as a student, not as a teacher." She shrugged.
"You used to be a teacher?" She had never told him that. "When?"
"Oh, uh. A long time ago." Sakura squeezed his hand, then turned her head back to the window.
Not that long ago, she bit her bottom lip between her front teeth. Tsunade shisou put her in charge of instructing the Jr. Nurses, before she disappeared. Right now, sitting here in this classroom though, it might as well have been a million years ago.
Tomura's words came back to her like a bad joke. What the hell was she doing here, in school with these kids? She sighed.
Bakugo looked away from the classroom door where Deku was talking awkwardly with two other students and turned instead to watch the pink haired girl by the window. Shifting his weight in his seat and slumping over his desk he could tell there was something wrong with her. Not his problem, he told himself, rearranged his arms under his head and closed his eyes.
A moment later he opened his eyes to find the same girl looking down at her hands on her desk, her pinky finger running over a scar on her opposite hand over and over again. Bakugo shifted in his seat again, so he could get a better look at her. His movement must have drawn her eye because when he looked up at her again she was looking at him.
He froze. Yeah, it was the same girl. Those green eyes.
"Oh, it's you." Sakura nodded to the blonde she had seen by the bus stop that one day, the same day she had met both Shouto and Shigaraki. He had red eyes. She swallowed, just red eyes, not sharingan eyes. "I thought you looked familiar."
"Yeah." Bakugo turned his head back to his desk and set it back down on his arms, ignoring anything else the girl might have said to him. He didn't want to talk to her, he hated small talk.
"Do you know him?" Shouto asked Sakura, his eyes on the blonde who had spoken to his girlfriend. "He seems to know you. Is that your stalker?"
Bakugo's head snapped back to the girl and the two toned haired guy next to her, but they weren't paying attention to her. Stalker?
"What? No, of course not." Sakura laughed, speaking quickly. "I met him at the bus stop, the day I met you. We talked about maps."
"Maps, oh okay." Shouto looked back at Bakugo who was ignoring them both when there was a commotion at the classroom door again.
"If you're here just to make friends you can pack up your stuff now."
Sakura looked away from the window to the floor where she saw Shota Aizawa, wrapped up in a yellow sleeping bag, and laughed.
"It took you eight seconds for you to shut up, that's not going to work. Time is precious. Rational students would understand that." He turned to look at the rest of the class, his eyes pausing at Sakura in the back corner of the room by the window.
"Hello. I'm Shota Aizawa, your teacher." Aizawa stood up in his sleeping bag, unzipped himself from it and stepped into the room. Pulling something from his sleeping bag, he addressed the class. "Right, let's get to it, put these on and head outside."
"Our gym clothes." Shouto looked at Sakura who was already digging in the backpack he had given her last night.
Once the class was assembled outside on Training Field B, Aizawa explained that they would be taking a quirk assessment test and that whoever finished the test in last place would be expelled. Several students protested, loudly, but Sakura didn't. She understood.
If this had happened to her as a new Genin, she would have protested along with the others like she had done with Sasuke and Naruto when Kakashi sensei told them they failed the bell test, but not now. Now she had enough life experience behind her, had seen enough war and death to understand he wasn't doing this to be cruel, but to save anyone from an unnecessary death.
He was protecting the weak, like a real hero would do.
It seemed harsh and it sounded unfair, but she understood. She also understood how a trial like this could push someone weak into becoming stronger too. It was a risk, a calculated risk to do such a thing on the first day of school. If he wasn't careful, he could end up crushing a possible future hero into villainy.
It was a fine line.
"Funny." Sakura watched the other students whine and moan over their teacher's threat of expulsion. "He didn't strike me as much of a risk taker." She spoke quietly to Shouto who was standing beside her.
"Miss Haruno, you will not be participating in this test. I have already seen the extent of your skill." Aizawa motioned for Sakura to step back and wait by the sidelines.
"Have you?" Sakura met Aizawa's bored look with bland indifference. "If you really think that, then you not only limit me but yourself." She challenged him, ignoring the whispers of the other students.
Shouto stood beside his girlfriend, his eyes darting back and forth between Sakura and their teacher. What the hell did she think she was doing and what had happened at her second evaluation test?
"Stay after class Haruno. I would like to speak with you alone." Aizawa turned back to the rest of his class as Sakura walked to the side of the field, laid down in the small patch of grass, and closed her eyes.
No sooner had she shut her eyes did they snap back open again.
"Go to hell!" The blonde roared as a ball flew from his exploding fist.
"Go to hell?" Sakura cocked her head to the side and watched the blonde walk back over to the rest of the group, his eyes slipping to the side, to look at her, before moving back to their class.
Aizawa was making them throw balls? What the heck for?
Trial after trial Sakura watched the rest of her class sprint in between lines, lift weights and jump into sand. She had never seen anything like it. Some students had the strangest abilities she had ever seen, including Orochimaru's creepy tongue.
One girl looked so much like a frog, Sakura did a double take, another with pink hair similar to Sakura's didn't look human at all. With such a diverse group Sakura began to wonder about what she had assumed was a burn on Shouto's left side of his face. Maybe it wasn't a burn, maybe it was part of his fire quirk.
The last test of the day was the second half of the first test. The student had to throw the ball as far as they could while using their quirk. Sakura shuffled her feet as the freckled boy stepped up to the starting point and looked down at the ball in his hand. He had an intense pensive look on his face.
Like the others, Sakura had noticed he hadn't done very well on the rest of his tests and hadn't used his quirk at all. She wondered why. She knew why she tried not to use her chakra manipulation or jutsu, which, she assumed, was why Aizawa had excluded her from the test, but why wasn't Midoriya using his quirk?
Aizawa's hair rose around his head and his eyes glowed red. Midoriya, oblivious, threw the ball, which thudded dully at his feet. Aizawa walked over to Midoriya and they shared a few words. Sakura narrowed her eyes taking in the situation. She understood, Midoriya would be expelled.
"I've returned your impractical quirk. Take your final throw." Aizawa walked away from Midoriya.
The ball exploded from the tip of Midoriya's pointer finger like a high pressure rocket. The whole class watched in awe as the ball flew through the air, except Sakura. Sakura was watching Midoriya's face. The expression on his face was the same expression Naruto had sometimes, when people told him he couldn't be a ninja, or he would never master a jutsu.
It the was look of insatiable determination and drive. Aizawa, Sakura was beginning to understand, was a very unusual man. He reminded her of Kakashi in a way. He did things his own way.
Shota's face broke into a slightly maniacal grin, his eyes open with both surprise and satisfaction.
"Yeah, just like Naruto." She muttered to herself.
Midoriya was breathing hard, his finger broken and mangled, blood dripping from the wound. She rose to her feet and walked over to the freckled boy.
"Sensei?" She raised a pink brow at Aizawa.
Aizawa nodded.
Sakura smiled at Midoriya. "This won't hurt very much longer, but I need to reset it before I heal it, um, you will need to hold your hand as still as possible. I promise to make it quick."
"What?" Izuku gaped at Sakura. "What are you going to…"
Sakura grabbed Midoriya's wrist with one hand and his finger with the other and yanked hard. She ignored his screams, infused her hand with her healing chakra and healed his finger.
"It's cold and, wow, that's so weird. Amazing!" Midoriya held his hand up in front of his face, flexing his fingers like Aizawa had done when Sakura had healed him, like Shouto had done and smiled at Sakura. "So you have a healing quirk? No wonder you didn't participate in the other tests."
As predicted, the rest of the class broke out into a noisy hive of questions, compliments and requests to see her quirk again, but Aizawa interrupted the sudden upheaval and saved Sakura from the discomfort of making excuses for her quirk.
"Class dismissed. No one will be expelled, go home. See you tomorrow." Aizawa told his class. "Haruno, you stay."
"It's okay. I'm sure I won't be long, go on Shouto. I'll meet you at your house after class." Sakura patted Shouto on the arm, but before she could turn back to their teacher Shouto grabbed her hand.
"I'll wait for you at the gate." With one quick glance at their observing teacher, Shouto left.
Sakura turned back to Aizawa. "Sensei?"
"You know why I had you sit out on the quirk assessment testing." He wasn't asking.
Sakura nodded.
"Energy manipulation can be explained much easier than chakra manipulation." He waited. "...and you don't seem to have full control over your chakra."
Sakura remained silent. She had assumed that the only people in this world who knew about chakra were Shigaraki and his Master. This was...unexpected, but thrilling. If Aizawa knew about chakra, then maybe, and it was a big maybe, but maybe...he could help her get back home.
...or.