AN: One of my big faults is my lack of descriptions, which are a big problem that I can't see, since whenever I read it I know what I was thinking, and my mind just fills in the gaps, so anyone got any good writing advice to try to fix it?
In other news, I wrote the eventual end of the fic down, it's nothing detailed, it's written down in a short note, but I think it's a pretty nice ending that wraps up the fic very well. I won't spoil anything though.
Chapter 14:
People tensed, but before anything could be done Blue-cat-girl was grabbed by some kind of telepathic power, and she was knocked out rather violently, the red of blood beginning to ruin her face.
While Fumikage's first instinct was to go help her, I grabbed him before he could do any such impulsive action.
"Let the Pussycats deal with it, our classmates need help!" I used the same line that I said to Ojiro during the USJ incident, and it worked like a charm again, since Fumikage probably believed that our classmates needed more help than pro heroes, which was true, but I also just wanted to get away from the fighting and see the bigger picture, to be able to create a good plan.
"How are you this evening, pro heroes?!" one who looked like some kind of overgrown lizard asked "We are the Vanguard Action Squad of the League of Villains!" Had there been fewer people there, I would have put a harpoon between his eyes, but there were too many witnesses, and he didn't prove the need to eliminate himself, in their eyes. Corrosive, on the other hand, always said that "precautionary action is the best kind of action".
"Should I break this girl's head? Huh? What do you think?" another, more human looking one asked. I didn't like how his face looked, and so I put my hands behind my back, and broke them down from my elbows. For now, I formed the void into the form of normal hands, but it only needed a second to turn into a deadly sword.
"Wait, wait, don't be so hasty with killing that hero. We only kill if it follows Stain's ideology!" Stain, where the fuck did they learn about Stain?! He was killed before he could do anything! I needed to look into it more.
"Stain?! You follow that madman?!" shouted at them Iida.
"You dare call him madman, glasses?!" he only got shouted back at by lizard-man. "But it's time for me to introduce myself, the one who will spin my dreams into reality, Spinner!" I couldn't resist to let out a chuckle. It was just so damn funny, with that introduction and all, he looked like he was totally incompetent, which he probably was. I mean, just look at him! Green lizard body, purple hair in a similar style to Present Mic's, goggles, a big sword on his back, even the other guy looked better, even though he was like some kind of failed surfer, who got third place on one regional tournament 8 years ago and he still tries to get girls with that.
Tiger, the only "Wild Wild Pussycat" who wasn't a female, but rather a bodybuilder who looked more buff than Schwarzenegger, lost his shit.
"You dare damage our beautiful teammate's face, and just stand there laughing about it?!"
"Students!" Red-cat-girl, or Mandalay as she was supposed to be called, started "Ragdoll will take care of you, us two will hold them back here! Vice rep, you're in charge!" Oh yes, Momo wasn't here, so among the members of the class that were there I had the highest rank. She wasn't finished, and added one last sentence "Avoid fighting at all costs! Go everyone!"
I didn't waste time, and immediately started the retreat "Come on everyone, follow me!" I said, as I started going back towards the camp building. I looked back a couple times, to check if everyone was here, and to glare on anyone who appeared to try and leave the group to try to help.
- POV change -
Kota knew that heroes and villains were both stupid, but everyone just tried to make him change his views. He was sick of it, and because of this he always came to that nice cliff face to have some quiet.
Unfortunately, that day it was an unlucky choice, since it was the day the League of Villains chose to attack UA's Training Camp. He could see the blue fire from his spot, and he could hear Mandalay's telepathical voice, telling him to go back to the camp. But before he could, a hulking mass of a man came from behind him. He was a giant, wearing a black cape to cover himself, his face being covered by a white mask filled with holes.
Kota began to slowly move backwards, but the man noticed him, and began speaking.
"I tried searching for a place with a nice view, but I didn't expect to see a little kid there." He was creepy, he just had that aura that you knew you had to avoid, the aura of a villain. "Hey, by the way, you've got a nice hat there kid. Trade with me for this lame mask. They made me wear this toy since I'm new, the shipment didn't arrive on time or some shit like that." Kota had enough, and after that sentence he started running backwards in the quickest sprint he could manage, but it wasn't enough.
The villain, with previously unshown swiftness jumped before him, and one of his arms became visible, being covered in muscles, with more growing continuously.
"Let me get a shot in to cheer up! Come on!" Without his mask, his face was visible. It was the face of a man that he dreamt about drowning, the face of a man he hated with every fiber of his being, one which in his opinion was the personification of everything wrong with the world. It was the face of his parents' killer. Around his left eye the muscle could be seen, exactly how it was speculated.
"Mama! Papa!" he cried out, since his mind overwhelmed by feelings could only cling to the memory of his dear parents, despite knowing of their death still waiting for them to come and save him.
Sadly, they did not, and he died at the hand of the same villain that committed the earlier act. The world did not change, and in some way, Kota was right, his death being just one more in the thousands created by this cruel world.
- POV change -
We got back to the camp only to see Eraser Head on the back of somebody who looked suspiciously like a villain, so I at least immediately assumed that he tried to ambush Eraser Head, unsuccessfully.
When he spotted us, he jumped up, and took a more ready position. However, what happened next, none of us could have foreseen. Or I could have possibly, I just didn't. His body began to melt, and there was no Corrosive here to cause that. But before he melted fully, he gave us a couple ominous words:
"Hey, hero. Are your students important? Since I'm not sure you can protect them until the end."
"Sensei! What was that?" Mineta asked.
Instead of answering, Aizawa just gave us orders: "Get inside, I'll be right back."
While some wanted to go with Aizawa, I again made sure to dismiss these thoughts, but it still took a couple dozen of seconds, and in that couple of seconds, another villain arrived.
We notice it when we felt a giant impact hit the ground, and from the forest came out a villain. He had ash blonde hair, and his physique was even bigger than tigers.
"Well well well, are those students I'm seeing?" Muscles begin to grow on his arms, and they were just getting bigger and bigger. This wasn't good. I took note of my resources: I had Iida, who was fast but couldn't really deliver a punch; Fumikage who if only made Dark Shadow a little sharper could be more useful, but blunt force wasn't going to cut it with this villain; Tail-boy, and again, blunt force wasn't going to do it; Mineta, who couldn't even be used as a proper meat shield, due to his small size; Stone-head-boy, who's quirk I wasn't sure was even able to destroy the robots in the entrance exam. Overall, not good, I would rather have had Shoto with me than them, but a good general knows how to use his resources effectively.
I took on the role of a leader pretty well I think, as I immediately began to shout orders before the villain attacked.
"Koda, get some snakes, we need poison! Mineta, slow him down any way you can. Tokayami, if you can make dark shadow sharp, do it! Otherwise, Ojiro, Iida cover me with Tokoyami!" And those were my last words before I transitioned into the appearance of a giant bear, matching my opponent's size, however instead of just paws, I gave myself blades on top of them, made them look like armor as they covered my whole arms, and were just as broad as them, and ended in a sharp and pointy blade.
"You've got tricks eh?" I wasn't interested in chatter, so I immediately went on the offensive, my main objective being to keep him from attacking the others, since he could have easily killed them. I wouldn't have cared much for Mineta, neither for Koda, but it would have just looked really bad that I let my teammates die, you know?
I hit, and he hit back, a continuous back and forth. His quirk kept building back his muscles, and mine kept replenishing the void that kept me up. It was two unstoppable forces colliding. It wasn't very much, but the others also tried to give me support, Dark Shadow sometimes got one or two hits in, Mineta tried to throw balls and Ojiro along with Iida also gave in a couple hits, while I suffered the majority of the damage.
We were just right next to the building however, so it didn't take long for the students taking extra classes to come out, along with Vlad King, Class B's homeroom teacher. I think Iida updated them on the situation, and their coming was both good and bad. Good, because now we had even better numerical advantage, and bad, since now we had even more possible hostages.
No matter if the enemy was all muscle, he must have had a tiny brain somewhere in that overgrown skull of his, and he recognized that his position was an unfavorable one, and just as I predicted, he lunged to take a hostage, and while I had power in this form, speed I did not, as such I was powerless to stop him.
Thankfully, Vlad King was not, and he leapt before him and defended with a giant axe made out of blood. He stood there, obviously strained, since no matter how much he worked out, he couldn't get to the level of a strength increasing quirk on his own. Thankfully, it was only that one moment I needed to get in a good slice, and a second later a giant hole opened in his stomach, courtesy of my blade. His quirk was a strength augmentation one, so while it was hard to damage him, he couldn't heal swiftly, meaning that with this hit I managed to incapacitate him. Just in case though, I quickly knocked him out (I must thank Fumiko the next time we meet), and rebuilt my body, though I left void in the places of my arms, and with needles I punctured both his arms and legs, not like with Aizawa who only was temporarily disabled, but this was permanent damage, not easily fixable, not even with healing quirks. (I really needed to thank Fumiko for this the next time we meet.)
After that, I rebuilt my arms, and faced everyone else.
"You know, I just needed to make sure he wouldn't get up and attack us from behind or something like that."
"You're just like Snipe I swear." murmured Vlad King "Get in the building everyone, I will carry the villain." With that, me, along with the other students quickly entered, with Vlad King following us with the villain's large form on his back. The body must have been quite heavy I imagine, even with his quirk being turned off.
We were staying in the class, and Kirishma was really fired up about going out and helping, while Vlad King was continuously refusing him.
It was then, that we heard a sound.
"That must be Aizawa sensei! I'll go ask him directly!" he declared. Vlad however saw that through the glass it was not Aizawa's outline that could be seen, but someone whose was different, the change easily being visible by the spiky hair.
"Everyone, get down!" he shouted, and I didn't waste time throwing up the table in front of me.
We were crowded behind him as the explosion's impact lessened, and from the smoke we saw the villain who melted before walk out, as it was noted by Mineta with a shaky voice "Isn't that the guy we defeated earlier?!". Before he could attack again though, Vlad King dashed in front of him and with a punch threw him into the wall, where he immobilized him using his blood control.
"You're pushing hard into a place like this without thinking, you must be really underestimating us!"
"Why wouldn't we? You acted exactly like how we thought you would." excluding muscle-guy's unconscious body, I imagine, pretty sure they did not expect that to happen. "You lost the minute you lost the initiative. The pinnacle of hero education, UA, and the Symbol of Peace, All Might. The two most trusted figures of hero society, gathered together. If multiple incidents keep putting that trust into question, then don't you think society as a whole will be shaken? Sloppy management that keeps allowing attacks to get through, and in the end, being so weak as to allow a students to die right there among them." This caused a couple reactions, most of them ranging from fear to outrage. "Look, there are so few of us, and we're driving you into a corner." Vlad just punched him, and again the figure melted.
We just stayed there, in the building, with nothing happening, waiting for the villains to be defeated, and detained. It left a bad taste in my mouth, to leave them alive like that, after attacking us in this forest, and trying to kill us. I wanted to cut a couple more times into muscle-guy, just to give out my frustrations a little bit, but Vlad King was watching him like a hawk. I was watching him too, itching for an excuse to damage him again.
And, it came, as a portal began to materialize, exactly how it did during the USJ incident. I however, wouldn't let this villain escape justice, and using my newly created void arm, I sank my hook into his body, and yanked him out of the portal, before he could be teleported away. I got a pat on the back from Vlad King for this, which felt nice.
After a couple minutes, students began appearing from the forests, being warmly welcomed. Most were in a pretty good shape, considering they just got hit with the sleeping gas, a couple of them however had more serious injuries. Todoroki, for example, managed to get an insane frostbite while fighting a crazy villain who attacked with his teeth, but the worst condition award of the week should definitely have been given to Momo, who was bleeding all over, since from what I heard she and some Class B student got attacked by a Nomu wielding chainsaws. Like a horror movie I swear.
However, not all students came back, and the villain's words echoed in everyone's minds, including mine. Did students die? Were there corpses in the forest? If yes, then that spelled trouble, since I am 100% sure that nobody that at this point in the original.
Vlad King left at this point, he said he needed to join Aizawa and secure the area, and he put me in charge, at least temporarily.
I don't know how much time it took for the police to arrive, but it must not have been that much considering it was still dark outside. We were whisked out of the building, and we sat in a circle formed between ambulances and police cars. Some more students arrived every couple of minutes, and everything was going well, chatter was prevalent, I got to swap stories with the Class B representative, Itsuka Kendo, whom told me how she and steel-boy managed to defeat the villain who generated the gas. It was an entertaining story, however it struck me odd that the villain didn't have resistance to his own quirk, it's weird that they accepted someone so heavily disabled into their ranks, since if your quirk harmed you it was considered a disability.
We were sitting there, chatting, when someone's voice rang loud: "Hey, who's on that stretcher?" she asked the innocent question. She was someone from Class B, her hazelnut hair covering her entire forehead and hiding her eyes as well, she appeared like a shy individual. Immediately, all of us turned our heads, and noticed how some medics attempted to carry a stretcher to one of the ambulances rather stealthily, a stretcher with a figure who was covered by a white blanket.
Students got up from the ground, and tried to get closer to the stretcher, wanting to see how bad the individual on it looked.
The medics attempted to stop them, to hide the stretcher, but out of nowhere, the blanket was grabbed and the body became visible.
It was barely recognizable, only thanks to the shape of the eyes could I recognize it as Aoyama's body, but I would rather call it Aoyama's corpse, burnt to crisp. I heard gasps, signifying the shock most students felt. I, too, was shocked by these events. Were I not in an anime where everyone survived? Did I manage to screw it up so bad that people began dying?!
My thoughts couldn't continue however, as the person who showed us the truth started speaking.
"As a hero, you cannot save everyone." he started, and in his voice regret could be heard "Not even if you make yourself go beyond Plus Ultra, not even then will everyone survive, there will always be corpses, and if you can't accept that then you shouldn't be a hero.
However, just because we can't save everyone, it doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Only cowards run away from a challenge, and as a hero you'll face challenges daily, those are challenges that you need to face. Corpses, corpses are the regrets that you have to let go." I didn't Aizawa could speak a sentence so long, but here we are, getting our early introduction to the gruesome parts of the hero world. A part filled with corpses, with regret and sorrow. Even if nobody I cared about died now, they might do in the future. And I, along with everyone else, will have to accept their deaths.
Accepting them however, doesn't mean also letting the villains live.
AN: The title still isn't right I think, it is rather misleading as some have pointed it out, but I don't know what to change it to, plus I really like how it sounds, it's really memorable.
The Naruto parallels are just insane! Anyone remember the Wave Arc from there, the little kid Inari? It just feels so similar.
For how the bear's arms looked in the muscular fight, I got the inspiration from Brawlhalla, from how Sentinel's gauntlets look like. Google it if you're interested.
As for why I killed a couple students, Shigaraki still wanted to do something during the Training Camp, but not having a clear goal like in canon he just went for "making a statement".
I know that only Aoyama got represented in this chapter, but in the next we'll go over the total death count, and oh boy I did a genocide worse than if I was an Undertale speedrunner. (Okay, maybe a little exaggeration.)
Also, people in the reviews commented on how they imagined it as a Bleach Hollow, which I deliberately avoided using, since one of the main features of the protagonist is that the void is easily moldable, allowing him to shapeshift on the fly.
And oh boy we got 100 follows, this feels so good, but it also makes feel more important, delivering chapters to this many people, so I'll be trying to keep up and increase quality.
