The campus of U.A High School was abuz as everyone helped prepare for the upcoming school festival. For the past couple of weeks, nearly all of the students' free time was going into helping create decorations, hammering out the finer details of each of their attractions, and other such activities. Even with the limitations in place, everyone was trying their best to help make it the best festival possible.
For Class 1-C, they had been busy with various tasks of their own. On top of the multiple festival-like attractions they needed to set up, they also had to get permission from the other classes to include their events in the stamp rally. Classes 1-A and 1-B were more than happy to help and thought it would be a great idea to help lift everyone's spirits.
Of course, not all of the classes were jumping at the chance to help the hero course students. There were a fair share of students who still held a grudge against the hero course for being one of the primary causes behind the recent restrictions, such as the mandatory dorm system. Thankfully, not all of the non-hero course classes were unwilling to cooperate. By the time they had finished talking to each of the classes, nearly 70% of the classes from all three years were on board to include their attractions in Class 1-C's stamp rally.
There was also one more thing a small faction of Class 1-C had been focussed on. The beauty pageant that their very own Fiona Mizune was set to compete in.
"This good, Fiona?" Dan asked. He was in the process of controlling a long stream of water with his Quirk.
Fiona replied with a thumbs up as she swam in the floating water. She was wearing a specially made dress for the contest that was water resistant, preventing it from getting ruined while underwater. She swam through the water with grace, as if she was a fish. At one point in the stream, she leaped out of the water and did a twirl before diving back in and continuing along.
Jill, Nene, and Hikari stood and watched as Fiona swam, trying to fine tune the performance as much as possible. Jill brought her hand to her chin as she thought. "Hmm… not bad, but it needs a little more pizazz."
Fiona exited the water and landed on the grass. "Well it's not exactly easy swimming in a dress. I wanted to just use a swimsuit, but you all said no."
"We need elegance more than sexiness. A swimsuit would be too obvious and not unique enough." Jill explained. "Besides, it wasn't exactly easy finding that dress. It would be a waste to not use it now."
"What if we changed up the part where Fiona jumps out of the water briefly?" Nene suggested. "We could have it shoot straight up and she could twirl as she swims up."
"That could work." Hikari agreed. "Alright, let's try it."
Dan let out a sigh. "You know controlling this much water in such a specific shape for so long isn't exactly easy, right?"
"Oh shush. You agreed to help, so just man up and do it." Jill told him.
Resigning to his fate, Dan sighed and altered the water as requested. If nothing else, doing this for the past two days had done wonders for his Quirk control.
Just as practice was about to resume, a voice called out to them. "Hey! It's Class C! What's up?!"
All heads turned as three new arrivals walked up to them. Two of them they recognized, one being Midoriya from Class 1-A, and the other being Mirio of the famous Big Three. But the third was someone none of them recognized. It was a young girl with white hair wearing a red and white dress.
"Adorable!" the girls all squealed as they stared at the girl
Startled by the sudden attention, the young girl hid behind Mirio's large body. The third year let out a laugh. "It's alright, Eri. they're good people."
"What are you guys doing here anyway?" Nene asked.
Jill gasped as an answer came to her. "Uh uh! No way! We're not letting you spy on us! We know Hado is entering the contest too! We'll never let you see our plans, even if you did bring this girl with you!" She resisted the urge to look at the girl known as Eri and her cute adorable face. "Focus Jill… Must… resist… cuteness…"
Mirio let out a light-hearted laugh. "It's nothing like that. I'm just showing Eri here around the school. And Midoriya here tagged along since he's already acquainted with Eri."
Jill narrowed her eyes at Midoriya. "Class A isn't entering anyone in the beauty pageant, are they?"
Midoriya waved his hands nervously in the face of Jill's glare. "N-No! At least, I don't think so! We're already so busy setting up for our concert as it is!"
"Hmmm… very well."
"I heard your class is doing a stamp rally and a bunch of carnival attractions." Mirio said. "Sounds like a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to it."
"Yeah! We're gonna do our best!" Fiona said eagerly.
Eri poked her head out from behind Mirio. "Attractions? What are those?"
The girls all blinked in confusion. "You don't know what a carnival is?" Hikari asked.
"Eri comes from a… complicated background." Mirio explained. He kneeled down and looked at the little girl with a smile. "It's like a bunch of different games you can play."
Eri's face lit up at this. "Really? That sounds like fun!"
"You better believe it is." Nene told her. "We'll look forward to seeing you there."
Jill clapped her hands to get her classmate's attention. "Alright! Break time's over! We don't have much time to get ready for the pageant so back to work people!"
Dan let out a groan. "But I barely got a chance to take a breath."
"No complaining!"
Fiona looked at her partner with an apologetic expression. "I'm really sorry about this, Dan. Just hang in there a little longer, please."
"Fine." Dan said with a sigh.
As the group quickly returned to practicing Fiona's routine, one student watched them from afar behind one of the trees. Alicia starred as Fiona swam through the stream of water that Dan was shaping. But for some reason, she couldn't bring herself to be happy for Fiona. Instead she felt a strange tingling sensation in her chest.
'It can't be. Am I… jealous of Fiona?' Alicia thought to herself. 'No. I don't care about entering the contest. It's clear Fiona would blow me out of the water. Why should I bother? I don't have anything to prove to others by entering it.'
Despite telling herself this, the foreign feeling stayed with her. Alicia hadn't really cared one way or the other when Fiona had first decided to enter. But watching her practice now like this… she couldn't help but feel a strange sense of envy. She wanted to be the one there instead of Fiona.
Alicia desperately tried to shake the thoughts out of her head. Fiona was her friend. She couldn't let this envy show. She had to cheer Fiona on with a smile. No matter how much it ate away at her inside.
The school festival was close at hand and as such the students had little free time to themselves. But with it finally being the weekend, there was just a little more free time than usual. And the trio of Marcus, Sarah, and Daiki were more than willing to use it.
The three Class C students had already gotten permission from campus and their classmates to take the day off and go off campus to spend some time with their families. Each of them had gotten an increased number of texts from their siblings in recent weeks saying how they missed them. Of course, the dorm system for U.A was a necessary evil and helped keep its students safer to a degree. But it also meant that students had less time with their families. And even though they were the primary cause for it in a sense, the hero course students were forced to deal with that sad fact just as much as the other classes.
Marcus, Sarah, and Daiki each had a younger sibling of their own. Marcus's sister Emma had jet-black hair just like her brother. Sarah's sister Kione had silver hair with banges covering her left eye. She stood only half a foot tall and was riding on her sister's shoulder while the rest walked. The last of the younger siblings, Jasmine, was Daiki's sister. She had ears and a pair of tails resembling that of a fox, and cherry-brown hair. Unlike Emma and Kione, Jasmine was adopted and as such wasn't related to her brother through blood. But the two were just as close as any other sibling pair.
The group of six sat together at an outdoor table of a cafe as they chatted. The younger trio was happily enjoying the quality time with their older siblings.
"I can't believe you all got your provisional licenses in your first year! That's amazing!" Emma said in awe.
"The exam was a killer though." Marcus said with a small chuckle. "I thought I was finished when I found out Ryukyu was acting as a mock villain for the second test."
"The committee is seriously working to improve the standard quality of heroes." Sarah commented. "All Might's retirement really shook the nation."
Jasmine frowned. "Is everything going to be ok… now that All Might's gone?"
Daiki reassured his sister as he patted her head gently. "Don't you worry. Japan has a lot of capable heroes besides All Might. And eventually we'll be there working to protect the country too."
While Daiki wasn't wrong about Japan having a lot of capable heroes, the three U.A students knew there was more to the story than that. The League of Villains had made two recent appearances so far, both in the incident with Paradise and another incident involving a Yakuza group. They were gradually coming out of the shadows once again and whatever they were planning it wouldn't be good.
"Enough about that." Sarah said. "How have you all been doing in school?"
"It's been alright." Kione answered. "The school festival for U.A is coming up soon, right? I wish we could go."
"So do we, but it can't be helped. Honestly, it's a miracle it was able to be held at all." Marcus said. "We'll be sure to send you lots of pictures so you can see how it went."
"You better." Emma told her brother.
Marcus took a sip of his drink. "That reminds me, how's dad been doing lately?"
"Well, work's been piling up for him with the rise in villains and everything." Emma explained. "But his agency has a lot of sidekicks so he's still usually home in time for dinner."
"That's good to hear." Marcus said. With him living at the dorms, he was a little worried of his mother and sister feeling lonely if his father was too busy.
The group continued conversing for another thirty minutes. But before long, it was nearing the time for Marcus, Sarah, and Daiki to start bringing their younger siblings home. They had a decent distance to cover to each of their houses and then back to U.A within the time allotted for them to be off campus.
As they walked, the group continued their chat. Eventually the subject drifted back to the happenings of U.A.
"Dad was really proud that you finally mastered full transformation." Emma told her brother. "Apparently Ryukyu was talking about it with him a lot after the provisional license exam."
"I still have a ways to go before I can say I've 'mastered' it." Marcus said. "As it stands, I can still only hold it for about a minute at most."
"It's still a big step." Sarah reminded him.
Kione chimed in next. "That reminds me, I heard there's apparently some kind of beauty pageant every year in the festival at U.A. Are you going to enter, sis?"
Sarah shook her head. "Nah, I'm not really into that sort of thing. Besides, our class already has Fiona entering it for us."
"But you'd do really well I bet." Kione told her. She turned her head to MArcus and Daiki. "Tell her, guys. Isn't Sarah pretty enough to take first place?"
Marcus and Daiki glanced at Sarah, who shot them a warning look to tell them not to pursue the subject any further. Neither of them were keen on earning Sarah's wrath so they went along with it.
"It's your sister's call at the end of the day, Kione. If she doesn't want to enter, you shouldn't force her."
"Yeah. Besides, having her free really helps us with setting up for our class's event."
Kione responded with a slight pout, but let it go. She knew her sister was a bit of a tomboy and cared more about fighting and hero training than personal beauty, but that only showed off how much of a natural beauty she was more.
"I can't wait for winter break." Emma said. "Then you guys can come back home for a little and-" The younger Cersy sibling was stopped short as she felt something grab at the back of her shirt. Before she could turn around and see what it was, she found herself yanked back. "Ah!"
Hearing Emma's scream, Marcus and the others turned around to watch Emma get pulled away by a long arm that retracted to its owner. It was a man who seemed to be in his mid-twenties. He quickly wrapped his other arm around Emma's body, coiling around her like a snake. Standing next to the man were four others. One was a bald man with a muscular build. The second had purple hair that was combed back and had a pair of shades covering his eyes. The third had white facepaint on, similar to that of a mime. The final one had their face covered with a hood from the full body coat they were wearing.
"Marcus!" Emma cried out.
"Emma!" Marcus shouted. He quickly brought out his talons from his Quirk. "I don't know who you people think you are, but I suggest you let her go. Now."
"Sorry kid, but we can't do that." the violet haired man told him. "This girl here is a key piece to our revenge."
"Revenge? What are you talking about?" Sarah asked. "What grudge could you possibly have with a little girl?"
"It's not the girl, but who she's related to." the one restraining Emma explained. "Tell Viserion if he wants his little girl back safely to wait patiently for our demands."
Hearing his father's hero name made it all too clear now to Marcus what this revenge was about. These were villains who had something against his father. Emma was simply being used as a hostage for that end. But he wasn't about to let them get away with putting his little sister in danger.
"Give her back!" Marcus shouted. Just as he was about to spring into action with Sarah and Daiki, the trio found their bodies suddenly unable to move. "What… Why can't I move?"
The villain with white face paint on looked gleefully at the group. He struck an odd pose, and nearly a second later they each found their bodies moving on their own to match the same pose.
"It must be that guy's Quirk. Damnit." Sarah grunted.
"Marcus!" Emma called out, unable to move as the one villain's arm squeezed her tightly.
"Emma!" Marcus shouted as he futily struggled to move, but to no avail.
"Well that's mission accomplished." the violet haired man said. He turned his gaze to the hooded member of the group. "Take us back to the hideout."
The hooded villain silently nodded and a portal opened up below their feet. The group slowly began to sink into it.
"The boss only told us to grab the one girl. But now that I think about it…" the villain holding Emma said as he stretched his free arm over and wrapped it around Jasmine before reeling her back over. "You can never have too many hostages."
The young fox girl let out a cry as she was yanked away from her brother and friends. "Ah!"
"JASMINE!" Daiki shouted. "Bastard! Let them go!"
"That all depends on Viserion. Ta ta, kiddies."
Just like that, the villains vanished into the portal. The second the villain keeping them frozen was gone, Marucs and the others regained movement of their bodies. But before they could make a move, the portal closed. The only ones left were them and the civilians that could only stare in shock at what had just occurred.
A/N: Sorry for the late update everyone. This past month has had me really busy with various things so I wasn't able to write as often as I wanted to. I should hopefully be able to get back into my regular schedule again though and have next chapter up around the end of the month like usual.
As always, hope you all enjoyed the chapter and are looking forward to what comes next.
