A new year, a new chapter.
Literally.
I and Toru saw a veritable tide of people running out from the cafeteria.
"This… cannot be good."
"Run?" I asked.
Realistically, I knew that I couldn't exactly do anything. However, my expectations said otherwise. At least two people believed that I could have possessed the leadership trait. Obviously, any rumors like that were obviously false.
Still, my quirk made it true.
Tearing my eyes away from the crowd, I ran for the classroom instead.
"Something obviously isn't right." Dust whispered. Toru jumped at the sudden voice, before looking at the indistinct shape above my collar.
Being slightly inconsiderate and not explaining the ghost that hovered round me, I ran over to a window seat that happened to be Midoriya's I leaned to see UA's gate… completely destroyed.
"Again, this cannot be good."
"You just said what I said. But is the gate actually just gone?"
"There's no way UA would let in so many journalists. Come to think of it, how didn't I get swarmed by them on the way here?" Glaring at Dust, I continued. "I swear that my quirk would do something to drag me into an interview."
"Too much public attention early on is disadvantageous. It allows different perceptions of you to be formed if you are not in complete control of the situation."
"So what did you do?"
"…I may or may not have made you look a bit like a shut in."
Toru looked at Dust, and then at me. The collar of her shirt was rotating from side to side, like she was (presumably) watching a tennis match, or maybe just dancing or something.
"Whatever. Hopefully this blows over, though. The gate isn't that important, right?" I said, watching the media flood in. Guards and some of our teachers either exited their booths or jumped out of windows to address the crowd. Outside of the classroom, the wave of students still wasn't stopping, with their footsteps making the floors vibrate.
My stomach rumbled. I sighed, lamenting the cruelty of this world, and collapsed into Midoriya's chair.
"Great. I have a headache, and I'm tired as well as hungry. There's no way we can get to the cafeteria now…"
There was no way this week could get any worse.
…
It was Thursday. The day of the field trip. Today was something I was actually kind of excited about, visiting the USJ. It was the fact that, knowing my weaknesses and my insincerities, that I could still supposedly help people, that made the day slightly bearable instead of just a reminder of my circumstances.
"You should think less about what's bad about this, and think about what's good!" Dust whispered.
I nodded to myself. A tiny bit of trepidation followed the thought. What if I became what I was thought to be? Then, I would essentially lose all semblance of individuality. Though I wouldn't have to lie about anything again…
"Stop being such an edgelord. You don't have a demon sealed inside you or something. You just have a problematic quirk. You won't be the first, and you probably won't be the last." Dust said again, a hint of a laugh in his voice. Somewhere, two people with quirk enhanced hearing leaned towards the back of a bus to listen better.
"How did you get so philosophical? I thought we were kind of the same person." I whispered back, the ghost of a smile creeping on my face.
"When you sleep, I have a lot of time to think. I can't physically feel tired, remember? Besides, don't pretend you don't monologue in your head."
I smiled and nodded, absent mindedly checking the bag of chalk and other "magic items" I had brought along, checking that the troublesome cat hadn't hitched a ride in it.
"Your cat is on a pilgrimage now." Dust whispered, "So you don't have to worry about it sneaking in."
I leaned on the side of the seats on the bus, near my secluded corner. Besides me, Todoroki remained silent as well, keeping to himself. That was honestly the reason why I chose this seat. Toru was somewhere, chatting with her friends.
I flipped a page in my notebook idly, pretending to be studying ritual circles or whatever. Tokoyami had expressed some interest in it, and for a moment, my notebook filled with tips on how to act and all of my planned chants almost threatened to turn into an actual grimorie. Thankfully, Iida had managed to distract him with the shenanigans about getting on a bus.
Eventually, we arrived at the USJ. It was just a big dome, with some fancy metal outer layer that made it look somewhat like an egg. The hero students joked and laughed about it referencing the actual USJ, but did it really matter? Probably not.
(Besides, heroes had crappy naming sense anyways. Why did All Might name his attacks after American states? It just sounded redundant.)
Bad naming sense aside, the next scene looked straight out of an RPG tutorial.
"Welcome, UA students!" A humanoid white blob walked up to us, in something that was presumably a slightly inflated space suit.
"I'm the Space Hero, Thirteen! This is my facility! From floods to fires, earthquakes to hurricanes, we can model any major catastrophe! We call it the… Unforeseen Simulation Joint!"
That was what it said on the field trip form, but people still managed to sound surprised about it. Come to think of it, wasn't Apollo Thirteen a… rather incomplete mission? A catastrophe that almost resulted in the astronauts dying. Maybe it was just referencing the classic movie Apollo Thirteen to gain a boost to popularity, but then why would they be teaching…
Absorbed in my own thoughts, I stared blankly ahead while Thirteen gave a corny speech to all of us. Eventually, however, I was nudged by the person next to me. Tokoyami gestured his beak at Thirteen's orating figure, and I decided to listen to what the pro hero had to say.
"…If I were to be careless with my quirk, I could easily shred flesh and bone. And I'm sure that many of your quirks are potentially lethal as well."
I scoffed inwardly. My quirk was probably more harmful to me than anybody else. Then, I reminded myself to stop being so angsty.
"This is why we are here! To exercise your quirks safely and beneficially. In short, I believe that quirks are to be used to help, not harm, which, again, is what we will be practicing today."
There was a brief clapping session, before somebody shouted in surprise. The power began flickering, and the bright, fluorescent lights on the ceiling began cracking with electricity. The decorate fountains sputtered out, filling the area we were standing in with an uncomfortable silence.
Then, everything came back on again. Everybody sighed in relief, and turned to go on with the trip just as Aizawa-sensei turned to look at the fountain with a nervous expression on his face.
A black mist began to form a portal right in front of the water, spiraling wider and wider until a human head peeked through. On the blue-haired person that I doubted had seen the sun in a couple of years, I saw way too many hands.
"Just thirteen and Eraserhead? We were here to kill All might. Damn, the quest board must have been wrong." the blue-haired villain said, furiously scratching his neck as he stepped through the portal. Behind him, a mass of floating mist and many other thugs carrying various implements of murder walked through the rapidly widening wall of mist.
"The boss hasn't showed up yet. Why don't we… start clearing the minions?"
After a brief moment of shocked silence, our classmates finally began to react.
"There should be intruder sensors! What are they doing?"
"They must have a jammer!" Denki said. "I can't reach the school!"
Inwardly, I was panicking. These were real villains. I had never seen a live one in my life! I have almost no combat experience, my quirk was based on expectations, all the villains would think that we're easily killable and I would become super weak…
Oh. No.
To prevent the initial negative impression, I shakily got out charms from my bag of tricks. The four printed sheets of paper turned to age parchment and began to rotate around me, glowing many colors. Dust made an appropriately dramatic entrance, turning into his namesake, gathering some dirt from the ground, and emerging out of the rotating charms to form a looming figure behind me.
If I was going to have to convince the villains I could do some moderately useful stuff for self defense, I might as well do it now. Surprisingly, obody had reacted yet, besides me. However, our teacher raised a hand to stop me.
"You're still a student. It's my job as a pro hero to protect you. Thirteen-"
"Understood." Thirteen said, in their slightly staticy voice.
Everybody watched with baited breath as Aizawa flew down the stairs, surpassing all of our expectations for how agile a man without a physical enhancement quirk could be.
"Stay back. Your teacher can take care of these villains. Meanwhile, let us evacuate-"
A dark mist began to surround us, as a pair of luminous, yellow eyes floated in midair.
"Apologies, but I cannot let you do that. We are the League of Villains."
The mist began to coil closer and closer, All of us began to group up, staying as far away as possible from the nebulous substance. Besides me, I could see Toru's gloves and a red jacket as I hefted up my staff in a defensive position. My charms had resorted to rotating around my neck with the limited room, and Dust had long since retreated back into my collar.
"We have invited ourselves to UA to defeat the Symbol of Peace. If you get in our way, there will be no guaranteeing your own well-being."
"Watch your own well being first!" In an utterly braindead attack, Kirishima and Bakugo jumped forward to attack the villain with teleportation powers. With close-ranged powers. While the villain was a heap of mist.
If these were the people I had to be escaping with, I was going to have to ditch them as fast as possible. Spotting a slightly less dense patch of mist, I made a run for it. A tendril reached out to grab me, and I was forced to step back.
"How troublesome."
In an instant, we were swarmed with the smoke. I could feel the mist wrap around my body, depriving me of most of my equipment, before I made a nauseating fall onto solid rock.
"Ugh…" I groaned. Dust, thankfully, had teleported with me and helped me onto my feet. Hiding what I could do served no purpose anymore, and Dust infused as much dirt and rocks as possible into his body, forming the imposing figure of a rock golem behind me.
"Who? What? Why are we here?" Kaminari muttered behind me. I was almost ready to snap. If he was going to be my only ally, I might as well-
"It appears we have been separated throughout the facility." The calm, though still slightly trembling voice of Yaoyorozu met my ears. I sighed in relief.
"Well, we better make it back to the others. Aizawa sensei probably needs help. You okay there, Tenshin-san?" the crisp voice of Jiro said, still acting nonchalant.
"I've lost my bag. And most of my chalk." I muttered, patting my coat pockets. "If we were to make it back, I can't really do that much."
"Is it chalk that you need?" Yaoyorozu said, "Any color specifications? Also, how did you create such a construct without the full application of your quirk?"
"No specific color is important." I said, slightly dazed. "And this is just an earth spirit that I have contracted with."
Dust waved hi just as he was hit by a punch to the back of the neck.
"Villians!" Kaminari said. He then proceeded to run around like a headless chicken.
Hefting my staff, I pointed it at the nearest foe. Dust interpreted the signal and lumbered towards the villain with stretchy, wiry arms and metal fists. A rock flew towards us, but I held out a hand and closed my eyes. The one charm that survived the teleportation with me glowed orange, and the projectile stalled in the air, before dropping to the ground and shattering harmlessly. Still, the drain that I felt after that action was much larger than usual, and I felt my quirk "energy reserves" shift and shrink smaller and smaller, no doubt due to the expectations of the villains.
"I could have taken care of that rock." Jiro muttered, her earphone jacks pointing at somebody else and sending a sonic boom at them.
I looked around. The villains were indeed swarming us now, and combat became a desperate struggle, even with only four or five of them actively attacking. Yaoyorozu pulled out tool after tool, her versatility temporarily delaying the villains. Jiro defended herself against a slighty scaly melee combatant with a hastily made sword, slowly pushing him back with sound attacks and disorienting vibrations. Dust was still punching away slowly at the enemy, though most of his blows were dodged.
"Be more useful, Kaminari! Are you a hero student or not?" Jiro shouted, pushing the scaly villain away and slashing wildly at somebody with a plantlike heteromorphy quirk.
"We're students! We're not supposed to fight these guys yet! I'm so gonna die! Where are the teachers? Help!" Kaminari said, occasionally discharging electricity as he ran to deter the villains from approaching him.
I could literally feel the amount of power I had shrink as Kaminari spoke. The villains in the distance grinned, and began to run at us, confident that we had shown all of our powers. I felt incredibly drowsy, incredibly vulnerable, and I just wanted to lay down and surrender like the villains expected me to.
Ironically, it was the cats that saved me. Even if there may have been twenty or so villains surrounding us, there were thousands upon thousands of cats that believed me to be a god. I grabbed onto the little metaphorical straw of power and began to grab as much as I could.
"Red chalk." I said to Yaoyorozu. "Please."
With a shimmer of red light, said item was placed in my outstretched hand.
"Didn't you just say that there was no color specification?"
I didn't bother responding. Dropping my staff, I began to draw the largest pentagram I had drawn in my life.
Sweat poured down my face, and a pounding headache began to build. The expectations of three groups (villains, cats, and classmates) began to combat each other in my mindscape, making me wince as I ran.
Still, it was complete. As Jiro temporarily stunned the plant heteromorphy, I outstretched my hand and closed my eyes. A red glow appeared on the remaining charm, and the approaching villains surrounded the circle. Many of them stood behind the chalk lines, and the more aggressive ones were already threatening to attack us.
"Whatever you're doing, do it now!" Jiro hissed.
"What is he going to do, summon a demon with these doodles?" A villain with two machetes barked, stepping into the circle. "Get them! And for that one wearing the red jacket! We-"
"Thanks for providing me fuel for my ritual." I said, forcing my mouth into a smirk.
"Demon summoning art- first circle. Activate."
The Villains only had themselves to blame for this. They planted the idea in their own heads, speaking it out loud.
"W-what the hell?" The machete-wielding thug said. Red flames burst out of the suddenly straight and refined lines, chaining him to the ground. The other villains took a big step back.
"Exactly." Jiro said, a ghost of a smile on her lips.
Kaminari groaned, before remembering that he was in a demon summoning circle and continued with his terrified act.
"I know of your forbidden power, and seek to grasp it with my own hands." I said dramatically, my voice slightly distorting. If somebody was going to ask, I would say that I had prepared for most scenarios most people would believe when they saw a pentagram, and a demon summoning was probably the most common one.
In actuality, I was just a bit of an otaku.
"Your flames burn as hot as the sun, yet your emotions are as cold as the dark side of the moon. I know the cost of my actions, to summon a creature of sin, and sacrifices must be made."
"Granted."
A demonic voice growled from under the earth. Dust collapsed, his golem body falling apart as he sought to create something similar to a demon underneath us. As a result, the ground began rumbling and cracking.
"But even if thou art free to roam the land, thou wilt still be chained to my mortal tether." I said pompously, falling to my knees. I pretended that there was pain coursing through my body, and collapsed. I held myself up with my arms, gritting my teeth. My quirk provided stage effects, with blood beginning to well in my eyes, and cracks glowing blue began to show in my skin.
"I summon thee, demon of the abyss!"
At that moment, Dust rose from the ground. His stony skin burned with streaks of red, heating up to an uncomfortable degree as my quirk screamed to provide the energy he needed to maintain his form. His eyes were paved with molten rubies, and chains hung off of him from shackles, clanging together and making an unbearable din.
"Vassal of the first circle of the hell, Graknstav has accepted your sacrifice." The demonic voice growled.
I collapsed, the weight of the power used to "summon" Dust with his new exterior and my pounding headache made me collapse.
"So what if you've got a larger stone brute to fight us with, huh?" a villain said, stepping up from behind the crowd. Arcs of lightning curled around his fist. "It's just a delay in your inevitable demise."
"Using big words, huh?" I said, taunting him even though I was almost unconscious. "What, did you learn them after you dropped out of middle school?"
"Shut up!" He shouted, slamming his fists together.
The demon quickly walked through the crowd of villains. Some with long-range quirks decided to attack us, on the demon's shoulders, but Yaoyorozu had produced shields for us to protect ourselves. To my chagrin, Jiro had to hoist me onto her back. I didn't bother struggling, thinking that any missteps would make us fall down the "demon" shoulder.
Still, Dust was more powerful than I could imagine. The stone construct disguised as a demon from hell swept through the low-level thugs that we had been struggling with. Elemental quirks were made useless with the waves of heat that came off of the statue, and physical fighters found their metal fists or machetes break against the sheer brute strength of the golem.
"You never told me that you could do this, Tenshin-san." Jiro muttered, her earphone jacks sending a sonic wave out to disorient some villains.
"This power… isn't very heroic… is it?" I wheezed.
"Well, you're using it for a good cause. I wouldn't say it's exactly villainous."
"Is now really the time for a quirk discussion?" I muttered weakly.
"Just know that… even if you think your quirk is troublesome, it can do a lot of good! Chin up, my guy." Jiro said, uncharacteristically comforting.
Through my swings between unconsciousness and consciousness, I felt a pervasive guilt, stronger than ever, stab at my heart.
After the villains were defeated, onward we went, with my golem as a steed, to the center of the USJ.
Is this a psychological fic or a bnha fic? I don't know anymore.
Bother me to write more: discord . gg / 9t9MK3jHmV