A Not So Straight Christmas Adventure
Here's a small Christmas special I've written as a gift, I hope you like it and I want to wish you all wonderful holidays as well as a happy 2021 (or whatever year you read this in)! The next chapter of Mates and Stalemates will be a little late since I worked on some other projects, but it'll come out during the next few months. Have a good time until then, and let's see whether this can serve as a good bridge.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, I am very glad my works can contribute to making your day better! And the greatest gift for me would be if you share your praise, criticism and ideas in the review section, I'd always like to know what people like and dislike about my work!
I don't own the characters, places or My Hero Academia itself, and I have no intentions to earn money with this story in any way!
Bakugo grimaced at the sight of all the Christmas decoration filling the corridor leading to the common room of the UA High students' dorms. Green festoons with red flowers and white candles on them had been put up on the walls, glowing star-shaped lanterns hung down from the ceiling, figures of a reindeer, sheep and elves stood at the sides and a carpet with golden ornaments was beneath his feet. "Why are we celebrating this stuff suddenly?", he asked his classmates once he reached the hall as they were busy embellishing the Christmas tree in the middle, almost reaching the top of the room with its tip. "It's not like we did this last year." They hadn't made a big thing out of Eastern or Ramadan or anything of that sort in their shared quarters, hence his confusion about what was going on now.
The scene he saw was Midoriya picking and holding boxes of Christmas tree decorations for Iida to take from him and transport them through the room to Uraraka with his speed so she could use her anti-gravity-power to let the adornments easily float to their designated place. His childhood friend and rival was the first to notice him. "It's Eri's first Christmas, we have to do it right for her!", he cheerfully answered the question. "Since you're already here, Kacchan, could you use your quirk and fixate this star on top of the tree? It's a little hard for Uraraka to navigate since the bracket is so slim." He fished up the star that would traditionally ornate the peak of the pine-tree and held it for the other to take while the class rep took another carton from his other hand.
This request was met only with a raised eyebrow of the addressed. "Why would you make the poor kid believe in this nonsense in the first place?", he questioned provokingly, not making a move to help them.
As was not unusual, Iida got very worked up over his words. "How could you talk about the joy of the Christmas tradition like that and deny it to a child who is looking forward to experiencing it for the first time?" His voice carried the bewilderment and earnestness everyone knew from him.
"Someone's not feeling the holiday spirit", the girl in the room commented, although she couldn't pay much attention to it since she was mainly focused on placing the tinsel right.
Midoriya was mainly confused by his attitude. "Wait, but you loved Santa when we were kids!", he remembered with wide eyes, not quite believing what he had just heard.
The face Bakugo made showed very clearly that he didn't like to be reminded of this. "Yeah, when I was like- seven years old or something. What do you know, anyway?" This was a question he had regretted asking before, and would keep regretting.
It gave his rival an opportunity to show how much he had memorized. "I know that you used to admire Santa for having such a powerful quirk, and getting so much done in just one night. You thought of how many villains you could beat if you had that power, you dressed up like him and convinced everyone in class to do so, too. We had a lot of fun!" It sounded like he was reciting it from his notebook, proving once again he had studied his idol very closely. This time, though, he just liked to remember the good times he had with his friend.
"Admiring him for a powerful quirk? Give me a break, Deku", that friend murmured rather insulted, though. "What quirks would he need to have? Speed that allows him to visit every house in the world in a single night, the ability to get access into every room, a power that lets him create countless toys and invisibility so he is never seen. Also immortality, otherwise Santa just wouldn't exist any more at some point. Any of these, okay, but all of them? That's impossible", he concluded.
The formerly quirkless boy wanted to object, wondering how Kacchan, knowing about One for All, could declare the stockpiling of powers impossible, however he had to restrain himself in front of Iida and Uraraka. "W-well, who knows? Quirks can be inherited and modified, and since they're constantly changing research has not yet clearly ruled out the idea of them being able to stockpile", he formulated his theory, trying to not be too direct.
His counterpart growled, obviously he knew the knew about the parallel that could be drawn to All Might and didn't need to be told this. He rather considered it stupid of Deku to bring something like that up in front of other people, but he couldn't reprimand him for it in front of these others either. Luckily, the tallest of the boys changed the topic when he stopped between two of his runs through the room, apparently to add to the argumentation: "Also a generous person or group with these quirks is the most likely explanation for the presents that we find in the morning." He received the last package and brought it over to Uraraka once he had ended this sentence.
This didn't convince the skeptic either. "You know your parents wouldn't need any quirk to place presents beneath your tree?", he interposed, unwavering in his opinion.
To that, though, the girl had a response. "Nah, my parents wouldn't have the money to afford such gifts, they can't be from them", she objected, her voice showing how concentrated she was on getting the fairy lights right.
As the grumble of Bakugo got louder, everyone could tell he had no interest in prolonging the discussion. "Then it's some other relative of yours, who cares? Nothing can make me believe in a hero that delivers presents to every kid in the world in just one night. I'm too old for fairy tales", he said perceptibly peevish.
Thinking of all the good times they had been having on Christmas together, Midoriya couldn't take him talking like that for any longer. He bit his tongue and overcame himself. "Then I'll prove it to you!" His loud exclamation made his three friends all stop what they were doing.
The addressed groaned, knowing the other well enough to realize he was serious, even though he would have doubted whether anybody could be serious about this. "Don't be an idiot", he muttered. "How are you going to prove something like that?" He needed to stop asking questions he suspected the answer to.
"You and I are going to see Santa tonight", was the answer he had been dreading, and the answer that he got, without room for contradiction.
The young woman in her beige outfit resembling that of a schoolgirl got into position on the roof of one of the houses near the shelter of the UA High students and got out her communication device. "I'm where you told me to go, Tomura", Toga happily reported.
Hearing this seemed to satisfy the leader of the League of Villains, although it was always hard to tell from his smoky voice. "Good, now you just need to wait until this Santa shows up in that area and everything will go according to plan."
Choosing to believe he was pleased with her, she let out her ecstasy as well. "With all these hero students here, there have to be a lot of gifts Santa will deliver to this place, so there's no better way to catch him", she pointed out, keeping her eyes on the school yard, which had been buried beneath a layer of snow during the past week.
"Don't care too much about the presents", Shigaraki advised. "All that matters is that you get as much of his blood as you can. When you can transform into him, they will open up every private house in the world for you next Christmas. Endless possibilities..." His red eyes shimmered behind the hand he wore on his face. She couldn't tell whether that really was the case or she was just romanticizing things in her imagination, but that mattered little to her.
Toga licked her lips in anticipation. "Got it." With a smirk on her face, she changed into her disguise and ended the call. "I can't wait to be you, Santa!"
Midoriya and Bakugo carefully walked over the housetop of their residence, leaving footsteps in the snow that had accumulated here. Having never been up there before, the former of the two took a moment to salute the wonderful view, as he saw the large garden of the school covered in white laying out in front of him in the darkness of the night, leading to a large gate behind which was the city, covered in bright Christmas lights that illuminated the sky even at such a late hour. "The outlook alone was worth it", he marveled at what was in front of him. It still made him a little uneasy at the same time, he felt like they were breaking Aizawa's rules by being on the roof at a time like this, though bending his rules seemed to have become a habit.
His friend didn't have as much of an eye for the beauty of his surroundings, mainly only caring whether other people or animals were around that could become a bother. He was torn between staying focused on what they had come for and wanting to get this over with because he didn't think it would lead to anything. "We've done this kind of thing before, remember? Back when we were kids?", he referred to their previous attempt to see Santa. It had gone as was to be expected.
The other laughed at the memory. "Yes, in elementary school, I know. We sneaked into your parents' living room and hid under the tablecloth. But we fell asleep before it was even midnight", he recounted with a smile as he knelt down in the shadow of their large chimney.
For that, he got a weird look from his classmate. "So you remember that but not-" He stopped himself.
Obviously, this irritated his partner. "Not remember what?", he wanted to know, his voice quiet as he tilted his head.
"Doesn't matter", the louder boy quickly brushed it off and then sat down next to the other as well, searching for a way to change the topic. "We couldn't do it back then, what makes you think it will go better now?"
That was something Midoriya could elucidate well: "Because our preparation is way better this time. From up here, we can easily see if a sled flies over the area. When Santa lands on the roof, even if he is invisible like you suspect, we will notice it by the foot-marks he leaves in the snow. Thanks to our quirks, we should be fast enough to keep up with him now, no matter how swift he is. And once we discover he is here, we can throw a snowball at him to prove it. It's something I came up with when watching Hagakure have a snowball fight with the other girls earlier this week, she beat everyone while in visible but after being hit once with the snow sticking to her she was a way easier target." As he ended his explication, he knew Kacchan had paid close attention, even though he did his best to look like he hadn't.
Being aware that pretending had little effect on his childhood friend, he gave in. "Whatever... Just try not to fall asleep again, because I won't carry you down if you do", he warned.
As always, his counterpart smiled at him. "I don't mind carrying you down if you get tired." This was enough incentive for the prideful hothead to stay awake no matter what would happen. He could never tell whether Deku meant these things or simply anticipated his reaction to them.
After a while, with nothing having happened yet, he had something else to bring up, though. "It would be a shame if you're wrong. Your belief in Santa could lead to that little girl not getting a gift tomorrow morning, have you thought about that?" No matter what he thought of the holiday, a kid getting her hopes up and being disappointed was not something he wanted to see.
It was something said girl's hero didn't have to worry about, however. "Of course Mirio and I have our own gifts for her as well. I want to give her something that makes her happy, too!", he clarified with his typical mixture of joy and determination.
His response didn't help to free Bakugo of his confusion. "If you have a gift of your own, why would you wait for some magical figure then? It's like I said, somebody else is getting the presents instead", he came back on his argument from earlier.
"I just hope Santa will have something for her as well, so she can experience the joy of Christmas as much as possible", Midoriya almost laughed.
The reason this merriment annoyed the blonde boy was that he felt it would only lead to disillusionment. "Don't get your hopes up", was all he could return. It was a mistake that shouldn't be repeated.
It was deep in the night, already hours past midnight, when a very slight rustling broke through the silence. "You heard that?", the hero with the explosion quirk whispered. It had sounded like somebody cautiously setting foot on the snow.
His rival had heard it, too. He quickly looked around, seeking out the place where footprints appeared on the substratum. There was no other person to be seen around them, and no visible sleigh anywhere. But another sound that was exactly the same made it evident they had not been wrong. Someone was there with them. It took five more steps before he found the line of marks. "There it is", he mumbled, pointing to what he had spotted. The invisible person was moving speedily, it seemed.
While he hastily prepared a snowball to throw from their hiding place, Kacchan was already one step ahead of him. The fact that he hadn't believed it could happen didn't mean he wasn't prepared for it. Instead of a snowball, though, he used his AP shot to fire a blast right next to where the unknown invader had been standing. "Now I got you, old man!", he roared as he jumped out of hiding.
The quake his move caused made the target tremble, the invisibility wore off and suddenly they saw a young man in a red coat with white hems struggling to keep his balance on the housetop. "What the-", he reacted surprised and jumped away, apparently falling off the building in fear of another attack.
"Kacchan, what the heck are you doing?", Midoriya yelled, not wasting time on perplexity, calling on the power of One for All and using the speed boost to jump down to the ground, landing on his feet and preparing to catch the person who had been toppling off. However, despite his quirk, it appeared he wasn't fast enough. When he didn't see the stranger in the air above him, for a moment he feared that he missed him, or that he turned invisible again.
Only then he saw a shadow moving over him with high velocity. It seemed there was nothing to cast it, which meant whichever quirk had hidden the man hid the flying object as well, and he had been caught by it instead of falling further. Now that they had seen the shadow, though, Bakugo wouldn't lose sight of it again, even if the vehicle itself remained unseen. "There's no point in trying to escape, you're not getting away from me now!" The threat scared even his classmate regarding what he was about to do, so it sure scared the foreign visitor as well when the boy used his ignitions to boost him into the air and follow closely.
That left the green-haired kid with no other choice than to follow with his running and jumping abilities as well. "Wait, Kacchan, I thought you just wanted to see Santa, not kill him!", he called after his friend as he attempted to both keep up with them and stop him from causing any damage.
Nothing could stop the lord of explosions once he was in battle mode, though. "I won't let that jerk run off until he's answered my question", he insisted, catching up on his target as they entered the sky over the city. It actually surprised him that he needed so long for that. His jets should have made him much faster than what he was following, still it had created quite a distance in little time that was hard to bridge. Despite that, eventually he managed to stop his fire in the right moment, dropping right onto the vehicle and standing securely in it.
"What question are you talking about?", Deku inquired with a cough from speaking while running. Finally, he got hold of what felt like a skid, holding on to it as the flying object carried him forwards. So it had to be a sleigh, he deduced.
Bakugo used his power to create a rapid flame in his hand that he could use to cast the shadows where he wanted them. Looking at the head of the flying vehicle first, he found the shadows of two rather small persons being cast on the sled in spite of its invisibility. "You can't hide from me, kids", he groaned, stretching his neck with a frown.
Two consecutive claps echoed through the night and everything that had been hidden before now appeared, revealing they were on a metal sleigh painted in red and gold. On the front sat two children wearing large pointed caps. One of them still had his hands up, meaning he was the one who had turned things invisible. "Could you finish your business quickly, please, somebody else might see us", the fake elf admonished.
The one who had boarded their sled looked at the other kid sitting in the front, a girl who appeared to be very concentrated on steering their means of transport. "Don't look at me, I'm just trying to keep this thing in the air despite your uproar", she said disgruntled. Maneuvering through the skyscrapers of the town and getting back to where they had fled from without coming too close to windows somebody could look out of was not as easy as it sounded.
When he finally turned around, he now saw whom he thought to be Santa clearly, but it wasn't an old man as he had expected, rather a young one around the age of pro-hero Edgeshot. "You're Santa?", UA's top student queried with a derogatory expression on his face.
"Super Santa Seven for you, children's hero from the fourth generation of Christmas", the famous figure responded with a lot of pride, standing up tall to support his tone. Deku listened from below, but now that he could see what he was holding onto, he knew the sleigh wasn't large enough for him to stand in next to the four others, so he chose to stay down there unless he had to stop in for whatever reason. A reason related to Kacchan, likely.
The latter retained his resounding rage for the moment, though, speaking very calmly. "If you're number seven, that means there's more than one Santa. Probably your quirk is inherited just as the title, and there are multiple of you per generation, so it will get more and more over the years, making your job easier. Tell me just one thing. Are you the one who delivered presents in this town ten years ago as well?" While he often had trouble controlling his temper, he knew very well how to get the information he wanted.
It worked on the man in the red coat at least, since despite his rough feelings for the boy who had attacked him, he let his boast shine through. "Exactly, I've been taking care of this whole area for fifteen years in a row", he bragged. Gratitude or admiration weren't what he expected, still it was hard to miss he wouldn't have complained about it.
"So it was you. Then tell me..." And suddenly, Bakugo's voice sounded like a lot of wrath had been building up inside him, possibly for years. "Why didn't you bring Deku a gift when we waited for you back in the time we were kids?" His voice was dripping with aggressiveness, reverberating through the space around them. He was serious, and seriously mad.
Santa realized that, too, and attempted to come up with a way to diffuse the tension, the problem was that he couldn't understand the other's problem. "But I didn't forget any gift, he got one for sure-"
The quarrelsome boy wouldn't even listen to that kind of response. "Don't take me for a fool, you idiot! I was the one who made him believe in you, do you get that? I was the one who told him how awesome you are and that you'd be there for anyone, it's my fault he thought that. But then you brought me a present and he got none. Do you have any idea how that felt?" Small explosions came out of his clenched fists, signifying that he was close to attacking.
Hearing the reason for his childhood friend's violent turmoil, Midoriya was taken aback completely. "Is that why you're doing all this, Kacchan? Have you been feeling like this all the time?", he thought to himself. "If I had known, I could have told you that I-" His mind's working got interrupted when the girl made their sled take an unexpected turn to avoid a building, and with the boy not focusing on his position, he lost his grip and was thrown off.
When Bakugo saw him drop towards the street below him, he cursed inwardly, immediately preparing to catch him. "Dammit, Deku, can't you even do this right?", he rumbled.
This second of distraction was all the older hero needed. "I don't know what you're talking about, young man, and I'd prefer if you got off my ride now", were his words before pushing the intruder off. He tried to react firing a small blast at the aggressor out of reflex, hurting the leg of his target in the process, still that didn't save him from losing his balance and descending to the ground.
It didn't take long for him to find the right position for using his detonations as support to stay in the air again. First, he boosted himself to the place his partner had fallen off, catching him still in the air and landing with a stomp of his strong feet, letting the other down from his arms. "Come on, we're not done here", he shouted, not wasting a second to get back into the air in pursuit of the vehicle.
The holder of One for All wanted to grab his arm to stop him, but missed and therefore had to follow him using his power. Somehow, they seemed to catch up quicker this time. "Hold on, you have to listen to me", he meant to reach his friend, but as he was used to, he wouldn't stop to consider it.
Something peculiar made both of them slow down, however, as they saw Uraraka taking an approach run on a roof and jumping right onto the sleigh. "What's she doing here? Do you know anything about this?", Kacchan asked irritated.
Midoriya looked closely, thinking about what this could mean. "I don't know, but there must be something wrong", he concluded. "We have to get there, quick!"
"Don't tell me what to do", the hothead objected. Still, he did as he was told. This time, they both hung on to each of the flying object's skis, since now the girl occupied the fourth spot on top of it.
From down there, they could listen to the conversation going on above them. "And who might you be? Another kid coming to argue with me over the presents I brought them?", the famous figure demanded to know, growing annoyed at his routine constantly being interrupted.
The two could hear the voice of their classmate respond. "I would never argue with you, Santa. I love you! Will you fulfill my Christmas wish, too?", she enthused, leaning in close to him with a huge smile.
These words were enough to make Deku absolutely sure. "That's not Uraraka", he said, gritting his teeth and thinking about how he could step in, whether he should just get up and face the fake in spite of the limited space that would probably give them an advantage over him.
Santa didn't have a clue yet of what was going on, mainly being flattered by for once getting some appreciation. "Uh, sure, and what would your Christmas wish be?", he questioned, hoping to be able to resolve this as soon as possible and move on with his job, maybe getting some more praise in the process.
That hope quickly died when the sweet girl in her pink hero costume pulled out a shiny knife. "Please let me have your blood", she requested very kindly, throwing herself at him elegantly to knock him over, aiming for his leg which Bakugo had hit with a blast earlier.
Making his mind up, All Might's successor utilized the rod he had his hand on for swinging increasingly to launch him high enough into the air once he let go of it. Combining this with his quirk, he could turn this into an attack on the foe from above. "I won't let you hurt anyone, impostor. I know you're not Uraraka", he called the female out once he was in a position from which she would have noticed him anyway.
Her reaction wasn't what he had expected, and it put him off a lot. "Oh, how nice of you to come, too", she flirted with an overjoyed tone. "If you've seen through me, I probably shouldn't waste any more of the time I have with this cute face." As she said this, her disguise melted away, revealing the true identity of the young woman behind the gray viscous liquid. It also revealed the needle of her blood sucking machine, making it impossible for the hero to land next to her and strike, since she certainly would have an opening to get him, too, which would have been more unfavorable for him than for her.
Instead, he was forced to change his course and land on a nearby housetop before beginning pursuit once more. "I have to hit her from an angle she can't react to, but I also need to adapt to the limited space and movement of the sleigh and do it fast so she doesn't have time to hurt Santa. That's not a good situation. I hope Kacchan can keep her on her toes for a while", he plotted while running after them.
Said boy was rather unhappy to see Deku fall behind again. "What's going on up there?", he wondered, using the same move the other had come up with to get from below the sled into the air above it, only he could support it with his explosions better. As he now had a clear look on the one they were fighting, he recognized her as well: "Hey, you're that crazy girl from the League of Villains, aren't you? I might not be a fan of that moron, but I'll blast you to hell before I let you get your dirty hands on him!" He stretched out his hand in a way that indicated he would try to punch her, only to then push himself in a different direction with the detonations from his other palm, thus ending in her blind spot.
However, when he prepared to launch his AP shot, his target brought Santa between her and him, making him her shield rendering Bakugo unable to charge. "That move was so cool, I'm happy to learn about it. But I can't exactly allow you to hit me with it, right?", Toga purred provokingly.
The explosion hero screamed in frustration as he couldn't get a free trajectory. "Will you finally stop that blasted sled so I can help him, you wannabe-elf?", he groused at the girl driving it as he had trouble keeping up while also having to constantly retain the villain's attention so she couldn't do what she had come for.
"Not gonna happen", the other assistant protested. "If we land now, everyone could see us, and I am not ready to turn us invisible again yet." While the life of Santa himself should have been more important than staying unnoticed, this seemed to be a red line for them, and the hero of Christmas didn't tell him otherwise either.
Kacchan was just about to try another assault when Midoriya caught him in the air and pulled him down with him. "What the heck are doing, Deku?" His astonishment almost made his voice sound less angry, but not quite.
The addressed gestured for him to calm down, though, and pointed at the snow below them. "I've got an idea, but I need your help for that."
Meanwhile, Toga wasted no time to concentrate on her mission again. She didn't believe for a second the heroes had just given up, but she knew whatever they were planning, she would have to make good use of the time it gave her. "Now, please don't struggle too much, then we can be friends", she hummed as she pointed her knife at Santa.
This made him skitter back in his vehicle as far as he could, still holding his injured leg. "If you want to be my friend, you shouldn't take my blood, don't you think?", was his attempt to make her rethink.
She was much more sure of her ambitions than he could have fathomed, though. "Of course I need your blood. I love you so much, that's why I absolutely need to become you. I desire to take all your blood for myself, there's no helping it. You've been my hero ever since I was little, I wanna be you so badly!", she raved wildly, raising her needle to poke him with it and get what she had come for. When she realized the green-haired boy jumping at her at full speed, she was interrupted, however, ducking in the last moment to avoid being hit. In turn, he flew over the flying object and landed on the house on the opposite side of the road. "Ah, I've been talking for too long, Tomura is gonna get mad at me if he hears I blew it", they could hear her sulk.
"He's gonna get mad when he hears I blew you up!", Bakugo cried out, being as loud as he could – very loud in his case – to catch her attention. The young villain pulled her victim up again as fast as she could to be save from his wrath once more. This time, it didn't stop the boy, though. "Die, Santa!" With these words, he threw a snowball at the man's chest as he had been supposed to back on the roof of their school.
It hit him directly, even though he tried to catch it in a reflex. "What the- Are you insane?", he stuttered. Only then did he notice there had been something inside the white sphere. When he looked at what he was now holding, he saw one of Kacchan's improvised grenades. Understanding the weapon's purpose, he turned around and held it in front of Toga's face.
In a mixture of surprise and fear, she stumbled backwards, letting her guard down for just a second too long. "Now I got you", Deku announced, starting another direct attack by using the power of One for All to jump at her, making them both fall off the other side of the sled.
As they dropped towards the earth together, he wanted to get a hold of her and restrain her, on the one hand to make them both arrive securely, on the other hand to prevent her from escaping. "Well done", she complimented him shortly before he gripped one of her arms. Swiftly, she whipped out her combat knife and aimed for his wrist, forcing him to let go again and bringing some distance between them as she landed on a lower roof while he kept descending. "See you again soon, Izuku." The second of the UA students came at her, too, but to his dismay, before he could reach her, she vanished into the darkness of the alley below.
Once she was sure they weren't following her through the shadows of the thin passage anymore, Toga got her communication device out again. "I'm so sorry, Tomura. Some heroes got in my way, otherwise I would have caught Santa for sure", she told him with an evident pout, not wanting to sound like she had too much fun despite her failure, though she had.
"Don't worry about it", Shigaraki's voice sounded from the other end of the line. "There's always a next Christmas. Until we triumph, at least."
This time, Bakugo succeeded in picking up his partner before he reached the ground, not landing down there though and instead going back for Santa's sleigh with him. He released him next to where the man in his fleecy mantle. "The villain should be scared off now. No chance they're trying that again", he assured with certainty, hiding his discontent with her escape.
Midoriya was at least slightly happy, still there was something he had to worry about. "Are you okay, Santa? I hope she didn't hurt you in any way", he showed his care for the one he had protected.
Pointing at the wound on his leg, he leaned back a little. "Your friend is the only one who has hurt me tonight. But since you fought that villain for me, I guess we're even", he admitted, his tone still holding some traces of bitterness, only not as strong as before.
The holder of All for One smiled upon learning that Toga hadn't done any damage. "I'm glad", he sighed in relief.
His rival now flew next to them with his jets keeping him in the air, apparently having calmed down a little after he could let his rage out in a fight. "You still haven't answered my question", he insisted. "I won't leave until you tell me why Deku didn't get a gift."
Still, the man was just as sure he had been doing his job right. "He definitely got what he wished for", was the conviction he stuck with.
And to his belligerent rival's surprise, the kid supported that claim. "It's true, Kacchan, I received my gift that Christmas night", was what he remembered as well.
Being the only one on his side of this argument wasn't to his counterpart's liking. "Huh, why are you agreeing with him now? I know how it was, I was there", he stood his ground incensed.
It was the following revelation that finally cleared the misunderstanding up: "What I wanted from Santa that Christmas was just to have a fun holiday with you! And we had so much fun trying to see him that I would never forget it. That was my wish, and it came true. In fact, it came true again tonight", Midoriya said lighthearted, almost with a little laugh.
His childhood friend was at a loss of words learning about this. "But- that would mean... All this time I-", he stammered, needing time to process this information. It was often hard to tell what was going on in his mind, though this time it seemed rather clear. "Oh, shut up", he finally droned. "Now because of your sentimentality I have to apologize to this guy." It was an obvious excuse for him not expressing how it flattered him to find out about this.
Santa couldn't really join in with their happiness yet, though. "As nice as an apology would be, I still have some presents to deliver before sunrise, and due to the pain from my wound, I can't concentrate enough to use my quirk. Do you have an excuse for ruining Christmas as well?" He formulated it like a challenge, already thinking about what he could do to fix the situation, wanting them to give him ideas as well since it seemed rather hopeless to him.
Deku started thinking immediately. "Your quirk is slowing down time around you, correct? That's why it was so hard for us to catch you until I landed a hit on you and suddenly it was way easier." The hero of Christmas nodded to signal his assumption was correct.
Beside them, Bakugo groaned audibly. "So the gifts are already produced, the girl takes care of making the sled fly, the boy turns you invisible and your quirk makes you as fast as you need to be, then. That means the only thing you're lacking now is the velocity to finish in time?" In terms of deduction skills, he wouldn't fall far behind his rival.
The man followed their trail of thought. "I see you understand. So what are you two going to do about it?", he almost interrogated them like they needed to know the solution.
Luckily, the lord of explosions knew it, though he sounded a little reluctant. "Then we can use my bursts to power your stupid vehicle and Deku can utilize his speed to bring the presents into the houses quickly enough", was his proposal.
It earned a skeptic look from Santa. "Are you sure you're up for that?"
The two were absolutely confident in their skills. "Let's do this!", they dedicated themselves in unison, and got in their position to help finishing the job.
"And that's the story of how Kacchan and I assisted Santa in saving Christmas", Midoriya concluded his story as he walked down the corridor of UA with his friends.
Eri had been listening carefully while they were leading her to the place they had decorated, with Togata holding his hands in front of her eyes so she wouldn't see it beforehand. "Wow!", she was amazed by what he reported.
With a smile, Iida commented as well. "A very fine story, even though it's very hard to believe. Whether it's your imagination or what really happened, it sounds like a nice adventure." He ran through it again in his head as they reached the area where they had started putting garlands up.
Looking at the boy with the blonde spiky hair who trotted a few steps behind them with crossed arms, Uraraka formed a pretty strong opinion on it, though. "I believe it's true. Why else would Bakugo suddenly feel the Christmas spirit?", she brought up her point jokingly.
The group stopped in the room where the Christmas tree had been placed in the middle of a lot of ornamentation. "Can I open my eyes now?", the little girl asked shyly but impatiently due to her excitement.
Her vim made the oldest of them happy to witness, and he was eager to agree. "Sure, Eri, take it all in." He lifted his hands, allowing her to see everything that had been prepared for her.
She marveled at the pretty lights and colorful adornments, getting her eyes stuck on the tree and running towards it quickly, only upon arrival seeing the gifts beneath it. "Who are these for?", she wondered eagerly.
"Santa brought them for you", Togata assured her – multiple times until she believed it was really her right to open them, and she did so with wide eyes.
As her other protector watched her doing so, he noticed something he hadn't expected. "Hey, Kacchan, so both Mirio and I got a gift for Eri, and Santa gave us a third one he wanted to deliver to her. How can there be four presents, then?", he inquired quietly as he walked over to his friend who comfortably leaned against the wall beneath a green festoon and a mistletoe hanging from the ceiling.
The addressed tried not to grin at the question too much. "Pff, why are you asking me anything about Christmas magic and stuff? We'll probably never know." And as they observed the kid's jubilant reaction upon seeing what was inside the boxes, they knew by spreading this joy and spending time together, they had celebrated Christmas right.