Hello everyone and welcome the third consecutive chapter of Through the Portal!
All I have to say before we start is that when a word is italicised, that means it's spoken in english, while everything else is being spoken in japanese.
With that said, let's go!
"So...how's school been so far?" Murasaki asked as she swallowed some rice. Currently she and Aoi were enjoying a simple japanese style breakfast of rice, soup, pickled veg, and a bit of grilled fish.
"It's been going smoothly," Aoi nodded. "Though I doubt it's any more difficult that what you must be going through, Nee-chan," she chuckled at the end.
"You have… no idea." Murasaki said with a groan as she rubbed her forehead.
Aoi chuckled a little. "But I'm sure it's nothing you couldn't handle," she said with a slight nod before taking a sip of her soup.
"Heh. Of course," Murasaki grinned. "Though I'm sure you've got your own challenges to deal with."
"Something like that," Aoi chuckled. "But so far things have been good for me in school. My classmates are friendly, and the teacher is reasonable."
"Good to know. My own classmates are…" she mused a bit to find the right term. "Colorful," she decided to say. "They're not the bad sort, but they ARE rather interesting," she chuckled.
"Oh? Tell me more," Aoi said in interest.
"Well… I guess first one to talk about would be Yagi Toshinori, first person I actually met in the class. He's kind of… well, I strongly suspect he's got American blood in him." Murasaki said dryly.
"How bad is he?" Aoi asked, an eyebrow raised in amusement.
"Best way to put it would be he feels very 'Golden Age Comics' minus the racism and misogyny of course." Murasaki explained, shrugging at the end, being very glad her friend didn't have those traits.
Seriously, she remembers this one old comic of a heroine losing her powers by getting tied up, that didn't go over very well.
"Well, he sounds like quite the character." Aoi said, trying not to laugh.
"He definitely is." Murasaki said as she shook her head "Anyway, moving on, next would be Kayama Nemuri, though we're already on first name basis. She's kind of a flirt honestly, but she mostly does it to joke around."
"So, she teases boys in class?" Aoi asked, a bit surprised.
"And some girls too, hell, I'm pretty sure she wears her skirt an inch or two higher just for the hell of it." Murasaki said, seriously, when she compared the length of her skirt with Nemuri's there was a barely noticeable difference, but it was there.
"O...kay?" Aoi blinked, not really sure what to say to that.
"I guess its mostly those two I can really call friends. But there are a few others in class I can think of that stand out. I guess next would be Aizawa Shouta. He's...I guess the first thing that comes to mind is how tired he always looks...which adds with how he sometimes sleeps in class makes you think he's pretty unmotivated," Murasaki continued.
"Well...I guess he must not be so bad if he got into the class, right?" Aoi sweat dropped at the description.
"I guess." Murasaki shrugged "Next, Yamada Hizashi, aka the class loudmouth. He's got a quirk that amplifies his voice, which he has trouble controlling sometimes, so from time to time, everyone ends up covering their ears because his volume suddenly shot up. Besides that, he's a pretty friendly person, haven't talked with him much yet."
"Ah...I was wondering why you suddenly started buying earplugs," Aoi couldn't help but chuckle, remembering the time she thought the delivery man had made a mistake in delivering a small box of earplugs.
"Yeah, Yamada's a nice guy, but I'd hate to be on the receiving end of his quirk, intentional or otherwise," Murasaki chuckled.
"So, is there anyone else interesting in class?" Aoi asked, laughing a bit.
Murasaki's expression soured a bit "Yeah, you could say that. Todoroki Enji, the guy seems to have a stick stuck up his ass. It makes you wonder if he ever shows an emotion other than angry."
"I see…" Aoi sweat dropped at the description.
"Yeah, it's a crazy house some days," Murasaki chuckled. "So...remind me again why you didn't want to come with me?"
"I don't really want to fight anyone." Aoi said with a simple shrug.
"And yet you have one of the most powerful Quirks I've ever seen. I mean, who else can make hard light constructs in this world, huh?" Murasaki said with an amused smile as she looked at her sister.
"Well, we can't all be busting heads, right?" Aoi said with a small laugh.
"True, true," Murasaki chuckled and nodded, as the two went back to enjoying their meal.
"Wonder what he has in store for us this time?" Murasaki wondered out loud as she and the rest of the class were once more in the training field in their hero outfits.
"Well, we're going to find out soon enough," Aizawa said with his usual unmotivated tone.
True enough, Gran soon came up. "Settle down everyone. For today's exercise, I want you all back in the same groups as our rescue exercises," he ordered.
"I wonder what the exercise is today?" Yagi muttered curiously as he went to stand next to Murasaki.
Gran looked the class over for a moment before he nodded in satisfaction "Alright! Today, we'll be doing a battle exercise, Heroes VS Villains. The goal is simple, the villains have a 'Nuclear Warhead' which is really just a papier mache replica, and the heroes need to either capture both villains, or the weapon itself, to win. For the Villains to win, they need to either capture the heroes, or hold out until time runs out."
"Cool, so we're finally getting battle practice," Murasaki smirked slightly in excitement.
"Naturally," Gran started. "Your opponents will be at random, so I'll be taking a random draw," he said, before rummaging through a box, and pulled out two numbers. "And the first round will be...teams 3 and 5!" he announced.
Murasaki blinked in surprise, as she knew who team 5 was, turning to the aforementioned team. Nemuri and Aizawa. Seeing her looking their way, Nemuri smirked a little. "May the best team win," she said.
"Same here," Yagi said with a friendly grin.
"Alright, come along you four, I'll show you where the exercise is taking place." Gran said as he started walking off, the four students following him quickly when they realised he wouldn't wait for them. It wasn't long before they were out of the residential area, and in what appeared to be an industrial district, with a factory/warehouse as the venue for the exercise.
"Don't expect any moving conveyor belts in there or other operational machinery. Some idiot a few years back messed around during an exercise and ended up losing an arm, so we made it a bit less realistic… well, that's what the principal wants me to let you all know anyway." Gran said with a shrug at the end.
All four of them, even Aizawa, winced at the mental image THAT conjured up. Yeah...even if there had been moving parts, they were NOT gonna screw around. "So...does the villain team get to prepare or something? Heck, who are the villains and who are the heroes here?" Murasaki asked.
"We'll decide with this," Gran said, pulling out two straws. "Short straw gets to be villains."
The four of them looked at each other and shrugged, as Aizawa and Yagi picked a straw each…
"Huh...first villain vs hero exercise...and I did NOT expect we'd be playing villains," Murasaki blinked as she and Yagi finished setting up the 'A-bomb'.
"Well...think of it as good training. I mean, heroes are supposed to be able to get into the minds of villains to stop them, right?" Yagi shrugged. He was also feeling a LITTLE awkward with the role, but decided what the heck.
"Just as long as no one starts hamming it up like an overbearing actor." Murasaki said with a shrug… though she did glance at Yagi.
He noticed her looking at him "What?"
"Don't know, just this strange feeling you'd be the kind of guy to ham things up." Murasaki answered simply as she started to look around the factory in case their opponents slipped in. "Okay, how are we gonna do this? I think one of us should stay here to protect the bomb, while another keeps them off our backs. How's that sound?"
Yagi nodded at that. "Sounds like a good plan. Perhaps it would be best if I stayed to guard the bomb. Your quirk is a lot more versatile in this regard."
"Gotcha," Murasaki nodded. "Well, let's get to it," she said as she walked deeper into the factory, ready to head off any attacks.
As she walked around she made sure to keep an eye out, she knew what Nemuri's Quirk was, and she already had a plan to counter it, but she had no idea what Aizawa's was, meaning they had an advantage in that regard.
As she was about to turn the corner, she heard footsteps on the metallic floor, making her stop as she listened closely to figure out their direction.
If she was right, they were heading towards her, right from the corridor she was about to turn into.
She waited as she pressed herself against the wall, readying herself to open a rather confusing portal.
When she heard them be just close enough, she activated her portal, the entrance and exit both making sure they couldn't just turn into her corridor.
She chuckled as she heard Nemuri let out a shout of surprise as she stumbled through the portal, ending up on the other side of T section that served as the corridor.
Nemuri groaned as she realised what this meant "Well, that was pretty clever Murasaki, I'll give you that." she said, trying to see if she could slip through the small space in between the portal and the corner of the wall and the floor, and well, it would be possible… if her chest was flat.
The one time she was annoyed at being gifted in the chest department, was when they got in the way of tight spots like these.
"Well, I think it's obvious with Yaoyorozu putting up her portals we won't be able to make any substantial progress," Aizawa deadpanned. "We're gonna have to do something about it."
"And what would that be?" Nemuri frowned.
"Oh yeah, I never did tell you my quirk, did I?" he said, sporting a rare grin.
"All you said was that it was no good for rescue missions," Nemuri deadpanned.
"And it isn't. But fighting other quirks...that's another story."
Murasaki rose an eyebrow in confusion, ready to step back in case he tried anything, before he actually slipped just his head in the small opening between the edge of the portal and the corner of the floor and wall… and then her portals closed.
"What the hell?!" she shouted in obvious concern, before she was quickly wrapped up by Aizawa's scarfs.
Nemuri peeked around the corner, seeing her friend trying to struggle free of the mummy like bind she was in "What the hell just happened?" she asked as she turned to Aizawa with a raised eyebrow, Murasaki wanting to know the same thing.
"My quirk lets me cancel out the quirk of anyone I'm looking at… the only annoying thing is I have dry eye." Aizawa said, still looking at Murasaki.
"Well, guess you two are perfect for stopping an opponent in their tracks then." Murasaki said with a sigh.
"Sorry Murasaki, no hard feelings right?" Nemuri asked as she got ready to use her quirk.
Murasaki shook her head with a smile "No, just as long as you don't let me fall to the ground."
"We'll let you down gently." Nemuri said with a small laugh, before rubbing her fingers together and bringing them close to Murasaki's nose, releasing a pink gas that quickly put her in a dreamless sleep.
When she next woke up, she found herself with her arms slung over Nemuri and Aizawa's shoulders.
"What did I miss?" she said, catching their attention as they let her stand on her own.
"We lost." she heard Yagi's voice say from her right, looking over Aizawa's shoulder to notice him standing there with an amused smile.
She let out a sigh at hearing this, before smiling "Well, at least we tried our best."
"That's the spirit." Nemuri said with a grin as she slung her arm over Murasaki's shoulder.
"Plus now you'll know to look out for opponents with quirks like my own." Aizawa added as he tilted his head back and used a bottle of eye drops.
"Yeah, that's true," Murasaki nodded, before turning to Yagi. "Guess we both got a bit overconfident, huh?" she chuckled weakly.
Yagi scratched the back of his head awkwardly, and the nervous chuckle he let out told her all she needed to know. "Well, I guess we WERE acting a little overconfident," he admitted. "Better to lose now then later."
"Good point," Murasaki admitted. Better to learn a lesson like this in a controlled environment than against an actual villain.
"That was a good exercise all of you," Gran said with a nod as he walked up to them. "Aizawa and Kayama, you both made good use of what you knew of your opponents' quirks and worked to disable them accordingly," he said, before turning to Murasaki and Yagi. "Yagi and Yaoyorozu, you both had a good plan, but you were careless at the end. Be sure to remember this, cause a hero getting overconfident is one of the common causes of death," he said seriously.
"Right, we'll be more mindful from now on Sensei." Yagi said with a serious nod.
"See that you are." Gran said with a smirk "You've earned your rest, go sit down and watch the next match-ups."
With his words said, Gran went off to pick the next two teams for the exercise, while the four students went into the security room to watch what would be happening. The next round was...fast. By the time they'd gotten to the security room, they were just in time to see Todoroki basically torch his opponents into submission, Yamada not even getting a chance to do anything.
"Okay...overkill much?" Murasaki blinked. Sure it was a fast and efficient way to stop an opponent but...that might be going too far.
"Yes...not the most heroic way of doing things," Yagi couldn't help but nod in agreement.
"Yeah, though if the civilians saw him in action, they wouldn't really care unless he actually hurt someone with that fire of his you know." Aizawa said, lazily looking at the footage with a single eye open.
"Gotta admit, makes you wonder about the different kinds of heroes you see in action, you have the normal ones, and then you have the violent ones." Nemuri said, cocking her head in thought.
"Well...sad to say, Aizawa's got a point," Murasaki scratched the back of her head. "Lots of people don't really care much about how a hero does things unless it directly affects them negatively. Other than that...they usually don't make much of a fuss."
"It truly is sad how one mistake can be the end of a hero due to a sudden negative opinion of them, even after they've spent so long protecting the people." Yagi said as he shook his head sadly while the students who just completed their own exercise entered the room, Yamada going up to stand next to Aizawa while Todoroki simply stood in his own corner.
The sunglasses wearing blond glanced at his homeless looking friend "Dude, that freaking sucked, I didn't even get to try and do anything."
"Better luck next time I suppose." Aizawa said with a simple shrug.
"You suck at being a friend man." Yamada told him with a grand sigh.
"I'm sorry, but since when are we friends?" Aizawa said in fake surprise.
"You wound me good sir!" Yamada said as he acted like he'd been shot in the chest.
"You two have a bizarre friendship going on," Murasaki couldn't help but snort in amusement. "Let me guess...childhood friends?"
"Middle school," Aizawa said simply.
"But! We actually live in the same neighbourhood, which we only learned recently. Talk about a SHOCK!" Yamada practically shouted, saying the last word in english.
Murasaki couldn't help herself and chuckled at their antics, something Yagi and Nemuri joined in as well. "You two act like a pair of brothers," she couldn't help but say.
"Brother!" Yamada said dramatically, looking like he was gonna jump onto and hug Aizawa...if Aizawa didn't casually walk out of the way, causing Yamada to face plant on the ground.
"Spare me the antics would you?" Aizawa said with a yawn, while Yamada got back up, rubbing his nose after landing on it.
"You, good sir, have NO sense of humor!" Yamada pointed at Aizawa as he spoke, a grin on his face.
By then the others were laughing their guts out. "Staahppp!" Murasaki choked, laughing too hard. "You two are killing me!"
"It's an art." Yamada said as he took a bow, grin still in place, before Aizawa slapped him in the back of the head.
"So...are what are you two up to later?" Yagi asked.
"Nothing really," Aizawa yawned.
"Well...I was wondering if you'd all like to grab a bite to eat?" he offered. "I know this good Beef Bowl place not far from here."
"I don't kno-" Aizawa spoke, before suddenly being cut off by Yamada who shoved him away slightly.
"Lead the way Muscle Man!" Yamada said while Aizawa gave him a lazy glare.
"...fine," Aizawa sighed.
"Heh, I could use a bite to eat," Nemuri nodded.
"And its unanimous," Murasaki grinned.
"Alright, considering this is our last class today, I guess we'll meet in front of the gates and head on there." Yagi said with what Murasaki was sure would be trademarked as his best smile.
A couple hours later had the five teens sitting in a local beef bowl shop, the smell of freshly cooked meat and onions wafting through the air as the five of them ordered their meals.
"Oh man, Yagi, you really hit the jackpot when you found this place," Murasaki praised as the heavenly smell hit her nose.
"Heh, just call me Toshinori," Toshinori chuckled. "The same goes for the rest of you."
"Well in that case, call me Hizashi!" Hizashi said with a grin, managing to keep his volume relatively down for once.
"I guess I don't mind if any of you call me Shouta." Shouta said as he rubbed the back of his neck while looking at the menu.
"Then call me Nemuri as well then," Nemuri chuckled.
"And you all know me, Murasaki," Murasaki playfully added, pretty happy that they were all on first name basis now.
Their orders came shortly after and they started digging in, the group making small talk amongst each other, while at the same time they talked about how they were finding school and stuff...also it seemed Toshinori had quite a liking for the pickled ginger the shop provided with how liberally he was putting it on his beef bowl.
Eventually, the subjects drifted to more personal things, most of it being funny anecdotes.
"How does that make sense?!" Hizashi laughed as he clutched his gut.
"I know right? My dad can't fall asleep against his will, and my mom can reverse how an object works, how the hell does that equal sleeping gas as a power?!" Nemuri summed up her story with a grin.
And then some more shocking ones.
"Ah, so that's why your name was so familiar." Shouta muttered as he looked at Murasaki.
"Why didn't you mention your parents are basically famous?!" Nemuri asked in complete surprise.
"It just didn't really seem important at the time." Murasaki answered with a shrug as she took a bite of her food.
The five students continued to eat and chat and before long, they'd finished up their meals and paid for them. "That was a great meal. Thanks for showing us this place again, Tosh," Murasaki grinned.
"My pleasure," Toshinori grinned back.
"We should totally do this again sometime," Hizashi said, earning nods of agreements from the others...all except one.
"Do we have to…?" Shouta groaned.
"It's what friends do you grump." Hizashi said with a laugh.
"I never asked for friends." Shouta said in deadpan.
"Are you saying you don't want to be friends with me?" Nemuri said with a cute pout.
Shouta looked away from her, sighing as he rested his head on the table "This is my life now, isn't it?"
"Welcome to hell." Murasaki said with a straight face, before bursting out laughing after a few moments, and despite himself, Shouta couldn't help but quirk a small smile as the others shared another laugh.
Ta-da!
More friends for our lovely heroine!
And yes, though he'd hate to admit it, Shouto DID end up copying some of his father's style.
Also yes, that was a Wonder Woman reference early in the chapter!
Anyway, hope you liked this chapter, which I had lots of help from Dreamer to make once more.
See ya next time!