20.01.2023

It is I, the Absolute Madman and I come bearing your weekly dose of Stranded! The second part of the story is about to begin to strap in while I answer the comments!:

TheGreatBubbaJ - Yes it does. It also needs a beach episode but that's an idea for the future!

n1ght4ury20 - I love cliffhangers!

ndbarnyak - That's one of the issues that I have with the Japanese language - letters that make no sense whatsoever. It's like German but less genocidal in that regard. Honestly when I don't write Kyouka's name for an extended period of time then I forget which version I'm supposed to use so I end up using the good old Ctrl + F to find out. Works like a charm, every single time

JesterGlytch - You get a sneak peek at the story of 1-B today but a more in-depth look is gonna have to wait for next week unfortunately!

neowolf24 - There's a lot of tropes that we are missing like the mentally challenged blonde bimbo, but you can't have everything. What we do have, and what is much better in my opinion, is a girl that's trying so hard to be holy but her body was made for sin! (Also no MILFs, but I might be scratching that itch some time soon)

DragrexTheBrit - Welp, I didn't get your second PM and you probably didn't get mine either, so if you don't feel like it's a question for the comments then hit me up on discord - Markacin#1394, I hope you'll be able to find it. Really need to get around to setting up that twitter account...

And with that done let's jump into the story!:

"I'm so sorry about that. I didn't recognize you." Izuku apologized vehemently whilst bowing in front of the amber-haired girl.

"I didn't exactly make it easy to recognize me with the hood and stuff." Kendo replied as she massaged her back, already feeling the bruises that are gonna form there in the not-so-distant future. "I gotta admit that I forgot how unbelievably strong you are. For a split second I thought that I was being charged by a rhino!" Itsuka joked to lighten up the mood.

"S-Sorry…" Izuku sheepishly apologized once again, scratching his neck in embarrassment at the comment.

"It's alright. I would have honestly done the same if I was in your position. Though I don't think I could hold myself back the way you did and not throw a couple of punches after pinning you to the ground!" Kendo stated with a grin and the two chuckled.

"I guess it's a good thing that things played out the way they did. You can throw some real nasty strikes if you put your heart into it." Izuku said in a joking manner, completely missing the mix of embarrassment, joy and adoration that flashed briefly on Kendo's face.

"It's nice to see you Itsuka, but what are you even doing here?" Momo, who finally decided it was a good moment to jump into the conversation without interrupting anything, asked curiously.

"Well, I saw the smoke from your campfire over the trees and thought that maybe there was a supply drop that we somehow missed so I decided to go check it out but when I realized it was a campfire I was pretty spooked so I wanted to get a closer look to see if you aren't some kind of native tribe of cannibals but it seems like I didn't have anything to worry about after all." Kendo explained briefly.

"Are you here alone?" Izuku asked.

"No. I'm just the one that was supposed to be on guard duty tonight whilst Setsuna, Ibara and Yui sleep, but once I noticed the smoke I left my post to check this out and you already heard the rest."

"Aren't you concerned that something might sneak up on the others without you watching over them?" Kyouka asked nervously.

"Nah, it'll be fine. The entrances to our base are hidden so well that even we have trouble finding them from time to time!" Kendo explained, calming down the group that already started to panic a bit.

"How far from here is your base?" Mina asked, hoping to get some sleep on something softer than their makeshift sleeping spots.

"It's not that far, about twenty minutes on foot if I'm not mistaken. But if you're thinking what I think you're thinking then you might as well give up right now. I don't think that making the trip right now is a good idea especially with all that howling in the past few days." Itsuka warned them, crushing Mina's hopes and dreams of having a full night's sleep without her back threatening to sue her for abuse.

"She's right guys, we should go back to sleep and start moving in the morning. I doubt there'll be anything dangerous left out there by then, so we won't have to risk anything." Momo laid out the facts and effectively managed to convince the girls to agree, even if they knew what would await them in the morning - back pains.

Despite having stayed up for half the night, Izuku was still the first one to wake up. It was a fairly well-known fact that he was an early riser, but ever since he and the girls started to form the cuddle pile before going to sleep he found it much harder to wake up in the morning. Maybe it was just too warm to leave or his body really didn't want to wake up from this position. Whatever the case, Izuku regularly woke up around the same time as the girls, though he was usually the least drowsy of them all. Over the course of the past few nights things have changed however.

Due to him acting as the night watchman he should be the last one to wake up or show at least some signs of sleep deprivation, but that was not the case. If anything he felt even more aware than he usually did and his senses seemed to grow sharper for some reason. It was strange for sure, but they had a plethora of other, more pressing, issues at the moment so he elected to ignore that minor boon for now.

Just as he expected, he was the first one to wake up once again. He sat up cautiously and saw the girls had more or less ended up forming a singular pile overnight. He smiled at the peaceful expressions on their faces before deciding to get up to stretch his legs. His mind had briefly flashed with panic when he saw that ALL the girls were asleep but calmed down quickly when he remembered that Kendo volunteered to stay up.

Izuku opted to pass the time by talking with the redhead but she wasn't sitting by the dwindling campfire. He quickly looked around their camp and noticed her sitting by Shuusa's spot.

"Right… We didn't say anything about Shu last night… To be fair, she didn't question Tooru being visible too." Izuku thought to himself as he approached the two girls.

Kendo noticed him early on and greeted him with a smile.

"Did you sleep well?" She asked politely.

"I guess so, though my back is probably going to start a riot if I don't get to sleep on something that even resembles a bed." Izuku joked as he sat down and stretched his back muscles to work out some of the more annoying kinks. "Anything happen during the night?"

"Not really, no. There was some howling like usual but nothing out of the ordinary." Kendo reported.

"That's good to hear. We don't need any more problems at this point." Izuku stated as he turned his eyes in Shuusa's direction.

"Speaking of - who is she?" Kendo asked, her curiosity almost radiating off of her in waves.

"Well, it might sound crazy or unbelievable but she's my daughter." He answered with no small amount of pride in his voice.

This answer, to nobody's surprise, made Kendo freeze up completely. Her eyes were darting between Shuusa and Izuku for a good minute before eventually setting on the conscious one out of the two. Next Kendo tried to ask questions but only incoherent mumbles left her lips as her face began heating up more and more.

"B-B-But, she seems to be around our age!" She whisper-shouted eventually and didn't even wait for an explanation before continuing. "Wait, wait, wait; which one is the mother?"

Now Izuku was used to facing some really intense opponents due to how many of them he's encountered in the past, but even all of them paled in comparison to the level of intensity that burned in Kendo's eyes. The cheeks threatening to be set ablaze any moment now subtracted a bit from the effect, but Izuku still knew that it would be in his best interest to tread lightly right about now.

"A-Adoptive. She's my adoptive d-daughter." He explained, finding it in him to try and disarm the situation with a strained chuckle.

The moment those words left his mouth everything about Kendo changed. The intensity in her eyes vanished as suddenly as it appeared there and her raspy, slightly out of breath voice returned to how it usually was. He could've sworn that even her ponytail - that strangely enough looked very neat all things considered - stopped moving in a threatening, snake-like manner.

"So you adopted her!" Kendo exclaimed relatively quietly, her body visibly relaxing just like pretty much everything about her. "And here I was starting to worry…" She mumbled out, exhaling slowly in relief.

"Worry about what?" Izuku asked, clueless.

"About nothing at all!" The amber-haired girl quickly stated before switching the subject, preferably to one that had as little to do with her and her motives as possible. "So, what's the story behind it?" She asked, hoping to distract him from her slip up; it worked.

"That's even more crazy, but you seem to be taking it quite well so far, so I might as well tell you the entire story." Izuku eventually stated and cleared his throat, preparing to tell a way longer story than Kendo expected. "It all started with a pile of hard-to-make-out-but-potentially-useful-in-the-future-stuff that we expected might be actually a sentient being." He began and the girl listened intently, although they had to take breaks from time to time as the amount of bullshit his story entailed was too much even for Itsuka who was already pretty used to bullshit from having to deal with Monoma for almost three years at this point.

They lost track of how long the story took to tell, but they managed to wrap it up before the girls woke up. Either they got through nearly a year worth of story-telling in a matter of minutes or the girls were really exhausted.

"You were right, this sounds way too crazy to be true." Kendo summed up her experience as she massaged her aching temples. "But I also don't have a reason not to trust you and despite all the crazy stuff you brought up, I feel like it somehow makes sense… somewhere…"

"Tell me about it. Even I have trouble believing some of the stuff I just told you about and I was there to witness more or less everything." Izuku confessed with a smile.

"I can't believe you guys spent an entire year here already…" Kendo mumbled out as her headache started subsiding finally.

"Oh, that's just Mina. I've been here half a year longer than that, Momo arrived about two months after Mina, then it was Tooru and Kyouka's been here for around four months if I'm not mistaken?" Izuku explained and Kendo's headache came back full force. She couldn't focus on it however as there was a far more important detail to address at the moment.

"Wait, so if you've been here half a year longer than Mina who was the first of the girls to arrive then does that mean that you were all on your own for those six months?" She asked with dread.

"Well yeah, but it wasn't-" Whatever explanation he wanted to start was instantly shutdown as Kendo almost threw herself at him and gave him a hug would probably break a rib or two if he wasn't built like a brick house.

"It must've been absolutely terrifying!" Kendo exclaimed into his shoulder, holding onto him for dear life.

Comforting people was like a second nature to him already, so Izuku only brought his arms around the girl and reciprocated her hug, both to express his gratitude for her worrying about him and that he was ultimately alright and mostly undamaged.

"Sorry about that." She apologized once they broke their embrace after a few moments. "It's just that, you always seem to get yourself in trouble." She joked with a smile.

"Can't really argue with that." Izuku agreed and they chuckled.

"So you don't know why she hasn't woken up yet?" Kendo asked after their giggles died down.

"Unfortunately no. Momo was trying to figure it out but there's only so much we can do whilst on the move. Now that we've found you though I hope she'll be able to focus solely on helping Shu." Izuku explained as he caressed his daughter's hair. "We'll of course make sure to pull our own weight, so don't worry about being left with all the work!" He promised hastily, which made Kendo giggle.

"I already knew you'd help out, you've never struck me as the type to sit around and do nothing while others do all the work. If anything, you seem to be the exact opposite, Mister Workaholic."

"Well, I can't argue with that either." Izuku admitted with a sheepish smile. "Although I can at least say that I've become more self-aware of my own limits and I try not to overwork myself like I used to in the past." He declared and watched as a very joyful albeit gentle smile appeared on Kendo's lips.

"I'm glad to hear that. I think all of us are." She said as she pointed in the direction of the girls' cuddle pile.

"I'm sure they'd agree with you." Izuku replied as he pondered just how lucky he was to have such great friends and lovers. "Let's start packing up what we can, so we can be on the move as soon as they wake up."

And with that the two began putting all the loose stuff on the sled, making sure that they did it as carefully as they could so as not to wake the girls up.

"I can't believe we slept for so long!" Mina lamented as the girls tried to get ready as quickly as possible.

The twin suns were already pretty high in the sky by the time the girls woke up, prompting them to panic and apologize to the awake pair for delaying their departure.

Neither Izuku nor Kendo blamed them for it of course and they made sure to explain that but the girls were pretty stubborn about apologizing. They were also a bit annoyed that neither of them decided to wake them up to spare them this embarrassment, but Izuku was quick to remedy that.

"It's just that you guys looked so sweet, cozy and peaceful that I couldn't bring myself to wake you." He said and the girls immediately began stammering out various thanks or incoherent mumbles.

Meanwhile Kendo looked on in complete awe, amazed by his ability to pacify a group of women with a single sentence - a skill that she'd love to possess as it would make her job as the Class Rep that much easier. She'd have to ask him for some pointers in the future.

But there will be a time and a place for all that later. For now they had to pack up the remaining stuff and be on their merry way if they wanted to make it to their destination at a reasonable time. They weren't running late by any means, just later than Izuku or Kendo expected.

"Wait, I didn't forget to tell the others that I'm leaving to check this out, right?" Kendo wondered as their group was about to depart. "Eh, I'm sure they'll be alright."

The girls were not alright as Kendo learned as soon as they got near their destination. There was some muffled shouting coming from somewhere upfront, but their path was blocked by a solid rock wall. Just as they were about to start circling around the obstacle however, Kendo told them to follow her closely.

It took her a moment but she eventually was able to find what she was looking for. There, obscured by the vines, was a small crack in the stone, just wide enough for the sled to squeak through thankfully.

Kendo ducked into the opening and the girls followed after her whilst Izuku tried to maneuver the sled through the narrow gap. At least it was a pretty straight path so he didn't have to do much turning which would be way harder to do in a tight space.

Eventually though he managed to push the sled all the way through the passage and into what turned out to be a big, vaguely circular ravine with a small pond in the center. Izuku looked up, immediately noting that the ravine was completely surrounded by a rock wall which had only a handful of visible entrances akin to the one they emerged from just a moment ago. Izuku brought his eyes down to the ravine and saw a couple of small tents set up almost directly against one of the cliffs. Next thing he noticed was the commotion next to the aforementioned tents. It sounded like arguing/bickering and two people were apparently wrestling.

Izuku tightened his grasp on the sled and dragged it towards the crowd. As he approached he could more easily recognize his girlfriends who were standing on one side of the wrestling pair and two girls from class B - Shiozaki and Kodai. Once he got even closer he realized that the two in the middle weren't wrestling.

As it turns out Tokage was currently hugging Kendo with what looked like a vice grip that could probably rival that of some of his male friends whilst Kendo tried desperately to wrestle herself out of the embrace.

"I thought you left us! I'm sorry! I'm never teasing you about your crush again! Never!" Tokage bawled her eyes out as her grip kept on tightening.

"Sets- can't- breathe-!" Kendo grumbled out in panic.

"Is she always like that?" Mina, who decided to break the ice first, asked as she approached Shiozaki and Kodai.

"Mhm." Kodai hummed shortly.

"I'm afraid so. Setsuna can be a merciless teaser at times and once she gets going she sometimes forgets to stop herself and then apologizes profusely once she realizes her slip up. Her behavior leaves much to be desired, but her heart is in the right place." Shiozaki explained courtly.

"At least she feels bad for doing it, unlike some." Kyouka said whilst sending a very mean glare in Mina's and Tooru's direction.

"Shouldn't we like, stop them or something?" Izuku, who just joined the group with the sled right behind him, asked.

"I'm unfortunately unsure as to how we could do that." Shiozaki answered.

"I have an idea!" Tooru exclaimed suddenly. "Izu, fetch!" She shouted whilst pointing in Setsuna's direction.

"What am I, a dog?" He questioned with possibly the most dead inside expression to ever express. It even had Todoroki's usual poker face beat effortlessly.

Still, Izuku decided to break up the two girls before someone really gets hurt. He was surprised at how easily he was able to untangle the arms that held Kendo hostage, but he attributed it to the damsel in distress providing him immense amounts of unnatural strength.

His feat of strength finally had broken Tokage out of her daze and she turned in his direction as a smirk formed on her lips.

"Hi there, handsome!" She flirted blatantly.

"Hello to you too, Tokage." Izuku replied completely unphased, already used to her flirtatious persona from all the teasing he had to endure in the past already.

"What are guys doing here?" She asked, clearly not bothered by the fact that her flirtatious comment didn't elicit any kind of reaction from Izuku, when she spotted the rest of his group standing besides her friends.

"Well, that's quite a long story, so how about we sit down first and get something to eat? I'm pretty sure the girls are starving." Izuku proposed and, as if waiting for a signal, the girls' stomachs grumbled loudly, confirming his suspicions.

"Alright then! Welcome to our humble abode!" Tokage greeted the group and then ushered them towards the campfire that sat in the middle of their small camp.

One quick meal later they were ready to tell their respective stories, which - as they'd soon find out - were quite different despite the many similarities.

And that's it! To be honest, right from the start I was already dead set on a very specific location for the 1-B girls' base, but just as I was going to remind myself how it looked like exactly I stumbled upon something much better, so I decided to change my choice at the last possible moment. I think it'll work out even better than the previous spot.

So, now that we have the entire cast here there is no going back to add anyone so we are stuck with the current roster. I think that eight girls split evenly between both classes is a good number, very symmetrical, my OCD like it that way.

I got nothing left to say so have a great day and I'll catch y'all in the next update!