Tenzo51 - Don't worry, we're almost there :P
TheGreatBubbaJ - :V
Detrametal - Injuring Chibi would, in fact, spell trouble to everyone even remotely involved in the event. And as for Todoroki and daddy issues? I mean, would that still be Todoroki?
Guest - Not necessarily kidnapped. Just forced to not exactly show to people how op she truly is, to avoid magisters ganging up on her. She's very nearly a deuteragonist of the book two of the story (starts from chapter 53 if I remember correctly) and... well, let's just say that if Midoriya, Todoroki and Bakugou had a secret love child (behaviour-wise, at least), that would be a slightly grown-up Aiko after speedrun% of childhood.
Shahryar - I don't think you'll get to see the talk itself, I'm sorry :(
Jpx0999 - And it's all accidental. Though, to be honest, 99% of it all dates back (and will date back) to their Elsewhere trip and meeting Aiko.
Adrianmmgc - Not necessarily closer, but I do imagine them working together in the foreseable future, even if it'll be mostly off-screen. I mean, someone has to pay their taxes and fund Midoriya's future misadventures, am I right?
Kurokawa Kazunari - Mostly unimportant minor characters from canon, like Kenranzaki plus two 1-A students, Ojiro and Mineta. Thus far literally every single student fatality mentioned by name was Toga's work :v
I See Your Secrets - They are, undoubtedly, unknowable and beyond our comprehension (just check what the massively weaker Dragon from the Desert of Bones 'looked' like). The entities form Cthulhu Mythos do not exist here, though, but it's likely that Lovecraft was either directly or indirectly inspired by similar vibes from Powers.
(***)
Izuku was in the middle of the preparations for the Summit when this happened. Once again taking him completely off-guard.
"Is that…" Izuku asks. "... normal?"
Shiozaki appears to be as stoic as always. Komori appears more overjoyed than ever before. They are both standing in front of him, Todoroki and Bakugou in the Overlook's courtyard.
The girls were elsewhere for a moment, Toga doing her ghoul things, Uraraka being temporarily borrowed by Tokage's cabal to help in carrying heavier things thanks to her magic.
She, after all, wasn't exactly as vulnerable to magical side-effects. At the price of, well, being herself.
Shiozaki's skin has the same greenish hint to it as always. The flowers in the hair are there as well, not to mention the bright green eyes with a vertical white line for pupils.
Komori is…
"You're asking about her becoming a dryad so quickly or her having a different aesthetic from Shiozaki?" Todoroki asks.
Komori's skin has a brown hint to it, her eyes being brownish as well. There are mushrooms growing in her hair. She appears to be proding one of them, with a happy smile on her face. Quite a contrast to Shiozaki's general stoicism.
"Honestly, yes to both." Izuku replies.
"She already purposefully raised her attention level beforehand." Todoroki replies. "So with some additional push, getting there didn't take long. As for the aesthetics… Shiozaki?"
Shiozaki stares back at Izuku. A moment later a large mushroom grows up at the top of her head, before being torn off by the dryad.
Right, so it's a matter of personal aesthetic. Good to know. Mushrooms aren't plants, but they are still a crucial element of the ecosystem that the dryads govern. It's probably just a surface-level element, either way.
"I'm super thankful to you all!" Komori decides to speak. "It took me years, and things just didn't want to work and… holy shit, this is crazier but also way cooler than I thought!"
"Just don't mind control anyone or anything just yet." Shiozaki decides to help her unofficial kouhai. "In fact, keep the spores on the inside until you train how to do it on small animals. You don't want to accidentally make anyone attempt suicide, got it?"
"Yes, Shiozaki-san!" Komori smiles back at her, waving her hands a little in her boundless enthusiasm. "Spores on the inside, no problem!"
This is quite an odd combo, the stoic and the emotional one.
"... shouldn't we wear gas masks?" Bakugou decides to be the sane one. Again. It's basically his job description at this point.
"No need to, I'll counter any orders she does accidentally." Shiozaki replies. "Good news is that once she gets through her initial… hype, is the word I think, she should be able to help me a little with the forest management. Although it will take her months to get to the point where she can significantly contribute to the size of the controlled zone."
"I'll do my best!" Komori announces. Izuku doesn't doubt it in the slightest.
Looks like at least someone got a happy, errr… does that count as an ending for their career as an Initiate or not?
WAIT.
"Speaking off…" Izuku asks. He is naturally wearing his sunglasses. "... I'm sorry to ask, but this is related to my magic and a completely serious question. How do I look to you, Komori?"
The dryad #2 glances at him and gives him a lengthy, appraising stare.
"Uhm, sorry for saying that, especially as you're clearly taken, but look you look super hot, boss." She eventually says. "Have you always looked like that? I thought you were, uhm, a bit plain before?"
Oof. Big oof. Then again, yeah, he actually kinda is plain-looking.
"But no suddenly developed desires towards me?" Izuku asks. Komori gives him a questioning look. "I have something of an involuntary charm magic towards demihumans, that appears to be focused on my eyesight. I'm wearing the glasses to contain it, but I want to confirm that nothing's leaking."
"Aside from the general 'looks hot', nothing in particular." Komori replies.
"Then the glasses work, great." Izuku nods. "For the future, if you see me without sunglasses, look away immediately. I make sure to always wear them, but in case something happens, I prefer to give you some heads-up and… errr, sorry to ask you but it's still connected - you're not homosexual, right?"
It probably wouldn't work then.
"Uhm, nope?" Komori replies. "I'm straight, though not with a lot of opportunities to prove it in practice in the past." Lack of long-term relationship probably contributed to her decision of 'humanity sucks, let's become a plant'.
"Great, that's all that I wanted to know." Midoriya nods.
"Awesome." Komori is clearly beyond herself when enthusiasm is involved. "So, uhm, Shiozaki-san, what now?"
"Clothes off." Shiozaki replies dryly.
Komori starts taking everything off. Did her sense of shame fly out of the window with her transformation, or… was she always like this?
"Uhm, is that actually necessary?" Izuku decides to ask. Shiozaki gives him an expressionless stare." Look, I would be lying if I said that having girls strip themselves in front of me isn't, err, nice. But it's still a bit…"
"Does the word 'photosynthesis' ring a bell?" Shiozaki replies calmly. "We feed ourselves with some light foraging, but most of our energy comes from this."
Midoriya is suddenly painfully aware that he didn't read the wikipedia entry about her species and that's kinda a bad thing.
"Don't you get it from, err, your hair?" Izuku asks. Shiozaki stares at him expressionlessly. So does Kinoko Komori, now just as naked as Ibara. "Look, I'm not trying to be insensitive or anything, but I've been an Initiate for about a month, I just lack what everyone considers a common sens… shut up, Kacchan."
Because of course Kacchan started chuckling at this. Yeah, wrong wording, damnit.
"Finally you realize the problem, Deku." Bakugou, naturally, doesn't listen to him.
"I guess that a small presentation is in order then." Ibara announces. "Because I think that actions say more than words."
Then she casually self-mutilates by carving a large chunk of her own flesh from the space right above her breasts with her hands, causing Midoriya and Bakugou to stare at her in shock.
Izuku realizes it first.
There is something brown, maybe a centimeter under the skin. Something that resembles… wait.
"That's wood?" Izuku asks. Shiozaki calmly nods.
"We're practically walking, human-shaped trees." She replies. "The trunk that works as a skeleton and a muscle mass is covered with a mass resembling flesh that's actually our equivalent of leaves. It does the photosynthesis, and much more efficiently than leaves do. It's why we can move so much, despite it typically not being efficient enough to sustain life forms that move around a lot. And even then, we aren't exactly born marathon runners."
That suddenly explains a lot of things.
"And you don't really 'feel' the leaves." Izuku replies, while Shiozaki nods. "That's why you're clearly alright with walking through the forest while effectively naked. Scratches alone would have otherwise driven you insane."
"That is correct." Shiozaki replies. "We don't feel pain unless you cause us a deep injury. The surface ones regenerate quickly, although it depends on how well-rested and magically powerful we are." He can see it, the injury she caused to herself is half the size it used to be. "This isn't limited to the skin. You could gouge my eyes out and they would regenerate too, although slowly when compared to the skin."
"And the hair?" Izuku asks.
"I honestly think…" Shiozaki replies, grabbing her floor-length hair to play with it lightly. "... that it's here to maintain the human aesthetic. Making all dryads bald would look just plain weird."
She isn't wrong about it.
"I'll keep teaching her the ropes." Shiozaki then says. "This should only slightly delay the process of providing Tokage with the resources she needs."
"Only slightly?" Izuku asks. "That feels like something that takes a lot of time."
"Not really, we do most of the things remotely with the spores, the rest is just responding to crises." Ibara replies. "We don't really perceive boredom the same way as we did as humans. I remember skipping entire days just standing in the sunlight, and not feeling bored at all, despite being awake the whole time. We have plenty of time to go pick up mushrooms and other plants and deliver them to the base camp, without exhausting the environment. If it's possible…"
"...we'll lend our truck to Tokage for her to pick whatever you gather up." Izuku replies immediately. "How does every other evening sound like?"
Shiozaki nods. Looks like they have it covered. And that Tokage's cabal - now supplied by two dryads - should have reached a new level of production efficiency. Izuku is really looking forward to it.
In the meantime, it's time for the Summit.
(***)
"I don't want to go there." Izuku announces. "I changed my mind when you told me that this… this abomination is mandatory during the participation in the Summit. I will not steep so low, and I will not…"
Todoroki sighs painfully.
"Midoriya, that's just a suit." He replies, sounding exasperated. In his hand is a folded shirt that Izuku is supposed to wear under the suit itself. "It's just a matter of presenting yourself properly and I'm going to help you with the tie."
"I can see that your emotional expressions are getting better nowadays." Midoriya replies. "You getting rid of that one spell didn't change a lot, but it certainly changed something. You express yourself slightly more and…"
"No changing of the subject." Todoroki replies dryly. "Suit. Now. Or we'll be late."
"Please, don't do that to me." Izuku replies with begging eyes. "Ochako, help me, please."
"Uhm, alright!" Uraraka smiles. She is wearing quite a nice dress, a black one, which contrasts nicely with her white skin and hair. She refused to give up her collar when Todoroki asked, and Izuku just didn't feel like repeating the question. "Deku-kun doesn't want to do it, could we settle for some…"
"... don't you want to see your master looking all dapper and manly in a well-tailored suit?" Todoroki cuts in, looking back at the stalker. Uraraka opens her mouth. "I'll even give you some photographs."
"Ochako, don't…" Izuku tries to reinforce his falling authority.
"Uhm, Deku-kun, please wear the suit." Uraraka backstabs him. The audacity, the nerve. He expected that from Himiko, she would backstab him without a second of doubt just to see him squirm a little, but… Ochako?! "I'll make it up to you, master."
He could practically feel the last word's flex on his spine.
"Alright, let's just be done with it." Izuku sighs. He has been thoroughly defeated.
Frozen Hell has truly earned its name.
It was nothing but frozen landscape, small patches of land interspersed with what looked like glaciers. And it was snowing, just enough to limit the view but not enough to cover the road in snow.
Besides, they were driving the Katsumobile. No way something was stopping them.
"... couldn't we just arrive at the destination?" Izuku decides to ask. The MRAP's passenger compartment could fit seven people, it was still quite a lot of space. It was even comfortably warm. "You know, with the warpgate capabilities of the SEZ."
"Flaunting your newfound ability would make you feel more like an upstart." Todoroki replies calmly. He is, well, actually wearing a suit. But Izuku has so many questions to ask about the Paw Patrol-themed tie that's kind of ruining the image for him. "Besides, you can't open the warpgate to a place that you haven't visited yet, you forgot about that?"
"Yeah, I keep forgetting about it." Izuku sighs. Bakugou growls something from his seat. "Are you still salty about losing the Katsumobile for the day? You'll get it back, Kacchan!"
Bakugou growls somewhat more. They can hear Yagi-sensei's loud sigh from the direction of the driver's seat, the man's eyes on the snowed road ahead.
Izuku is about 50% sure that Yagi Toshinori hijacked the driver's wheel from Bakugou not because the latter had no driver's license, but because Yagi refused to let the chance to drive such a machine slip past him.
The faculty was supposed to oversee the Summit. As Yagi explained, they were playing the role of SPSC representatives overseeing a meeting between major legal supernatural organizations while making sure that no foul play (say, mind-control) was involved.
Once again, Izuku was about 50% sure that Yagi Toshinori just dreaded the potential chaos that Midoriya could bring onto the Summit. So, while it wasn't an outside trip, he still wanted to be there.
"You should have known about it." Todoroki ignores the Bakugou part of the talk. "You must be extraordinarily nervous to ask such questions."
"How am I supposed to not be nervous?!" Izuku lets out. "I'm going to meet the Four Warlords in person! Those are pretty big titles, and you still didn't tell me your plan for the day."
"Because you knowing it would make the plan not work." Todoroki replies calmly. "Do not worry, you have that in the bank."
Izuku would like to have the same confidence as Shoto has.
Uraraka and Toga were too busy observing him, clearly thinking that getting to see him in a suit was worth it. Izuku would, honestly, like to stare back at them (Uraraka looks smoking hot in her long dress, and Toga looks almost as sexy in her significantly shorter and rather generously cut blood red dress), but…
Yeah, nerves.
He's nervous a lot.
"So, how far is it until the Frozen Palace?" Izuku decides to entertain himself. "I've never been here, and…"
"Maybe ten more minutes." Todoroki replies. "Intelli's cabal is keeping the road traversable thanks to some snow plows. It's a part of their job and a life-sized exercise in maintaining supply routes and infrastructure in harsh environments. The school's paying them back in contribution points."
Sounds interesting. Izuku's really having it easy with the Special Exclusion Zone, doesn't he? If you excluded the Spider and the blood hornets, that is.
"There is something of a polar base that the local cabal's operating from." Todoroki replies. "But we're instead getting to the other notable facility in this Exclusion Zone, namely the Frozen Palace. I believe we passed through the checkpoint overseeing the crossroads that connect Intelli's base, the Frozen Palace and the exit from the zone a few minutes ago."
He really feels like he began to embrace the position of their unofficial tour guide when someone else suddenly spoke.
"We did." Yagi announces from his seat. "It was manned, judging from the lights being on. Intelli keeps it manned with four or five people, because it's a strategic location with a good oversight over the surrounding area. Frozen Hell is barely traversable outside of the maintained roads, so if other Warlords would try anything funny, they would have to go through it. And since it's on an elevated ground, quite reinforced and with a machine gun, it would probably hold until reinforcements arrive from the main base."
Huh, Izuku keeps realizing just how much of a wargame Warlords were normally playing between each other. They weren't exactly fighting, if you exclude moments like Geten's raid (who was supposed to not injure anyone from Yaoyorozu's faction), but Izuku was ready to bet that the faculty was evaluating their preparations for an all-out battle.
Now he really feels like a poor cousin of a wealthy family.
"Alright." Izuku nods. They talked about it already, but honestly, he isn't sure if he can think about something completely disconnected from the Summit, so… "The meeting is hosted by the Nightmare of Frost in her palace, right? Because she's so powerful that Warlords prefer to not anger her."
"That's true." Todoroki nods. He clearly doesn't mind repeating the subject either. "Soma Michiko is rather terrifyingly powerful, and not just in comparison to the UA students but even by general metric of the world of Initiates. If other Nightmares are roaming boss monsters balanced for a normal if reasonably high leveled party encounter, the Nightmare of Frost is a raid boss to be challenged with your whole clan."
Which is totally not intimidating, yeah.
"Good news is that she gets much weaker outside of the Frozen Hell." Todoroki continues. "Because most of her magic is about shaping ice rather than creating it, oddly enough. As a result, she doesn't leave this Exclusion Zone. She rarely leaves the Frozen Palace itself, where she lives alongside a handful of Cold Ones that the school produced, including Geten, whom you already met."
"How's her relationship with Intelli?" Izuku asks. He actually forgot to ask about it earlier, so for this one time he's going in with no information.
"Cold." Todoroki replies. Izuku wants to punch him for a moment. Toga, though, finds it funny. "They are generally speaking ignoring each other for most of the time, but they did sign a treaty specifying which part of the Frozen Hell is whose and the details of their general co-existence. This includes things such as the option for Intelli to hire Michiko's subordinates and the details of how they are paid and what they are allowed to do in their service."
Which resulted in Geten raiding Ghost Town, right.
"Why do I have a feeling that this entire affair is tolerated by the faculty as a form of an additional exercise?" Izuku asks.
"Because that's what it is." Yagi replies from his seat. "There are some established demihuman communities out there, even if not common. Engaging them in successful peace talks is a perfectly valid way of making sure that they do not spread chaos and wanton destruction when you do not have the firepower to take them down, when there is more to be gained from their presence than there is out of destroying them or when you simply do not think they deserve to be killed. Intelli's successful normalization of relationship with the Frozen Palace was, naturally, graded by the faculty and gave her quite a boost of Contribution Points."
UA really was the world of the Initiates on the microscale, wasn't it?
"Why do I feel…" Bakugou wakes up, probably still insulted by the loss of his Katsumobile, but…" … that we're on the best way to establish a similar situation in the Special Exclusion Zone?"
"You refer to the sudden doubling of UA's dryad population that you had your hand in?" Yagi asks. He sounds slightly exasperated but also not exactly surprised by the fact that Midoriya and his cabal had their hands in it.
Because of course Yagi knows about it already. Should Izuku even be surprised? Probably not.
"Yeah." Bakugou confirms it. "This forest shapes into some expansive dryad habitat in my eyes."
"Then you're correct." Yagi admits. "It's only the start of the journey, and unless you get a few other willing or unwilling converts soon, it'll take your forest years to establish itself as the equivalent of the Frozen Palace. But it clearly has the potential to reach the point where future Warlords of the Special Exclusion Zone would have to negotiate their co-existence with its inhabitants. Judging from what I'm seeing thus far, I wouldn't be surprised if by the time your Forest of Magical Beasts gets there, most of said inhabitants would be, pun intended, Young Midoriya's family tree."
"Har de har har." Midoriya rolls his eyes around. Kacchan, of course, finds it funny. "I'll try to not impregnate them too much."
Wait.
Five more years, right? And it's not like Toga getting to have sex with him somehow made her chill the fuck down about having sex with him. So even if he actually ends up giving Ibara what she wants sooner rather than later (which she might be interested in, seeing as she has a safe place to live now), she will probably want more of it, right?
Well, crap.
Then again, fathering an entire community of demihumans through ye 'olde interbreeding would certainly help cement his legend. Izuku just isn't sure if this is the legend that he wants to have.
That's for the future him to bother himself with. He is nervous about something else right now, and that's what matters to him.
He doesn't have the time to make his anxiety known before someone speaks.
"Speaking off, Frozen Palace can be seen from the windows to the left." Yagi suddenly announces. "We're almost there."
Izuku turns on his seat and stares through the narrow slits of the window. Behind him Uraraka, Toga and Bakugou all move to other windows to see it as well.
Holy fuck.
Soma Michiko liked to think big.
It was basically a literal palace, and a massive one, that appeared to have been a glacier once. One that someone deliberately sculpted into something that Izuku could imagine a king living in.
There was just enough lighting (namely, some strategically placed lamps) around to make the outline of the facility, together with some outlying buildings scattered around the bottom of the valley, visible. Even with the snow that was slowly escalating into a small snowstorm.
Izuku was having flashbacks to the first time when he exited the Carthus Catacombs to witness the Irithyll of the Boreal Valley in its full glory (just smaller). The architecture felt seriously influenced by that particular Dark Souls 3 location, everything just made from what looked like ice of varied hue.
Their vehicle was slowly descending there through a road carved out of the walls of said valley.
Someone really put a lot of effort into making the place look like some out of a fairytale. Soma Michiko was goddamn terrifying.
A few minutes later they arrive at their destination.
"It looks like the other Warlords are already here." Yagi announces as they step out of the vehicle in the Frozen Palace's garage. It's naturally made from sculpted ice, like (probably) almost everything in this place.
There are several other cars. Four standard big off-road cars, with snow chains on their wheels. Now Izuku starts feeling like Katsumobile already counted as flaunting their wealth.
Surprisingly to him, it's not cold at all. Actually… he feels really goddamn weird, as if there was something missing. Like, feeling of cold? But also of warmth? It's so incredibly confusing to him, and…
"Noticed it now?" Yagi notices his confusion. "We're probably going to have to spend the night here, due to the coming snowstorm. Since it's the Cold Ones' habitat, it's not made to accomodate for those requiring positive temperature."
"So?" Izuku asks.
"So, the Nightmare of Frost used magic." Yagi continues. "It only works due to her spending years twiddling with the Frozen Palace, but she can temporarily switch the concept of temperature on and off for people in the vicinity. For the next day or so, you won't feel warm or cold. You could stand outside naked, and you wouldn't freeze to death. It still takes a while to get used to."
…
Holy fuck, their host is somehow more terrifying than Decay now.