Tenzo51 - I really make my readers make the craziest of theories :v
TheGreatBubbaJ - Hopefully not his behaviour :v
Detrametal - All I can say is that Tooru is a delight to write. And that Masaru being the wild one is similarly funny even to me :v
SHDW - It was probably better than way.
Jpx0999 - Lmao, it was always Midoriya's fault, the whole time.
(***)
The checkpoint grew up A LOT, just like everything else in the Special Exclusion Zone (including the Zone itself).
At the beginning it was pretty much a parking lot (slated for two or three vehicles at the same time), plus some sandbags for protection in case something stormed out of the forest. It was mostly used by Tokage's cabal members to pick up herbs, mushrooms, mosses and a few other things that Shiozaki and Komori gathered up and brought to the checkpoint.
They picked them up during their daily trips around controlled sections of the forest, apparently.
Today the checkpoint was much, much bigger. It felt like a small castle, especially the wall made of prefabricated materials that was wide enough for guards (armed, naturally) to be stationed on top of it.
There were battlements on it, actually. And a machine gun atop each of two gates, permanently manned by someone. A handful of Czech hedgehogs (and probably some landmines) covered the tall grass around the checkpoint.
Izuku thinks that he saw a road spike strip, rolled to the side of the road, ready to be deployed to wreak havoc on the wheels of any vehicle trying to approach the checkpoint. Yeah, everything here was very professional.
Gates were closed, of course.
Tooru stopped her car a reasonable distance away from them.
"WHO GOES THERE?!" Someone yelled from the top of the battlement. "IDENTIFY YOURSELF!"
Oh great. Inasa Yoarashi, the head of the checkpoint guards, showed up in person. Yeah, that was going to be… loud. It's nice for him to take his role seriously (Midoriya was paying him for that, after all), but…
Now, their car was an armored one, and it resembled a Humvee in shape, but it was a paramilitary equipment more than a proper military one. Whatever magicorp produced it for Inalco was cutting corners, probably.
Izuku otherwise can't explain why the fuck there were large side windows that could be slid open and closed in armored cars. Yes, the glass was reasonably bulletproof (unless you used piercing munition and a rifle), but still.
Hagakure just opened it wide so that she could shout her answer.
"ARE YOU FUCKING BLIND?!" She yells back. "HOW MANY INVISIBLE DRIVERS ARE THERE AT UA, YOU FUCKING DUMBASS?!"
Midoriya uses his hand mirror to confirm his suspicions. And, yeah, the upper half of Hagakure's body was sticking out of the car window entirely, giving him a very nice look (through the mirror, of course) at her bare bottom.
He wordlessly thanks Hagakure for the treat and keeps looking. Hey, it's a very shapely bottom, and she's clearly having it all covered (pun absolutely intended), right? It's a matter of aesthetics, and Izuku is a connoisseur of those.
"OH HOW LOVELY TO SEE YOU, HAGAKURE!" Yoarashi shouts back. Izuku - if he actually felt like NOT staring at Tooru's naked bottom for a moment - could see him leaning over the edge of the battlements over the gate. Wearing black military fatigues, a bulletproof vest, helmet over a gray balaclava and a strapped assault rifle. "BEFORE I LET YOU IN I NEED TO KNOW YOUR DESTINATION TO NOTE DOWN THE REASON FOR OPENING THE GATE IN THE REPORT FROM MY SHIFT. SO, WHERE ARE YOU HEADING TO?"
"I'M HEADING TO YOUR HOME SO THAT I CAN THUMP YOUR FUCKING MOM IN THE ASS!" Hagakure yells back. Izuku is fairly certain that she is waving her fist threateningly at Yoarashi. "OPEN THOSE GODDAMN GATES OR I'M GOING TO RAM THEM OPEN LIKE I DID HER FRONT ENTRANCE!"
Someone really didn't like being denied the ability to drive even for a moment.
"THE DESTINATION YOU PROVIDED ISN'T A CORRECT ONE, FOR MY MOTHER DOES NOT LIVE IN THIS DIRECTION!" Yoarashi shouts back. He is, no doubt about it, enjoying the shouting match a lot. "TRY AGAIN!"
"You really shouldn't have punched him in the face for shouting at you to drive slower, you know that?" Izuku decides to comment from his seat. He doesn't even bother hiding the hand mirror, really.
"Boss." Hagakure replies dryly. "You focus on staring at my ass, I'll focus on the dickhead up above, got it?" He is completely unsurprised by her awareness that he was staring at said ass, nor by the fact that she agreed to it.
"Got it, go on." Midoriya nods. Then he goes back to his favorite (well, one of his favorites) pastime. Because, seriously, that ass is a work of art.
Sure, it's a view-only deal, but… there is a lot to view in front of him.
"I'M DRIVING YOUR FUCKING WARLORD TO A DATE!" Hagakure then yells. Ugh, he should have told her not to talk about it, Midoriya is trying to not flash his status as UA's chief… uhm… demihuman enjoyer into people's eyes, it makes a lot of them (on both sides) uncomfortable. "USE YOUR EYES YOU HALF-WITTED DUMBASS, YOU CAN SEE HIM RIGHT NEXT TO ME! OPEN THOSE FUCKING DOORS RIGHT NOW OR I'M GOING TO…"
"SHOULD HAVE STARTED FROM THAT, HAGAKURE!" Yoarashi doesn't let her finish. "SHISHIKURA, OPEN THE GATES!"
"I'm standing right next to you." Another watchman in almost identical equipment comments (Izuku has a good enough hearing to hear it), while pressing some buttons on a terminal right next to him. "You don't have to yell."
"BUT I WANT TO!" Yoarashi yells back. "IT'S FUN!" Izuku is somewhat surprised that he didn't choose to be a sound mage, really. It would fit him perfectly.
A moment later the gates open, Hagakure pulling back to the car. She looks as if she reached a state of pure zen now that she could once again drive the car properly.
See, that's the reason why Midoriya put her on probation as a driver, rather than straight-up ban her from it. She really loves doing it, and Izuku Midoriya would feel bad over denying her her favorite hobby.
"So…" She then says, the car rolling through the checkpoint. Some crates under a tarpaulin roof a few people busy packing new haul of plants and other stuff into them, supposed to be transported back to the Overlook once the truck arrives. Two small buildings, pretty much looking like large metal containers with doors (they were trying to avoid spending too much money on this) for the guards to sleep and eat in. "... how did you like my ass?"
Izuku sighs. Yeah, he can imagine what sort of impish grin she has on her face right now.
"Very shapely and aesthetically pleasing as always, Tooru." He replies. "I think it has gotten slightly rounder since the last time I saw it up close, though. Excuse me for saying it like that, but did you…"
"Yeah, I gained some weight." Hagakure admits just as the car goes past the second gateway and rolls out of the checkpoint. "Most of it went to tits and ass, praise Mama Hagakure's good genes. The rest is just a properly heavy workout to make sure it's all nicely shaped."
For obvious reasons, they didn't have a lot of overweight people in UA. Heavy workout was a normal thing. You wanted to be able to outrun at least some of the bulletproof threats out there, after all.
In Izuku's opinion, this had some very positive influence on the amount of eye candies in the vicinity.
"Yaoyorozu would certainly feel threatened by you now, if she didn't graduate already." Izuku replies. "It really suits you. I still think that you should wear clothes, though."
"You think so?" Hagakure asks. Izuku isn't sure if he likes the tone of her voice. "You see, I was actually thinking about changing my style a little. And I think that I found the sort of clothes that I would actually like to wear for most of the time. Aside from, you know, combat deployments. I even have a design for it already prepared!"
"Really?" Izuku asks back, actually glancing in her direction (not like it does everything). "Wanna show it to me?"
The car finally rolls into the Forest of Magical Beast, passing by some returning foraging party. The road up until the Green Tower is an asphalt one, though Hagakure slows down. In case something decided to run onto the road in front of them.
"Sure thing." Hagakure replies. A moment later she hands him her phone. It's the visible sort. Its normally reflective screen serves as an additional anchor for her to use to interact with the world. "I downloaded a picture while I was checking it out, right before you showed up. Should be the last one in the gallery."
Izuku ignores the wallpaper from some car racing game, and checks the gallery. It's…
He coughs loudly.
"That's an, errr, interesting choice of your everyday's outfit." He says, just as Hagakure starts cackling in the background. It's lingerie. A rather bold one. Black, with a garter belt, rather minimalistic thong (partially see-through) and long stockings. "You know what, wear that around me and I might end up asking you out on instinct."
"Boss, we had that talk already." Hagakure replies. She sounds more exasperated than angry. "You're funny, handsome as hell, and it was most certainly the best sex I had in my life, but I told you right from the start that I'm in because I'm curious after hearing all the wild tales about 'ya. But if it was…"
"... going to last for longer it'd mean being in a relationship, and you're strictly monogamous when that's involved." Izuku finishes for her. "Yeah, I know, but it doesn't stop me from trying to tease you back in retaliation, don't treat me seriously."
He really can't blame someone from trying to not get more involved into the chaos that his love life was. Especially with a ghoul being around. Besides, it's nice to have a female friend that he can actually be a dumbass around, without trying to get into their - in this case non-existent - pants.
Then again, it's not like it's that much of a difference.
"Oh, yeah, go on then." Hagakure replies cheerfully. "Tease me all the way, no problems here."
"In my humble opinion, I'm the one being teased more than the other way around." Midoriya mumbles back. The car passes through the river. There is a concrete bridge over it. Which is nice, as the river is wide and deep enough for them to have to rely on amphibious vehicles to cross it without the bridge. "You don't act like that with anyone else around, this borders on giving me mixed signals, you know?"
"Yeah, I guess it could pass off like this, now that you say it." Hagakure admits. "Let me state it clearly then - no, I'm not interested in having sex with you, although expect me to give you a very enthusiastic '11/10, should totally bang at least once in your life' review if some demihuman girl asks me about it."
"That's nice to hear, I guess." Izuku replies, while scratching his head a little. "It's great to have a female demihuman friend that I don't sleep with, actually. Life's not all about that, am I right? I'm still somewhat surprised how, errr, open you are when you're alone with me."
"You're just too damn wholesome, that's the reason." Hagakure replies. Midoriya actually blinks on her.
"I was called a lot of things, 'wholesome' is certainly not on the list." Midoriya replies. Hagakure actually cracks up laughing.
"Not that type of wholesome, you're literally the horniest person I've ever met, and I'm fairly certain that the woman whose house was right next to my orphanage was a cultist of Desire, so it was a high bar." Hagakure then replies. "But I've long ago realized that you'd rather kick the bucket than backstab someone who didn't backstab you first. So I feel completely safe and confident acting like an idiot in front of you, knowing that it won't backfire on me further down the line. And holy shit, if it ain't relaxing."
Oh, that makes an awful lot of sense all of a sudden. Such as the fact that Hagakure was almost routinely losing her clothes when she was acting as Midoriya's driver (meaning that the two of them were the only ones in a vehicle for an extended period of time).
Also, Izuku could relate. Not to losing clothes, though. It's very nice and relaxing to be able to talk his mind to Kacchan about things such as Izuku being rather insecure about having to lead so many people.
Another important lesson for being a mage. Have at least someone that you truly and completely trust right next to you, it'll certainly help you not get insane further down the line.
"Ah, yes." Midoriya nods with a serious look on his face. "That's me, Izuku Midoriya, every demihuman woman's best friend and confidante."
Hagakure downright cackles at that. Her laughter is interrupted, however, as they drive past the bend in the road, just to see that the road was blocked.
By a small herd of what looked like wisents. Izuku has no idea why the forest was populated with a significant population of european bisons (probably so that big cryptid predators had something to eat), but yeah, they were there.
And they were slowly moving from the forest on one side of the road to the other. Each of them a small mountain of flesh and fur, clearly uninterested in moving to their destination quickly.
"Tooru, don't." Izuku states dryly, his eyes still on the bisons in front of them.
"Hey!" Hagakure shouts back. "I'm not insane, I wasn't planning to leave the car and try to punch them in the face for blocking the road!" That's a suspiciously specific denial if Izuku was to be honest. "I'm experienced enough to realize when an opponent is outside of my weight class!"
"What were you planning to do then?" Izuku asks, not entirely trusting her words.
"Well, I might have considered picking the assault rifle from the back of the car." Izuku opens his mouth to complain, but she doesn't let him. "I considered it, past tense damnit, I know it probably wouldn't do a lot, and then the herd might have tried to run us through, I'm not a dumbass!"
"Right, that's reassuring." Izuku sighs. "What about the side roads? The car has some of Shiozaki's 'don't approach' pheromones and spores on it, and it doubles as an off-roader, so it shouldn't be a problem, right?"
"Ugh, the dirt roads are no fun." Hagakure groans. "If you can't drive fast, what's the point of driving at all?! We should…"
It happens quickly. Something casts a shadow over the car for a split second, before something massive (whitetailed wyvern, if Izuku's lessons about cryptids were anything to go by) slams itself into the nearest bison.
It lands on it, strongly enough to slam the bison into the ground, its legs almost certainly broken, wyvern's claws striking deep through its fur, drawing blood. The predator's neck bends, its razor sharp fangs digging into the back of the bison's neck, tearing a solid chunk of flesh in the instant.
The wyvern then lifts off, carrying a soon-to-be-dead bison (which probably weighed at least a few hundred kilograms) in its claws and disappearing at the horizon just as the rest of the herd runs off into the forest.
"Well." Hagakure regained her ability to speak first. "That certainly happened."
Izuku sighs, before taking his phone out of the pocket. There is friendly dumbassery and there is work.
He finds Yoarashi's number and calls him. Naturally, he makes sure to NOT keep the phone by his ear.
"YES, BOSS?!" Yoarashi yells into the phone.
"Issue an emergency recall order to the foraging groups in the forest and tell them to avoid forest clearings on their way back." Midoriya replies. "I just saw a mature whitetailed wyvern pick off an adult bison right in the middle of the road, about two clicks past the bridge."
Humans were much smaller than bisons. And, well, it's entirely possible for one to be killed before wyvern smells the 'not edible' aura that local dryads were attaching to foragers. They were aerial ambush predators after all.
Unfortunately, wyverns tended to kill several things in short succession to stock their nest up a little. And if Izuku correctly identified the reason for the event in question, that particular wyvern was probably badly starved.
"WILL DO." Yoarashi shouts back. "YOU WANT ME TO CONTACT THE OVERLOOK'S AIR DEFENSE?"
Eh, nice to have competent people on his payroll, really. Especially ones showing personal initiative and clearly not having issues with the demihumans all around.
All Might was about 75% sure that Yoarashi transferred to UA from Shiketsu right after Green Course was announced because there was a young demihuman somewhere in his family and Yoarashi was testing the waters to see if the whole thing wasn't a plot to drag demihumans into the open for more efficient mass murder.
If so, Yoarashi wasn't interested in admitting that quite yet.
"Yeah, have the radar station try to track it to its nest." Izuku says, before sighing. Things just got needlessly complicated. "We'll consider putting a bounty on it, but not before I see if the dryads can make it go away."
Midoriya would, honestly, prefer to avoid having to deal with a mature whitetailed wyvern. Those scales could resist gunfire, you need to nail them with a MANPADS or an anti-materiel rifle and they didn't have an awful lot of people proficient at either in their ranks.
Also, yeah, he just saw it kill a bison almost instantly. He genuinely doesn't want to get close to those fangs and claws.
"ON IT, BOSS!" Yoarashi yells. Midoriya, with a feeling of the job well-done, puts the phone down.
Hagakure starts up the engine, the road's clear again and their journey resumes, but the atmosphere changes significantly.
"It's getting worse, doesn't it?" She asks a few seconds later.
"Yeah, I think that we've delayed the blood hornets' extermination for too long." Izuku replies before sighing painfully. "It's the fourth or fifth incident like that, and we already had three near-fatalities. We're almost ready to start the mission but, to be honest, I was waiting for the new batch of students to arrive to have someone in reserve in case things went catastrophically wrong, and…"
"Alright, alright, cut it down." Hagakure replies. "Don't blame yourself for that. I assume that your visit to the Green Tower is at least partially due to you wanting to prepare the operation?"
"Yeah, we really can't do that without the dryads and the Green Tower's going to be pretty much our advance camp." Midoriya replies. "We need a more or less defensible location to retreat to if things go wrong, a place to set a field hospital in and, well, probably Shiozaki & Co to make sure that no large animals are roaming around the battlefield so that we can focus on the fight."
"Sounds like a good plan." Hagakure replies. Not like she has an awful lot of experience in planning, but in her opinion Izuku had it all covered. He was like a sponge for knowledge, really. "So, to change the subject a little, did you see the anime that I recommended to you?"
He, in fact, did. And it was a nice distraction for the rest of their journey.
(***)
Green Tower was no Frozen Palace.
In Izuku's opinion, it was extremely hard to create a habitat as breathtaking as what Soma Michiko created. It was just a statement of fact, regardless of the relationship that Izuku and the Dread Queen of the North shared.
But it got pretty damn close.
It was, to be frank, the biggest tree that Izuku ever saw in his life. In fact, it was bigger than the biggest 'naturally' existing tree of Earth, being a cryptid in itself.
Its trunk was twenty-seven meters wide, with the whole tree being apparently close to one hundred fifty-meters tall. In short, it was very damn big and if the reality warp didn't spawn it having already grown a lot, it would take centuries to grow to this size.
That particular species of cryptid tree had a fun property of being quite… malleable. You could cut a human-sized hole through it, and it would feel perfectly fine. There were equations about how much of its trunk could be severed that way without impairing the tree as a whole, and Shiozaki clearly did the math in question.
There were twelve platforms of varied sizes attached to the side of the tree, circular in shape. Some had roofs (and more than one level), some were completely open, lacking even the walls. Dryads in general preferred open air.
One of said platforms was pretty much a guesthouse, so it was closed completely. Another held the stuff that couldn't be exposed to elements, like computers. Or the armory (dryads weren't pacifists, and it was always better to have more firepower than less).
Platforms were connected by long stairs. Thankfully with railings to make sure no one fell off, because hot damn. Izuku didn't have a fear of heights, but even he found the look from the highest platform rather terrifying.
The malleable nature of the tree made it possible to put pipes and cables through it, limiting the visible part of those. There were also a few passages through the tree itself, shortcuts allowing one to move from one side of it to the other without going around.
It was honestly rather vulnerable to missile strikes and sniper fire. Then again, dryads knew what was happening in their vicinity, thanks to the animals. And a position so high helped them disseminate their spores rather efficiently.
Izuku wouldn't want to be the one to attack such a position, really. And it wasn't going to be a place just for dryads, too!
It was going to be a central hub for more 'forest-themed' demihumans. Izuku, for example, expected most of the animalkin that showed up (they had several among the new Green Course students) to move there sooner or later.
Shiozaki was ready to expand the few more utility-themed buildings at the base of Green Tower into a small village for them, if needed.
In short, it was a very pleasant place to look at, and another major landmark that the Special Exclusion Zone developed nowadays. The fact that it was a part of Izuku's personal 'empire' was still a rather alien thought to him.
Hagakure, surprisingly enough, stopped the car right at the edge of the forest clearing surrounding the Green Tower. Very nice look at the scenery, although the low wooden wall marking it was hiding the base of the tree from them.
"Tooru?" Izuku asks. "What are you doing?" He can hear some hard to identify sounds coming from her side of the car.
"I'm wearing my clothes, obviously." She replies. She sounds vaguely insulted at being asked that question. "Hey, I might be a nudist, but I have to draw the line somewhere, right? I'm going to be leaving the car soon, and in the middle of a settlement, duh. There might be mirrors around, and that's enough to make people see me."
…
Well, technically? Most of the inhabitants were dryads, they only had one or two other demihumans right now, and probably a foraging party or two stopping before heading out (or having just rushed back to the nearest secure location after hearing Yoarashi's warning), but…
He decides to not address the part of her sticking out of the window to give Yoarashi a piece of her mind. It was probably road rage speaking.
"Hey, that's a nice T-Shirt!" Izuku comments, checking her reflection in his hand mirror. "Golden retriever-themed? Suits you."
"Aww, how nice of you to say that!" She replies cheerfully. Yeah, she was a big dog person. "Alright, clothes on, we can finish the trip."
The car starts again. Two minutes later she parks it in the Green Tower's garage, right by one of the giant roots of the tree. Izuku thanks Hagakure for the ride, and leaves the car… just to see Ibara Shiozaki, walking towards him at a rather fast pace (for her).
Uh-oh.
(***)
Seriously, Tooru 'Road Rage' Hagakure is hilarious and, like Shoto 'Popcorn' Todoroki it kind of came out of nowhere. Huh.
Inasa Yoarashi is there, in the background, being pretty much his canon self. He is kind of fun too.