Chapter 45: It's An Avocado...Thanks...
"Looks like you have an admirer." Eraser whispered to Izuku while he was in the middle of observing some of the student's individual quirk training.
Izuku's eyes darted over to where Kota stood hiding halfway behind a tree, not even hiding at all, and then back at the student who was shooting as much tape as he could from his elbows. He hummed and circled the student. "He's been there since this morning, don't know why though."
"Maybe he just likes you."
Izuku let out a small laugh, "Yeah right, because I'm sooo likeable."
"Believe it or not, some people actually quite enjoy your charm."
"Aww Eraser," The boy looked at the hero with sad eyes and placed his hand over his heart, "I didn't know you cared."
"I didn't say me, idiot."
"No, but you felt it."
"Did not."
"Did too."
"Can you two shut up please? I'm trying to focus." The student grunted out as he continued to push himself, even though he looked to be in severe discomfort.
The two of them apologized and decided that they should move on to another student before they distracted him anymore.
"So, what we have planned for tonight, do you think it's a good idea?"
"Absolutely." Izuku nodded as a small smirk crept up his face, "I'm so glad you didn't go with the test of courage, this is going to be so much better."
"It better be. It was your idea."
"They're going to love it."
Official training had ended for the day, and everyone was cleaning up from dinner and buzzing about the special activity Eraser had said that they would be participating in tonight. Hitoshi had tried to pry the information out of Izuku, but the boy was practically a safe when it came to secrets. No matter how much you tried, he just wouldn't budge.
Once they finished, they all went to meet their teacher right in front of the woods where they found that the 1-B teacher Vlad King and the other two Pussycat members also were.
The class questioned the surprising arrival of the other teacher and pros, but before they could speculate too much, Eraser called all of their attention to him.
"Alright, we have something very special planned for you all tonight. We thought that it would be nice if you all got to do something fun, so for tonight's activity, you'll be going up against class 1-B in a game of capture the flag."
Students all around broke into excited whispers but were quieted by their teacher's cold glare and unmistakable feeling of their quirks being erased.
"The other students are already on their side hiding their flag, the boundary line is the trail. If you get tagged, you'll have to go to their team's jail and can only be broken out by an untagged teammate. The goal is to infiltrate the other class's territory, find and capture their flag, and bring it back over to your territory. Got it?"
Choruses of yes sirs and shouts of approval filled the air and Eraser threw a bright yellow flag to Iida and told him to figure out a good place to hide it where the other team will be able to find it if they make it over here.
He explained some more in-depth rules and then it was strategizing time.
Izuku had decided to referee along with the Pussycats as Eraser and Vlad King had to teach the students who didn't pass their exams in some extra classes. The failed students practically had to be dragged away and Izuku sent the poor kids a sympathetic smile before he went back to observing 1-A's strategizing.
Hitoshi seemed to be integrating well. Izuku was a bit worried that it might be hard for him to transfer in halfway through the year, but it seemed as though the students of 1-A were more welcoming than he had given them credit for.
They finished their strategizing and sent two of the students to go hide the flag and confirmed that they were ready to start.
Mandalay used her quirk to let everyone know that it was time to start and to explain a few safety rules just in case. And just as soon as the word start rang in everyone's head, the students were off.
It was entertaining seeing just how into the game everyone was getting. Eraser had thought that some sort of test of courage would be fun, but Izuku quickly bulldozed the idea and came up with this instead. He was glad to see that the students seemed to be enjoying themselves.
Mandalay decided to start walking around and monitoring, while the other members stayed to keep an eye on the two classes and invited Izuku to join her. He obliged and the two began making their way through the woods.
They walked in a comfortable silence. Izuku liked Mandalay, even if he didn't know her all that well, he could just tell. Unlike the other members of her team, the woman was more reserved and quiet. It was a nice change from the rowdiness that he had to put up with around the 1-A students.
The two of them kept their eyes on their surroundings, which seemed fine until that feeling crept up Izuku's spine again and he whipped his head around to see if there was anything strange he could point out, but of course, it was nothing.
"Is everything okay?" Mandalay asked from beside him.
He stared off just searching for something before he let out a sigh and turned back to the pro. "Yeah, I just keep on getting this feeling like something is off."
"Off like how?"
"I'm not sure, just like something is wrong and things are going to get bad. I've had it since we got here."
"Hmm, Eraser did mention something like that to us. Tora and Ragdoll did a full search of the forest and came up with nothing."
Izuku's brows furrowed, "Yeah, I suspected as much. I just can't seem to get rid of this sinking feeling I have."
"Well, I trust Eraser and Eraser trusts you, so I don't think you should discount your feelings just yet. Our instincts are there for a reason, to warn and protect us from things that we cannot necessarily see yet. We'll keep an eye out and make sure that everything is okay."
The two of them picked their pace back up and fell into silence once again. That was until the pro decided to break it.
"Kota…you have gotten pretty close to him, haven't you?"
Izuku thought about it for a moment. He wouldn't say that he was close to the kid, but he had to admit that he had gotten closer than anyone else. "You could say that. He's a good kid, just has a lot of baggage."
"He told you." It wasn't a question. Mandalay could see the knowledge of what had happened swimming around in his eyes that were still bright even in the middle of a dark forest. "That's a surprise. He doesn't talk about it with anyone, not even me."
"Because you treat him like he's made of glass."
"Isn't he? He's a child who's lost more than anyone ever should at that age."
"You're right. He has lost a lot, but he's a lot stronger than you give him credit for."
"He shouldn't have to be."
"But he is." Izuku slowed his steps and looked up at the pro whose expression had turned melancholy. "I know better than anyone what that kind of pain does to you, and I know how frustrating it is to be treated less because of it."
Mandalay's eyes shot towards Izuku, "I'm not treating him less! I'm just trying to protect and love him and-"
"And protect him from pain that he's already dealing with. There's no use in trying to coddle him now. Like it or not, he was forced to grow up and deal with what happened; it's unfair of you to try to treat him like he didn't. He's not that same innocent little kid anymore."
The pro let out a sigh and stared forward, her eyes overflowing with sadness. "You're right…"
"Yeah, as much as I hate to admit it, I'm kind of an expert with that kind of thing."
"Understanding kids?"
"Understanding pain. I've been through more than my fair share of it, but now I'm able to help and guide others who are going through similar things."
Mandalay was quiet for a moment before she let out a quiet scoff, "You know, you sound an awful lot like Eraser."
"I will accept that as a compliment just this once, but do not ever compare me to him again." Izuku chuckled softly, trying to lighten the air just a bit and the pro laughed right alongside him.
"Alright, alright, I won't bring up the fact that he acts like your father."
"He's not my-" Izuku's words were cut off as the two suddenly began to smell the scent of smoke. Both of their heads snapped up in attempt to be able to smell more clearly and to try to find the source of the smoke. Izuku looked all around until he saw a rapidly growing pillar of black rising from somewhere in the woods. "I freaking knew it."
"We have to get back to camp and see what's going on. I'll contact everyone to meet us there so we can regroup and-" The two of them had started running back towards camp when Izuku suddenly stopped in his tracks causing Mandalay to stop as well. "What's wrong?"
"It's Kota. He's not back at camp, I know, I saw him sneaking off before we left."
"Where would he be?"
Izuku thought for a moment as he tried to keep his mind from racing with all of the worst scenarios that it could possibly think of. "I know where he is, and if we're really under attack, then I have to go."
"Wait!" Mandalay grabbed his arm as he tried to run off. "I can get to him and tell him to meet us."
"But what if we actually are under attack? There is no way that I'm allowing anyone to lay their hands on that kid. They'll have to kill me first and I'm not one to go down easily." He shook his arm from her grip and broke out into a sprint, running as fast as he could and praying that Kota was okay.
He raced up the mountain trail until he came to a familiar open cliffside, and everything seemed to happen in slow motion.
As he entered the clearing, his eyes zeroed in on Kota, who looked to be shaking and crying as a very large and deranged man stood over him. Wasting absolutely no time, Izuku swooped in under the man, scooped the kid up into his arms, and took off in the other direction.
The man hadn't even realized what had happened until Izuku was gone and he yelled out a taunting curse as he sprinted away with Kota shaking in his arms. "Very impressive, but you won't be getting away from me that easily!"
One moment Izuku was running towards the trail down the mountain and the next pain erupted from his back and he was being knocked off course and found himself tumbling down the side of the cliff. He caged Kota into his chest and braced himself to take the brute of everything until he eventually got to the bottom and stopped rolling.
His arms stayed taut around the boy and get let out a groan as he tried to take in his surroundings. That guy must've slammed into him and sent him down the cliff. Great.
He shakily got to his feet, still holding Kota, and tried to figure out which way was to camp. He flinched slightly when the man's booming voice echoed down the cliff, and he took off again.
Unfortunately, he wasn't nearly as fast as he needed to be. With the extra weight of Kota, and the throbbing pain that was enveloping the entirety of his body, he wasn't able to move at his normal speed, but that didn't mean that he was going to give up.
He just kept on running, whispering encouragements to the boy trembling in his arms, and hoping to God that he was going in the right direction.
When he felt the ground shake and a large boom sound behind him, he pushed through the pain and picked up the pace, just repeating prayers in his head over and over again that everything would be okay.
It wasn't too long before his surroundings began to look familiar, but he had to take a bit of a detour when he came across some strange looking fog that just stayed on the edge of the tree line. He wondered if maybe that was some sort of quirk and whose it was, because he knew that no one at camp had a quirk like that, but quickly brushed his curiosity aside in favor of pushing himself to run faster.
After a few more minutes, Izuku emerged at the camp where a bunch of students were gathered. He practically sighed in relief at the sight and actually accidentally barreled right into Hitoshi who could not look more relieved to see him.
The three of them went down, Kota still safe in Izuku's arms and the boy finally allowed himself to let out a breath of relief. Unfortunately, it was a short breath as suddenly that same man from the cliff emerged from the woods with his body looking like it got turned inside out.
Izuku grimaced and quickly shot to his feet and passing Kota off to Hitoshi who was still on the ground.
"Oh hoho? Lookie, lookie, so many young students to kill…" The man looked around with a wild hunger in his eye, until his gaze landed on Izuku, and that hunger seemed to intensify. "Let's start with you though, I love it when they run and you're quite fast."
Everyone was quiet, frozen and unsure of just what to do, when Izuku raced towards the man who had seemed to double in size and began to fight him.
Mandalay and Pixie Bob emerged from the crowd of students and watched in horror as Izuku zipped around the villain that had infiltrated their camp as if they were playing a game of cat and mouse.
Surprisingly, the kid was doing well with holding his own, but Eraser had mentioned briefly his skills and so the two thought that maybe it wasn't all that surprising.
Izuku circled the man, trying to land any sort of hit he could on him, but nothing seemed to quite work, and he had jumped into the air in an attempt to punch the guy when he was snatched up by the back of his shirt and slammed into a tree, his back seeming to curve around the trunk.
"Izuku!" Hitoshi instinctually tried to run forward to his best friend but was held back by a scarf wrapping itself around his wrist from out of nowhere. He turned and saw both Eraser and Vlad King storming out of the building they had been holding the extra classes in and as his teacher's eyes fell onto Izuku's limp body his eyes flashed red. "Eraser-" Hitoshi tried, but as the pro pulled him behind him and took slow steps forward, he knew that he was past reasoning.
As much as he hated to admit it, he cared for Izuku and let that care cloud his judgment a lot of the time. Mic told Hitoshi about how he had to hold the hero back from doing something he regretted multiple times when Izuku was involved, but Hitoshi also knew that he was in no position to try and stop him.
The boy's limp body moved slowly out of the corner of his eye and Izuku let out a pained groan that almost sounded more annoyed than anything. "Ugh…" He pushed himself to his knees and glared over at the large man with the cyborg eye, "Bi*."
He groaned as he got to his feet and rolled out his limbs as if trying to disperse the pain his body was in.
"Sup Eraser, you're late."
"Shut up."
"Yeah, yeah, you go high, I'll go low." Nothing else was said before the two were off and moving almost in sync with each other. Bobbing and weaving as if they knew each other's moves by heart and working seamlessly as they landed hit after hit against the man who was quickly getting frustrated.
He got his hands around Izuku again and frisbeed him at Eraser, who simply jumped over the boy who crashed and rolled on the ground before getting up with a curse and joined back into the fray.
Vlad King stood back and made sure that all of the students were behind him. He turned around and did a quick headcount, trying to see just who they were missing and noted that they were about ten students short and let out a curse under his breath.
The Pussycats had ended up either heading back into the forest to look for the other students or engaging in combat themselves. Two other villains had appeared and were being held off by Tora and Pixie Bob, one who looked like a teenage mutant ninja turtle who had just raided a knife store, and the other was carrying what looked like a huge rectangular magnet that they were using as a weapon.
Hitoshi turned his attention back to Izuku and Eraser's fight and found it already done with. Eraser had cancelled the villain's quirk and Izuku made quick work of knocking him out and tying him up with those zip ties he always had on him.
The two stood up, both panting and eying the villain before looking back at each other. "You good?" The pro asked and the boy simply nodded.
"Where's Kota?" Izuku did a quick scan of the students and his expression immediately softened when his eyes landed on the small child. "I'm so glad you're safe," He knelt down to wrap his arms around the still trembling boy.
"Me? What about you?" He sniffled into Izuku's shoulder, but thankfully he didn't seem to care. "You saved me and-and you could've died and-"
Izuku shushed the boy and rubbed his back, "It's alright, you should know me better than to think that I'd go down so easily."
"Yeah…you're right, you're kinda a bada*"
"Da*n straight." The two let out weak chuckles and Izuku got back to his feet and ruffled the small boy's hair before placing his hat back on his head.
Everyone! I discovered something from the villains, they're after the students Katsuki Bakugou and-
Mandalay's quirk rung in everyone's head, but was cut off when all of a sudden, the entire world around Izuku went dark and then…nothing.