At the Mountain Zone…
„You desired a stronger opponent? Ce zici de mine?"
Katsuki's eyes widened.
If it hadn't been serious before, it was now. No more playing around, no more rushing them with the rank and file. He'd noticed that much immediately – actually, screw that. You'd have to be mindblowing amounts of stupid to not notice. It was that aura, the same one that'd washed over him before acid had eaten into his palms; before his body had been engulfed by sludge and he'd been choking on the cloying thickness.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Katsuki slowly took a step back and braced himself for the oncoming onslaught.
But the man just took a look around at first, the faintly glowing orbs in his skull somehow conveying appreciation as he took in the wannabe villains they'd crushed in the ground. "A fine job, I will admit." His accent was as thick as Deku's skull and something about it pissed Katsuki off, but neither he nor Shi- Kirishima made a move. He was… bold, but he wasn't an idiot. They had an unknown quantity before them and if he charged headfirst into the fight without assessing his opponent, he'd deserve getting thrashed.
"I am Lich," the soon-to-be-dead asshole stated. "I am a… salaryman, yes? From România." Ah, so he had been right about Eastern Europe. He smirked to himself before the rest of the statement sunk in. A salaryman? No. That guy was… fuck. A mercenary? Or a Keeper? No, probably not that, he hasn't killed us yet. But still… shit. He's a professional. FUCK THIS – no. Calm down. C'mon, Deku. Show me what your babbling is good for. Get analyzing.
"Alright, Bonehead. What d'ya want?" Looked like he respects balls. We better don't show weakness.
"Lich," Bonehead corrected. "Did I mispronounce, perhaps?" Wait, did he mean that? He… had sounded oddly sincere? Still, no way he actually didn't speak Japanese but knew words like 'mispronounce'. Was there?
"Well…" Lich continued, "I was hired by the liga de răufăcători to assist them in their aim of assassinating All Might." He said that like it wasn't that big of a deal. As if it was something he did on a daily basis.
Oh, right. He probably did.
"I promise I will not let you suffer. I am not a savage. And, to speak markly – ah, no. Frankly, that was the word. You two make for an interesting pair. So, shall we begin?"
With that he let his cloak fall to the ground in what was obviously a practiced motion, revealing a skeleton.
Literally. Lich was a fucking skeleton.
For a second, Katsuki felt so offended by the notion that some honest-to-fucking-god cartoon character lookalike was challenging him that it nearly caught him off guard when said lookalike did attack.
Lich certainly didn't waste any time. His bones fell apart like gravity had suddenly remembered to do its job, then said "fuck it" again and went for a smoke as his body starting twirling around his floating head like a badly animated miniature hurricane.
"What the-" Kirishima got cut off by a rib hitting him in the back. Shortly after that Katsuki caught a collarbone in the side, then some sort of finger bones trying to scratch out his motherfucking eyes and something unidentifiable to the back of his knee.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, that fucker. How do you like THIS then, huh?
…Aaand looks like he didn't feel it. Fucktastic. Alright, his Quirk is some kind of bone manipulation… obviously. Ah, SCREW YOU, I'M TRYING TO THINK OVER HERE, YOU DECEREBRATED PIECE OF SHIT! Nope. I'm calm. Perfectly serene. The picture of tranquility, that's me and shut up, Inner Deku. So, humans have about 200 bones. That means you have 200 projectiles, right? THAT WAS MY KIDNEY GODDAMMNIT FUCK YOU.
Wait. On the other hand… 200 projectiles also means 200 working points.
Katsuki grinned. Ah, he loved the feeling of knowing what he had to do.
"Alright, fucker. Bring it on!" He hadn't needed to use his tanks against the riff-raff, which meant they were still fully charged. Perfect. He struck a T-pose with his palms turned to the outside, made sure Kirishima wasn't in his line of fire (although he'd probably survive a hit, judging by the way the bones had yet to actually put a scratch on him), activated one tank on each side and roared:
"MULTIPLE WARHEAD!"
Boom.
He'd prepared himself for a world of hurt the moment he'd chosen this technique, but was still left reeling. He did not remember the kickback being this strong, ever. Had they overestimated his strength when requesting his items? Fuck. Rookie mistake. Fucking fuck.
On the bright side, the shockwave he'd generated had been strong enough to scatter Lich's bones all over the place as well as dislocating at least one of his shoulders and nearly blowing Kirishima into a nearby building.
"Dude! That was… the manliest thing I've seen in years!" He teared up a bit (why did the world have so many idiots in it who'd start crying every two seconds? It was like they had feelings or something!). "Oh. Er, you doing alright?"
"Better believe I am," Katsuki grunted while trying to not pass out from the pain. His left shoulder was screaming at him. Fuck.
"That was quite the impunător display of power from you. I am highly impressed."
Oh, please. Was that shitstain serious? That had been enough raw power to destabilize… oh, whatever. Of course it couldn't be that easy.
"Kirishima," he growled. "Left shoulder. Dislocated. Hurry up before Bonehead goes for round two." Kirishima's eyebrows shot up before he nodded and went to work.
Now that really hurt. It clearly wasn't the first time Kirishima did this, and he relocated it as quickly and efficiently as it could, but still… SWEET MOTHER OF FUCK. Katsuki blacked out for a moment when the crunching and popping hit its peak and blinked when he suddenly found himself holding onto Kirishima's arm like a motherfucking infant. He got himself back up and - SSSSHIT. His bones felt like they were on fire. This was how he'd imagine getting burned by his explosions, if he could set them off inside of people's joints that was. His left arm hung down limply to the side after Kirishima was done and he could almost feel it grinding together when he tried to move it. Note to self… stronger shoulder bracers. Three times stronger at least. AAH. Make that five times. Fucking hell.
"Răsunător!" Lich exclaimed. "Truly tranșant!" His bones clattered as they rearranged themselves to his skeleton form. A time limit? Or had he damaged him in some way? "And you even managed to scorch a few of my bones! Felicitări!"
"I. Don't. Speak. Your. Motherfucking. Language!"
Lich sighed. To his irritation it sounded just like when Deku did it. "Well then. For your sake, I shall spoil the beautiful language of my homeland and stoop to your levels. Do not consider your disrespect gone unnoticed, however. I will remember this."
Katsuki didn't even care anymore. He just leveled his right palm at the villain and gave off some warning sparks. "Fuck off."
"Uh, bro. None of my business, I know, but I think may we shouldn't… y'know, antagonize the scary skeleton dude?"
Katsuki scoffed. Antagonize, his ass. If he had to worry about antagonizing a guy who'd just tried to skewer them with his bones, his life was fucked anyway. He tried moving his left arm again and FUCK FUCK FUCK no. One-handed it was, then.
"You got a plan?" Kirishima raised his fists again. "I can handle him for a few minutes if he can't hit harder than he did just now, but… er, I'm pretty sure he can."
Katsuki frowned. Didn't the idiot see he was thinking? Time. He needed time. Think of a plan. Don't try to fight him, try to find a way out of here. "Why do you even work for those assholes?" he asked aloud. "Can't picture those League fuckers to pay better than… I don't know, the Drought or something." Note to self: More research into European villains. At least he hadn't picked Heavenly Fire. That would have gone over really well.
Kirishima seemed to have caught his drift, at last, seeing how he stopped making suspicious faces and looked Lich into the eyes instead. His faux interest was about as convincing as Deku claiming he'd skip out on an All Might exhibition, but at least it looked like he was learning.
Lich, also known as _ _, was a man with more than two decades of experience under his belt, which was something he took a certain amount of pride in – in his profession, most careers tended to be cut short (often literally, unfortunately) by naivety, recklessness, idiocy, credulity, carelessness or two dozen other pitfalls he'd be able to name, after a few years at most. His hadn't, and he was very decidedly not smug about that. He was efficient, his success rates spoke for themselves, he was fluent in eight languages and decent with around twenty-five, was – and he was surprised by this himself, really – perfectly capable of blending in within a crowd, had no peer when it came to infiltration and so on and so forth. He was good. That was not vanity. It was just how it was.
His prices tended to reflect that expertise. He had reached a state in which he only needed to take one assignment every four months or so to cover his – admittedly considerable – expenses. In his defense, those castles wouldn't maintain themselves, now, would they? That aside, his being good meant he got a surplus of job offers – way more than he could hope to get done without justified divorce threats from his husband. Which, in turn, meant he got to pick. Sometimes he chose the biggest price tag, sometimes he just grabbed the one on top of the pile (which had once led to one very memorable mission where a nine-year-old had hired him to locate her apparently sentient pineapple), but sometimes, on rare occasions, he took the one that looked most interesting.
The original job description had been just that – an attack on a Japanese hero school. Specifically, the Japanese hero school – it might be that in Japan itself U.A. High School was known for butting heads with their other big one, Shiketsu High, but the fact remained that only the former was of worldwide renown, and with the 'Symbol of Peace' as a teacher it had experienced another surge in popularity. Which should have made this assignment more absorbing, really, especially if his guesses about the identity of his client's mentor were proven correct. It should have been occasion for an evening of quality time – dinner at a pricey restaurant, a long bath with beeswax candles to settle the mood, a tastefully terrible movie. It should have.
Yet.
Now, Lich didn't hold a grudge against All Might. To his mind grudges were yet another reason for the aforementioned short life expectancy. He somewhat admired law enforcers, if anything – their jobs were amongst the most dangerous in the world; you had to respect their guts at least. Still, that was not the reason for his agitation.
He had a habit – no, he made a point – of keeping collateral damage to an absolute minimum. Not just for practical reasons (although it did help if your reputations was 'calm and efficient' instead of 'reckless brute') but also because of a pesky little mental barrier he hadn't ever made more than half-hearted attempts to break down.
Lich had a conscience.
He didn't kill innocents whose only offense had been being in the wrong place at the wrong time (though admittedly he didn't go out of his way to save them, either). He didn't torture, he didn't act with needless cruelty. He didn't target certain individual people and places he found too risky to approach (one of his spare bedrooms was decorated with all the offers on Friedefürst's head he'd 'politely refused'). And, lastly, he didn't accept offers that went against his personal views. Those included targeting youngsters – he didn't really see the point of killing someone who didn't have their future set yet – as well as Romanians (yes, he was aware he was biased in this regard) and nonhuman lifeforms. He was not going phalange-to-phalange with any Quirk-wrought abominations, thank you very much.
And yet, here he was. Fighting children.
He had been considering calling off the contract right then and there when his client, one Shigaraki Tomura (on whom he'd already started a file; his intuition told him it might come in handy), had told them outright that if their plan to directly engage All Might failed, they'd target the hero students. It had been seconds before the whole thing had started. The sheer unprofessionalism of it alone was staggering.
He'd already had his reservations when it had been only about All Might, a man with character few could hope to equal. Even so – before that everything had indicated that he was supposed to help ending a Pro Hero's life, which ultimately would've been little more than another job. (Except that he'd insisted on advance payment, as insurance because he recognized a plan doomed to failure if he saw one.)
The moment he'd been teleported in the Mountain Zone and heard the Mist Villain ("Kurogiri", and wasn't that an imaginative name?) stating that due to a "minor change in the plan" he was to finish off two students beforehand, however, Lich had decided that enough was enough. He'd engaged the two, fully intending to let them escape as soon as they tried to. Instead they had started seriously fighting him, even though they had to have realized how far out of their league he was. This led him to two surprising conclusions.
Firstly, they fought to ensure he wouldn't start looking around for easier targets, like their friends.
Secondly… he enjoyed it.
Contrary to what one might imagine, Lich's usual targets were not skilled, impressive warriors he had to work hard and fight tooth and nail to overcome. No, they were politicians. CEOs. Advisors. People with influence. So save for the occasional villain or hero he seldom faced a contract for which he'd need more than to insert his stapes into their ears or nose and mix the target's brain to mush. And that was… dull. He had accepted this contract not least because All Might was not going to be felled that easily. It had intrigued him – what kind of brilliant scheme, what kind of wondrous Quirk or horrific superweapon would the League deploy against what could arguably be considered the living, breathing embodiment of Good, Law and Justice, as far as those concepts went? Shigaraki obviously didn't trust Lich, or he wouldn't have pointed to the ugly brute they had brought with them – as if he was supposed to believe one-on-one combat was how the Symbol of Peace could be brought down – but he had nonetheless been excited to see what kind of strategy they would actually employ, as soon as the Number One arrived.
And now, he was having fun.
So – of course he had countless possibilities to deal with those two students, ranging from simply impaling them with his ribs or choking them using his hand and feet bones, all the way to slipping a tooth inside their mouths and ripping apart their throats. But he wasn't about to, and it helped that the two of them fought with a kind of spunk that you found oh-so-rarely in people as they grew up. Those two had something in their hearts. Something that lent them power of a sort someone who fought just for fighting's sake couldn't match, something that made the blond youth willingly dislocate his shoulder and the redhead taking the brunt of his onslaught. Something that distinguished them from himself, that marked them as better people.
Lich could respect that.
So when the two boys faced him again, talking brave and standing defiant, he decided to do something that went against his work ethic of "no unnecessary risks". And cruelty, he supposed, but he did want a story to bring home to _, and if it wasn't going to be one of his fight against All Might… well.
Eijiro was frightened.
As familiar as the feeling should have been by now, to him it just… wasn't. The ice in his veins didn't seem any less numbing, the veil of fear before his eyes no less obscuring. They were outmatched, badly so, and all of them knew it. Oh, Bakubro was acting tough, but that didn't change the fact that he wouldn't be throwing around heavy attacks anytime soon, neither would he be flying. And Lich's bones were so small and fast that Eijiro had better chances at spontaneously developing a second Quirk than catching one of them.
Still, he couldn't give up here. Not just because it wouldn't actually change anything except get them killed even faster, but also because he knew that if he let his fear get the better of him right now, he wouldn't be able to trust himself to stand his ground the next time, or the next, or ever again. Being a man was supposed to be about fighting despite one's fears. Rush in even though your instincts screamed at you to run away and hide. Be strong, or pretend to be until lie and reality had become indistinguishable.
So Eijiro cracked his fists together and roared out his challenge, and his voice only cracked a tiny bit.
When Lich shot around thirty projectiles at them, tiny enough they were probably part of his feet or something similar, the two of them did not back down. Bakubro unleashed a barrage of explosions with his good arm, sending the bones back flying even though his face was contorting with pain every time his shoulder was jostled. And Eijiro… well, he did his best to take as many hits for Bakubro as possible. If punching his opponent's lights out wasn't viable, his means for offense were limited. Bakubro didn't protest Eijiro's course of action, which was a net plus for him, but having to accept help from someone he'd barely known for four days seemed to rankle him.
Nevertheless, he just grunted and blew the assaulting bones away, again, and again, and again, and Eijiro was the shield, still trying to grab a bone in order to do some actual damage. Lich was unfazed through it all (probably; facial expressions were weird in heteromorphs).
After a couple of minutes tops, Eijiro was panting and rapidly nearing his point of exhaustion, while Bakugo failed to stifle a groan of pain as he batted away another salvo of the bones that seemed to multiply every time Eijiro took his eyes off them.
Though, if he was being honest? None of it hurt as much as the knowledge that Lich was toying with them.
When the battle ended, it did so as swiftly and one-sidedly as he could've predicted from the start. The mercenary launched a surprise attack from behind their backs, forming some sorts of collars around their necks with his vertebrae and before Eijiro had fully comprehended what was happening ribs, shins, femurs, blade- and collarbones and however-you-called-thems were encompassing them, tightening around them like some sort of bone armor and rendering them unable to move.
"Nemaipomenit! Magnificent!" Lich sounded strangely proud, as if the two of them had just accomplished something. "Ah, yes, I forgot. You're xenophobic, so no Romanian. Well then…"
Eijiro tried and struggled against his bonds, but couldn't tell if Lich noticed. It seemed like he'd used every bone at his disposal to contain the two, the only exception being the floating head in front of them. His cowl lay behind him, disregarded. Eijiro frantically looked at Bakugo, but he wasn't faring any better. Small, off-white shards had clasped around his hands and forced them shut. Smoke was escaping from his palms, but accomplished nothing.
They'd lost.
"…you will have to decide something now."
Eijiro glared at him in frustration and anger and he was still scared, now more than ever with his life at Lich's disposal and beingunable to move, but his mask was still in place, cracking and crumbling, but not gone yet. So he mustered all the fake courage he could muster and met his eerie, pale green gaze. "What do you want?"
The courage had only extended to his expression, evidently. His voice sounded pitiful, more like a petulant child than a warrior.
But it didn't matter because Lich's answer, articulated succinctly and slowly, shattered his composure into a thousand little pieces. "I am going to kill one of you. You must decide who it will be."
Eijiro's eyes widened in terror, because this couldn't be happening. Lich – no, people – couldn't be this vicious. He was lying, he had to be.
Except he wasn't, was he? This was like the villain in every story book ever, giving the hero an impossible choice, except the cavalry wasn't bursting out of the buildings, ready to save the day. Lich was going to do what he pleased, he was going to kill one of them, and Eijiro – didn't want to die. But if it had to be him or Bakugo, if it had to… he couldn't; just couldn't imagine it, the whole situation was just absurd, as if every second now their teachers would be jumping out of their hiding spaces and yell "logical ruse!" but no one was coming and Lich was waiting. Eijiro's teeth were chattering when he opened his mouth to speak the words that'd seal their fates and he didn't know which ones it would be, but-
"Take me."
-Bakugo preempted him. His eyes were fixed on the ground, his expression strained, but his voice was steady and almost calm.
"What the hell are you talking about, man?" The fire in his voice astonished even Eijiro himself. Suddenly the danger, the fear, the choice what did I want to say?, the villain, they all took a backseat when righteous anger flooded his veins, directed at someone who'd just made an incredibly, staggeringly dumb decision. "You're stronger than me! And you're faster than me! And you're just… better at this stuff than me! You're seriously saying you want to, what, back out now, without even trying to put up a fight? What about the others, huh? I thought we were supposed to go and help them!"
Bakugo scoffed. "For starters? You don't have a fucking dislocated shoulder, Shitty Hair! Anyway, we don't have time for this. You'll do far better than me, so you're more useful than me right now. Alright, if that psycho is really letting you go after this, this is what you're gonna do: First, get to the-"
But Eijiro wasn't having any of it. "Just stop it right there. Are you for real right now? What's happened to all the 'I'm going to be the Number One' talk? Is that all it was? Talk?" He spat the word in Bakugo's face like it was something dirty, and was rewarded for it when his body stiffened. "You're just at the beginning and now you just want to throw away your life for one other guy? What sort of hero would be willing to save just one if it meant abandoning thousands?" Bakugo looked at him, taken aback. Eijiro knew that this wasn't like him, but he had to say this now, he had to get through his thick head. He had to.
But then Bakugo interrupted him.
"Because that's what a fucking hero does!" and there was something raw in that sentence Eijiro couldn't place, "That's what All Might does, that's what fucking D- what any halfway decent hero does! You see someone needs help in front of you; well you better shove that goddamn help in their face! Now will you stop fucking with me!"
"May I…" Lich started, just for Bakugo and Eijiro turning around and shouting, "SHUT UP!"
The villain sighed as the two of them started yelling at each other. They quietened down soon enough, though, when the bone straitjackets dug into their necks.
Lich regarded them with his eldritch expression somehow conveying… awkwardness?
"I offer you my sincerest apologies for this… ruse, I think it's called. Formidable, really. Both of you argued from a stance of selflessness, neither one accepting the other's sacrifice. You are fine young men indeed." The eye-orbs (or how to call them) changed their shape into crescents, which looked cute in a way that turned right back into horrific territory. "The shortest way to the central plaza should be this direction; you may yet have a chance of saving your classmates."
Eijiro looked at him, dumbfounded. "Y-you… you never planned on killing us?"
Lich actually laughed. "But of course I didn't! My act seems to have caused you unduly fright, and for that it seems I should apologize – but in all seriousness, I do have standards. It would hardly ever occur to me to kill a youngster."
The bone shackles became loose and soon enough the bones were floating back under the robe, one after another. "This must not sit well with you, but. I thank you for this. It was delightful. I await our next encounter with anticipation, young fledglings." Lich seemed privately amused by something for a second, before snapping his fingers with a resounding crack that sounded less like fingers snapping and more like fingers snapping. "Speaking of which…" and with that he reached into his skull and pulled out two gleaming metal cards. "My business cards. I understand the practice is widespread, here? So, if you ever find yourself in need of connections to the more… flexible side of the law," the cards floated into their hands, carried by little foot bones, "I will make sure to give you a generous discount. My apologies for the inappropriate prank, again. Good luck!"
With that, Lich soared up into the air and absented himself.
Bakubro sat down on the ground, staring at the card in his hand without actually looking at it. Then, slowly, he pressed his palms on both sides of it and unleashed a small explosion. The piece of metal remained unscathed.
"THAT FUCKER!" he roared, blowing the card in the dirt and causing Eijiro to retreat a step. He then proceeded to stomp on it, each stomp accompanied by another word. "THAT… ARROGANT… SICK… WEAK-ASS… PONTIFICATING… SMUG… AX-CRAZY… HANAHAKISH… CASUAL… OSTEOPOROTIC… COCKSUCKING… LITTE… PIECE OF SHIT!"
Eijiro hesitated before approaching him. His brain was all kinds of scrambled from trying to reevaluate Lich's manliness.
This had been the strangest fight he'd ever had. Admittedly, he'd only ever been in three fights before, and two of them kindergarten scuffles that'd ended with their teacher whacking them with a triangle ruler. Nevertheless, he was pretty sure this wasn't how fights were supposed to go, in general. A… hitman, one who was definitely a whole lot stronger than them, engaged them and threatened to murder them and then just… left after giving them best wishes and a business card? When did a mercenary even need one of those? Aside from right now, anyway.
He couldn't reconcile the situation in his head. Didn't know what he was supposed to think.
So he didn't. He just grabbed Bakubro at the elbow (the right one) and pulled him up to his feet. "Listen, Bakubro, we-"
"DON'T CALL ME BAKUBRO AND STOP… JUST GO… THAT SHITHEAD JUST SAID HE'D – AND YOU – YOU WANTED… YOU TWO ARE BOTH SUCH… AAARGH! FUCK!" Bakubro broke free and headed towards the way Lich had indicated the central plaza was. Then he stopped dead in his tracks and turned his head around. His eyes seemed to be smoldering.
"That conversation we had there? It's not done. Got that, Shitty Hair?" His voice was quiet now. Eijiro had almost preferred the yelling. "We're going to get it through that thick head of yours. No one gets to pull shit like that around me. No. Fucking. One."
He didn't wait around for Eijiro to muster up an answer. Someone had started screaming and Bakubro had broken into a run.
Eijiro followed him, but he pocketed the cards first.
At the Landslide Zone…
"Gluttony is a sin. I'm here to judge, you see?"
The villain who'd spoken stood on top of a faux ruin, watching them silently out of faintly glowing, completely white eyes. Tall, female, but that was as far as discernible features went. Her whole body was glowing an eye-searingly neon orange, which resulted in a strange two-dimensional appearance. There wasn't any depth to her, no shadows on her features or reflections on her skin. Just the glow.
"I became bored, you see. And since we wanted to strengthen the bonds between our- oh, right." Her mouth, a white pit of nothingness, curved into something resembling a smile. "Sorry, I'm not allowed to tell you that. Ah, and I'm also not allowed to tell you I'm not allowed to tell you that. And I'm actually also- well, whatever. It's not like it'll change anything." She twirled around a pair of black swords that looked like they belonged on a sci-fi movie set. Straight, double-edged, just long enough they couldn't be classified as knives and shimmering as if wet. "Don't worry. I'll make it short and clean. Suffering doesn't have any value, you see?"
Mineta Minoru wanted to scream, except he couldn't. He wanted to run, to laugh, to cry, to do something – but he couldn't. He'd always thought "rigid with terror" to be an overstatement, a turn of phrase that blew being a little scared out of proportion. He'd been wrong. His body just… didn't respond. He literally could not move a single muscle, remained rooted in place like someone had replaced his body with a statue he couldn't get through to no matter how hard he tried, no matter how badly he wanted to just get away from her, he couldn't and it was all wrong.
How did this happen? Where did things start to go awry? A few minutes ago, they'd been joking around and making fun of Bakugo's temper, he'd had Rescue Training to look forward to, the field where his Quirk performed the best, no one had upstaged everyone else with their coolness or strength – hell, he'd even gotten away with peeping under Yaoyorozu's utility belts. Everything had been perfect.
Now? Now were in the middle of a battlefield, together with villains – actual, real, villains who were trying to murder them. By some miracle the four of them had been able to fend them off, using his orbs and Aoyama's laser to incapacitate them, and just when he'd considered hoping it had all come crashing down, again.
This woman had appeared, her presence oppressing as if the air had suddenly become thicker, leveling those blades at them – black, sharp, deadly, danger danger danger get away please just stop stop stop stop stop – and she'd started to speak and somehow it'd sounded terrifying, then she'd gone on about "Gluttony" and "sins" like some of the people in historical movies and he couldn't make sense of it all what was that supposed to be was it some sort of political concept or belief or-
Minoru's thoughts were so tangled, so chaotic, that the crucial part in all of this didn't compute, and that cost him.
Which was the moment when the villain moved.
One moment she stood there on top of the roof of a faux ruin, the next one she was dashing forward over the ground, effortlessly avoiding the scattered villains and purple orbs, swords at the ready and promising pain and death.
Aoyama was the quickest of them to react. His Navel Laser beam hit the villain square across her breasts.
Later on, Minoru would realize that this was perhaps the first time he'd been scared enough that his Erotic Quotient of over 150 had been unable to initiate the train of thought that would've been normal in that situation.
Because not only didn't the beam do any damage, it came back.
The jet of light shot towards them out of her shoulder as soon as it'd hit her. Asui dove out of the way just barely fast enough to avoid being bisected. Then the villain towered over him and he couldn't move his body just wouldn't budge when she raised the sword in her left hand and-
Asui's tongue yanked him back moments before the black blade struck the ground, caving in at least halfway through before the villain pulled it back out without any difficulty.
"Are you okay, Mineta-chan? She seems to be some sort of lieutenant, ribbit."
Minoru could barely force himself to nod and looked back at the luminous figure, who stared at him with those horrifying white eyes and smiled and then she moved again, towards them, sword outstretched and he felt tears brimming in his eyes because nothing ever went his way and he was going to die in his first week at U.A. and no, what would his parents say, what would his brothers say, and he cried and the spell broke and he ran away, propelled himself with his Quirk, looked over his shoulder, froze again. She was already upon him, way too fast, this was all wrong, horribly, fully, utterly wrong.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. Hero Training. It wasn't supposed to be this way.
He didn't want this. He didn't want this.
But it just figured. Because life wouldn't ever, ever go his way. Because this was just like his luck, right? He'd worked until his scalp had been sticky with blood, he'd subjected himself to training that'd almost been too much for a body as delicate as his, he'd learned until he'd started reciting hero law in his sleep – all for a shot at getting into U.A., and when he'd finally, miraculously made it in, delirious with joy because he'd done something better than all the others for once… his dream school got attacked by bloodthirsty psychopathic maniacs who thought killing teenagers was a fun little exercise while they waited for All Might showed up – which really, really proved they were insane because who the fuck would want the strongest man in the world to show up and pummel you into the ground no they were insane insane insane.
So Minoru started plucking his orbs off of his head and chucked them at her as fast as he could, hoping that at least some of them would hit her. Accuracy, target practice, those were what he was good at, so come on please.
But the balls just phased through her and came back out of her body at all angles, such that one of them nearly struck Aoyama.
Asui's tongue wrapped around him and threw him up into the air before a black blade passed under him. His fall ended on the roof of a nearby faux ruin, for which he was so pathetically grateful for that he felt even more small than before because here she wouldn't reach him as fast, she wouldn't go after him before she'd went after-
The others.
Mineta got up and peered over the edge, begging the trembling to stop already, because he was quivering so much it hurt and he wanted to be the one who'd save them all and he wanted to be as far away from here as possible he wished he'd never been here at all. The villain had started to speak again, in a soft, gentle voice that didn't match her actions in the slightest.
"You are not bad at fighting at all, you see? In fact, you're really good at it considering your lack of experience. And, really, none of you even seem to have committed it, so…" She sighed. "Well, I am not really invested in killing you, you see? But our treaty of alliance demands it. So. I am sorry."
Minoru stood back, horror-stricken, hating himself for his weakness, when she nearly pierced Asui's throat with a sword thrust; his classmate escaped by a hairbreadth, then the second sword hit, and Minoru was pathetic, so damn pathetic, he knew that, watching, just watching, when Asui clutched her arm, blood already soaking her costume and dripping through her fingers, then the villain lunged again, the point soaring at her heart, and he knew even if he tried he'd be too late to save her and he was pathetic and then Hagakure crashed into the villain's side, throwing her off balance, and if Minoru used his Quirk now, he could stick her to the ground, but he didn't, because he was afraid, and he watched her strike, and heard Hagakure scream, and saw Aoyama's laser phase through her again, and the tears started falling and he was so powerless he couldn't bear it.
Why…
Why…
Why wasn't anyone doing anything?
Why couldn't he do anything?
Why wouldn't his body move?
He'd gotten into U.A.! He was supposed to be good! The best of the best! He was supposed to be elite! He was supposed to be strong!
He'd gotten into U.A.. He should've left feeling small behind.
SO WHY WAS IT HE STILL COULDN'T-
Then Minoru found himself running.
No. Stop. What am I doing? This is stupid, I have to go back, I won't be of any use if I die now, I have to go back, maybe I can get someone to help us, yes! I can do that! Get help; there's bound to be someone more capable than me!
Aoyama was too slow, Minoru knew that. The blonde had come last at the endurance running test, and he seemed to realize that, too, so he shot at the villain instead, screaming something insulting about her lineage in French – Minoru almost had to hand it to him; he wouldn't have pegged him as that vicious, no matter, not the point not the point – and he knew he wouldn't be able to cope with three classmates (potential friends) being injured or killed because of his incompetence, because of his wretchedness, and in a desperate motion, he threw one of his orbs.
It hit.
It struck the villain right between the ankles. His most basic shot, the one he'd practiced for years and years on end because it was the best way to stop someone from running, seeing as it had about the same effect as binding the other's shoelaces together.
The villain went sprawling on the ground and lost one of her swords in the process, and Minoru cheered because yes, it would be alright, because she was stuck now and wouldn't get up again anytime soon and they'd be alright…
…except that she did.
"Your precision is amazing," the villain said while getting up, his orb suddenly in her hand. "You're a great shot, you see?"
Then his orb, his Quirk that'd never, ever failed him before, phased through her hand and came out at her back.
He hadn't expected the failure to sting as much as it did.
Aoyama hat made a run for it, hopefully to get in a position from which he could shoot, not to run away, Minoru prayed for that and felt ill, knowing that he would run in his position, then he watched the villain getting closer, drawing out her second sword from her torso, and Minoru didn't want to die, he didn't he didn't, someone had to come to save them soon, right?
But no one came and the villain took her time, kicking away little chunks of dirt that cluttered the landslide, and Minoru in his terror understood it then, he realized how her Quirk worked, and that she wasn't unbeatable, but...
But to bring her down, he'd need to injure her.
Then, Asui wrapped her tongue around him, pulling him back, no, please Asui-san, don't, that won't work!
"I am Gula, who judges Gluttony, you see? None of you is guilty, though. So, I'm sorry I have to do this."
Minoru saw Aoyama hiding behind a crumbling façade and calculated as fast as he was able to, acting from nothing but necessity, selfish necessity, because he didn't want to die, that had to be legitimate, right? Even for a hero, right?
He heard Hagakure hiss behind him, bleeding invisibly, but he knew her injuries had to run deep, her footwork was sloppy in a way it hadn't been beforehand.
Please don't die, please don't die, no one, don't die, please, please, I won't be able to take that, please!
He nearly missed the moment then. The moment when she was in the right position, the position that might save them because this was a slope, and if his guess was right they'd be able to beat her.
Aoyama was an even better shot than he was and his visor included an aiming device. He should be able to see them in much greater detail, so Minoru mouthed "NOW!" while the villain was striking out towards Asui, who was already battered and bloody and weakened and so much more heroic than he could ever hope to be.
Aoyama hit the villain from behind and this time, he really did hit her – his beam caught her by surprise, sending her tumbling over – there, a wound, on her back, now, while she was distracted, rolling downhill, now!
Minoru pulled Asui's tongue away, skid after the villain, plucked off his orbs, then he threw, aiming at the bloody patch on her back, he threw, threw, threwthrewthrew, and hit, and the villain was glued to the ground, stuck by the gash in the skin, and for one horrible second he waited for her to get up again, but no. She was unmoving.
They'd won.
Minoru fainted, but he made sure to fall in Asui's lap first.
Later, when police investigators would search the area for leftover villains, they would only find a spherical hole in the slope.
A/N: I'm late. I know. I had a whole lot of excuses prepared, but. Forgot them all. Maybe I just needed a break to sit in front of a glowing little magic box and wait for memes to come out. Did you know they use clams to measure water toxicity in Poland?
So, as you all can see, this is the point where Mineta finally comes out of his shell to claim his rightful place as the true protagonist of- alright, alright. In all seriousness though, I almost enjoyed writing him. Sometimes it feels like out of all the people in Class 1-A, he is the one who'd benefit from character development most, because, and this is actually a bit weird to think about… but all of his classmates are already good people. They can be fleshed out, changed, broken, strengthened, but at their core, all of them are decent human beings and that sets certain limits on what can be done with him. Mineta? He's nasty. And I feel like there's potential there.
Also, dislocated shoulders hurt. In TV-land, dislocations are treated about as seriously as a cut in the finger. You pop it back in, wince once, and then go back to shooting bad guys. Well, that doesn't actually work except if you're one of those rare people who can't feel pain. Dislocations usually come with damage to muscle and sometimes nerves and should be handled with care, which means wearing a sling for a couple of weeks, not letting recoil rip it apart beyond repair.
That aside, I don't speak a word of Romanian, so if perchance anyone of you has a grip on that magnificent language, feel free to tear through my wet toilet paper of an international character who may or may not be relevant at some point.
Next time: Midoriya and Tokoyami for that sweet, sweet EDGE.
Once more, constructive criticism? Yes Please. Flames? No Thank You.
Remember to go beyond…
PLUS ULTRA!
Ramses, over and out.