When the six of them had finally managed to pin down whoever it was that had stolen their nametags, with the help of Tsu-chan's tongue and Shoji-kun's arms, after Iida-kun had charged in to sweep the man's legs from under him with his Recipro Burst, Ochako sighed in relief as she, Tokoyami-kun, and Koda-san all made their way over to where he was standing.
"All right, you caught me," he said, laughing with that weirdly-familiar voice, his eyes crinkling up in a way that showed he was probably either smirking or grinning at them. "You're going to turn me in, all as a group?"
"Yeah," she said, nodding as she stepped up in front of him, looking into the masked face of the man – he sounded older than them, at least – feeling slightly strange as his bright, almost blazing blue eyes settled on her. "We all caught you as a group, after all," she continued, gathering her composure as she reached for the hood and mask that he was wearing.
He chuckled softly, even as Tsu-chan unwrapped her tongue from around his waist, and Shoji-kun grabbed onto him with three sets of hands, so Ochako felt more brave than she would have if he'd just been staring at her silently. His blue eyes were just as intense as she remembered them being, though. As she pulled down his mask, pushing back the hood that he'd worn to further conceal his features, Ochako nearly stepped back in surprise as his fine-boned features and spiky, red hair were revealed, something that they were beginning to see more and more clearly as they closed in on the Pussycats' compound again.
"Flashfire?" she asked, the name of the Pro Hero coming right back to mind as soon as she'd seen the mass of spiky red hair fluffing up from under his hood.
"Yeah, they called me in," Flashfire – she remembered that he was a member of Todoroki-kun's family, but she couldn't quite remember his name at the moment. "Tenko told me you were a fangirl," Flashfire continued, giving her a sly smile; Ochako could feel her cheeks heating up as the seven of them all continued on their way back to the Pussycats' compound. "Just tell me you're not a Firedust shipper; lie to me, if you have to."
~MHA~
Holding back his laughter as well as he could, Touya mused that Tenko had been exactly right when he'd said that their Baby-bun's fangirl girlfriend was just as fun to tease as Hisashi's son himself had always been. As the seven of them all made their way into the compound to meet up with Mandalay, Touya narrowed his eyes as he heard the rumble of what sounded entirely too much like Gigantomachia's footsteps. There weren't many innocent reasons for Hisashi's personal bodyguard to have showed up at the compound, so Touya knew that he was going to have to check in with Mandalay and see just what in the hell had brought the towering man up to the compound.
He could only hope that they weren't being attacked by Villains or anything, considering how many kids they currently had all around them.
Smirking slightly as he found himself being carried over the first threshold, and then deeper into the compound, Touya chuckled as he caught sight of Mandalay. Not long after, naturally, he found himself presented to the leader of the Wild, Wild Pussycats herself. There was an air of distinct satisfaction about her even before she'd spotted their group, something that made Touya more than a bit curious about what had been going on before the seven of them had made their way back.
It was probably something good, at least, given how calm she seemed to be at the moment.
"Well, I see your team managed to finish before anyone else," Mandalay said, making her way over to where the seven of them – him, and the six kids who'd managed to get the drop on him – had all gathered in the front room of the compound. "Have you taken your nametags back yet?"
"Oh," the pink-cheeked little fangirl said, seeming more than a little embarrassed to have been called out that way. "Right, I'll get them."
There was, of course, only one thing that Touya could do in light of that.
"Bet you love getting the chance to grope- I mean frisk, me. Eh, fangirl?"
Laughing as the little fangirl spluttered, backing away from him and shoving one of her other friends forward with a bright blush covering her face, Touya found his attention drawn to Mandalay as she herself started laughing.
"Well, I suppose that's one way to keep hold of those nametags," Mandalay said, regaining her composure as she made her way over to where the six kids – the heroes in training he'd been brought to this place to help test – were all standing, smiling widely at Touya as the froglike girl who Tenko's fangirl had pushed forward to take the nametags from him came up to him.
Forcing himself not to squirm as the froglike girl wrapped her long, wet tongue around his right hand, after she'd pulled it out of the right pocket of the hoodie he'd been wearing, Touya found that he couldn't quite stop himself from shuddering as she did so.
"Well, that was gross," he said, shaking out his drool-covered right hand, the grin on his face turning into a light grimace before he forced himself to relax.
Mandalay laughed softly. "Come on, Touya, let's get you cleaned up. Then you can go have some food."
"Thanks," he said, following in their wake as Mandalay and the kids all started making their way deeper into the compound.
~MHA~
"Well, that's gross," Kacchan said, looking over at what seemed to be a big patch of glittery slime splattered against one of the trees they'd been about to pass by.
"Yeah," he said, cringing as he pulled up a vision-enhancement Quirk, narrowing his eyes as he studied the patch of slime. "We should keep moving; I don't think we're going to be able to find whoever this is by just standing around."
"Yeah," Shoto-kun muttered, turning his own attention to the tree and the splattered slime on the trunk. "I wonder who this is."
"Yeah," he said, as the three of them moved on.
Izuku also found himself wondering just who it was that the Pussycats had brought to camp; he didn't think that their camp had been attacked by any Villain but the one that Mandalay had identified as Muscular, since when she'd sent him back out into the Beast's Forest it hadn't been with any warnings to keep himself out of trouble. As the three of them continued on their way through the Beast's Forest, Izuku called up Hayato-kun's Quirk, prepared to extend the wings he'd been granted at a moment's notice.
"You really think you'll be able to find this guy by flying, Zuzu?" Kacchan asked, sounding more than a little dubious.
"How did you know I called up Hayato-kun's Quirk, Kacchan?" he asked, wondering once again just how his old friend had managed to tell just what Quirk he was holding in reserve; at least when he'd ended up using this particular Quirk.
"You always roll your shoulders when you get that Quirk ready, nerd," Kacchan said, smirking at him.
Before Izuku could say anything else in response, more of that glittery slime splattered against Shoto-kun's quickly raised ice barrier.
"We should probably move faster," Shoto-kun said, as the three of them hurried out of the range of whoever it was that was shooting that glittery slime at them. "We still have to find those nametags."
"Yeah," he said, nodding as the three of them hurried on their way through the woods.
~MHA~
"Where the heck are we?" Hanta Sero demanded, once he'd regained his sense of himself and the world around him.
Looking around at the room he'd found himself in, Hanta quickly found that there were quite a few more people than he'd noticed at first, and also that there was one large, glittery, eye-searing centerpiece of the room where they'd all been gathered together.
"What the hell do they think this is, pre-school?!" Hanta found himself saying, staring up at the banner strung up at the front of the room; the one that said "Welcome, captives!" in oversized, glittery yellow Romaji letters.
"I know," Yaoyorozu said, making her way over to where he was standing. "It's strange, but I've seen a lot of our classmates here, alongside a great deal of the students from class 1-B. None of them seem to know where we are, either. Every one of them also seems to have lost at least some amount of time before they came to this place," Yaoyorozu continued, moving closer to where he was standing, glancing briefly at all of their fellow schoolmates gathered in this strange room with the both of them.
"That's weird," he said.
Sure, a few people reporting that kind of thing might or might not have meant anything, but every one of their fellow students reporting just that same kind of thing had to mean something. Hanta didn't know quite what that kind of thing meant, but there were enough people around that one of them would probably have some idea about what was going on outside the walls of whatever room they'd all ended up in.
~MHA~
Chuckling as he made his way back to the point where he'd dropped the last batch of Hero students, all of them neatly compressed but only some of them unconscious, Mr. Compress tossed the little orbs down the pipe that had been set up in order to carry the orbs that his Quirk created down to the room that had been set up for the little Heroes in training. Tucking his hands back into the pockets of his favorite coat, Mr. Compress smiled as he found himself reflecting on the rather interesting circumstances that had brought him to this place and time.
Atsuhiro Sako originally been an entertainer, though he hadn't used his Quirk for such things, preferring to make use of his skill at sleight of hand, but he had possessed more than a bit of wanderlust. What he had used his Quirk for – sparing himself the trouble of packing, and thus enabling himself to carry all of the furniture that he'd previously purchased to his next chosen place of residence – had inevitably drawn the ire of those who wished to see the world remain in the state that it had been before Quirks had truly become a part of the world. It always seemed as though those in power would always attempt to halt the hands of time in their very tracks.
However, there were also those who would give their aid to those who had been cast out by society, or those who lived on the fringes.
Toshinori Shimura – even bereft of a Quirk as the man was, making him just as much an oddity in this day and age as anyone whose Quirk had been deemed "villainous" by society and the media – was, therefore, one of the greatest boons that those who found themselves out of step with society as a whole could have been given. Some of those who would otherwise have been forced to eke out their existence in the shadows were given the chance to live happy lives in the light once Shimura had come to them. Among those Mr. Compress maintained contact with, he'd heard Shimura referred to as the Sunshine Man, Gramps, and even Little Toshi; however, there was also another name that those who had chosen to remain in the shadows had given the man.
To those who had chosen to tread Chiron's path, Toshinori Shimura was the Hero who saved Villains.
Smiling more widely under his mask, Mr. Compress turned to make his way back under the eaves of the forest; he still had Hero students to test, so he could hardly spend all his time woolgathering.
~MHA~
The ground under him trembled, as All Might found himself slammed into the ground by one of the poor people who had been taken by Overhaul and his Shie Hassaikai, and as he restrained the figure's arms, All Might found that sheer horror froze him in place far more than the drug-enhanced strength of whoever it was that he was currently facing. It seemed as though he only blinked once, before Hisashi's staff was driven into the poor civilian's face, throwing whoever it had been back down to the ground.
/Toshi-kun, I know you feel sorry for these people, but under the circumstances the only compassion you can truly offer them is a swift, painless death./
Trying to force himself not to shudder, knowing that Hisashi was exactly right – none of these people could ever truly be restored to what they were before, and after what had happened to Mungojerrie Elliot, All Might wasn't about to allow anyone else to suffer the same, slow, lingering death as he'd inadvertently allowed that man to experience – All Might gathered himself, surging forward to snap the suffering citizen's neck, before moving on to aid his fellow Pro Heroes. There would be time to think about what had happened later; to mourn and to gather themselves, once they'd managed to find young Niseko and young Eri and take them out of the clutches of Kai Chisaki and his Shie Hassaikai.
Putting aside the part of him that wished he could have saved these people, not to mention those who had ended up falling in with the Yakuza, All Might gathered himself and charged forward once more. There was only a single wall that stood between all of his fellow Pro Heroes and the compound where the Shie Hassaikai had hidden themselves, so all he had to do was get through it, and they would be able to bring young Niseko and young Eri to safety. They would be able to give those scared, suffering children the chance to live normal lives.
"Texas Smash!"
~MHA~
The sound of All Might's signature battle cry – one in a long line of them, anyway – drew his attention for a moment, and Endeavor narrowed his eyes as he found himself reminded yet again of how many times he'd spoken to the man about the Quirk he'd used to make himself over as the Symbol of Peace; the Quirk that he'd lorded over Endeavor ever since the day he'd been given it to begin with. The Quirk that had ultimately originated from Hisashi Midoriya, by means of some kind of interaction with the feeble Quirk of Midoriya's younger brother. It was purely infuriating, and even as he used Hellflame to wall off sections of the battlefield, Endeavor found his attention drawn to the lightly armored, white coated, masked and anonymous form of Sensei, pushing forward with that ridiculous prop of a staff he always seemed to carry.
Both of them – the Symbol of Peace and the Symbol of Hope – were mocking him from behind those false faces the both of them wore to keep them out of the unearned spotlight that would otherwise fall upon the pair of them for their efforts; the efforts that were only made possible by those infuriatingly versatile Quirks that the pair of them had been blessed with. One at birth, and the other whenever he had had the chance to encounter the Councilman. Grinding his teeth as he continued pressing forward, Endeavor aimed and launched a Hell Spear at another one of those mindless beasts attacking them.
He knew from the briefing he'd attended that, while every one of these enemies had once been ordinary citizens with Heteromorphic-type Quirks, not a single one of them could be restored to their former selves; death was the only mercy that anyone could offer them now.
~MHA~
Looking around, having pulled up a vision-enhancement Quirk from within his own All For One, Izuku also pulled up his copy of Ragdoll's Search Quirk. Aizawa-sensei and the Pussycats hadn't just been working to help him improve the copies of the Quirks that he'd been given, but also to expand the stockpile of Quirks that he'd been mostly given through the connections that Dad had made through his work. Either through the people that Dad had made friends with, or else through the work that Ujiko-sensei had been doing with all of his clinics and other things.
Still, it sometimes felt like he was back in Deika city with Dad, having all kinds of treats foisted off on him, each and every one of them made with something that contained the DNA for one kind of Quirk or another; still at least no one here was calling him Genesis.
"We've still got shit to do, Zuzu," Kacchan said, a slap to the back of Izuku's head bringing his attention firmly back to the forest the three of them were all still making their way through.
"Right, sorry," he said, rubbing the back of his head and feeling more than a little sheepish.
"You seem to get lost in thought very easily, Midoriya," Shoto-san said, looking over at him as the three of them continued on their way through the Beast's Forest.
"Yeah," he said, chuckling sheepishly. "I guess I just have a lot on my mind."
"It seems like you should learn to concentrate, Midoriya," Shoto-san said, and Izuku looked over to see the look up disapproval – subtle as any of Shoto-san's expressions seemed to be – on his face. "Even though this is just a training exercise, you shouldn't let yourself become complacent."
"I know," he said, sighing softly.
Kacchan clapped him on the right shoulder, wrapping his left arm around both of his shoulders and giving him a light shake. Izuku smiled, feeling a bit better about everything that was going on. Sure, it didn't seem quite like Shoto-san approved of him, but there would be plenty of time for him and Shoto-san to get to know each other better.
~MHA~
"All right, so we all ended up in here, and no one here really knows how or why," she said, folding her arms as she looked out over the gathered group of her fellow U.A. students.
She may have only been the Vice-representative for class 1-A, but this was still a time and a place where she would be able to aid her fellow Heroes-in-training.
"Why don't we just try going out through the door?" Hagakure-chan asked, gesturing to the door their massive group was all gathered in front of.
Before Momo could say anything, Hagakure-chan was standing in front of that very same door, opening it to unleash a veritable avalanche of stuffed bears and other kinds of plushes into the room they were all standing in. Hagakure-chan yelped, jumping back from all of the tumbling toys spreading out all over the floor, but the sound of Sero-kun laughing drew her attention before Momo could think of anything to say to Hagakure-chan.
"Well, I guess that's one way to keep us all in here."
"Yes, I suppose it is," Momo said, feeling more than slightly nostalgic as she looked down on the pile of plushes.
It had, after all, been one of the projects that she and Midoriya-kun had collaborated on together, though a large part of the pile was admittedly due to the way Midoriya-kun's curiosity about Quirks and all related matters leading him to combine one of the enhancement Quirks that he'd been given by his father with the copy of Creation that he'd made with his own Quirk. She still found herself both unsettled and slightly amused by the memory of the way that a veritable explosion of plushes had emerged from Midoriya-kun's exposed skin in the wake of his test of those particular Quirks.
The way he'd all but inhaled his share of the food that had been set out for the pair of them in the wake of such a thing still remained more than a little unsettling, of course.
~MHA~
Making his way into the depths of the underground tunnels beneath Pops' old house – the one he'd grown up in, after Pops had given him the chance to truly live for the first time since he'd been born – Chisaki found himself smiling as he looked down at the gently stirring form of Niseko-chan in his arms. As the pure, gentle child's eyes opened, their silvery depths clearing as Niseko-chan's eyes focused on him, Chisaki held him closer. It seemed for a moment as though Niseko-chan was going to ask him a question, but he settled back into Chisaki's arms without a word, and with only the softest of sounds.
"You don't need to worry about anything, Niseko-chan," he said, cradling the pure, gentle child close to his chest to soothe him. "I won't allow anything more to happen to you," he said, making a silent promise that he would even protect the silver-eyed boy from the results of his own naïve kindness. "You'll be perfectly safe here, from now on. I'll make certain of it."
Carrying Niseko-chan the rest of the way down the hall, up to the room where he'd had Pops and all of the equipment that maintained him in the comatose state he'd been forced to put him in until he would be able to present the old man with not only the cleansed, perfected world that he'd envisioned for so long, but also a society where the Yakuza would be able to rule from the shadows once more, Chisaki found his hidden smile widening all the more as his made his way into the room itself. Stroking the back of Niseko-chan's head, having removed his gloves for this particular task, Chisaki carried Niseko-chan over to the bed where Pops had been resting for so long.
"There's still a few things that need to be taken care of, before you can go back to your room, Niseko-chan," he said, shifting the pure, kind child in his arms so that he could pull back Pops' blanket just enough that he would be able to fit Niseko-chan under it, as well. "For now, enjoy your time with Pops."
Lightly resting both of his bare hands on Niseko-chan's head, Chisaki used the same, gentle application of Overhaul that he'd used when he'd put Pops to sleep in this very same bed, closing Niseko-chan's pale, silver eyes with a sweep of his right hand once he'd finished. Pulling his gloves back on as he made his way back out of the room, Chisaki made a brief stop to place Niseko-chan's neatly-folded mask and gloves on a nearby side table.
He'd be needing them again soon enough, naturally.