Chapter 11: What Do We Want?
Midoriya yelled about Monoma's incompetence for the rest of the evening and it was beautiful.
Tsu didn't understand why people didn't just speak their mind all the time. Life would be so much simpler if everyone were brutally honest at all times and destroyed any and all friendships. Tsu would just go and live with the frogs in a swamp and watch the world burn down from a distance. Frogs would be honest because they have little to say.
Ok, maybe the mindset of this class was starting to get to her, and global annihilation was so much more appealing than it was about a month ago.
Of course, Tsu is not actually a villain and would never genuinely want such a thing. But again, still more appealing. She'd settle with the damage class A's plan would do to society. She also offered to jump-kick Monoma in the face for Tokoyami next time she saw him, because Tokoyami and Dark Shadow were wonderful birds that did not deserve such treatment, and Tsu would always stand up for her animal-mutation-Quirk kin.
The encounter did not remain a secret for long. Soon enough, Mr Aizawa appeared at the dorms, and Midoriya was still in an awfully bad mood. Tsu was only disappointed that she didn't have any popcorn – but they did have Sato's freshly made cupcakes.
"Why were so many of you out at the edge of the school when a storm was rolling over?" Mr Aizawa snapped.
Everyone else just sat back and let Midoriya take the wheel.
"Do we really need to recite the excuses for everyone? It was a complete coincidence that everyone ended up in the same place!" he exclaimed. This, so far, was entirely truthful. Team yellow and blue were never supposed to meet up, and Monoma and his crew certainly weren't meant to be there.
"Monoma was right to say it was suspicious," their teacher continued, his eyes narrowing. It was really the only facial expression visible since he was still covered in bandages from head to toe. "Especially so soon after the USJ. That doesn't mean he went about it in the right way. I want to know the truth."
Midoriya sighed, "Kacchan was arguing with Jiro, Kirishima followed and Tokoyami was out for a walk – like he always does."
Still the truth – Midoriya had asked for as much detail as possible into what had happened the moment they'd gotten back, likely for exactly this reason.
"They came across the others by accident and stepped in because Monoma was accusing them of… of doing something!"
"And what were the others doing?"
"Well, Uraraka was helping Kaminari with his Quirk. I've told you I help with some Quirks here – Mina has too! Kaminari's works better if he unloads his electricity regularly but he hasn't done so in a while, and with the static in the air it was getting dangerous. If Uraraka could make him float, then he wouldn't be touching the ground and it would be unlikely he hurt anyone! They decided to move away from the dorms for obvious reasons and ended up by the power source or whatever that was – they were leaving when Monoma turned up! Check the security cameras, they'll back my story up! Sato was there because his cupcakes were still in the oven and he wanted something to do, and Shoji came for similar reasons and just in case something went wrong!"
All honest. Tsu was frankly impressed.
Ochako handed her a cupcake and she started to pick at it whilst Midoriya continued on his rant.
"Then Monoma turned up thinking he knew better and that they were up to something. When they wouldn't tell him what he wanted to hear, he copied Tokoyami's Quirk and threatened them with it! So, Uraraka messaged me to come and help – Kirishima stopped the copied shadow from hurting anyone and I managed to cancel the Quirk out with my Quirklessness, like I've done before. Except Monoma still seems to think that I can steal his ability."
"Why didn't you contact me?" Mr Aizawa questioned, his eyes flickering towards Ochako. "You have the phones for this exact reason."
Uraraka swallowed a mouthful of cake. "B-Because you're hurt, and I didn't know how quickly you could get there…"
Also, she didn't want Mr Aizawa asking these kinds of questions before they could think up a good enough story.
"Then you should have messaged Midnight."
"Midnight hates us," Kaminari contradicted.
"And whose fault is that?"
"Woah, rude," Mina scoffed.
"It doesn't matter," Midoriya interjected, his arms crossed, "what's done is done. Uraraka knew that my Quirk – o-or lack of – could cancel out Monoma's and it worked fine. If you'd turned up instead, you could only stop it for as long as you could look at him without blinking. My method removed the threat entirely."
Mr Aizawa simply sighed, clearly done with this situation, "18, go to Recovery Girl."
He glared at him, "No."
"That cut needs healing."
"It's fine."
"It'll scar."
"I don't care."
Tsu shoved more cupcake in her mouth.
Mr Aizawa gave up, "1 – are you feeling better from the incident yesterday?"
"Oui!" Aoyama replied with a dazzling smile. Of course, he'd blown up the wall in their classroom to provide a distraction and had written it off as a Quirk accident that gave him a terrible stomach-ache.
Another sigh, "Good. Fine, no one's in trouble. You'll be pleased to know Monoma will receive detention for this."
Mina raised her hand eagerly.
"Yes, 2?"
"Does he wash our dishes?!"
"No."
"Aw!"
"Is there anything else you need to inform me of?"
Silence.
"…Good. Behave – message me if something else goes wrong." And with that, he turned and left them be.
"Way to go, Midoriya," laughed Kyoka. "I've never seen anyone tell the truth so falsely before."
"That doesn't even make sense," frowned Kaminari.
"Maybe to you, Jamming-yay."
"I've told you! That's not going to be my vigilante name!"
"If Jiro's praising you, you know you've done well," said Sero.
"The real reason that Jiro's here is that she knew so many secrets that it scared the heroes, and she never told them the truth… truthfully?" Mina tried.
Sero nodded sagely, "There was an attempt."
"Kyoka knew more about villain operations than the most extensive spy network in Japan, ribbit," Tsu interjected.
Flushing red, Kyoka managed to add, "I am the most extensive spy network in Japan."
Everyone laughed.
Midoriya finally breathed a sigh of relief, scratching at the large plaster Yaoyorozu had covered his gash with. "Ok, who wants their phone fixed next?"
Most of the class immediately fell silent and thrust a hand into the air; the others quickly followed suit.
"Me! Me, me, me!" Mina exclaimed, waving her hand about and trying to reach higher into the air, as if that would help.
"You can't contact anyone outside of UA – no inserting new numbers into them," Midoriya reminded them all. "I-I'm not one hundred percent sure if the Principal will be alerted to outgoing calls…"
Tsu noted how Shoto shifted awkwardly in his seat as he unsurely accepted a cupcake from Sato, who was passing them around the room.
"I'll trade you my cupcake for it," Kyoka offered.
There was a moment of hesitation.
"Jiro wins," Midoriya announced to a room of disappointed people, accepting both an extra cupcake and her phone.
"Bribery," Mina pouted.
"Was there even a second of doubt in this class?" Kyoka smirked.
"I still have both my cupcake and a promise of fixing my phone, only later, ribbit," Tsu pointed out.
"Yeah, whatever."
Ochako felt bad and split her cupcake with her.
Midoriya seemed to feel no remorse and Tsu respected that.
Midoriya soon found himself with a growing line of phones. The order of which was hotly distributed for no good reason and involved the bartering of cupcakes and other items of food, squirrelled away for situations such as these.
"So, it's all going down tomorrow then, right?" Kirishima perked up as he rested his phone down at the end of the line.
"Y-Yes…" Midoriya replied with a gulp, not looking up from his work. "I suppose it is."
The atmosphere shifted. It was an intoxicating mix of excitement, anticipation, and unadulterated fear. Midoriya could feel a great weight hanging on his shoulders, crushing his lungs, turning his heart partially to lead in the fear of it all.
"What do we… bring?" was Hagakure's contribution.
"Err…" Midoriya started, before Iida took over.
"Pack your school rucksack with spare clothes, any money you may have, and anything else you might deem absolutely necessary," he nodded surely. "Make sure it isn't too heavy."
There was a moment of silence, as everyone thought through this predicament.
"Wow, I know like, this was pretty obvious, but this feels a whole lot more serious all of a sudden," Kaminari chuckled nervously.
"Um, I know we should have brought this up earlier but… where are we going to go if we get out of UA?" asked Uraraka, sitting down beside Midoriya and looking at him expectantly, as though he knew the answer.
He didn't.
"I have a few options." That was Shoto. He didn't speak much to the rest of the class, so it must have been a shock to hear him make a contribution so suddenly. "Dabi and I moved around a lot over the last few years. I know he's not active in this area; he won't be a problem. But there's an abandoned warehouse nearby – not too close to be on UA's radar."
"How are we going to get… food?" Uraraka continued to interrogate. "I mean, I'm happy to… you know… take some stuff, but…"
"We will not be resorting to such crimes," Iida retorted. It was clear that, out of everyone in class A, Iida was the least keen to go through with this plan. Midoriya sometimes wondered how much he trusted him anymore… Or maybe if he regretted becoming close friends.
"We might not have a choice, Iida," pointed out Sero, with the tone of someone who had been in that situation before.
"I can fix that problem," Yaoyorozu interjected as she casually collected empty teacups from around the room. "Before I was, um, caught. I did start slowly moving some of my own money into a new bank account. I… felt bad for all the fake notes I was making. So, I was going to use the money to donate to where I'd wronged… Not that I ever managed to do so. At this point, tensions were high, and we all knew we were in trouble. It was too late to fix anything…" Her solemn attitude changed in less than a second when she stood up straight, a wide smile on her face and her hands clasped together, "But this comes in useful for us now! I can use the money to help us! And my Quirk can step in to make anything extra we might need!"
"I can supply the electricity," Kaminari grinned. "I'm getting better now! We know this!"
"We should not simply rely on your money, Yaoyorozu!" said Iida, "It would be unfair on your behalf! I shall contribute as well."
"You gotta be super careful when withdrawing money then," Hagakure advised. "Do it real far from this warehouse place and only make transactions in cash."
Iida nodded, not questioning why Hagakure knew this little detail.
Midoriya finished his work on the phone he was tampering with. With a sigh, he sat back after pushing it to the other side of the table. "The aim is to get a big name for ourselves. We'd have to lie low after getting out for a while, whilst the press goes wild with the information of us getting out… And it'll be tricky to stay off their radar and not get caught. B-But I think a lot of us have experience in that matter so hopefully it'll be ok… And then we can start on the vigilante thing – only once we're sure we're safe."
"How long do you think that will take, ribbit?" asked Tsu, prodding her chin thoughtfully.
"Um, not sure? Maybe a couple of weeks at the very least…"
Mina gasped and clapped her hands, grasping everyone's attention immediately, "We need to make vigilante outfits!"
"Well, we don't really need disguises," Tsu pointed out. "Everyone already knows who we are from class A, ribbit."
"Yeah," she scoffed, "but still! Oh! And codenames!"
"We've already had this conversation and it didn't end well," Kyoka rolled her eyes, sinking further into her armchair.
"I am Alien Queen!" Mina yelled, ignoring her.
"Why don't we focus on actually getting out of this freaking place first, idiots?!" Kacchan shouted back.
"Bakugo is correct," Iida nodded. "We need a new plan of action."
And all eyes were back on Midoriya.
Swallowing his fear, he stood up, waltzed towards the white board, and accepted a white board marker from Shoji, who was already standing by the drawer.
The only sound in the room in that moment was that of the marker against the board, as Midoriya carefully plotted their escape, assigned new teams (with new colours), and soon after, watched the smiles creep across his friends' faces.
There were only two ways this could go.
And Midoriya knew all too well, somehow, no matter how long it would take, they would end up back at UA – back in this room. Just this time, he wasn't going to let it be so easy for them.
"Ok, first things first, let's identify the best time to begin the plan," Midoriya decided.
"Probably after nine, when Mr Aizawa locks the dorms up, ribbit," Tsu replied.
Midoriya nodded and wrote that on the board. "Ok… we won't copy his door key. It was a good idea! Just, using the windows is a safer bet. But remember, we need to get a group out of the dorms and to the main school in order to take out the power. For that to happen, there's a specific camera I need someone to deal with."
"YOU ARE DEAD, ROUND FACE!"
Uraraka screamed and ran out of the front door, Kacchan in hot pursuit.
She skidded around the corner to run right to the back of the dorms. Her classmates giggled and watched from the windows.
Right by one, at the window furthest from the front door, where trees lined the edge of the dorms, she activated her Quirk on herself, jumped off a tree, and backflipped above the window, accidentally kicking the security camera there, and knocking its angle so it pointed up at the cloudy, morning sky.
All the camera caught from that moment on, was a puff of smoke, as Uraraka leapt off the wall like a spider, and kicked Kacchan in the face.
Oh, this is so fun!
"Once that's out of the way, our first team will be free to slip out of that window, run through the trees, and reach the edge of the main school building – where that hole is that Aoyama made! Debris from it took out the camera below, so, err, good job?"
"De rien!" Aoyama grinned, tossing his hair out of his face flamboyantly.
"Err, yeah." Midoriya cleared his throat, "B-But before that team can leave, we need to start removing their tracker anklets."
Mina punched the air, "Yes! Finally!"
"Moment of truth…" Hagakure murmured as the class gathered around.
Kaminari winced and looked away whilst Mina pulled off a glove and traced a pink finger along the seam of his anklet.
With a frightening hiss, the thick, insulated plastic began to bubble and melt. Before it could touch his skin, Mina had pulled it away and tossed it into the tray supplied by Yaoyorozu.
"I-Is it off?!" he asked, daring to take a peek. "It's off!"
"You did it, Mina!" Ochako exclaimed, clapping her hands.
Mina positively glowed with pride.
Midoriya knelt down by the tray, "Hm, well, you melted it really well along the lockable seam, so it shouldn't have disturbed the electrics. Hopefully, it still works and is still transmitting a location to the Principal."
Most ignored his muttering whilst Mina was showered with praise, and she was loving it.
"Ok! If you go and put this on your bed in your room, it'll look like you just went to bed," Midoriya explained, handing the small tray to Kaminari, who nodded and hurried off. Midoriya narrowed his eyes and glanced around the room, "Y-Yes, um, could we do Sero's next, please?"
"Team orange will be those who are taking the power out for the cameras," Midoriya announced, writing the team's title on the whiteboard as he spoke. "We obviously need Kaminari, and then you guys suggested Sato too, right?"
"Yep!" Uraraka replied. "Sato's gonna expose the wires for us!"
Midoriya nodded and added his name to the list. "Ok… hm, right – and then Uraraka, you'll go too, as well as… yeah, Sero."
Kaminari gave the rest of the class two thumbs up as he jumped out the window and landed beside Sato. He nervously looked up, but soon saw that the camera that Uraraka had repositioned still hadn't moved. He breathed a sigh of relief.
"Don't forget your backpack," Uraraka whispered to him as she handed it over.
"Oh, thanks."
In silence, the four of them hurried away from the dorms, all dressed in the darkest clothing they could find.
They ran the long way around school. Midoriya had left them a good amount of time to get set up, so they weren't in a rush. That didn't stop Kaminari's heart beating at a hundred miles per hour, pumping the adrenaline around his body. They did have to make sure they arrived at the perfect moment, when Hound Dog wasn't patrolling nearby, but they had Hagakure's input to thank for avoiding that problem.
Also, UA is a lot taller when you're standing right at the bottom of it, preparing to climb.
The H shaped building technically had four sections of roof. Fortunately for them, the roof they required was right above their homeroom classroom, which Aoyama had blown a hole in a couple of days prior.
They hovered in the tree line, backs against the bark.
With a determined nod shared between them, Uraraka activated her Quirk on them all, Sero shot a length of tape up to the hole, and quickly reeled them all up the building at an alarming speed. Kaminari held Sero's and Uraraka's hand (!!) whilst she held Sato's, as the second length of tape reached the rooftop, and the four of them made it up there, seemingly undetected.
"G-Good job, guys," Uraraka said, trying not to hurl.
As quietly as he could, Sato began to prise the cover of their treasure chest off.
"Just wait for the signal a-and don't make a sound!" Uraraka added, inching back to the edge of the rooftop.
"Wait, what's the signal again?" Sero whispered back. "I wasn't really listening – hey, wait!"
But Sato had already removed the metal covering and exposed the wires. Letting Uraraka float him again, the two pushed off the roof and made their way slowly back to the ground.
Kaminari sighed and leant against the barricades, gazing out at the distant city lights – so close, yet so far.
After a couple of minutes or so of silence, Sero, who had hopped over the barricade to sit on the roof's edge, spoke up, "Hey, Kaminari?"
"Yeah?"
"…Why are we here again?"
"– leave Kaminari behind with Sero," Midoriya nodded. "Sato and Uraraka will come back to the dorms and announce that their part of the mission was a success before we move on.
"Meanwhile, we'll be slowly taking off the rest of the anklets. We can leave some downstairs on the sofas, for whoever usually stays up later."
"But what about my anklet?" Mina questioned nervously. "I-It'll be super hard to melt mine off! It's designed like that!"
"Are you sure about this, Shoto?" Midoriya asked him.
Mina was the last to have her anklet removed. She had her leg rested on the table whilst she sat on the sofa, arm over her eyes and teeth gritted.
"I'm sure," Shoto replied.
No one had ever seen him use his fire before, but Mina was too scared to look!
She gasped when she felt the heat get close. Shoto's colder hand had already formed a sheet of ice over her corrosive skin in hopes to protect her and himself.
She dared to uncover her eyes for a moment, only to see the red-hot metal start to part. She squealed when Shoto's other hand darted forwards again to freeze a molten droplet of metal, but before she knew it, the anklet had been torn away.
There was a synchronised sigh of relief and chorus of praise to Shoto, who smiled softly.
Mina plonked the anklet in her tray and tossed it aside on the sofa. She didn't realise she'd feel so free without it on!
This was the moment that the window at the back of the common room was opened a little further, and two figures bundled through.
"You did it?!" Midoriya interrogated immediately.
Ochako gave him a wobbly thumbs up and everyone cheered.
The first scary part was over!
"We'll leave the TV on, won't turn the lights off – that kind of thing," Midoriya explained. "Then, we will all go through that back window, follow the path through the trees, staying as far away from any building as possible, and get as far as we can without being close to the cameras."
Midoriya shouldered his yellow backpack – this was actually happening!
"Ready to go?" he asked his remaining classmates.
He got a variety of responses, mainly in their facial expressions, but only a combination of all of them could come close to describing how Midoriya was feeling in that moment.
Some looked terrified, others more excited than they ever thought they'd be. Some tried to hide their emotion, others just looked determined.
Midoriya nodded and marched towards the window.
"There are going to be two different exit points. As a failsafe in case something goes wrong. We will all go together to the spot Tokoyami picked out from team blue's scouting mission. Then, we will separate into these two teams, lime and indigo. I'll be heading team lime, and Iida for team indigo."
Iida nodded in understanding, puffing out his chest at the idea of leadership and responsibility.
Midoriya wrote the team members down on the board, rubbing away the rest of the writing to make room. He took his time to do this, listening to his classmates' suggestions and thinking through their power-sets as he allocated team members.
Team Lime: Me, Shoto, Uraraka, Tsu, Koda, Shoji, Sato, Aoyama & Hagakure
Team Indigo: Iida, Yaoyorozu, Jiro, Kacchan, Kirishima, Mina, Ojiro, Tokoyami, (Kaminari & Sero)
"Yaoyorozu will be handing flashlights to several members of each group, but you can't use them – they're only for emergencies. Yaoyorozu will be with Iida in team indigo and will send up flashes of light to the remaining members of team orange, which will be the signal to take out the power."
"This is the spot," Tokoyami announced as Dark Shadow, much larger in size than usual, curled around a boulder in the middle of the path.
"Ok," Midoriya replied, heart beating so fast he feared it would burst out of his chest. "Yaoyorozu, if you could hand out the flashlights now?"
She nodded and started to do exactly that. She'd made them in advance, and then ate extra servings of dinner to build up her strength.
"Right, then as carefully as you can, get close enough to the school so Kaminari and Sero can see you from the roof."
"After they take out the power, Sero will abseil Kaminari back down the building, and meet up with Yaoyorozu, who will escort you back to the meeting place. Team indigo will wait for you there, whilst team lime goes ahead to the other escape point, since it's a little further away."
"We'll see you soon!" Uraraka whispered to the other team, giving Jiro a hug goodbye.
"Don't mess this up," she replied jokingly as they parted.
"The meet up point is the construction site on the other side of the forest behind UA!" Midoriya reminded them. "Head in that direction and wait there until the other team turns up. Send out the coded message to the new group chat on your phones! If they take more than fifteen minutes to reply, you send out a scout group to see what happened!"
With a few more waves and understanding nods, Midoriya and the rest of team lime hurried off into the trees. They waited at the edge until they saw a brilliant flash of light from UA's rooftop – Kaminari had taken out the power.
Now the real test began.
"Tokoyami and I have talked about the wall's weak points that we will be targeting. The one that team indigo will be heading towards is closest, and you just have to go straight from the point where we part ways. You need to help each other climb the wall and try not to leave behind any evidence that you were there!
"Team lime, we will be going a little further and away from the hero patrol routes more. We're going to circle around all the dorm buildings as quickly as we can, and Uraraka should be able to float us all over the wall."
"The section is covered in vines and clearly has not had a maintenance check in a while," Tokoyami explained. "The woodland continues behind it."
Bakugo didn't have time to be annoyed at stupid little things like Sparky's incessant talking now that he was in his freaking Dunce mode. Elbows had to tape his mouth shut. – Or how bugged he was that Four Eyes was their leader – or just, Deku in general.
Bakugo had geared himself up for a fight, but it didn't look as though he'd be getting one. Deku's plan was too well thought out for that. It looked as though they'd all leave UA exactly as planned, and that the heroes would only know by morning what had really happened. By then, they'd be long gone.
They'd had the hero patrols drilled into their brains earlier that evening. The nearest hero at that moment in time was Hound Dog, who was likely still on the other side of the main building. He was their biggest threat, since he could smell them. Bakugo supposed that was one of the main reasons why the class was halved and split up, because that would confuse the hero if he ever picked up on their trail.
Bakugo had to admit that he was looking forward to being out of UA. Finally, he'd have a chance to properly rage again. To act like the powerful hero that he was always freaking meant to be.
Sure, he'd have to carry a few of these losers along the way, but some of them seemed at least the slightest bit competent, like Kirishima and Jiro and maybe some of the other vigilantes. Well, they would all be freaking vigilantes soon. That word still seemed strange and foreign to Bakugo. He was too used to referring to himself as a hero.
Whatever, ultimately, it wasn't that different. Just vigilantes seemed to be a whole lot more fun.
"Can't we use our torches?" the raccoon-eyed acid idiot whispered to those leading the group. "I can't see a thing!"
"Shh!" Tape-Arms hissed. "Kaminari's bad enough! We don't need you making noise!"
"You're speaking too!"
"Only because you are!"
"Would you shut up?!" Bakugo thundered back at them in the quietest tone he could muster (still probably a little too loud).
"We can't use the torches because it could give away our position!" Four Eyes retorted.
"The cameras are off," Racoon Eyes groaned.
"The heroes could still see us," said Ponytail Girl.
This was when Jiro froze beside Bakugo, her earphone jacks twitching in the air as she squinted her eyes in the darkness.
"What's wrong?" asked Kirishima, who had also noticed she'd stopped. Once he said that, everyone else also slowed to a halt.
"…I think I hear something," she whispered.
"P-Probably just an owl," Racoon Eyes insisted. "L-Let's keep going."
Uncertainly, Jiro nodded, and they continued.
But a few moments later, Bakugo heard a branch SNAP!
Both he and Jiro whirled around immediately, soon followed by the rest.
They all held their breath as they glanced around in the darkness. Eventually, Ponytail dared to click the on button on her torch –
– just in time to see a figure dart behind a tree.
"Go, run –" Jiro whispered.
And when no one responded to her, Bakugo gritted his teeth, forced himself away from a confrontation, and yelled –
"Run, you idiots! RUN!"
"You have a problem, Monoma," said Tsuburaba, his eyebrows raised.
Monoma scowled at him. He was sitting on a chair by the window, occasionally glancing out of it. Class A's dorm was right next to theirs. "They're up to something," he hissed, narrowing his eyes at the shadows that moved around in the light of their common room. "I just know it."
"Yeah, well, the last time you confronted them, it didn't end too well – and now my phone is utterly screwed. So, thanks a lot."
Monoma ignored him, resting his chin in his hands. "I don't care what excuses they gave their teacher. Something's not right here. And 18 is behind it."
"18 really saved you yesterday," Sen shrugged, sipping at his coffee. "Maybe you should just stop provoking him."
"Yeah, come on, Monoma!" Kendo sighed, "18 – what's his name again?"
"Midoriya," interjected Honenuki.
"Right – Midoriya just seems to want to protect his classmates, just like you are! It's very honourable of you, but you need to understand that he's trying to do the same, just maybe not in the best way. You should really try to get along with him! With his Quirk and yours – he could really help you out," Kendo beamed, her sunshine-like smile lighting up the whole room.
But Monoma still couldn't shake this feeling. One of class A had sided up with the villains, who's to say the rest haven't?
He'd taken it upon himself to do his own research, and Monoma had found a very interesting video in the depths of the internet, of 18 himself, dripping in a decent amount of slime as he yelled at the surrounding heroes, spitting words of such hatred and venom that even Monoma shuddered.
"Hm, yeah," Honenuki nodded. "Yeah, about that – there's something that I should probably tell –"
Monoma perked up, holding a hand out to Honenuki to stop him from talking.
There, in the shadows of class A's dorms, he spied four figures slip from an open window and into the night.
"Um, can I speak now?" Honenuki tried to continue.
"Shh!" Monoma silenced him, leaning closer to the window – but they were already gone.
"Monoma what is going on with you?!" frowned Setsuna.
"I just saw something," he hissed in reply.
"What?" frowned Tsuburaba.
"I saw something!"
"It's like ten o'clock at night!" Setsuna exclaimed. "You need to stop suspecting class A of every little thing, it's getting old."
"I saw some leave through the window!" Monoma insisted, standing up and trying to tilt his head at a better angle to see the other dorm. "I swear!"
"You're tired, Monoma," sighed Sen. "Just go to bed."
"They're up to something," Monoma breathed, "I knew it, I knew it!"
"Um, Monoma?" Pony interjected, tapping him on the shoulder. "You're acting… how do you say…? Err, crazy?"
"Pony's right," nodded Kuroiro. Monoma's antics had gathered quite a crowd at this point. "Nothing mysterious is at foot."
"There is," Monoma retorted. "Look, Setsuna – watch with me, just for a little longer, and you'll see, I swear."
There was a moment of hesitation, before Setsuna sighed and rolled her eyes. "Fine," she unwillingly nodded, before taking an eye out of her head with her limb-detaching Quirk and setting it down on the windowsill beside Monoma. "Who wants to try beating me at Mario Kart when I have only one eye?!"
And so, the rest of the class wandered away from Monoma and over to their video game. Monoma would have joined in, had he not been so sure he'd seen something.
About ten minutes passed, and he started to this he was going nuts. Until –
"Oh…" Setsuna gasped from across the room, her detached eye narrowing at the sight before it and Monoma.
Two members of class A had just hurried back to the window they'd climbed out of and slipped back inside.
"Oh, that is interesting," Setsuna breathed, pausing the game which she was winning by a long mile, and walking over to shove her eye back in her head.
"I told you," Monoma grinned. He was right!
"What, pray tell, is going on?" questioned Shiozaki, who now accompanied them.
"Monoma was right," Setsuna said, as though didn't quite believe it, "A couple members of class A just ran back to their dorm."
"Wait, really?" Awase gaped from over the sofa.
Not long after, Monoma saw him – 18, clamber out of that very same window.
He stood up tall, brushing the dirt off his knees, and looked around.
Monoma grabbed Setsuna's shoulder and pulled her down and out of plain sight along with him, whilst the others simply sidestepped away.
Cautiously, Monoma and the rest peered back through the window, to see even more of class A flee the building, and hurry off into the cover of the surrounding trees.
"What are they doing?" Kendo wondered aloud.
Monoma gritted his teeth, "I'm not sure, but I'm going to find out."
"What?!" Tsuburaba exclaimed, "You can't, it's after curfew."
"That hasn't stopped them!"
"Yeah but we're the heroes. We're supposed to follow the rules! Besides, look what happened last time! My phone!"
"Oh, shut up about your phone already!" yelled Kamakiri. "Monoma's right – we should step in!"
"I hate to admit it, but it might be the best thing to do…" Setsuna winced, turning to Kendo. "Look, that's my suggestion, but I'm the vice rep – we'll do whatever you think's the best."
Kendo seemed unsure.
"What if they're going to let more villains into the school, Kendo!" Monoma tried, finally tearing his eyes away from the window. He was quite sure all of class A had left by this point, and the first two never came back. "We have a chance to stop it now – I couldn't quite prove it yesterday, but we can now! And I'll be more careful with what Quirks I copy."
The entire class stood up, waiting for Kendo's verdict.
Until, finally, she deflated, "Ok, but we don't fight them unless they fight us!"
Monoma grinned –
I'm coming for you, 18.
