Why, how, and when?
These were the questions currently on Manga Fukidashi's mind—all valid, and he had even found some answers to a few of them.
"Why" was pretty simple; he wanted to become a hero. He had heard it was the current trend at the moment.
The "how" wasn't really certain at the moment. He thought it might be because the religious girl had tried to convert him, unsuccessfully, mind you. It could be that, or maybe it would happen when he decided to join his team.
On the other hand, he would have then accepted an invitation to join that girl's team.
He wasn't sure if it would be any better than what he was currently in. That being currently ensnared in her hair quirk—vines, to be specific.
Or were they? At least, they were similar in color, structure, and the feeling of vines. At least, he thought this stinging pain was what it would feel like to be grabbed by a massive tsunami of thorny vines.
This pain would only become stronger as long as she continued to wildly flail him around, as if he were a sack of potatoes. A very handsome sack of potatoes, if he did say so himself.
Ibara, meanwhile, was above such petty thoughts, concentrating on her opponents before her. The brown-haired boy seemed to be able to create some kind of air barrier that blocked all of her attacks.
Meanwhile, she kept her distance from the other boy who seemed to ignore the thorns on her vines and grabbed them as if they were nothing. He almost managed to spin her around if not for her quickly cutting the vines off.
"Just give up and spare us the headache!" The brown-haired boy mocked, wearing a smug grin while trying to maintain composure despite being out of breath.
Ibara seized upon something. "I respectfully decline," she stated firmly. Then, new vines shot out of the ground a few feet behind him, while another set of vines approached him from the front.
She had to give it to the boy; he was quick-thinking. Instead of creating another wall to block them, he created air platforms, expertly dodging above.
"This is it," she declared, preparing herself to finish this confrontation when a looming shadow pounced upon her.
She had completely dismissed the mutant boy. How air-headed could she be? And now she was paying the price for it. It was far too late to react—
"BAM!" She didn't know what she was seeing, but a giant block of words came out of her captive's mouth, slamming against the boy and launching him several meters away.
"Oh my god! Finally, air again!" the captive exclaimed, breathing a sigh of relief before realizing what he had hit. "Sorry about that!" he called out, feeling a bit embarrassed.
Not letting the opportunity slip away, Shiozaki immediately completed her attack, engulfing the entire person in her vines, burying them several layers deep as opposed to just one layer with Manga.
With a determined exhale, she tightened her hold and molded the prison into a tight ball, now resembling a spiked chain ball.
With a forceful gritting of her teeth, she grasped the other end of the vine rope and began to swing it around her, building more and more momentum.
"You've never managed to do extraordinary things, Ibara. What makes you think you can do them now?" a voice taunted her.
She turned around, glaring at the speaker, before exiting through the door.
Closing her eyes in pain and unable to see her surroundings, everything now a blur, she prayed to god that her attack would hit the other opponent.
" AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!" Meanwhile, Manga had the unfortunate opportunity to feel what it's like inside a mixer.
"Stop! Please! Who are you trying to kill?" Manga managed to say, with every word delayed by a second.
Was that...? It was, a tree! If he could just reach it! Stupidly, he was still mostly human in biology, so there was no scientifically possible way for him to reach the tree and stop that mad woman.
But Manga Fukidashi wouldn't be Manga Fukidashi if he let something as trivial as the concept of the universe stop him from—
NOT. DYING.
"Please, if there is a god!" He was not a religious person, especially now after meeting Shiozaki and witnessing her fanaticism.
But if there was something like a god now...
He vowed never to take the Lord's name in vain again.
Shiozaki was pushing her limits. Eighteen turns now, whereas normally, she could only manage seven before her vines would snap or her hands would give out.
But something was urging her to continue spinning and spinning until there was no way they could survive—
She came to an abrupt stop as she felt something collide with her vines.
The enemy?
No, they would have been launched away; nobody should have been strong enough to stop her at this moment, except perhaps All Might.
A lapse in her concentration, a break in her focus, was all it took for her vines to snap in two. The built-up momentum was now weaker but still strong enough to knock her enemy off his feet before sending him flying a good distance into the nearby forest.
"Shit…" She turned towards the source of the voice. The mutant boy, Shoji, if she remembered correctly, stared at the last visible location of his teammate before returning his attention to her.
His eyes had a strange gleam, a mix of fear and respect.
Wordlessly, he untied one of his headbands from his arm before tossing it toward her, and she easily caught it with one hand.
Both of them just stared at each other before Shoji circled around her toward the forest and then sprinted away once he had enough distance.
She didn't let her guard down until his silhouette had disappeared deep into the forest. She was honest with herself about her abilities; she wasn't one hundred percent sure she could have defeated the other boy in her current state.
"Argh, shit. What the hell, man?! You got two quirks?!" The familiar voice of her hostage snapped her out of her thoughts. She violently turned around in shock to see Manga tied to a tree... by seemingly nothing.
"Get me out of these vines!" He shouted at her in confusion, struggling against the air itself, it seemed.
She squinted her eyes, trying to see if she was missing something, but upon further searching for whatever it was that was binding him to the tree, it was either invisible, or her unwilling teammate was starting to hallucinate.
Which, in turn, would mean that she was starting to also start hallucinating, a thought she'd rather not have right now or ever.
"Calm down," she tried to reason, hoping not all was lost. Although she wasn't really optimistic about the fact that her words would reach him, she had to try something to calm the boy down, lest she wanted to use her quirk once more.
She wasn't even sure she would be able to constrict him in her current state. He had shown that he could indeed free himself from her, and now that she was weakened, there was really no way he couldn't.
The boy continued to ignore her, something that annoyed her greatly, although she didn't show it outwardly. No, she would not be provoked by this… this… him!
"This is so unfair! How the hell is it allowed to get two kinds of quirks just like that? Did you win the genetic lottery or something?" He shouted in indignation, straining against the vines that seemed to be holding him to the tree.
Ibara felt something different after this comment. It wasn't the cold indifference she normally felt when people mocked her beliefs or her dedication. It wasn't like when she had her looks insulted or her personality mocked.
No, this was just anger. Pure, unadulterated anger that was coursing through her veins from every fiber of her body.
She needed to calm down and think this through! Who cared for the words of someone so inferior to her? Who actually cared about someone like him, who was so easily dispatched by her with no difficulties! Who would care about the words of... of... of that damn monkey!
In the blink of an eye, any stress or fatigue that was visible on her face and body vanished, fueled by another surge of adrenaline, this time driven by anger rather than fighting lust; her vines were already standing straight once more.
Even someone who normally could read the room perfectly but most of the time chose not to, felt something dangerously shift in the air. And one turn to his left revealed the crazy bloodlust emanating from the space around him.
Shit, if he didn't know any better, right now she was the complete opposite of angelic or holy, as someone, not him certainly, would have called her.
Right now, all she resembled was an angel of death.
And that glare was directed towards him and him alone.
For the first time in Manga's life, he wished he didn't have the full and undivided attention of a beautiful girl.
It was by pure luck and maybe another quick prayer to the almighty that the vines around him immediately loosened and vanished, it seemed. He almost didn't notice, but in the last second, he managed to roll to his landing, avoiding the spiky vines that were sent.
To his absolute horror, instead of grabbing the tree or colliding with them as he thought, they instead whipped around the carrier where his stomach would have been, leaving cut marks from the vines on the bark of the tree.
"Are you-" Before he could retort, the girl completely went psychotic; another vinewhip came towards him.
" STOP!" A large wall that was shaped in the form of 'Stop' blocked the attack, luckily not even leaving a scratch mark this time.
His relief died down quickly when the vines bundled together in four pairs, intertwining themselves into a large vine before whipping at his shield again. This time it crumbled, along with it a bit of Manga's hope.
'Shit, this girl's really some crazy fanatic or something!' He started to regret not taking up her offer to join her team. Not like she wanted him on her team now, with the way she wanted to slaughter him.
It didn't take long for the rest of the wall to crumble, leaving him without defense.
Fortunately, stupidity and obliviousness were two separate things. He admitted he maybe wasn't the smartest tool in the shed; there were way more intelligent people on this earth than him.
But even he knew that if an enemy attacked your shield and successfully did that, you don't just stand behind it and wait for it to collapse.
So he ran away. Something he did a lot more on this day alone than he did most weeks."What the hell kind of school was this?! He wasn't so sure anymore if he wanted to be here anyway. If it saved him from being literally whipped by this girl, then he would take his leave gladly.
He looked behind him and almost wanted to scream louder than he already was. That girl was really chasing him, using her vines as some sort of bionic spider leg extension like some freaky mutant monster or something.
For God's sake, who the hell did he piss off in his last life for the Samsara to think that this is equal karma?
"Bang, Boom, Kapow!" One word of his quirk after another was sent behind him, making his throat ache. Four, no maybe two more words before he would completely lose the use of his quirk for a few hours.
Shit, he should have really worked on his quirk's stamina. Not that it was really viable since he would usually already have coughed up blood or something.
Hey, maybe he was becoming stronger.
"Aargh!?" A searing pain ripped across his backside, exposing his flesh to the world. He could feel a slight liquid running down his back. She actually whipped him. God forbid, did she take some kinky pleasure, or why did she decide to do that?!
Shit, he really is out of breath now, and the stinging pain didn't help. Should he do it now?! But what of consequences?
"Huurgh?!" Another whip to his back.
She had to have gotten disqualified for that, but no, there was simply no announcement for her or anything. He really started to hate this school now.
He looked once again behind him; he was actually a good distance away still but not enough that she wouldn't catch him in the next few seconds if he didn't do anything.
He gathered his resolve, which was nothing. Literally, all of it was already beaten, but screw it.
He always did want to go out with a bang.
He came to a stop and turned around in an instant surprising the girl for a few moment and seemingly shaken her out of whatever the hell berserker rage she was in.
"Blast away!"
For a second, nothing happened, and she came to an immediate stop from her pursuit. In the next second, she felt like an invisible force or something was pushing her slightly away.
In the second after that, the slight push transformed into a giant push hell-bent on launching her away, and before she knew it, she was in the air, literally being launched a very good distance away.
To make matters worse, her ears were ringing like mad, as if she had been standing right next to a giant speaker at a heavy metal concert for a day.
Fukidashi slumped to one knee, shaking a bit.
He tried to hold it in, tried to hold it all in, but-
"Bleergh…" a disgusting red liquid made its way out of his mouth involuntarily, leaving the poor boy even more exhausted.
"I really shouldn't have used this at the end…" he scolded himself before propping himself up again and looking toward where the girl should have landed.
Should have landed, since she wasn't there anymore, or anywhere in the sky.
His heart froze as soon as he heard the telltale rushing noise of her vines beside him. He didn't even need to turn around to see them too close to dodge anymore.
'Shit-'
A hard object collided with his head, causing him to spin and crash onto the ground. His head throbbed with pain, his blood pulsating in his head.
"There's... there is no way something like this is allowed," he gasped, rising to his feet and locking eyes with the psychopathic girl.
"What... what the hell is wrong with you?" he asked, pointing at her.
"I..." she began.
"...thought that the Bible… frowns upon stuff like that?" Manga questioned in a subdued voice. Whether he was just shocked, experiencing blunt trauma, or something else, he had no idea.
Ibara frowned at him once more. "God smites sinners," she answered, moving closer to him. Manga didn't make any move to get away, continuing to stand in the same spot.
Shiozaki abruptly stopped and snapped her head down to her feet. She lifted it and squinted her eyes to see better; she could have sworn she felt something brush over it.
"Hey… I think I now know… where those vines came from!" he exclaimed, excited.
"Now she was sure of it; something had grabbed her ankle earlier, because now it grabbed her whole left leg and tugged at it firmly."
Unfortunately, for whatever invisible force he had managed to summon, it was of no use to Shiozaki since she simply extended her hair towards a nearby tree to root herself in place.
"Hrng." A grunt of exertion came from the boy, confirming her theory that whatever was grabbing her was his doing. "Heh, should have... known that this... wouldn't work." He conceded, the pressure on her leg subsiding.
"You finally see the errors of your ways?" Ibara asked in a patient voice, like a parent to their child. She slowly released her own hold on the tree.
"Kidding. COME HERE!"
The same feeling that she had felt earlier when she was blasted away by the boy came over her again, only this time it was in reverse. Instead of being launched away, she was slowly sucked towards him.
Quickly reacting, she once more tightened her grip on a tree, only to feel the pressure increasing exponentially, uprooting the tree she was using as a hold and forcing her to fly in the direction of Manga.
Manga, who had no idea what was going on anymore, made a grabbing motion in the air, making it feel like he had grabbed her.
Not a second later, purple vines extended out of his hands from, god knows where, holding the poor girl around her waist before tightening into a firm grip.
"Let's see how you like getting spun around!" Honestly, he wasn't an evil person, nor did he want to cause harm to others.
He was very petty, though.
Increasing his speed to the max, he finally let the girl go, launching her toward the lake area or was it a waterfront; he couldn't see it very well from where he was.
Clapping his hands for a job well done, he looked at the horizon where he had launched the girl seconds before.
"..."
He slowly lost his sense of balance, shifting from his left to his right leg before falling sideways toward the ground. "Just... a few... seconds..." he huffed, exhausted before metaphorically closing his eyes.
Anticlimactic much, huh?
Yeah I was sitting on this scene for the last week or so because I couldn't find a way to end this, sorry for this pretty shit writing from me right now but I really can't be bothered to let this cook on the stove for more days.
Still, hope you have a nice day, ciao.
Yes, i know thats not how Manga's quirk works.