Chapter Thirty-Five

Compromises

"Hm, interesting," Artemis said as she examined the sword left behind by Saber Alter while having a digital image of Lily.

"What's interesting?" Aizawa asked as he noticed the screen Artemis was looking at.

"Just going over some data I've collected on our current situation and coming up with a few ideas on how to get some of us out of here?"

"Some?"

"Well, it should be obvious that we can't save everyone. Given the information that I've gathered, the grand servants, Iida, Kirishima, Tsuyu, and Midoriya will most likely survive."

"...And the others?"

"Ojiro and Shoji are currently out of commission due to their injuries and won't wake up anytime soon, Jirou is still not mentally prepared to continue the fight after seeing her friends killed in front of her, Bakugo and Todoroki can't work together if what happened to Midoriya, Tsuyu, and Uraraka, and Toru doesn't have much going for her other then being invisible, and even that won't get you far if you don't have any survival skills," Artemis said as she soon pulled up another screen with the remaining students of class 1A faces on it. "What makes it difficult is the distrust towards Lily. Without trust, the survival rate of you all being able to escape will be low. Twenty-five percent low to be accurate."

"It's that low?"

"Of course, it's going to be low. These are children after all with little to no battle experience. It doesn't help that you have Bakugo who only cares about being number one for fame and glory, and Todoroki who only cares about being a hero only using ice instead of fire just to spite his father from the abuse he went through with him." She said which took Aizawa by surprise.

"...Explain," Aizawa asked as he looked over at the students currently cleaning the room they'll be staying in for the time being.

"You can thank Aphrodite for the information." She said before showing Aizawa images of Bakugo's and Todoroki's past. "While I can let Todoroki's problem slide for the most part, what I can't understand is how U.A. let a boy so horrible like Bakugo be part of your school. I mean, did you even do a background check on these people or any students that join U.A. High School?" She asked as she noticed Aizawa was staring in shock at what he was seeing. It was when Artemis cleared her throat was when he turned his attention to the machine god.

"...I'll be sure to have a much more in-depth word with them."

"More so with Bakugo, because something tells me that he'll end up getting killed or worse." She said before returning her screen to an image of Lily and Saber Alter's sword. "Now given the situation we're in and the food supply that we have, I say we have about five days to last in this singularity, seven if we're lucky."

"And what makes you say that?"

"Because food in this place is hard to come by seeing how it's in ruins thanks to the King. Even if we were to hunt demonic beasts, surviving off of their meat won't do much, nutrition-wise. Because you need more than just meat as a food source. We also have to worry about the King sending the other servants to attack us or have him come here and destroy the school." She said before bringing up a digital image of the corpse king. "The Corpse King isn't a living person per se, it's a mystic code, or living armor made with magic. The Worst part is that the king is a copy of Lily if she were to be able to fully utilize the holy lance."

"It's…living armor?"

"In a way, yes." She said before pulling up an image of Lily next to the corpse king. "Given the status between the servants and him, they would lose. That goes the same for a fight between Lily and the king. She would lose, even with Artoria's assistance…unless we give her a bit of a power boost."

"And where are we going to find a power boost?" He asked as Artemis pulled up Saber Alter's sword. "A sword?"

"The servant that Mineta killed was an alternate version of Artoria who was controlled by the Corpse King. Normally when a servant is killed, they return to the throne of heroes until they're summoned once again. But in some rare cases, they can leave behind certain items or weapons for a one-time use or other usage. Seeing how Mineta somehow was able to bring Excalibur, I can use this as a means to give Lily the boost she needs to ascend."

"...Is it wise to do that? Can't you give it to someone else in this class and train them?"

"It would kill them seeing how their bodies can't support high levels of concentrated magic, their bodies aren't like Lily's and the other grand servants, and this is the best shot that we have with our chances increasing from twenty-five percent to fifty-five percent."

"And you can't do that thing you did with Uraraka to make another grand servant?"

"Given the location, we're in and how we were just lucky to pull that out, no." She said before hearing a small groan of annoyance. "You don't trust that girl, do you?"

"Seeing how you've been with Mineta, then you must know who she is, right?"

"The villain killer, yes."

"Then you know why I'm against something like this."

"Hm, while I can understand your fears, my concern isn't about your feelings towards a girl you barely care for. My objective is to help the Grand Servants in defeating the beasts that have manifested on this planet." She said before focusing her attention on Aizawa. "Lily explained the role of the Grand Servant. Now we will do what we can to help people that are in need, but your moral values do not concern us."

"...How can beings like you call yourselves heroes?"

"Because our actions in the past paved the way for the future of humanity. Bloody, foul, and primitive as the past was, we at least we're strong to leave a lasting impact to be recorded in the throne of heroes. Though I can't say the same for this planet and its heroes given the system that's placed to cripple you humans."

The moment she said that Aizawa was about to speak up with a counter-argument about the hero system, but was soon cut off by Mineta startling wake up as his face collided with a pair of boobs due to being held by Demeter. There was a moment of silence upon everyone seeing this as Mineta looked up at her with a blush on his face.

"Nice to see you're awake, but I think Artemis would be more fitting than I," Demeter said as she pulled Mineta from away and levitated him over to Artemis, who in turn made the screen she was making disappear and pulled Mineta into a hug with his head pressed in between her breasts.

"N-Not that I'm against being woken up in between a pair of lovely breasts…but where are we?" Mineta asked.

"We are currently in the abandoned high school of this singularity. You can thank Lily for bringing you and the others here after you took down the servant that attacked your classmates." She said before pointing over at his classmates putting the finishing touches in the room they were in.

"Huh…wait where's Lily?"

"Currently making food for you and the others," Demeter said before noticing Uraraka, Kaminari, Momo, and Mina coming into the room with plates, pots, and containers filled with food. "Speaking of them, it seems they've been busy for the past hour or so." She said while noticing Lily wasn't with them. "You wouldn't happen to know where Lily is, do you?"

"She said she had to go wash the blood off her clothes. So she sent us to deliver the food to you guys." Mina said before placing some of the food on the nearby desk-like table.

"Aw man, look at all this good! And you're telling me Lily made all this!?" Kirishima asked as Kaminari waved a hand sideways.

"She gave us instructions on how to make certain dishes," Kaminari said before licking her lips at the food display on the table. "Never knew she had time to learn how to cook, what with her being on the run from heroes and villains alike." She said, which caused Mina to smack Kaminari upside her head. "Ow! What was that for!?"

"Try to be a little bit subtle?" She said with a stern tone in her voice. "We're trying not to see her as one and everyone besides us isn't that keen on trusting Lily."

"Sorry for the wait everyone, but I had to take a shower afterwards. Blood is very hard to get off your skin once it hardens." Lily said as they all turned their attention to the doorway, but were taken by surprise by the get-up she had on. From what they could tell it looked like she was wearing nothing, but upon further inspection, she would be wearing similar attire to that of Kama, only petals made out of gold were covering her breast and private area. There was a moment of silence hanging in the air before Aizawa spoke up.

"...Get out," Aizawa said with a serious expression on his face.

"Geez, not even going to give me time to explain?"

"Don't care, get out and put your clothes back on."

"Yeah, not going to happen due to multiple reasons," Lily said before leaning against the doorway. "In case you forgot, you dumbasses never gave me any other clothes other than the school uniform, which is covered in demonic beast blood."

"Then put on your hero costume! Seriously, don't you know that you're in the presence of boys!?" Iida yelled while blushing in embarrassment from what he was seeing. "Where did you even get that outfit to begin with!?"

"Kama," Lily said before pointing a thumb at the Indian god who had a grin on her face. "And if you're referring to my armor, then that's a big no."

"...And the reason is?"

"It's armor, I don't think you need a reason why I'm not wearing that. Another would be that it requires magic for me to keep it manifested. And seeing how I'm running on fumes, I'm stuck like this until I can get some rest or until my clothes are done." Lily said as Aizawa pinched the bridge of his nose before sighing.

"Momo, can you please make Lily some clothes?" He asked as Momo nodded. The class rep was about to activate her quirk. But the moment she did it, nothing happened.

"My quirk…it isn't working?" She asked as Musashi appeared next to her.

"You still have your quirk, but your body is kind of running on empty in the amount of lipids. Keep in mind that you were killed a couple of hours ago, so your body needs food to recover." She said before laying on Momo's head.

"Guess that option out. Oh well, I'm not complaining. Wouldn't be the first time I have to walk around like this." Lily said before hearing Aizawa let out a sigh of annoyance.

"You are a big disappointment. You think after being let into U.A. you would at least have changed a bit."

"And you guys haven't given me a reason to change." She said before making her way to the table with the food spread on it. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be getting something to eat."

"Seriously? Don't have any shred of dignity or something!?" Jirou asked before noticing Mineta and Kaminari staring at Lily's somewhat naked body. She deadpans at the two before trying to use her quirk to plug into their ears. While she succeeded with Kaminari as it caused her to yelp in pain, she wasn't successful with Mineta and Artemis slapped the ear jack away from Mineta as it caused Jirou to flinch a bit. "You're allowing this!?"

"If it was any other female, then I wouldn't allow it. But seeing how they're friends with possible benefits, then I'm allowing it." Artemis answered as Jirou deadpanned at her. "I am here to serve my darling in whatever he needs. Of course, I will keep him in line if he tries to do something that is out of line."

"Whatever, not like I want to be friends with him anyway," Jirou said as she moved from her seat and over to the table of food.

"Can you for once not be an ass and take this seriously?" Aizawa asked as he watched Lily take a seat next to Mineta. "We need to talk about how we're going to get out of here."

"Shouldn't we be talking about it tomorrow? You know, when we're well-rested and calm after what happened today?" Lily asked.

"We don't have that kind of luxury at this time. Especially given what we're dealing with." He said before addressing the class. "Given what Artemis said about our situation, we only have about five to seven days worth of food in this place. We're cut off from the outside world due to being in this…singularity, which means we're on our own here."

"How the hell are we going to get out of this shitty place?" Bakugo asked as he noticed Aizawa looking over at Lily.

"There is a way…but we need her help." He said which took everyone by surprise.

"You're joking, right?" Lily asked as Aizawa stared at her. "Oh god, you are serious."

"Sir, while I can understand that we all need to work together. Why is it that you need her to help us?" Iida asked as he noticed Artemis pulling up a screen with Lily and a black colored sword next to each other.

"While we may have six grand servants, three normal servants, and a small group of humans. Our chance of surviving this is low. Mainly due to a lot of factors to take in. The distrust and inexperience of everyone. Like it or not, we're in this together. That means we're all going to have to work together to make it out alive as best as we can." She said before turning her attention to the screen. "To increase our chance of survival, I would like to propose to infuse Excalibur into Lily's body."

"I'm sorry, but why would you want to do that? Wouldn't that kill her?" Tsuyu asked as the screen changed to showing compatible traits with Lily and the sword.

"To a normal human, that would be the case. But, seeing how Lily's a Pseudo Servant with a divine spirit inside her as a host, this is possible." Artemis said as she made the image of the sword convert into energy, and placed it inside the image of Lily's body. "We don't know why this darker version of Artoria left her sword behind, but we can only speculate she knew how much of a threat the Corpse King is. By converting her sword into raw magic form, I can infuse it to give Lily the added boost we need to increase our survival rate."

"And how long does the process take?" Aizawa asked.

"Implanting it will take an hour, though the process of having it infused into her very being will take about three days. Side effects will include weird cravings, random bursts of energy, and possible appearance change."

"Wait, what was that last one?" Lily asked as Artemis looked over at the bunny girl with a nonchalant expression on her face.

"Possible appearance change?"

"Yeah, that. What's going to happen to the way I look?"

"Well, sometimes the appearance of a servant might change depending on the requirements. This process that we're doing might change the way you look depending on your past actions."

"... well…shit this might turn out bad for me, appearance-wise."

"Again, we don't know if that will apply to you. But it shouldn't matter seeing how you'll be our ace in the hole for your fight against the Corpse King." She said before looking at the other members of class 1A. "During that time, we'll be training for the next six days. Once we've used up all our food reserves, we'll make a final assault on the King's location for the final battle. Any questions?"

"I have one," Todoroki said as Artemis and the others looked over at him. "Why are you letting a villain be the ace in the hole? Wouldn't it be more logical to let someone else be infused with that sword? Wouldn't the other…Grand Servant be a better choice?"

"Is there a reason why you're against this?"

"She's the villain killer. Known for killing five hundred people. Whatever her reasoning was, murder is still murder. You expect me to place my trust in someone like her?"

"I have to agree with Todoroki," Jirou added. "For all we know, she could just attack us once she's all powered up."

"I don't believe she would do that," Midoriya said as everyone looked over at him. "It wouldn't make sense just for her to up and kill us. There wouldn't be anything to gain, and given how she's been acting at U.A.….she's too much a…how do I put it into words without sounding harsh?"

"She's an ass, but can be fair to reason with so long as you treat her nicely," Mina said, which took everyone by surprise. "What? It's true."

"I…suppose that's one way to put it, but yes. I don't think she would want to hurt people, just because she can."

"I would have to agree with Midoriya," Iida said as Toru, Kirishima, and Tsuyu nodded in agreement. "Despite her brash attitude towards heroes and her actions at School. She does have some form of restraint. Though I do wish she would pay attention in class instead of goofing around."

"What a joke, she has you idiot believing she's not a threat, but she is. Hell, I bet she put poison in the food you morons are about to eat." Bakugo said, which caused Aizawa to speak up in annoyance as he activated his quirk.

"All of you knock it off. Like it or not, we need to work together to get out of this situation," he said before focusing his attention on everyone in the class. "I don't care about your distrust in one another, or how you don't you're on edge with Lily. You need to remember that you all become heroes because you want to help and save people. Compromisation is the key to becoming a hero, and this is a perfect example of that lesson."

"You gotta be kidding me!? You want us to work with this trash of a villain-" Before Bakugo could finish his statement, the sound of a finger-snapping echoed throughout the room as the young man's angry facial expression turned into an emotionless blank slate. The entire group looked around the room to see who it was that caused the snapping sound, only to see that it was Aphrodite that was the source as she was casually sitting at a desk with an apple in her hand.

"Sorry, but I can't stand to hear him yelling like a goat. So he's going to be kind of stationary, for the next couple of minutes or so. Don't worry, he can hear the conversation that we're having." Aphrodite said after taking a bite out of the apple she was holding. "Anyone else want to be in the same situation as Bakugo?" She asked as the remaining students shook their heads quickly. "I figured as much, please continue Mr. Aizawa."

"...I'll allow it this one time," Aizawa said before looking at Lily as he deactivated his quirk. "It should be clear that I don't trust you one bit. But given how dire the situation is, I'm going to cooperate with you until we can get out. What will it take for you to help us get out of here?"

"...I have three requests," Lily said before placing her food off to the side. "I want to be able to leave campus. Not because I'm planning on escaping anytime soon so long as you don't give me a reason to leave, but I want to be able to go to the store, buy my clothes, and shop like a normal kid."

"Only if you're willing to have an adult with you."

"What, you mean like Present Mic?"

"A responsible adult, not a jackass."

"Fine, I'll allow Midnight to accompany me when I need to go to the mall or something."

"Do you trust her?"

"Not completely, but she is trying to get to know me, unlike the rest of you heroes. Hence what I said about letting her accompany me."

"Fine, I can make that happen. What about the other two?"

"I get to punch All Might in the face." She said which caused the room to go silent and her classmates to stare at her in shock.

"...Care to explain why you want to do that?"

"Question to everyone in this class besides Momo, Kaminari, Kirishima, Mina, and Uraraka. But has anyone ever heard of Big Al's Orphanage for the Misguided?" She asked which caused Iida, Toru, Tsuyu, Mineta, and Jirou to look at each other in confusion, while Todoroki stared at her with less interest.

"I've heard about it. It was said that the orphanage was shut down due to finding out the hero was secretly a villain in disguise. But what does that have to do with…you." He asked as Aizawa spoke up.

"You were a victim of that case, weren't you?" He asked as Lily nodded.

"Mr. Aizawa, do you know what Lily said?" Iida asked as Aizawa sighed in annoyance.

"Sadly, yes. For those of you who haven't paid attention to the news five years ago. There was an orphanage called Big Al's Orphanage for the Misguided."

"Which was originally called Chaldea and the previous owner was named Tituba," Lily said before pulling out a picture of herself at the age of seven and the maid fox woman.

"Wow, she's hot~," Mineta said, which caused some of the students to deadpan him. "What? She is hot."

"Thanks for complimenting my foster mom," Lily said as she handed the picture to Aizawa as he continued.

"As I was saying, the hero known as Big Al wasn't supposed to be in charge of the orphanage, yet in All Might carelessness, and the hero commissioners giving me too much power, he ended up letting Big Al take control over the orphanage due to his outstanding hero work. Five years later, Endeavour found out that he was part of a sex ring organization that had been selling and using orphan children for…sexual actions." He said as Toru, Midoriya, Todoroki, Jirou, Iida, and Tsuyu stared at Lily in shock.

"Let me clear, I left the orphanage before all that stuff happened. But that wasn't the reason why I left, it was more of the owner and how he changed the place and how he treated me. For the past two years, I've been humiliated by him due to his dislike for foreigners like myself, targeted by the other kids because he was able to convince them I was the source of all evil in the world, denied me medical help due to having multiple organ failures that I didn't know about until later on when Artoria explained to me what was wrong with me. The list goes on, but I think you get the point."

"So the reason you want to punch All Might in the face," Aizawa said as the man was cut off by Lily speaking up.

"Is because he fucked me over in having a normal life. I can't kill him the fucker due to the ramification of Japan losing its number one hero, so punching him in his stupid face will have to do for the time being."

"You can't do that!" Midoriya yelled. "I know that All Might made a mistake, but you can't just punch him-"

"There is no fucking excuse for what he did," Lily said coldly. "He's a grown-ass man, who should own up to his mistakes."

"...I'll allow it," Aizawa said while taking a picture of the photo he was given. Everyone, minus the servants, was taken by surprise by what he said as he handed the picture back to her.

"You're joking…right?" Todoroki asked as Aizawa shook his head.

"She's right about All Might. He's an adult and needs to accept the consequences for his actions…no matter what it was." He said before looking back at Lily. "And the third request?"

"Gemstones." She said which caused Aizawa to raise an eyebrow at her. "Not for fashion purposes, but for magecraft. You did see what I did with them during my fight with Bakugo, Iida, and Todoroki?"

"And you can't make them yourself?"

"Even I have my limitations on creating stuff. Having gemstones already made, makes it easy for me to infuse certain magic into them for use."

"I'll…take your word for it." He said before noticing Lily offering him her hand to shake.

"Do we have a deal?" Lily asked as Aizawa stared at her. "Keep in mind, I make no promises about saving everyone. But I'll try my best so long as you're willing to work with me for the time being." The older man stared at her hand for a good few seconds before letting out a sigh of annoyance. Given their circumstances, he doesn't have much of a choice seeing how they were down five students and prefer not to lose more. Aizawa raised his hand before shaking Lily's hand in return. A smile could be seen on Lily's face as they broke off the handshake within a matter of seconds.

"Deal."

"Wonderful, nice to see someone is willing to cooperate compared to some people in this class." She said while slightly looking at Bakugo, Jirou, and Todoroki. "We'll start tomorrow on how to plan this out. Till then, eat, drink, and sleep. Because tomorrow's going to be a very long and rough day for everyone."