Hoo boy, Happy New Year everyone.
Before we begin I'll be making a little announcement: with the new year upon us, I've got plans to start porting my stuff over to Archive of Our Own. Been thinking about this for a while now and the overall state of this website as of recent has been the final push. I've only just regained some capacity to receive alert e-mails from FF after almost half a year of it not working and the stat tracker feature is still down. Never published or even had a profile on AO3 before, but I'm hoping it will serve as a more secure archive for my work.
Not to say I'll stop posting updates here, I plan to continue on both sites (so long as both are operational) so for those who prefer this format, I've no plans to abandon it. That said, with the fact that I've experienced this e-mail issue twice now in the past 2-3 years, my prospective AO3 profile will probably be the better place for those looking to communicate/contact me.
I'm also going to take this opportunity to "remaster" my earlier works and chapters: basically just correcting spelling and grammar issues and re-wording some bits, no plans for any overhauls that will require re-reading. Again, I'll also be re-posting these updated chapters/works here as well. My time table for staring things up will be sometime in February.
That said, let's get to it.
Go up.
It wasn't the most robust "strategy," if it could even be called that. But in his thoughts, Izuku reiterated the notion that simple was best. If it echoed enough times, maybe he'd start to believe it.
One arm wrapped around Kisuke's shoulder, Midoriya thrust his free arm forward in a palm strike. A football sized chunk of stone shattered against his hand, muscles rippling down the length of his limb. Uzuma wavered in his hover before pumping some strength into his spirals, shooting away from the ensuing rock volley.
Ms. Miyabi, or at least her silhouette, was openly visible. She hadn't gotten the chance to summon her shadow veil, even with the chamber routinely falling into absolute darkness. And she wasn't going to get a chance as Minetta leapt from an earthen column towards a particular, blue hued patch of wall.
The side of the shaft erupted forth the instant the boy slammed his hand down, shooting to the far side with blinding speed. This newest stone pillar barreled through numerous similar formations, the evidence of their group's manic efforts to thwart the shadow woman. The vertical chamber was an utter mess of criss-crossing, cracked, and pierced stone bars.
Miyabi hardly had to drift aside, the rocky joust poorly aimed and slamming home well clear of her. That was when Ikaruga flung herself at the shade, rocketing between bars of earth at top speed. One of her lead legs lashed out at the shadow, striking the smooth wall as Ms. Miyabi narrowly lunged out of the way.
The shadowy staff member stretched one arm along the edge of the cavern, the space's crimson glow falling to darkness, the area around her palm bulging slightly as the woman readied her counter attack.
She was not prepared for Tooru, riding on the spider girl's back, o suddenly shoot over Ikaruga's shoulder. The last thing she saw before the shaft faded to black was a raised blue sleeve, the unique lack of a hand coming out of it… and a black loafer poised to crash down on her.
A sharp "Ow!" sounded through the dark chamber, overtaking the hard clack of sole-er impact. The red light had barely begun to return when Midoriya made his play.
"Up," the teen roared, taking a page from Haga-Haga's book and kicking his heels lightly against Kisuke's flanks. The come haired boy responded even better than Minetta, snapping to attention and immediately erupting towards the top of the chamber.
Go up was the basic premise of the plan. Making sure they could get up was where things got more complicated.
Grasping across his classmate's front with one arm, Izuku's free limb swung back in a wide arc. His knuckles blasted aside a pitch missile, dousing the boys in black dust for a brief moment. A second shot flew wide as Kisuke's spiral force propelled them out of the cloud.
Ms. Miyabi was out in the open, still unable to form her shadow veil. "She can't concentrate," Izuku mumbled, staring down at the woman, "not when we're on the verge of escaping and the others are keeping up the pressure. It's just like we thought."
The bit of musing seemed to rouse some thoughts from Uzuma, "We… actually gonna escape? I don't see a door up there."
He wasn't wrong. There was no trace of an actual "exit" ahead. Instead an unnatural darkness loomed above. It was especially jarring as it utterly defied the rhythmic, scarlet glow of the shaft, crushing any light that ventured near.
"Not so different from Miyabi's shadow fields," Midoriya mumbled, "Lends credence to this being a feature of the building rather than a part of her quirk. Unlikely she could maintain such a massive veil whilst attacking and evading, not to mention the distance."
"Uhh…" Kisuke droned, thrown off by the sudden rambling. "Midoriya… the ceiling is still getting closer."
Blinking back into reality, Izuku remembered that his classmate had some concerns. "Keep going! Just focus on going forward!" Being a simple young man, Kisuke kept forward.
Izuku had a theory. If his and Ikaruga's conclusions were accurate – and they likely were – then this was all amounting to some sort of exercise. A rather daunting one, likely to penalize them for lateness as well as accessing an "unauthorized" area, but an exercise all the same. That meant that there was a win condition.
And in Midoriya's mind, their best bet was escape. So that is what he geared the group towards. And that was why he'd paired up with Kisuke: the one most likely to escape combined with the one best qualified to be a meat shield. Made sense to him.
Ms. Miyabi floated upwards, drifting between crystalline columns whilst rubbing the sore spot on her brow. Kurogane didn't let up at all, expertly vaulting through the jungle of stone structures in pursuit. As the person with the most mobility in their group, particularly in this environment, she was a natural choice for harassment duty.
But despite the eight limbed girl's impressive maneuvers, Ms. Miyabi slipped past all of Ikaruga's attacks with the natural grace of a serpent. More than that, she'd adjusted to their rhythm and was starting to launch a few counter attacks.
"Break left!" Hagakure's voice belted out with barbaric fervor. Her newest mount seemed to react more out of sheer intimidation than anything else, Ikaruga's frame swiftly juking to the left.
Tooru was always attentive. That's why she took notice of the cracked surface and bulging growths trailing the wall in Miyabi's wake. Delayed blasts, it seemed. Kurogane shot away just as the stone shots burst free. Between the spider girl's reflexes and the perceptive talents of the Great Haga-Haga, they were a formidable skirmishing force.
Super superhuman, if you will.
Their shadowy opponent took that gap in pressure to make ground. With a greater display of speed and precision than she'd shown thus far, Miyabi tapped out another barrage of blasts. But now, her focus could stay entirely on Uzuma and Midoriya.
The first shot was the fastest they'd seen. Izuku could only move himself in front of the projectile, taking the blow for Kisuke. The cone head faltered – even having his classmate as a barrier, the impact had thrown off his flight path. Almost immediately, he turned his head over his shoulder to check on his carry-on.
"Keep going," Midoriya yelled, again taking a note from the mighty Haga-Haga. The clear pain in his voice lent to its force, Kisuke quickly turning eyes forward. With his hands and legs locked in down position, the red head could do nothing for the other boy. Nothing but go faster, which he readily committed to.
Ms. Miyabi kept up the pressure, a storm of rocks chasing the two boys up the shaft. Though she kept some attention on Ikaruga and Tooru, always shifting out of their reach whenever the two made a play, she'd all but forgotten a certain smaller presence.
Minetta used his sticky balls to navigate the tangle of stone spires with impressive speed. The quality of the purple orbs to so strongly repel their creator combined with the boy's small size and light frame gave him shocking levels of maneuverability. But the greatest boon Minoru got from being tiny was just how hard he was to track. Particularly when the enemy was being harried by an agile wall crawler and taking aim at a fleeing rocket man.
Putting the teen on his own had been the third important component of Operation: Go Up.
The boy with violet balls came to a stop in view of his airborne classmates, tracking their rushed flight Miyabi's onslaught. His tired gaze drifted almost lazily to the shadow woman herself, watching her movements for a short time. Minoru never took his eyes off her, not even when the telling azure glow bloomed against his right leg and side. He raised his right foot, hovering over the blue splotch on the pillar, tracking Miyabi's path.
The living silhouette paused briefly to take aim. Minoru stomped down as the room went dark. At once the earthen growth blasted across the cavern, a sapphire javelin plowing through the darkness.
Ms. Miyabi swiftly dodged to the side, the structure's searing light eliciting an immediate reaction. She made to make further distance as scarlet began to illuminate the space. But the staff member hadn't counted on the small student riding along the crystal growth.
One of Minetta's grape orbs pounded onto Miyabi's left palm. She was instantly held in place, the tiny teen himself perched with both feet against the wall, pressing his sticky sphere as solidly against her hand as possible.
But then the nature of his quirk made a reappearance, Minetta bouncing back from his own ball. Still looking half dead with fatigue, the boy fell back into the empty space of the red shaft.
Kurogane leapt across the space, Hagakure releasing a small "Oooff!" as their classmate slammed into her gut. She clutched him tight, Ikaruga in turn holding her with both arms and one arachnid limb as they landed on one of the larger stone beams.
The trio took a moment to breathe, recollecting themselves after the close save. Once settled, both Minoru and Tooru turned towards the bound shade, forming their right thumbs and pointers into L-shapes before raising the gestures to their brows. Hagakure gave the added insult of blowing a sloppy raspberry, her diminutive partner in crime too tired to join the display.
Midoriya too felt the desire to laugh as he stared down at the shadow woman. Uzuma didn't even try to hold back, booming with laughter as the pair were making significant distance, no doubt closing on whatever "exit" laid within the gloom above.
Some of that humor was definitely hoping that they weren't going to just crash into the ceiling.
Izuku's verdant eyes met Miyabi's glowing gaze. It was as the shaft was going dark again, the pinpricks of her orbs and the neutral line of her mouth almost all that was visible. That was until a round patch of the rockface beside her bloomed blue. The straight line of Ms. Miyabi's lips formed a smile, the outline of a black palm hovering over the marine light.
Midoriya clenched his grip tightly on his spike haired classmate, prompting the teen to ask what was going on. The greenette's silence just urged him to fly faster. Izuku, eyes peeled wide, flinched as Miyabi's hand smacked down on the softly glowing span of wall.
The red atmosphere of the cavern was returning as the head of the cyan cylinder started cracking through the shaft's edge. It was just bright enough now for Izuku to spot the girl's dress shoe flailing through the air. Miyabi let out a pretty shocked cry as the flying footwear caught her right in the head, the human shade immediately pulling her free arm towards her brow.
Hagakure "Whooped" so loud it practically cracked the air, Minoru tiredly holding the edge of her skit to keep the girl from hopping in celebration atop the very unsafe stone beam. Ikaruga wondered how long it would take Tooru to fully regret sacrificing one of her shoes.
The erupting column jetted upwards, chasing the two boys to the top of the chamber. Midoriya swung around, holding onto Kisuke with one arm, angling his feet towards the incoming structure. But Miyabi's last second pain reaction threw off her aim, the pillar going wide by a hair.
Rough rock caught the tips of Izuku's shoes. The glancing shot sent the two boys reeling as the azure spire sped past. It didn't take more than a few seconds for it to strike home, plowing into and through the darkened plate of overhead earth. As Midoriya looked upward, he could see what appeared to be daylight poking through the growing gaps in the ceiling.
He also noted the immediate downside of being beneath a collapsing stone roof. A desk sized slab of rock was careening straight towards them.
Still solidly focused on the path ahead, Kisuke swiftly reacted to the approaching obstacle. The teen's left arm swung around, the spiral force surrounding it surging in strength as it was thrust forward. Kisuke's violet twister formed into a massive drill, punching through the earthen chunk and shattering it into a shower of debris.
Uzuma kept it going, concentrating on keeping the drill strong and steady. He continued to bore through anything ahead of them. Midoriya noted that they seemed to be moving faster. Glancing down, he realized that the spirals around his legs and lowered arm were similarly whirling at high speeds.
'Can he… not regulate the flows individually?'
Izuku immediately found the further ramification of this when Kisuke gave out a short, choking sound before his power abruptly flickered out. Firing on all cylinders like that, even briefly, had depleted the spike haired boy. Thankfully, they looked to have enough momentum to reach the area above. Unthankfully, there was one last falling boulder blocking their path.
The greenette pitched his classmate forward, putting himself between Kisuke and the collapsing section of ceiling. His right arm sparked with static arcs of emerald as Izuku swung his limb upwards.
Even moreso than Uzuma's efforts, Midoriya's elbow strike utterly battered the falling boulder. Craggy bits and chunks exploded upwards as the enhanced blow powered through. Izuku could only grit his teeth, his body locking up as white hot pain seized his entire arm. Kisuke and himself were sent into a wild tumble, neither in any shape to control their flight.
The world around them was awash with light. What caught Midoriya's attention was the likeness to daylight, even the warmth. It distracted him somewhat from the ache in his arm. He had a scant two seconds of rotating air time to muse on the odd sight. Then the two boys smacked down against the smooth floor beneath them.
"Fuck," Kisuke swore, slowly rolling out of Izuku's waning grasp. The freckled teen's now free hand clutched at his injured arm, squinting from the pain.
"And that's an escape," came a flat voice accompanied by a round of slow applause. Kisuke sat up as Izuku rolled towards the speaker. Standing beside the sizable hole in the floor, a large section of the room's center platform and about a third of the oaken desk missing, was Mr. Senki. He was wearing a deep burgundy sweater and black slacks, his dark dress shoes clacking as he paced sluggishly towards the two.
The teacher paused to lean over the side of the gap. "All good down there Miyabi?" The man's shout echoed out from the cavernous space.
There was a brief pause before a return holler of, "I was hit by a shoe. Twice."
Hokuto laughed, at least trying to keep it under his breath. "Yeah, we all saw that," the instructor added. His words were followed by a good round of humor from the other students assembled on their balcony seats.
Flickers of motion caught Midoriya's attention on his peripheral. Rolling back the other way, the boy caught sight of an enormous display opposite the seated students. An area of the wall about the size of the average classroom's floorspace was alight with a projected recording.
A recording of Izuku and friends stumbling through their encounter with Ms. Miyabi. Their class had seen the entire exchange.
"Fair adaptability," Mr. Senki appraised, "low planning, though acceptable considering your skill level and the unexpected circumstances. Rough execution overall, but a fight you walk away from is favorable enough. Once the rest of your posse gets up here, we'll assess your endeavors more in depth."
Kisuke's features paled at this revelation, a detail lost on Izuku. The greenette continued to stare listlessly at the cycling feed projecting from the far wall. Even as an entity that could only be Osmund began prodding his face with his damp nose, he remained motionless.
The conversation with Ikaruga before echoed in his mind, about the entire combat scenario being a kind of punishment for their truancy. Them being put under a microscope to be dissected by their teacher was just the final stage.
Welcome to hero school…
The room was fucking pretentious.
Well, the layout was pretty standard for an office space. Large desk towards the back of the room, a couple filing cabinets on the left wall and a lonely potted shrub against the right. A collection of folding chairs sat between the entrance and the desk, a more ornate armchair resting on the far side of the counter.
What made the scene obnoxious was the towering glass window that dominated the back wall of the room. That same shield emblem that had graced the floor of the precinct's main lobby stared down at the group, daylight tinted blue as it passed through the near transparent surface. What pushed things over the edge was that the window art was done up like stained glass, marked with thick, dark bands into irregular sections of various hues.
It was a pretty tasteless display, enough that Ranko momentarily dropped her aggressive stance to cringe at the "artwork." Whoever had it commissioned had explicitly refrained from mounting steel bars outside the window, favoring aesthetics over function.
Noting the teens' pausing, Ayato laughed nervously as he rounded the desk. The young officer pulled out the cushioned, leather chair… and placed it up against the wall beside the filing cabinets. It was an odd enough move for even Jamie to quirk a brow. It was almost like the rookie cop didn't dare to actually occupy the seat.
"Sit, sit," Ayato chirped, sweeping his arm to the assembled steel chairs. Jamie, carrying a near unresponsive Taro, complied without question. Daichi waited until the yankee was fully seated before making his own approach.
He halted less than two steps into his journey. Reaching out without looking, he took hold of Ranko's arm. The still keyed up dog girl tried to shrug him off, but the blonde maintained his grip, more than used to Ranko's moods. Putting up some continued, light resistance, she was nevertheless ushered into one of the steel seats. Daichi positioned himself over the chair between his schoolmates, a fraction of a second away from sitting down.
The sound of the door behind them clicking open froze the young man in place. Ranko immediately swung her sights on the entrance, Ayato merrily explaining how because he was newbie, a senior officer would be "supervising" their report.
Daichi hardly noticed any of this, staring emptily towards the edge of the desk just in front of him. He was still frozen in place, hovering over his chair, Jamie openly staring at the paused boy with a hint of concern in his blank expression.
Taro was perhaps the only one present with a like reaction to Daichi. Though the hamster had been rather motionless since their entering the office, now it seemed like he wasn't even breathing.
And Daichi could draw both their states back to the middle aged man now standing in the doorway. The scent of cheap cologne, budding beer belly, and bristly mug were comically cliché. If he had a longcoat and a fedora, he'd be the golden standard of a stereotypical detective.
But Daichi couldn't shake the sensation rattling through his bones. Turning to see the man only made the feeling worsen, the urge to run almost unbearable. His quirk was going into full on hysterics.
Then, Kurou Ikezawa stepped fully into the office, closing the door behind him.
Gonna be frank with you guys, overall one of my more subpar chapters I feel. Had to constantly stop and go during the shaft sequence because the flow felt off or the wording was confusing. Even this "final product" doesn't feel up to snuff, I just feel this odd air about it. Might just be the fatigue of it, can only re-tread something so many times before I get tired/start resenting it on some level.
Not that there weren't some fun moments. I do love having Hagakure smack someone with a shoe. The power of La Chancla transcends petty things like race and culture!
The sequence originally lacked the added context of everyone's roles within the "plan." Added it for the sake of clarity and to help display Midoriya's (and Kurogane's) overall strategy. It's rough and loose, basically just them trying to force an opening. As Mr. Senki put it, "Adequate… for a bunch of day one rookies."
Also ended up postponing the goings-on at the police station, again. Had a bit of a time crunch going with the update window looming and I just wanted to call it a wrap on this chapter. We get the setup for it at the end, so next entry will be mostly/fully dedicated to it.
Yeah, real brief notes this time. I'm actually gonna apologize guys, I feel like I've given you lacking content. Wasn't expecting for this part to trip me up this much, but it has. Bad way to start the year, I can only push on and do better.
Brighter days ahead, I know it. I'll see you next time.