King Explosion Murder the Shield Hero

by BKL777

This is the story of hero in training Katsuki Bakugou being transported into the world of Melromarc and is the new cardinal shield hero in their darkest time of need. Bakugou will go on many new adventures in this fantasy world to become their world's greatest hero whether they want him to or not.

24. Chapter 24: Trouble in another world

Chapter 24: Trouble in another world

"Ugh!" Moaned the shield hero as he woke up from a long sleep, Bakugou had no idea what just happened to him or his party. He remembered after Ost Horai's death, he had Larc and Glass cornered then suddenly Kyo's book glowed, and flashed a bright light on them. Next thing he knows Bakugou was now in this random place. Right on top of his body was a toddler form Kirishima sleeping next to Bakugou now getting himself up once he felt his father's movement.

Bakugou then looked around and saw that he was in a jail cell of some kind with what looked to be small piles of hay for bedding.

As Bakugou looked around he also noticed his sidekicks were also all here, lying down on the hay, though they were also getting up around the same time, "Sir Bakugou is that you?" Neia asked still looking tired after a long nap with Daven and Rino right next to her getting up themselves.

Bakugou grunts as he stretches his arms out, "Yeah it's me, damn I'm still sore. Do any of you know where the hell we're at?" he asked his sidekicks.

Neia, Rino, and Daven looked around this strange place, but even they didn't recognize where this could possibly be at, "I don't know myself, I've infiltrated many prisons before, but this isn't one I'm familiar with." Daven says unsure like with the others.

"But why would we be in a cell like this in the first place? What would the coalition forces have to gain by imprisoning us? " Rino says stretching herself which makes the others wonder.

Bakugou was just as in the dark as the rest of the team, "Yeah none of it makes sense, I doubt this has anything to do with Queeny or the other quack generals." he said as he continued to look around the rather large cell

"Sir Bakugou are you and everyone ok?" said another voice and as the group turned to the source of it, it seemed to be coming from another large pile of hay.

And to make things more confusing for everyone, the person in the pile popped out, and it was little Rifana, but the little was now literal. "Rifana is that really you?!" Neia asked now surprised along with the others who were just as confused by the sight. The last time they saw her, Rifana was a full-grown young adult woman, now she was just a tiny little girl again with most of her clothes now oversized, barely fitting her anymore.

Rifana was wondering why Neia would ask that, but she quickly found that out herself, "Oh no! My mature body!? I'm little again!" she panicked as she touched all over her body to confirm that she was no longer at her physical prime anymore.

With everyone else more confused than before the sidekicks turn their attention to their equally confused leader, "Sir Bakugou do you know what's going on!?" Neia immediately asked.

"No I fucking don't! Give me a minute to figure it out!" Bakugou yells and immediately tries to look for answers with his shield, he notices its default form is now a different design than before, but that's the least weird thing with it as he looks at his menu for answers. Only to be hit with another surprise, "What the hell!?" he shouts out loud.

"What's wrong now?" Rino asked with the others wondering as well.

Bakugou immediately answered, "It's my level, I'm back to level one again?"

This big reveal made everyone absolutely confused now.

After a minute or so for everyone to catch their breaths, they continued to wonder what the hell they got themselves into.

Bakugou had been looking through his menu to find any explanation, but got nothing out of the tutorials and instructions, "Damn useless menus. Though it does seem like I'm not the only one back to level one, all of you are back to square one as well, which would explain why weasel girl is like this." Bakugou says to everyone.

Rifana though was still confused when compared to the other Demi-human in the room, "But why am I small now but Daven is still all grown up?" she asked.

Daven was quick to explain why, "I grew up the normal way, so I'm already biologically 19 even reduced back to level one.".

It made sense to Rifana, but she still didn't like how she is now, how would she get Bakugou to fall in love with her if she was just a little girl again?

Rino then looked toward Kirishima who was laying on his father's shoulder, "I'm guessing Kiri can't transform anymore either?" she guessed.

Bakugou nods to her and Kirishima himself after hearing that attempts to will himself to get big again, but no matter how hard he tries he can't grow in size again, not even in his teen form, "Doesn't look like it." Bakugou confirmed it.

Rino continued to ponder this situation, "The only way we could have our levels reduced is if we were placed under a dragon hourglass, but why would any nation want to do that with a cardinal hero."

Daven nods in agreement with her, "Indeed, I doubt this is Siltvelt and Trinock's doing, he would've just killed us by now."

Bakugou continued to think about this whole thing as he stood by the cell bars, "Let's just think of what we did before. I killed the damn turtle, Daven stabbed bookworm in the back, I crushed the souls' thing, Neia decapitated the same bastard, Ost died, we had Farmer boy and Cat eyes cornered, then that book glowed and.…." Bakugou paused for a few seconds and now realized what may have happened, and was now growling in deep anger, "Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, that 4 eyed bastard! He must've teleported us somewhere with that damn book before he lost his empty head! God damnit!" he yells and hits against the bars of the prison.

The sidekicks didn't like what this implied, "Sir Bakugou are you saying Kyo's book just teleported us somewhere and De-leveled us?" Neia asked with the others wondering as well.

Bakugou was still raging out as he walks around near the cell's door, "This was probably that asshole's final laugh of his to screw us over! Damn him!" Bakugou yells and kicks on the door.

But to his surprise and the others, the door just moves away wide open, "Huh?" Bakugou expressed in confusion, he didn't even see any lock snap-off or anything like that after he kicked it.

The sidekicks were also confused by that, "Sir Bakugou was that thing even locked in the first place?" Rino asked with the others wondering as well.

Bakugou messed around with the door, moving it in and out trying to see what was up with it, but he didn't see anything wrong, "Guess not." Bakugou just responds and pushes the door and leaves the cell.

His sidekicks went along with him through the cell including Rifana as she rolled up some of her oversized clothing so she could walk around in them.

Bakusquad looked around the supposed prison as they realized how empty this place really was, no other prisoners, no guards, nothing, "Kirishima do you smell anything here but us?" Bakugou asked his dragon on his shoulder.

Kirishima sniffs around the air to see if he can pick up anything but them, however, he can't find anything so he turns back to his father to shake his head no.

Rino looks at one of the other cells and just sees it filled with a bunch of food and supplies and like their cell it wasn't locked either, "I don't think this is a prison, maybe a storage building but why are there no locks to anything?" she wondered.

Bakugou just sighs confused by this whole situation, he then looks down the hallway to what looks to be the exit with no door or anything, "Might as well go outside and see where the hell we're at." he says as the shield hero walks his way to the exit with the rest of his team following suit.

Once they were through the exit, to his and his team's surprise they looked to be on a beach of a tropical island of sorts, not too different from Cal Mira. But everyone there knew something was off by just feeling the air, despite a beating sun it didn't feel remotely humid at all for such a setting.

Bakugou continues walking around the beach area to get some sort of bearings on this place. He picks up some sand and lets it pour out of his hand as he also looks to the water, "Waves, but no wind?" he comments knowing full well this was no normal deserted island.

"Look at this Sir Bakugou?" Rifana says pointing toward the entrance they came from, it now looks like just a random archway in the middle of the beach that leads to nowhere despite them just coming out of it.

"Some sort of teleportation magic I guess?" Rino responds trying to rationalize this weird place.

Bakugou quickly looks at his shield, "Speaking of teleportation." he says and immediately changes his shield to his map shield, hoping he can just use that to get out of this weird place.

But when he tried activating the shield, his menu started glitching up along with a pop-up appearing stating *Error! Error! Shield not usable while in Labyrinth*

"Labyrinth? What kind of place is this?" Bakugou says to himself, he figured just fast traveling out of here would've been too easy, but this situation still annoyed him.

Daven points out toward the ocean, "There doesn't seem to be any real horizon either, it's like the world just ends there." he says and Bakugou takes notice and sees that the sea's horizon looks weird like an optical allusion of sorts with the way the water reflects the edge of this place.

Bakugou then turns to his water elf companion, "Neia go out there and see what the hell is up." he ordered her.

Neia just shakes her head in disagreement, "Not that I'm scared Sir Bakugou, but do you think it's a good idea for level 1 me to go into unknown waters with no idea what's out there?" she points out.

Bakugou sighed but understood her point, "Fine, the level thing is a pretty big issue for all of us." he then looked inland at the jungle, "Might as well grind while we figure out this damn place."

And just as he approaches near the end of the beach, a random small monster jumps out of some bushes, "Cardboard? Really?" Bakugou expresses in annoyance, that the monster indeed resembled what looks to be a white cardboard box with the eyes drawn on it.

The monster then opens up its mouth from the folds to reveal within the "box" was a pair of red eyes and a purple tongue. It immediately jumps to attack Bakugou.

But the shield hero remained unphased by the monster as it bites itself on Katsuki's hand. But due to his high default defense even at level 1, this monster was doing zero damage to Bakugou and continued chewing on the gauntlet-covered hand.

Still looking unimpressed, Bakugou just activates his quirk on the monster as it quickly bloats up like a balloon until it explodes into hundreds of pieces.

"Least my quirk still works here." Bakugou casually expressed as pieces of the box monster's corpse fell around himself. Bakugou used the shield's ability to collect the remains and gained the White cardboard shield, so it seemed the cardinal weapon gaining abilities from random things still mostly worked in this place.

Bakugou turns toward his team, "OK guys, so until we figure out where the hell we're at and get out of here we'll grind our levels up as fast as possible, so get into grind mode again like in Cal Mira." he orders them with the sidekicks nodding in approval on the plan. After nodding back Bakugou then turns to Rifana, "Can you still snipe weasel girl?" he asks wanting to know if her small body will be an issue.

Rifana somewhat panicked as she struggled to get her now oversized bow out, "Uh..I yes yes, I should be able to… Ah!" but as the poor girl tried to hold up her heavy bow she fell flat on the ground. She now looks up embarrassed at her crush who was just shaking his head side to side in annoyance.

Bakugou then went through his shield's inventory, and deep within the huge list of items he had in there he formed a small light bow out of it, "Here use this kid until you get big again." he said and threw it at the weasel girl as Rifana catches it.

Rifana still felt embarrassed that she made herself look like a fool and may look like a burden to Bakugou, but the shield hero didn't delve too much into it and just turned toward the jungle signaling his team to follow him.

And the team followed suit with Rifana, despite her little fumble she intends to prove her worth and help out, then finally get her mature body back again.

For the rest of the long day in this strange place, Bakusquad wandered around to explore and kill as many things as possible to level up. And thankfully this place is not short on monsters to fight and kill.

Due to his size, there wasn't too much Kirishima could do until he eventually matures again, but his fires were still hot and his teeth can still rip through flesh and bone which he makes use of on smaller enemies.

Even Rifana despite being stuck with a weaker bow was making quick work of her sniping skills, easily killing the small things extremely quickly before they got close to the team.

They had to be cautious at first being so low-leveled, but the team together made quick work of anything coming their way. Neia with her blades and electricity, Rino with her spells and staff spear, Daven with his dark magic, teleportation, and Sai's, Kirishima with his claws, teeth, and Fire, Rifana with her bow and wind magic, and of course Bakugou defending them all with his shields and blowing anything up with his quirk.

And with the more different monsters killed the more new shields Bakugou acquires. Some of his old shields like his explosion shield seemed to still work fine, but certain shields were not or were glitchy as hell and not in a good way, so he had to be careful of what he could use in this place.

By the time the sun was setting in this place Bakugou was at level 17, Neia, Rino's, and Daven's levels were all 14, and Kirishima and Rifana's were both level 12. A lot faster pace then the other world but the agency wasn't going to complain about it.

Rifana even matured a bit so it was less awkward for her to be in oversized clothes, she still was too small for her original bow, though Bakugou eventually upgraded hers to an even bigger and better bow while adding some upgrades to it through his own smithing skills and Rino's enchantments.

Both Neia and Rino had figured out themselves that Rifana had a crush on Bakugou with her constant blushing and nervously talking with him. They found it cute, but they didn't want to say anything about it with the girl both for not wanting to embarrass her or break her heart when she is informed that Bakugou was pretty much married to his job as a hero.

As the group explored the jungle all day, Bakusquad still had no idea what this place was with it just being an endless jungle with no end in sight as enemies get progressively harder and harder the deeper they go in.

Eventually the group made it to a small river cutting through the jungle, "Ok, break time everyone!" Bakugou shouts as he and the sidekicks settle down near the river's edge to drink, wash up, or sit down on the large rocks around it.

The sidekicks did just that, especially Rifana as she gobbled down the water like she spent a week out in a desert. Weirdly the water was already purified and safe to drink off the stream, it was strange but so were many things in this place so Bakugou and crew didn't question it.

But after drinking down a large quantity of water Rifana's stomach began to growl, "Looks like I'm getting hungry." she said out loud, she didn't want to sound like a burden, but she was genuinely hungry after leveling up so much.

The sidekicks especially Rino noded in agreement with her, "So am I, anything planned team leader?" Rino asked in a snarky tone.

"Man you guys are hopeless if you're expecting me to cook everything for you?" Bakugou joked, secretly he too was hungry but also felt exhausted after all the grinding and wasn't in the mood to cook anything while they had no idea where they were even at.

Kirishima then started to react strangely as he turned to the river, "Are you ok Kiri?" Neia asked the tiny dragon.

Then from the river not far from the group a bunch of bubbles started to pop up indicating something alive down there.

'Crap please don't be another Hydra!' Neia said in her head remembering the time of the swamp when she and Bakugou were around the same level.

However, the thing that came up thankfully wasn't a giant Hydra, instead a strange bipedal reptilian goblin monster emerged, the strangest thing about this monster was despite its reptilian characteristics, it looked to have normal mammal hair on the top of its head.

"What the hell?!" Bakugou said toward that weird monster, the most likely thing he could think of was a Kappa from Japanese mythology.

The monster turns its eyes on the girls and finally runs to them.

Bakugou smirks not worried about it, "Ha, how pathetic. Daven kill the ugly son of a bitch for us." he casually requested.

Daven nods and teleports right next to the Kappa to slice its neck, but as soon as his weapon made contact with the monster's neck, his sai harmlessly bounced off the kappa's skin, "Huh?!" Daven and Bakugou from afar expressed when the kappa then swipes Daven away from its powerful strength and jumps to attack the three equally confused girls.

Bakugou quickly looked through his appraisal shield and realized this thing was at level 55 with defense near his own level, this thing could easily kill his sidekicks at the level they were at now. The shield hero knew he had to act fast, "Airstrike Shield!" he yelled and as the Kappa punched toward the girls it bashed its face into the energy shield.

Neia blasts the thing with her electricity but it seems to also be heavily resistant to such attacks as it barely stuns the thing.

The Kappa attempts to attack the elf woman, "Don't touch her you green bastard!" Bakugou yells and blasts himself right by the Kappa's face and once he blocked it from attacking the sidekicks he blasts it in the face.

The attack hurt but wasn't enough to kill it, so the Kappa bashed its arms at the shield from its hardened strength as Bakugou continued to block the attacks.

As the monster kept on bashing it eventually gets an opening and claws a deep cut on Bakugou's shoulder, "Ow! Damn, you bastard!" Bakugou screamed and was no longer playing with the Kappa as he aggressively bashed his shield right at the monster's torso and before it could attack back Bakugou shoved his other hand in the thing's mouth, "Eat this!"

*Boom!*

In a quick explosion from his quirk the Kappa's head blows up into hundreds of pieces killing it instantly as the headless monster drops dead on the ground.

After that was done the sidekicks immediately rushed up to their leader still bleeding near his shoulder, "Sir Bakugou are you ok!" Rifana asked with concern.

Despite the cut hurting Bakugou wasn't going to look weak because of it, "I'm fine, just need to use Neia's and mine healing magic and-"

Kirishima then started to screech as he looked toward the river again.

"You got to be shitting me!" Bakugou expressed annoyance knowing what this meant.

And indeed from the river bubbles appeared on it's surface until 3 more Kappa's pop out from the water , getting with Bakugou's loud explosions getting their attentions.

And without much time to react the 3 Kappa's attacked.

One directly went toward Bakugou, another to Neia, Rino, and Daven, and the last chased after Kirishima as he ran away from the beast.

Bakugou directly attacked the one going after himself as he bashed the beast to stop it from moving, while Daven distracted his by teleporting around the monster while Neia and Rino attempted to kill it themselves while Rifana fired her arrows at both trying her best to weaken the monsters.

But it was a hard battle for the group as the Kappa attacking Bakugou tried its best to kill and eat the shield hero while trying to avoid the same fate his friend did by keeping its mouth shut.

Things got more serious though once the 3rd Kappa was in closing on Kirishima, the little dragon ran as fast as he could with him being to low leveled to fly away, it could only ran to escape the Kappa as it reached out to grab the tiny Dragon.

Bakugou turned his head to see his dragon in danger while he held back his Kappa, "Someone save Kirishima now!" he screamed with a worried tone, he wanted to go and save his dragon but his Kappa was stronger then the other one and has him pinned down forcing Bakugou to hold the surprisingly strong monster back.

The other Kappa finally grabbed Kirishima's body as it does all it can to keep hold of the tiny dragon as Kirishima squirmed and breathed fire as the Kappa attempts to open its mouth to eat him.

But thankfully Rifana heard Bakugou and turned to the Kappa that about to bite Kirishima's head off, the weasel girl pulled back her bow and fired. The arrow launches and directly hits the Kappa in the eye. The monster screeched in pain as it lost its grip on Kirishima who ran away in safety.

However doing this allowed the Kappa the other sidekicks were fighting against to get the jump on Rifana from just ignoring the other 3, as the monster backhands the archer sending the small weasel girl to hit a tree.

"Rifana!" Neia cried as the Kappa that hit her as well as the one she partially blinded ran their way to tear Rifana apart. Neia, Rino, and Daven tried all they could to stop them but their attacks were barely doing anything.

"Weasel girl!" Bakugou shouts seeing her in danger still holding back his Kappa. But he had enough of this and just bashed his forehead on the monster's snout, getting the monster off-balanced for a few seconds until Bakugou threw his fist into its mouth like before and blew this one's head off as well.

Bakugou blasted his way to the closest other Kappa the sidekicks were trying to take down. "Sink trap!" Rino shouted and from her earth magic managed to catch one of the Kappa's on some soft dirt with half its body sinking into the ground. Bakugou took the opportunity to blast the Kappa from behind quickly blowing up its head as well.

However, the last Kappa the half-blinded one was further away from the other heroes and was on no soft ground for Rino to use her spell that was already pretty low leveled as of now, the monster quickly jumped at the still down and hurt Rifana as it looked to be too late for the girl to get up and run.

Bakugou not having time to wait for Daven to teleport himself, he blasts toward the Kappa to kill it before it gets to Rifana but it is going to be an extremely close call if the shield hero is going to stop it or use another airstrike shield in time.

"Slaughter wire!" shouted a random voice as the Kappa was stopped in its place getting snared up in a strong thin wire.

This quickly confused the shield group even Bakugou, "What the hell?" he expressed as he stopped himself as he lands his feet back on the ground.

And with a single vibration from the wire the Kappa gets completely turned into minced meat, dying instantly.

Everyone there including Rifana looked confused as the weasel girl got herself back up and ran back to the equally baffled shield group and shield hero.

"You guys ok?" asked the random voice and the shield hero and his sidekicks turned their heads toward the source of the voice. Not far from them near the river's edge was a short young human girl, with brown eyes and long brown hair that had two small pigtails on the top, in a bluish-green and black dress, and was holding what looked to be a large fishing pole, "I take my eyes off you guys for just one day, then you go and managed to get into trouble. You could've died you know, though not bad taking out 3 powerful Kappa's on your own." the girl continued with a friendly smile on her face.

None of the sidekicks knew who this girl was or recognized her in any way, but they were happy to both see another face in this weird place and the fact she helped save Rifana's life.

Bakugou though as usual wanted to remain cautious, "Yeah, and who the hell are you?" he questioned the Fisher girl.

"Kizuna, Kazeyama Kizuna, the hunting hero of the 4 Cardinal heroes." the girl answers.

The title she gave quickly confused the group there, "Did you really say you're a cardinal hero?" Daven questioned.

Kizuna then retracts her fishing pole to shrink it down to be able to put it away in one of her pockets, "Yeah, but since I gave my name you guys should also give yours." she responds not seeing that as such a big deal.

This was making Bakugou raise his eyebrows though, "The name's Katsuki Bakugou, the Cardinal shield hero." he responds bluntly.

Kizuna now looked confused herself, "Huh? Wait you're a cardinal hero too? But that's impossible, cause I never heard of you." she responded back

"I never heard of you either, and I unfortunately know the other 3 cardinal heroes, 2 of who are giant dumbasses," Bakugou says which continued to perplex the young girl.

"This is definitely weird, but wait that name Katsuki, if I had to guess you're Japanese?" Kizuna asked Bakugou.

"Yeah, I'm guessing you're the same as well. You familiar with quirks?" Bakugou questioned wondering if this girl was from his world.

"Quirks? I guess I am quirky to some extent but why ask?" Kizuna responded then asked thinking he meant that type of quirk.

"Just forget it." Bakugou expressed in annoyance, that it seemed she was from another version of Japan like the 3 other Cardinal heroes.

Kizuna then looked toward the other sidekicks, "Now then how about you guys? You haven't introduced yourselves yet." she asked the rest of the group.

Despite the weird situation they were in the sidekicks didn't see any harm in saying their names if Bakugou did the same, "My name is Neia, Neia Varon."

"The name's Daven Serita." the rogue says.

"I'm Rino Lidera." the mage says.

"I'm Rifana and he's Kirishima." the weasel Archer responds as she pets Kirishima who is still thankful of his new sister for saving him as he then hops back on Bakugou's uninjured shoulder.

Kizuna nodded back with a smile to the group, "Nice to meet all of you." she said but then looked back at Bakugou's injured shoulder still cut from the kappa, "You look terrible though, come with me and I can help heal your injuries. We can continue to ask questions with each other once none of us are bleeding." she joked and started walking into the jungle.

Bakugou still had his suspicions about the girl, but right now he knew it was best to follow the only other person in this weird place, he turned to his sidekicks who awaited a response from their leader, "You heard pigtails, let's get the hell out of here already." he responds as he follows Kizuna with the sidekicks following suit. It seemed they made a new ally today.

---

About half an hour later, Kizuna led them to a small stone archway that looked exactly like the one at the beach, and like that one it seemed to lead to nowhere. That was until Kizuna used her magic to form a portal from this archway, a portal that led back to the same prison Bakusquad woke up in the first place.

According to Kizuna herself this was basically the safe zone of this magical location, where no monsters could ever enter. So it was safe to eat, sleep, and heal up.

And heal Bakugou did, both from his potions as well as his and Neia's healing magic, thankfully the healing process was quick to Bakugou's injuries, they were now no more deep cuts or scars.

Once the healing process was done Bakugou and Kizuna herself knew it was time for them to exchange questions, "So if I understand correctly, you're a cardinal hero like me but for a completely different world, right Katsuki. Oh can I call you Katsuki?" she said then asked.

"You can call me Bakugou Pigtails, I don't just let any stranger say my first name like that," Bakugou responds.

Kizuna let out a sigh, "OK fine if that's what you want, but I would prefer you call me by my name, Kizuna."

"Whatever Pigtails." Bakugou says back which annoyed Kizuna a bit that he continued to not say her name,

Kizuna then looked toward the sidekicks, "I can at least call you guys by your names right?" she asked with the sidekicks all nodding back,

"Sure lady Kizuna it's fine." Neia says back as she still applies some of her healing magic on Bakugou's shoulder.

Kizuna then looks back at the shield hero, "You must be very lucky Bakugou, to have such loyal comrades on your side. Few would appreciate such a thing." she says to him. Bakugou just simply shrugs back at her.

Rifana then asked, "Miss Kizuna, did you ever have any sidekicks of your own?"

Kizuna was confused by her using the term sidekick like that, "Uh, no. not really sidekicks, but I used to have comrades of my own that we fought together as a team. Thing is though, I haven't seen them since I got locked up here years ago."

The second half of that sparked Bakugou's curiosity, "Locked up? Where the hell are we even at?!" he demanded from Kizuna.

"Oh, you guys don't know? You're in the infinite labyrinth, it was a magical prison of sorts made by a powerful mage long ago." Kizuna responds.

Bakugou did remember his shield mentioning a labyrinth on the error menu, so he knew Kizuna wasn't just making things up, "So if this is some sort of jail what are you in for?" he questioned her.

"Oh well I kind of screwed up, I got myself captured by an enemy country." Kizuna casually responds.

"So it was all about bullshit other world politics, I shouldn't be surprised," Bakugou says back.

It did get Kizuna's attention, "Sounds like to me you had your experiences with such a thing as well?"

The sidekicks nodded with Rino speaking up, "Sir Bakugou was teleported to my home country where the church, former king, and former elder Princess hated him just for existing and did what they could to make everyone else hate him."

Daven then spoke up, "We also got ourselves captured once by my nation's greedy racist government and prime minister, and it was ironically the nation that saw Sir Bakugou as a god."

"Wow, you guys had it rough. Nice to see you being able to get away from those scumbags though." Kizuna says now already curious of this unique group's adventures.

Rifana thought something was off, "But I don't know why they would just trap you here though when it's the cardinal heroes responsibility to deal with the waves?" she comments.

This however confused Kizuna, "The waves? What are those?"

Bakugou was now confused himself, "What the hell do you mean what?! It's why we got dragged in here in the first place Pigtails?"

"Hmm, well that wasn't why I got summoned for, me and 3 others got summoned here to fight and defeat a Demon Dragon Emperor."

"A Demon Dragon?" Rino pondered, she and the others never heard that term before, they heard the name Dragon Emperor, but not a Demon Dragon.

"Yeah a big evil Demon Dragon, it wanted to make all monsters his servants, then enslave all intelligent life and eat a bunch of souls, so you can imagine it was a pretty big deal. But thankfully me and the 3 other cardinal heroes along with all my friends had killed that monster a long time ago so no need to worry about it anymore." Kizuna explains.

After hearing that Neia spoke up, "It is true, the Cardinal heroes can be summoned to deal with other major… threats than the waves." she said though there did seem to be an uneased look in her, as if she knew something bad.

It caught Bakugou's attention, but he could worry about that later, right now he wanted to get more info on where they were at and who Kizuna was first.

Daven then asked something from the last part of what Kizuna said, "You said you had friends to help you, who were they? I assume they're extremely powerful to go up against a Demon Dragon?"

Kizuna almost immediately responded after hearing that, "Oh man, they were the best. Two of them are actually vassal weapon wielders if you have them in your world as well. There's Larc, he's stubborn sometimes but is overall a really fun and funny guy, Therese is just a sweetheart, and Glass is like my ultimate bff, uh that's best friends forever if you guys don't know what that meant."

As soon as she mentioned those names the group all now looked both surprised and concerned toward the girl, "Miss Kizuna, you know of Larc, Glass, and Therese?" Rifana asked politely.

Kizuna now looked surprised herself, "Wait, you guys know about them as well."

Bakugou now looking mad says, "Yeah we meant farmer boy, Jewels, and Cateyes. Those 3 are-huh?" But before he could finish Kizuna immediately jumped right up to Bakugou's face.

"Are you serious?! You know and meant Larc and Glass?!" Kizuna asked with a raised voice with Bakugou now looking back at the girl annoyed.

Daven wanted to confirm it with her though, "Is Larc a human man with red hair, handsome, about ya high, and carries a large scythe?"

"Yes, that sounds just like him." Kizuna responds.

Rino then asks, "And is Glass a pale ghostly woman, with long black hair, red slit eyes, about this high, and carries fan weapons around?"

"Yes! Yes, that's definitely her, oh man I can't believe I'm with people who know my best friends! Are they alright?" Kizuna says then asks them.

Bakugou got to the point and was going to be blunt about it, "Don't know, nor do I care of the well-being of a bunch of genocidal bastards."

Kizuna now looked deeply confused, "What? Genocidal? What are you even talking about?" she asked wondering how such an evil word would be described by her best friends.

The sidekicks looked at each other with concern, knowing they may be telling an unfortunate truth to Kizuna who seemed to be ignorant of what they had done. Neia was the one to say something, "Kizuna…, Larc, Therese, and Glass had all come to our world to try to kill Sir Bakugou and the other Cardinal heroes."

"What!? But why?!" Kizuna asked in shock to hear that.

Daven responds, "They claim killing the Cardinal heroes and leaving our world to die by the waves will somehow save their world."

Kizuna now looked completely confused and disheartened to hear such a thing, "I can't believe… this can't be right at all, how could they even think to do such a horrible thing?"

Bakugou finally spoke up again, "It's the truth kid, your friends are crazy genocidal maniacs that tried to kill me before.", he said remaining blunt as usual.

Kizuna didn't want to believe such a thing, but at the same time knew that these people weren't just lying. She was extremely conflicted but wanted to maintain her resolve and not let sadness get ahold of her, "I see. Well I don't want to make complete conclusions yet, I would like to eventually hear their sides of the story as well and make my judgment there."

"Do whatever you want kid, those bastards told us that outright to our faces." Bakugou responds feeling like he is talking with someone extremely naive again.

Kizuna though was getting somewhat annoyed by Bakugou's general jerkish attitude, "Like I said, I'll hear from them myself. And can you not call me kid, I lost track of how long I've been here but I'm at least over 18 now.". She responds.

Bakugou made a slight grin at hearing that, "Oh so you're a loli hag then." he joked.

"Uh, Excuse me! You do realize I'm right here standing in front of your face right!?" Kizuna immediately snapped at Bakugou for the comment, but he didn't respond back.

"What does Loli mean?" Rifana asked unfamiliar with that word.

Rino next to her shrugged back, "Not sure, he described Scarlet as one, maybe it means something related to birds?" she guest which just made Rifana ponder more about it.

Kizuna shook her head not wanting to answer the young girl to that question and just wanted to move on, "Whatever, how old are you anyway Bakugou?" she asked back.

"About 15 and a half." Bakugou answered.

The answer surprised Kizuna, "What!? You're not even 16 yet and you look like that?!" she expressed still shock. With how tall and muscular Bakugou was she would've never expected him to be that young. She then looked to the sidekicks, "But wait, how old are you guys?" Kizuna asked.

"20" Neia said.

"Around 20 and a half" Rino said.

"19" Daven said.

"A little over 10." Rifana said.

This once more surprised Kizuna, "Really?! All of you but Rifana are older than Bakugou and he is still your team lead?" she asked with the sidekicks nodding back at her. The hunter hero then looks back at Bakugou, "Wow you must be really skilled to have a bunch of older people to be following your lead.".

"Ha, that's a given Pigtails. I'm the best there is and my agency is proof of my awesomeness rubbing off on everyone else." Bakugou brags out

Kizuna just rolled her eyes though, 'Man of all the people I get trapped with, at least he didn't call me Loli Hag this time.' she said in her head. "Ok then, how did you guys end up here or what you were doing beforehand?" she asked wanting to continue asking questions between each other.

"Grrrrrrrr" but then everyone heard a growling sound, but it wasn't from Kirishima, it was from Rifana's stomach, "Looks like I'm still hungry." she admits out loud.

Rino nods with her, "Yeah we didn't really eat all day did we, I think we can all use something to eat." she says with the rest of the sidekicks and even Bakugou nodding with her.

Kizuna smiled to that, "Sounds good, let's get yourselves some food."

The sidekicks nod in agreement, but Bakugou still has his cautions, "And what, you expect me to fully trust a random pigtail girl who is friends with genocidal maniacs?" he comments back.

"Hey remember that I'm older than you so don't call me girl!" Kizuna snapped back with Bakugou huffing to himself, she then continued, "Look I know you had it rough between Larc and Glass, but just remember I did help save one of your friend's lives back there and that were both Cardinal heroes."

"Yeah and so what? Like I said before I know 2 other Cardinal heroes who are gigantic morons who helped caused tons of mayhem and destruction." Bakugou argues back with even the sidekicks still remembering what the Bow and Spear heroes had done even before the Spirit Tortoise incident.

Kizuna didn't know the context of what Bakugou was talking about, but she knew he didn't trust her. So Kizuna made a sigh, "Fine then suit yourself." she said, but then the hunter hero grabbed and took out her weapon now resembling a short sword of sorts.

Everyone was wondering what this was about but before they could think, Kizuna slashed her blade right on Bakugou's neck.

"Sir Bakugou!" the sidekicks shouted together.

It looked like the blade left a gashly energy mark on the shield hero's neck, Bakugou didn't know what the attack did, but it wasn't going to stop him as he was now pissed off.

*Boom!*

Based on reflex he fires his quirk on Kizuna's chest sending the girl across the cell until she bashed into the bars even bending them a little.

And before the stunned girl could react Bakugou dashed over and puts her in place with his shield while using his other hand to grab her throat, "I knew I shouldn't have trusted you bitch! I'll be sure to send your companions down to hell with you soon!"

"Please look at your neck! Look at your neck!" Kizuna shouted as Bakugou's grip on her own neck got tighter.

Bakugou quickly looked at his neck, but to his surprise, he saw the energy mark had completely disappeared showing no sign of damage at all.

Bakugou wasn't sure what this meant even as he quickly looked at his status menu, he didn't see any effects or anything on his body, "Rino can you sense anything!?" he shouted to his mage to make sure he was clean of anything invisible to him.

But after a few seconds of Rino using her enchantments she quickly responds, "No, nothing bad. No curses, hexes, or anything like that."

Kizuna still in Bakugou's grip then says, "You see, I can't do any harm to people even if I wanted to, so please let me go you're actually hurting me." she confirms with that whole thing just being a demonstration of sorts.

Even then when Bakugou saw what this was, he still looked mad and threw Kizuna on the ground as she coughed from the neck grip. Bakugou then pointed at her, "Don't goddamn do something like that again Pigtails! I could've killed you easily in seconds if I didn't hold myself back! Maybe to you, this Cardinal hero stuff was a game, but it goddamn wasn't for me!" Bakugou finished scolding her as the shield hero walked away to slouch in a corner.

The sidekicks ran toward Kizuna and helped her up, "Are you alright?" Neia asked her.

"Don't worry I'm ok." Kizuna responds, though she now looked extremely guilty for that whole stunt, what originally was to show he could trust her did the exact opposite.

Kizuna felt bad for what she did and the sidekicks saw it themselves in her face. Rifana wanted to cheer her up, "You can still cook for us if you want. We would appreciate it." she said to the hunter hero with the sidekicks nodding in agreement with her.

Kizuna was happy to see these four trusted her, but she still feels bad for unintentionally pissing off Bakugou like that. Kizuna knew she couldn't leave the shield hero out like that and turned back to Bakugou and approached him, "You know thinking back at it now, that was a pretty stupid thing to do, I'm sorry about that whole cutting through your neck thing, I kind of figured you wouldn't have taken any damage either way with your high defense even if I could harm people. Why don't we just start over from the top again." she apologized and suggested.

Bakugou just sighed, "Yeah whatever, like I said just don't do that shit again." he says back in annoyance.

Kizuna nodded and then smiled again, "But if you're still hungry yourself I can still make some food for you."

"Ha, like I need help to cook myself." Bakugou expressed though notably less angry then before.

Kizuna's grin widened when she saw that she now had something to get through with Bakugou, "Oh are you afraid of getting beaten by a tiny girl who couldn't hurt you?"

Bakugou then struck a nerve, he dashed toward Kizuna, "You think you can beat me in something so simple Pigtails!?" he shouted at her but not in a threatening way as before.

Kizuna continued to tease him, "I don't know, you seem like the type who doesn't know how to cook crap so I figure-"

"I do absolutely know how to cook! And I bet I can do it better than you?!" He shouts again.

Kizuna then gave a smug smile, "OK spiky head then prove it in a little cook-off, and the best cook gets to keep the title." she challenged the shield hero.

"You're on!" He agreed, and with that, Kizuna led the way to her food supplies with Bakugou following suit.

The sidekicks were all left somewhat dumbfounded by that event, "Wow, she made him go from wanting to kill her to getting him to cook for her in less than a minute." Rino said out loud.

"That's what you call reverse psychology." Daven added. The girls still couldn't believe it but were glad the serious situation had gone away and now saw that Kizuna knew her way of words to sway people.

After about half an hour Bakugou and Kizuna go on to cook the best dishes they could, both through their magical abilities and normal cooking skills. Though Kizuna was more casual about it while Katsuki took it as a big competition and did his best to make the best meals possible.

Soon enough the 2 Cardinal heroes had prepared multiple dishes together, using the various fruits, mushrooms, fish, and meat that Kizuna had stocked up to make a big meal for everyone to eat as they and the sidekicks gathered around the wooden table Kizuna had.

"Wow that all looks so good. Looks like you might've been the better chef after all." Kizuna compliments Katsuki seeing all the dishes he made looking a lot more presentable and pleasing to look at compared to hers.

Bakugou gave his typical arrogant smirk, "Ha, like I said I'm the best there is, but how about actually eating the damn things first, nice appearance is just one factor of good food." he brags

Kizuna nods and shouts, "Sounds good, alright everyone let's eat!" the hunting hero then grabs her chopsticks and quickly digs in on her food. Bakugou does the same with his chopsticks. Kirishima was next to him on the table as he ate from his large plate of fish and meat

The sidekicks would be happy to dig in themselves, but looked annoyed to see that the utensils were chopsticks, "Oh great these things again?" Rino complained with her and the others still not knowing how those things work like back at the Tortoise Kingdom.

But like before Daven just drops them and eats with his hands.

"Guys you just have to hold your hands like this with the sticks and it will be easy." Kizuna says quickly seeing the girls having trouble using the sticks.

Neia and Rino tried to do as Kizuna showed but still struggled to pick up the food, Rifana was the closest but it still seemed like a struggle for the poor girl to pick up a single piece of food.

Kizuna just smiles back, "Let me help teach each of you one at a time, I'm sure all of you will get it, might as well tell me more about yourselves while we're at it." She says to the girls with the 4 sidekicks nodding back.

After a few minutes, Kizuna managed to help the four sidekicks to properly handle and get used to the chopsticks, they weren't perfect but seem to be able to pick up their meals now.

And after doing all of that and as they eat, the sidekicks and Bakugou explains a somewhat abridged version of their journeys since Bakugou got summoned, dealing with Piece of Shit, The Siltvelt government, the Spear and Bow Heroes, The 3 Heroes Church, the Spirit Tortoise, and Kyo.

Eventually, almost everyone finished eating, only Rifana and Kirishima were still eating since Demi-humans and Dragons level up much more quickly compared to humans and other creatures so they need to eat a lot as they level up and grow.

Kizuna was still impressed with everyone's stories even of Bakugou himself. Despite his terrible attitude from all of the stories he and his sidekicks had told of his adventures and accomplishments, she knew he secretly had a good heart on himself, "Thanks for sharing those interesting stories guys, sorry to hear that Kyo jerk gave you so much trouble."

"Whatever, the bookworm is dead now, I rather we forget that evil bastard and burn that damn book when we find it again." Bakugou says, still annoyed how even in death Kyo still did his magic trick to send them here.

Rifana then spoke up while she still ate, "I hope I'm not eating too much into your supplies Miss Kizuna, I could slow down if you like?" the Archer says starting to feel some guilt by the amount she was eating.

Kizuna just laughs, "Ha, don't worry, there's plenty to eat around here, and with Mr. Best chef here, I'll never be out of good food." she responds to Rifana.

Bakugou just huffs as he gets himself up to stretch, "Hate to break it to you Pigtails, but we have more important things to deal with than being your playmates. Tomorrow morning we're getting out of this dump." he says to her.

Kizuna though shakes her head, "Hate to be the bringer of bad news, but you couldn't leave even if you wanted to. This is the infinite labyrinth, once you're inside you can never hope to leave it"

"Or what? Are you going to force my hand again miss "I can't hurt people"?" Bakugou taunts at her thinking it was a threat of sorts.

But Kizuna sighed out loud, "No I mean there is no obvious way out of here. This was designed as a prison after all. Did you think there be a giant exit door with bright neon signs? I've checked the place and never found one"

When Bakugou realized she was serious he started to look concerned, "Hold on Pigtails, how long did you say you were here?" he asked with a panicking tone to it.

"Hmmm, to be honest, I've lost track after the first few years." Kizuna casually responds.

"YEARS! Damn it! No no no no!" Bakugou yells as he punches at the cage bars now realizing he was pretty much in a giant version of this cell with no way to just blast out of it. The sidekicks also looked worried, fearing they were now all stuck as well.

Kizuna then spoke again with a more serious look on her face, "That being said I've never once thought of giving up. Looking every square inch and trying every possibility, and yet I never found one."

Bakugou turns back around from the bars to Kizuna again, "Then I'll make my own! I'll burn this damn jungle to the ground and from the ashes, I'll-"

"I've already tried that." Kizuna interrupted which caught Bakugou's attention, "Yes I created a giant forest fire that burnt down huge tracks of land, but it all instantly grew back a few hours later as if nothing happened, even when parts of the beach turned to glass it became just normal sand again in just an hour." she turns herself back to Bakugou, "Like I said I've tried all the possibilities, I swam out to sea, dug a really deep hole, launched myself high in the air, and a bunch of other stuff and it didn't get me anywhere." she continued.

Bakugou groans to this, there is now the possibility that he and his sidekicks are going to be stuck in here like ants in an ant farm.

The sidekicks continued to look worried though they weren't going to let it consume them either, "Still we can't give up now, one person might have trouble with it, but with many people together we might find out something." Neia said with Rino and Rifana nodding with her in agreement.

Daven thinks to himself about the whole situation, he then spoke to Kizuna, "From my experiences, certain prisons can be extremely hard to escape but are not inescapable. There are always flaws within the prison itself, cracks you can say. Even if it's a tiny one if we can exploit that flaw enough we may be able to escape through it together before the jailers find out about the flaw and fix it.".

Kizuna then started to think about what he just said, "A flaw huh? A flaw to exploit?… Well, there is one thing I think we can look into."

Bakugou immediately turned his head back toward the hunting hero once he heard she might know something, "What is this thing you're talking about? Show us where it is now!" he demanded getting close to Kizuna's face.

"Hold on a second Mr. BoomBoom, it's not like a big exit tunnel out of here. So don't put your expectations up too high. And it's already late, this place does have a day and night cycle with more dangerous monsters coming out at night, so unless you want to get mauled by Kappa's again or deal with something worse I suggest we rest here for the night where it's safe, then by morning after breakfast I can show you a maybe "flaw" in the Labyrinth." she explains then raised her hand out, "Do we have a deal?" she asked of Bakugou wanting to know if he trusted her.

Bakugou looked annoyed wanting to get out now, but even he would rather not risk getting his sidekicks killed while they were all still low leveled with them looking tired themselves, after a sigh he shook her hand, "Fine, but we better be up at the crack of dawn." he agrees with Kizuna smiling.

"Sounds good, I'll set up the sleeping area for you guys once we finish eating, it's not much but at least no monsters can get in." She says as she continues eating her meal.

Bakugou hoped this girl really did show off a "flaw" that they could use to get out by tomorrow, he couldn't imagine being stuck in here for years while her friends Glass and Larc could still be out there planning to destroy his sidekicks world, as well as the idea of his entire class including Deku graduating UA as Pro Heroes without him.

---

It was now morning in the Labyrinth once more and after a good long sleep, Bakusquad and Kizuna were up again. After breakfast, they head on their way to what Kizuna thinks might be their most likely way out. Through her magic she was able to use the stone archways to teleport wherever she wanted in the Labyrinth, they were now in a giant Pyramid of sorts within the center of the jungle.

The pyramid was very Egyptian theme with paints and hieroglyphics decorating the walls. Bakugou has seen his share of movies and animes of archeologists going into places like these and facing either booby traps, mummies, or monsters lurking within the walls so he kept his eyes open for anything.

Kizuna then spoke up, "I say this is the closest to getting out of the Labyrinth, I took care of the monsters years ago but I still keep a lookout for anything dangerous."

Rifana then spoke up to her, "I still can't believe how you lived here for so long with no one else to talk or be with. I don't know what I would do in such a situation."

Kizuna smiles back at the young girl while still walking, "Yeah when the enemy nation threw me here and said that I will be stuck here forever it originally hit me hard. After doing all I could and not finding a way out after day after day passed I didn't think there was any hope for me to get out. I even thought of killing myself at one point, but as I thought about it, I figured I had all the time in the world at my hands. So I decided to keep on fighting no matter how many years it took till I found a way out and see my friends Glass and the others someday." she explains to the group. It was sad to hear the poor girl having to go through so much but at the same time, it was somewhat endearing to hear her never giving up despite such odds.

It especially hit Neia, remembering the days of her being exiled by her people, with her feeling like her weak pathetic life was just meaningless with even her own thoughts of suicide before ever encountering Bakugou, but her own will to not fall into depression and to keep living on allowed her to meet the most important person of her life that transformed warrior into something she never thought she ever could be, a hero.

Bakugou himself though just wanted to get to this flaw and get out already, but eventually the group made it to a huge room full of different statues, platforms, magic items, and many other things throughout the room, "What's this?" Rino asked.

Kizuna was quick to answer, "Oh this was a big puzzle I had to do while I was trapped here when the doors shut off. I was stuck here for 3 days until I figured the whole thing out and then I had to fight a massive boss monster when I completed it and the doors reopened again. But yeah don't worry I did all of that long ago and the puzzles don't seem to reset so we're good here."

"I see and I doubt whoever made this damn prison would put the effort for such a thing if they weren't trying to hide something behind it." Bakugou theorized.

Kizuna nods back, "That's what I figure, and this might be what it was, so this way please." she says and points to a hallway, passing through a giant skeleton of a serpent-like creature that was most likely the corpse of the boss Kizuna had to originally take care of the first time she came here.

And through the hallway, they finally make it toward the end of it, in a room that looks to be a large prayer room of sorts with numerous church benches or pews all around the room. But the most interesting thing about this place was at the end of the room to what looked like a stone way dead end, but at the wall was a bunch of large wood boards blocking off something behind what looked to be a massive crack in the wall.

"This is it, the "flaw" of the prison." Kizuna said and once they got up to the wall, the Hunter hero pulled down the boards being held up at this hole. It all collapsed revealing the full hole and inside it was a mass of white light within.

"What the hell is this?" Bakugou asked with the sidekicks wondering as well.

Kizuna approached the glowing hole again, "If I had to guess, the guy who originally created the Labyrinth needed to still have a way to get in and out himself and put monsters in his prison, and this might've originally been his secret way to get in and out, but they never intended for the wall to collapse to reveal it. But this would have to be the closest way to get out of the Labyrinth." she says to everyone giving them some hope that they can get out now.

Bakugou though had his doubts, "Ok Pigtails, so what's the catch? I doubt you knew the way out of here and didn't decide to go through it yet without reason?" he asked her knowing there had to be something up with this white void.

Kizuna steps herself out of the way of the hole and points her hand toward it, "Go in yourself and see what happens." she tells him.

Bakugou took up that advice and walked his way to the hole to see what will happen, but as soon as he got up to the hole, he slammed into an invisible barrier and nearly tripped himself, "AH! What the hell?".

"See you can't get in either, that's why I haven't been able to get out of here." Kizuna responds.

Bakugou though got his balance back and looked pissed off as he fired his quirk at the barrier with it doing nothing, "You got to be shitting me?! A fucking invisible wall!" he yells at the white void he is unable to reach as he blasts at the invisible barrier over and over again with his quirk but this still did nothing.

"I don't think that will work either, the magic placed there is most likely meant to withstand any such physical attacks." Kizuna responds seeing as Bakugou's explosions weren't getting them anywhere.

Eventually, Bakugou sees this himself and turns to his team, "Daven! You know what to do!" he orders his rogue who nods back.

Daven was given his space and after he stretched his arms he attempted to teleport right through the barrier. Unfortunately, as soon as he uses his ability Daven reappears slammed into the barrier as he is bounced back. Rino immediately ran to pick him up, "Are you alright?" she asked with concern.

"Don't worry I'm fine, but it looks like I can't teleport through it." Daven responds as he looks back at the void.

Bakugou grips his fist harder annoyed that didn't work either, "Damn it! Looks like we might need to brute force our way through harder than ever! Neia, Rino, Kirishima! I need all the firepower I can get so fire where I'm blasting at this damn barrier!" he ordered and after he adjusted his gauntlets he then fires double AP shots at the center of the barrier.

Neia then fires her continuous electric bolts at the same area, with Rino following suit with her light-based beam attack, and lastly Kirishima despite his small size fires his own continuous fire stream at the same area. The four try all they can to shatter the barrier and get out of this prison.

But Kizuna, Rifana, and Daven could only look at the sidelines as nothing is changing despite all of that firepower.

After about a minute of this, Bakugou eventually stopped himself with his firing sidekicks following suit, Bakugou was now breathing heavily and looked tired from all of that and the barrier was still intact. This just pissed him off more, "Goddamnit! This is absolute bullshit!" he continues shouting while also kicking the barrier.

Kizuna shakes her head to that, "Yeah I don't think brute force is going to get us through that, I'm way higher level than any of you guys and I've tried hitting that thing for over a day since I first found it and that didn't work either." she explains to them.

"We may need to find another method to get through then." Daven said with Kizuna and the other sidekicks nodding in agreement, though their choices are limited right now with their levels still being low all things considered, even Rino didn't fully understand this new type of magic.

Bakugou just clutched his fist, "Damn it! There is no way I'm going to allow that bookworm bastard to get the final laugh here!" he yelled, and from his anger, he blasted across the barrier still doing nothing to it. However he noticed something as he looked to the side. He saw that the last blast broke off pieces of the side of the wall apart, with the pieces on the ground now with the hole to the white void wider than before. Bakugou took a few seconds to think about this and what it could mean, he also tried to think of this as a game of sorts and how that could be used in this situation.

The sidekicks and Kizuna were all wondering what Bakugou could be thinking as he continued to scratch his chin.

But after a few more seconds Bakugou just had his eureka moment and now made a massive smug grin on his face, "I got it! I have a plan, we're getting out of this dump now." he says to everyone.

The sidekicks and Kizuna were surprised to hear that especially from such a mood change, "Really, what are you planning to do now?" the hunter hero asked wondering what this crazy dude was going to do next.

Bakugou responds as he stretches' his arms, "You familiar with speed runs Pigtails?"

"Speed runs? Yeah guys who try to finish games as fast as possible, why did you ask?" Kizuna answers back now a little confused on how this was related to anything.

"Simple kid, in most video games there are invisible walls like this to prevent players from going into places they aren't supposed to go into. However that doesn't mean they're impassable, a common thing you see in speed runs are those that exploit glitches, attacks, and whatnot to force their way through the invisible walls and basically break the game in half. And that's what I'm about to do." Bakugou explains almost finishing his stretching while he also builds up sweat in his gauntlets.

"What does Sir Bakugou mean by all of this?" Rifana asked confused by what her leader explained.

"Frankly I have no clue either." Rino responds with Neia and Daven also shrugging to understand as well, not familiar with terms like speed running, glitches, or what a video is to a game. Kizuna just shook her head in silence knowing it would be impossible to explain such concepts to all of them and she and the others went back to watch and see what Bakugou was going to do.

And the shield hero was all ready now, "DIE!" he shouted and with both his arms forward he pointed to the corner of the wall and-

*BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM*

Over and over again he lets off huge explosions at the wall with each blowing more and more chunks of it off.

The explosions were getting so intense it forced everyone to walk back from the heat, not only was the hole getting bigger but the walls and even parts of the floor on that side were all starting to crack up.

It seemed Bakugou was doing more and more damage as he continued to fire his quirk at the big wall, "Neia! Rino! Help out and blast the walls and ceiling!" he ordered.

The two didn't know what he was planning, but whatever it was it seemed to be doing something and they were glad to contribute.

Neia with her lightning and electric bolts and Rino with her arcane missiles and light beams fire at the walls and ceiling destroying more and more of the foundations of this room as it seems that this white void goes as far as the floor and ceiling.

Bakugou eventually stopped himself seeing how much damage he and his sidekicks caused already, as cracks continued to form all across the room while the sidekicks and Kizuna moved to the end of the room near the entrance of the hallway in caution.

Bakugou smiled once more, "Perfect! Looks like it's been weakened enough, now time for the big exploit." he announced and with his quirk he launched himself high up in the air and once at the right altitude he launched himself back down spinning himself to collect as much air as possible.

"What is he trying to do?" Kizuna asked now looking somewhat concerned about this "plan" of Katsuki's.

Daven was the one to respond, "Whatever it is, we need to be ready for it."

Bakugou was now just seconds away from impacting himself on the damaged cracked ground, "Howitzer Impact!"

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!*

Bakugou lets out a giant explosion in the middle of the room, with the intense impact causing a massive ripple effect in the entire room as the whole thing collapses on itself destroying the floor and walls leaving the whole place now collapsing into the empty white void.

The sidekicks and Hunter hero all struggled to keep themselves up as more and more parts of the walls and floor broke apart into the void, none of them knew what was going on or what happened to their leader, "Sir Bakugou!" Neia shouted for him.

"Down here!" shouted a familiar voice and as Neia and the rest looked over the edge of the collapsing floor they saw Bakugou using his quirk to float himself up in the expanding white void, "The invisible walls are broken! Jump in! Now! Now!" Bakugou ordered.

The sidekicks didn't know what was going on but trusted their leader enough to not question what he was doing and quickly Neia, Kirishima, Daven, Rino, and Rifana all jumped into the empty void with Bakugou finally stopping the use of his quirk now falling down with them.

The only one who hadn't dived in with them was Kizuna, she mostly couldn't believe what she was witnessing, she thought this place was truly impossible to break open by physical means, and yet here she witnessed what Bakugou's done, completely doing what was thought to be impossible.

"Pigtails! Jump in as well or you're going to be left behind!" Bakugou shouted as he and the sidekicks fell deeper into the void.

Kizuna was still in shock by all of this, but had to quickly snap out of it as she quickly turned her weapon into its fishing pole form and threw the hook down in the void.

Bakugou saw the thing coming and quickly grabbed the hook.

And from the weight of Bakugou, Kizuna's weapon drags her down the void with her. She now had a big smile on her face, knowing what this would all mean for her now.

All the heroes continue falling into the void for a few more seconds as it seems to be endless. However, eventually the brightness of the void grows brighter and brighter until there is nothing left.

*Boom!*

An explosion was created from the solid ground as multiple figures all at once came bursting out of it.

The individuals all lay on the ground still suffering some whiplash from that whole event they went through.

This group was Bakugou, his sidekicks, and Kizuna herself trying to rise up again.

As they all looked around, they saw they were not in any place that looked to be from the Labyrinth anymore, not the pyramid, the jungle, or the beach. They looked to be now in some large walled-off estate of a small Japanese-style noble's house.

The group looks around to get their bearings from those little events, "Sir Bakugou are we out of the Labyrinth?" Neia asked

Bakugou hates to admit he wasn't 100% sure himself, but the shield hero quickly activates his map shield, and this time it states *Error Error Shield unable to work in this world* Bakugou now smiles, "Ha, looks like it." he says happily, while also annoyed that he still won't be able to simply fast travel out of this world, the fact it didn't specify Labyrinth meant they were no longer there.

Before Bakugou could think of anything else, he and the sidekicks notice Kizuna kneeling down on the pavement tiles in pure silence with her eyes staring all around her surroundings as if she was in shock at something, "I'm outside." she finally said out loud, which made the crew wonder what she was thinking right now.

"Pigtails?" Bakugou asked, wondering if she was ok after that whole event.

However, that changed as soon as Kizuna made a big smile, "I'm outside!" she suddenly cheered in absolute joy which somewhat surprised Bakugou himself.

"I'm outside! I'm really outside! I'm finally outside the infinite Labyrinth! I can't believe it! I'm back in the world I was summoned in!" Kizuna continues cheering and jumps all over the place in pure and utter joy.

Bakugou looked a bit weirded out by how the girl was acting, "Uh Pigtails, what the hell are you-"

But before he could finish Kizuna immediately ran and jumped and latched onto Bakugou with a big hug, "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you Bakugou! I'm outside because of you! Thank you from all of my heart!" she continued cheering and thanking Bakugou as she keeps hugging him even spinning around in the air as she does it.

'Why the hell does everyone keep hugging me for? Do I look like a remotely huggable guy?' he says annoyed in his head. The sidekicks around him just smile, happy to see Kizuna in such a happy mood now after going through so much for years.

"Ok, that's enough now!" Bakugou raised his voice and finally just gripped Kizuna's sides to put her feet back on the ground while she is still as happy as before as Kizuna lets go of her hug of Bakugou's.

Kizuna then looks toward the sidekicks smiling at her and immediately runs to Neia, Rifana, and Rino as the four hug each other in happiness while Daven stands beside them smiling at the four, "Thank you everyone! Thank you! Now I will no longer be alone in the Labyrinth for the rest of my life!" she continues cheering for everyone as Kizuna also cries tears of joy.

Bakugou just stared back as Kirishima jumped back on his shoulder, he shook his head at that whole event but he also made a small smile, he may never want to admit it but there was something of a good feeling in him to see that he made someone so happy, a similar feeling he had when he introduced everyone to his hero Academy, it was an odd feeling, but still a good feeling nevertheless.

Eventually Kizuna got the excitement out of her system, the crew looked around their surroundings, "Where are we exactly?" Rino asked out loud.

Kizuna was quick to answer, "The old home of the guy who made the Labyrinth, made the opening in and out of it here."

Bakugou punches an explosive fist on his other palm, "Good, I like to show him my appreciation for his handy work by crushing his damn skull!" he shouts out loud.

"Don't bother, he's been dead for centuries. No one has ever stepped foot in this place precisely because of the Labyrinth, it's why there are no guards or the like either." Kizuna adds in so the shield doesn't waste his time chasing ghosts.

Bakugou though still groaned in annoyance at that info, "Grrrrrrr, whatever let's just get as far away from this dump as soon as possible." he growls then says with the others nodding in agreement.

The group heads on their way to one of the walls of the estate. The walls themselves were too high to jump normally and Katsuki didn't want to jinx anything from just blowing up the wall and somehow getting sucked back into the Labyrinth again, so everyone had their own means to get over the wall.

Kizuna swung her weapon still in its fishing pole form over the wall until it clung to the other side, she then opened her arm to Rifana, "Alright just hold my hand."

"Ok." Rifana responds as the two run toward the wall, and with Rifana's gravity manipulation ability, she made herself and Kizuna able to run up the wall effortlessly with the fishing string being their support for the two until they were both up on top of the wall.

Neia then follows as she uses her super jump ability to just up jump on the wall.

Daven grabs hold of Rino and the two teleported to the wall's top.

Bakugou with Kirishima still gripping his shoulder blasts himself with his quirk on the top.

With everyone there and Daven and Kirishima checking to see if the coast is clear they all quickly jump off the wall back on the ground, now out of the estate right next door to some woods.

"Ok, so what now Sir Bakugou?" Neia asked with the others wondering as well.

Bakugou was quick to answer, "We get ourselves back to your guys world before the 2 cardinal idiots do something else stupid that will bring mass death."

"And how are we going to do that?" Rino asked, they weren't 100% sure how they even got here in the first place let alone how it teleported them into that labyrinth.

Bakugou though was quick to answer, "Simple, Farmer Boy and Cateyes were able to get themselves back and forth between worlds through the waves, we'll just do the same to get ourselves back as well."

Daven though had some doubts, "But how are we to know if we even get back to our world and not just get stuck in some other random world?" he asked the genuinely concerning question.

"If you have any better ideas I'm open ears. But considering that Cateyes and Farmer Boy had been teleporting back and forth multiple times from consecutive waves, there may be some sort of way to travel to specific worlds or something to get to your world, or at the very least their homelands waves are connected to the ones of Melromarc." Bakugou responds, while not fully satisfying answers to Daven, even he knew this probably was the only lead they had to get back home so this was most likely the best course of action for now.

Rino saw Bakugou's point and said, "So I guess that means we just need to wait for the next wave and jump in through the portals that appear in them?"

Bakugou nods to her in agreement confirming that's more or less the plan.

Kizuna then spoke up, "If you guys are looking for good place to stay to wait for these waves I can take you to where my friends live. It's Sickel, it's where I was summoned at in the first place."

Bakugou had some doubts though, "Yeah, and why should I trust going to a nation of a bunch of genocidal maniacs?" Bakugou pointed out still wanting to be on the cautious side.

Kizuna just looked annoyed back, "Are we seriously going to go through with this again? Not that I don't believe you guys, but like I said before I would like to hear both sides of the story first before I jump to conclusions. But back on topic, I can give them a good word to you guys for saving me, the people of Sickle love me so if they know we're friends we can avoid any conflict from brewing up, that is if you can keep your temper of course." she explains to them.

"And why should I trust the word of a friend of genocidal maniacs?" Bakugou responds while crossing his arms with Kizuna looking more annoyed than ever before. with how uncooperative Bakugou is being

Neia then spoke up for her defense, "Remember Sir Bakugou, she just helped us by showing the way out of the Labyrinth, so I think we should trust her from that alone.".

Daven nodded in agreement with her then spoke up, "Plus she probably knows more about this world more than any of us. Better to have someone with knowledge here than walking in blind.".

Rino also said, "Furthermore as you said so yourself it be best we go to the waves that Larc and Therese have gone through as it might be our most consistent way to get home."

Rifana also wanted to speak in her defense even if she looked nervous to be doing so, "Kizuna also saved my life, so I think we owe it to her to accept her trust.".

Bakugou still didn't like the idea of having to deal with Larc all over again on his home turf no less while under-leveled, but even he has to admit this was the best course of action especially if this nation they are in now finds out he helped released the one they imprisoned in the first place, "Hrrrrrr, fine we'll head to Sicko or whatever the hell this place is. But if Cateyes and Farmer boy try anything on me I will kick both of their asses again!" he finally agrees.

Kizuna smiles at that, "Perfect then we'll head that way then." she says as the hunter hero walks her way in a direction toward civilization.

Though for just a couple of seconds of walking Rino brought up the important question, "So then how far away is Sickel from here?"

"Uh, I say on foot from here it will take us a week to just to get to this nation's, Mikakages border alone." Kizuna responds.

Bakugou didn't like the sound of that, "No way are we going to just walk up to a border of a supposed enemy nation of yours and expect a warm welcome. I hope you at least have the means to fast travel?" he says and then questioned.

Kizuna thankfully had a response, "Of course, it's called return codex or return Dragon vein. But since I don't have the tool I need for it, I can't use it for the time being."

"Ok and where the hell is this damn tool at?!" Bakugou demanded hoping there was a point in going in what direction Kizuna was taking them.

Kizuna pointed toward where they were walking, "It should be at Mikakage's capital."

Daven still didn't like the sound of that, "You sure it's a good idea to be just walking toward the lion's den of your enemy nation?" he questioned with Bakugou wondering the same.

Kizuna though didn't look worried, "We won't be there for long, and as long as we try not to stand out no one will recognize me. We'll use the dragon hourglass there. And the best part of all, it only works for Cardinal and vassal heroes and their groups so even if anyone finds out about us they can't follow us."

Bakugou was surprised to hear that dragon hourglasses were a thing in this world as well, though considering how easily Larc, Therese, and Glass had adapted in his sidekick's world they would most likely have similar things.

"How long is the walk there though?" Neia questioned.

"Uh, I say about 3 days at most, shorter but it will still take us time to get there." Kizuna answered.

"That's still pretty far away." Rifana added not liking the idea of just walking there on foot the whole time.

Rino nodded in agreement to that, "Yeah to bad Kirishima is not fully grown again, we could've just flown over everything." she then then turned to her leader, "Sir Bakugou do you think it might be possible to level Kirishima up enough to fly again?"

Bakugou sighed, "I don't know, it took at least 2 weeks for Kirishima to grow into his adult form and he hasn't even become his teen form yet. I don't know how differently everything in this world works but it seemed to have altered the way Kirishima can mature, so I rather not waste time figuring it out and just get to wherever the damn hourglass is to get out of this dump." he responds in which Rino sighed herself and accepted that they will have to walk there way for now.

---

And walked they did for many hours, it was now nighttime with the sundown. After walking through the woods a bit the group finally found some roads which allowed them to get back to civilization mostly walking past a bunch of different farms.

Eventually they made it to a proper town one where they could stay for the night to rest after a long day of walking and killing any random monsters or would-be bandits that got in the way.

Right now they were all casually walking through the streets of the town. The town's aesthetic definitely looked familiar to Bakugou., "I see this country takes a lot from old times Japan itself." he comments, the town indeed looked to be Asian similar to the Tortoise Kingdom, but this looked to be a lot more Japanese.

Kizuna nods to that, "Yeah, there are also plenty of nations in this world that resemble European countries as well." she adds.

"What's European?" Rifana asked with her and the sidekicks not familiar with any of the terms Kizuna and Bakugou would talk about. They can only conclude that it all has something to do with their home worlds. Bakugou also wasn't in any mood to give a 2000-3000+ history lesson to every aspect of his world.

But as they looked around Neia noticed something by some of the people here, some had long pointed ears just like hers, "Kizuna? They're elves in this world as well?" she asked surprised, not expecting to ever see another one of her kind again after her exile, though unlike her these "elves" were not blue and had a skin tone similar to Bakugou and Kizuna's and all had blonde hair.

Kizuna was confused at first until she looked toward where Neia was staring at, "Oh them? They actually call themselves the grass people, commonly referred to as just Grass. They're actually considered Demi-humans like Rifana and Daven, I'm afraid they never use the term elf out here." she responds.

Neia sighed to hear that, "Great and it looks like my journey to correct people that I'm not a Demi-human continues on, and unless you count seaweed I'm as far from the grass as you can possibly get."

"Yeah no doubt, I don't think any of them are blue either. At least you can say you're the most unique one here." Kizuna added, wanting to spin it as positive to her. Though as Neia walk around she noticed that some of the Grass people were now looking at her weirdly concerned, like they saw something extremely off about what looked to be one of their own kind.

Kizuna then points toward another group of people, but these ones have large gems on different parts of their bodies, "Those are the Jewel people, who are often called "Jewels" they are pretty much humans born with these gems on their bodies that allow them to do some powerful magic with the gems acting as magic cores of sorts, they're the same race as Therese.".

Bakugou then noticed another group of people passing by them who looked human but were extremely pale with some sort of visible aura around them, "And who are they?" he asked.

"Those are the Spirit people like Glass, though some countries just call them "Spirits". Other races have health and magic power, but Spirits only have their energy levels, like soul power for heroes to use but it's their only bar on their status menus, so since they rely on energy they can't level up normally like we do." Kizuna responds.

"That's terrible if your health and mana are tied together like that." Rino said, she can't imagine herself willing to sacrifice a part of her own life just to cast some spells.

Kizuna continued explaining though, "However spirits with lots of energy can be very powerful and since their bodies are ethereal, normal physical attacks don't hurt them. However, their energy is only able to regenerate naturally, mana and health items don't work on them.".

Bakugou thought that flaw was odd to him after his experiences with Glass, "So then why the hell did that soul-soothing potion that Farmer boy gave to Cateyes made her into a mad berserker?"

"How am I supposed to know what those two have in their inventory after being stuck in a magic prison for years? I never heard of any soul-soothing potion in this world before. And can you just call them Glass and Larc for once?" Kizuna responds.

"No can do Pigtails." Bakugou responds which just makes the hunter hero sigh in annoyance.

The group continued walking until they were near the town center where a large group of people were gathered. They were crowded around a large bulletin board of a noble's house or government building with a couple of posters written on them. This seemed to be the way these townspeople would get their news.

Unfortunately for Bakugou and the crew, they were unable to read what any of it said, being in a completely different written language than their worlds. Bakugou turns his eyes to Kizuna, "Know what any of this shit says?" he asked her.

"It's mostly saying that neighboring countries are developing new powerful weapons and breeding new monsters. As well as trying to develop teleportation technology similar to what the Cardinal and vassal weapons have. Recreating abilities of the weapons." Kizuna responds with Bakugou and crew wondering with some concern if any of this is true or not, remembering their battle with the Pope they knew well what danger could occur if mad men like him got their hands on some of the power of the cardinal weapons.

Daven though had some doubt about the validity of these things, "This could be just propaganda, Trinock and the Siltvelt council love to bring up the "horrors" of what Witch Queen Mirellia would do with Demi-humans." he says adding his opinion on this.

Rino did the same, "Still sometimes rumors have slight truths to them even if exaggerated. But best we don't jump to conclusions until we have a full picture of everything." she says with the other sidekicks nodding in agreement with her.

Kizuna then whispered to Bakugou, "Whether any of this is true or not. One thing is for certain, they don't know about us yet."

"They better not Pigtails or I'm putting all the blame on you." Bakugou says back, Kizuna groans lightly annoyed that Bakugou still didn't fully trust her after all she had done for him since meeting the shield group.

"Grrrrrrr" but then everyone turns toward Rifana as her stomach growls again with the girl looking embarrassed from the attention it was giving her.

Kizuna just smiles at her though, "Looks like you're hungry again, I'm sure the rest of us would like to get something to eat as well. Let me sell some drop items we don't need."

That caught Bakugou's attention, "Wait you're dead broke? Some fantasy hero you are." he mocked her.

"Hey, all of the money I had on hand was taken from me when I got captured, besides its not like there was anything to buy or sell in the labyrinth to begin with." Kizuna responds and just walks off to find the nearest shop to sell what she could so they can eat.

An hour or so later the group was now sitting at a small restaurant within the town, after some time they were finally served their food as the waitress passed over their plates, "Thank you again for coming and I hope you enjoy yourselves." the waitress kindly said with nods coming from Kizuna, Rino, Rifana, Daven, and Neia.

But as the waitress looked back at Neia, her smile now turned into a concerned look on her face, "Uh, Miss are you ok?" she asked Neia.

"Yes, I'm perfectly fine, why do you ask?" Neia responds wondering why she was singling her out from all people on the table with the others wondering the same.

"It's just your skin is so blue, I hope you don't have some infection or something." the waitress responds, by her ears she can tell she is supposedly one of the grass people, but has never seen any with such blue skin.

"Oh no, I'm perfectly fine, I was born this way. No need to worry about me." Neia responds trying to not make everyone start thinking she has some contagious disease on her.

The waitress sighed in relief, "Ok, sorry about that, just wanted to be sure. Enjoy your meals." she said and walked off, though she planned to wash her hands thoroughly in the kitchen just to be safe.

Bakugou just sighed at the experience and went straight to eating his food. The others digged in themselves this time now being able to properly use chopsticks.

After eating some of his spicy noodles Bakugou looked at a bag on the table that was the money Kizuna got from selling items, "So how much money do you have now Pigtails?" Bakugou asked

After she finished slurping her noodles Kizuna responds, "Minus the payment for the food, we have 78 doumon." Bakugou didn't like where this was going so he picked up one of the copper currencies that looked like ancient Japanese coins, "About 100 equals a silver gyokugin, and 100 gyokugin is one gold kinhan." she continued explaining the currency.

Bakugou threw the coin back in the bag annoyed, "Ha, so we're poor then. That's just great.".

Daven nods to his leader in agreement, "Yeah we're going to need some to get new equipment, we're either too lower leveled for them or our current armor just doesn't work in this world."

Neia nodded back, "Especially if little Rifana and Kirishima keep getting bigger as they level up again." she said as the hunter hero looked back at Rifana who was busy eating up with multiple empty bowls around herself, with Kirishima next to her to rival the archer's hunger as the dragon tears through his thick cattle meat that was the size of a large ham.

Kizuna nods to that, "Well I'm up for more money, got any get-rich-quick schemes?"

Rino then spoke up, "Maybe we can sell something rare from our world that isn't common in this world? Miss Kizuna, you said before items that boost Soul power don't exist in this world right?"

"Uh yeah, no item like that exists why ask?" Kizuna responds not sure where Rino is going with this.

Bakugou on the other hand knew what she meant as he made his shield emerge a small bottle Bakugou that quickly snatched, "Because that's what this baby is and I got plenty more to spare." he said excitedly.

Kizuna now saw what they were planning, "Is that really a soul power potion of sorts? Then that's perfect! Spirits would pay a fortune for such an item." she said excitedly with Bakugou smirking and nodding. Though Kizuna realizes something, "But wait, how are you going to sell it if no one else in this world knows of its existence?" she continued and asked.

Bakugou though smirks confidently, "Ha, trust me, I have my way with words. Those merchant bastards will be in the palm of my hands.

---

"It's a fucking potion that increases soul power! How is that hard to wrap around your smooth brain!" Bakugou yells at an annoyed merchant inside his stand, it was the next morning for the heroes, and the group had zero luck getting any merchant to buy the potion. This was the fifth merchant already and he like the others wasn't interested in this potion with Bakugou's attitude not helping.

"I'm sorry sir but I can't just buy random things I don't know about. I've never heard of anything that increases soul power, and I hardly have Spirits as customers to begin with so I don't see any value in this potion." the merchant says back losing his patience with this rude customer, "Besides I don't want anything in my store getting contaminated." he continued.

"Contaminated?! What the hell are you on now!?" Bakugou yells confused.

He then points to Neia behind the Shield hero, "That grass girl's skin condition. I don't need my business ruined by some skin disease, rather than wasting my time you should be getting her to a doctor immediately." he continued with Neia looking annoyed again as yet another person thinks she's diseased, first being the waiter and the second being the inn staff last night that Bakugou had to argue with to be able to sleep at.

This also strikes a nerve on Bakugou, "SHE WAS FUCKING BORN THAT WAY DUMBASS! JUST BUY THIS DAMN THING OR I'M GOING TO SHOVE IT UP THAT HARD ASS OF YOURS!" he explodes at the now horrified merchant.

The man panicked and quickly grabbed the wooden slide of his store window and immediately shuts it, closing himself off from the shield hero.

Bakugou turns his head around to the other terrified merchants of the area who witness the show, and all quickly react by shutting their stands off as well to not deal with the madman.

Bakugou groans in annoyance at how his plan to sell the potion and make a ton of money has gone nowhere.

Kizuna herself didn't look impressed, "Well nice merchant skills Mr. Number One, I think you practically have them at the palm of your hands." she snarked

Bakugou growled in anger until he just threw the bottle on the ground with it shattering, "Idiots! The merchants in Melromarc weren't this dense!" he complained. Back in Melromarc even at his height as the "Shield devil" he was at least able to get the merchants to buy whatever he had after some yelling and threats of course. But even he knew if he went too far with the threats he would get the guards involved which is the last thing he wants to happen in this land while Kizuna is with them.

The sidekicks knew they had to get Bakugou to calm down before he drew even more attention to themselves.

Rifana acted first as she tugged on his pants to get the shield hero's attention, "Maybe we should just try to sell this stuff to the spirit people themselves rather than the merchants?" she suggested.

Neia nods in agreement, "Yeah, perhaps if you demonstrate to them what this stuff can do they might finally see value in buying it."

Bakugou groans in annoyance at this whole situation as he forms up a new soul potion and grabs it, "Fine, this is getting really stupid.".

Kizuna nods and points toward a different Street, "It probably be best if we get as far from this spot as we can. I doubt anyone here is going to buy anything from you at this point." she suggests and walks away down the street with the others following suit.

After half an hour the group were at the other side of the town. Bakugou once more attempts to sell the potion, this time to the spirit people directly, but every single one of them either said no or actively avoided the group at all costs, both from Bakugou's little episode in the market that had already spread around town and once more over Neia's "disease".

"Maybe I should hide myself for a little bit or something?" Neia suggested feeling a little guilty that she may be the reason everyone refuses to even think of buying the potion.

"Even if you do that, I highly doubt it will fix people's opinions on Sir Bakugou's current attitude. I think it's hard for anyone to buy anything if they don't know it actually works." Rino says with Bakugou trying to fake a smile as much as he can despite his irritation at the situation.

He thought about what Rino said and looked toward a new group of Spirit adventurers passing by, 2 men and a woman who seemed to have just gotten back into town and drained of most of there energy, so they weren't aware of Bakugou yet so this may be his last chance to get through to someone on the stupid potion.

He immediately rushes up to the group, "Why you three seemed to have been exhausted after having to go through so much of your energy. Why not buy this valuable product off of me, created from a far-off land and be in peak health once more with all of your energy." Bakugou says to the group trying his best salesman act.

The Spirit group was curious but had doubts, "A potion that increases energy? Never heard of something like that?" one of the men of the group asked.

Bakugou now smirks thinking he finally got his catch, "Like I said it's from a faraway land, something not easy to get. I can let you 3 sample it just to see yourself."

The woman of the group was the most interested in this stuff, "I see no harm in trying, how about-" but before she could get her sample the other man of the group stopped her.

He then whispered to her, "Wait a minute, this might not be a good idea. This could be just some scam artist selling fake medicine or some quack scientist looking for more guinea pigs. Look at that blue grass woman over there, she probably got that skin color from this stuff." their leader points to Neia, the spirit woman was now doubting if testing it was even a good idea now.

Bakugou noticed despite not hearing the full conversation but was now growing mad again, "Hey buddy, the Lady said she wanted to try so how about you screw off and respect her wishes!" he raised his voice at the Spirit man.

"And here we go again." Kizuna says now seeing where this was going once more.

The head of the Spirit group of course was not budging, "I'm the leader of this party and these two are under my protection, so it's my job to make sure bastards like you don't take advantage of them."

"Just try this damn stuff already before making up your tiny mind!" Bakugou yells back as he opens the small cork on the bottle opening it up.

The Spirit leader man just shook his head no, "I think we're done here, let's head back to the inn and-AAH!" but the man got interrupted by a small splash of the potion getting on his face, Bakugou had enough of this and finally just decided to force the sample on him.

After he quickly wiped his face and eyes a smugly smiling Bakugou, he was now pissed-off as the Spirit man takes out his sword and points it at Bakugou face getting the town's attention again, "You got a lot of nerve to do that bastard! Get away from my party or I'll-Huh?" but then the man completely stopped himself when he noticed something, his body glowed and like that after a long day of using magic his energy instantly recovered to full, "Holy crap! This stuff actually works!" the spirit man shouted happily with his friends noticing as well. This caught the eyes of the other spirit people watching on.

The now happy Spirit man's two partners also were now eager to see if this stuff worked themselves, "Can we try it Sir?!" the woman asked and Bakugou was happy to get his potential customers hooked, so lets a small drop land on the Spirit woman's skin and like her partner, she glowed and gained all of her life force back, "By the heavens I feel all of my energy returning!" the woman shouted happily.

Bakugou did the same thing with the last one and like his two other comrades the spirit gained all of his energy back, "Man imagine what we can do with this stuff."

Bakugou smirks at this opportunity for capital as he turns himself away from the Spirits, "I'm glad you enjoyed the sample, but if you really do think I'm a scammer I'll just be on my way to-"

"Wait Sir!" the Spirit leader shouted making Bakugou turn back around, "Sir I'm sorry for what I said I'll pay you however much you want for that stuff! Name your price!" he continued with his two party members nodding with him.

Bakugou smirks as he dangles the bottle in front of the group, "For this half-used bottle, 30 gyokugin for what's left in here." he offered.

"Deal!" the Spirit leader shouted and threw Bakugou a bag of 30 gyokugin coins as Bakugou threw them the half-used bottle.

This whole event caught the attention of every other Spirit in this area including the ones that dismissed Bakugou earlier, now they saw the true power of this potion firsthand and also wanted such a thing.

Just like that a crowd of Spirit people immediately ran toward Bakugou,

"Can I buy a bottle too!"

"Please I need that stuff more!"

"I'll pay you more than anyone else here!"

The crowd shouted wanting to get this special potion for themselves. All the while Bakugou smirks to the whole thing, "Calm down people, my supply of this stuff is limited, but we'll settle this the old-fashioned way. We'll have an auction, the highest bidders will get the goods."

In just a few short minutes Bakugou set himself on a large box while next to him was another small box of the potions Bakugou was going to sell off one by one as more and more Spirit people gathered to get their hands on just one of those bottles.

"All right! Starting Price is 1 gyokugin!" Bakugou shouts starting the auction.

"5 gyokugin !"

"7 gyokugin !"

"10 gyokugin !"

"30 gyokugin !"

"100 gyokugin!"

The crowd shouted for higher and higher prices all for the first bottle.

It was a surprise to see from the Sidekicks and Kizuna that Bakugou's plan despite his bluntness before had finally worked and is going to get them to be far richer than before in just a few short minutes.

After about an hour later Bakugou had sold off the entire stock he had out on display and he and his party were now 5847 gyokugin or 5.8 kinhan richer.

The crew were now walking down the street as the sun was setting holding on to their new merchant passes to get past future checkpoints easily.

Bakugou then turned his head to Kizuna, "Have anything to say to me Pigtails?" he asked her with a smirk.

"Huh, ok that wasn't bad merchant skills, it required you to literally shove the product in someone's face, but hey I can't ignore results. And since we have our passes, we can also get you guys some equipment, maybe even get you a shirt." Kizuna says to the shield hero, she still finds Bakugou's methods to be "out there" but she can now see why so many of his friends follow him around.

She and Bakusquad head off to the marketplace visiting various stores to get new equipment, it may not be as advanced as the stuff they had on now, but due to the current equipment being from another world, it was causing some glitchy effects so anything would be improvements.

After spending the rest of the night shopping and going through various stores the group got their new stuff.

Bakugou was now in dark red and black light samurai-inspired armor, one that now covers his chest, though it's a lot less platted than typical Samurai armor allowing him to move and jump around swiftly and move his limbs without any struggle, this armor also included a red cape with it that was also fluffy at the top for a small Dragon to rest easily on. He continued to keep his gauntlets though, still having a purpose to contain his explosive sweat. He knew he could still improve and adjust this armor with his smithing skills but he can worry about that once out of town.

Neia was also in more feminine green and blue light samurai armor but like Bakugou's wasn't as platted to let her move fast.

Rino's armor looked to be in a Kimono-like robe with some metal platting at her chest area and arms, though this stuff was also magical in nature so it removed the issues at fighting in such attire would do while also boosting her normal magic abilities. She kept wearing her magenta Witch hat though along with her metal boots.

Daven was in leather armor again, though this armor resembled more like a typical ninja outfit with a tail hole for his convenience along with gauntlets that allowed him to open up his claws when needed.

Lastly, Rifana had what looked to be a mix of ninja gear and armor with both metal and leather with the metal covering her stomach and chest area while the leather was covering her limbs allowing her to be flexible like the others. She also had a hole in the back like Daven's for her tail. Bakugou also made sure to buy material for Rifana's armor and clothing if she starts growing bigger just so he can make them bigger himself if he needs to without needing to go shopping again.

This stuff wasn't what they were used to, but at least they fit into the area more, minus Neia's skin that is once more made many shop owners keep asking if the poor "grass girl" was diseased or had a mutation of sorts.

After that though, the journey to Mikakage's capital continued, as much as the group could still profit from the soul-soothing potion or what else Bakugou had that this world didn't, they knew it would soon get them unwanted attention with the risk of someone eventually recognizing Kizuna, so it was better to just move on to the capital.

Though along the way the group would break off to the path to kill any monsters Daven detects or Kirishima smells. They killed many things including big beasts like multi-head Dragon monsters.

Kizuna was doing most of the work on the giant monster killing with how high her levels are, which did annoy Bakugou a little, but then he remembers she can't harm any intelligent life herself while he still can, so to himself he had the skills that actually mattered compared to her.

He and his team were also leveling up really fast now, the mechanics of this world were still familiar to them if different when it came to the Cardinal weapons and items, it would explain how Larc and Therese were able to be so high leveled in Melromarc. Like in his sidekick's world enemies dropped items, but some items had some different effects between the Cardinal heroes. One thing was Earth crystals which usually provide Mana to Kizuna, but to Bakugou it gives him a large amount of experience points. Out of curiosity, Bakugou offered his mama potions from the other world to Kizuna and rather than increase Mana gave her experience as well. After that the two continued to experiment with each other to get the most benefit from one another and level up a lot quicker.

This continued for two more days as the group walked the roads and woods killing monsters and using earth crystals to level everyone up and took whatever loot they could get.

Bakugou was now at level 52, Neia was at 41, Rino was at 40, Daven was at 38, Kirishima was at 35, and Rifana was at 33. Thankfully it seemed they didn't need class-up upgrades this time since everyone technically already had their advanced class so they were able to pass the level cap without issue if there was one in this world at all.

Rifana had gotten bigger now in her pre-teen form still smaller than before but was getting back to her physical prime again. A prime body she wants to impress Bakugou with once more and get him to fall in love with her.

Kirishima though remained in his toddler form, once more Bakugou could only conclude it had something to do with this weird world and its different biological mechanics, but at least he can still kill with his teeth and fire like in the Labyrinth.

Unfortunately for Neia, she continues to get seen as either diseased or as a mutant whenever they stop by at any random town on the way. And to make the situation more embarrassing for her, Bakugou would also yell at anyone who says such things in front of the elf warrior. Eventually it got to a point where Neia finally decided to just put on a mask to hide her blue face. While neither she nor Bakugou liked the idea that she would need to cover up her own face, Neia and eventually Bakugou himself knew it was now necessary. With all the reactions she has been getting, the last thing they need is people freaking out about a diseased "Grass" running loose at the nation's capital.

And speaking of the capital, after their long journey, they were finally made it to Mikakage's capital with a cloudy sky overcasting it about to snow. It was a large walled city full of numerous buildings and all the ground being paved. Resembling an ancient Japanese city with its main government buildings at its center on top of a mountain peak. With more people here than ever. It was a grand sight to many, but to Bakugou he just wanted to get out of it as soon as they could.

"Told you I get you here. Though is this thing necessary?" Kizuna asked while she dawned a decorative mask.

"I'm not taking any chances after going so far, don't need this enemy nation to see their little prisoner out and about again. So just suck it up, look at Neia, she's not complaining about it." Bakugou says and then points to Neia who was still dawning her mask.

Kizuna wanted to say that he was overreacting, but she now knew arguing with Bakugou was going to be pointless and just sighed and kept her mask on.

The group continued to walk until they were near the shrine temple where the hourglass was at. However to their surprise their was a crowd of people hanging around the outside of the temple with many guards posted there to keep the peace.

"What do you think is going on Sir Bakugou?" Rifana asked.

"Don't know, but whatever it is I have a feeling I won't like it." he responds as the group hangs around the back of the crowd to remain out of every eye as possible, even with the masks on Kizuna and Neia he didn't want to take any chances.

Through his information-gathering skills, Daven was able to listen through the large crowd and was hearing that this was some sort of demonstration of a foreign hero using the dragon vein ability to teleport around without any Cardinal or vassal weapon.

The group continued to sit and watch for about a minute still wondering what this was about. But then there was a sudden gasp from the crowd as everyone eyed back at the entrance of the temple. There emerged 3 figures, 2 were human women one a brunette, and one with black hair holding spears most likely bodyguards of the 3rd individual. And said individual was a handsome young human man looking no older than the other Cardinal heroes back in the other world with short blue hair and light brown eyes with a smug look on his face while dawning a black long sleeve coat with black pants, and a cape that had a fluffy top like Bakugou's Melromarc outfit.

Bakugou already had a bad feeling about this guy, the feeling of his arrogance is a little too familiar for his taste.

From Daven's strong ears, he overhears the conversation of those 3 individuals

"You were phenomenal Kazuki."

"We believed you could do it from the very start Kasuki." the female bodyguards congratulated the smug man.

"Haha, of course I could." the smug man says back with high arrogance in his attitude.

A man then came up to the three, most likely a leader of the shrine of sorts, "I sincerely hope when it's ready for mass adoption that you bring us this gift first." he says to Kazuki.

"Perhaps I'll think about it after some drinks and watching the snow fall." Kazuki says back just enjoying his time as the center of attention as he and his bodyguards leave the temple grounds as snow is already starting to fall from the clouded sky.

After those 3 left, the crowd mostly dispersed with guards still remaining at their posts around the temple. Bakusquad also left the area and was now in a random alleyway.

"I guess those rumors weren't just rumors after all. There does seem to be people trying to replicate the abilities of the cardinal heroes." Kizuna says after Daven finished explaining what he heard.

It was a point the sidekicks thought about as well as the dangers if the wrong hands get hold of such powers, however Bakugou himself didn't care, "Whatever, who cares what some shithead is trying to do, our plans haven't changed. We're still going to the hourglass." Bakugou told his team who looked somewhat concerned about that idea.

"But what is the plan then Sir Bakugou?" Neia asked with the others wondering as well.

"We wait until the dead of night, if it keeps snowing like this it'll be the best time to go in with barely any resistance. " He says as he puts out his hand to collect some of the now falling snow.

Rino looked somewhat skeptical about this, "So we're just going to first sneak in and then brute force our way in? Sounds straight forward I guess."

Daven then spoke up, "I should be able to see what is ahead and know where guards might be stationed."

Kizuna nods back, "It's risky but if we work together it shouldn't be too hard."

Rifana, Neia, and Bakugou nod back as he then clenches his fist, "Perfect! Since we're in an agreement we strike tonight."

---

Hours passed since they agreed to the plan with the group in the meantime were off shopping for a little bit to see what this place offered, all the while Daven was scouting around the borders of the temple as stealthily as possible to find the best route and where guards might be positioned at.

Finally nightfall came, and with a snowstorm going through the city, the streets were dead with everyone at their homes to keep themselves warm. But this was a perfect time for the Shield crew to make their move as they were decked in their winter gear Erhard provided them which thankfully works in this world while they just cover over armor. Kizuna and Neia were also no longer wearing their masks since with what they were doing now, there was no point to them anymore.

The group was now at a wall by the temple that Daven had pointed to where it was the best spot to sneak in from, the rogue then teleported everyone across the wall quietly, now they were in Temple grounds as they all snuck their way to the building itself.

"Ok guys like we agreed, once inside we prioritize getting to the hourglass over anything else. Once I touch it, return Dragon vein should activate and since you're all in my party we'll teleport together, but you all need to be close to the hourglass or it might not teleport you." Kizuna said to remind everyone as they ran inside once Daven checked if the hallways were clear.

They continued running down the long hallway until Kizuna pointed to a specific doorway, "You sure this is it Pigtails?" Bakugou questioned.

Kizuna nods as she goes for the doors, "Yes the hourglass should be on the other side." she responds and proceeds to open the sliding doors.

However once opened, the "room" was just a solid rock wall, "What the hell!?" Bakugou immediately reacted with the others doing the same including Kizuna.

"Something is not right here!" Kizuna shouted and just a second after saying that, bright lights from outside made the walls on the other side of the halls glow.

"Looks like we were set up!" Bakugou shouted as he got himself ready for battle.

"Guards coming on both sides!" Daven shouted as Kizuna and the sidekicks took out their weapons.

Indeed numerous guards came out at them on both sides of the hallway, they were lightly armored but were equipped with swords or long Spears as they surrounded the group while pointing their weapons at the intruders.

"So what now Sir Bakugou?" Rifana asked as she readied an arrow.

Bakugou cracked his neck a bit then smiled, "Simple.. We fight. Rino!" he shouted as the mage immediately lifted her staff.

"Blinding light!" she shouts and from her staff, a bright light flashes across the hallway blinding the guards as they look away from this light.

"Neia 3 o Clock!" Bakugou shouted.

"Electric surge!" Neia shouts and from her two swords fires a powerful electric blast to the group of blinded guards on the right, electrifying them and quickly knocking the guards out.

On the left though Bakugou charges at the guards himself and-

*Boom!*

He blasts himself right into guards, sending them flying all over the hallway, and with their opening, the group charges their way through to find that hourglass as no doubt more guards heading their way especially now from the loud explosions.

The heroes continue to run through room after room of this large place to find the hourglass, all the while guards continue to try to stop them. But thanks to Daven's abilities the heroes knew when they were coming and took them out quickly, even not as high leveled in their old world the group was more than a match for these simple guards.

Even Kizuna despite her weapon being unable to harm people, she can still use it to destroy parts of the environment to knock over some guards. Rifana was also useful in taking out guards from afar without them being aware of what happened or just knocking out the enemy archers. The only sidekick that couldn't do much was Kirishima with him still in his toddler form the little dragon couldn't help much in this situation and just remained on Katsuki's shoulder.

And speaking of Katsuki he continued leading the way, even when he encountered the same dead end rock wall he just blasted right through it to get to the other side.

Eventually, the gang was now outside hiding under a bunch of walkways, these things connected to two other large buildings in this Temple complex while the guards run around over them on high alert.

"So how are we going to find out which building has the hourglass?" Rifana asked with the other sidekicks wondering the same.

Bakugou was trying to think which building would be best first, but Kizuna thought of something, "We should split up, one will go to one building while the other will go to the second building. It would be best to cover the most ground and split up the guard forces."

While Bakugou preferred to be the planner he couldn't argue Kizuna's points, especially in the situation they were in now, "Fine, Daven, weasel girl, and Rino will go with you. Neia and Kirishima will be with me." he says to her, he'd figure she may need more manpower then him with her weapon situation.

Kizuna and the sidekicks nodded to this, Rifana wanted to be with Bakugou but even she knew it wasn't the time to think of such things as being with her future husband as she Rino, Daven, and Kizuna ran toward the other building. Rifana fires a magic energy arrow at the bridge pillars where a huge group of guards are stationed at the entrance, but the destroyed pillars make the walkway collapse with them falling into the snow. Then Daven teleports the group up to the intact part of the walkway as they rush into the building in search of the hourglass.

Bakugou, Kirishima, and Neia run to the other building jumping back on the walkways themselves as the shield hero and elf warrior blasted through any troops that tried to stop them.

Like in the prior building Bakugou just brute forces his way through the building as he blasts through any dead end stone walls. Wall after wall gets shattered as any unlucky guards that didn't get blasted were electrified.

Finally after one more blast through a stone wall, the 3 found themselves in a huge room. And in this room was a giant hourglass in the center. The 3 found it.

Unfortunately they were not alone, in front of the steps to the hourglass was the "hero" from earlier, Kazuki himself with his two female bodyguards/harem girls.

Bakugou, Kirishima on his shoulder, and Neia then halted and stood their ground as Kazuki smugly smiled at them then started lightly clapping, "Bravo, well done. It's a pleasure to meet the buffoons who fell into my trap." Kazuki mocks the heroes.

"Well it was a pretty shit trap shithead. Your little guards could barely do anything to me." Bakugou insults back and with that, Kazuki waves his hand which signals a large number of guards that came rushing in to surround him, Kirishima, and Neia. While all the guards were maintaining their grounds they weren't feeling any fear from these intruders. Though Bakugou was wondering how this jackass knew anything about him without Kizuna being here.

"It worked exactly as planned since now you're here with me. I deliberately left fewer guards at the Temple to draw your attention and you came running in. I guess Kyo was right for you being an idiot and a Brute." Kazuki continued to mock the 3.

But the mention of that name in the end confused them, Neia was the first to speak up about it, "Kyo? You mean Kyo Ethnina? You're a friend of his?" she asked hoping for answers.

Kazuki continued to look smug and was happy to answer, "Yes that Kyo, the welder of the vassal book weapon, and I say we are more like business partners than anything else. Working together to achieve great goals that benefit the both of us."

Bakugou then gives his own smirk, "Well hate to be the bearer of bad news shithead, that foureyed bastard "partner" of yours is a headless rotting corpse now." he responds.

This immediately confused Kazuki, "A corpse? What are you idiots talking about?" he expressed wanting to know what he meant.

Neia spoke up herself, "He's dead now, I killed him myself after stabbing through his chest and slicing his head off." she responded happy to see the look on the face of a "friend" to an evil bastard like Kyo.

But after that response that confusion changed back to a smug smile, "Ha, that's hard for me to believe fibbers, considering I just met Kyo face to face last night.".

"What!?" both Neia and Bakugou expressed in surprise after hearing that.

"But that can't be possible I cut off his whole head!" Neia shouts back not wanting to believe that evil bastard was truly alive again.

"Don't listen to this shithead! He's clearly just making crap up to let our guard down!" Bakugou shouts back, trying to rationalize such a thing.

But Kazuki was now looking annoyed, "Man I can see why he hates you so much. I don't know what you specifically did to him but whatever it was he went on and on and on about how he was going to torture you in every painful way possible then resurrect you and do it all over and over again. But no matter, whether you believe me or not I was given my orders and I will follow through."

"Try to hold me down shithead and see what happens!" Bakugou yelled back ready for anything.

"Oh I should clarify myself, I was told I can bring you and your partners back dead or alive." he continued while also giving a thumbs up and then down gesture.

And as soon as his thumb went down the guards surrounding them immediately jumped at Bakugou, "Explosion Shield!" he shouted with his shield immediately transforming and Neia ducking herself.

And as soon as one of the spears hit his shield

*Booom!*

A big explosion emitted from the shield sending all the guards flying all over the room, injuring and taking them out of the fight.

Kazuki and his bodyguards were shocked to see Bakugou instantly taking out most of the guards. But it also made him mad now as he took out his sword, "The shield is mine! Take care of the mutant Grass girl!" he ordered, and the three ran toward their targets.

Bakugou launched himself and blasted right at Kazuki with the swordsman sliding on the ground with his feet after his sword blocked the blast, he and Bakugou then directly fought each other, with Kazuki using his well-trained sword skills to strike the hero as he dodged and blocked each strike while dodging and avoiding any of Bakugou's explosions back.

In the meantime, Neia was fighting against his two female bodyguards who were doing their best to at least keep Neia from leaving to fight with Bakugou while she fought them as well as any reinforcement guards that came running into the hourglass building.

The battle between Bakugou and Kazuki continued to escalate as Kyo's partner started using his own magic, blasting back at Bakugou or boosting his speed and agility. But despite the boosts and being of higher level than the shield hero, Bakugou had the lead in this fight as Kazuki grows madder and madder as he has been unable to put a single scratch on Bakugou.

After blocking another quirk blast that sent Kazuki back and made him stumble a bit, the swordsman charges straight at Bakugou with his sword powered up and rapidly strikes at the shield directly until the two were now in a major clash. The two were now in a strength struggle trying to overpower the other. But as this struggle continued Kazuki noticed Kirishima still gripping Bakugou's shoulder the whole time, "And what is this some dirty stray you found in the woods? Did you do the same with your other partners?" he mocks back trying to get on Bakugou's nerves to get him to make a mistake.

Unfortunately not only will Kirishima remember those words this didn't work with Bakugou himself, "You need to work on your insults shithead!" he mocks back then kicks his hardened foot on Kazuki's shin's breaking the struggle as the warrior stumbled back holding on to his leg in pain.

Bakugou then nodded to Kirishima with the Dragon nodding back as he flew up in the air, Bakugou then blasted himself toward the still hurt Kazuki as he panicked and attempted to block the attack. But Bakugou's quirk blast made the warrior stumble again and when he tried to attack with a swing down Bakugou blasted at the sword directly and the blade broke into two.

Kazuki was in horrid shock to see his weapon now broken, but before he could fully think of anything else Bakugou punched blasted him in the stomach, and sent him backward into the hard wall of the hourglass podium.

Kazuki in pain stares back up at Bakugou, the sword warrior was pissed off that this lower leveled punk was kicking his ass, especially with his smug smile, "What's wrong shithead? Going to cry back to your dead boyfriend?" he mocks the warrior as he casually walks up to Kazuki as he growls in deep anger.

But when he was just in range, Kazuki raised both his hands out at Bakugou, and a magic energy barrier formed around the confused shield hero making him unable to move his limbs. Kazuki was now smugly smiling again and proceeded to mock Bakugou, "Hahahaha! You're trapped now idiot! As long as I continue to cast this spell you won't be able to do anything, it'll be fun to have your organs gutted out while you can't do a-" but he stopped himself when he noticed that rather than expressing fear Bakugou continued to have his smug smile, confusing the sword warrior, "Why the hell are you still smiling?! I have you trapped and there is nothing you can-huh?!" But suddenly something just landed on the top of his head, and as Kazuki looked up, it was the little dragon from before finally making his move to save his father.

And before a confused Kazuki could react, Kirishima literally bites at his nose, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Kazuki screams in pain as Kirishima grips his teeth on his nose, "Get it off! Get it off! Get this filthy thing off me!" he screams for help as he tries all he can to remove Kirishima but the dragon's grip with his teeth and claws made it impossible to force him off.

And of course, with this happening Kazuki's spell on Bakugou immediately broke, freeing the hero once more.

His bodyguards had also heard his cries for help, "Lord Kazuki!" the two shouted and stopped themselves to aid their hero. But they never stopped Neia and with their backs turned and focus on Kazuki, the elf warrior fires double electric bolts at the girl's backs as they scream in pain until they both collapse on the floor knocked out.

Kazuki himself continued to struggle to force Kirishima off his face, but the dragon was stronger than he looked and continued biting down on his nose. Eventually Kirishima bites harder and harder until finally he tears and rips Kazuki's nose off, "AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH! My nose! My fucking nose!" he screams in pain as Kirishima finally jumps and flies away from the now noseless man covering the bloody area where his nose used to be at in deep pain trying to stop the bleeding.

"Here, let me improve it some more!" shouted Bakugou and before Kazuki could turn his face, Bakugou knee caps him hard in his face knocking out a few of his teeth.

The now noseless warrior lays on the floor in pain no longer able to fight as Kirishima lands back on his father and finally swallows Kazuki's nose.

Then on their right, a big explosion came from the wall that Bakugou had no involvement in. The ones who emerged from the wall were Kizuna, and his other sidekicks Daven, Rino, and Rifana, now here after finishing their search of the other building, "Sorry we're late." Kizuna jokingly says.

Bakugou just smirks back, "No you're here just in time, get to the hourglass now." he says to them, with Daven after he touches the 3 had teleported himself, Rino, Rifana, and Kizuna right by the hourglass itself.

Bakugou with Kirishima on his shoulder and Neia both run for the hourglass themselves as every still standing guard of this facility finally converges on this location. But they were too late to do anything despite surrounding the heroes with Bakugou, Kirishima, and Neia by the Hourglass now.

Bakugou knew this was his moment to make one last taunt, "Let this be just the taste of for all of you whenever you cross paths with the great Katsuki Bakugou and his agency, now also this world's number one hero!" he bragged and then turned to Kizuna, "Ok Pigtails, get us out of here." he ordered with the hunter hero nodding back.

"Return Dragon vein!" she shouted and with her making contact with the hourglass she and the others gained a magical glow around themselves ready to be teleported far away from this country with there being nothing the bleeding Kazuki or the guards can do at this point.

However, things turn for the worse when Neia's glow disappeared, "What the hell?! What's going on here Pigtails?!" Bakugou shouted with him and his sidekicks quickly noticing this.

Kizuna turned and was shocked to see this herself, "I don't know, I've never seen this happen before." she responded trying to look over her weapon's menu as fast as possible to see what could be causing this.

Then they heard a loud laugh, "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" It was a laugh Bakugou and his sidekicks recognized and unfortunately knew what it was from, "No, it can't be." Neia says in fear.

"You got to be shitting me!" Bakugou shouts now getting pissed off once more.

The laughing was then stopped by the voice of an individual who wasn't in the room himself, "That's right shield dumbass! It's me Kyo Ethnina, back from the grave better than ever! Did you not think I have my ways to escape death idiot."

"Like I give a damn on being lectured by some crybaby who whines when his little game got ruined by being a dumbass himself!" Bakugou insults back.

"Shut up you idiot! Do you have any idea how long I planned out that stupid Tortoise scheme? Months of research and you just had to butt in with your idiocy and ruined everything! I'm going to make you pay for every second you made me waste times a million! I'm going to make you suffer so much that you will be begging for death and wanting to go to hell yourself. It was a good thing the book dragged you here, this stupid thing is so desperate for help it teleported all of you here and put you in that labyrinth to also help the hunter hero escape. But all it did was bring all of you here for me to finally get my revenge! Hahahahahaha!" Kyo's voice continued monologuing to get his point across with plenty of anger in his tone.

Bakugou immediately turns to Kizuna, "Pigtails cut the teleporting off now!" he ordered her.

"I can't! Once it starts I'm unable to stop it!" she shouts back wishing it wasn't the truth.

Kyo's voice then continued the mocking, "She's right you know. It's why I helped set this whole thing up, all to see that stupid look on your face! Hahahahaha! It was admittedly hard for me to choose which of your harem to forcibly leave behind, I could've picked that damn cat who stabbed me in the shoulder and made me drop the soul's vial, that witch with her illusion spells that made him invisible in the first place, or that bitch weasel who ruined my fun in killing you at the tortoise! But eventually I decided on that blue bitch who stabbed and decapitated me!" he continued mockingly monologuing.

"Bastard! I'll blow your damn head this time when I find you!" Bakugou yells back.

"Oh I'm so scared what can I do against a loser who couldn't keep his whole party together? What shall I do indeed? Hahahahahahahahahaha!"

While Kyo's monologuing went on Kazuki finally got himself back on his feet while covering the area of his face that used to have his nose with a handkerchief as he took out another shorter sword with his other hand, "Kyo I want this damn shielder to stay here! He and his evil Dragon need to pay for what they did to me."

"Oh quit your bitching Kazuki, if you've done your job better you would still have your perfect face intact. For now the shield and his team will remain alive including the blue girl, I need her to advance my new plans. All from painful experiments that will make up for the lost souls of the tortoise tenfold. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Kyo finished while leaving his biggest laugh for last.

Bakugou continued yelling at the voice that had already departed, "Bastard! Bastard!" he yells wanting to just blow up this place, but even in his angered state he knew it wouldn't help at this point if he would just be blowing Neia up with it.

He then felt a pat on his shoulder, it was from Neia herself who smiled back, "Don't worry about me Sir Bakugou, I've grown since you first saved me. I know we'll meet each other again soon, I'll hold out as much as I can. Just do what I can to find me or I'll find you first. I know you can do it Sir Bakugou, you've done the impossible before, so do it again once more." she finished while smiling at her master as Bakugou gave a small smile back knowing how much he changed this hero for the better.

Neia then charges at Kazuki himself with her swords ready to fight him and all the guards as much as she can.

"Neia!" Bakugou shouted one more time before he and the others disappeared from the room.

---

The heroes all instantly reappeared again in a completely different place, they were now outside near an open shrine of sorts with the sky now raining with not a single snowflake in sight. They had traveled into a completely different part of the world and a different country altogether.

All of them except Neia.

Most of them know they should be relieved to be out of that hostile nation, but any sense of that was nonexistent with them knowing their friend was stuck behind to deal with Kyo's minions with plans to do who knows what to her.

This especially hit Bakugou hard, "Damn that evil bastard!" he then turned to Kizuna, "Pigtails! Take us back there again!" he ordered her.

Despite her feelings, she tried to maintain a level head, "Calm down Bakugou, you know that this is exactly what this Kyo guy wants right."

"I don't care! I don't ever leave a man or woman behind! Take us back and I'll kick whoever's ass is still in there!" he yells back not going to let Kyo get away with this to a true hero like Neia.

As much as she didn't want to drag more people back there Kizuna knew she wasn't going to get through with Bakugou in this state and turned to touch the hourglass again to activate Return Dragon Vein back to Mikakage's hourglass once more. But this time it wasn't working, "No luck, it seems they have turned it off from the other side." she responds to Bakugou who then slams his fists on the hourglass.

"Damnit! Damn, this fucking world and that piece of shit! I'll rip his damn spine out!" Bakugou screams losing his temper more than ever with his shield gem now glowing red.

Kizuna didn't know what was going on but knew it wasn't good, and the sidekicks knew well what this was and did not want Bakugou to activate it.

Rifana ran up to the shield hero and grabbed his hand, "Sir Bakugou, Just remember what she said, Neia has grown much since meeting you, we all have gotten stronger together." she said in comfort, Rifana never saw it fully corrupting him, but she was told about the wrath shield from her new teammates and didn't like what it entailed.

The other sidekicks nod with her, "I agree, I'm sure she won't let herself be taken advantage of that easily. If we're lucky she might've overpowered and escaped the bastards." Rino adds to also keep Bakugou from going full wrath mode while also believing this herself as well.

While Bakugou was still pissed as hell, he understood what his sidekicks were saying and remembers seeing Neia with a confident look on her face when she went to attack Kazuki. He calmed down a bit but was still mad about the whole thing, "Regardless, we need to get her back and stop that four eyed bastard before he gets his damn hands on her."

Kizuna nods to that, "Bakugou I know someone here that can help track down Neia for us, if we ask for help I'm sure we'll find her quickly." she explains.

"If this idiot is so good at tracking why didn't he ever find you?!" Bakugou retorts back finding this to be too good to be true.

Kizuna scratched the back of her neck not having a clear answer for that, "Well I don't-"

"Lady Kizuna?!" interrupted a random voice that drew everyone's attention as they turned to the source.

They were two random men in robes, most likely religious folk who were tasked to guard the dragon hourglass. Bakugou can also tell from the men they were more European looking then Asian so at least they truly knew they were far from that other country.

The other religious person spoke with a smile on his face, "It really is lady Kizuna!" the man excitedly shouted as the two ran up the steps to get a closer look to make sure their eyes weren't deceiving them.

Bakugou wasn't in the mood to be dealing with religious nuts and clenched his fist ready for a fight, but Kizuna put her weapon across his chest, "No need to be alarmed, there from Sickel they can help us."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Bakugou responds, he knew now he was in Larc's and Glass's kingdom, and he wasn't going to like encountering them again.

---

Thankfully for everyone's sake, no encounter of Larc and Glass has happened yet. With it being late at night and raining the religious men just took them to stay at a temple to warm up and rest for the night.

By morning it stopped raining and was a clear sunny day giving the heroes a good look at the kingdom of Sickel's capital, in a way it looked similar to Melromarc's but was more German-styled in comparison with many buildings made out of stone and brick. The whole city itself was now a lot more lively than before when word got out that their Cardinal hero had finally returned to them while bringing along a group of strangers who helped her.

Said Cardinal hero and "strangers" were escorted to the castle/Palace of the nation's seat of government to see for themselves of Kizuna's return. Bakugou didn't want to go but Kizuna convinced him it was where her special tracker friend would be at.

Once inside the castle itself, many of the castle staff, nobles, and government officials were all crowded in a hallway to get a good look at their Cardinal hero as she smiled and greeted them back.

"I didn't think we would ever see you again, thank the heavens you are back here safely." said a noble.

"And how dare those bastards imprison you like that!"

"Indeed they should pay for what they did!" yelled another noble, he and others were all acting pretty emotional to have Kizuna back as she tried her best to keep them level-headed.

"Sure that's fine, but let's not start any wars over this whole thing." she responds back to the nobles and other government official's who continue to talk to the hunter hero.

"We also want to thank you once more for helping dear lady Kizuna, we owe our eternal gratitude to you." said another noble but this was toward Bakugou himself who was standing in the back away from the crowd not wanting to be here

, "Whatever, don't talk to me." he responds giving an intimidating look back making the noble back off. His sidekicks were also right beside the shield hero trying to be friendly back, but even they wanted to be somewhat cautious in this place knowing who lives here.

Things then got more complicated, "Excuse me. Move over please. I'm sorry I must see this for myself." said a loud voice within the crowd. It was one Kizuna was familiar with and turns toward it.

And through the crowd emerged Therese Alexandrite herself, still dawning her blue hair and a headband covering her gem, and once the jewel warrior got through the crowd, Therese couldn't believe her eyes that the rumors she heard since this morning were all true. It was her long missing friend, back in Sickle once more, "Kizuna!" she shouted once Therese finally got a good look at her.

"Therese!" Kizuna happily shouted back and the two ran and hugged each other, while not as close as her and Glass, Therese was still a good friend to Kizuna as the two embraced their big hug together.

After a few seconds of hugging, the jewel warrior puts Kizuna back on the ground, "It's so good to see you again Kizuna." Therese says.

"It's good to see you too after so long, are Glass and Larc not far?" Kizuna asked.

"Unfortunately they are not here right now, they're currently on an important mission and probably won't be back for a little while." Therese answered wanting to be vague on the overall details.

Kizuna nods to that, "Well I hope it won't be too long, I would like to see Glass after all of this time."

Therese nods back as well, "I'm sure she be excited too, still I can't believe you were stuck in the Labyrinth the whole time. What a terrible thing they did to you there." she continued expressing disgust at Mikakage for imprisoning her there."

"Well it wasn't all bad at least there was stuff to do to pass the time. But I wouldn't be out of there now if it wasn't for my new friends." Kizuna responds.

Hearing that peaked Therese's curiosity, "Oh and who might these friends be? I would love to thank them as well?" she asked.

Kizuna nodded and smiled as she pointed to the back of the crowd, "Over there, the group with the guy with the shield." she said pointing to Bakugou who was expressing a very disgruntled face.

As soon as Therese quickly recognized who this was, her smile immediately disappeared as she gasped and looked horrified at the shield hero, "No it can't be." she expressed then reactively grabbed Kizuna and dragged the hunter hero close to her side, "Kizuna keep away from that man!"

Kizuna was now completely confused, "What's going on Therese? What are you doing?" she asked confused with the others in the room wondering as well.

"I know of Katsuki Bakugou already, he's a Cardinal weapon welder from another world." Therese announced as she moved forward in front of her friend.

And as soon as she mentioned that Bakugou was a cardinal hero from another world the crowd now looked horrified and angry as well toward the shield hero and his sidekicks.

Daven and Rino stood their ground ready to draw their weapons if things got ugly, Rifana did as well but looked more confused from what was going on, Bakugou continued giving his scow not surprised it's come to this.

Kizuna didn't like where this was going and had to forcibly push herself off of Therese to get in front of the shield hero, "Wait stop! What's going on here?! Why are all of you acting so hostile? Including you Therese?" she shouts toward her friend and the crowd with Therese now looking confused for her to be defending Bakugou.

A court official then spoke up, "Lady Kizuna distance yourself from that vile man, the only reason he's come here is to destroy our world!" he explained to Kizuna which only confused the hunter hero even more.

After hearing that Bakugou finally spoke up himself, "Ha, that's rich coming from a group of genocidal bastards!" he yelled back making sure Therese heard that as well.

"Bakugou you're not helping here!" Kizuna scolds back. But being reminded of what he has been saying about her friends before and with Therese's current behavior she turns to look back to her Jewel friend, "Say what you want about his crappy behavior, but Bakugou helped me escape the Labyrinth, that is a definite fact I won't ever forget. But while I was in there, he along with the rest of his team have been telling me about stuff you, Glass, and Larc have done. I didn't want to draw any conclusions until I heard both sides, so please Therese tell me about everything involving you and them?" she demanded of her friend while also defending Bakugou as the crowd grew more and more hostile toward him and his sidekicks.

Therese herself however looked nervous toward Kizuna. She knew the truth was going to paint her, Glass, and Larc in a very bad picture but at the same time, she could never lie to her own friend's face. She knew it was going to be ugly but still sighed anyway, "Very well Kizuna, I think we have a lot to update you on and hear our side of the story. But let's go to the library and it will be just us with Sir Bakugou's group." she agrees to her friend with Kizuna nodding back happy to see some cooperation.

Another government official though didn't like this, "Lady Therese, are you sure that's a good idea?! What if that fiend tries to attack you or Miss Kizuna!?" he protests with many others looking back at Bakugou angrily.

"Yes and we do not want to be disturbed, that's an order by the power I was granted by the Master of this land. Besides, why would he just come in here in broad daylight with Miss Kizuna if they want to commit hostile actions? They are guests for now and will be treated as guests." Therese argues back with the official.

No one liked the idea of this off-world hero being around their Cardinal hero at all, but there wasn't much they could do with Therese or Kizuna making their stances clear, and could only nod reluctantly back. The crowd then moved themselves out of the way with Therese, Kizuna, as well as Bakugou's squad heading their way to the castle library.

---

After a few minutes, they were at the large library itself full of large shelves with numerous books.

And at a table in the middle of the library were all the heroes who were sitting down as Therese explained the whole story to Kizuna, while also providing this information to Daven, Rino, Rifana, and Bakugou who as usual had his feet up on the table.

Therese told the hunter hero of a bunch of things that happened since she disappeared, the changing hands of various vassal weapons, the waves arriving and causing so much destruction, then reluctantly she also told her about their plans to stop them which the jeweled warrior had to tell her it involved killing Bakugou and his other Cardinal hero allies in his world. She also told Kizuna of Glass's first encounter, their excursion in Cal Mira, and the real reason why Larc and Glass were not here at the moment.

It was a lot of information for them to take in. And the one who was looking the hardest on it was Kizuna herself, "I can't believe this! What were you guys thinking!? Did your minds really go to Mass killing entire worlds as a reasonable plan!?" she scolds Therese not remotely happy that what Bakugou and his crew had told her was indeed true.

Therese looked very saddened and unhappy about this as she rubbed her arm, "I know how it sounds, but we weren't trying to mass kill anybody, we were only going to kill the Cardinal heroes and that was it." she tried to defend herself, Larc's, and Glass's actions.

"Yeah and killing our Cardinal heroes would leave us to die from the waves. Did you forget that fact?" Daven says back with the others in Bakusquad nodding in agreement.

Therese continued rubbing her arms in nervousness, "No, we all knew that…. But we thought this would be the only way. The waves have basically been doorways opening our worlds together with monsters on both sides pouring in. So we thought that if the other world would fall to the waves ours would survive once that world no longer existed to open more portals from." she continued to try to defend herself.

"Yeah like I said before, you're basically committing mass genocide to save your own sorry asses at the expense of others." Bakugou mocks back.

Therese sighed and argued back with Bakugou, "Sir Shield hero, you have to understand our point of view. How would you feel if you didn't think all of your Cardinal heroes were alive and had no other option to take care of these murderous waves?"

Rino though spoke up first, "Well it's hard for me to see a different point of view when you are currently the ones actively trying to destroy our home world." she argues back with Bakugou and the others nodding in agreement with her as well.

Rifana also had her own opinion to say, "Even if I wanted to protect the kids of my home world in any way I can, I would never want to kill other kids from different worlds to do so."

Each thing they kept saying back to Therese was making her feel more and more guilty than before with nothing to argue back, "I… I… we couldn't"

Kizuna then spoke her mind again, "You guys should've never tried this in the first place! You're no better than the waves themselves if you ever thought this was even a good idea! I would've never agreed to this!"

Therese shakes her head in shame, "I always knew this plan we thought of would never be considered morally right, but it was all we could do at this point with no end to the waves in sight and the thought of the possibility you might've been dead made things worse for our hopes in ending these waves."

Kizuna still felt deeply disappointed with what her friends had done, but she could also see Therese was feeling genuine guilt for everything she did, "Well I'm here now alive and breathing, and from this point on I'll do all I can to find another way to stop these waves and save all of the worlds without sacrificing any of them for our own sakes." she announced to Therese who while still looking upset nods in approval to her understanding friend.

Bakugou though wasn't in the mood, "Yeah yeah, do whatever the hell you want later Pigtails. Now how about enough of these talks and just take us to this tracker you told us about so we can get on with finding Neia!?" he raised his voice to Kizuna.

Kizuna turns her head back to Bakugou, "Hold your horses Bakugou I'm not 100% sure where he is even-"

"Ah, there you guys are." interrupted a random voice that surprised everyone as they turned to the source of it near a doorway into the library. There stood a young man with white hair and red eyes in long white robes while holding a large white staff. He also appeared to be standing on a floating platform of sorts hovering a few inches from the ground.

Kizuna smiled at this man knowing exactly who this was, "Sir Ethnobalt it's really you!" she shouted and ran up to him with Bakugou and the others following suit, with all but Therese wondering who this man was.

The hovering man smiles back at the hunter hero, "It is indeed, and it's so good to see you after so long. I hurried over to find you as soon as I heard the news, but this palace is always hard to navigate sometimes." Ethnobalt says to Kizuna who was happy to see another good friend after so long.

Bakugou though wasn't amused, "And who the hell are you?! Here to bitch at me being the harbinger of your doom or more stupid shit like that?"

Despite the rude remark, Ethnobalt continued his smiling, "I'm guessing you're that shield Cardinal hero I've heard about? Rumors are already spreading around the castle, though Master Larc and Lady Glass have already told me all about you from their encounters in your world." he says back with Bakugou still looking unamused.

Kizuna then turned herself to the shield hero, "Bakugou this is actually the guy I was talking about who can help you find Neia."

Therese now looked confused after hearing that, she just now noticed that the blue skinned girl was nowhere in sight after focusing on Kizuna and Bakugou for so long, "What has happened to Miss Neia?" she asked.

Bakugou just growled in anger not liking to be reminded of that whole incident. Though Rino was glad to answer, "She is trapped in that country Kizuna was imprisoned at, Kyo Ethnina somehow stopped her from being able to teleport and was left behind when Kizuna fast traveled us here." she explained.

The name drop made Therese look disgusted to hear of him again, "Kyo? Oh no, that evil man has no limits to what he will do to get what he wants." she says having some experience over dealing with the book welder in this world.

Daven nods to her, "Yeah he's a bit upset over losing the souls of the Guardian Spirit Tortoise. Neia decapitated him and yet he's somehow back alive and well to do this to us."

Ethnobalt shakes his head to this, "There have been stories of many sorcerers who try to keep themselves alive after death through possessing bodies. But I don't know how he would be able to get himself an exact body double of himself. He's probably done some research to find a way that I can't bear to think how he got those results in the first place.".

"Well, however the four-eyed bastard does it I'm going to find out soon and put an end to that, then shove that stupid book up his ass and blow his empty head off and make sure he remains a permanent resident in hell. But I still need to find my missing sidekick first." Bakugou says and he hopes to find her and then find Kyo before heading back to his sidekick's home world just to make sure the evil bastard doesn't try another stunt like with the Spirit Tortoise again.

Ethnobalt nods to the hero, "Yes one of the priests mentioned that you're looking for a missing team member, I'll indeed help find her and teleport you toward her."

Rino though was curious about that while also feeling something weird about this guy, "But how are you going to do that exactly if they cut off the hourglass on their end?" she asked.

"Yeah, how?" Bakugou also asked.

Ethnobalt nods to the two, understanding their question, "I can teleport to many different places thanks to my vassal weapon. Oh my, I almost forgot to mention but I'm the holder of the boat weapon. I'm a vassal hero like Glass and Larc are."

"A boat seriously? What is there a truck vassal weapon with a truck hero as well?" Bakugou mocks finding the idea of a boat being considered a weapon ridiculous.

"Uh, none that I recall to my knowledge." Kizuna reluctantly responds knowing she would be the only other person that could respond to that.

Bakugou then just shakes his head, "Whatever I don't care what the hell you have as a "weapon", let's just go find Neia already so we can go back to kicking that four-eyed bastard's ass again."

Ethnobalt raised his hand at the hero though, "Hold on a minute Shield hero, I'm afraid I myself can't track down your friend yet."

"What?! Then what the hell good are you to me Captain idiot!?" Bakugou yells at the mage who continues to look unreactive toward the hero.

"Maybe if you let him finish he'll explain it to you Mr. Number 1." Kizuna mockingly says back which just made Bakugou growl.

Ethnobalt nods once more, "Yes, I myself can't track down this missing friend, but I can create a shikigami that can."

"A shikigami? What's that?" Rifana asked with the others including Bakugou wondering the same.

Kizuna was happy to answer that, "Shikigami are pretty much your own protective familiars created through a ritual from two partners. A being who will be spiritually connected to the ones who created it.".

Ethnobalt once more nods to Kizuna, "Indeed… oh that reminds me." he says then goes into one of his pockets to take out what looks to be a thick card of sorts and hands it over to Kizuna, "You might as well take this, it's no exaggeration he misses you." he continued as Kizuna smiles as she takes the card knowing what this was.

"Oh thank you so much Ethnobalt! I can't believe you held onto him for me for this long!" she excitedly thanked the boat wielder.

"Of course, however it was Glass who was keeping hold of him at first but she's been rather busy lately." Ethnobalt responds.

The shield group was all wondering what this thing was, but before any of them could ask, the card itself was now glowing brightly then in a couple of seconds it poofed into a mass of smoke, and once it cleared up the card had disappeared and now has transformed itself into a magical shikigami that resembles a blue penguin with a white sideways crescent moon Mark on its head.

Kizuna now gasped in excitement with a huge smile seeing her shikigami after so long, "Oh Chris!" she shouted excitedly and the two quickly hugged each other, "Oh I'm so happy to see you I could explode!".

The creature intrigued the sidekicks, "I'm guessing that's a shikigami, how interesting?" Rino says curious about the magical nature of such a being.

Kizuna then looked back at the group while still holding her penguin shikigami, "Yep this is Chris, me and Glass created him together." she introduced him while Chris waved back with his wing.

"Aw, it's so cute." Rifana gushes at Chris.

Bakugou though wasn't impressed, "Yeah yeah cute, but how in the hell is this supposed to help us out?" he demanded wanting to see where this was even going.

Kizuna quickly responds, "Shikigami are spiritually connected to their creators, so Chris would be able to help me out to find Glass as well as me in any part of the world."

This though raised an eyebrow from Daven, "Wait if that's true, how come Chris wasn't used to help find you after all of these years?" he asked.

Therese then spoke up on that, "If I had to guess, with the Labyrinth being in a different plane of existence, it cut off Chris's connection to Kizuna. Poor Glass tried to use Chris for years to find Kizuna but had no luck."

Kizuna nods to her friend in agreement, "Yeah most likely, thankfully I doubt they would put Neia back in the Labyrinth again after you blew a hole through it Bakugou." she says to the shield hero.

"Yeah and how does this help me out find Neia if this thing can only track Cateyes and you?" Bakugou asked them still not enthusiastic about this shikigami stuff.

Ethnobalt then responds, "To track your friend down we'll need to make you a shikigami for yourself."

Bakugou just shakes his head in disagreement, "Why the hell should I even bother? I can always just use Kirishima to track her scent to find her without this crap."

Bakugou's sidekicks didn't agree with that though, with Rino being the first to speak up on that, "Sir Bakugou we would be just teleporting all over this world randomly until he can pick up anything. And the world will start getting suspicious if a magic boat is randomly teleporting all over the place which will no doubt get Kyo's attention.".

Daven nodded to that and spoke his mind, "Not to mention when we tried the same with the 2 doofuses back in Melromarc we reached a dead end when Kyo blocked off their scent, he probably will do the same here with Neia." he adds in with the others nodding in agreement with his and Rino's points.

Bakugou growls in annoyance at this, but even he can't argue against his sidekick's points, "Grrrrrrr, fine I'll do the damn shikigami thing, it better be badass looking though." he finally agrees with Ethnobalt nodding in approval.

"Perfect, before we begin the process we need both a drop of blood from the owner and a sample of the other person, like hair or something?" Ethnobalt requests.

"Huh? Hair?" Bakugou comments and through his menu he looks over the many many items he has stashed in his inventory, and indeed he does have a sample of her hair that he takes out from the shield. He acquired this a long time ago not too long after he made Neia his sidekick, she at some point had cut parts of her hair to not let it get too long with Bakugou taking some of it for himself, out of curiosity if this results into something from his shield.

And he did gain something from it the Water Elf shield, it was nothing spectacular, its only ability was to allow the user to breathe underwater without needing air for around 10 minutes, useful but still situational. But now that hair will be of use to him once again to find the original owner of it.

Once some of Neia's hair was out in the real world once more, Ethnobalt nods in approval of this, "Excellent now we can prepare the ritual." he says.

While they set up the process the sidekicks stood on the side to see what would happen. Rifana though felt somewhat envious that Bakugou was going to make something like this with another girl when she would've loved to do the same with her future husband, but she was mature enough to not let it get a strangle on herself and knew this was needed to find her new friend and partner Neia, though it still secretly ate at her a little, she hoped to make a shikigami thing with Bakugou with her own hair one day then years later have real children with him together.

Soon enough everything was ready, "Now the ritual to make the shikigami will now begin." Ethnobalt said as he had finally finished conjuring the seal for the ritual while an energy ball containing Neia's hair floated above in the center of the seal. It now glowed as the boat wielder casts his spells.

He then started his chanting with his arm out, "Conjure something to protect them, something that can offer them power in their time of need!" he loudly chants, with that being the cue for Bakugou to make a small cut on his finger to allow a drop of blood to fall on the magic energy ball with Neia's hair. And once the drop made contact, the ball was consumed in light as it glowed brighter than before with powerful energy winds swirling the ball now, "A creation born from a fragment of their magic that serves as a servant, let the one who lives to protect be born!" Ethnobalt finished the chant as the energy ball grew bigger and bigger than before.

Everyone stood there as they watched the ball continuing to spin, waiting to see the result of such a flashy ritual.

The energy ball continued glowing and spinning for a few more seconds, Bakugou immediately gained the shikigami shield and the energy ball erupted into a big puff of smoke.

And from the smoke emerged a new being, one that no one would ever expect to have come from Bakugou.

The shikigami unlike Chris, looked to not resemble any animal, it looked to be a small blue floating mermaid of sorts, with the lower half of its body being a mermaid fish tale with 2 fins while the upper half was more humanoid, having a similar facial structure to Neia which includes her long black hair but now more puffy and messy, purple eyes, and long pointy ears. And like Neia she was blue from head to fins with her tail part being a darker shade of blue, her eyes though were on the bigger side compared to Neia's face and had what looked to be a strapped bra covering her chest though this looked to be an organic part of her body rather than a normal bra.

Most of the group were amazed to see such a thing with their eyes, "Ah it's so cute!" Kizuna expressed with glee.

"Ugh, it had to be cute!?" moaned a voice that was none other than the shield hero who unlike the rest looked deeply annoyed to see the results of all of that, he was greatly disappointed. Bakugou wouldn't have minded this shikigami nonsense if the resulting spirit was something cool or badass looking, but instead he got a blue mermaid. Kirishima didn't look happy to see the thing either.

The newly born shikigami twirls itself around in the air, enjoying her new life using magic to keep herself floating around, "Bah!" it said, Bakugou could only compare it to the sound of those star luma things in Mario galaxy. She then caught the eye of her "father" and immediately flew to him and hugged the shield hero.

Bakugou however did not share the same feelings, "Get this damn thing off of me!" he shouts as he forcibly grabs hold of the shikigami and threw it off on the ground.

"Careful Bakugou! Don't hurt and throw the shikigami like that!" Kizuna shouted at Bakugou.

"I don't want a damn blue mermaid floating around me! It'll look like a joke! Why couldn't be something badass like a floating shark or a killer Whale!" Bakugou responds.

"Are you really just disowning basically your kid just because they're not cool looking?" Kizuna expressed with an angrily annoyed look on her face at how shallow Bakugou was treating the poor thing, she wouldn't have cared what Chris looked and loved him either way.

"That thing is not my kid!" he shouts as he points to the shikigami that got itself back up looking confused by why its creator was rejecting her.

Rino then spoke up, "How's it any different than you and Kirishima?" she commented, being a magic user herself she was admittedly fascinated by such a thing and would like to learn more about it herself and make her own regardless of what they look like

"Kirishima is a badass Dragon that will eat any bastard I throw him at! No stupid mermaid will compare to him!" Bakugou argued back as he petted his little dragon's head.

The mermaid shikigami tried to approach Kirishima floating next to Bakugou's shoulder, trying to wonder why her creator saw the appeal in the dragon and not her. However, as soon as she got close to it, Kirishima started to growl at the shikigami like a bulldog guarding its territory until the little dragon tried biting her making the spirit fly away behind a concerned Ethnobalt. Kirishima may love his siblings including Neia and his newest one with Rifana, but he does not see the same from this creature, he sees it as an annoying pest just like that black Filolia, only this one was trying to steal his father away from him.

"I have to say this is the most unique experience I've ever seen with newly born shikigami and it's not from the familiar itself." Ethnobalt says to himself, in most instances whenever he made a shikigami, the owners would be happy and embrace their new companions. This is the first he ever someone so against one and being picky about its appearance.

Bakugou then looked back toward Ethnobalt, "Look Captain white, can't we just do this stupid ritual again for something new here?" he demanded from the boat vassal wielder hoping he could get a new shikigami that wasn't a cute little mermaid with the frightened thing still hiding behind Ethnobalt.

"I'm not sure if that will accomplish anything. You would probably get the same looking creature again." Ethnobalt responds.

Bakugou growls in annoyance that he would have to be stuck with this thing for who knows how long. But before this went on forever Daven decided to get back on topic, "Let's remember this thing was made to help us find Neia, however it looks like she will still help us find her." he says to his leader,

Despite responding with a sigh even Bakugou can't deny that, so he will have to tolerate the little mermaid for now.

Kizuna nods to that, "Yes, it will be spiritually connected to both you and Miss Neia, just as Chris will do for Glass and me, we might as well find out where she and Larc are at as well if they got teleported with you back here."

Ethnobalt nods back in approval, "We'll head outside where I'll get my boat ready."

"Not that I'm doubting your skills, but what exactly are we going to do if Neia is far inland?" Daven asked out of curiosity.

Ethnobalt smiled back, "Oh don't worry, you'll soon see once we are all out of the castle." he responded while the newly born shikigami tried to move out from behind him, "You probably should take hold of your shikigami. Try to bond with it to gain its trust." he asked calmly hoping the shield hero would give the familar a chance.

But once the mermaid shikigami flies up to Bakugou on the side away from Kirishima, it smiles hoping that its creator will finally love her.

But Bakugou just grabs the thing with and hands it over to Rifana, "Here Weasel girl you can handle this thing for me." he casually says as he just walks away wanting nothing to do with that shikigami.

Both Ethnobalt and Kizuna look on in disappointment to see the poor thing get neglected by half of its creator, they can only hope the shikigami's other half would be more loving of it as they and the others catch up to Bakugou to lead the way outside.

Rifana continued holding on to the mermaid shikigami as it laid itself in comfort on the pre-teen weasel girl. She personally found the thing to be adorable too, though she didn't know what to think of Sir Bakugou's reaction to it, 'I Guess Sir Bakugou doesn't like cute things. But I'm cute too. Does that mean I'm not his type of woman? Oh no, maybe I should start trying to be less cute and be cooler for him? I need to get my adult body fast to kill more things to impress Sir Bakugou.' she says to herself still thinking about her one-sided love for Bakugou.

Therese then spoke up, "Hopefully Neia is ok, I mean with the shikigami here now we know she's alive but still."

Rino though despite having some fears herself wasn't as worried, "Neia isn't a delicate flower, I've seen her kick monsters and baddies four times her size, she wouldn't go down easily."

Bakugou smirks in agreement to that, "Ha, she has learned from the best of course, I hoped she kicked more teeth off that noseless shithead." he says back

"Hopefully she is fine." Kizuna adds in as she and the others continue there way toward outside to finally start the search for the missing hero.

---

Far away from Sickle, away from the hot sun, now back to a frozen snowy mountain. On it was a large building complex, this was a specialized prison where the most powerful and dangerous in the kingdom were placed in.

And from just outside the entrance of the complex, a new resident of this prison was being taken out of a carriage that transported her here while in chains.

It was Neia, still in her samurai-like armor but was now weaponless. After Bakugou and her team disappeared she immediately went after Kazuki, the partner to Kyo was an experienced swordsman himself, but he was in so much pain from where his nose used to be at and was still bleeding so he couldn't properly focus. Neia quickly countered his attacks and zapped him with a good dose of electricity then punched him in the face knocking out a couple of loose teeth he had.

But despite taking Kazuki out things got bad for Neia at the Temple, she tried to make a run for it after she powered through the guards, but when she got to near the gates of the complex a small army of soldiers well over 100 of them were there to greet her, she fought off as many as she could but in her lower levels without allies she didn't have enough mana left in her after using it on the temple guards to take them all out, with the soldiers eventually resorting to dogpiling on her to finally stop the warrior elf.

As much as a recovered Kazuki wanted to have her executed in the most painful way he could think of, he was given his orders and had to follow them to avoid Kyo's wrath. So he had Neia sent to this prison while he went to this nation's best clinic to get the healers and doctors to not only fix or replace his teeth but to do something about his missing nose, he now looked like a freak and was certainly not going to show up in public again in the state he was in now.

Neia was now inside the prison itself while she was being escorted to her cell by a single guard. Neia didn't know why but it felt like as soon as she got into this building she felt more tired than before, she suddenly felt like she could use a nap now despite already sleeping quite a bit on the ride here.

"Come on this way." the guard ordered pulling on Neia's chains to make her go faster. Eventually, the guard makes it to the Cell that Neia was assigned to with a purple aura glowing from the thick prison bars as the guard pushes her in, "You'll stay here until Lord Kyo comes here, just make sure your disease doesn't spread around the prison." the guard said as he closed the cell and left to his post.

Neia grabbed onto the bars to see how strong they were but when she just touched them for a second it felt like a bit of her energy just left her instantly, "What is this place?" she asked herself.

"It's called the prison of exhaustion, powerful magic is here to weaken anyone from using their own spells.", responded a familiar voice that surprised Neia. She then turned and saw she had 2 cellmates with her.

Larc and Glass themselves, they were both sitting on the floor tied up in hard magic rope. Glass looked annoyed that she of all people was in the cell with them while Larc had a smile on his face, "Long time no see Miss Neia was it." he gleefully says hi to the elf warrior.

Neia was just confused though, "Larc? Glass? Why are you two here?"

Larc was the first to respond, "The Vassal book teleported us back to our home world. And unfortunately, it made us land in a nation that isn't exactly a big fan of me and Glassy so that's why we're here as well."

"Why did it teleport all of us though?" Neia wondered

Glass then responds, "It seemed like a call for help from the vassal weapon, it has been suffering under Kyo's evil hands and is doing all it could to get someone to help save it from him."

Neia nods to that, "I see, and unfortunately that evil bastard is indeed still alive, and that is why I'm here as well. The book or its spirit must've known that."

"Last I recall you were the one to decapitate his smug head, how could this even be possible?" Larc questioned not wanting to believe it, even if he still wanted to give Kyo a piece of his mind after all he did.

"I can only guess through dark magic and his "experiments", which we will no doubt be his next subjects if we don't get out of here soon." Glass says feeling concerned.

"Well do any of you have any plans?" Neia asked hoping for a response.

"Ha, you think we still be here if we already did? We have been stuck here for 5 days we had nothing to do but think and we couldn't think Jack." Larc jokingly said trying to lighten the mood of their dire situation. Which was not what Neia wanted to hear.

Glass then spoke up herself, "What of your other companions and Cardinal hero leader? Where are they at?" she asked wondering why she was here in the prison and not the others.

Neia wasn't sure at first if she should be telling these two of these sorts of things, but at this time the three were all they had in this prison and Larc was kind enough to talk about what happened with them so she figured it was fair to respond, "I got separated from Sir Bakugou and the others when we tried to use the Dragon hourglass to teleport us out of this nation, but Kyo did something to stop me from teleporting with them and got his errand boy to send me here after they captured me.

"How did you guys know to use the Hourglass to teleport or know where one was stationed in the first place?" Glass asked knowing their worlds all operated differently including the means of fast travel, which she doubted they would automatically know about.

"Actually we learned it from another Cardinal hero that she told us you were friends, Kizuna." Neia responds.

Both Larc and Glass gasp in surprise, "Wait a minute! Kizuna! As in Kazayama Kizuna!? The hunter hero!?" Glass immediately asked hoping this was for real.

Neia nods back, "Yes her, she had been telling us how much she missed all of you, especially with Miss Glass."

"But where did you find her?! Where was she the whole time?!" Glass asked raising her voice.

Neia quickly answers her, "Me, Sir Bakugou and the rest of my team all woke up in a place called the infinite Labyrinth where Miss Kizuna claimed she had been imprisoned there for years."

Glass almost immediately hits her head on the stone wall, "Damnit! How could have I let the Labyrinth slip my mind after all these years, I should've found where that place was at this whole time!" she shouts out loud feeling extremely guilty that her friend had suffered so long being alone in the Labyrinth this entire time."

Neia could tell Glass was feeling extremely disgruntled about what happened with Kizuna and wanted to comfort the woman as she approached and touched her shoulder, "Don't worry Miss Glass, she was still in good spirits when we encountered her, and she missed all of her friends and wants to see all of you again soon." she kindly said to the spirit woman who was doing all she could to hold back her tears. After a few more seconds though Glass calmed herself down and genuinely smiled for the first time at Neia, she wanted to hug her but her bindings made it impossible so the spirit woman instead bowed forward to her.

"Thank you and your master Sir Bakugou for finding and getting her out of the Labyrinth. We'll return the favor by helping you find him if we can somehow get out of here." Glass thanked and promised to Neia who was happy to see that Kizuna's friends really did care for her.

Though Neia also noticed Glass was breathing heavier than before, "Are you ok?" she asked.

Larc was the one to answer her, "It's like I said before this is the prison of exhaustion, it has a magic that makes those imprisoned get drained and feel exhausted. It's rough to be stuck in and it's worse for Spirits like Glass who only have their energy levels. If we don't get out soon Glass may die for real."

"That's so sad to hear, I'm so sorry." Neia says in a soft voice worried that her telling them about Kizuna made Glass excited and may be using up more of her limited energy that she had left.

But as she reminded herself of Larc's words it made herself curious about something, "Wait if the prison is constantly draining those stuck here, then how do the guards maintain control and not eventually fall asleep?" she asked them

Glass still breathing heavily answered her, "The guards have special talismans that keep them from being affected by the magic, it's that neckless thing around their necks.".

This started to make Neia brainstorm, "I see, and this prison doesn't just immediately weaken our abilities it takes time to do so right?" she asked the two.

Larc nods to that, "Yep, though those prison bars will directly drain more of your power if you touch them, so it's nearly impossible to do anything on them without making you quickly pass out." he responds.

Neia continued thinking more and more, "Hmm, so I can't directly touch them with my body huh? But could I..?" She then looks at her cuffs and chains still dangling a couple of feet on the floor. This finally gave Neia an idea, "I think I just found our escape plan." she announced to Glass and Larc who looked confused about what she had in mind already.

Neia moves close to the bars while also dragging the long chain, she then throw the chain around the bars, looping it around with Neia doing it a few more times to make sure it was fully around, and thankfully since she wasn't directly touching the bars her power wasn't being directly sucked out by them.

"What do you think she's doing?" Larc asked his friend.

"Don't know, but it be best to not disturb her." Glass responds hoping this blue girl was on to something.

Once Neia made sure the chain was wrapped tight around she quickly thought about something, "Ok now Neia, think what Sir Bakugou would do to get attention from the… oh of course, just talk like Sir Bakugou." she said then looked out through the bars.

One guard the same one who threw Neia in there, was patrolling the walkway of the cells to make sure everything was in order, and like what Glass said he had a talisman neckless on his neck. Neia then smiled and went to step two of her plan, "Hey shitface!" she yelled getting the guard's immediate attention, "Yeah I'm looking at you dumbass! You act so big and tough with your stupid armor and spears?! Ha, pathetic! None of you could put up a real fight if we were out here brawling fair and square!"

The guard was quickly annoyed and marched his way to Neia, "That's right shitface I'm talking to you! I bet I can kick your ass off that railing like nothing while you cry for your mommy while I-"

"I said shut your damn mouth!" the guard yelled as he hit his fist on the prison bars that did not affect him thanks to the Talisman, "If you don't remain quiet! I'll go in there myself with friends to kick your ass then-AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" he then screamed in pain after Neia had completely transferred all the electricity she had to electrify the bars as the guard received every single volt.

And while he was stunned in pain Neia reached her arms through the holes of the bars avoiding touching them at all costs and grabbed and ripped off the necklace Talisman of the electrocuted Guard. Eventually, Neia's power runs out, and with the guard now fried he drops backward in pain and passes out on the floor.

Larc and Glass couldn't believe their eyes on what just happened as Neia smiled back, "I think you may need this the most." Neia casually said and threw the talisman to Glass who grabbed it with her mouth.

And with just the magic object in her mouth, Glass already felt most of her power coming back instantly.

Through her own returned power Glass rips apart her ropes freeing herself and her fan weapons as she does the same for Larc's own, freeing the Scythe hero once more, "Looks like we definitely own you more then one blue kiddo." he thanked and with his Scythe he breaks apart Neia's chain's freeing the warrior elf's arms.

Glass then looked and stepped back from the back of the cell, "Let's save our talks for later, right now let's focus on getting out of here." Glass said and from her fans, she fired a powerful energy blast at the wall.

Boom!

The explosion blasts through the wall leading to a different empty room with no bars or chains in sight.

The 3 heroes didn't hesitate especially now knowing that the explosion would get the whole prison's attention and all made a run for it through the wall.

"Prisoners have escaped! 3 Prisoners have escaped!" shouted some guards when they quickly ran to the cell with a blown-up back wall and an unconscious guard lying on the floor.

The 3 were just running as fast as they could, ignoring any obstacle or distraction until they were out of the prison for good, with Glass even blasting at more walls to brute force their way through not to different to what Bakugou did before.

Some guards tried to stop them when they thought they cornered the 3 in a hallway, "Reverse 4 seasons! " Glass shouted and with her attacks she made quick work of these guards knocking them out.

But as they passed them before they moved on Neia quickly grabbed two of the guard's swords to arm herself, "Thank you for the gifts." she mockingly said as she and the two other heroes continued with their escape.

Neia then pointed in a different direction, "Let's head that way, I remember there being a courtyard with horses we can take."

"You sure that's where it's at?" Larc asked hoping this wasn't a lie of the shield hero's partner or something.

"Trust me, I was just through these hallways when they dragged me in, so it's fresh on my mind" Neia says back with Larc and Glass deciding to trust her and head toward the direction she pointed to.

Glass blasts through another wall and this time they are finally outside, though they are still in the prison grounds themselves with another wall blocking their way out. But as Neia said there were horses in stalls, up for the taking. There was also a large amount of guards around as well, who quickly engaged the escaping prisoners.

All 3 started attacking, quickly beating up the prison guards. Glass with all her power was the most aggressive and took most out by herself while Neia and Larc together took the rest out with their own weapons with their skills and magic still being damped while on prison ground.

Eventually the 3 got to the horses after they freed them and jumped on their backs as the heroes headed toward another wall and many more guards started pouring into the yard.

Boom!

Glass once more blasts through the wall allowing their horses to jump through, the 3 heroes were now outside the prison with their horses galloping down the snow-covered road.

However, the guards didn't give up yet as a bunch of them took the remaining horses and pursued the escaping prisoners.

Neia knew they had to be stopped even though her mana hadn't recovered enough to fire any electricity, she however knew of her other magic affinity that cost less mana to use. She reached one hand out and cast, "Liquid floor!"

And through her water magic, the ground behind her began to cover the snowy ground with water making it mushy or quickly froze into ice. With how fast they were going the poor horses of the guards began to trip and fall over each other from the slippery ground causing the horse equivalent of a mass car accident as the horses tripped over one another with some of their riders flying off of their own saddles.

Just like that the heroes pursuers had been dealt with, "Not bad blue kiddo. I doubt they will be able to get through this road in a long while!" Larc shouted to Neia, he and Glass knew they had a lot to owe her after this knowing they wouldn't be out without the elf warrior.

But they once more knew they could talk later once they're far enough away from any pursuers as they left the Prison of Exhaustion behind them.

After some time of riding with it being night now, the 3 finally stop themselves in some woods. Now far away from any pursuers to allow their horses to rest with the heroes getting off them to stretch out their limbs out.

Larc then looks toward Neia with a smile, "Thanks again for freeing us back there blue kiddo, like I said we owe you more then one." he thanked her and reached his arm out toward the young elf woman.

Neia however just stares coldly back at Larc not reaching her hand out back. This just confused Larc, "Why the cold demeanor now? Don't like me calling you kiddo either?" he asked wondering why she was acting like this now.

"As I recall you and Glass have both tried to kill Sir Bakugou to condemn my world to die by the waves. You didn't think I'd forgotten about that did you?" she threw back at Larc who now looked annoyed to be reminded of that.

He lowered his hand and sighed, "Yes it's true but as we explained before we have our reasons to do that."

"That still doesn't change the fact you plan to kill everyone I loved in my new home. And how do you expect Kizuna will think of this?" Neia continued scolding the hero who now looked more disgruntled than ever to be reminded of Kizuna.

Glass also looked guilty herself, "Does she know about that now?" she asked Neia.

The elf warrior nods in approval, "Yes, we told her the general details, but she still wants to hear her friend's side of the story first. I hope as her true friends you're willing to tell her the full truth." she continued explaining to Glass as the two vassal wielders look down with extreme guilt on the knowledge that Kizuna now knows about what they have been doing since she was captured and disappeared.

Glass sighed, "It won't be pretty, but we must be truthful with Kizuna.", she said then looked toward Neia and kneel toward her, "But I will say myself to you that I am deeply sorry for everything I've done since coming to your world. I wish to make amends between your team and cardinal leader, after what you did for Kizuna I promise you that." she apologized to Neia honestly. Larc though remained silent, he may have nothing against Neia but he hates the idea of that evil bastard Bakugou getting a free pass for his crap, but he also can't ignore what he did for Kizuna and just continued to look disgruntled in annoyance.

Neia nods in approval then says, "Thank you Miss Glass, despite what you guys tried to do before I think for now it be best I continue to remain with you two until I find Sir Bakugou and my team again. If you help me get to him safely I'll consider us even after the prison escape." she raised her hand up to Larc expecting him to honor the agreement.

Despite some reluctance in his mind, Larc nods to Neia and shakes her hand, "Very well blue kiddo it's a deal, an honored hero must always repay his debts when he can." he agrees and finally stops the shaking. "They're probably all at Sickle now. So we'll head that way the same."

"And how are we going to do that? I'm guessing not just by crossing the borders?" Neia asked.

Glass shakes her head in disapproval of that, "No, we'll head toward the nearest Hourglass and travel from there to our home nation.".

"It'll be a few days away from here, but as long as we stick together and not draw attention to ourselves we should be able to sneak in and use the hourglass from there." Larc says to the girls.

"That doesn't sound much different than what Sir Bakugou and Miss Kizuna did before, hopefully this time that bastard Kyo isn't watching and it'll work for me this time." Neia responds with Glass nodding to that.

"He may be unaware that we have escaped yet, he probably would've just teleported near us by now if he did, so as Larc said the hourglass maybe our best chance to get out of enemy territory." Glass responds.

As much as Neia didn't want to be in the same situation with the hourglass again after so long, she didn't have much of a choice and just had to go along for now.

Larc then said, "Though we're going to have to do something about your face at least."

"My face?" Neia wondered.

"Yeah no offense blue kiddo but your unusual skin makes you stick out like a sore thumb." Larc answers her.

Neia sighed to that, "Yeah I've been aware of that since coming here."

"I can help with that Miss Neia. I'll just need some paint once we're in town on the way." Glass responds with Neia nodding, as much she didn't like the idea of being face painted, Larc was right and they needed to keep away any attention to themselves, and a supposedly diseased or mutant Grass woman was going to get them nothing but attention.

Larc smirks at all of that, "Ok then, so we got our plan, let's head to Raybul's capital without getting caught and get back to Sickle, simple enough. I think us and our horses had there rests, let's get back on the road." he finished as the three heroes get back on there now rested horses as they gallop back on the road.

All the while Neia looks up toward the sky, "Hopefully I'll be back with you soon Sir Bakugou, don't have too much fun without me.".

---

Back at Sickle, the heroes have made it out of the castle into some woods to not be seen.

On the way out Bakugou already noticed how different the atmosphere of the castle was from when he first came in, with all of the staff and government workers looking in disdain toward the outworld heroes even with Kizuna and Therese around. To Bakugou this was already reminding him of Melromarc after the rape accusation, a bunch of people thinking he's the devil or destroyer based on old legends and prophecy's rather than anything he actually did, and like before it deeply annoyed him. But right now he has more important things to do and that is to find Neia, kill Kyo permanently, and get back to their world so he can stop the waves and get back to his home world to be the number one hero there.

Course now he was getting annoyed about the talk of this "boat" Ethnobalt had when they are nowhere near the water, "Hey Captain Whiteass! Where the hell is this damn boat of yours at!? I don't see how it has any use out here in buckass nowhere!" he yells at the mage.

Ethnobalt smiles and finally stops himself, "Actually to tell you the truth shield hero, I've been riding my boat the whole time." he responds as the mage gets himself off his floating platform device.

Bakugou was confused and was growing angry again thinking Ethnobalt was trolling him, but before he could shout anymore insults, the "platform " Ethnobalt had been riding on was now growing in size and changing its shape after he got off. It was now resembling what the mage was a vassal of, a boat. A giant floating boat half the size of a battleship, white on its top half, black around the bottom part of it, with golden decorations all around the sides of it, and a pointy purple crystal at the very bottom.

"Wow that's amazing." expressed Rifana while she still held onto Bakugou's mermaid shikigami.

Kizuna nods back, "Yep, this is Ethnobalt's vassal weapon, he can change his boat to any size and take us anywhere we need to go." she explains.

"Kind of stretches the definition of a boat though." Daven comments

Rino shrugs at that comment, "Hey you can say it swims through the air." she spoke her mind about it.

Bakugou though didn't care, "Whatever, let's just get on the damn thing already." he demanded.

Thankfully for him, the heroes had quickly magically teleported on the boat deck, with everyone on board including Ethnobalt himself as he raised his staff up.

And with that hand motion, the magic boat began to rise further into the air. They were eventually high enough in the sky for the castle to look like a small toy house from above.

Bakugou then approached Ethnobalt, "Ok Captain White, so can this thing really teleport us to Neia as soon as possible?" he asked.

Ethnobalt nods to Bakugou, "My vassal weapon allows me to travel to many parts of the world, however we need to know the location of your.. uh Sidekick first. That's where your shikigami comes in.", he then looks toward Rifana, "Please put her on the map table." he requests with Rifana nodding back as she placed the mermaid shikigami on the platform where a blue energy projection of the globe was on.

The little mermaid just continued sitting on the table while staring back at everyone including Bakugou who was losing his patience again, "Well is it going to show us where she is at or not!?" he yells at Ethnobalt.

"Uh, well Shield hero, you have to request it first." Ethnobalt plainly answered.

"Grrrrrr, this is so stupid." Bakugou growls and turns himself back at the shikigami, "Ok you stupid thing, show us where Neia is now!" he demanded from the little blue mermaid.

However the shikigami was now looking annoyed herself, it was getting tired of her creator not showing any love or care for her, so she was now showing none back as it crossed her arms and angrily turned its head away.

"Hey, I ordered you to show me you little shit!" Bakugou yelled at her again.

But the only response the shikigami made was blowing a raspberry with her tongue at the Shield hero.

"What the hell is it doing!?" Bakugou yelled at Ethnobalt, who could only sigh and shake his head in disappointment at this poor shikigami/creator relationship.

Kizuna though was the one who spoke up, "It's not going to listen to you if you keep insulting it like that."

"Maybe I wouldn't be insulting the stupid thing if it would do its damn job!" Bakugou yells back at the Blue shikigami as she continues to remain uncooperative.

"Well what you're doing now isn't exactly working is it." Rino snarks back.

Kizuna sighed and tried to think of ways to get Bakugou to be nice to his spirit guard, "How about at least giving it a name, she will probably respond to you more if it had a proper name."

Bakugou groans in annoyance at this whole thing, "Fine we'll call the thing Stupid. Stupid is a perfect name for it." he insults at the shikigami as it continues to ignore Bakugou and also hates that name.

"Why are you being so mean to it!?" Kizuna finally scolds Bakugou as she was losing her patience over his treatment of the poor shikigami.

"I didn't even what to do this shikigami shit in the first place! I only did it to rescue my damn sidekick, an actual hero out there that needs help, and this dumb thing won't even do that!" Bakugou rants with Kizuna who starts staring angrily at Bakugou who did the same.

Wanting to break this constant back and forth nonsense Daven spoke his mind, "We should still give it some sort of name. I think we would all get tired of calling it just thing or it all the time.".

Rino was pondering to herself a bit while thinking about that. Then she finally thought of it, "Oh, how about we name it Blue." she suggested quickly thinking of a name.

"Blue?" Bakugou questioned the simple name.

Rino nods back, "Yeah, it was your nickname you gave to Neia, and since it has a part of Neia in her I figure it is an appropriate name." she explains to the hero.

"Bah!" the mermaid shikigami reacted happily, now smiling and looking excited approving of the name Rino suggested, with her and the others smiling as well that the little familiar was finally changing its attitude now.

Bakugou though just sighed, "Fine whatever, Rino how about you ask "Blue" where Neia is so we can get on with this crap already?" he ordered which the mage nods and approaches the young shikigami.

"Alright little Blue, can you show us where Neia is currently at?" Rino asked the little mermaid.

Blue nods back happily and moves itself to the projection globe as she then places its little hand on to where she senses her other half.

Once Ethnobalt sees what the location that Blue is pointing to was, he starts to look somewhat concerned, "Oh my, by the looks of where she is pointing at Miss Neia is somewhere in the nation of Raybul."

"Is that bad?" Daven asked not liking where this was going.

Kizuna spoke out about it, "Raybul is a nation that is allied to the nation we were just at Mikakage, like them are Asian inspired and are not fond of me either.

Bakugou sighed at this, "So we're going into another lion's den situation how nice."

Daven nods to that, "We're going to have to be just as subtle as we were with the other nation." he says with the rest of the heroes nodding in agreement to that.

Rifana still looked concerned though, "I just hope Miss Neia is still ok."

Kizuna though walks behind her to comfort the concerned Archer, "Don't worry, as long as Blue still has a connection with her everything should still be alright." she said which made the young preteen girl look a little less worried.

Kizuna then looked back to the projection Globe, "We might as well see where Glass is while we're at it." she said and then looked at her Penguin shikigami, "Chris can you try to find Glass for me?" she requested her shikigami, and the penguin spirit nods in approval and jumps himself on the podium to the Globe projection. To everyone's surprise, the little penguin places his flipper right over Blue's hand.

Rifana immediately looked concerned again, "Oh my, does this mean they are at the same place together?".

"It appears so." Therese says with Ethnobolt nodding in agreement with her.

Bakugou groaned to that, "Great just what we need, to be dealing with those genocidal jackasses again."

"Bakugou can you please stop calling them genocidal every time they are mentioned." Kizuna says back while still disappointed with what her friends did she was not liking Bakugou's shitty attitude toward everyone not revolving around himself, especially on his poor treatment of Blue.

Though she did turn her head to give a side eye to Therese who looked nervously guilty again about the whole affair. Kizuna then sighed to herself knowing she was going to say a lot to Glass and Larc when they find them.

"Whatever, I'll deal with that crap when I do meet Cateye's and Farmer Boy face to face once more. But if they did anything with Neia I'm smashing in their stupid faces! But enough talk let's just get over there already!" Bakugou says back and demands.

Ethnobalt nods back knowing they have to not waste any more time and head out now to save the sidekick and vassal heroes. He then raised his staff up in the air again, "Alright then let's warp to Raybul then." he announced with his staff now glowing along with his flying boat, as it continued to rise further in the air until it vanished from Sickel.

In less than a second the giant boat appears over a dense forest area, one that was completely different to the one they were just at, a forest not too far away from a large town as the boat lowers itself close to the ground once more.

Bakugou looked over the side of the boat to look for his sidekick, but saw no trace of her with Kirishima not picking up her scent close by either. Bakugou immediately turns back to Ethnobalt, "What gives Captain White! Where the hell is Neia?!"

"I apologize Shield hero, but my teleportation has some limits to it. It relies on riding the connections of the Dragon hourglasses, and this was the closest I could get us toward it without teleporting right at Raybul's hourglass itself.", Ethnobalt says to Bakugou which doesn't help make him feel any better.

"Then what the hell do we do now?" Bakugou asked the boat vassal wielder.

"Your shikigami should help lead you to her, it still has a connection and we're not too far off from where she and Chris had pointed toward, so just follow their leads and they should be able to find her and Glass." Ethnobalt responds.

Bakugou was annoyed but just sighed to himself knowing the continual arguing wasn't going to help save Neia any faster and just turned to Rifana, "Fine, Weasel girl you'll be in charge of the blue thing as it shows us directions." he ordered his sidekick who looked surprised to be given such an important job as the mermaid shikigami happily jump on top of Rifana wanting to enjoy her company with the Weasel Archer nodding back, "Yes Sir Bakugou.".

Ethnobalt nodded to that, "Very well then, you guys may get off the boat now to start your journeys." he announced to everyone.

Rino however approached him to ask one more thing, "Wait a minute Sir Ethnobalt, before we leave, I just want to ask you why you're using so much illusion magic on yourself?" she asked which surprised Bakugou, the other sidekicks, and even Ethnobalt himself.

"Oh my, you.. you know?" The boat vassal wielder asked still surprised he was finally caught over that.

"As a light magic user myself I can tell when that type of spell is being casted on someone. Though I'm wondering why you're using it, if you don't mind me asking?" she responds with the sidekicks and even Bakugou looking on in curiosity to see where this was going.

Ethnobalt sighed at first but then smiled, "Excellent magic senses, and very well I might as well answer that question while we're here." he said and just in less than a second Ethnobalt's body was consumed by smoke until it dissipated away revealing Ethnobalt once more, but no longer looking like a human in robes, his true form is that of a large white bipedal Rabbit with long ears standing up high with red eyes while still holding his magic staff.

"He's a rabbit Demi-human?" Daven comments.

Kizuna quickly responds to him not looking at all shocked by the reveal, "No, he's actually a descendant of a race of monsters that have protected this world for generations. Though he usually doesn't just reveal his true form like this in front of strangers like this."

"It's hard to explain but it felt safe to do it in front of Miss Rino and her friends." Ethnobalt responds still with the same voice as before despite his appearance.

Bakugou himself did look a little amused, "Ha, so another Rabbit is one of the top heroes of the world, how ironic.".

"You don't seem all that surprised by this Bakugou?" Kizuna asked with how casual Bakugou was about the reveal.

"Pigtails, my agency consists of a Blue elf, a Cat-human hybrid, a witch, a dragon. and a weasel-human hybrid. You think anything like this shocks me at this point? Hell like I said I have a rabbit hero in my regular home world already.

"A rabbit her- you know what I'm not even going to bother to ask." Kizuna expressed in confusion as to what Bakugou was even talking about.

Finally after that, everyone had jumped off the ship and were on the ground once more. Ethnobalt then waves his paw hands toward the heroes, "Take care heroes, just say the word and I'll teleport you guys back to Sickle."

Therese also nods and waves goodbye, "Indeed, be careful out there Kizuna, we all love you."

This confused Kizuna though, "Wait, Therese? Why are you acting like you're not coming?"

Therese immediately looked saddened to hear that from Kizuna, "Because… because I'm really not coming with you guys."

Kizuna continued to look baffled by this, "Why not? You are one of the best magic users I know, we can always use your help. If you're not comfortable with Bakugou I can help rein him in."

"What the hell are you talking about reining in Pigtails!" Bakugou shouts with Kizuna just ignoring him

Therese however still looked saddened, "It's not that Kizuna." she said, then the Jewel warrior reached for her headband, "It's because of this.", Therese then ripped her headband off showing her gem to everyone. However it was no longer naturally blue as it should be, it was of light purple now with a dark misty aura glowing from it.

Bakusquad knew what this was, but Kizuna didn't, "Therese why is your gem purple like that?" she asked her friend.

"It's a curse, dark magic has cut my gem off from my mana. Because of this, I'm unable to do any more magic, any other gem or accessory I've tried to use would also get drowned in this dark magic making them all useless to me. Larc and Ethnobalt have tried every curse-breaking magic they could but none would work, it is magic foreign to this world. So as of now, I would just be a burden to you. I didn't want to show it and have you worried about me." Therese responds to her friend.

Kizuna now looked deeply concerned, "Therese how did you get such a curse in the first place?" she asked, Kizuna thought if she knew where it came from the hunter hero could eventually figure out a way to cure her friend of this awful curse.

Therese then points her finger right toward Daven, "He's the one to have cursed me."

"Daven!? Is that true!?" Kizuna shouted hoping this wasn't the case.

Daven though nods in approval, "Yes, we were battling each other to the death and it was logical for me to cripple a powerful opponent that was trying to kill us with a curse that would render her harmless." he answers to Kizuna.

"Well then remove it now Daven! She's friends with us now so let bygones be bygones so we'll be at our full strength." Kizuna demanded from the rogue.

Daven though nods in disapproval, "I'm afraid that will be up to my leader to decide." he responds pointing to Bakugou.

"Absolutely not, the curse stays." Bakugou immediately responds.

"What?! Bakugou we're all allies here! And Therese is amazing with magic she'll be great with us together."

Bakugou though wasn't convinced, "I don't need Jewel's help, nor did I hear about any truce or a damn apology from her 2 equally genocidal friends Farmer Boy and Cateyes either, in war you cripple your enemies before they can do the same with you and that's what Daven did with her!"

"Would you stop calling them!… *sigh*" Kizuna yelled then just sighed, even though she still felt bad about her friend having such a curse, she couldn't honestly blame Bakugou and his crew for feeling this way after what Therese told her what she, Glass, and Larc did. At the same time though it was getting annoying how stubborn Bakugou was in not ending grudges for the greater good. She can only hope once they get together with Larc and Glass again she can finally make peace with the heroes and have them cure Therese's curse, "Alright fine have it your way, but if we get into a pickle on our way to Neia, just remember we could've had a powerful hero with us to help." she continued and reminds the shield hero.

Bakugou just huffs and ignores her, Kizuna then turns and walks up to Therese as the two hug one another, "I hope to see you again soon Kizuna, I'll be with Ethnobalt until we are called back to pick you Larc, Glass, and Miss Neia up." she finished with Kizuna nodding back.

"Ok, I won't try to cause too much damage without you." Kizuna joked and said goodbye with Therese nodding back once more as she and Ethnobalt teleported themselves off the ground back to the giant floating boat. And just as quickly the boat dissolves away in magic light leaving Raybul behind them.

With all of that done Bakugou immediately looked toward Rifana, "Ok weasel girl have that think get directions to Neia." he ordered with the archer nodding back as she looked down on the shikigami.

"Ok Blue, can you please show us where we can find Neia?" Rifana asked it.

"Bah!" Blue said with excitement, happy to help find her other creator and through her magic pointed to the general direction of where she was at, which was toward that large city they saw from the sky earlier.

Kizuna then looked down at her shikigami, "Ok Chris can you do the same for Glass?" she asked him with Chris also pointing toward the same direction Blue was, making it clear where the heroes needed to go.

And with that, the search and rescue for Neia, Glass, and Larc officially started.

---

After about an hour of walking, the crew were now inside this city. It was Asian-styled like the last one, though the city here in Raybul was livelier and looked a little bit more advanced compared to the more traditional Mikakage.

Despite her protests that no one would recognize her again Bakugou still insists on having Kizuna wear a mask to hide her identity, with Raybul as Kizuna mentioned being allied to Mikakage they wouldn't be happy to see her walking around free. Though Rino has been trying to practice some more illusion magic for herself to make such things unnecessary, but she needed to gain a few more levels to properly do them first.

They are going through the city rather than around it because it was a lot faster with how large the city was, and it was the direction both shikigami now in their card forms to not draw attention were pointing to and the heroes didn't want to risk strafing to far from the way to their friends. The group also wanted to both get information about the area as well as if there was any word of either their missing teammates or where Kyo might be at. They were also shopping for items like Earth crystals and whatnot to help Bakugou and his crew level up faster with the money Therese gave to them to buy plenty with. Not only so Rino could do her illusion spells so none of them could be recognized anywhere, they also didn't know how powerful Kyo was in his homeworld, they just knew they needed to get to every level they could to stop him for good.

However, while they were at the shop, Bakugou noticed one individual who was sinisterly smiling at him as he approached the shield hero in the store. He was a large tanned muscular man with black hair that was in a messy back top knot that also covered half his face, had many pieces of jewelry around his arms including gold rings, had a whip wrapped on his side, and had a black and purple puffy fur coat that covered his regular clothing from around his neck all the way down to his dark tan pants.

Bakugou remembered walking passed this guy out in the market near a stand that was selling random small animals. What he didn't notice though was when the large man looked toward him, he wasn't looking at Bakugou himself, he was staring at what was on his shoulder. And after only getting a few seconds to look at the unaware Dragon this man knew he wanted it.

Once by a now annoyed looking Bakugou, the shield hero finally responds, "What the hell do you want fatso!?"

The man ignored the insult and responded himself, "Someone who's interested in that rare looking Dragon on your shoulder. You may not know me if you're from out of town, but I'm a bit of a collector of exotic creatures and I like to display them for paying customers to be seen. I can see that beautiful fire lizard of yours as a great addition to my collection."

"Yeah and why should I care?!" he shouted back already hating where this was going, Kirshima himself was also looking madly at this guy not sensing anything good from him.

The man shook his head and continued ignoring the shield hero's attitude, "I simply like to buy it from you. Name your price for it and you'll come out as a richer man."

"Kirishima is not for sale jackass, so how about you get out of my sight or I'm going to puke on your disgusting face." Bakugou insulted back as he walked away to find his sidekicks.

The collector however was not going to let that beautiful monster get away from him and ran back up to Bakugou, "You can't possibly think that stupid Dragon is worth more than my wealth!? My family is of wealthy nobility and you'll respect me as one over that damn creature! I'm prepared to pay you whatever you want! 5 kinhan is my starting offer and if you want more I can-OW!" but the man's forceful negotiation was cut off short after Bakugou just smashed his foot on the collector Noble's own as he held on to it in pain.

"Trust me jackass, this Dragon has got far more brains in his head than there would be in 10 of you. Now if you excuse me I have better things to do." Bakugou insults back and finally finds the rest of his team who just finished getting what they needed.

The collector Noble thought after placing his leg back down after the stomp looked angrily back at Bakugou, never in his life did anyone just ignore him like that and refuse his status and wealth, "That lowborn bastard does not deserve such a valuable creature like that. Having its potential wealth be wasted resting on a peasant's shoulder then making money from being stuck in a cage." he then sinisterly smiles to himself, "No matter, if he won't sell, I have my own means of getting the dragon attached and running to me forever." he says to himself, now leaving the store awaiting to make his move to get that valuable Dragon of the shield hero's.

And back with Bakugou himself, he, Kizuna, and his party had finished buying what they needed and continued forward on their way out of the city. Kizuna though wondered what that conversation was about earlier, "So Bakugou what was with that black fur-wearing guy back at the store."

"Just some jackass who wanted to buy Kirishima. We can just forget about him." he responds, then he and the rest noticed some people gathered around near a wall. Out of their own curiosity, they went to see what this was about.

And once more it was another news bulletin board showing posters of what the public should know about.

Since getting info was part of the reason they were in town in the first place the heroes read what it had to say.

Some of it was the typical gossip or propaganda of what enemy nations were planning to do or what they'd do to counter them.

However one new bit of information was shown on the board, specifically a wanted poster.

Once more Kizuna read through it being the only one there that can read the language and it says back:

*Wanted: 3 dangerous criminal terrorists on the loose. One is a Male human who is around his mid 20's, has red hair, and wields a Scythe as his weapon, will attempt to talk his way through any situation so remain as far away from the man and avoid talking to him at all costs.

Second is a female, red-eyed, and black haired Spirit Woman witch who carries fan weapons with 2 top notes on the sides of her head in combat armor. Extremely dangerous, contact authorities as soon as possible if you confirm it's truly her.

Third is a young adult Grass woman with long black hair and purple eyes that can conduct electricity magic. However, her skin is completely blue, unknown if this is a mutation or disease but authorities recommend staying away from any such individual if possible to avoid the possible spreading of the disease or contamination.

All wanted dead or alive, each criminal captured or information on their location are worth 10 kinhan each.*

And just below the writing were crude and exaggerated faces of the three made to look as sinister or evil looking as possible.

"Well unless this is a weird coincidence of similar looking people that must be them." Daven comments on what the others are thinking.

Bakugou laughed at that, "Ha, she managed to escape from those bastards under Bookworm's pocket without my help, that's my sidekick alright." he then turned back to Kizuna, "Speaking of him, anything about a white haired bookworm bastard that needs his eyes ripped out?!"

"I'm looking, there is talk about some rumors of the book vassal wielder and his experiments, but I have nothing on where he might be at." Kizuna respondes, she hoped to find something about this evil man so they can stop him faster, but as usual with these types of things it's mostly just rumors or gossip on the board that the Raybul state government would approve of, but she kept looking hoping to find at least one lead.

And while most of the crew were watching over Kizuna, Kirishima was scratching himself while remaining on his father's shoulder, he'd wished he could be of more help in finding his sister and not let the dumb mermaid take all the credit for finding her. He tried to smell her out after he jumped off and sniffed on the ground hoping to get some trace on her.

Then the Dragon caught smell, it wasn't of Neia's though. It was a different kind of scent, it was a really nice scent to him and after passing through the crowd he followed it wondering what such a great fragrance this could be.

He walked a little bit until the smell led toward a dark alley, there didn't seem to be much here but rats that fled for their lives after getting just one quick look at the small Dragon. Kirishima finally found the source of this smell though, it was a pile of rice looking seeds on a plate of sorts. Kirishima didn't know if these things were editable or not or why they smelled so good. It seemed like this was this world's equivalent of cat nip but for dragons.

But once Kirishima touched the plate, suddenly magic chains came out of the ground and wrapped all around his little body including his mouth keeping it shut.

The dragon squirmed around the ground trying to get out but these things were far stronger than they looked as Kirishima struggled to break out of them.

"Hahahahahaha!" laughed a voice from the other end of the dark alley, and it revealed to be that large nobleman collector looking down on the chained struggling Dragon, "Worked like a charm! You dumb animals fall for the easiest traps in the book!" he laughed excitingly as he approached the still squirming Kirishima. He finally grabs the dragon at his neck as Kirishima still struggles trying to escape himself out of the chains even trying to breathe fire on the nobleman despite being unable to open his mouth.

"Hold still you damn beast! Just let me put this on you for one second!" he yelled trying to keep the young Dragon under control to not let the squirming thing slip out of his arms. He finally got out a special white talisman from his pocket then tries all he could to just put the thing of the resisting Dragon.

"I said hold fucking still!" he yelled again until the collector finally got his opening and forced the talisman on the dragon's body.

This made Kirishima stop attacking as he wondered what this thing even was, but his sudden lack of resistance gave the man another opening to clamp the steel cuff of a real physical chain on his neck, "Hahahahaha! Perfect!" The evil noble said and threw the dragon on the ground while holding the end of his chain. After the noble snapped his fingers the magic chains Kirishima had around his body and mouth then disappeared, leaving only the talisman and the physical metal chain on his neck.

The dragon stares back up at the man and growls, but the noble continued his smug smile, "You're mine now you stupid beast! Your dumbass of a master didn't see the true profit potential in you, so now you'll have some actual use in this society." he then yanked on the chain to assert his dominance on the dragon, "Don't think you can resist anymore either, that's a serving talisman, you cannot harm me and it will make you obey my every command for now on. So roll over you dog!" he commands and to make sure he'd listen the noble swatted the tip of his whip next to Kirishima

Kirishima stopped his growling and did as told as he rolled on the ground.

"Stop and sit!" he ordered again with the dragon stopping his roll and sitting itself down.

"Now do a flip!" he ordered while cracking his whip near the dragon and Kirishima did as told and did a flip from the ground for the cruel man

"Hahahahahaha! Perfect! You'll be one of the finest pieces in my collection soon. Now get on my shoulder!" he commands while pulling on the chain.

Kirishima didn't resist and jumped on the evil man's shoulder, as he walked his way toward the end of the alley he petted the dragon's head roughly, knowing it couldn't do anything against him as the noble laughed about it, "Hahahaha, and to think all it cost me was some old spiced Dragon feed to get you as mine. Hahahahahahahaha-AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" but then he screamed in pain when Kirishima bites down on two of his fingers.

"Let go! Let go you damn monster! I'm your master and I order you to let go!" the noble screams at the dragon trying to throw him off as fire breather latches himself on his arm.

But Kirishima was ignoring everything with the talisman trying to reign him in, but its magic had zero effect on the dragon, it seemed his species' immunity to slave crests applies to serving talismans as well, Kirishima had already figured it out as soon as the evil man put it on him and only played along when the man's guard was completely down and the magic chains were gone.

The little struggle didn't last that long though, once Kirishima bitted harder and finally with his strength and sharp teeth he went right through the bones and bites off two of the man's fingers.

"AAAAAHHHHH! My fingers!" the Noble yells in pain as he finally loses his grip on the metal chain as the Collector tries to cover his now bleeding hand.

Kirishima jumps away with two severed fingers in his mouth as he swallows them whole and through his own strength even at his small size he manages to break the metal cuff and chain apart that were far weaker then the magic ones.

The dragon then heard a familiar voice, "Kirishima! Where the hell are you at?! You little flaming bastard!" Kirishima instantly knew who that was and ran toward it, and it was indeed his father Bakugou who immediately saw the approaching Dragon out from the alley.

"There you are." Bakugou said while lightly and gently petting his little dragon, "Where the hell were you at big guy?" he asked with the Dragon turning his head toward the alley with the bleeding noble staring back with intense anger.

Bakugou just laughed after connecting the dots, "Oh I see you made a little friend, so how well did you get along with Kirishima huh?" he sarcastically asked already knowing what just happened.

"You son of a bitch! Your damn animal bit off two of my fingers!" he yelled at Bakugou showing off his still bleeding hand with a missing index and middle finger.

Bakugou just shrugged, "Hey that just means he likes you.. Well like you in a certain way, perhaps if you treated him better he wouldn't have been so rough with you." he continued being mockingly sarcastic with the Noble while Kirishima stuck his tongue out at the man, still having the blood of his fingers on it.

This just made the man have a meltdown, "You'll fucking pay for this peasant, you'll be skinned alive while your monster will be stuffed!" he screamed throwing his whip toward Bakugou's face. But before it could even get to his face, Bakugou casually grabs the end of the whip. The noble looked confused by this, but before he could make a run for it Bakugou with his quirk blasted himself to the Noble, "So you like exotic things huh?! Well here's something you'll never see again in your life!"

*BOOOM!*

Bakugou blasts an explosive uppercut on the Nobleman's face sending him flying high in the air.

He was practically flung across town with everyone wondering what this was.

All the while the man was screaming in fear as he began to fall down. He finally landed on the roof of a tall building and he didn't just smash through the one roof, his weight and momentum from the fall made him pass through the floor then the next floor and the next floor, and the floor after that, until he finally made it to ground level, but he had the unfortunate luck of landing on his back first on a large metal podium. The number of floors he went through had softened his fall to not die from being basically impaled, but the force of the fall was enough to permanently break apart his backbone.

The collector Noble now lay's broken on the floor with many people in the building quickly gathering around the man to what this was about, "Ugghhh, my legs, I can't feel my legs." the Noble moaned in absolute pain, all he can think now was what went wrong with him and that perhaps it was time to end his animal collection hobby for good.

Outside of that building more and more people gathered around wondering what on earth was with the flying man.

The rest of the shield group however remained as far as they could be from it, hoping to find Bakugou soon. All he told them was to wait until he found Kirishima then this happened, "Well so much for being subtle." Kizuna says.

When the group turned around they finally saw Bakugou with Kirishima on his shoulder again, "Alright guys while the other streets are cleared up let's make a run for it!" he ordered and took off toward a now mostly empty road while half the town was surrounding the building including much of the guard.

The sidekicks and Kizuna didn't protest and ran with him as fast as possible.

Eventually the crew made it out of town, with Daven using his teleporting powers to bypass the gate and guards who no doubt were wanting to stop anyone from leaving the city after a local noble was blasted through the sky.

The group was finally able to catch their breaths once they were far enough away.

"So can you explain to me on what exactly happened there Bakugou?" Kizuna asked understandably wondering how that whole event transpired.

"That fat bastard tried to kidnap Kirishima so I taught the pig a lesson." Bakugou responds without any hesitation.

"Not saying a bastard like him didn't deserve it, but did you really have to make it as loud as possible?" Kizuna questioned.

"Hey I do things my way and you do things your way Pigtails. Besides we didn't get caught and that's the important part." he excuses back as he walks away from the group toward a rock to sit and rest at.

"Were things like this all the time back in your world?" Kizuna asked Rino.

The mage nods back, "Pretty much, but regardless of how loud and violent he is, Bakugou is a true hero with a heart, just look at Kirishima." she points to Bakugou as he was petting his little dragon, happy to be with Kirishima once more with the dragon also happy to be with his father again after such an experience.

The sight made Kizuna smile a bit, to see such an unstable man show love and feel such compassion for something non-human, which she though he had none with his treatment of Blue. Once more showing there was more to the shield hero than his hard exterior.

Afterward the group continued onward as they followed where the shikigami pointed toward.

A couple of hours later since then the crew was still out in the woods far from civilization where they went to rest for the night, with all of them having experience in sleeping in the woods for long periods.

By morning after a good breakfast thanks to Kizuna's fishing and Bakugou's cooking they found another town, a lot smaller than the first one. This time though Kirishima was hiding underneath under Bakugou's samurai armor's cape, in case if some other "collector" tries to kidnap him again.

They once more saw a news bulletin board, "What does it say this time Pigtails?" Bakugou asked Kizuna.

"It mostly shows the same news as before, including the wanted poster of Neia, Glass, and Larc. However they're two new things." Kizuna responds..

"Yeah and what are they?" Bakugou demanded.

"Well first it looks like you're famous now Bakugou." Kizuna jokes.

"What the hell do you mean Pigtails?" Bakugou asked.

"Right here." Kizuna points to the first new flyer, it was another wanted poster, this time though it had a crude angry Bakugou face on it that resembled his explosion shield, including the pointy teeth. Bakugou wasn't amused by the picture.

Kizuna then read what it said:

*Wanted: Crazed lunatic is on the loose. A man with light spiky blonde hair, red eyes, and with the smell of burnt caramel on him had assaulted, mutilated, and permanently crippled a nobleman's son along with his rabid and most likely diseased Dragon. Contact the authorities if seen and avoid any confirmation at all costs. The reward for information on his location or capture is 5 Kinhan.*

"Oh come on, why I'm not worth more than Farmer boy?" Bakugou says ignoring the implications of this poster with Kizuna and the sidekicks sighing.

"Well it's good you have Rino finally using her illusion spells to slightly alter our faces and hair a bit to not be recognizable. Unless you want to draw a whole town's attention again." Kizuna says and jokes to Bakugou.

And indeed thanks to the various earth crystals they bought in the city, Rino was now high enough leveled to do the illusion spells that made them unrecognizable so Kizuna could now ditch the mask and not worry about anyone recognizing her or Bakugou.

"Hey like I told you the gaudy bastard deserves it, but whatever what was that other bit of news you found?" Bakugou argues and tries to steer back on topic.

Kizuna nods to him, "Oh yeah, the second new poster seems to be a government announcement of a ceremony of a possible candidate for the vassal katana weapon. The Katana is a big religious icon here and a new hero wielding it hasn't been chosen for centuries, so this is a pretty big deal for everyone here."

"And where is this ceremony happening at?" Rifana asked with curiosity.

"At its spiritual capital, where it seems to be the same direction we are heading toward and most likely where Neia, Glass, and Larc are going to as well." Kizuna answers.

Daven nods to that, "Most likely to the hourglass to teleport out of here."

Bakugou shakes his head to that, "Hopefully we will get to them before or long after this stupid ceremony occurs, I rather not deal with any more dumbass vassal wielders. So no more wasting time, let's go." he orders everyone.

Once more the group follows the directions the shikigami are pointing toward to hopefully find the ones they are looking for.

They all could only hope nothing crazy happened on the way there.

---

It's been a few days since Larc, Glass, and Neia had escaped from that prison. They have been riding their horses across the nation of Raybul toward their way to the hourglass. While they mostly remained away from civilization the 3 did occasionally visit a few towns on the way there.

But in the first town they rested at, the 3 got themselves cloaks to hide their appearance's, though they all knew something needed to be done with Neia's face. After acquiring some white paint Glass applies it on Neia's face, it makes her look pasty white but at least it covers up her blue face without needing to wear a mask. It became more important than ever to not resemble who they are now when the 3 heroes eventually saw their wanted posters despite the exaggerated faces they illustrated.

It didn't help they had no money to buy anything when they left the prison. Eventually, they agreed to sell off two of their horses and would have to share one ride until they got to the city with the hourglass.

The two horses were at least of decent value so they had some cash now. They all got themselves new clothes namely kimonos with Glass's looking identical when she first fought Bakugou and crew in the third wave, she also had her long hair down again. Neia just simply had her kimono over her armor.

But the 3 continue on their journey to the religious capital without any major hiccups along the way, they spend most of the time fighting off wild animals or monsters on the way, but Neia doesn't mind since it allows her to level up more along with getting herself some earth crystals to get a ton of XP from. She was now at level 72.

The relationship between the three remained complicated, to say the least. Neia still knew who these two were, but she couldn't just ignore talking to them for too long, especially with Larc and Glass treating her extremely nicely, and these weren't empty platitudes like Bitchwhore's were, Neia knew they meant it. Especially with Glass, Neia never knew that this woman could be so friendly, she was still grateful for what she and the others did for Kizuna.

One thing that Neia knew though she had to keep the mentioning of her master to a minimum, since just hearing Bakugou's name annoyed Larc. Daven's name also seemed to strike a nerve on Larc a bit, so the elf warrior did her best to not mention him either.

But despite those things, the 3 continued on together and got surprisingly along. Neia knows it will get more complicated once she gets back with Bakugou, she can only hope that Kizuna can be the one mediator to do something to fix this complex situation between the two worlds.

Eventually, the 3 finally made it to Raybul's religious capital, it being a large city with a large temple based on a mountain at its center, "That's where the hourglass should be." Larc says looking up toward the large temple as they walk through the itself city toward it.

However near the ground-level entrance to the temple area, there was a large crowd of people gathering around it with guards stationed there to keep things under control, "Looks like something is going on here though." Glass says out loud.

Larc shakes his head at this situation, "They never make these things easy do they?" he says out loud.

Neia with her face still painted white was curious herself by this crowd, "What is going on to have this many people involved?"

However before Larc and Glass could speculate a villager overhears her, "Didn't you guys hear? They're about to decide who'll wield the Katana vassal weapon after so long. They may have finally found the right candidate for it."

Neia now looked curious about that, however Larc and Glass looked more concerned, "And things just got more complicated.".

"A Vassal weapon? Like what you guys have?" Neia asked while no one was in earshot anymore to hear them.

Glass and Larc nod to her, "Yeah, and these things are more than just weapons, they hold a great amount of power and influence to the nations and people who wield them." Larc says to her.

Glass nodded and spoke her mind, "The mere presence of a hero in the military can tilt the balance of power between nations. Things are already rocky as is, but if this candidate is truly worthy then things are just going to get more messy soon."

Neia now started to look deeply concerned, it sounded like the political climate was really tense in this world, and she could only hope that their presence here didn't make things worse.

Larc then lets out a light sigh, "Since we're here anyway, we might as well take a look and see what happens.".

"Are you sure that's a good idea Larc? What if we get caught?" Neia asked with concern, she preferred not to get stuck in the same situation again as in the other nation but with fewer numbers than before.

"Don't worry kiddo, we will just hang back in the crowd and not draw any attention to ourselves. Besides as a king I need to be made fully aware of my enemy nations' power capabilities and know how to act on them." Larc responds and just walks his way toward the crowded entrance.

"Wait, King?!" Neia asked confused, she was still unsure about getting into the crowd over this vassal weapon with this many armed guards around.

Glass sighed at how obtuse Larc has been, "We can explain when we get to Sickel, for now it's important for us vassal weapon holders to find out more about this candidate." Glass said back as she followed Larc.

Neia still didn't like this, but knew she was outvoted and wasn't ready to just barge in alone when that failed last time, so she followed the two toward the entrance to the Temple.

An hour later the three were inside the temple grounds of a large courtyard with a small shrine in the center of it with numerous guards surrounding the small structure, and inside it lay a long Katana with its blade stuck within the center of the shrine. A fairly large crowd of people was standing by at the front of the shrine, normal commoners and Nobles alike to wait for a possible historical event to happen with there own eyes. Most of the crowd was waiting in anticipation to see if they would finally get their hero after so long.

Within the crowd was Neia, Larc, and Glass themselves who stood near the back trying to remain looking as unsuspicious as possible to see what will happen soon and who this candidate was in the first place.

Ahead of the shrine a leader of the guard then walks up toward the crowd to get their attention, "We'll now begin the choosing of the vassal Katana! Many travel far and wide to wield this sacred weapon but none have succeeded! As its not a test of might, but one of worthiness to control its power! With the blade not seeing a candidate yet worthy to wield its power! But today we may have finally found a possible candidate here with us now, having a great chance to become our new hero! All cheers to the Katana!" he announced to everyone with most of the crowd yelling and cheering in anticipation for their new vassal hero to emerge.

Hearing this speech made Neia curious, "Is much of that true?"

Glass nods back, "More or less, it's indeed the vassal weapon's own choice as to whether one is worthy to wield its power."

Neia believed her, though one thing about that felt off, "What about Kyo's book?"

Both Glass and Larc had looked instantly disgruntled to be reminded of him, "The evil bastard is pretty much taking the vassal book hostage, he said so himself that the book is his slave and he makes it do whatever he wants against its will. I'm not sure how he does it exactly, but it's probably nothing but misery to the weapon. Hence why it dragged you guys here to help it." Larc said back.

Glass now started to look worried if something like that was going on here, with the katana going to be forced to fight for an unworthy candidate against its will. She hoped that was truly not the case.

However, the mood changes once the head guard speaks up again, "Candidate, make your way forward! If you truly think you're worthy to wield the Katana, then take it up before our eyes!" he asks of a specific individual in the crowd.

That individual walked slowly from the audience toward the shrine, becoming the center of attention to everyone there.

This individual was none other than Kazuki himself who had teleported himself back to Raybul along with his two female bodyguards./harem girls. However unlike before, he appeared to now be wearing a decorative mask of some sort that only covered the midsection of his face that concealed over where his nose should be, while his eyes and mouth remained exposed. Hiding an embarrassing truth to the public.

Neia immediately recognized him, "Shit! Him of all people!" she quietly said outloud.

"Wait you know this man?" Glass asked with her with Larc curious about that, neither of them recognize Kazuki, so for Neia to know made them want to find out everything about this vassal weapon candidate.

"His name is Kazuki, he's an associate of Kyo himself. We fought each other at the other hourglass in Mikakage." Neia explains to Larc and Glass which now makes both of them look more deeply concerned than before, if this man truly did work for Kyo that meant nothing but trouble for that vassal weapon, this country, and their whole world.

Larc though wondered something, "What's with the weird mask though? Some ritual thing?" he asked with Neia making a slight smirk after hearing that.

"Let's just say Kirishima gave him a little makeover." she responds knowing the full context of what that meant which still left Larc confused.

Back with Kazuki himself, he continued his approach to the katana, happier than ever before, especially after going through the worst few days of his life.

Not only did he let that loud shield idiot beat him up, he was force to let him and his filthy dragon escape his grasp after the Swordsman lost his whole nose and a bunch of teeth because of that bastard Kyo saying so. He was humiliated in front of so many guards that night, but then it got worse when he also got beaten up even more from that mutant Blue Grass woman of the loud shielder who painfully electrified him and made him lose more teeth from his mouth.

He was forced to receive medical care as soon as possible, which also forced him to not be directly involved in that stupid blue girl's arrest, damaging his pride even more. He had doctors and healers do all sorts of things to him to deal with his painful injuries and mutilations.

They succeeded in their surgeries to insert some of his teeth back in and those they couldn't they added in fake replacement teeth, however there was nothing they could do about his missing nose. Nose surgeries were hard to do in this world as it was, but there was nothing they could do about it after Kirishima ate his original nose.

He knew he couldn't show his beautiful face in public again if he remained noseless, but then he got in contact with Kyo again. Like usual the asshole laughed at him for his failures, but after the laughing was over he was being given a chance to redeem himself to the bastard. First he had to keep the Blue Grass girl imprisoned so the book wielder could pick her up later and do who knows what that he hoped was painful, and second he was ordered to go to Raybul and take up the vassal Katana blade for himself. If he did those things Kyo promised him that he'd regrow a brand new nose from his lab that could be surgically sewn back onto his face.

So Kazuki knew this was his last chance to prove his worth to Kyo and not have to worry about wearing this stupid mask for the rest of his life. He was aware of the possibility of the Vassal weapon rejecting him, but thankfully Kyo has provided the swordsman with special magic items and talismans that will bypass the restriction powers of the vassal weapon like he has for his book vassal weapon. This will make sure that even if the Katana rejected him, all Kazuki had to do was touch it and it will be all his forever.

And that vassal weapon seemed to get closer and closer to being his with each step he took all the while a large crowd would witness his greatest triumphant, not only would he get his honor and nose back, but he knew full well that in the whole nation of Raybul he'll be seen more than just there hero, they'll see him as there God, a god to be worshipped. And with a vassal weapon of his own once he gets the right opportunity Kazuki plans to betray and kill Kyo, he'll steal his inventions and experiments to take over this world himself and many more worlds after.

Kazuki finally made it into the shrine, where the vassal Katana and his destiny for godhood awaited him as he continued his smug smile. After he checked to make sure all the magic items he had under his coat were all there he reached out to grab the hilt of the Katana.

The Katana itself however was not having it, knowing well what evil things Kazuki wanted to do with its power. Thankfully the weapon's spirit had just found someone who was truly worthy of using its power, in fact its new wielder was just within the crowd behind the villain.

In a green flash, the Katana disappeared from the shrine.

"What the!?" Kazuki shouted now looking completely confused about what just happened. It seemed now his godhood and new nose had just vanished before his very eyes as he fanatically looked around himself to see what happened with the vassal weapon.

The guards and the crowd were also all equally confused as to what just happened with their holy weapon. In rejections the katana would just simply remain in its place, not disappear like that.

Glass and Larc also looked on to this event confused, but as Larc looked to his side he was in utter shock to be seeing what he saw along with the rest of the crowd once they noticed this themselves.

Neia was now holding on to that very Katana vassal weapon, "Uh, Glass, Larc what's happening?" she asked just as confused as they were.

Glass though immediately knew what this meant, "It seems the Katana vassal has chosen you to be its new wielder." she answered, something that surprised Neia even more as she looked back at the blade itself to see her reflection.

Kazuki's own confusion ended once he looked back at the crowd itself that was no longer looking at him but at some random pasty Grass girl. His eyes then widened in shock once he got a good look at that "Grass" girl. Not only was she holding his Katana weapon, but even with all of that white paint, he recognized her face as the same blue girl that should be currently in the prison of exhaustion. He was utterly pissed off that now his chances of fame, glory, and getting his whole beautiful face back were being dashed by the stupid servant of the shield brute.

He wasn't going to let this happen as he pointed his finger toward her, "Arrest that thief! She stole my vassal Katana!" he shouted with the guards immediately believing him as they drew out their weapons toward Neia.

"It was never yours to begin with." Larc states back while still surprised by this whole thing, he knew the will of all vassal weapons was absolute and didn't make mistakes like this and was willing to defend another fellow allied vassal wielder regardless of who they were.

Glass nods and opens her fans, "We must withdraw from here at once!" she announces.

"Drop the vassal weapon now!" The head guard yelled toward Neia.

She was still surprised that all of this was happening to her of all people, but she knew it was not the time to be thinking of the implications and had to get out of this situation, "We'll split up, and divide their forces." she responds and before Larc and Glass could protest Neia used her super jump ability to jump over the wall behind them. Glass and Larc were surprised but quickly nod back at each other and split up themselves in opposite directions.

"After them now! Don't let them escape! Prevent them from getting near the hourglass!" Kazuki ordered with the guards now scattering all around the temple grounds in search of the supposed thieves. Kazuki did the same, he was not going to let that Blue mutant get away from him again.

Back with Neia herself, she continued running as fast as she could as the entire temple area was alerted with guards swarming all around to find this "thief".

Neia hid herself away in some garden area after jumping over a wall, with that and the thick Bamboo surrounding most of the garden it gave the Warrior elf a few seconds to breathe. She conducts a small water spell to splash her face to get rid of all of the itchy white paint finding it pointless to have it on now with the whole temple chasing her and the other two vassal heroes now.

She then looks at this Katana that appeared in her own hands. Despite how large of a blade it was, the sword was surprisingly light to her, she was unsure if it was because of her own strength or the Katana itself, but either way it allowed her to swing it around swiftly, even effortlessly cut down thick bamboo stalks.

She also noticed she couldn't let go of the sword even when she opened her hand up the Katana remained attached to her palm like a magnet on metal, she did a test to see if would be able to put it through a sheath, and it worked, she was able to put it in allowing both her hands to be free if needed, though the sheath's she had on was way too small for this weapon.

She also unlocked a bunch of new abilities that appeared on her menu including one that said "Dual Wield". She only had to time to read about that one and would need time later to learn about the other many abilities.

After pulling the Katana back out and waving it around a little more she stopped the blade in front of her face as she once again looked at her reflection on it, "Am I really worthy of you? Like the shield is to Sir Bakugou? But why? Why see this random weak elf girl worthy of you?" she says to the blade talking like it was a real individual.

She still thought this was overwhelming for the elf warrior, for most of her life she was seen as a weakling to her family, a loser that they threw under the bus with her banishment. They thought she was a loser and a waste of space. Even after being a sidekick to a hero for so long it was still something on the back of her mind. But now this powerful weapon that many in this kingdom only see a god is worthy of holding it had chosen her, her of all people. She knew she had grown since being with Sir Bakugou but she had never imagined being worthy of anything so important in her life.

But then the reflection of the katana changed to show off images, and memories from her head. Watching over these memories began to give her a few seconds of thought as she witnessed each memory, memories about herself that led her here, including her first meeting with Bakugou and his eventual acceptance to be his first sidekick, when he had given her a chance to better herself, despite going through many trials to get where she is now.

She then remembers what Bakugou had told her after showing off his soon to be hero academy, that she had saved his life multiple times, and saved many other lives as well including her new friend Rino. She had made many new friends along the way, Daven, Melty, Kirishima, Sir Ren, and many others, all of whom saw her as a hero. Seeing all the smiles on the faces of those she helped or saved quickly warmed her heart as the Katana reflection kept showing them off.

She can now see why the Katana had chosen her, not just out of desperation, but that it saw her as truly worthy to carry this burden and power. Despite still feeling overwhelmed by everything, she'll now do as Sir Bakugou has done before and use this weapon to continue to do more good, to destroy the waves and evil-doers, save more lives, and bring more smiles on faces. All as Sir Bakugou would say, "Plus Ultra.".

"There you are!" shouted a voice, and as Neia turned she saw it was none other than Kazuki himself with just his two female bodyguards/harem girls beside him, all with angry looks on their faces, "Think you can hide from me you disgusting thief! Stealing my katana away from me!" Kazuki insults the elf warrior looking pissed off more then ever from this whole event.

Neia however wasn't intimidated by him and just pointed the powerful blade toward the swordsman, "As Larc said, this wasn't yours to begin with, it clearly didn't see you to be worthy of it." she insulted Kazuki back.

"I don't give a shit what the stupid sword wants! I'm the only one worthy to hold its power! What makes you think you have the right to hold it you mutant!? You're nothing more than an attack dog to that shielded idiot!" He yells as Kazuki takes out his sword trying to intimidate Neia to let go of the vassal weapon.

But Neia remained unnerved, "I and Sir Bakugou are more deserving to be called heroes than you will ever be, we brought smiles to faces, and all the likes of you do is act entitled to it without doing a single thing to help people. And it's rich calling me an attack dog when your just as much of a bitch to Kyo himself." she continued insulting him getting on more of his nerves.

"You think I actually like to work with that Piece of shit!? This katana is my only means to finally get the upper hand on his stupid book! So last chance Mutant! Drop the weapon and I might even let you off the hook with me needing to imprison you again." Kazuki bargained with her one last time.

"Mutant? Ha, says the freak without a nose." she insults Kazuki again, not even bothering to argue with him anymore.

That of course struck Kazuki's last nerve, "You bitch! I'll gut you here!" he yells and charges right toward Neia intending to cut her in half.

But Neia saw it coming a mile away and easily blocked the attack.

The two then started their sword fight, despite just getting the vassal weapon Neia was able to fight it with ease, during the training before the spirit Tortoise got released she learned how to use multiple different types of swords from different masters, katana's included.

Unlike before at the other hourglass Kazuki wasn't injured from his fight with Bakugou before, so he was going at Neia with his full strength. But despite that and his own refined sword skills Neia still had the upper hand on Kazuki, being able to block all of his strikes despite how quick they were. Kazuki even tried to blast her with powerful magic attacks that did no good with Neia dodging or just cutting up the attacks with her katana, even big fire balls.

Eventually in the fight, Kazuki slipped up and Neia threw a single strike across the swordsman's chest leaving a good cut across his uniform even through some skin.

And from that cut that was now making him bleed a bit, Kazuki also noticed the cut had drained some of his own magic, even some of the boosts had disappeared with that one cut.

Neia attacked more aggressively than before giving Kazuki no time to breathe as she made more and more cuts across his body, Neia knew the Katana could do more damage, but she wanted to show how much she can do on her own without needing to rely on the full power of the Katana to a garbage person like Kazuki as he gets his ass kicked quickly once it became clear he was no match for her.

Kazuki attempts to attack again as he strikes his sword toward Neia only for her to block and hold back the attack. Kazuki attempts to overpower her, but even he sees that he was no match to the girl's strength.

But of course, fair play wasn't his specialty either, "You two slice her head off!" Kazuki ordered his bodyguard harem girls who were awaiting for there master's orders. The two girls with their spears finally ran up and jumped toward Neia thinking that with Kazuki keeping her busy with the one Katana she had wouldn't be able to stop both of their attacks.

Neia however just smiled and moved one hand away from her Katana, "Dual Wield!" she shouted and from her free hand an identical Katana appeared and with it, she blocked the two girl's weapons on time.

This confused the bodyguards and Kazuki himself, "What!? You're not supposed to dual wield Katanas!? That was never recorded to any past Katana heroes?!" He yelled at her. Despite blocking with both arms Neia was still able to hold the three off as she continued her smile.

"The people I work around tend to do the impossible. Electric shock!" From her mana, she emits a huge surge of electricity and through the metal swords Kazuki himself and his two bodyguards were both electrocuted.

The pain knocked the two bodyguards out and Kazuki was now on his knees barely able to remain conscious from that, "No! This isn't fair! How can I be bested by some mutant freak like you!" he insulted once more having no other means to fight back a superior opponent as much he wants to deny it.

Neia just smirks as she puts the second katana in her other hand while she grabs hold of Kazuki's mask and pulls it out to expose his noseless face, "You shouldn't throw stones at glass houses." she mocks back and lets go of the mask as it snaps back on Kazuki's, face stinging the bastard hard.

Neia was about to debate if she should deal the final blow now, but then-

*Boom* Neia heard a large explosion far in the distance, it was near where the entrance of the temple was, she then continued to hear some more explosions from there, the Katana hero knew this couldn't have been Larc or Glass since they went to other directions. She smiled knowing who it could be, "Sir Bakugou."

"There she is! After the theif!" Shouted a voice near the entrance of the garden, which was a huge force of guards heading the new Katana hero's way. Knowing she didn't have time for them, Neia just turned and made a run for it once more.

Kazuki looked back from the ground and was madder than before. Losing again was one thing, but the idea that he was now so beneath her that Neia didn't bother to finish their fight just insulted him more, "Hey get back here, I'm not done with you thief! Hey! Hey!' he yelled but Neia continued to ignore him and with her super jump ability, she once more jumped over a wall out of the garden.

The guards continued to pursue her toward another exit, while some ran to help Kazuki and his bodyguards. Kazuki gripped his fist hard wanting that bitch to be ripped apart for the second humiliation, but when he thought of the idea of her being ripped apart he finally smirks once he remembers what he had on hand, "You think I'm weak don't you heroes!? Ha, well let's see how you deal with my pets!"

---

Just outside of Raybul's spiritual capital was a group of heroes heading their way to find who they were looking for by their shikigami directions.

It was of course Katsuki Bakugou, his sidekicks, and Kizuna all heading toward the entrance.

It had been a few days since the whole fiasco over the noble that tried to steal Kirishima, they remained as far from civilization as they could while following the directions the shikigami had been pointing to. While in the woods they continued to fight monsters and find and use more earth crystals to level up and despite their short times in this world they had all made tremendous progress. Bakugou was now level 77, Rino was level 73, Daven level 71, Kirishima level 65, and Rifana level 68.

Kirishima continues to remain small despite his levels, but Rifana herself has finally fully grown back to her young adult body like before at the Tortoise, this did mean she outgrew her armor and clothing, but thanks to the supplies and extra material Bakugou bought he was able to smith in the adjustments to outfits to allow her to fit in them once more. Course Rifana took every opportunity to flaunt her body to Bakugou, but the shield hero continued to ignore the advancements. Rino and Kizuna continued to remain silent so as to not hurt the girl's feelings once more. At least she was now also able to use her powerful bow that she had back in her old world again, now being able to properly use it in battle without struggle.

The group continued walking their way toward the city.

"I hope you don't start blowing things up while we're in Bakugou?" Kizuna joked out loud.

"If any asshole tries anything on me or my team I will be as loud as I want to be Pigtails!" he responds which just made the hunter hero sigh knowing this was the best answer she was going to get from Bakugou.

Once they were at the gate of the city though they were stopped by a group of guards, "Halt! The city is under lockdown until further notice! No one is permitted to go in or out of the city!" he yelled his orders to the group who were just perplex to this random event.

"But why is it under lockdown?" Kizuna asked already having a bad feeling about this, especially with how Bakugou was looking at them.

"A thief has stolen the vassal Katana weapon, the city and Temple guards are doing all they can to hunt her down and rescue the sacred weapon." The guard responds.

"Stolen a vassal weapon? Really?" Kizuna responded confused by such a thing.

"Does that happen often?" Rifana asked still holding onto the shikigami in her card form.

"No a vassal weapon can't just be stolen like that, the weapon chooses who can even wield it, it wouldn't let itself be taken by any random Yahoo." Kizuna answers her.

Daven though had his doubts, "Except one particular vassal book according to a certain someone.".

Rino also got curious about the "thief" especially when the guard referred to it as a "her", "Do you guys know what this "thief" looks like?" she asked already having a gut feeling where this was going.

The guard quickly responds, "From what we're told, she's a black haired Grass woman with some sort of mutation that makes her skin blue.".

After hearing that, everyone there knew exactly who they were talking about with Bakugou now looking madder, "And what exactly are you going to do to this thief after you find her?" Bakugou asked the guard while his palms emit smoke.

The guards answer him, "Ha, once we have that thief, we'll chop her hands off, then we'll be sure she'll get whipped until we see her bones, then heal her to be whipped again and again and again in public,. Then the scum will be beheaded with her head being placed on a pike to show off what the fate of other thieves will be if they ever try to do what that blue mutant has-*Booom!*"

The gates explode with the massive doors and guards being blasted all over. The explosion of course came from yours truly Katsuki Bakugou having enough of the insults on his sidekick, "I've had it with this country already! We go in full force to that temple now!" he shouts and orders as he indeed charges into the city toward the temple with the others running behind him. While some of the guards that had recovered enough from the explosion went off to raise the alarm to alert the city guard of the criminal's who just blasted through the gates.

The team ran through most of the city trying to avoid any clusters of guards that they could thanks to Daven's sensing ability, though any that do get in the way are quickly taken care of either from Bakugou's explosions or Rino's light energy attacks.

Eventually they got themselves to the temple grounds. The front gates were fortified as hell, but Bakugou just made a new way in by blasting a big hole through the wall.

"Neia!" Bakugou calls out as the group runs through these sacred grounds with the others doing the same with Kizuna also calling for Glass and Larc.

They continued running across the temple grounds until they were in one centralized area with multiple empty buildings clumped together with a wide open center.

"There the intruders! They must be colluding with the thieves!" yelled out a guard captain getting sight of the group with over 20 guards running up in front of the heroes. Now holding their positions with their weapons ready to block their way in one direction.

Bakugou was ready to just blow them apart like he had done with the others.

But before he could do anything the entire regiment were all electrocuted with electricity from behind. After a few seconds, the guards were now all knocked out and collapsed on the ground, and right behind them was a familiar looking blue elf with a smile on her face.

"Neia!" the group shouted with Bakugou of course being the loudest.

"Sir Bakugou! Guys!" she yelled back and ran toward them.

She first ran to hug Bakugou, while shocked as usual, he was starting to get used to this hugging thing by now, at least when it came to his sidekicks and didn't need to yell about it.

But Neia knew her master's patience by now and only let the hug be brief, she went to hug everyone else there including Kizuna.

"It's so good to see you again, Neia we were so worried about you." Kizuna said to her.

Neia smiles back, "It was a little rough but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle. Besides it wasn't like I was alone either." she says back.

Rino then wanted to ask her something, "When we got to this city, we've been hearing all about this blue "thief" stealing a katana. Do you know what this was all about?"

Neia nodded back and magically turned her dual katana's into one once more, "Yep, it's this thing. But I didn't "steal it" the weapon chose me, and not like I can throw it away either.". she explained as Neia showed off how the vassal weapon was basically stuck to her hand despite her fingers all being out.

This surprised Kizuna, "You really got chosen as the next Katana vassal holder? That's amazing, the weapon had chosen no one to wield it for centuries, you have no idea how much of an honor it is to earn such a title." she says and congratulated Neia.

Bakugou also made a small smirk, "Ha, of course one of my sidekicks would be worthy, they got trained from the number 1 hero after all." he bragged then turned to Neia again, "Though I hope just because you got a fancy toy now you won't think to try to take my spot as number 1 will you?" he asked in a half-serious half-joking way.

Neia though just smiles and bows to Bakugou, "Of course not, regardless of whether I'm a vassal wielder or not. I'll never try to compete with you."

"You should always be trying to get stronger than me Neia, don't try to be a loser and hold back because I'm around, the only one who should be worried about you surpassing me is myself, and there is no way I'm going to lose my number 1 position without a fight. I'm just saying don't get cocky just because you have a shiny weapon, Ponytail Slut and Bow Bitch thought of that, and look what happened with them." Bakugou responds.

Neia understood what lesson he was imparting to her and nodded in approval, she didn't forget where she started and wasn't going to squander her new power, "Of course Sir Bakugou, I'll always strive to better myself and not get complacent." she said back

Before the group could ask anything else 2 individuals emerged from an alleyway near them. It was of course Glass and Larc who just met up with each other again after splitting up.

Glass immediately approached the Katana wielder, "Neia we've been hearing those big explosions and we were wondering what-"

But Glass immediately stopped herself once she got a clear look at the people Neia was talking to, the Fan wielder and Larc quickly recognized the Shield Hero and the rest of his team, but she then put all of her focus at the short girl next to Bakugou to make sure her eyes weren't deceiving her. But it was indeed as Neia told them, Kizuna herself, "I've finally found you." Glass said with the spirit woman now feeling so much emotion in herself as she ran to her long lost friend with tears in her eyes.

"Glass!" Kizuna excitedly shouts once she recognizes her best friend as well.

Glass in almost inhuman speed right up to Kizuna and gave her a massive hug, "I've found you! After all of this time! We're finally together again!" Glass excitedly shouts to her friend as the hunter hero gets thrown around and overwhelmed by Glass's hug.

"It's good to see you too Glass, but can you lay off on the loving hug a bit I can barely breathe." Kizuna says back.

Glass quickly realized what she was doing and finally stopped her literal breathtaking hug, "Sorry about that, I guess I got too excited after all of these years." the fan wielder said as she and Kizuna smiled at each other, truly happy to be with best friends again.

"Hey save some love for me kiddo's!" Larc joked as he approached the two with Kizuna hugging him as well.

"Nice to see you again Larc." Kizuna happily says back.

"Same here." Larc comments back after finishing his hug to her. However that smile of his quickly disappeared as soon as he got a good look at Bakugou who equally was looking mad back at him, "Long time no see as well Kiddo."

"What the hell did I say about you calling me that!" Bakugou yells with Kizuna jumping in his way before the shield hero can start anything.

Kizuna then says to him, "Bakugou how about we do not start any more fights than necessary, we already spent enough time chatting with each other as is, so why don't we-"

"Surround the terrorists and thieves! Surround them!" yelled a voice that surprised the heroes with guards numbering well over 100 surrounding the whole area, blocking every alley, every street, both soldiers and mystic mages alike.

All the heroes stood there grounds holding their weapons out ready for the biggest battle yet.

They then heard some clapping from up on one of the buildings, and when everyone looked up to it, it was Kazuki who had once more been healed up from his battle with Neia along with his two bodyguards, "Nice to have all the heroes in one place now, including the Cardinal Hunter hero with them, with all of your weapons together I'll make that bastard Kyo bow before me and soon the rest of the world as well as many more after that!" he mocks the group below.

Bakugou though was not afraid of him, "Oh look at that, the whiny shithead whose ass I kicked a few days ago thinks he can act tough in front of me."

"I also just kicked his ass a few minutes ago." Neia added in.

"Shut up! I admit I may have underestimated you imbeciles when we first met, but now I'll have the upper hand this time" he yells and then snaps his fingers.

Before anyone could wonder what that meant, they began to hear growling from above.

From nowhere multiple different large white Tigers appear on the rooftops, all staring down and growling in hunger.

"Is that all you got shithead!? A bunch of stupid tigers!?" Bakugou mocks back not impressed by these new enemies.

Glass then spoke up with her, Larc, and Kizuna looking more concerned then before once they saw what these were, "These aren't normal tigers. There smaller replicas of Kurin, a guardian beast of our world.".

That word immediately drew Bakusquad's attention, "Guardian beast? Like with Miss Ost?" Rifana asked not liking the fact another being like her is a slave to an evil man.

Kazuki also confirms it, "Yep, creations of my own! Weren't easy to make, but they'll rip you thieves to pieces!" he mocks them once more.

Kizuna then looks back angry at Kazuki, "It's no wonder why the Katana didn't choose you as its wielder, you really are a shithead." she scolded him back.

Kazuki then looks down at Kizuna, "I don't give two shits what the katana thinks, it will be mine as a slave belongs to his master as the clone beasts are now. I don't know if I will much direct use for your harmless weapon though, you might still be a good hostage once I go to war with Sickle, so how about you step aside and I'll make your imprisonment painless." he mocks her back not taking the hunter hero seriously.

Kizuna sighed and shook her head, "Fine then have it your way." she then transformed her weapon into its fishing pole form and began swinging it around, "Lure Needle!" she shouted and her fish hook and line extended throughout the area with it striking almost everything there minus her allies, including a surprised Kazuki and his Tiger replicas.

Once she was finished Kizuna reeled her fishing line and pole back in, with it all leaving behind bright cut marks on every enemy there. Kazuki was wondering what this was but before he could say anything Kizuna spoke out first, "If you're wondering what that was, it's a special skill of mine, Lure Needle. I'm unable to harm any person, but I can still give others the advantage. That glowing cut on you will double all the damage you'll receive, putting my team on equal footing with you." she explained which made the rest of the heroes smile in approval, now ready to take full advantage of that.

Kazuki was now just growing annoyed by all of this, "You really want to fight huh? Very well, I'll make sure it's painful for each and every one of you, hahahahahaha-huh!?" but suddenly an energy arrow fires and hits directly on Kazuki's nose mask. The arrow came from Rifana who had about enough of the evil man with his now noseless face exposed to everyone there, "Ah! NO!" he panicked as he covered up his face now extremely embarrassed to have all these people seeing him like that.

But that just left him exposed as Daven just teleported right above Kazuki's back and kicked the bastard behind the head, knocking him off the roof as he fell to the ground like a fool, "Lord Kazuki!" the bodyguard harem girls shouted but before they could attack, the rogue teleports back to his group.

A stumbling Kazuki quickly gets himself back up on his feet, now extremely pissed off especially with Bakugou smirking back. After being humiliated like that he had enough monologuing and yelled out, "Kill them! Kill all of them!" he also snapped his fingers with the white tigers now jumping off the roofs themselves to attack the heroes along with the hundreds of guards swarming in.

"Rino!" Bakugou shouted with the mage warrior knowing what he had in mind.

"Blinding light!" she shouted and from her staff, Rino created a bright flash of light that temporarily blinded everyone including the Tigers for a few seconds. But a few seconds was all Bakugou needed.

"Haven't used this one in a while. Hydra shield!" Bakugou shouted, and with that his weapon transformed with the shield now producing 9 large Hydra heads. Though these hydra heads looked different than back at Melromarc, instead of blue skin with red frills, these heads were green with black spikes protruding from the heads. Bakugou could only think this might be the result of Hydra's being different in this world, but either way, the shield still worked the same. The 9 heads smashed through multiple groups of dazed soldiers, with the monster heads biting or spitting acid at the enemy with that double damage on them doing its work.

This didn't last long though as the giant Tigers quickly made work of the Hydra heads ripping them apart or slicing them up with their powerful claws.

Bakugou could've made more heads, but he saw no point in wasting the mana for it as he turned the shield back to the default form. He then blasts his quirk and attacks some of the tigers head on. From there the rest of the heroes attack the weakened enemy. Attacking the normal soldiers and Tigers alike, with Daven and Rifana taking out the mages.

Bakugou was currently engaging two of the Tiger Guardian replicas. Despite looking just like large tigers, these things were extremely powerful enemies. Bakugou could feel it as the massive beast smashed into his shield with him feeling the full force of it. However he wasn't going to just hold back the attacks as he blasts at the Tigers back every time they attack.

The tigers try to attack him at all angles, using their quick speed to their advantage, attempting to claw and bite Bakugou in every way they can. However Bakugou managed to block every attack. One attempted to maul Bakugou's whole head by pouncing at him from above, until Bakugou blocked it just in time. And with its lower half body exposed Bakugou fired his quirk through the guardian replica's body instantly killing the tiger.

The second one continued to move side to side to throw Bakugou off balance, but the shield hero was prepared as he also used his quirk to jump all around to keep the Tiger off of him. Eventually the Tiger directly attacked him again bashing its head against the shield to claw its wielder while trying to keep its distance from the explosions.

However while Bakugou holds off against the other Tiger, Kazuki decides to make his move, he produces a spell that creates multiple fireballs around himself, and he then fires his spell on Bakugou while he still busy with the powerful enemy.

Bakugou though saw it coming, "Meteor Shield!" he shouted with a barrier forming around himself and the Tiger as the barrier held up against all the fireballs.

The Tiger finally jumps back and charges at the shielder to overpower the shield and quickly kill the hero behind it, but rather than block it Bakugou blasted himself out of the tiger's way right over the replica guardian. And once right above the Tiger he fired his quirk on its back killing it instantly as well.

Kazuki then decided thinking that Bakugou was exhausted from that battle immediately attacked from the back to stab the unexpected shield hero.

Bakugou however saw it coming and easily dodged the stab and bashed Kazuki's face with his shield.

After recovering from that despite blood in his mouth, Kazuki was now determined to get his revenge as he tried his best swing at the shielder. However unlike before when there was some struggle, Bakugou was completely fighting at ease and started to brutally beat the shit out of the shithead.

The shield hero was now blasting explosion after explosion at Kazuki as the sword wielder struggled to even move a muscle. Even when his two bodyguards attempted to intervene Bakugou blasted both of them away as they crashed into the roofs of different building's.

Bakugou showed no mercy on his beat down on Kazuki, not giving the bastard a second to throw a single swing at Bakugou until he is knocked toward a wall, "How.. how in the hell is this possible?! How did you get so strong such little time?!" he yells at the shield hero, being beaten to a pulp once again.

"I just simply got myself a few levels up, if that was really the peak of your strength then you must truly be a loser. But you might as well give your four-eyed boss this message!" Bakugou mocked and blasted himself toward Kazuki, without giving him a second to react the shield hero blasted him an explosive upper cut sending him high in the air where Bakugou followed and fired a hard double explosion on Kazuki sending the bastard crashing down the roof of a building himself.

With Kazuki out of the way, Bakugou lands back on the ground and continues battling the guards and more of the Guardian Tiger replicas.

It was an intense battle as all the sidekicks and heroes continued their fight as the guards and tigers kept on coming determined to get the Katana back.

Kazuki himself finally emerged from the building, still alive but covered in burnt marks and broken bones all over. As much as he wanted to kill both Bakugou and Neia for all the humiliation today he knew at this point he was of no match to them. The bastard knew he had to retreat at this point, but Kazuki wasn't going to leave empty handed. He then saw Rifana herself continuing to use her arrows to take out mages and tigers from long range while using her air and gravity manipulation to jump around and dodge the attacks.

Kazuki smirked figuring this archer was going to be useless at close range making her an ideal hostage.

He then commands a tiger to attack Rifana directly, forcing the girl to attack it with her managing to shoot between the eyes killing the guardian replica before it got too close. But with this distraction Kazuki made his move and wrapped his arm and sword around the throat of a surprised Rifana, "You're mine now Demi-human, let's see what your master will be willing to bargain for your life when I-OW!" but Rifana stomps on his foot and strikes her elbow on Kazuki's chest quickly freeing herself. While it wasn't much, all the training prior to the tortoise's awakening Rifana did learned a few things on close corner combat for stunts like this and managed to jump away.

Kazuki though wasn't going to let himself be humiliated once again and this time swiped his sword at Rifana attempting to cut her up but the archer was a lot more agile than he could handle.

However while Rifana tried to fire some arrows at Kazuki, he managed to block each one and was getting more aggressive determined to win this time, he finally got close enough to Rifana as she was forced to block his sword with her bow. The bow and Rifana herself were strong enough to hold him back, but Kazuki finally just blasted Rifana in the stomach with his magic sending her into a wall.

Kazuki smirks once more thinking he finally got her. It seemed like he got a victory for once today.

However not too far from them, little Kirishima who has been flying from up above to observe the battle and saw that his newest sister was in danger and flew down toward them.

Rifana tried to quickly get herself back up, but Kazuki used his magic to freeze her in place, making the archer unable to move, "Thought it was funny to humiliate me like that in front of those soldiers huh!? Well who is laughing now you brat!? Maybe I'll cut your nose off while we're here to make you see how it feels like." he laughed then began to approach Rifana to cut off her nose.

But before he could get close Kirishima landed himself in front of Kazuki and growled at the swordsman.

Kazuki's smile immediately disappeared once he recognized that dragon, "You damn monster! You don't think I remember you!? You ruined my beautiful face! Now I get the chance to cut your body up to bits!" he shouted at it while raising up his sword.

"Kirishima no!" Rifana shouted at the dragon to get away.

But Kirishima wasn't going to leave his spot and stood his ground, he already felt a great fire in him and his personal rage was changing his body. He roars at Kazuki one more time as the bastard swings his sword toward the little dragon's head.

But as the sword is swung downward, Kirishima gets consumed by fire for a second and- *clank*, and Kazuki's sword is broken in half hitting steel hard scales.

And these scales weren't of a toddler Dragon, Kirishima had finally activated his teenage form, now the size of a large horse again as he looked down on a now rightfully confused and frightened Kazuki.

"Yay! Good work Kirishima!" Rifana cheered to see the little dragon now big again at the best moment.

And before the sword wielder could move away Kirishima opened his mouth and literally bit off Kazuki's whole sword hand off.

"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" Kazuki screams as he looks at his now stump of an arm as Kirishima chews and swallows the hand whole.

Despite the pain and bleeding, Kazuki was now consumed in absolute fear as the dragon licked his lips for the rest of the course.

Kazuki panics and immediately runs in fear and crying while the dragon pursues him determined to get the rest of his tasty meal, "Help me! Somebody kill this monster now!" Kazuki screams at the top of his lungs as he tries all he can to keep running while the persistent dragon tries to bite more out of him.

His two bodyguards immediately heard him after recovering from falling through the roofs, "Lord Kizuki! We're coming!" they both shouted ignoring the heroes to help their master. Only for the two to sink into the ground. Their entire bodies but their heads got stuck in the ground, "What the hell happened?!" One of the girls shouted with the two confused.

And the one to have done this was Rino herself using her ground sink ability, wanting to watch the Kirishima show as the two girls struggle to get out.

All the while Kirishima continued to pursue his full meal as he kept chasing after Kazuki. Several guards and even a tiger tried to stop the dragon, but Kirishima's strength overpowered every one of them and in the case of the tiger killing it with a single swipe from his claws.

"Help! Stop this monster now! Help!" Kazuki screamed as he kept on running, with Kirishima getting closer and closer to him even ripping and eating half of his cape.

Kazuki knew he would be dead if he didn't lose the dragon and had only one final resort. With his summoning magic he can do with one hand he conjures up another replica of the Tiger Guardian, only this one is huge, towering over many of the buildings with multiple talismans covering one of its eyes.

"Kill this thing! Kill it now!" he screams at the Tiger and does as ordered running toward Kirishima.

"Sir Bakugou!" Rino shouted seeing where this was going.

After blasting away more guards Bakugou noticed the massive beast heading right for Kirishima as his dragon stopped his pursuit of Kazuki when the Tiger approached him until it finally pounced. If Kirishima was in his adult form it would've been an easy fight for the dragon, but in his teen form he paled in size to this thing. Bakugou extends his hand to yell, "Airstrike shield!"

The massive Tiger was ready to sink its claws onto the dragon and rip his head off, but-

*clank* only to bash its face into the energy shield. It wasn't enough to kill it, but the stop allowed Kirishima to jump himself on the tiger's neck and sink his claws on top as he bites into its thick neck.

The giant Tiger Guardian replica was now struggling to shake or scratch off Kirishima but he was out of its reach as the dragon stayed on to bite over and over again making sure it doesn't attack anyone else.

Kazuki meanwhile continued making a run for it while Kirishima was distracted, "Come on damn it! I just need to get to the hourglass, teleport out of this hellhole then find a place Kyo won't find me, and then-AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" but out of nowhere he gets shot in the heel with a physical arrow.

He was now on the ground in pain with the large arrow stuck right through his foot. An arrow shot by Rifana, making sure Kazuki doesn't get out of this after all he did and tried to do.

Meanwhile, the dragon and massive Tiger continued to struggle with each other with neither having the upper hand. That was until Neia witnessed it and wanted to make her move, "Daven to the Tiger!" she shouted to her teammate and with a nod Daven teleported to her then grabbed Neia as she and the rogue teleported right above the massive tiger with him disappearing away and Neia falls toward its back.

She then stabbed her dual katana's deep into the tiger's back and shouted, "Electric surge!" and emitted millions of volts of electricity through her blades to the Tiger as it roared in deep pain while Kirishima remained unaffected by being her teammate.

Bakugou then decided to make his move after getting away from more guards, "Blind the damn thing weasel girl!" he orders out loud and Rifana immediately fires an arrow that immediately stabbed deep into the stunned tiger's only working eye as it roared in pain once more.

Bakugou blasts himself toward the monster with a good build up of sweat in his gauntlets and once at the tiger's head

*Boom!*

With his quirk, he blows up the entire Tigers head into pieces with Kirishima jumping himself out of the way in the air in time.

The massive guardian Tiger was now dead as its headless body dropped to the ground, Neia took her katana blades out to fight off the remaining guards. Kirishima also flew back down to the ground, and with the distraction done he went back to find his meal.

Said meal was still on the ground in pain trying to get the arrow off of his foot with no amount of force being enough to get it out, not helping he only had one hand to help himself.

And with all the heroes beating every single one of the guards to a pulp, the rest of the tiger replica's being killed off, and his bodyguard harem still stuck in the ground, there was now no one to help him, "Damn it! Come off! Come off! Ow!" he yells as the arrow continued to cause pain.

That pain soon turned into fear as Kazuki finally noticed Kirishima now had his eyes back on him with his trump card now lying dead without a head, "Shit! Shit! No! NO! NO!" he screams as Kazuki was using all of his strength to get rid of the arrow no matter how much it hurt, "OWW!" he shouted as finally gets the arrow out, he didn't care about the immense pain he was in or what permanent damage this did, Kazuki knew he had to just run to the dragon hourglass to escape the real living dragon pursuing him.

However he was no longer able to run as he limps on his bleeding foot as fast as possible while screaming for help.

But it wasn't enough as Kirishima finally caught up to the swordsman and bites his damaged leg making him trip and fall on his face.

Kirishima without hesitation bites off his damaged leg and swallows it whole like he did for his hand.

Kazuki now absolutely losing it tried to crawl away but he couldn't escape Kirishima's claws that dragged him back, "HELP HELP! SOMEONE HELP ME! KYO HELP ME! HELP ME NOW KYO! DONT LET ME BE EATEN!" he screamed at the top of his lungs hoping his employer would come to aid him.

But no aid came, as Kirishima flipped Kazuki's body over as the dragon licked his bloody lips once more.

Kirishima then starts ripping him apart limb from limb, piece by piece, "AAAAAAAAHHHHH! HELP MEEEEEEEEEE-*Crunch!*

Kazuki was finally silenced once Kirishima bit his whole head off, all that was left of the swordsman now was his clawed and tattered torso as Kirishima ate and swallowed that whole as well. Kazuki was now dead with only a puddle of his blood remaining.

"Retreat! Retreat!" shouted the head of the guard, with the brutal death of their national hero, most of their own men taken out and all the guardian tiger replicas also being dead, all the survivor guards ran off in any direction they could.

With the battle over, Bakusquad was fully reunited again and with Neia from this very day forward was now the official owner of the Katana vassal weapon. Bakugou raised his fist in the air in victory, "Haha! Another win for the best heroes ever!" he cheered himself which just made the rest of his team shake their heads but with smiles on their faces as well knowing it was earned for all of them.

Larc, Kizuna, and Glass themselves got back together with the shield crew, "Hate to break the celebration now, but we need to get going soon or Raybul is going to be sending in it's whole army soon." Kizuna reminds Bakugou who looked annoyed but even he understood they did need to leave.

Glass also nods to that, "Indeed, if I had to guess you guys had Ethnobalt teleport you here. Where is he now?"

Rino then spoke up, "Not sure, he told us to "say the word" and he'll teleport here, but I'm not sure what he means by that."

"Hey, Captain white Rabbit! Get your ass over here now! We need to get going!" Bakugou yells to the sky hoping Ethnobalt can truly hear him wherever he is.

"You know it wouldn't hurt you to just request him nicely." Kizuna said with an annoyed expression on her face that Bakugou ignored.

Thankfully for everyone from right above them the large boat vassal weapon appears with Ethnobalt in his human form with Therese on the deck, "I apologize for the delay, Kazuki's magical connection to the hourglass was preventing me from warping here. But we must not delay pleased get on the boat!". Ethnobalt yells down from the boat.

"You heard him, let's get on." Larc says as he with Glass holding Kizuna super jumped themselves on the boat. Bakugou and his team follow suit with Bakugou blasting himself up on the deck, Neia super jumps herself up there, Kirishima flies up there with Rifana on his back, and Daven with Rino teleported themselves on the deck.

With everyone accounted for Ethnobalt wasted no time and with his magic, the boat warps away out from Raybul. In just a few seconds they reappear once more in Sickle, this time with everyone together.

Kizuna herself was happy to see her friends were all together once more, both her new and old friends. And speaking of old friends Glass, Larc, and now Therese all look happily at her, with Glass giving her another big hug, though one not as intense as the first one, "It's so good to have you back." Glass said with Larc and Therese joining once more as a team reunited with group hug.

It was a happy sight to see from the new katana hero, and it reminded her of her own team as she turned back to it, Neia also made a bow to Bakugou who was petting his teen form dragon, "Thank you again for coming for me everyone, especially you Sir Bakugou.".

The team nods back including Bakugou himself, "As I said before Neia, I leave no man or woman behind." he responds still petting Kirishima's scaly head.

"So how were you able to find me?" Neia asked curious as to how they managed to find her in that city in a completely different country she got captured in.

Rifana responds to that as she takes out the magic card from her pocket, "It's thanks to her.", the card then glowed and in a poof of smoke the blue mermaid shikigami appeared once more, "Little Blue here helped us find you." she finished.

Neia was immediately enamored by the tiny floating spirit, "Oow, it's so cute. Where did you find this thing and how did it help you find me?" she asked as the shikigami immediately floated up to her and hugged Neia to embrace the other half of her creation. Kizuna was also touched by the sight after she finished her big hug with her friends, reminding her of Chris who was standing beside herself right now.

Rino was the one to answer her, "It was a shikigami spirit familiar created from Sir Bakugou's blood and your hair, since it was connected to you and him we were able to use it to find you.".

"I see, so it's like my and Sir Bakugou's kid." Neia joked out loud.

"I TOLD YOU GUYS THAT THING IS NOT MY KID!" Bakugou yells which makes everyone laugh lightly. But then Bakugou turns his head back to Kirishima, "But whatever, the damn thing served its purpose so why not get rid of it by feeding it to Kirishima already." he casually says with the Dragon licking his lips at the idea of that.

"BAH!" Blue shouted in fear and flew behind Neia's back.

"You are the absolute worst Bakugou!" Kizuna scolds the shield hero for such an idea in treating a shikigami like that.

Neia herself helped comfort the little mermaid as she petted its head, "I don't want to get rid of it Sir Bakugou, it's the reason you found me in the first place. I think I owe my life to it. Since it's part me anyway, I think I should have a say in its fate." she argues for the shikigami, she honestly liked the idea of having a spirit like this as a pet of sorts.

Daven then spoke his mind, "I think for practical purposes, we might as well hold on to it if we are in such a situation again with Neia or if we need to find you somehow, let's keep that in mind also." the rogue provided his practical logic, but he also personally didn't want to see the cute thing to be abandoned or turned into food.

Bakugou was annoyed by this feeling like he was being outvoted again by his own team, he wanted to start yelling about it but eventually just sighed in annoyance, "Alright, fine. We'll keep the stupid thing. But it's yours to deal with now Neia, I want nothing to do with the floating fish." he says back.

"Bah!" little Blue cheered as she floated around Neia and she eventually started hugging the shikigami once more.

Both Kizuna and Ethnobalt were happy and relieved by this outcome, "At least the child has one caring parent to look after it now." Ethnobalt says to himself as little Blue turns herself back into her card form with Neia putting it away safely.

Kirishima looked disappointed and annoyed that the stupid blue thing was now a part of his family, the only thing that could be worse than this is if his family got themselves a Filolial or a griffin as well.

Bakugou could read through Kirishima's face and petted his dragon again, "Don't worry about that stupid thing Kirishima. As far as I'm concerned you're the mascot of the Bakugou agency and I couldn't have anything better than you." he says to the dragon with the fire breather growling in happiness. He then shrank back to his toddler form and jumps back on Bakugou's shoulder making sure he defends his title as his dad's agency's mascot. Bakugou and no one else were sure how he got his teen form back but were just glad to see that everyone was nearly back at their full strength once more.

Kizuna from the side smiles at this strange group of new friends of hers, for all the time she spent in the labyrinth she never thought she would meet such a unique group as this, especially Bakugou himself. She may still not understand his lack of temper and to be frank shitty attitude, but even she can't deny he was a hero to not just his team but herself as well.

Kizuna then sighed to herself as she remembered one serious topic she couldn't ignore forever. The hunter turns herself back to Glass and Larc with a serious face, "Larc, Glass, we need to talk once we get to the castle. All about the waves and how you decided to handle them." she says back.

Larc and Glass together looked nervous about what she said and both looked back to Therese hoping she could confirm what they were already thinking with Kizuna.

Therese was nervously tapping her fingers but responded, "I've told her just about everything. She knows what we have been doing."

Glass and Larc looked with extreme guilt at each other as Kizuna continued to give them that disappointed look on her face.

Ethnobalt at the side shook his head to this, "I have a feeling things are going to get complicated fast."

---

"No! Oh, Kazuki why!"

"Lord Kazuki!" cried two women.

These two were Kazuki's bodyguards/harem girls who finally unburied themselves from the ground, but now they were utterly depressed crying genuine tears next to the puddle of blood that was all that was left of Kazuki, they were unable to protect him from those evil off-world heroes who stole his supposed weapon and birthright.

They both thought they could've saved him if they properly sacrificed themselves, but now their leader was dead with not even a body for them to bury with dignity.

"Man, what an absolute failure." said a voice that made the two girls turn, and the voice source was none other than Kazuki's employer Kyo Ethnina himself with a deeply annoyed look on his face.

"I give this dumbass 2 simple tasks. Keep the blue elf girl imprisoned, and get control of the Katana vassal weapon. And not only failed to do both, but now the elf has the katana itself. I would laugh at all of this, if it wasn't for the fact that bastard Bakugou is now stronger than before and not suffering in any way!" Kyo rants out loud.

One of the girl bodyguards then looked toward Kyo, "How long were you watching Kazuki?" she asked the book wielder.

"Just about when that brute started kicking his pathetic ass and then getting himself eaten up by that dragon." Kyo responds casually.

One of the girls then angrily stomps toward him, "You bastard! Then you must've heard his call for help and yet you ignored him! He loyally served you and did your bidding and yet you allowed him to-OW." but then Kyo just slaps her in the face to shut up.

"I only aid those that are useful to me, and I have no need for a one armed noseless loser who couldn't handle a single blue bitch. However I'm right now a bit short on manpower, especially with me busy with my experiments and research on universal domination and my revenge plot. How about this you two idiots, do whatever I tell you from this point on and I'll bring that loser of yours back to life with all of his limbs and nose included." Kyo says and then proposes.

The two girls now looked surprised to hear such a thing,

"Do you mean it? Can you bring Kazuki back to life?!" the other girl asked hoping for this to be true.

"Of course, I brought myself back to life multiple times, with the latest being as I mention back in Mikakage when that blue bitch chopped off my head." He responds.

The two girls weren't 100% sure about this, but they were willing to do anything for Kazuki, and if there was really a chance to bring him back from the dead then they would do what it takes. The two girls then kneeled to Kyo, "We will serve you and do whatever you want of us Lord Kyo Ethnina.

"Good that's what I like to hear just make sure you get me a blood sample from what's left of him and I'll begin the process." Kyo responds and then looks behind him as a woman with green hair stands behind him, Kyo then says to her, "All of these are just mere delays my dear, soon I will have that bastard Bakugou in my grasp, and will know what a man with brains will do to both his body and soul!. I shall have my revenge and this world and many more will soon be mine. Long live Emperor Kyo Ethnina.".

---

Author's note: I'll admit this wasn't my best work with this being more of a really long transition chapter to establish so many things with this world, without to many deviations from canon. Originally I was thinking of adding in a big side plot where Bakugou dealt with drug dealers at that town they and Kizuna first go into to get themselves a bunch of money stealing from them but then I stopped writing that halfway and deleted it when I realize it really didn't contributed to anything since it was already redundant with the soul soothing salesman stuff so I decided to cut it from the plot and not bloat this already bloated chapter even more. I hope to do more interesting things in the next few chapters.

I was also originally debating if I was going to have Neia be physically transformed to match with the "elves" of Glass's world like with Filol in canon, but I decided to keep her the same because I thought it was more amusing if everyone thought she was diseased or a mutant.

Oh yeah it might seem insignificant but I finally gave Rino a last name with her introducing herself to Kizuna, I didn't realize until GracefulArt made her illustration that she was the only non-dragon on Bakusquad without a last name. I didn't see anything about her last name in canon so I made one up for her. It's nothing important and won't mean anything to the plot I just feel more complete now with the Bakugou's sidekicks having full proper names.

Next time we'll actually break a bit away from the sweaty hero for a little bit to see what's going on back in Melromarc with another hero. Thank you again and hope to see you again soon.