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Thanks for reading and please enjoy
Reality Viewing: Naruto the Quirky Villain
-Chapter 16-
-Last Time-
Knowing where she was going, Naruto raised the detached head up so he was eye-level with the stump of the neck, before sighing exasperatedly. What he was met with was a small quarter sized lump that was gradually spreading from the center of her neck. "Yep, you're regenerating."
"Ah crap."
-And Now-
"Well… this didn't exactly work out like planned," Setsuna mumbled while her head sat upside down on a table, held in place by a neck pillow wrapped around her noggin. The greenette was biting her lip to keep herself from giggling as Midnight gingerly prodded the slowly growing mass of flesh sprouting from her neck stump. "Could you please hurry up? That really tickles."
Rolling her eyes, the adult rated heroine lifted the bodiless head and flipped it right side up while turning it to face her. "You seem unusually calm for someone who's been reduced to just a head."
A giggle escaped Setsuna's lips and she rolled her eyes in amusement at her teacher's words. "I lose and regrow body parts all the time, it's not that big of a deal for me. Hell, this isn't even the first time I've ended up like this."
"Do we even want to know, ribbit?" Tsuyu asked unsurely as she peered over Midnight's shoulder with a brow raised, before turning to Naruto when the greenette just snickered again.
Said blonde reclined in his seat and wrapped his arms behind his head, a nostalgic chuckle slipping past his lip. "Let's just say Setsuna and I are forbidden from pulling April Fools pranks anymore for a very good reason."
"Okay, as much as I want to hear more of that, could we please address the elephant in the room?" Mina cut in before Tsuyu could say anything, the pink pinkette looking a bit frazzled as she gestured to the rest of Setsuna that was still laid out beside the blonde. "IE the dead body and what are we going to do with it."
"It is dead… right?" Momo asked while tentatively poking at the headless body's shoulder before quickly pulling her hand back when the whole thing flopped onto Naruto like a limp ragdoll.
"Essentially, it's not gonna start walking around or something if that's what you're worried about." The whiskered teen pushed his girlfriend's now confirmed corpse back into a sitting position as he spoke. After making sure it wouldn't fall over again, he went back to relaxing like it was the most normal thing in the world. "And as for what we'll do with it, hospitals are always eager for some extra organs to go around."
"…I don't know what I find more unnerving, how casually you said that or that I actually agree with it." Never in her life did the creation quirked teen imagine that she'd be having a conversation as weird as this one.
"Ah don't be such a pussy girl," Meanwhile, Mirko rolled her eyes while grabbing a pair of ropes that Mei had handed her, each one latched onto a different part of Iida's cocoon. Tightening her grip as much as she could; the rabbit heroine took a breath before tugging with all her might. "If you can't… handle something so mild… then you are not gonna… like it when the real blood start… flying!"
Veins bulged across her arms as Mirko kept pulling harder and harder while the cracks grew wider across the pink cocoon. It wasn't easy getting good leverage considering her current restrictions but she was never one to turn down a challenge. Eventually, slowly but surely, her efforts paid off and the material started to give, gradually slipping free with flecks chipping off all while the speedster trapped within squirmed around until…
*RIIIIP* "YEEEEEOOOOOWCH!"
Iida screamed at the top of his lungs as a huge chunk of the containment gel was torn away all at once. And with nothing left to hold him in place, the strict teen's forward momentum from his squirming caused him to topple over.
He was quick to get back to his feet though, revealing the rapidly reddening spots on his face where the pink goop had been torn off, and wasted no time pulling off the remaining pieces. Once he was done Iida promptly bowed towards Mirko so low his forehead almost hist the floor. "Thank you for helping me get free Mirko-san."
"Yeah sure whatever you say kid." The whitette waved off his gratitude nonchalantly while handing the chunk of goop she'd ripped off over to Mei.
"If there's any-"
"Iida, I think you may want to go see Recovery Girl, you're bleeding." Shoto unintentionally cut Iida off while he pointed at the other teen's face.
"I am?" Confused, the spectacled speedster felt up his face before wincing and holding his hand out to reveal a small dribble of blood staining his fingers. Feeling around again he soon found little patches of skin on his cheeks that were missing as the red liquid slowly oozed out. "Oh, I am. I should have that looked aaaAAA-"
A loud *Thump* rang out as Iida suddenly fell over again when he tried to walk, flopping face first into the floor curtesy of the bits of goop still clinging between his legs.
"Hmm, interesting," Mei muttered to herself while looking over the groaning teen, idly poking at the adhesive that kept his legs stuck together. She then pulled out her notebook and started jotting things down a mile a second with an excited grin. "Looks like I need to reduce the adhesive qualities of the compound a little as well but otherwise I'd say this immobilization grenade was a perfect success. Thanks for testing it whatever your name was."
"My… pleasure…"
"Don't worry buddy, I gotcha," Fortunately for Iida, Mina was quick to hurry over and pull the teen back up to his feet once more, letting him lean on her for support. "I'll take Iida to get patched up, let me know when there isn't a creepy dead body, ciao!"
And like that the acidic pinkette was gone, helping her classmate quickly hobble out the door, only stopping to glance at Setsuna's headless body one last time with a disturbed shiver.
"Sheesh, calling my hot bod creepy, how rude," Setsuna said with a pout… before almost immediately breaking into fits of giggles, unable to keep a straight face despite her best efforts. Her laughter soon turned into a surprised yelp though when Midnight suddenly tossed her head to Naruto without any warning. Fortunately, her boyfriend's reflexes were sharp as ever and he easily caught her before gently setting her back down on his lap. "Whoo! Talk about a head rush. Do it again."
"Maybe later, for now you need to eat up." Naruto snorted softly as he held up a super high calorie food bar that he got from Momo to the greenette's lips.
"Yeah, yeah, way to spoil my fun," Despite her words the grin never left Setsuna's lips even as she opened her mouth so the blonde could feed her. Her face scrunched up a little at the taste, which could be summed up as chalk with a sprinkle of peanut butter, but she kept chewing regardless. "Can fe shart the show vack up now?"
"Sounds good to me." Midnight said while settling back into her seat, idly catching a drink that Mirko tossed her along the way.
"Uh, but what about-" Momo tried to say something as she gestured towards the headless body still just laying on the couch that they still needed to deal with. However, she was abruptly cut off by another can that nailed her right between the eyes, knocking her down into a chair with a yelp.
"Quit your bitching and take a seat." Mirko stated, catching the can on the rebound and cracking it open with one hand as she pressed the play button.
'So... those are the people in one of the two first year hero classes...' Naruto thought to himself as he sat on top of the school building in his Kurama costume, looking down at the field below.
"Oh great, he's gonna mess with us again, ribbit." If her face wasn't stuck in its ever stoic expression Tsuyu would be deadpanning as she could already imagine what kind of trouble the elusive blonde was about to get her class's counterparts into.
When he had snuck into the school's teacher's room, he had learned that originally today the heroes were going to be going to the USJ training center, but that had been changed when he had tricked All Might into thinking a traitor was amongst the students.
"Well mess with us or not, at least we don't have to worry about the villain ambush," Sitting up with a groan, Momo rubbed the growing red spot on her forehead, ironically using the very drink she was clonked with to ice the injury. "The league of villains is probably doddling about as we speak wondering why nobody showed up."
"That's assuming they still showed up for the attack, with everything that's different its possible they didn't even show up this time." Shoto pointed out, getting the creation quirked teen to hum thoughtfully.
"True…"
Idiot, actually believing him.
"Yeah, I mean that's a trick I'd expect ol thumper thighs here to fall for not the number one himself." Naruto said with a snicker while jabbing a thumb at Mirko.
"The hell's that supposed to mean?" The rabbit heroine demanded, which made Naruto's grin practically split his face.
"To answer a question with a question, exactly how many times has my counterpart duped yours into beating herself so far?"
"…Shut up." Was all Mirko could say while lashing out with a kick that the boy naturally avoided with ease, along with the three follow ups, thus only succeeding in giving herself several sharp zaps for her efforts.
"Hey! Quit flailing around so much, you're gonna make my baby malfunction again." Mei scolded the pair, frowning while she watched sparks dancing across her invention's surface dangerously and the projection fritzed out randomly. Normally she wasn't one to mind her devices breaking, failure was merely the prelude to success, but she did not like people constantly abusing the poor things.
Still, All Might wasn't teaching the class at the moment, oddly enough, since he was suppose to be teaching. Unless he had approached his Quirk's 3 hour limit (something Naruto heard the other teachers talking about), something that made sense since Naruto had seen those wounds on the man's side when he was spying on All Might to find the perfect chance to poison him. He must have overworked himself today before school started.
"Go back, I think we missed something," Setsuna said with a frown as she tried to catch what was happening through the static. Sadly all she was able to make out was that All Might hadn't shown up yet and something about three hours. "Seriously, could someone hit the rewind button or something?"
"There isn't one, ribbit."
"Why not?"
"Because Mirko broke it when she got stuck in the chair."
"Oh… well that sucks."
Thankfully the static was quick to clear back up once Mirko finally stopped trying to put her foot through Naruto's skull.
"Himiko Toga... she was able to beat my Quirk's spacial awareness... by not breathing and clearing her mind. She erased her very presence, and she forced me to actually punch her." Naruto whispered to himself as he thought about his own personal failure, being forced to hit a woman, even though it was something he wasn't truly against. He just found the thought of hitting a woman distasteful.
"... I've got to get some training in, to become a better villain." Naruto muttered as he looked down at the students who were going to be training today.
"I have a bad feeling, ribbit." Tsuyu mumbled, unable to help but gulp nervously when she heard the disguised teen mention training. If what he was telling her was true about his training for getting his "sixth sense" to its current level, then she didn't even want to imagine what he might be cooking up to improve it even more.
They would make for good training tools, since they had Quirks that he didn't know much about, meaning he couldn't prepare for them like he did with the Pro Heroes. Not to mention there was 20 of them, so they would have the numbers advantage over him as well. Finally, he was going to be using this as training... so he was going to be doing things differently than he normally would.
"Well this is gonna be-is that Mirko?" Shoto started to say before cutting himself off midsentence when he noticed a certain extra amongst the class.
-With Class 1-A-
"Okay class, this might not have been what was planned for today, but today we're going to teach you how to use your Quirk to fight at non-lethal levels. Since, for quite a few people, our Quirks could easily turn deadly. Some of us are lucky and only have Quirks that are easy to control, and some have harder ones."
One of the students rose a hand up.
"Yes, Iida-kun?" Mirko asked as she looked at the class sheet that she had been given.
"What the hell? Why am I teaching a bunch of brats when I should be out looking for an ass to kick?" The whitette muttered in confusion at seeing the other version of her explaining the lesson to the hero students. And not just a one-time surprise guest like she was supposed to have been here but a legit full on teacher.
"Maybe she finally got tired of getting beat every other day and decided to take up teaching instead to save herself from more humiliation." Midnight suggested with a smirk, only to quickly end up yelping in pain when she got punted hard enough to launch her out of her seat and crash into the ceiling. Her head smashed clean through the plaster and out into the (thankfully empty) classroom above, leaving her body dangling comically in the air.
"You were saying?" Mirko asked rhetorically as she watched the purplette struggling to get herself free with little success until Tsuyu used her tongue to pull her down.
To keep her out of the public eye, in order to recover from her little press disaster, she had been sent to U.A. as a temporary teacher, a sub who would cover for teachers who couldn't make it. Since All Might was out for the day, and 13's USJ training day was cancelled, that left her to make use of her time with the students.
"Ah… that makes sense," Shoto muttered with a nod. 'With that big a story the reporters were probably hounding her everywhere she went just to get the scoop.'
Considering how rabid they went to see All Might when he started teaching at UA, one didn't even have to think hard to imagine just how bad they got for something as juicy as a top heroine publicly admitting she loved a villain.
"Mirko-dono, is there a reason we aren't in our costumes!?"
"Eeeeeeeh?" Mirko asked with a dumbfounded expression at the stupid question. "We're going to be sparring today, you'll be taking turns fighting me... 4 on 1 combat, so you can..." Mirko looked at the notes that she wrote on the inside of her arm... so that she could look at the notes that Eraserhead wrote on the inside of her arm. "... practice using your Quirks at non-lethal levels."
Half of the students saw the writing on her arm, and in unison, sweat dropped when they realized that she wasn't a teacher at the school for a reason.
"That is kind of sad…" Momo muttered, sweat dropping too at how the bunny heroine couldn't even remember the basics of a lesson without a literal cheat sheet.
"Bah, fuck book learning, you wanna learn something then I say throw them into the deep end and let them figure shit out from there," Said Pro-Hero stated with a scoff as she crossed her arms and rolled her eyes in exasperation. Her gaze soon narrowed though when Naruto started chuckling out of the blue. "What's so funny?"
"Oh nothing, it's just you and my godfather would get along really well." The whiskered blonde said between snorts, causing Mirko's annoyance to turn to curiosity.
"Hahahaha!"
However, her attention was drawn straight back to the screen when another laugh started to echo out.
"Okay, what bastard is laughing, because you'll be going first, and I'll take pleasure teaching you how to be non-lethal." Mirko pounded a fist into her palm with a twitching eye when she heard a loud laughter. She looked towards the students, at all of their faces, and saw none of them were laughing. "Invisible student, stop your laughing." Mirko could only guess that the one she couldn't see was the one laughing.
"I'm gonna smash her face till I smack the invisibility right off." Mirko said while clenching her fists, making the knuckles pop dramatically… not noticing the deadpans she was getting from everyone else.
"Dumb bunny." Naruto stated, palming his face while Setsuna toppled over on his lap from snickering so hard. She literally just heard him laughing so how the hell didn't she recognize him on the projection.
"Ah Bun Bun, don't you recognize my laugh at this point? I'm hurt, but please, don't stop the lesson on my account... I do love seeing your cute widdle nose twitch when you get frustrated."
"Kurama!"
Mirko didn't even get to shout out his name, because the class got to it before her.
"Hey, can we do this later... I've really got to sub for this class." Mirko's fist was twitching a lot, a vein on it bulging with the desire to punch him. She couldn't though, because she had a class to teach. She watched as Kurama walked towards them with his hands in his pockets, and the class didn't seem sure how to react to him. "Don't worry class, he's completely harmless-"
Naruto poked Mirko's forehead, and her eyes widened when she collapsed on her face, with Naruto walking towards the class.
"…Really dumb bunny."
"OI!"
"Not today, today I'm going to be changing things up." Naruto's voice was different, it contained a tone that Mirko had never heard before from him. It was a tone that was far more dangerous than what she was used to hearing from him. "Hey, hero wannabes." Naruto addressed the class as he picked up Mirko's dropped chart, and started to match faces to names, before he reached into his pocket and pulled out a clear vial with brown liquid in it.
"Wannabe! Die!"
"Wow, dude didn't even hesitate," Naruto gave a long low whistle at the explosive teen's swift reaction. "I don't know if I should be impressed by his guts, call him an idiot for blindly rushing in like that, or question his sanity at that die comment."
"""That's Bakugo for you.""" Everyone but Mirko stated at the same time.
*BOOM*
Naruto reacted in perfect time when Bakugo Katsuki used a large explosion from his palms to go rocketing towards Naruto with an angry, aggressive look on his face. When he got close to Naruto, he put his hands in front of him, and they started to glow when he prepared to unleash another, more powerful explosion. Naruto glared at Bakugo, and jumped forward towards the boy's hands, and slammed his forehead into his palm. Bakugo collapsed on the ground, and his explosion turned into nothing but smoke before it could even be released, when the poison started to course through his body.
"Now now, at least let me explain the rules of the game. This is the antidote to the poison inside of Mirko right now, in 15 minutes, Bun Bun will become permanently paralyzed unless she gets this antidote... take it from me." Naruto put the antidote in his pocket and gestured for the students to rush towards him. Naruto grabbed Bakugo by the back of the neck, and lifted his limp, but growling body up.
"What?!" That got everyone's attention, especially Mirko's as she almost jumped out of her seat in shock, barely even noticing the shock she got this time. Her gaze then snapped towards the 'real' Naruto as she scowled angrily at the toad quirked teen. "He had better be bluffing or I'm putting my foot so far up your ass you'll both won't be able to sit for a year."
Despite what most would find a rather terrifying view, Naruto didn't even so much as blink as he casually waved the whitette off. "Would you relax, there's no way my other self would take out the most fun competition he had as a villain that lamely. He's probably just saying that to make sure the kids are trying their hardest to beat him since this would be their first time facing an actual villain."
"Oh… right, good point…"
"Did you really just call us kids, ribbit?" Tsuyu asked with a cocked brow, only to get a cheeky grin in response from the blonde and his girlfriend.
"When I move, you're dead Kurama!"
"Now now, we're just playing a game, the stakes are just higher than normal." Naruto tossed Bakugo a good distance away from where the fighting would take place, onto his face, so that he couldn't do any damage to his surroundings when he realized he could still shoot explosions from his palms if he actually tried to.
The class was frozen.
Naruto chuckled.
"19 vs 1, fair and square... and tell you what, I'll make things a little more fair. I'll only-" The second Naruto closed his eyes to gloat, he felt his senses go off. Naruto leaned backwards and he saw a long stream of tape shoot towards where his face had been, and a dark shadow with a raven-like head shot out of a kid's belly and raced towards Naruto. Naruto grabbed Hanta Sero's tape out of the air, and yanked on it, before he wrapped it around the shadow's arms and tied them up, and sat on top of the shadow's back.
The whiskered teen nodded in approval at the pair's smart, albeit naturally ineffective, attempt to stop him. "Not bad, pretty decent coordination, waiting for a moment where it seemed my guard was lowered, and their keeping out of range of my poison."
"You're still gonna wipe the floor with them all." Setsuna stated confidently as Naruto nodded again along with Midnight.
Long distance fighters had an advantage over him, so Naruto jumped off of the dark shadow's back and cleared the distance between him and the front row of students.
"Kurama's tactics don't include physical violence, from the news recordings, he seems to rely on his poison to take down people, and he needs physical contact to administer it! Don't let him touch you, and stay 4 feet away from him!" Izuku Midoriya shouted out to everyone as Naruto landed close towards them. Izuku raised his arm up, and got ready to make a flicking motion at Naruto. "Also, don't stand in front of me!"
"Got it Deku/Midoriya!"
"Deku, that's a cute nickname... but behind me is Mirko... whatever you're about to do will hit her motionless, defenseless body." Naruto pointed out to Deku as he gestured to Mirko, and Deku lowered his arm with a jolt of shock, like he had forgotten about her.
"Ah just hit him you moron, I'll be fine!"
"I wouldn't be so sure about that, Midoriya can hit pretty hard and in your state-"
"Shut it before I punt you into the ceiling next." Mirko cut Shoto off with a scowl, stomping her foot hard enough to cause cracks to spiderweb all across the floor to emphasize her point.
'It's a good thing we're on the ground floor.' Tsuyu thought as she inched away from a particularly large crack that had spread towards her seat.
Cold.
Naruto dodged a wall of ice that formed between him and the class, a wall that would have consumed him if he hadn't dodged it. Naruto shivered when he realized there was a person who could use his natural weakness against him, but he didn't let much of his reaction show on his face.
"If only we knew that, then we could have you cover everything in ice until the temperature dropped to force him into hibernation," Momo said while rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "Or at the very least make him sluggish enough for us to capture."
"That's assuming he'd stay in one place long enough to get surrounded by it though, which we both know is not going to happen." The half and half quirked teen pointed out, getting the vice class rep to nod with a sigh.
"Bonjour then senior."
"Stick with French or Spanish, not both." Naruto saw Yuga Aoyama get thrown over the wall with his belly facing towards Naruto, by a large amount of tape around his arm. Out of the corners of his eyes, he saw two students running out from behind either side of the wall. Tenya Iida and on the other side was Mina Ashido, with her shoes off and skating on acid coming from her feet.
A laser shot out of Yuga's belly right towards Naruto, while Mina and Iida started to change directions to go towards Naruto. The other students were slower, but they started to come out from behind the ice wall.
"I've got a gift from my brother!"
Naruto couldn't help but scoff a little with an amused roll of his eyes as he reclined in his seat. "Dude needs to work on his fake outs."
"What are you talking about?" Momo asked curiously, only for the blonde to shake his head while smirking knowingly.
"Just keep watching, you'll see."
Naruto took a step back and let the laser hit the ground in front of him, as Iida reached where he was standing first, his leg pulled back in a fast kick. Naruto looked at the engines sticking out of the back of his legs, and a smile came over his face.
"You're Ingenium's brother then, well then, I guess you're not trying to kick me then... you're going or Mirko." Naruto watched as Iida faked a kick and used the force to propel himself towards Mirko instead. Hero rule, secure hostages first, and like Ingenium, this boy would no doubt follow that rule to the T. "Not a smart idea right now." Naruto reached backwards and touched the back of Iida's leg as Mina reached him second.
"Ah, I get it, he was just pretending to go at you so you'd dodge away and let him get to Mirko, that makes more sense." The creation quirked teen mumbled with an approving nod that most of the group shared. It certainly sounded like how the ever strict boy would act seeing as one of the first rules of a conflict is to get the civilians and wounded out of harm's way.
Unnoticed by any of them though was that Naruto was the only one NOT to nod, his smirk just widening as he gently scratched the top of Setsuna's head.
She had acid gathering off her forearms, and she was about to fling it at him.
Iida collapsed on the ground behind him as the poison took instant effect.
'Midoriya was right, he figured out that I would go for the hostage after seeing my Quirk, and took me down.' Iida laid on the ground defeated, glancing at Midoriya as the boy ran the long way around Kurama to go rescue Bakugo and Mirko.
"This should be interesting, ribbit." Tsuyu mumbled, leaning in curiously as she spoke. It wasn't exactly a secret that Izuku loved to break down quirks and that he was really good at coming up with either new ways to use them or methods of countering them. Hell, she wouldn't be surprised if both versions of the broccoli haired boy had detailed pages all about Kurama in their notebooks.
-Meanwhile-
"Achoo!"
"Ewww! Ew! Ew! Ew!"
"S-sorry Uraraka-san!" Izuku stuttered out as he scrambled to find a cloth for his friend who's face was now covered in snot thanks to him sneezing right in her face.
-Back with the Viewer-
'I wonder what kind of plan he's come up with.'
-(Flashback: Minutes Before)-
"Listen, Kurama is a non-violent villain, he never throws any punches or kicks, because his Quirk lets him take people down by touching them. He's also extremely analytical, breaking down how Hero's fight, and using their own Quirks and personalities against them... but he needs skin contact. Iida and Ashido-san, Iida is going to play bait by faking a kick... Kurama will figure out your faking, he'll take down Iida when he passes him... Ashido-san, cover your arms with Acid, if his poison can't touch your skin, he can't take you down." Deku explained everything that he had learned about Kurama after watching him so much on the news, and even seeing some of the Heroes getting taken down in person (from the audience on the streets). "Ashido-san, when Kurama tries to poison you, pin him to the ground, and Aoyama fire a second laser at him, he is extremely durable, so aim for his head."
"You should have gone for th-Mph." Setsuna started to say in a gruff low tone, only to be cut off by Naruto clapping a hand over her mouth.
"Don't even start with those jokes, it's already been meme'd to death."
"Buph fill…"
"That does sound like a good plan." Momo muttered while Shoto nodded, neither of them seeing anything wrong with their classmate's-
"You idiots should have just mobbed him all at once," Mirko's voice cut through the pair's thoughts as the rabbit heroine pinched her nose with an exasperated sigh. "I mean come on, you guys outnumber him over a dozen to one so just rush him."
"You mean like what Gang Orca tried? Because if I remember right that ended with them getting their butts handed to them on a silver platter all at once, ribbit." Tsuyu pointed out, causing the confidence on the rabbit heroine's face to falter.
"Uh… well… that is… shut up." She fumbled over her words for a few moments before eventually huffing indignantly as she stuck her nose in the air and crossed her arms.
"Nice come back," Midnight said with a snicker, idly dodging a kick from the irate rabbit woman. However, her humor vanished as quickly as it came as she donned a much more serious expression. "As much as I'd like to jump this teasing train though, I actually have to agree with Mirko on this one. While Gang Orca had numbers, almost all of his groups quirks and abilities were publicly known enough for Kurama to have counterplans for them ahead of time. Most of you on the other hand are unknowns, going at him all at once would have given you the chance to overwhelm him with numbers AND the element of surprise of what type of quirks you have."
"Instead, you guys are giving him all the time my foxy toad needs to pick you apart like a bunch of noobs." Setsuna chipped in a bit too cheerfully as she burst into laughter, almost tipping over until Naruto rested a hand atop her head again.
"We're gonna get our butts whooped, aren't we?" Momo asked rhetorically.
"You're sure this plan is going to work?" Ochaco asked as she looked at Deku with a curious glance, since he was highly intelligent, but he was far from perfect. He was also a Hero/Villain nerd, so his information would be very reliable.
"You're right... I can cover my arms in acid and not be hurt by his poison!" Mina realized that she had a type advantage against Kurama's Quirk.
"Oh, that's actually pretty clever, gotta tell Mina about that one later." Momo said as she mentally jotted down the idea of 'acid armor' down in the back of her mind.
"That gives me an idea for a baby!" Pulling out a notebook, Mei flipped to an empty page and wasted no time drawing up a sketch for her newest idea. Her lips slowly curled into an excited grin as the sketch took form, her hand just a blur as she drew, erased, and redrew lines over and over.
"Right, and he doesn't hit girls, he's made a point to say that. You're the best bet to pin him, if this doesn't work, we need to surround him with anyone who can take out from a range... Asui-san-"
"Call me Tsuyu." Tsuyu pointed out, but nodded to him anyway.
"Tsuyu-san, can you steal the antidote with your tongue?"
"On it."
"Well that's not gonna work, ribbit." Much as she wanted to root for herself, Tsuyu simply knew that the plan wasn't going to work because of Naruto's sixth sense.
-(Present Time)-
"Clever plan, using that acid on you to create a Poison-Proof armor. Let me guess, you're going to take advantage of me not hitting girls, pin me, and have Yuga hit me in the head with a laser... and you're surrounding me with the long range fighters. In case this plan fails, while the little frog is going to get the antidote with her tongue?" Naruto looked Mina dead in the eyes, grinning when he saw her become shocked beyond belief.
Everyone aside from the whiskered blonde and his girlfriend had similar looks of disbelief.
Naruto raised both of his arms up, and covered both of them in thick poison as well.
His weakness to her was also her weakness to him, and Naruto grabbed onto Mina's arms with his own, his poison protecting him from her acid. His hands grabbed her wrists, and he threw her into the air, right towards Mirko, with her acidic arms facing the unmoving bunny hero, who would get injured by the acid.
Naruto jumped into the air when Ice, Tape, a Laser, and the same dark shadow from earlier races towards where he was.
"He predicted Midoriya's plan!?"
"How!?"
At this, everyone turned to Naruto, their eyes demanding the answer to the exact same question when they saw the sheer lack of surprise on his face.
"What can I say, you guys are rather predictable." Was all he said as he reclined in his seat with a nonchalant shrug.
Naruto landed on top of Mina's back while she was still in the air, and he grabbed both of her arms, forcing them behind her back. He threw her a second time, right towards Deku, and he stopped running towards Bakugo and Mirko when Mina nearly hit him. He was about to catch her.
"Don't, you'll be hurt by my acid!"
"Acid armor might work great for keeping enemies away, but it also means you're a walking hazard against your allies as well." The toad quirked teen stated casually while tossing a few pieces of popcorn into his and Setsuna's mouths.
Whilst almost everyone else was too enraptured on what was happening to comment, there was a distinct scratching sound from Mei as she scribbled out her most recently drawn schematic and moved to a new page to start again.
Tsuyu's tongue that should have grabbed the antidote, wrapped around Mina and pulled her away from Deku, and placed her on the ground. Tsuyu's eyes widened as she fell to her knees, looking at Mina's clothes, she saw that there was poison around her waist where Kurama had landed on her back, and it was a dose large enough to effect even her.
'He predicted that Tsuyu was going to go for the antidote, and realized by throwing an acid covered Mina at Deku, she would save him from the acid... so he used put his poison on Mina to take out Tsuyu.' Momo thought with her eyes widening in fear.
'Holy… this isn't just his quirk… it's like he can actually tell what we're going to do before we even do.' A bead of sweat rolled down the creation quirked girl's cheek as her eyes kept flickering to the blonde in the room with them. A thousand thoughts were running through her mind at once, how did he figure out their plan? How was he able to figure them out so easily? Did he dig into their records or was it really just that easy for him to see what they were up too?
Naruto landed on the ground behind Todoroki, who had wielded the ice, and Naruto's legs were frozen in an instant. Naruto used his powerful legs to break out of the ice, and he caught ahold of the back of Todoroki's neck as he tried to get away. Poison touched his skin, and Todoroki collapsed to the ground.
'Thanks to my costume, the cold didn't get to me as bad as it should have... and the biggest threat is down.' Naruto thought as he dropped Todoroki on his face. "Endeavor's son huh? Gonna be honest here... was expecting more muscle on you." Naruto gave a small tease towards the boy, as his face glowered in rage. "Woah, daddy issues... not my problem, I've got mommy issues." Naruto playfully admitted as he jumped and avoided a laser from Aoyama... who was looking like he was going to crap himself.
"And with that, we just lost all hope of beating him, ribbit." Tsuyu stated with a sigh.
Ochaco placed her fingers together nearby, and Naruto took a step forward when two people dropped from the air and landed behind him. Eijiro Kirishima and Rikido Sato, Kirishima's body looking like a sharp rock, and Sato with his muscles breaking out of his gym uniform, both pulled their fists back.
"Ora ora ora ora!
"I'm going to dodge every single punch with a JoJo pose." Naruto stated as he made it a point to strike up a pose every single time he dodged a punch. Naruto gently poked Sato's forehead, and took the muscle giant down in a second. Naruto then took a knee and posed as he placed his hand against Kirishima's face, palming it, as the hardened boy was taken down as well.
"PFFFT! Hahaha! That is so totally something you would do! Haha!" This time Setsuna's head actually did tip over from laughing too hard, flopping on her side while Naruto pretended to wipe a tear from his eye with a chuckle.
"Guilty as charged."
Two more down.
"It's like he knows everything I planned." Deku muttered as he stopped trying to go forward and rescue Mirko or Bakugo, unsure if Kurama had already planned for that and had a trap waiting.
Naruto frowned a little.
'... I'm still relying on my spacial awareness... if Himiko attacked me again, I wouldn't be able to abuse it like I normally do... but how do I train myself in not relying on it, when it's always on?' Naruto thought to himself as he looked and saw birds coming from the sky and flying towards him with the apparent intention to attack him.
That got the blonde to stop laughing, opting for a more curious expression as he silently pondered the conundrum for himself.
The students were moving into different positions to make room.
Deku returned to the flicking motion when he saw he had a clear shot at the villain they were facing, with nobody standing behind him. Sero used his tape to grab both Kirishima and Sato, jerking them out of the way as well.
"Go for it dude!" Sero shouted to Deku.
"Sma-..." Deku collapsed forward before he could unleash his attack, and Naruto smirked under his mask.
"Wha? How the hell?!" An incredibly confused Mirko exclaimed, glaring the real Naruto while jabbing a finger accusingly at his masked counterpart. "You never even got near him! So how the fuck did you pull that off?!"
Chuckling softly, Naruto waved the bunny girl's question off as he propped Setsuna back up. "Give it a second."
"Deku, don't you know when an object is moving, it tends to want to keep moving? Just because Tsuyu pulled Mina away from you, doesn't mean all of the poison would go with her. Several drops of poison sprinkled on your body. I knew Tsuyu would save you, but I knew the poison would still get to you... and though I don't know what your Quirk is, it seems powerful, so I figured you wouldn't use it with a risk of hitting anyone else... I figured everyone would clear the way to give you a shot at me." Naruto explained when Deku lost almost all of the strength to even move a finger.
Things were starting to get purely frightening for the rest of the students.
'It's like he knows everything we are about to do... no... it's like he was able to predict how we would use our knowledge of his abilities we've seen him use... and he made a plan taking all of our actions into account... from the very beginning of this fight... he's known, from the first second he saw any of us use our Quirks, what he needed to do to win... it's like his brain works differently than ours does.' Momo thought with widened, frightened eyes, as she started to back away from Kurama, slowly, step by step. Her hands went up to her mouth, the sudden realization that she didn't know what she could do coming over her.
Momo couldn't help but swallow nervously as she rung her wrists, her mind running a mile a minute from trying and failing to figure out the blonde. But it was like her counterpart had said, he just didn't think like anyone she'd ever come across before. In the end all she could come up with was a single definitive thought that stood at the fore front of everything. 'We are stupidly lucky that he isn't a serious villain.'
"Okay, what is the REAL difference between us? Because good training can't be all there is, ribbit." Tsuyu stated while staring directly at Naruto, deciding to actually voice what she knew everyone was thinking.
"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, who knows which it could be." The blonde in question said with a noncommittal shrug, snickering at the deadpan he got from the frog girl at his response.
"You can."
"Well sure, I could, but where's the fun in that?"
She could come up with a plan... but would whatever she planned, be what Kurama knew she was going to plan out, and thus be playing right into his hands? She analyzed everything that she had seen so far, and realized that based on that alone, that was the most likely outcome.
Fumikage Tokoyami collapsed moments later.
"What!?"
"That dark shadow came out of your body... and it returned to your body. When I sat on it, I put poison on it. That poison got on your clothes, and slowly sank through them to your skin... another one down." Naruto stated as he started to walk towards the largest cluster of students.
'Damn, you really never know when he's gonna strike.' Midnight hummed softly under her breath as she gave an impressed nod toward the toad teen's forward thinking. The way he could use even the most casual and seemingly innocuous interactions to his advantage without arousing suspicion was simply astounding. Literally anything he did could be something that led to your defeat yet his playful disposition made it practically impossible to tell when he was actually making a move or if he'd already made one.
Naruto glared up at the birds flying at him, and they scattered when they felt their own deaths coming.
Sadly, if he poisoned those birds at all, they would die, so he needed to scare them off for their own good.
"This is the guy who took on all those Pro Heroes... this is the guy who beat All Might!" Mineta collapsed out of fear and started to crawl away backwards, shaking as he did so. His words, the reminder of what Kurama had done to the strongest hero, seemed to ring true with the rest of the class as well.
"You idiots! Kurama is non-violent, no matter what you do, he won't attack! Take advantage of it, and just fucking rush him!" Mirko screamed out a reminder to them. They didn't need some smart plan, they just needed to bum rush him.
...
There was a collective face palm when all of them realized that they still outnumbered him, and out of fear for Kurama, they had tried to take him out with their intelligence instead of just fighting him. The villain who never fought anyone, was no doubt more than likely unable to hold up in a straight fight.
"Please don't-"
"Fuck no, I told you idiots so," Mirko cut Shoto off while flipping the bird, not even trying to hide her smugness at being right. "Unfortunately, now that he's had a chance to see you noobs in action it's most likely gonna be a case of too little too late."
Mashiro Ojiro, Sero, and Mezo Shoji were the first wave to rush towards Naruto when they decided to stop thinking, with Koji Koda and Ochaco following after them.
Naruto blinked.
"I've got him!" Toru shouted when she grabbed onto Naruto from behind, holding her arms around his clothed waist, while she herself was naked and invisible. "Can't move now, can you? PUNCH HIS LIGHTS OUT!" Toru shouted out when Mashiro jumped and got ready to tail slap Naruto in the head.
"Alright, go Toru!" Momo cheered, perking up a bit when the invisible girl actually managed to catch the guy. "If he can't move he can't dodge."
"Except I can still duck genius."
"So you've finally stopped hiding?" Naruto asked Toru as he leaned forward and let Mashiro's tail smash into the top of her head, knocking her flying. Naruto touched Mashiro's tail and poisoned him, he flipped over Mashiro and touched the top of Sero's head, before he landed on the ground and touched Shoji, taking all 4 of them out before Koda and Ochaco got to him, in less than a second.
"Owie."
"See?" Naruto gestured to the projection with a chuckle while Momo slumped back into her seat defeatedly.
Koda froze in place, but Ochaco kept running forward, and she reached out with her hands to touch Naruto.
"Get him when he dodges!"
Naruto didn't dodge, instead, he let her touch him. Her Quirk activated, and she actually grinned when it did. Her grin vanished though when he didn't start to float, and his feet stayed firmly planted on the ground.
'... His feet... they are sticking to the ground... but his shoes aren't covered in poison... is his Quirk really poison though?' Tsuyu thought as she was given the chance to see that. Naruto put his palm on Ochaco's face for her, and she collapsed in front of him as he jumped over it, and touched the top of Koda's head, taking out another two students.
"Figured that wasn't gonna work," Tsuyu shook her head with a sigh. "But at least we got another hint in the check box to his real quirk for the future."
"Don't feel bad, small victories that work for future encounters are sometimes the only thing you can hope for in the end." Midnight said as she patted the frog girl on the shoulder, getting an appreciative croak from her student.
Only Yuga, Mina, Mineta, Denki Kaminari, Jirou, and Momo were left at this point, all of the other students had been poisoned and taken down.
A wall of ice erupted out of Todoroki's body and created a barrier between Naruto and the remaining students, and he was panting with the effort it took for him to even use his Quirk.
"Wow, you're impressive... honest compliment there buddy. Even while poisoned, you used your Quirk with that much accuracy and strength, bonus points to you." Naruto clapped his hands, not sarcastically, as he praised Todoroki for his actions. He wasn't given a response other than a glare. "But... the little frog isn't the only one with super legs." Naruto mentioned as he jumped clear over the ice wall and looked down at the people below.
"Yeah, have to give credit where credit is due, you gotta be pretty tough to be able to pull that off in your state." Naruto told Shoto while sending the half and half teen a thumbs up to which he got a simple nod back.
He landed a few feet in front of them.
Mina and Denki stepped in front of the rest.
"You can't poison me, and I won't let you touch them!" Mina's legs were shaking as she shouted at Naruto, her hands raised up into fists.
"If you touch me, I'll use my Quirk to electrocute you, so don't try it, I'm a human battery." Denki forced a calm look on his face.
"Seems they've forgotten that you don't actually have to touch them to poison them, haven't they?" Setsuna asked her boyfriend jokingly as he held out some popcorn to the disembodied head's lips for her to snack on.
"No, they're aware of that, they just aren't seeing all the angles yet." The whiskered teen said, idly tossing a piece of salted buttery goodness into the air and catching it with his tongue.
"Hey, Muffin Top... tell me... what will happen to Mineta if Denki here uses his Quirk on me. What have I done that will make his Quirk unwise?" Naruto asked with a look at the unsure girl.
She froze and looked at the smallest member of the class.
Her brain worked at max speed to try and figure it out.
"You... you've left an invisible trail of poison on the ground around us, so if he uses his Quirk, all of us will be shocked... but you're immune, aren't you?" Momo mentioned as she figured out what he had done.
"What!?" Denki shouted, and Naruto started to clap his hands.
"Bravo, I saw you were thinking really hard earlier, and I figured you were the smart type, the type who could analyze everything around her. So, Denki... you were saying?" Naruto asked his fellow blond, who jumped and looked around for anything that he could do. He looked at Jirou, and she refused to take her eyes off of Naruto for even a second, sweat dripping from her face nervously.
'Okay, this is ridiculous, how could he have possibly been able to do that and everything else at the same time all by himself?' Momo's face started to turn red and those near her could swear that steam was actually rising from her head from how hard her brain was working.
Although she was far from the only one confounded as everyone aside from Naruto, Setsuna, and Mirko had deep looks of contemplation. Even Mei had stopped with her schematic, opting to instead start jotting down various scenarios she could think of, both for and against Kurama.
'My stomach is feeling better... I won't miss if I fire from here.' Yuga was shaking, but he saw that he had the perfect shot.
He took the shot, and Naruto ducked and tossed the antidote up into the air, allowing the vial with the antidote in it to get destroyed by the laser.
"NO!"
Naruto used their horror and jumped forward, placing one hand on Denki and Jirou's hands, taking them both down. Naruto poked Mineta's forehead, and spun around to slap the back of Yuga's neck as well. Mina, with impressive reflex recovery time, spun around and tried to hit him with acid. He dodged and got away from Mina and Momo as the 4 people he touched collapsed to the ground.
"And then there were two…" Setsuna said in the most dark ominous voice she could manage as she giggled evilly- "Gk!?"
"Shut up dammit, I'm trying to watch." Or at least she was until Mirko threw a snack cake into her mouth, effectively muting the bodiless greenette.
"…You know she's just gonna turn that around on you as a dirty joke, right?" Naruto pointed out to the rabbit heroine, with Setsuna grunting in agreement as she smiled around the dessert.
"Don't care, keep quiet or I'll kick you."
'Crap... he got us... and I couldn't even help in the fight...' Jirou hated the fact her Quirk was useless for this type of fight, since her long range attack was part of her own flesh, she would have simply been poisoned.
"You... you destroyed the antidote... you mon-"
"Oh, there was no antidote, that was just Dr. Pepper in a vial. Mirko is going to be perfectly fine; everyone is... also, thanks Momo." Naruto said as he waved to the girl, who looked down at the Dr. Pepper that was on the ground, splattered like the wound-be antidote they thought it was.
That got the whitette to relax, giving a sigh of relief as she sank into her seat.
"Ah, so that's why you were so worked up," Naruto muttered, rolling his eyes at the rabbit heroine's dramatics. "I told you it was just a bluff."
"Well excuse the fuck out of me if I don't take the word of the guy who poisoned me in the first place."
"Aw don't be like that Bun Bun, we both know there was no way that Kurama would do anything that could ruin his favorite carrot cake."
"What the fuck does cake have to do with anything?" Mirko asked with a raised brow, causing Naruto's grin to turn mischievous.
"Well obviously it has to do with a lot, after all…" As he spoke the toad quirked boy's tongue shot from his mouth, grabbed onto Setsuna's detached hand, and with a bit of finagling got the limb's fingers all curled up so only the pointer finger was extended. Naruto then wasted no time jabbing said finger right at Mirko's ass. "Just take a look at that grade A cake you've got."
"…Go fuck yourself." The rabbit heroine swatted the hand away and turned away with huff, totally NOT blushing whatsoever at the boy complimenting her ass. No way at all…
"Okay, if you two are done flirting-"
"We're not flirting!"
"-Is anyone else wondering why he thanked Yaoyorozu?" Midnight asked, ignoring her fellow pro-heroine's indignant interruption, with her brow cocked in confusion.
"I don't think I want to know." Momo said, having a very VERY bad feeling in her gut.
"Wha... what?"
"Excuse me?" Mina asked as well, not sure what just happened.
"Truth is, there is no poison on the ground that would have caused Denki to shock everyone. I just saw how afraid she was, and how she looked like she was thinking really hard. She's been frozen in fear for most of the fight, since I beat Deku's plan... she's the analytical type, by playing you all for fools... she assumed I was a step ahead of all of you, and nothing you did could ever change it." Naruto started to explain as he walked towards them, the two girls walking away from him slowly.
"No... no... that can't be right... then... when you confirmed my theory." Momo's mind was racing as she spoke.
"The reason I haven't targeted you this entire fight, because once I noticed you overthinking everything, I realized that you were useful for scaring the others. You were no doubt trying to think of what I was thinking of, and because you think I had you all eating out of the palms of my hands... I was able to make you eat out of the palm of my hand by simply pretending that I had you eating out of the palm of my hand." Naruto explained as it truly sank in, and Momo collapsed to her knees, staring up at Naruto when she realized the truth.
Just by looking at the fear on her face, and realizing that she had started to overthink the fight, he had created a future plan that involved her. He had decided that she was useful to him, predicted her personality traits, taken her brain apart piece by piece, and used her as a tool, knowing that she would do what he wanted her with nothing but a few words.
It didn't matter what she had said when he asked her what he had planned, because she would have created the answer that would cause her allies to freeze up and give him the chance to attack.
"…Damn, even I didn't see that one coming," Setsuna said after several moments of pure silence as the whole room took in the masked teen's admission. Once the shock wore off though her lips curled up into a face splitting grin as she looked up at her boyfriend. "You are the most devious son of a bitch I've ever met, and I really wish I could show you how much I love you for it right now."
Smirking, Naruto scratched the greenette's scalp with one hand while wiping the powdered sugar off her lips from the snack cake with a napkin in the other. "Something to remember for later."
"Oh indeed~."
Whilst those two were flirting… again, on the other end of the spectrum Momo jaw was still down on the floor as the masked teen's words played through her mind over and over again. 'He played me… he was playing me the whole time by pretending he was playing me… that crafty ba-'
"Hey Momo," The ravenette was abruptly broken out of her thoughts by a hand shaking her shoulder, bringing her back to reality. Turning her head, she found Tsuyu looking at her with concern clear in her eyes. "Are you okay, ribbit? You're shaking."
Sure enough Momo's whole body was trembling ever so slightly, most prominently her hands as they clenched onto the armrests of her seat tightly.
"Oh… oh yeah, I'm fine…" The creation quirked teen mumbled quickly before taking a deep breath to steady her nerves. "Sorry Tsu, I guess that got to me a little more than it should."
"I don't blame you, this is getting genuinely scary. Especially since…" The frog girl trailed off as her gaze drifted over to the still flirting duo on the other side of the room.
"Yeah…" Neither of them had missed how the whiskered blonde had not shown even an ounce of surprise during any of his other self's antics. That by itself had some very scary implications all on its own which neither of them really want to think about.
"I... I'm sorry... I can't believe me..."
"Not to mention, since Mina here has my poison on her clothes like Tokoyami, and hasn't created an armor of acid on her back... she's going to get poisoned like him." Naruto explained as he noticed Mina's legs go completely weak, and her fall to her knees, collapsed on the ground like the rest of the class.
"Said it before and I'll say it again, sneaky little bastard." Mirko muttered with a begrudging nod of respect.
Momo was alone now.
All of her classmates were defeated.
"But... the antidote was fake... Mirko was never in danger... then... why did you do this?" Momo asked desperately, since he had to have a reason for doing this to all of them. Naruto took a knee in front of her, and his yellow eyes locked onto her black ones.
"Oh Muffin Top, I'm Kurama... I don't need a reason to prank people." Naruto told her jokingly as he pat the top of her head. Naruto got up and started to walk away.
"Now he does though, because if he doesn't have a good one Mama Red gets all mad." Setsuna said teasingly while Naruto rolled his eyes with a snort.
"And that goes double for you last time I checked." He pointed out which just made the bodiless head's smug grin grow even larger.
This didn't work.
This type of training wouldn't help him stop relying on his Quirk, meaning he was no closer to finding a way to protect himself against Himiko better than before.
"Well that makes sense," Flipping her notebook back to her 'baby' designs as she spoke, Mei tapped her chin for a moment as she seemed think something over before jotting down new details. "Aside from the fake threat he really didn't do anything different so naturally it wouldn't help much. The best way to improve would be to find someone or something that can get past his senses to train against."
"Not exactly the easiest thing to do considering I've never met anyone personally who could do that and so far the only one he knows of wants to introduce him to the pointy end of a carving knife." The toad quirked boy pointed out dryly.
"Meh, try harder then."
"... I... I'm a failure."
Dammit, she sounded broken emotionally.
Just like that all humor in the room vanished as everyone's attention focused on the Momo in the projection when they heard her speak. It was then that they all saw the look of utter hopelessness and despair on the creation girl's face.
'Oh dear, he pushed her a bit too far…' Midnight had seen that expression on enough people during her career to know exactly what it meant.
Kurama hadn't just beaten Momo, he had shattered her will to fight completely.
"You're not a failure, you failed, that is it. Despite what everyone thinks, Heroes are human too, and humans fail sometimes. Every hero who has gone against me has failed, but because they believe in themselves, they use their failures to improve themselves... so, be a proud failure and use this as a chance to learn... so that next time we meet, you'll win." Naruto turned his head and spoke to her. She sounded broken, too broken for his liking. The rest of the students were scared, but this girl had taken it far worse than the others seemed to. He didn't want this to ruin her dreams.
He didn't want to cause permanent damage.
"Bah, permanent damage my ass, she just needs to buck up and take it like a-"
"Mirko," Midnight jabbed her elbow into Mirko's side, giving her a scalding glare that only grew when the rabbit heroine looked completely unrepentant. "Have a little sympathy, she's just a student."
"Oh please, if miss prissy there is gonna wimp out after one lousy loss then she ain't got nothing to do with being a hero. Plain and simple. You don't see me going all 'woe is me' every time blondie kicked my ass."
"No, you just try to fuck him like a total masochist."
"Excuse me?!"
"You heard me, I wouldn't be surprised if you got off getting off by him poisoning you over and over again."
"Why you little-" *BZZT* "Gah!?"
"…Shouldn't you be the one upset about this?" Shoto asked Momo dryly as he and the ravenette in question both sent the bickering heroines dull looks.
"I was a little bit, but now…" She couldn't even finish her sentence as she palmed her face in exasperation at the grown women's antics. Especially when Mirko repeatedly tried to punt Midnight through the ceiling again to no avail. "Besides, it's just a simulation, a scarily realistic simulation but-"
"Yeah, yeah, we get it already you cry baby." Mirko cut the ravenette off dully, only to grunt when the distraction allowed Midnight to get her in the gut with another elbow jab.
"... I can't beat you, no matter how hard I try... don't mock me."
"Just a few days ago, I lost to a girl that utterly destroyed me. I might have beat her in the fight, but that was only because I did something I hated, and used violence against a woman. As far as I'm concerned, that girl could have killed me at any time. I'm a failure too, but look at me, I'm trying to get better, so it doesn't happen again. I, Kurama, am a proud failure." Naruto admitted to Momo everything that had led to him coming at the class today. He saw shock fill her eyes, before they widened and he saw something else in them as she gazed at him. The unshed tears that had gathered at her eyes, she wiped them away and smiled at him.
"I'll get better and capture you Kurama!... I'm a proud failure too... so watch me!"
"A Villain giving a Hero student a pep talk to encourage her to catch him," The sheer absurdity of that sentence made Setsuna giggle a little. "At this point I'm not even surprised anymore."
"I'd say that was nice of him… if he hadn't just poisoned the entire class, ribbit." Tsuyu added with a soft croaking laugh of her own.
"Good to hear, because talent and practice are pointless for people who don't have the guts to never give up." Naruto cheered her on, and she nodded her head as he tensed up his legs and jumped away.
He left Momo alone, surrounded by her downed classmates, her eyes sparkling with admiration as she looked at Kurama vanish from sight.
In contrast with her counterpart, a sense of dread washed over Momo before she turned to see Midnight and Setsuna smirking at her knowingly. "…What?"
""Nothing~!""
-With Naruto-
"Good thing class for them was outside, so the other teachers would just think the fighting was a training routine." Naruto spoke lowly as he crawled through the bathroom window while using his Quirk to be cloaked from the cameras outside. Naruto got into the stall with his clothes, and started to change into them.
He had failed.
He hadn't grown any stronger or better because of his training exercise, so he needed to think of something that would actually help him grow out of his weaknesses.
At this rate, he would never improve.
"Ha! As if!" Setsuna barked out between snickers as the projection faded away into buffering mode. "The day you stop finding ways to improve your bag of tricks is when Hell freezes over and Mama Red's hair turns blue."
"Oh stop trying to butter me up, you're not gonna sweet talk me into taking the heat over you losing your body again," The blonde said with a shake of his head, causing the greenette to pout sadly as her lip started to quiver. "Don't even start, we both know what happens when you try to pull the puppy dog eyes."
"Fiiiine… party pooper…" She grumbled, losing her faux pout for a more genuine one as she wiggled deeper into her boyfriend's lap.
"Okay, I have to ask, how many times have you lost your body and why?" Momo asked in a mix of morbid curiosity and to get her mind off the last few minutes.
And like that Setsuna's mood perked right back up as she giggled nostalgically. "Oh well the first time was when we were in middle school and…"
-Meanwhile-
Outside a quaint little ice cream shop in the midst of Musutafu, we find a pair of interesting individuals making their way out with fresh cones.
The first was a boy who looked exactly like a younger Naruto, albeit with pure white hair and adorned in rather revealing knight-like armor. In one hand he held his ice cream whilst the other held a thick stack of que cards held together by a key ring. His face was also unnaturally stoic, completely and utterly devoid of any emotion even as he calmly licked at his Blurpleberry Supreme cone.
"Aaaah… nothing like some good ol fashioned mint and chip to start the day," His companion was quite the stark contrast in both appearance and mood. Looking to be in his late teens, he was dressed in a bulky orange and black sweater with a fox themed hood that had blonde hair peeking out, a matching-colored cloth face mask stylized like fanged jaws, and plain black glasses over his red eyes. Chuckling as he somehow ate his frozen treat through his mask without getting it smeared all over, the masked blonde glanced at his smaller companion. "But why exactly did you drag me out here again?"
Rather than speak, the Naruto look-a-like flipped through his stack of cards before holding them up to reveal the topmost one. [Obligatory Foreshadowing Cameo]
"Oh, right, duh."
-End of Chapter-