Chapter 5: Uwabami's Stone Statue Forest
Kosei Tsuburaba was having a bad day.
And no, it wasn't due to the fact that he got scolded by Yaoyorozu for letting Aoyama get himself lost in the mushroom forest. And no, it wasn't due to the fact that because of their poor visibility in the fog, he might have accidentally sent Kirishima plummeting to his death.
No, it was because he could potentially die to a bunch of snails.
Giant snails. With arms.
If he was going to give them a basic description, they would look like snails, with them being green and their shells on their backs, except they stood upright, at almost two meters in height, orange eyes and mouth that basically screamed "evil," and muscular arms, with thumbs.
Of course they had thumbs. Because why not?
Oh, and to make matters worse, their antenna could shoot out a green snot that could restrain Kosei, and pull him towards them, as if they were some sort of biological fishing line.
There were only two things that gave Kosei hope: One was that these creeps were carrying burlap sacks, so they wanted him alive, probably to eat him later. And second, a single shot from his semi-automatic pistol to their heads was enough to kill them.
Unfortunately, he was running out of bullets.
"ASSHHHAAAA…" one of the monstrous snails hissed
BLAM!
The snail's reply was a bullet to the head.
"I ALREADY TOLD YOU FUCKERS, I'M NOT ON THE MENU!" the meteorologist yelled back at the snails. He already tried communicating with them in Latin, but it was clear to him that they were hell-bent on catching him. He only had a limited number of bullets to go around.
"ASSHHHAAAA…"
"Hey, can anyone please come and help me?!" he yelled into his radio. "I'm about to get eaten alive by these snail dudes! Kendo?! Monoma?! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU GUYS?!"
"Come on, Itsuka, let's panic at the disco!" Neito said, grabbing his girlfriend's arm, and taking her to the dance floor, where circles upon circles of colors danced behind the purple backdrop.
"Hey, Neito?" the orange-haired girl spoke up.
"Yeeeees?" the blond asked, as the two of them went into hyperspeed. "Whoo-hoo!"
While getting sucked into a black hole, she asked, "Do you feel like we forgot something? Because I just keep having this nagging feeling that I've forgotten something."
"Hey, you forgot it, it probably wasn't all that important!"
"Yeah, I guess," she said, as she turned into a mushroom parasol, and spun around.
"Now, dance with me, Itsuka! Dance with me on this pink moon!"
Grabbing his hand, the young couple danced to the sounds of the space whales.
"ROOAAARRRR!"
"You know, I liked it better when we couldn't see!" Rin complained.
"Shut up and pull out your gun!" Komori growled, ready to fire.
In the few seconds Melissa had managed to dissipate the fog, everything went to shit. They were found by a monstrous scorpion, which could best be described as an eyesore.
The top half of its body was purple with black stripes, while its underbelly was red, along with the tip of its stinger and claws, which also had black stripes. Meanwhile, its legs, arms and mandibles were orange, with the arms also having black stripes on the forearms. And to top it all off, its tail was pink, the face was black, and its eyes were yellow, with black slit-like pupils.
If it weren't for the fact that it would have ripped them to shreds if Melissa didn't pull them out of the way, Rin would have thought it was some kid's first attempt at coloring.
Right now, though, he just really didn't wanna die.
"Hey, can anyone please come and help me?!" their radios crackled up again. "I'm about to get eaten alive by these snail dudes! Kendo?! Monoma?! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU GUYS?!"
"That's Tsuburaba!" Komori gasped. "We gotta save him!"
"ROOAAARRRR!" The scorpion tried to grab at them again.
"Save him?!" Rin looked at her like she was inane. "We gotta save ourselves!"
"Actually, I think we can do both," Melissa said, keeping her sword pointed at the arachnid. "I have a plan: Run towards Tsuburaba's location, and whatever you do, don't stop running."
"Yeah, sure, we can do that," the brown-haired botanist replied.
"Okay, on my mark… GO!"
As soon as the angel gave them the signal, the three of them immediately ran back towards the mushroom forest, as fast as their legs could carry them. However…
"ROOAAARRRR!"
"THAT GIANT SCORPION IS CHASING BEHIND US!" Rin screamed in terror.
"Don't worry!" Melissa smiled. "That's all part of the plan!"
"Why did the mushrooms stop chasing us?" Momo wondered.
Alright, Yaoyorozu, think about this logically, she thought to herself. There were enough of them that they could have caught up to you eventually, so they wouldn't just give up without a reason. What happened when they stopped pursuing? Well, we entered this field… of statues…
Looking around the various statues, she saw the same thing over and over again: Frightened expressions. One quick look at Bakugou made her realize he was thinking of the same thing.
"Sergeant Bakugou…" Momo quietly said. "That monster manual of yours… the one you used to identify Shield-san… did it happen to list any creatures with a petrification ability?"
"Five of them," he slowly answered, quietly looking around the area to make sure nothing jumped out at them. "Basilisks, beholders, cockatrices, gorgons, and medusas."
The two of them quietly pulled out their guns, and with all the caution they could muster, slowly walked through the forest of stone statues. They kept walking, until…
"Oh, no," Momo whispered. "Aoyama."
Right in front of her was her sniper, completely turned to stone, with an expression on his face which showed that he was screaming in his final moments.
"Lieutenant, you need to see this."
Turning to where Bakugou was pointing, towards some of the taller mushrooms, she silently cursed, as she saw that both Awase and Kaibara had also been turned to stone.
"Lieutenant," Bakugou said. "I have a plan, but I don't know if it will work."
"Considering the alternative is turning to stone, I'm all ears."
Momo immediately regretted her decision when Bakugou pulled out a pair of sunglasses.
Kosei knew he was gonna die.
He was out of bullets, and there were too many of those snail fucks. They had wrapped their snot antennas all around him, and they didn't care about shoving him into a burlap sack anymore. He knew that at this point, he pissed them off enough that they decided he wasn't worth the trouble to cook alive, and that they would just eat him raw.
And it wasn't the type of "eating" he liked.
It wasn't fair. He wasn't supposed to die two days into this mission. He was supposed to explore this place with his buddy, Sen. They would discover new lands, slay dragons, get themselves each a harem of monster girls, and live a full-blown isekai life, not this!
A small part of him hoped these snails would get sick from eating him.
So, as they approached him, their hands at the ready, he closed his eyes, and –
"ROOAAARRRR!"
Huh?
Whatever that noise was, it grabbed the snails' attention, because they all stopped drooling over him, and turned their heads to whatever the fuck made that noise.
That's when the mushroom in front of them began to fall.
Something big was coming towards them. But what?
"GANGWAY! GANGWAY! GET THE FUCK OUT OF OUR WAY!"
Is that Rin?
Sure enough, Kosei could see Shield, Rin and Komori running towards him and the snail dudes. And behind them… was the ugliest fucking scorpion he had ever seen in his life.
Like, seriously, who the fuck was behind the color choices on that thing?!
SLASH! SLASH!
"Are you all right?!" Shield asked, slicing away at the snot ropes with her rope.
"Are you kidding?! You just saved my ass, thank you!" Kosei said, happily.
"Thank us later!" Rin yelled. "We gotta get outta here before –"
"ROOAAARRRR!"
Before Kosei could register what happened, the angel immediately grabbed him, Rin, and Komori, and proceeded to fly them towards the nearest highest ground, far away from the monstrous scorpion and snails, who proceeded to attack each other.
"Are you sure this will work?" Momo asked.
"Trust me, I saw it once on an Amazon commercial," the spiky blond next to her explained. "Basically, if the monster's a medusa, we just have to shove these sunglasses on her face while not looking at her eyes, and bam, she can't turn us into stone anymore."
"Fine, but we're doing this only if we run into her," Momo said.
"Shh, someone's coming!"
The two of them immediately ducked behind the stone statue of Aoyama, their pistols pulled out, and peeking out from the sides, waiting for the newcomer to show themselves.
What they didn't expect was Kirishima, wearing a white blindfold.
Kirishima? Momo slowly crawled out and whispered, "Psst! Kirishima!"
"Who's there?" the redhead asked, pointing his gun to the ground.
"Shitty Hair, it's us!" Bakugou barked.
"Yaoyorozu? Bakubro?"
"DON'T CALL ME THAT!"
"Corporal Kirishima, what are you wearing?" Momo asked.
"It's a blindfold, ma'am," Kirishima answered. "It turns out, there's a medusa living here in the mushroom forest, so I'm wearing this thing so I don't look into her eyes."
"How do you know it's a medusa?"
"Oh, uh, the lady who gave me this blindfold told me."
"What lady?" Bakugou asked, becoming increasingly skeptical.
"Uh, I dunno," Kirishima answered. "She just grabbed me from behind and told me not to panic. After she explained the situation to me, she just left the blindfold and disappeared."
"Okay, that's hella suspicious."
"Well, it's better than nothing!"
"Both of you, be quiet!" Momo hissed. "We need a plan of attack!"
"Here, I have one," Bakugou scowled, as he handed the sunglasses to Kirishima. "Since you're the one wearing the blindfold, you get to be the one to put these shades on the snake bitch!"
Kirishima scratched his head. "I guess that seems fair…"
"Shh, someone's coming!" Momo whispered, as she and Bakugou immediately hid once more behind the stone statue of Aoyama. "Good luck, Kirishima, we're counting on you!"
Yeah, no pressure at all, the artificial redhead thought to himself.
Slowing down his breathing in an effort to calm himself, Kirishima nodded. He was as ready as he would ever be. He heard the sound of shuffling footsteps behind him, and he turned around.
From the basic shapes he could see, whoever it was definitely wasn't one of the team, they would have called out to him immediately. And no one had long wiggly afros, which meant…
That's the medusa!
Immediately he charged towards the monster, catching it off-guard. Good, it must have thought its petrification ability would have stopped him, so now he had the advantage.
He instantly tackled her to the ground, and went to try and place the sunglasses on her face. Obviously, she resisted, but it was actually a small shock to see that she had an arm grip on par with Kirishima's. The two of them struggled against one another, one of them trying to keep the other restrained, while the other was trying to pry them off themselves.
"HEY, GUYS!" Kirishima yelled. "I COULD REALLY USE A DISTRACTION FOR HER! I DON'T WANT HER TO TRY AND RIP THE BLINDFOLD OFF OF ME!"
"DON'T WORRY, I HAVE AN IDEA!" Momo yelled back.
BANG!
A shot was fired through the air.
But it was an excellent distraction.
The medusa was momentarily stunned by the sudden loud sound, and using those precious few seconds, Kirishima shoved the sunglasses right on her face. "THEY'RE ON!"
As soon as he said that, the medusa pushed him off, and he landed on the ground. He could hear the fast footsteps of his teammates, and Yaoyorozu's commanding voice.
"I wouldn't remove those if I were you."
That stopped the medusa for about a second. She obviously didn't recognize what a gun was, so she wasn't afraid of the one pointed at her. She went for the sunglasses again, and all hell seemingly was about to break loose, when suddenly –
"You will do as you are commanded."
Kirishima recognized that voice.
Lifting up his blindfold, he could see both Yaoyorozu and Bakugou, their pistols pointed at the monster. He could also see Shield, with her sword at the medusa's throat, and right behind her were Rin, Komori, and Tsuburaba, all of them also having their pistols at the ready.
Raising her hands, the medusa made the wise decision of surrendering.
"All right, I guess we should start off with the easier questions," Momo said, as she sat across from their captive. "My name is Momo Yaoyorozu. What is your name?"
"Uwabami," the medusa hissed.
"Uwabami-san, may I ask, are you responsible for turning my men into stone?"
"I am."
"Why did you do it?"
"I caught the blond one urinating in my garden," she said, her voice laced with venom. "Then the fool trespassed on my property! Did he not notice the stone statues everywhere?!"
Momo decided to take a moment to glare at Tsuburaba before continuing.
"And the other two?"
"I caught them spying on me from behind the mushrooms. Like stalkers. Or perverts."
Okay, WOW, that is a lot to unpack, Momo thought to herself. All of this looked pretty bad for her and her team. Aoyama might have just ruined this lady's only food source, and while she could technically forgive Awase and Kaibara for the compromising position they found themselves in, at the end of the day, if anyone was a bit too trigger-happy, they would have killed a civilian who was only trying to protect herself and her home with whatever biological advantage she had.
And all of that before breakfast.
"Now, I have a question for you," Uwabami said, as she pointed to the sunglasses on her face. "What are these shaded spectacles the redheaded brute forced upon my eyes?"
"Oh, those are sunglasses! Basically, they are tinted glasses that prevent the eyes from the glare of sunlight," Momo explained. "And since they're dark enough that we can't see your eyes, we theorized that if we placed them on you, we wouldn't be turned to stone."
"Well, your theory has been proven correct. Now what? Are you going to have your pet angel decapitate me? Place my head in a bag and use it on your unsuspecting enemies?"
"Goodness, no! This is all a huge misunderstanding! We are not barbarians, we are simply peaceful explorers who simply didn't know any better!" the raven-haired soldier said. "Let me re-introduce myself: I am a Lieutenant of the Japanese Self-Defense Force. My team and I were assigned to explore these lands after driving off the Empire from our homes."
"Ugh, those Imperials attacked you, too?" Uwabami groaned. "I hate them."
"That does seem to be a common theme around here," Momo said.
"So, what now?"
"Well…" Momo said, standing up. "Before we leave, I guess it would be right to give the men turned to stone a proper funeral. We can't bring their bodies back with them, but –"
"They're not dead."
Momo looked at Uwabami, stunned. "What?"
"Well, technically, they're not dead yet," Uwabami clarified. "My blood, if applied within twenty-four hours of petrification, will reverse the process. All you need to do is to get a skilled healer to apply my blood on either the petrified victim's mouth or lips."
"Well, that's nice and dandy," Bakugou said, sarcastically. "There's only one problem with that: Where the fuck exactly are we going to get a healer with that kind of skill level?"
Rin, Komori, Tsuburaba and Kirishima all looked at each other, before giving the same answer.
""""Kodai.""""
Yui Kodai was a simple person.
She knew what she liked: Tomatoes, anime, and everything lewd, though she never told anyone that last one. She also liked helping others, which is why she decided to become a medic in the first place. That, plus the fact that it would help pay the bills for her other three hobbies.
However, a part of her felt like she made a grave mistake.
It was probably due to the fact that after an hour of searching, Lieutenant Yaoyorozu returned with everyone else, but with Aoyama, Awase, and Kaibara all turned into stone, and being carried by anyone who wasn't a statue.
Also, there was a lady with snakes for hair wearing sunglasses, for some reason.
"... so, to summarize, you need to apply Uwabami-san's blood on everyone's lips to reverse the petrification. Do you think you can do that, Kodai?" Yaoyorozu asked her.
She nodded her head. "Mm."
"Well, I guess the rest of you have worked up an appetite," Sato said, quickly adapting to the situation. "Breakfast is ready. It's pancakes with strawberries. The lady can have some, too."
As it turned out, Uwabami loved pancakes, especially with strawberries.
"Wait," Uraraka said. "Where are Monoma and Kendo?"
They found Monoma and Kendo sprawled on the forest floor, laughing their asses off.
Momo looked at the medusa. "Uh… Uwabami-san?"
"They must have breathed in some of the trog log spores," she said, pointing at one of the taller purple-and-gray mushrooms. "They can cause hallucinogenic effects for up to an hour."
"Dale a tu cuerpo alegría Macarena! Que tu cuerpo es pa' darle alegría y cosa buena!" Monoma began singing off-key. "Dale a tu cuerpo alegría, Macarena…"
"Heeeeey Macarena, ay!" Kendo finished him off.
"This won't cause any permanent damage, right?" Momo asked, concerned.
"Other than a few memory lapses, no," she answered.
Eh, could be worse.
The first thing Yuga Aoyama noticed when he opened his eyes again was Kodai looking directly into his face, as if examining him. "How are you feeling?" she asked.
"Terrible," the French sniper groaned. "I had the most horrible dream. There was this mademoiselle, but she had these golden snakes for hair, and she turned me into stone…"
Before he could continue, however, he saw said snake-haired woman, eating pancakes alongside everyone else. She was also wearing some sunglasses.
Oh. So, not a dream.
"Private Aoyama." He turned his head to see Yaoyorozu, and while she was smiling, her aura was that of death. "The next time you decide to go out and urinate on someone's private property, the very least you could do is make sure that you take a buddy with you. Am I clear?"
"C-c-crystal."
"Good."
"Ugh…" Kaibara groaned. "What happened? Did we find Aoyama?"
"I think so?" Awase responded, also groaning. "Hey, wait, where's the monster?"
Aoyama simply pointed to the medusa eating pancakes, ignoring the choked gasps from both the geologist and the mechanic, who apparently shared the same fate as him.
The next hour after that, things proceeded as normal.
Or, as normally as Momo could possibly hope.
After a final medical check-up, Kodai assured her that Aoyama, Kaiabara, and Awase would not suffer any permanent damage from the petrification, and would make full recoveries.
During that same time, Monoma and Kendo came down from their mushroom-induced high, and after getting the all-clear from Kodai as well, Yaoyorozu informed the two of them of what they had missed, and in what state the team found the two of them.
Monoma was blushing red from the embarrassment, while Kendo poked fun at her boyfriend, while also saying that was a pretty unique way for him to "fuck it up."
Momo honestly didn't know if that was an inside joke, or what.
Afterwards, Momo got the written reports from everyone else, including how Tsuburaba was almost eaten alive by some sort of snail-like demi-humans which shared the same neighborhood as Uwabami, and the giant eyesore of a scorpion that chased Melissa, Rin, and Komori. Oddly enough though, Uwabami claimed that no other sapient person lived here.
Which meant that whoever gave Kirishima the blindfold was a mystery.
After the written reports, Momo assembled a small team composed of herself, Sato, Uraraka, Kodai, Rin, Komori, Melissa, and Uwabami to investigate the aftermath of the fight between the monstrous scorpion, and the snail-like creatures, while also gathering some evidence.
As it turned out, it was a tie. Both parties killed each other.
As Uraraka took some photographic evidence of what had occurred, Rin tried to figure out how the hell a scorpion could grow to the size of a horse in a place where the oxygen levels were the same amount as back on Earth, which made Momo a bit curious, and asked Melissa if there were other cases of such megafauna in this world, and if so, what were they.
Momo immediately regretted it when Melissa's answer included but wasn't limited to ants, clams, cockroaches, crabs, cranes, eagles, flies, frogs, beetles, fireflies, rats, lampreys, sharks, leeches, lynx, hornets, wasps, ravens, praying mantises, skunks, snakes, vultures, weasels, toads, crocodiles, bats, bees, owls, otters, porcupines, sheep, slugs, and of course, spiders.
Because evolution thought humans had it too good, apparently.
Meanwhile, both Komori and Rin were responsible of taking samples of the various new species they encountered during this little adventure, which included vials containing DNA samples of whatever material was left of both the scorpion and the snails, along with whatever organs and body parts that weren't damaged during their battle to the death.
They even got some samples from the man-eating mushrooms.
As it turned out, Uwabami had trained the purple fungi to chase any large animals towards her home. There, she would turn them into stone, reverse the petrification process whenever she got a craving, eat her fill, and then give the rest of it to her tentacled pets.
She could hear Rin cursing about such a fucked-up symbiosis from a mile away.
The only thing that was left to do was gather some photographic evidence of Uwabami's existence because, let's be honest, even Momo understood that the scientific community would be scratching her heads on how her existence was biologically possible.
After some experimenting, they found out that if you looked at her eyes through a camera lens, you wouldn't turn to stone. The end result of that was after several photos for scientific research, anyone who had their phone on them asked for a selfie with the medusa.
Weirdly enough, Uwabami could have a future in modeling.
After all that, the SREU was ready to leave the mushroom forest.
The group had collected more than enough photos and samples, so they packed up, left no traces of their presences, and said their final good-byes to Uwabami.
"Again, we apologize for what happened to your garden," Momo said, deeply bowing. "To make up for it, you are free to visit the area of the Collibus Hills we're occupying whenever you like. Simply say that Lieutenant Yaoyorozu invited you, and we'll take care of the rest."
"It's fine. You already made up for it with the dead scorpion and snails. Now, I'll be able to eat meat for months! Plenty of time for my glowcaps to grow back!" the sunglass-wearing medusa replied. "However, I might take you up on your offer to visit this base of yours."
"Of course, Uwabami-san." With that, Momo saluted her, and headed back to the front of the LAVs, where Melissa, Kirishima, Uraraka, and Awase were waiting for her.
"Alright, Awase, let's move out."
The mechanic smiled. "Read you loud and clear, Lieutenant."
The engines hummed to life, and the three vehicles drove away from the mushroom forest, and out towards the desert of rocks and crags. As the green sky above them slowly turned into a normal blue, Momo thought back to the start of her mission.
They recruited an angel, spent the night in a mushroom forest, three of her men got turned to stone, two of them got high on spores, several more of them, including herself, were almost eaten by the local wildlife, and to top it all off, they ended with a medusa in their selfies.
And this was only two days into their mission.
What else are we going to get ourselves into?
They left.
They took their bizarre metal beastless carriages and left the mushroom forest. They didn't even kill the medusa. So, they were both highly advanced and capable of mercy.
That made them far better than the Imperials in Mina's opinion.
Grabbing her spear and mask, the tiefling followed them. She knew she couldn't catch up to them, but it didn't matter. With the help of the spirits, she would always know where they were heading, and it was only a matter of time until she caught up to them.
Mina Ashido swore to herself, she would do everything in her power to ensure her crimson-haired savior remained safe in her world, even if it was the last thing she would do.
Author's Note: Sorry for the delay! I woke up late this morning, so I was unable to post this chapter until this afternoon. Anyways, don't do drugs, kids.
And look! More comments! Yay!
ShinyZubat: Glad you're enjoying this so far. For your questions, I don't exactly know how Momo and Shoto will interact considering I haven't written that yet, but it will probably include someone getting slapped. I'm also glad you liked the mushroom forest scenes, I was intending to make it as creepy as possible. And as for who helped Kirishima out… well, take a wild guess on who it was.
Anyways, that's all for this week!
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