To LoamyCoffee, given Midnight and by association Eraserhead are connected to the "Bee*Pop" incidents, it was only rational that I tackle this very serious issue of "Teasers". Men tend to be "forgiven" for falling for such a thing because "boys will be boys", but women on the other hand, are not. As for the abs thing, that seems like a very specific example, and I can't help but wonder if that's legitimately a manga somewhere. As for Iida's "Nitros" being Habanero/Durian, that bit was largely inspired by Yue Ayase from Negima! Magister Negi Magi, who had a wide variety of "unusual beverages" for those that could actually read the Kanji.
As for Genk's skill cap, he has had the most (informal) training out of the class. Shoto might be the son of the No.2 Hero, and maybe the only member of 1-A/1-B whose parent has been explicitly stated to be another Pro Hero, but it largely seems like the only thing he was trained in was how to take a beating, and how to use his Quirk. Add in the fact that Shoto held back his [Hellflame] out of spite, and he was intentionally limiting himself.
As for the "Nikujaga Pork/Beef War", that was a credit to the LN, which I got for cheap at the used bookstore, McKay's. Not a paid endorsement, I just personally want to vouch for the place. There's always something interesting to find, even if you're looking for something else. As for the Nikujaga, it seems like one of those "divisive" issues that can get people hot under the collar; like what sort of condiments you add to your fried eggs, which toppings are best on ramen, which girl is Best Girl, etc.
To Okaze, well, we'll certainly see if Genki can make a difference here.
To my (Guest) who has been concerned about Genki's new costume, and I guess to anyone else interested in weighing in on that topic as well, as of writing these Replies, I'm contemplating a blend of Strider Hiryu from Strider and Anko Mitarashi from Naruto, with a splash of Ibuki from Street Fighter for the pants. A blend of iconic ninja garb as well as something that breathes very well.
He'd definitely have some sort of high-tech mask to help with the Air Quality, but from a mechanical standpoint, the only way to really boost his [Insect Breathing] would be to use some kind of "Air Injector" like for when an Air Scoop in a car isn't enough, but that seems like it'd just create an over-reliance on Support Items, and there's only so-much air he can take in at one time anyway...
As for Djinn, yeah, putting in Knuckleduster, retired as he is, is bound to have some impact, as is there being more students in the Test of Courage. Or at least I hope it'll turn out that way after the Primary Draft and Revisions… There are going to be students sent back to the Inn before Aizawa is desperate-enough to give the Green Light, but since I'm going to be mixing things up, I'll have to take attendance…
*MHA*
"Genki! Try some of our stew!" Setsuna grinned as she floated over a bowl of Beef Nikujaga.
"Try mine! It has extra love in it!" Mina beamed holding a bowl of her own Pork Nikujaga.
"Sure, but only if you try mine," Genki said giving his new admirers a winning smile as he showed off his own pot of Nikujaga.
"Damn, that looks like something you'd get at a fancy restaurant!" Kirishima cried as he and a few others in his cooking-group looked down at their own pot of Nikujaga which, like their curry from the previous night, wouldn't serve muster.
"Well, my Okaa-san and Onee-samas said it was important I learn how to cook," Genki chuckled, an act that made his handsome face all the handsomer, as he handed out bowls of higher-tier stew regardless of class.
"I'm still amazed that even worked!" Toru hummed, referencing just how Class 1-A had synched the win.
"Admittedly, we were still exhausted from training all day…" Kyoka deadpanned while the Invisible Girl reminisced.
*Past*
"Five minutes to dinner-makin' time!" Ragdoll shouted trough a megaphone that Momo had made during the course of the day's training.
"I'm amazed he was able to pick this many of us off," Todoroki hummed, completely nonplussed about the 'Quest for Pork' if only due to the fact that everything he ate as a child through his adolesence was arranged by his father's legion of soulless dieticians instead of actually being made by his mother.
Sure, he'd gotten to eat his mother's home cooking for a few years, but then his mix of [Hellflame] and [Subzero] came to the surface and, well…
"You know, I think I'm starting to get the hang of my new body," Genki hummed aloud, having finally gotten used to his deeper voice, as he zig-zagged through the discharges of his peers' Quirks.
"YOU BASTAAAARD!" Bakugou roared as Genki once again passed him over in lieu of the others, save for the acorns that flew through the air and struck him in the nose and cheeks.
They didn't hurt, but they sure stung like hell.
"Shurikenjutsu. Interesting," Todoroki hummed as he hung from a tree branch by his ankles.
"DON'T ACT SO AMUSED, ICY-HOT!" Bakugou raged as the others went back-to-back-to-back-to-back, their eyes on the forest for whatever attack came next.
"Momo, how much 'stuff' did you make that he can loot?" Mina asked worriedly.
"It'd be simpler to list what I didn't leave lying around today…" Momo sighed before her eyes went wide. "EVERYONE GET DOWN!"
Shooting out blunted rods of aluminum from her back and knocking the others to the ground, the heiress swiftly threw herself into the approaching bola and slashed at it with a machete, the blade catching the bola by some miracle and scattering forest stones, only for another bola hidden in the shadow of the first to catch her around the torso.
"YAOMOMO! NOOOOOOOO!" Mina cried dramatically.
"She's not 'dead', just out," Rikido said picking up a nearby log to use as a shield.
The next moment, panicked cries began to sound from deeper into the forest.
"And it sounds like he's terrorizing 1-B now," Sero nodded.
"DAMN IIIIIIT!" Genki howled furiously, all the trees and foliage he blasted down equating to little more than a drop in a bucket.
"Ten seconds!" Mandalay chimed in a few minutes later via [Telepath].
"Ahhhhhh! I give up!" Toru cried as she fell to her knees. "Genki-kun, I can't feel my feet. Can you help me up?"
*Swish*
"Sure, sure, I think I've tortured you guys enough," Genki hummed with a calming smile as he dropped down in a swirl of leaves, catching Toru's gloved hand in his own before he helped her to her feet. "Hold on, this isn't your usual glove…"
*Present*
"Curses! How could I not have thought of something so-obvious…?!" Monoma cursed as he furiously gnashed on the strips of sweet dashi-soaked beef.
"Hey, don't worry, Monoma. We still think you're a pretty teenage girl," Manga said patting him consolingly on the back, his speech bubble head tauntingly decorated with blush-colored forward-slashes.
"Don't patronize me…" the [Copy] user muttered, reminded with all the talk of tonight's Test of Courage that he and he alone had to take remedial courses.
"Well, he might've kicked our butts, but as one plain-faced teen talking about another, I'm certainly happy he's acclimating so well," Sen hummed as he watched the goings-on.
"Still, did he have to take all the girls?" Kosei groaned with a jealous slump.
"What're you talking about? There's only four girls from each class swarming around him," Tetsutetsu commented frankly.
"Only four' he says," the [Solid Air] breather sighed.
"Well, them and the Support Course girl who keeps getting handsy with him," the [Steel]y teen shrugged.
"Tetsu, you aren't helping," Yosetsu sighed with a forlorn look towards Genki's cauldron.
"So which one of those lovely flowers did you lose out on?" Monoma inquired knowingly.
"Not important," the [Weld]er sighed. "As long as she's happy, I'm happy."
"Aiya, that's some heavy stuff right there," Hiryu nodded somberly.
"To be cast into the shadow of greatness, is a difficult burden to bear," Shihai stated cryptically.
"Just eat your stew," Yosetsu grumbled.
*MHA*
And then came the night of the third day, though miles and miles away from the Catnip Inn, we shift our attention to the Symbol of Peace, taking some well-deserved R&R now that the first-year students are out for their end-of-summer training.
"Melissa, it's been far too long," Toshinori greeted jovially from his relaxing bath, able to converse with her outside of his 'Muscle Form' thanks to a recent advancement in voice modulation courtesy of Power Loader; allegedly an accidental discovery made when making something for Hitoshi Shinso at Aizawa's behest.
"I'm not keeping you up, am I?" Melissa asked from half a world away.
"No, no, I took a power nap after you said you wanted to talk," Toshinori hummed, aware of the late hour.
"Well, that's good to hear," Melissa hummed. "Daddy's almost made a full recovery, and he should be able to leave the hospital very soon."
"Yes… Though that just leaves his new accommodations…"
"Yeah… Thankfully, he'll be treated with some measure of dignity, thanks to all his cooperation and how Sam-… Mr. Abraham, went rogue, as things went."
"I see," Toshinori nodded, saddened that one of David's own closest friends had betrayed him the way he had. And it was only a small comfort that David was able to escape a more punitive sentence at the expense of another. "What about you? How have things been on your end with… Michael?"
He still couldn't get over the fact that Melissa had had a secret boyfriend under his and David's noses, and he didn't know what was worse; the fact that Melissa felt the need to have a boyfriend in secret, or that he and David had been so-engrossed in their own work they simply hadn't noticed. Like, at all!
"Well, like we expected, the Oversight Committee started leafing through my past emails after daddy was convicted. We uh… more or less had to explain which emails were 'just emails' and which ones were, *ahem*, booty calls written in code and not for illegal dealings…"
Toshinori could practically hear the blush on her face.
"Seems a little personal if you ask me."
He hated the fact that Melissa had even been suspected of collusion, but as David's daughter and a "niece" of Samuel Abraham's own, it wasn't entirely unfeasible, at least from the Committee's perspective, that she'd have been used as a mule, wittingly or otherwise, for David's less-than-legal endeavors.
"Yes, well, counter-espionage is taken very seriously here; doubly-so given how much damage Wolfram caused. And I don't just mean to the infrastructure."
"Yeah, I can understand that," Toshinori nodded.
Sure, there were cases of foiled espionage on I-Island, at least one case every work week, but for a group of Villains to actually take over, with the help of an insider as-respected and as-connected as David Shield was…
"It was suuuuper awkward," Melissa groaned, "but at least with all of that done, we were able to officially clear my good name," she nodded sounding a little more upbeat. "Of course, it'll still be a while before I can get grant money all on my own, but at least we don't have to be so secretive anymore. Daddy almost had a heart attack when he found out, though," she chuckled awkwardly.
"Trust me, I know the feeling," Toshinori returned.
And it truly boggled the mind where all the time went… It seemed like just yesterday she still thought boys were "icky" and "gross".
"I'll admit, maybe we were a little too open during the after-party… but it was good practice for when the committee pulled us aside for our little sit-down," Melissa hummed. "On the surface level, our correspondence just looked like ordinary after-school stuff with a little light flirting, but what daddy did… It really recontextualized things, and counter-espionage couldn't leave that stone unturned. I mean, if I acted like I had anything to hide…"
"So then you figured brutal honesty would be the best policy?"
"Got it in one," Melissa nodded. "Thankfully, it was as-awkward for them as it was for us, and because we cooperated so willingly, the scrutiny we've been under has been relatively hands-off. That I'm not under any sort of probation is a huge load off my mind…"
"That's wonderful news," Toshinori sighed, happy that what David did hadn't hurt her future prospects.
Sure, her reputation had still taken a hit after what her father did, but it wasn't one she couldn't recover from. She might not've had a Quirk, but she was a strong young woman to endure what that night at the gala had thrown at her. Not everyone could recover from having their world turned upside-down like that.
Hell, plenty of people with Quirks falling short at the first hurdle, turned to villainy outright because they couldn't imagine any other path for themselves.
"Unfortunately, it isn't all good news," Melissa said, her tone turning grave.
"What's wrong?" Toshinori asked, sitting straighter.
"The investigation on our end has been concluded. Wolfram's pilot… He was able to slip the net while everyone was distracted, and while we did recover the plastic frame of the hard drive from the rubble…"
"That isn't any guarantee the meat wasn't taken out of the sandwich…"
"Best-case scenario is that the hard drive broke open and the storage components just weren't recoverable. But in the worst case…"
"Is this really something you should be telling me?" he asked worriedly.
"I have a more-direct link to your ear than they do, so the oversight committee cleared me to tell you if I was able to talk to you first," Melissa answered. "The boy that used the amplifier to help save my dad… How is he?"
"Genki-kun is recovering nicely from what I've heard, though I've been out of touch with Aizawa for a few days," he hummed, hesitant on mentioning the Training Camp, even to her.
"That's good to hear. I shudder to imagine how much damage Wolfram could've caused if he got his hand on the device. Trigger is one thing, but a Quirk-booster that doesn't make you a raving loony…"
"Exactly the reason why David's research was frozen," Toshinori hummed.
And even on the off-chance David had gotten the device to him and he'd been allowed to keep it, there wasn't any guarantee that the QAD would've done… anything for [One for All] like the man thought it would.
While in the possession of the Holder, it was like a torch you could steadily toss kindling into to strengthen the flames. However, once that flame was passed down, it was like the "supply" of firewood was cut off for the old Holder. Nana, even at peak health after passing [One for All] down to him, had to use the power sparingly so as to avoid exhausting her supply since she could no longer "stoke the flames" as an ex-Holder.
If anything, the QAD might've made the flames of [One for All] inside of him burn out even faster than they already were. A final "blaze of glory" that was just as likely to kill him in the process than to not.
"Well, here's hoping that data drive was destroyed."
A man could only hope…
*MHA*
Meanwhile, back at the Training Camp…
"Bellies are filled, plates are clean! Next up…" Pixie-Bob hummed aloud as the sun began to set.
"THE TEST OF COURAGE!" Mina whooped excitedly. "Arigatou, Genki-sama!"
"Please, please, no need to thank me," Genki replied with raised hands as the pinkette bowed repeatedly to him. "I might've gotten Kamadouma to take you in, but you were the one who stuck it out with him and took in what he had to teach. That in of itself, is worthy of praise."
"So pure-hearted!" Toru squeed giddily.
"Handsome bastard…" more than one boy from 1-B muttered under their breath.
"Remedial group, you're with me," Aizawa chimed in.
"Group? HAH! What 'group'? Only one of us needs remedial lessons~!" Bakugou smirked while Monoma sulked.
"Bakugou, don't be ninety percent of a dick. It won't make you a popular Hero," Genki scoffed.
"WHAT WAS THAT?!" Bakugou raged as his palms popped.
"There's always room for more. Don't forget that," Aizawa chimed in, the explosive blond relenting and allowing Aizawa to leave with his quarry.
"Anyway!" Pixie-Bob chimed in. "Class A might've gotten the pork, so Class B will be on the offensive first!"
"Class A will head into the forest in teams of two, each team every three minutes. You'll find name cards at the halfway point of the course," Mandalay continued.
"After you've got your own, come back here!" Ragdoll whooped.
"And if you take more than fifteen minutes start to finish, I'll kill you dead," Tiger hummed like a 90s Battle Shounen villain.
"Revelry in the dark," Tokoyami muttered.
"An orgy of violence," Sato hummed getting in on the act with his own flashbacks.
"The scarers aren't allowed to make direct contact," Mandalay continued to explain. "They'll just be using their Quirks to startle you as best you can."
"SO GET CREATIVE! Whichever class makes the other wet their pants more wins!" Tiger hollered.
"Ugh. Gross," Kyoka muttered, Mandalay feeling much the same.
"I see! It is an opportunity to work on our ingenuity through competition as well as a chance for us to broaden the utility of our Quirks. I expected no less of Yuuei!" Iida proclaimed excitedly.
"Dude, you're reading way too much into this," Sero hummed.
*MHA*
After that came the drawing of the lots, and while 1-A didn't have anyone in it sent to "Remedial Hell"…
"How am I one extra…?" Izuku blinked incredulously at the number 11 in his hands.
"Hey Round-Face! Looks like we're tag-teaming this nightmare baby!" Mei grinned at Ochako.
"Oh, so that's how…" Izuku muttered as he took note of all the pairs as they gravitated toward one another.
Meanwhile, as Bakugou was… coercing Ojiro to swap lots with him so he wouldn't have to go into the woods with Todoroki, Tsuyu looked up from her 7 to find Genki standing off to the side, an unironic 1 held tauntingly in his hands. As Mina called out with her own 7 in hand, Tsuyu let out a sigh as she proceeded to walk over, only for Yaoyorozu to suddenly bump shoulders with her.
"Oh my, I apologize," Momo bowed apologetically. "Here, I believe you dropped this," she said holding out a piece of paper to her before running off.
"Mina, I-"
"Oh, luckyyyyyy!"
"*Kero*?" the [Frog Form] girl blinked, wondering what about her lot was so lucky about her lot.
Looking down as Mina turned away from her, amphibian eyes went minutely wide as she beheld a 1 that most definitely hadn't been a 1 before. Eyes turning up to see Momo not-so-stealthily moving to circle around the gathered class instead of going straight to Mina, a knot formed in her stomach as she realized that the heiress had given up her chance to walk the woods with Genki of her own free will, despite her strong feelings for the boy.
"Um… Maybe next time. We are gonna be here a full week," Tsuyu admitted to the pinkette before making her way over to Genki, not wanting to cause a scene, both for Momo's sake as well as her own. "Genki-kun?"
"Oh, Tsu, I guess we're a matching set," the handsome-faced teen smiled her way, his new looks causing butterflies to form in her stomach.
"Yeah. I guess we are," she hummed as she looked over her shoulder to see Momo finally reconvene with Mina.
"Well then, shall we go?" he asked offering his elbow to her.
" . . . What a gentleman, *kero*" Tsuyu croaked as she looped her arm with his, realizing for the first time just how tall he'd gotten.
*MHA*
A little more than ten minutes into the Test of Courage…
"So… Is any of this getting to you?" Tsuyu asked as they passed by Yui Kodai, who'd moments before had popped her head up from a puddle of quicksand to a somewhat lukewarm reception.
"I mean… kinda?" Genki admitted. "My GIs always gave me more time to 'process' what's happening in front of me if I'm concentrating or have my guard up, so while a couple of them do get the jump on me, I guess what happens is I… 'get over it' faster?" he asked scratching his hair with his free hand. "I mean, I've trained for sneak attacks before, but it feels like my 'bullet time' is on more of a hairpin trigger than it was before, and that I can use it more-frequently."
"All that brainpower must take a lot of oxygen, though," she hummed, recalling how after the very brief widening of his eyes at each of Class B's jump-scares, he'd always take in a long breath through his mouth.
"Yeah…" he hummed rubbing at his throat. "And it kinda feels like someone heightened the sensitivity on my controller settings, if that makes sense," he added.
"Just another thing to get used to, I suppose," Tsuyu hummed, the Mutant girl letting out a startled croak as Genki suddenly stepped in front of her. "*Kero*?"
"Tsuyu. Someone's here."
Her body growing tense as large footfalls, larger than anyone's at camp, made their way toward the two of them from the darkness, what could only be one of the Noumu became visible through the moonlight cutting through the canopy. While the "Anti-Symbol of Peace" from the USJ still haunted her some nights, the muttered words from Genki's lips were- "Villain Factory…"
The specimen before them was hulking with purple-colored skin covered in boils, clad in tattered yellow haz-mat pants, its brain exposed but covered with a sort of slimy film, bits of what looked like plastic sticking out. What made this one stand out were the staggering number of additional Quirks visibly crammed into it; snake-like fangs protruding from its lips, bulging throat muscles, long quills protruding from its forearms and the small of its back, a mane of fur around its neck like a moth's, wings to match, long claws dripping poison, and a whip-like tail covered in thorn-like spikes.
One of the boils bursting as a quill rubbed against it, noxious purple gas spilled out and to the side, heavier than air and causing the shrub it landed on to wither and die like it'd been hit with an herbicide.
"The Poison Villain… from my Internship…" Genki shuddered as he desperately marched Tsuyu away from him… it. "The Villain Factory or whoever must've gotten a hold of his body and pulled a Dr. Frankenstein."
"What do we do? That thing's between us and the camp. Are we being attacked agai-Behind us!" she gasped as a light-purple fog began to spill out of the woods on their left and at their back.
"If we can't go forward, back, or to the left, the only way left is right," Genki said scooping Tsuyu up into his arms and bolting into the forest, the Poison Noumu letting out a horrifying screech as it bulldozed through the forest after them, claws and brute strength ripping through trees leaving poisoned land in its wake.
*MHA*
As Genki carried Tsuyu through the forest, his [Air Pressure Sensing] allowing him to dodge the Poison Noumu's corrosive projectile vomit with ease even as they were herded away from the Inn, the Training Camp in full was under attack.
Students succumbing to poison gas. The woods erupting into azure fire. Serial killers on the hunt for flesh and blood. Self-proclaimed followers of the Hero Killer stepping out into the light. Monsters both great and small from the recent and far-off past stalking their prey. Those that failed or outright refused to conform to the laws and thought processes of "normal society".
Despite all the precautions Yuuei had taken, regardless of whether or not the Yuuei Traitor had acted at their behest…
The Vanguard Action Squad of the League of Villains had made their move.
*MHA*
"Dammit, how-far is this thing going to chase us?!" Genki cursed as the Poison Noumu once more interposed itself between them and the Catnip Inn, the woods around them impossible to recognize.
"It might… It might've been sent after you…!" Tsuyu croaked worriedly, having been one of the few during Internships to actually fight a Villain.
One that Genki recognized. One that would hold a grudge, even in death.
"Tsu-"
"Don't even think about it," she said tightening her hold on him. "I'm not leaving you to fight that thing alone… and I'm probably safest with you anyway."
" . . . Alright. Then we need to find some kind of clearing. Or at least somewhere with more elbow room."
Kicking off the ground and into the canopy, Tsuyu shielded her eyes as leaves and branches broke in their wake before they were surrounded by open air, the burning blue of unnatural flames blazing in the middling distance at their backs.
A moment later the Poison Nomu burst up after them, wings unfurling in full and carrying it through the air in fervid pursuit. Poisonous scales falling in its wake and causing the forest beneath it to wither and die, projectile vomit flying, with bursts of air from his calves and arms Genki dodged it all before dipping into the woods once again and rapidly changing direction. Ducking down behind a massive boulder, perhaps a leftover of Pixie-Bob's, the Cockroach Mutant ripped his shirt away before taking to the air once more, the Poison Noumu letting out a monstrous squeal as it came down on them an instant later, shattering the boulder and scattering scales, vomit, and quills.
Before any of them could connect, however, Genki's elytra unfurled, wings buzzing before he took off through the woods at greater speed, corkscrewing and pinwheeling through the air until the woods opened up around them.
"Tsu, are you up for fighting that thing with me?"
As much as she hated to do so after talking such a big game, she shook her head; that many Quirks crammed into one body, she didn't fancy her chances as she was now. Sure, she'd strengthened her body over the past couple days, but barring the fact that she was only barely-rested from the day's Reinforcement, nothing in her arsenal had the "stopping power" that Crawler-sensei had insisted was a must-have for fighting "Artificial Humans" potentially equipped with some form of [Regeneration] Quirk.
Sure, his opinion may've been slanted by the fact that the "Proto-Noumu" he fought could turn into a giant kaiju made out of living plasma, but his words weren't un-true either.
"Alright then. Stay in the shadows and leave this guy to me. Don't go back to the camp by yourself," he said setting her down, the [Frog Form] girl leaping up into the trees right as the Poison Noumu burst into the clearing, a feral howl leaving chapped lips as bulbous eyes swirled around in their sockets before locking hatefully onto Genki. "Heh! I'm surprised you still recognized me. Maybe I didn't change that much after all~"
The thing letting out a loud *SKREEEEEEEEONK!* as Genki thumbed his nose at it, the Poison Noumu fired another globule of projectile vomit which his target dodged.
"Well… At least we have a general idea of where the camp is…" Tsuyu hummed as she looked out into the forest, the impossible-to-miss unnatural blue flames practically a beacon through the darkness.
Which was especially-thick this far out from the nearest town and its own artificial lighting, but she digressed.
*MHA*
While Genki was prodding the Artificial Human to weed out what other Quirks it was hiding, the Vanguard Action Squad's assault on the Yuuei Training Camp continued in earnest. Forests were lit ablaze, rabid dogs were on the hunt, predators of flesh and blood stalked the night, poisonous fog filled the air, Frankensteinian monsters trundled about, and those inspired by the Hero Killer claimed their first victim.
"You… I know who you are!" Spinner gasped amidst their standoff as the line in the sand was drawn. "The one who stripped away the mask and ignorance of Stenhal and gave rise to the Hero Killer! The one that revealed the existence of Sham Heroes, those even more-sinful than Villains who lack determination yet still applaud themselves," the would-be apostle proclaimed as attention slowly shifted toward the outsider in their midst. "The Vigilante of Naruhata. The Janitor of the Fist! Knuckleduster!"
Though an eye may've been scarred over, and a leg in a support brace, that regal bearing, the strength wielded only by an outcast, was unmistakable. In the manifesto left behind by his idol, Knuckleduster's existence represented a turning point in his creedo; the one that allowed him to grow out of his ignorance, who helped him to see the true nature of this world with eyes uncovered, and unclouded.
"I am the faceless ideal. One who acts without really existing. I will dye this world red. The blood that flows from me is proof enough. It is the path I leave in my wake. A path to serve as a guide for others. These bloodstains will never fade."
Just remembering those words gave him goosebumps…~
"Oh my, such a handsome older gentleman~" Magne swooned even as she held Pixie-Bob in place with her industrial-strength magnet.
"Sensei, what in the world are they talking about!?" Iida sputtered, his arm chopping even as his heart pounded in his ears, his form dominated by gooseflesh.
"It's just like the fanboy said. I fought Stain back in the day, when he called himself 'Stendhal' and targeted Villains," Oguro shrugged dismissively. "Of course, the difference between the two of us was, I was a badass ally of justice, and he was just some mad slasher."
The next moment to everyone's confusion, the "Janitor of the Fist" drew a length of rope from his coat, flinging it out to form a literal dividing line in the ground between them.
"You two can walk away from the little lady quietly. That's Option A. Or… you can cross that line, and that's when you'll eat a knuckle sandwich!" Oguro grinned as his blood came alive.
"I see. So that distance represents your attack range," Spinner postulated. "Needless to say, it's a wall of steel. Every fiber of your being is ready to counter."
As the Villains and Knuckleduster bantered, much to the discomfort of the Yuuei students which had yet to go into the forest, Mandalay and Tiger planned in secret.
"Tiger. I've broadcast the order. Ragdoll will make sure the other students are safe, but it's our job to hold them back here," Mandaly broadcast with her [Telepath]. "Class president, get everyone out of here, and remember, no fighting."
"U-Understood! Let's go!" Iida nodded, unsure what to think of Oguro-sensei after learning the Hero Killer held him in such high regard that even his followers would recognize him.
"Iida, go on without me," Izuku muttered as Ojiro, Sero, Kaminari, Sato, and Kirishima were led away. "Kota is still out there. I know where he is!"
As Mandalay grit her teeth, realizing the boy was right, Spinner had made his move, retreating with his makeshift sword in hand before surging forward with all the strength his Mutant-Type Quirk granted him.
Feeling a manic glee of ecstasy wash over him as he trod upon the same pilgrimage of his idol, as soon as the Janitor of the Fist crossed over his own boundary, Iguchi Shuichi realized, he'd fucked up.
"I've got you!" Magne called out using her [Magnetism] at full blast. Pixie-Bob polarized magnetic north while Spinner was magnetic south, Knuckleduster's namesake just-barely rubbed the scales on the end of the Villain's nose as he was yanked back from what would've been a near-fatal blow.
"Whoo! Thanks sis!" Spinner shuddered as he came to a stop, a bead of sweat running down his face while Knuckleduster clicked his tongue.
"Any time," the transgender Villain nodded.
"Still though… Stain was right!" he grinned a grin that had no place on a man who'd just been duped. "This man… is an extraordinary being! Sublime. Transcendent!"
"Looks like Stain isn't the only one with a fanboy," Tiger hummed.
"Bitch at me later," Oguro said as he charged forward, knuckledusters primed before his and Spinner's bodies thrummed magnetic south, their bodies repelled from one another. "That Villain's Quirk attracts and repels based on gender like a magnet, but I don't think they can polarize themselves!"
Though he may've been retired and without a Quirk, the tactical mind and intelligence that'd made O'Clock a force worthy of singling out by All for One himself, was still there.
"Oh my, how perceptive~" Magne cooed, even as she clicked her tongue at being ousted in less than a minute.
*MHA*
While Mandalay and Tiger fought Spinner and Magne, with Oguro rescuing Pixie-Bob amidst the tumult, Koda and Aoyama had hunkered down amidst the underbrush once things had gone south.
Both did so in fear of the flames, poison gas and howling monsters in the dark, but one of them had… additional motives.
*MHA*
In the midst of all this chaos, Hatsume Mei found herself in more danger than she'd ever been while working with more… "excitable" materials back in the Support Course studio.
"Round-Face, how's the leg?" Mei asked worriedly as Round-Face pressed a hand to her thigh.
The identity of their attacker? A pretty-faced girl what cat-like eyes, clad in a seifuku with a Kansai collar, beige cardigan, a piped black mask, a loose-fitting mask around her neck decorated with a carnivorous grin, and a set of blood-sucking DIY support gear that would've just barely gotten a passing grade at Yuuei.
What was even scarier was she knew them by name, though then again, they did make a splash at the Sports Festival; albeit Mei was more flagrant about it.
"Ochako-chan… Mei-chan…! You've got the same scent as me~" the crazy-ish girl giggled with a blush on her face. "The scent of a girl in loooooove~"
"Oh? What's your type?" Mei asked.
"Hatsume, what're you doing?!" Ochako hissed.
"Distracting her. What's it look like?" Mei asked in turn.
"That's never gonna work!"
"Me?" the cat-like girl blinked. "Oh, I love tattered guys reeking of blooood~"
'I literally cannot believe that worked…' Ochako deadpanned.
"What about you, Mei-chan? What's your type~" the cardigan-clad girl swooned.
"Well, he's gotta be easy on the eyes, have a great personality, and OH MY GOD! THERE HE IS! AND HE'S COVEREDIN BLOOD!" she screamed with a pointed finger over the girl's shoulder.
"REALLY?! WHERE~!?"
'HOW DOES SHE KEEP DOING THAT?!' Ochako gawped as the stab-happy girl whirled around, exposing her back to them.
*FWOOMP!*
"ACK!" Himiko cried as a net capsule suddenly exploded mid-flight and dropped her to the ground.
"RUN! RUN FROM THE THIRSTY YANDERE GIRL!" Mei cried as she dragged Ochako away.
"HOW ARE YOU SO STRONG?!"
*MHA*
As Genki fought the Poison Noumu which had seemingly singled him out, striking out at whatever body parts weren't covered in quills or poisonous globules, his every spare sense was dedicated toward assimilating every scrap of information he possibly could about the Artificial Human's amalgamized Quirks.
[Venomous Fangs] like one would find in some snake Heteromorphs, intended on injecting a poisonous cocktail directly into a target. The thing had tried, but he never stayed still long-enough for it to sink its teeth in.
[Corrosive Vomit] did exactly as said on the tin, though whether the strengthened throat muscles to projectile vomit were their own Sub-Quirk or just a genetic alteration based on certain animal DNA was neither here nor there.
[Venomous Quills] because the trees that were struck when he dodged began to wither and die. He had no way of knowing if the original owner of this Quirk could also shoot them off or if that action too was another sub-Quirk from someone else.
[Poison Mane] and [Poison Wings], both moth-like and capable of emitting a poisonous powder. The wings had been too big and too dangerous to do anything directly about, but one blast of his Goki Oil Cannon made the Noumu look like it had a giant drowned rat around its neck.
[Toxic Claws], which were easy to get around because of the thing's massive arms.
[Whip Tail], more plant-like than animal like, made attacking from behind as much of a nightmare than its [Poison Wings] did, and just like everything else on its body, it seemed geared toward delivering a poisonous cocktail that killed everything in its wake. The mere act of swishing it against the ground had been enough to kill grass, and everything living in the dirt besides.
In summary: nothing he didn't already know.
However, something he'd figured out was with so-many Quirks crammed into one body, as-mindless as the thing was, it seemed to be only-intelligent-enough to use a single Quirk at any given moment. Add in the fact that the disparate Quirks were so-blatantly obvious in their movements, and it might as well have been sending written notices of its attacks out with snail mail.
'Still… I might not be a tree-hugger like some people, but even I'm affronted by all this needless carnage,' Genki spat as he eyed the dying plant life around them and on the path they'd taken. If the Poison Villain had been a biohazard before, it was an outright environmental hazard now, one likely meant to cause maximum collateral and, as a side-effect, portray Heroes as "bumbling and incompetent" before a ravenous media always eager to demonize since that kind of news sold the best.
His thoughts were interrupted by the familiar tingle of Mandalay's [Telepath] in the back of his brain.
"Everyone in Class A and Class B! In the name of the Pro Hero, Eraserhead, you are granted permission to engage in combat! I repeat! Everyone in Class A and Class B! You are granted permission to engage in combat!"
"Yeah, no shit!" Genki spat, assuming Tsuyu had gotten the same message as well.
And Tsuyu too had gotten the same message, though that was hardly what she was focusing on.
Genki's agitation was so-great, that the [Frog Form] girl could easily see from her perch, all the way back into the trees once the Poison Noumu turned the nearest ring of trees into a splash zone. If the agitated buzzing of Genki's wings wasn't some sort of "tell", she didn't know what was.
*Skritchskritchskritchskritchskritchskritchskritchskritchskritchskritch*
"*Kero*?"
*Skritchskritchskritchskritchskritchskritchskritchskritchskritchskritch*
'That noise… Could it be…?'
*Skritchskritchskritchskritchskritchskritchskritchskritchskritchskritch*
Looking down at the forest floor, even in the filtered moonlight through the canopy, it was impossible to miss the fact that the forest floor had begun moving.
Thousands, nay, tens of thousands of insects in a moving carpet, were all scuttling towards a singular fixed point, and it was at that moment that Tsuyu realized, the fluttering of Genki's wings wasn't in agitation. It was some kind of signal, though whether it was acoustical or just a means to spread out pheromones, she didn't know.
While her entomophagy had given her a knowledge of insectoid trivia, like the fact that there were roughly 1.4 billion insects to every one person on the planet, what she didn't know was if there was some kind of "universal" signal for controlling insects, if Genki had always been able to call out insects in such numbers, or if his power had only been strengthened by his own Awakening.
And unlike that Capture the Flag exercise where it was only urban cockroaches that had heeded the call, now there was an entire ecosystem brought to bear; centipedes, millipedes, hornets, beetles, dragonflies, grasshoppers, mantises. And even though she'd already eaten scarcely an hour ago, she felt her appetite roused by the sight.
The Noumu on the other hand, finally seemed to take notice as a chitinous carpet began to converge all around it. Eyeballs swiveling in their sockets as it appraised the new threat, it redirected its gaze towards Genki, his wings still buzzing and fluttering.
"You like it? It's their favorite song," Genki hummed as he continued fluttering his wings. "DINNER TIIIIIIME!"
In a sight that both terrified and inflamed her hunger, the next moment all the insects in the clearing converged on the Noumu, its body positively dripping with attack pheromones. Some of the insects died instantly when the thing's poisonous pustules burst, but dozens wasn't even a drop in the bucket when faced with the wrath of a vengeful ecosystem. Within seconds the Noumu was covered head to toe, its screams signaling that the bugs had gone in for the kill, but even as its body was assailed by mandibles and stingers, the one part of its anatomy it was truly determined to protect was its exposed brain.
"Seems like a glaring weak point if you ask me *kero*" the [Frog Form] girl used. "Wait… Why is its brain blinking?"
*Snap*Pop*Crack*Splurch*
"DAMN!" Genki swore as he leapt away from the writhing mound of arthropods, plumes of poison gas spilling out in all directions as the thing began to mutate, the bits of plastic protruding from the Noumu's brain glinting red at the tips.
"Not good…" Tsuyu muttered as the thing doubled in size, growing even more monstrous as it towered over Genki, its eyes turning red and bloodshot.
"The QAD… It might be boosting this thing's Quirks, but it's burning out its brain like a fuse," Genki muttered as he watched the exposed brain tissue slowly necrotize in the moonlight. "But still, if it gets anywhere near the camp, everyone's done for!"
Fluttering his wings in a different pattern from before, beads of pheromone-laced oil dappling his skin, the next moment hundreds of cockroaches scampered up his body, enveloping him until he was clad in a living ghillie suit of blattodea.
The monstrous Poison Noumu letting out a bellowing roar, with a swipe of its arms it hurled dozens of poisonous quills at the ground, Genki bolting out of the way. The thing firing a continuous stream of corrosive vomit like a fire hose, the cockroaches clinging to his body began to flutter their wings, lightening his load and allowing him to accelerate to maximum clip with no buildup. Though the thing lashed out with fangs, vomit, quills, wings, claws, and tail, none of its attacks could meaningfully connect, and those that grazed him simply shaved away the blattodea clinging to him like scales of armor.
"YOU AREN'T… GETTING ANYWHERE NEAR… THAT CAMP!"
Suddenly changing course and blitzing his way through a deluge of poisonous attacks that'd kill most with a direct hit, heeding the advice that Kabutomushi amongst others had given him, he aimed to kill with every one of his punches.
"DEVIL BUG RUSH!"
The *Dondondondondondondondondondondon!* of piston-like strikes to follow were all aimed at the things face, neck, and brain, each one powerful enough to cripple if not outright kill most Humans without durability-boosting Quirks. The onslaught went on for a long minute straight, and even as its brain was slowly turned to mush, the Noumu lashed back, only for the wrath of a vengeful ecosystem to throw itself in the way. Though a single shell of chitinous armor would never hold up to such a monstrosity, tens of thousands weaving themselves into layers of armor or attacking with the intent to devour flesh, revealed why no-one, not even an Artificial Human, should fuck with mother nature.
Then, as suddenly as the fighting began, it had all come to an end. Everything from the neck up reduced to a mushy, ash-colored paste, the entirety of the Poison Noumu's cerebral tissue was a flattened mixture of exhausted brain matter, insect guts, and ruined plastic.
"Hah… hah… hah… How… do you like me now?" Genki asked as he gasped for breath as the exhausted suit of armor fell away from his body.
*GROWROWROWR!*
"Oh what the fuck now…!?" Genki raged as the thing's belly began to gurgle, its body swelling up like a cadaver filled with gas.
And then in that instant he realized-
"IT'S GONNA BLOOOOOW! TSU! RUN!" he cried as he bolted into the forest, no time at all to look for her as the thing's flesh continued to swell and bubble, the repugnant body growing even more-so until it'd ballooned to the size of a one-bedroom apartment.
*KERSPLATBOOM!*
Everything caught in the blast radius was thusly smothered in poison that burned like acid, the acre of land rendered so-toxic that nothing would grow again for a hundred years.
Genki collapsed to the ground after only narrowly avoiding the blast. Had something like that gone down inside of a city, had it gone straight for some sort of [Self-Destruct] right off the bat, the death toll would've been catastrophic. Perhaps that was why, when Quirks became prominent-enough, there were massive purges in the middle east of terrorist groups that used suicide bombing as a weapon. Because barely any Pro Hero could contend with a man suddenly setting off a suicide vest in the middle of a crowd, let alone a meet-and-greet.
"TSU! TSU, IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, I'M HEADING BACK TO CAMP!" Genki called out. "MEET ME AT THE SIDE OF THE BLAST ZONE CLOSEST TO CAMP!"
Covering his mouth with a hand and holding his breath on the off-chance the thing had released poisonous vapors into the air, Genki strafed ground zero of the Noumu's final gambit until he caught sight of unnatural blue flames in the middling distance. Before he could call out to Tsuyu again-
"GYAAAAAAA!"
"T-Tsu?!"
"UGH…! AHHHHHHH!"
"TSUYU!" Genki cried as he ran toward the source of those agonized cries. 'No no no no no no no! Hang on, Tsu! Just hang on!'
The next moment he found her, laid out on the ground away from the moonlight, limbs splayed out at odd angles.
"TSU!"
Closing the distance between them and sliding in on his knees, in that instance of desperation, where his attention was focused on only one thing, he was assailed on all sides. Flash bangs, strobe lights, airhorns, BB scatter grenades; if it could divide a person's attention, soak up brainpower and oxygen, it was all thrown at him from every direction.
And right after he had moved to shield Tsuyu's head and torso from what was going on around him, a single strike had bypassed all of his senses, skewering him in the back with a single needle-like point.
Swinging out with a backhanded fist as he turned to face his attacker, the next instant his body went slack, dropping to the ground like one of the Pussycats' sacks of potatoes.
'W-What is… this? My body… can't move…!'
The crunching of leaves and branches underfoot drawing his eyes, through the moonlight he spied a young woman with short wavy blond hair and chestnut-colored eyes. She had a large bust line, a thin short figure, and lightly tanned skin. Her attire consisted of a white lab-coat over a red vest and short black skirt, while swaying lazily behind her was a scorpion-like tail, the head of the stinger and half the tail replaced with some kind of mechanical apparatus.
"Sa…sori…!"
"Oh, so you've heard of me~" the pretty blond cooed as she took a knee beside him, heedless of the lacy black panty shot she was flashing her captive audience.
Genki could only grit his teeth in impotent fury as the woman condescendingly pat his cheek.
"Do you like it?" she asked sweetly as his fingers and eyes twitched. "It's a special nerve agent I whipped up for your auntie, but as soon as I found out the League was gonna attack some Hero Daycare, I just had to drop by~ Figured I'd give my new blend a test run, nip a bud before it could bloom~"
Tsuyu, infuriated that she'd been used as live bait, could only watch in horror as the Villain suddenly coiled her tail around Genki's neck and yanked him from the ground before delivering a brutal roundhouse to the ribs that sent him flying with a loud *CRACK!*
"As for this nerve agent of mine…~" the Villain called Sasori hummed as she stalked him, hips swaying. "Specially-made to deal with Arthropod Mutants, just like you. Even added a splash of Ethyl Chloride for good measure~" she cooed as he coughed up blood. "Not that you'll be alive long-enough for it to matter~"
"Gen…ki…!"
"Oh, don't you worry, Kero-chan~ I'll send you up to heaven right behind him~" the Villainess cooed over her shoulder, relishing in the [Frog Form] girl's futile efforts.
Sasori stooping down beside her prey, began to strip him; a task made all the easier since he was only wearing knee-length pants and boxers. At task that made Tsuyu's blood boil.
"A state where you can't reach death, with only your consciousness distinctly left. Not being able to move, not being able to say a word, it's a perfect blend," she cooed as she drew a scalpel from her coat, sensually dragging her tongue along the flat of the blade. "I won't kill you too quickly. In order for Sasori to eat the finely diced immobile feast of hers, I shall slowly, take my time killing you~!"
"GYAAAAAAA!"
"UGH…! AHHHHHHH!"
"GYA-GUH…UGHH…"
"While I'm savoring your fear of death, you will be completely unable to say a word," Sasori mused as she played the contents of a high-tech recorder. "The moment you're released from your paralysis, you'll let out in a single breath all those voices you've been collecting inside."
Tsuyu's stomach twisted in knots as she realized the voice that'd been used to lure Genki in, wasn't a mix of stock sound effects from the internet, but had come from some other poor girl that'd been tortured to death. One that had never been saved.
"Intercepting those and collecting them… That is my hobby~" Sasori grinned as she straddled her near-naked prey, sliding the recorder into her cleavage. "Your sense of feeling will return in ten… twenty minutes," she mused aloud as she brandished her scalpel, an insane look plastered upon her face. "I wonder what kinda voice… you'll sing in for me…~"
Cue My Hero Academis OST – You Say Run
As the Villainess worked with her scalpel, slowly tracing a bubbling crimson line down Genki's abdomen, Tsuyu for the first time in her life narrowed her eyes and grit her teeth. Her pupils narrowing as an unyielding rage began to bubble up inside of her, her heart pounded in her breast and the neurotoxin in her own body began to burn like napalm.
Sasori, lost in her own little world and reveling Genki's defiant expression, even as she began the first of two lateral cuts on his abdomen, suddenly had her honed battle senses go off as dried leaves burst and branches burst under unseen heels.
Before she could move to dodge, her prey's hand clamped down around her ankle, opening her up to the brutal punch that connected right with her face, the powerful blow sending her flying.
Tumbling across the forest floor, with a practiced motion Sasori stabbed her tail into the ground, arresting her momentum as she got ready to assess her situation.
For a moment she thought that one of the Pros from the camp had caught up to them and gotten the drop on her, but no. Even in the pale moonlight, she could see that the frog-like girl from before had managed to get back up to her feet, only there was something... different about her.
Her pupils, once oval-shaped and vacant-looking, had suddenly morphed into horizontal bars that floated atop a sea of gold. The upper and outer skin surrounding her eyes also turning a vivid shade of gold, while running down her jaw and into her shirt from behind her ears were long ridges of black gold-accented skin. Her musculature, once unassuming and plain, had morphed into that of a mature swimmer, especially around the legs, her proportions more conventionally womanly as she gained several centimeters in height, filling out her clothes with more than just muscle.
All in all, the frog-girl looked like she'd inherited traits from the domestic Giant Toad.
"I won't… let you… hurt him…!" the vaguely toad-like girl croaked furiously, bubbling rage barely contained inside of her as she crouched protectively over her bleeding friend, just as he had done for her.
"Ah…?" Sasori blinked with a flat look even as her facial muscles convulsed. "My nerve agent should've had you down for the count."
"Did you forget? Amphibians can also be poisonous~" Tsuyu smirked, a heightened 'elasticity' from her new body yet another benefit of her Awakening.
"Heh… I guess these slow-acting drugs won't work, will they?" Sasori hummed aloud as something in her mechanical tail-tip clicked, the neurotoxin in the chamber swapping out. "I guess I'll need to use something a little more… fatal, ne?" she grinned as her tail coiled over her, poised to attack, a drop of liquid sliding from the needle-like stinger.
"You'll try. You will try," Tsuyu said lowering herself into a stance.
To her, this wasn't like with Innsmouth, who had been motivated solely by fiscal gain. This Villain, Sasori… She was literally a psychotic killer who joined the League of Villains just for the chance to feed her depravity with torture and murder. And if Genki had been singled out, just who else had a hit out on them?
And her body… Her body felt like it was burning up inside. Whether it was her own righteous fury, the Awakening, the Neurotoxin, or some combination of the three, she didn't know, but the frog/toad-like girl knew that if she didn't do something soon, Genki would bleed out, completely powerless to do a thing about it.
Meanwhile, on Sasori's end of things, the tingling in her face was little more than a minor irritant, but what truly infuriated her wasn't the fact that her prey had gotten up and was fighting back. What raised her metaphorical hackles was that as the cloud coverage washed over the moon overhead once more, the girl activated some sort of [Camouflage] ability, her golden bar-pupiled eyes the last to vanish into the night.
The reason that Anura possessed horizontal pupils, as did animals like goats, sheep, deer, and horses, was that it allowed the iris to contract and expand more dramatically; a useful trait for nocturnal species whose eyes are designed for low light levels. And while at first glance the scorpion appeared to be a Crustacean, like the crab or lobster, in actuality they were closer to arachnids. And like most arachnids, they had very poor eyesight, instead relying on supplementary sensory input to attack prey not in straight-up combat, but in ambush tactics.
In summary, with her previous bag of tricks exhausted against the son of the Former-No.2 Hero, combined with her prey's [Camouflage] in the middle of the night and her own middling eyesight, the gap in power between them had become uncomfortably narrow…
Or at least it would be, if she didn't pack an NVG just for that very occasion~
Drawing the military-grade tech from her coat, before she could secure it to her face, a long fleshy tongue shot out of the darkness and smashed the Support Item into oblivion like a sledgehammer, bits of metal and plastic threatening to take out an eye.
"Damn!" Sasori swore as the tongue retreated, sweeping out at the ground and churning up the forest floor before vanishing altogether. With dirt and leaves and branches kicked up by the powerful oral muscle, she had no way of telling whether her opponent had stood her ground or taken off into the trees.
Squinting her eyes to see that her prize remained where she'd left it, the Villain strode forward to make use of this leverage, only for that same tongue to shoot out of the dark and coil around her neck from the side. Her tail twitched to lash out at it, but the odds that she'd over-penetrate and poison herself were too high for comfort.
In the next instant she was yanked completely off her feet, the forest floor to the side exploding as powerful legs launched their owner through the air, the serial killer having stars explode behind her eyes as Tsuyu hit the Villain with everything she had. There was too much at stake for anything less.
The peripheral vision courtesy of her bar-shaped pupils alerting her to the sudden movement from over her shoulder, in an impressive show of flexibility the girl kicked off her opponent, corkscrewing in mid-air right as the augmented scorpion tail sailed past her. Sasori stopping it a mere inch from her own face, the next moment Tsuyu's powerful hands took hold of the appendage, her foot hooking around an ankle before she brought the stinger down into the woman's exposed thigh, ripping out a scream from the woman not too dissimilar to one of her recordings.
The Villain wrenching the poisonous tail from her flesh and swinging it out at Tsuyu even as she vanished into the dark once again, Sasori in a fit of panic swung her tail around herself in wide sweeping arcs, desperate to take someone with her.
Fear-filled eyes landing on the prone form of Genki, she scrambled toward him, tail poised to sting him to death only for that same damned tongue to shoot out and coil around the base of her stinger before powerful muscles wrenched her from her feet. Her stomach feeling like it wanted to fly up out of her throat, the next moment entire star systems exploded behind her eyes as she was dashed against a Japanese Cedar.
The Villain, sliding to the ground in a crumpled heap, wondered how her own neurotoxin could've been turned against her like this before it dawned on her.
The frog-girl had also been poisonous, and while it was little more than an irritant, when it and her own Fatal Scorpio had met in the middle inside of her...!
"Fffff…! Fucking… frooooog...!"
END OST
As Sasori curled in on herself like a dying arachnid, Tsuyu faded back into visibility once again. The coloration in and around her eyes vanishing and the poison glands running down her ears receding, she hobbled over to where Genki had lain through the whole ordeal before falling flat on her face.
While her Awakening had enabled her to power through Sasori's paralytic nerve agent, that boost had been extremely brief, and an Awakening for someone with a Mutant-type Quirk was exhausting in of just itself because it devoured all available calories in the body to promote rapid cellular development. Genki had instinctively known he was on the precipice of molting to a more-mature state and had gorged himself, so as to stockpile the necessary resources to craft a new body via metamorphosis. For the amphibious Tsuyu however…
Pulling herself up to him with the last of her strength, before her fumes could evaporate as well, Tsuyu pulled her shirt up over her head. Folding it up and pressing it to the bleeding wound, she collapsed atop him a moment later in a boneless heap.
"Hang on… Genki… You're going… to be okay…" Tsuyu panted as her new bar-shaped pupils turned to him, only to get a pained wheeze in return as Sasori's parting gift continued to ravage his body.
*MHA*
AN:
One thing that grinds my gears in storytelling is rehashing unchanged ground to pad out a chapter's word-count, hence why the bulk of the Vanguard Action Squad's attack was left un-narrated. And ultimately, this is still Genki's story.
Well, his and those whose lives he's directly impacted.
The "Poison Noumu" was something Spaceman and I had been planning for a good while, probably as far back as the "Internships Arc", but the addition of Sasori from Murata Shinya's Arachnid and Caterpillar, as well as Tsuyu having her own Awakening, was a relatively recent development in the creative process.
With that in mind and the Kamino Nightmare on the horizon, I hope to hear from all you beautiful people soon, and I'll see you next time on Young Justice: The Hunter.
GO BEYOND!
EXCELSIOR!