Drageria

Ch. 33: A Strange Reputation part. 3

Seven. That's the number they had to fight. Thanks to Momo, it was no longer eight. But without that eight, they had no leader, no focus, no fight. And they were quickly overtaken….for the moment. Soon, a fight broke out between the two groups, and sides and challenges were met. While everyone got one opponent, Momo had two. But that didn't deter her one bit as she took on two people while still in a frenzy! Kirishima took one, Ochako took one, Izuku took one, and Shinso took one. The fight wasn't tough; it was apparent that these guys were just a bunch of brassieres. Tough guys who took on people far smaller and weaker than them. In no way could they take one and actually fight, especially against us.

The woman, Namiel as she was called, drilled those kids so hard their bones still remember the strain! But it paid off. These guys were nothing but cannon fodder for them. But things got dicey for a second as one of the crooks tried to launch a metal spike at Shinso's blind side. Forchantlyt, Kirishima blocked it in time, looked back at him, and smiled. Seeing that smile and that genuine kindness from him, even after living in this place for so long, Shinso was still not used to it. Shinso quickly got one of the crooks to reply to him and was put under his control, where he told him to fight his friends.

A memory flashed through his mind during this brief reprieve in the fight. A memory of his life before all of this. His childhood was like any other until he turned four when he unknowingly made his mom do everything he wanted for a whole day. After which, he was diagnosed and given the oh-so-clever name for his quirk, BrainWashing. Not Mind Sliver, not Persuasion, just BrainWashing! After that, things took a very unpleasant turn for him. People of all ages distanced themselves from him because of his quirk, thinking he would BrainWash them into doing anything he desired or becoming a future villain. He was treated like crap his whole life from then on. At first, it was silence, then snickers and side glances, then hateful words, and finally violence.

Though he wasn't the only one to suffer, his parents did much the same from their own quirks that made them look villainous. But they weren't bad; they were never bad. They couldn't control how theft was born, and people still shunned them for it. It is one thing for a couple to be labeled as evil, but giving birth to a child with the same stigma was all over for them. Things only got worse for the couple, and before he knew it, he had to take a more apathetic and aggressive stance against people just for his own protection. Even still, he came home every day with new injuries, just like his parents. Then it happened.

One day, his dad went out for work and never came back. His mom left and came back in tears while clutching a photo of her now-late husband. His mother fell into a depression, and before he knew it, things escalated further. The town they lived in thought they should take justice into their own hands, and as his mother lay on the ground, drunk and unable to do anything, the flames consumed his house. He escaped, but not before using his quirk for the first and hopefully last act of villainy he would ever commit. And he told the angry mob to warm themselves within the fire.

After that, he heard Tachibana's message and accepted it with nothing left.

After the memory flashed away from his mind, he was brought back to the fight, and things really took a turn for the worse in the three seconds it took him to recall all of his tragic backstories. Well, things were just fine since all the other crooks were taken out of the fight and detained by Momo, wrapping them up in really thick ropes. However, it took Shinso a full minute to realize that he had done his math wrong. If there were eight and Momo took out one in the beginning, and all of them got on each, then that means that there is still one left! But….where was that one?

But that's when he saw the last crook, standing in the corner and charging up some kind of attack. He boasted about how, in the next 40 seconds, he would have built up enough charge to blow this place sky-high, taking them and their secret operation to the grave! But Kirishima had other ideas and tried to throw him into some nearby barrel to mitigate the explosion and hopefully knock him out. It didn't work. Not only was the crook not unconscious, but as Kirishima was giving his team a victory smile, Momo realized that he had thrown the self-destruction crook into barrels of high explosive material! Losing his smile, he ran towards the crook and jumped onto him, trying to cover the explosion while Momo made a huge metal wall to protect themself, the crooks, and the captured animals, including the baby panda!

The crook exploded, and the explosion and the explosive material created a blast so powerful that it rocketed Kirishima out of the hidden cave alongside several other barrels of the explosive material! He flew through the solid rock like a cork from a bottle and tumbled through the air before landing on one of the many open grazing pastures for the livestock that fed Drageria! He landed on the ground and nearly got half buried from the impact, but thanks to his quirk, he was only mildly injured and bruised with some strain. Getting up to dust himself off, he quickly heard the sound of something whistling in the air. Looking up, he saw it was the explosive barrels, those ones that hadn't exploded yet, hurtling toward the earth! Luckily for him, they were not falling in his direction, which was good. But they were aiming for the livestock, not good!

Dragerian livestock were in a class all on their own! Pigs were the size of horses and heavily armored, cows were essentially two in one, sheep were huge and covered in wool so thick they could bounce off anti-tank ammo, and chickens...don't even get started on them! The barrels exploded within the grazing animal, and unsurprisingly, they formed a stampede! A stampede that was headed right for Kirishima! So with to run or hide, he took a defense position, activated his quirk to its upper echelons, and braced himself! The panicked animals all ran towards and then over him! Kirishima held on for as long as he could until the very last one hopped over him, but not before bouncing off his stomach.

Kirishima released his hardening and lay sprawled across the ground, looking up at the sky. Many, many, many animal footprints littered his uniform and face.

After lying for a long time and trying to regain his senses after being mobbed, he was soon found by his other friends, who helped him to his feet. After getting up, he rubbed the back of his head and said to them, "Sorry about that, guys. I kind of panicked and just reacted."

The teens all looked at one another before looking back at him, and Momo said, "You don't have to be sorry."

"Sure, you caused the explosion.", Shinso added.

"But you kinda saved us.", Uraraka inputs.

"If you hadn't covered yourself in the explosion and pushed all of it, including that explosion guy, in one spot, the blast would've hit all over.", Izuku commemorates him with a shoulder slap.

Kirishima looked at them with confusion before asking, "I thought you guys would be mad at me."

Again, they looked at one another before looking back at him, where Uraraka asked, "Why would we be mad?"

"It's not like you had much choice.", Momo adds.

"Well, I acted recklessly.", Kirishima said in dismay while looking off to the side.

"Ironically, acting recklessly again got us out of it.", Izuku smiled, and Shinso awkwardly nodded.

Kirishima did not expect this outcome at all. He expected the opposite, to be honest. In his old life, every time he tried to go out of his way to do good, he'd end up hurting someone else or himself, but usually the first thing. The first time it happened was when he turned four. Sure, his life was pretty standard for a middle-class Japanese home until he woke up one night and cut himself with his own quirk. It was given the name Hardening alongside a new scar over his right eye.

After that, things slowly went south for him. He idolized the hero Crimson Riot and wanted to be like him. But everyone always made fun of him or tried to dissuade him from such a dream. Sighting that his quirk wasn't flashy enough for her life, it was too simple; it was too dangerous; it wasn't useful, and so on and so forth.

But he never let that discourage him. He always remembered his idol's words about strength, willpower, and the determination to do anything! And so he tried to live by those words, running headlong into things without thinking them through and promptly getting himself or others into more trouble. It got so bad that his middle school wanted to kick him out several times! So, in his last year of middle school, he slowed down, tried to think things through, and attempted to change his physical outlook. Dying his hair red, just like his old hero. But that's when his breaking point was hit.

His parents caught him when he was only halfway through, grabbed his dye and his hands, and attempted to wash the dye out, but to no avail. Then they went on a tiered, completely fed up with their child, yelling at him about how he needed to stop for their family's image; he wasn't going to be a hero, his quirk was no good, and he wasn't going to change himself in any way! Even if this version of him is horribly bullied, when he finishes high school, he'll get a normal job like everyone else!

That was it, so he broke free of his parents and ran from his home at night! Then he heard Tachibana's message and took it. Seeing as no one believed in him and the only one who did, it was hard to hear over the roars of many. Now, he was somewhere else and could be someone else without judgment, and he couldn't be happier.

Shinso said, "But now you've created a new problem." They all looked at the tired teen.

Tachibana rubbed his eyes as he tried to make the sequence of events coherent. He said, "So, following a panda to an illegal drug and poaching ring, the five of you intervene, causing an explosion."

"Kirishima's fault.", Shinso blabbered out with feathers and fur in his hair.

"Hey!", the redhead shouted back, his body littered in hood marks.

"That explains how the stampede started.", Tachibana noted while noting it down.

Picking up some other papers, he asked, "Okay, so how does this lead to Eri getting vaulted onto…." He paused as he read, his eyes growing wide before exclaiming, "A lion!? Please explain that alongside the…mochi cart incident?" Tachibana asked in confusion while looking at them, completely lost to the plot. All the while, Eri sat in his lap and fiddled with a toy, unaware of what was being spoken of.