Back again to finally start the USJ arc! Some things will remain canon, others similar and others changed. Hope you all like it. I don´t know what´s going on with fanfiction bots, but I just don´t receive any messages. Based on what I read on others comments, it happens from time to time. Anyway, hope you are liking this story and thanks for the follows. When I first started to write I thought that nobody would give me a single glimpse. I´m glad to know that there are people out there who are enjoying my story. To those who don´t like it, then simply don´t read it. If it is because of grammar issues, then I truly apologize. I swear I´m doing my best to improve my writing skills.
Enjoy chapter 15!
15
Ochako stared at the screen. Next, she looked at the door. Back to the screen. Door. Screen. Door. Screen.
Still nothing.
"She hasn't texted you either, Uraraka-san?" Iida asked her. Ochako just shook her head. Iida frowned, he too was worried about their friend's absence.
"Is it about Izumi-san?" Yaoyorozu asked them.
"I sent her a few texts after I got home, but she never answered back." "I did the same. Midoriya-san must be really upset about what happened back at the cafeteria."
"Well, we can't exactly blame her. I'm an only child, but I'm sure I would have responded the same way if it had been my younger sibling in that situation." Yaoyoruzu said.
"If it had been Satsuki or Samidare the ones trembling in fear while a bunch of people just trampled all over each other and potentially hurt them, then I would not have been responsible for my actions, kero." Tsu-san admitted. "Izumi-san is overprotective of Eri-chan. We shouldn't be surprised if she decides not to attend classes today. She probably would prefer to stay home and comfort her imouto, kero."
Ochako nodded solemnly at that. She, too, knew how much Izumi-chan cared for Eri. Even a blind person would see it.
Most of her former classmates and childhood friends who have younger siblings tended to complain about how annoying they were and didn´t like presenting them to their friends. They always moaned about having to babysit their younger siblings and having to share their room and things.
Izumi never did one of those things.
When they first began to chat and talk with each other, Izumi would always mention Eri. Little stories like Eri tasting her first ice cream, or watching a children's movie, or petting a dog on the street. She even showed her some photos of both of them during their tea parties!
Izumi loved and considered Eri to be her imouto. The fact that they didn't share didn't matter to her. They were sisters, and that was it.
"Iida-san, Uraraka-san, how about we share our notes with Izumi-san so she doesn´t get behind on our classes?" proposed Yaoyorozu.
"That sounds like a great idea, Yaoyorozu-san." "I agree. As Midoriya-san´s friends and classmates, it is our duty to help her keep up with her studies!"
"Who are we helping?" "You Midoriya! Midoriya?!" Iida's head snapped to the doorway, where a confused Izumi stood.
"Izumi-chan! You came!" Ochako exclaimed.
"Of course I came. Why wouldn't I come?" Izumi scratched the back of her head, confused at her friend's behavior.
"We thought that you would stay at home with Eri-chan, kero." Tsu-san explained the greenete. When Izumi heard that, her shoulders sagged and a depressed look overcame her face.
"Izumi-chan! What's wrong? Is Eri-chan ok?" Ochako asked afraid.
"Eri," Izumi mumbled. "Eri told me to not miss my classes." "Eh?"
Izumi sighed depodently. "She said that I can't miss any classes if I want to be a strong hero like All Might." Her lips twitched upwards while she spoke, "And that she didn't want to waste time cowering in her room, frightened." Izumi had been so proud when Eri told her and their mother that. Even though her little sister was still shaken by what happened, she refused to be cowed down. She refused to be afraid anymore.
Izumi had never felt more proud of Eri than that morning when she announced loudly that she wasn't going to hide away anymore.
"So, Eri-chan came to the school too?" Yaoyorozu asked.
"Nah. My mom said that today is 'Take your youngest daughter to work day'." She grumbled.
After Eri had made her little speech, her mother had hugged her and told her how proud she was of her. And then proclaimed that it was a perfect day for them to have a mother-daughter bonding day.
When Izumi tried to chim in by reminding her that she too was her daughter, she said that as Eri's aneue it was Izumi's duty to set up a good example. And playing hooky was definitely not a good example.
"Soo, you're jealous that Eri didn't come to school with you, kero" Tsu summarized bluntly.
Izumi's blushing face made it clear that the frog girl was absolutely right.
"Isn't it a good thing, though?" Sero asked. "That Eri is bouncing back from that mess."
"It's not that, Sero-kun. It's that our Class President is having a hard time letting her adorable imouto out of her protective watch." Ashido explained to the other boy.
"It's not like I'm a mother hen." She protested weakly.
"Yes, you are Midoriya. Now sit down. You're wasting time." Aizawa-sensei grumbled behind her.
"Sensei!" Izumi paled at his annoyed face.
"Sit down." "Yes sensei."
Izumi quickly sat down on her seat before her sensei could get more annoyed.
Aizawa eyed his students.
"Midoriya, since no one was hurt, I won't punish you for your actions yesterday. However, remember: you're a student of UA's Hero Course and Class President. You can't go around picking fights with your classmates just because they behave like a bunch of morons. That goes for the rest of you." All Class 1-A straightened out.
"You are the future generation of heroes in Japan. There will be lots of pressure on your shoulders. Losing your cool against civilians is not a good precedent. No matter the circumstances." He gave Izumi a pointed glance. The trainer nodded mutedly; she was aware that she had almost screwed up yesterday.
If her classmates hadn't been there to back her up and Eri hadn't needed her to calm down, then she would have left Hakamo-o have his way with the idiots that almost traumatized Eri.
The only reason she didn't go after the press was that they were already gone. And that her mother, All Might, Nezu-san, Aizawa-sensei, and everybody else would be sorely disappointed in her.
"In other business, this afternoon's heroic class will be in an off-premises facility. You will only need your hero uniform. The rest of your stuff can be held here. We will be returning to the school after class ends. Midoriya, Yaoyorozu, you are responsible for making sure that your fellow classmates get on the bus in time and form."
"Yes, Sensei," both girls nodded.
"Sensei, is there a particular reason for this class to be outside the school?" asked Yaoyorozu.
Aizawa nodded. "It will be a Rescue Class. We will be focusing on different scenarios that you will face as heroes. All Might, myself, and a third teacher will be participating in these exercises."
Excited whispers broke around the room. They would get to see more heroes up close, showing off their best moves.
"The other day, you showed your battle abilities. Today, you will see a different side of heroism. Don't take it lightly."
After that, the regular classes started. During the rest of the morning classes and while enjoying another delicious meal made by Lunch Rush, the students of Class 1-A kept thinking and wondering about their upcoming afternoon class.
Some, like Ochako, were bursting with excitement. The gravity user was practically hopping in her seat the moment she entered the bus.
"You really look excited, Uraraka," commented Jirou.
Ochako rubbed the back of her head sheepishly. "Yeah; thing is, I have always admired rescue heroes. I always wanted to be like them. Especially Thirteen! She is my personal heroine. I actually based my hero costume on hers!" she admitted proudly.
"That explains that astronauts look!" laughed Sero. "I thought that it was because of your quirk. Talk about coincidences, huh?"
"Well, the theme similarity between our quirks was what first caught my attention. But then I just became her fan because of how great she is!"
"I get it, Uraraka-san! I feel the same for Crimson Riot! He is the manliest hero ever!" Kirishima joined the conversation with his common exuberance.
"Shouldn't All Might be the manliest then? Since he is then Number 1," pointed out Sato. Kirishima shook his head vigorously. "All Might is an entire category of manliest of his own! No one can compare to him. But Crimson Riot was the one who taught me what a hero is supposed to be!"
"Kirishima isn't wrong about that," said Izumi. "All Might is really a category of his own when it comes to heroics. He is really amazing. No, more than amazing. He is unique. He is the reason I always wanted to be a hero."
Years ago, before having a quirk, before meeting Riley and becoming a trainer, she would have been unable to admit it. Now, she could say it proudly out loud with a smile on her face.
"All Might inspired you to become a hero, Midoriya?" asked Iida. She nodded. "The video of his debut when he saved hundreds of people. When I first saw it, I was completely hooked. I must have watched it hundreds of times as a kid."
"Who hasn´t? I heard that thing is still ranking among the most viewed videos ever." Kaminari mentioned.
"Really!? Man, I know it was a popular video, having All Might´s debut and all, but still." Ashido was awed by it. "I hope one day I can get half as famous!"
"With my quirk, I will certainly be popular, mon ami. After all, it's extremely flashy!" "As long as you don´t get a belly ache." Ashido´s comment made Aoyama deflunk on his seat.
"If we are talking about flashy quirks, then Midoriya, Bakugou, and Todoroki are at the top of the list." Jirou commented.
"Me?" "Yep." "My quirk only increases my strength and speed. It's not that flashy." She protested.
"You have never looked at yourself while using your quirk?" Jirou sounded confused. "Those green sparks and the blueish field are very eye-catching."
"I guess I forgot about it. Haha." She honestly didn't like to think about it. Not that she didn't like how both her aura and OFA looked when she used them.
She had to admit that she did look cool with the blue sheen covering her body and the green lightning dancing around her. The way her eyes sparkled was awesome.
What she didn't enjoy was that people would just think that it was a cool quirk because of how it looked.
Izumi hated it.
The quirk obsessive behavior that the world had about quirks. The way some loved to look for a way to label and harass others for any possible reason.
She hated it.
Izumi felt a hand grazing her own.
Ochako.
Her best friend was holding her hand, giving her a small squeeze. Izumi looked up at her face. Ochako just smiled at her. Izumi smiled back and relaxed.
The rest of the trip, Izumi just chatted with her friends and classmates. She left all her gloomy and dark thoughts behind.
She was no longer the same shy and bullied little girl that she was five years ago.
It was amazing how five years of traveling all over the world, meeting new people, and winning competitions could raise her self-esteem so much.
By the time the bus reached their destination, Izumi was laughing at some jokes made by Kaminari and Sero.
When they entered the training facility, they couldn't believe what they were seeing.
"What the hell is this?! Are we even still in Japan!?"
All across the landscape, there were multiple environments scattered over the terrain. Two giant domes with tinted glass; one looked red and the other a stormy blue. They could also see a ship in the middle of a lake, a landslide with destroyed buildings, even a mountain, and a giant water slide!
"Wow, it kind of reminds me of the gyms." Muttered Izumi. She idly wondered if there were puzzles involved too.
"Greetings students!" A woman greeted them.
The woman was wearing a full astronaut spacesuit; her voice was warped by the helmet, but they could still hear her cheeriness clearly.
"I am Thirteen! The Space Heroine! I will be in charge of the Rescue Lesson today. Welcome to the Unforeseen Simulation Joint," Thirteen announced to her stunned class.
"Th-thir-teen! Izumi-chan! It's Thirteen! It's her!" Ochako was rambling excitedly.
Izumi grinned at her side. She understood 100% what her friend was feeling. After all, when she first met All Might, she had been so shocked that she could barely think.
She still remembered the slaps from Lucario and Lopunny.
Thank Arceus, she managed to shake herself out of it before Infernape got his turn.
Behind her helmet, Thirteen frowned. All Might should have come with Aizawa and the students.
The Space Hero made a motion to her fellow teacher, who just showed three fingers.
"Ah. All Might blew out his time." She deduced.
It had been a shock to her to learn that the strongest hero ever had been reduced to such a state.
Heroes dying or sustaining ending career injuries weren't common these days. Most of the time, it was rookies who were well over their heads or pros who were faced with villains stronger than them.
Of course, in the past few months, there have been more heroes killed and maimed than in the last decade.
Thirteen forced herself to not think about that. Right now, her responsibility was to teach the new generation how to save lives.
Not think about how to end one.
"Sensei, wasn't All Might supposed to be here?" Iida asked.
The underground hero didn't hesitate on his lie. "All Might got busy with a case. He said he would try to get here but not wait on him."
"Really?" "What a shame." "I wanted to see All Might showing off his moves."
"Now, now. I can understand your disappointment, but we still have a lesson ahead." Thirteen politely reminded them.
"As all of you can see, this place is an all-disaster simulator area designed by myself for teaching purposes. Here we will practice different rescue maneuvers and strategies that will be helpful in the future." She explained.
"Now, to start-" Thirteen cut mid-sentence. The heroine stared, shocked, at the unexpected sight in front of her.
A dark purple portal appeared in the courtyard of the central plaza.
"Midoriya-" Aizawa didn't even turn to the trainer, who understood his question before it even formed.
"It's not an Ultra Umbral sensei." She answered immediately. "Ultra Umbrals have rings of different shades of purple around a black central ring. They also pulse with more intensity to warn that a traveler is emerging."
Aizawa wanted to swear. He would rather face one of those Ultra Beasts that Midoriya described to Nezu, or even better, an emissary from the Pokemon World to the only alternative left.
A hand emerged from the portal. And then a body. Finally, a man walked out of the portal.
He was thin, with blue-gray shaggy hair, wearing simple black clothes. His most distinctive features were the human hands gripping his sides, shoulders, arms, the top of his head, and his face.
And the dead look that his uncovered eye gave off.
Following the man, other figures emerged from the portal. Men and women with threatening looks and sporting menacing grins. More and more poured from the portal, until a small army was standing in the middle of the square.
"Thirteen! Protect the students!" Aizawa pulled his goggles over his eyes and stepped in front of them.
"Sensei, what´s-" Kirishima tried to ask. "This is not a simulacrum. These guys are villains."
Villains.
How could villains infiltrate the USJ?
"Kurogiri." The scrawny man with the hands began to speak. "Where is All Might?"
The portal shifted to a smaller form, a pair of slanted yellow eyes glinting inside it.
"Mhh. Thirteen and Eraserhead are here, like the schedule we stole indicated. But it seems like the Number 1 isn't here."
"Whaaat? We gathered all this crew just to greet him, and he isn't here. Maybe he will show his face if we kill all these kids?" The man asked sadistically to the fear and shock of the teens.
"All of you! Follow Thirteen out of here! Try to contact the school as soon as you can." Eraserhead ordered.
"Shouldn´t the alarms be warning everyone back at the school about what's going on?" Ashido asked fearfully.
"They probably have a villain with a quirk that allows him to disrupt our security sensors. Kaminari, see if you can counter the electromagnetic waves." "Wh-at? Me?" The blonde was shaking in fear and dread.
Eraserhead hated himself for putting that much pressure on the boy. But he had no other option. They were alone until All Might managed to get himself recovered or they defeated the villain jamming their alarm system.
"Sensei, you can´t handle all those villains on your own! Let us help you!" Kirishima offered immediately.
"I am a pro. If I can't deal with a group of villains to protect my students, then I am no hero."
With that said, he jumped to face the villains.
The villains laughed when they saw the lone hero running right at them, willing to face them. One hero against an army gathered to kill All Might? Idiot.
Or so they thought.
Eraserhead quickly took down three villains after shutting down their quirks. In his experience, most of them were overconfident about their quirks. As soon as they realized that their quirk wasn´t working, they panicked and made mistakes.
When it came to mutant types, their overconfidence usually came from their superhuman strength and other physical attributes. Because of it, they tended to simply smash their way and thought themselves as unbeatable against quirks like his.
Eraserhead quickly showed why he was a pro-hero despite not having a so-called "flashy quirk."
The underground hero erased the quirks of the emitters and transformation users. While they were confused by their quirk not working, he would either grab them with his rope and use them as a weapon against their comrades, pull them in to knock them out himself, or run at them and beat them up.
Against the mutant types, he used his own strength or his rope to lasso them down and turn them into giant projectiles.
Despite the number disadvantage, Eraserhead was holding his own.
While her coworker fought, Thirteen led Class 1-A towards the exit. They just covered a few meters when the portal villain, Kurogiri, appeared in front of them.
"I apologize for interrupting your escape attempt, but unfortunately, I can't allow it." Kurogiri began to talk. "We are the League of Villains; we have come here today in order to kill the Symbol of Peace, All Might. He was supposed to be here, wasn´t he?"
Izumi froze at his words.
Kill All Might?
Before any of them could say anything, two figures jumped straight at Kurogiri without a second thought.
"EAT THIS BASTARD EXTRA!" Bakugou yelled furiously while throwing one explosion against the villain´s smoky form. At his side, Kirishima was covered entirely in his hardening, aiming recklessly.
Kurogiri didn´t show any signs of damage; the smoke simply reshaping into a humanlike appearance.
"Stop it, you two! Run!" Thirteen tried to warn both boys.
"I forgot that, despite being children, you all are UA´s hero students. Let this be a lesson for the future, heroes." Kurogiri´s smoke covered the whole group, his voice still heard despite his shapeless form.
"Prepare to be split, tortured, and killed. Heroes!"
Izumi realized what he was intending to do and acted as fast as she could.
"Bewear, Machoke! Help Aizawa-sensei and Thirteen-sensei." She threw both pokeballs far away from the smoke, praying to all the Legendaries that they made it away from Kurogiri´s reach.
The trainer felt a strange sensation and closed her eyes. She felt air rush against her, and when she opened them again, she saw that she was in the middle of a wrecked building.
"What the-" she mumbled out.
"Fucking bastard!" A familiar furious voice yelled next to her.
"Bakugou?!" "Midoriya?!" "Bakubro! Midorisis!" "Eh?"
Kirishima ran with a wide smile at Izumi and Bakugou. If he could see the tension between both teens, he said nothing.
"Man, I´m glad the three of us are together," the redhead said.
"You are?" she asked. He nodded. "Yeah, you two are really strong and reliable."
"Midoriya, Shitty Hair, get ready." Bakugou interrupted him.
"Shitty Hair?" Kirishima poked his hair.
"Shit." She saw what Bakugou noticed.
Villains were entering the room.
Soon, all exits and points were covered. The three teens went into a triangle formation, back against back.
Despite the danger they were facing, the fact that there were villains aiming to kill All Might, that she was once again with her childhood bully, Izumi wasn´t afraid.
She had faced criminals while doing her Pokemon Journey. She had faced the Hie Hassakai. She had faced Overhaul.
The villains were laughing and grinning at what they thought were easy pickings.
Fools.
"Come out, Hakamo-o, Ambipom!" Her dragon and monkey went into a fighting stance the moment they appeared.
"Hakamo-o." The fighting dragon turned towards her. "These guys are villains willing to kill us. Just don´t maim them or kill them, ok?" He nodded with a wide grin. He had been itching for a good fight for weeks now.
"Ambipom, the same." He began to jump in place. He was so going to enjoy beating them up and pranking them at the same time.
Most of the villains shifted their stance towards her. They probably thought that her quirk was simply controlling Hakamo-o and Ambipom, and that if they killed her, then both would disappear.
"Bakugou, Kirishima."
She let her aura envelope her entire body, and then OFA showed up with its usual green sparks.
"Let's show them what UA students can do."