Chapter Ninety-Six
My team followed me as I jogged, and they ran, down another tunnel, the air slowly coming our way, telling me were probably going the right direction, as it turned and turned, sloping down even further. I was pushing them, yes, but I had their measure now, which meant I could stop playing overwatch, though I'd likely still do that, to some extent.
It was a little odd, as I couldn't remember having to do anything like this before, but it almost came naturally, keeping tabs on my teammates while scanning for dangers. Martial Talent? I thought, but I couldn't be certain, the sensation not having that 'assisted' feeling I normally got when I used that Company perk, but that didn't matter right now.
Turning another corner, the cavern opened up, this one holding a full dozen mudmen, and three of the larger mudthugs, one of the smaller foes already leaping for me.
Decided not to hold back again, Bob? I thought, though, to be fair, this might just be the standard increase in forces we'd been seeing.
Regardless, I turned up OfA up as far as I could, sparks dancing across my form, as I shifted my limbs and leapt.
Turning my leading leg into a spike, I speared it through the mudman, my momentum greater than his, turning as I was slowed, and shooting an arm out to grab a mudthug, using its mass as an anchor as I let that limb snap back to reality, gaining speed, and twisted about to use the bag of dirt my first target had become as a shield, the ten-foot tall creation's fist coming in to hit me as I closed.
The force of the blow was strong, but manageable, and I took it, using it to flip myself over, turning to slam myself into another mudman, tearing into it and rolling away as the second larger opponent went for me.
"Desist your vile actions!" Shiozaki called from behind me, and dozens of vines slammed into the mudthug, pulling it back, as the other two joined the fight. Well, Komori didn't seem to be doing much, to be honest, but just by running past a few, she got their attention, taking them off me, as Mineta jumped onto another's head.
Not stopping myself, I continued moving, my mentor, Hawks, having stressed, however short I'd trained under him, that movement was everything in combat, and I jumped up onto the loam-lug Shiozaki had immobilized, one electric hand gripping onto its harness, while the other turned into a spike that, rapidly going through the steps for maximum force, saw me drive an electric spike through its head, once more overdoing it more than a little.
Either way, it dropped, and I pushed myself away, my superstrength giving me the distance needed as more of the diminishing ranks of mudmen tried to jump me, but my path put me under another two, one of them catching each of my legs, as they pulled down, hard, my face slamming into the rock floor, barely able to get my arms up to soften the blow.
It stung, but with OfA the damage went from something that might break my nose down to a stiff punch, which still surprised me, but only for a moment. Electric fingers dug into the earth, and gave me the leverage I needed, turning feet into insubstantial energy, which slipped out of the cloth-gloved grips of the mudmen, as I rolled forward, launching myself up to get space, looking around.
Shiozaki was holding her own, but Mineta was barely getting away, and, while grey lines of lichen were growing on the dirt constructs, Komori was being hemmed in by the enemies, including one of the larger ones.
More Mudmen moved to intercept me, stuck on a ballistic arc as I seemed to be, but shooting forward an electric limb let me grab the back of the harness of the mudthug lumbering after the Fungirl, reeling myself in and slamming into it, feet-first, but only managed to make it stagger slightly.
Okay, not enough, I thought, but, while we could handle this level of opposition, this team was not ready to fight at this level efficiently, and, while I could probably clean them all out in seconds if I was Midoriya strong, I had to come to terms with he fact that I wasn't.
"Gah!" Mineta called, having gotten just a touch too slow, the boy clobbered by a standard mudman, and sent flying, while another charged him, as the ball-headed teen tried to scrabble to his feet-
Only for his attacker be blown apart by a beam of light.
The harsh radiance lit up the chamber, as, from a different entrance, another team came running in, the other blond in my class grinning as he hip-thrust again, sending out another kinetic laser, the motion actually required to compensate for the recoil his power generated.
Sero dashed past Aoyama, throwing an arm forward, sending tape out to wrap up nearby mudmen, while the two boys from 1-B both threw rocks, which suddenly accelerated, then accelerated again, and did so a third time right before impact, slamming into the bodies of two more Mudmen hard enough to fold them over, losing cohesion.
In terms of pure power, Shoda and Monoma, both using the former's Twin Impact Quirk, were. . . okay, better than Komori definitely, though not on the level of Shiozaki, Aoyama, or myself, but at least they split our enemy's attention further, which was good enough for me.
The mudthug I was holding onto tried to reach back and grab me, but I slipped around its large, clumsy fingers, anchoring myself properly to go with the more proven attack. A single spike, driven hard, took out its head, the motion smoothing out a bit more every time I did it, and then I leapt off it, landing on another mudman, taking it out in one move.
With us all working, while only half our team could consistently hurt the enemy, the other four kept them busy long enough until, all at once, every remaining mud-puppet fell to pieces, cut apart with grey lines of fungus.
It was a bit of an anticlimactic moment, to be honest, but I wasn't going to complain.
"Thanks for the assist," I told team 3, with a nod.
"Assist?" Monoma sneered. "Class 1-A must really be delusional! If anything, you were the ones assisting us!"
Sero frowned, "Uh, dude, we're 1-A."
The short, rotund boy from 1-B shot a slightly aggrieved look at his blond classmate, then smiled my way. "Glad to help. However, it looks like we're running into more resistance. Perhaps we should team up?"
Monoma frowned, "We don't need-"
"That sounds like a lovely idea!" Shiozaki agreed quickly, clasping her hands together. "There should be no divisions amongst us, as we are made complete in the same mind and in the same judgement!"
Komori nodded, "A troop's better than a single cluster!"
I hesitated, as, to put it simply, I didn't trust any of these people. Sero was kind of a dick, Aoyama seemed nice enough but I didn't know that much about him, and while Shoda seemed reasonable, Monoma was a grade A douchenozzle.
And this exercise seemed meant for us to screw each other over.
Shoda, seeing my hesitance, pressed the matter, "We'll split any evidence we find fifty-fifty. It's a race, but with Kendo, Tetsutetsu, and the others in your class out there, we're probably not gonna win. That doesn't mean we shouldn't both try to do well. It'll take us longer to get the evidence, but, if this pattern persists, they will be well guarded."
"Come on, man," Sero added. "We kinda need the help."
Looking to the others, Mineta was deferring to me, but he was the only one, my 1-B teammates all for teaming up, so I put my reservations aside and nodded. "Fine, then let's do this. We've been following the air currents down. You have a better method?"
"Non, mon ami!" Aoyama smiled, and I nodded to him.
"Then lets stop wasting time. Mineta, brief them on what we've found while I find the exit," I ordered, getting a thumbs up from the small teen while I jogged a quick circuit of the space, taking a moment to stop at each one and spread my hands out, turning them electric and extending them further, to better feel the slight breeze.
There were two possible exits, and I went with the second, directing the others, "This way!"
I waited for them to catch up, Monoma clapping me on the shoulder, hard, commenting, "Guess 1-A is good for guide dogs, at least!"
As I felt my Defenses ping, rejecting his copying attempt, I gave the teen a flat look, even as Sero held up an upturned hand in the near-universal gesture for 'what is wrong with you?' while commenting, "Dude!"
The blond power-copier gave me an annoyed look, as his power got sweet F-all from me, and I moved on, leading both teams down the hallway, a couple hidden mudmen twitching behind shadowy walls, but not emerging, so I let them be.
We kept going down, and down, passing through one fork after another, the force of the breeze strengthening until it lightly blew my hair back, the worked stone smoothing out into a pattern of almost brick-like rocks, but, able to zoom in on them, they lacked any kind of mortar, just more of Pixie-Bob's power at work.
More than that, there was a very faint buzz, from some kind of electronics, coming from the tunnel in front of us. Holding a hand up, I whispered, semi-loudly but making sure to take the rumble out of my voice, "There's something ahead. Get ready."
Monoma shot me an unimpressed look, but the others all nodded, and I did my best to stalk forward silently, the rest of my team. . . less so, but it was the thought that counted here.
Soon enough, the rough cavern turned into a completely worked hallway, and, up on the left, was a large doorway, the harsh white of fluorescent light pouring through the opening. Glancing back to them, I ramped OfA up and dashed forward, turning the corner, to see the mudmen and mudthugs waiting in a sparsely-decorated office space, the same kind that'd filled the submerged towers, a new variant among the foes I faced against.
While the mudmen were basic, and the mudthugs were just big, these new ones were lanky, looking quite a bit like the ones I'd faced under the lake, and, forming fists, their gloves lit up, containing built-in tasers. From how they sparked, judging by my own experience with such things, their weapons walked the line between disabling and damaging.
Well, they would for most people.
"I got the shockers!" I called back, the pounding of my teammate's feet nearing, and threw myself into the melee, the newest form of enemy quickly moving to meet me without hesitation, at least showing that Pixie-Bob wasn't adapting them to work against me in ways they couldn't know about yet.
Throwing a hand up, I caught the punch from one shocker, reaching deep into the battery built into its weapon, and pulled, taking the charge into myself before, compressing it, fed half of it back into the device, causing it to explode as I pushed it away, disarming the construct, literally.
It staggered backwards, the metal skeleton of its arm turning into slow moving shrapnel that bounced off my reinforced skin, as the other minions closed in on me. I followed the shocker, grabbing its other hand, and repeated the process, taking a moment to delay the blast, doing so as I turned and pulled on its arm, tossing it into two other mudmen, the explosion taking all three combatants out of the fight.
The rest of my team, and the one we were allied with, came pouring through the entrance as I leapt over a row of desks, both mudthugs trying to run around them to get at me, and tackled another shocker, draining and disarming it, taking out another few mudmen in the process, but while I could do this around Midoriya, Kirishima, or even Mina if she had her acid armor up, the mini-grenades I was turning these things into would be a serious friendly fire hazard.
But, with the other seven fighters, that more than made up for the limitation on my own actions, as I moved to the third, and last, shocker, draining its batteries but switching to a standard beatdown. Even without the electric element, it was still fast, tough, and while it couldn't dish out the raw force that the mudthugs could, it fists were much more rigid than its brethren and it was still strong enough that I couldn't easily overpower it with my own unenhanced strength alone.
With enough hits, though, it lost cohesion, though not as completely as the mudmen, falling 'unconscious', letting me move on to the mudthugs that Shiozaki was struggling to hold down, the other students doing their best, but with only middling results. Well, except for Shoda, who'd slam six quick punches into a mudman and then set off his charged hits at once, blowing it back and taking it down. The others were only able to slow down their opponents, taking far too much time to deal with them, even Monoma, trying to copy the technique of his teammate, needing a full dozen punches to replicate Shoda's methods, which the taller, thinner boy couldn't deliver with the same speed or precision as his shorter, rounder teammate.
Soon enough, though, the room was cleared, Komori's shrooms finally kicking in and 'killing' the fighters that Sero and Shiozaki had tied up, along with the last mud-thug, who'd tanked enough of Aoyama's blasts that the boy had to fall back, lest his bowels liquify right then and there. While I'd worked with the others, Monoma refused to work with me, barging right into me several times, expecting me to get out of his way, and, from his look, blaming me for not doing so, my enhanced body meaning he just bounced right off instead.
"Okay, that was. . . a bit much," I sighed, looking around, "Now where are the bags of evidence?"
"Uh, probably in the bags labelled evidence," Mineta replied, pointing, and, turning, I saw four small black satchels, each emblazoned with the two characters for 'evidence' in white on them, the large air vents over our target the source of the breeze we'd been following.
". . . yeah, that's probably them," I agreed mildly. "Two for us, two for you guys, which means we need to do this five more times. Just. . . lovely," I sighed. "You mind if we have the girls carry them? Neither of them use their hands to fight."
Aoyama waved a hand, "I could also carry them, monsieur!"
"Fair enough. You grab two, Komori, you grab the other two. We'll figure out distribution when we gather more. If we stick down here, we could probably get all twenty and carry them out in one trip," I shrugged, looking over the desks, and having an idea. "In that case, Shiozaki, you mind if I use you as a quiver?"
The girl's head snapped over to me, so fast it almost made a cracking noise, as I grabbed one of the tables and flipped it over, focusing OfA to give me the strength needed to cleanly shear off its legs. "Kaminari!" she gasped, reddening, hands clasped to her breast. "To ask such a thing is sinful!"
I frowned, holding up the metal rod, twisting about the electricity in my hand enough to make a basic bitch magnetic coil, feeling the steel trying to escape my grip. "What?" I questioned, distracted. "You were okay carrying the evidence bags, but a few table legs is a line too far? We've already destroyed, like, a third of this room, so doing a bit more should be fine."
The vine-haired girl blinked, then reddened slightly in a different manner, hands dropping down, "I, uh, yes, you meant, of course, my apologies, I thought. . ."
"Thought what?" I questioned tossing her the first rod, which she caught with her Quirk. "O-oh," I added, running my request through 'ye olde translator', the only way to be more explicit would be to ask her if she was okay being my sheathe. "Yeah, not the time, and I'm dating Mina, so you'd have to be vetted by her first, and, then not that until, well, not the time to talk about that."
The zealot considered my response, then nodded, smiling slightly. "I, please forgive me, I made unkind assumptions upon your character, Kaminari."
"Wouldn't be the first time," I smiled, stripping more table legs and tossing them to the girl.
Mineta, meanwhile stared at me in disbelief, then at her, asking, "I, uh, what? You're okay with. . . what? But, like, aren't you all churchy?"
This one I actually knew. "Hardcore monogamy was a Roman thing, kinda, and then a Catholic thing, but you've got guys like Jacob and David who didn't canonically practice it while explicitly having God's favor, and while monogamy was common enough among the rank and file, for a whole bunch of reasons, polygamy historically was fine, it was just adultery that was the issue."
At the short man's skeptical look, as he mouthed 'how?', likely questioning my eclectic knowledge base, I shrugged. "My parents took me to church, and it wasn't a great one so I was bored as shit, so I started reading their manual, and. . . damn, that shit gets dark. Thing is, a lot of people have some serious misconceptions about what's in their own holy book, never having spent the effort to read the damn thing, which isn't helped by a lot of people just declaring stuff to be in there that flat out isn't."
I shook my head, "Like, the Sodom and Gomorrah thing? Yeah, that wasn't a gay issue, and calling homosexuals 'sodomites' was just pure propaganda. No, it was the fact the larger populace of both cities regularly gang-raped visitors that was the issue, and what the visiting angels took exception to, leading to God effectively nuking both cities. Really, a lot of the anti-gay stuff came from the Catholics, not the source material, but, again, not the time for a theological discussion. Aoyama, Komori, you two ready to go?" I questioned, turning to the pair.
"I'm ready to um-go!" the fungirl cheered, which, from her shit-eating grin, was obviously some kind of pun, even if it went over my head, but I appreciated the effort and gave her a thumbs up, while Aoyama posed, holding both bags in one hand, draped artfully over one shoulder.
Shaking my head, I led the others out, carrying a table leg like a baton, hanging a left and jogging forward, leading us up, back into naturalistic looking tunnels, trying to feel each intersection to figure out when I'd gotten out of the exit-path of the breeze at our back, until I finally found one that caused a bit of turbulence, stepping inside that pathway, feeling the breeze coming up, and going down once more.
The new tunnel opened up into a large, empty chamber, which, itself, was highly suspicious. I stopped, holding up a hand, scanning the area, trying to spot the danger, only for Monoma to, again, try and barge past me, unable to, despite there clearly being enough room for the boy to walk by me, commenting, "Class 1-A sure is full of cowar-oh god!"
And there it is, I thought, as the roof moved, an enormous stone-clad dirt serpent dropping from the ceiling, landing hard enough to shake the floor, as Monoma scrabbled away, running past me, as I sighed, holding a hand up for the others to stay back, and I cycled my slightly overcharged reserves, setting up the full rail-gun use. "Shiozaki, when I say go, drop another rod, between my arms, parallel to them."
"I-I will!" the woman replied, and, glancing back at her, she'd paled, but there was a glint of determination in her eyes.
Looking back as the stone serpent reared up, it was maybe a sixth the size of the dirt-leviathan, max, but, then again, the 1-Bers hadn't had our trials by fire, even the one we'd managed on our first day, and there was a great deal of difference between seeing something on screen, and seeing it fifty feet away and preparing to strike.
"Kaminari?" Sero asked, ready, but I shook my head.
"I got this."
Carefully hefting the table-leg in my hand upwards, so it'd fall downwards correctly, I set my stance to absorb the recoil, then lifted my arms, cycling the electricity in tight coils to set up the pattern, drawing down on it into a constant, weak flow, building it up internally, until, when the rod came down, I let it go.
With a ringing crack that split the air, echoing madly in the enclosed space, my attack slammed into the snake's head, blowing away the stone, revealing dirt underneath, the serpent's skull shoved to the side as it hissed in pain.
"Next!" I commanded, and, from above me, a tendril of ivy let go another table leg, as I shifted my aiming down the stone snake's body, its head waving about madly.
Crack!
Hitting its center of mass, the dark brown 'scales' shattered, the ad-hoc bolt blasting apart a large section of snake, enraging the 'beast' even more.
"Next!"
Crack!
This one hit partially in the crater of the last blast, the dirt damn good at absorbing the force, which was why we built blast-safe bunkers from the stuff, but it still did damage.
"Next!"
Crack!
This one missed entirely, carving out a section of the cave wall, creating an explosion of stone shot-through with bits of orange cloth, taking out the mudmen hidden within. However, this gave the stone snake time to collect itself, as it reared back, readying itself to strike once more.
"Next!" I called, able to, with OfA, tank that kind of blow, my regen able to take undo all of the damage I'd suffer, as the serpent shot forward at train speeds, but Shiozaki had my back, dropping the next table leg.
Crack!
My hit caught the construct in the bottom of its jaw, and slammed it upwards, so it streaked over my head, the car-sized skull slamming directly into the wall right above me, as I lifted my arms, angling them to get a proper shot, and called once more, "Next!"
The spiritual girl backing me up adapted, which I only realized she'd need to after I gave the order, tossing the table leg into my waiting arms, matching my angle, and, when it hit the right position, I pulsed again, surprised at how little this was draining me, for the amount of electricity I was putting into it.
Then again, the Pussycats have been having me train this very thing, I noted, giving credit where credit was due, managing to hit dead-center in the construct's body, blowing out a hole clear through the creature, which shrieked, somehow, and pulled back, even as grey lines spread out over each of my strike zones, Komori hard at work.
Counting our shots, we only had two left, but, if I did this right, that's all I'd need.
"Again!" I ordered, after a moment, as soon as the stone snake slowed.
The bar dropped and-
Crack!
Hit the side of the hole I'd blown through the creature, as it had twisted about, breaking the stone exoskeleton that seemed to be giving it structural support, the inside lacking enough packed dirt to hold together like Pixie-Bob's normal creations used, the entire thing falling over, writhing, twisting about, and I was about to call for the last bolt when Mineta ran by me, Sero following, ruining my line of fire.
However, as the small boy darted forward, throwing his balls at the remaining stone outside of the blown-out section, as soon as the rolling serpent touched the ground with that section of scales, it stuck fast, pulling a few balls up, generating enough force to rip itself free, though losing bits of its stone 'skin' in the process, but that slowed it down enough that Sero could start tossing out strands of his weaker tape, layering them over the enemy, tying it down while Mineta kept adding balls. The grey rot of Komori's mushrooms spread more and more, even working its way into undamaged sections, filling the cracks between the scales that the existed to let the construct move.
It was a little unsettling, really, like watching a time-lapsed decomposition, as the fuzzy grey lines expanded, entire plate-sized scales falling off more and more as the fungus spread. Looking back at her, she'd put down both evidence bags, hands out, eyes wide, breathing hard and sweating slightly despite the cool air of the cave, clearly pushing her power to its maximum, but the results spoke for themselves, as, after the two minute mark, the girl was doing more damage than I could, and was still ramping up, until the entire thing seized up and started thrashing, as much as it was able, sending bits of dirt and stone everywhere, Mineta using his own balls to bounce out of the way, while Sero stepped up, tagging one piece of stone and using it to swing around like a flail to take out another, even as the momentum he was working with caused him to stumble, the boy not ready for it.
A large piece came flying for us, ripped from the creature's 'skull', and I took a step forward, shifting OfA in preparation of a parrying strike, ready to handle it, only for vines to shoot past me, forming a net which blocked it, and the few that followed, without me having to do a thing.
Moments later, it was dead.
Shiozaki pulled back her protections, and I walked forward, taking in the damage we'd done. "Not bad," I smiled, glancing over to the fungirl, who had slumped a little. "Also, holy shitake you're terrifying when you're given proper setup time, Komori."
"I'm small," she grinned, "but mighty, shroom!"
I laughed, nodding, "Speaking of, Mineta, next time you get in the line of fire, say something, but otherwise good job getting in there."
"But, you were out-" the small boy said, as Shiozaki handed me the last table leg, paling a little as he realized my ammo reserves hadn't been fully depleted. "Oh. Uh, will do! But, like, I was pretty awesome, right?"
"Pretty awesome," I agreed, "And good coverage, Sero, though you might want to work with that swing-move. Maybe do some practice with Kirishima?"
The tape-elbowed teen nodded, "Yeah, yeah, sounds good," he jerked a thumb towards the still disassembling stone snake, "didn't that seem like a bit much, though? I mean, last time, yeah, we needed to lay down the hurt, but the big snake guy wasn't that bad."
"Not that bad!? Mon Ami, that thing was terrifying!" Aoyama argued incredulously. "And, Kaminari, what was that?"
"It's the same thing you've seen me do before, just scaled up," I shrugged, realizing he hadn't seen me go all out before.
"I'll say!" the not-frenchman agreed. "It put my own blasts to shame, though thankfully they did not sparkle nearly as brightly, or I would be completely outclassed!"
Mineta chuckled, "If you think that was good, you shoulda seen-" he paused, realizing that we weren't supposed to talk about I-Island. "Uh, something else. But, like, you did way more damage then, Denki," he added, looking to me in confusion.
"Purpose built iron-core ammo versus ad hoc hollow rounds," I easily explained. "Momo's a crazy good supporter for that reason, as any team with her on it is fully geared up for anything they run across if she's got reserves and thirty seconds."
Shoda, who'd walked up to the snake, and then looked around, slowly stated, "I. . . don't think we were supposed to fight this."
"Uh, big snake, perfect size to go down tunnels," Sero argued. "We had to fight it."
The grey-haired 1-B boy, however, shook his head. "No. It's too big. See?" He pointed at the impact site, from where the stone snake had run, face-first, into the wall, and while the crater was smaller than tunnels that lined the space, its skull had flared out, meaning. . .
"Shit, you're right," I commented. "We probably could've held it off long enough to find the next tunnel with about half the effort and a third of the time." I'd just gotten a full set of railgun ammo, so, of course, my solution to my next problem had been to railgun it. "Whups. Well, it's still impressive, and a good display of teamwork." I glanced to Monoma. "Mostly."
"Leave it to class 1-A to never miss a chance to show off," he sneered, on cue, even as Komori sent him a cross look, which he ignored. "We should keep going, as you've wasted enough of our time already!"
Diiiiick, I thought, but shrugged, and kept moving, finding an appropriate tunnel and waving the others to follow. It dipped down, the stone shifting back to a more constructed looking hall, and another doorway. Considering the table leg I held, for a moment I wondered if I was about to make the exact same mistake, but, no, this was just good strategy, as we needed to clear this room.
Tossing it to Shiozaki, I instructed, "Same as before, drop it in when I say so," the woman's hair catching the metal rod, and she nodded.
Jumping into the doorway, I called out, "You're all under arrest!" which caused my teammates to stumble a little, but got the defenders to charge, only one shocker, two mudthugs, and about two dozen mudmen waiting for us this time.
Spotting the bags in the back of the room, I shifted my position so I wouldn't accidentally catch them in the line of fire, and brought up my arms, charging them, and waiting.
When they were less than a dozen feet away, running full tilt for me, I called out, "Now!" and the table leg was dropped into position.
Crack!
And just like that, I killed the charger, a mudthug, and over half of the mudmen.
This would be a massacre, if they were real, some part of me noted, but, if they were real, then I could shock them.
Jumping backwards, I let my pursers come out into the hallway, which was when the others jumped them, handling this enemy far more easily than we had the first time, even as Monoma managed to once more 'bump' into me.
Diiiiiiiiiick.
The only problem was that, by bringing the enemy to us, our less-able combatants didn't back up enough, Aoyoma catching a dirt-fist to the face, sending him sprawling, while I went to go cover Komori, as two mudmen charged her. I tried to grab her arm to move her out of their path, only for the girl to flinch, hard, stumbling away from me, still putting her a few steps behind her old position, but making me step up even further to cover her and handle both attackers. Catching both of them, I was able to push them back, sinking spiked fists into their chests until they lost cohesion.
"You okay?" I asked the fungirl, concerned, as the fighting died down.
She seemed oddly rattled, but shook her head. "I'm fine, shroom." At my skeptical look, she glanced away, "I, uh, I'm more of a shrubbery girl instead of a tree-hugger."
Frowning, I tried to mentally translate, stating slowly, "So, Shoji?" At her blank look, I clarified, "Dupli-arms guy."
"Total Fungiside," she shrugged helplessly. "Nothin' 'gainst him, I just like 'em small and peppy!" She shot a smile Mineta's way. "No offense, shroom."
"None taken," I replied absently, never having been discriminated against because I was too tall, and, while I was certain there was a story there, this wasn't the time, and I didn't know her well enough to expect that she'd confide it with me. "Let's go check out the harvest."
Komori nodded at that, a tension in her shoulders easing. "Thanks," she offered, seeming regretful, but I waved her worry away.
Heading inside, a quarter of the room was wrecked, caught in the backblast of my attack, but nothing important was damaged. However, as I collected another dozen table legs, a tense air started to rise as we saw that there were only three bags of evidence.
"Guys, we're doing this until we get twenty of them," I stated, as Sero started to eye Mineta, who eyed him right back. "So what if there's odd numbers in some of these rooms?"
After a moment's hesitation, Shoda agreed, the short boy holding all three bags out to his classmate. "Shiozaki?"
"Of course," she smiled, taking them with her Quirk, other vines twining around her hips to let her distribute the weight. "But we should not tarry!"
Everyone agreed with that, and, moving back out, we hit another 'arena' room, with four mud-thugs and a mere six mudmen, the fight easy compared to others, and, less then a minute of furious combat later, we were done, as I noted the electrical reserves I'd expended from using my railgun had almost completely refilled.
We fanned out, feeling out the tunnel entrances, only to freeze as we heard the pounding of feet, and not the soft, fabric-covered steps of a mudman, but the harsh slap of rubber on stone. Glancing at each other, we quickly grouped up, as, while the last time we'd met other groups we'd been bumbling about, we now had seven bags of 'evidence', more than half that required to finish the challenge.
And that meant, whoever was coming, would almost certainly not be our allies, but may very well be our enemies.
AN: The Next Four Chapters Can Be Found on and Subscribestar! Also, I've started a new one-shot thread called MULTIVERSAL GLIMPSES, found HERE!