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The villains knew they were throwing kids into rivers to sink or swim. But the League should have been keeping an eye out for alligators where they were swimming.
Chapter Foreword: Heads up on this one, folks, we have a character who’s gonna be swearing A LOT as the first POV character in this chapter. Surprisingly, it’s not Bakugo.
Chapter 10: The Unforeseen Simulation Joint (Part 2)
Wanaguchi Kira didn’t think of himself as a saint. He wasn’t a good guy, never mind a great one. He was a criminal, a crook, and he knew it. Accepted it. And, on rare occasions, he even embraced it.
Most of the shit on his rap sheet was petty crimes. Minor thefts from things he snatched from convenience stores or festival stalls, loitering in places he shouldn’t have been, having shit on him that he shouldn’t have back when he was a teenager. A couple of drunk and disorderly arrests. Nothing too big, as far as he could remember.
The biggest things on his record were the fights. Well, and the ones where he was resisting arrest, but he considered those part of the fights. He was just… Fighting cops instead of other crooks.
He was a fight junkie, and he knew it. He loved a good brawl, especially against a strong and capable opponent. Something that made his blood rush and heart pound. A challenge that left him sore and painful, but exhausted in a way that he found deeply satisfying. There were a few guys that Got That, and were only too happy to point him to underground fighting rings where he could brawl to his heart’s content, and no one there would stop him.
But, that said, he had some standards.
He kept his shit to guys who knew what they were getting into. He wanted to fight somebody who was gonna hit him back just as hard, if not harder. It wasn’t fun to fight someone who wasn’t giving their all. It took the fun right out of it to just wail on someone who wasn’t gonna hit him back.
And he didn’t fight kids.
He was a grown-ass adult. He would easily out-muscle them, and he had way more reach every time he swung. Trying to fight a kid was just an asshole thing to do. He’d promised himself a long, long time ago that he wouldn’t use the strength he had to beat up a kid.
(He’d take death over being like his old man. The deadbeat drunkard would never get the satisfaction of saying that Kira was like him. Never.)
Hero interns were the closest he came to an exception, especially if he could tell that they were gonna graduate soon. Because those brats were taught how to fight. They knew how to take a punch and hit back just as hard. He’d rough them up some, but he could admit to himself that he still held back. More often, he’d just scare them a bit, then challenge their mentors to a brawl.
He was pretty sure the heroes that patrolled his usual haunts had figured that out about him. And they weren’t afraid to bring their ducklings along when they knew they were dealing with him.
Fighting a kid was an insult to him and his strength, as far as Kira was concerned. That was why he’d taken the risk to warn Sasakia about the attack the instant he knew about it.
The fact that they were actually in UA, past the security and the gates and no one had caught them yet, made him understand just why Sasakia was getting so antsy about these guys. Even if Kira had been the one talking to and about them. He knew what his gut was telling him about them, but Sasakia only had the shit he could gather up on the streets about these guys. And he had been constantly saying that he didn’t have enough on them. Not enough people talking, not enough shit he could trace back, not enough to dig up who the hell they were or what they wanted. Just plain not enough.
It was why Kira had been willing to put his neck on the line and sign up with them.
Something was wrong with them, and Sasakia needed the dirt to keep things from crumbling apart. He needed to know more so he could curb how bad they might be. He needed to know what they were capable of and what they planned to leave in their wake. (Kira wasn’t a saint, but he wasn’t gonna sit on his ass when some mom or grandma or something might get caught in the crossfire.)
But, as Kira floated in the flooded zone with a half-sunk boat for the trainee heroes to use, he started to realize that he might have been underestimating what he was signing up for. These guys might not be as “new” as he thought they were. Because shit like this didn’t work for greenhorn villain organization wannabes.
Not this well, not with this many E and D-level chumps involved.
Someone at the top knew what they were doing. And they had no idea who that person was. Not him. Not Sasakia. Nobody. And that was a big problem.
He hadn’t managed to pass on the message about “killing All Might” before the League of Villains (and that sure was a name) put their plans in motion. He just hadn’t had the time to sneak out and catch a butterfly without his new “coworkers” noticing what he was up to. He doubted they would succeed (this was All Might after all) but the guy they had…
He made Kira’s scales stand up. There was something wrong with that guy. He couldn’t say what it was and he hadn’t been keen on finding out. But he felt confident that guy could do some serious damage, just based on how he looked.
So he was left hoping that the brats that got caught up in this could handle what was happening and that the teachers could cover them.
His gaze slid over the chumps waiting in the water with him.
He knew a few of them. Petty crooks like him, but with lower standards on who they’d fight. No self-respect and a lot of bloodlust. He hated dealing with guys like that.
His eyes narrowed at one with a shark-like face as they licked their chops.
His rep in the League would take a hit, but he wasn’t above turning on them if it looked like they were going too far.
He could probably bluff it as not being able to aim well with the way they were all clumped together… They had a lot of guys crammed into one spot, after all. It wouldn’t be hard to throw hits and make it look like he’d hit them by accident. It might test how well he could talk his way out of trouble, but he’d be willing to give it a shot. He was a tough guy. He could handle taking hits from these guys.
There was a familiar rasping rumble above, and his eyes snapped up to one of the bartender’s portals opening above the water, and three bodies fell into the drink.
Kira squinted in confusion.
Those didn’t look like third years. He’d watched the sports festival last year, and he felt pretty confident that he knew what those brats looked like. Same for the second year, so that just left…
“Are you shitting me?!” Kira’s voice came out in a furious roar. “They sent us a bunch of firsties?”
Fuck no! He was not going to sit back and let these bastards kill a bunch of kids! They weren’t even in costume; it looked like they were just wearing their gym clothes. There was no way they were ready to actually fight, let alone against guys like these. Hell, he wasn’t even sure the brats knew how to throw a punch against an actual person.
His mind raced. He needed to get these guys to ditch the idea of fighting the kids. Fast.
He knew there were bastards here who got their jollies going after folks too weak to stop them. And a bunch of untrained firsties were exactly the kind of people they’d love to get their hands on to get some kicks. What would Sasakia tell him that he ought to do? The guy knew how to work people, how to use what they felt to get them to… What they felt…
Maybe there was something he could use then. Sasakia always said he was smarter than he gave himself credit for. (It was high time he proved the guy right.)
“Hey man, there’s no-” His head snapped to the guy who’d spoken with a furious snarl, ignoring the frog girl as she dragged herself and her classmates onto the half-sunken boat. They shrank away from his fury.
“Bullshit! I came to fight some fucking heroes! Not a bunch of snot-nosed brats that don’t even know how to throw a fucking punch!” He let out another furious snarl, tail thrashing in rage. He needed to be angry, but still make sense. Twist what was going on to fit what he wanted them to think. “I want a fucking knock-down-drag-out. I want to show them how strong I fucking am! Not to wail on a bunch of toddlers like some weak-ass coward. It’s a fucking insult!”
A few of the others started muttering to each other. Angry at the insult to their strength. Angry that the League was acting like they were too weak to handle a real fight.
“What’s it fucking matter? I want some blood, and I don’t give a rat’s ass who I get it from.” Kira snarled at shark-face.
“Oh, so you’re just gonna be a cheap-ass goon for the League? Hit whatever the boss tells you like a good little minion and hope you get a pat on the head for it?” Kira knew it was a cheap shot, but guys like that had tender egos. Aiming for that was his best shot, and making them think their bosses thought they were weak tended to work pretty well. Made it less about the kids and more about what the guys paying them thought.
If they got pissed enough, he could get them to take it to their bosses instead of going after the job they’d been given. And the sooner he used it to get them to back off from the brats, the better.
He was willing to take the heat instead for insulting them. He could handle it better than a bunch of kids.
Shark-face hissed at him and a few others started getting pissed. Whether at him or at the guys who hired them, he didn’t care. He just needed them to get angry.
(Pissed off people made stupid choices and were easier to lead around.)
Frog girl watched from over the rails of the ship, and the grape-baby wailed in terror like, well, a baby. He had no idea what the third kid was thinking, since all he could see of them was a bunch of floating clothes. But they were keeping mostly quiet and keeping back from the rails of the ship.
“We can handle some heroes, so why the hell aren’t we fighting any?” Another crook snapped, slapping the weapon he was holding against the water. “Why are we being sent a bunch of greenhorn brats?”
“Who cares?! We’re here to cause chaos!”
“What?! So you’re fine with being tossed weaklings? You too much of a wuss to take on real heroes?”
Kira grinned to himself as the goons around him started turning on each other and mentally patted himself on the back for a plan well executed.
He ducked beneath the waves, swimming around the side of the ship that was sunk into the waves. (And, conveniently, hidden from the goons he’d been grouped with.) He shot a small splash of water onto the deck, grabbing the kid’s attention.
“Psst, hey, brats. Get over here. Before the mooks wise up.” He watched them creep closer to him, staying low down to avoid being spotted. “Grab on. I’m a fast swimmer; the sooner we get you to shore, the faster we get you out of blasting range.”
Frog Girl covered Grape-Baby’s mouth before he could get them caught by freaking out even more.
“Why are you helping us?” Okay, so Floating-Clothes was a girl. Good to know.
“I may be a criminal, but I have some fucking standards.” He gave them a grim smile, knowing how it made the scars on his muzzle stretch. “And killing kids is one low I don’t plan on sinking to. Not in this lifetime. Now come on, we gotta move.”
Kira held a hand out, and he felt Floating-Clothes take it.
(Her hand was small.)
He moved her to his back, feeling her scramble to get purchase against his scales before finally getting a grip on his shirt, and listened carefully to the crooks on the other side of the boat fighting each other. So far, they hadn’t noticed that the brats had moved, but he wasn’t gonna count on it staying that way for much longer. He needed to get the kids to shore before then.
Frog Girl slipped into the water as easily as an actual frog, Grape Baby tucked under her arm like a football, and nodded at him.
“Deep breath, kid, we’ll be swimming under the surface so the goons don’t spot us.” He listened for the deep breath from the kid on his back before diving. Then he moved.
Swimming fast was easy; he was able to get the lot to the far shore without even getting properly winded, despite holding his breath as he swam. It was a part of his quirk he rarely ever used, and one he was proud of, even if he never talked about it. He was a damn good swimmer and diver, just like his Ma had always praised him for. But he’d always liked fighting more than swimming. (Hm. Maybe he needed to keep that in mind more. That could be useful for him to use while digging up dirt some time.)
He climbed out in a wooded space, barely noticing the weight of the now very soggy Floating-Clothes clinging to his shoulders as he did. The kid had a good grip; he’d give her that. Hadn’t come loose from him or fallen off once he’s come out.
“Alright, kid, climb off.” Kira looked over the wooded area. He didn’t know if it had a name, but it was closer to the middle of the place than he would have liked. He would have rather come out closer to the walls. They could have used that to sneak around the outside and get to the doors without being found before then. It would have made sneaking past the rest of the league a lot easier for him if they had. Bit of bum luck for that one.
Ah well, he could work with it. It was time they all bailed anyway. He pointed to where he thought the front doors were.
“I’m pretty sure that, if you follow the trees going that way, then they should get you back to the front doors. Ya might have to sneak around the plaza though. Most of the mooks’ll be focused on fighting and not much else, so if you keep quiet, you should be able to get past them.”
“W-what about you?” Floating-Clothes asked, her voice was worried. He could see her fussing with her hands nervously.
Man, of course, she was one of those stupid nice kids. Actually getting worried about an old crook like him after he did one nice thing for them.
“I’m gonna go the other way. Find the back door and leave through it instead. I may have helped you lot, but I’m still a crook who broke into this place. And I don’t plan on going to prison today.” He looked down at the brats and made a shooing motion with his hand. “Now scram. You need to move fast if you want to get the help your class needs.”
Kira didn’t wait for any of them to speak, just turning and running.
He just needed to find the back exit to the place. Everyone knew that places like this had emergency exits; he just needed to figure out where it was hidden. Maybe they put the exit in the same place they put the security? He scanned the walls, squinting to spot them through the chaos around him. Once he found the door, he could get out of the building he was in. He’d figure out where he needed to go from there. He was pretty sure UA’s gates only worked when you were trying to get in, not when you were trying to get out.
Obviously, the main gate would be out, but the smaller doors and gates were probably usable. Then again, for a school this big, he couldn’t discount the storm drains as an escape route. For a place this big, with all the fancy training areas they had, they probably had drains big enough for him to sneak away through. And his standards were low enough that he was willing to use them as long as he didn’t end up arrested for this.
He grinned, finding the door at last. Simple and metal, it looked pretty average overall. It looked like the kind of emergency exit he’d see in an office building or a theater. That wasn’t a bad thing for him since doors like that were nice and easy to get open. At least, they were easy if you didn’t mind destroying them.
He dug his claws into the metal, fingers piercing through to get a good grip. Then the metal creaked loudly as he ripped the whole thing out. He casually tossed the now-wrecked door aside, peering into the much darker hallway on the other side. The lights were off, not just darker than the sunlight streaming in from the tall windowed dome above.
Oh, right, the league had a guy who was supposed to keep help from coming. He was probably in there to keep watch. Which meant the guy might have seen him rescuing the kids.
He frowned into the shadows.
That could be a problem for him later, since he was pretty sure the actual boss of the league didn’t come with them. If it was sent back to the guy, then that meant they would know that Kira wasn’t actually on their side. Or that he had standards that he put before his paycheck.
Sure, the Gamer-Shit came with them but Kira was pretty sure the guy wasn’t in charge. He was just a crazy, violent figurehead so that the mooks would have a face to look at. For something this big, something this well planned, there was no way he could believe that Gamer-Shit came up with it. He was way too impulsive and violent to do it. The big boss was someone else; he was sure of it.
Kira rolled his shoulders. Seemed his plans would change a little bit then.
First, he would take out Signal-Blocker and probably smash up the security room so that nothing could get back to the Big Boss. Then he would sneak out and see if he could sneak off the school’s campus without being caught.
(He had low standards, so he wasn’t against using the sewers or storm drains to get out. As long as he didn’t end up in cuffs, he didn’t care how he got out.)
A golden butterfly flitted past his head. He blinked, twisting to follow the butterfly’s path.
Good, Sasakia was watching.
He paused, brow furrowing in confusion.
Sasakia was watching? He didn’t work during the day, so why was one of his butterflies flying around? He didn’t do stuff that would get him special attention most of the time…
Kira looked up, eyes widening in shock as he took in the swarm of glowing butterflies fluttering through the air. More than he’d ever seen in his life. (And, yeah, he was a city kid so that was a low bar. But still.) He couldn’t help stopping and watching the little lights dancing through the air, leaving glowing trails as they did. If he were the poetic type, he’d try to think up some fancy way of calling it beautiful. As it was, he couldn’t help stopping to just watch them, for just a few moments.
Kira shook off the awe. He needed to focus. He had something he needed to do before he could leave. And, no matter how well he got along with Sasakia, he didn’t plan on getting arrested because the guy distracted him without meaning to. He didn’t plan on leaving this place in cuffs today.
He walked into the dark hall, listening carefully for movement as he did. He needed to make sure he was the one who got the drop on Signal-Blocker and not the other way around.
He heard something get knocked over and grinned.
Found you.
He stalked forward. He’d been ready to knock some heads for a while before he’d found out they’d wanted him to fight a bunch of kids. It would be good to finally act on that against someone he didn’t mind beating into the floor.
He walked up to the fanciest door in the dark hall, placed in a way that showed its importance. His money said that was the security control room. Which, if he had to guess, was probably where the signal jammer was hiding. And, since he was the one keeping the school security from coming in and busting them, it was actually smart of them to make the guy wait in a place where he couldn’t be knocked out by one of the brats by accident.
He casually broke the door, crushing the handle in one hand and ripping it off the hinges with a single shove of his shoulder.
The squirrely man he remembered seeing days ago was standing in front of the camera screens. A tiny, little man who twitched a lot and watched in quiet, vicious delight whenever the crooks around him started fighting and trying to tear each other apart. Who would quietly egg on the fights just so he could watch the bloodshed but whined and whimpered the instant anyone focused on him. Kira had decided quickly that he hated the pest, and this was just more fuel for that opinion.
The shrimp spun around, eyes wide with terror as he stumbled back against the console behind him. He didn’t remember the guy’s name, if he’d ever been introduced in the first place.
“W-W-Wanaguchi! Wh-what are you doing?! You-you’re supposed to be killing-” Kira let out a deep, hissing growl, making the little man freeze in fear.
“A bunch of kids? I don’t play that way. I signed up to fight some pro-heroes, not to kill a bunch of brats.” He slowly stalked forward, his height making him loom menacingly over the shimpy man who was the only thing keeping the heroes from knowing what was happening inside the walls of their school.
The guys’ eyes were glowing. The last time he saw the guy, his eyes weren’t glowing. If Kira had to guess, it had to do with his quirk. So he probably had to focus on making the signal jamming thing keep working and that was one the reasons he was secreted away instead of getting dropped into the battlefield. Now, how best to stop it… Eh, he might as well go with the easiest.
“The League ain’t too high on my priority list anyway. I got other folks that I prefer.” The little man’s eyes widened in a mix of fear and realization.
“You-you’re a traitor! You’re gonna sell us out! You’ll never-”
Kira’s hand seized him around the neck, covering his mouth with ease because of just how small the man was. He made sure to grip tight enough to lift him up, but not enough to do serious, permanent harm to him. He only needed enough to scare him. Enough to make him scared of Kira.
“Yeah, I am. Not for the heroes, though. I got somebody else I follow,” Kira said, his tone lazy and calm. Then he gave a cold, dangerously vicious smile. “But you won’t be getting the chance to rat me out.”
With one swift move, he slammed the jammer’s head against the wall and knocked him out. He dropped him, letting the dead weight crumple to the floor.
Kira watched them for a moment, waiting to make sure the guy was out before he continued his work. He gave a pleased nod when there was no sign of the guy getting up. Better still, he could hear the computers start making noises that they hadn’t been making before. He was fairly sure one of them was the intruder alarms finally starting to go off. He was sure the kids were relieved about finally hearing them. It meant help was coming, and that was good for them.
He could also see the wild swarm of butterflies all swooping to the center of the building through the computer screens. He wondered what was up with that. Maybe Sasakia was using them to be a distraction? It would probably work well, considering how bright the little suckers were.
He hummed, looking around the room and thinking carefully about how to proceed. He couldn’t stick around for long now that the alarms were finally going off.
First, he’d rip out some wires from the ceiling to tie up the jammer. Those were usually nice and long, so they should do the job to keep the guy down until the heroes could pick him up. Then he’d get to work finding where the camera that saw him in the water was and getting rid of the video. The kids might tell their teachers, but making sure the League couldn’t confirm it would keep him off the radar.
It probably wouldn’t be good to just smash the computers in case anyone genuinely in the League managed to escape. The heroes might need the footage to find them later on if they did get away. He just needed to get rid of any recording that had seen him. Which meant he needed to find which camera specifically caught him and delete the footage from it.
He sighed. He should have paid more attention in computer class when he was in school. He’d just have to give it his best shot.
The things he did these days…
They went the wrong way.
That was the only thing Toru could really put together at the moment.
The nice crook (not a villain, she couldn’t see him as one when she had the other villains in the USJ to compare him against), the alligator man who’d helped Tsuyu, Minetta and herself to safety, had pointed to the plaza and told them they could sneak around to get to the front doors before he’d run toward the outer walls of the USJ to find a different exit.
It had seemed like a good idea at the time! She was good at sneaking! Tsuyu was quiet too! Minetta was panicking, but he’d gotten a lot quieter once they’d gotten to shore.
They should have been able to do it.
But when they’d gotten to the plaza…
It had been awful.
Aizawa-sensei had been holding his own for a while, but he was getting tired. And it had gotten him hurt. Worse than hurt!
Toru stared, a hand covering her mouth in horror, at the bloodied, broken form of her homeroom teacher. Looking barely conscious as he hung limply from the hand of the giant purple villain who looked more like a monster from a slasher film than a human. It towered over them all, the scars that covered it glowing unnaturally against its purple skin, its eyes too round and its brain fully exposed for all to see. The leader, gaunt and pale and wearing what looked eerily like real, genuine severed human hands all over his body as he talked, gloated, at them all.
She suddenly understood.
She understood why Aizawa-sensei was always so hard on them all. Why he made himself so scary. Why he was so strict about them taking the class seriously. Why he pushed for them to pay attention and to listen to everything he and the other teachers were telling them about Hero Work. Part of it might have been to scare them, but part of it was this.
He was trying to keep them safe. Because villains like these existed.
Villains like the terrifying purple monster and the creepy hand villain. Villains who laughed as they shattered the limbs of the heroes who tried to fight them. Villains who enjoyed causing pain and fear. Villains who weren’t afraid to kill a bunch of kids. (Like her class.)
She trembled, her feet frozen in place, as the leader moved. It felt like there was a single blink between him standing in the stone plaza and when he was in front of them. Suddenly, he was reaching out for Tsuyu’s head. Reaching to press his hand over her face and activate the quirk he had used to hurt their teacher. The same quirk they had just seen destroy their teacher’s elbow and splatter blood on the ground.
Nothing happened.
Nothing happened?
Her eyes slid back to Aizawa-sensei. Her breath caught painfully in her chest at the sight of a single glowing, red eye peeking out from matted, bloody hair. A glowing red eye that was locked onto the villain.
Sensei had stopped the quirk. He’d stopped the man from hurting Tsuyu. But he wouldn’t be able to hold it. (Not for long.)
Advice from Izuku and Hitoshi echoed in her ears, from one of their morning study sessions.
She wasn’t sure how they’d gotten on the topic, but they had gone from chatting about hero students not having a gym block to self-defense, and the kinds of things Hitoshi and Izuku had learned in their self-defense classes. She had lamented that she should have taken more classes like theirs before attending UA, instead of just doing cheerleading in middle school. She could do all kinds of great acrobatics, she was a decent flyer, but she only knew a few basics for to not hurt herself if she got in a fight.
So she had asked for any advice they could give her.
She’d expected them to tell her a few moves she could try, a style she could look up that might work for her. Something like that. But that wasn’t how things had gone. An expression she had never seen before appeared on Izuku’s face as he looked at her from over his personal notebook, stopping whatever fun research he was doing.
“If you ever end up in a situation where you’re in danger, and I mean real danger and not just a training exercise gone wrong, take any shot you can get. Especially if you’re not acting as a hero.” His face had been deathly serious as he spoke to her. “A criminal, a villain, is just fighting to stay out of jail. But in that dark alley? In that isolated warehouse? You’re fighting for your life.”
She had been startled as Hitoshi nodded along, his face equally serious. Everyone she had known told her about dojos and fighting styles she’d need in order to fight and capture villains. Everything she needed to learn and study to be able to be a hero. No one had ever told her something like that before.
Izuku had been frowning as he’d continued.
“Claw their eyes out, jam your elbow in their ribs hard enough to leave them gasping, kick them like you’re trying to get the winning goal in a national football game; do whatever it takes to get away, whatever you need to do to keep yourself safe. Go for it. Making it out safely is more important than having an honorable fight.”
Hitoshi had taken that as his cue to speak up, leaning against the table as he twirled a pencil between his fingers and his face was just as serious as Izuku’s.
“Yeah. If it’s for your life, anything goes. Some jerks will get huffy about it, but they’re not the ones fighting. Honestly, if they do start trying to talk shit about you protecting yourself, then their either stupid or someone who’s just as dangerous to you. So take the cheap shot, aim for the ‘dishonorable’ hits, knock whomever you’re fighting down hard. As long as you get out, their opinions don’t matter.”
She had never thought of it like that, but part of that might have just been because she’d never thought too much about self-defense before. Everyone she had talked to before had talked about the techniques and martial styles, what kinds of skills you needed to pin someone or counter their quirks. That kind of thing.
But, she had supposed after talking about it for a little while longer, sometimes that wasn’t an option. There wasn’t always a hero or a police officer nearby. Not every villain would just give up if a hero appeared in front of them. Sometimes, you just had to do whatever you could.
Seeing her bloodied teacher, seeing the hand on Tsuyu’s face… She finally got it. She finally knew what they had meant.
She stopped thinking and moved.
Toru lunged, seizing the villain’s wrist and wrenching it away from Tsuyu’s face while he was looking back at Aizawa-sensei, getting that dangerous quirk away from her friend. She used the running start to kick him between the legs as hard as she could, the softest and most sensitive place she could think of to hit. (Just like Izuku and Hitoshi had told her to do.)
The man let out a shout that was a good octave higher than it had been before, staggering back from them in pain and almost falling to the ground.
Some vague part of her registered Minetta stuttering something out behind her. She didn’t care about what he had to say. Fairness didn’t matter as long as they made it out alive. Minetta could whine and wail all he wanted, it wouldn’t help them. Because their teachers weren’t there yet, they wouldn’t be there for who knew how long. So they needed to fight. They needed to fight for their lives.
Her chest hurt from the painful, shaking breaths she was taking, staring at the villain through blurry eyes. Terrified tears dripped down her cheeks, unseen but hot against her skin. (She had to fight back. She had to; they wouldn’t make it out if she didn’t.)
“Bitch! You- How dare-” The man’s voice was higher now, tone spiking from the successful hit she’d made. But she could still hear the unbridled fury.
Then there was a surge of amethyst and gold that shot between them and the villain, the swarm of glowing butterflies that she had seen building in the USJ’s plaza descending onto Aizawa-sensei like a giant, living cloud of light and almost blinding them all despite the bright sunshine.
The monster let out an unearthly screech, like it had been burned by an impossible flame, dropping their teacher and pulling away.
And it looked like- like he was standing up? But how? Sensei had been hurt so badly, there was no way he could be standing on his own…
The fluttering lights scattered, with only a few golden butterflies flitting around before vanishing into nothing, and a stranger stood in Aizawa-sensei’s place.
The stranger stood tall, maybe even as tall as All Might, towering over almost everyone there. She could see dark gray armor over their chest, beneath a capture scarf that looked just like Aizawa-sensei’s and a similar black jumpsuit to the hero’s under both. She could see that their (his?) suit had a few patterned stripes on it, though the colors were muted down to almost blend in with the black of the jumpsuit. She had no idea if the pattern meant something, but to her, it looked like little interlocking dashes of color. (If it weren’t for how scared she was right then, she would have thought the pattern was pretty.) And they had a golden-yellow utility belt that looked like Aizawa-sensei’s belt.
He had six arms, with sturdy-looking bracer-gauntlets on each one and some kind of bladed spikes on the armor for the back of the hands. He had shin armor too secured over his boots. She thought they were called greaves? Since they protected the knees as well as the shins. Both the shin armor and the gauntlets were the same dark gray-black color as the chest armor.
His hair was tightly bound back in a bun; some chunks even looked like they’d been braided to help gather them up and secure them. A large yellow-tinted, bubble-like goggles over the upper half of his face helped shield his head and eyes from harm. And she could see not one, not two, but five eyes behind the lens. Five eyes that abruptly snapped open and fixed on not only her, but her classmates and the villains in the USJ’s plaza.
The eyes abruptly narrowed.
The stranger leapt forward far faster than she had ever seen someone move, getting a small, startled gasp from Toru as she stumbled back. Her hands reflexively raised to defend herself in a sloppy stance she’d picked up from her friends. But no hit came.
Instead, she found herself staring at his back as he lashed out at the hand villain, forcing the villain further away from her and her classmates. He stood solidly between them and the man who’d tried to attack Tsuyu. Like a tall, multi-armed barrier shielding them from harm.
She swallowed around the lump in her throat. This person was trying to protect her; he had to be. Why else would he throw himself between her and the villain leader? And at the same time, he looked familiar. He looked different but… Enough of him still looked the same that she couldn’t help thinking that- That this was her teacher. This tall, six-armed, five-eyed man was actually her previously injured teacher.
Was she crazy? Or was this really- ?
“Ai- Aizawa-sensei?” Her voice trembled as she spoke. The man’s head turned just enough for a single eye to look back at her while the rest remained focused on the villains.
“Hagakure, Asui, Minetta, get ready to run. I’ll try to make an opening for you three to get to the front doors.” He kept his voice low to prevent the villains from hearing him properly. And she recognized it.
It was Aizawa-sensei’s voice. This was Aizawa-sensei!
But how? How could he move so easily with four more arms than he’d been born with? How could he see with three more eyes without trouble? How could he move with the weight of armor that he hadn’t had before?
“What- Who- Who the hell are you?!” One of the villains yelled, staring wide-eyed at the man in front of them all.
Aizawa-sensei hummed, a strange light flashing over his face. It hovered over his face like a mask in a thin, glowing purple line in the shape of a butterfly with round wings. (Right, it was the butterflies that did this… Was it a quirk? Was someone else trying to help them? Was it a villain that had turned on the league, like the crocodile man?)
“At the moment? I am called Erasure Anansi,” Aizawa-sensei’s- no, Erasure Anansi’s voice dipped into a growl, all five eyes shifting to glare at the still standing villains. “And you won’t be getting away, not after the danger you’ve put my students in.”
Afterword: Honestly, it was kind of fun exploring Wanaguchi’s character more in this. Playing around with where he came from and who he’s growing to be thanks to this story. Because, while he’s at least SORT OF a good guy, he’s still a violent criminal. So, his helping, but also being mean/violent while doing it, felt like the right thing for his character. Wanaguchi’s called Kira in this because, well, that’s his name. Wanaguchi is basically his surname, while Kira is HIS name. So, obviously, he’s going to think of himself as “Kira” and not as “Wanaguchi”.
I was also taking the chance to do a little background stuff and fill in at least one plot hole from Izuku not being part of Class 1-A. So I had Wanaguchi be the one to save Tsuyu and Mineta, while also throwing in Toru just to get a trio of students in that scene. Toru was skipped over during the USJ arc, so I wanted to take the chance to at least IMPLY that she was doing more than just hiding or sneaking around while nakey during all of that.
Since Izuku isn’t there to make the plan to save himself, Tsuyu, and Mineta, they needed someone else to get them out safely. And it gives Wanaguchi the chance to really show that he’s not heartless. And give the kids the chance to see that not everyone who’s a criminal is Totally Evil. (Hooray for Moral Complexity!) It also, to a degree, shows how Wanaguchi may have grown since he started interacting with Izuku. As in, being willing to put his neck out to help a bunch of kids, and trying to make a plan on the fly, as opposed to just trying to brawl as many people as he could.
As for the bit with Toru, I wanted to voice a minor opinion of mine about life threatening situations. These kids are too collected/graceful. They need to take more cheap shots while terrified out of their minds. Let them turn into violent, feral beasts when they’re terrified! When your life is at risk, fuck having an honorable fight. Just focus on doing whatever you can to get out alive! TAKE EVERY SHOT YOU CAN. BITE THEIR FINGERS OFF, SCRATCH THEIR EYES OUT, KICK THEM IN THE GROIN, TURN INTO A FERAL BEAST. If it keeps you alive and safe, then who the fuck cares if it’s not the “honorable” thing to do?
Originally, I was gonna have the Kamiko be in the next chapter. With the description being told entirely from Aizawa’s point of view, but then I realized that there wasn’t really much of a reason for that. Since a Kamiko would already ‘know’ what had been changed, there was no reason for them to examine themselves. Sure, there may be details they would know about the changes that someone on the outside wouldn’t, but they’re not going to stop and dedicate their thoughts to figuring it out.
I think I’ll go into detail about what Aizawa ‘knew’ as Erasure Anansi in a different short/chapter later. Like during a police testimony thing. It’ll probably also double as a look into how the teachers are handling the unexpected curve ball of Sasakia’s powers.
I will say, the pattern Toru noticed? I fully admit to snatching it from the art on a tarot card. The wheel of fortune card from the Beneath the Moon tarot deck and I mostly snatched it for the Anansi reference. I don’t know if making the colors muted changes the meaning though, I just wanted a cool pattern to go with everything else.
