'Aura Puppetry Arts : Ultimate Move - High Speed' I intoned in my mind as I activated the technique. Suddenly, the whole world slowed down, I could analyze and examine all the details of the world my senses brought me at leisure.
I knew exactly how to dodge the abomination with minimal distance between us, I could calculate the exact distance between Aizawa and me and how I could reach him before the Hands-guy attacks again, I could see the various weak points of the remaining enemies that were trying to encircle the injured Aizawa.
I quickly made a battle plan in my mind, and sped off faster than a bullet. I grabbed Thirteen by the waist and ran around the abomination before jumping and positioning us right above its head. Thirteen's still activated quirk sucked up its brain and eyes, which were for some reason completely exposed to the air.
As soon as Thirteen's quirk ripped them off the abomination's body and disintegrated them, it fell down like a statue. Though I could still see its body trying to regenerate the brain and eyes, I could see that it was many times slower than its instantaneous regeneration for its body.
Having taken care of that, I grabbed Thirteen again, while attaching multiple Aura Strings to her, and we sped off towards rest of the Villains. I kept flashing and reappearing with Thirteen in the eyes of others, each time near one of the Villains and disabling them with a quick activation of Thirteen's quirk.
Scared by my power, the Black smoke guy advised the hands-guy to retreat while gathering blackish smoke to open a big portal. The Hands-guy grumbled before rushing towards Aizawa to kill him.
Seeing that, I decided to use my final move. I dropped Thirteen on the ground and gathered my remaining aura, even the strings I was using.
'High Speed: Primary Move - Sonic Boom!!' I intoned in my mind. The next moment, time stopped for me completely and I disappeared from everyone's perception. The next moment a sonic boom sounded in the area, while all the injured Villains and Thirteen got blown back.
The Hands-guy got thrown into the open portal with a handprint on his bare chest. His clothes were torn to shreds while his ribs and spine poked out of his back like a pin-cushion. I appeared in front of a tired and injured Aizawa with my back to him, my skin in reddish-black color and smoking while glowing vein like cracks ran up my right arm.
The black smoke guy was stunned, before growing shocked then horrified, "You bastard!! You hurt Tomura?! Say your prayers kid, because your countdown has begun. You will die, your friends will die, your teachers will die!! Everything that is precious to you will be erased at the hands of Master when he comes for revenge."
His spread his smoke in the form of tentacles to the whole USJ and summoned the Villains he had hidden all over the facility, in various rescue areas. All of a sudden, the forces facing me were bolstered by the dozens, with the smoky-teleportation guy supporting them.
On the other hand, I couldn't even move myself without an intense burst of pain shooting through every inch of my body. My Aura reserves were near tapped out, the last traces of it were being spent on Plus Ultra to get me in at least a bit of fighting shape.
Aizawa was barely standing behind me, looking ready to topple over if he relaxes his concentration, and Thirteen was knocked out by the shock-wave of Primary Move - Sonic Boom. So all in all, unless new pieces were introduced, it was checkmate for us.
But it seemed as were not in luck, as a guy with a skeleton like head controlled water from the shipwreck simulation and sent it towards us like a tidal wave. I resigned my self to get washed away by it, as I scraped up aura to make Plus Ultra work even faster. Even if all my limbs are broken by this wave, as long as I am breathing, there will be hope.
But it seemed that my luck had decided to stand by my side after all. Barely a few moments before the wave was going to hit me, a figure landed in front of me and intense frost radiated out from him, freezing the entire tidal wave. It then moved past the wave and froze all who were near the skeleton head guy.
Before the villains could recover from that, a huge shout of 'Die!!' echoed from somewhere above, as two enormous blasts hit the groups of villains. The figure landed by the side of the one who froze the wave, using explosions to control his descent.
"We brought reinforcements" he said while few other figures landed in front of me too, sending up a wave of dust. When it cleared, I saw the broad back of a certain extremely muscular blond hero with hair in the form of Bunny ears.
By his side was a wiry yet muscular teen with green sparks bouncing off him. On the teen's back was a certain pony-tailed girl, who on seeing me gasped out loud, before activating her quirk and gently picking me up in her big hands.
"You dummy," she said angrily, while tears threatened to spill from her eyes. I tried to smile at her to reassure her, but I don't think I was able to do a good job of it.
Soon other faculty members of UA also appeared around us, having finally restrained the ones I had injured with Thirteen. They surrounded Aizawa and me protectively, ready to face of against the remaining villains.
"You attacked these children while my guard was down." All-Might said in a quiet voice with anger seething out, almost like a visible Battle Aura "You attacked and scared the children, those I had sworn to teach and protect. My colleagues had to bear the burden of my absence, almost paying with their lives. My absence made one of the hopes of tomorrow put his life on the line to protect his friend's lives."
All-Might looked up and a visible ripple went through the air from the force his body emitted "But not anymore, Have no fear Young Kyoya and my Comrades. BECAUSE I AM HERE!!!!!!!!" All-Might roared, creating a shock-wave barely less powerful than my Sonic Boom, and sent villains tumbling back from his roar alone.
After that it was a full chaos on the battle field. The tired Villains could not handle the might of Pro-Heroes and powerful quirk holders like Bakugo and Todoroki. Long rangers like Snipe sent a barrage of accurate attacks that disabled most small-fry Villains. Ectoplasm sent multitude of clones to engage the Villain hordes.
Present Mic Attacked with sonic shock-waves, Cementoss manipulated ground to seal the injured villains and Midnight put them to sleep, creating a perfect capturing trio. Vlad attacked with various blood weapons, while All-Might flitted about the grounds in high speed, delivering One-K.O's.
While this was going on, Principal Nezu arrived with Hound Dog, Power Loader and Recovery Girl to treat Aizawa, Thirteen and me. Itsuka carefully carried me and held me near Recovery Girl.
"Please, can't you heal him?" Itsuka requested tearfully. Recovery girl examined me carefully before shaking her head.
"He has really pushed himself too far, little girl" Recovery Girl said "He has not even left a scrap of spare stamina for me to heal him with. He even pushed himself to recover quicker with that power of his, exhausting him further."
Seeing an expression of disbelief on Nezu and Itsuka's face, she explained with a sigh, "Unlike Aizawa and Thirteen, healing him now will kill him faster than letting him recover on his own. He has already over-drafted his body's energy. Me using my quirk on him now will have 95% chance of me killing him and 5% chance of me crippling his body or his quirk."
Seeing that Itsuka was depressed and teary, Recovery girl gently patted her head "I am sorry, but currently the best we can do is to let his body recover on it's own. Moreover, why are you giving up on him girl, when he is fighting nail and tooth to to be alive and conscious despite the massive amount of pain he must be in. Buck up and take care of him!"
Itsuka nodded at that with a determined expression and shook her tears away. She gently cradled me in her hands, covering my body between her palms to protect me from any stray attacks that might get in.
Over at the Battle, the arrival of All-Might had already sapped the will of the Villains. The actions of pro-Heroes broke their remaining courage and soon only the smoky teleporter was left.
"This is not over" he said in seething voice "Even if we failed this time, the League of Villains will be back. Oh, and Master sends his regards to you All-Might. You might be meeting him sooner than we thought. Prepare yourself all of you, your countdown has begun." He said ominously and disappeared into a portal before All-Might could move towards him.
"He got away" All might growled while clenching his fist. But before he could rage, a soft paw patted his leg. All-Might looked down to see Principal Nezu there with a cheerful smile and crouched down to be at his eye level.
"Calm yourself All-Might," Nezu said "Currently it's not important whether we defeated the Villains or not. Currently most of them are still waiting in the grounds outside USJ. They are rattled and need our assurance, hence we don't have time to waste here. Let's clean up this mess and make plans to train our students better."
"We also have to upgrade our security so that students like Young Kyoya don't have to pay such a heavy sacrifice" All-Might said with a sorrowful tone "Its our failure as a teacher that a student under us was injured to this extent, even if most of it was from him pushing beyond his limits."
"Absolutely correct." Nezu said "But there is a silver lining to this All-Might. The shock from this encounter with Villains has woken up these kids from their peaceful stupor. Now that they have seen what the dark side of Hero profession entails, the fires in their heart is lit."
"No first year class ever before has encountered and survived such a large scale Villain attack. This class will grow up to be the best one we have taught ever." Nezu said with absolute confidence in his voice.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-
By the time the UA faculty wrapped everything up, the police had arrived along with ambulance and medics. All the students and the injured were sent to UA through ambulances, while the Villains were captured in prison vans.
They even captured the still regenerating abomination, which All-Might warned his police friends about. Thirteen had told him what it could do and how Kyoya had put his life on line to protect her so that she could use her powers to attack it.
Students such as Todoroki, Bakugo, Midoriya, Kirishima and the others who fought a bit in the battles, were still from the exposure they had got today. Most of all, they were shell-shocked by the power of Pro-heroes and the certain classmates of theirs, who was entirely responsible for all of them being safe and sound here.
They all had seen the gap between them and him, and were eager to breach the gap and become stronger. Bakugo especially was impressed beyond measure, though he still believed his Explosion quirk to have incredible potential, he couldn't deny that currently he had no way to reach the level of power Kyoya had shown. Strength, speed, perception, strategy or versatility, he excelled in everything.
Midoriya was only filed with guilt and drive to grow even stronger. Being with Kyoya for over a decade, Kyoya had become more than a cousin to him. He was his friend, mentor, closest confidant and his brother.
Coming back with reinforcements as planned, yet seeing Kyoya on the brink of death was a waking call for Midoriya. Though he had been working hard, Midoriya knew that his smooth progress was mostly because Kyoya had trained him past every hurdle in his path without letting him truly suffer.
Due to this, his sense of urgency had dulled. He had begun relying on All-Might and Kyoya at a subconscious level. But not anymore, he would truly embrace One for All now, and begin training even harder. Kyoya will not have to fight alone ever again.
Itsuka was sitting in the back of an Ambulance in silence, gently holding Kyoya's hand as she watched him breathe like the softest whisper. His quirk was strong, she always knew that. But she had forgotten that while he might seem like he always has things under control, sometimes they are simply beyond the powers of a single person.
She could still see that scene in front of her eyes, frail Kyoya with steam and smoke coming from his charred reddish-black body. Even in that state, he was bravely standing in front of Aizawa to protect him from the villains.
She had seen how many villains Thirteen, Aizawa and Kyoya had managed to take out between the three of them. She could barely believe that someone other than All-Might had managed such a feat. Moreover, she knew that Kyoya had just as much of a contribution in it as the other two, if not even more.
That brought her to that heart-wrenching scene of almost losing him under that Villains attack. She had completely lost her cool at that, grabbing Todoroki and throwing him like a javelin with two simple words 'Protect Kyoya'. She then did the same to Bakugo, before Midoriya stopped her and carried her while speeding alongside All-Might.
If she had been one second later, or if Kyoya hadn't managed to hold on as long as he did, she might have lost him today. She blinked her tears away and shook that thought out of her head. Never again would she watch helplessly like that.
Kyoya had proved that with intense practice, a quirk could be developed to perform incredible feats. She would take a page out of his book and increase her training. Next time such a situation came, she would be right there to protect him while he protects the others.
As the evening came, most heroes were discharged from the recovery center of UA, except Aizawa, Thirteen and Kyoya. Aizawa and Thirteen were still fine, but Kyoya had gone into a semi-coma. He was alive and his body was recovering slowly, but his consciousness was blank. Itsuka stayed behind at the Recovery Center with Kyoya for the whole night while Midoriya went back home to tell his mom the news.
While Kyoya and the rest recovered, the Pro-heroes were doing their best to find out about the details of the 'League of Villains'. with some necessary investigative techniques, they managed to coax out the names of the two ring masters of the attack on the USJ.
One of them was the Hands-guy, named Shigaraki Tomura, and the other being the one with the smoky warp quirk, named Kurogiri. According to statements of multiple villains they had captured in USJ incident, Tomura and Kurogiri were they ones who approached them, offered them various benefits and created the League of Villains.
However, account of a certain villain with camouflage quirk stated that there was possibly a third Master, someone who was in shadows. The said villain had gathered this information when he had sneakily spied on Tomura and heard him speaking along with Kurogiri to someone on a communication device.
But other than that they had no idea about the League. Their location, resources, and core-members, all were a mystery. They were teleported by Kurogiri whenever they needed to go somewhere and whatever their requests, it was carefully analyzed before being given to them.
Detective Naomasa Tsukauchi, who was a friend of All-Might and taking care of this incident, deduced that the League might have been planning to discard these Villains all along. They had no idea how deep the reach of League of Villains went, or their end goal. The only objective they knew as of now was what Tomura declared, Killing All-Might and destroying his legacy.
However, they did get an idea on the quirks of these two. Kurogiri's warp gate needed precise coordinates to work, which was why he was currently not freeing the Abomination, named Nomu, that they had unleashed on Thirteen on Kyoya. Since the police had him safely in a secure facility, Kurogiri didn't know its location.
Tomura had a destruction or disintegration type quirk based on a tactile trigger. So far it was not know whether it was limited to his palm or of all the fingers had to touch the surface, but it was confirmed that he can't do it without touch. Also, Tomura seemed to have an unstable persona, probably because of trauma, and blamed Heroes for it, primarily All-Might.
But neither of them had any recognizable identification, even after an extensive search. Even when the police tried searching through individuals of a similar type quirk, the result turned out to be blank.
But what was more worrying, was that apart from Kurogiri, Nomu and Tomura, all the other seventy-two villains arrested in USJ incident, seemed to be only small time thugs. Tomura, despite his unstable and man-child like personality, had managed to get these villains to band together behind him.
The teachers were worried about the Villains, and also they had to handle the bad press that they were getting for the large scale villain attack and for letting the top student of the entrance exam get injured so badly. Some of the police force had even leaked the news that Kyoya had been protecting the teachers, instead of it being the other way around.
All in all, UA was doing its best to get the people calmed down, and in the meantime, the classes were suspended so that students could rest and recover.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
After a few days of resting, I finally came out of my semi-coma. It seems my quirk had activated the Plus Ultra technique unconsciously, as I had recovered from more than sixty percent of my injuries.
As I stood up and tested various parts of my body, the door to my room opened and two people entered, both stiffening up in shock at seeing me standing up.
"Kyoya!" the girl with her hair in a side-ponytail, rushed towards me and hugged me while crying "You dummy! I was so afraid that you might never wake up."
I hugged her back while wincing and reaching my hand out for my communication device by the bed-stand [It's good to see you again but could you let up a bit? I am still injured you know!]
She let go with a gasp and blushed "ah, ya. Sorry, I got emotional, but you will get better soon. Recovery girl can heal you faster now that you are awake."
At that point the second visitor stepped in. Recovery Girl was smiling like always, but her eyes were analytical, looking me up from head to toe. I knew what was intriguing her, based on my natural recovery I shouldn't have been able to recover for at least a few more weeks.
"Hm, how are you feeling Kyoya-chan?" recovery girl asked "do you have enough stamina to handle my healing?"
[My stamina may not be up to the mark] I confessed [but my Aura reserves are almost full. I can supplement your healing with my own self-healing technique. Hence it should not take too long for me to recover.]
Recovery girl nodded and kissed me on my hand. Suddenly, a vigorous overbearing force started rushing through my body, forcibly healing it while draining my stamina. Recognizing this as her quirk's ability, I activated Plus Ultra at maximum, bolstering the healing process while also recovering my stamina rapidly. This acted as a cycle of regenerating and draining for a few minutes, until I had healed completely.
As soon as my body finished healing, I noticed a few changes with my body. It was more durable, my muscles expressed more elasticity and power, my stamina had risen up by a few times, and lastly, my agility had increased greatly, boosting my speed and perception.
Surprised with the changes, I told recovery girl about all of this. She thought for a while before replying, "I have used my quirk many times, but it has never resulted in this. In fact, my quirk never even gets anyone's body back up to a hundred percent, it always ranges from ninety-five to ninety-nine percent."
"Hence, I can safely say that it must be a result of your self-healing technique, which is remarkable. It is allowing your body to recover and improve to help it endure whichever situation it was that let you be injured. If it was a burn, then you would get heat resistance, If it was cold, then cold resistance, Blunt force will give you shock resistance or absorption and so forth. Your physical attributes will improve each time too."
After discussing the peculiarities of my technique, and promising to try and develop one for application on others, I decided to go home with Itsuka. The UA classes would coincidentally be starting from tomorrow, hence I wanted to get prepared.
While going home, Itsuka suggested that we take a walk by the beach, as it was near sunset time. Seeing that it would be a good way to let my mind relax, I agreed.
We walked aimlessly at the beach, enjoying the company while waiting for the sunset. As the time for sunset came close, we took a seat next to each other right at the beach. After a while, Itsuka rested her head on my shoulder while her body leaned on to mine.
"You know Kyoya," she said "the first time we met, I had immediately known you were special. You had both power and character, something rarely seen in kids at our age. Inviting you to coffee as a thanks for saving me from that perv was just an excuse. In reality, I had my eyes on you since the time of the orientation in the auditorium that day."
"I had tried to gather courage to talk to you multiple times, but failed. Only when you yourself came to save me, that I was able to gather enough courage to talk to you. Since that day, every day has been a wonderful experience to me. Training alongside you, being in the class with you, goofing around with you an Midoriya, I have loved each second of it."
"However, seeing you injure like that, so weak and frail, made me realize something. The feelings I have for you, are not those of a friend. I want something more, something even closer to you. I want to stand by your side and protect you, just as you protect others. I want to walk by your side, helping you should the weight of your burdens. I have fallen in love with you Kyoya Jin, deeply and hopelessly in love with you."
Itsuka confessed all this before tilting her head upwards and capturing my lips with hers, while tears ran down her cheeks. I was shocked for a moment, but then a huge sense of warmth bubbled up along my chest and a shock ran up my spine.
I soon found myself kissing Itsuka back with fervor, to which she responded by wrapping her arms and legs around my neck and waist respectively. I too looped my arms around her waist, plastering her body to mine as we lost ourselves in the kiss.
I didn't know how long we kissed, but when we broke out from our trance, it was already getting dark. With furiously blushing faces, we glanced at each other before getting up and dusting ourselves.
We left the beach slowly, but soon found ourselves wrapped up around each other at a bus stop, kissing with fervor. This event repeated itself at a parking lot, at the back of a closed bookstore and finally in the alley at the side of the building where Itsuka lived.
While kissing in that alley, I connected to Itsuka with my aura strings to show her everything I was feeling, the rush, the attraction, the affection, the excitement and the passion. Itsuka momentarily broke the kiss with a gasp when she felt all those, before looking at me with shining eyes and kissing me more passionately while pressing me against the alley wall.
After a while, when Itsuka was weak in the knees with overload of emotions, we finally stopped our kissing session. We looked in to each other's eyes while panting lightly.
[So does this mean we are going out?] I asked Itsuka with a smile on my face. She nodded happily before hugging me tightly. She left for her home reluctantly after that, giving me looks of longing before finally disappearing in the building.
After taking a few deep breaths to calm myself, I made my way to Midoriya residence. Once there I was subjected to a whole lot of fussing and questions, courtesy of Izuku and Aunt Inko. But it felt nice, he warmth of a family caring for you felt fulfilling. Aunt Inko made my favourite dishes and Midoriya discussed with me about school before we turned in for the night.
Next day, I told Midoriya to go to school on his own while I went to pick up Itsuka. When Izuku asked for the reason, I revealed that Itsuka and I had started dating. Midoriya was shocked for a while before congratulating me happily. I advised him to confess his feelings to the Uraraka girl too, unless someone else ends up asking her out. Midoriya blushed down to his neck at that and ran away with Full Cowl.
Itsuka was waiting for me at the entrance of her building, but we were more in control now, unlike last night. We didn't go any farther than holding hands, but we were both filled with extreme giddiness. Itsuka had dressed herself up especially for this, even putting on some light makeup that made her eyes and lips stand our invitingly. Her hair seemed glossy too, like silk strands fluffed up in the wind.
When we came to the class, most of our classmates congratulated us, both for my recovery and for us getting into a relationship. Guys like Kirishima and Kaminari cried tears of disappointment while sending thumbs up to me, whereas Hagakure, Momo, Ashido, Jiro, Tsuyu, and Uraraka gathered around Itsuka and whispered excitedly to get details on how we got together.
This chaos went on for a while before Aizawa entered, wrapped up all over like an Egyptian mummy. He told u to settle down as he had an important announcement. As we wondered worriedly what it was, he revealed that the management wanted to go ahead with the UA sports festival to get rid of the bad press UA had been getting lately.
Moreover, UA Sports festival was an opportunity for the Hero Agencies everywhere to see the young talents at UA and would then offer internships to those they liked. This would be helpful for our careers as future heroes. But to ensure the safety of the students participating, the authorities had increased the security by many folds.
Depending on how many agencies notice us and how big our ambitions are, our future paths will be decided. Those who get internships with the top heroes will be set on a direct path to success.
We discussed amongst ourselves the various motivation for us becoming Heroes. People like Todoroki, Iida and Momo were here because of their family's legacy, While people like Midoriya, Bakugo and Kirishima were here to explore their maximum potential as heroes and become the top heroes in future.
There were also people with more grounded aspirations, like fame or fortune, such as Uraraka, Tsuyu, Aoyama and Hagakure. Some were simply here because they liked helping with their powers or wanted to learn to control them, such as Ojiro or Tokoyami. And there were people like Itsuka and me who had mixed goals.
But no matter who it was, we were all facing pressure from all sides. If the pressure of hero scouting agencies wasn't enough, there was also the fact that all four courses of UA : Hero, General Studies, Support and Business studies, would compete in a round robin tournament. Based on how they performed, people could be promoted to a higher course or demoted to a lower one.
As 1-A was the most prestigious class, people from other classes were constantly trying various psychological tactics to undermine our confidence. However, it was all for naught, because after going through a life and death struggle with Villains, all Students of 1-A had totally changed.
In the two weeks that remained before the UA Sports festival, all the students of 1-A trained like never before. I was even approached by a group of students, consisting of Hagakure, Todoroki, Kirishima, Bakugo, Kaminari and Ojiro, to help them train to my level.
I assured them that even if I may not be able to bring them all to my level, I would definitely let them develop their quirks to the best possible level I could in the given time.
I devised training schedules for all of them, designed to maximize the efficiency and power of their quirks as well as their bodies. I also let Itsuka and Midoriya join them for the training, as they both were well versed with my routine.
In the meantime, since I didn't need to work on my physique or additional fighting techniques, I paid frequent visits to Recovery Girl for her idea to let me develop my Aura into some form of Healing technique too, that could be used for others. And after ten days of constant research, we managed to make something similar.