| Bakugo P.O.V |
"Ugh, my head," Bakugo groaned as he got up from the bus floor. The landing had not been good to him or anyone else in the class judging from other groans of pain he heard from the rest of the class. He made his way to the front of the bus to see not only thank Ochaco for saving him and the class but curse her out for the shitty landing. "Dam Uraraka, who the hell taught you how to fly...what the hell."
When the dizziness faded, Bakugo looked to spot Ocahco but she was gone from the driver's seat with only a trail of blood on the bus and outside being a lead to where she had gone. Fearing the worst for the girl, Bakugo bolted outside to follow the trail of blood. He only needed to run a few steps till he came face to face with a sight straight from his nightmares.
"Oh God, please no," Bakugo pleaded as he looked down at the bloody and broken form of Izuku and passed out and equally bloody Uraraka next to him. His heart rate spiked, beating so fast and loud he could hear it like a trumpet playing in his ears. The gap between his breaths became short, and his mind overlapped the view of their form with a younger dead Izuku and bone-thin Izuki. "Not again."
Then, as if responding to his plea, Izuku's body exploded with a familiar golden light. The light washed over Bakugo, causing him to enter an unusual calm as any aches he had from the bus landing disappeared.
Bakugo didn't know why he suddenly felt calmer but he didn't care. With a clear mind, he could finally stop panicking and try to help Izuku and Uraraka. The problem was he didn't know jack shit about first aid. "Alright plan B then. EVERYONE, GET OVER HERE, URARAKA AND IZUKU NEED HELP!"
After hearing his shouting, the class -with the exception of the injured teachers- quickly made their way out of the bus and to him. They didn't look half as disoriented as he thought they would be after the landing but that didn't matter either.
Yaoyorozu was the first to arrive near them and the first to act but soon everyone in the class gathered around like it was a show. Once she saw the condition of her fellow class rep and students, she immediately checked their condition. From the pulse to their breathing and even checking their eyes. They didn't look to good but they weren't dead and that was always a plus. Izuku, while having broken bones and several other injuries that would normally months to heal, looked like he would pull through all right. Uraraka's injuries were harder to gauge with just the eyes but a full recovery wasn't looking possible for her.
"What happened to her?" Ojiro questioned with a bit of disgust mixed in with his voice.
"I don't know what caused her condition. I can only assume that the new power of her quirk has something to do with it," Yaoyorozu answered with a detached calmness despite her earlier freakout. "But if you're asking why her eyes are full of blood, it's because an artery in them popped." Her words caused gasps to come from some members of the class. You didn't need to be a medical expert to know that was bad news. "Under normal circumstances, she would probably go blind without proper help, but..." Her gaze shifted to Izuku who was clad in his golden aura despite being unconscious. "...with Izuku here, I don't think they're anything to worry about."
"But Midoriya is injured and unconscious. How is he gonna help us?" Todoroki questioned while pointing at the bloody and unconscious form of Midoriya.
"He already is," Shoji spoke up. "In USJ, he demonstrated the ability to heal others just by being near them."
Shoji's words made everything click in place for Bakugo. Why frog face, big lips, and the runt looked fine despite their costumes being a mess. Why Thirteen hadn't bled out from his injuries and how the class recovered so fast from the bus landing despite some of them being concussed. Then he took a better look at Izuku's cuts and bruises from before only to see they were gone with only dry blood covering where they once were. Even Izuku's broken legs and arms began ever so slightly moving back into the correct place on their own.
It seemed like he wasn't the only one noticing this.
"Look, the swelling on his face is going down," Ashido pointed out in fascination despite already having seen the effects of Izuku's power.
"Yeah, and Uraraka started breathing easier too," Mineta said seriously while watching the slow and steady rise and fall of her chest.
Jiro stabbed him with her earphone jack, causing him to squirm on the floor in pain while Toru shouted at him, "Will you stop being a perv for like five minutes!"
After recovering from Jiro's attack, Mineta got up and actually looked offended at her accusation. "Im not perving this time, just making an observation! I respect Midoriya way too much to do that to his girlfriend." His words nearly floor half the class, the sincerity in his voice sounded too real to easily be called a lie.
The girls were about to retort but were cut off by their only conscious class rep. "Enough," Yaoyorozu raised her voice, ceasing all bickering. "Focus on what is important right now. Helping out our classmates and getting out of here. Now, while I move Midoriya's bones back in place to help him heal faster, I want everyone either on lookout duty or trying to get the bus running so we can all leave. Understood?"
"Yes ma'am!" the class said in unison.
Bakugo, who was not an engineer, nor had any experience with engineering, decided on lookout duty. With a quick use of his quirk, he was in the air and onto the roof of the bus.
| General P.O.V |
For a solid minute, everything was relatively peaceful for the class, nothing seemed like it was going to happen, leading to a sense of natural calm for everyone, at least until Shoji spoke up again. "Head up guys, I hear footsteps approaching us."
"Is it the heroes?" Kirishima asked.
If it's heroes," Bakugo shouted to the class from his position on top of the bus. "Then then they sure as hell don't look the part."
The class immediately went to the other side of the bus to see what was up but could only make out some dark silhouette's in the distance. Shoji used his quirk to make extra eyes in order to see further and what he saw was not good. "INCOMING!"
Multiple giant boulders were coming at them from high in the air with a speed that would shatter every bone in a normal person's body. The squishier members of the class, with the exception of the confident like Bakugo, Todoroki, and Tokoyami dove for cover while the tougher ones like Kirishima and Sato got ready to intercept the boulders.
"I got this," Bakugo shouted as he started firing concentrated balls of explosives at the targets with pinpoint accuracy. However, the boulders were big and required multiple shots to destroy them leaving a few he couldn't get.
However, this was no problem, because where Bakugo had failed the rest of the class picked up.
"Dark Shadow," Tokoyami exclaimed as he sent the projection of his quirk out smashing a boulder that got to close bits.
"Ora," Sato did the same to a boulder that flew low and was about to impact the side of the bus, just with his fist.
After that, Todoroki wordlessly created an ice wall that blocked the rest of the borders from hitting the bus or the class, casting a shadow on them
Bakugo turned to the two and without much emotion said, "Thanks."
They both nodded but Tokoyami was the only one of the two to say anything back. "No problem, just make sure to rely on everyone next time. We've already seen what happens when one person tries to bear the burden of protecting everyone alone."
The three turned their gazes to Izuku and Ochaco who were still unconscious and only looked marginally better than before.
"We should move them inside the bus with the teachers now, with those villains throwing around boulders like that it'll be too dangerous to leave them out in the open," Bakugo said to Yaoyorozu who had managed to get both izuku's arms in straight but not his legs.
"Mina, can you move Ochaco inside for me," Yaoyorozu asked her friend.
"Gotcha boss," she said with a forced smile. The day was chipping away at her optimism chunk by chunk but she kept trying to keep it alive.
"Thanks and Tsu."
"Ribbit?" The frog girl replied while Yaoyorozu created a gurney with her quirk.
"Can you help me move Izuku onto this and into the bus?"
"Of course ribbit." The frog girl answered and after a few seconds had both Izuku and Ochaco on the bus.
"We have more boulder Incoming and their steps are getting closer," Shoji's voice carried over to everyone in the class. "In about thirty seconds they'll be right on top of us!"
"And theirs a lot of villains too!" Jiro chimed in, she was using her quirk on the ground to try and count the number of villains. "Im hearing over a hundred footsteps."
Just as Jiro finished speaking, the boulders came smashing through the ice bringing it down completely, but once again the class's heavy hitters intercepted them.
On the bus alone, Yaoyorozu thought about how to help Izuku heal a bit faster so he could take the field or better yet just fly them out of there but nothing she could think of would help all that much and she had to go and lead the class into battle.
With a sigh that showed the mental exhaustion she accumulated during the day, she turned around to exit the front of the bus. However, something bizarre started happening that caused her to stop and stare. Izuku's blood started floating on its own and began coalescing into the vague shape of a person before the blood flashed a blinding blue.
Expecting some sort of enemy attack since Izuku's quirk made a golden shine and not a blue one, she readied herself to not only fight but call for help. But what she saw stunned her into silence and inaction.
"Finally, after ten thousand years, I'M FREE! AHAHAHAA!" A green-haired girl around her age who looked just like Izuku if he were a girl, was naked as the day she was born, standing proud over her male doppelganger while proclaiming her freedom. "Now it's time to save..."
While the girl was talking Bakugo, who had seen the flash of light, jumped in bus through a destroyed window, landed directly behind the unknown girl, and trained his hand on her like it was a gun, and with his power it might as well have been.
"Who the fuck is this and why is she naked?" The girl turned around to face Bakugo and when he saw her face his eyes widened in shock and his jaw threatened to fall from his mouth and hit the floor. "Izuki?" He asked with disbelief.
"You know her Bakugo?" Momo questioned her classmate after shaking off her shock but she was not answered.
"Kaachan, it feels like it's been forever since last I saw you!" Izuki stretched out her arms and began approaching the stunned Bakugo for a hug, the motion showing off all of her considerable bust and unknowingly causing Stella, who was watching, mental damage because of her lack of shame.
But unlike what Izuki expected, which was Bakugo returning her hug, he grabbed her and put her into an arm bar while slamming her face into the back of the bus. In the harshest voice both girls had heard him use, he began questioning her, "Who the fuck are you?"
"Ow ow ow, It's Izuki, you idiot! Don't you recognize me?" Izuki asked with genuine confusion. "I know I look a little different but my face is the same."
Izuki could have easily escaped the arm bar but she chose not to because while she was young, she was not naive. She knew if she didn't comply, it would solidify in Bakugo's mind that she was an enemy and start a fight that the others in the class would join in against her. Achieving the opposite of what she came here to do.
Bakugo's lips took on a vicious snarl as he shouted his answer, "Who the fuck do you think your fooling retard. Izuki's dead. Been dead for years! Now start telling the truth before you lose an arm." A small crackle of his quirk went off near the captured arm to validate the treat.
Now it was Izuki's turn to start shouting. The pain she felt at the unfairness of being left behind by everyone and her existence being denied even when she came back showed in her following words. "I'm not dead! I've been alive this whole time inside Izuku. I'm Izuki Midoriya, Izuku Midoriya's sister, your childhood best friend, the girl who saved you in that forest from the villain when we were six. The same girl who you said you loved and wanted to marry!"
Bakugo was stunned into silence and actually began considering that this girl in front of him was Izuki. After all, barring special circumstances like mind-reading or Retrocognition quirks, no one but Izuki and him should know he had said he wanted to marry her. Not even Izuku because he was dead at the time.
"Bakugo, I believe her," Momo spoke out loud after considering how the girl appeared and the sincerity in her voice. "Let her go."
Bakugo wanted to let go and believe this girl was Izuki. That he could finally make amends for getting her and Izuku killed, he really did but with everything going on and no way to confirm her story at such a vulnerable time for the class he didn't want to take any chances.
Seeing his hesitation Momo decided to drop more information. "She formed from Izuku's blood"
"What!" The blonde exclaimed. The new information lent more credibility to Izuki being real making him relax his grip a bit. Izuki could manipulate biology to such a fine degree that Bakugo considered it possible for her to create a new body from just some blood. However, while not a biologist, Bakugo knew that just a couple drops of blood didn't have the energy to remake a whole human body. 'Unless..." Bakugo turned to look at the unconscious glowing form of Izuku behind. 'With Izuku healing providing the energy, would it be possible?'
Taking his silence for further hesitation, Momo continued trying to convince him. "I don't know what circumstances led to this but if she really was alive inside Izuku after her death then I believe her. Her sincerity as well as..."
*Bang*
The bus tilted over a little, nearly knocking over the standing inhabitant before gravity took effect and grounded it as a human-shaped dent appeared on its side. Bakugo let go of Izuki completely, already more or less convinced the girl was his childhood friend. He took a look out the window to see who the imprint belonged to and what was going on outside to cause it. What he saw was not good.
Izuki and Momo joined him at the window in time to see Sato peeling himself off the side of the bus before charging straight ahead to fight the small army of living shadows shambling forward like zombies. It would seem that they had gotten close during the events on the bus.
"Fuck, we're late to the action! Why the hell didn't anyone tell us," Bakugo growled while Momo hummed in agreeance.
"I think the boy with the weird purple hair was supposed to but he fell over when he saw me," Izuki offhandedly comments.
"Huh," both of them said in unison before pulling their heads out the window to look at the front of the bus where a Mineta was passed out with dried blood on his nose. Looking like he had gone to heaven, and achieved enlightenment and nirvana all at once.
"Ugh, useless pervert," Bakugo groaned while face-palming. "Whatever, I'm heading out." Bakugo got ready to launch himself out the window to meet the attack but not before giving some final words to his newly revived childhood friend. "I'm sorry for attacking you and while I don't completely understand how you're back I'm happy that you are. Which is why I'm asking you to stay out of the fight. If not for my sake then Izuku's and Aunty Inko's. I...we can't bear to lose you again."
The pain in Bakugo's voice made Izuki almost feel guilty about her following words. "Im, sorry Kaachan but I didn't come back just to sit on my hands. Im going." With her declaration of intent, Izuki lept through the roof of the bus, making a hole in the top, and then jumped from there straight toward the battle and deep into enemy lines.
"Wait! At least take some clothes..." Bakugo shouted after her but she was already gone.
Momo expected Bakugo to be saddened by her refusal to stay put or at least embarrassed that his friend had jumped out into the open with nothing but her birthday suit, but to her surprise, he was smiling. "Hot dam, she really is Izuki." He then launched himself out the window to after her.
She was confused for a second why he shifted moods like that before realizing that his last few words were likely a sort of final test for the girl. Probably something along the lines of, "If she is really Izuki, then she would go regardless of anything I said but if she were an impostor, she would try and stay behind to accomplish whatever objective she came here for."
"As I suspected, Bakugo's has terrifyingly intelligent," Momo concluded before making a latter to get on the busses roof through the hole Izuki made. Normally she would not wastefully use her quirk, especially in a situation like this but she noticed something interesting earlier when making the gurney for Izuku. "Hmm, just like I thought, the drain I usually feel on my lipids is absent. Is Midoriya's quirk "healing" those along with injuries?"
When Momo got on the roof she decided to survey the battlefield before testing her hypothesis. Down bellow, she saw that the class formed a basic line of defense in front of the horde of shambling shadows with users of ranged quirks, like Aoyama and Ashido, firing over the close-ranged fighter to hit enemies in the far back while the front liners took care of the ones that got too close to the bus. The enemies seemed quite slow and sluggish but if Sato being sent flying was anything to go by then underestimating them was lethal.
Then there was the new girl, deep in the enemy lines, using a series of fighting styles Momo recognized from martial arts and kung fu -and some she didn't- to take down villains like a lawn mower in a field of grass Bakugo was right next to her, firing explosions that blasted away tens of villains at a time and showing his complete disregard for whether they would be able to get up from his attacks or not. And maybe it was because of the distance from the new girl but Momo could swear she was quite a bit taller than a few seconds ago. Almost a whole foot actually.
Momo wanted to jump in and help her class immediately but first, she had to confirm her theory about Izuku's power and if she was right, let the class know. To start off with she made a microphone, a simple small one anyone could find in the right store, once again there was no drain on her lipids. After confirming there would be no drain from creating small objects, she decided to test how far she could push the regeneration effect of Izuku's quirk and create something big. A large speaker one would find at a music concert almost as big as herself and twice as heavy. It fell from her abdomen and hit the roof of the bus with a loud thud but the sound of battle around her made the noise negligible so no one turned toward her.
"I see," Momo said with a tone of voice a calm voice that hinted at both shock and a bit of envy. "Even when he's unconscious, he's capable of helping everyone." Once again, as she had expected, there was no drain on her lipids." I guess all that's left is to inform everyone and join the fight." With another application of her quirk, she created a cord to connect both the speaker and the mic so that she could amplify her voice. "Everyone, don't stop what your doing but please listen. I have a few announcements to make."
| Sytem Control Room, Stella P.O.V |
I was rolling on the floor with my face in hand from embarrassment. I couldn't help it. Izuki was streaking around naked, IN MY BODY. Technically it was her body but when the only physical differences between us were our face, hair, and eye color, someone seeing her naked was the same thing as seeing me naked.
"I wanna crawl in a hole and die," I groaned into the carpeted floor as I heard the sound of class Izuki and 1-A's battle going on from the computer screen.
Though the situation is tragic, there are bright sides to this. One, I knew now that resurrecting people didn't give them clothing. Two, I now knew Izuki had no shame whatsoever and was going to fix this asap. And three, she would not be flaunting my goods much longer thanks to the power I gave her.
That knowledge helped me get up from my embarrassment-induced paralysis and actually check the computer to see how she was doing in the power department. This was the first time I granted someone, besides myself, powers that I hadn't created -still technically haven't but semantics. So I wanted to get a front-row seat to see how Izuki used it and everyone's reaction to it. It was really similar to Ryukyu's quirk but ten times more badass and way less ugly when it fully took effect.
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[Escalation Engine, Type: Dragon]
Origin: Web Novel, Worm.
Abilities and Powers: Grants enhanced physique, making the body stronger and more resilient than typical, with pyrokinetic abilities and excellent recovery abilities. This power has the additional effect of gradually transforming the user into a dragon when fighting or anticipating it. The longer the user is in battle, the further they transform, and the more potent their abilities become.
(Transformation Is 20% Complete)
__________________________________________________
The power belonged to a gang leader in a grimdark superhero world who used it to beat back an entire team of superheroes by himself, cementing himself as the single strongest person in the city and untouchable but also go toe to toe with an Endbringer. A beast of destruction that could wipe cities off the map and sink entire islands without even really trying.
I gave Izuki this power because it's not only cool and strong but because when everyone looked into her past and quirk after this whole debacle was over, they would see that what she was doing was, while bullshit by a high order of magnitudes, was theoretically possible for her when taking into consideration her quirk and our dads. If she was going to fight All Might and Revenant though I would probably have given her the standard flying brick package since with her current power it was possible she could die before becoming strong enough to match them.
Looking over at the screen showing an overhead view of the fight, I saw that everyone was handling themselves pretty well. The class was holding a solid line of defense against Shadow's thralls, Izuki was almost fully covered in scales that, thankfully, started preserving our modesty and had grown solid seven in height. She wasn't using her pyrokinesis though, making me question if it was because she just didn't want to at the moment or because she didn't know she could. Regardless she was doing just fine without it.
After a few minutes of watching, the struggle between the class and the thralls, I became curious about what the hero support was doing. Thanks to my simulation program, I already knew that most of the city's law enforcement and heroes were on the scene but were delayed from helping All Might, and the kids because the near-endless tide of thralls attack not just them but random places in the city as well.
However, I wanted to actually "see" how they were doing, to make sure no one got permanently hurt since I made my simulation only give a rough outline of what was going to happen, and that didn't include non-named character deaths. Also, I kinda feel bad for not helping more than just giving other people the power to fix the situation for me. Especially when I contributed to the current situation.
"Ugh my head," Izuku groned.
With my best smile on, I switch to the matrix cosplay I met him in during my first appearance to him as Stella and rotated my chair to face my brother. We had a lot to discuss. "Mr. Midoriya, it's good to see your back to full health."
Through the tiny shades on my face, I could see the surprise and confusion he felt waking up in the system with me instead of Izuki. "Stella, what are you doing here, no, what am i?"
"I don't believe that's important right now. How about you try to remember why you're here instead."
Izuku looked confused, probably thinking something like, 'I obviously fell asleep as to why I'm here?' At least till his latest memories of getting sent flying and knocked the fuck out finally came back to him. Then the panic really came over him, "Stella, is everyone okay?! Am I?"
With a lazy wave of my hand, multiple holographic video feeds of class 1-A, All Might, and the heroes that came to help the former and latter, fighting for their lives against Shadow and Revenants thralls popped up in front of him on his bed.
Class 1-A was currently doing fine against Shadow's small army, Momo had established communication with the whole class and Izuki via her quirk, making them easier to coordinate against the insane number of thralls that were slowly beginning to surround them. Izuki's body was getting closer to full-on dragon mode; nearly fifteen feet tall, with spear-like wing-nubs stuck out of her shoulders that would soon turn into wings and hind legs instead of her human one. Izuku probably thought it was Ochaco's new power as to why he didn't do anything besides give a sigh of relief instead of questioning why there was a Dragonoid fighting with the class.
When his eyes came to the feed with All Might showed up I could see his eyes widen a bit in shock but not because of All Might's condition. The symbol of peace was still going strong but there was a noticeable rise and fall of his shoulders after defending himself against a wave of Revenant's shadows. Just from eyeballing his condition, I could tell he wasn't going to be able to keep up his fight for more than twenty minutes before he gasses out. The reason Izuku was shocked was that he found out his favorite hero was the one who almost turned him and the entire class into a paste. I could see some anger behind those eyes for a second before it vanished entirely and his eyes shifted to the screen showing the heroes and police who came to help.
The few hundred heroes and police who came to help had quite a few of the current top ten amount their ranks like Endeavor, Hawks, and Mirko to name a few. Under normal circumstances, with this hero lineup, they would be able to break through with no problem, especially when their enemies were shambling thralls and not people. However, the sheer number of shadows -the number of which ranged in the thousands- and their dangerous level of strength which had claimed a few victims, if the ambulances stuffed with heroes were anything to go by, made it near impossible to break through as individuals or groups.
"As you can see, while your class is in another perilous situation, they're all fine. Relatively speaking of course. I stepped in earlier to protect them in your stead after you were rendered unconscious and nearly dead," Izuku's eyes went wide again before returning to normal
His reaction to news of his near-death caused me to quirk an eyebrow, I guess once you nearly die thrice -and one time for real- the effects of knowing that you're walking the thin line are considerably lessened. Something I completely understand and so would not press him about. Every other fuck up was free real estate though. "Mr. Midooriya, I have to say, I'm quite disappointed in your performance."
Izuku nodded in agreement catching me by surprise even if I didn't visibly show it. "I agree Stella. If I wasn't so cowardly about using my [Shadow Projection] I could have moved everyone to safety." I could see his grip on the sheet tighten in anger at his actions. "If I didn't distribute my attribute points when I was knocked away, I would be dead, and if you hadnt stepped in so would my class. Thank you, Stella, you've saved me once again." Izuku bowed his head to me thanks as he shoved off the sheets and got to his feet. "Now it's time to save my class and this time I won't hold back."
Without another word, Izuku makes his way to the exit of the room, likely to go back to his own mindscape and wake himself up. However...
*Rattle* *Rattle* *Rattle*
"Stella the door won't open."
I was not done yet. While Izuku had said almost everything I wanted to criticize him about to himself and from what I felt, genuinely meant what he was saying. I still needed to impart one lesson to him and a punishment.
"Not so fast Mr. Midoriya, there's still much to discuss." I gestured toward the seat that replaced the bed when no one was looking and he took the hint for him to sit and did so. " Your right you know, If not for me then you and your class would be dead." Without any gesture, I remake my inner world into an endless white void with nothing but a regular black sofa -that I and Izuki are already seated in and a nice one hundred-inch flatscreen tv in front of us that displayed only Class 1-A or Izuki's fight. Just to set the mood for this conversation and so that he would not try and break my door down to escape back into his own mind. Not that such a thing was possible if I allow it to happen "A dead man can't help anyone, and dead students can't be saved either, at least under normal circumstances."
Izuku eyes scrutinize me, trying to figure out my aim but I'm unreadable so he gives up on trying to cold-read me and just asks, "What are you trying to say Stella, and why aren't you letting me out?"
A chuckle for literally no reason but to be dramatic and put on my most menacing smile. "What I'm saying Mr. Midoriya is that until this event has come to a close, we aren't going anywhere." Izuku tried to mimic me by making his expression unreadable but the emotion in his eyes reveals much. "We're going to sit here and watch your class fight to the end. Whatever that end may be."
"But they're in danger!" Izuku shouts at me in anger, throwing any pretense of calm out the proverbial window while pointing at the screen showing Class 1-A and Izuki fighting. "If I or you don't go, someone could die."
He was right too, Shadow must have felt some heavy resistance in this sector and wanted to stamp it out because a new batch of thralls, counting in the upper thousand, had descended on the class and combined with the previous ones whose number had been reduced to a few hundred by the class before their reinforcements arrived. Unless Izuki was going to start using scorched-earthing tactics they would be overrun soon.
I also had no interest in directly intervening again, so the risk of death for the class was going to be real from here on out. A bit cruel of me but they chose this lifestyle and knew the risk. Plus, I had already saved them and left support in the form of Izuku's aura and Izuki.
"I'm a person that believes every action and decision has consequences both big and small and that people should deal with those consequences," I turned my head to look at the tv, watching the class desperately struggle against the incoming waves of enemies that surrounded them completely. Izuku's aura was getting overtaxed keeping the class exhaustion at bay and healing everyone that took injuries. "So when someone when someone is trying to use me to escape those consequences, it really pisses me off."
"W-what I haven't-"
"You haven't?" I cut him off immediately my voice gaining a bit of an edge of anger to it. His nervous stuttering was proof of guilt to me. "The you when your awake may not know what's going on in here but he subconsciously acts on the information you possess. You didn't stop yourself from using the unpleasant power of [Shadow Projection] simply because you felt there was a risk to the class's life. After all, the risk of being turned into a meat paste from the blasts was just as high if not higher than accidentally killing the class with [Shadow Projection]. The real reason you didn't use it was because you knew you didn't have to. That I was watching and would step in if things got bad."
The guilty look on his face, as he turns away from me, signals my hit on the bullseyes but I won't stop here. If I don't drill the lesson into his skull he won't take it as seriously as I want him to. This is a problem for multiple reasons but mainly because while I would never not save Izuku, I would not always be so willing to extend that saving to everyone else. Furthermore, the help he wants and expects from me could be different than what im going to or willing to give.
For example...
With a snap of my fingers, the video feed switches from the class fighting to the time when I was possessing Ochaco and boosted her quirk so much that her body became strained and started going through multiple organ failure along with other physiological issues. The results did not look pretty.
I knew what her condition was like already but a look at her from an outside view could probably make someone hemophobic. The way the blood slowly started leaking out of her nose, eyes, and ears almost exactly at the same time was like something out of a horror movie. The vomiting, that followed made her seem like she had caught some sort of crazy virus but I knew the real reason was that her body became too weak to hold the contents of her stomach. There were other gruesome effects caused by my possession but those were the ones that stood out the most.
Izuku's response was more shock and then anger as he looked me In the eyes with a gare and in a deep voice just below a growl he asked, "What did you do?"
The anger in his voice made me want to apologize to both of them about this whole thing with Ochaco's injuries because it was a huge fuck up on my part but I couldn't. I needed him to understand that trying to rely on me for help would not perfectly resolve everything like he thought it would and would have unforeseen consequences. And besides, part of the reason Ochaco was like that was kinda his fault.
"I offered Ms. Uraraka a system when I foresaw the quest difficulty would spike because I've seen you're quite fond of her and that losing her could cripple your resolve to be a hero." I continued my explanation as I muted the audio from the tv so that Izuku would not hear me call him my foolish little brother with Ochaco's mouth.
"I also predicted that you would not use [Shadow Projection] to move everyone because of the subconscious knowledge that I would help you. Thus when you were removed from the battlefield I used my power to enhance her quirk to the point she could save everyone. However, the effects her body suffered as a result well...you saw them for yourself but don't worry, you have my word that she will be fine."
"Now to answer your questions from earlier, I won't let you out of here because I want you to understand that there are unforeseen consequences to making me help you. I won't help in the perfect way or even the way you want me to, only the way I feel like. So it is better you suck up any problem you have with your power and solve the problem yourself. Do you understand?"
Izuku stared hard-eyed at me in anger at my decision. He wanted to say something, no, he wanted to beat the shit out of me. But he couldn't, I was the system, his source of power and he was in my domain. Victory was impossible for him and he knew it. So instead of arguing with my decision or attacking me he turned to the screen and watched class 1-A's fight rage on while silently seething.
This decision would definitely sour the relationship between Stella and Izuku. Good thing I wasn't just Stella.
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A/N: Dam this chapter took long to write. It's my dumbass fault for writing so much in one chapter. If I made it shorter I could have spent less time proofreading and more time getting the next chapter done smh.
Anyways, we are finally getting to the end of the USJ arc, just two more chapters. One that encompasses the entire fight between class 1-A and Umbra, and another...well...that's a surprise. After the epilogue and we can finally move on to something else, like the sports festival.
Speaking of, I would like everyone to recommend some original events that I could use in place of the horseback thing. I was thinking of a sort of three-man team battle royal for the million points but I'm not 100% sure how I'm going to go about it or if I'm going to do it at all. So any recommendations?
Now time for a special thanks to genskot, Minichip, 1y_the_first, Revered_1, SomeoneAt_ADesk, Sturmtnt, real777, and YourAverageUser for the stones. Your support means a lot. Oh and Genskot and Minichip are goated af. I think half the stones I got this week were just them. It would be cool if more people were goated 🗿
Lol, anyways Author out.