Text"...So, Izuku, not that I'm complaining or anything, but this is like, the second time today you've carried me like this." Mina informed the green haired boy with a sly smile on her lips, that would have almost counted as seductive, were it not for the circumstances that they found themselves within.
With Mina picked up and held in Izuku's arms in the stereotypical bridal hold, through no effort of her own, Mina had found herself being whisked away by her boyfriend as Kuroshi's attacks had been hammering them with fireball after fireball, beams of flames, of every colour from red to blue to white in the colour spectrum that a fire could typically be.
They had, as far as she could tell, managed to escape their opponent. The attacks had stopped, and no-one else seemed to be around the place trying to attack them. Of course, they were only certain of this after doing a few scans, making sure that no one was lurking behind the shadows or rubble. They couldn't account for anyone who might have a Phasing Quirk, or anything like that, but there wasn't much they could do about that. Thankfully, someone with a Phasing Quirk wouldn't be able to do too much damage to them that they couldn't counter or avoid.
So they were safe. Hence Mina's flirting.
"Feels like you're trying to tell me something here." Teased the pink skinned girl. Since they had escaped the immediate danger, and to the best of her knowledge, Izuku wasn't planning some master strategy that involved standing perfectly still without moving in any way, she felt she could afford to at least play with him a bit.
To be perfectly honest, Mina thought this felt nice. The way that she was being held, it pulled her close to Izuku's body. It wasn't like it was a foreign feeling to her anymore, but it didn't change the fact that it felt genuinely nice. What she knew to be genuinely strong muscles felt soft right now, almost like pillows stuffed with cotton, since they weren't tense in any way. And it wasn't because he was knowing doing so, but the way he did hold her was kind. Soft. Gentle. Like he were holding something precious that he desired to protect, but understood that he needed to hold close to him.
Furthermore, the fact she was in her Hero Costume just aided the notion. Because of how her costume was one that revealed a fair amount of skin, and because Izuku's gloves were thin enough that he could still have the sensation of touch through them, they were able to transmit their warmth into her skin. Her legs and back were the main receptors to this. Of course she'd felt this warmth before - In more sensitive areas - Yet it still made her feel good.
The best way to put it was that it made her feel safe and comfortable. That was the effect Izuku had on her. He just made her feel warm and safe.
Although for his end, Izuku barely even had noticed he'd done this. Instinct had taken over when Kuroshi had launched a series of deadly blasts and attacks designed to either harm or scatter them, or just waste their time. Whatever his intentions had been, Izuku hadn't hesitated, or really even realized that he was doing it, but he'd leapt forward to grab Mina, picked her up, and hightailed it out of there with his Quirk as quickly as he could physically accomplish before they ended up being roasted by their attacker.
"...Oh." He said, blinking twice when he realized exactly what he was doing. He noticed that she was surprisingly light for someone her age and size. One would logically expect her to be heavier, but she was amazingly light, so much so that he'd barely even noticed her weight. Even more amazingly, he didn't even seem that embarrassed about what he'd done. The extent of his embarrassment seemed to be a slight red tint to his cheeks. "Sorry... I'll uh, let you stand now."
"Hey, I'm not complaining." Mina grinned. "It's kinda romantic. Like in the movies."
"...Which one?"
"...Eh, pretty much all of 'em."
In spite of her reluctance, and to a certain extent, disappointment, Mina was let go of, and helped onto her feet by her boyfriend, who was surprisingly calm for how close they had been in physical contact just seconds ago, already scanning around the area, looking around for whatever other targets might be hiding out there waiting to strike as they fumbled around for a few moments. He was like a man on a mission, which, technically speaking, he was, and so was she, though he seemed entirely focused on the mission at hand thus far. Like it was all that mattered.
Mina wasn't sure how she felt about that. To be honest, right now, it left her a little uncomfortable, and slightly concerned. She understood that they had a job to do if they wanted to be accepted into the Hero Team group, but usually, Izuku showed a bit more... Emotion, regardless of the situation.
"Uh... Hey, Izuku, you alright?"
"Huh? Yeah, I'm alright. I'm just thinking about what we should do now..." Explained the green haired boy, returning to his internal conclusions and calculations regarding what he knew about the task at hand.
Seeing Kuroshi's Quirk in action had been a very valuable scrap of intelligence that he'd desperately needed. It was something to go off of, and with it, he could at least begin to determine some of the other possibilities that existed with the other students, and their intentions. Kuroshi seemed to be acting rather arrogant, kind of like a ring leader more than anything else. He was confident in his abilities, and rightly so. His skills weren't something to be taken lightly, and his fighting style ranged from aggressive and dominating, to tactical and strategic.
His rather unique Quirk Pyrokinetic Degree made his attacks varied and unpredictable - The heat of such strikes being as much a risk as actually getting hit by the balls of fire. He certainly made the most out of each strike, as he really had to. The best way to describe his Quirk was to say it was like a gun. He had a certain amount of shots he could fire before he had to reload - Specifically, he had fifty shots by his own admission. When his body hit zero, he would have to begin to cycle again, taking time to allow his body to regain its natural temperature. Without temperature, he had no ammunition.
Unlike Todoroki, he had no thermoregulatory abilities. Whenever one side became too cold or too hot, Todoroki could use the opposing side to regulate himself from the negative effects. Kuroshi didn't seem to have that ability. Unlike Half-Cold-Half-Hot, Pyrokinetic Degree just spent up temperature to generate fireballs, not replenish his repertoire. Therefore, all he could do was unleash attack after attack, and then when he couldn't fire anymore, wait until he could start firing again. Based on Izuku's understanding of how he fought, he didn't seem to prioritize outright brute force, though he was certainly capable...
He seemed to have other priorities. Other ways he made sure that his targets weren't...
Other ways his targets weren't...
"Izuku?" Mina tapped at his shoulder a couple of times, and when that didn't work, she shook it. When he finally looked towards her, he saw an expression in her eyes that he didn't recall seeing in quite a while. One of unbridled concern, one that expressed just how worried she was right now.
By default, by nature, just by how Izuku was as a person, he tended to be very emoteful. He was extremely aware of the people around him, even when he went into his analytical modes, he usually was at least aware that people around him were interacting, or addressing him without having to resort to physical contact. But when he got like this, outside of his goals, he didn't really have much understanding for what was occurring around him outside his objective. This side of him, the one he very rarely let out, was the side of him where nearly everything about him that he knew himself went out the window. He grew more focused in certain tasks, attaining victory and besting his opponents. He grew more determined, pushing aside his more meek traits in favour of boosting his more assertive ones. He grew more violent and less peaceful.
He grew... More and more like Bakugou, now that he thought about it.
And Mina had no idea about this side of him. He kept it under lock and key, having grown a distaste to it himself. She hadn't even seen it before. How could she know about it? No wonder she looked so concerned right now. To her, for all she knew, someone had just used some sort of Possession type Quirk to possess and take over his body.
Taking a quick, but deep breath, Izuku looked over at Mina, and gave her a soft smile. "Sorry. I got kind of... Caught up in the moment there. I-I'm fine now."
"You call that getting caught up in the moment?" His girlfriend questioned, still wide eyed and unconvinced of his general health. "Dude, you were acting like a totally different person for a minute there. You were acting... Kinda like Bakugou... If he knew how to calm down for five seconds."
Credit where it was due, Izuku thought to himself, Mina's legendary ability to make jokes and remain generally upbeat, even in spite of her own clear worry and fear and when in a bad situation was something to respect, if nothing else. He couldn't blame her for her concern though. If Mina suddenly started acting like some sort of stoic joyless robot, he's have the exact same reaction.
Attempting to give her another reassuring smile, he attempted to push aside the incident, though he had little success. His smile seemed to give off more a sense of self-pity than it did a calming effect. Part of him did feel a certain level of shame for not informing her of his more abrasive side. Truth be told, he didn't even know what exactly had caused it right now. Kuroshi seemed to be similar to Bakugou in terms of his personality, so perhaps that had been what had triggered this intense desire to achieve victory against him.
It left him uncomfortable to even really think about. He didn't even particularly like this side of himself at the best of times…
"Sorry." Mina suddenly apologized, catching her boyfriend's attention. "I shouldn't've put you on the spot like that. You don't have to say anything about it if you don't want to."
"I…It's alright." Izuku assured her with a small exhale. Again, he understood why he had caused her such concern, and he felt the need to explain to her what exactly this quirk of his personality amounted to… when they weren't under a time limit. "I'll… I'll explain it to you after we're done here, if you want."
"It's your call, but if you wanna, sure thing."
With that, Izuku stepped forward, looking over the USJ environments. From where they were, he had a fairly clear view of the ruins of the Landslide Zone, where they had just fled from, the Flood Zone, the Collapsed Zone, and the Mountain Zone. Each of these zones had to be holding at least one Ectoplasm clone within their boundaries, and their job was to go in and rescue those clones like they were civilians.
The more Izuku thought about that though, the more curious he became regarding Kuroshi's methods of attack. As opposed to just blasting both him and the clone that he had saved, Kuroshi had specifically gone out of his way to ensure the clone was killed first. Doing so had essentially ruined their chances to gain a perfect 100% pass rate on the Initiation, lowering the maximum number of clones they could save down to twenty-nine.
Not that it was hard to see the logic in that particular methodology. The best way to prevent him and Mina from passing was to make sure that they couldn't save any of the clones… but he had waited specifically for the two of them to arrive before attacking. How he'd known that they were going to be over there… That was another thing that Izuku had to consider… But based on what he knew, they were awaiting them to go to a certain location, and only then begin taking out the clones…
If that was how they were doing things…
That was it. He'd got it!
"You're muttering up a storm there." Mina suddenly stated, patting her hand on his shoulder and snapping him out of his thought process. "You must've got something in mind."
Had he been murmuring subconsciously while he'd been thinking again? It was a bad habit of his that always embarrassed him whenever he got caught doing do. As per usual, his cheeks took on the accented red blush that came up whenever he because flustered or embarrassed. Still, he fought off the compulsive urge to apologize, and went straight for what he knew to be the more important detail.
"I-I think I've figured out what this Initiation is supposed to be testing about us." He stated. "They're trying to test us to see how many Civilians we can protect!"
"…Yeah, I'd kind of figured that out already." The Acid Quirk using girl looked at him, unimpressed, like he'd just said something ridiculously stupid. A small smile was on her face though, mainly because this amused her. She knew he had some sort of more in-depth idea as to what he was trying to imply, but his wording had been so poor he just made himself look like an idiot.
"N-No, I mean, think about it. Kuroshi only used his Quirk against the clone of Ectoplasm-sensei after we'd shown up. If he was trying to get rid of all the clones to make sure we couldn't pass at all, why didn't he just destroy it before we showed up? He only attacked once we'd arrived. And he specifically attacked the clone before he started trying to attack us. He made sure the clone was destroyed so we couldn't officially rescue it." Izuku explained. His eyes remained on the Landslide Zone one as he spoke of this, before they then turned towards the Collapsed Zone while he continued. "In other words, this isn't a free-for-all to kill the clones before we show up. This is a test to see if we can protect the civilians while being attacked on various sides by Villains. That's supposed to be a merit of Hero Teams – They can both fight Villains and rescue people at the same time by dividing their priorities between members.
And think about the word that they used to describe this activity. 'Initiation'. Not 'Entrance Examination'. This isn't like the Entrance Exams we took to actually get into Yuuei. That was designed to hunt for the people they felt had the most potential to be Heroes out of the thousands that applied to the school from our year. Essentially, they were looking for people who didn't have training, but had the most potential benefit from that training. But the word Initiation had a different implication. It's for people who know what they're doing, at least vaguely, to see how their progress had been coming along." He raised up one of his fingers in his hand, as he was listing off the points he was making. "Some Villains have to perform acts in order to join groups. I've heard that some of the really messed up ones require new members to cut themselves and give themselves a scar, or even kill someone before entry."
"So, what, you think this is like joining a freaking cult?"
"Not exactly… But you have to admit, there are similarities. The Hero Team group only has a few members, s they have to make sure the ones that they do add are capable to doing their jobs really well. Quality over quantity in this particular set of circumstances. This is so they can learn just what they're working with, and if they think we can make an effective Hero Team."
All of the logic was there, Mina did concede with a nod of her head. Her trust in Izuku outweighed any concerns that she might have had, or any feelings of doubt that she may have possessed. Did she think that they could get into the Hero Team group? If they worked together, she didn't doubt it. It was going to be difficult… But she felt they could do it.
She did have her question though. Things that she wasn't sure of regarding the exact nature of what they were up against.
"…What about how they knew where we were going to go?" She questioned. "You have an idea on that?"
"Maybe… This is just a guess..." Izuku stated firstly, so Mina understood he wasn't totally confident in his assumption. "…But I think one of the members of Kuroshi's team might have some sort of Clairvoyance Quirk, something that lets them monitor us and tell him and his team where we're going to go. Some sort of ability to monitor us. They're probably monitoring us right now." He shuddered at the thought himself, not exactly keen on the prospect of being watched while he did things, but he needed to confront the idea as a possibility.
Sharing in his discomfort, Mina shuddered as well. The idea of a Quirk that was designed just to view someone else from afar was… One that had some fairly messed up implications. It could be useful for a Hero, sure…
For some reason, she was imagining Mineta with that sort of Quirk.
And that made her immensely uncomfortable.
"So… If they have got some sort of Tracking Quirk, they know we're here, but they haven't come to attack us… That just strengthens your theory." She pointed out, now staring at the same Zone as he was. Something told her that he had a plan to locate some of the clones within the City Zone next. "You have a plan?"
"I have an idea…" Izuku said, slowly, before he turned towards his girlfriend. "How good would you say you are at fighting people off?"
Two long, sharp, and disturbingly long samurai-like blades were drawn from their individual sheaths. The user of these weapons was a second year student, who was a female with long, purple hair that reached down to the waistline. Mina had caught that this particular student had the Hero name 'Legacy', judging by how often she ranted on about the legacy that people kept leaving behind and how their pasts affected the future of today.
Izuku's plan was really rather simple – One For All was a Strength Enhancement Quirk, and with that, he was far and away, the best person to get these Clones back to the rescue point. He could use his Quirk, leap into the air, and dash across the rooftops, back to the entrance, drop the clones off there, and then get back to the fight within a couple of minutes. Without using their Quirks, getting just one clone back to the 'Safe Zone' would take a hell of a long time, which would have left their only other option to be to hoard clones around and protect them all like they were some sort of farm animal, making it incredibly difficult to defend all of them, and lowering their overall capabilities.
But that did leave Mina on her own, to face any of the opponents that she came into contact with totally on her own. Of course, Mina had agreed to fight in this particular manner, but it wasn't the idea situation. These were people with at least a year or two's experience on her, and they were making their abilities known, clear as crystal.
Right now, she was against two targets, one of them the female Hero in training Legacy, and another one, who was also a second year, and one of the people in Legacy's Hero Team. That one was going by the name Oversight, based on his Quirk. Izuku had been right. That one them didhave a Clairvoyance Quirk – It let him observe events that were happening in real time, even if he as a large distance away.
Legacy on the other hand possessed an odd Quirk. She called it Psychometry, and how she claimed that it worked was that when she touched an object, it allowed her to see in to that particular objects past. From that, she was able to learn all sorts of information about said object, and even the techniques used by the previous users of those objects. With added skill, she had been able to add her own spin onto particular fighting styles.
Hence the giant, sharp, deadly freaking samurai swords. Owned originally by a master before Quirks had ever developed, and then refined and reinforced by the benefits of modern science and technological advancement, she now had hold of two durable, deadly killing devices. Of course, she had both a blunt side and a sharp side, and she claimed to be using the blunt side of the blade so she wouldn't end up killing Mina, but that wasn't the greatest reassurance.
They could still knock her out. Especially if she was getting fighting abilities from a master samurai from the past.
"We're gonna need to hurry this up, Legacy." Oversight informed her, drawing two weapons of his own – A set of nun-chucks. While he spoke, his left eye glowed a bright green colour, indication of his active Quirk. "That Strength Enhancer is headed back over here. He won't be more than two minutes, tops."
"Let's make certain he just finds a relic of a partner then." The purple haired girl agreed, preparing her stance. One of the swords that she had hold of was being help upright, towards the sky – The other down towards the ground, upside down in a certain way. Like how one would hold a downwards knife, only with a sword.
An oddity with their Quirks in particular, that gave Mina an advantage, was that they weren't exactly combat orientated abilities. Unlike hers, which she had, and could use to generate Acid to attack with, their Quirks relied on the influence of things outside their control. Clairvoyance only allowed its user to observe, not really do much else. This meant that the user had to be profound in martial arts and object weaponry to even have a chance at fighting, while Psychometry relied on objects being used frequently in the past. Without objects, neither of these two were particularly powerful.
Mina could fight without the need of equipment and items. These two weren't able to do that.
Readying her Acid in her palms, Mina got ready to hold off her opponents – All she needed to do was to keep them distracted for about sixty seconds, and then Izuku would be here, and they could run for it. They had already cleared out most of the clones in this area, and Mina had been acting as the bait to keep them from attacking Izuku as they had gone along, throwing attacks their way and making sure that Izuku was able to get away with the 'Civilians' while she kept the 'Villains' preoccupied. This marked their sixth rescued clone.
Now, she just needed to stay here so Izuku could find her easily, and then, they could get the hell out of this zone and make a mad rush for another one. Hopefully loosing these two in the process, but that seemed unlikely. Not with that Clairvoyance Quirk.
Without warning, Legacy and Oversight charged at her, both aiming to attack her at the same time. Mina jumped back into a fighting pose, and threw a handful of her Acid towards the pair of them. It missed both completely, so with her other hand, Mina generated a larger concentration of her Acid, and launched the collection of dangerous liquids directly at the floor in front of her, creating a small section in front of her that her opponents would end up stepping in and damaging themselves on if they didn't slow down and try to evade.
It gained her absolutely no time though. Oversight had to stop, though since his momentum hadn't picked up enough to make a leap over. A part curly large amount of Acid had landed in front of him, and his instincts had demanded that he stop and take the safe way around.
Legacy didn't have any of this though. Without missing a beat, she had leaped right over the bubbling ooze that came from Mina's Acid like it wasn't even there, and came tumbling down to the ground, swinging her blades towards the pink girl like she was trying to slice her to ribbons.
Her reflexes kicking in, Mina jumped back away from the incoming blades, giving her a few seconds of respite before she was being swung at again. A left swing with the right sword, she ducked, an attack to the head, she stepped back, one aimed at the ribs, she side stepped, and one that tried to take out her leg, she countered by using her opposing leg to strike her opponents hands, knocking one sword from her palms.
Instantly, however, she had to avoid getting sliced open by the one sword she hadn't been able to get rid of. A wide swing that was aimed at her head gave her the opening she needed. With her right leg, she launched a solid side-kick to the purple haired girl's ribs, dead centre. Mina's own physical abilities weren't anything to be taken lightly. Even without her Quirk, she could still hit like a runaway train. And her opponent realized that the second her strike hit her. Knocking her back, totally breathless, and robbing her of her oxygen.
The second Legacy was away from her though, Oversight came charging in, swinging his weapons like some sort of Kung-Fu master like in the movies.
Nun-Chucks began to fly all around Mina as attack after attack rapidly began to make itself known around her. With Acid in both her hands, and reflexes kicking in, Mina began to dodge and attempt to throw counter attacks however she could, aiming to damage the weapons with her Acid - Not wanting to kill her opponent, just to disarm him. The speed that Oversight was capable of was incredible, to the point that someone could mistake his Quirk for being a Speed Enhancement type. It took every single bit of her energy, and every split-second that her nerves were able to send signals to her body to evade and dodge attacks.
She pushed back on the ground with her feet just to get some distance from the guy before he ended up knocking her out. Backpedalling away from her attacker, Mina generated more and more Acid all over her arms, and threw a huge cascade of the deadly liquid over a huge widespread area, the Acid not deadly enough to seriously permanently damage the guy – But certainly enough to erode the metal of what he was holding.
Shielding himself with his entire arm, Oversight protected his face and his eyes from to falling of specially crafted Acid that fell onto him far faster than he was able to react to. The Acid hit him, and while it caused him irritant pain, it didn't seriously injure him in any way. Unfortunately for him, his weapons were not graced with the same luxury. Eroding away at speed, Oversight was quickly left with nothing more than shrapnel of his former weapon in his palms.
It was a short lived victory though. From the very corner of her eye, Mina turned her head to see the Pyrokinetic Degree Quirk user Kuroshi, blasting her way towards her.
"There you are!"
With a ridiculously Bakugou-like method for gaining propulsion, his left hand behind him and blasting out flames like a jet to give him increased speed. On the other hand, literally, Kuroshi was reaching out towards Mina with his right hand, totally encased in flames. With the aim to grasp at her arm with a hand that was skin to the surface of the sun, emitting scorching heat and bee-lined straight towards her.
An effort to deflect the incoming attack, Mina attempted to coat her arm within Acid, but there wasn't even a chance for her to do so. Kuroshi was far too quick –
"Kuroshi, above!"
Instantly, a green blur blasted right down between the pink girl and the albino, and without any sort of warning in the moment, all it took was a carefully placed shove in a particular part of his none-flame engulfed arm, and Kuroshi was suddenly thrown off his course entirely, by just a few short degrees that left his darting down a pathway that narrowly missed both Mina, and the recently arrived Izuku, whom had kicked him off path.
All within the space of less than a second again, Mina found herself being whisked away from the conflict in a bridal-style hold – For the third time that day.
When they escaped, she called her boyfriend out on it.
"I'm starting to think that you really like carrying me like that." She commented, once they had landed and safely arrived on one of the nearby buildings, out of the reach of their opponents, and although they were almost certainly being watched due to that Clairvoyance Quirk, it wouldn't have made a difference anyway. There was no way to hide their location and plans from their enemies, so worrying about it was pointless.
"It… Has its perks." Izuku smiled lightly, though he was still blushing, failing to hide it effectively from the Acid Quirk user.
"I'll make sure to harass you about those perks later." Joked the slightly younger girl, with every intention of questioning him about what he deemed to being a perk of carrying her like that, though that wasn't what was important right at this exact moment. "How many clones didja save? It was like, six, right?"
"Eight." Corrected Izuku, running his hand across his forehead and green and black hair. "I saw another clone on my way back with the seventh and 'rescued' that one as well. That's why it took me a while to get back to you." Wiping the sweat from his skin, he gave Mina a pleased smile. "You looked like you were doing awesome before I showed up."
She'd been able to hold off multiple opponents on her own while Izuku had been rescuing clones for the task – She felt like she'd done an awesome job herself. She was exhausted, and her Quirk was reaching its limits, stinging his slightly all over her arms, but her abilities had granted Izuku all the time he'd needed to score them the points.
"How much time do you think we have left?" She asked, taking the moment to just sit down on the edge of the building, to just get a few seconds of rest before they had to hit the grindstone again. She'd been fighting off opponents, running around, leading them on wild goose chases for God knew how long anymore. She just needed to take a few seconds to regain some energy.
"We're probably down to the last five minutes or so." Guessed Izuku, taking a deep breath himself. "And we've only saved eight out of thirty clones… That's not a really good score…"
"Hey, that's nearly a third. That's not bad."
"I-I don't really think that would go down too well if we were actual Heroes…"