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Kyouka had been the one to hear the villain coming.
She, Midoriya, and Aizawa had been on a patrol, because she and Midoriya had won the all-class Smash Bros. tournament that Aizawa had organized. Actually, she was pretty sure Aizawa was relieved it was her and Midoriya coming along with him. He had almost gotten stuck with Kaminari and Bakugou, which would have been fine if it weren’t for the fact that it was a team effort. The last time Bakugou and Kaminari had ended up on a team together in class…well, it hadn’t been good. Things had been rough, several more students than normal ended up in the infirmary, and none of the teachers had been happy. Turns out…explosions and lightning did not mix. Or, they did. But it caused bigger problems.
Regardless, as they had walked on the streets close to the school, Kyouka had heard screaming. She had whipped her head around, already looking for the danger. The screaming was coming from a bookstore down the street. Turning, Midoriya looked at her. His brows furrowed together, he touched the side of his head. Aizawa glanced at the both of them. “Earphone Jack, Deku?” He prompted.
There was an explosion from the bookstore. Under their feet, the ground rocked. Kyouka almost fell, catching herself narrowly. Beside her, Midoriya reached out on instinct. Aizawa steadied himself as well, eyes narrowing. He grabbed his capture weapon. A cloud of dust swarmed over the street. “One villain. Sounds big.” She warned, dropping into a fighting stance.
Slowly, the dust cleared. In front of them, a woman emerged from the dust and smoke, laughing. She wore a black toga, cinched at her waist with a golden chain. Dark green, snakelike tendrils of hair fell over tanned shoulders. When she laughed, Kyouka could see pointed fangs. Yellow eyes with slit pupils ranged over the surrounding buildings, her boots clicked loudly on the asphalt. Then, her gaze fell on Kyouka and the others. She grinned slyly.
“A couple heroes, come to fight? How cute.” She paused, then dropped into a fighting position. As she stared ahead, her heart dropped. The woman flicked a hand, and something formed from the air. It was almost a tendril of sorts, serpentine in appearance and with fangs that matched.
The ghost-snake-thing (snake, she was going to call them snakes) sprang forward. It hissed, an eerie sound like static. Kyouka plugged her jacks into her amps, let out a burst of sound. Under her, the sidewalk rattled and cracked. Beside her, Aizawa grabbed his capture scarf. Midoriya braced to attack as well, eyes narrowing. “Eraserhead?” He asked, glancing at their teacher. Kyouka did the same. Their eyes met.
In a fighting position of his own, watching the snakes, Aizawa replied, “Watch out for the snakes. I’ll try and take her down. Earphone, keep up the soundwaves. Deku, analyze and figure out a plan of attack. In the meantime, you and I will have to feint and draw the attacks. Try to keep the damage to a minimum and keep civilians out of danger. Earphone, I want you to call for backup as well.”
“Right.” Kyouka and Midoriya said automatically.
“So, what’s your name?” Deku asked, charging in and rolling under one of the snakes. When he made to grab it, he clearly managed to grab onto something. Still, Deku didn’t grab it. Not yet. Sliding under the snake, he ducked down and rolled to his feet, then went to send an air blast at the woman’s back.
“Gorgon. I’m sure you don’t know—”
“Oh, like Medusa!” Deku said, eyes brightening. “Do you have the ability to turn people to stone? Surely not. Unless it’s touch.”
“Uh, no.” She replied with a roll of her eyes. “If I could turn people to stone, you’d already be stone. My blood is poisonous.”
“Wait, like poisonous or venomous? Like if I bite you am I going to die?” Deku dodged Gorgon’s punch, blocking one hit after the other. With a grin, he twisted to the side. Aizawa was still dealing with the snakes. Kyouka herself had barely finished calling for backup, typing away on her communicator and glancing up. She needed to wait for her amps to recharge. Not long, but the precision was a lot harder, and if she hit Deku or Eraserhead by accident—“Or is it if you bite me? Because those are two different things and I know they can get mixed up really easily but still—”
So apparently Deku was going for the chatty method of getting information. He danced around her, letting Gorgon strike at him before dodging out of the way. He glanced at Kyouka, held her gaze. Then, he ducked down. Gorgon threw a snake tendril at him. Aizawa looped his capture scarf around the snake’s head, yanking it to a stop and then slamming it into the ground. She still didn’t know how that worked. She wasn’t sure she cared.
Turning, Midoriya managed to land a kick to Gorgon’s face. Her head snapped to the side. Flying back, she twisted. For someone in a toga, she was surprisingly agile, catching herself and back on her feet in a moment. This time, she turned her attention on Midoriya, yellow eyes narrowing. “Hmmph. You remind me of someone. Do you happen to know who your father is, little spitfire?”
Midoriya froze. His eyes widened. Just barely, Kyouka heard a gasp escape him.
That was all the time that Gorgon needed, apparently.
She slammed a snake into Aizawa, sending him flying into the closest building. Glass shattered and he vanished behind the storefront. Then, she turned. Another snake wrapped around Midoriya. He was dragged into the air. Kyouka dodged the one that went for her, sliding behind an electrical box painted with sakura blossoms. Panting, she glanced around the box.
Standing in the middle of the street, Gorgon hoisted Midoriya higher in the air. She clenched her fist. The snake’s tendrils tightened around Midoriya. Crying out, he kicked his legs. They glanced off the snake’s sides, but there didn’t seem to be any power behind it. Grunting, Midoriya yanked. His arms were trapped to his sides. Even from a distance, Kyouka could see the strain in his arms. She could hear the creak in his bones. Grimacing, she crouched down.
“Now,” Gorgon bent down and picked up the bag. She had dropped it at some point. Holding it open, she hummed, “let’s make sure nothing’s damaged, or else you’ll have hell to pay. I’d hate to have to spill some blood on the sidewalk.”
Gorgon’s back was turned to her. Carefully, low to the ground, Kyouka tried to creep closer.
Midoriya cracked an eye open. Looking at her, he met her gaze. Then, he shook his head. Pausing, Kyouka glanced around. With a jerk of his head, Midoriya motioned for the storefront that Aizawa had been sent through. The message was clear. Check on Aizawa. See if he can turn off her Quirk.
Right, she thought. If Gorgon had the tendrils, it had to be an emitter. Meeting Midoriya’s gaze, Kyouka sent him a thumbs-up. Then, she turned and slipped over to the storefront.
She carefully stepped over broken glass. There were people hiding in the corners of the room, along the walls. When her shadow fell over the entryway tiles, she saw people flinch back. She heard their hearts speed up, their breaths catch in their throats. She also could hear Aizawa’s heartbeat.
Her teacher lay splayed in one of the aisles. He’d been pulled away, head rested in a woman’s lap as she rested her fingers against his temple. Just barely, Kyouka could make out a faint green glow. When she approached, the woman raised her head. Her eyes were glowing green. “I’m Earphone Jack. I’m one of his students.” She explained. “I’m here to help.”
“Right.” She slipped to her teacher’s side, reaching out to him. This close, she could hear his heart beating—steady, but the same rate as when he was actually asleep in class. He was out. “How’s he doing?"
“He’s concussed and a bit bruised. I wouldn’t advise making him move. I don’t know if he has any spinal damage.” Softer, almost guiltily, she added, “We were concerned she was going to come by, which was why we moved him the first time.”
“First aid means you get the person out of danger first. You did good.” Kyouka replied. Touching Aizawa’s hand, she paused. Alright. No Aizawa, Midoriya—
Midoriya screamed.
Needs my help! Looking into the street, Kyouka grimaced. “Stay here. Make sure he stays still. I’ll—I’ll be back soon. Everything is going to be okay, I promise.”
There was a nod. Shoving herself up, Kyouka hurried to the broken window, stepped delicately around the broken glass so she was back out in the street. Gorgon still had Midoriya in her grasp.
Lifting him higher, holding a cracked gem in her other hand, Gorgon made a gesture like she was choking him. Kyouka glanced the scene over. They didn’t have any easy weapons. They didn’t have Aizawa. They didn’t have Midoriya, either, not unless Kyouka got him free. Think, Kyouka! You can do this! She thought, glancing around again. Turning a random piece of debris into a weapon wasn’t a great idea, but if she could distract Gorgon or hit her on the head—
Midoriya screamed, back arching.
There was a series of ugly-sounding, loud crack-crack-cracks in Kyouka’s ears. Crying out, she clapped her hands over her ears. It was too loud. She dropped to her knees as Midoriya kept screaming, kicking his legs to try and hit Gorgon. She just squeezed tighter.
Kyouka heard the air rush from his lungs, heard the ugly choke of Midoriya trying in vain to breathe. She heard the creaking of his broken ribs, the rasp and rattle of his throat. She heard his spine straining, even. He can’t breathe. He can’t—
Gorgon dropped Midoriya. He hit the ground with an awful crack. “I thought there was another one of you. Heroes so rarely travel in pairs.” Cracking her eyes open, Kyouka looked up. Her eyes burned, vision blurry. There, in front of her, Gorgon loomed. Gritting her teeth, curled over, Kyouka scowled at her. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. I’m just trying to get what I deserved.”
Kyouka slipped her jacks towards her amp, shifting so that she had one knee tucked against her chest, so that she had the speakers aimed directly at Gorgon. “Right. And how many people have shed their blood for what you deserve?”
Gorgon’s face twisted. Over her shoulders, two snake tendrils arched up. One of them hissed. Kyouka glanced at Midoriya. He was lying on the ground, head turned away from her. With the blurriness in her eyes (the way his ribs had just shattered still chilled her blood, ground against her bones), she couldn’t see if he was breathing. He was down, Aizawa wasn’t an option. “Aw…is that your little boyfriend, there?” Gorgon mocked. Eyes darting to her, Kyouka heard the tiniest little ping. She plugged her jack into her speaker. “What’s your Quirk, girlie?”
Kyouka cracked a grin, “This.”
She yelled out the name of her move right as she triggered the blast, so loudly she really only felt it thrumming in her throat rather than hearing the words reach her ears. The sidewalk buckled. Gorgon’s snakes shrieked, shaken by the sonic blast of a lot of decibels right by them. With a scream of her own, Gorgon staggered back, clapping her hands over her ears. She dropped to her knees, Kyouka got to her own feet. The ground rocked.
Steadying herself, Kyouka took a step towards Gorgon. Scrambling back, blood leaking between her fingers and down her palms, Gorgon scowled at her. “You little—”
Kyouka kicked her in the face.
Gorgon hit the ground and didn’t get back up. She was breathing—Kyouka wasn’t that hard of a kicker, especially just after using her Heartbeat Distortion. Panting, she stood over the woman. Then, she turned, looking at Midoriya as she wiped at her eyes. Midoriya’s screaming and the cracking of his bones had sucked. She didn’t want to listen, even as she unplugged her jacks and ran to him. The only thing she could hear was her own breathing, her boots on the broken sidewalk. “Deku!” She called out to him.
Dropping to the sidewalk by him, she pressed her fingers to his pulse point. She didn’t want to listen. She did, anyways. Come on, come on, she thought. Pulling out a compact for spying with her free hand, she opened it and held the mirror just under Midoriya’s nose. The glass fogged up steadily, fading away. Under her fingers, she could feel Midoriya’s heart beating, too. His heartbeat filled her ears.
Sighing in relief, Kyouka sank back on the sidewalk, tilting her head back to look at the sky.
Sitting on a chair, legs crossed, Kyouka flipped through her current favorite shonen, about a boy who inherited a magic sword from an old hero and then went on an adventure to defeat a the hero’s foe.
To her left, Aizawa was still asleep. He was tucked into bed like a child, with a bandage wrapped around his head because apparently he had gotten sliced by some glass when he was thrown through the window. Those weren’t the only bandages he had had. They’d had to stitch him up a lot, apparently. The worse Kyouka had was that she needed some gauze wrapping her knees where she dropped to the ground and went skidding. On her right was Midoriya. Unlike Aizawa, he hadn’t walked away so easily. Nope. He had a lot of broken ribs.
Somehow, Midoriya woke up first.
“Mmm…Jirou?” He asked weakly. Turning her head, Kyouka marked her place and set her book down on the nearest table. “Are you alright?”
“Am I alright?” She asked.
“You’re…in the hospital.” Green eyes focused on her. Languidly, he blinked, rasped in another breath. As he did, he winced. Kyouka reached over, found the controls for his painkillers and upped his dose. It hit him quick. Eyes fluttering slightly, he hummed. Then, with a blink, he accused, “You didn’t answer my question.”
“I’m fine, Midoriya. My parents aren’t here to pick me up yet, that’s all.” She replied. “You broke, like, sixteen ribs.”
He let out a long whine. “Aww, man. Kacchan was going to buy me one of those new All Might figurines if I made it a whole month without getting hurt.”
“Getting hurt? That feels like a biased bet.”
“It’s only been two days.” Midoriya moaned, looking like a kicked puppy. His eyes might have been watering. Honestly, that was so normal Kyouka didn’t even think about it. “Noo…”
“Problem Children.” Aizawa groaned as well. Kyouka turned to look at him. Lying in bed, Aizawa took a long-suffering breath. Then, he continued, “I am too concussed for you to be talking so loud. Midoriya, I’ll talk to Bakugou. Jirou, stop encouraging him. Please.”
“Yes, sir.” Midoriya and Kyouka replied simultaneously.