Only Embers Remain - Mirrond - 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia (2024)

Chapter 1: The Arrival

Chapter Text

It happened in an instant.

One second Izuku Midoriya was running through the corridors of the UA, searching for his class, driven by the euphoria born out of managing to get to his dream school. Of managing to prove to himself that he could be a hero. Of inheriting All Might’s quirk and not failing his idol-turned-mentor during the Entrance Exam - despite not scoring a single villain point.

The next one, he was standing, alone. In a place that wasn’t UA. In a place that he wasn’t familiar with.

He was standing on a ruined stone floor, looking antique and dilapidated. Carved stone blocks forming a mosaic that has mostly given in to the elements, riddled with cracks some of which developed their own life in the form of pale, sickly grass, suffering in the limited sunlight.

Midoriya looks around, trying to process what just happened, his mind racing into an overdrive.

He was in the ruins of a building looking like something out of the European Middle-Ages. Stone blocks on the floor, stone bricks forming the walls, cracked and decimated by the passage of time even more than the floor.

Above him was a ruined ceiling with a large hole in it, the wooden planks and beams forming it having been partially rotten.

There was a ruined wooden table and a pair of chairs by one of the walls. A handful of plates and cutlery was on it.

“E-Eh?” Midoriya lets out, taking a step back in shock, his eyes darting from object to object. The table. The chairs. The plates. The wardrobe, its doors sliced apart, a chunk of them lying on the floor next to it. The bed by the distant wall of the room. Some shelves. A fireplace with a metal pot hanging over it.

He trips over something, and lands on the floor on his butt. His shock turns into panic when he realizes that he tripped over the legs of a severely desiccated human corpse, rot making it completely unrecognizable.

Midoriya shrieks, crawling back in panic before slamming his back into the wall. It’s at this point that the rational mind catches up to instinctive revulsion and panic and he covers his mouth with his hand while listening intently.

No sounds coming from outside. His shriek didn’t alert anyone. Nothing rushes in to attack him.

The ruins he’s in are quiet.

Okay, calm down Izuku. There has to be a logical explanation for it. Was he hit by some illusion or mental quirk? Or was it some weird follow-up to the Entrance Exam? UA had the whole Plus Ultra thing, but…

… this is way too Plus Ultra. Right?

He manages to calm down his raging breathing. He doesn’t look in the direction of the corpse. He doesn’t want to look at it.

Alright. Let’s get out of here. Staying inside won’t lead him anywhere. He doesn’t know a lot about corpses, but that one doesn’t look fresh. Whoever the guy was, he died weeks or months ago.

He stands up, and walks towards the door, circling around the corpse, not looking at it anymore.

The doors are made of wooden planks surrounded by a metal frame. They look solid enough, but aren’t locked - someone clearly broke the lock. Probably whoever attacked and killed the guy lying on the floor.

He pushes them open, cringing when they make the loud screeching sound. He freezes on the spot and listens intently.

He only hears his own breathing.

Okay, calm down. You’re alone here, it seems.

He walks out of the room. It turns out to be a building, a lone-standing old looking house, with stone walls and flat wooden ceiling. Surrounded by more similar buildings. Some were slightly bigger, others slightly smaller.

He exited the building he woke up in to find himself on a dirt street between several more buildings, all of them in the same architectural style. No windows. The whole thing looked… poor?

Wrong word, maybe. Ancient was probably a better thing. It was like something from a videogame. He didn’t play a lot of them, and most of those he chose to play involved heroes, so he was a bit out of his depth there, though.

Most of the doors were either open or completely broken apart. The village(?) was quiet. There were a few more corpses scattered throughout the street, most of them wearing tattered remnants of some cloth… tunics? Was it the right word?

He is severely out of his depth.

He is fairly sure that he would have emptied his stomach by now if not for the Sludge Villain. Getting that thing inside his mouth and tasting it has changed his definition of disgusting permanently.

Instead he is just busy counting seconds to keep himself from hyperventilating. Or screaming. Breathe in, keep it in for five seconds, then breathe out and wait for five seconds. Rinse and repeat.

His hands are shaking a little.

The one exception among the corpses he can see is a man in what looks like a… wait, is that a chainmail? With something of a red cloth draped over it, looking like a… he thinks the term for that was surcoat, he learned it during one random wikipedia binge which started when he was researching the hero uniform of one knightly-themed hero. It was…

Focus. Focus.

The man was lying face-down on the ground. The cause of death was rather obviously the pitchfork sticking out of his back, nailing him to the ground. An attack from behind and a successful stab.

There is a sword lying on the ground right next to him. It seemed to have slipped out of the man’s hands when his death came.

Ah. This started to remind him of the old, pre-quirks isekai genre. One of Kacchan’s friends at school was into them for a while. The genre mostly died out after quirks came, but…

It can’t be this, right?

He wanted to be a pro-hero. Not the isekai sort of hero. That’s not what he came to UA for.

Alright, don’t lose focus. You have to figure out what happened to you.

No movement in the area. All that he could see were a few more buildings, three corpses in tunics and one wearing a chainmail. Judging from the cloudless sky above him, and the sun’s position, it was probably close to noon.

His mind enjoyed gathering up mostly meaningless information. That was one way of dealing with the second most terrifying moment in his life.

Maybe it was all a dream? That would explain a lot. Was his whole time with All Might a preamble to this? Some twisted dream switching its atmosphere midway? But pinching his arm didn’t wake him up.

It might not be the most terrifying moment in his life, but it’s certainly his most confusing one.

He can’t stay here, that’s certain. He has to figure out where he is, hopefully find someone who is alive and friendly… and he can’t do either if he just… keeps standing there, frozen in place.

He steels himself and walks past the dead soldier(?). He notes in the passage that after (or before) he was nailed to the floor someone also bashed the back of his head in with something blunt, there was a metal helmet whose shape he isn’t sure how to name but it didn’t help that man a lot.

He stops maybe two or three steps later when it occurs to him.

He can’t exactly protect himself with his quirk. One for All is an incredible quirk, but he still can’t use it, at least not without breaking his limbs. And doing that in the middle of potentially hostile territory feels… like a bad idea.

Should he… grab the sword?

It didn’t help that man, that’s for sure. But…

“Having a weapon is always better than not having a weapon.” Izuku is suddenly startled by an unfamiliar voice coming from nowhere but also everywhere at once. He looks around in panic, but he sees no one. “Oh, so you do hear me. That’s… surprising.”

“W-who are you?” Izuku asks. Is it the villain responsible for the whole… abduction thing? They sound young, barely adult. Maybe it wasn’t an abduction but a quirk accident with some older student?

“You remember All Might telling you about One for All being a torch handed down from hero to hero?” The voice asks. Midoriya is suddenly startled even more, wasn’t that a secret?! “Well, it hands down more than just power. You could consider me to be a … Vestige of the First Holder of your quirk. Not the actual person, just a memory of him attached to your quirk. Name’s Yoichi, Yoichi Shigaraki.”

Oh.

“U-uhm, nice to meet you?” Izuku is, once again, thrown out of his comfort zone. He finally got a quirk, and it was All Might’s quirk… and now it turns out that it was haunted. It’s so confusing to him. “I’m I-Izuku Midoriya.”

“I know that much, Ninth.” Yoichi replies. “Look, I’ll be frank with you. I have no idea what happened either and I can’t maintain the connection with you for long as it’s exhausting me for some reason. Whatever happened caused significant changes to One for All, everything here is completely different and the other Vestiges are gone or hidden from me. But you’re not alone, so calm down, alright?”

“O-okay.” Midoriya replies nervously. He is trying to calm down, but it’s not exactly easy. “I d-didn’t expect to be i-isekai’d on my first day of school, y-you know?”

“If it makes you feel better, Ninth…” Yoichi replies. “... you were isekai’d together with a man who has a lot of practical experience in leading people to slay a demon lord. You’ll be fine, just calm down. I’ll advise you if needed. For now, take the sword just in case. Don’t forget about the scabbard. And please, don’t make any loud noises, it might be some remnant of Danger Sense speaking, but I’m sure that we aren’t alone in this village.”

This day kept getting weirder and weirder. Midoriya still expects it all to be a weird dream that he’ll wake up from, but… he should probably try to act like it’s all real. For his own good, right?

He pulls the scabbard off the corpse, doing his best to not look at it, before attaching it to his own belt with the straps. It more or less fits.

Then Izuku grabs the sword by the hilt. Only to be immediately welcomed by a pop-up window.

Bastard Sword

A long sword with a straight blade. Hilt is longer than in normal longswords, allowing it to be wielded comfortably with two hands, but those of sufficient strength can wield it with one hand.

“Eh?” Midoriya lets out, staring at the popup window, the boy freezing in the middle of motion with his hand still on the sword’s hilt.

“I think it’s a LitRPG, Ninth.” Yoichi decides to comment. “It’s going to be helpful. With your height, you should probably treat it as a two-handed sword. Go on, give it a few swings. It’s probably something to be done before we run into enemies.”

Izuku wasn’t exactly happy thinking about that part. About enemies. Sludge Villain was scary, and… he went to the UA expecting three years of hard training before getting to fight someone for real.

Great.

He does a few swings as Yoichi told him to. The sword… kind of fits his hands? It’s as if he knew how to use it, actually. That was a really strange feeling. To know how to do something despite never learning it.

For some reason he doesn’t feel as if he was actually good at it, though. Average, probably. And he knows that he’ll freak out if he’s ever told to slash a person. Hopefully he won’t have to, right?

Then he almost drops the sword as it glows in all colors of rainbow at an instant. For a moment he can see a blue bar in the corner of his eye, now partially depleted.

“I think I just infused your sword with One for All.” Yoichi says. There is something of a childish joy in his voice, to Izuku’s surprise. “For increased damage, I guess. You should probably learn how to do it yourself. And name it.”

A few seconds of silence, Izuku looking at his sword without a word. Then Yoichi speaks again.

“You’re going to call it Detroit Slash, aren’t you?” He sounds exasperated now. Midoriya decides not to answer it. “I’m running out of energy for now, I’ll leave some for emergencies. Now, go. Just, remember, be quiet .”

Izuku can do that much. He didn’t have any stealth classes or anything (obviously, this all happened during his first day at hero school), but he isn’t large. Besides, he managed to sneak up on All Might that one time he grabbed his leg and flew over the city, right?

He just has to make sure that he doesn’t get startled by something.

In the meantime, he recalls the feeling that accompanied the OFA-enhanced slash. Then he does a vertical slash while doing his best to feel the same thing. It’s a bit odd, and he needs a lot of practice to make it faster (for now he has to pause his movements for a moment to focus on it), but…

It works.

Detroit Slash, unlike Detroit Smash, didn’t smash his bones, so it was a plus. The fact that what he presumed was his mana/stamina bar was down to 60% at best was clearly a minus, especially as he didn’t know just how powerful the move actually was.

For now, let’s keep moving.

He puts the sword back in the scabbard, quickly checks how quickly and easily he can draw it (he doesn’t want to get surprised by an attack, right?) then he resumes his slow and careful trek through the village.

For the next five minutes or so, all he finds are more corpses strewn around the village. None of them seemed armed, just… the civilians. Someone has clearly attacked the village and killed everyone in it.

The soldier he found was killed by farming equipment. Was he one of the attackers?

Confusing.

He could see some slightly larger building giving him a temple vibe in the center of the village. He kept away from it, for now, instead going through the outskirts of the village. If there was an enemy here, the center of the village seemed to be the most logical place to encounter it, right?

Then he runs into another person.

He hears some quiet crashing sound from one of the houses he was passing by, making him freeze on the spot and listen in intently. A second later there is… a quiet… murmur that sounded like Japanese, just too quiet for him to understand more than a word or two.

His heart started racing. He wasn’t alone here! Well, he wasn’t alone even more, because honestly he isn’t sure if he can count Yoichi as company.

But… he decides to be cautious about it. So rather than barge in, he knocks on the door.

“W-who’s there?” The voice comes from the inside a while later. Izuku recognizes it immediately. It’s the nice girl from the Entrance Exam? The one that… uhm… well, they saved each other’s lives and then she wanted to give some of her points to him!

“I’m Izuku, M-Midoriya Izuku.” He replies quickly. “G-green hair, we’ve met d-during the Entrance Exam.”

The door opens a little, a brown eye appearing in the crevice for maybe a second before the doors are suddenly opened, revealing a very familiar girl with brown hair, wearing a girl version of the UA uniform.

“Oh, that’s really you!” She says with a relieved look on her face. “The plain-looking boy from the Entrance Exam!”

Ouch. Then again, one of the kids he saw during the exam had a manga speech bubble for head. In the era of quirks, the quirkless must appear plain.

“Y-yes, that’s me.” Izuku replies nervously. He was talking to a girl! He was actually talking to a girl! “A-and y-you?”

“Oh, I’m sorry! I’ve gotten a bit too excited after seeing a familiar face.” The girl replies immediately. “I’m Uraraka! Uraraka Ochako! And err… is that a sword?”

“Yes.” Izuku replies. “Yes it is.” He decides not to elaborate on it for now. “Do you have any idea where we are?”

“No, actually I wanted to ask you the same question.” Uraraka replies, her short-lived relief suddenly vanishing from her face. “I was on my way to the UA, for my first day at school, then I was suddenly in this house. And my quirk works weird.”

“Y-yeah, mine too.” Izuku replies nervously. “It started talking to me, for some reason.”

“It started…” She blinks at him. “Quirks can do that?”

“Some of them do.” Izuku replies. He did read a lot about quirks, and sapient quirks were a thing, even if super rare. “But when a superstrength quirk does that, it’s… not normal.”

“Oh, right.” Uraraka decides to agree with him. If not for now how out of the world their present circ*mstances were, she would probably start doubting his sanity. “Well, my quirk doesn’t work like it used to either. I have that… a blue bar shows up in the corner of my eye when I use it, and… I don’t have to touch objects to influence them! I managed to pull something to me from a distance, but after some experiments the blue bar is now down to half and, well, now you’re here.”

“That… sounds super cool and useful, Uraraka-san!” Izuku replies enthusiastically. Because it obviously does! Her quirk could easily float the robots from the Entrance Exam, if it has somehow gotten stronger now, she was going to become an awesome hero! “But, err, I think we should be more… quiet, you know?”

“Eh, why?” Uraraka looks at him with genuine surprise visible on her face.

“You d-didn’t leave the house, did you?” Izuku asks, making her nod. She clearly focused on figuring out her quirk, which… honestly made sense.

Izuku didn’t do that because he… he just wasn’t used to having a quirk. He defaulted to different behavior when in a pinch. Besides, actually trying to use his quirk would probably put him out of commission, so there was that.

For Uraraka, her quirk was all that she needed for self-defense. So, when all of that happened, the first thing she did was trying to figure out how it works now.

“Well, we might not be in Japan anymore.” Izuku decides to say. “We might not be in our world at all, or so said my quirk.” He prefers to say it that way. It’s a bit too outlandish to say as if you genuinely believed in it. Or so he thinks. “And, well, the whole village is full of corpses.”

“C-corpses?” Uraraka doesn’t take it well, clearly enough. “As in… d-dead people?”

“Y-yeah.” He replies. He is… it’s not easy to ignore their existence, he knows that from the autopsy. But he’s doing his best. “We s-should check the edges of the village to see if there is anyone else, and then leave it. My quirk said that I’m not a-alone here, and I don’t think that he meant you.”

There was this ‘Danger Sense’ line that Izuku wasn’t sure how to understand. What he did know was that Uraraka hardly counted as a ‘danger’ to him. So it couldn’t be about her, right?

“Alright.” Uraraka now looks spooked by the situation rather than confused with a hint of slight happiness at her quirk suddenly getting much more powerful and versatile. “Let’s go then. And, uhm, thank you for saving me during the Exam, I… didn’t get to thank you earlier.”

Oh, right.

“Well, t-thank you for s-saving me from the fall afterward.” He replies immediately. “I… guess we’re even, after all of that?”

“Sure thing!” She replies. “Feels like a great start of friendship, right?”

Kind of, in Izuku’s opinion. If you excluded the sheer number of human corpses surrounding them. And the fact that they still didn’t know where they were. But other than that, yeah. It felt like a start of friendship.

Uraraka almost trips when she leaves the house just to see the corpse lying by its wall, maybe a meter away from the entrance.

“Oh, w-wow, you weren’t kidding.” She then says while looking away from the corpse. “I… why’s there no smell?”

“Too late after death.” Izuku hears Yoichi’s words. “It’s been at least fifty days since their death, they are at the dry decay stage. Liquids are out, and so is most of the flesh. There’s nearly nothing left to actually produce the smell.”

Oh. Well, that sounded like useful information, even if it made Izuku wonder why Yoichi knows so much about how corpses decay. After fifty days, what were the chances of the killers still being around?

He relays his new knowledge to Uraraka, who seems somewhat reassured.

They only manage to continue walking for a few seconds, Izuku at the front with Uraraka tailing behind him, before they almost die of a heart attack.

None of them spotted the large raven that nested on the edge of the roof of the house they were passing by. Not before it started to caw loudly, freaking them both out with how sudden and loud it was.

“A-ah, damn, it scared me.” Uraraka lets out. “Bad raven!” The raven only intensifies the cawing.

“sh*t, kill it.” Yoichi suddenly speaks. “Kill it, now! It’s alerting something of your presence!”

Izuku doesn’t wait to ask for clarification. Not with so many corpses around. Instead he pulls the sword out of the scabbard (to Uraraka’s complete surprise) and does a vertical slash, but the raven dodges it by taking off and continues to caw loudly over their heads.

sh*t.

“D-Deku-kun, why did you…” Uraraka tries to say, surprising Izuku with the way she referred to him. Then he remembers Kacchan calling him that way right before Uraraka-san stopped him from slamming his face into the pavement before the exam.

But he doesn’t get to enjoy the fact that a girl just gave him a nickname. Even if it was that one nickname. Because then he hears loud footsteps. And the cawing of the raven somehow starts sounding as if it was mocking them.

A few seconds later something steps out from behind the corner. Something… large.

It was a man. A man built like All Might in his muscular form, towering over both of them by far, but with sickly, grayish skin, most of his hair having clearly fallen out. It looked… rotten, desiccated, parts of the body resembling the corpses scattered throughout the village more than they did anything alive .

He was wearing nothing but a pair of leathery pants, completely stained with what looked like long-dried blood.

The upper body was skewered from behind by two large swords, much longer than what Izuku carried, their tips emerging from the front of the body, the man clearly ignoring the pain that it had to give him.

Then again, did it even feel pain?

“E-eh?” Midoriya lets out, starting at the new arrival in shock, just as a large red bar appears at the top of his view, with a large Death Walker Grinsh written above it.

“Oh, crap.” Yoichi whispers into his ear, his voice suddenly filled with horror. “It’s a soulslike LitRPG.”

Ehhh?

Chapter 2: Grinsh [Boss Battle]

Chapter Text

Izuku doesn’t have the time to ask what the hell was that supposed to mean before the Death Walker proves that his nickname was incorrect.

It can also run. And despite the two giant swords impaled through its upper body, it can be incredibly fast.

Grinsh proves this by charging right towards Izuku, his arms spread wide, crossing the twenty meters distance in maybe four seconds. Despite the speed - unexpected from someone this large - Izuku manages to dodge it.

Narrowly.

Death Walker slams his giant body into the house behind him, with enough sheer kinetic strength to nearly bust through the thick wall made of stone brick, sending bits of it flying in the process.

It doesn’t appear to be phased by the impact, instead he pulls back from the rubble, clearly unharmed.

“Alright, you dodged the charge attack.” Yoichi decides to put in his own five cents. “He should be less fast for now, for as long as you’re not too far away from him. Keep dodging for now and try to regroup with Uraraka, I have a plan, but…”

The pause in Grinsh’s movements was fleeting. He leaps forward towards Izuku, his hands raised above his head, fingers intertwined into one giant fist. Izuku tries to dodge backward but Yoichi yells at him to dodge to the right side.

And so he does that.

He understands why the second Grinsh’s hands collide with the floor, the attack reinforced (with magic?) so the ground itself erupts under them, sending a wave of soil and rock splinters in the direction where Izuku originally wanted to dodge.

That would have hurt.

His hopes of avoiding pain are nearly instantly dashed aside as, for the Death Walker, this wasn’t a single attack. There was a follow up to it.

Izuku barely had the time for his feet to touch ground again before Grinsh lunged forward, his right hand formed into a fist that approached Izuku’s body in a rather wide arc.

Yoichi realizes it immediately - the ground slam to stagger the enemy or force them to dodge, then immediate follow-up with a sweeping punch if they dodged to the side. That was the sort of instant follow-up to an attack dependent on the player's way of dodging that would make ancient soulslike genre fans scream in frustration.

Yet, it made perfect sense for an enemy encountered in real life and not limited to scripted moveset.

Midoriya, against all odds - perhaps guided by his mysterious innate understanding of at least the basics of swordsmanship - manages to block the blow, his sword pointing downward, one of his hands on the hilt and another lower on the blade. The blow connects right in the middle of those two.

The only surprising part of the follow-up was that the sword didn’t break on the spot. The not surprising part of the follow-up events was that at least some of the bones of his hands did.

Worst of all, his stance was weak and his body was light, so he was sent flying. Right into the brick wall. That was some additional broken bones.

Except, the pain lasted for maybe two seconds, before another red bar showed up above the blue bar representing his mana, now down by about ¼ of its total length. What?

A health bar? And it healed his injuries instantly? How did that work?

There was no time to think about it, as Grinsh wasn’t giving him any breathing space. Death Walker lunged after him again… except that’s when he was suddenly hit in the back by a brick.

It's the sharpened part of a brick, most likely a part of the debris generated by Grinsh’s earlier charge. Accelerated with Uraraka’s quirk (was it still a quirk?). It’s fast enough to pierce through the skin, but it doesn’t go very deep.

The damage to the boss’s health bar is negligible. It’s barely a blink there.

“Hey, leave him alone!” Uraraka shouts at the Grinsh, who now turns towards her. Judging from the look on her face, she immediately realized that it might not have been the best idea.

Then again, Izuku is grateful for the interruption.

“Dash past the boss and join up with her, I’ll help you move faster.” Yoichi says with the feeling of urgency in his voice. “I have a plan.”

With the average speed that Grinsh was showing thus far, Izuku decides to waste no time. He tries to run past it, except his mana bar shrinks a little and he crosses the distance nearly instantly… just to almost trip over his feet in surprise at his own speed.

It is at moments like this that Izuku becomes painfully aware of the fact that his past few months (almost a year) of intense training was entirely focused on making up for years of hard work that he missed out. Years during which he didn’t train his body as he should be.

He, regretfully, is friend-shaped. His pre-existing combat training leaves him with natural combat proficiency of a capybara. Despite some unexpected improvements in the field of swordfighting, it just keeps showing.

“H-how did you…” Uraraka is startled by it as well. A second later she dodges death by diving to the side, the large chunk of debris that Grinsh threw missing her head and instead slamming into her shoulder. “Aaah!”

At least Yoichi finished narrating the plan. It was insane, but… Izuku has nothing better to show.

The shoulder heals almost immediately, but the pain’s still there. Midoriya freaks out a little, but Yoichi keeps his focus and quickly narrates his plan as Grinsh is slowly approaching them, probably deciding which one to take out first.

“Uraraka-san!” Midoriya decides to go along. “You said you can pull things at a distance with your quirk, right?”

“Yes?” She replies, clearly still confused by being hit and yet feeling alright immediately after (she probably didn’t see what exactly happened to him earlier).

“Can you pull his fists to the side when it attacks me?” Izuku asks while raising his sword and fixing his stance. “I need an opening.”

“I’ll do it!” Uraraka replies immediately. Did she figure out the whole plan already?

He can only hope, because Grinsh isn’t giving them time to strategize. Instead, it decides to do another sudden charge, closing the distance with the intent to grab Midoriya. To what purposes? It’s probably best not to know.

Uraraka extends her arms forward, before clenching her hands into fists… and spreading her arms wide.

Grinsh’s arms do the same thing, Midoriya taking the occasion to lunge forward, his sword - coated with One For All’s energy - plunging right into the Death Walker’s chest, the boss’s own momentum helping it to go all the way through it and emerge from its back.

To call the results of it ‘overwhelming’ would barely cover the truth. The sword erupts in multicolored flames that, after a second or two, seem to fuse into one of pure white color that sears through the Death Walker’s flesh. The boss's health bar takes a massive blow, Midoriya shaving off at least a third of it in an instant… and the damage continues, on a much slower pace as the flames spread.

Grinsh tries to swing his oversized fists at Midoriya, who dodges. He realizes the mistake he made a second later when the sword’s hilt slips out of his grasp and the flames die out.

“PULL IT OUT!” Yoichi yells at him as the Grinsh - now down to 50% of his health bar - begins to stand up. Midoriya does as ordered and grabs the hilt again, managing to pull it out of the wound (helpfully seared by the flames, making the process easier) and then….

Then he acts on instinct. Some adrenaline-based automatic response to being in front of a vulnerable enemy that will soon recover and kill you, while having a sharpened stick in your hands.

A two-handed swipe of his bastard sword, his most likely last Detroit Slash for the day, chops off Grinsh’s head neatly, bringing his healthbar down to zero. The Death Walker slumped down onto his knees and stayed there, unmoving.

Midoriya takes a step back… and as the adrenaline rush leaves his body, drops down and lands on his butt, his sword falling out of his hands and landing on the ground next to him. He is breathing quickly (almost on the verge of hyperventilating) while glancing to the side in Uraraka's direction.

“A-are you alright?” He manages to ask. Uraraka gives him back an equally nervous (and somewhat worried, after all they just killed something/someone looking mostly like a human) look.

“Y-yeah, I am.” She replies. “That was… pretty i-intense, right?”

That was one way of saying it. Except… that’s when Yoichi ruins Midoriya’s day even more.

“Why is…” He says slowly. “... the boss’s health bar still here?”

What?

It is at this moment that the stump that is Grinsh’s neck erupts with a black flame with something akin to brief white highlights, prompting Uraraka to yelp loudly in shock and jump back just as Izuku panics a little, grabs his sword and does his best to crawl backward before standing up.

A second later, Grinsh stands up, the flames burning out of his neck beginning to change shape and transforming into a white-ish skull surrounded by black flames still erupting from the stump of the neck.

And a second second after that, the same, oddly coloured flames begin to burn in the hole in its body made by Midoriya’s earlier stab.

“Oh, crap.” Yoichi lets out, waking Midoriya up from his shocked stupor. “It has a second phase. Why the hell does the tutorial boss have a second phase?! This isn’t Iudex Gundyr, you can’t expect most players to be at least somewhat competent at the game by its third part! This is bullsh*t!”

Grinsh grabs one of the blades sticking out of his back… and pulls it out, black flames bursting out from the open wounds both on the back and front of his body, the greatsword falling onto the ground.

“Wait, not the time.” Yoichi wakes up from his rant. “You have to get the hell out. You’re barely in shape for fighting, run the hell away, now!”

“U-Uraraka-san, we have to run.” Midoriya relays the words of wisdom to Uraraka, who until now was as shocked as he was, staring at Grinsh with her mouth wide open. Now she looks back at him. “NOW!”

The second blade falls on the ground. A moment later, Grinsh grabs both swords and stands up, just as the boss health bar is suddenly filled again just as the name of the boss changes to Deathflame Revenant Grinsh.

This is going to hurt.

Grinsh raises his right hand, pointing the black-flamed greatsword (that he somehow manages to wield in one hand) at the sky above, the other hand dragging the other sword through the ground.

A second later, the right sword is slammed into the ground, Izuku relaying the warning from Yoichi to dodge sideways in the last second, Uraraka and Izuku leaping to the side before the wave of black flames erupts in a cone in front of the sword.

They made the mistake. Once again, the attack they dodged was merely a first step of the combo.

It was the other blade that they had to watch for too. As the right sword slammed into the ground, Grinsh turned around, swinging the other sword in a wide arc, the horizontal slash carrying the same black flames.

Izuku dodged the initial vertical blow to the right - which gave him the time to get out of the follow-up blow. Uraraka dodged it to the left - which left her with much less time to respond to the horizontal slash.

She failed to do it, the flames enveloping her just as she yelled in pain and shock.

“U-Ura…” Midoriya yells back in horror. He doesn’t have time to try to help her before Grinsh charges towards him, past Uraraka.

Izuku jumps back, dodging a flurry of blows. Their arcs are wide, their trajectories are a mess. Grinsh was going berserk, and dual-wielding two handed weapons left even more openings.

Of course, the openings could only be exploited if you were actually good at fighting. Izuku, regretfully, wasn’t. So, he focused on dodging and not dropping his sword in the series of panicked last moment movements.

Grinsh finishes his flurry of strikes, the last blow almost making him fall over as his poise was broken, giving Izuku a moment to assess the situation.

“Uraraka-san, are you alright?!” He yells, but he gets no answer. sh*t, was she… no way, right? But Grinsh’s attacks pushed him back far away that he didn’t see her and…

“Focus!” Yoichi shouts into his ear. “Look at his health bar!”

Izuku does that a moment before another frenzied series of slashes starts. It’s at this point that he notices that Grinsh’s life was slowly declining on its own. It was at… what, 95%? What? Why?

“It’s burning itself out.” Yoichi clears it out just as Izuku uses his surprisingly good evasion ability to dodge a slash that went through the wall behind him without slowing down, cutting through the stone bricks as if they weren’t there. “Keep dodging, just keep dodging. And watch for… DODGE!”

Midoriya does as ordered as Grinsh does an angled downward swipe - way outside of actual range of his sword. Izuku understands the reasons for Yoichi’s reaction when the place he was in a moment ago is sliced through by a blade of black flames following the motion of the blade despite not being in contact with it.

It’s, somehow, solid enough to slash through the ruined brick wall behind him, the black flames bursting from the line carved out in it.

“First lesson, if the enemy swipes a blade when you aren’t in range, you are in range and should dodge immediately.” Yoichi says quickly. “Now keep dodging and running around. It’s on the time limit, you aren’t.”

It wasn’t as easy as Shigaraki made it sound. Grinsh was even faster than earlier, and the only thing that was keeping Izuku alive thus far was jumping behind the buildings, which led to Grinsh slowly destroying the ruined village, building by building.

And even then, it was narrow.

It was probably no surprise that he lost his sword very early into the fight. He had no time to put it into the scabbard, and holding it in his hands would delay his random dashes, leading to instant death.

“DOWN!” Yoichi yells all of a sudden as Izuku dives between two houses. Izuku, once again, does as ordered, immediately.

This time he has no idea what sort of attack Grinsh made, but it sliced through the building between them, with enough speed and strength left to carve a long line in the building on the other side.

“DASH FORWARD!” Yoichi yells again. Izuku doesn’t question it, instead he jumps forward, expending almost half of the remaining mana/stamina on the dash. He hears a deafening crushing sound behind him and turns on his heel as his dash ends, just to see that Grinsh bulldozed through the slashed-apart building.

Changing the alleyway Izuku used to be in into a pile of flame-scoured debris. And that’s without mentioning the stone shrapnels caused by the initial impact.

He would have absolutely died if he was there. How did Yoichi…

Grinsh walks forward out of the debris, towards Izuku. Its flames are still strong, the swords being dragged behind its body. It’s health bar is down to what, 75%? Something like it. The fight was far from ending.

And Izuku just ran out of tricks.

However the moment before another charge could happen, Izuku is startled to see the tip of his sword - the one he lost a while ago - suddenly exit Grinsh’s chest, creating another point where Grinsh’s flames were bursting out of.

And suddenly, he loses at least ten more percent of his healthbar.

“I said leave him alone!” Uraraka yells from a distance. It seems that she has found Izuku’s sword and decided to use whatever mana she had left and fire it at Grinsh from behind, from a safe distance. “You m-monster! Pick on someone your size!”

“It was probably most of her mana pool, to actually pierce through it.” Yoichi comments. “And it only worked because it had no armor. You gotta take that moment and get the hell out, this is as far as you…”

Grinsh raises his arm, pointing its sword at the sky above, the flames erupting around it with thrice the intensity. Then, the sword is turned around, the hand still extended above but the sword facing ground.

“Crap, JUMP UP!” Yoichi yells.

“JUMP!” Izuku yells towards Uraraka (just in case she was in range too) and jumps up himself, while gathering what was left of his mana for an upward dash.

Grinsh’s sword is buried into the ground, causing black flames to erupt from the ground everywhere around it - in at least twenty meters radius around it.

Izuku is just outside of the blast of flames, temporarily covering Grinsh from his eyes… but shrinking its health bar by a whopping 20%.

He has no time to check if Uraraka dodged the attack as well. Because the moment his dash ends and he begins to fall down, he understands that Grinsh somehow outsmarted them again.

Because the flames surrounding the Deathflame Revenant clear… just to show him raising his other blade, in the same manner as the earlier one.

Izuku has a moment to understand that he is going to die the moment he touches the ground before he suddenly stops falling.

He sees Uraraka pointing at him with her hand… right before the second blast of flames envelops her and everything in at least forty meter diameter this time, both blades clearly feeding off each other to amplify the second blast.

The explosion absolutely decimated the surrounding village. But it also shredded through the Grinsh’s health bar, reducing it to ten percent at most.

Izuku barely noticed it before his fall was resumed and he slammed into the ruined ground, getting himself burned by embers of rapidly disappearing deathflame.

Or… not burned. It feels cold. The parts of his body that touches it feels as if it was going limb for a moment. But the effects are brief.

He also barely noticed it, as he was too focused on the fact that Uraraka was gone. The flames vanished, but she simply wasn’t there.

The only thing left was a floating ball in a gray color, glowing faintly. Placed where he remembered Uraraka to be before the second flame explosion occurred.

“N-no.” Izuku stammers out as he raises from the ground and begins to stumble towards the light. “N-no way. U-Uraraka-san?! Where…”

“... focus.” He can hear Yoichi speaking, but it’s an extremely faint voice. It seems that whatever energy he was using to communicate was on the verge of running out. “Finish the fight. In Soulslike games… resurrections were often possible. E… the fight.”

Ah.

The day was completely insane. Perhaps it was going to be a bit more insane? For now… for now he should finish the fight.

He walks towards Grinsh, who is still trying to stand up. Its flames were… subdued. Its false-skull was almost transparent. Despite all of that, despite almost blowing them all into nothingness with its ultimate attacks, it failed.

It was close, if Uraraka didn’t lift Izuku just above the range of the flames… Grinsh would have succeeded.

Izuku circles around the Deathflame Revenant (his health still shrinking, but much slower now that his flames barely burned), easily avoiding the weak swipe of his fist. He then grabs the hilt of his sword and easily pulls it out.

Flames burst off the now unsealed wound, but they are as weak as Grinsh himself.

And then, he impales the Deathflame Revenant once again, pinning him into the floor from behind as the undead tries desperately to grab his ankles or any other body part he can reach to get him off.

Grinsh fails, his hands clawing fruitlessly into the ruined soil around him.

Few seconds later, its health bar runs out of red, and the Revenant stops struggling. And this time… this time, the health bar actually vanishes, signifying that the fight ended properly. And then, a second later, the pop-up shows.

ENEMY DEFEATED!

Deathflame Revenant Grinsh

[Yesod]

And then, merely a second later, another one shows up. Not a lot more informative than the first one.

DUNGEON CLEARED!

Village of Firet

[Malkuth]

Izuku is still staring at the place where the pop-up was a moment ago (trying to figure out what the words Yesod and Malkuth meant), when something rises from Grinsh body, right in front of him.

A ball of light similar to what replaced Uraraka earlier, but… the color is similar to the ‘deathflame’ that Grinsh was using. And… a moment later, before Izuku can do anything about it, it… solidifies?

There was now a small, rough black crystal floating right above Grinsh’s corpse. Izuku, after a moment of thinking it over (and with no words from Yoichi to decide what to do) extends his hand towards it.

It worked with his sword earlier, right?

Soul Crystal of Deathflame Revenant Grinsh

[Yesod]

A crystal formed from the extinguished soulflame of Grinsh. Can be used to strengthen your own soulflame, be imbued into a piece of equipment to enchant it with remnants of Grinsh’s power or transposed into an artifact.

When the marauders came to lay waste to his village, the local blacksmith denied death itself by giving himself to the deathflame to avenge the massacre.

Oh. That was… something. Wait… Oh no. Uraraka-san!

He runs towards the floating gray ball that used to be her and extends his hand towards it, and…

Traveler’s Soul Crystal

[Malkuth]

A crystal formed out of the soulflame of a Traveler known as Uraraka Ochako. Their soul can be drained to greatly strengthen your own soulflame or, if you bring it to the Altar of Egress, to resurrect the Traveler.

Izuku falls to his knees and then onto all fours. He was running on pure adrenaline for a while, and the intense relief he just felt has… robbed him of most of it.

He’s going to grab both crystals and start looking for the altar in question once he… once he figures out to use his legs again.

Chapter 3: Figuring Out the Basics

Chapter Text

It takes Midoriya a few minutes to recover enough to actually manage to stand up. And even then, he is still… wobbly.

The experience of the first actual fight of his life (he doesn’t count the Sludge Villain incident as a fight) was… traumatic. Exhausting. But he had to keep going. He had to save Uraraka.

He starts by grabbing the two floating soul crystals and putting them in his pockets. Grinsh’s one feels cold, it made his skin tingle weirdly when he touched it. Uraraka’s… warm instead. Pleasant, even.

“Now, where should I go?” Izuku asks himself. Mostly in hopes of Yoichi hearing it and managing to give him one last piece of advice for the day. But there is none coming.

Alright, time to use his own brain. Think, Izuku, think.

It said that you ‘cleared’ the village, so there are probably no more enemies here, right? Grinsh had to come from somewhere, and…

Now that he thinks about it, he briefly noticed something resembling a steeple, somewhere in the center of the village. Steeple meant some religious building, and… Altar of Egress sounded like something religious, yeah?

This trail of thought gave him a place to head to. A direction. A renewed sense of purpose. Despite losing the majority of his own health bar, his body was back to its prime state. It’s just… it was his mind where most of the exhaustion lay.

And so, he recovers his blade and puts it back in the scabbard. And then, he walks.

He finds the center of the village a few minutes later.

Here, all signs of destruction weren’t recent. But they were omnipresent. It was a small plaza, filled with several market stalls. Most of them seemed to be filled with completely molded or rotten pieces of food.

There was also a smith’s workshop by the edge of it. From what Izuku could see, most of the things scattered around it were farming implements. It had to be a village, so the blacksmith was mostly busy repairing pitchforks, hoes, and cast iron pots (plus horseshoes) to keep everything going for a bit longer. It was no production center, aside from agriculture maybe.

The signs of Grinsh’s initial rampage were everywhere.

Izuku quickly counted twelve more dead soldiers littering the plaza. Sliced apart, torn apart, one or two lacking any obvious injuries and instead looking… crumped, as if life itself was sucked out of them, leaving frail corpses behind. Was it the result of the deathflame thing?

Izuku doesn’t know.

But he heavily suspects that he knows what happened to the weapons of two bulkier soldiers that appeared to be lying there, completely unarmed. They must have managed to impale Grinsh with their weapons… which didn’t stop him.

And, instead, armed him.

Instead, he heads towards what looks to him like a small church, made from similar stone bricks but with an addition of a large wooden door and some windows covered in stained glass.

The doors of the church are closed, but not locked. With some effort, they open up, letting him in.

The insides were… quite churchlike. Four lines of pews on both sides, an altar made from some white stone… no damage to the insides if you excluded one of the stained window glass being partially shattered.

Perfect place for any survivors, but… probably not after 50+ days that passed since the village was attacked.

When Izuku approached the altar, a ball of golden light materialized right above it. Driven by both instinct and his past experience, he extends his hand toward it.

ALTAR OF EGRESS UNLOCKED!

Village of Firet

Status Window

Equipment

Skill Attunement

Fast Travel

Soul Crystals

Oh. It seems that Izuku will be alone for a much shorter period of time than he feared! And then, as if to make the moment better, he can see his health and mana bars fill up completely before disappearing.

Nice.

“... Looks like I’m back.” Yoichi speaks a second later. “It seems that my strength is restored as well when you get to the bonfire. And here, I can speak with you for as long as I want. Great. How are you doing, Ninth? I mean, emotionally?”

“Bad.” Izuku replies. He is… honest. Yoichi helped him greatly thus far, and… he is a past Holder of All Might’s quirk, right? He just wishes he knew what the ‘bonfire’ bit was about. ”But… we survived, right? And I’ll get Uraraka-san back soon.”

“Yeah.” Yoichi replies. “This resurrection mechanism is… both better and worse than what I anticipated. It’s better because it exists. It's worse because you need someone to recover your soul crystal, and if you fall off a cliff, it’s… well, don’t fall off a cliff. And the way it encourages PvP… ugh. Anyways, I just need to figure out the meta and we’ll do fine.”

“Meta?” Izuku replies. He should probably get at least some answers from Yoichi. “I… I have a lot of questions for you.”

“I figured that out.” Yoichi replies. “You’re not a gamer. Unless you consider playing the Hero Agency Simulator religiously a sign of being a proper gamer. Which I don’t.” He adds, sounding oddly serious about it.

Izuku decides not to start that fight. Yes, he played that a lot between the Entrance Exam and today. He refuses to be ashamed of it.

“In the shortest version possible, whatever world we’re in right now is running on logic similar to soulslike genre games.” Yoichi continues. “I really think that they didn’t survive until modernity, but if you truly need to understand what we’re dealing with, just imagine them as heavily action-focused and rather hardcore RPG games, where bosses are extremely hard to kill. You’ve already experienced it yourself.”

“Y-yeah, I did.” Izuku admits. “It was… worse than the Sludge Villain. By far. Couldn’t it fight with most Ranked Heroes? Aside from the Top Ones?”

“In general, yeah.” Yoichi replies. “It was… powerful. And I regret to inform you that it’s probably going to get worse from now on. But you’ll also get better. I mean, we were at Yesod, right?”

...

“Yesod?” Izuku decides to ask.

“You don’t know anything about Kabbalah?” Yoichi appears surprised. “What are they teaching you people nowadays?!”

“And… err… what is the Kabbalah?” Izuku asks. He is actually worried that he missed out on some very important subject. He spent months preparing himself for the Entrance Exam, most of it was catching up in terms of his physical development, he was mostly reinforcing what he already had in academics, but…

“Jewish mysticism.” Yoichi replies.

Izuku blinks into space.

“Why are you knowledgeable about Jewish mysticism?” Izuku asks. A part of him is a little spooked by his… companion right now.

“For the same reason, I was skilled in kendo and archery and knowledgeable about occultism and the theology of the major religions of the world.” Yoichi replies. “Because just in case I was ever isekai’d into a fantasy world, I wanted to be ready. And mysticism, occultism, and theology were the closest thing I could learn as preparation for mastering magic, whether it would be thaumaturgy or theurgy.”

…

“You didn’t have friends at school, did you?” Izuku asks after a few seconds of really awkward silence. Then he realizes what he did. “I m-mean it’s completely f-fine to not have a lot of f-friends in school, and…”

“First of all, rude.” Yoichi interrupts him dryly. “Second of all, you’re the last person to call me out on lacking friends in school. Third of all, yes, but I blame my brother for that. Anyway, are you sure you can blame me for having a chuunibyou phase? I kept dreaming of superheroes, then suddenly bam, Dawn of Quirks. I even got to be a hero fighting the demon lord! That stays with people.”

… Izuku really doesn’t know what to say about this, so he decides to do the smart thing and stay quiet. Seriously though, a demon lord? What?

“Getting back on topic, Kabbalah has something called the sephiroth, which are the eleven emanations and attributes of God.” Yocihi continues. “To go from top to bottom, it’s Keter, Chockmah, Binah, Da’at, Chesed, Gevurah, Tiferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malkuth. You just slayed a boss that was marked as Yesod level, which is the second lowest. So… yeah, it’s going to be a long journey.”

“That was the second lowest tier?” Izuku lets out, horror in his voice. It almost killed him multiple times, and it was only defeated because during its second phase itwas actively eating through its own health bar!

“Yes, but don’t worry.” Yoichi clearly takes note of his tone and decides to alleviate at least some of his concerns. “You have me, the bestest advisor for whenever you’re lost in a foreign fantasy world! And if there is one thing you can be sure of, it’s that there are ways of making you much, much stronger. For now, you should probably get the girl out of her Pokeball, I don’t expect it to be a comfortable place to be in.”

Right.

“Soul c-crystals, right?” Izuku says as he extends his hand to the floating menu in front of him.

“Yeah, probably.” Yoichi replies. A moment later a new menu opens. It’s empty. Completely empty, aside from a lot of empty… squares? scattered throughout it. “Sigh. I think you have to put a soul crystal into the inventory to be able to do anything about it. Try it with Grinsh’s crystal.”

Izuku pulls out the appropriate crystal and with some hesitation extends his hand towards the menu screen. A moment later, the crystal vanishes, and an image of it appears in one of the slots in the menu in front of him.

Huh.

When he focuses his attention on it, the array of squares gives half of its space to the repeat of the description of Grinsh’s soul crystal, together with a note that assimilating the deathflame remnants within it should give him ten level-up points.

Fun.

There are three buttons under the description that let him either devour the flames in it to strengthen his own soulflame, take the soul crystal out of the storage or… resurrect the boss?

Yeah, no.

“Looks like you can fight earlier bosses to train yourself… with obvious risks involved.” Yoichi noticed it as well. “Cool. For now, I believe that you can put Uraraka’s soul crystal in it. We’ll decide what to do with Grinsh’s crystal later.”

Izuku grabs Uraraka’s soul crystal and pushes it into the menu screen. It appears right next to Grinsh’s soul crystal, with the exact same list of options.

Izuku clicks resurrect. The menu disappears and the ball of light in front of him begins to glow brighter and brighter, enough to make him cover his eyes and take a step back. And then, the light subsides.

Uraraka falls onto all fours, blinking a few times in shock before rising up slowly. She is… shocked? The look on her face can be described as ‘haunted’, but when she sees him, it gets better.

“D-Deku-kun?” She lets out weakly. “W-Wh… did you w-win?”

“Yes, we won.” Izuku replies while helping her stand up. “Are you alright?” He is suddenly very, very worried about her. She didn’t look alright. Quite the opposite.

“Y-yes, I think I… what h-happened?” She says, looking around in confusion. “I… remember us fighting Grinsh, then the flames came, I felt… weak, cold, everything went black, t-then I was in some d-dark, e-empty place, a-alone, and it was still c-cold and…”

Izuku glances at the pew closest to the Altar of Egress. It’s not far behind Uraraka and… it’s probably a good idea.

“Uraraka-san, I think you should sit down and r-rest for a while.” Izuku says. Uraraka nods, her eyes still filled with confusion. He then gently leads Uraraka to the pew, where she obediently sits down.

That was covered. For now. Uraraka coming back was… a relief. Her current state, less so. He should help cheer her up the moment she feels like she can actually hold a conversation . He…

He isn’t exactly comfortable trying to cheer her up without that. What is he going to do, give her a hug? He’d die out of social anxiety the second he does it.

“Looks like being dead isn’t nice.” Yoichi says quietly a moment later. “Good to know, as it doesn’t exactly agree with my own experience on the subject matter. Give her some time to gather up her bearings and go back to inspect the altar properly.”

Yeah, it was probably a good idea. He gives one more glance at Uraraka (who was sitting on the pew, looking down and clearly busy recovering from the experience) and approaches the Altar of Egress.

He’s met with the same menu as earlier.

“Where do we start?” Izuku asks.

“Fast Travel most likely works between Altars you visited, so it’s not exactly useful right now.” Yoichi replies. “We’ve already figured out the Soul Crystals… let’s try the Status! It tends to be the central thing and it’s a great place to start when figuring out the system is involved.”

Izuku clicks that.

He then sees… numbers. Quite a few of them.

“Ah, it’s pretty simple.” Yoichi says almost immediately. “Intuitive, even. Which should make cheesing the hell out of it easy enough.”

“It is… simple?” Izuku replies. Prompting his passenger/advisor to sigh loudly.

“Yeah, I’ll run you through it quickly.” Yoichi replies. “First thing is your attributes. I assume that ten is more or less the average for a healthy person your age. Maybe human average in general. Strength is fourteen, which I think is due to the training you got with All Might, because between the two of us, the results of it were absolutely insane and if that man ever gets tired of heroism he should open a gym.”

Ehhh?

“Dexterity is twelve, which is… fairly normal.” Yoichi continues, ignoring Izuku’s surprise. “It probably covers your ability to dodge and move around quickly. You’re rather quick and flexible, you just have serious issues with body control in stressful situations and a crippling lack of combat experience. Next is Endurance, which is… well, seven.”

“That’s… not good, right?” Izuku replies. Maybe slightly nervously.

“Yeah.” Yoichi replies. “I think it doesn’t cover your health bar, it works as more of a physical damage negation. With a body your size, it sucks . Sorry to put it that way, but this is a fact. You’ve already experienced it, haven't you?”

“Yes.” Izuku admits. “Grinsh has… pretty much sent me flying each time a blow connected. Even when I blocked it.”

“We’ll deal with that in time.” Yoichi replies. He sounds… awfully confident about it. “Thus far it makes sense to have you focus on strength and agility, you’ll be forced to dodge attacks instead of receiving them, but when you will hit the enemy, it’ll be damaging. Anyways, that covers the three physical attributes. Then you have the three mental attributes, namely Willpower, Intelligence and Faith. You have twelve, eleven and eight points there, in order.”

“Wait, so if you level up Intelligence, you’ll just get… smarter?” Izuku asks immediately after. “I… that sounds strange. Grinsh’s crystal description said it gives you ten level-up points, right? So if you load it all into Intelligence, you’ll instantly get twice as smart as an average person?”

“Good question.” Yoichi replies. “From my experience with soulslike games, it doesn’t make you smarter, just as loading stats into Faith doesn’t make you more religious. Mental stats typically improve your ability to wield a particular branch of magic.” He stays quiet for a few seconds. “Intelligence probably covers whatever Uraraka was using, Faith for whatever holy magic is out there, and Willpower… hard to say, I need to learn more about the local magic before telling you more. But it’s likely to influence your resistance to mental attacks, if there’s such a thing here. And perhaps other debuffs.”

“I see.” Izuku decides to settle with that. Time to move over. “And those two things underneath?”

“Vigor and Focus, seems to be the names for your health and mana bars.” Yoichi replies. “You have 330 Vigor Points and 310 Focus Points. You know what that tells us?”

“That I’m a pretty all-rounded character?” Izuku replies with a question.

“No.” Yoichi replies. “You have exactly thirty-three points in physical attributes and thirty-one mental attributes. That’s why I speculated earlier that Endurance doesn’t define the size of your health bar. And it says there you’re level one, so I assume that it lists how many level-ups you’ve gotten thus far, like in proper soulslikes. Alright, that gives us a lot of useful intel. Now, equipment.”

Izuku obediently moves out of the status window and moves over to the equipment. It’s identical to the soul crystal menu, except there are categories. Weapons and Tools, Armors and Outfits, Magical Trinkets, Consumables, etc.

They are all empty.

“Alright, so I guess that you can store items at an Altar of Egress.” Yoichi decides. “That’s useful, especially if it stops food from decaying. Even more if the equipment store is shared between altars. Could you put your sword into it? I want to see if it gives any additional information here.”

Izuku unstraps his sword from the belt and puts it inside together with the scabbard. It disappears as expected, with a new item showing up in the Weapons and Tools category.

It has subcategories now. Only one, to be exact: It’s called Bastard Swords (there are probably more unique examples of the same sword). The one and only option in the subcategory is… surprise! Bastard Sword!

Except, there is now some additional information available.

There are two small tables beneath the weapon’s description. One is the ‘Recommended Attributes’ category, with ‘Strength: 12’ and ‘Dexterity: 10’ beneath it. The other is ‘Scaling Table’, which lists Strength as C and Dexterity as E.

Underneath those two, there is a single wide line. Saying ‘Weapon State: Good [78%]. Looks like the battle (and lack of earlier maintenance) weakened it somewhat.

“Ah, that brings back memories.” Yoichi comments before Izuku can say anything. “It doesn’t say what the basic damage value is, which makes sense, as it depends entirely on where you hit and how resistant the target is. Same with the damage type , you can pierce, slash, or even use the hilt to mordhau someone in the head, causing blunt damage. Swords are basic but also pretty versatile.”

“Eeh?” Izuku lets out intelligently.

“Don’t worry, I’ll meta you into a demigod quickly.” Yoichi replies immediately. “If I wasn’t born to become a hero and face the demon lord, I’d say that I was born for this one task. Anyway, take your sword out, you should probably get used to having it on you at all times, we’re basically in Lordran and it’s going to suck. It’s time for the Skill Attunement!”

Izuku is at this point rapidly approaching the realization that Yoichi is drowning in enthusiasm and it’s actually rather jarring to the person who just went through one of the most traumatic experiences in his life.

Still, he does as Shigaraki said. And moves over to Skill Attunement.

There are two main parts of the resulting menu. Above it is a line of five slots, two of which were filled with scrolls with some very simplistic pictures on them. Beneath it, was a much larger array of slots, all of them empty except for two, which had the same pictures on them, but were grayed out.

“Ah, yes.” Yoichi says a second later. “Now that’s very familiar. I think you have five slots for ‘magical abilities’, maybe getting more later on. You can ‘equip’ skills you’ve created there while resting at the altar, most likely for eased or empowered casting. It’s probably the Detroit Slash and Dash. Check them out.”

Izuku does so. Yoichi turns out to be right.

Detroit Slash

[Yesod]

Empower your blade with the energy of your soulflame, increasing damage dealt at the expense of your Focus.

Effects:

Physical Damage +100%

Adds Holy Damage [Equal to base Physical Damage]

Scaling Table:
Strength D

Willpower: C

Costs:

Activation: Focus [50]

Maintenance: Focus [5/1sec]

Dash

[Malkuth]

Empower your movement with the energy of your soulflame, allowing you to move rapidly in one direction at the expense of your Focus.

Effects:

Rapid Movement

Scaling Table:

Dexterity: D

Costs:

Activation: Focus [5/1meter]

To Izuku’s slight fright, Yoichi starts giggling. Which turns into an almost maniacal-sounding cackling a few seconds later. It actually takes him a while to control himself.

“Holy damage that scales off strength and willpower.” Yoichi says a moment later, before letting out one more giggle. “Ability to design your own active skills to at least some degree. This is absolutely beautiful, Ninth. By the time I’m done cheesing the System, God will be filing a restraining order on you.”

The biggest disadvantage of Yoichi being a voice in his head is that Izuku can’t look at him while doing his best to project all the worry he has for that man through his facial expressions.

Because, yes. Izuku is actually worried right now.

“Alright, I think we’re done for now.” Yoichi then says. “You should go check up on Uraraka again, then try to find Grinsh’s greatswords to put them in your inventory because if they’re not a valuable loot item for a starting character then I’m going to find my old collection of awards for my e-gaming achievements and burn it. Then we’ll focus on figuring out how to satisfy your basic human needs.”

“That being?” Izuku asks.

“Food, clean water, tax evasion, those sorts of things.” Yoichi replies before giggling to himself. “Also, you need to get some introduction to the setting, because a soulslike game without a lore that breaks your mind and requires watching an equivalent of a middle-sized soap opera in youtube videos to understand it is no soulslike game at all. And I’m going to love every second of it.”

Izuku would like to say the same about that himself.

Chapter 4: Looting

Chapter Text

Once Yoichi dismisses him after securing the absolute basics of the information they needed for short-term survival, Izuku immediately sits right next to Uraraka. Who still looks rather… haunted, but has somewhat calmed down.

“How do y-you feel?” He is still rather uncertain when talking with girls his age, it seems. Even after saving each other’s lives multiple times at this point.

“Better.” She replies. Still rather faintly. “I… I think it was the fact that I didn’t know what was happening. I was injured, I felt myself die, everything went black then and I was in that void and… I thought, what if that was what’s after death and I was just going to stay like that and…”

Oh, yeah, that sounded like something to really mess you up. And certainly an experience worse than the Sludge Villain. Izuku opens his mouth to try to say something comforting, but…

“It shouldn’t be that bad, if it happens again.” Uraraka says, trying to give him a reassuring smile. It’s not working well, but it’s the intent that counts. “I’ll know what’s happening, and I’ll trust you to get me out. I… I’ll do the same for you if, if needed. So, what do we do next?”

Ugh. She’s clearly not doing very well, but… he doesn’t have a lot of experience cheering other people up. What would his mom do?

Probably cry over what happened to her, then cry over her son getting to talk with a girl his age, then cry over her son almost dying, then brew them all some tea. And hug them. Izuku can’t hope to not die of anxiety if he hugs Uraraka.

Great.

He adds ‘social skills’ to ‘academics’, doubling the list of skills he’s lagging behind in and needs to work on in order to become a proper pro-hero.

“I think you r-really should rest some more, Uraraka-san.” Izuku replies immediately. He remembers the Sludge Villain, he knows how bad it can feel. “You went through something traumatic, there’s no need to force yourself…”

“I’m not f-forcing myself, Deku-kun.” Uraraka cuts in immediately. “I just… I’d hate sitting down, d-doing nothing while you’re working. Alright? Besides, I think it would… make me think about other things.”

Alright. She needs no coddling. That was fine. He should ask now, while at it.

“Uhm, why do you c-call me Deku-kun?” Izuku asks. It… wasn’t his favorite nickname, for obvious reasons.

“Err, wasn’t that spiky-haired kid calling you that way?” Uraraka asks, clearly surprised by it. Almost enough to get her out of that stupor. “You know, before the Entrance Exam, when I stopped your fall with my quirk. I figured out that you knew each other.”

She was surprisingly observant. Wasn’t it just a single encounter with Kacchan? That was… good to know.

“Yeah, but… it’s the way Kacchan calls me to demean me.” Izuku replies, looking to the side. He… doesn’t feel like making eye-contact with her at that point.

“Oh, I’m s-sorry!” Uraraka lets out. “I figured out after the Entrance Exam that it fit you because it gave me that… ‘You Can Do It!’ vibe, you know.”

“I’m Deku then!” Izuku replies immediately, trying - and failing - not to blush. Hey, it was a cute nickname now, alright?

“Wow.” Yoichi says dryly into his ear. “Really speedrunning that romantic subplot. You normie.”

And now Izuku not only blushes, but downright changes into a strawberry. Shigaraki really knew where to put the needle in to make it hurt.

“I think we s-should, errr, check your s-status.” Izuku stammers out nervously. Uraraka doesn’t notice or, perhaps, intentionally fails to notice his reaction. “I’ll e-explain everything to you.”

***

Uraraka’s stats are comparable to his own, as probably expected from a level one character who was yet to devour souls of her enemies (and yes, Izuku knows how weird does that sound).

Strength: 10. Dexterity: 13. Endurance: 9. Willpower: 10. Intelligence: 10. Faith: 9. No equipment, aside from the UA uniform whose stats they couldn’t check without undressing and putting it in the equipment window.

Neither of them seems ready to even consider it.

Her skills are a bit more diverse than what Izuku has.

Gravity Pull

[Malkuth]

Use the power of your soulflame to cast a spell that pulls something in the direction of your choice.

Gravity Push

[Malkuth]

Use the power of your soulflame to cast a spell that pushes something in the direction of your choice.

Both of those spells are almost identical in stats, with a surprisingly complicated equation for focus usage, covering both weight and speed of the influenced object. They also scaled off intelligence, apparently.

Zero Gravity

[Yesod]

Use the power of your soulflame to cast a spell that lowers the weight of the object of your choice.

That one was a significantly stronger one, but Yoichi immediately figured out why Uraraka didn’t use it during the fight. According to the description, it really ate through her focus. And she reduced rather than instantly switched something into weightlessness.

After losing half of her focus on figuring out how her quirk now worked, she would only make a giant like Grinsh faster by making him lighter without making him harmless by stealing the entirety of his weight.

Which would most likely be lethal.

“She’ll be a great support character for as long as she levels up her mental attributes to get higher Focus.” Yoichi comments a moment later. “Nice synergy. She can lower the enemy weight before your hit to make it easier to stagger or knock them off their feet in general, not to mention doing things like interrupting attack animations of enemy ranged attackers with her Pull.”

That was… a good idea, Izuku decided immediately. He could see that happening and working out. They’d just need some training to make sure that it worked well in combat situations.

He describes all of that to Uraraka. This manages to reignite her spirit a bit. It’s a relief.

But it doesn’t last for long. In the end, Uraraka is still shaken. She doesn’t want to keep doing nothing.

They divide their jobs. Izuku goes to retrieve Grinsh’s greatswords, Uraraka is instead supposed to look through the buildings adjacent to the plaza and look for something useful. Potable water, preserved food, and so on.

To be honest, the hardest part of Izuku’s job was getting the greatswords out of the ground. Grinsh really did his best to make that harder than it had to be. But, eventually, Izuku succeeded.

After about fifteen minutes of struggle, Izuku begins his long trek back. Pulling the two swords behind him, all the way back to the Altar of Egress.

As expected, the loot was satisfying.

They’ve gotten two Deathflame Greatswords, one of them at 62%, the other at 65% (that was quite a beating they received). Their description stated them to be simple greatswords that were corrupted with the power of the deathflame.

Yoichi was already interested in learning more about it.

They had no normal greatsword to compare them to, of course. But they still felt like decent weapons. They required 15 strength, 10 dexterity and 10 endurance to wield efficiently. What was new, though, was the fact that according to the additional segment of the description, wielding those weapons allowed you to use a special active skill.

It was called Deathflame Ignition and according to the description, it coated the blade with the flames that dealt dark damage on contact, while eating through the user’s Vigor. Also, it apparently scaled with Willpower.

Good to know.

Yoichi immediately declared that it was something they would eventually sell to someone if possible, as thus far they have no one with the appropriate character built to wield it.

“Shouldn’t I be able to use it?” Izuku replies with a question. “I mean, I just need to use Grinsh’s soul to level-up. I specialize in most of the involved stats, right?”

“I have three counterarguments.” Yoichi replies. They are standing in front of the opened Equipment menu of the Altar of Egress. That lets them speak freely. “First is that without knowing about the mechanics and the lore of this world I cannot be sure if dark and holy damage aren’t exclusive, and you deal the latter too. What if you try to use both in combat when pushed to the brink, and your sword suddenly explodes?”

Izuku flinches at the mind image. Yeah, that was a valid idea.

“Second is that… look we’ve gotten that sword from the walking, enraged corpse animated with the same deathflame.” Yoichi continues. “Do you seriously want to touch the flame yourself? What if it makes you insane, dead or worse? I need lore to know if it’s a good idea.”

That was… yeah, another good point. Izuku is suddenly reminded that for all his… idiosyncrasies, Yoichi was possibly his greatest asset in this current situation.

“Third of all is… more mechanical in nature.” Yoichi replies, before sighing loudly. “Look, let me put it that way. You’re going to be specializing towards being a glass cannon. High damage output, low endurance. You cannot and will never be able to take as much damage as dedicated tanks. The bastard sword you’re wielding is basically a slightly longer longsword with a hilt with space for dual-wielding, which is a perfect combination for both your character and body build.”

“I… don’t think I get it.” Izuku admits, taking advantage of Yoichi finishing his short speech.

“Swinging a greatsword would leave you exposed to enemy counters for too long.” Yoichi replies. He doesn’t sound irritated at Izuku’s lack of understanding. “Your natural enemies are going to be AoE attacks and enemies that are faster than you. With your current character build, the latter should be limited to enemies with dedicated fast attack weapons like rapiers, but if you try to wield a greatsword , you’ll get shredded by an average longsword and shield combo. And I guarantee you that those are going to be much more common than rapiers.”

And that… yeah, now Izuku understood.

“What about AoE attacks?” He isn’t as much of a Pro-Gamer as Yoichi clearly was, but he at least understands what AoE means.

“You’ll have to put at least some points to Endurance to avoid being one-shotted by completely unavoidable AoE attacks.” Yoichi replies. “Because, trust me, eventually you will get hit. This is real life, not a game, you don’t get the option to watch tutorials and youtube videos on the boss to learn their full moveset before the fight. As for the rest, we’ll have to rely on Danger Sense and, perhaps, on Uraraka’s Pull and Push skills for casting interruption.”

That actually brought Izuku back to another subject that he wanted to ask Yoichi about.

“What’s the Danger Sense thing you’re talking about?” Izuku asks. “I heard you mention it earlier too.”

“Oh, it’s one of the remaining quirks that were in One for All for you to unlock.” Yoichi replies. “It’s a very potent danger detection quirk, almost too potent. I think that some shards of it remain in the OFA in its present state. More like… it expanded it? I certainly have something of a Sixth Sense now, enough to detect incoming attacks even when you aren’t looking at them. But I didn’t figure out how it works fully, so don’t consider it to be an excuse for lack of attention to your surroundings, please.”

Izuku certainly wasn’t planning to! Also, Danger Sense sounds like such a cool quirk. He absolutely has to ask Yoichi about the remaining quirks stockpiled inside One for All! And their Holders, too. They had to be great heroes.

That’s for the future, though. For now it was time to move over to helping Uraraka.

He finds her in the now abandoned smithy, oddly enough. She was busy piling up some smithing tools into a small crate. Hammers, prongs and so on. He can’t name most of them, to be honest.

“Uhm, what’s up with that?” He decides to ask. Uraraka stops her work and looks back at him, still leaning over the crate.

“W-well, I figured out that those might be useful.” Uraraka replies. “My parents own a construction company, I know my way around the tools. Not enough to forge a weapon, that’s for sure, but it might be useful. I can as well store them all in the Altar, right?”

“That’s a good idea.” Yoichi admits before Izuku can answer. “A village of this size should have a carpenter, a mason and more. There were a lot of other crafting professions. I really don’t think that you need anything from, say, a potter, but a set of tailoring tools should let you fix your clothes if needed.”

Izuku opens his mouth just to realize that he left Uraraka hanging while listening to Yoichi’s explanations.

“S-sorry!” He lets out immediately. “I was listening to…” She waves her hand, interrupting him.

“I figured it out, no worries.” She replies. “When you’re talking to your quirk, it’s… pretty obvious to me. And he has good ideas, so I’m alright with waiting. What did it say?”

Phew. That was reassuring. Still, he should probably sort it out, somehow. To not get overly focused on what Yoichi’s saying, to hear both him and other people at the same time.

“Said that you had a good idea.” Izuku replies. Uraraka smiles back at him, and… she has a nice smile. “Mentioned that a village this size should have some other craftsmen, and at least a carpenter and a mason should have something we could use. Tailor too.”

“... the tailor depends on the local development level.” Yoichi adds quickly. “In early Middle Ages it was common for every woman to have skills in that field and do and fix clothes of people living in her home.”

Right, good to know, but not exactly useful right now.

“Oh, I found the carpenter already.” Uraraka replies. “Got what I wanted from him. The one here had a decently equipped workshop for a village, some really good stuff.”

“Eh?” Izuku blinks back at her. “You sounded as if you, err, as if you knew the craft?” He isn’t sure what to think about it, really.

He should have probably got more hobbies than just being a hero fanboy, shouldn’t he? It makes him two-dimensional as a character, now that he thinks about it.

“Not really.” Uraraka replies while scratching the side of her head. “My parents knew a traditional carpenter, they sometimes hired him when a client wanted some really fancy handmade interior and I saw him at work a few times. I don’t think I can make a good bow or anything like that, but if we ever decide to set up a base, I should be able to patch the furniture at least.”

Oh. That explained a lot. He should still get a hobby, though.

“And… water and food?” Izuku asks. It was supposed to be the priority, yet Uraraka was clearly looking for something not immediately necessary.

“I found water.” Uraraka replies while standing up from the crate finally. “There is a well by the edge of the plaza. I checked it out and the water’s fine. I’d still boil it just in case, and before you ask, I found a pot to do it in. Firewood is literally everywhere, the furniture around is pretty dry so it should burn well. As for the fire itself, I found a flint, and as for the kindling I found some slightly aged textiles, so it should work well enough. I carried it over to the Altar already.”

“Wow, your waifu is good.” Yoichi comments immediately. “Consider marrying her once we’re back from this world.”

Izuku, once again, blushes. Uraraka looks understandably surprised by him reacting that way out of the blue.

Thankfully, she doesn’t ask.

“But there is a problem with food.” Uraraka instead says. “I found a few jars of what might be preserved food, but after so much time, I’m not… exactly… confident in that. But, there is this funny thing. Are you actually feeling hungry or thirsty?”

“For you, certainly.” Yoichi mumbles. Izuku, once again, regrets him not being a separate person as that makes staring daggers at him very hard.

“Well… no?” Izuku admits. Then he realizes what Uraraka was implying. “You think that we don’t get hungry or thirsty?”

“We heal injuries in an instant, I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch.” Uraraka replies. “Still, just a theory. What does your quirk think about it?”

“It’s likely that.” Yoichi replies immediately. “I already suspected it from the start, both with how unnatural your bodies appear at least in their self-healing department and with how none of the games of the genre that I know of include survival techniques. I simply figured out that it’s better to gather some water and food only to discover that we don’t need them than to not gather them before discovering that we need them.”

Izuku relays the words to Uraraka, who nods quickly a few times. Yeah, if they were right, it was going to make a lot of things easier.

Midoriya ends up participating in the scavenging operation which lasts until nightfall, and consists mostly of Uraraka finding useful things and packing them up, before having Izuku carry them over to the Altar.

Even by the time the night arrives, they still don’t feel hungry or thirsty.

It also doesn’t take them an awful lot of time to realize that they don’t feel sleepy either. Uraraka decided to experiment with that and managed to fall asleep, proving that it was a possibility, but…

…it was more of a way to skip time than an honest biological requirement.

This led to both Izuku and Uraraka sneaking out of their little church’s steeple through the window to sit on the shrine’s rooftop and watch the stars.

Yes, Yoichi made fun of how Izuku was really dedicated to speedrunning the romantic subplot, again. Izuku, naturally, ignored him.

If the foreign looking village and the presence of Grinsh didn’t make it clear that they were in another world, a single gaze at the night sky would do the trick. Izuku isn’t knowledgeable in astronomy (like Uraraka clearly was), but even he knows that Earth didn’t have three moons .

Each of them of varied size and color. The largest resembled Earth’s moon in texture and coloration, but the medium one was faintly blueish and seemed to have a worryingly smooth surface, while the smallest one was barely visible due to being dark, almost black.

All of them were significantly bigger than the one they all remembered.

Uraraka has stars in her eyes when she gazes at the completely unfamiliar yet strangely and otherworldly beautiful sky, her earlier death completely forgotten. After a few minutes of that, Izuku decides to sneak away.

Uraraka barely notices it when Izuku climbs up back into the shrine’s steeple. It’s a narrow tower, so narrow that there wasn’t even a staircase inside, only a series of three platforms with ladders connecting them.

“Go up.” Yoichi decides to avoid teasing him for once. “I have an idea.”

***

It’s night, but three moons give a certain amount of lighting that makes it a bit brighter than an average full moon night on Earth (it should be much brighter, but it’s not, oddly enough). Still, Izuku doesn’t get to see a lot.

The village of Firet was clearly located on an empty plain, with no forests in sight, though he could see distant mountain ranges to both north and south of it (or, he thinks so, it’s dark after all and it makes guessing the distance harder, he’ll check it out in the morning).

The astronomy was a mess, but at least they remembered in which direction the sun settled, letting them figure the four cardinal directions. It was going to make navigating their surroundings easier.

“Hmm, looks pretty nice for a post-apocalyptic world.” Yoichi comments a moment later, Izuku still busy looking outside of the tower, while squeezing himself around the bell inside it.

“Post-apocalyptic?” Izuku asks. “What do you mean by that?”

Yoichi sighs.

“All soulslike worlds are, by definition, post-apocalyptic hellscapes, infested with powerful monsters and with a very limited amount of non-hostile entities.” Yoichi replies. “And before you chide me for using gaming knowledge to interpret reality, I’d like to remind you that this village was massacred at least fifty days ago, and yet no one came to slay Grinsh and bury the dead. Despite a village like this one in a medieval fantasy having to be protected by a garrison at some nearby castle. You’re following me?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Izuku admits. Yoichi was clearly much more knowledgeable in this field, and… honestly, what he just said made sense. “What are we looking for, exactly?”

“Signs of life.” Yoichi replies as Izuku looks to the east from the steeple. “Night is a good moment to do that, as we should hopefully spot distant campfires easily. We need a non-hostile NPC to figure out at least the rough outline of the setting. Unless you want to blindly fumble around until you run into something scarier than Grinsh?”

“Y-yeah, no, I’d prefer to avoid that if possible.” Izuku replies immediately. “Do we even have to fight things like it again?”

“Absolutely.” Yoichi replies as Izuku does his best to squeeze past the bell again. To the north, as stated earlier, he saw something akin to a distant mountain range. Time for the west side. “Fighting bosses is the main means of progression and source of most power-ups in this sort of game. For now… jackpot.”

There was a distant light of campsite on the horizon to the west. Once again, Izuku found himself unable to judge the distance.

Should he add survival skills to the list of things he’s lagging behind in?

“There’s a chance that they will leave at dawn.” Yoichi says immediately. “We should head there immediately and hope that they aren’t hostile. Regretfully, the ability to set up a campsite only implies a possession of a capacity for a higher thinking, not that you’re peaceful and friendly.”

“Didn’t you just say that this might be a post-apocalyptic world?” Izuku asks back immediately. “Would they be, like, shoot first, ask questions later?”

“This is likely.” Yoichi admits. “But hopefully we’ll get them to stop attacking you. Especially as, to be honest, you have one of the least threatening faces I’ve ever seen in my life, and Uraraka is close to second place in that contest.” Izuku blinks at space, unsure if that was a compliment or an insult. “You should go tell her about it.”

“Fine.” Izuku sighs. “I actually planned to spend the night training, you know?”

“Good idea, but you’ll do it after I get some expositional talk.” Yoichi replies. “Any other plans you want to indulge in before leaving this place?”

“Well, I considered burying the corpses in the village, but I guess it’ll take too much time.” Izuku replies. Yoichi stays quiet, oddly quiet. Enough for Izuku to actually grow slightly worried about that. “Uhm, Shigaraki-san?”

“You’re too pure for this sort of setting, Ninth.” Yoichi replies. “Which only proves that All Might’s choice of a successor was the correct one. Try to preserve that flame, okay? You’re going to face a lot of nasty things, and trying to maintain your optimism and readiness to help might be helpful. For as long as I’m there to tell you when to stop being nice for a moment. Otherwise, you’ll probably die.”

Izuku sighs. Yeah, this sounded… par for the course, at least judging from what he heard about the setting thus far. Of course, Yoichi was clearly basing his information on videogames which made the value of his advice somewhat questionable, but….

“So, the burials?” Izuku asks after all.

“Nope, too many corpses around.” Yoichi replies immediately. “You’d need a dozen helpers to do that on a reasonable timeframe, do you have any idea how much time it takes to dig out a grave? Even a shallow one? It’s not easy and takes a lot of time, I’m speaking from experience.”

… and now Izuku is, once again, concerned by Yoichi. Great.

Chapter 5: Meeting the Locals

Chapter Text

If there is one thing that makes Izuku genuinely confused and surprised, it’s that attempting to approach the lonely campsite in the middle of a post-apocalyptic fantasy world in the middle of the night ended with no casualties.

In fact, no one was even injured.

That, however, doesn’t mean that it ended without any incidents. Because the moment Yoichi decided that they were close enough to be audible in the campsite and had Izuku shout that they come in peace, a projectile flew right past Izuku’s head with enough kinetic strength to pierce through some unfortunate tree.

Seriously, just a single tree in at least 50 meters radius, and it got instakilled by a projectile. Talk about bad luck.

It's not a good reaction to just freeze when something like this happens. Izuku understands that much. But, still, both he and Uraraka did exactly that. Because it quite literally came out of nowhere.

“Come closer, but slowly.” They hear a voice. It’s a young woman, they can tell that much. But the language wasn’t Japanese. They never heard it, but… somehow, they both immediately understood it. “Hands where I can see them.”

Izuku glances at Uraraka while raising his hands above his head, slowly. Uraraka nods back and does the same.

They approach the light of the campfire slowly. No more projectiles came.

When they get closer, they can see the person sitting beside it, staring at them with a combination of caution and curiosity on their face.

It’s a woman in her early twenties, wearing a dark gray robe. In the dim light of the nearby campfire, Izuku could see a symbol on the front of her robe, it was… a solar eclipse? Yellow circle surrounding a purely black area.

It looks like an eclipse, but who knows how solar eclipses actually look in this world.

There is also a gray pointy hat on her head, and a staff (with a chunk of some blueish crystal on ‘their’ end of it) that she was pointing at them. All while cross-legged on the other side of the campfire.

Izuku could also see long blonde hair. And a face that looked… actually rather pretty, but also decidedly non-Japanese. She looked, well, white. He couldn’t say much more, especially not while only seeing her in the dim light of the campfire.

“We have found ourselves a witch waifu.” Izuku hears Yoichi and gets immediately overtaken by a futile desire to strangle him. “Great. And we’re still alive which is even better.” Izuku decides to, instead, ignore him.

The woman’s eyes narrowed when they got close enough for the campfire to illuminate them too.

“I’d ask what two noble kids are doing in the middle of nowhere…” She then says, slowly, and with the staff still pointing at them despite using her other hand to signal at them to stop approaching. “... but I’ve never seen a human of your race. Not to mention that weird language you speak that for some reason I understand. Who the hell are you?”

Noble? Race? Izuku can understand the latter - it seems that Asians, in general, aren’t common in those parts - but… noble? Which part of them made them look like nobles?!

“Looks like we stick out in both looks and way of speaking, fun.” Yoichi replies immediately. “Now repeat things after me, verbatim, okay? Calm down and speak slowly and clearly, too. I have it in the bag.”

Fine, it’s not like Izuku has any better idea on what to say. Although if Yoichi tries to flirt with the woman, he’s quitting.

“We’re travelers.” Izuku replies, repeating Yoichi’s words. “Ones completely lost, and from far away. This place… this ‘middle of nowhere’... what’s it called, actually?” He does his best to appear confused about it. Then again, he kind of is confused about it.

The woman looks at him for a few seconds, glances at Uraraka, and then sighs loudly.

“I get the feeling that you have an interesting story to tell.” She then says. “You can put your hands down and sit by the campfire. But if I see your hand go for that sword of yours or if the girl tries to cast any magic, I’m not going to ask you to stop. Instead, I’ll just kill you. So, behave.”

Midoriya and Uraraka sit down, with the campfire separating them from the woman. Only now do they see a pair of pack mules resting at the verge of the small camp, right next to a clearly sleeping horse.

Huh.

“So, now you can start by telling me who the hell you are.” The woman says. “Because I never heard your language, and that’s a new thing for me.” Someone was clearly a polyglot.

“Well, we’re not locals.” Yoichi replies through Izuku. “In fact, we’re very much not locals. To be fully honest with you, we might not be from this world.”

What the hell, Yoichi, why are you telling her that? Izuku can feel himself sweating as his brain runs some very intimidating simulations of the results of the local civilization discovering that they’re from another world.

They include at least some burning on the stakes.

The woman looks at them in silence for at least five seconds, before sighing loudly. And painfully.

“Five years ago, I’d call bullsh*t immediately and without a shred of doubt.” She then says, her eyes drifting from Izuku to Uraraka and back. “But the world has gone so insane by now, that it really sounds par for the course. Where exactly have you… arrived in this world?”

“In the nearby village.” Yoichi replies. “Everyone’s dead, and for at least fifty days or so. After meeting some charming gentleman called the ‘deathflame revenant’, we figured out why and that it’s… not a nice world that we’ve found ourselves in.”

The woman clicks her tongue.

“Oh, so that’s what happened to the village.” She then says. “You’re lucky to be alive, then. You normally need a two star knight or a second circle mage to fight those, and I think that there is only one sane example of those left in the area. So, that ‘other world of yours’.” She then changes the subject immediately. “What did it look like?”

Izuku had a lot of questions to ask Yoichi right now, concerning his unexpected honesty. If Yoichi knew what sort of questions he had, he would tell him that it’s because you can’t genuinely hope for any random NPC in a soulslike post-apo to be completely open to you.

Unless you manage to drag them out of their comfort zone. Preferably with some honesty. And making a tale too crazy to be true while weaponizing an honest-looking face like what Izuku was blessed/cursed with could work wonders on that field.

The woman, in Yoichi’s opinion, was careful but gave the vibes of a refugee escaping from a disaster zone rather than a bandit. She could connect to them emotionally (lost in foreign lands etc.) if that was the case.

And for all his character flaws, he spent enough time fighting his brother to become a good judge of character.

“Only one moon, completely different stars, no magical creatures like that revenant thing.” Yoichi replies. “No magic, too.” He figured out that this would interest an obvious magic user. And he wasn’t disappointed.

“No magic?” She appears surprised by that the most. “You two have soulflames, how can you not have magic when you have a soulflame?”

“Well, we didn’t have magic, but we had something called quirks.” Yoichi replies. “Everyone, well almost everyone, was born with one supernatural power. It could have been anything from being able to breathe out fire to having four arms instead of two. Now, my companion had a quirk that let her render anything she touched with all five fingers at once completely weightless, negating the influence of gravity on it completely. Now, however, she clearly has an ability to use gravity magic, with one of her spells being a perfect copy of how her quirk used to work.”

Izuku is certain that Uraraka is giving him either a confused look or is staring daggers at him from the side, and he isn’t sure what option is worse.

“Oh, so whatever ‘quirk’ you had got translated into its logical equivalent operating under the rules of local magic, while giving you all soulflames.” The woman understands Yoichi’s point immediately. The fact that she’s clearly operating on the same wavelength as he does is actually rather worrying to Izuku. Who is told to nod in agreement to what she just said. “Interesting. You're either really good at selling me your bullsh*t or you’re speaking the truth. Let’s say that I believe you. What do you want to know?”

Izuku, honestly, couldn’t tell if she was really believing them. But she was clearly playing along for now. Probably until she’d get more evidence supporting their thesis… or quite the contrary.

“To be honest, I have a million different questions I’d like to ask.” Yoichi says. For Izuku, that’s still an understatement. “Where exactly are we right now?”

“Black Feather Meadow, southernmost region of the Kingdom of Leana, one of the many subsidiaries of the Divine Empire.” The woman replies. “If it still exists, that is. Judging from the amount of atrocities and straight up insanity I’ve seen during my travel through what used to be Leana’s core provinces, it probably doesn’t.”

Ah, yes, post-apocalyptic scenario - check. Yoichi was right.

“Some sort of on-going disaster?” Yoichi asks.

“In a way.” She replies. “I heard it being referred to as the Shattering, the Conflagration, the End of All Things, and so on. Every more creative mad preacher on the street can give you one or two names of their own. About five years ago, the archflames started to go out of control. They… you probably don’t know what the archflames are, do you?” She says when she sees the look on their faces.

She sounds actually confused about it. It seems that it’s something so obvious to everyone in this world that to actually have to explain it to someone feels weird and unnatural. It’s like trying to explain to someone what wind is.

If you actually had to do it, you’d end up being confused by the idea before figuring out how to do it.

“No, but I’m ready to make a thesis that deathflame and soulflame are somehow connected to them.” Yoichi replies immediately.

“They are both archflames.” The woman replies. “Archflames are the elemental powers that are the main driving force behind the world. In moderation and in balance, they work correctly and keep everything going. Lifeflame makes life exist. Deathflame makes life end. And so on. But when there are too much of them, they start malfunctioning and destroying everything. Too much lifeflame and everything mutates or multiplies too fast. Too much deathflame, and everything either dies or dies first and then keeps walking. You get the mechanism?”

They did, in fact, understand it. So they all nodded.

“And how many of those archflames are there?” Yoichi then asks.

“A lot.” The woman replies. “Dozens, perhaps, and scholars and mages kept discovering new from time to time. But only a few are really important, although a few more have become active after the Shattering started. You both have soulflames, although yours is… strange.”

Yes, Izuku says to himself. Because mine’s haunted by a gamer ghost who considers you a ‘witch waifu material’.

“How so?” Yoichi asks through his mouth, remaining blissfully unaware of Izuku’s opinion about him. Which is fluctuating up and down with every minute of this talk.

“Hard to say.” She replies. “I never felt anything like it, and it probably contributed to me taking your outrageous tale at face value, as something is clearly strange about you.” She stares at Izuku for a few seconds, to his growing awkwardness. “You two don’t need to eat, drink or sleep, right? And you can use Altars of Egress to learn more about yourself, your equipment and even resurrect each other if you manage to recover your soul crystals?”

That… seems to have actually surprised Yoichi. Izuku can understand it. They clearly weren’t as unique as they expected.

“Is this normal in this world?” Yoichi asks.

“For Vessels, yes.” She replies. Another unfamiliar term. “When you’re born with soulflame, you’re called a Vessel. Your soulflame satisfies most of your bodily needs, powers up magic, regenerates your body nearly instantly if it's strong enough, and so on. It extends outward, you can wear literally every armor and piece of clothing out there, and it’ll reshape itself to fit you. And, of course, when you die it crystallizes into a soul crystal that can be used at the Altar to bring you back.” She pauses for a second, before continuing. “The downside is that you can strengthen your soulflame if you sap power from other Vessels.”

“I can imagine how that a-accelerated the downfall of society.” Yoichi says. Izuku actually fumbles a bit this time, because sarcasm is… it really doesn’t fit him. “Everyone out there is probably too busy eating each other’s souls to try to fix the problem.”

“It contributed.” The woman admits. “The Divine Empire’s law forbade the practice when the victim was another citizen under the pain of death, but now that it’s five feet under, it’s a… tempting thing for many. For those more morally-inclined there are other options. All powerful entities, regardless of their origin, are Vessels. Deathflame revenant is a Vessel too, his soul was just completely overtaken by the deathflame. Your soulflame can strengthen itself by assimilating it, for as long as the target isn’t massively stronger than you. Then it might end up overtaking your soulflame and you’ll go completely insane.”

Well, that sounded splendid. And it probably contributed to the chaos out there. People tried to grow too strong too quickly to deal better with the on-going Apocalypse, and suddenly bam, another horrifying monstrosity.

“You’re a Vessel too, aren’t you?” Yoichi then asks, surprising Izuku. Then again, it seems to have also surprised the woman. “You seem to be camping here, but there is no bedroll for you. No food for you. And with how you detected us immediately, I don’t think you were sleeping at all.”

“Good observation.” The woman eventually admits. “Yes, I’m a Vessel. All of the Divine Empire’s nobles are Vessels. If you run into a knight or a mage, they’re certainly Vessels. Even if a child of some commoners develops a soulflame, they’ll be elevated into nobility by default, which is why I assumed that you two had to be nobles earlier.” She goes quiet for a second. “Occasionally some really accomplished warrior or soldier ends up slaying a Vessel and gets to take their soulflame for themselves, though whether they are elevated to nobility depends on whether it was a lawful acquisition. Or at least that’s how it used to work. Today it’s more of a ‘what you kill is yours’.”

“Good to know.” Yoichi replies. “That’s all that we need to know about the soulflames, thank you. As for our present situation, do you have any idea where we should go? Any remnants of civilization in the area?”

“Technically.” She replies. “If you head east you’ll reach the paved road. Just go up north from them until you reach the Stormhold Castle. Tsorath of the Holy Blade, a two-star knight, is holed down there, together with some soldiers and one-star knights. They are keeping watch over three still inhabited villages left in the region. But I strongly recommend getting the hell out of the Black Feather Meadow as soon as possible rather than heading there.”

“Oh?” Yoichi says after Izuku blinks a few times in surprise. “Why so?”

“You’ve seen how the local ravens are acting?” The woman replies. Izuku immediately remembers the one that alerted Grinsh to their position so he nods even before being prompted to do it by Yoichi. “It’s unnatural, and I’ve been picking some really bad magical energy from the hill in the center of this area. My opinion is that something was sealed there. But after the Shattering messed up with magic, the seal is beginning to break down and the thing is already able to influence its surroundings through the crows. I’ve tried to explain that to Tsorath, but a ‘random passing traveler told me that the local hill is giving her bad vibes’ doesn’t count as an argument for military redeployment.”

“How much time’s left?” Yoichi says and the woman shrugs.

“I don’t know, which is why I’m leaving as fast as my animals can carry my things.” She replies. “I’m heading west, towards the Blackwater Forest. It’s the nearest solid geographic border that I can put between myself and whatever's about to wake up. Though if I were to estimate it, I’d say that it’s at least two weeks to a month.”

“Could we travel with you?” Yoichi then asks. But the woman shakes her head immediately.

“You have to go down a hundred meter long cliff to get there.” She replies. “I can get down with my magic, after abandoning my animals that is, but if I wanted to go with company I’d have to go through the elevator in the Stoneverge Redoubt. And that’s a bad idea.”

“Let me guess: there’s something scary inside?” Yoichi replies with a question. The woman nods.

“The castle was attacked, most of the garrison was killed, then the knight in charge of it, Arshka, lost herself to rage and was overtaken by the chaosflame.” She replies. “She’s still prowling the castle, slaughtering everything she runs into. Tsorath decided not to fight her, and that makes me not want to do it either. If you ended up running away from the deathflame revenant, you have no hope of defeating Arshka.”

“We didn’t run away from it.” Yoichi replies, the woman raising one of her brows. “We killed it.”

“With… one sword and some absolutely rudimentary magic?” She asks. Should Izuku feel insulted by her lack of faith? For now, he nods. “Huh. Interesting. You might be worth… Wait here for a moment.”

She then stands up and heads towards a small pile of bags right next to one of the resting pack mules. She doesn’t let her staff leave her hand for a second as she rummages in the bags, clearly ready to fight back if they attack her.

A moment later, Uraraka is surprised by the woman putting a bag - and another staff - on the ground right next to her.

“Eh?” Uraraka lets out.

“I’ll have to abandon most of my things once I reach the Blackwater Forest.” The woman says. “That’s my spare robe and staff. Consider this a gift of a good will for a prospective fellow sorcerer. Extend your hand.”

Uraraka glances at Izuku, who nods according to what Yoichi told him to do.

The woman puts her hand down on her hand. Briefly, her hand is enveloped in a blueish flame, Uraraka clearly startled by it. But before she can react to this, the woman’s done and steps back.

“I’ve just transferred a handful of the simplest spells that I know to you.” The woman says. “You’ll find them at the Altar of Egress. That’s all the help I can give to you.”

Izuku takes that for a sign that the meeting’s over. Yoichi, however, doesn’t.

“I have two last questions, both of them rather short.” He says through Izuku’s mouth. “First, any idea when we can go to, hopefully, get stronger?”

“Hmmm…” The woman thinks it over. “I think there’s an undead-infested mine nearby that shouldn’t have anything on the level of the revenant inside. Go east until you hit the road, then move south until you see the road split. Go left, and you’ll reach the mine soon. Just…” A shadow passes through her face. “... the geography itself works weird nowadays. Places move, lands shrink or expand. If you ever find a mine with its entrance sealed while traveling through the Black Feather Meadow, leave immediately .”

“Why?” Yoichi asks.

“I refuse to talk about it.” She replies. “Just don’t. It’s a horrid place, one that no one has ever returned from. The reason why the Meadow was never properly settled was because only a few people were willing to live in the shadow of that place. What was the second question you wanted to ask?”

“We wanted to know your name.” Yoichi replies. The woman stares at him for a few seconds. “Hey, we wanted to know how to refer to you. You don’t need to give us your real name, if you don’t want to.”

“I’m Lena.” She ends up replying. “Lena of the School of Eclipse. And you?”

“Izuku Midoriya.” Izuku replies.

“Ur… Ochako Uraraka.” Uraraka replies. She switched the order around just as he did. They are in a more Western land, so they should act accordingly.

“Odd names for odd people from odd lands, I suppose.” Lena says. “Go then. The dawn’s coming close, and I should start packing up. If I encounter more of your kind on my way there, I’ll tell them to look for you either here or near the Stoneverge Redoubt.”

Yoichi thanks her for the help, and then they leave. Trying not to overstay their welcome.

***

“Well, that was… informative. ” Yoichi says once they’re back to the village, standing right in front of the shrine. “We have the foundation of the lore, and both a long and short-term goal. We’re going to spend a day or two training you two, then we’ll head to that mine to get you both stronger and then we’ll head to the Stoneverge Redoubt.”

“You want to… look for the threats to slay?” Izuku replies. He is… not fully alright with that, if he’s, to be honest.

“You gotta get stronger.” Yoichi replies. “We’ll stick to the local equivalent of monsters. It’s rather clear from the introductory lore prompt that civilized people have their own bosses too, which I find interesting, you know?”

“I’m not sure if it’s interesting.” Izuku admits. “I… honestly, I’m kind of confused how the locals actually managed to develop a stable civilization.”

“You too, hmm?” Yoichi replies. “It’s… not a nice setting. It feels almost intentional, you know? Especially the fact that the souls of Travelers were said to ‘greatly strengthen your flame’ instead of merely ‘strengthen your flame’. This implies that despite being weaker than Grinsh, you’re worth more as bags of experience points. It’s like painting a target on your back.”

Oh. Izuku didn’t think about it. But if it’s true… crap. The locals are going to go after them once the news spreads, especially in the current set of circ*mstances. Where everyone was going after everyone.

“Well.” Izuku sighs. “Great.”

“Don’t mope on me.” Yoichi replies. “Give me two or three days to train you two and you’ll absolutely butcher everything in that mine. Let’s get to work, ‘kay? We’ll start by getting you proper armor.”

Where would he… oh no.

“Please tell me that you’re not going to equip me by having me strip the corpses in the village to get their chainmail.” Izuku says. “Please.”

He doesn’t want to remember that those corpses exist, much less touch them. Stripping them and wearing their equipment (even after washing it) is… even worse. Ugh.

“Ninth, I don’t know how to break that to you…” Yoichi replies. “... but you’re in an RPG world. You know how the saying goes: before the archeologists are the graverobbers, and before the graverobbers are the RPG game protagonists.”

Izuku shivers. He… doesn’t want to think about it. He wants to change the subject, and think about something else. Something… better. Something nicer.

“Deku-kun!” Uraraka takes that very moment to walk out of the shrine. Immediately answering his unspoken pleas. “How do I look?”

She is wearing a well-fit copy of Lena’s robe, with a pointy gray hat on top of her head. She’s also carrying the wooden staff with a blueish crystal at the end of it.

“You look great, Uraraka-san!” Izuku replies immediately. “It really fits you!”

“Wow.” Yoichi says dryly. “Smooth, Ninth. She’ll be yours in no time if you keep acting like that.”

Aaand now he doesn’t know how to react. He wants to hide in his room and not leave it until the world ends, except his room is in another world entirely. Confusing.

“Thank you!” Uraraka failed to notice his internal anguish, and decided not to ask why he was blushing so much. “I also got a few spells, but I can only equip some of them. And I figured out that I might need Shigaraki-san’s council before deciding what to do.”

“Magic.” Yoichi says before sobbing loudly. “I’m helping people learn magic in a fantasy world. My unlife is complete now, Ninth.”

Izuku really wants to strangle him now.

***

AI generator (and my bro Tormound who tells it what to do) to the rescue.

I present to you, Lena of the School of Eclipse. And just so we're clear, Uraraka's wearing identical outfit from now on :v

Yes, the eyes are kinda weird, sorry.

Chapter 6: Whispering Mine

Chapter Text

The mine quite literally looked haunted. If Izuku just randomly ran into it, back in his own world, he would immediately call the heroes, expecting it to be a secret lair of some odd, ghost-themed villain crew.

It was that bad.

There was a narrow rail leaving the mine, with a few minecarts scattered around it, some of them clearly covered in cobwebs. That alone speaks volumes on how abandoned this place was, but there was more.

There were also a few mostly destroyed buildings around it, surrounded by a disheveled palisade. A quick search through the buildings identified them as barracks for the workers, barracks for the guards, the mine’s administration, a storage area and a small metalworks to process ore into metal for easier transport to wherever it was needed.

No interesting loot, though. What exactly could they take from here? A pickaxe? Yes, they aren’t exactly interested in mining ore. It’s not like they know how to operate a smelter, so it’s pointless to begin with.

“Looks like it’s time to get inside.” Uraraka-san says, glancing at the mine entrance. She’s clearly worried a little, but still rather pumped-up. And yes, she still looks great in her new clothes.

“That’s what she said.” Yoichi mumbles. Izuku really wants to strangle him. But he can’t. Shame.

The biggest difference between them right now and them during their fight against Grinsh was (at least visibly) the equipment.

Izuku was now wearing a full set of Bannerless Soldier’s Armor (or that’s how the armor was named in the Altar of Egress).

It was composed of a chainmail (with a surcoat over it, which for some reason changed the color to dark green matching his hair when he equipped it, and a gambeson underneath), a hat-resembling helmet that Yoichi identified as a kettle hat, a pair of comfortable tall boots, and a matching leather gloves.

It was thoroughly washed and, just as Lena said, it somehow made itself to fit his body perfectly when he wore it. It was… weird. It was oddly comfortable. When asked about it, Yoichi informed him that heavy medieval armours were heavy, yes (which made prolonged march in them exhausting) but they limited movements much less than one expected, because turning yourself into a stationary block of metal would get you killed.

If your plate armor wasn’t a superheavy tournament armor (that were used only on horseback), chances were you could somersault in it. And what Izuku was wearing was much lighter than plate armor.

It had a full table for damage reduction, showing a surprising amount of damage types existing in the world out there, and making it clear that the armor was only really useful against physical damage, especially slashes. Against piercing and blunt damage it was… so-so.

What Uraraka was wearing turned out to be called the ‘School of Eclipse Robe’ set, and offered a number of magic resistances, while being much less useful against physical damage.

In fact, it wasn’t useful against them at all.

It included a short lore blurb mentioning School of Eclipse as a famous magical school from Leana, focusing its studies on the power of the starflame, an archflame behind the movements and existence of the celestial objects.

Uraraka found it great. Because, well, astronomy. And she loved astronomy.

As for the skills and training… that was a big subject, with a lot to speak about. The last three days were intense. And Izuku was looking forward to seeing his new abilities and tactics in practice.

“Yeah.” Izuku replies while looking at the mine entrance too. Hey, he is going to be fighting soon. Being worried and nervous is normal. “I’m going first.” Uraraka nods quickly a few times.

A moment later they get the announcement that they entered a new location. Whispering Mine, it said. Threat Level: Yesod.

Totally not ominous.

***

The mine was… unnerving.

Cobwebs were one thing, but the sounds of creaking wood and the sounds of the flames enveloping the torch that Uraraka was carrying in her spare hand were a worrying constant that really set up the mood.

(Uraraka crafted the torch from stuff they found in Firet, once again proving how much better she was in handiwork when compared to Midoriya)

It was also dark - at least outside of the range of the torch. And claustrophobic. Not only were the tunnels rather narrow, what was there was made even more narrow by the mine railway.

Even if there was no cart around, you could still easily trip over the rails if you weren’t watching your step.

And, well. There were also the undead.

They weren’t much of a threat, to be honest. 90% of the threats they encountered were undead miners. Shambling piles of bones and desiccated flesh, swinging their pickaxes when they’ve seen the intruders.

In the end, the resistance was rather weak. The enemy attacks were easy to dodge and they moved slowly.

The remaining ten percent were the former guards of the mine. Most of them were armed with spears and cudgels. But… they weren’t exactly a problem, either. Dying and coming back weakened them significantly.

Turns out that having your muscles rot and shrivel down makes you weaker. Who would have thought.

The only real problem with them was that they refused to stay dead. You literally had to chop them to pieces for them to stop trying to stand up and follow you.

Or, to be exact, it was either that or using Full Cowling, Izuku’s new skill (thank you Yoichi for the idea) that coated his spell with a much weaker version of Detroit Slash, which added a holy damage to his attacks, exactly 5% of his physical damage to be exact.

Izuku doesn’t know how Yoichi figured it out, but adding even a tiny bit of holy damage to his attack was enough to put the undead down.

“I’m starting to understand how combat works in this world.” Yoichi says as Izuku impales a miner on his sword. He already disarmed the undead, now he just pressed it into the wall, keeping it at distance with some well-timed kicks until the miner stopped struggling. “It’s all about Vessels, isn’t it?”

“Hmmm…” Izuku decides to think it through first, in hopes of getting to the answer for himself. He has a brain too, dammit! “The non-Vessels are literally cannon fodder. To weaken the enemy Vessels before the two boss monsters fight each other.”

“Yeah.” Yoichi replies. “That’s the idea. Send twenty commoner soldiers against a single noble, and maybe three or four will survive, even if they win. But if you let them fight from the top of the wall, they’ll perform better. And if two lower-level Vessels battle, having a few sidekicks to attack the enemy from the flank might make all the difference. But in general, it’s mostly about the Vessels.”

“Is that good or not?” Izuku says. The undead he was facing finally stops struggling and gives up. He pulls the sword back, letting it slump to the floor.

There were probably better cannon fodder out there. The undead they were facing were just of particularly bad quality. Former civilians, with minimal equipment, and not very well preserved. It was easy to avoid emotional damage caused by seeing them by pretending that they weren't actually human corpses, they were in such a horrible condition.

“Yesn’t.” Yoichi replies. “It makes sense, because this sort of games were always focused on bosses either way. But for now, the enemy we’re facing is… used to playing those rules. The undead we’re facing are scattered throughout the mines to delay the attacker, give the enemy at least some gist of how dangerous we are and so on.”

“Anything to tell me?” Uraraka asks from the side. She was saving on her focus points by limiting her participation in the fight to carrying the torch and helping him spot enemies.

“Just a few observations about the enemy tactic.” Izuku replies. “Stay vigilant, the enemy leader probably already knows we’re here.”

“Sure thing, Deku-kun!” Uraraka replies, with a look of sheer determination on her face. It’s really reassuring to have her around.

***

In the end, the undead delayed them for almost two hours (probably, it’s hard to count the passage of time) before the boss behind the Whispering Mine’s undead problem finally decided to confront them.

They choose the large hall, deep into the mine. It had two levels - the lower one where Midoriya and Uraraka were… and the upper gallery at the other side of it, where the boss was.

There were some torches burning around the hall, enough for it to classify as dimly lit, but not exactly dark.

“Oh no.” Yoichi lets out before the boss gets to speak, his voice tone making it obvious that he was faking terror. “We have to run. They have the high ground.”

Uhm?

“Oh, so you’re the people that invaded my domain.” The woman standing on the verge of the gallery says in a language sounding similar to the one that Lena spoke in. As far as Izuku can see, she's a beautiful woman.

Her clothes are… stripperific. So much that Izuku could barely look at her without blushing. The person in front of him was barely dressed. Granted, she was wearing more than Midnight had in her debut, but still.

Whoever she was, she's dressed like a Middle Eastern or Egyptian belly dancer, with clothes that barely cover her private parts, a necklace, armbands, and legbands that all have an Egyptian feel to them, and a white cloth around her waist that still exposes her legs.

What it does well is showing how unnaturally pale the woman’s skin is. It’s practically perfectly white. Are they some form of an undead? Izuku doesn’t know, but… it’s certainly not normal.

“I expected some misbegotten knight from the local garrison, especially after my last acquisition.” The woman continues, before sighing dejectedly. “Instead I’ve got two kids. Well, at least you two are quite cute. Exotic looking, even.” Izuku doesn’t like the look she was giving them. “I’ll be very nice to you once I deal with the slight issue of you being alive.”

“Who are you?” Izuku shouts back. He can see the woman’s face freezing for a moment, clearly surprised by how weird their voice sounded, before she returns to her normal expression of mild boredom.

“I feel like I should be insulted by not being recognized, but I’ll let it slide.” She then replies. “I’m Aelie, a court dancer of the Pale Court. At your service.” She adds while doing a slight curtsy. “Here to recruit Vessels into the service of the Court… or, to be exact, into my service.” She clarifies after a second, before giving them a slight… mocking look. “The miners and guards of this place were rather disappointing material to work with, but it’s nice to see that something better is finally showing up.”

“Sounds like either a vampire or a more general undead aristocracy.” Yoichi comments quickly. “Probably an ambitious sidekick, being a court dancer is hardly a revered position. We can do it. She’s certainly a necromancer, so go for double-dash plus Detroit Slash, try to end the fight before it starts.”

It’s not exactly easy for Izuku to decide to just randomly kill a person. Even an abjectly horrible person. But… he’s going to do whatever he can. And, besides, with how Vessels worked, she could just… walk off all but the most lethal of injuries, right?

Here’s hoping that she would surrender if outmatched.

Besides, they can kill her body and then resurrect her at the Altar of Egress if needed, right?

Izuku puts one of his hands behind his back and gestures at Uraraka when he’s going to attack. Aelie clearly fails to notice it.

“Of course, you’re free and actively encouraged to just surrender.” Aelie continues, while giving them the same worrying look as earlier. “If you do so and not resist, you should retain your minds after becoming undead. And I can be very rewarding, you know. Especially to such…”

Izuku attacks, dashing towards the distant wall of the hall while drawing his sword, before bouncing off the wall and dashing towards her, closing the distance in maybe two seconds. It was a maneuver that he spent a large part of the last three days training under Yoichi’s instructions.

Aelie reacts in time, dancing (he can’t say jumping or any derivation thereof, it was too nimble, too agile, too artistic) to the side, just quickly enough to avoid instant death. But she fails to avoid the blade entirely.

Detroit Slash-enforced blade severs her right arm in the middle less than a second after the boss health bar (with a title Aelie, Dancer of the Pale Court above it) appears. Which - together with the added Holy Damage instantly halves her healthbar.

“You MOTHERf*ckER!” Aelie yells, her facial expression warped into one of boundless rage just as Izuku attempts to attack again. Something red and black glows around her left arm, and Danger Sense screams at him to dodge. So, he does so, leaping back just in time to avoid the massive blast of energy.

Losing a skill slot to a variant of Danger Sense seemed illogical, but it certainly cut down the reaction time, as he no longer needed to wait for Yoichi to shout at him to do something.

“I’M GOING TO SKIN YOU TWO ALIVE WHILE MAKING THE OTHER WATCH! ” Aelie yells while her arm regrows. “I’M GOING TO PLEASURE MYSELF WITH YOUR CORPSES YOU…”

“PoV.” Yoichi comments dryly as Aelie yells at them. “You’ve slapped V2 with his own arm. Man, I miss Max0r.”

Izuku decides to ignore him completely and leaps into melee again, which successfully shuts her up. She manages to dodge his attempt to impale her with his sword by pirouette to the side, her arms suddenly covered in cracking red energy that changes them into a pair of curved swords.

Oh, yeah, that suddenly makes her dancing much more dangerous. Izuku jumps back, acutely aware that she would have slashed his chest apart if not for the chainmail and surcoat protecting it.

Armor does save lives, it seems.

“VEDRICK, TO ME!” Aelie yells again, leaping back across the upper gallery, trying to make some distance between them. Someone has quite the lung capacity. “PROTECT YOUR MISTRESS!”

“Vedrick?” Yoichi asks, clearly as surprised by this development as Izuku was. It only lasts until a second healthbar shows right next to Aelie’s one, with a large Vedrick, the Songblade right next to it. “Oh, crap, it’s a dual boss fight.”

Danger Sense flares, stopping Midoriya’s attempt to close the distance and apply pressure on Aelie to let Uraraka get into the position and making him look to the side.

Less than five meters to his left, stands a knight. Their plate armor is carrying some signs of damage, mostly in how tattered the surcoat over it is. In the dim light, Izuku can barely make the symbol on it, one resembling a… musical note? There is a kite shield in his hand, with a strange design to it, an array of small dots surrounding its edges.

The helmet is missing entirely, displaying the pale face, with sunken cheeks and an empty look on their face. Izuku is ready to bet at least a finger of his that they were an undead too… and unlike Aelie, they clearly weren’t enjoying it, at all.

In fact, they didn’t seem sapient at all.

Their hand rests on the hilt of their still sheathed sword, Danger Sense still flaring in Izuku’s head. He understands the reason for it the moment the sword leaves it.

The cacophony accompanying the act of drawing his sword is indescribable. In a heartbeat, Izuku can feel his eardrums rupture, deafening him completely. Aelie stands too close to the knight, enough to be in the attack range and suffers the same fate.

Eardrums aren’t large body parts. Their healthbars are barely damaged. But the pain is surprising and overwhelming. Izuku staggers, and that’s the opening that Vedrick needs to close the distance in his own equivalent of dash.

His sword flies down. There must be a well placed hole or two in it, perhaps in the hilt, enough for the air flow to produce something akin to a faint musical note as it moves.

Despite the complete surprise, Izuku manages to parry the attack. His relief is short-lived, as his inexperienced parry left him vulnerable, letting Vedrick kick him in the chest a second later, with enough impact force to break something through his chainmail (at least judging from the blow his health bar received) and sending him back.

Izuku understands in a single exchange that his enemy is better than him at swordfighting. Even with his still unexplained natural aptitude for swords, this is understandable when facing a trained knight. And that’s before counting in Aelie.

Izuku realizes that not counting her in was a mistake the second the ground around him glows red. Yoichi ran him through the list of popular tells for incoming attacks, and that practically screamed of some sort of magical attack coming from below.

He gets to see a triumphant glare on Aelie’s face in the corner of his eye before a glowing blue shard pierces through her lower body from the side, a potent blow shaving most of her health bar in an instant. She has enough time to look to the side in shock before Uraraka - who finally climbed the upper gallery - tackles her.

While negating the entirety of her weight with her Zero Gravity. Which sends her flying into the wall behind her, and makes the red attack dissipate, Uraraka immediately showering her with more magical projectiles from her staff.

Aelie has the time and combat instinct to cover herself with some reddish magical shield, all while yelling more expletives at Uraraka. Someone really has an attitude.

Izuku can focus on Vedrick. Who immediately closes the distance with another upward slash. Izuku dodges it to the side, before discovering the hard way that the dots on his shield allowed him to project some sort of sound from it.

This time Izuku is fairly certain that not only his eardrums were ruptured, but he was also briefly blinded as his eyes probably ruptured by the blast as well. The pain was indescribable, and his remaining health bar was halved in an instant.

Izuku dodges another attack backward, just as Uraraka and Aelie continue blasting each other with magic. Aelie was still mostly immobilized with Zero Gravity, which rendered her unable to dodge.

And judging from the fact that her magic shield collapsed before she managed to injure Uraraka significantly, her skillset didn’t include the ability to tank damage for an extensive period of time.

That’s what happens to the speedsters that get immobilized in the fight. Uraraka skewers her with another Magic Bullet, bringing her HP down to 10% and making her yell some half-coherent expletives back, while trying to bounce off the wall to dodge at least some subsequent attacks.

“URARAKA!” Izuku yells, making her glance in his direction. He really needs help to win this. “PULL HIS LEFT HAND TO THE SIDE, NOW!”

She does that as Vedrick charges closer to Izuku, who takes that very occasion to try to slash his left arm off. The armor there was significantly thinner than around his chest, and the sword (with Detroit Slash boost) managed to get through the bracers. Not enough to sever it (damn armor) but enough to damage his hand, briefly rendering the shield unusable.He lunges forward, but Vedrick parries his blow with his own sword. His undead nature makes him not even flinch at the injuries. A second later Vedrick raises his leg.

Izuku reads the obvious tell and jumps up, the stomp projecting Vedrick’s sounds as vibrations powerful enough to shatter the earth in front of him. He then uses his multi-dash trick to bounce off the ceiling and then off the ground… just to lunge at Vedrick from behind.

Vedrick promptly sidesteps his attack and elbows him towards the ground, Izuku narrowly managing to roll away before the knight could impale him to the ground with his sword.

It was at this moment that Aelie’s healthbar suddenly emptied itself, her litany of insults and threats finally cut short as the ‘Enemy Defeated’ message is briefly displayed. Izuku has enough time to glance in her direction to see Uraraka stand above Aelie (who was lying on the ground, her soul crystal appearing right above her body), before Vedrick does a wide slash with his sword, generating a cutting edge that almost severs him in half.

Almost, he dashes out of there, but he’s really running short on focus, and that’s no good. That’s what he gets from looking away during the fight.

“Uraraka slammed her into the ground by deactivating Zero Gravity, and took that occasion to get close enough to pin her to the ground with her Magic Bullets before she could stand back up.” Yoichi informs him. “It’s two versus one, no bullsh*t resurrections.” He then adds as Aelie’s health bar vanishes completely.

Izuku would like to say that the situation was progressing in their favor, but, well, not really. Vedrick is barely injured, and both of them had to expend most of their focus. What were the chances of the undead in front of them running out of his own?

Uraraka fires several Magic Bullets at him, but he covers himself with his shield. Izuku takes that occasion to circle around him, hoping that Uraraka keeps him distracted for a moment.

And it works, actually. He does a shield bash, against no target in particular - but in the direction of Uraraka. Who was way out of his range. Regretfully, Yoichi’s advice (that when an enemy makes a motion of an attack while you’re out of his range, you’re not out of his range) still applies.

The blast sends her back, but it’s the opening that Izuku needed. He read what sort of attack was coming, and used that advantage to close the distance quickly enough to strike Vedrick’s hand, making him drop his sword.

Izuku is absolutely disinterested in playing fair. He thus grabs his sword and jumps back before Vedrick can grab it again.

“Good!” Yoichi shouts. “He’s disarmed now! That should… wait, what is he doing?”

Vedrick is clearly confused. It’s highly likely that without Aelie to order him around, his damaged mind was barely capable of thinking for itself. Besides, his last order was to protect Aelie, and he already failed in that goal.

Uraraka took its stupor as an invitation for an attack. A well-aimed Magic Bullet hits his exposed head (where the hell was his helmet to begin with?), clearly scoring a critical hit.

And that’s when things got strange.

“What’s going o…” Izuku lets out, his words cut short as Vedrick suddenly throws his shield towards Uraraka. Whatever last attack he enchanted it with, it acted as a mighty stun grenade, throwing her to the side and temporarily knocking her out of the fight.

The knight then dashes towards Izuku, his arms spread wide, Izuku tries to make a swing at it, but… it fails to connect.

A moment later, Vedrick partially dashes past him, delivering an elbow blow to his face in the process, throwing him to the ground, and stunning him long enough to mount him and begin to rain blows onto his face.

His hands are still covered in metal gloves. The attacks hurt like hell, and there is no end to them. With the sword thrown out of his grasp, all his attempts to get the mountain of metal off him are absolutely hopeless.

Uraraka recovers from the shield throw and fires another Magic Bullet, hitting the knight’s head from behind. His inhuman quantity of Vigor is enough to make him recover from that once more, but it’s clear that he is on his last legs. His health bar is almost empty.

He seems to understand that he doesn’t have the time to win the fight. He does what he can and decides to take at least one of his enemies with him. So he wraps his arms around Izuku’s head, before jerkily breaking his neck with a single move.

A second later, Izuku finds himself in a featureless black void. Right in front of him is a young man with white hair whom Izuku doesn’t recognize.

“So, uhm.” The man says with the voice that Izuku immediately recognizes as Yoichi Shigaraki, the voice of One for All. “Have I forgotten to mention that medieval knights were trained in hand-to-hand combat, including grappling and wrestling in general, and that trained wrestlers of greater strength and mass than you are your third worst natural enemy after AoE attacks and people faster than you?”

Izuku counts to three in his mind and manages to stop his initial planned reaction from happening.

“Yes.” He replies instead. “Yes, you forgot to mention that.”

“Ooopsie?” Yoichi says while nervously scratching the side of his head.

One day Izuku is really going to strangle him.

Chapter 7: Party Expands

Chapter Text

“Look, in my defense, what were the chances of you running into a wrestler as your first post-Grinsh boss battle?!” Yoichi adds quickly as he sees the look that Izuku gives him. “Ninth, please, stop that. That look on your face is just unnatural. It’s like drawing a murderous smile on Kirby's face. It’s less scary and more disturbing.”

…

“Who the hell is Kirby?” Izuku asks. Yoichi looks at him with complete emptiness on his face for a few seconds before sighing painfully.

“In moments like this…” He then says slowly. “... I question myself as to whether it was a good idea to die trying to save this sinful world.” Should he ask or… “Alright, once again, I’m sorry that it happened like that. But I’m fairly sure that the boss couldn’t survive another hit and that Uraraka fired at him while he was breaking your neck, so…”

“So we just have to wait until Uraraka resurrects us at the Altar.” Izuku understands what Yoichi meant. “Reassuring. So… now that we’re like this… shouldn’t we get to know each other a bit?”

He trusts Uraraka to rescue him. They had a talk on how the resurrections work. And he knows that she wouldn’t abandon him. She was going to finish Vedrick and rescue him. There isn’t even an ounce of doubt in his heart.

They’ve saved each other enough times for it.

“Oh, sure, great idea.” Yoichi nods. “Well, you already know my name and that I was a bit of a… gamer. And a nerd.” That’s an understatement in Izuku’s opinion, and that’s him saying it. “I’m also the First Holder of One for All, or at least a Vestige of him. It’s nice to meet you in person, Ninth.”

“Likewise.” Izuku says. Sure, Yoichi is… exhausting to deal with, but… he’s a former Holder, right? And he helped them a lot. “Though if you saw what I was up to ever since the quirk was transferred, I guess you already know a lot about me.”

“Yeah, I do.” Yoichi nods. “Very nice mom, absent father, no friends, horrible taste in games and from your reaction to All Might’s post-Entrance Exam recording alone it seems obvious to me that you’re treating All Might as a replacement father figure, which is very lovely to see.”

“H-he’s not my f-father figure!” Izuku stammers out. “Why are you…”

“Yeah, sure.” Yoichi nods, completely ignoring his response. “Keep telling yourself that. Besides, I saw the world from All Might’s perspective until recently, you remember that? You might not see him as a father figure, but trust me when I’m saying that he certainly sees you like the son he never had.”

“E-eehh?” Izuku lets out, staring at Yoichi in shock while being painfully aware of the sort of intense blush that was showing up on his face. “EHHH?!

“Anyways, I think that you’ll be a great pro-hero.” Yoichi decides to change the subject completely and ignore Izuku’s expression of utmost confusion. “You have the heart for it, and All Might was helping you how to make your body be up for it, then just the school and voila, future Number One Hero. It’ll be a pleasure to accompany you on that journey until the very end, Ninth.”

Izuku manages to calm down a little. A little. His desire to strangle Yoichi (very surprising for someone as naturally friendly and pacifistic as himself) is only growing stronger. But for now, it’s not quite there yet.

“I-I see.” Izuku then says. “So, anything more you can tell me about yourself? I mean, with your quirk, surely you were a great hero, right?”

“Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that.” Yoichi replies. The look on his face is… reserved now. Solemn, almost. “I lived during the Dawn of Quirks, it wasn’t a nice time to be alive. I died long before the Hero System was established. Legally speaking, I was a vigilante.”

Oh. Yeah, it made sense. In school, whenever the Dawn of Quirks was mentioned during the history lessons, the teachers always made it sound like the literally worst time to be alive in.

“Well, it’s… well I get it.” Izuku replies. “Vigilantes back then were pretty much pre-heroes either way, right?” He might be rationalizing it a bit, but… they were playing a somewhat similar role to pro-heroes, they just lacked governmental oversight. So it counts, right?

“Yeah, although some of them… most of them were much nastier.” Yoichi admits. He really looks as if he just bit a sour lemon. “For most of them, the difference between them and the villains lied in who they were targeting with their… excess violence. Anyway, you know that we’re actually kind of similar?”

“In what way?” Izuku asks. He admits that the messy hair was a bit similar, except in color, but…

“I was trying to be a hero… well, a vigilante but I was one because I wanted to be a superhero… despite thinking that I was quirkless.” Yoichi replies. And that… yeah, that suddenly makes the similarity clear. “It didn’t work very well, then again that’s what I get for picking a fight with the most dangerous villain to ever live while being effectively quirkless. I’d have a better track record if I went after thugs in the alleyways.”

He sighs, before giving Izuku a somewhat strange look.

“I guess I also stood out in my times.” Yoichi continues. “I was born with an unusual hair color, which made everyone assume that I was quirked, despite not having any sort of power to show. You were born quirkless at the time when that made you stand out, and you also had no power to show. If One for All was a story, you'd work as a fine bookend to it.”

Oh.

“T-thank you.” Izuku isn’t sure how to react to this. His quirklessness (thankfully his past quirklesness) was a subject that he had some very complicated feelings about. He was trying not to think about it. But… to know that Yoichi could actually empathize with him on that field was… reassuring, somehow? “W-what was that villain you fought against?”

‘The most dangerous villain to ever live’ sounded… like a big word. And, honestly, Izuku wanted to shift the talk into a less… confusing field.

“My brother.” Yoichi replies dryly. It’s suddenly clear that he doesn’t like the subject. When Izuku gives him a confused look, Yoichi sighs. “If you want to know more, I’ll have to tell you the tale of the birth of One For All. All Might knows it, he just… decided to keep you in the dark about it.”

“All Might… decided to keep me in the dark?” Izuku asks. It’s… surprising, especially after the line that All Might is treating him like a s-s-s-s-s-s…

“Mostly because it no longer matters.” Yoichi replies, cutting his internal freakout short. “He wanted to let you be a teenager for a while longer, without exposing you to the nastiest part of the adult world. It’s all spooky, scary stuff… but also something from the past, no longer relevant. Do you want to learn the truth regardless?”

In all honesty… What else can they talk about? It’s either this or Yoichi starting to talk about games, let’s be honest about it. So, he nods.

“Well, have you ever heard about the Quirk Thief?” Yoichi asks, Izuku’s eyes shooting wide in shock. “Yeah. The urban legend is real. He was my brother. I thought I was quirkless, but I actually had a quirk that allowed me to transfer it to someone else. My brother gave me a stockpiling quirk he stole from someone because he thought I’d either be grateful to him or I’d get to use it, which would erode my moral high ground over him. It merged with my natural quirk, forming One For All. That’s it.”

Now Izuku just… blinks at him in surprise. It felt like a really… dry way of narrating a truly grand story. Weird. He expected Yoichi of all people to geek all over it, to try to make it sound great.

Then again, wasn’t it… kind of a traumatic story to him? He felt like he skimmed over all the nasty things, and from his point of view, most of it was traumatic.

“So… you won against him?” Izuku asks. The look on Yoichi’s face tells him everything he needs to know even before he speaks.

“Not personally.” Yoichi replies. “All Might crushed his head to the pulp. Yes, that’s the fight that led to his injury.” He stays quiet for a moment . ”I think… I think he wanted to put all of that behind him. Let you become the pro-hero in less painful circ*mstances than he did. You get me?”

“Yeah, yeah I do.” Izuku replies immediately, before looking to the side. “I f-figured out that there was something he wasn’t telling me. He was rather open about not telling me who injured him. But I trusted him to not be doing this for any, you know, malevolent reasons?” He adds while his eyes return to Yoichi.

Who smiles warmly.

“Yeah.” He says. “I’m sure he’s worried sick about you being off for another world. Though I’m fairly sure he’d be happy to see you get some actual friends.”

“W-what do you mean by that?” Izuku stammers out. “I h-have friends. Kacchan is a bit… abrasive, but…”

Yoichi makes him shut up instantly without saying a single word. He just stares at him with a look of badly concealed anger that feels downright unnatural on his face.

“Don’t.” Yoichi then speaks. “I saw how he treats you exactly once , when he yelled at you before the Entrance Exam. Bakugou isn’t your friend. Tell me, did it feel nice when Uraraka called you ‘Deku’ before explaining what she means by it?”

Izuku looks down. He… isn’t sure how to answer that question.

“N-no?” He says.

“Would Bakugou stop calling you Deku if you asked him to?” Yoichi asks.

“Well… n-no?” He lets out. Izuku did try to make him stop at some point, and… it didn’t exactly work.

“So how is he your friend?” Yoichi asks. “You really think that friends treat each other that way? You’d want Uraraka to treat you like this?”

“It’s… n-not like that!” Izuku replies quickly. “He is… headstrong and confrontative, but he’s going to be a great hero! He…”

“That’s not an answer to my question, Ninth.” Yoichi cuts in immediately. “No matter what you do, you can’t persuade me here. You know why? Because I lived in the times where I was the minority that stood out. There were people who treated me just like Bakugou treats you. And I considered none of them to be my friends.”

Izuku looks onto the floor (metaphorically speaking, it was a featureless black void), not sure what to say. Kacchan was… sure, they kind of split after Izuku turned out to be quirkless, but… it’s not like it really mattered, right? Heroes were supposed to be strong, decisive, headstrong, right?

If anything, it was Izuku that was having… issues . That was indecisive, kind of … weak. Kacchan was the hard-worker, while Izuku was all bark but not bite, not having a quirk but still wanting to be a hero… and yet not putting any effort into it before All Might decided to help him.

“Look, Ninth.” Yoichi sighs. His… odd strictness vanished from his face at this point. “I admit, I… shouldn’t be making judgments when I barely know the guy. What I’ve seen thus far doesn’t leave a lot of room for character interpretation but maybe, just maybe you know him better. So I’ll give him the benefit of doubt. But please, stop idolizing him. Ignore his personal strength. If power made you a great person and a hero, my brother would be the good guy and I’d be the asshole. Got it? It’s what we do with our power and how we treat those weaker than us that defines whether we’re good or bad.”

“Y-yeah.” Izuku lets out nervously. “So, any o-other thing we can talk about?” He really wants to change the subject.

***

“... so, from the second playthrough onward, most people just kick Lautrec off the f*cking cliff.” Yoichi says, continuing his tale. “You can get his ring and the humanities that way and it’s really damn enjoyable, you know? I always imagined my brother’s face under the helmet while doing it.”

“Err, y-yeah.” Izuku nods. “I understand it.”

He isn’t sure how much time has passed. Hours, perhaps? What he is sure of is that he’s suffering things that no man should be forced to live through and that for once he’d prefer to talk about Kacchan after all.

He was just nodding and pretending to listen at this point.

“And there are actually some interesting lore implications behind this ring and the goddess mentioned in its description.” Yoichi continues, completely unaware of the suffering that he was putting Izuku through. “You see…”

And that’s when Yoichi suddenly disappears, the void around them being suddenly replaced with a familiar inside of the Altar of Egress, Uraraka standing in front of him with a look of utmost relief on her face.

“Uraraka-san!” Izuku says, trying (and failing) not to grin at her. “You saved me!” He doesn’t add that she saved him from Yoichi’s Dark Souls trivia lesson, because even after all that torture, he still doesn’t want to make Yoichi feel bad.

Yoichi has… an interesting personality. A good person, kind by nature, just… occasionally hard to interact with.

Uraraka just hugs him without a word, making Izuku immediately freak out and blush furiously. A girl! A girl was hugging him! And a pretty one! Aaaaah! He wasn’t ready for that! He absolutely wasn’t ready for that!

“U-Uraraka-san?!” Izuku stammers out.

“I’m just h-happy that you’re alright.” She lets out. “I know how scary it c-can be. But I’ve got you back, and that’s what matters.” It was scarier than she thought. Thanks to Yoichi and his game trivia.

Jokes aside, he can’t even imagine how bad it had to be to just… appear there, without knowing where you were, without knowing what happened to you and if you weren’t going to stay there forever.

It had to be horrible.

So, against himself, he hugs her back. It’s… nice. Really nice.

“I don’t want to interrupt your little tete-a-tete and your speedrun any% of the romantic subplot you two have going…” Yoichi decides to interrupt the moment of reassuring bliss. “... but you're not alone. Check the ceiling.”

Eh?

Izuku takes a step back, unwrapping herself from the hug, surprising Uraraka completely, before looking up. He sees nothing there, so he looks back, at the other half of the church and…

He immediately spots a girl lying on the support beam, her legs and arms left hanging down, eyeing them curiously and with a bit of a… mischievous look on her face. She seemed to be enjoying the scene in her own way.

She’s of either their own age or slightly older, with pale, dirty ash-blonde color hair styled into two messy buns, with numerous wild strands sticking out at all angles from their centers and where they're fastened, a straight fringe and two chin-length side bangs to frame her face.

The girl was wearing a plain seif*cku with a Kansai collar, with an oversized beige cardigan on top of it. But, to be honest, that almost managed to avoid Izuku’s attention entirely. Why?

Well, the girl also had a pair of fox-like ears, a large vulpine tail to match it, yellow eyes with a vertical slit (like a cat’s, or… well, like a fox's eyes) and her grin displayed two pairs of large fangs.

“Ee-h?” Uraraka spots her too. And is clearly as surprised by her presence there as Izuku was.

“Hi there!” The girl on the ceiling raises her head and rests them on her hands, still lying on the ceiling beam. “Don’t mind me, continue on! You two are adorable .”

…

“Who are you?” Izuku instead asks, his hand on the hilt of his sword just in case. He didn’t even notice it when the staff showed up in Uraraka’s hands, but it was clearly there all of a sudden.

“Ehh, there goes the mood.” The girl sits up on the beam before jumping off. She fumbles the motion a little, measuring the distance wrong and almost injuring her tail with the very ceiling beam she was sitting on. But the landing is graceful. “Ugh.” She glances back at her own tail, before looking back at them. “I’m Toga! Himiko Toga. The lady in the pointed hat like that one told me to head here.” She says while gesturing towards Uraraka.

Oh. Lena. She must have run into another otherworlder and pointed her towards them as she promised.

“You’re…not a UA student, right?” Izuku asks. The situation’s still rather tense.

“Obviously.” Toga rolls her eyes around. “I was chilling in some ruined warehouse in Kyoto, minding my own business, then suddenly, bam, I’m in the middle of the flowery meadow. And I grew a tail and a pair of animal ears, for some reason.”

That did explain her earlier fumble while jumping down the beam. But… It was also completely crazy.

“Wait, you didn’t have those earlier?” Uraraka ends up asking first, before he could.

“Nope.” Toga replies. She feels oddly cheerful about it. “Dunno what happened. Witch-lady said that I might have gotten translated into a species more fitting for my quirk, but I dunno how did that work. I’m apparently a ‘fox-morph beastkin’ now. You two are still human, and from UA?”

“Yeah.” Izuku replies. “Kind of. We just passed the entrance exam, then we suddenly landed here. You had no connection to UA?”

“None at all.” Toga replies confidently. She feels honest about it. “As I said, I was in Kyoto. Completely different part of Japan.”

Wow, Izuku wouldn’t know that if she didn’t tell him.

“She’s a villain.” Yoichi suddenly says. “I didn’t get the full picture, but I remember All Might hearing about an incident with a schoolgirl stabbing her classmate, drinking his blood through a straw and running away from home before she could be apprehended. And that she was a suspect of multiple deaths, though typically of minor villains. I’m almost certain it’s her.”

And… the situation suddenly gets tense. Looks like Lena forgot to ask the girl for her backstory before sending her their way.

“I have a question, and I w-want you to answer me t-truthfully.” Izuku says, trying to sound as confident as possible. “Are you a v-villain?”

He can see Uraraka tensing right next to him. He is also suddenly aware of the knife the girl had sticking out of her cardigan’s pocket.

“Bleh.” Toga says as she sticks her tongue at them and cringes visibly. “Stupid term. Everyone just kept telling me that I’m supposed to act normal, that what I liked, what I wanted to do is evil . Blood is pretty!”

Izuku starts freaking out, but that’s when Yoichi suddenly speaks.

“Ask her if her quirk required her to drink blood.” Yoichi asks. He sounds… serious. Almost oddly much for him.

“Does your quirk require you to drink blood?” Izuku asks. He had no idea where Yoichi was going with it. Sure, it should give them some advance warning on her combat abilities, but…

“Ehh?” Toga blinks at him. “How did you know that?”

“Oh, great.” Yoichi groans. “Quirk suppression. Yeah, that explains a lot.”

“What do you mean?” Izuku asks back.

“Hmm?” Toga lets out while looking at him weirdly.

“I wasn’t talking to you.” Izuku replies. “I’ve been talking to my quirk.”

“You sure you’re, you know, all there?” Toga looks at him, feeling actually… concerned. The idea of a suspected serial killer looking at him like that is somehow as weird as the whole idea of being isekai’d to another world.

“Some quirks alter your behavior, to some degree at least.” Yoichi replies, ignoring the whole interjection. “Not by far, and it typically gets smoothed out in childhood, people finding a common ground between what they wanted to do and what was socially acceptable and sticking to it. But when your instincts are completely rejected and your quirk is suppressed, things get ugly. She probably tried to drink the blood of something as a child, was told that it was completely unacceptable and wrong, so she kept acting contrary to her natural instincts. But you can’t keep doing that forever. So, something eventually made her repressed self resurface, leading to a psychotic episode and the attack on her classmate.”

“So she’s… err…” Izuku isn’t sure if she won’t explode if he says it aloud. But Yoichi clearly figured out the meaning behind it.

“Depends on the judge, but she’d likely be declared not-guilty for the reason of insanity, and sent to a mental hospital.” Yoichi says. “Doesn’t make her any less dangerous, for the record. Though your party could certainly use an obviously skilled rogue.”

Izuku decides not to ask if the fact that she has animal features contributed to Yoichi’s decision that she could be useful. He has his suspicions, but he’d prefer not to know if they were correct.

“My q-quirk says that people telling you not to drink blood were bad, because you needed it.” Izuku decides to say, at least partially in hopes of deescalating the situation. “That r-rather than telling you to fit in and deny who you actually w-were, your family should get you access to blood b-bags from some nearby hospital and accept you for who you were.”

Okay, so he might be slightly expanding upon Yoichi’s words. But hey, it makes sense to him, right?

“Oh.” Toga blinks at him, clearly surprised by his words, before switching back to her grinning self. “Hey, I like your… quirk. It says smart things!” She is totally thinking that he’s hearing voices in his head, doesn’t she?

“So, we’re lost in the foreign world, and most of the local life wants us dead.” Izuku then says. “We would gladly get ourselves a new party member, but… I mean, we’re kinda worried about your past. You won’t try to harm us, or anything? Right?”

He wants to avoid fighting, if possible. He is also acutely aware of the shocked glance that Uraraka was giving him from the side.

“You’d… accept me into your group?” Toga asks, clearly shocked by it. “The real me? Not the fake one?”

“Only if you would p-promise to not attack or in any other way hurt us.” Izuku replies immediately. “And, in general, only harm t-those that are trying to harm us. If you agree to those ground rules, we can come to an a-accomodation.”

“Okay!” Toga then says cheerfully. “Well, to be honest, it’s not that much of a problem. When I grew a tail I stopped having the urge to drink blood at all! I still like how it looks, I think I like how it taste and I can apparently cast some blood magic spells, but… I think it’s like how you feel when you recover from an addiction?” She tilts her head a little. “It’s actually kind of awkward after all I did to drink blood, you know?”

“I… I guess.” Izuku decides to agree with her. Then again, it does feel kind of awkward. “F-feel free to do whatever you w-want with the blood of our enemies. Alright?”

“Alright!” Toga replies with an enthusiasm practically seeping from her voice. “Hey, the witch lady was right, you’re both nice people! Cute too. Anyway, before I forget, she told me to relay the message to you.”

“A message?” Izuku asks.

“She probably considered not relaying it if you turned out to be mean people.” Yoichi comments. “She’s craftier than she looks.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Toga nods a few times. “It’s about the elevator you’re supposed to ride to exit this area. The fortress at the foot of it is overtaken by some nasty people, but there is a place where you can jump off it towards a stone ledge. To the left, about half-way down. It’s something of a secret exit from the fortress that she learned from a Tso-something guy. It’s barely noticeable, but she’ll leave a marker a bit above it, so you’ll know where to jump off. If you get there. That’s the whole message.”

Lena continued to be useful. They should do their best to pay her back for it.

“Good to know.” Yoichi comments. “The fortress down there was probably taken over a while ago, so like with archflames, it just felt like an obvious thing to the locals. Anyway, tell your new teammate that she’s a kumiho.”

“A kumiho?” Izuku asks. Toga glances at Uraraka.

“Is that common?” She asks.

“Y-yes.” Uraraka replies. She’s still holding her staff while being clearly rather defensive about Toga’s presence there. Understandably so.

“Ugh.” Yoichi groans, obviously disappointed at Izuku’s lack of knowledge about some extremely fringe subject. “A korean kitsune, a mythical creature with a penchant for seducing men to eat their livers and hearts, both organs associated with blood in general. Her quirk was probably thematically connected to illusion, so whatever translated you into this world conflated it all into a fox demihuman with blood magic.”

Oh.

Izuku relays the news to Toga, whose face lights up.

“Hey, that sounds fun!” She grins while baring her teeth and raising her hands on both sides of her face, nails up front. “Himiko Toga, seducer and eater of men! Or women, I don’t mind.” She adds, as she puts her hands down. “Your quirk’s really smart, you know? So, what’s the next thing we do? I really want to get to know both of you, you know?”

Ugh, this is going to be awkward.

Chapter 8: Level Ups

Chapter Text

“So… have you ever used the Altar of Egress?” Izuku asks, trying to ignore the awkwardness that Uraraka was downright emanating at this point, with Toga either ignoring it consciously or unconsciously.

Izuku wasn’t sure which option was worse, if he’s to be honest. So, he decided to completely ignore the whole subject. Consciously.

“The glowing little thingy over there?” Toga asks back while glancing at the Altar before her eyes return to Izuku. “Nope! What does it do?”

It looks like they weren’t the only ones who didn’t get the manual on how to survive in the foreign world.

Makes you wonder how many people from Japan landed in this world, and how many of them were still alive.

“A lot of things.” Izuku replies. “You can store your things there, you can instantly move between the Altars you visited, and you can check your character stats and spells there. Could you do it right now?”

“Sure thing, sounds fun!” Toga announces while walking over towards the Altar, Uraraka giving her a rather cautious look as she passes by. “Calm down, sheesh, I’m not going to bite you.”

Uraraka clearly geared up for some nasty rebuke, but her eyes met Izuku’s behind Toga’s back and she got the message.

“Sorry.” She says instead. “I’m just being extra cautious. The last unfamiliar person we’ve met took a shot at us with no prior warning, you know.”

Wh… oh, Lena. Right. Izuku almost forgot that little incident. It has been a rather eventful three days.

“Oh, I get it, I get it.” Toga said while the Altar sat in front of her. “She shot at me too! Wow, that really looks like a game thing.”

If Izuku wasn’t already severely worried about Toga being a serial killer, he’d be now worried about her ability to shrug off such small matters as being shot at so easily. Izuku was at least seriously freaked out when Lena’s projectile flew past his head.

“Looks like Lena has a track record of shooting random people.” Yoichi comments dryly. “What a quirky NPC we’ve met and started a questline of. Anyway, let’s see her character status first.”

In all honesty, Izuku could guide her through the process even without input from Yoichi. They’ve gone through that twice by now. And they’ll probably go through the same thing each time they find a new ally from their old world.

Strength: 8. Dexterity: 14. Endurance: 8. Willpower: 11. Intelligence: 9. Faith: 8. Another character on a relatively similar power level.

“Hmm, give her a weapon that scales off Dex and she’ll be terrifying.” Yoichi comments. “Perfect for a rogue. And we already know that she can move around quite quietly. Now we just have to see if her magic scales off Willpower, and if so, then we’re golden.”

The part of it that Izuku was most worried about was getting her to put her knife in the Altar’s inventory to get to see her stats. Because this sounded like a way of disarming her before an attack. But, oddly enough, she cooperated without a word.

Simple Knife. Dex E scaling. Really simple weapon, that would probably have to get a better replacement as soon as possible. And probably something with a sheath for it, because she can’t keep carrying it in the pocket of her cardigan.

She pulls the knife out of the inventory, unprompted, before packing it back into the pocket. Still, Izuku has no issue with that.

The next and final step of the new party member's introduction is her skills. They are… interesting.

The first one is the Lacerating Blow. It makes her next attack apply a bleeding effect to the target, causing damage over time. It’s rather obvious that you don’t need that to make normal people bleed, so it had to be something that worked on Vessels.

It scales off Willpower (D) and Faith (D), making Yoichi feel a combination of happiness and surprise.

“This is interesting.” He eventually says after processing the new intel for something half a minute. “I think that I figured out what the Willpower and Faith stats do. But the system's still kind of messy in my eyes.”

“That being?” Izuku asks. Toga glances at Uraraka, who shrugs in response.

“The way I see it, it goes like this.” Yoichi replies. “Willpower covers manipulation of energy outside of your body, the stuff that requires focus and so on. An example of that’s the Detroit Slash. You have to at least partially keep the power woven around your sword while fighting.”

“What about the part with resisting mental attacks?” Izuku asks back.

“I think it’s more of an Elden Ring system.” Yoichi replies. “You had something called the defensive stats there. For example, Robustness improved resistance to bleeding and frostbite, and scaled off Endurance stat and some choice items and consumables. I don’t think that Willpower is an all-out defensive stat for mental effects, instead it’s a more complex situation where more than one stat contributes.”

It made sense, at least to Izuku.

“Intelligence is for magic that doesn’t require long-term focus, but needs to be properly visualized and quickly so.” Yoichi continues. “So, clearly the magic of the School of Eclipse that Uraraka’s learning. Finally, Faith, which is for powers that require your body to become a conduit for foreign powers.”

Izuku thinks it through. It… made sense, although it also suggested that the attribute names were rather… dodgy translations? Weird naming? The creator being severely influenced by old videogames?

“I have two issues with that.” Izuku replies after he finished digesting the explanation. “First one is the fact that Lacerating Blow clearly scales off both Willpower and Faith. The other is my Dash, that, for some reason, scales off Dexterity alone.”

“I think that Lacerating Blow can be used with her natural weapons,” Yoichi replies. “Fangs, namely. Which means one of two things. Option one: depending on how you use it, it scales with either Faith or Willpower. Option two: it’s more of a field surrounding you that includes both your weapon and your body, making it, somewhat, scale off both.”

“Okay, I think I’m sold on it.” Izuku admits. “What about the Dash?”

“I don’t think it counts as magic.” Yoichi replies. “It’s more of a… martial arts footwork that lets you move in some pretty impossible ways? You’re following me?”

“Kind of.” Izuku replies. It makes sense to him. For as much as the madness that an isekai LitRPG soulslike experience can make sense.

He then realizes that he got so invested in the talk with Yoichi that he completely ignored Uraraka and Toga. So, as one can expect from Izuku Midoriya, he immediately (and completely) freaks out.

“I-I’m sorry!” He says quickly while awkwardly waving his hands around. “I s-shouldn’t have focused s-so much, I…”

“Alright, alright.” Uraraka decides to intervene. “It’s alright, Deku-kun. You and Shigaraki-san probably figured out something interesting and helpful together, right?”

“Y-yeah.” Izuku replies. “I’ll f-fill you in after we’re done with that. Uhm T-Toga-san, you c-can continue.”

“Himiko!” Toga announces while pointing her finger at him. “To my friends I’m Himiko . And I think you’re my friend.”

Oh, he’s going to die so much.

“Consider cluing Uraraka in about your quirk.” Yoichi comments from the depths of said quirk. “You’ve saved each other so many times that let’s be real, you’re going to stick around. And before you ask, All Might in his prime had his own group of comrades-for-life that knew about his quirk.”

Oh, that was… a good idea. And a better subject to think about that than the prospect of calling a girl by her first name.

Even if the girl was a serial killer that Izuku, to his own surprise, wanted to be a part of hise party. Why? Because otherwise, she could run rampant through the world, killing who knows how many people.

And with her backstory, he didn’t feel like imprisoning her in her soul crystal (that thing was traumatic). Much less killing her.

“A-alright then, H-h-h-h-h-Toga-san?” Izuku tries to say but ends up fumbling mid-way. Toga giggles loudly.

“Oh, that was adorable .” She says while grinning at him (Uraraka giving her a slightly worrying glance from the side). “I’m switching to the next skill!”

Her second skill is Exsanguinate. When activated, it caused all nearby injuries to suddenly start bleeding faster, and sounded like a skill that needed to be maintained to work. At a rather hefty cost, too.

Scaled off Willpower (D).

Her third skill was Hematophagy. When activated, it allowed her to consume fresh blood in order to recharge her Vigor and Focus, although the description made it clear that the effects weren’t very intense. With a D scaling in Faith.

Toga squeals.

“I can drink blood!” She throws her hands up in the air. “I can still drink blood! Awesome!”

“Wait, you didn’t know that you could do it?” Izuku asks while looking at her questioningly.

“Hey, I haven’t gotten to actually drink someone’s blood ever since appearing here!” Toga retorts immediately. “When I tried to use my quirk, I did that Lacerating Blow thingy, and the witch-lady said that it was blood magic when I showed it to her. The rest is all new to me.”

“Well, if I may ask.” Izuku decides to ask. They clearly covered all three skills she had, so he could as well change the subject. “What was your quirk?”

“It’s called Transform!” Toga replies with a grin on her face. “When I drink someone’s blood, I can become them for some time!”

“That sounds like a nice quirk, right?” Uraraka says. Izuku feels kind of surprised by it, then again he was planning to say the same thing. “I’m sure that a lot of underground heroes would like having it.”

“You… really think so?” Toga asks, eyeing Uraraka weirdly. “It’s not scary or evil?”

“Hey, all I need to do is touch someone and they’ll float into space.” Uraraka replies immediately. “Sure, I get that someone being able to impersonate you perfectly might make you feel uncomfortable, but the most powerful quirks are scary, right? I mean, my idol has black holes for fingers. That’s really scary.”

Izuku isn’t sure if she was trying to play along with Izuku’s welcoming approach towards Toga or if she really thought that. Either way, it worked out great . Because after a few seconds of staring at her in shock, Toga suddenly grins.

“I like you too!” She says cheerfully. “You can call me Himiko as well! Can I call you… err, what’s your name, now that I think about it? I only heard Uraraka-san’s surname.”

“You can’t see it, but I assure you that I just facepalmed.” Yoichi says dryly as Midoriya and Uraraka stare at Toga in surprise.

“W-what?” Toga blinks back at them.

“I’m Midoriya Izuku.” Izuku says.

“I’m Uraraka Ochako.” Uraraka says a second later. “I’m not… comfortable with switching to a first name, I didn’t do that with Deku-kun either, so it’s nothing personal.”

“Okay, okay.” Toga nods a few times. “You guys can use some versions of your quirks?” They nod. “Well, shame that mine didn’t get copied then. When I love someone, I want to be like them, and Transform was super useful in that.”

“Uh-oh, we’re back to the realm of the spooky.” Yoichi says dryly. “Yandere detected, yandere detected. All hands abandon ship. Unless you’re really horny and desperate.”

“That’s… a bit of a weird take on love.” Uraraka says, clearly trying not to sound confrontative about it. “I think it’s more like… having someone as your idol? I mean, I love Thirteen, but in more of a fangirl way? I want to be a hero like her, but I don’t love her romantically, you know?”

“Huh.” Toga appears to have been confronted with a completely foreign take on the subject. She looks back at Uraraka while tilting her head a little. “You know, now that you say it, it kind of feels weird to want to be someone else, you know? That’s confusing. I used to love it. I don’t get it.”

“Quirk suppression strikes back.” Yoichi, once again, comments on the events with a dry tone. “It amplified not only her need for blood but also her desire to be ‘someone else’, integral to her transformations. Enough to affect her way of thinking. But now the effects are gone together with her quirk, so she’s confused about everything.”

Yeah, Izuku thought so too. He’ll have to explain to Uraraka what the quirk suppression thing was once Toga isn’t within earshot.

“Okay.” Izuku claps his hands, finishing the odd talk before it could get any weirder. “Uraraka-san, did you get any loot from the mine?”

“Y-yeah.” Uraraka says, sounding slightly nervous about it for some reason. Why is it making her more nervous than the earlier subject? “I’ve got the bosses’ soul crystals, and the knight’s sword. Sorry, but I couldn’t carry the armor and the shield, they were too heavy and I couldn’t risk running out of focus in case of any leftover enemies on the way back.”

“Oh, I get it!” Izuku replies immediately. “It’s more than I hoped for, actually. I didn’t think you’d bring the sword along! We should recover the rest, though.”

“I… don’t think it’s a good idea.” Uraraka replies quickly, Izuku giving her a questioning look. “I think that the mine connects to some other location, which is where Aelie came from. And I think it’s a higher level location, and we were pretty close to the exit. The vibe I got from the crack in the ground in that place was… spooky. I t-think that Vedrick was told to guard the entrance, and that’s why he showed up l-late to the fight. If something came out of it while we were all gone, it might be…”

“Makes sense.” Yoichi comments. “It wouldn’t work in a game, but we’re in a ‘real world’. The enemies might be roaming around. I don’t think that an armor and shield none of you could use is worth the risks.”

Izuku relays Yoichi’s counsel. It seems that the repeat of the journey to the Whispering Mine was scrapped as an idea.

“So I think we should finally level-up, and probably head towards the Stoneverge Redoubt.” Izuku says. “Uhm, H-h-h… Toga-san, did Lena clue you into what we were planning to do there?”

“Scary thing about to wake up, time to abandon ship, the closest way out is a fortress with a scary woman inside.” Toga summarizes it. “Did I miss anything?”

“No, no you didn’t.” Izuku replies. “We have three soul crystals, of Grinsh, Vedrick and Aelie. Uhm, what levels are the soul crystals we got from the mine?”

“Malkuth, times two.” Uraraka replies immediately. “I’ve checked the description at the altar, it says that they offer five level-up points each.”

“So we have one ten-point soul crystal and two five-point soul crystals.” Izuku summarizes. Then he understands something. “Uhm, now that I think about it… Grinsh and Vedrick were undead, but… Aelie was or… is a sapient being.”

Uraraka glances at him, clearly understanding the issue. Toga appears confused about it, more than anything else. They should probably get used to her having a… different approach to human lives.

“And a major asshole.” Yoichi comments. “Suck her soul out and be done with it, if we let her out she’ll kill more people. It’s a choice between using her power for something good or letting her forever rot in a soul crystal, which is a fate worse than death. There’s no prison you can put her in, no authorities to hand her to that won’t execute her on arrival, and the only option left is objectively worse than eating her soul for power.”

Izuku, once again, shares Yoichi’s words with the others. Toga immediately raises her hand.

“Uhm, am I included in the soul giveaway?” She asks. When Izuku nods (let’s not make her feel alienated. “Then, if you have issues with that, you can give her crystal to me. It’ll make me stronger, right? That’s how it works. And I don’t mind the moral implications of the whole thing.”

…

Izuku feels like his moral high ground isn’t going to last for long. But… what All Might doesn’t know, can’t hurt him. And, besides, with the world they landed themselves in, it might be a matter of finding a middle ground between morality and survival.

“Well, that sounds like a decent idea, I guess.” Izuku decides while glancing at Uraraka to get her opinion. She doesn’t seem to like it either, but eventually she nods. “Okay, so Toga-san takes Aelie’s crystal. Who takes Grinsh?”

“You do.” Uraraka replies. Izuku opens his mouth to protest (or, more like, find out why she wanted him to have it), but that’s when she continues speaking. “You do the job of two people, you know? You and Shigaraki-san. Giving you more points is the only logical choice.”

And to that… Izuku fails to find a counterargument.

***

Yoichi is allowed to read the descriptions of their new loot because Izuku isn’t insane enough to try to stop him from achieving that.

Aelie’s crystal states openly that she was a member of some necrocratic court (and a ‘pale one’, whatever it meant) called the Pale Court, that she left hoping to prey on the collapsing civilization of the ‘surface’ (which explained how she came to the Whispering Mine from below) in order to improve her own standing among her peers.

Vedrick’s soul crystal claimed him to be a knight from the local garrison that tried to kill Aelie to put the dead of the mine to rest, but ended up failing for her tricks and died, before being returned as her ‘prized puppet’.

They also got a Singing Blade, a longsword scaling off Strength (D) and Willpower (E), with a passive effect helping it be used alongside ‘Sound Magic’. Their only fighter, Izuku, couldn’t use that magic, and the sword didn’t feel like an improvement over his Bastard Sword.

Especially as its Strength scaling was worse.

Then they move over to strengthening themselves. Izuku comes first, then Uraraka and finally Toga.

Yoichi instructs them on how to improve their stats.

Izuku is told to - every ten points - give three to strength, three to dexterity, three to willpower, and one to endurance. Giving him a steady improvement to his focus pool size, while also making sure that his endurance is slowly improving and focusing on his strengths.

At least, for now. Once they could learn more about the system, they might have to change that.

As a result of using Grinsh’s soul, his level rises up to 11. As for the remaining stats, his strength was now 17, his dexterity 15, his endurance 8, and his willpower 15.

He was going to test it soon, but the mere act of improving his stats made him feel… stronger. Lighter, that’s for sure. It’s as if walking alone was a bit easier and quicker.

Uraraka was told to at least temporarily go for the following formula: every ten points, give four to intelligence, four to willpower, and two to dexterity. The idea was to continue working on her main stats (while expanding her focus pool significantly) while helping her stay mobile and able to dodge attacks in case her defensive magic was going to fail.

Using Vedrick’s soul crystals raised her level to 6, her willpower and intelligence to 12, and her dexterity to 14.

Toga seemed to have no issues sucking Aelie’s soul crystal dry, improving her level to 6 as well. In her case, the stats raise was a bit more complicated, as the first thing that Yoichi ordered was fixing her very low Faith which was crucial to scaling her bleeding skills.

After all, she needed that stat for Hematophagy and Lacerating Blow.

Hence, she took two points to Dexterity and three to Faith. Bringing her stats to Dexterity 16 and Faith 11 (reaching an equal level with Willpower).

“Hey, I feel weird.” Himiko says and she swings her arms around. “I feel… faster? Man, this is weird.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Uraraka agrees with her. “I don’t feel smarter, but… something did change in me. Weird.”

“So, I think that’s all for now.” Izuku decides. “We should get some quick combat training and then head towards the Stoneverge Redoubt. We don’t know how much time we have left before whatever disaster this place is heading towards appears, and…” He notices the strangely embarrassed look that Uraraka suddenly gave him. “Uhm, U-Uraraka-san? What happened?”

“W-well, I…” She shrinks a little. “We’ve… gotten something else out of the mine delve. And, I, kind of, don’t know how to say it.”

“Can you… show it, instead?” Izuku asks. It seems to not be the best idea, as she’s clearly not enjoying that either.

“A-alright.” Uraraka says. Now even Toga is giving her a curious look. “Just… don’t get the wrong i-idea, alright?”

A moment later, Uraraka opens her own inventory at the Altar. Prompting Yoichi to let out a loud choking sound in the depths of the One For All.

It displays the chest piece part of the ‘Pale Court Dancer’s Outfit’. Izuku is ready to bet that the other parts of it are there as well.

“It’s the bracelets!” Uraraka starts stammering out her explanations. “And the… bangles in general! They looked valuable so I quickly took them off, and when I took a piece or two the rest somehow came off as well, so I just quickly packed it all up and left! I swear!”

“T-t-that sounds like the… V-v-v-vessels are easier to, uhm, loot!” Izuku decides to completely ignore what was just said, because thinking about it made him imagine Uraraka wearing that outfit for herself when no one was looking and that was TOO MUCH, ABSOLUTELY TOO MUCH! “T-t-t-that’s cool!”

“And that’s actually useful stuff, if someone was ready to wear it.” Yoichi comments, clearly fighting against himself to not start laughing at the spectacle. “No physical resistance, obviously, but there is some magical resistance, a slight buff to blood magic damage and +2 bonus to dexterity if a full set is worn. It would actually fit…”

“Hey, I can try it on?” Toga suddenly asks, with a scarily mischievous look on her face.

“... Toga’s character build well.” Yoichi finishes his sentence, only to freeze just as Uraraka and Midoriya did. “Oh, so that’s how Ninth will die, I see.”

“A-a-a-a-are you s-s-s-sure?” Midoriya stutters even more now. Completely ignoring Yoichi. “I-I-It’s not a l-l-lot of c-c-c-overage?”

“Sure!” Toga grins even wider. “Seducer and eater of men and women, you remember? I want to see how it feels to not be a good girl and yet be popular and eye-catching. C’mon, let me try it on! It can’t be that bad.”

“U-uhm…” Izuku shrinks a little more. “O-okay?” He is going to regret this, won’t he? He absolutely will.

***

Toga returns a few minutes later, wearing her new outfit. Her body is - to be honest - less… generously gifted than what Aelie had, but there are still at least some… assets there. That the now slightly re-cut clothes really put on display.

Especially all the… bracelets. And the… can you even call it an underwear? You absolutely can’t.

And oh no. She does a quick pirouette while winking at them, and it makes things much worse. Much, much worse.

Izuku then fails to see anything else as he covers his face while going red like a strawberry.

“Alright, that settles it!” Toga says. If he could see, he would see that she blushed quite a bit herself, but was clearly enjoying his reaction. And that Uraraka was having some really complicated look on her face, all while glancing at Izuku. “It’s my new outfit, and there is nothing you can do about it!”

In Toga’s opinion, someone just discovered jealousy, and teasing those two was going to be sooo funny!

***

Surprise

Pray for Izuku's arteries, that's gonna be one hell of a blood pressure

Chapter 9: Stoneverge Redoubt

Chapter Text

Finding Stoneverge Redoubt, admittedly, isn’t that hard. All they have to do is have Toga lead them to where she encountered Lena, and then continue traveling in the same direction until they reach their destination.

That road leads them through a surprisingly picturesque land. Using the name ‘Meadow’ rather than ‘Valley’ or ‘Plains’ appears to have had a purpose.

Almost no trees. Some rolling hills, with a handful of small rivers running between them. And, grass. A lot of grass, with a surprising amount of flowers here and there. All of that was kept from overgrowing by herds of grazing animals.

They were peaceful enough to ignore the travelers completely.

And during the day, they could see the distant mountain ranges to the north (very distant) and south (much less distant). This, probably, explained why the river they ended up following appeared to be going on a slight curve, from the south towards the west.

After three days of travel, Izuku understood something important. Namely the fact that if his nature as a Vessel didn’t make biology into more of a suggestion when his body was involved, he would absolutely die .

And yes, it was about Himiko. Whose outfit was taking its toll on Izuku’s sanity. It was made even worse by Toga making a game out of bending at just the right times to get a reaction out of him.

Apparently as a ‘training’ in ‘seduction’. Izuku’s heart most certainly wasn’t ready for it, and the fact that Uraraka-san was clearly on his side was a small comfort to have.

Speaking of Uraraka, Izuku managed to get Toga to go on a brief scouting mission soon after leaving Firet, which led them to have a serious (and long overdue) talk.

“Deku-kun.” Uraraka clearly wanted to have that talk as well. Enough to speak before he could. “I have just one question. Why?”

“Well…” Izuku scratches the side of his head nervously. “Shigaraki-san recognized her as a villain, but… he thinks that she’s a victim of quirk suppression that would have been declared non-guilty by reason of insanity in the court. And whatever ‘body-transfer’ thing happened to her, it clearly got rid of the quirk suppression aftermath.”

“Quirk suppression?” Uraraka asks. Looks like Izuku isn’t the only person who didn’t know the term.

Izuku quickly describes the mechanism. Uraraka gives him a bit of a worried look. Looks like another person with great parents that found it hard to comprehend how someone could drive their own child into something like this.

“I see.” Uraraka says when Izuku ends narrating it. “That… does explain a lot. Like why she switched to being super friendly to me after I said that her quirk isn’t evil. But… you do know that regardless of what we think about it, she’s still a killer, right? And needs to be arrested and trialed, eventually?”

“I do.” Izuku replies. There’s really no doubt in his mind. “However, I do think that if we play it out correctly, Toga might be less… w-well, let me put it this way. Do you want her to go on a rampage in a world where h-heroes are either absent or way too busy to d-deal with her?”

Uraraka thinks it over for a while, playing with her fingers idly while at it.

“I guess you have a point.” She admits. “It’s… a bit like being her parole officer, right?” That was one way of putting it that didn’t cross Izuku’s mind. “If that’s why we’re doing this, then I’m alright with that. I’m going to be on my guard around her, but I’ll do my best to not make it visible. And I’ll at least try to act friendly around her. But…” She sighs. “... the way she keeps teasing you is really pissing me off! You’re clearly uncomfortable about it, and yet she keeps doing that!”

“Uh-oh.” Yoichi lets out. “Uh-oh. I think I know where this is going and it’ll really mess up soulslike immersion.”

…? Should Izuku ask? Actually, let’s not do that. He just doesn’t want to know.

“W-well, I know that this might sound… b-bad.” Izuku replies shakingly. “B-but… I t-think it’s b-better if she a-amuses herself with t-this rather than… y-y-y-ou know, d-drinking blood and k-killing people.”

“Ugh.” Uraraka groans. “This is a horrible idea, you know that? But alright, I’ll do my best to tolerate it. I just can’t promise that I’ll manage to succeed.”

“Alright.” Yoichi announces a second later. “It’s time to focus on something less potentially volatile, and much more important. We need to find a way to let other people see me.”

Izuku really has no idea what Yoichi was talking about, but honestly, a change of subject is welcomed at the moment.

“Shouldn’t we find a way to let you be heard by other people instead?” Izuku asks, looking away from Uraraka to make it clear that he wasn’t talking to her.

“No.” Yoichi replies. “I want to be seen so that I can loom behind your back. Which will help me evolve from your quirk into your stand, and that will make everything objectively better.”

… uhm?

“Look, I’m going to pretend that your silence was caused by you being stunned by my brilliance rather than by you not knowing what JoJo was.” Yoichi then says dryly. “Because the latter would make me lose all the respect I have for you, Ninth. Jokes aside, Toga is away at the moment and I can tell you if she’s back in range. Have the talk.”

“U-uhm, which one?” Izuku asks nervously.

“The bees and flowers talk, Ninth.” Yoichi replies with an exasperated voice, making Izuku stutter out something completely incomprehensible. “The One for All talk, dammit! What else do you think I could mean?!”

“O-oh, right.” Izuku replies before looking back at Uraraka. “S-sorry for that.”

“It’s alright, alright.” Uraraka shakes her head. “I know what it’s about. It must be hard to have two separate talks at the same time, right? Anything interesting to tell me?”

“Y-yeah.” Izuku replies. “I… I wanted to tell you something. Something about my q-quirk. Something extremely important. But, err, it’s a bit outlandish. And might be h-hard to believe.”

“Deku-kun.” Uraraka replies while giving him a warm and encouraging smile. It’s a very pretty smile. “We’re in a fantasy world . Whatever you say can’t be weirder than that.”

“W-well…” Izuku replies nervously (he should get better on that field, he can’t keep fumbling around in social situations over and over again). “... it might be comparably weird. I… my quirk, it’s All Might’s quirk.”

“W-wait, you mean…” Uraraka gives him a shocked look. “... that All Might’s your father?!”

“God, I wish.” Yoichi sighs as Izuku blinks at Uraraka in complete shock. “Instead I was forced to watch you two have the parental equivalent of mutual pining. It’s really exhausting, you know?”

“N-n-no!” Izuku panics completely while waving his hands awkwardly. It’s not what he meant! “No! I mean, it’s literally his quirk! He never announces publicly what his quirk is because it’s the world’s only transferable quirk! I impressed him when I tried to save a victim from a villain, so he chose me as the heir to his quirk! And Shigaraki-san is apparently a vestige of the First Holder of that quirk that was written into it after he gave the quirk to someone else, the whole ‘translate into the rules of this world’ mechanism made him resurface.”

“Since when are you comprehensible while talking about quirks?” Yoichi comments as Uraraka is busy digesting his words. “Stop being out of character, Ninth. Being incomprehensible while talking about quirks and freaking out around girls forms the majority of your personality!”

Izuku dares to disagree.

“Oh.” Uraraka seems to have finally digested the news. “I see. Well, normally I’d say that it sounds like something out of some… errr, you know, those very bad pieces of internet fiction that people sometimes write about their favorite heroes…” Izuku cringes a little internally. Hey, it was just a … phase, alright? “... but… err…”

She blushes visibly as her voice fails her, embarrassment taking the reins from her. Izuku can relate to this. He can relate to this a LOT.

“She wrote a fic about Thirteen being her close family member, didn’t she?” Yoichi comments dryly, before chuckling loudly. “Nine out of ten that she made Thirteen into a secret heroic identity of her mother. Two peas in a pod, I swear. Same dumbass energy.”

Izuku decides to do what he does best. Namely, he ignores Yoichi’s remarks entirely and focuses on something actually important.

“W-what I mean is that…” Uraraka manages to gather up her bearings. “I saw you punch out the Zero Pointer. It was… it was something that I’d expect from All Might. And, well, you trying to save someone from a villain despite not having a quirk is… very in-character, you know? Besides, I don’t think you would lie to me, so… I believe you.”

“T-thank you.” Izuku fails to keep his eyes on her, looking to the side. “I… it’s a secret, obviously. But after we’ve saved each other so many times, I decided to trust you with it. You… you’re the first person I ever told about it.”

“Your secret is safe with me!” Uraraka smiles at him. “We’re a team, right? If you ever end up inheriting Might Tower, we should make it our joint hero agency! Rather than have one specialization, we could have two! You’d be responsible for punching the villains out, while I would rescue people!”

And, suddenly, the talk returns to the subject which makes Izuku feel confident. Turns out that his Hero Agency Simulator playthroughs were useful in the end!

“That’s a great idea, Uraraka-san!” Izuku replies with a bright grin on his face. “Might Tower offers enough space and infrastructure to run an equivalent of several hero agencies, covering a significant part of Tokyo, right? We could easily cover every significant branch of the heroics with separate departments! The rescue, the limelight, the underground one too!”

It said a lot about All Might when you realized that he was working so hard that this entire skyscraper was needed to support his activities. And while missing some very useful internal organs while at it.

“Yes!” Uraraka shoots back, clearly pumped up about it, her fists swinging up and down with a grin on her face. “It’s a deal, then! Once we graduate from the UA, we open a hero agency together and kick some villain asses!”

“Ugh.” Yoichi groans loudly. “Could we please skip this over to some high octane soulslike violence? Literally everything aside from death would be better than this.”

“Stop… ruining… the moment.” Izuku says through his teeth while glancing to the side. Not looking at the person he was talking with sounded like a good tell. “Do you have anything useful to say?”

“You want me to say something useful?” Yoichi asks dryly. “How about this: try to imagine you and Bakugou having the same moment as you have with Uraraka right now. Because that’s how friendship looks like.”

Well, that was…

Izuku is really looking forward to Yoichi finally running out of juice and leaving him alone with his thoughts. All while living in fear that leveling up might have made him stronger and allowed him to keep interacting with Izuku indefinitely.

For now his attention returns to Uraraka and he opens his mouth to apologize for ghosting her again, but she doesn’t let him.

“Stop apologizing for that, Deku-kun.” She says, sounding actually strict for once. “You apologize for too many things, you know? I’m your friend, I really don’t mind such minor stuff. Leave apologizing for when you do something nasty…” She smiles at him. “Not like I can imagine you doing something nasty.”

“See, Ninth?” Yoichi decides to share his mind with him once again. “Friendship. Cool experience, right? Especially your first one.”

Izuku decides to ignore both Yoichi’s interjection and the fact that Uraraka clearly decided to forget how they let Toga eat the soul of a sapient being just a few hours ago. It’s probably easier that way.

***

Stoneverge Redoubt looked incredible.

As Yoichi starts cooing in his head about ‘classic Dark Souls design’ and ‘sight straight from Elden Ring’, Izuku gets a moment to admire the views.

They arrived at the edge of the cliff separating the Black Feather Meadow from the Blackwater Forest. They can see the forest in question in front of them, about a hundred meters beneath them, spread far and wide. It seems to stretch all the way towards the horizon.

They can see several rivers flowing from the Meadow and reaching the end of the cliff before diving down, forming some really beautiful waterfalls. The rivers resume their existence in the Forest beneath, clearly flowing towards a giant lake at a distance.

And then, there is the fortress.

It was erected at the edge of the cliff, in a part of it where the elevation was even higher than usual. The sights from the top of it must be spectacular.

There is another castle placed directly beneath the Stoneverge Redoubt. After looking at the area closely enough, Izuku can also see the elevator that’s their objective, a series of metal rails (a hundred meters tall! How did the locals build it?!) connecting both fortresses.

Now that Izuku described the surroundings, it was time to head to the main dish.

The fortress was large. The walls alone seemed to be at least fifteen meters tall, likely a necessity to help non-Vessel soldiers repel attacks from Vessels from a safe(r) distance. Made from stone blocks in a classic bright gray color.

No signs of damage to the walls. Not even to the wooden covers erected over the stone walls (supposed to shield soldiers standing up on it from arrows), and that was part of the fortifications that were most vulnerable to enemy attacks.

It’s clear that no one was trying to attack the fortress, at least from this side of it.

There was also a keep, even taller than the walls surrounding it. Clearly built in the deeper part of the fortress, right in front of the elevator. There must have been a courtyard between it and the castle’s gates.

Beautiful. And intimidating. Because they had to fight their way through it.

“Damn.” Uraraka lets out her eyes on the fortress in front of them. “I hope that we’ll find a way to return to our world with a picture or two. Because I want to remember these sights.”

“Hmmm…” Toga joins the sightseeing properly, giving the fortress a good look. “... quite nice. Not the type of sights I prefer, though.”

“What a-are the sights you p-prefer then?” Izuku asks, looking at his party member questioningly (while trying to stop his eyes from drifting down from her eyes.) She winks at him. “N-nevermind then.”

“Wow.” Yoichi decides to embrace his newfound Deadpan Snarker personality… again. “Harem ending seems to be a possibility for you, Ninth. I hope you’re aware of this.”

Izuku blushes, making Toga grin, the girl probably thinking that she just managed to get another reaction out of him. Uraraka glances at them, clearly having a well-defined opinion about her behavior.

“You’re the last person who has the r-right to say s-stuff like that to m-me.” Izuku says, glancing to the side.

“Wait, what did you just imply about me?” Yoichi clearly reads his words just as Izuku hoped him to. “That I was, what, maidenless in my life? Well, let me tell you that I was incredibly popular! I had more love interests than you had classmates!”

“2D doesn’t count.” Izuku says quietly, hoping that Toga and Uraraka won’t hear it. Judging from the smirk he can see on Himiko’s face, the new pair of ears she got improved her hearing. Great.

“2D DOES count!” Yoichi shouts back. “You think it’s easy to find a 3D waifu when your brother locks you in a tiny cell in his personal prison for his political enemies and keeps you there for most of your adulthood?! By the time Second and Third broke me out I had lost most of my social skills, and I didn’t have a lot of them to begin with!”

“La-la-la-la.” Izuku says loudly while covering his ears. “I can’t hear you! It might change if you’ll have something useful to say, but for now, I’m completely deaf!”

“Oh, and now you start developing personality, and even something resembling a backbone.” Yoichi groans. “You know what, fine, go on. I’ll stop talking about romance. It’s not like you can get any. Wait until I find a way to manifest images into reality, then I’ll hit you with the ‘No bitches?’ Megamind meme and that will cement both my moral superiority and my victory over you.”

Izuku has absolutely no idea what Yoichi is referring to and thus he feels immune to the implied threat.

“You know what?” Toga asks, her words not directed to anyone in particular. “I wish I could hear both sides of that talk. It sounds like the funniest thing ever.”

“I want to hear it too.” Uraraka replies. “But mostly because Deku-kun’s reactions to it sometimes worry me. Are you alright?”

“Yes, yes.” Izuku nods a few times quickly. He doesn’t want to worry them. “It’s alright, Shigaraki-san is just… occasionally hard to deal with. I’m sure he means well, he just, err, feels like he didn’t get to talk with other people in a while and is really relishing in finally being able to do it.”

“Okaay, I felt that.” Yoichi admits. “You’re both right and wrong. I got to interact with other Holders before their inexplicable vanishing, but I did miss being able to influence the real world. Look, sorry for getting too loud occasionally, okay?”

“Apology accepted.” Izuku replies. “I get it, just… please, be mindful of my sanity, sometimes I want to be alone with my thoughts, okay?”

“Deal.” Yoichi replies. “Let’s move to the castle. I’m really looking forward to it, you know? Exploring abandoned castles is absolutely integral to the soulslike experience.”

***

They approach the castle’s gates, with Toga taking point, her knife in hand. Putting their rogue upfront might have appeared strange, but she was there to act as a scout. Giving them an advance warning about the troubles ahead.

She could walk around without making sound, and with her improved senses she should be able to detect enemies before they could discover her.

Who else could they put in the vanguard? Uraraka wasn’t as sneaky as Toga was, and Izuku was wearing chainmail. It offered decent protection, but it wasn't armor made with sneaking around in mind.

Except, there are issues that she can’t deal with. Like, say, the fact that the castle gates were closed.

“What now?” Toga asks, turning around on her heel. “I don’t think there are any battering rams around to use, hmm?”

“I think we’re at least twenty people short of being able to man a battering ram big enough to put a dent in those gates.” Uraraka replies while glancing at the gates. “That’s some very good carpentry, and that’s without mentioning the metal parts. It’s a work of art.”

“I guess I’ll have to dash up there and open the gates from inside.” Izuku decides. It’s fifteen meters up, but he should be able to get up there. “Toga, do you hear any movement from up there?”

“Hmmm…” She says while her ears perk up towards the top of the battlements. “Nope, I hear nothing. But at that distance, I can’t be sure.” In other words, if someone was actively hiding there and staying quiet, they could avoid detection.

However, what they heard about Arshka thus far doesn’t make her sound like the definition of subtlety and sneakiness.

“Alright then.” Izuku sheaths his sword for a moment. He doesn’t want to lose it or injure himself off it during the jump. “I’ll be back with you in a moment.”

There is a limit to how far he can dash, obviously. It scales off Dexterity, meaning that it’s not a magical ability, just his natural body abilities amplified to a supernatural level (no, he doesn’t know how it works). His present maximum is about fifteen meters, which happens to be the approximate height of the wall.

Keyword: approximate. He doesn’t want to fumble the jump by discovering that he misjudged the height. Rather than trying to do it in one go, he takes advantage of the gatehouse protruding a bit from the wall, and bounces off it to land on the wall.

The moment he lands on the wall, he gets an announcement that he entered a new location. Upper Stoneverge Redoubt, it seems that they didn’t arrive at the wrong fortress at the edge of the cliff.

Then he almost screams, only to control himself at the last moment and downscale the frantic yell into a sound best summarized as ‘eeeep?!’. Because he landed almost directly on top of a mostly rotten corpse of a soldier strewn over the top of the wall.

“What rotten, pun intended, luck.” Yoichi comments. Izuku ignores him.

“Deku-kun?!” He can hear Uraraka in the background, it seems that he was still loud enough to be audible down here. He extends his hand over the battlements and shows his party members a thumbs-up gesture.

Let’s not make more sounds.

Because this place was a graveyard.

Corpses were scattered throughout the Stoneverge Redoubt. Most of them were wearing chainmail and surcoats that Izuku suspected to be used by the soldiers of the Kingdom of Leana. Some of them were probably the attackers, much less numerous and wearing much more exotic armor.

Each of them was equipped with a cuirass, pauldrons, and bracers, made from a material resembling a black crystal, smooth and to some degree reflecting sunlight, at least judging from the faint reflexes he could see on the nearest corpse.

Solid-looking armor if Izuku is to be honest. Leg protection was a bit less impressive, though he could see a pair of cuisses and greaves beneath them, worn over leather pants. There was also something resembling a skin under the cuirasses, covering the upper half of the cuisses.

Their helmets are made from the same material as the rest of the armor. Closed, with a Y-shaped opening on its front part and no moving parts.

The closest person in that armor is hanging off the statue in front of the fountain in the middle of the castle’s courtyard. Someone impaled him on the spear held upward by the figure, the spear entering their body from behind and exuding from the chest, the warrior’s limbs hanging down.

A rather gruesome scene, even if the blood has long ago dried.

Another one was impaled by another spear, this time the one whose hilt rested on the ground. The black-armored warrior was on his knees, leaning forward on the spear that pierced him through, frozen in place.

That one was lacking his helmet, displaying a face that appeared human, although the level of decomposition and the distance between them made identification harder. But… was the nearly pitch-black skin color a side-effect of the decomposition process?

Izuku ends up whispering the question to Yoichi.

“No.” Yoichi replies. “But if I’m seeing it correctly, that guy’s ears are pointed . Ninth, my man, I think that this world has elves. And, as you can expect from our luck, we’ve run into the dark elves first.”

Should Izuku be surprised by the fact that Yoichi sounds excited about it? Probably not. He doesn’t know why dark elves are bad luck. He knows what elves are, obviously, but… how are dark elves different from them, except in their color palette?

There is no movement in their line of sight. The courtyard is empty, if you exclude the corpses scattered around it. There are a handful of buildings scattered around, probably including storehouses and what looked like a shrine similar to the one in Firet, but bigger.

As he mentioned earlier, there was a fountain and a statue in the middle of the paved courtyard.

Behind it is another gateway, leading to what seems to be the Stoneverge Redoubt’s keep. Is it where Arshka was waiting?

“Unless you’re ready to face Arshka, you should probably leave.” Izuku then hears a voice (one speaking in Japanese), startling him completely. Even Yoichi didn’t seem to notice the intruder before they spoke.

When he twists his head towards the source of it, he sees a man (boy?) his age, sitting at the end of a wooden beam extruding from the side of the gatehouse wall, above and behind the wall. In quite a distance from his current position, probably explaining why Yoichi did not notice them.

The first thing that draws Izuku’s attention is the pair of large wings covered in black feathers. A moment later he sees the raven-like head between them, with a pair of eyes looking down at him from above.

Then he notices the very familiar UA school uniform.

“What awaits you otherwise is the true revelry in the dark.” The raven-man then says in a dramatic tone, one that might have actually worked if Izuku wasn’t still stunned completely by the sudden appearance of someone feeling completely out of place.

There goes his plan for the excursion.

Chapter 10: Shadows

Chapter Text

“E-eh?” Midoriya lets out unconsciously. This really came out of the blue. “W-wait, the uniform… you’re from the UA?”

That actually seems to have surprised raven-man as much as their unexpected arrival did Midoriya. He even lets out a similar ‘E-eh?’ sound.

“You’re from Japan?” The raven then says. Someone clearly landed here alone and thought that it was their isekai adventure.

“And not just from Japan, I’m from UA too!” Izuku replies enthusiastically. Another teammate? At just the moment they needed him? “Izuku Midoriya, this year’s 1-A class! I was on my way to the classroom on the first day when I suddenly found myself in this world.”

“It seems that we’re classmates then.” The raven-man says as he jumps down from the beam and onto the wall beneath. “I’m Fumikage Tokoyami. I was in the classroom, waiting for the first class to start, and then I was suddenly spirited away into this foreign land. If we’re going to have a lengthier talk, we should have it in the guardhouse.” He then changes the subject instantly.

“Why?” Izuku asks, surprised by it.

“Arshka is prowling the corridors and hallways of the keep, and occasionally walks onto its rooftop.” Tokoyami replies. “When she’s up there and she notices any movement, she throws javelins. Letting her inner demon take her over and warp her body and mind did little to decrease her accuracy and range. She almost shot me down from the sky once, trust me when I’m saying that we’re well within her attack range.”

Izuku glances towards the keep. It’s at least a hundred meters away. And Arshka could… wow . That was scary.

“Ninth, it’s time for a little lesson in trickery.” Yoichi says. “I get it that he speaks in Japanese and wears your school uniform, but please, just please, take notice of the fact that he’s a raven person in a land where something scary with domain over ravens is about to wake up. And be on guard, okay?”

Oh. Izuku didn’t think about this, but this was a good point.

Tokoyami walks into the guardhouse. Midoriya follows him, with a hand on the hilt of his sword. If something happens, he can draw the sword in a heartbeat.

To avoid dying in an ambush, he put a lot of effort into training a quick draw of his sword. Yoichi had some very good ideas, and Izuku himself could add a few more.

He finds himself at the upper level of the guardhouse. There is a large machine in the center of the room, a large wooden wheel with several handles probably used to open the gates beneath.

There were more machines. In front of the gate was a platform with something that looked like slits in the floor, most likely used to pour hot oil or otherwise attack the people trying to attack the gates from above.

The wheel is completely destroyed, someone sliced it in half. Uh-oh. So much about opening the gates from the inside.

“I think that someone did it to trap Arshka inside.” Tokoyami noticed what Izuku was looking at. “She doesn’t seem to leave the fortress on her own, but if someone walked in and then tried to run away from her, they could easily lure her outside of it. And then it would be a free-roaming mode for her.”

“I see.” Izuku replies while sighing. “That complicates things.” He decides to take Yoichi’s words into account. And be slightly suspicious. This feels like the best moment to try that. “W-what are you doing here, if I may ask?”

“I decided to put Arshka to eternal rest.” Tokoyami replies. “I was observing her behavior for a few days, hoping to formulate a plan that would give me a chance against her. The news that I’m not alone here is a surprising one. Are your companions from our world, too?”

Oh, so it was a question for a question deal, huh.

“Yes.” Izuku replies. “Both of them, although only one of them was our classmate. The other one was apparently in Kyoto when it happened.” Tokoyami raises his brow. It’s extremely weird and might be better described as him opening one eye wider than the other. “I don’t know what happened, nor how she was connected with us.”

“I see.” Tokoyami replies after a few seconds. “How confusing. Your presence here invalidates my impression of the situation completely.”

“You expected yourself to be the only one who got isekai’d into this world?” Izuku asks. Tokoyami nods. “It seems to be more cooperative than the usual soulslike games, that’s for sure.”

“You know the genre?” Tokoyami appears surprised. Yoichi appears overjoyed, letting out a loud ‘YES!!!’ in the background of Izuku’s mind.

“No, but my quirk apparently does.” Izuku replies. “It speaks to me ever since we’ve landed in this world, calls itself ‘Yoichi Shigaraki’ and might be a ghost haunting me. Except with gaming trivia instead of jumpscares.”

“I’m not a ghost.” Yoichi decides to comment on it. “I’m a vestige of a personality collected by your quirk. I’m a ghost as much as a computer simulation of someone is them. Please don’t misunderstand it.” It’s great to have that reiterated, but Izuku kind of doesn’t care about it at the moment.

“I see.” Tokoyami takes the news surprisingly calmly. “You’re not the only person whose quirk is a talkative one, although mine talked even before our arrival here. I’m looking forward to studying with you. In the meantime, the answer is yes, this world appears to be much more cooperative than how I imagined it. It makes me once more reiterate my earlier query about working together to take down Arshka.”

“We are here to kill her, so I see no reason in trying to achieve that separately.” Izuku replies. “You observed her for a few days so you have intel, we have numbers. What’s your character level?”

“Nine.” Tokoyami replies. “I eliminated two Malkuth-level bosses, however a certain gimmick to how my quirk works now siphoned two levels out of the deal. You?”

“I’m level eleven, my party members are both level six.” Izuku replies. “We’ve taken down two Malkuths and one Yesod. How did you deal with two Malkuths on your own?” That sounded like quite an achievement.

“In all honesty, I decided to cheat a little.” Tokoyami replies. “There was a ruined outlaw camp nearby led by two brothers, both deserters from the local army that managed to murder the knight in charge of their unit and then another one and steal their soul crystals to become Vessels. However, after some unspecified disaster that killed most of their gang, they lost their mind to the chaosflame and became rampaging, animalistic monsters.”

Oh.

“I think that we’ve met the disaster in question.” Izuku replies. “It was the Yesod I’ve mentioned.”

“I see.” Tokoyami nods. “I lured them both, separately, to the Stoneverge Redoubt, before attacking them from above, grabbing them, and carrying them over the walls. They lacked the mental faculties to realize they were in danger before Arshka noticed them. And Arshka lacked the mental faculties to pick up their soul crystals, so I just waited for her to leave before doing it myself.”

“Oh.” Yoichi says in the resulting silence. “I simultaneously love and hate him, you know?” That nicely summarized Izuku’s own opinion. “Ask him why he did that for the first time. He couldn’t know that he would get the soul out of it, right?”

“You’re not the only person in the room whose quirk gives them advice.” Tokoyami replies after Izuku relays the question. “I’ve got the information on how it works from them. You’re here to take the elevator down to the Blackwater Forest?”

“Yeah.” Izuku replies. “Wait, can’t you take us down with your wings?”

“Regretfully, no.” Tokoyami replies while shaking his head. “I don’t know how it works from a biological and physical point of view, but I know that I shouldn’t be able to fly with wings this size. While for some reason I can fly when it’s just me, additional weight is a no. Those two people I managed to carry for about twenty meters in total, and even that exhausted me severely. If I try to carry someone down the cliff this high, it’ll end with me running out of stamina and both me and the person I carry falling to our deaths.”

“You shouldn’t be able to… wait, you didn’t have them before being transported here?” Izuku asks. Somehow that’s what caught his attention (and the fact that it was at least somehow connected to quirks explains it all to Yoichi).

“No.” Tokoyami replies calmly. “I had a raven-like head as a vestigial mutation inherited from one of my parents, but the wings are new. What?” He then asks, seeing a curious look on Midoriya’s face.

“One of my companions went through something similar, but they were turned into a half-fox instead.” Izuku replies. “Whatever happened to us seems to have… translated us to better fit the world, by converting our quirks to magic and sometimes altering our bodies to a more fitting species.”

“I see.” Tokoyami, once again, approaches the new information with respectable stoicism. “It seems that you know a lot that I don’t. I look forward to learning more from you. You’re moving to Blackwater Forest to avoid the Murder of Crows, am I correct?”

“... avoid what ?” Izuku asks. It’s the first time he ever heard that name. Except… wait a second. “You mean the thing that’s going to wake up in the middle of the Meadow in some unspecified near future?”

“Yes.” Tokoyami replies while nodding. “I have a bit better intel on it, thanks to my quirk. I know its name, and that it’s scheduled to free itself in about three days. I was actually planning to admit my defeat against Arshka and leave the Meadow tomorrow. Though with you around, we might have a chance against her after all.”

Three days… wasn’t a lot. It seems that their escape from the Black Feather Meadow was going to be much narrower than Izuku was comfortable with. And that while their training sessions were an understandable necessity, they almost cost them too much time.

“You should certainly tell us all you know, as soon as possible.” Izuku replies. This sounds like an extremely useful intel to have. “Where’s the closest Altar of Egress?”

“Here.” Tokoyami replies. “In that church-like building in the courtyard. I’ve been using it at night, when Arshka’s line of sight is reduced and there is no risk of getting instantly impaled to death by one of her javelins when I step out of it. I strongly suggest waiting outside the Redoubt’s walls until nightfall before moving there.”

“That sounds like a good idea.” Izuku decides. He is actually rather surprised by the fact that Yoichi wasn’t advising him constantly. “We’ll need to learn each other’s moveset before attacking Arshka, that’s for sure.”

Tokoyami nods.

“I’ll carry you up one by one if needed.” Tokoyami replies. “Let me leave first, I’ll make sure that Arshka’s not there.”

That sounds like a good idea.

***

Once Izuku announces that everything’s alright up there with a thumbs-up gesture over the edge of the wall. Uraraka lets out a loud sigh of relief. After it occurs to her that she was now alone with a suspected serial killer.

Ugh.

Toga decided to lean back on the wall, playing around with her knife. That made Uraraka feel vaguely threatened if she’s to be honest.

“You don’t seem to be very worried about him.” Uraraka says to her. Toga shrugs in response.

“Hey, I’m sure he can deal with whatever’s up there.” Toga then adds while finally putting her knife away. “I’d rather take the occasion to have a girl talk with you, you know?”

“Well, I don’t want a girl talk.” Uraraka replies, prompting Toga to look at her… strangely. The fact that Uraraka seemed to have hurt the feelings of a villain (and felt actually bad about this) was confusing to her. “Look, it’s not about you, okay? I don’t want the unnecessary distractions. My primary goal is to become a pro-hero, as soon as possible. My secondary goal is to find a way back from this world so that I can resume pursuing my primary goal.”

“How’s an innocent talk a distraction, though?” Toga says, tilting her head to the side.

“We both know that it’s not an innocent talk.” Uraraka replies dryly. “Deku-kun is my friend. Whatever you’re imagining is not there. I have a goal I’m going to pursue with all my might and that’s all that’s on my mind. Nothing else matters.”

“Sounds boring.” Toga replies. “Why is becoming a hero so important to you? Heroes are boring too.” Uraraka dares to disagree. And she thinks that so would Izuku if he was there to hear it.

“I want to help support my parents, so that they stop overworking themselves and will be able to retire.” Uraraka replies, Toga giving her a really confused look. “My parents’ company isn’t doing very well. It puts the food on the table, but it’s a lot of work with its ups and downs. I wanted to become a pro-hero like Thirteen as a child, then when they had a series of downs I wanted to abandon my dream, get a quirk usage license and help them with their company. But they said no.”

“Huh?” Toga blinks at her in clear surprise. “Why?” Looks like it’s the next installment of Toga having bad mental connections when parenthood is involved. Uraraka should have expected that.

“Because it wasn’t what I wanted to be.” Uraraka replies. “Because they wanted me to realize my dreams. And I decided to try to kill two birds with one stone, and become the best hero I can be and help them through that. To pay them back for supporting me.”

“Huh.” Toga lets out while looking down. “So I guess there are parents like this out there. You got lucky.”

“I did, yeah.” Uraraka nods, smiling at her memories of her parents. “Don’t get me wrong, but… your parents must have been dicks.”

Toga’s eyes jumped back at her. For a second, Uraraka is frightened, but… when their eyes meet, she sees a happy grin on Toga’s face.

“I knew that I had a good feeling about you for a reason!” Toga says, the smile still there. “Yeah, my parents were dicks, so I prefer to ignore the fact that they exist. Yours sound pretty cool! Then again, there’s a difference between a career choice and drinking blood.”

“Toga, drinking blood isn’t wrong.” Uraraka replies immediately. Yes, she’s supposed to try to… butter up to her, but for now, she isn’t lying. She got a gravity quirk and ended up loving astronomy and similar topics. Toga had a blood quirk… and ended up loving blood. Wasn’t it natural? Wasn’t the fact that denying it all led to tragedy almost natural ? “It’s like fighting. You can fight for a living, like professional boxers and so on. You can fight to protect others. You can fight to harm the innocents. It’s three completely different things, and only one of them is wrong.”

“And…” Toga says, squinting at Uraraka. “What if I killed people because I wanted to experience their blood, despite not having to survive?”

And that… was the hardest moment of the talk. How to reply without starting the fight? How to reply without lying, as if Toga outed the lie later on it could ruin everything ? How to reply without saying something that would weigh on her conscience?

Also, for some reason, she thinks that going the ‘you were insane, it wasn’t you who did that’ route would just start the fight. Wasn’t that what her parents must have been saying to her when they were suppressing her quirk and her real self?

“I don’t know.” Uraraka replies. “I don’t have the context. I’m not going to insult you by making uninformed judgments. I get the feeling that you had enough of them in the past. So, I’m going to develop an opinion of you based on how you act in front of me. And thus far, you’re slightly annoying with your teasing and outfit, but you’re clearly the one that’s managing to stay cheerful and optimistic despite the sort of a world we’ve landed in, and I do find that impressive.”

“Hey, you’re honest.” Toga grins. “I can respect that. As for the cheerful and optimistic bit, let me put it that way: what’s the worst that can happen to me? The only thing I can be scared of is dying and having my soul crystal lost somewhere for who knows how long. Otherwise?”

She sneers loudly. That… actually feels kind of out of place on her face. Huh.

“I have nothing to lose.” Toga continues speaking while looking away from Uraraka. “I don’t really own anything aside from what I have on my back. You two are the first people that know the real me and are still willing to spend time around me, and even that’s after moving here changed me. If I just die, everyone I ever knew will be happy to see me gone.”

“W-well…” Uraraka scratches the side of her head nervously. “I wouldn’t be happy if something bad happened to you, though?”

Toga stares back at her, expressionlessly. It’s as if she was… so shocked that she didn’t even know to express it? As if the idea that someone actually cared for her well-being after meeting her real self was completely alien to her?

It was… one of the saddest and most existentially painful things that Uraraka Ochako saw in her life.

***

“A-am I interrupting something?” Izuku asks as he stands up from the ground to see Uraraka and Toga being clearly startled by his sudden landing right next to them. Despite that, he could swear that the atmosphere was weird even before his landing.

It’s as if he picked a bad moment to show up.

“N-no, you didn’t.” Uraraka replies quickly. “What happened? Why didn’t you open the gates?”

“You absolutely did interrupt something.” Yoichi assesses the situation immediately and provides his very welcomed commentary. “Trust my plentiful experience in playing dating sims. It was a serious emotional moment and if you don’t make a move soon, Toga might end up stealing your girl.”

Izuku blushes slightly at the mind images and vows to continue ignoring Yoichi even more.

“The gates are busted, but I think I found an unorthodox way in.” Izuku replies. “And, well, maybe a new party member? Tokoyami-san, come down here.”

Tokoyami lands gracefully a few meters away from him, the wings curling around him before they spread around, uncovering the man behind them.

“... he trained that landing for dramatic purposes, didn’t he?” Yoichi comments from the depths of One for All.

“Welcome.” Tokoyami then says towards the startled girls. “I’m Fumikage Tokoyami, a man shrouded in d…” His eyes then lock onto Toga - or, to be more precise, onto her outfit - making him go quiet immediately. Before his head turns towards Midoriya.

Even with his face being that of a raven, Izuku can still read the unspoken ‘are you seriously into this?’ written on his face. So, he does what he does best (if you exclude ignoring Yoichi). Namely, he freaks out.

“I-It’s for the set bonuses, I swear!” Izuku stammers out while waving his hands awkwardly in front of him. “They fit her character build perfectly! And she’s the one who wanted to wear it!”

“Izu speaks the truth!” Toga replies with her characteristic grin on her face. “He’s the most G-rated boy his age I ever heard of. He could tell me that he has never seen anything 18+ and I’d actually believe him, you know?”

“And I…” Yoichi says dryly, drawing the letters. “... wouldn’t.” That, somehow, manages to make Izuku freak out even more.

“I see.” Tokoyami decides to believe the words and roll with this. “I am another member of the UA class 1-A that was somehow transported into this foreign world. I was observing Arshka while learning her behavior and looking for weaknesses for about a week. After seeing Midoriya- kun …” He says, stressing the suffix. Looks like being referred to as Tokoyami-san was going too far. “… I took him for a native and wanted to warn him about the danger, only to discover a fellow spirit from my home dimension.”

“Oh, cool!” Uraraka suddenly cheers up. “That’s bonus intel that we didn’t expect to have before fighting Arshka, right? Also, nice to meet you, Tokoyami-kun! I’m Uraraka Ochako. Looking forward to studying with you!”

Tokoyami does a light bow before glancing at Toga.

“Himiko Toga.” She replies with a grin on her face. “Nice to meet’cha. Not a hero student, and I have no idea what I’m actually doing here, but hey! I’ve at least met some nice people, so it’s a plus.”

Tokoyami does a light bow again. Someone’s a very courteous raven-man.

“I technically come in a package with another person.” Tokoyami then says. “They used to be my quirk, now that we’re here they are something else . “If we’re going to open up to each other, I believe it might be wise to play open cards. Except, how should I put it…” He stays quiet for a moment, clearly looking for the right word. “... they can be a bit scary.”

The three of them look at each other, before Izuku decides to voice their common opinion on the subject.

“We’ve faced a lot of scary things by now.” Izuku says. He still remembers the Sludge Villain, although to be frank Grinsh might have pushed him out of the first place on his personal trauma list. “I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

“Famous. Last. Words.” Yoichi comments dryly. “I’m going to hide in my pillow fort in the distant corner of your mind, Ninth, give me a call when you want something.”

“Very well.” Tokoyami replies. “Just remember that I warned you beforehand. Dark Shadow, I summon thee.”

For the first three seconds after his words, nothing happens, although Izuku could see something dark materializing behind Tokoyami’s back from his position.

Then they could two hands - small and pale - emerge from behind Tokoyami, one of them thrown around his right shoulder while the other wraps around his upper body from the left side… before the face shows up over his left shoulder.

Izuku considers it a great success of his party that no one screamed, although Uraraka took a step back in shock and almost tripped over her own legs. Hell, even Toga looked freaked out by the sight.

The face that emerges there is a stuff of nightmares.

Messy pitch-black hair, sickeningly pale skin, a pair of impossibly small eyes that looked more like black, round dots on the girl’s face where eyes should be, a complete lack of nose… and an inhumanly wide mouth, filled with needle-like teeth.

“Oh.” Yoichi interrupts the silence, like he tends to do most of the time. “So that’s what happened to my sleep paralysis demon after I died. Nice to know they’re doing fine.”

“FuUuumiii i …” The girl says, drawing the word. Surprisingly enough, a third-hand shows up briefly to caress the top of Tokoyami’s head. “WhO arE they? WhY d!d y0U c@LL Me?” The words are… wrongly accented most of the time, some of the letters sounding downright inhuman, which is really strengthening the utter weirdness factor.

“New allies.” Fumikage replies. “Turns out that I’m not the only one to be isekaid into this world. Two of them are our classmates, and the third one doesn't know why they’re here.“

“i SeeEe…” Dark Shadow (if that was their name) replies. “ple@Sure to meet you, be nice to Fumi… or else.”

Somehow, the last word manages to sound incredibly threatening.

“You probably want an explanation, am I right?” Tokoyami appears to have expected that. In his eyes, it was probably the best outcome of introducing Dark Shadow to people. It’s certainly better than an immediate murder attempt.

When Izuku nods (his eyes still on the Dark Shadow), Tokoyami starts providing the explanation..

“Dark Shadow used to be a sapient quirk, one formed out of my shadow.” Tokoyami says. “It could reshape itself however it wanted, was a solid matter, grew stronger but less controllable in the darkness. After moving here, they… changed.”

“For the better.” Dark Shadow says before purring loudly. They sound happy and content. Like everything else in them, it sounds wrong.

“Apparently, this world has demons .” Tokoyami continues before sighing painfully. “And a literal hell dimension where they reside most of the time. For reasons I don’t understand, Dark Shadow is now a demon with a power over shadows and a contract with me that lets me borrow their power. For a price.”

“A p-price?” Izuku stammers out nervously. “What p-price?”

“Apples!” Dark Shadow lets out in its absolutely inhuman voice. “We^re yeT t0 Flnd @ny in this world sO Fumi’s In the red right now.”

… that somehow really stole all the tension from the scene, at least in Izuku’s eyes. Judging from the looks on Uraraka and Toga’s faces that he glanced at quickly, he isn’t the only one.

“Oh, wow, I didn’t recognize him at first, but it has to be Ryuk.” Yoichi comments. “I’d say it’s a glow-up but they’re more, errr, vaguely girlish now? So more of a twink Ryuk? God, no one has ever said those words before and I hope no one will say them in the future.”

Izuku, naturally, ignores the words he doesn’t understand, which makes Yoichi’s interjection read to him as a Swiss cheese.

“It’s a bit of a special deal, just for me.” Tokoyami replies quickly. “Demons are… well, demonic.Really, really evil. Dark Shadow’s something of an exception, but I’m fairly sure it’s only because it’s me. It… well, she is also siphoning a fifth of the character-level points that I gather to slowly grow in strength. It’s apparently how demons grow in power in general.”

“@nd L get to heaR a!l the fun gossip while in that dimension!” Dark Shadow adds, sounding genuinely proud of that. Tokoyami nods.

“That too.” He then says. “It’s how I found out about the estimated time of the ‘Murder of Crows’ waking up. It’s apparently an archdemon, sealed here in times immemorial. Also, before you ask, all demons have such a descriptive name and their common feature is… well, utterly terrifying faces and voices. For some reason.”

Silence in the area. Tokoyami is clearly uncomfortable by it, but decides to steel on and continue.

“So, I believe we should start planning how we’re going to deal with Arshka.” He then says. “We should probably start by introducing our skills and attributes to each o…”

“Arshka?” Dark Shadow notices that part and glances at Fumikage. “VVe’re gOinG to kill hEr? TeLl me We will! I wonder hoW her soul tastes. It has to be delicious.”

… is it alright for Izuku to have slight doubts over his new party composition?

Chapter 11: Upper Stoneverge Redoubt

Chapter Text

“Dark Shadow, behave.” Fumikage shoots back, prompting his demon to stare at him for a few seconds, before clearly deciding not to have a fight with him. The fact that he can actually make such a horrifying entity behave is… surprising. “So, combat planning?”

“Errr, yes.” Izuku wakes up from the shock. Tokoyami glances at Dark Shadow’s face before pointing to the grass right next to him. Dark Shadow takes that for an order and promptly relocates there.

They look surprisingly human-like, aside from the face. The rest of their body looks like a thin-limbed, pale-skinned girl wearing a simple, white dress.

She sat there, where Tokoyami told her to, and was busy observing them and listening to the talk. Their presence there was totally not ominous, worrying or distracting.

“So, what are your stats and abilities?” Izuku decides to proceed with planning the battle ahead while ignoring the horrifying visage of the demon sitting beside Tokoyami.

“Level nine.” Tokoyami replies. “Strength 8, Dexterity 8, Endurance 9, Willpower 14, Intelligence 11, and Faith 18.”

“Faith slash Willpower built?” Yoichi comments from the background. “That’s a new one.”

“Your skills scale of those two attributes, right?” Izuku asks. Tokoyami nods. It made sense, but Izuku decided to confirm it just in case.

“I only have two skills.” Tokoyami then decides to clarify it further. “First one is Demon Summoning, which allows me to call upon Dark Shadow to manifest in this dimension. It only costs me ten focus to do it, and I pay no maintenance fee for their presence here, however, there is a problem. While in our realm, Dark Shadow casts their magic from my mana pool.”

“So you’re basically a summoner?” Uraraka asks. Tokoyami shakes his head.

“Not quite.” He then replies. “There is a second ability, called Demon Possession. It allows me to call upon Dark Shadow to merge with me, improving my strength and endurance. In this state, Dark Shadow cannot use their magic, instead, my Endurance is set up to equal my Faith while my Strength equals my Willpower.”

“So… it makes you into a powerful melee fighter for some time?” Izuku asks. Tokoyami nods. “That’s just what we needed, as we’re lacking a party member that could serve as a tank!”

“I believe that I should be able to fulfill that role adequately.” Tokoyami replies. “For as long as it’s not a long engagement. With the current size of my Focus pool, I can maintain the Possession for only about two minutes.”

That… sounded pretty bad, Izuku decides. However, before he can say it, Yoichi decides to comment.

“Most soulslike fights aren’t much longer than that.” Yoichi says. “Remember how long our previous fights were? We’re much more squishy than our enemies, we can’t survive a prolonged fight against a boss. Trust me when I’m saying that Tokoyami will be extremely useful.”

Oh. Well, that makes sense to Izuku now.

“You’ll be our party’s tank, then.” Izuku decides. “What magic can Dark Shadow use?”

Dark Shadow opens her mouth but Tokoyami gestures at them to stop. Yeah, no one in the party wants to hear that voice again.

“Some relatively basic magic of shadows.” Tokoyami replies. “One spell to launch small projectiles made from hardened shadows, one that allows Dark Shadow to hide in a naturally cast shadow to avoid damage and perhaps surprise someone by jumping out of it, and one that lets them shapeshift into someone else, except… the facial features stay the same.”

“That… sounds like a big problem.” Toga says before Izuku can do it. When Izuku glances at her. “Hey, I have an expertise in shapeshifting! That’s my department. And this sounds like a good thing for jumpscares but not for getting somewhere you’re not supposed to be. Although you can still do a lot if the target wears a mask, usually. Or when they don’t have to look in the enemy’s direction. Does she copy clothes too?”

“Yes.” Tokoyami replies while nodding. “I must admit that I’ve discarded the usefulness of that ability completely, without considering all the options that you’ve just mentioned. I acknowledge your expertise in the field of deception. If you have any suggestions for how to better apply Dark Shadow’s skills in the future, don’t forget to share them with us.”

“Eh?” Toga gives him a strange look. “Are you guys sure you’re the hero types here? First, you accept me into your party, then you’re alright with me taking Aelie’s soul, then the beaky boy is like ‘teach me to how to trick people’?”

Tokoyami gives Midoriya a worried look. He didn’t get the memo about what Toga’s backstory was, but it was clear that what he just heard left him significantly worried .

“V-villains aren’t the only ones that get to trick people.” Midoriya has no idea how to explain the situation to Tokoyami in a way that convinces him… without alienating Toga to the point of leaving the group. “Heroes are legally allowed to trick people, for as long as those people are villains.”

“Oh.” Toga tilts her head before giving him a strange look. “Someone should have told me that earlier. If I knew that I could be myself there, I might have gone to a hero school instead.”

On one hand, Izuku genuinely thinks that her quirk could be extremely useful in underground heroics. On the other hand, Toga needed lengthy therapy to count as a functional member of society - without even mentioning the option of becoming a hero.

“Y-yeah, I guess.” Izuku replies nervously, before glancing at Tokoyami. “It’s complicated . Don’t worry about it, Toga just had really bad luck when it comes to her parents.”

He says that while doing his absolute best to tell Tokoyami that he’ll explain the whole thing while Toga isn’t there… with nothing but the stare.

“I see.” Tokoyami replies dryly. Izuku isn’t sure if the message went through. “I think that it’s time for you to introduce yourselves.”

***

That segment of the talk doesn’t last for long. In this world explaining what you’re capable of - in detail - is a matter of listing your level, attributes, skills, and equipment. It really simplifies everything.

Tokoyami listens patiently to their introduction. Dark Shadow is just observing them, although it’s clear to Izuku that the demon is slowly growing bored. Yet, she doesn’t say anything. Instead, she glances at Tokoyami at some point and pantomimes a loud yawn, only for Tokoyami to shake his head and continue on with the talk.

It seems that despite the demon’s horrifying appearance, Tokoyami was the one pulling the strings in that relationship. Izuku couldn’t help but be curious as to whether that was the thing with most demon summoners out there.

“It does appear to be a balanced party.” Tokoyami admits when they’re done with it. “A damage dealer, a mage that can both attack the enemies and assist their allies, a rogue with a bleed-focused build, and now a tank. It’s a shame that we won’t get a lot of time to practice fighting together before challenging Arshka, though.”

“Is she that dangerous?” Izuku asks. Sure, they didn’t get much intel out of Lena, and she was just a single knight, but… Arshka did end the fight that created the graveyard that the Stoneverge Redoubt was today.

Izuku, to be honest, simply had no idea what was the local definition of ‘something powerful’. In his world, thanks to his fanboying over the heroes, he would have at least some framework to follow.

“Yes.” Tokoyami replies. “She hits hard, moves fast, is clad in heavy armor and her moveset is completely unpredictable. I believe that she’s our first Hod-level enemy. And, while I don’t think that anyone here will understand it aside from Shigaraki-san, I don’t think that Malkuth-level Vessels count as bosses . If we were to compare them to elements of classic soulslike games, they would be the equivalent of NPC Invaders or minibosses.”

“Makes sense.” Yoichi comments. “There are 11 ranks in total, doesn’t that feel odd? It’s usually 1-10 if you start grading entities by numbers. Vedrick and Aelie were a duo of minibosses, while Grinsh was our only real boss thus far.”

Izuku relays the response. He can see the worried look on Uraraka’s face when that’s mentioned. She saw how powerful Grinsh was. He killed her, after all. And she has a very bad memory of that.

“You’ve seen her fight the Malkuths you’ve dragged in, yes?” Uraraka then asks. “What exactly can we expect?”

“Once again, this is hard to describe to someone without any experience with such games.” Tokoyami replies. “If I were to compare her moveset to something, it’d be the Dancer of the Boreal Valley from Dark Souls III and the Bloodhound Knight from Elden Ring.” Izuku doesn’t like the ‘ ouch ’ he hears from Yoichi. “Her attacks are erratic, her movements often animalistic. She regularly goes down to all fours, which makes her faster , not slower. The only weakness I noticed is that when in this state she has problems with turning, but she more than makes up for it in how destructive her forward charges are. Her helmet also seems to have fused with her body in a very particular way, one that allows her to bite her enemies, and trust me when I say that the damage she can deal with that attack is immense .”

“If she’s on all fours, how does she throw javelins at people?” Izuku asks. He failed to see how it could work.

“She switches from four to two legs and vice versa, depending on the mood and on what the fight demands.” Tokoyami replies. “While in her more bestial stance, her combat style is focused on charges, body tackles, and biting, while she can also do some grapples. While standing upright she will grab any weapon nearby and use it proficiently, but expect her to ignore defense completely. I’ve also seen her mix both stances and walk on all fours with a sword hilt in her mouth, or walk on three limbs and keep the sword with the fourth, but I think that it decreases the damage she does due to the messy stance.”

“... I would compare it to Sif too.” Yoichi comments. “Really annoying to deal with, isn’t she?”

“That’s true.” Tokoyami replies when Izuku relays the message. “In both cases, Malkuths managed to get a lot of hits in before being completely destroyed, thanks to how aggressive she is, but with Arshka’s armor the damage was comparatively small.”

“Any weaknesses?” Izuku asks.

“I think that the second Malkuth managed to damage a part of her armor.” Tokoyami replies. “Right shoulder and right side of the neck, he seemed to have a thing for decapitating his victims but failed to get through the armor before Arshka tore his own head off. It was still there the last time I saw it, but it was severely damaged and will likely break off completely after a solid hit or two.”

“That sounds doable.” Yoichi comments. “Detroit Slash or two, then we get Toga to perform a Lacerating Blow on her neck before worsening the bleeding with Exsanguinate and try to survive until the bleeding gets to her.”

“That was my initial plan after hearing of Toga-san’s skills, yes.” Tokoyami replies. Looks like Yoichi isn’t the only genre-savvy tactician they have in their party now.

“Toga- chan !” Toga cuts in. “It’s not cute otherwise!” Tokoyami gives her a weird look. “Look, I’m all for making Arshka bleed, but if she is as strong and fast as she appears to be from your description, it all depends on whether you’ll be able to keep her pinned for at least a moment. And you should probably get a plan B while at it.”

“That would probably be to try to exploit the gaping weakness in her armor for a decapitation strike.” Tokoyami replies. “If she keeps being as aggressive as she is now after being exposed like that, it should be doable. However the bleeding should be the first choice of action as Toga- san is faster than anyone else here.”

“That covers the ‘how’.” Uraraka replies, taking advantage of Toga sulking over the ‘san’ while Izuku was clearly consulting Yoichi about something. “What about ‘where’? If the keep has a lot of narrow corridors, trying to fight her there sounds like suicide to me. She would just charge through us.”

“Yes.” Tokoyami replies. “I fear that too. My present plan includes using the external wooden staircase at the side of the keep that lets you go from the walls surrounding it to the top of it and engage Arshka on the keep’s rooftop. Giving us enough space to maneuver around her.”

“I don’t think this is wise.” Uraraka replies. “I don’t know a lot about her ‘moveset’ or other gaming things, but my family has a construction company. I’ve seen how destructive Grinsh’s attacks were. I wouldn’t trust any ‘external wooden staircase’ to not get instantly destroyed by Arshka if we time it badly and she ends up detecting us on the way up. And then we’ll be easy pickings while trying to crawl out of the pile of debris.”

“Oh.” Tokoyami stares at her for a few seconds. “That didn’t cross my mind. She usually shows up on the rooftop every half an hour to an hour or so, which is enough time to climb up, but with how erratic her movements are, we can’t be certain that she won’t show up there ahead of schedule.”

“If it’s a keep, shouldn’t the entrance lead to some sort of meeting hall?” Uraraka then asks. “I think I’ve seen a documentary about castle architecture. If the lord lived in the keep, they probably needed a space to welcome guests in, right? It should be open enough.”

“I think so.” Tokoyami replies. “I’ve seen something looking like it through the keep’s entrance doors the one time I decided to investigate a bit closer. Anyone have any better ideas?”

No one has, not even Izuku. Uraraka’s architecture expertise turned out to be useful at the strangest of times.

“Then I guess we’re going to face Arshka in the keep’s meeting hall.” Izuku concludes that part of the decision. “That covers ‘how’ and ‘where’. What about ‘when’?”

“We should wait until nightfall, then proceed to the temple’s Altar of Egress.” Tokoyami replies. “I’ll carry you all up the walls one by one. We wait there until it’s close to daytime, then approach the keep and enter right after dawn. That’s my suggestion.”

“You… don’t want to fight them at night?” Izuku is actually surprised by it. “I, errr, figured out that it’s your favorite time of the day, and…”

“It is.” Tokoyami replies. He doesn’t seem insulted by Midoriya’s words. Thankfully. “However, the first of the Malkuths fought her at night. I think that while her eyesight is limited by low lighting level, it’s either to a lesser degree than ours or she has some sixth sense that works at least at a shorter range. I want to use the dark to approach the keep while avoiding her javelin throws, before fighting her once the day starts, as at that stage the darkness will disadvantage us rather than her.”

Ah. That makes sense.

“That sounds like a solid plan.” Yoichi comments. “I have just one question to him: Did the Malkuth’s bodies disappear when they died or not?”

“Eh?” Izuku lets out while looking to the side, Tokoyami giving him an odd look. “What do you mean by that?”

“Just ask him.” Yoichi replies impatiently. “You’ll know in a while.”

Huh.

“No, they didn’t.” Tokoyami replies when Izuku does as instructed. “Why do you ask?” Izuku would like to know himself.

“How curious.” Yoichi replies. Izuku is still confused. “Vedrick, Aelie, and Grinsh all died while leaving behind their physical bodies that we could loot. Uraraka and you, however, were ‘saved’ into the soul crystal together with your equipment. I find that odd.”

Oh, and now Izuku understands it. He quickly relays the words to Tokoyami.

“I see.” Tokoyami replies scarcely. “I’m yet to see a fellow Earthling die, so I’m going to take your word for it. Dark Shadow is yet to die too, but she does claim that when demons die after being summoned here, they return to Hell, but when they die in Hell, they leave behind a soul crystal without leaving the physical body down either. Similar situation with elementals and angels, who are supposedly seen as ‘spiritual’ beings projecting themselves into the Material Plane rather than the usual physical entities.”

“Eh?” Izuku blinks at Tokoyami. “So what, are we not here physically ?”

“Hard to say.” Tokoyami replies while shrugging. “Us dying and leaving behind crystals while dying here would imply that we are spiritual beings native to this world, which makes no sense. This means that we cannot be looted traditionally, but…” He glances at the Dark Shadow.

“When dEmons die anD Le@ve s0ul cRystals behind, whoevers eats their souls vvill inherit some oF their things!” Dark Shadow says. “theY @re part of them, AfTeR aii.”

“Looks like we don’t have to worry about losing our stuff, because when we lose them, we won’t have to be worried about anything ever again.” Yoichi comments. “How reassuring.” Izuku doesn’t like thinking about it.

“Well, just what she said.” Tokoyami says, Izuku decided not to share Yoichi’s words for once. “Now that I think about it, do you know what happens when you resurrect the native inhabitant after their physical bodies are looted?”

“HnnM, n0?” Dark Shadow replies. “i cOUld Go bACk to Hell and ask someone ther e.”

“Wouldn’t they, errr, is that safe for you?” Izuku asks. He isn’t sure if worrying about a literal demon is a heroic thing to do (he feels like it’s going a bit too far), but… it’s Tokoyami’s demon, right?

“Yeah.” Dark Shadow replies, sounding almost… cheerful? “TherE are rules in Hell! If the archdemons were allovved tO freely prey oN the neWborn demons, Hell wouldn’t l@st f0r long and the demon lord doesn’t want that to happen. I’nn in a bit of A demonic nurserY hoMe, the stronger ones can’t hurt me and I can grow freely before swearing fealty to one of the big ones.”

“... I’m having traumatic flashbacks each time the ‘demon lord’ term is mentioned.” Yoichi comments dryly. “Even when it’s me saying those terms, ugh. It’s not super important right now, so let her ask the question next time she’s in Hell, but without going there just to ask them.”

“AlR i ghT!” Dark Shadow replies cheerfully (this time Izuku is sure of it) when he relays the words.

“I think that before the night falls, you should show me your skills, and vice versa too.” Tokoyami then says. “Engaging Arshka with only theoretical knowledge of what the others can do sounds like a suicide.”

That was an extremely fair point.

***

Once the darkness falls, they begin their journey. The first step is the Altar of Egress in the Stoneverge Redoubt, both to get a potential resurrection point prepped up and to get some important information that Yoichi demanded to know.

Such as whether the item stash was shared between Altars. And he also wanted to make both sides more trusting of each other just in case, so he suggested getting everyone to read each other’s statuses on the Altar.

The journey starts with Izuku jumping up the wall again (it’s surprisingly easy to invade a castle as a Vessel for as long as nothing is guarding the walls and tries to stab you in the process) and checking if the coast is clear. Once he does it, Tokoyami lifts Uraraka and Toga up the wall with his wings.

It leads to some funny moments when it’s Toga’s time, as Tokoyami struggled to find a way to hold Toga without making it indecent (or making him feel as if it was indecent). It was a tough battle to fight.

Toga was clearly enjoying every second of it and almost caused a crash when she tried to struggle a bit midflight.

“T-that was… kind of shaky.” Uraraka says once she lands on the wall. Tokoyami gives a questioning look. “I don’t remember it looking that way in the anime I’ve seen. And Hawks flies differently.”

“Hawks wings provide him with the ability to levitate.” Tokoyami replies. “He doesn’t have to make them move to fly, so he can easily just hang up in the air. Most birds don’t freeze mid-air, they just use their wings to move from one place to another. I do the flight, I don’t do levitation… yet .”

“Oh, yeah.” Yoichi says. “You’re going to love Seventh’s quirk, Ninth. When you awaken it, you’re going to develop the ability to fly freely. Super cool, right? Really useful when you want to flex your high ground on the enemies by standing midair in front of them.”

Honestly, yeah. But he doesn’t want to mention that fact in front of Tokoyami, who clearly feels bad about not being able to intimidatingly levitate in front of your enemies.

“Why do I have the feeling…” He says instead. “... that your brother could do it too?”

“Of course he did.” Yoichi sneers derisively. “If there was ever a ‘Being the BBEG For Dummies’ book, he probably considered it his Torah, Bible, Quran, or whatever Holy Text of choice you got. The Air Walk quirk let him do that whenever he wanted to stand mid-air and flex his own height difference on his enemies. Seeing All Might throw a truck in his face when he tried that on him has made my unlife absolutely worth living, Ninth.” He chuckles. “And don’t get me started on his fashion sense .”

Izuku doesn’t feel competent enough to talk about anyone’s fashion sense, as his own was apparently considered by society to be very, very bad (he dares to disagree, but…). So he decides to ignore the talk completely.

“Let’s head to the temple before Arshka spots us.” Izuku says, ignoring the questioning looks the others gave him.

***

The fortress gets significantly creepier at night, especially with the sheer amount of corpses scattered around and the versatility of the ways in which they died. Sure, the bodies managed to decompose enough for the smell to be almost gone, but…

It’s terrifying.

Even Toga feels uncomfortable with at least some of the bodies around there. The battle here was violent. And it almost seemed… personal ? There was either a lot of hatred there, or the local combat style was just that gratuitous.

Izuku fails to explain certain deaths otherwise, especially that one guy impaled on the statue.

The temple is a bit bigger than the one in Firet, but not much bigger. The architecture is familiar. There are a few corpses scattered throughout it, the attackers clearly not caring for the temple’s status as a religious establishment.

The Altar is there.

ALTAR OF EGRESS UNLOCKED!

Upper Stoneverge Redoubt

Status Window

Equipment

Skill Attunement

Fast Travel

Soul Crystals

Izuku quickly checks Fast Travel. Rather than just a list of locations he visited thus far, he finds a map . A very basic one.

He gets to see the Black Feather Meadow’s shape, 90% of it is however completely empty. Just a blank page. He didn’t visit it, after all, nor did he see it.

Instead, he sees the remaining 10% of the region in the lower-left corner of it, with three icons scattered throughout it. One of them resembled a house, another an entrance to the mine, and another was pretty much a small castle.

When he focused on them, he could see their names appear next to the icons, and a summary displayed on the right side of his screen. Village of Firet (Malkuth, cleared), Whispering Mine (Yesod, cleared), and Stoneverge Redoubt (Yesod). There was a space under the description to put your own notes into it.

When he looked into it closer, he could see small dots in the color of the Altars of Egress in both the Village of Firet and the Stoneverge Redoubt. Huh.

“That will be useful.” Yoichi comments. “You should have Tokoyami check his own map now to see if it is updated now that he saw your own version of it.”

It turns out that yes, Tokoyami’s map now included the region that Midoriya discovered, including the location data. However, the Village of Firet’s Altar of Egress didn’t display, implying that he had to visit it to unlock it.

His own map mostly included the area surrounding the Stoneverge Redoubt. No marking for the outlaw camp he destroyed by luring their bosses into Arshka, but it was probably a too temporary thing to get displayed.

It was, after all, a camp . And there was no Altar of Egress there.

Izuku also quickly confirms that, regretfully speaking, the storage space isn’t shared between Altars. This somewhat makes sense, as otherwise (as Yoichi says) the Vessels would completely replace the local merchant caste, dominating the logistics of this world while making all other forms of it completely redundant.

Still, regretful.

They quickly check their statuses and then wait. With their focus and vigor full, they’re ready to face Arshka by the time the night approaches its end.

Chapter 12: Rage Knight Arshka [Boss Fight, part 1]

Chapter Text

The first part of the plan went well.

The party left the temple soon before the first light of the day. They approached the keep entrance cautiously, making sure that Arshka wouldn’t surprise them by sniping them with javelins from the top of it.

The first obstacle to get through was the inner wall of the Stoneverge Redoubt. A higher section of walls surrounding the keep, giving the defenders a place to retreat to after the external walls were breached by the attackers.

It was made to delay the fall of the fortress, to bleed the attackers some more before locking yourself down in the keep and preparing for the last stand there.

The walls are tall and thick, decorated with an array of vertical spikes, some of them decorated with tattered banners, a few with almost completely decayed heads. Probably captured outlaws, displayed there for intimidation. Never taken off because of the fortress’ fall.

The spikes are rather intimidatingly tall and made from metal. Really helps the aesthetics.

There is another, smaller gatehouse in those walls. The gates aren’t closed, but it doesn’t exactly make them passable. The slip in the door is narrow, and the hinges are jammed. They end up having to enter it one by one, sidestepping through it cautiously.

“Arshka visits the lower castle, right?” Izuku asks Tokoyami as the raven boy emerges from the crack after him. He nods. “How? The entrance’s too thin for her.“

“She jumps up the wall.” Tokoyami replies. “She could easily leave the fortress, but something’s keeping her inside. Dark Shadow suggested that when the chaosflame overtook her, she mentally locked into a warped version of her last mindset. Since it all happened while she was defending the fortress from attack, she still does it.”

Make sense. Whoever damaged the external gates of the fortress either didn’t know how Arshka worked exactly, didn’t want to risk it, or did it to make sure that no non-Vessels would try to enter the fortress just to get murdered by the enraged knight prowling the area.

There’s no inner courtyard to the castle, at least not up front. They can see the short stairs up to the keep’s entrance three meters in front of them. There is a flagstone road going left and right, along the walls. If Izuku can see it right, there is a smaller building to the left, next to the keep, which might be the castle’s granary.

Maybe.

Izuku isn’t exactly an expert of medieval architecture. He never expected that to be useful to him in his heroics career.

Uraraka gets past the damaged gate. She was the last one. The entire party is there, and unlike the inner walls, the entrance is open.

“Alright.” Izuku decides to say it. “Everyone ready? Anyone have anything to say?”

“Let’s get on with it.” Uraraka says. She looks… strangely pumped up about it. For a girl that wants to become a rescue hero, Uraraka was in possession of a surprising amount of bloodthirst and sheer… determination to destroy her enemies? “Time to defeat Arshka, get out of the Meadow and then focus on finding a way back home!”

Oh, so that ’s what makes her so determined. Yeah, Izuku can relate. His mother must be beside herself with worry!

“It’s time to put a valiant knight’s soul to a well-deserved rest.” Tokoyami says solemnly. “A truly heroic task, and a great start for our future career as pro-heroes.”

Toga glances at Tokoyami, before shaking her head.

“I feel like it’s going to make me stand out after that emotional moment, but I’m here just to spill blood and have fun.” She then says. “But, you know, I’m with you. Let’s go get her!”

There is a bit of an awkward silence after it, as her three companions exchange glances. Toga is clearly about to ask, but Tokoyami ends up speaking first.

“I guess that every fantasy world adventure party is in need of a rogue, chaotic neutral in way too many cases, to act as a token evil teammate.” Tokoyami says. “At least while there is no real token evil teammate. I think you’ll do fine.”

Izuku realizes that Tokoyami said the wrong thing immediately. Thankfully, so does Yoichi. So when the frown on Toga’s face starts to turn from disappointed frown to angry frown, Izuku quickly relays Yoichi’s words.

“He didn’t mean it like that.” He quickly tells her. “Chaotic neutral doesn’t mean evil, it means… free-spirited, I guess? Doing what makes you happy without caring for what society and other people mean. It really fits you.”

Tokoyami realized what it was about and decided to sweep in and correct his mistake.

“I apologize, for I wasn’t speaking clearly enough.” He says while bowing his head towards Toga. “In this case, ‘evil’ meant ‘underhanded’ and ‘morally ambiguous’ rather than being a word of condemnation. I’m sure that most adventurer parties in this world have someone like that, as without such a person their choice of options will be severely limited. And in the field, that often means death.”

“Oh.” Toga, it seems, was pacified well enough. “You’re one super polite bird, aren’t you?” Tokoyami doesn’t seem to enjoy putting it that way. Izuku’s determination to finally have a talk with him about Toga while she wasn’t there to listen to it grows in strength.

After the fight, though.

“Guys.” Uraraka takes that moment to speak in a tone of voice dangerously close to hissing. “Less dilly-dallying, more boss fighting.”

Right.

***

They enter the keep, walking up the second, slightly longer set of stairs, passing by a few additional corpses. The fight here had to be intense, although if Izuku is to be honest, he has no idea where the attack came from.

Corpses were strewn literally everywhere, with little rhyme or reason to it.

Eventually, they arrive at the entrance to the meeting hall. Because it turns out that yes, just as they hoped, there was a meeting hall right where they needed it.

It was large.

Two lengthy tables going through almost the entirety of the hall, then a third, smaller table that was perpendicular to the other two at the end of the hall, probably where the most important people were sitting.

Naturally, the place was completely ruined. Lots of corpses, somehow massacred even more than the Redoubt’s average. Did Arshka lose her mind here? Izuku is missing way too many pieces of the puzzle to make any theories.

There are trophies displayed on the walls. Some big and foreign animals. Some weapons. The latter most certainly can’t backfire on them when Arshka decides to arm herself (it turns out that none of the options for battlefield choice were flawless).

The last notable thing about the meeting hall was the ceiling, pretty tall and with a network of intersecting support beams underneath it. Looked pretty thick.

“Alright.” Izuku decides while looking around. “It looks spacious enough. Any ideas where Arshka is?”

“Probably not far.” Tokoyami replies. “Want me to make some very loud sounds to try to attract her attention?”

Izuku glances back at him.

“Eh?” He lets out. “Sure, but… how loud are we saying?”

Instead of replying, Tokoyami takes a deep breath in… before cawing loudly. Very, very loudly. And in a distinctly raven-like way.

“One more thing I got after landing here.” Tokoyami says once the sound dies down. “Not very useful in most cases, but…”

They can all hear the horrifying, both human and inhuman roar coming from the distance, somewhere from the floor above them.. A moment later, it repeats, slightly louder and closer, this time also accompanied by the trashing sounds of something running through the corridors and hitting things along the way.

“Looks like we’ve gotten her attention.” Yoichi says as Izuku draws his sword. “Judging from the sound, she’s in the direction of the doors to the right. Get ready.”

Izuku gestures at the door in question. Uraraka and Tokoyami nod back, the latter getting ready to cast his demon possession spell the moment Arshka arrives, to not waste even a second of it. Uraraka quickly moves behind his back and gets ready to cast her magic.

Toga draws her knife and, without waiting for orders, runs towards the door in question, jumping over the nearest table, and then finds herself a nice hiding spot a few meters to the side of it. There was a large fireplace there, just big enough to let her hide there, to hopefully have Arshka miss her out after arriving in the location.

She hides there just in time. Because less than five seconds later Arshka arrives, bursting through the door just as the health bar with the name Rage Knight Arshka displayed right above it appears.

Izuku’s first impression of the Rage Knight is that she is no human. And he questions the logic of referring to it as a ‘Knight’. Because to him, she looked more like an animal. A rampaging beast clad in heavy armor.

Her body was humanoid, yes. Four limbs, lower ones longer than the upper. She was on all fours, her head hanging beneath her lower body.

She didn’t devolve into an animal, the limbs clearly still bend like they did in a humans’ body, making the way her movements resembled those of a quadruped beast more than a human appear all the more horrific.

Her body appeared thin, elongated. It was hard to guess her height, but it had to be at least four or five meters. Her body was covered with armor, but it too was warped. Plates were bent oddly, sometimes deforming into spikes at the edges, with no rhyme or reason, no symmetry, no logic.

The last part of her that was really unique was the face. Oh, gods, the face. Izuku had issues telling where the helmet ended and the face started. At some point it had to be a bascinet with a visor, but the whole thing then warped .

The eyes are there, large, and bloodshot, and somehow it looks as if the eyes themselves had a pair of visors attached to them. Metallic covers on the eyelids? Eyelids themselves being turned metallic and somehow fitting the aesthetic of the armor itself? Izuku couldn’t tell.

And beneath them, the mouth. Large, gaping mouth, way too wide for it to be described as ‘human’, merged with the armor to a degree, it was as if a part of that used to be a visor morphed into some twisted orthodontic apparatus designed to enhance biting strength.

Izuku had no idea how she could close her mouth without injuring herself if both her jaws were operating their own completely random assortments of sharp edges. He realized a moment later that the answer was that she couldn’t.

What was dripping from her mouth was a mixture of saliva and blood. His new question was ‘why wasn’t she constantly losing hit points from this’?

He has no idea. But he can see an obviously damaged twisted armor plate covering the right side of her elongated neck and her upper right shoulder. He can also see her fingers that were warped into intimidatingly long and sharp-looking metal claws.

This is going to be a hard battle.

Arshka growls loudly, before charging towards the nearest enemy - namely, Tokoyami. The raven-man engages his Demon Possession skill. In a heartbeat, he grows to match Arshka in size, his body coated in darkness, his eyes reduced to glowing dots on the giant body of shadows.

He meets her charge head-on. The true testament to the strength of his skill is that he actually manages to withstand it. His own clawed hands grab her shoulders and stop her charge… merely five meters and one table away from when they first clashed.

That was the test that they had to take. If Arshka would instantly send Tokoyami flying, they would run away as fast as possible. Their entire battle plan hinged on Tokoyami being able to at least halt her movements.

Arshka roars, Tokoyami stopping the flurry of attempted bites right in front of his mouth, the Rage Knight pushing him back again, just slower.

“Ĩ̶̝̪͎̉͂ ̵̹̎̈́͋̕C̴̺̮͎̅̈̓Ḁ̵̈́N̴̨͙͓͎̗̺͆̊'̵̛̛͈̣͉͖̼̤̄͝T̶̪̻͒̓ ̷̟͍͚̙̼̯̻͑͊̈́̽̋H̵̦̋O̴̩̱͊͒̃́̎́͠L̵͓̲̙̟̮̓̇̒͑͗̎͘D̴̟̼̯̮̃̉̐̄͑̚͜ ̶̭̽́̈̀̉͠Ḥ̷̢͍̜͛̂͆̔̎̎̚E̷̪̐R̸͙̝̳̦̳͇̈͗̌̔̇͑ ̸͕̋͊̏F̶͓̖̈́̂̇Ó̷̝̓̈́Ȑ̴̭͍̗̘͉̹͊͒̊̚͝ ̴̛̟̱̭͖̕L̷̨͈̿͗͠O̵͇̎̏̂̈́N̵͎̅̾̃̄͛͋G̸̨͕̪̭͎͕̽̄̈́͑͜͝!̴̢̺̈́͊́̈́̄͝” Tokoyami yells. Dark Shadow’s fusion with him alters his voice, but not to the same degree as what his quirk had going. And it’s way more uniform. “D̵̗̿̌̍̎Ŏ̸̧͉͉͕̪͚̆͂͋́ ̸̺͔́Ĭ̸͚̦͔͔̫̀̀T̵͇͇͗̒̈́̈͌̚͘ ̷̭͉̈́̒́̐́͌̏N̸̯̜̹̰̺͕̈́̅̀͗͂̕Ơ̵̤̝͈͓̗̮͐̒̉͂̀W̷̱͗͆̂͋̀̂!!!”

Then they immediately miss their window of opportunity, as Arshka roared twice as lowly and pulled back, her body rising up so that she could try to slash Tokoyami apart with her claws instead.

He is taking the blows, recoiling from them, the claws tearing through the shadowy-mass that formed his body. It’s a brutal, one sided pummeling that would quickly tear through his health bar.

Izuku decides that better late than not at all. He leaps at Arshka from the side, swinging his sword at her neck from the side, coating his sword in the Detroit Slash.

He fails. Arshka must have noticed the attack incoming and met him head on. Despite her odd position and body balance she somehow managed to leap off her position and shoulder-tackle him before he could attack her.

Her fangs almost tear his face off but Uraraka reacts faster than he can and pulls him back with his spell, just enough for the jaws to close right in front of his face. He tries to slash Arshka, but he lacks the power to slash through her armor.

“Spaces between the plates!” Yoichi shouts. “Try to stab there!”

Izuku takes a step back before trying to do just that. His thrust is stopped as Arshka’s unnaturally thin body bends to the side, making his sword miss the mark. And then she grabs his shoulder before he can dash back.

A second later he slams into the wall, Arshka sending him into it with just one swipe of her hand. And she immediately leaps towards him, roaring while trying to crush him into the wall.

He dodges it. Or, he tries to. His attempt to jump to the side ends up failing as Arshka grabs his leg and slams him into the wall, instantly shaving off a fifth of his health bar, before lunging for his throat.

Tokoyami gets close enough to grab her thin body from behind, before german suplexing her into the ground behind him.

The sound of metal crushing into the sound floor is almost deafening. But the damage is too negligible to be reflected in her health bar.

The positive of this position is that with his arms wrapped around Arshka from behind, the damage she can inflict on him is much smaller than usual. As she struggles while trying to slash his arms apart (the only place she can reach with sufficient strength behind her move), Tokoyami does his best to hold her in place.

“Ņ̸̛̳͖̦͙͖̖͇̃͆̐̔͒͒̓ͅO̵̬͚͈̮̦̦͕̥͉̭͑̎̽̅̋̃͜͝W̴̢̢̭̲͖̯̦̯̠̯̞͌̔̿͛,̶̰̤̲̼̗͍̯̬̤̙̗͚̪̾͌̏̊̑̓̿̿̾͗̂̕̕ ̷̡͇̼̮͕̭̙̮̘͇̲̜̺̃͝ͅͅM̸̨̪̝͎̙̖͍̃̽͐͐̏͌̋̒̎̿̄̕̚͜͝Ỉ̶͉̯̳͎̲̖̹͐͗̈̽́̎̈́͆͊̉̓D̵̛̰̟̽́̊̓̿̾̈́̾̓̌̂̚͠Ō̴̯̃̿́́͗́̊͆́̅͛̑R̷͇͔͋̋̎̓̃̿̉̅͗̆̌͘͘ͅỈ̶̬͈̾͑̈́̀̎̀͠͝ͅY̶̨̗̼͍͈̫̥̿͛̓̈́̐̑̈́͒̍͗̈̆̀A̶̫̠̓̌͗̈͗̽́̐ͅ!̴̧͖͔̠͐̂͌͊̏̒̓̈́͛͊͠ͅ” He yells. Midoriya doesn’t need to have it said twice. He dashes towards where her neck is, before performing Detroit Slash right into the loose armor plate.

And this time, the hit connects.

The damage is there, but it was maybe 5% of her health bar, most likely the holy damage going past her armor. The armor plate is damaged even further. Without thinking, Izuku drops his sword, grabs the edge of the plate and pulls it off, narrowly avoiding her bites.

Then he jumps back, grabbing his sword again in the process.

Tokoyami takes that as his cue to stop holding Arshka and crawl from beneath her before she can break free on her own and shred him to pieces. Arshka’s up in a moment.

She was standing in one place long enough for Uraraka to hit her with a few Magic Bullets. They harmlessly dispersed off Arshka’s armor. The one lucky shot that hit her in the face did cause some damage, but it was minimal.

Uraraka needs to get some armor-piercing magic.

“Toga!” Midoriya yells. “Your turn!” Arshka refuses to cooperate with that, as she immediately jumps at Midoriya with another flurry of blows. Midoriya does his best to get some distance, but it’s not working very well. “WHERE ARE Y…”

He is interrupted when Toga appears out of nowhere by jumping at Arshka from behind before sinking her fangs into the side of her neck. Izuku gets a good look at the expression of pure (and slightly terrifying) bliss on her face as Arshka’s health decreases by a few percentages.

Then Toga tears off a solid chunk of Arshka’s neck, adding at least twenty percent to the damage.

It also seems that she didn’t forget to apply Lacerating Blow to her. The wound doesn’t heal fully, there is still a shredded injury all over the side of her neck, bleeding profusely.

Arshka growls angrily and, before Toga could jump off her back, grabs her neck from behind.

“Oopsie?” Toga lets out, the blood still all over her mouth and face. Then, in one motion, she’s pulled off the knight’s back, thrown over her head and then slammed into the floor, before Arshka attempts to end her there and then with a stomp.

Toga proves that her dexterity and the freedom of movement her outfit gives her aren’t for a show, and she rolls to the side, avoiding the sudden death.

She then gracefully jumps back at her feet, before casting Exsanguinate. Her hand glows red, as she rises it up in the air… and clenches it into the fist.

That very moment, blood bursts out of Arshka’s neck injury, her health bar losing another few percent of its length… and the slow drain of it caused by the bleeding starts to move a tiny bit faster.

“Hey, heeeey!” Toga shouts cheerfully to Arshka. “Bleed some more! Bleed more! C’mon!”

“Well, that ain’t worrying at all.” Yoichi says dryly. “And… oh, crap.”

“What?” Izuku asks back as Arshka starts to… shake? Tremble? Why isn’t she attacking them?

“I think that she gets more enraged the more she gets injured.” Yoichi replies. “And you just… MOVE!”

Izuku failed to react quickly enough. In one swift move, Arshka takes off, much faster than before. Her distorted growl is cut down a second later when her jaws close on Izuku’s right arm.

He yells in horror and pain, Arshka tearing off his arm while completely shredding the stump of the arm with her metallic teeth. She then pulls back as his arm regrows, but before he can do anything, Arshka push-kicks him into the wall behind.

Toga hits her with another Exsanguinate as Uraraka hits her with Magic Bullets. The damage is there, she is down to maybe 60% of her health bar, and that’s some serious damage. But… it wasn’t the end of her enraged counterattack.

She charges towards Toga, probably to stop her from repeatedly casting Exsanguinate. Tokoyami jumps in to act as a living shield, the two titans colliding before one of them is immediately sent flying.

And no, it’s not Arshka.

He crashed into the other table. Before he can jump back into the fray, Arshka grabs Toga by the head and dashed through the room, before slamming the foxgirl into the wall with enough strength to fracture her skull.

And this still isn’t the end.

Arshka rages on, delivering a frantic flurry of blows at the girl who dared to injure her. They are too fast for Izuku’s eyes to follow up, and strong enough to destroy the stone wall behind Toga, Arshka’s claws carving dozens of lines there.

She didn’t even notice that Toga died midway into the berserker range, Uraraka deciding not to risk her soul crystal being damaged and acting quickly enough to pull it out of Arshka’s way with her magic.

The bleeding injury at the side of her neck heals soon after.

“Alright, the plan didn’t work.” Yoichi then announces. “I think it’s time to get the hell out of here, Ninth. We can recover fully and try to take her down again tomorrow.” That was the conclusion that Izuku arrived at as well.

“We’re retreating!” He shouts. “Uraraka, take her soul crystal to the Altar! Me and Tokoyami will hold her back until you leave the hall! Resurrect her and then get out of the fortress, we’ll be out soon after you!”

Resurrecting someone takes a while. If Arshka pursues them into the Altar, they won’t have the time to do it. And they don’t have the time to get back to Firet by foot before the Murder of Crows will be back.

“On it!” Uraraka shouts back.

Arshka stops her frantic assault of where Toga used to stand. She stands up on her legs properly before ripping a greatsword from the wall almost exactly above where she slammed Toga into.

Uh-oh.

Uraraka runs towards the hall entrance just as Midoriya and Tokoyami charge towards Arshka.

Who immediately takes off. And not in their direction. Instead, she charges towards Uraraka, running over the table, dragging her sword behind her in one hand.

Tokoyami almost manages to put himself between them, but that’s the moment when Arshka jumps off the table and… up, towards the ceiling?

Izuku actually freezes in shock when he sees her somehow climb up the ceiling support beams and scale through the narrow space under the ceiling, well above where Tokoyami could even hope to intercept.

“Uraraka-san!” Izuku yells while trying to run through the hall towards her. The sheer amount of scattered tables (and pieces of tables) severely restricts where exactly he can use the dash, especially to traverse a longer distance.

Uraraka looks back over her shoulder, fails to see Arshka there but sees everyone running towards her. She, of course, locates the Rage Knight almost immediately (the sounds are all there), but it’s still a moment too late.

The blade goes through her shoulder and into her chest. Izuku gets to see the horrified and pained expression on her face before Arshka lands right behind her and crushes her head in her mouth.

A second soul crystal joins the first one a moment later.

It was at this moment that Izuku realized something important.

“She can understand us.” He says quietly. Tokoyami is close enough to hear him, the raven man freezing in place when Uraraka was killed, knowing that there was no point to charge at the Rage Knight at this point, being busy trying to figure out what to do next. “She heard me telling Uraraka to go and resurrect Toga and attacked her to stop us.”

Arshka walks to the side, glaring at them, dragging her sword on the ground while using the remaining three limbs for locomotion and growling slightly. Between them and the exit. Waiting for them to do the next move, her brief moment of overwhelming rage clearly over.

“That’s not good.” Tokoyami says slowly, his eyes still on Arshka. “That’s no good at all. Do you have any ideas? Because I didn’t expect her to have a tactical mind on top of her beastlike brutality.”

Yes. That was something that didn’t cross Izuku’s mind either. It might have been an animalistic instinct so developed that it made them appear as almost cunning by human definition, but… perhaps whatever made them understandable to the locals on some instinctive level might have worked on things that used to be human?

It wasn’t something that he should be thinking about now. He had more pressing issues to deal with.

“I think that I have an idea.” Izuku replies as he runs towards him. Arshka, thankfully, is clearly satisfied blocking their way out. He… had no idea how feasible it was, but he did have at least something .

He then whispers it quickly to Tokoyami. Who gives him back an odd look, a fact that Izuku can see even despite how utterly inhuman his face was right now.

“I think I know what your plan is, but… are you sure that it’s a good idea?” Tokoyami asks. Yeah, Izuku only gave him a rough set of instructions, just in case Arshka was able to hear it after all.

“It’s the best one we have right now.” Izuku replies. “Go.” Tokoyami nods and runs towards the door that Arshka entered the room through. The Rage Knight growls, but doesn’t engage them. “You’re not going to say anything, Shigaraki-san?”

“I figured out your plan already.” He replies. “It might work. And I have a policy of not interrupting you during fights unless it’s an emergency. Go on, I’m with you.”

Arshka keeps growling while engaging him in a contest of stares. She’ll attack him soon, as otherwise Tokoyami could get away. But for now… every second she gave him was a step closer to turning this battle around.

She gives him maybe ten of those before she leaps towards him, swinging her sword on a wide arc, Izuku dodging it by leaping back, before it turns out to be well within Arshka’s prediction, as she doesn’t stop her charge and attempts to trample him.

He ends up spending some of his Focus on dashing to the side, right before Arshka uses her momentum to land on her knees and turn around while gliding on the floor, making another wide slash that almost cuts him in half.

Yes, this lone battle was off to a great start.

Chapter 13: Rage Knight Arshka [Boss Fight, part 2]

Chapter Text

If Yoichi were to summarize the first phase of Izuku’s improvised plan, it'd be by using an ancient meme.

New objective: Survive.

Izuku had to buy some time for Tokoyami to get into position, and while it shouldn’t take him more than ten or twenty seconds, the whole thing could go sideways extremely easily. So, the more Izuku could hold his ground against Arshka, the better their chances.

And here, rather than in the corridors, he could at least somewhat maneuver around her.

It’s just that the fact that surviving here was a bit easier than on the way there didn’t mean that it was easy .

Arshka proves that immediately after the spinning attack by roaring angrily and charging towards him, her sword swinging randomly. Izuku dodges it by jumping over the nearby table.

Rage Knight promptly cleaves the table in half before attempting to tackle him. Yet, once again, Izuku dodges it.

“I think that as long as you don’t deal additional damage to her, she won’t get more enraged than she is right now.” Yoichi comments quickly. “You can deal with her present speed, for as long as you don’t… sh*t, dash left!”

Izuku does that, without wasting time to ask why. It turns out to be a good idea. Arshka growls angrily, seeing the failure of her plan.

She almost got him into the corner of the hall. Despite her clearly animalistic behavior, she still managed to outthink him. If that was pure instinct then her instinct was truly a sight to behold.

Arshka tries to rush him again, but Izuku dodges to the side. This time he doesn’t need Yoichi to warn him, as his own Danger Sense roared at him to dodge. On instinct, he uses Dash to sprint forward, before turning on his heel.

The Rage Knight seems to be displeased by Izuku still being alive.

“What just happened?” Izuku asks as he slowly walks back, Arshka following him step by step, still dragging the greatsword behind her.

“I think she feinted the usual frantic charge, waited until she passed by you and then immediately jumped at the wall in front of her before trying to bounce of it at your back.” Yoichi replies. “She’s a crafty beast alright. I think that it’s time for you to follow the birdy, we can’t be certain that Arshka won’t randomly enter the enraged state after a set time without managing to damage her enemy, and I don’t think that you can survive if she does the same stuff as she did earlier.”

That was a good point. Izuku isn’t sure if he is hearing it alright, but the bestial growls she is letting out most of the time are growing in intensity with every successful dodge.

That had to be her gameplay mechanic. Periods of relative calmness followed by outbursts of a berserker’s rage that temporarily increased her strength, speed, and ferocity. Which, together with her still working wits, was enough for the first outburst to wipe out half of their party. Izuku alone will certainly NOT survive the second one.

He begins to slowly move towards the exit. Arshka is still growling while matching his movement.

The moment he gets close enough to them, he promptly runs through the door, and sees what looks like a stairway up at the end of the corridor running adjacent to the meeting hall’s wall, to the left of where he exited it.

He can see the stairway because the door to it is bust open. If Arshka regularly visits the rooftop to throw javelins at people, it has to be it.

He runs towards it, but after a few seconds, Yoichi tells him to stop.

“What?” Izuku asks, turning on his heel, just to notice a distinct lack of Arshka in the corridor behind him. “What the…?”

Izuku has maybe three seconds to ponder whether Arshka figured out their plan and decided to stay behind just to f*ck with them before Danger Sense flares off and Izuku jumps back, just in time to see the tip of Arshka’s greatsword go through the place where Midoriya used to be in.

After going through the brick wall separating the corridor from the meeting hall.

“I think she’s in an enraged state now and…” Yoichi says, but is cut short when Danger Sense flares around, and a giant spear almost impales Izuku. “Run towards the stairway, NOW!”

Izuku does just that. He has no idea how Arshka was detecting his position, but she threw several more swords and spears at him, and they would have hit him at least thrice if not for Danger Sense.

Izuku leaps into the stairway just to see a terrifying roar come from behind. He turns around to see Arshka barge into the corridor and begin to rush after him.

Crap.

Izuku immediately fires off Dash and jumps upward, skipping at least a few levels of the stairway, before grabbing the railing and trying to jump again. Arshka decides to take that very moment to grab him by his feet and slam him into the railing.

Izuku almost dies then and there. Thankfully, Arshka’s position (she was hanging off the edge of the stairs with one hand, with her legs resting on the wall beneath it, with just one arm left to attack him) barely counted as stable.

A Detroit Slash misses her neck, but Arshka’s forced to lean back to dodge it, the grip on the stairs weakening enough for her to almost fall down.

Izuku takes that moment to surprise himself with his own adrenaline-induced bravery and jumps at Arshka’s shoulders before dashing upward, sending the Rage Knight down the stairway while reaching the top of it at the same time.

He buys himself maybe a few seconds, as Arshka jumps after him a moment later.

She gets to the rooftop just in time to see his back, running towards the edge, close to the racks with ammunition (javelins and arrows mostly) stockpiled to help the defenders rain death on the enemies storming the inner walls.

She dashes after him without a second of thinking, her left hand grabbing his left shoulder before her right hand goes right through his back, the clawed hand emerging from his chest.

Arshka raises his body up… just to see his neck snap backward, the distorted face of Dark Shadow under his green hair, staring at her upside down.

“SurPriseeee!!!” Dark Shadow squeals before their body vanishes into a cloud of black smoke.

Arshka has no time to figure out what just happened before Izuku dash-tackles into her back, pushing her off the edge, before falling down right after her, the Rage Knight roaring in fury and shock.

She twists her body upward, trying to reach him as she falls down the wall of the keep. His leg connects with her chest, giving him the platform he needed for the final, desperate dash upward, earning himself three or four meters of space between him and Arshka.

To this moment, Izuku wasn’t sure if the plan was going to work. It required Tokoyami to get to the rooftop first and ensure that the positioning of the decoy was just right. And then, Izuku had to get there with enough advantage over Arshka to succeed in the switcheroo.

He leaped to the side, hiding behind the corner of the stairway upper exit, just in time for Arshka to charge past him without noticing he was there.

And then he still needed to have enough focus for the few last dashes.

But it all turned out to be worth it. Izuku understands that the moment the spike - one of those decorating the walls surrounding the keep - impales Arshka from behind, the tip emerging from her chest, piercing through the armor both behind and in front of her.

Her health bar takes a massive blow. Arshka roars in a mixture of pain, shock, and anger, her hand grasping the tip of the spike, trying desperately to lift herself up from it. Izuku doesn’t give her the time to do it.

He falls right above her head, twisting his body mid-flight, his sword taking advantage of the missing neck plate in her armor to neatly decapitate the Rage Knight, a second before Izuku slams into the top of the wall.

The pain is immense. His own health bar drops to zero, and yet the pain continues. He can see his right hand bend oddly and his right leg… yeah, it’s broken too.

The side of his head slammed into the brick wall, with quite a substantial velocity. He has no idea how his skull is in one piece. And how he managed to not break his neck in the process. How?

Then again, it hurts less than the Entrance Exam did. That probably helped him manage to stay conscious.

“W-what the?” He lets out weakly as Arshka’s health bar vanishes. He manages to glance in her direction from the floor, just to see the soul crystal floating above her head, glowing in a sickly yellow colour.

ENEMY DEFEATED!

Rage Knight Arshka

[Hod]

DUNGEON CLEARED!

Upper Stoneverge Redoubt

[Yesod]

“I think that you suffered enough damage for your Vigor to heal the critical injuries, but there wasn’t enough of it to heal all the injuries.” Yoichi comments helpfully. “It should heal completely once you get to the Altar. For now, try to stand up, I know it’s not easy and very painful, but you have two still working limbs, that’s enough to stand up, trust me I know it from experience.”

Izuku almost manages to achieve that when he hears shouting from behind. And from above.

“MIDORIYA-KUN!” Izuku looks up just to see Tokoyami coming down at a fast speed before gracefully landing beside him. “Are you alright? I saw the fall, and…”

It seems that certain events CAN ruin his brooding and calm aesthetic. He certainly doesn’t look calm right now.

“Y-yes.” Izuku stutters out. “Could you help me s-stand up?” Tokoyami tries to do it, only to accidentally grab his broken hand. “O-Ouch!”

“Oh, I'm sorry!” Tokoyami freaks out a little while pulling his hands back.. “I never had to deal with someone with such… injuries, why aren’t you healing?”

“I’m out of Vigor and lethal injuries at the s-same time.” Izuku manages to speak. “G-grab my right shoulder and help me lift up, I’ll d-do the rest.”

Tokoyami does that. A moment later Izuku is standing, if you can call leaning on the battlements while having clear issues standing upwards.

“W-well, it looks like Arshka’s down.” Izuku then says. “So, a v-victory, right?”

Tokoyami is giving him the look that can only be described as a look of utmost concern.

“I can’t believe you can talk almost normally with injuries of this magnitude.” Tokoyami says. “I commend your pain tolerance, but you’re slightly scaring me right now.”

“E-eh, I was injured w-worse during the Entrance Exam.” Izuku replies. Tokoyami looks even more concerned right now. “G-grab the soul crystal, help me put the s-sword back in the scabbard, and then help me get down the stairs.” He can’t even imagine himself walking down them unassisted.

Tokoyami decides not to argue and does as asked.

“Ask him to hand you the soul crystal.” Yoichi asks a second later, when Tokoyami is helping Midoriya to slowly limp toward the stairs. “I have an idea and I want to test it.”

“Sure.” Tokoyami hands him the crystal without as much of a word of complaint. “It was your plan that slew her. You earned it more than I did.”

Izuku then almost drops the crystal as he grabs it, because there is some extremely weird feeling in his hand.

“W-what did you just do?” He asks Shigaraki, as Tokoyami gives him a surprised look. A moment later the raven boy almost jumps back in shock as Midoriya’s leg snaps back into its normal position with a rather sickening sound.

It’s most certainly not broken now. Although the hand is still out of whack.

“Huh.” Yoichi says. “That worked. I think I figured out how to siphon some excess energy from the soul crystal. Not a lot, but it might be useful during a fight against multiple enemies.”

“What just…” Tokoyami asks, Izuku not letting him finish the question.

“Shigaraki-san ate some of the energy in the crystal.” Izuku replies. “Managed to partially heal me. Let’s go pick up Uraraka-san and Toga. I want them to know that we won as soon as possible, and… I think we should have a talk concerning Toga while at it.”

“And that…” Tokoyami says calmly. “...is a very good idea, Midoriya-kun.”

***

“I see.” Tokoyami nods as Izuku stops narrating Toga’s situation. They are almost at the Altar of Egress. “That explains a lot. You’re playing a dangerous game, Midoriya-kun.”

“I know.” Izuku replies. “But it’s either this or letting a potential serial killer roam the world where the police and the heroes aren’t there to stop her. I can’t help but hope that some of the pro-heroes landed here as well, because I’m significantly out of my depth here.”

“Thankfully, you have me.” Yoichi comments quickly.

Izuku doesn’t dignify it with an answer, if only because he is too emotionally exhausted to have that talk.

“I understand your logic and I’ll play along.” Tokoyami replies. “But only because in this world we can’t be killed by her while we sleep. Because we don’t. Same with being poisoned.”

That was… honestly a fair point. This did make the efficient disposal of three people on comparable combat skill levels to you rather hard.

Hopefully, they’ll find someone who could help them in the Blackwater Forest.

His injuries heal completely the moment they approach the Altar of Egress. It’s nice to know that they can at least trust that one thing without a shred of doubt.

“D-deku-kun?” Uraraka says the moment she’s resurrected. “Did we…?”

“Yes, we won.” Izuku replies. “It was a close one, but… I’ll describe what happened in detail in a moment. Let’s bring Toga-san back first.”

***

Soul Crystal of Rage Knight Arshka

[Hod]

A crystal formed from the extinguished soulflame of Arshka. Can be used to greatly strengthen your own soulflame, be imbued into a piece of equipment to enchant it with remnants of Arshka’s power, or transposed into an artifact.

Most of her past acquaintances, if asked about her, would tell you that the chaosflame only warped her body, as her mind was filled with rage even before.

Yoichi added two things afterward, both of them being the result of his own mental deliberations over the new information about the setting that they were dealing with.

First was that the difficulty level of the dungeon was either one level above the boss or one level beneath it, depending on whether there was cannon-fodder present in the area.

There was none in the Redoubt, so a Hod level boss translated to Yesod level dungeon. But there was a lot of it in the Whispering Mine, so Malkuth level bosses translated into a Yesod level dungeon.

It made a lot of sense if you considered the fact that the presence of weaker enemies limited your ability to, say, involve the environment in your plan for the boss fight. Like what Izuku just did to Arshka.

If there were weaker enemies present in the area - especially ones that could communicate with the boss - the trap on the rooftop of the fortress wouldn’t have worked. And then Arshka would have torn them to shreds.

This was going to be useful in predicting how powerful the boss was going to be before running into them.

The second observation that Yoichi made was that the system in general wasn’t made to make the Travelers’ lives easy.

“What do you mean by that, Shigaraki-san?” Uraraka asks. They are sitting around in front of the Altar of Egress.

“The system is clearly designed to cull down the Travelers.” Shigaraki replies through Izuku’s mouth. “Your soul crystal description claims that you can be used to ‘greatly’ strengthen someone’s soulflame. It did so even on level one , while you were much, much weaker than Arshka. It’s basically an invitation for the locals to hunt us down for a quick growth in strength, especially in such an apocalyptic world.”

And that’s… one more thing that Izuku didn’t want to know - but probably had to.

“Oh.” Uraraka blinks back at him. “That’s… not good.”

“You know that it’s not limited to the locals, right?” Toga asks. She was sitting on the front pew, playing with her knife. “Hero types are too nice and straight-laced to do that, but if I’m around, there might be other non-heroes from our world here, you know? And you can expect certain kinds of people to go after an easy way of getting stronger.”

“That sounds lovely.” Tokoyami says dryly, while glancing at Midoriya. There’s the unspoken ‘you know that she would totally kill us all and eat our souls if you didn’t manage to somehow befriend her’.

Izuku decides to not reply to it in any way. He knows that Tokoyami is right. He just doesn’t want to face that fact right now.

“I think that it’s like riding a tiger.” Yoichi says dryly. “If you manage to mount it, that’s a great achievement, but if you ever fall off, you’re going to die.”

Ugh.

***

They might have won the fight, and the Focus dealt with the physical exhaustion, but the mental one was all there.

They end up spending the rest of the day looking through the area for some potential loot. Unfortunately, the fortress was completely ransacked. Stuff wasn’t stolen, but most of the armors were severely damaged.

Izuku’s chainmail was damaged, but not to the point where it was unusable. The few armors they managed to get off their old users were at 30% at most, so aside from short lore blurbs (confirming Yoichi’s suspicion that elves were real and that dark elves were the ones to attack the fortress), they didn’t get anything even remotely useful.

Arshka’s armor was too fused with her body to even hope to take it off.

The castle’s basem*nt vault was locked tight and there was some sort of magical seal on the door. They failed to get through it. They could have tried to get there through the wall, but Murder of Crows would have already been awake by the time they had gotten there.

They did find the armory used by the garrison. Izuku replaced his bastard sword (at 17% durability after beheading Arshka) with a new one with identical stats, while Toga found herself some knives.

Plural. She got one for slashing (Combat Knife) and one for piercing (Misericorde). Both scaled D from Dexterity and E from Strength. A notable improvement over her earlier equipment.

In short, not a great loot. Aside from the soul crystal.

“I’m not sure if using it right now is a good idea.” Yoichi replies when Izuku asks him about it. “With how offensive her combat style was, I can imagine her soul being transposable into a weapon just for you. Alternatively, enchanting your new sword with it might be useful too.”

“So you think that we should not use it right now.” Izuku concludes. “I’m going to put it back in the Altar.”

“Not so fast there, Ninth.” Yoichi replies quickly. “Keep it on you for now. I’m still figuring out how my ability to influence soul crystals works. If it turns out, say, I can eat surplus energy from it and convert it into level up points, and maybe that surplus energy regrows over time, wouldn’t that change a lot of things?”

Yoichi was really dedicated to breaking the system, wasn’t he?

“Alright then.” Izuku replies. “I’ll keep it on me.”

***

Eventually, the day after their fight with Arshka, they decided that it was time to move out of the Black Feather Meadow. Murder of Crows was going to be free soon, and they weren’t sure if they weren’t in the splash zone of that event.

Naturally, they weren’t just dilly-dallying and pillaging things around without first inspecting the elevator to make sure that they had a way out of the Meadow. Uraraka volunteered to do it.

“To be honest, giant elevators aren’t exactly my specialty.” She said to Izuku when she returned to the Altar after inspection. “It’s… really giant, you know?”

“Common in soulslike games.” Yoichi replies through Izuku. “They tend to have truly massive infrastructure, for some inexplicable reason. It’s all ruined by the time you get there, but what really has to work for you to progress, does work.”

“Good to know.” Uraraka replies. “And I hope that this elevator counts as one of those essential things. Because it’s damaged.”

Oh, crap.

“I-is it going to work?” Izuku stutters out. If the elevator is damaged.

“I think so.” Uraraka replies. “I’m almost sure that the attack came from there. There was some serious fighting in the elevator room. I’ve checked the machinery room upstairs and I think that it’s all in order, but I could only check a part of it. And even there, there is some small damage here and there. I think that one of the defenders tried to damage the elevator to make sure that the attackers couldn’t send reinforcements up, but was stopped before they could inflict some serious damage to it. The key point there, serious .”

In other words, there could be some lesser damage to it. Izuku understands that much. And, worse of all, the defenders might have had a better grip on the system than Uraraka, meaning that said lesser, barely noticeable damage might actually be serious.

When Izuku actually gets to see the elevator, he has to agree with Uraraka. It was giant . Really giant . The platform was made of stone and at least ten meters wide.

The chains surrounding it were massive too.

There was a lever on a slightly higher platform in the middle of the elevator.

“There should be a pressure plate instead.” Yoichi groans. “We miss out on the mandatory soulslike game experience of accidentally pushing the pressure plate and then having to go up or down again, wasting a lot of time while at it.”

Sounds like one of the experiences that Izuku really wants to miss out on.

He approaches the edge of the platform and looks down. Then he takes a step back immediately. It was… terrifying. He didn’t have a fear of heights, but… he had a healthy degree of respect for it.

He looks down again, but much more cautiously. Now that he scans the cliff properly, he is almost sure that he can see the hidden route that Lena was mentioning. There is clearly some sort of symbol (sun?) carved into the rock close to it.

“Alright, I found the route.” Izuku says while taking a step back and looking back at the group. “We’ll jump off there. It’s time to start the elevator. Uraraka-san?”

Uraraka nods back and flips the lever.

Blackwater Forest awaits.

But Izuku really doesn’t like the sounds that the elevator is making.

Chapter 14: Overwhelming Violence

Chapter Text

The elevator begins its descent, with a rather terrifying cacophony of grinding metal accompanying the process. The ride is shaky, the elevator occasionally stuttering, halting for a second before resuming its descent.

It’s… worrying. Severely worrying.

Even the slightest, weakest mechanical stutter while on a stone platform hanging off metal chains, in the middle of a hundred-meter abyss is very worrying. And this wasn’t ‘weak’ and ‘slight’ by any stretch.

“Uhm?” He glances at Uraraka questioningly.

“I said, no guarantees that it works.” Uraraka replies before giving the nearest chain a really worried look. “I think the damage was more substantial than I thought.”

“I would be more worried about the sounds alerting whoever’s in the fortress at the bottom of the elevator.” Tokoyami replies. “We should get off it and run as fast as we can, as we can’t be sure that we won’t be followed.”

That was a good point. They are all gathered up around that particular edge of the platform, waiting for the elevator to get there. The closer Izuku is to the escape ledge, the more convinced he is that it is the ledge they are looking for.

However, they are moving there rather slowly, and the road is pretty bumpy. Yoichi seems to consider that an invitation to a talk.

“You know, having a talk with you during a lengthy elevator journey makes me feel like a Mass Effect 1 character, but I think that it’s a good time as any.” Yoichi says. “You had a very good idea, you know, with Arshka? It genuinely didn’t cross my mind to get her like that.”

“E-ehh?” Izuku doesn’t know how to react to that. “I… I’m sure you w-would get that idea sooner or later, I just…”

“Ninth, stop that.” Yoichi cuts in. “Stop looking down on yourself. I’ve watched heroes fight villains for decades , and you, pretty much a highschooler without a single day of proper education in the subject, had that idea. While I didn’t. Because I was too stuck with my soulslike knowledge. And in those games, you tended to have to fight the bosses in closed arenas. You didn’t get to deal environmental damage to most of them, so… I guess I needed someone smart but without the baggage to figure it out. Thank you.”

“I-I see.” Izuku scratches the side of his head nervously. It’s… not the type of words he was used to. Sure, All Might did compliment his achievements and hard work during the training they did, but… this felt… different?

It was something he did on his own. Something that he felt no real confidence in. So…

Izuku tries to form a proper reply to this, but that’s when the elevator stops working completely. While they are still at least thirty meters from the ledge where they are supposed to exit it.

“Well, that’s disappointing.” Izuku glances down the platform. “Tokoyami-kun, could you, you know, carry us there one by one? I’m not sure if I’m confident in doing the jump.”

“Sure.” Tokoyami replies. “If it’s going down, the additional weight doesn’t matter that much. So, who goes fir…”

That’s when one of the chains holding the elevator platform snaps somewhere above their heads, sending the platform tumbling down.

They scream. It came completely out of the blue, and it’s free fall all the way down. For some time. Then it stops and they slam into the platform, losing a few percent of their Vigor through the impact. And it’s not the end.

The platform keeps sliding down into the abyss, but much slower. That, however, isn’t the real problem.

The problem is that the platform is tilted due to one of the chains - the one on the opposite side of it than the edge they planned to exit through - missing. The platform isn’t vertical, but it’s pretty damn close to it.

Izuku was close enough to grab the edge of the platform. Uraraka acted quickly enough to grab his leg before she could slide down.

Toga screams while trying to do the same to Uraraka, but fails and begins to slide down towards oblivion. Uraraka manages to prove that her reaction speed was something else, and she managed to stop her from inevitable death by pulling her up with her magic, just enough to let Toga grab her leg.

Tokoyami just took off and landed on the upper edge of the platform. Wings were a useful asset.

“We have two problems, Midoriya-kun.” He then says calmly. Izuku looks up at him. Yes, he is still hanging off the edge of the platform with both of his arms on it, and Uraraka hanging off his leg. That’s also the moment when the platform's slow descent continues. “Do you need help, by the way?”

“No, it’s fine.” Izuku replies. He doesn’t see it but Uraraka and Toga give him really weird looks from beneath. “Vessels don’t suffer from exhaustion, right? We can keep hanging like that for as long as needed.”

“I guess that leaves us with just one problem, then.” Tokoyami replies.

“Let me guess, we missed the place to get off the elevator, and now we’re heading to the fortress full of enemies that absolutely must have noticed all the commotion above their heads?” Izuku replies with a question.

He wasn’t sure how far they fell and then slid down before now, but he was pretty certain that they were past their window to exit the elevator.

“Correct.” Tokoyami replies. “We’re going to be in the range of their arrows in maybe a minute, and that’s if we won’t randomly drop down again. I hope that you, Shigaraki-san, or literally anyone else have any brilliant last second ideas or this is going to end up badly.”

He could easily escape to the Blackwater Forest, especially from this altitude. The fact that he was staying behind for as long as he could was actually rather heartwarming. Heroic, even.

They knew each other for, what, two days? No one would know that he abandoned them. But he stayed around, willingly endangering himself in hopes that they would all get out of the pinch.

Izuku was ready to guess that he was going to fly away the moment they would enter enemy range without any plan. And he couldn’t even hold that against him, because everyone who stayed behind was going to die.

Trying to switch the lever in hopes of going up was probably going to kill them all. No way the elevator can survive their journey up. It’ll be a small miracle if it survives the final part of the journey down, to begin with.

“I have an idea, but it’s going to be a bit… crazy .” Yoichi then says. Just what Izuku wanted to hear. Because surely, making things crazier is the best idea ever. “Pull out Arshka’s soul crystal and hold it in your hand while extending your arm as far from your body as you can.”

“Huh?” Izuku is… taken aback by it. “What, why?”

“I’m going to resurrect Arshka and give the defenders of the fortress beneath us some real problems to deal with.” Yoichi replies. Izuku panics a little.

“Are you insane ?!” He says while Tokoyami is giving him a weird look from above. “He says that he’s going to resurrect Arshka.”

“That’s a very bad, seriously horrible idea!” Uraraka shouts up from beneath. Judging from the sounds that Toga is making, she isn’t the only one who thinks so.

“He can do that?” Tokoyami, in the meantime, seems more concerned with the possibility itself.

“I think so.” Yoichi replies through Midoriya. “I’m going to use some of Midoriya’s own soulflame energy to resuscitate her, especially as the soul crystal seems to have… errr… recovered its own energy after visiting the Altar, I just need to give it a final spark. I might even be able to do it without sacrificing any of Midoriya’s attribute points permanently!”

That sounded reassuring.

“Guys!” Toga shouts at them from beneath. “Whatever you’re going to do, do it fast! We’re about to get into the arrow range, I think! Getting to see what’s under Ochako-chan’s robes isn’t worth it! It’s so much not worth it!”

“Look up again and the arrows are going to be the least of your problems!” Uraraka hisses down at her, before looking up at Izuku again. “Alright, Deku-kun. If Shigaraki-san thinks that it’s a good idea, or at least the only idea we have right now, then let’s trust him one more time.”

Look, it’s not that Izuku finds it hard to say no to a girl, especially when it’s Uraraka-san. It’s just that he doesn’t have any better ideas. And they are getting closer and closer to their destination.

“Alright then.” Izuku pulls the soul crystal out of the pouch on the leather belt he got from their brief looting spree in the Upper Stoneverge Redoubt. Then, as he extends it towards the side (Tokoyami clearly getting ready to cast the Demon Possession), he adds. “Well, here goes nothing.”

He can feel faint-headed for a second as the crystal he was holding in his hand vanishes into thin air, right before something materializes just a few centimeters in front of his hand.

It’s a knight.

A completely unfamiliar knight with perfectly human bodily proportions covered in plate armor with a helmet with a visor that vaguely resembles what Arshka was wearing. Izuku gets maybe half a second of eye contact with the knight (who appears to be staring at him in complete shock) through the visor before the latter starts sliding down the platform.

Which wakes them up from their stupor pretty well.

“WHAT THE FUUUUCK?!” The knight yells in the local language before slamming her hand into the platform, with enough strength to chip out a bit of it, giving them something to hold onto. “Where the everliving f*ck are we?! Who the f*ck are you?!”

“Uhm?” Izuku replies while still staring at the new, unexpected arrival. Very eloquently.

“Oh.” Yoichi decides to match his eloquence with one of his own. But then manages to actually say something useful. “So you remember how I mentioned how I think that I ate some of the energy from Arshka’s soul crystal? So, errr, it might have been, you know… the chaosflame corruption? You’re welcome.”

…

“It’s going to be a long story and we don’t have the time for it!” Izuku shouts back. He can see the knight wince, most likely at the weird language they just heard him speak. “We’re about to arrive at the Lower Redoubt and…”

“Lower… Oh, f*ck me!” Arshka yells. She seems to have realized where they were. “Who f*cked up my elevator so much?! Wait, those knife-eared motherf*ckers from Ythill are still holding the lower fortress?”

“Y-yes?” Izuku isn’t sure about it, but…

“Alright, then we’re going to do it like this.” Arshka replies. “I’ll run toward the wall and jump off it before the knife-ears can fully mobilize. Because those sh*theads are nocturnal, so most of their soldiers are asleep right now and out of uniform, it’ll take them a while to gather those up, and even their Vessels have to be spread around the fortress. You run after me and try to keep up and not die. Because if the Witch of Hellfire shows up, I might make it but you certainly won’t. Got it?”

Now that was a very intimidating nickname. For someone that Izuku most likely didn’t want to meet.

“A-alright!” Izuku replies, slightly shakingly. “Everyone heard the plan? Tokoyami, fly away. If we die while jumping off the wall, pick up our crystals, alright?”

“I’ll do so.” Tokoyami nods. “May we meet again, friends.” He then quickly takes off. Izuku is kind of envious of having the ability to fly. It must be incredible getting a bird's eye view of this world. And let’s not forget the tactical possibilities that it opens.

“Well, it’s nice that you’re having a big friendship moment, but we’re about to arrive!” Arshka shouts back. “Get the f*ck ready, we have to jump down or we’ll get skewered by their soldiers!” When Izuku looks down, he can see the buildings of the fortress emerge from beneath the platform. There is some movement there. “Let go on the count of three. One, two… THREE!”

Izuku, as ordered, let go. So do Uraraka and Toga, the three of them sliding down the platform, just as Arshka does so right next to them. A moment later and they’re in free-fall.

It’s a ten meter drop at best, and they have enough Vigor to heal any potential injuries caused by the fall.

“DIE!” A soldier yells while charging at the nearest member of their group. He is wearing that black-like armor like the corpses of the attackers up there. It feels… elvish, in general. Resembled some pitch-black variant of elven armors from the first LOTR movie (that was such a classic that Izuku saw it too).

Regretfully for the elf in front of them, the person he tried to run through with his spear was Arshka. Who promptly dodges him to the left, before grabbing his shoulder with her right hand… and smashing his head with one punch of her left hand.

“Thank you for the spear, dipsh*t!” Arshka replies while grabbing his spear. She then immediately throws it into a dark elf that was trying to shoot at her from something looking like a very compact crossbow. The elf is practically nailed to the wall, the crossbow falling off his hand just as blood bursts from his mouth.

That’s not how spears are supposed to be used. But Izuku - who only managed to stand up and look around - isn’t in the mood to explain that to her.

The elevator was descending into a building, entering it through the roof. Rather than waiting for the elevator to arrive at the destination, they jumped onto the rooftop. Where the presence of the guards was less generous.

For now.

Most of them probably waited for them in the building beneath their feet. At least those that managed to mobilize by now.

Arshka’s spear throw nailed the crossbowman into what Izuku assumed to be the entrance to the staircase allowing one to descend into the building itself.

She pulls a sword out of the sheath of the spearman, without bothering to take the sheath itself.

Then she runs towards… the edge of the rooftop? What?

Izuku and the others run after her, without asking questions. They understand why she was heading in that direction when dark elven soldiers began to emerge from behind the edge of the rooftop that she was running towards.

An external staircase?

The soldiers regret their decision to not call in a sick day when Arshka uses some sort of active skill, spreads her arms around, and dashes forward with enough strength to chip off some of the floor under her feet while taking off, before tackling the whole group soldiers and sending them down off the side of the building.

The last member of the small soldier squad was outside of the splash zone. He (or she, it was hard to say in the armor) ignores the fact that their teammates were just sent flying into oblivion and stabs Arshka with a spear.

The blade finds purchase, the soldier being skilled enough to target an armor joint. Arshka growls before her sword glows yellow for a second as she neatly takes the soldier’s head off with it.

Arshka then begins to run down the steps of the external stairway, Izuku and the rest running after her, ignoring the corpse slowly sliding down the stairs.

They arrive at the courtyard in front of the elevator building a few seconds later, just to see a small crowd of soldiers run out of it. They’re armed with either a sword or a spear, each of them also having a rectangular metal shield, way too small to be called a pavise.

Arshka ignores them completely and runs past them, diving into one of the streets and exiting the small courtyard. They run past them as well, the soldiers moving fast but not fast enough to intercept them.

Shouts from almost every direction. The elves were trying to surround them. And the Lower Stoneverge Redoubt was clearly larger than the Upper one.

Arshka keeps running. They can barely keep up with her.

She dives into an alleyway, Izuku and the others running right after her, just to see a lonely dark elven soldier… and that’s when the boss health bar pops up, with words Vhiss, Dreg of the Abyss over it.

At that instant, the soldier's body contorts unnaturally, black sludge beginning to seep from the armor joints just as… black… tentacles sprout from the helmet visor? What the hell?!

“They have eldritch abominations!” Yoichi cheers. “f*ck YEAH! And it’s even called the Abyss!”

Vhiss leaps at Arshka, their hands extended forward, clearly trying to grab her. The rage knight stops her run for a second, before using some strengthening technique enveloping her body in yellow light.

She then grabs Vhiss by the chest, throws him overhead, and piledrives him head-first into the pavement, his head bursting into a small pool of black sludge with the crushed remnants of the helmet in the middle of it.

The health bar vanishes instantly.

“... kind of disappointing though.” Yoichi then says. Izuku decides not to comment on this. “I think, I hope, that it was Malkuth.”

The ‘enemy slain’ announcement then confirms that yes, it was Malkuth.

They keep running.

The next street they run into includes a whole wall of shields and spears. Arshka curses under her nose, only to be shot by a crossbowman from one of the windows above.

“MOTHERf*ckERS!” Arshka yells at them (or just in general) before pulling the bolt out and throwing it back at the crossbowman (but missing). Looks like the elves just blocked the shortest way to the walls. The rage knight doesn’t want to waste any more time (especially under fire), so she turns around and runs past Izuku before diving into another alleyway.

Izuku runs after her.

A moment later, another boss health bar shows up. Sevharian the Executioner. Izuku only notices the enemy in question when he goes past the corner and sees Arshka block a two-handed downward slash of what looks like a massive meat cleaver.

The elf is taller than the others wearing similar armor. But instead of a helmet, he’s wearing a bloodied burlap sack. There aren't even any eye holes. How does he see?

However he does, he slams the sword into the floor, causing some sort of impact wave and sending Arshka back. She screams in fury, trying to regain her balance, but that’s when Sevharian charges forward, swinging his sword again.

Uraraka pulls his leg. Literally. He loses both his balance and momentum, and that’s all that Arshka needed. She dashes forward, driving her borrowed elven sword through the man’s chest, piercing the armor as if it wasn’t there. Sevharian loses the grip of his cleaver which falls to the ground, just as his HP drops by a solid half.

Arshka pushes him back until his back slams into the wall. Then she takes a step back, her hands suddenly glowing yellow, the light forming into something resembling the claws her enraged form had earlier.

She shreds Sevharian’s neck with her claws, the blood gushing from the wounds… and continues to do so as his health bar drops, dousing Arshka completely.

Bleeding debuff? Sevharian gurgles something and tries to grab her, but he fails to do so before his health bar hits zero and the man bleeds to death. Second Malkuth that Arshka practically walked through.

“I f*cking love her!” Toga cackles in the background. “More violence! More blood! More!”

“Not now!” Uraraka shouts back. She then fires a Magic Bullet in the rough direction of a crossbowman that was trying to shoot at them from the nearby window. She doesn’t hit him, but it’s enough to make them hide for a second.

Arshka tries to pull the sword out of Sevharian, but that’s when the shouts come from behind. It seems that the shield wall was catching up. She abandons the idea and runs past Sevharian’s corpse in the direction from which he arrived.

They run after her, of course. They have no alternative ideas, and…

Wait, why exactly were they so alright with mass murder? Because what Arshka was doing right now was mass murder. Was it because Yoichi was absolutely certain that the dark elves were bad?

And that they would kill them all if given half a chance?

Was Yoichi a bit, you know, racist? Should Izuku ask once they are out of this mess? Or maybe being extremely cautious around dark elves was some sort of Fantasy World 101 that Izuku missed out on?

Then again, the bit where Vhiss suddenly sprung out face tentacles before leaping at them like some sort of animal was pretty worrying. And the nicknames ‘Dreg of the Abyss’ and the ‘Executioner’ didn’t sound very friendly.

Another street. This time, dark elven soldiers lined both sides. A lot of soldiers. Enough that even Arshka doesn’t want to immediately charge them.

“THEY ARE CORNERED!” One of them, his black armor adorned with some golden details, shouts. An officer? The language is certainly different from the one that Lena and Arshka were speaking, but Izuku understands it nonetheless. “GET THE VESSELS HERE, NOW !”

Arshka curses and dashes towards the door to the nearest building. The soldiers on that side try to interrupt her but she throws her sword at the nearest soldier with enough strength behind the throw for the sword to lodge into the shield and injure the man behind it.

She then shoulder-tackles the door she was heading towards and rushes inside.

Izuku runs after her and Detroit Slashes the nearest soldier that almost managed to block the door. He uses it for additional physical damage, and the blunt side of his sword to hit the elf’s shield.

It was enough to send him flying back into his comrades and give Uraraka the time she needed to run into the building.

Toga takes advantage of an open window and jumps through it. Izuku takes that as his cue to leave, especially as he gets shot by a crossbow and it turns out that getting shot with a crossbow hurts like hell.

He runs after Uraraka only to find himself in the barracks. Lines and lines of bunk beds on both sides. Some tables and chairs in the middle.

He can also see Uraraka, Toga, and Arshka just… standing there? In the middle of the room? But then he sees a woman on the other end. An elf, and not a dark one. Her skin is more of a… dark pink?

She also seems to somehow wear even less than Toga. How?!

Izuku gets to see the health bar with Inivani, the Seductress written above it, before he loses himself. Before all that he can see are her eyes. And her body. Her beautiful, beautiful…

“SEDUCE…” Arshka screams, pulling him out of the stupor. What just happened? “...THIS…” She slams the chair she was holding in her hand into Inivani with enough strength that most of the chair immediately breaks apart. The woman shouts in pain while falling to the ground.. “... BITCH!”

She then slams what’s left of the chair into her head, again, with enough strength to shatter the chair into splinters… clearly doing the same to Inivani’s skull.

Her health bar drops to zero. And they get another ‘enemy slain’ announcement. Malkuth level again.

“I think that was our first mental attack.” Yoichi says as Midoriya blinks while looking around. “Thankfully the power of thottery has no strength over the power of overwhelming rage. But you should really start moving or…”

One of the soldiers catches up to him and stabs his back with a spear. Even through the chainmail, it hurts. And his health bar felt it.

Izuku leaps forward just as Arshka jumps out of the window on the other side of the room while the soldiers begin to pour into it from the other side.

Time to go.

***

We're yet to show Arshka without the helmet, but... here, take it.

Ignore the modern background.

Chapter 15: Daring Escape

Chapter Text

Izuku jumps through the window next to Arshka just to realize something really damn important. Namely, the fact that the barracks were built on the very edge between two segments of the Lower Stoneverge Redoubt.

One could call them the Upper and Lower Lower Stoneverge Redoubt.

Jumping out of the window on the ground floor just to discover that it was actually the third floor was… an experience.

Izuku isn’t looking forward to repeating it ever again.

Arshka manages to land gracefully. If, by gracefully, you mean landing on a dark elven soldier who just ran out of the lowest floor of the barracks building. Izuku, in the meantime, hits the pavement.

He really can’t call it ‘landing’.

He loses some HP. As Arshka is busy slaughtering a group of soldiers that they just dropped in the middle of (four more corpses, two more drop their weapons and flee in panic), Izuku is busy doing something else.

Namely, responding to Uraraka’s shocked shout by lunging in to grab her before her body can hit the pavement too.

His body moved on its own. Not the first time in his life. But it’s the first time his automatic heroism moment leads to him holding a girl in his arms.

“T-thank you.” She stutters out just as Izuku puts her down. Thankfully he doesn’t just drop her in panic.

Toga lands next to them, gracefully.

“MOVE IT!” Arshka yells while running towards the nearest alleyway. “WE ARE ALMOST THERE, GO GO GO!”

Izuku knows that much. He has seen the walls during his brief fall from the window. But what would be a short stroll in normal circ*mstances might feel much, much longer when you’re on the run from a small army.

He understands it when they reach their destination. Because the moment they run after Arshka into the street adjacent to the walls, they’re suddenly greeted with five health bars at the same time.

Vhearan, Dreg of the Abyss. Vhaerum, Dreg of the Abyss. Avharant, Shield of the Depths. Hasivh, Spear of the Depths.

And, finally, Arstovhia, Witch of Hellfire.

Their names told Izuku one thing: dark elves love the ‘vh’ sound and he still had no idea how to pronounce it properly.

He wasn’t doing super great with English. Dealing with Elvish (or, well, Dark Elvish) had to be worse, right?

They also told Yoichi one thing. That dark elves were carrying around so much sheer f*cking edge that the Hero Killer Stain was about to sue them for copyright infringement.

Seriously, what the hell, he saw angsty fanfiction OCs with lesser edgelord vibes.

Finally, they told Uraraka and Toga one thing. That they were slightly itsy-bitsy screwed. After all, wasn't the Witch of Hellfire someone that Arshka of all people was afraid of? Just how powerful could she be?

Arshka, in the meantime, just growled. This wasn’t part of her plan.

“My, my, my.” A female dark elf says. Unlike most of the dark elves thus far (minus whatever the hell Inivani was) she wasn’t wearing that much, just a rather generously cut robe, black with violet bits here and there. “Arshka, what an unexpected meeting.”

Correction - it was less a robe and more a cape, with something resembling a tight bodysuit forming the bulk of her clothes. Her outfit also included black thigh-high boots (with high heels) and what looked like a coiled whip at her belt. She was also armed with a short black staff in her hand.

As for the Witch of Hellfire herself, she looked… dark. Very dark skin, with short dark gray hair and red eyes. Pointy ears. Body-built… slightly less generous than Yoichi expected from an elf, but there was still quite a lot for an eye to catch (even if she was a bit… lean).

She was standing on one side of the street, alone.

On the other side of it stood two towering knights. They wore heavy, black elven armor, seemingly heavier versions of the armor worn by the soldiers they encountered along the way. One of them was armed with a tower shield and a longsword. The other had a smaller rectangular shield and a long spear.

Spear and Shield of the Depths, most likely.

Their shields are made from some black metal and… covered with symbols . Izuku isn’t sure how to describe them properly. What he does know is that when he looks at them for more than two seconds, he can feel worms wiggling and eating their way through his eyes.

No soldiers behind them, either.

The last group are the two Dregs, looking identical to average soldiers in terms of equipment. Other than that, their bodies (resting on top of the wall in front of them) are contorted weirdly, a black sludge oozing from all the openings in their armors, and the tentacle-like appendages extending from the visors in their helmets.

Two Malkuths, two either Malkuths or Yesods and one suspected Hod. It was going to end up badly.

“Your sword.” Arshka says slowly, her eyes on Arstovhia while her right arm extends towards Izuku. In the absence of better ideas, he obediently gives her his sword. “Make a run for it once the fight starts, and don’t wait for me, just run as fast as possible and as far as possible.” She then adds quietly.

There are stairs leading up to the top of the wall. The problem is that they are pretty close to the Shield & Spear duo, and both the Dregs were waiting on top of them.

“Well, I didn’t expect to see your ugly face today, either.” Arshka then shouts back to Arstovhia. “Did I interrupt something important?”

“I have an idea.” Yoichi says to Izuku. “But I need you to relay it to Uraraka-san. Quietly. We don’t know how good of hearing the elves are.”

“Oh, you know. Just the usual.” Arstovhia replies while glaring at Arshka. “I was having so much fun, then it turned out that someone had invaded my fortress.”

Izuku leans towards Uraraka-san’s ear and quickly relays the instructions from Yoichi. Uraraka gives him a surprised look before nodding with a look of sudden determination on her face.

“It’s my fortress, get your own.” Arshka snarls before continuing to speak in a. “As for the fun part, well, I shouldn’t be surprised that you’re sexually enjoying yourself so much nowadays. You didn’t have them in Ythill, right?”

“What?” Arstovhia replies while giving Arshka a surprised look.

“Horses.” Arshka replies. “You don’t have them underground, right?”

…

“Ouch.” Yoichi comments dryly. “It looks like Arshka likes verbal violence too.”

Something very nasty flashes on Arstovhia’s face. Whatever it was, she managed to control it. For now.

“Looks like it really is you.” Arstovhia replies instead. “What a mystery. One that I’ll love to untangle. One limb at a time.” She grins. Arshka says nothing. She’s probably dumbfounded, but the currently closed helmet of her plate armor does wonders to hide it. “Such a disappointment to your father, Arshka. Then again, being a disappointment for your parents is basically your life’s only goal.” She says in a mocking tone.

“Looks like we have something in common, Arstovhia.” Arshka replies. It turns out that h in the vh is mute. How curious. “You, too, are a disappointment to your parents. Except, the father that you’re disappointing is the entire male population of Ythill.”

“Oh, man, this is awesome.” Yoichi cackles as Arstovhia is busy being quietly livid. “She and Lena are best girls and I’m ready to fistfight All Might to defend that opinion.”

Izuku refuses to participate in that affair, as it would make him fistfight All Might for Yoichi. That’s one of the biggest nopes imaginable in Izuku’s book.

“Well…” Arstovhia then says. “... if you’re trying to infuriate me in hopes of making me be less detailed in control of my powers, then I regret to inform you that it didn’t work.” They can hear Arshka click her tongue in irritation even from under the helmet. “But it certainly made the soon-to-be interrogation sweeter. And much more emotionally satisfying.” She adds with a rather sad*stic smirk on her face.

Izuku doesn’t enjoy the prospect. But that’s when Arshka speaks again.

“Well, I guess we’ll have to NOW!” She yells suddenly while dashing towards Arstovhia, swinging the sword downward. The Witch of Hellfire dodges backward, crimson flames erupting where she stood.

Arshka’s ‘Now’ happened at such an unexpected moment that it surprised Izuku and his party. Thankfully, it also surprised the hell out of the dark elves. As a result, they both began to move at roughly the same time.

Yoichi’s plan worked. The moment they began to move, Uraraka instantly cast Zero Gravity on one of the Dregs. As expected, they both lunged at them instantly once the fight started. However, the result was one of the Dregs reaching the destination while the other slammed head-first into the building behind them due to suddenly losing 90% of their weight.

He dies. Izuku is almost certain that heads are the Dregs’ weak spot, as he can’t explain them dying instantly when those are seriously damaged.

Regretfully, the first Dregs’ destination was Izuku. Who found himself being grappled by the enemy, their arms wrapped around him just as the Dreg looked down on him from above, some particularly large black tentacle made of what looked like a solidified form of that black ooze heading straight for Izuku’s face.

He doesn’t want to know what sort of damage it does. Thankfully, he doesn’t find out. Dreg suddenly loses almost all of its weight and is shot with a Magic Bullet, which lets Izuku untangle himself from its grasp.

“TOSS HIM BEHIND YOU, NOW!” Yoichi yells. Izuku doesn’t wait to ask questions, instead, he does just that. He then discovers that Hasivh (the spear elf) somehow got behind him in what felt like two or three seconds and was about to impale him on his weapon.

Getting a Dreg thrown in his face buys Izuku enough time to jump back. Hasivh grunts loudly while sending his ally flying to the side with a shield swipe before running after Izuku.

The other knight attacks Uraraka who was busy running up the stairs while supporting Izuku with her magic. He fails to slice her in half because Toga jumps at his back and manages to stab him slightly beneath the neck with her misericorde. The damage is abysmal, and Toga soon regrets dealing said damage at all.

Avharant tricks her by leaning forward, his right arm bending left and down, as if he had lost his balance and was on the verge of tumbling forward. Rather than jumping down immediately, Toga tries to stab him again.

Except that’s when the Shield of Depths suddenly dashes to his left side, turning around mid-jump so that his back would be facing the wall. The result of it is Toga being smashed into said wall with the full weight of a heavily armored knight performing some sort of dash super move.

Izuku has no idea how many hit points she has left, but he’s ready to guess that not a lot. Avharant decides to immediately reduce the number to zero by taking a step away from her before turning away and delivering a wide horizontal slash of his sword.

Toga doesn’t avoid the attack. Instead, she is yanked out of its trajectory by Uraraka’s Pull. Narrowly. But it gives her enough time to wake up from the damage-induced stupor and run up the stairs after the gravity mage. Who does so while firing Magic Bullets towards Avharant, forcing him to raise his shield.

Izuku dodges another spear thrust to the side and is about to congratulate himself for a job well done (probably with some variant of ‘it’s relatively easy to dodge when it’s all thrusts’). Except that’s when the pointy end of the still extended spear suddenly grows a sharpened, semi-circular edge made of some black… mass?

He fails to dodge the wide slash in time, the new blade going through his surcoat and chainmail without any resistance.

It hurts.

He is in incredible pain, the place of his abdomen where the blade went through feels as if thousands upon thousands of minuscule lifeforms were squirming under his skin, biting his flesh and enflaming his nerves with sheer, almost incomprehensible pain.

Izuku screams while stumbling backward, Hasivh raising his scythe-spear for a vertical slash that was going to end it. Yoichi is screaming at him to move, but Izuku can barely hear him through the pain flooding his senses.

And that’s when Tokoyami shows up in his Possessed form, landing abruptly beside Hasivh. The spearman’s finishing attack is halted when the demon summoner slams his clawed hand into him, his enemy only narrowly managing to block the attack with his shield.

Izuku wakes up as the pain subsides. His HP took a blow. Was it some sort of debuff? Not the time!

“Ṁ̴̨͉̞͈̳̽͆̆̈͋̓̀̋̾͐͠Ô̶̞̔̈́̾̈́͌̒̊̃̒V̷̛̰̈́̀̌̑̃̇̌̂̍́͝Ě̸̡̡̛̼̟̘̼̞̭͓͔̺̎̂̒̈́̎̕!̶͖̤̟̎̋̈́̏̾͂̀̈́̈́̎͆͜͝ Tokoyami shouts. He then leaps towards Avharant, who was about to jump up the wall in order to pursue Uraraka and Toga. The second massive claw slam gets blocked with a shield once more, achieving exactly nothing. Although, no - it bought them some time.

Izuku runs past Hasivh, circling around his back. Spear of the Depths was instead busy trying to kill Tokoyami. His endurance withstands the physical damage, but his dark magic scythe goes through Fumikage’s arm.

He yells in pain. Despite it, he manages to take off before Hasivh and Avharant can kill him.

“UP THE WALLS, NOW!” Izuku then hears Arshka’s shout from a distance. The fight between her and Arstovhia was happening in the background and, honestly, it wasn’t something that Izuku wanted to get involved with.

It was way too explosive and scary. Out of his league, without a shadow of doubt.

Now, however, it got involved in him.

He does as he was told and dashes up the wall. A moment later he understands why Arshka yelled at him, because the crimson flames erupt from the pavement on the street, a line of raging flames at least a few dozen meters high .

That was, without a doubt, the most powerful attack that they’ve seen since their arrival in this world. In fact, aside from Detroit Smash (that Izuku saw in detail and in a combat scenario exactly once), he's never seen an attack that comes close to it.

Endeavor could likely reach that level of firepower, perhaps go beyond it with Prominence Burn. But… yeah, that was pretty much it.

The blast was massive in scope, at least fifty meters (and it covered all that space in an instant), and the fire was hot enough to almost burn Izuku to death despite him being at least seven meters away from the main line of fire.

Witch of Hellfire was a hard-earned nickname. It also explained why the soldiers weren’t around, someone probably called them off to avoid having them killed.

Friendly fire was certainly an option. Especially as that singular blast instantly annihilated the remaining Dreg… and both Shield and Spear of the Depths.

Then again, their deaths were an accident. Because the actual target was Arshka. And unlike them, she managed to avoid instant death but she failed to avoid damage.

The Rage Knight emerged from the smoke with her armor partially melted down, the plates twisted and some surface parts of it still glowing lightly - that’s how hot it was. She was still likely taking some damage from the heat.

“Wow, what a f*cking bitch you are.” Arshka says. Somehow, the sword she borrowed from Izuku was untouched. Did she hide it behind her back to shield it from the blast? “You just killed three of your own Vessels.”

“I did.” Arstovhia replies calmly. Her hair is burning, the same crimson flames dancing around her fingers. “But I’ve also taken away 80% of your Vigor. While I’m down by what, 20?%” She grins. “And guess what, my allies will be back up with just a single quick visit to the Altar. I’d say that it’s a good trade, Arshka.”

Izuku at this point is at the top of the walls. Toga had already jumped off, but Uraraka for some reason was still there, looking back at the scene of the aftermath of Arstovhia’s attack.

“Uraraka-san?” Izuku asks. They are supposed to jump immediately, what if Arstovhia…

That’s when Uraraka extends her hand. And the soul crystals scattered throughout the battlefield begin to drift towards her hand one by one.

“What are you doing?” Soul crystals are small, so by the time Arstovhia noticed what was happening, Uraraka was pulling the last one. The sudden question made Arshka look back… and immediately understand what was happening.

At least that’s how Izuku interpreted the loud cackle she let out.

It grew even more intense when Uraraka showed Arstovhia the middle finger before jumping over the battlements, Tokoyami (this time in his normal mode) grabbing her mid flight just as he did Toga earlier to cushion their impacts.

“DON’T YOU f*ckING DARE…” Arstovhia exploded a second later, crimson flames bursting from her body, and that was Izuku’s cue to leave. He promptly jumps over the battlements, landing right next to Uraraka, with Toga still visible through the forest, clearly running away as quickly as she could.

Which sounded like a very good idea. So, Izuku immediately ran after her, and so did Uraraka. Tokoyami, in the meantime, lifts off again.

“Uraraka-san?” Izuku asks a few seconds later, as the two of them are busy sprinting through the forest. “Did you… did you take the other soul crystals too?”

“Yes!” She replies immediately. Yeah, that explains how filled her pockets were. She must have used her Pull spell to snatch them while running past the corpses.“Even if we won’t use them for souls, it just means getting several bad guys arrested, right?”

“... marry her, Ninth.” Yoichi says before Izuku can figure out a response of his own. When he hears him, he almost trips over a branch. Almost. “Seriously, marry her. She is perfect. She attaccs, she proteccs, but most importantly she doesn’t forget about the loot when everyone else clearly did.” He sounds downright passive aggressive by the end of that sentence.

Izuku decides to ignore him and his teasing completely.

“Did you have to show her middle finger though?” Izuku asks as they keep running through the forest, almost catching up to Toga.

“Hey, she deserved that!” Uraraka shouts back. “She just burned her allies to get a shot at injuring her enemy! That’s an asshole move if I ever saw one.”

And that was, honestly, a very good point. If that was the sort of a person that they all followed willingly, then perhaps the approach that Yoichi and Arshka had to dark elves was more justified than Izuku thought.

He still wanted to know an explanation behind the massacre that he had just been forced to witness and that was probably going to haunt him in his dreams. He was only 15 years old! He wasn’t supposed to see stuff like that!

Arshka, to Izuku’s slight surprise, shows up a while later, running behind them faster than what Izuku was capable of.

She is also screaming at them to run fast because Arstovhia excels at long-range combat and they aren’t out of her range yet.

It turns out to be a terrifyingly accurate statement when a heat laser ray chops off the upper half of some trees they were running past, and fire starts raining from the sky.

***

In the end, they manage to get away. They run continuously for almost an hour before Arshka announces that they are far enough to avoid pursuit and can have a very serious talk that was waiting for them for quite a while.

“Alright, you sh*tnuggets.” She then says (surprisingly calmly, at least in her own terms). They are a small forest clearing somewhere deep into the forest, with none of them having a clue where they are. “Start explaining. Now .”

Izuku is at this point made painfully aware that she’s still holding his sword. And doesn’t seem interested in giving it back.

“Eer…” Izuku isn’t sure why is the party’s designated speaker. There has to be someone better, right? Literally everyone is better than him! Maybe aside from Toga. “We might be from another world, we have no idea how we appeared here and we were trying to get away from the Black Feather Meadow and the Stoneverge Redoubt was the shortest and quickest way. We wanted to go through that side-passage from the elevator, but the elevator broke and, err, you know the rest from there.”

Arshka just stands there for three or four seconds, in total silence, before she speaks.

“What the f*ck?” … and that’s why Izuku doesn’t want to be the team’s designated speaker. “First of all, that ‘another world’ is the worst bullsh*t I’ve ever heard. Second of all, who the f*ck told you about the side passage? It’s f*cking confidential.”

“L-Lena did.” Izuku replies nervously. “Lena from the School of Eclipse. We met her in the Meadow, she told us that something scary was waking up in the Meadow, and that Redoubt was the shortest way out, we just had to deal with some s-scary m-monster that took it over.”

“You know Lena, I see.” Arshka replies. There is something weird in her voice now. Did those two know each other? It seems so.

She takes off her helmet. Izuku isn’t sure what he expected to see under it, but it certainly wasn’t flowy auburn hair straight from some female shampoo commercial. There was also a pair of green eyes and… well, she looked kind of pretty, actually.

Weird.

“So, the Upper Stoneverge Redoubt fell as well, and the situation got worse during my little empty patch in memory.” Arshka says. She sounds… furious, but under control. To some degree. “What sort of monster was it? I never heard of a creature that could cause amnesia to people.”

… this was going to be awkward.

“T-that was you.” Izuku lets out nervously. Arshka squints at him. “You apparently were taken over by the chaosflame and turned into an, errr, rampaging beast that was slaughtering everyone who showed up in the fortress. But, errr, we fixed that?”

Arshka stares at him without a word for a solid ten seconds this time, and Izuku just keeps shrinking from the third second onward. It’s not a pretty sight. He isn’t very big to begin with.

“What… the f*ck?” She then says, still staring at Midoriya. “What sort of bullsh*t is this? No one has ever healed soul corruption. And don’t get me started on the fact that you ‘fixing that’ implies that you defeated me.”

“Well, err, I kind of pushed you off the keep’s rooftop and onto the spikes on the inner walls.” Izuku replies. He can’t persuade her that the former happened, but at least the latter could be explained, right? “After you fell for a decoy made to resemble me. You were basically slaughtering us one-sidedly before that.”

Arshka stares at him for a few more seconds, then she painfully sighs.

“Alright, none of what you’ve said makes any f*cking sense.” She then says. “Lena was heading to the Blackwater Forest?” They all nod. “Fine, we go and find her, maybe then I’ll get something believable. Follow me, that bird beastman included, and if any of you try anything funny, I’m going to try something even funnier. Got it?”

Once again, they all nod. Getting Tokoyami to come down might take a while, but… it should work. It’s likely that he already noticed that they stopped walking.

“Good.” She says dryly. “Blackwater Forest is a contested territory. When the dark elves were storming the Stoneverge Redoubt, there were four elven countries fighting each other over this place. Out of those four, only one won’t murder us all the moment they see us. And unless Lena left you all a map, we don’t know where the borders are right now. You see the problem with that?”

“Y-yes, but… wait, why are the e-elves fighting each other so much?” Izuku asks. It’s not… like he imagined elves to behave.

“Because there are dozens of f*cking elven subspecies out there, each of them dumber than the last, and almost all of them hate each other with a passion.” Arshka replies while putting her helmet back on. She must have wanted to get a good look at them, and if Izuku is right about it, the visor of her helmet was most likely damaged. “The fortress we just left was built by the Divine Empire in hopes of the local garrison making the elves stop indulging in their favorite entertainment, which was burning down their neighboring villages before recycling their inhabitants into compost. As you can see, we f*cking failed. Do your math.”

…

“You know, I originally thought that a literal elven forest didn’t exactly fit the atmosphere of a soulslike game.” Yoichi says dryly in the depths of his mind. “After hearing that it’s basically fantasy Balkans engulfed in a race war, I stand corrected.”

It’s too late to go back to the Meadow, isn’t it?

***

Say hello to Arstovhia, Witch of Hellfire.

This time it's a joint work between me and Tormound :V

Chapter 16: Meeting the Natives

Chapter Text

Tokoyami arrived soon after, landing right next to the party. It was a bit of a tense moment, especially for Fumikage himself, as he wasn’t sure how the locals would react to him being a demon summoner.

Arshka already proved to be an unstoppable force of nature. And it was likely that she noticed him using Demon Possession during the last stage of their escape from the castle.

“What’s your contract payment?” Arshka asks when Tokoyami lands. She doesn’t even wait to get introduced to him or vice versa. She straight up asks that, while giving him a moderately hostile look.

“... apples?” Tokoyami asks, appearing surprised by the questions. Arshka stays quiet for a few seconds.

“What the f*ck is wrong with you?” She then says. Sounding downright exasperated. “What sort of demonologist pays his bound demon for their services in apples ?”

“Well… I do.” Tokoyami replies while staring back at the knight. “Should I change it to children’s tears or virgin blood?”

“Yeah, no.” Arshka shakes her head. “Keep who you are hidden. Pretend to be a mage. People dealing with demons are technically not public enemies. The Divine Empire tolerated them for as long as the compensation wasn’t horrible, but ‘tolerated’ was the operative word. They weren’t liked. They just weren’t executed on the spot. And now that the world might just be ending, everyone’s f*cking looking for scapegoats to blame. And you’re a convenient one. Got it?”

“Yes.” Tokoyami nods while bowing a little. “I’m aware that people at times like this aren't the most welcoming, especially towards those living in darkness. Also, my demon explained it all to me.”

“And how much did you pay for that information?” Arshka asks dryly.

“I… promised them an apple?” Tokoyami appears to not be sure if saying this is a good idea. But he does that regardless.

Arshka stands there in silence for several seconds, clearly processing the new information. Then she turns on her heel.

“Let’s just keep walking.” She says, her sanity clearly spent entirely on that short exchange.

Not long after that, they discovered that their Vigor and Focus were regenerating without a visit to the Altar of Egress, it was just an extremely slow process. It took hours for it to conclude. It was nice, although to call it useful in combat scenarios would be a big, fat lie.

A day later they found the corpses.

***

Uraraka actually let out a muffled scream when they saw the first corpse. She managed to control herself, after all, there might have been enemies out there and by now they all began to develop some appropriate instincts. But… the shock was there.

The corpse was fresh enough to be recognizable. A brown-haired elf, hanging off the tree branch on a rope. Naked. Mutilated. Carved apart, missing several important body parts (like eyes).

They were practically covered in injuries, too many of them for Izuku with his limited understanding of human anatomy. But most of them had dried blood splotches around them. And that, if Izuku remembered it correctly, implied that they were alive when the injuries happened.

The rope certainly wasn’t the cause of death. It wasn’t wrapped around his neck but under his armpits.

“Looks like we’re heading the right way.” Arshka says coldly while staring up at the corpse hanging off the trees. “Good. Let’s go. I look forward to returning to civilization, even if it will be an elven civilization.”

“W-wait!” Izuku stammers out, trying to not look up. “T-that’s a corpse?”

“Yeah?” Arshka glances back at him, clearly surprised by his surprise. “It’s a mountain elf. I don’t need to know anything more to be able to tell you that he f*cking deserved it. What’s important is that this tells us that we’re approaching the slightly more tolerable type of elves. And that they’re still in the forest to begin with.”

“I…” Izuku decides that there is a place where he has to draw a line, and being tolerant and even supportive of what sounded like a racially-motivated massacre sounded like a very good candidate for it. “... t-think that we’re l-lacking some important information here.”

Yes, Arshka is still the one holding his sword. He can’t exactly hope to survive a confrontation. He decides to try to play it slightly more calmly. Besides, the elf is dead, it’s not like there’s a person to jump in for.

Arshka looks around, clearly seeing the same look of confusion and hostility on the face of the others. Except for Toga, who was staring at the corpse with a faint smile on her face. Someone was enjoying the sight.

Then she sighs and takes her helmet off. Probably to let them have a good look on her face while she speaks. It helped greatly in appearing honest.

“Elves are f*cking nuts .” She then announces. “They were made by a certain ancient evil empire as a slave race and divided into a frankly unnecessary amount of equally unnecessary subspecies tailored for some specific role in mind. Wanna guess what happened then?”

“Their overlords died out, and the elves began to suffer due to being crippled by their overspecialization?” Izuku relays Yoichi’s guess. Arshka actually gives him a surprised look after this. Looks like she didn’t expect any of them to guess it right.

“Yeah, precisely this.” She replies. “Some of the subspecies flat out went extinct due to not knowing how to survive on their own. Others sold themselves out to other brands of evil overlords, typically worse than their already sociopathic creators. Fast forward a thousand years of such servitude by beings that couldn’t even think of living on their own, and you get a bunch of elves that are so mindlessly devoted to their asshole patrons that they are killed on sight in every civilized part of the world. Like that f*cker over there.” She adds while gesturing towards the corpse hanging off the branch.

Izuku doesn’t even look in its direction. He really doesn’t want to see the corpse again.

“W-what’s wrong with him?” He asks instead.

“It was a mountain elf from the Fellwind Mountains.” Arshka replies. “When the Xylean Dominion collapsed, they sold themselves to the dragons. Every tribe there lives around a lair of one of them, that they worship as their patron deity and a protector. Worship and feed . With soul crystals. So, for the last thousand years they’ve seen literally any foreign Vessel as a walking ball of nutrition for their petty sh*tty gods. And since you can’t kill a Vessel from a civilized world without killing some random non-Vessels, they've ended up seeing everyone that’s not them as something to murder. Either to steal their sh*t or to have fun while doing so. The end result is a bunch of absolute xenophobes that murder, rape and pillage their way through literally everything surrounding them. And if you want to hear another funny detail, the warlord that united several local tribes and was pushing into the Blackwater Forest when my little amnesia episode started is known for wearing the skins of his enemies . So we’re clear, the ‘enemies’ category includes civilians. And the whole ‘wearing the skin of my enemies’ thing is considered by his kin as an interesting aesthetic choice that has been emulated by some of his lieutenants.” Izuku stares at her in shock and horror, but she’s not over with it. “So if you expect me to apologize for thinking that the sh*tstain hanging off that tree deserved what the forest elves did to him, then think again.”

That… wasn’t something that Izuku was prepared to hear. The villains in his world were… well, some of them were scary (like Toxic Chainsaw or Muscular, to list the two that came to his mind first), but most of them were pretty much thugs.

Thugs were on a completely different level of evil than… this. This was Moonfish-level stuff, except it was supposedly done by an entire culture. And to that… to that, Izuku had no idea how to react.

Pro-Heroes were supposed to uphold the law. The idea of the law of some society being so horrifically evil (just as the society itself) was… completely alien to him, really.

A quick glance at his companions made it clear that they didn’t know how to respond to it either. Uraraka was horrified, and her face made it rather clear. Tokoyami was harder to read due to how his face looked, but the wide open eyes felt like a good enough sign of his opinion on the subject.

Toga was a surprise. Because while she still felt mostly like her usual carefree self, it was clear to Izuku that even she did recoil from the description a little.

“The problem here is that this sort of decoration tends to be done by the forest elves at the borders of their territory.” Arshka decides to add something more. “While the fact that the corpse is fresh means that we have friendlies in the area, it also means that the Green Arrow Tribe’s territory shrunk more than I expected after the dark elves seized the Lower Stoneverge Redoubt. Worst of all, it’s a mountain elf rather than a dark elf. Which means that they were in the area. Which, in turn, means that Karsan the Skinwalker got further north than he should ever be allowed.” She clicks her tongue in irritation while putting her helmet back on. “The situation here might be better than I feared but it’s certainly a hell lot worse than what I hoped for. We have to keep moving.”

None of them feel like saying no to that. Izuku can only hope that they weren’t the only Travelers in the area - and that maybe, just maybe , they would run into some pro-hero to tell them what to do with all of that.

He, certainly, would have loved All Might to be here.

They run into more corpses hanging off the trees during the next twenty minutes. Izuku is grateful for the fact that he doesn’t need to sleep in this form as he would most certainly have nightmares after the experience.

“That’s… not how I hoped this would play out.” Yoichi says in the middle of said experience. “Even after hearing what sort of place that elven forest was I hoped that we’d manage to get past it to a bit… nicer place. I’m sorry that you had to see it, Ninth.”

They were marching through the forest at a steady pace. Running too quickly would only make them more visible. Or, worst of all, make them walk into something that might have reacted badly to their presence.

A few times Arshka - who was walking as the first one in the column - raised her arm signaling them to stop, before making them go back (without making a sound) and then walk on an arc around something. She never specified what it was.

It added to the creepiness factor of the trip. Not as much as the corpses, though.

“I… you sound a bit calm about it, Shigaraki-san.” Izuku asks quietly. He is a few meters around from Arshka, but she was clearly listening in to things.

“Call me Yoichi.” Shigaraki replies. “I don’t exactly like my surname, it reminds me too much of my brother. As for the calmness, I lived during the Dawn of Quirks. I’ve seen sh*t, Ninth. Some of it was as bad if not worse than what you’ve just seen. How much my obsessive desire for an isekai adventure was born out of escapism is… probably a talk best had with a therapist, if you ever find any that would be alright with treating a ghost.”

That… was understandable. It was one thing to learn in school that the Dawn of Quirks was a horrible time to live, it was another thing entirely to actually meet someone who was alive back then.

“I d-don’t know what to think about it.” Izuku mumbles. “It’s just too much. Those people really just… do those things to each other?”

“Sometimes, Ninth.” Yoichi replies. He sounds… solemn? It’s such an odd tone to hear in his voice. “Typically, only in times of desperation. Where the desire to survive makes people ignore their morality. When things aren’t as bad, it’s something that tends to happen only among those truly mad or evil. Think Moonfish. Or my brother.” He stays quiet for a moment. “But it does happen. It’s just a part of what pro-heroes do that doesn’t get publicized, especially in this day and age. All Might didn’t want you to know about it.”

“W-why?” Izuku is… surprised. All Might keeping things away from him still felt weird, even after finding out that there was more to his quirk’s history than what he was told.

“For the same reason why he didn’t want to tell you about my brother.” Yoichi replies. “He was born in a much different Japan. Much darker and more desperate. He fought to change that for most of his career. He spent decades as a hero constantly on guard for my brother’s hired blades. He spent his entire time at the UA keeping distance from people, because he didn’t want to drag them into his war. He spent his entire life alone, never even considering the option to settle down and have a family, because my brother would target them without a shadow of doubt.” Yoichi sighs. “He wanted you to be able to become a hero without all of that. To attend the hero school without having to worry about some megalomaniac charging in to slaughter everyone because you were there. To have friends, to find love, have a family, be a hero in the kinder times that he fought so hard to create.”

That… put All Might’s behavior in a bit of a different light. Not a bad one, of course! It explained why he kept some things from him.

Izuku was fifteen. He had years to get slowly introduced into the darker parts of current society like what all heroes went through during their training (and then, while working as sidekicks before becoming full pro-heroes).

And even then, most of the investigative work in the back alleys was left to underground heroes.

And Yoichi’s brother? He was dead. Not telling Izuku about it was… it made sense. What was the point of telling him the details? Izuku already knew that there was a villain, at some point, powerful enough to injure All Might. It was the very reason why All Might’s initial reaction to Izuku asking him if someone quirkless could be a hero like him was a… admittedly rather gentle letdown.

He knew all those dirty parts of heroism that the TV didn’t show to kids like Midoriya. From autopsy. He wanted the child in front of him to remain a child a little longer. Have something that he didn’t get to live through.

All Might felt completely burned out on that rooftop. But he never felt burned out while helping Izuku train afterwards. Quite the opposite, he was burning with enthusiasm the whole time.

He changed the moment he saw Izuku rush in to save Kacchan. The moment he understood that he found his successor. It was…

“W-what was his quirk?” Izuku asks. “Before, you know. You?” He never really gave it much thought, even after discovering One for All. He wasn’t sure if he was ready to take All Might’s words of his two forms were really ‘muscle flexing’ at face value, too.

Yoichi stays quiet for a while.

“He was quirkless.” Yoichi eventually says, Izuku almost tripping over a root in shock. “A quirkless kid pretty much your age who thought that the reason why everything was so bad was that the people lacked a symbol to believe in. A Symbol of Peace to match my brother’s Symbol of Evil. One that ran into his predecessor and managed to inspire her with his beliefs enough for the Seventh to decide to move the war against my brother from the shadows into the light and choose that very quirkless kid as her successor.” Yoichi stays quiet maybe for two or three seconds, Izuku still trying to digest what he just heard when he speaks again. “She never got to see him succeed. My brother killed her while All Might was still in UA. The whole move to America was so that he could train and gain experience before returning to Japan so that he could avenge her. And finally end my brother’s reign of terror.”

Izuku… really isn’t sure how to emotionally process all of it. He wanted to become a hero like his idol, then he discovered… all of that. It was all something completely new to him. Something that added dozens of layers to said idol.

Was… was the Symbol of Peace seeing himself in Izuku? Himself but without all the painful baggage? It… Yeah, Izuku has absolutely no idea how to process that as a concept. It’s like a lion seeing himself in a mouse.

His mind just doesn’t compute. He still isn’t sure how much he managed to compute the fact that All Might said that Izuku inspired him to move during the second Sludge Villain encounter.

On a side note, it makes him understand the wisdom of All Might’s decision not to tell him too much. Because he most certainly isn’t ready for most of it. Maybe all.

“I… guess that I’ll have to p-prove that I deserve it.” Izuku mumbles. For as long as it’s loud enough for him to hear it, Yoichi hears it too. He isn’t practically speaking through a closed mouth right now. “The quirk. By going through what he wanted to spare me from.” He then clarifies.

“That’s one way of seeing it.” Yoichi replies. “But if there’s one thing that I’m certain about, it’s that All Might deserves it. And if he thinks you deserve it, then so do I. And I’m literally a hero out of a fairytale, right? You gotta trust my words.”

It was… errr, Izuku doesn’t want to say what he thinks about it. Because Yoichi was the sort of a fairytale that lost the fairytale…niceness when you got to interact with them for more than five seconds.

He was still someone quite incredible for facing his brother while thinking that he was quirkless. But… he just couldn’t hold the sense of decorum for more than said five seconds. This whole talk was an exception.

“I’ll be here to assist and advise you in any way I can, Ninth.” Yoichi adds. “But I do admit that… I don’t think that you can get out of this place without getting involved in some questionable things.” He stays quiet for a few seconds, clearly thinking about how to put his thoughts into words. “I’m not sure if I’m a good advisor here. My advice would always be ‘do the right thing’, but we both know that it killed the original me. And this is a completely different world that we know almost nothing about. So, just… be careful, and try to keep your body from moving on its own, m’kay? It’s not the right place or time to act without thinking.”

“S-sure thing, I'll try.” Izuku mumbles back. “Just, you know, not being able to control my body is kind of the definition of those moments.”

“Yes, I figured that out already!” Yoichi says while chuckling loudly. “It’s an inherent part of your character design, Ninth. It impressed All Might, so there is nothing to be ashamed of! Just, you know, remember that he used to move before thinking too. And that he’s missing some important bodily organs.”

Way to lower Izuku’s mood. While improving it simultaneously. Because hearing that All Might did the same thing was nice, even great, but the rest of it… wasn’t.

“Deku-kun!” Uraraka’s hand lands on his shoulder, stopping him from walking straight into a tree. Oops. Looks like he got a bit too invested in his thoughts. “A-are you alright?”

Izuku looks back at her. Her magical robe still suits her (then again, this is common to all clothes worn by the Vessels). But the look on her face is… still rather haunted. And yet, she was worried about him .

He shouldn’t worry herself like this.

“Y-yes, kind of.” Izuku replies. He can see Tokoyami give him a questioning look over her shoulder. Toga was walking as the last one in the column. “I was having a talk with my q-soulflame.”

Tokoyami and Toga knew that his soulflame was talkative. He simply had to tell them that much to avoid looking like the weirdo for talking to himself. Naturally, One for All was a better hidden secret.

“Oh, I see.” Uraraka replies while clearly forcing herself to smile. “Did it say anything useful?”

“Just words of encouragement, I guess.” Izuku replies. “But I really needed them.” He turns around to try to resume walking, only to find himself face-to-face (or, to be exact, face-to-helmet) with Arshka. “Eeep?!”

“Your soulflame talks to you?” She asks. Izuku can suddenly feel himself sweating intensely under his chainmail (and the gambeson beneath it). And it has to be a psychological thing because as a Vessel he was totally alright wearing such an outfit while marching through the sunlit plains of the Black Feather Meadow.

“Eerrr, yes?” He relies nervously. “I-is that not normal?”

Arshka is staring at him for several seconds. He can see her eyes through the visor of her helmet. Eventually she speaks.

“No, it’s completely and absolutely not normal.” She eventually says. “In fact, I never f*cking heard of someone talking to their soulflame. How is that even supposed to work? You are your soulflame. It’s just a stronger soul, one so strong in fact that it manifests physically in certain circ*mstances. Your soulflame carrying a separate consciousness from you is the weirdest f*cking thing I heard in my life. Might even be weirder than your claim that I was healed from a soulflame corruption by you.”

Izuku isn’t sure how to respond to that. So he just blinks at her a few times, which makes her shake her head, turn around and keep walking.

This was weird.

Also, he hopes that he’ll get a moment to talk with Uraraka in private (although Tokoyami could also be there) about how she was doing with the whole thing.

***

They encounter the elves that very evening. They show how well-mannered they are by ambushing their group and announcing their presence there by firing an arrow at Arshka. Right at her chest.

Just without velocity sufficient to pierce through it. But even Izuku can immediately understand the unspoken threat delivered to them by the arrow that ricocheted off Arshka’s armor.

The rage knight responds by freezing in place before breathing in deeply. And then, she uses all the air to some very interesting form of diplomacy.

“YOU STUPID, BLIND KNIFE-EARED MOTHERf*ckERS!” She yells from the top of her lungs, loudly enough for Izuku to cover his ears on instinct. “I’M ON YOUR SIDE! YOU JUST ATTACKED A KNIGHT OF LEANA YOU THIN-SKINNED LIMP-DICKED IDIOTS!”

“I absolutely love her.” Yoichi cackles in the back of his mind. “She’s delightful!” Izuku would have said something but he was too busy being terrified of how many archers could be hiding around them.

The same archers that Arshka was clearly taunting.

“Anyone can wear a ruined armor they scavenged from some battlefield and claim to be a knight.” An elf says while emerging from the woods at least thirty meters in front of them.

They’re tall, lean, and wearing heavy-looking armor that appears to be carved out of wood… or even made to grow that way. They’re also holding a longbow in their hands, but they aren’t drawing it right now.

There is no helmet. The skin is white, and the hair is black but cut short. Too far away to see their eyes. The ears are, naturally, pointy. Their age is… hard to say, they appear to be adults but the facial hair (aside from eyebrows) is completely missing, making exact age guesses hard.

Their entire face is kind of… smooth? Izuku can easily imagine people mistaking male elves for females for as long as the body shape isn’t there to tell you whom you are facing.

Arshka proves to be a master of diplomacy by taking off her helmet and promptly throwing it at the knight while using some of her magic. Despite the distance, it actually forces the elf to move to the side to avoid being hit, although with how easy it was it’s clear that a throw at such a distance wasn’t actually a threat.

“LEANIR, YOUR BLIND DUMBASS!” She yells again. The elf in question seems to have recognized her now, at least judging from his sudden freezing in place and the shocked look on their face. “IT’S ME, ARSHKA! USE YOUR f*ckING EYES FOR ONCE!”

“How the…” It was clearly not directed at them, yet Izuku could clearly hear it regardless. The following words are most certainly said to be heard though. “How are you alive?! You got soul-corrupted months ago!”

Arshka glances at Izuku without a word.

“I told you so.” Izuku replies while shrugging a little. It’s about as much sass as such a friend-shaped person as he is capable of, at least in Yoichi’s opinion.

“Not a word to anyone about any of that until we find Lena, understood?” Arshka replies immediately. Izuku nods quickly. Her complete lack of expletives somehow makes her appear more serious than usual. She then turns back towards Leanir. “WELL, HAVE YOU SEEN ME BEING SOUL CORRUPTED, OR DID YOU ACTUALLY TRUST SOME STUPID f*ckING HEARSAY CLAIMING THAT I, OF ALL PEOPLE, LOST MYSELF TO RAGE?”

“Someone should tell her that it’s entirely in character.” Yoichi comments dryly. “She’s worse than Miruko, I swear.”

Izuku finds it hard to disagree with him. But he also knows that he isn’t going to be the person who would do that.

“Sorry to break it to you, but that would be entirely in character.” Leanir immediately fulfills Yoichi’s dreams. Arshka glares at him for a second or two before pulling out the sword she borrowed from Izuku. Leanir quickly raises his hands. “Alright, alright! No need to throw anything more. Sheesh, you don’t know what humor is.”

Arshka puts her sword down. Leanir shakes his head a little before whistling loudly. Around them, at least half a dozen archers (with lighter versions of his equipment) make themselves visible.

Yeah. Of course they were half surrounded. They were in an elven forest and neither Arshka nor Izuku were particularly quiet on their feet.

Leanir is approaching them. Arshka waits for that to happen before speaking.

“I need to have a talk with Alea.” The rage knight says while staring at the elf. Who responds by raising his brow. “Now. Important information straight from the Lower Stoneverge Redoubt.”

“Yeah, I figured out from the state of your armor that you had a meeting with the Witch of Hellfire.” Leanir replied calmly. “Sure, I can get that done. What about your companions?”

“Before that, is a mage from the School of Eclipse by the name of Lena anywhere in the forest?” Arshka asks. Leanir nods.

“Yes, she’s staying in Lanor.” The elf replies. “But I think she isn’t there right now. You two know each other?” He appears to be considering the option that they were friends, while simultaneously finding it hard to imagine Arshka having a friend.

Or that’s how Izuku interprets it.

“We do, yes.” Arshka replies. “Get someone to escort my companions to Lanor.” She glances at Izuku and the rest. “Not a word to Lena that I’m around if she shows up before I do, got it? I want to surprise her.” Izuku nods quickly. “Good. And don’t use any of the soul crystals, I’ll tell you why later. Preferably sit on your asses there until I’m back.”

Leanir’s eyes drift to Tokoyami. The one and only among them wearing the UA school uniform and looking even more out of place than Toga.

“More otherworlders, I presume.” The elf then says, clearly piquing Arshka’s interest. Who, rather than reply immediately, glances at Izuku once more.

“I told you so.” He replies while shrugging. Yoichi decides to let out a very undignified giggle at the back of his mind.

“You met some?” Arshka then asks the elf.

“A few, we put them all in Lanor since no one with any power in our tribe has any idea what to do with them.” Leanir replies. Looks like at the very least the Travelers like them aren’t a kill-on-sight among the forest elves. “But we should be moving. We’re too close to the border for my taste.”

Looks like it’s time for their departure.

Chapter 17: Firelink Sh... Village

Chapter Text

The elves that led them through the forest for the whole night weren’t very talkative. In fact, they gave them some weird looks, and told them to follow them and run. And run they do. Constantly. For hours.

The Elves are easily matching up to their speed. Without looking exhausted. Despite running without stopping, through a forest, and after likely being active for most of the day prior, they are fine.

Izuku actually thought that they were Vessels, but no. One of them accidentally walked into a patch of mud, and the mud stayed on his boots. Despite the Vessels being immune to such discomfort.

So, non-Vessels. With a stamina to match up to the Vessels.

“It might be their racial thing.” Yoichi replies when Izuku mumbles his question to him. “Their creators most likely gave every subspecies more adaptations than just a different aesthetic. And with forests typically being hard to navigate on a horse, massively boosting their stamina makes sense.”

Oh. That had to make them extremely swift when they knew the forest. There could be loads of camouflaged (or perhaps magically hidden) signs around allowing them to navigate without stopping for a second to figure out where they were.

Fighting forest elves in the forest had to be an endless sequence of being ambushed by archers that could move ten times faster than you. This… sucked. That probably explained why the dark and mountain elves failed to dislodge them from the forest properly.

If anything, it made the fact that the forest elves actually lost some ground say a lot.

***

Lanor turned out to be a cozy little village scattered on the coast of the Blackwater Lake. The lake was massive, in fact so massive that they could barely see the other end of it. The water looked crystal clear, making Izuku wonder why it was called that way.

The architecture was mostly uniform. Foundations of the houses (typically up to your knees when you were entering them on the ground floor) were made from cobblestone. Above it, wooden planks started.

Most of the houses were two-stories tall, with a smaller upper level with a balcony covering for the rest of it. The smaller ones tended to have an external staircase to save more internal space.

There were also exceptions to that design. Workshops. Some storerooms at the other edge of the small river passing through the village. Several wooden piers on the coast of the lake, with small fishing boats, nets, fishing poles, and so on scattered around.

All of it is surrounded by a thick and well-crafted palisade.

The whole village also looked almost completely deserted.

Uraraka was actually confused by it enough to ask one of the elves before they had the time to leave.

“Lanor was inhabited by outsiders.” The elf replies coldly. “Mostly people from Leana, like merchants who were visiting us so regularly that they decided to have their own roof to sleep under while here. Everyone either died or returned home after the Shattering started. We’ve sent the few otherwolders we’ve found here, and… you see that big building up there, by the palisade?” He points towards a lone standing building on the slightly elevated segment of the village on the other side of the village. Uraraka nods. “We’re using that building as a base for local patrols. It keeps Lanor safe. So you don’t have to worry about that, at least until you decide to wander into the woods or swim too far into the lake. Then all that happens is on you.”

That sounded lovely. Izuku decides to ignore Yoichi’s complaint about being locked in a ghetto by the first ‘friendly’ elves he met in his life.

Then all the elves just left. Very friendly, those people.

“Alright, so I guess that it’s time to have a quick talk.” Tokoyami turns around to face them. “Are we planning to get involved in what’s going on in the Blackwater Forest? Because while visiting an elven forest is an interesting experience, I’m not sure if I want to take part in their race war.”

“Bird has a point.” Yoichi says before Izuku can reply to it. “Ninth, if you wear a khaki uniform and start repeating some elven variant of ‘Kosovo je Srbija’, I’m going to one-sidedly ban you from using One for All.”

Izuku, once again, has absolutely no idea what Yoichi is referring to, so he is going to completely ignore it.

“Well, I certainly don’t plan to help burn any villages. Or villagers.” Uraraka replies. She looks much calmer than earlier, but certainly still haunted by the experience. “Look, I… c-can I be honest?”

“Of course you can!” Izuku replies immediately as Tokoyami nods. “We’re teammates! It doesn’t matter what you say, we’ll all listen.”

That’s enough to draw a smile on her face. Reassuring. Greatly reassuring. Any amount of smiles on their face right after walking through that border meant a lot. They might have been sorta-immortal right now, but their emotional state was only made more important by that.

“If those other elves are really like Arshka described them as, I don’t think I’ll feel particularly bad about, you know, doing the soul crystal thing to their Vessels.” She sees the look Izuku must have given her after that and freaks out a little. Even Toga is giving her a surprised look! “Look, I don’t like that idea! But as Deku-kun said a while ago, there is no police to hand them over to keep them in a prison. Every local authority we give them to will just execute them, and the only alternative, being locked indefinitely in the soul crystal, is worse than being dead. So what other options do we have when stopping local villains is involved?”

“She’s right.” Yoichi comments sharply. “When in Rome, do as Romans do, Ninth. Just don’t go too far and remember my earlier words.”

Izuku remembers them. He just doesn’t understand them, nor does he really want to.

“In other words, we’re alright with permanently ending sapient inhabitants of this world, for as long as they are guilty of acts that justify it.” Tokoyami replies while looking at Uraraka. “I assume that when it’s not their fault that they were doing said things, like it was with Arshka who murdered tons of people while under chaosflame influence, we’d have Midoriya’s soulflame heal them instead.”

“Yes!” Uraraka nods quickly a few times. “That’s the idea. We heal whom we can, we engage in diplomacy whenever possible, stop villains who can’t be stopped otherwise with lethal means, and protect anyone who isn’t hostile to us!”

“That sounds like a logical compromise between our world’s morals and what we need to do to survive in this world.” Tokoyami admits. “I don’t think we can get through this isekai adventure with only the former, especially in a world that operates on a ‘feast on each other’s souls to get stronger’ rule. We’d simply be crippling ourselves. Which would, sooner or later, be lethal. Midoriya? Toga?”

“I’m fine with whatever you decide!” Toga chirps. That leaves only Izuku to share his opinion on the subject.

He isn’t comfortable with murder, obviously. In fact, he’d rather persuade all of his opponents to stop trying to kill people. But… yeah, it wouldn’t work with Grinsh. Vedrick. Arshka. Aelie was the only sapient and sane boss they personally slew, and she was…

Evil. Murderous. Responsible for the massacre of people living in the mine, murder, and subsequent post-mortem enslavement of the local equivalent of a pro-hero (Vedrick), and from what she yelled at them it was likely that she also loved the dead a bit too much.

She was, basically, a pretty female Moonfish. And Moonfish was on death row, to begin with.

He had no idea how bad the dark elves were, but he’s willing to make a thesis that you don’t get nicknames such as the Executioner for being a nice person. Dregs were also rather terrifyingly inhuman, to begin with.

And for some reason, Izuku doesn’t think that their takeover of the Lower Stoneverge Redoubt was done peacefully. A lot of people died there, and the dark elves likely weren’t very gentle about it.

Decisions, decisions.

“A-alright.” Izuku manages to reply. The shakiness of his voice is back, it’s really not something he enjoys saying. He also can’t help but wonder what All Might would say if he saw his student right now. “But it’s the last choice. Only when everything else won’t work.”

“It seems that we’ve made a solid decision that should help us avoid giving in to the inner darkness.” Tokoyami announces as the others nod. “Very good. Now, however, I believe that it is the right time for us to look for some locals.”

That was a good idea.

***

The first ‘local’ they find is another obvious beastkin. A girl their age, with long green hair and a pair of almost comically large eyes. She was wearing the female version of UA school uniform, making it clear that she was one more Hero Course student.

“It’s great to see familiar faces-kero.” The girl says while bowing her head towards Tokoyami. “Tokoyami-chan.”

“Tsuyu.” Tokoyami replies while bowing his head back. “It’s great to see you in good health. I have found two of our missing classmates, and met an additional ally from our world.”

“Y-you know each other?” Uraraka asks Tokoyami. Who nods back.

“She’s from our class.” Tokoyami replies just as Tsuyu puts her finger by her lip. “We didn’t get a lot of time to get to know each other before we were forcibly transferred to this world. She approached me for an introduction before the class due to both of us having rather noticeable animalistic features, I believe?” Tsuyu nods in the background. “All that we’ve managed to say were the introductions before I found myself in the Black Feather Meadow.”

“And I landed in the Blackwater Lake, kero.” Tsuyu adds. “I’m Tsuyu Asui, but you can call me Tsu.”

“I’m Uraraka Ochako, nice to meet ‘ya.” Uraraka waves at Tsuyu. Who ribbits back.

“Midoriya Izuku.” Izuku introduces himself too. “Look like we’re classmates! N-nice to meet you.” One thing is certain, he isn’t calling her by her first name, much less by a fragment of it. It sounds too… look, he isn’t confident enough to be on a first name basis with a girl, okay?

“And I’m Toga! Toga Himiko!” Toga smiles wryly at Tsuyu. Who rather obviously glances down and most likely develops an opinion on her fashion choices. “I’m a friend of Occhan and Izuchan!”

Izuku almost channels his sensei to the point of coughing out blood. Because he was this close to biting off a part of his tongue when he heard Toga call him ‘Izuchan’.

“Are you sure we’re close enough for this?” Uraraka is much calmer about it and glances questioningly at Toga.

“We’ve fought side by side with each other, we’ve died side by side with each other, and I consider you my friends!” Toga replies cheerfully. “Dunno about you, but I most certainly am close enough!”

“Fair enough, I guess.” Uraraka sighs. “Well, Tsuyu-san…”

“Call me Tsuyu.” Tsuyu cuts in immediately. “Kero.”

“Alright, Tsuyu.” Uraraka corrects herself. “Are there any more people here? The village looks deserted.”

“It almost is.” Tsuyu replies. “There are only five people living here right now, including me. We’re living in the few houses on the central plaza. The rest is empty. Kero.”

That was a somewhat small… village. Could you even call it that way? Izuku isn’t sure. But it feels… like a decent enough base for the time being, right?

“Took us almost two weeks to get to our Firelink Shrine.” Yoichi clicks his tongue. “It has been a long and arduous journey. But it seems that we’re past the prologue. Nice.”

It was just a prologue? Ugh.

“Want me to introduce you to the others?” Tsuyu asks. “Most of them should be at home. We’re mostly idling while waiting for something to happen. Or for a plan. Kero.”

It seems like they didn’t have a lot of time to increase their strength. They probably didn’t have anyone with a level higher than their new guests (and that’s without doing anything to the soul crystals they’ve got from their run through Lower Stoneverge Redoubt).

“Sure, sounds like a good idea.” Izuku replies. “Lead the way.”

***

The first of the ‘villagers’ they encountered took over the town’s smithy and was busy hammering at some piece of metal when they arrived. She was a girl their age, with pink dreadlocks, and a rather manic look on her face, wearing a smith’s outfit, including a mandatory leather apron.

“That’s Mei-chan, kero.” Tsuyu announces to them as the hammering continues in the background. “Mei Hatsume. She’s from a support course. Here, she’s a blacksmith.”

“Oh, that’s just what we needed.” Yoichi chuckles in the background. “A blacksmith to upgrade our equipment! Spectacular.”

The hammering ends as the girl notices that they are there.

“Oh, new clients!” She grins at them while putting down the hammer. The sword she was working with seems finished either way, she was just putting some finishing touches on it. “What do you need?”

“They’re from our world, kero.” Tsuyu tells her. Mei waves her hand around.

“Yeah, yeah, I figured this out.” She then says, sounding almost disinterested at that. “One of them is wearing our school uniform, the others look Asian, that’s a solid enough tell. So, what do you need? Hatsume Industries will do its best to satisfy all your needs! For as long as they come in a medieval theme.”

“You sound almost as if you were happy to be here.” Tokoyami comments, speaking Midoriya’s thoughts almost verbatim.

“Oh, I absolutely am!” Hatsume announces with a wide smile on her face. “Look, the locals are absolutely clueless about electronics and electrics in general, but in terms of materials and mechanical engineering, they are incredible . I’ve learned soooo much since I arrived here, and I only hope to get better in the future.” She pauses her speech for a while, while giving them all an appraising look. “You know what, you can be useful to me. Give me a moment.”

Then she disappears into the back room.

“She has an interesting… personality.” Uraraka comments immediately after.

“She does, yeah.” Tsuyu agrees. “But she’s good at her trade, kero. Even the elves that are using the village as a base for their patrols get their equipment maintenance at her smithy, despite not liking the outsiders and all.”

“An interesting personality, professional skills in what she’s doing and more. Like her impressive Danny DeVito’s.” Shigaraki comments from the back of his mind. “I’m genuinely impressed by her genetics.”

“What?” Izuku mumbles back.

“Oh, you know, the DD’s.” Shigaraki replies. Izuku is still very, very lost. “Seriously? How about the church bells? The beach umbrellas. The Golden Globes. The bandonkers. The twin peaks. The shoulder boulders?” Silence. “You know what, stay G-rated and ignore me.”

And now Izuku understands what Yoichi was talking about and promptly blushes furiously.

“Act your age, please.” He hisses. Tsuyu gives him a questioning look.

“Oh, it’s something in his quirk.” Uraraka moves in with explanations. “He sometimes talks with it. It’s normal.”

“Kero.” Tsuyu ribbits while putting her finger on her lips. She seems confused about it.

“I’m an eternally immortalized copy of a twenty year old dweeb.” Yoichi retorts dryly. “Who never even touched a girl in his life, and will never do it in his unlife. I’ll never do anything, so let me at least appreciate the eye candies. And before you say something, I see the exact same thing as you do. So I did notice your eyes drifting down from her face and staying there for longer than I expected. Despite the leather apron hiding most of it from you.”

And to that Izuku has no answer.

Hatsume returns a while later carrying a handful of small objects of varied shapes. She then puts them on the anvil, while waving at them all to come closer and gather around. They do so.

“Now, a quick introduction for the newcomers.” Hatsume says while pulling up her unfinished sword. The blade is still red from being put in the furnace earlier, and the hilt is missing the leather parts. “This is a sword. A steel sword. Do you know how steel is made?”

“Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon, with less than 2% of carbon.” Uraraka replies. “With some minor additions, like chromium for the stainless steel. There are a lot of different steel alloys with different properties based on said additions.”

“The brown haired girl scores a point!” Mei grins at them. “Locals are producing steel mostly like we do on Earth. To be honest, they figured out most of the steel alloys we knew in our world! That’s quite impressive for a medieval society. BUT! There’s a funny thing. You see, most materials used in tools, weapons, armors, outfits, and so on are infused with a very particular material, native to this world and unknown in ours, called the moon tears. It’s a rather brittle crystal that can be ground to dust and is then absorbed by the materials it comes in contact with. Have you seen that giant elevator in the Stoneverge Redoubt?”

“Up close.” Tokoyami comments dryly, Asui giving him a surprised look.

“The reason why such a primitive culture could construct something this big is the moon tears.” Hatsume continues. “You just put some of it in the metal, and it’ll remember its shape. It becomes massively resistant to deforming under physical stress due to actively acting against them to retain said shape. The possibilities this opens are staggering.”

She’s really on a roll with that, isn’t she?

“Blades stay sharp indefinitely, because the metal retains its shape.” Hatsume continues. “Normally each sharpening makes the object a tiny bit smaller eventually leading to its uselessness, but it’s not the thing here! And let’s say that your sword is completely broken in half. Normally, any attempt to reforge it would lead to a product of inferior quality. But here? Here all you need to do is to heat the metal, put it in the right position and with some physical force applied to it, it’ll reconnect back into its physical form. Hell if there’s a missing bit, you just need to put a smaller bit of metal of roughly correct shape and the stronger form of the bigger object will overtake its own form imprint, rebuilding itself completely!”

“Oh.” Uraraka lets out with her mouth agape. “That’s incredible! And it really explains everything. Such a material in our world would mean a breakthrough in architecture, in hero support items, in… in almost everything!”

“Yes!” Hatsume clearly enjoys someone agreeing with her. “Exactly what the brown haired girl said! The massive chains in that elevator? Locals are capable of some incredible feats of engineering, like that elevator, because what they made doesn’t require maintenance. Ever! You don’t need to bother with making mechanisms accessible for the sake of easy repairs! You can put any amount of mechanisms, cogs, and whatnot behind the thickest stone wall you’ve ever seen, and for as long as it works then, it’ll work forever!”

“Oh, so that ’s how the soulslike game weapon maintenance mechanism was translated to the real world!” Yoichi says cheerfully. “Not to mention the fact that all the elevators and the like work even after the apocalypse. Nothing better than making the unrealistic into realistic via some interesting tricks like this. Ask her if the weapon can be strengthened somehow.”

“Yep!” Hatsume replies when Izuku relays the question. “The moon tears that are ground-up and used to bestow that ability to materials are those of the worst quality. Basically trash stuff that breaks into pieces when you touch them. The resulting materials can and will assimilate better quality, solid moon tears, strengthening their own form in the process. Armors get tougher, weapons find it easier to pierce or slash through armor or tougher materials, and so on. The more tears an object assimilates, the bigger the number after the plus in the name of it when you check them out in the Altar of Egress.”

“Now that’s incredibly soulslike!” Yoichi cheers. “I love it! Gotta ramp up those numbers once we find a good weapon for ‘ya, Ninth. Same with the outfits and armors.”

“Moon tears look like that.” She says as she pulls a small, pale crystal of irregular shape from the anvil. “You find any out there, you loot them and bring them to me. I know how to do the weapon enhancement. Now, another element I’ve gotta talk to you about. The infusion coals.”

What she pulls up next is a small container, maybe 10 centimeters long, made from some metal with a symbol of a green upward arrow on it. The upper part of it comes off easily. She tilts it enough to let them see what was inside.

It looks like a small clump of coal. Except, the color is dark green? But the rest looks perfectly like coal, including the texture and the way some of it broke off.

“You make them through some complicated magical mumbo jumbo, but on the most basic level, it’s a moon tear infused coal.” Hatsume says. “All you need is to put the tiniest little smudge of it in the furnace before you ignite it properly, and the whole flame will burn with it. You then put stuff you want over it, and it slowly gets infused with it.”

“And it changes the scaling and forms of damage, right?” Yoichi says. Izuku obediently relayed the question.

“Precisely!” Hatsume grins at him again. “You apply the right infusion coal, and suddenly the weapon becomes lighter and scales off Dexterity. Or heavier, and scales more off strength. Or becomes blazing hot, causes fire damage to whatever you hit, and this effect scales of willpower! Following me?” They all nod. “Right now, the only infusion coal I have is this little tiny thing here. It lets me apply the Graceful prefix, which improves Dexterity scaling of the weapon. It’s the usual stuff that the elves here use.”

“It might be useful to you, Ninth.” Yoichi says. “For as long as Arshka gives you your sword back. You have a high Dex, it will make your sword deal more damage!”

“Sounds useful.” Izuku replies. “So, I assume, that if we ever find any of those coals, we’re supposed to bring it to you too?”

“Yep-yep!” Hatsume nods. “The more coals I have, the more varied the infusions I can do. You bring me more, you get better equipment for everyone that visits me. You get solid moon tears, you get better weapons for yourself. ‘Ya all follow me?”

They nod.

“Great.” Hatsume grins at them once more. “I’m looking forward to working with you. If you need any piece of armor. equipment or weapon repaired, I’m your go-to woman. Speaking of which, your chainmail looks absolutely ravished .”

Oh, so that’s her game. She can see potential clients and practice in her new trade of otherworldly magical blacksmithing.

“S-sure, I’ll give it to you once I get something else to wear.” Izuku replies. Hatsume gives him a thumbs-up gesture. “I think I might want an infusion of my weapon too, once I get it back.”

“I think it’s the same with my knives, right?” Toga asks. “They have that Dex scaling thing, so I guess they’ll get stronger if she does it for me.”

“Sure, sure!” Hatsume seems overjoyed to get more practice as soon as possible.”Give ‘em here, I’ll need to put down the flame in the furnace and relight it with the right coal, I’ll do it in a while. Should be ready by the time you’re done having your little sightseeing trip through the village.”

As Toga gives her the two knives, Izuku is suddenly struck with curiosity.

“How did you even get all of that?” Izuku asks. “Did someone leave it all in the village before leaving it?”

“Hmm? Oh, no no.” Hatsume shakes her head. “I’ve gotten an… apprenticeship, of sort, with an elven smith in some village nearby. Sounded pissed off at me bothering him so much, at the beginning, but he really needed help in his work so he figured out I could aid him some, even if mostly with the menial work. When the elven government had us all moved here, he gave me the tools, that infusion coal… apparently he was amazed by my talent and figured out that I might become a famed smith. So, he decided to capitalize on it.” She grins at them. “So, to fulfill the deal we’ve made: if you ever visit the village of Tanaer and need smithing, go to blacksmith Alanor! Best prices and quality on this side of Blackwater Lake!” She adds, as she gives them all a thumbs-up gesture.

It was clearly something that she was used to doing.

“Not even being isekai’d can stop the power of capitalism.” Yoichi chuckles. “I love her, Ninth. I absolutely love her. It’s a respectable choice for your character’s love interest, if you ever wanted to switch over from Uraraka. Unless Toga’s your preferred pick? Crazy in life, crazy in bed as they are saying.”

…….. no. Just no.

“Alright, that covers Mei-chan.” Tsuyu decides to cut it short. “Next stop of the trip is the local Altar of Egress. Although I’m not sure if she’s there right now.”

Chapter 18: Meeting the Rest

Chapter Text

The small temple at the plaza in the center of Lanor was built according to classic Christian sepulchral architecture. Roman style, to be exact (or that’s how Yoichi identified it as, Izuku isn’t going to ask).

The insides of it are rather… not like the rest of the village. Because someone has put in quite an effort to destroy every sculpture and deface every relief in the shrine. With some blunt object.

“I’m… suddenly not sure if this is a good idea.” Tokoyami comments while glancing around the place.

“Yeah, so much good stonework wasted.” Uraraka complaints. When she gets a few surprised looks, she shrugs. “Look, it’s not my religion, okay? Messing up with other people’s beliefs isn’t nice, but given what’s happening around here, can we be one hundred percent sure that there’s no reason to do that? I want to understand the reason before pointing fingers at people.” She sighs. “Not like I want to know a lot more about what the local elves are into.”

“Aaaand she is slowly turning racist towards elves.” Yoichi says a second later, his voice filled with happiness “That scores her some points at the Ninth Shipping Table!”

Izuku is absolutely going to strangle Yoichi one day, right before freaking out over what he just did as he’ll do that on an impulse. Yeah. He never had those impulses before, but Yoichi is rapidly teaching Izuku how anger works.

What a wonderful achievement of his post-life.

“Stop… that.” Izuku manages to simultaneously mumble and hiss, which doesn’t avoid Tsuyu’s notice (and makes her visibly confused, glancing at Tokoyami for explanation).

“Look, Ninth, I love elves.” Yoichi replies. Clearly not getting Izuku’s point. “But… the Tolkien ones. Where they had an air of that greatness, almost holiness to them. Ever since then, the subsequent bastardization of them in works of others reduced them into archery-friendly feminine men and impossibly sexy women with pointy ears. That took everything which was truly cool out of them! They are no longer better humans that struggle with their betterness in a world now dominated by men, they are haughty asshats that remind me of my brother way too often! And I’m fairly sure that Tolkien elves wouldn’t be conducting ethnic cleansings… aside from Silmarillion, but it was a bit of a dark age… yeah, honestly, let’s just ignore that because it ruins my point. And don’t have me start on the weird relation between elves, especially females, and orcs in the creative sphere of my times!”

“I’m going to jump from the roof of this temple, headfirst, just to be able to have a talk with you, Yoichi-san.” Izuku replies. “If you don’t… stop… talking.”

Yoichi gets that he went a bit too far and shuts up. Say what you want, he knows how terrible wrath a naturally calm and friendly person can sometimes unleash when they’re completely done with someone’s bullsh*t.

He did that to his brother. He doesn’t want the Ninth to do that to him.

So, he doesn’t add that dwarves are thus better than elves because they’re badass, they never forget their grudges (like the one he had with his brother) and they’re lewded significantly less.

It still happens, but less often.

“Uhm, are you alright? Kero.” Tsuyu asks Izuku.

“It’s, errr, as Uraraka said, something in my quirk.” He quickly replies. “It makes me sometimes argue with myself.” And want to kill someone with his bare hands, but that was only on the worst of days.

“Alright.” Tsuyu nods. “That makes sense.”

The era of quirks really expanded people’s minds. It didn’t matter what sort of bullsh*t you told them, for as long as you added the ‘it’s my quirk thing’ clause, it automatically made sense.

On the other hand, Izuku wasn’t lying to her.

“I don’t think she’s here, she often disappears into the forest surrounding the village. But she might be behind the temple.” Tsuyu then decides to return to the subject. “There is a walled garden there. I’ll go check if she’s there.”

It turns out that yes, the mysterious person was there. A moment after Tsuyu disappeared behind the clearly desecrated altar, she returned, accompanied by a girl with a… green hair? No, more like, a hair made of vines?

She was wearing the UA Hero Course uniform.

What is it with this year’s UA Hero Course and green hair? That was Izuku’s one and only unique thing he had. One and only way in which he differed from the people before the quirks happened. Ugh.

“My apologies for not noticing your presence he…” The newcomer tries to speak. Then her eyes land on Toga. Uh-oh. “Was there no more exhibitionist outfit out there?”

“Nope!” Toga replies, appearing completely unmoved by the hostility in the girl’s voice. “But if you find any, tell me! Watching broccoli turn into strawberry never ceases to amuse me.”

That seems to explain, at least to Izuku, why she was always so ready to bend whenever he was looking in her direction. Midoriya’s attempts to filter her outfit out of his mind completely didn’t seem to work.

Great.

“Ugh.” The girl groans as Tsuyu gives her an odd look. “I’m Ibara. Ibara Shiozaki. Of class 1-B. Asui-san said that most of you were from our school?”

“Yes.” Izuku replies. “I’m Izuku Midoriya from 1-A. As for the others…” He pauses while glancing at the others.

“Uraraka Ochako, likewise.” Uraraka replies immediately. Nice to meet you.” Shiozaki nods back at her.

“I’m Fumikage Tokoyami.” Tokoyami nods to the girl. “Pleasure to meet you.” He has clearly decided to tone down on his usual theatrics, at least while meeting new people. Reassuring.

“And I’m Himiko Toga!” Toga says while grinning at Shiozaki. She doesn’t seem to be holding a grudge over her earlier reaction to her clothes.

“Toga-san is the one person from…” Izuku decides to explain that as quickly as possible. But he isn’t allowed to do it.

“Toga- chan, at the very least.” Himiko complained, cutting in. “C’mon, do it at least a tiny bit cute, or I’ll stop answering any other words from you!”

“Alright, so aside from Toga-ch-chan…” Izuku replies, stuttering a little. And blushing a little. In short, giving Himiko everything she wanted. “We’re all from UA. That means that we’re missing, errr, forty minus five UA Hero Course students and Nineteen Support Course students, and that’s only if this, err, phenomenon, involved only that one year of the UA. And that’s without mentioning people that don’t fit into this, like T-Toga-ch-chan.”

“I do not enjoy pointing this out.” Tokoyami decides to speak. “But if those people all landed here at the same time as we did, it’s entirely possible that a lot of them are no longer with us. I don’t know how you fared, but for us, getting here was quite a trip.” Tokoyami then sighs. “I’d even say that we were courting death, almost dying first to Arshka and then to Arstovhia.”

Izuku doesn’t feel like pointing out that even before that, he and Uraraka almost died to Grinsh and then Vendrick & Aelie. Then again, Tokoyami knows that. They talked about what they were up to between landing in this world and meeting up.

“I’m sure the others are alright!” Uraraka decides to either defeat or ignore the natural feelings of anxiety and fear. “Look, I really think that we’ve had it real tough, right? Four close-ups with death, one after another, and all of them while on the run from an archdemon about to wake up right next to where we landed has gotta be really bad luck, right?”

Izuku didn’t miss the flinch on Shiozaki’s face when the word ‘archdemon’ was said. He has a lot of questions, but he doesn’t know how to ask them. Has he ever mentioned how he doesn’t consider himself to be the most social person ever?

The person that he interacted with the most in his life was his mom. He has a feeling that it didn't paint a very good picture of his past interactions with people.

“Instead we’ve landed in this world’s capital of hate crimes.” Shiozaki replies dryly before scratching her side through the clothes. “I wouldn’t consider that a good thing.” She’s certainly not the most optimistic person around.

“Alright, I think that I’ll ask.” Tokoyami then says, staring at Shiozaki. “Why was this place desecrated so much?”

He is probably worried about Shiozaki’s reaction to discovering that he has a friendly demon tagging along.

“Because it was an unholy travesty of everything that I find sacred.” Shiozaki replies dryly before scratching herself again. “And I will not stand for a sacrilege of this magnitude.”

“Sacrilege?” Tokoyami asks while narrowing his eyes. Izuku and the rest decide wisely to keep clear of that one talk.

“How knowledgeable are you about Christianity?” Shiozaki asks, staring back at him.

“Quite enough, just as about all the main religions of our world.” Tokoyami replies calmly. “While I consider myself to be a being of darkness, one can only truly embrace it after he understands the light.”

Izuku is increasingly confused about the whole… verbal engagement?

“Well, the locals believe in an existence of a monotheistic overgod that they dub as simply the God.” Shiozaki clearly decides to trust Tokoyami’s expertise in theology. “They believe him to be omnipotent, omnipresent, the full package. They also believe him to have set up that ridiculous soul crystal thing they have going here. Do I have to spell out why this drove me into a religiously-induced fit of rage?”

“Ah, I see.” Tokoyami nods while giving her a thoughtful look. “I understand now. And I have to admit that it makes sense.” Shiozaki gives him a surprised, but clearly appreciative look. Before scratching herself again.

Uhm? Should Izuku be, you know, concerned?

“Wait, it makes sense?” Uraraka decides to take one for the team and asks Tokoyami. He nods. “Could you explain it to those of us who are less, uhm, knowledgeable about theology?”

“I believe that Shiozaki-san has decided that this world’s God isn’t her God.” Tokoyami replies. “Which isn’t that much of a surprise, as trying to theologically reconcile the world where God says that murder is bad and taints your soul with sin with a world where you can strengthen your soul with murder is simply impossible.” Shiozaki nods a few times with a very serious look on her face, just as she suddenly starts scratching herself again. Should Izuku ask or… “And thus the simplest explanation is that the God of this world is someone pretending to be a God. Which brings us to the opposite type of the religious spectrum. The Devil, in short.”

“Yes!” Shiozaki says triumphantly, actually surprising all of them with how expressive she became all of a sudden. Right before pointing at Tokoyami while looking at Tsuyu. “See? I told you that my behavior makes sense.”

“I think that it just made me doubt Tokoyami-chan’s sanity instead, kero.” Tsuyu decides to be extremely blunt about it.

“We all woke up in a world full of magic, elves, and knights, and there is an archdemon rampaging through the nearby flowery meadow.” Tokoyami replies calmly. “I really think that crossing any religious explanation out of the picture on the basis of it being religious is premature.”

To that, Tsuyu clearly fails to find the answer.

“What is your opinion on the lesser gods and demons of this world?” Tokoyami then asks. Izuku respects him for asking a zealous Christian what’s their opinion on demons (while in a fantasy world) without making it appear suspicious.

“I don’t believe in either of them.” Shiozaki replies calmly. “I have little doubt that they exist, but I do not believe in the godhood of those gods, and I don’t believe in the demonhood of those demons. Thus I prefer to ignore their existence. I only have a beef with the impersonator that’s leading the former and…” She stops and for a few seconds scratches her shoulder furiously.

“Are you alright?” Tokoyami asks.

“I… need to go.” Shiozaki replies quickly before quickly walking out of the room and disappearing behind the altar with a quick last ‘I’m sorry’.”

“Uhm, what just happened?” Uraraka asks while glancing at Tsuyu questioningly.

“She has a problem.” Tsuyu replies. “She’s now a hamadryad. A tree spirit.”

“And?” Uraraka asks. Because, yeah, it didn’t explain a lot.

“Trees don’t wear clothes.” Tsuyu replies. “Kero.”

Silence in the church.

“... could you explain?” Tokoyami ends up asking.

“She gets extremely uncomfortable while wearing clothes.” Tsuyu replies. “She also spawned without those. The ones’ she is wearing now are from Mei-chan, for some reason they changed to a Hero Course uniform when she picked them up..” She lets them digest the news for two or three seconds while glancing towards the door that Shiozaki disappeared behind. “I think it’s the main reason why she’s so furious right now, kero.”

That… honestly explained a lot. Izuku would have been angry as well.

“She moved her tree to the garden behind the church.” Tsuyu continues. “Tends to not leave it except for some trips to the forest. Doesn’t like people trying to get there, unless you knock and wait for her to wear her clothes, kero.”

“Wait, aren’t most trees technically hermaphrodite?” Yoichi suddenly asks. Deciding to bring Izuku into the mythical realm of Idon’twantoknowhia.

“I’m not asking that question.” Izuku replies back. Tsuyu ribbits questioningly. “My quirk asked me a weird question, and I…”

“What question, kero?” Tsuyu asks, giving him a very curious look.

Uuuugh.

Izuku, against himself, quotes Yoichi. This earns him concerned looks from Uraraka, Tokoyami, and - the true sign of how deep has Yoichi fallen - Toga. Tsuyu ribbits loudly.

“I think she goes the other way.” She replies. “In that, she doesn’t have biological sex in the normal human sense of the word. It’s just an aesthetic thing now. But it still makes her angry.”

Yeah, her behavior suddenly makes even more sense now. But before he can say that aloud (Yoichi thankfully staying silent for once), someone else speaks.

“Wow, what a lovely subject you’re all having.” They all look towards the entrance to the temple, just to see a teenager in a gakuran-style school uniform, with short wavy brown hair and a rather severe case of smug smile on his face. “Am I interrupting something?”

“That’s Mustard, kero.” Tsuyu says before anyone can respond to that. “The last person from our world that we have here in the village. He is a bit of a jerk. And a villain.”

The depths of her bluntness never cease to amaze Izuku, and he knows her for what, an hour? That’s quite an achievement.

“Woah, I’d be hurt by that… if I wasn’t used to you acting like that.” Mustard says dryly before glancing towards the rest. “What are you all gawking at? You have questions, so feel free to ask them.”

“W-wait, you’re Mustard?” Uraraka asks while staring at him in shock. Mustard, clearly surprised that he was recognized, somehow becomes twice as smug. “You picked your villain name after the food condi…”

“It’s NOT after the food condiment!” Mustard immediately erupts, cutting her short and throwing his hands around in sheer fury. Looks like she hit the nerve. “It’s after gas! It’s after the mustard gas! Why does everyone keep thinking it’s about food condiment?! What sort of quirk would I need to have to take that as my villain name?!”

“Uhm, ability to control mustard?” Izuku (helpfully?) offers. “You know, telekinetically moving it around, making it solid and…”

“Maybe being able to mind-control people who ate your food, for as long as you added mustard to it?” Uraraka asks. It might be the fact that being their age, Mustard doesn’t read as a very threatening villain, yeah.

“Being able to animate mustard and make it resemble other things for, you know, illusion and trickery?” Toga decides to roll with it for some incomprehensible Toga reasons.

“Being able to spawn it remotely in any nearby closed container, including the lungs of your enemies?” Tokoyami replies. Then he blinks as all eyes converge on him. “What?”

“Okay, the birdhead scares me a little.” Mustard ends up being the only one to voice their common sentiment. “Look, it’s about mustard gas, okay? It’s my villain name, no I’m not going to start any bullsh*t redemption story, don’t even try, alright? Any other questions?”

Uraraka glances at Izuku, who… isn’t sure if he likes the slightly devilish smile that pops on her face (okay, he does, he would just prefer to know what caused it), before looking back at Mustard.

“Was there no better nickname, though?” She then says.

Mustard goes downright red with anger in an instant.

Okay, so downright bullying him wasn’t a good thing to do, but he was a kid their age who was proudly stating that they were a villain. It’s like… it’s like he asked to be teased about it, alright?

“I HAD NO BETTER IDEA, ALRIGHT?!” He then yells. Tsuyu ribbits in the background, her opinion on the events unfolding in front of her an enigma. “YOU HAVE ANY BETTER GAS-RELATED VILLAIN NAME? ONE THAT DOESN’T SOUND LIKE YOU’RE JUST TRYING TO BE EDGY?!”

“Mattoon.” Yoichi says immediately. “Just tell him that.”

Izuku does that, desperately hoping that Yoichi wasn’t setting him up for something weird. Mustard blinks at him.

“What the hell is that?” Mustard asks.

“A town in Illinois, USA.” Yoichi replies through Izuku’s mouth. “During the 1940s it became the target of a cryptic individual known only as Mad Gasser of Mattoon, who was responsible for more than two dozen individual cases of gas attacks. Despite lengthy investigations, police never found any evidence for their existence, leading to the general consensus that the Mad Gasser never existed and it was all a case of a mass hysteria at work.”

Somehow, Mustard gets even redder.

“WHY?!” He then yells. “WHY DIDN’T I KNOW ABOUT THAT EARLIER?! I’d call myself Mattoon and then pick Mad Gasser as my title, like Muscular has his Carnal Killer title! Unbef*ckinglievable!” He groans loudly (staring at the ceiling for some reason) before his eyes return to Izuku. He also points a finger at him. “You, green-haired one, you’re officially the second hero trainee that I can tolerate.”

The look that Uraraka gives him can be roughly translated to ‘are you sure that you aren’t making villains like you a bit too quickly?’. Yes, Izuku finds that worrying as well.

“Uhm, who’s the first one?” Izuku asks.

“That would be me.” Tsuyu replies for Mustard. “Kero.”

“Yeah, look, I’ll be frank.” Mustard decides to add something to that. “I think that hero trainees are all entitled asshats who think that they’re hot sh*t because they got through their sh*tty entry exam…”

“I’ve told you what our entrance exam was about, getting through that is an achievement.” Tsuyu cuts in.

“Yeah, especially when your quirk makes you produce gas.” Mustard replies dryly. “I’m sure that would have gone splendidly for me. Anyway, I really dislike heroes and hero trainees, and I plan to leave this stupid forest the moment a greener and less hero-infested territory shows on the horizon. BUT, I do owe something to the frog, so in the meantime, I play along and act nicely. Got the message?”

“Uhm, what did you do to him?” Uraraka asks. It’s clear that she isn’t a big fan of Mustard, and was surprised by Asui managing to wrap him around her finger so much.

“Saved his life.” Tsuyu replies. “He landed on one of the small isles on the Blackwater Lake after arriving, and tried to cross it back to the coast in his villain outfit. It included some heavy metal parts.” Mustard groans in the background. “He was doing alright, it’s pretty shallow so he could just walk through it. Until he accidentally stepped into a much deeper part and fell down. And started to drown, kero. But I pulled him out.”

“Oh, I see now.” Izuku decides to be the speaker for it. “That explains it.”

“Yeah, no.” Mustard immediately replies dryly. “It gets better. Do you know how much vigor does drowning eat?” Izuku shakes his head. “The answer is, very, very little. I’ve got to experience the joyful feeling of water filling my lungs for fifteen minutes straight. And I was down to half of my vigor bar.”

Izuku gulps loudly, just as he and the others are staring at Mustard in horror.

“And after hitting zero, I’d end up being trapped in the pokeball lying at the bottom of the lake. For who knows how long.” Mustard then adds. “Starting to understand why I feel like I owe something to the frog?”

“Y-yeah.” Izuku replies. “Yeah, I think it’s understandable pretty well now.”

“Good.” Mustard nods. “I plan to leave, and I don’t enjoy socializing with you people, but while I’m here, and someone attacks the village, I defend it. And if the frog tells me to gas someone, I do it, no question asked. Although I don’t expect it to happen. I’ve come to check who you people are, and, well…” He actually looks at Toga now. “Yeah, I have questions, but I don’t think I want to know the answer to them.”

Toga giggles. She’s enjoying the reactions to her questionable clothes choice, and that’s worrying Izuku a little. But, hey, at least she’s enjoying herself with something that isn’t murder, right? That’s clear progress.

“I-it’s for the set bonuses.” Izuku quickly replies.

“Yeah, I can see those bonuses with my own eyes.” Mustard replies dryly. “Look, I’m leaving, Asui knows where to find me, don’t bother me unless it's a life-threatening thing, that would be all.”

He then leaves. Without a word more.

“He is a bit of a jerk.” Tsuyu says again. “But he keeps his word at least. Not causing any problems, surprisingly enough. Kero.”

“Well, it seems that it’s an unofficial rule of this isekai story that every group of hero-trainees gets one pet villain their age.” Yoichi comments from the back of Izuku’s mind. “Which makes sense for when you want to do things underhandedly.”

“I see.” Izuku acknowledges the words, then does his best to ignore them. “So what do we do next? Is Lena here?”

“I don’t think so, she drops by every few days.” Tsuyu replies. “Picked one of the houses, secured it with magic, comes to store her things there every few days. No idea where she gets them from, kero.”

“Looks like she’s a compulsive hoarder then.” Yoichi decides. “Like every good mage ever, I guess. Except I don’t think her house is tall enough to qualify as a tower. Probably because it’s just a temporary hideout.”

This is just yet another thing that Izuku decides to not comment on.

“So I guess that it’s time to rest, while waiting for Arshka to show up.” Izuku says. “I mean, we can’t get tired physically, but mentally, after all that…”

“Absolutely!” Uraraka shouts back while pumping her fist up. “I wanna take a bath! I wanna swim in the river! No, in the lake! No more risking life for a while!”

“There is an underwater dungeon in the lake.” Tsuyu replies. “Monsters leave it regularly. Swimming in the lake means risking your life. Kero.”

Uraraka groans loudly, her enthusiasm instantly squashed.

Izuku starts to believe that ‘enthusiasm instantly squashed by the imminent threat of death’ is a good summary of the whole ‘soulslike-genre’.

Chapter 19: Situation Report

Chapter Text

What followed was a few days that could only be described as ‘surprisingly calm’. A big change after the hectic journey to Blackwater Forest. Big and a welcome one. If only because during those few days, nothing tried to kill them.

Aside from that one incident which had something strangely tentacular living in the lake approach the village, prompting Tsuyu to crack her knuckles loudly, tell Uraraka to wait for her, and then jump into the water.

What followed was a scene of overwhelming violence that was mercifully hidden from Uraraka by the surface of the lake, culminating in Tsuyu’s head sticking out of the water, the frog girl asking Uraraka if any of her companions liked sushi.

Uraraka wisely replied no, despite not knowing the actual answer to it.

In short, it was a time to calm themselves down, get over their budding PTSD and get to know each other without the risk of being mauled to death by a wild archdemon. This, in turn, means that nothing much has happened during those few days.

Izuku mostly trained, typically with Uraraka somewhere close by, doing the exact same thing (except for when she was hanging out with Tsuyu, whom she clearly befriended).

Toga was doing Toga things. Izuku didn’t really dwell on the details, letting her do whatever she wanted for as long as they didn’t find any bloodless corpses around. The idea of ‘freedom’ was very important to the foxgirl, and Izuku didn’t want her to feel bad over being monitored too tightly.

Tokoyami spent most of the time brooding around, though he did drop by the temple in order to discuss the theological implications of their little isekai adventure with Shiozaki. In Izuku’s opinion, Shiozaki needed that to not get any more deranged.

Because she did appear to be a bit… deranged. Naturally, Izuku left that opinion to himself.

Mustard was nowhere to be seen most of the time. Hatsume was hammering in the smithy most of the time, apparently running a regular business in this world. The elves were waging a war, and needed all the weapons they could get.

As a result, as Izuku discovered, every week or so, an elf showed up at the village with a few pack animals and a lot of smelted metal, dropping the latter at Hatsume’s forge, before departing with the former filled with weapons.

Hatsume Mei found no moral issues with supplying weapons for what could only be described as an ongoing race war. Izuku had no idea what would be the opinion of her homeroom teacher about it. Did he even want to know?

Did he have the necessary moral high ground to try to correct her behavior after assisting Arshka in killing a large number of elves? Was it still a mass murder and a hate crime if you did it in self-defense?

Izuku had a lot of questions he didn’t know the answer for. He wished there was someone he could trust to ask those questions. Where was All Might when you needed him the most?

He was going to get that question answered much faster than he expected.

Arshka showed up four days after their arrival in the village, wearing her knightly armor (now repaired to pristine condition), with a new sword in her sheath. Thankfully, she was also carrying Izuku’s sword.

Unexpectedly, she wasn’t alone. Instead, she was accompanied by an unfamiliar elf, a young woman (in her early twenties, however, that translated to elven years) wearing what looked like a flowing robe, tight enough to show their curves… if that is, they had any.

They were rather… uhm… flat.

She also had a very unusual skin and hair color. Pale blueish skin, white hair that they had styled into a singly ponytail, covered with some sort of… translucent veil? She also had a circlet with a blue gem/crystal on their forehead.

It all fit her so perfectly well that it practically openly screamed ‘Vessel’.

“Alright, so we’re going to have a very serious talk, right now.” Arshka announces, angrily glaring in Izuku’s general direction. “You want to do it here with just you two, or do you want to involve anyone else?”

“Uhm.” Izuku replies eloquently. “Who is that?”

He and Uraraka were busy doing one of their ‘combat mobility training’ around the village entrance. Mostly just jumping around, dodging mock attacks, and so on. Uraraka was the one doing the attacks, and Izuku was the one doing the dodging, primarily.

That’s why they encountered the Rage Knight and their unexpected companion as the first ones of the village inhabitants.

“Who is who?” Arshka replies, somehow not skipping the beat.

“Your companion?” Izuku then asks.

“What companion?” Arshka replies, prompting said companion to roll her eyes around. “I came here alone. And even if, theoretically, you somehow perceived me as being accompanied by someone, he’d be such an insufferable c*nt and unwanted tagalong that I’d be ignoring their existence purely out of spite.”

“Wait, he ?!” Yoichi manages to voice their general opinion first, except only Izuku hears it. “Ninth! Ninth! It’s another waifu candidate! Well, technically a husbando, but as true men of culture we transcend the boundaries and go for what combines the best of both worlds!”

Izuku is rapidly approaching the realization that Yoichi’s brother might have had a point when he decided to make the world burn after spending too much time with his younger sibling.

“I apologize for her.” The elf decides to step in. And yes, his voice is very girly as well. “We have a bit of a history together, and Arshka always takes it too far. Just like everything else.”

“Have you ever seen some village brat grab a small insect and tear off its limbs, just to see them squirm in pain on the ground before crushing them under their foot?” Arshka asks while glaring back at the elf, who responds only by raising an eyebrow. “Well, I have a desire to do the same thing, just with elves.”

The elf simply sighs.

“I’m Astaus of the Frozen Lake.” The elf introduces himself while doing a curtsy. “I’m a representative of the snow elves from the Whitespear Peaks at the court of Alea, the queen of the Green Arrow Tribe.”

The Whitespear… oh, the mountains to the north of Black Feather Meadow. The Murder of Crows’ awakening must have stirred up the hornet nest.

“He’s here because we’re going to be ditching the forest elves as soon as possible, and Astaus is the key to achieving it.” Arshka decides to clarify. “I’ll elaborate… look, it’s back to that question. Where and when do you want to have that talk?”

“C-can’t we have it here?” Izuku asks nervously. He isn’t sure why Arshka is actually asking him questions rather than deciding everything on her own, but it’s actually somewhat scaring him.

Arshka gives him a really exhausted look. Looks like it wasn’t the right answer.

“We’ll work on basic rules of keeping things confidential a bit later then.” Arshka replies. “The thing is, I managed to… confirm your tale. However outlandish might it seem, it does appear that I was soul corrupted and you managed to heal me. Which is… rather unbelievable and…”

“She’s trying to thank you, but she has never really done that before, so it comes out a bit forced.” Astaus announces, prompting Arshka to glare daggers at him. “What? You know I’m right.”

“Ghrr, he is a dick, but for once he’s right.” Arshka concedes the point. “Going by the general honor code of the Leanan nobility, I’m more or less expected to swear fealty to you and serve you as a vassal for as long as you see fit. Also, your sword.”

She hands him his sword. Is that somehow connected to the whole swear fealty thing?

“T-that’s a bit excessive?” Izuku stutters out as he grabs the sword.

“No, it’s not.” Arshka replies. “Because without honor, we’d become something worse than animals, worse than the most primitive of beasts inhabiting this world.”

Astaus glances at her, looking just… tired?

“Let me guess, you’d become elves.” He then says flatly. It seems like he really knows Arshka well.

“Yes.” Arshka nods. “Good that you’re finally figuring out where you’re standing. Anyway, you might see that as excessive, but I do not, and I do consider it my honor-bound task to keep you alive.”

“What?” Yoichi asks. “That’s almost too good. With how she bulldozed those elves, she should be able to power-level you into godhood in no time. Where’s the catch?”

Izuku decides to ask that very same question. Because, to be frank, it does sound too good to be true.

“Yeah, the catch is that Alea is the same bitch as ever.” Arshka replies. “In short, she wants me to stay on my ass in this village, because there’s an Altar of Egress here and this means that I can be nearly instantly summoned for aid. They just need to have someone teleport here and tell me that I’m needed elsewhere, and then I teleport there. And she expects me to participate in their little forest war. Because if not, then she’s going to stop tolerating ‘outsiders’ in her forest.”

Oh.

“W-well, I guess that sounded too g-good to be true.” Izuku replies. “So…”

“So, I’m going to train the f*ck out of you all.” Arshka replies. “Lena is going to help me, and so is Astaus. Because while he doesn’t look the part, he is the best theurgist… out of those that I could find in that very short duration of time and while only being allowed to look in one place.”

“Wow, and here I was deluding myself that you’d actually say something positive about me, for once.” Astaus replies calmly. He really doesn’t seem to be insulted. Or even moved by Arshka’s behavior in any way.

“Yes, the elves are very prone to deluding themselves.” Arshka replies. “Some have even deluded themselves into thinking that they’re useful members of society.” Astaus sighs but says nothing. “Anyway, you’re probably asking yourself why exactly he is here.” Izuku and Uraraka nod. “Well, to be honest, so am I.”

Izuku begins to suspect that Arshka is emotionally and intellectually incapable of talking without insulting someone with every other sentence. At least when they are an elf. Which, to be honest, might be a good explanation as to why she was stationed in a middle-of-nowhere garrison.

The fact that it was a garrison in a middle of elven nowhere, though, certainly didn’t fit.

“Alea didn’t take Arshka’s resurrection seriously.” Astaus decides to take the wheel instead of enduring further insults, which, to be honest, is a perfectly valid choice of action. “She thinks that Arshka wasn’t really soul corrupted and was instead cursed by some strange dark elven magic. I, however, think otherwise. And that opened certain interesting avenues for the future.”

“That being?” Izuku asks.

“Snow elves of the kingdom of Vaal will gladly do what our forest cousins are too short-sighted to do.” Astaus replies. “Short-sighted or, to quote my companion, too busy intellectually self-fellating to care about the real world outside of their delusional fantasies of importance.”

… that definitely sounded like something that Arshka would say. Especially given the grin that bloomed on her face when Astaus said it.

“We’ll offer our full and unquestioning support of the otherworlders, both present and those you encounter in the future.” Astaus continues. “There is only one tiny problem with that.”

“There has never been a case when someone said that phrase and actually meant it with the ‘tiny’ word.” Yoichi comments from the back of Izuku’s mind. “Brace for it.”

“The problem is that there is no kingdom of Vaal.” Arshka immediately decides to prove Yoichi right. “Their god-queen got soul-corrupted and is now reigning over their frozen capital, somewhere up there in the mountains. Starting to realize what’s the catch with the offer?”

“W-wait, you want me to d-defeat that g-god-q-queen?” Izuku would really like to be able to say that sentence without stuttering, but… yeah, no. That’s a really big title if he ever heard one.

Astaus chuckles.

“Oh, no.” The snow elf quickly reassures him. “There is no way you’d survive being anywhere close to her. However, with some proper training and a few more soul crystals, the rest of you should become at least somewhat useful. As for the god-queen herself, dealing with her would be our job. You’d simply cure her soul.”

“Of course, by the time I’m going to let you anywhere close to a soul of that level of power, your own soul is going to have to bulk up a lot.” Arshka then informs Izuku. “Because the goal of this noble quest is to decrease the amount of horrible abominations plaguing this land rather than to increase it, even if the fact that the result will be one more elf makes it all a rather hopeless case.”

This time, Astaus doesn’t even bother reacting.

“Which brings us back to intense training that will make you all cry blood and beg me for mercy that will never come.” Arshka continues. “Before we start, any questions? And yes, participation is mandatory.”

Arshka not wanting to waste any time before getting things done? That surprised absolutely no one.

“Uhm, have you heard about any other otherworlders like us?” Izuku asks. “Outside of the forest, maybe? The elves should know something, right?”

“Contrary to popular opinion, they tend to know nothing.” Arshka replies dryly. “But in this one case, you’re right. They do know something. Astaus, anything to share?”

“Yes, but you know that already.” The elf replies calmly. “One of the demands she made before agreeing to get you involved in the cause of the restoration of Vaal was for me to teleport to the Stormhold Castle’s Altar of Egress and check the fortress’ status. As I happened to visit it before all that mess happened.”

“Wait, isn’t that dangerous?” Uraraka speaks. “If you moved there, and they were enemies, how would you…”

“That’s not a problem.” Astaus interjects quickly. “Teleportation screen warns you when the target location is under control of hostile forces. There is a warning sign displayed next to the icon to the minimap, and—”

“You can imagine how happy I was to discover that almost every altar in Leana displays as held by hostile forces.” Arshka comments from the side. She looks… surprisingly calm about it.

She probably isn’t.

In fact, this explains a lot of her current anger.

“Anyway, it turns out that the reason why Stormhold didn’t fall to the archdemon was because of an otherworlder that appeared out of nowhere and managed to battle the Murder of Crows to a stalemate.” Astaus decides to ignore Arshka and continue. “Late forties or early fifties, blonde hair, impressively shaped body with every curve put on display through some rather… deliciously tight-fitting bodysuit in colors of blue, red and yellow and…”

Izuku was about to shout ‘YESSS!’ over recognizing that particular man, except that’s when Astaus started making the description very… uncomfortable.

Not just to Izuku, but also to Arshka. Who slapped the back of Astaus’ head with enough strength for his circlet to almost fall off.

“He could be your father.” She hisses at him. “Stop acting like that.”

“I’m like that because he could be my father.” Astaus decides to prove that despite hitting rock bottom he could still try to dig deeper. Especially as he also licks his lips while saying it.

“Alright, I’ve changed my mind.” Yoichi says simultaneously to Astaus’s feat of ruining his own image within ten minutes of meeting Uraraka and Midoriya. “I no longer ship you with him, because that sort of heresy deserves nothing but contempt.” Izuku can’t help but agree. “The only valid ship for All Might is, naturally, your mother!”

Izuku can’t help but… eeeeeh?!

“Forest elves had to actually earn my contempt and general lack of respect. It took them quite a lot of time and effort to achieve that” Arshka announces dryly. “All that snow elves had to do to measure up to them was to think that you are a good fit for being a priest.”

“Whatever you say.” Astaus replies calmly. “Before the crushing horror of you not respecting my race ruins my day completely, let’s continue. From the look on your face, I can guess that you recognize him?”

“Yes, yes I do.” Izuku replies quickly. “It’s All Might. My, errr, teacher.” Wait, how is he going to explain to them that they aren’t supposed to mention that with others around? Aside from Uraraka, no one knew.

“That’s one haughty name if I ever heard one.” Arshka replied. “Who is he, exactly? And how powerful is he?”

“You didn’t meet him?” Izuku asks, surprised by it. Why was Astaus the one sent to check on Stormhold Castle, to begin with?

“Look, I’m not showing up at Tsorath’s doorstep just to tell him that, uhm, yeah, I accidentally went on a psychotic rampage and massacred all the soldiers and knights that the elves didn’t manage to kill.” Arshka replies. “Not unless I have something to improve his mood. Like, say, a relief force to deal with the siege.”

“A siege ?” Uraraka asks.

“Yeah, that All Might of yours and the Murder of Crows battled each other into a stalemate.” Arshka replies. “The archdemon retreated to his lair in the center of the Meadow to lick his wounds, but his minions are controlling about 80% of the region. The villages lie in ruin, and you can’t expect the peasantry to go work on the fields when there is a crowd of flying demons ready to attack from above. Until the situation is resolved, they produce less food than they consume due to enemy actions, so even if there is no army standing in front of their gates, it’s still de facto a siege.”

“And sieges, regretfully, rarely end well unless you have allies out there that can break it.” Astaus adds. “In this case, Tsorath is presently alone. We have no clue what’s going on in Leana exactly, but it’s certainly nothing good. My kingdom would be in a perfect position to provide aid, if it, well, presently existed as an organized state rather than a collection of scattered groups of highly militant refugees.”

That… made sense. In a very insane way. When Izuku accepted the offer to become All Might’s successor and managed to get to the UA he expected a lot of things. Having to gather an army to relieve the siege of a castle protected by an assortment of knights, soldiers, and All Might in person? A siege performed by an army of demons from literal hell led by an archdemon in person?

That was… a bit unexpected.

Arshka wakes him up with a snap of her fingers.

“Oi, back to our world.” She says while glaring at him. Did he… did he mutter again? “I asked you a question earlier. Who is that All Might guy exactly?”

“He’s the Number One Hero of our country and, kind of, our world as a whole!” Izuku really likes speaking about it.

“Number O ne Hero?” Arshka asks, clearly surprised by his words. “Wait, how many heroes do you have?”

“Uhm, a lot?” Izuku isn’t sure what the problem was. For about three seconds, before he realizes that they weren’t from a world where pro-heroes as a profession are an obvious part of the world. “Uhm, heroes or, well, pro-heroes are pretty much a profession in our world. Saving people, fighting bad guys, having powers that others don’t have.”

“Oh, so your version of Vessels.” Arshka immediately understands it this time. “I get it. And he’s the strongest of them all? If he could fight an archdemon to a stalemate, he’s certainly powerful. Though the Murder of Crows is far from being the strongest enemy one can face in this world.”

“Tell her immediately that…” Yoichi practically explodes in Izuku’s mind. But… his explosion dies in the background of a much larger one.

“Actually, we all become weaker after arriving in this world.” Izuku replies immediately. No one insults All Might on his watch! “A lot. In my world, I could easily crush a building with a punch. Here, well, I’m just a bit of a stronger swordsman.”

He decides to not mention crushing his fist as well.

“And I could throw things literally into the sun!” Uraraka immediately joins the All Might Defense Force, earning some very positive points from Izuku.

“Oh.” Arshka decides to take a metaphorical step back, having clearly decided that she stepped on their toes, somehow. Astaus, in the meantime, takes the backseat for once and focuses on observing the talk. “So how powerful was that All Might guy in your world?”

“His mock punches could generate enough wind pressure to change the weather.” Izuku replies. While fearlessly staring into her eyes.

“Okay.” Arshka nods. “All Might is a god, I got it.”

“What? No!” Izuku decides that it went a bit too far. “He’s not a god!”

“He is incredibly powerful, right?” Arshka replies. Izuku nods. “Does he have a lot of people who look up to him?”

“Yes, but…” Izuku tries to reply, but she doesn’t let him.

“Does a lot of people decorate their homes or public spaces with his image?” Arshka asks again.

“Well, yes, but…” Izuku once more tries to reply, but she doesn’t let him.

“And are the people who literally can’t stop talking about him, and treat not thinking that he is the best person ever as horrible slander to be expunged with blood?” Arshka asks again. Izuku opens his mouth. “Don’t. All Might is a god, at least by our definition of the term, just temporarily depowered. End of story.”

… Izuku decides not to fight her over that.

“Did he… say something about me?” Izuku asks Astaus.

“A lot of words.” Astaus replies. “They can be summarized as being surprised that someone else from his world was there, immediately succeeded by a relief that you’re alright. There is also a message, which boils down to ‘stay alive, I’ll come to pick you up as soon as possible, and nothing is going to stop me’.”

Well, that was all that Izuku needed to feel motivated as hell. He’s not going to fail All Might. It’s already bad that he missed out on the scene of All Might fighting an archdemon ! How cool that had to be?

“His companion also told you to trust ‘First’, whom I assume to be your mysterious soulflame.” Astaus adds.

“Companion?” Izuku asks.

“Tall, black-haired middle-aged woman.” Astaus replies. “Would probably hug him to death if she could. Very motherly towards him, despite looking as if she was the younger one. With a pair of white wings, she apparently got changed into an angel after being moved here. All Might is pretty much a paladin now.”

“Pffft!” Yoichi lets out at the back of his mind. “This sh*t is hilarious! All Might and Gran Torino kept acting as if Nana was a literal infallible angel and guess what! This happened! Jokes aside, it’s great that those two got reunited, All Might probably needed that morale boost.”

“So, is that…?” Izuku asks while glancing to the side, away from Astaus and Arshka, just to make it clear that he was talking with his soulflame.

“It’s Seventh.” Yoichi replies. “She’s acting rather motherly around All Might because she was to him what he is to you. Mentor with an unspoken parental subtext. She never, errr.” He stays quiet for a second. “She never got to see the real me. You know, the… nerd one. Please don’t tell her, I have a reputation to keep.”

Izuku notes that down under the ‘potential ways to blackmail Yoichi’ list that he has been quietly compiling. It might come useful.

“So, to conclude this quick introduction to pain , I can help you learn combat.” Arshka decides to cut it short. “If you find any martial arts manuals, I can also teach those to you or other otherwolders you run into. Astaus can do the same for theurgies if you find any holy books. Lena once I ask her will do magic scrolls and spells. The rest is just finding you a craftsman, and you have everything that’s needed to reforge your group into a force to be reckoned with.”

“We… have a craftsman already.” Izuku replies. “One of the otherworlders.” Arshka doesn’t look convinced. “Elves are pretty much stocking up on weapons at her smithy despite not liking us as a group.”

“Sounds good enough then.” Arshka decides. “I’ll go and check them out, then I’ll go to work on preparing your training while Astaus will f*ck off to do whatever he does while he is bored and in the middle of nowhere. Anything else to say before we start?”

Izuku decides to mention how the others shouldn’t be told that he and All Might were somehow connected.

As a result, he accidentally convinces Arshka and Astaus that he is secretly a son and an heir (as in, in the feudalistic sense of the word) of All Might who is his world’s equivalent of royalty. And is hiding this for some inexplicable reason.

He fails to convince them otherwise. Yoichi laughs the whole time.

Chapter 20: Necessary Talk

Chapter Text

“Before I forget.” Arshka says right after another one of Izuku’s attempts to persuade her that no, All Might isn’t his dad, fails miserably. “I need that night elf’s soul crystal. You know, that elven hoe that tried to seduce us.”

“Uhm, why?” Izuku asks.

“Because the night elves hate dark elves.” Arshka replies. “And vice versa. So, the fact that one of the former was housed by the latter in a room that wasn’t a torture chamber made a lot of forest elves very curious. Don’t worry, I scammed the f*ck out of those idiots and got you two soul crystals of equivalent power in exchange.”

“Okay, so she might be a bit racist, but she’s the best girl.” Yoichi says. “I have a warm place in my heart for girls that help you scam the NPCs to get you more money or dialogue options.”

Izuku, for now, decides to completely ignore Yoichi. However, once Arshka and Astaus weren’t here, the time of reckoning was going to come.

“Uhm, alright I guess, I have it stored in the Altar.” Uraraka replies after glancing at Izuku. “Wait, aren’t you going to take the others too? You killed most of them, save for those that Arstovhia friendly-fired.”

“...literally.” Yoichi comments.

“Nah, take them.” Arshka decides to be surprisingly generous. “The way the soul crystals work, eating souls around your own level gives the most returns. Weaker souls barely give you anything, stronger souls might overtake your own. Letting you use the souls is the logical choice.”

“Makes sense.” Yoichi decides. “It also explains why the archdemons are letting smaller demons like Dark Shadow be in the demonic nursery. They aren’t worth much, but if you let them grow up, they might just make for a tasty snack… that is if they won’t serve you faithfully.”

Yeah, that suddenly explains a lot about the whole idea. Expecting charity from literal demons was probably too much.

“Okay, so we’ll figure out how to share it later.” Izuku replies. That’s going to be an interesting thing, to share so much treasure between each other.

***

As Arshka and Astaus leave to inspect Hatsume’s forge, Izuku finally has a moment to talk about something very, very important.

“Yoichi-san.” He asks softly, looking away from the only person currently accompanying him. “What was that about All Might and my mom, hmm?”

That sort of acting was entirely out of character for Izuku ‘Friend-shaped’ Midoriya. Thus Yoichi was immediately put on his guard, the man realizing that he might have gone a bit too far.

“L-look, Ninth, I just thought that All Might needs someone to, you know, care for him.” Yoichi quickly replies. “He spent his whole life fighting and fighting and fighting some more. Never taking a step back to assess his own emotions, his own emotional injuries. And with how, errr, emotional your mom can be, I figured out that having someone who would, errr, bring his attention to such injuries could be helpful for him! Because I care for All Might! That’s all!”

“Uhm, Deku-kun?” Uraraka decides to interrupt their tender moment together. “That sounded really weird out of context, you know?”

… She has a point.

“Ehh, don’t worry, it’s just Yoichi is a bit of a… well, he tends to ship everyone around him with each other, and he just said that he ships my mom with All Might.” Izuku replies. “The same mom that is, mind you, married.”

Uraraka appears sufficiently distraught at the idea, which proves that she has more common sense than Yoichi. Then again, what else is new?

“Look I’ve been living rent-free in your mind for maybe a week before landing here, and I can already tell you that your mother is married to your father’s bank account at this point.” Yoichi replies. “A father that doesn’t even call to congratulate you that you’ve got to the best school in the country is no father at all. Trust me, I had to deal with my own share of absent father figures.”

“And your solution to my father being absent from my life is to ship my mom with my mentor?” Izuku hisses back.

Look, his mom is important to him, alright? The most important. And with how nervous she was in general, being protective of her was absolutely natural.

Not like he had something against All Might being his… err… being his… It was mostly about Yoichi crossing a boundary too far, alright?

“You should have done this while those two were around.” Uraraka comments from the side. “They might have taken you seriously when you said he wasn’t your dad to begin with.”

Izuku really wants to throw in the towel, but… no. Not yet. He isn’t done.

“I think that they’re joking.” Izuku replies. He hopes so, at least. “I mean, which part of me resembles All Might?”

“I’m the last person you want to ask that question.” Uraraka replies. When he gives the questioning look, she elaborates. “I saw you doing the entrance exam, remember? That was like watching All Might! Well, except for the, uhm, you know, the bone-juice?”

Izuku winces painfully. Yeah, that was… very cool… almost heroic moment… but the bone juice ruined everything.

“At least tell me that you don’t believe in it.” Izuku replies. He needs at least one person to be on his side.

“Of course I don’t!” Uraraka replies immediately. Izuku… actually has some mixed feelings about that. “Not because you’re not heroic or anything! After that big secret, you’ve come forward with, I’m sure that if All Might was your father, you’d tell me. I, uhm…” She pauses for a second, before deciding to say it. “Don’t get me wrong but I have a feeling that you wouldn’t stop talking about that if that was the case.”

…

“Busted, Ninth.” Yoichi cackles. Izuku freezes on the spot, which makes Yoichi suddenly hear Latin chanting in the background. “Be honest with me. Tell me that you’ve never imagined All Might being your father.”

That was before meeting him which made such thoughts feel… uncomfortable. Because, yeah, Izuku had moments like this. He is fairly sure that most fanboys his age had! There is no shame in that.

Well, there is a lot of shame in that but let’s not get into that.

And he is certainly not admitting that to Yoichi.

“Ehhh, I’ll never get free of the bone juice thing, will I?” Izuku says to Uraraka instead. “I’m really bad at being All Might’s successor, am I? That entrance exam was a great start.”

“Hey, no looking down on yourself!” Uraraka immediately defaults to being the supportive angel that he never deserved. “Did you already forget how I literally puked all over the ground during that very same entrance exam? It’s the entrance exam! It’s the hero school ! No one expects you to be perfect or even good about it from day one. The UA is literally the place that was supposed to make us good.”

Izuku blinks back at her. He… didn’t see that coming. He probably should have, but….

“O-oh, I guess.” Izuku scratches the side of his head. “I just, errr… thank you, I think I have a bit of a tendency…”

“... to look down on yourself?” Uraraka cuts in. Izuku nods. “Yes, I noticed. And I’m going to beat this out of you if I have to!” Izuku stares at her in shock. “Look, you’re awesome, alright? The way you blew up that robot? The way you figured out how to defeat Arshka? You’re strong and you’re smart! Hell, All Might had all the teenagers in Japan to choose from and he chose you . You have absolutely no reason to look down on yourself. So don’t. Got it?”

“Listen to her, Ninth.” Yoichi decided to add in his own words while Izuku was still trying to digest what Uraraka just said. “Your self-esteem is unreasonably low. I’ve already noticed you being too callous with your own life and body, which is in big part because you consider literally everything to be more important than them, especially the life of others. There is heroism and there is driving yourself to an early grave.”

“I-I’m not…” Izuku tries to wiggle his way out. Ochako, however, takes no prisoners.

“Deku-kun.” She says. This time she gives him a rather serious look. “Seeing you blow away that robot with a punch has made me look up to you. Made me look at you and think ‘damn, that’s what heroes are’. So, if you keep looking down on yourself, I’m going to suplex you into the ground.” Her eyes narrow. “Got it?”

“Y-yeah!” Izuku, wisely, decides not to fight her.

“Awesome!” Uraraka grins at him. “Seriously, though. You might not be his son, but everything else, like your quirk? It makes you look like a shonen manga protagonist! I should be the one feeling inferior next to you!”

“No, you shouldn’t! You’re a…” Izuku tries to respond (honestly, it came out on its own) only for Uraraka to give him a Stare. “N-no, I mean, you have no reason to look down on yourself!”

Uraraka gives him the Stare twice as intensively. And for some reason, he feels as if Yoichi was doing the same thing. Ugh. What has he done wrong this time?

“Alright, this does it.” Uraraka decides. Then she grabs his hand and starts to pull him. “We’re going to a special place.”

Eeeh?

“Wow, a girl wants to take you to her special place.” Yoichi comments. “Just remember to use protection Ninth, I don’t think that All Might is ready for grandkids.” This, somehow, makes Izuku freak out even more.

***

In the end, it’s nothing lewd. Just a bench in a secluded spot in this village, with a very nice look onto the Blackwater Lake in front of them. She must have found it while wandering around with Tsuyu. And probably decided that it works nicely as a calming background for a Serious Talk.

“Sit.” She says as she points to the bench. Izuku looks at it and then back at her. “Do it, or I’ll force you to.”

Izuku, wisely, decides not to press the issue and does as ordered.

“You know what, I’m beginning to think that you’re a bottom, Ninth.” Yoichi sighs. “Really liking confident women who tell you what to do, aren’t you?”

??? What is Yoichi talking about?

“Deku-kun.” Uraraka says as she sits beside him. “I want you to talk with me.”

“A-about what?” Izuku says nervously. That seems to have been a mistake. The stare he gets is twice as intense as the earlier ones.

“At the beginning, I found the way you acted, that… nervousness that you always easily fought through when our lives were in danger to be… c… dorky.” Uraraka replies. “I mean, people are different, some act one way, others act another way, it’s perfectly normal, right? Especially after seeing what you did during the entrance exam, and hearing how All Might decided that you have what it takes to be a great hero.”

“W-well, I…” Izuku tries to reply, but she doesn’t let him.

“But now? Now I’m worried. ” She says. Izuku blinks at her in surprise. “You’re taking it too far. You’re taking it way too far. When it’s about literally everyone else, you have no issues saying that their quirk is great, or that they’re skilled at something. But when it’s about you? Then you’re either freaking out, or you deny it. What’s going on?”

Izuku stares at her in shock.

“Best. Girl.” Yoichi announces. “She's the best girl. I’m gonna ship only the two of you, forever.”

Wah?

“W-what do you mean b-by that, U-Uraraka-san?” Izuku stammers out. He… he isn’t sure how to answer her.

“Deku-kun.” Uraraka says while staring into his eyes. This time rather forcefully. “We saved each other’s lives multiple times by now, right? So why are you flinching when someone says something positive about you, but you are the first one to say that someone is useful or did something well?”

“I-I mean, why w-wouldn’t I?” Izuku replies after all. “When someone does something right, they…”

“No.” Uraraka cuts in. “That is not an answer. There is being humble and there is being whatever you are right now. I want to help you. Because after knowing you for just a while, I already know for sure that you’d do the same for me. So?”

Izuku shrinks a little. He wants this talk to end. He wants to leave. He doesn’t know how to answer. He must have made it visible because Uraraka is clearly worried about him now. He doesn’t want her to be concerned about him.

She grabs his hands. Izuku shivers a little. He is presently too freaked out in general to freak out about physical contact with a girl. Their fingers intertwine.

“Deku-kun, calm down.” She says softly. “I’m on your side, remember? There is no need to be afraid.”

“S-Sorry.” Izuku stammers out while looking away from her. “I-I’m a bit of a m-mess, I g-guess?”

“Doing it again, eh?” Uraraka sighs. “You're not a mess. We’ve all gone through some scary things together. I’m happy that I don’t have to sleep, because I’m sure I’d be ravaged by nightmares. I don’t want to fight, especially with my life on the line, and I sure as hell don’t want to kill anyone to keep it, but I’m also certain that I’ll end up having to do both.”

“Y-you…” Izuku takes a deep breath. “You don’t l-look like…”

“But I am.” Uraraka replies. “And I think that I have to do it now.”

Then she hugs him. It’s not how Izuku expected his first hug with a girl to happen. In his imagination, he wasn’t wearing a chainmail, and the girl wasn’t wearing a witch’s outfit. They also weren’t sitting next to each other on a bench in a different world.

But, well. It happened that way exactly.

“It’s alright.” Uraraka says quietly into his ear. “It’s alright.”

Izuku wraps his arms around her back. He didn’t exactly want to do it, it just happened. On instinct. Maybe he just really wanted a hug? Or maybe he just really needed it?

They held each other in silence for a while. Even Yoichi has enough social skills not to interrupt the moment. Izuku’s breathing steadies a bit after a while. The slight shaking of his body calms down.

Uraraka ends up pulling back from the hug first. Just to give him a proper appraising look up close.

“I still want to know, Deku-kun.” Uraraka says. There is a flinch on her face when she sees Izuku start freaking up a little once more. “Just talk with me, please. I’m really worried about you, and…”

“Ninth, tell her about your lack of quirk.” Yoichi decides to throw him the lifeline. “About Bakugou and how he and the other people in your school reacted to it. Just… trust me, okay? Just trust me.”

Izuku isn’t in his right mind. Maybe it was just the stress that kept piling up for a while. One that he really needed to let out. But when he, for lack of a better word, got stuck, and didn’t know what to do, after Yoichi threw him a lifeline, the words just flew out of him.

About how he wanted to become a hero like All Might almost right from birth. How his childhood friend wanted it to. How he was diagnosed as quirkless, and how his dreams suffered from it.

How his childhood friend… changed.

He doesn’t say ‘for the worse’. His version of the story is the same as ever. About how Kacchan was just… competitive. How he could become a great hero. That he might have had a bit of an abrasive personality, but it didn’t really matter, right?

Yoichi didn’t say a single word the whole time. He didn’t have to. He might not have been an expert in girls, but he was certainly an expert in barely restrained primeval rage. And he could see that grow in intensity on Uraraka’s face the deeper they went into the story.

“He is not your friend.” Uraraka finally has enough a few minutes into the confession. “He is not hero material. He is a bully who is never going to become a Number One Hero. And if he does, then I’m going to become a villain on that very day.”

That…

“W-what?” Izuku… shakes. “It’s not…”

“It’s exactly like that.” Uraraka refuses to stand back. “He might not have crossed any serious borders, at least from what you’ve told me thus far.” He didn’t tell her about the suicide baiting of course. It was just one time, right? “But it wasn’t because he was a good guy who thought that doing it was bad. It was because he didn’t want to ruin his future career. And guess what? Good people don’t need a reason not to do bad things. And it certainly shouldn’t be their own future gain.”

“But K-Kacchan…” Izuku tries to respond. By defending Kacchan, as always. But… Yoichi notices the fact that this one response lacks the usual fire. Did hearing the same thing from Yoichi and Uraraka made him start reconsidering his deeply ingrained stance?

Yoichi doesn’t look down on Izuku for that. He looked up to his brother, ignoring (or, more often, misinterpreting) his deeds. Because he remembered All for One before he became the demon lord.

Bakugou was much less of an extreme case. But unlike Yoichi’s brother (cursed and forgotten be his name), it took him much more time to actually show how evil he was towards Ninth. The truth not really coming through was…

Well, Ninth was a teenager. If teenagers were rational, the world would look completely different.

“He is not your friend.” Uraraka hisses. “Never ever call him that way. He should be just Bakugou to you. And if I ever get to see him, and he actually goes to UA, I’m going to throw him into the Sun unless he stops being a self-centered jerk and a bully. How dare he treat you like this?! You were just the same nice, kind and helpful person as always, you’ve just wanted to check if he didn’t injure himself during a sudden fall into the stream, and he acts as if you’ve insulted him? Because what, because he is a big bad boy who can do everything on his own and doesn’t need pity?! There is so much insecurity in him that I’m surprised that he doesn’t trigger UA security alerts simply by existing in the vicinity!”

Izuku is… faintly surprised that it was that part of the story that caught her attention. He is faintly surprised by it because the rest of his capacity to be surprised is taken over by shock that someone… someone acted like that? Someone… was angry at Ka… Bak… his treatment of Izuku?

He just froze like deer in the headlights, not sure what to do.

“U-Uraraka-san…” He tries to say, honestly not knowing what to say after that. But she doesn’t let him.

“Occhan.” She states flatly while staring in his eyes. “If such a piece of sh*t deserved this sort of a nickname, then I deserve it ten times as much. And I’m going to show you what an actual friendship looks like, until you completely forget about him.”

Yoichi would have chanted ‘best girl’ repeatedly, but… he doesn’t want to ruin the moment. Also, it’s genuinely hard to say if that’s a start of a slowburn romance or of something akin to what Gran Torino and Seventh once had. So, bonds of friendship and camaraderie for life and beyond.

Whatever option it’ll be, Ninth certainly needs it.

“Okay… O-Occhan then.” Izuku concedes the point. He is, once again, too freaked out in general to get freaked out additionally by getting this close to a girl. “W-why a-are you…”

“Why am I what?” Uraraka certainly wasn’t a girl who let things simply happen. Yoichi would have given her a hug for that alone. “Why am I worried about you? Why do I act as if you are more important than that Bakugou asshole? Well, because to me, you are. You saved my life more than once. You, during the entrance exam, inspired me to go beyond my own limits! If not for you, if not for the rescue points I gained then, I might not have passed! You helped me stay on track to realize my life dreams! Even if I wasn’t ready to help you simply because you needed it, I’d still help you for that! Because you helped me, risking your life, first!”

Izuku starts shivering again. Uraraka decides that it’s a sign for another hug. And it actually does help him. After a while of reassuring physical contact.

***

“I’m… a bit of a mess after all, aren’t I?” Izuku says quietly a while later. The hug is over, and he has pulled back from it, but the two of them were still sitting right next to each other on the bench.

“It’s alright.” Uraraka replies confidently. “You had bad things happen to you back then. It happens. It stays with people. But you’re doing your best. You have Yoichi-san to advise you. You train yourself hardest of us all, and it shows. You’re really going Plus Ultra on everything, and I absolutely understand why All Might picked you. But!” She adds as she points her finger at him. “You go too much Plus Ultra! There is humility and there is crippling low self-esteem! There is heroism and there is being overly self-sacrificial! Got it?”

“Y-yeah.” Izuku replies weekly. “And Bakugou’s no friend of mine, right?” Uraraka nods. “I… I see. Y-yoichi said the same thing, but… I guess that I didn’t believe him.”

“It’s alright.” Uraraka nods again while holding his hands and looking into his eyes. “We all make mistakes here and then, right? It’s not your fault, everyone has been playing along with his bullsh*t, so don’t start blaming yourself for it now, got it?”

Yoichi is about 80% sure that Ninth was ready to start doing this right now. He… he really had to stop. And start valuing himself a bit more. What he was doing wasn’t exactly healthy. And while he understood the reasoning behind All Might’s choice, there was still a lot of character formation to be done.

Uraraka’s absolutely the best girl right now.

And he won’t make any jokes about Ninth being so much of a bottom that he was immediately ready to do things when it was a girl that told him to do it. Let’s not ruin the moment.

“I… I guess it's a character development thing, right?” Izuku replies. Is he trying to make a joke? Well, if so, then he missed.

“That’s something that major characters in a story would have, am I right?” Uraraka grins back at him. Izuku manages to smile faintly back. “Do you feel better?”

“Y-yes.” Izuku replies after a second or two. “I think I really needed that. I’ve been… bottling it down the whole time and, and, all the stress from repeated brushes with death it just, doesn’t go away on its own.”

“Yep.” Uraraka nods. “And you were too busy trying to make Toga feel welcome in the group and make sure that everything’s alright and we’re safe to bother dealing with your own stress. Everyone else had something to do for the past few days. Tokoyami-kun has been discussing theology with Shiozaki-san. I was hanging out with Tsuchan. You, in the meantime, were just training and training and… you need to care more about yourself, alright? It’s unhealthy otherwise.”

“I guess.” Izuku concedes the point. “I’ll try, I promise. If you see I’m falling into bad habits again…”

“I’ll call you out, immediately.” Uraraka interjects. “You don’t have to worry. I’m your party member, right? We’re a team. One day, we’ll be running a hero agency together! Wasn’t that the plan?”

It was, yeah.

Izuku, at this point, decides that it’s time to… man up a little. He can’t keep being a bit of a pushover (even if a very kind one). He, for some reason, is the party’s leader. And he should act the part. Right?

“And if you need another hug of support, you just have to ask.” Uraraka winks at him. Izuku’s decision to be a bit more stoic and calm immediately weakens a little.

He is looking forward to the training that Arshka will get them through. While also thinking that maybe, just maybe, it won’t be that bad. He doesn’t say it, of course, because that would be raising flags, but…

He just wants to have something to do before he truly understands the fact that a girl hugged him and he’ll promptly keel over and die.

Chapter 21: Hell(?) Training

Chapter Text

The next morning, Astaus and Arshka gather them all up in front of the now slightly desecrated temple. Midoriya didn’t know what exactly they were up to last evening, aside from the fact that Hatsume had apparently passed the inspection with flying colors.

They were all wearing replacement clothes, borrowed from the abandoned buildings in the village. Simple cloth tunics and pants, something that they wouldn’t feel bad about damaging during the training. That’s what Arshka told them all to come with.

The fact that Izuku’s usual choice of clothes was a chainmail over a gambeson, and she still told him to take something that couldn’t be destroyed or damaged, spoke volumes about the intensity of what she was planning for them.

Shiozaki was absent, and Midoriya was ready to wager that she refused to participate over her clothing issue. Just in case, he ended up asking Tokoyami, taking advantage of the official start of the assembly being slightly delayed by Arshka storming off to find Mustard to join it (it was mandatory , apparently).

“They were screaming at each other for most of the last evening, she and Arshka.” Tokoyami replies quietly. Astaus is giving him an oddly amused look from the distance. To Yoichi that look reads as ‘you’re all completely f*cked lmao’.

Shiozaki actually screamed at Arshka? Midoriya would pay to see that. From a safe distance, that is. From another universe, preferably.

“Any idea how it ended?” Izuku asks.

“I dropped by the temple last night.” Tokoyami replies. “Shiozaki agreed to, how should I put it, start building her tolerance towards wearing the world’s most scarce hero costume, on the logic that she can’t be sure that someone nasty won’t barge into her inner sanctum behind the temple, and that hesitation in that scenario might cost her life. But she’s going to do it slowly. So don’t expect her to show up anytime soon.”

That was… understandable. Still, to actually stand her ground in front of Arshka and agree on a compromise? Shiozaki-san was surprisingly fearless. Or maybe it was just a very important subject to her.

It would probably be a very important subject to almost everyone out there, especially the girls.

Uraraka looks pumped up about the training. Toga was yawning loudly in the background. She didn’t need sleep, none of the Vessels had to, so she did that to show her opinion on gathering up at dawn.

Tsuyu remained unreadable in the background, standing near Uraraka. Hatsume was there as well, observing them from her forge. Clearly waiting for something.

Arshka appears a few minutes later, dragging Mustard by his ear, the villain's loud complaints completely ignored. He was then unceremoniously pushed towards their group. Toga’s loud giggle earned her a furious look from him.

“Alright, line up.” Arshka says loudly. When they wasted two seconds too many on that, she switched to a higher volume. “I SAID LINE UP, GREENHORNS!”

This time, they quickly obey.

“Oh, man.” Yoichi sighs in the back of his mind. “It’s seeing Gran Torino train All Might all over again. I wish you luck, Ninth. You’re going to need it.”

???

“You’re all Vessels.” She then announces. “But you’re weak. For most of the people out there, including a lot of our quote-unquote allies, you are delicious snacks to make them stronger. You know what that means. You either bulk up or your souls will help others bulk up. There is no third option.”

No one says anything. Most of them simply look back at her, trying not to appear nervous. The exception is a relaxed and mildly irritated Toga and a still pissed off Mustard.

“I’m going to run you through proper training to improve your odds.” Arshka continues. “How much it will help you depends entirely on how much effort you put into it. However, this is mandatory. I don’t give a flying f*ck about your consent. Everyone is going to do their best, or else .”

No one said anything to that.

“Most of the Vessels out there don’t give a f*ck about proper training.” Arshka continues. “Aside from their weapons. Their body? Bah, they just have to put more points into physical attributes. And guess what?” She stays quiet for a second. “It’s bullsh*t . You wanna know why?”

No one wanted to open their mouths and draw her attention to themselves. That didn’t discourage Arshka at all.

“If you train your body hard enough, especially on the lower levels, you can improve your attributes without using any soul crystals.” Arshka continues. “Trust me, I’ve done that myself. Astaus, that little bitch, did it himself.”

Astaus says nothing, just rolls his eyes around. At this point, Izuku is almost certain that those two are friends. Just in a very Arshka way.

“For now, you might not feel a lot of difference.” Arshka continues. “But after several levels, you will. Wanna know why? It’s because the weaker soul crystals start giving diminishing returns depending on your character level . Not your attribute level . Pick two people with the same starting attributes, give them an equal number of soul crystals, and the one that trained themselves with reckless abandon will absolutely massacre the others in a straight fight. And that’s what we’re going to work on.”

Uraraka, being the fearless girl that she was, raised her hand. Arshka actually gives her a wry grin, before nodding.

“I understand how it works.” Uraraka says. “But will our training be dependent on our combat roles? I mean, will I train my strength too?”

“Yes.” Arshka replies without a second of pause. “You will, naturally, focus on your primary stats, although you of all people will focus on it once Lena is back. But having some basic training in non-primary attributes might come useful at most unexpected times. There will also be combat training. Once I figure out where you’re standing, you’ll each get a personalized training regimen.” She grins. “There is no need to wait with that, am I right? Bird and fox, you go with Astaus.”

Both of them had most of their skills scaling off Faith, so it was… reasonable, Izuku decides. Tokoyami didn’t seem to be overly happy about it as he headed towards grinning Astaus. Toga raises her hand instead.

“Do I have to?” She pouts a little. “I don’t wanna!”

“How about this? We’ll make a bet.” Arshka grins back. “You train obediently with Astaus and put your back into it. Then, once it’ll be your free time, you will try to sneak up on me. If you manage to injure me, to any degree whatsoever, you’ll be excused from further training.”

Toga is thinking it through for a few seconds.

“No dice!” She then replies. “I can just disappear into the forest, you know? No way you’ll find me there while also wanting to keep the others in line.”

“You know how to bargain, I will give you that much.” Arshka grins. “Come here, I want to whisper something into your ear.”

Toga is clearly on her guard while approaching her. Izuku half-expected the knight to hit her or something, but instead, she really whispers something into Toga’s ear.

“Alright!” Toga grins. “I accept those terms!” She then jogged towards Tokoyami and Astaus that were waiting there for her.

What just happened? And why did Izuku feel as if Toga’s eyes shot towards him the second Arshka was whispering into her ear?

“Frog, the deal with you is the same.” Arshka continues. “You’re mostly a rogue, right? Just with some mild poison magic? Well, look for ways to surprise me. I’ll comment on your mistakes. That’s aside from the usual physical training.”

“Are you planning to approach or enter water during that time, kero?” Tsuyu asks.

“Are you planning to ask everyone you’ll ever fight to be kind enough to move over to the nearest water basin?” Arshka replies with a question.

“Understood, kero.” Tsuyu nods. “I’ll do my best." The frog girl has nothing else to add.

“On a sidenote, you, the brunette, and the edgy grumpy-ass over there…” Arshka continues, prompting Mustard to groan loudly. “... will learn magic properly from Lena. I’m still giving you some basic physical training in the meantime, so get ready for that. Midoriya!”

Midoriya manages not to gulp loudly when Arshka’s attention focuses on him. Worst of all, the fact that she actually used his name makes him somewhat… existentially worried? Is that a term?

“Yes?” Izuku manages to ask without shaking. Occhan was giving him a worried (but also somewhat… proud?) look from the side.

“You’ll be training with me, the whole time.” Arshka announces. “We’ll start immediately. Draw your blade and fight me. Everyone else, to the side.” Uraraka, Asui, and Mustard did so quickly. Izuku needed a bit more time.

“Alr…” Izuku tries to say while drawing his sword, only to be immediately sent flying with a powerful blow to the stomach, hitting the ground at least ten meters away, the sword still in his sheath. “What the?!” He says as he stands up.

“You think that rogue-types are going to wait for you to draw your sword?!” She yells as she walks towards him, her new longsword in her hand. “Move fast, or don’t move at all and accept your death. Now, defend yourself!”

She uses her version of Dash to cross through the empty space and swing the sword down towards his head. This time, Izuku’s sword is waiting, blocking the blow. But the strength behind her sword is too great.

The sword doesn’t reach him, instead, he is pushed onto his knees as Arshka is pushing her sword down.

“Good, good.” She says. Izuku fails to respond, putting his whole strength into keeping the sword above him from splitting him in half. “You’ve instinctively blocked the sword with the flat side of your sword. That’s the good way of doing it. It prevents you from damaging your sword and makes it harder for the enemy to chop your blade in half. But…”

The pressure above him weakens, only for Izuku to be immediately kicked in the chest, with enough impact force to shave off a fifth of his Vigor.

He lands on the ground once more. Holy sh*t, the uncorrupted Arshka was even stronger . Was it her clearer mind letting her employ her strength in a more efficient way?

“You have to watch for more things than the enemy weapons.” Arshka says calmly. “A lot of things can be weapons among the Vessels, sometimes even things that you’d never imagine to be a weapon. The most dangerous attacks are, as always, stabs.”

She dashes forward again, her sword lunging towards his chest. He deflects it with his sword, only to find her other hand touching the side of his head.

There is no blow to follow, just a light tap. Midoriya dashes back in an instant. Arshka doesn’t follow, instead, she sheathes her sword.

“Your skills with the sword are about comparable to an average non-Vessel soldier.” She informs him. “Maybe a rookie knight. Ever had any professional training in swordfighting?”

“N-no.” Izuku replies nervously. Despite her sword being hidden, he is still holding his, ready to respond to another attack. “I don’t know why I know how to do… well, all of that.”

“You must have been given an instinctual proficiency with weapons, to what can be considered an ‘average’ level for this world.” Arshka decides. “Lucky f*ckers. Anyway, you can use that sword, but you f*cking suck with fighting in general.”

“Eh?” He asks. Arshka sighs.

“You’re f*cking friend-shaped.” She informs him. “You have the combat instincts of a… honestly, I have absolutely no comparison here. That’s how bad it is. You don’t dodge instinctively, you freeze and waste time at the worst time possible. You overfocus on things and fail to spot attacks because of that. Don’t worry.” She grins at him. “I know how to solve that, but that’s for the future. I need to prepare. Hatsume! I’ll have work for you after this.”

“YES!” Hatsume yells while saluting Arshka with her hammer. “MORE BABIES!”

Uh-oh.

“She says to not worry, but you absolutely should worry, Ninth.” Yoichi tells him. It’s completely pointless, as Izuku is already very worried.

“ALRIGHT!” Arshka yells in the background. “YOU MAGGOTS, IT’S TIME FOR THE PHYSICAL TRAINING! LINE UP, RIGHT f*ckING NOW!”

“She missed her calling of becoming a Prussian army drill sergeant by being born in the wrong universe and at the wrong time.” Yoichi mumbles to himself.

***

Several hours later, Arshka announces that they’re done for the day. And that they should go and rest. She also recommended going to sleep, because while the nature of Vessels is that they don’t get physically fatigued, mental fatigue is something completely different.

The rogues were now free to attempt to ambush her from now until tomorrow morning.

“She’s bullsh*tting us.” Mustard says, strewn on the ground right next to them. “No physical fatigue? No f*cking way. All my muscles hurt.”

“Have you considered the fact that it’s all in your head?” Izuku asks, as the only one of their entire group (currently composed of Mustard, Tsuyu, Uraraka, and himself) that hasn’t fallen to the ground in exhaustion the moment Arshka signaled them the end of the ‘exercise’.

“You want a fight?” Mustard replies angrily.

“Sure.” Izuku replies. “If you manage to stand up.”

Mustard doesn’t respond. Izuku counts that as his victory.

Tsuyu ribbits faintly in the background, the girl lying on her back, staring at the clouds above, her arms stretched on both sides of her body. Was it… was it an attempt at laughing at Mustard’s expense?

Izuku isn’t sure.

“How are you looking so well, Deku-kun?” Occhan asks from the ground. She looked narrowly better than Tsuyu, and much better than Mustard, but… “I can barely feel my feet. And my hands. And my… everything.”

“Well, it was…” He glances in Arshka’s direction and confirms that she left. He doesn’t want her to take that as a challenge. “... only about as bad as my usual daily exercises.”

He decided not to add that it was much less bad than his usual daily exercises plus his own addition to them (despite All Might’s complaints about Midoriya going too far).

Silence in the courtyard. Three people are staring at him from the ground and that makes everything awkward.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Mustard asks. “Aside from being a hero trainee, I mean.”

Tsuyu slaps him with her tongue. He groans loudly. Izuku feels as if it wasn’t the first time that this happened.

“W-well, my quirk came in late.” Izuku replies. It’s technically true. His quirk did come in (to his body) pretty late. “I wanted to be a hero even when I thought that I was quirkless. It meant having to train myself harder than everyone else to compensate.”

It, once again, was a technical truth. He did train harder than everyone (or at least them), but only after All Might changed his answer. Stoking up the flames of hope in his soul that were slowly dying out during the years prior.

Occhan understands that immediately. The others don’t. Mustard is still staring at him when Tsuyu lifts herself up.

“Well, I believe that we were issued a challenge, kero.” She announces. “By raising the bar of what is considered ‘an appropriate amount of training’. If we want to be Top Heroes, we need to train ourselves harder.”

“Yep!” Uraraka manages to do the same before pumping her fist up in the air. “The harder we train now, the bigger the retirement pension we’ll be getting, am I right?” She adds before winking at Izuku with a grin on her face.

Izuku chuckles. That was one way of putting it.

“You guys are f*cked up in the head.” Mustard announces, but lifts himself up too. “But I can’t be worse than you, right?”

“Well, it’s a bit too early to say it, but you’re certainly nailing the ‘being an inspiration’ part of heroism, Ninth.” Yoichi comments. Izuku has no idea how to respond to that so he ends up freezing on the spot.

***

Izuku ended up following Arshka’s advice, and decided to try to go to sleep, picking one of the abandoned homes and lying on the bed thereafter cleaning it up a little. Being alone with his own thoughts.

The room was mostly empty and bare. Whoever lived here once, took everything aside from the bare furniture with him. It’s fine with Izuku. With it being so bare, so impersonal, he doesn’t feel as if he was intruding.

Yoichi, for once, decided to listen to his demands for silence. He at the very least understood the fact that it was hard to go to sleep when someone was talking in your head.

Izuku manages to sleep for about an hour (not like he could count that), before he is woken up by a nightmare. One that he immediately evaporates from his head. What was it about? He remembers that the Lower Stoneverge Redoubt was there, but he also remembers the Sludge Villain being there, and…

“Deku-kun?” He hears a familiar voice and understands immediately why he woke up. “Are you alright?”

He could see the familiar figure next to his bed, leaning over him.

“W-wh… Occhan?” He lets out as he blinks a few times quickly. He still didn’t get used to calling a girl like that. “W-why are you here?”

“You were pretty loud, I heard you from the house next door.” She replies quietly. “Are you alright? A nightmare?”

Oh. Damn. It was worse than he thought. The trauma really was there. Hopefully, it will pass on its own.

“Y-yeah.” Izuku replies while sitting up on his bed. “Sorry for waking you up, but…”

“You have to stop apologizing so much.” She replies, cutting in. “I wasn’t sleeping. I tried to fall asleep, but without being physically tired, it just doesn’t work as well as I hoped for. Then I heard you, and…” She breathes in deeply. “How do you feel?”

“I… don’t remember what it was, but it was ugly.” Izuku replies. “I’m… I’m not sure if I want to go to sleep again, to be honest.”

“You have to, we have to.” Uraraka replies immediately. “Arshka said so, right?”

“You’re not much better at it than I am.” Izuku snaps back. Then he immediately freaks out. “I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have…”

“You apologize too much.” She replies again. Izuku almost apologizes for that too. She’s right, he really should stop doing that. “You know what, I have an idea. But, errr, it might be a bit weird, and… errr…”

It’s rare to see Occhan stutter like that. What might it be about?

“Occhan?” Izuku asks, interrupting her little breakdown.

“Don’t… don’t misunderstand!” She replies quickly. “But, the house I’m staying in for the night has a very wide bed. Two people can fit there easily, with a lot of space between them, and… I mean, it’s so that we can wake each other up if we end up being raked by nightmares, alright!”

Izuku’s mind suffers catastrophic failure here and there.

“Aaand… he misunderstood it.” Yoichi groans in the back of his mind. “Midoriya, get a grip. You can’t lose your mind each time a girl offers you to share a bed with her, with no sexual undertones to her offer.”

“I-I can’t?” Izuku stutters out.

“That’s u-understandable.” Uraraka replies, for once as nervous as Izuku was.

“N-no, I was talking to Y-Yoichi-san.” Izuku quickly replies, before realizing that he made it sound as if he, after all, was in agreement with what she said. The thing that he couldn’t even name.

“Ninth, a few of your predecessors were underground heroes.” Yoichi replies. “I’ve seen enough people just drop asleep right next to each other, with little care about gender, especially after a forty-eight hour long stakeout next to one of my brother’s businesses, to not see that very act as romantic anymore. It’s not a serious thing unless you two decide to make it a serious thing, you know?”

Well, that was… a word of experience. Regretfully, Izuku had a certain degree of doubt concerning the concept of Yoichi advising him in things connected to relationships. Especially after his… usual activity on that field.

“Err, I t-think that it wouldn’t work.” Izuku replies, managing not to mumble while at it. “But.. wait! We could sleep in the same room, but not in the same bed!”

“Oh, w-why didn't I think about it?!” Uraraka sounds confused about it. The fact that… wait. Isn’t that weird? That she, you know, immediately jumped for the idea of sleeping in one bed, while ignoring that option. “I’m in! I’ll bring the quilt and the bedsheet from my house. I’ll sleep on the floor and…”

“No!” Izuku cuts in immediately. “I should be sleeping on the floor! You’re the one who offered first, and I’d feel bad if…”

“But you were the one who had nightmares!” Uraraka replies immediately. “I should sleep on the floor! It’s not a problem for me, I swear!”

***

“You two are incredible.” Yoichi announces dryly first thing in the morning. Izuku can taste sarcasm in his words. “Seriously, Ninth? Seriously? You should be absolutely ashamed of yourself.”

He isn’t sure what to say to that, so he continues his present activity, occasionally glancing at Uraraka who was quite busy doing the same thing. Namely, making their beds(?).

“You couldn’t decide who would sleep on the floor, so you both slept on the floor, right next to a perfectly fine bed.” Yoichi groans. “Can you get more adorkable than this? You’re going to give me diabetes, and I’m a ghost !”

He says nothing to that. At least he managed to rest somewhat. He had bad dreams, but… those passed, and he didn’t remember them after he woke up. Even Uraraka fell asleep eventually, but it was a rest that was… questionably restful.

He finished making his bed(?). Uraraka did so as well. She gave him a reassuring smile, the early sunlight coming from the nearby window illuminating her face. It was a really p-p-pret… friendly face. Yes, that was his opinion on it.

“Ochako, Arshka told me to wake you up and tell you that…” Tsuyu takes that very moment to enter the room, which leads to her seeing both of them there. Having clearly just finished making up the bed.

And, now that Izuku realizes it, they’ve put all of their quilts and bedsheets on the bed. Which meant that to Tsuyu, it looked as if they slept together there. Naturally, he goes beet red in the instant.

“... Mustard saw Lena returning to her house, Arshka is about to go visit her and she wants you and Midoriya there, kero.” Tsuyu finishes, with a clear pause when she was digesting the state of the room and the presence of Midoriya there. “I’ll be going, I don’t want to interrupt you. See you later during the training.”

She then rapidly leaves the room, Uraraka blinking back in shock at her new friend leaving so quickly, without talking with her. Then she looks back at Izuku, just to see his face being completely and utterly red.

Without a word, he points towards the bed. She looks there for maybe three seconds, before blushing red and running after Tsuyu while shouting that it wasn’t what she thought it was.

“And now it’s a goddamn romcom.” Yoichi groans. “I know it’s part of a brief hellish training montage, but c’mon, I crave soulslike violence.”

For all his genre-savviness, he didn’t even realize that set up the flags there, at least until a few days later Arshka told them what was going to be their ‘graduation exam’ from her combat school.

Chapter 22: Reunion

Chapter Text

Tsuyu was slightly easier to convince that the truth was truth than Arshka and Astaus. She did believe Occhan when she explained to her that it wasn’t what it looked like. Yoichi is almost certain that it wouldn’t work in a year or two, but for now, their young age worked in their favor.

They were so young that someone as pure and family-friendly as Tsuyu had issues imagining them doing that. They should cherish that fact while it lasts (so, not for long).

Midoriya and Uraraka then rush to find Arshka. Thankfully, Tsuyu actually knew where she was waiting for them, it’s just that she forgot to tell them in the hurry to leave their(?) room. Once Uraraka catches up, they get their answer.

Arshka is, surprisingly enough, hiding behind a house, quite close to the one that Lena apparently used while staying at the village. It’s as if she was… actually hiding from the sorceress?

Huh?

And why wasn’t she wearing her armor, and instead only had civilian clothes on her (the same standard tunic & pants combo)?

She motions at them to come closer and stay quiet. Uraraka and Midoriya exchange glances before getting closer as ordered.

“Alright, the plan is as follows.” Arshka announces as they get close. “You come up there, get chummy with her without mentioning me, let her invite you inside and then wait until I sneak up on her from behind. Got it?”

…?

“What?” Midoriya asks.

“Just trust me, it’ll make sense in the aftermath.” Arshka replies. “Do it. Got it? Or I’ll make your training twice as hard.”

Uraraka is terrified. Midoriya is excited but decides to keep playing as a team and doesn’t show it to Arshka. She’d likely take that as a challenge. He doesn’t want to make the lives of others harder than they are ready for.

“Alright, alright.” Izuku replies. “She’s there?”

“Yeah.” Arshka replies. “That little bitch with poison magic saw her come inside. If he lied to me, I’ll have him run until his legs fall off.”

For Mustard’s sake, Lena better be there.

***

Lena actually is there. Looking pretty much like she used to be, just without the pack animals and most of her stuff.

She opened the door soon after they knocked, the slightly annoyed look on her face morphing instantly into one of surprise when she recognized them.

“You’ve actually made it?” She then says, and… should Izuku feel insulted? “You’ve actually… don’t get me wrong, I hoped you’d make it, but with Arshka around…”

“Yeah, she turned out to be… a menace.” Izuku replies. Somehow, he manages to keep a straight face. “Thank you for sending Toga our way, she turned out super useful, if a bit…”

“Unhinged?” Lena asks calmly. Izuku and Uraraka decide not to nod (you never know when Toga is around) but Lena took that as an agreement. “I’ve seen worse. Come in, no use talking over the doorstep.”

The insides of the house are as austere as that of the others they’ve managed to visit thus far. Or, to be exact, they clearly used to be. Lena has decided to change that by adding a lot of… things throughout it.

Some papers and scrolls, some obvious magical objects of indeterminate nature that Izuku isn’t sure how to describe (not in the eldritch way, they are just way too varied for him to waste time doing that).

“Don’t stand there, sit down.” Lena points at the chairs by a table in the corner of the room. She then promptly grabs one of them for herself and sits down on it.

No use fighting it, whatever Arshka is planning will have to include the odd positioning of Lena, who can see almost the entire room from her current position, aside from…

Midoriya manages not to gasp when he sees Arshka’s head pop up on the other side of the window, with an expression on her face that’s best described as ‘sh*t-eating grin’. So does Uraraka.

“So, you’ve actually managed to get through the Stoneverge Redoubt?” Lena then asks. Izuku nods. “Did you run into Arshka?” She then asks.

“Yes.” Izuku replies. “She was… a handful to deal with.” She still was, but he forgot to mention that.

“Some might even say a pain in the ass.” Uraraka adds from the side. Yes, that was a good way of putting it.

“Yeah, that’s Arshka as I remembered her.” Lena sighs. Izuku once again surprises himself by not staring at Arshka in question who was just now climbing inside the room through the window. Like what the hell? “Overly loud, considered violence to be the solution to everything, looked down upon literally everyone who wasn’t a human and even majority of humans for mostly stupid reasons, but she was a good friend of mine.” Arshka grins, now almost right behind the sorceress. “Have you defeated her? I would feel better knowing that she was put to rest.”

“Well, yes, we did.” Izuku replies. “And Arshka was… certainly… put to rest. In a manner of speaking.”

“What?” Lena finally notices that something about the whole situation was suspicious to say the least.

However at the same moment Arshka’s hands land on her shoulders.

“Surprise!” The Rage Knight shouts cheerfully.

***

“And you’re sure that the training is going to be delayed because of that?” Mustard asks while nervously glancing towards the house in the distance. Lena took the house on a slightly elevated ground, for reasons unknown. “I don’t want to leave to do my own stuff just for that psycho to come and yell at me that…”

Lena’s house suddenly explodes in a blast of blueish energy, the blast reaching them before any of them had the time to react. Thankfully, it felt like a stronger gust of wind rather than a proper blast at this distance.

“Yes.” Tsuyu replies a second after it passes. “Yes I’m sure, kero.” Mustard, slackjawed, stares at her in shock before his eyes dart back to the smoking ruins of a building in the distance.

***

Izuku and Uraraka somehow survive the blast, despite being nearly at the epicenter of it. But they are both instantly taken down to less than half of their Vigor. That was… a fairly strong explosion.

It was probably some sort of ‘lifesaving’ spell for mages who got engaged at close range by a fighter.

“Oh my f*cking… that was the nastiest way of reacting to being surprised I’ve ever f*cking seen.” Arshka announces while pulling a long wooden splinter from her chest. The wound instantly heals. “As skittish as ever, eh?”

Lena has somehow managed to dash to the corner of the now completely destroyed room, her wand in her hands, the woman staring at Arshka with a combination of surprise, hostility and confusion.

Izuku decides to focus on important things first and helps Uraraka get out of the wall. Because she was smashed into it with enough strength to get kind of stuck there.

“Who the hell are you?” Lena hisses back. “If you think that I’m going to let you escape intact after impersonating my dead friend, you’re very wrong!”

“Impersonating?!” Arshka shouts back. Uraraka is finally free, and thanks Izuku for his help with a nod. “Well, if I was impersonating Arshka, how would I know that the last time we’ve seen each other was when your mother found me in your bed?”

Lena blushes red in an instant. It takes Izuku about three seconds to realize what this implied, and he had a rather significant help in the form of Yoichi letting out a loud ‘YYEEESSS!’ in the back of his head.

“It wasn’t… it wasn’t like that!” Lena shouts towards Uraraka and Midoriya, clearly understanding the redness of her face correctly. “Nothing actually happened! We just lied there naked for a while and waited to be ‘caught’! I wanted to disappoint my mother and figured out that this was the best way of doing that, okay?!”

If Izuku needed a single reason to strangle Yoichi when he joins him in the void next time, it would be the loud groan of disappointment that the man let out right now.

“Yes, and you just happened to have a friend that had a reputation of being a troublemaker.” Arshka says with a sh*t-eating grin on her face. “And who was absolutely ready to piss off one of the most important people in the country simply because it sounded like fun.”

Lena still glares at her. Arshka was clearly acting like Arshka and knew things that Arshka should have known. But…

“... a reputation in big part thanks to the things that happened during the party that the king organized to celebrate the queen’s birthday.” Lena says, squinting at Arshka. “She, in front of the king no less, referred to an important member of Leana’s nobility as ‘motherf*cker’.”

“Well, in my defense, it was my father, so calling him ‘my motherf*cker’ was perfectly valid. Plus, when he had issues with that, I asked him if that means that he didn't sleep with my mother and me and my siblings are all illegitimate.” Arshka replies dryly, meeting Lena’s eyes. “I also remember yelling at someone that their mother was having very loose morals and probably knew the hunks working at her castle’s stables better than her own husband.”

“Which, considering the fact that the person you were yelling at was your older brother, really left a mark.” Lena replies calmly while straightening herself up. She was still staring at Arshka and holding her wand up, but it felt significantly less… defensive?

On a sidenote, Izuku now understands why Arshka was exiled into a garrison at the very edge of Leana. In fact, he is surprised that it only happened after Lena’s mother (whoever that was) found her in her daughter’s bed (or at least that’s what he figures out after hearing that it was the last time Lena and Arshka met).

And that she clearly had issues with her own family. And so did Lena. Was it what connected them?

“You also sneaked out of your family’s residence where you were locked in that very evening in order to visit the residence of Duke Oslov of the Western March.” Lena continues. “Where you, to quote him, ‘spoiled the purity’ of his children, by seducing and bedding both of them.”

“Well, that was a very fun evening.” Arshka replies dryly. “But I would like to clarify that there was no purity for me to spoil. Those twins were insatiable, almost terrifyingly creative and very, very experienced. Some of their ideas made me blush. And you already know that because you’re the only person I’ve ever told that.”

Silence in the room (if you can call it that way when the ceiling is missing) for a few seconds. Lena stares at Arshka, the look on her face hard to describe. But eventually, the clouds cleared.

“It’s really you.” Lena says, putting her wand down. “It’s really… how?!”

“Just your luck.” Arshka grins. “So many people out there, and you somehow, just somehow, send the one guy who turns out to have an ability to heal soul corruption to euthanize me.” Lena blinks at her, before glancing at her two companions. Izuku waves towards her nervously. “Yeah, that one.”

“How’s that even…?” Lena says, staring at Midoriya in shock. “That shouldn’t be possible!”

“I’m just this awesome, I guess.” Yoichi announces smugly from the back of his mind. He decides to ignore him. Again.

“P-Plus Ultra?” Izuku replies nervously. Lena blinks at him. “It’s the motto of the school I a-attended before landing here. It means ‘go beyond’, so…”

“Yeah, that sounds about right.” Arshka rolls her eyes around before spreading her arms around. “Now, come. Give me a hug.”

“Please don’t.” Lena takes a step back. Then she realizes that she walked herself into the corner. “Oh, no.”

She ends up getting a hug and judging from her shouts she doesn’t like that at all . Arshka has absolutely zero restraint when sh*t like this is involved. Then again, it’s likely that she has no restraints whatsoever.

***

They ended up having to tell the people who ran to see what happened that everything’s alright - the blast was rather visible. Tsuyu and Mustard were the most concerned, although the latter was quickly scared by Arshka giving him a very nasty glare and the former was only there due to being worried about Midoriya and Uraraka.

“I’m going to kill you for that, you know?” Lena tells Arshka around that time. Arshka shrugs. “Those things were valuable.”

“Oh, c’mon.” Arshka rolls her eyes around. “I can see that both your habit of gathering useless junk and your habit of shooting first and asking questions later got worse. The lack of my moderating presence took its toll, eh?”

Izuku isn’t sure if he ever wants to meet a person for whom Arshka could act as a ‘moderating presence’. He isn’t, in fact, sure if such a person exists.

“I think we should move elsewhere to have that talk in private.” Lena replies. Clearly deciding not to humour Arshka’s words with any attention. Although with how she didn’t appear particularly horrified over accidentally destroying most of her collection, none of it must have strayed far from Rage Knight’s definition of ‘useless junk’.

***

Izuku isn’t sure if moving to another (mostly empty) house truly fulfills the definition of ‘private’ but whatever floats those two boats.

Then again, there are a lot of those in the village and they don’t have to be afraid of destroying anything important or valuable if Lena blasts it all up again.

“Okay.” Lena sits down first, before staring at them. “Can someone start by explaining what I missed? Like the whole ‘can heal soul corruption’ thing? Also, Arshka, did you involve Arstaus?”

“Of course I did.” Arshka rolls her eyes around. “He is somewhere in this village, teaching his tricks to some of the otherworlders that gathered here. The moment he heard of someone recovering from soul corruption it was either getting him involved or killing him, nothing else could work.”

“Well, great.” Lena sighs. “I’ll have to deal with his antics, again. Although it’s genuinely reassuring to hear that he’s still alive. Anyway, the story?”

Izuku and Uraraka quickly narrate what happened to their group between their brief meeting with Lena next to Firet to their reunion. Starting from their brief expedition to the Whispering Mine, then going through their attack on Arshka.

Arshka only now gets to hear the full account on how her animalistic self got done in. And how her animalistic self actually looked and acted like.

“I’d say that I was pretty cool while insane, if my insanity didn’t kill so many good folks, didn’t lead to me effectively losing the fortress I was tasked with defending and didn’t make me lose to a bunch of complete greenhorns like a f*cking loser.” Arshka announces her verdict a while later. “Enough intelligence to understand words, not enough to consider factors that weren’t in her direct line of sight.”

That was… a good summary of how they did her in, if Izuku is to be honest. If she was at her best, she would probably know that there were spikes. And, to begin with, it was likely that she would realize that the Izuku she was pursuing was a decoy.

“Those four completely fresh Vessels with little to no practical combat experience defeated a fallen two-star knight.” Lena replies while glaring at Arshka. “Would it really kill you to tell them a simple ‘congratulations’?”

Arshka groans loudly.

“Alright, so congratulations, good job, pat yourself on the back, let’s continue on.” Arshka concedes(?) the point. Izuku is going to cherish the victories that he can get.

Lena is visibly displeased by her side-route off the elevator not working as intended. But also reassured that no one died as a result of them taking the route she offered them.

Once Uraraka narrates how she stole so many soul crystals, Lena glances at Arshka. Izuku isn’t sure what it was about, but the Rage Knight shakes her head, and Lena doesn’t dig into it.

“Man, I hope I’m wrong.” Yoichi whispers to himself. Izuku, for once, doesn’t hear it.

“Alright, I think I got the gist of it.” Lena decides once the story gets to their group arriving at the village they were all in. “You had quite an adventure, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” Izuku replies. He isn’t sure if he wants another one like it, but he also knows that he probably can’t avoid that.

“And I know you well enough to be able to tell what your plan is.” Lena then says to Arshka. “Gather up the otherworlders, give them a crash course in fighting, use Astaus’s support to restore his kingdom by saving their god-queen so that you can then use their forces to break the siege of Stormhold Castle.”

“Yes, absolutely.” Arshka nods. “It’s a good plan, right?”

“It’s an extremely convoluted plan that’s going to make you fight a god, created simply because you find that to be an easier thing than apologizing to Tsorath for screwing up.” Lena replies, her voice having a tone best described as something in-between of being cold and exasperated. “Which, in short, is very much what I would expect from you.”

“Is it bad though?” Arshka replies, narrowing her eyes.

“I didn’t say that.” Lena immediately replies. “I’d say that it’s reasonable enough. Whether we like it or not, we need as many allies as we can get if we want to get a shot at stabilizing even the nearby territories.” Arshka’s eyes narrow in response. “Look, the situation… got worse while you were busy being insane.”

Izuku doesn’t think that he likes the atmosphere that Arshka was exuding right now. It’s not exactly bloodlust, but just… anger. Anger lacking any particular target, so instead it could be felt by everyone.

“How bad is it?” Arshka ask. Shortly. Calmly, but… only on the outside.

“I traveled through central Leana to get here.” Lena replies. “It’s chaos. Complete chaos. Cities overrun by mad cults, monsters rampaging freely, insurrections… no one knows what happened to the king. But I know that my mother and most of the School of Eclipse went completely insane too, and I don’t even know why .” She clenches her teeth. “And I’m afraid that if I knew, I’d be insane as well. The kingdom is gone, Arshka. The only question right now is whether the Divine Empire is still around, and I can’t tell…”

She’s cut short when Arshka slams her fist into the table next to her (with enough strength to crush it into splinters and make Uraraka and Midoriya almost fall off their chair in surprise) before storming out of the room without a word.

“Don’t.” Lena says when Izuku almost jumps after her. When he looks back at her, she shakes her head. “She needs a moment to cool her head down.”

“I’m surprised that the elves didn’t tell her that.” Uraraka says as Izuku sits back down. “She had a meeting with their leader and…”

“The local elves aren’t very interested in anything that happens outside of their territory.” Lena replies. “For them, the entire world could go up in flames, and they wouldn’t care as long as it doesn’t influence them.” She sighs. “It’s still better than what dark or mountain elves do, for the record. They won’t bother you for as long as you don’t bother them.”

That’s the image of them that Izuku had at this point, yeah. Isolationism, but to a more or less reasonable degree. They were a part of the Divine Empire (however they disliked that fact), allowing some visitors from the outside and even having a village just for them.

“Will she be alright?” Izuku asks.

“You worry about Arshka?” Lena replies with a question while raising her brow. “I can scarcely imagine her being emotionally or psychologically wounded. She’ll just channel all of that into anger and go punch something, even if it will be the earth itself, until she vents it all. She’ll be fine.”

She then sighs loudly.

“She’s a good person, deep inside.” Lena continues. “Loud, abrasive, aggressive and considers everything to be a challenge to her, not to mention the way she looks down on most groups of people out there. Not just elves or dwarves or beastmen, but also the overwhelming majority of humans.”

“Are she and Astaus… friends?” Izuku decides to ask. Lena gives him a questioning look. “I mean, I can’t imagine why he would tolerate how she treats him otherwise.”

“I’m fairly sure that Astaus would enjoy being treated like that if she was a large and muscular man.” Lena says dryly. Yeah, another thing that Izuku doesn’t want to know. “Look, Arshka is the sort of person that would go on a rant on how elves are utterly useless and stupid, and then almost die while fighting to save a few elven children from a monster, despite not having to and no one ever knowing that she ignored their plight due to the monster erasing all witnesses. Simply because it’s the right thing to do. And Astaus knows that.”

That… somehow was very in character for Arshka. Izuku certainly can imagine her acting exactly like that.

She was… somewhat like Ka… Bakugou. But, despite being certifiably racist, he could imagine her almost dying to save someone she looked down upon. For Bakugou, though… he’d help if Izuku was endangered by someone, right?

Suddenly he remembers Bakugou shouting at him that he didn’t need his help, after the Sludge Villain. After the most traumatic day in Izuku’s life. He didn’t even bother to ask if Izuku was alright.

Izuku can’t imagine him ever asking that. But he can imagine - and more, this actually happened - Occhan asking those words.

She was right about him, wasn’t she? And so was Yoichi. It’s… a surprising thing to Izuku, even after all of that.

“Are you going to, you know, teach us as well?” Uraraka decides to change the subject, unaware of what Izuku was going through internally. Focusing on her own potential growth in strength in those circ*mstances is a logical choice of action.

“Despite the entire world going down the drain and everything going from bad to worse, you’ve managed to reunite me with a friend that I’ve never expected to see again.” Lena replies. “So I guess that I owe you. And helping you grow stronger sounds like a good way of paying you back.”

“That’s great.” Uraraka replies. “Arshka promised me and two other otherworlders that use magic your help, acting as it was the guaranteed thing, so I was a bit afraid…”

“That’s Arshka for you.” Lena cuts in before sighing loudly. “What magic do the other two use?”

“Poison.” Uraraka replies. Izuku is, for a while, left in the background of the talk, but it’s alright. He certainly needs a while to… sort his own emotions up. “Do you know anything about it?”

“No.” Lena replies. Uh-oh. “But I know how to train your intelligence stat. As for the spells itself, before the present apocalypse started, the School of Eclipse looked down on all other types of magic. I don’t know any spells outside of it, but if you find me any magic scrolls, I can easily serve as your teacher.”

Which, according to what Yoichi told Izuku a while ago, was very soulslike. Apparently finding magic books/etc. to unlock new spells/techniques/weapon upgrades was a very important part of those games.

“How does that work?” Uraraka asks. “And can’t we teach each other?”

“Do you have the time to spend a few years learning the theoretical side of magic, all the mechanics behind the spells working as intended?” Lena replies with a question. “If not, then I severely recommend relying on people with proper education on the field to bestow their understanding of the spell onto you.”

So it was ‘bestowing their understanding’ upon them?

“We’ll look for the scrolls then.” Izuku decides to return to the subject.

Martial arts manuals for Arshka, magic scrolls for Lena, holy (or occult) books for Astaus, infusion coals for Hatsume. Plus moon tears for weapon improvement. That was… really soulslike, Yoichi decides.

Almost suspiciously so.

In the meantime, it’s back to training for them all.

Chapter 23: Training Arc Ends

Chapter Text

After about four days of intensive physical training, Arshka decides to spice things up. And informs Izuku (and only Izuku) that she has something special for him to do. A next step in his training.

Izuku manages to convincingly portray being horrified about things getting harder, despite being, in fact, excited about it. Once again, he doesn’t want Arshka to take that as a challenge.

Mustard is already clearly not doing well. Even Toga is clearly annoyed by continuously failing at her ambush attempts on Arshka. Yes, there already were several, and even the one closest to success ended with Toga being thrown through a building.

Arshka was really callous with the survival of the village they were in, it seems.

To Izuku’s surprise, they run into Lena and Uraraka on their way there. Uraraka (who is wearing her sorcerer outfit right now) immediately waves towards Izuku with a bright smile on her face and a loud ‘Deku-kun!’. Izuku replies in kind a second later with a loud ‘Occhan!’.

Yoichi groans. They hadn't seen each other for less than two hours (as their ‘sleeping in the same room’ routine became just that, routine), and they reacted like that. That was… a bit painful to watch.

At least they moved two beds to one bedroom so that the stupidity of sleeping on the floor didn’t repeat.

And no, he still has no clue if they’re heading for romance or platonic camaraderie for life.

“You’ll both participate in the same training exercise.” Arshka announces a second later. Uraraka and Midoriya both smile at that.

Oh, if only they knew.

***

In a feat of hard work that bordered on insanity, Arshka managed to get an entire obstacle course prepared when no one was looking. It was at the verge of the village and included a three hundred meters long circle of stacked dirt.

After thinking it over for a second, that part must have been there to begin with, although Izuku has zero idea why.

What Arshka did add were… the obstacles.

“Is that…” Izuku glances at Arshka while pointing at something close by. “... a bear trap?”

“Bear traps, spike traps, a few strategically placed arrow launching traps, the usual.” Arshka replies. “I had the elven garrison and even Leanir himself to help. Don’t ask how, let’s just say that I can be very convincing.”

That was an understatement.

“And… what am I supposed to do with this?” Izuku asks while staring at Arshka. This time, so does Uraraka.

“Run.” Arshka replies calmly. “Run circles through it. Avoiding simultaneously the traps and your friend here firing her magic at you.” Uraraka blinks at her before pointing at herself. “Yes, you. Do you see any more of his friends here? And you better do your best to hit him, or I’ll decide that you’re slacking off.”

“And I’ll be firing at you as well, but I’ll be holding back, don’t worry.” Lena adds before Uraraka can respond to Arshka’s words. That doesn’t stop Izuku from being worried. “Mostly while Uraraka will be running back to the Altar of Egress to recharge her Focus, though.”

“A-and…?” Izuku - now even more nervous and worried - tries to speak towards Arshka.

“And I’ll be mostly running around like a cracked-up monkey, making sure that the bear traps are quickly reloaded each time one of them snaps your leg off.” Arshka replies calmly, prompting Izuku to briefly wonder what words got auto-translated to ‘cracked-up monkey’. The mind can grasp onto the weirdest of things in the moment of sheer existential dread. “Although if you want, I can surely find some javelins to spice it up a bit more. Do you?”

“Ok-oka… wait, no!” Izuku snaps back midword, rather worried by the grin blooming on Arshka’s face. “And what’s this exercise supposed to do?”

“For the brown-haired spell-slinger, it’s supposed to help her work on accuracy against moving targets and to make sure that she has no psychological blocks while firing against humanoid targets.” Arshka replies. “For you, it’s supposed to rush the development of your combat instincts.”

She immediately understands that Izuku didn’t get it. So, she groans loudly.

“You remember how I complained that you don’t have combat instincts, at all?” She asks. This time, he nods. “Well, freezing in place to think during this obstacle course will make you lose a limb, get skewered by something or just be painfully inconvenienced in general. So, you’re going to keep running while keeping track of your surroundings to not step into traps and not get shot by your friend.” She then grins. “Pain is the best motivator to learn, after all.”

Uh-oh.

***

In Ochako’s defense, she did apologize to him profusely (and almost in tears) after she managed to somehow shoot his face off with her Magic Bullet, making him stumble and get hit by an arrow trap (or perhaps hidden elven archers, Izuku wouldn’t be surprised if it was that) that made him look like a human pincushion.

Which made him fall headfirst into a Hatsume-patented Super Bear Trap Baby #3 that promptly chopped his head off completely.

Arshka, though, laughed the whole way back from the quick resurrection at the Altar. She did that each time he died (or was injured) in a sufficiently ‘funny’ way.

Her methods for teaching might have been extreme (to say the least), but the amount of times he got hit has begun to drop significantly during the subsequent days.

***

“So, what’s your opinion about them?” Lena asks less than a week after the start of Arshka’s little training camp for otherworlders. The two of them were standing at the edge of the obstacle course, watching Midoriya dodge the traps and Magic Bullets.

They were, at this point, a bigger threat to him than the traps. Even despite Arshka going so far as to change the locations of whatever could be moved each night. Which meant the bear traps.

The ‘arrow traps’ - namely, a few hidden elven archers that jumped for the occasion to entertain (and train) themselves by being allowed to shoot humans freely - didn’t need to be moved. They just needed to pick their arrows after the exercise was over, and that was all.

“Those kids are f*cking monsters, that’s my opinion.” Arshka replies with a straight face. Before them, Izuku dodges not a single Magic Bullet but a blast of at least half a dozen. Uraraka was getting better too.

“Astaus thinks so as well.” Lena, her eyes following Arshka’s. “They learn terrifyingly fast, aren’t they?”

“An understatement.” Arshka snears. “I expected to only have the time to teach basics of maneuver and instinctual attack response to Midoriya during those two weeks. Instead, he reached the level of knight school graduates in what, four days of this? This is absolutely and patently ridiculous.”

“M-hm.” Lena mumbles while falling deep into her own thoughts. Like she used whenever she hit an interesting mystery. “They are made to be weaker than the locals, but also given all the natural capabilities to be within the competitive range of us, aren’t they? For as long as they survive the first few weeks here.”

She was certain that the growth was going to plateau at some point. At least when things not governed by your soulflame was involved. General combat skills, leaving the rest to be learned through normal leveling.

If she said that, Arshka would have confirmed it. Because she did notice a decline in the speed of learning new things by the otherworlders as time passed. By Arshka’s estimates, they’d plateau around the level of a ‘decent professional fighter’, if there was such a level out there.

Unless the effect scaled to their character level. Which would have meant that right now they were scaling to the level of ‘decent professional one-star knight’. Only to start growing further after additional soul crystals.

That would be scary.

“My thoughts exactly.” Arshka replies. In the background, Midoriya jumps over a bear trap before twisting his body to dodge an arrow. The elves were told to try to keep it tame, but at this point, they were firing full strength.

Of course, Vessels weren’t that easy to hit. Their reaction speed altered by the attributes was rather intense. Worst of all, most close-quarters oriented fighters (especially knights like Arshka) could easily power through arrows, bolts, etc. of someone who wasn’t a Vessel themselves.

There is a difference in the amount of body damaged by an arrow and by a greatsword, after all. For as long as you didn’t let it go through your vitals, the damage you receive would be abysmal.

That’s why when you wanted to actually kill a Vessel with archers, you had to amass a lot of them. Still, learning to dodge the arrows of qualified elven archers was… a lot. Even if Arshka told them to only fire when Midoriya stepped on the well-hidden ‘pressure plate’ which meant that he had a minimal headstart for dodging.

Even then, Leanir would one-shot him if he was there. That forest elf wasn’t as good as Arshka in close combat, but unlike her, he was also a really dangerous archer. But he had years to train. They had days.

Insane.

“Are you going to tell them?” Lean asks. Arshka gives her a ‘what are you, stupid?’ look. Fair point, it would just make them overly confident. It’s best for them to have a more realistic approach to things.

Better to retreat when you didn’t have to than to keep fighting when you shouldn’t have. In the usual set of circ*mstances. There were unfortunate exceptions to that, but thankfully rare.

“I think that I’ll end up moving over to the next step of Midoriya’s training soon.” Arshka announces a while later. “How’s your new student doing?”

“Very good.” Lena replies. “Puts in a lot of effort and it shows. Has some instinctual understanding of gravity as a primeval force of the world thanks to how her quirk or however they call it worked. And it has its influence on how she’s learning things.”

“You think that their ‘instinctual learning of things’ only works on the fields connected to their quirks in some way?” Arshka asks. She has issues visualizing their world, even on the simplest of levels. Anyone having only one trick up their sleeve sounded… weak.

“The only way to find out is to intentionally train one of them wrong.” Lena replies. “Do you have the manpower to waste like that?”

No. In fact, Arshka was critically lacking manpower. How much did she have available to her right now? Astaus and Lena, which meant two equivalents of two-star knights. Midoriya and his fellow otherworlders, who by the end of the two week-long training might have been roughly comparable to one-star knights. Leanir and a dozen of his direct underlings, skillful warriors, and archers but, in the end, not Vessels aside from their leader.

And how many of them would follow her orders unquestioningly? Leanir’s help was a courtesy. Otherworlders were a problematic case, in which she could expect most of them to follow her, but not all. And certainly not if they didn’t like the plan.

No, Arshka needed to preserve her remaining assets. Raise their value as high as possible. And then…

She had an interesting plan for their next step. Time was going to show if it would work.

***

“Alright, it’s time to teach you how to use your sword properly.” Arshka announces to Izuku three days later.

He actually expected something new to happen. Because for once, Uraraka and Lena weren’t there. Which made him pretty happy - in that Uraraka wasn’t enjoying her repeated murders of Izuku. In fact, Izuku would say that she was getting more and more traumatized by it.

At least judging from how repeatedly she apologized for each time it happened. It was an extreme training, and while it offered results, it was… rather… extreme.

“Elven swordfighting is… fluid.” Arshka replies. “Always in motion, moving around, dancing with your sword, responding to attacks from any direction. Practically speaking, it’s a form of art.”

Izuku blinks at her. It was… odd for her to compliment something that elves made. But if he was going to learn how elves fought with their swords… he means, he could easily incorporate swords into his hero uniform as support items, and how many heroes out there could say that they learn to fence how elves d…

“In short, it f*cking sucks and I’m going to teach you something actually good.” Arshka immediately brings him back to reality.

Yoichi giggles in the back of his mind. Did he figure out what Izuku was thinking? Or was he just enjoying Arshka dissing elves?

“Good for you is that you were gifted with the rarest of character qualities in the modern world.” Arshka continues. “Namely, a good taste. Because, believe it or not, the way you’re using your sword in combat is very similar to the core tenets of the human sword arts of the Divine Empire.”

“Oh?” Yoichi asks. “Does it mean that the Divine Empire dominated a large chunk of the known world by being cheesing minmaxers? That would explain a lot.” Izuku doesn’t bother to comment on that.

“On a macroscale, human knights tend to fight in pairs.” Arshka continues. “A heavy knight that can withstand the heaviest of blows, and a light knight to deal serious damage to the enemy. The former occupies the enemy's attention or acts as a living wall to stop them from getting to the backliners, if there are any. Questions?”

“Yeah.” Yoichi asks. “Why do you have ‘light knights’ instead of warriors? Like, I figured out that you’re the light knight, but you’re still wearing plate armor. I also imagined that ‘melee damage dealers’ would be a role at least partially occupied by rogues. And, perhaps, some rough, tall, muscular barbarians with two-handed swords or giant axes.”

Arshka winces when Izuku relays the question.

“First of all, tell your soulflame to stop describing Astaus’s sexual fantasies to me.” Arshka replies. Izuku shivers. “I don’t want to even think about that. Second of all, lighter plate armors don’t limit your movements much more than chainmails or heavier leather armors. But they offer better protection. There is no need to limit yourself when you have the materials to equip your combat Vessels with plate armors, lighter or heavier ones.”

“It makes sense.” Yoichi announces a second later. “The way Vessels’ equipment works, the issues of exhaustion and movement limitations are either negated or entirely eliminated. This makes ‘light knights’ into a logical option. Carry on.”

“Those pairs are typically supported by mages, theurgists, archers or whatever else you have to put in the second line.” Arshka continues on as told. “In the end, though, expect the knights to be carrying most of the fight. They deal most of the damage. They offer the best resistance to blows. The others can do some of the damage themselves too, but what they do best tends to be battlefield control.”

That… he understands. Uraraka’s sorceries couldn’t dish even nearly as much damage as his sword slashes, but how could she pull people to the side? Twist around their weight? Yes, that was a lot.

“Yes, your brown-haired friend is a good example of an orthodox mage.” Arshka figures out what he thought without him having to say it. “The fox is more or less an orthodox rogue, moving all around, finding and striking the weak spots with her speed and general low profile. The bird is more of an unorthodox case of a theurgist, though, who can act as a heavy knight. That’s for your party. And that’s for how tactics work on a macro scale.”

So, group tactics as Izuku understands it.

“Now, it’s microscale.” Arshka continues. “In short, the way you play out your role as an orthodox example of a light knight. First of all, I heavily suggest getting yourself a lighter design of plate armor. Second of all, Dash is your best friend.”

Izuku honestly expected that. And so did Yoichi. They talked about Arshka’s one-sided beat up of Izuku during their extremely short ‘duel’. The way Arshka appeared to move around in an instant felt like a form of a Dash to him.

“Mankind has established itself as the most widespread and politically dominant species of the Divine Empire thanks to their generous usage of Dash and its upgraded version, Assault Dash.” Arshka continues. “Any stupid elven ‘sword dance’ can be interrupted by a well timed Assault Dash into the closest distance. If you time it wrongly, it would end with either you tackling the enemy… and trust me, elves suck in wrestling… or a bit too far from them.” Arshka tilts her head a little. “This is the only scenario in which you get hit. But with plate armor, you can and likely will survive that unless the enemy is way out of your league.”

That… made sense.

He could imagine dwarves (they were mentioned once or twice, without details but… he could imagine what sort of people they were) to be better or comparable heavy knights. He could imagine elves to have better archers.

But at least in terms of light knights, humans sounded as if they had an upper hand. Tactics-wise.

“I’m going to teach you Assault Dash.” Arshka continues on. “In the shortest version, it’s a variant of a Dash that offers higher speed in exchange for shorter range and working only in a straight move forward. It’s exhausting. It costs a lot of Vigor when compared to normal Dash. But it is unparalleled when it comes to closing in for a kill or for causing damage. Understood?”

“Assault Dash for attacking enemies and for finishing blows in general.” Izuku replies. “Dash for evading blows and moving around. Right?”

“Close, but no.” Arshka replies. “You don’t have infinite Vigor. Hell, you don’t have a lot of Vigor. You have to make it count. Only use Dash for evasion and relocation in the middle of the combat when your normal movements won’t suffice. Naturally…” She grins faintly. “Teaching you how to be able to decide instantly and correctly which option to choose in the thick of the combat is going to be an interesting experience.”

Izuku has a feeling that ‘interesting’ means ‘painful’. It was extremely in character for Arshka. Ugh. It was going to be painful, but…

… he technically wanted to go to a hero school, right? No matter how you looked at it, he got what he wanted. He was learning a lot .

Sure, he imagined himself to be a hero like All Might. To use bare hands with his extreme strength and resistance to restrain the evildoers. But training for a few days with Arshka made him realize something.

Just how cool would All Might be with a giant sword? And how dangerous would he be? And, more importantly…

Did he have one now? Could he - like Tokoyami and Dark Shadow - somehow merge with Nana? How did they look in their merged form? He wasn’t sure (and he didn’t ask) what local angels looked like.

An image of All Might with giant angelic wings, wearing the glowing golden armor of a holy paladin, and with a giant burning sword in his hands, battling an archdemon over the Black Feather Meadow invades his mind.

That was so cool .

Why didn’t he appear in this world with his phone (their absence was somewhat irritating, although it’s not as if they had a way to recharge them here)?! He could make a picture of the area in question, of All Might in that form, maybe the Murder of Crows eventually, and commission someone to draw it after he returns to Earth!

What an exclusive piece of All Might art would that b…

Izuku, narrowly, dodges the blow by sidestepping it.

“Good.” Arshka says coldly. “It wasn’t my full speed, not even close, but at least you didn’t lose track of your surroundings completely, even while deep in thoughts. It’s good to know that my training didn’t go to waste. What was it this time?”

“Oh, I…” Izuku decides to be honest… to some degree.” … I was just thinking about my mentor. What is he up to and so on.”

“Guess that I can’t be angry about that.” Arshka surprises him enough to make him blink at her in shock. “Don’t look like that at me! I can be calm, it’s just f*cking boring. The point is…” She points her sword at him. “... I understand being worried. There is a siege there. The enemy of your mentor is controlling most of the Black Feather Meadows. There are skirmishes going on there. But trust me what I’m going to say right now.” She stays quiet for a second or two while staring at him. “Tsorath is a professional knight, perhaps stronger than me. And your not-dad is a tough cookie too, from what I heard. They should do fine for at least a few weeks, maybe a few months. We have time, but not enough of it to waste it on stupid sh*t. Got it?”

“Y-yes.” Izuku replies quickly. What Arshka said… made sense. He wasn’t an expert on medieval sieges. Yoichi, apparently, was, but his information was rendered mostly useless due to how much magic changed the rules of the game.

Izuku decided not to ask what made Yoichi learn the intricacies of medieval sieges, including the logistics of such an operation and the design and production process of multiple siege weapons (from trebuchets through ballistas to battering rams). Some things were best left unknown.

“Alright then.” Arshka nods. “Now, let’s start the training.”

***

A few days later, Arshka finally decides to spill the beans on her plan. She decides to speak with Izuku first and foremost. Mostly due to him and Yoichi being rather… influential among the group of the otherwolders.

He blames Toga for tattling about their fight against Arshka. Mustard and the others were intimidated by her. Hearing that Izuku and his party managed to defeat her put them into a rather strange position of authority.

In a group this small it didn’t mean much. But it did give them an image of people with a plan to deal with their current predicament.

Uraraka is accompanying him. It’s a rare break from training, and they tend to spend it together. Talking about random things. Alternatively, Uraraka goes to spend time with Tsuyu while Izuku learns things from Yoichi. Or goes on a walk.

“I have a plan for our next step.” Arshka says, leaning back on the outer wall of a house, looking towards Izuku and Uraraka. Having this talk right outside of their(?) house was a bit weird, but…

Not being made uncomfortable by standing in one position for an extended period of time influenced Vessel’s behavior in the weirdest of departments.

“Wasn’t it going to be a visit to the snow elves?” Uraraka asks. Arshka chuckles.

“Sorry, but you’d die if you went there now.” She replies. “Whitespear Peaks are… it’s too risky for you, especially with our low numbers. And don’t have me start on how hard it would be to fight our way past the Frostgate. Old Ghathlan’s even worse.” Izuku has no idea what those places were, but… “No, you need to get stronger first. And I think that I know how to kill a few birds with one stone.”

“How so?” Izuku asks.

“We can make the forest elves tolerate our presence for a while more while dealing with one or two lesser problems they have in the area.” She replies. “While getting more soul crystals. So, tomorrow you’ll use the crystals you’ve got… and then we’ll get even more.” She grins faintly. “By retaking Lower Stoneverge Redoubt and killing Arstovhia.”

…

“I knew it.” Yoichi grumbles. Izuku doesn’t react, being too busy staring at Arshka in shock.

“But… there are dark elves there?” Uraraka replies, clearly in a shock similar to his own.

“Yes, that’s why it’s ‘retaking’ rather than ‘resettling’.” Arshka replies dryly. “Your stunt with stealing their soul crystals has practically crippled Arstovhia’s forces. They are weakened, and it will take them at least two or three weeks more to get reinforcements, and that’s if the other dark elves will be willing to bail them out after Arstovhia f*cked up so much and while they’re committing most of their forces to invading Deepwood. We’re going to take advantage of that.” She grins again. “And we’ll obtain a proper base for ourselves in the process. A proper, defensible base.”

Izuku could feel the blood leave his face. There were… non-Vessels there. A lot of soldiers that they - aside from Arshka - avoided rather than fight during their frantic escape from the fortress.

“You better get ready to kill the sort of beasts that can speak human language… and in quite a number.” Arshka understands the reason for his (their, Uraraka is pale as well) reaction. “Because that’s what we’re going to do. Very, very soon.”