BNHA: Undying (Ch 78) (Patreon)

After getting Kirishima free and the rest of the hero team to the nurse’s office for some reason, Cementoss has the class do an analysis of the exercise. With the now named Tsu being declared the MVP by popular vote the class quickly moves on to the next one.

They’re more… traditional, in their act as villains. The tape guy named Sero ties up me and Kaminari but the team elects to keep us in the same room, unlike the first group. Jiro plugs her jacks into the floor, presumably to monitor hero movements and get early warning if they start getting close. Tokoyami and Dark Shadow leave the room, saying how they’ll ensure ‘the feast of darkness obtains its guests.

Gotta say, those two are fun people to be around.

Still, since they’re taking this more seriously than the last group, I have to treat it the same as well. Which means no conversation and more cowering in the corner. Jiro gives me a look of confused concern but Sero just dismisses me. I give her a quick thumbs up before getting back into my act.

Kaminari stares at me blankly for a moment before seeming to light up in realization. Which causes him to get into the act of a hostage himself.

“You won’t get away with this, villains!” His sudden shout causes our ‘captors’ to jump in surprise “The heroes will totally save us and, uh, kick all of your butts!”

The two give him unamused looks. “Really, Jamming Whey? That’s the best smack talk you have?”

He gets an offended look at Jiro’s criticism. “Hey! I’m not talking smack, just stating facts! But y’all will be getting smacked when the heroes show up!”

Sero gives him a pained look. “Dude. That pun was painful.”

The blonde boy pauses and thinks for a moment before letting out a chuckle. “Heh, you’ll be getting smacked.” He looks at Sero with a gleam in his eyes. “It’s not a pun unless you meant it to be! Which means you only have yourself to blame for what I said being punful!”

The tape dispenser boy lets out a groan before crossing his arms and glaring at me. “I don’t know how, but somehow you’re responsible for this.”

Welp. Looks like serious time is over and done with.

I stick my tongue out at the grumpy fake villain. “Not my fault if you think his puns are noteworthy enough to stick to you. Probably should make sure you don’t leave yourself hanging in the wind if you don’t want that to happen.”

There’s a choked laugh from Jiro who covers her mouth while her face flushes. Kaminari has no such compunctions over laughing though, and he makes sure to show that by laughing in an overly exaggerated fashion. Sero’s face turns red and he glares at me even harder before pointing a shaking finger at me.

“Be quiet, villain. You’re lucky that you’re here instead of in prison, even if none of us know what the teachers are thinking by letting you come to UA.”

I shrug dismissively. “I mean, I asked if I could go to prison instead, but they said no so…” I tilt my head at him. “That kind of sounds like a you problem. So try and keep it to yourself as well as you keep your weed.”

He flinches, unnoticed by the other two who are busy snickering at the rebuttals I’m throwing at him. I notice though, and doesn’t that just put a smile on my face. “Now, I never touched that stuff myself. My body is a temple, and I have no intention of desecrating it.”

I pause, thinking about that for a moment. “Well,” I shake my head. “No, that’s right. I don’t desecrate my own body. Drugs and other addictive substances are a no go for me.”

I give him a thumbs up. “But you do you! Who cares if you’re cultivating a crippling weakness that villains are not only likely to discover rather easily, but also setting a bad example for any children or civilians that look up to you in the future? Not me, that’s for sure!”

He looks at me like someone threw a bottle of lemon juice at his face while Kaminari looks at me with a surprised pikachu face. Well, not really pikachu, but since he has an electric quirk that’s how I’m going to describe it. “Wait, does he actually do weed?”

I roll my eyes. “You don’t ‘do’ weed, you smoke it! And while it’s faint, the smell does have a nasty tendency to stick around. Especially if you still have it on you.” I hesitate to say what I want to say next before just dismissing the words. Telling them that some of the bar’s patrons will be much too big of a hint towards the LoV’s location. Being too obvious about it will just make my own little game far too boring~.

It’s only my first day at UA, after all. There’s plenty of time to poke at them unless I get rescued. In which case I’ll be able to laugh at the school about how terrible their security improvements are. But that’s for later. For now…

I make sure to pitch my voice as high and annoying as I can make it. “Like, FYI BTW, if you want to actually hide it, don’t be like, a total dummy and put it in your hero costume? It’s so totes obvious where you stash it.” I make a half-grabbing motion at the whistle-like protrusions on his shoulders to show that I do in fact know and am not just messing with him. Well, about knowing where his weed is. I am totally messing with him to amuse myself in general.

“Putting aside Sero apparently doing drugs,” Jiro ignores my correction about how while technically a drug, weed is generally considered a separate category, as well as Sero’s frankly pathetic defense about how I’m lying because I’m a villain. Instead she points at me with a jack she pulls from the floor. “How the hell did you get out of the tape?”

The other two seem to realize for the first time that the tape that previously bound me is currently laying in a pile on the floor. In response, I shrug. “I mean, yeah, it’s tape. But despite Mr Stationary not liking me, he doesn’t seem to want to actively hurt me like the kamikaze mutt. Peeling it off only took a bunch of hair off my arms, not skin. Not like that would have bothered me even if it happened though.”

Kaminari cringes at what I say about the tape taking off skin before giving his own wrappings a disturbed look. Then he seems to remember that his arms are covered by his costume and breathes a sigh of relief before seeming to remember something. “Dude, what the heck! How would you be fine with that!?”

I shrug again. “Pain is an illusion crafted by the mind and fabricated onto our brains in an effort to guide the body into the path of least resistance in an effort to ensure the survival of the human race. Although with the emergence of quirks, new pathways have been being steadily developed in order to accommodate the drastic changes in humanity’s physiology. This has led to some unique cases where quirks forcefully remove the sensation of pain, which could be interpreted as genetics giving up on that person having anything worthwhile to pass on to future generations. I am unaffected by this illusion, not because genetics has decided I no longer have nothing to contribute but because the vessel the signals are meant to originate from is damaged.”

I pause to take a breath and look at the electric boy, only to see that his eyes have glazed over. A quick check on the other two shows that Jiro is cross eyed and Sero seems a bit dazed. Neither are on Kaminari’s level, but apparently they weren’t prepared for my answer.

Which means that they don’t manage to react in time when Dark Shadow crashes through the wall and into the villain team. She’s quickly followed by a brilliantly bright laser that causes her to screech and shrink. After it fades away she growls and makes to lunge back out, but aborts the movement when the hero team walks in. Along with Tokoyami, who’s wrapped in capture tape.

“Desist, Dark Shadow. The darkness has been repelled, and must attempt to engulf the world another day.”

“Technically that happens every night.” I point out, causing the tailed boy to blink and the armored boy’s head to tilt to the side. Which is about the time it takes for the villain team to finally shake off themselves out of their funk and attack. It probably would have taken longer, but it’s hard for people to be shocked into inaction when they’re already in shock.

Jiro’s jacks shoot to the speakers on her legs and she sets herself to aim them at the armored boy. Sero takes the opportunity to shoot his tape at the tailed boy, who ducks under it and kicks off the rubble he’s standing on to launch himself forward. Tokoyami stays where he is since he’s out of the exercise.

The ‘knight in shining armor’ puts his hands behind his head as he turns to Jiro, but before they can do whatever they were planning to do they’re hit bit a wave of sound that causes them to fall to their knees, the only reason they don’t fall fully being the hand holding them there. But given the fact that vibrations and metal armor don’t really mix well, he won’t last much longer.

And true to my prediction, it only takes a couple seconds for him to start tipping over to the side. But before he’s completely out of the fight, he manages to fire off a laser from his stomach. Jiro lets out a curse and jumps to the side before rushing at him, and it burns a hole in the wall behind her.

While those two fight, tail guy and Sero are in a dance where the tape boy desperately tries to get any of his sticky strings attached to his opponent. But the hero hopeful clearly has the skills his karate gi would lead you to believe he has, weaving between each shot without too much difficulty. I would quite say it’s with ease and grace, but it’s definitely not something that’s much of a challenge for him. Which of course causes Sero to panic.

His eyes dart around wildly, looking for some kind of escape from what he seems to realize will be his loss. They pass over his partner getting wrapped in capture tape, over Kaminari who’s brows are furrowed in thought, and finally land on me, lighting up as he comes up with an idea. One that I just know is not going to end well for him.

He moves one of his elbows away from the tailed boy, letting him get much closer much more quickly, and points it at me instead. The tape wraps around me like one of those old snap wristband things and he heaves with effort as he throws me at his opponent, who’s eyes widen in shock and his body freezes for a moment in indecision.

Of course, I’m not silent during all of this. “I believe I can fly~!” I sing while flying at him head first. “I believe I can- ghk!” The tailed boy grabs me before lowering me to the ground. He’s not gentle, but he is in a combat situation so it’s understandable. Too bad for him that moment of vulnerability lets Sero completely wrap him up in tape.

Everyone seems to pause for a moment before letting out relieved breaths, so I assume this round of the exercise is over. After unwrapping the knight from her capture tape Jiro walks over to me and uses her jacks to cut me free. “You good, Green?”

I nod. “Yep. Not supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, but being sent flying is nothing new to me. I’ve gone a few times with Skyfall and kind of like the feeling of the wind rushing past me.

“Uh, ok.” She probably hasn’t heard about Mary Poppins, but then again she did go into hiding forty years ago after she had another movie made about her, along with Nanny McPhee.

If there’s anyone the world should be terrified by, it’s those two instead of All For One.

Kaminari suddenly shouts, causing us all to jump. Especially Sero who’s just finished untying the blonde. “Hold the fuck up!” He points at me with wide eyes. “Did you say you have brain damage!?”

I tilt my head and give him a smirk. “Clever boy.”

Sorry about the late post, family was visiting which took up my time.

Also, fun fact: supercalifragilisticexpialidocious gets autocorrected on Google docs. Just thought it was funny.