Musume

Chapter 29

The director had asked him to attend a meeting of teachers at UA, but at the moment Toshinori cared not one lick about that.

He’d gone to the forest camp and talked with the students about what happened. The image they painted wasn’t promising: Yumi had been an objective since the very beginning.

Toshinori was furious at himself for allowing this to happen and his fury was only stoked higher as he remembered Shinso’s devastated face and Izuku’s mistreated body.

Fury was good. Fury kept him strong and going. Fury kept him from collapsing at the thought of what his little princess could be going through at that very moment in the hand of villains associated with All For One.

Had he discovered that she was his daughter? Could it be that he hadn’t been careful enough?

He didn’t know, and that ate at him.

What kind of hero couldn’t defend his own students?

What kind of hero couldn’t defend his own daughter?

Tsukauchi narrowed his eyes at him as smoke started to come off his body.

“Toshinori, you can’t keep going like this.” Said the man finally. “If you do-”

“Tsukauchi, just tell me why you’ve called me.”

“We’ve just finished speaking with Aizawa and Vlad King. There was an unexpected development.” Sighed the man. “We may be able to find the hideout of the League of Villains.”

“Why didn’t you begin with that?”

“Because right now you look like you could drop at any moment, Toshinori!”

“I-”

“What if we find their hideout and you’re too weak to help?”

Toshinori shut up at that question. Slowly, he reversed the transformation.

Tsukauchi smiled a bit.

“We’ll find her, Toshinori. I won’t rest till we do, but you cannot keep going like this. You haven’t rested all day.” Said Tsukauchi. “Now I’m going to tell you what I’ve discovered and after that I want you to go to that meeting Director Nezu arranged. I know you won’t really rest until Yumi is back with us, but at least you should save as much energy as possible until you really need it.”

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When she came to, she was tied to a chair and all she saw was black. She blinked her eyes and her eyelashes got caught in something.

Oh, she was blindfolded.

She tensed as she remembered what had happened.

She’d been kidnapped.

She must have made some noise, because suddenly there was silence in the room that had been filled with quiet chatter.

“I’ll remove your blindfold if you promise to behave.” Said a familiar voice.

She nodded meekly and tried not to flinch as she felt a pair of hands untie the knot at the base of her head.

As soon as the light hit her eyes again, she activated her quirk.

In front of her, there was a blond girl with a sweet face and a manic smile. She was immobile, but it wasn’t Shigaraki.

Frustration built up within her as she took a fast look at the room she was in before the blindfold was put in its place fast.

The room looked like a small bar, with a TV and a bar and eight people around the room. That was as much as she could tell with the brief look around she’d had.

“Oi, oi, that’s not nice. You made a promise.”

“I did no such thing.”

“It was implicit.”

“It wasn’t.” replied another voice.

“Take Toga and move her to that corner, Twice.” Replied Shigaraki’s voice sounding farther away and irritated. “Since you can’t play nice, we’ll have to keep the blindfold on.”

Frustration welled up within her. They had taken away her only means of protecting herself.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“For you to join us, of course. Like young Bakugo here.”

“Like hell!” replied her classmate’s voice from her right. “I already told you where you can shove that idea!”

“Bakugo? You’re here too.”

“Of fucking course I’m here! This idiots used dirty tricks to get us both here!”

She didn’t know how to explain her contradictory emotions: her relief at not being alone with the enemy and her fear that someone other than her could get hurt.

“We won’t join you no matter what you offer us, so whatever you’re going to do you better do it fast or I’ll blow up your faces when I get out of this thing!” shouted her enraged classmate beside her.

She couldn’t see Shigaraki’s reaction, but she could feel the atmosphere change. This wasn’t good. Not at all.

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Shinso waited beside Todoroki, Kirishima, Fumikage and Mezo outside the hospital. They were waiting for Midoriya and Yaoyorozu.

The purple haired teen had no doubt that the green haired teen would show up, but he was uneasy about what Yaoyorozu’s answer to their petition would be.

She had even contemplated using his quirk on her if she decided she didn’t want to cooperate.

And then, just as Yaoyorozu was about to give them their answer, Tenya had to show up.

Shinso exchanged a look with Shoto, both ready to do whatever was necessary so they could go and help Yumi. They had already spoken about it.

Tenya gave them a speech about how they were making the same mistakes as he had when he decided to go after Stain and how UA’s position was already bad enough and Shinso had enough. He just wanted his best friend back safe and sound, was that so difficult to understand?

“How can you say that? Yumi saved you all then, or have you forgotten that?”

Tenya clenched his teeth and opened his mouth to reply. Shinso got ready to use his quirk. But then Midoriya spoke.

“Tenya, it’s not that we think it’s alright to break the rules-”

When Tenya punched him and started spouting off nonsense about him being worried and frustrated too, Shinso took a step forward and returned the punch, throwing Tenya to the floor.

“That you’re worried and frustrated? That we don’t care about your feelings? Right now, all I care about is that my best friend, the only one who believed in me and befriended me out of honesty when everyone thought I was perfect for becoming a villain, is in the hands of the League of Villains! Your feelings? What about ours? What about hers and Bakugo’s!?”

Shoto grabbed his hand when he got ready to punch the class president again and shook his head at him.

“Iida, I understand your worries, but it’s not what you think. We’re not hoping to attack directly and win. We just want to get them out.”

“In other words, it’s an undercover mission!” intervened Kirishima. “It’s the only way we can fight whilst following the rules.”

Shinso was still trembling with rage and frustration, but slowly calmed down as it became clear that Yaoyorozu and Tenya planned to go with them too, even if it was to make sure they did not get into more trouble than necessary.

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“We’ve gathered the best heroes we could here. Now, let’s begin our strategy meeting.” Started Tsukauchi looking at the people in the room.

However, before he could continue, there was a knock on the door and Hawks, the Number 3 Pro Hero, walked in.

“Hawks-san, what are you doing here?”

“Sorry, officer, but my invitation must have got lost in the mail.” He replied carelessly.

“We didn’t send an invitation to anyone outside of UA…”

“Really? My bad. I heard from a contact about what happened and I wanted to help.” He said with a careless shrug.

“Why the sudden interest? You never attended UA.” Replied one of the heroes.

“And yet I’m not the only one. The Pussycats are here too, aren’t they?”

“They kidnapped one of my team member’s too. It’s not something I can let go.”

But before Hawks could reply to the man, All Might intervened.

“You were young Yagi-san’s internship teacher, weren’t you?”

Hawks had to give it to the man, he sure put an interest in his students if he managed to remember that tiny detail.

“Indeed. And now, I humbly request I be allowed to take part in this operation.”

“I gladly accept your request, Hawks. We need all the help we can get.” Answered Tsukauchi after a few seconds of consideration and a meaningful look exchanged with All Might that his golden eyes didn’t miss.

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“We deeply apologize for the incident in which 28 students of the hero course’s first year were harmed because of lack of preparation on our part.” The words tasted like ash in his mouth; they tasted like failure and Aizawa hated failure. “We’re sorry for causing worry in our society due to our negligence in defending a learning space. We’re very sorry.”

He bowed along with his fellow first year teacher and the director. As an underground hero, he hated the attention of the press. It meant he hadn’t done a good job, especially this time.

“I’m from Yomuiri TV,” began one from the press. “From the beginning of the year, the students of UA High School have had four encounters with villains. This time there were even wounded students. How did you explain to their families and what are the measures being taken in return?”

Aizawa clenched his fists, unseen by the reporters. They had already expected that they would be treated as the bad guys by the fickle press.

“We’re heightening the vigilance in the area around campus and we’ll revise the school’s security,” Answered Nezu next to him. “guaranteeing the security of our students. That’s what we told them.”

The press conference went on and it started to go from bad to worse.