章 78: Chapter 78: The Attack (III)
Shido turned around and went back to where he found Katsuki before.
He had the feeling that he would encounter more students at that place, and not long after he arrived, he heard a shout,"Itsuka-sensei! Please...give us some light!!"
Mezo emerged from within the trees and following behind him was a giant bird.
"Woah! Where the hell did that come from?" Shido was a little surprised at the sudden appearance of what seemed to be a crow, but he soon got over it and immediately dashed towards him and scooped him out of harm's way.
Immediately Shido scooped him out of the path, a giant four-clawed limb smashed down onto the ground, destroying the ice structure that Shoto previously created.
BOOOM!
The earth trembled, and dozens of trees that were in the surroundings were unrooted."Stay in my shadows first. I'll solve him as soon as possible." Shido comforted Mezo before sinking him into his shadows where the rest of his classmates were.
"Camael!"
A flaming halberd appeared in his hands and the surroundings soon turned bright from the flames.
"GRAAA!!!!" The giant crow growled and roared.
Shido took a closer look at where the head of the crow was and realised that it was actually one of his students.
"Tokoyami?"
Shido immediately knew that his quirk had gone out of control.
Shido smiled, it wasn't anything hard for him to take care of a giant bird that was afraid of the light.
Turning towards his puppet, he said,"Yoshinon, I'll be counting on you if the fire got too big, alright?"
Yoshinon agreed without hesitation and Shido immediately dashed towards the left of him before bringing his halberd down.
"EEP!"
Dark shadow shrieked like a little girl the moment it came into contact with the fire before shrinking back to its original size and retreated back into Fumikage.
"Ah..." Fumikage groaned and panted a little as he knelt on the floor, devoid of any energy to even stand up.
"Welcome back, Fumikage." Shido looked at his kneeling figure and smiled.
"...? Thank you. I'm saved."
"No problem. All the students are now inside my shadow, but..." Shido looked at him in scrutiny,"I don't think you should enter in case your shadow gets out of control again."
Both of them descended into silence once more before Shido suddenly said,"It seems that your friend wants to talk to you."
A figure soon came out of the shadows, revealing a tentacled-man.
"Shouji...I'm sorry...my spirit is still lacking." Fumikage immediately lowered his head at the sight of his friend and continued,"The moment your spare arm went flying...I gave in to the rage and unleashed dark shadow. It was the deep darkness of the night...along with my own anger. They combined to spur him into a frenzy...But then he grew beyond my control and wound up injuring you, Shouji."
Mezo didn't change his expression as he also knelt down to face Fumikage and hugged him,"Save that for later. I know that's what you would say..."
Shido clapped his hands and got their attention,"Alright, for now, I'm entrusting Shouji to ensure that Tokoyami here doesn't go berserk in the shadow realm. If you need light, ask Bakugo or Todoroki down there to produce some. Ensure that no one gets hurt, alright?"
Mezo immediately nodded before carrying Fumikage over his shoulders and sank into his shadows.
Shido stretched out his hands and said,"Thank god the fire didn't go out of control."
"Too bad, I wanted to freeze some things..." Yoshinon lamented sadly before turning his head towards a nearby tree branch.
"So, you've noticed it as well, huh?" Shido muttered to his puppet before turning his head towards the tree branch as well,"Since you're here already, you might as well come out and join the party. You don't have to exclude yourself."
"My my, how splendid."
The man who spoke wore a dark orange shirt, the collar left upturned and a green striped bolo necktie with an oval-shaped azure brooch that hung around his neck, a black waistcoat and black dress pants. He wore knee-high white boots with wedged heels and black toe-caps, plain dark red gloves and a tall brown top hat, a red ribbon tied around it and a pale feather sticking out on the left side.
Over his head, he wore a black balaclava with a hole for his mouth as well as his eyes, over which he wore a white mask. He also wore a dark yellow, double-breasted overcoat with buttoned shoulder tabs and a high collar, which reaches below his knees, and he additionally carries a silver walking stick with a gold handle.
Shido didn't seem to be wary about the mysterious man in the mask and casually said,"So, Mr..."
"Compress. You may call me Mr Compress."
"Mr Compress then. I'm Shido, but you may already know about that. And this here is Yoshinon."Shido said while pointing at Yoshinon while Yoshinon just waved his tiny paws.
"How cute (Kaguya style)..."
"I agree. But what do I owe the pleasure to have so many villains here today?"
"Villains? What an odd thing to say. We're just a bit fanatical when it comes to our values."
None of them moved from their spot and continued their very gentlemanly talk. If someone else was here, they would have thought that it was a meeting between two high class nobles instead of a meeting between a hero and a villain.
Shido didn't say anything and just waited for him to continue.
"All we wish is to show the students that there are other ways. Because you kids today...you have your values chosen for you."
Shido didn't disagree and nodded,"True. But do you need so many violent criminals to help you do that? You could have just raised some children from the orphanages and given them the 'choices' that you have."
"But you see, we don't have a good record on paper, so adopting kids would be out of the question. Even if others are willing to kidnap some kids and force them into submission via various methods, I am, personally, not a fan of that. After all, my speciality actually only lies in deception and running away. I can't go toe-to-toe with even heroes in training."
Mr Compression looked at him in slight fear, but it couldn't be seen through the mask. After all, Shido was the most mysterious and fearsome enemy he had faced. He didn't think he could outrun Shido with his speed, and his tricks only had a slight chance of working against him.
"Sigh, I was tasked to capture Bakugo, Midoriya and Tokoyami after seeing what he could do, but with you here, I guess I have failed my missions, huh?"
Shido merely smiled,"You didn't stand a chance the moment you guys decided to attempt your capture in my presence."
"True." Mr Compress paused for a moment before letting out a bigger sigh,"And judging from the lack of response from Spinner, Magne, Muscular, Moonfish and Mustard, I guess they have been taken care of by you?"
"Hm, not really. I only took care of the teeth guy. The rest was taken care of by the others."
"Hm?" As a master of deception, Mr Compression could easily tell when a person is lying and in this case, he could tell that Shido spoke of nothing but the truth. He frowned,"If it wasn't you, then who was it?"
"It was 'me'." Shido smiled and gave a vague answer.
Now Mr Compression was genuinely confused. Both answers were the truth, yet they contradicted each other?
"You know what? I'm not going to ask anything more. I can't read you at all." Mr Compression let out a sad sigh,"What a failure. He's not going to be happy. Well, short thought it was, it seems that it's time for me to go. I'll pray to never meet you again."
After bowing to Shido, he immediately left the area. Shido didn't bother to chase since it was troublesome and he had 'technically' not done anything yet. At most, he would be trespassing into private property, but Shido was not going to chase someone for that.
"You're not going to chase?" Yoshinon asked confusedly.
"Nope. I'm too lazy and as warped as his ideals are, he technically hasn't done anything to anyone in this training camp. Besides, Kurogiri was near him, so he'll teleport out of there in no time."
Seeing that the villains have retreated with nothing, Shido stretched his arms out and said cheerfully,"Let's go home."
*****************
The next day at school, the teachers were having a meeting.
"The villains had failed miserably in their attack. Out of forty students, only four had injuries of varying degrees with Midoriya having the most serious injuries since he fought against Muscular on his own. The other thirty six students had gotten off without a scratch due to the fast response Itsuka-sensei here.
Of the seven pro heroes, one suffered a serious head injury from the surprise appearance of the attack.
On the other side, five villains were arrested at the scene, but with the exception of those three, the others vanished without a trace."
Nezu read off the casualty numbers and though it wasn't very bad, he had a frown on his face.
"This whole 'villain revival'...we took it too lightly. They've already begun their war...the war to destroy our hero society."
Midnight didn't have her usual sadistic smile and currently sported a very serious expression.
"Even if we had taken it more seriously, could we have prevented...this relentless flurry of attacks? Most organised crime has been eliminated since the rise of All Might, so all that's left is the best of the worst."
"Basically, we got too complacent in this peaceful era." Present Mic had a smile on his face but it didn't reach his eyes,"Otherwise there would have been no need for preparations...when we realised what was happening."
Meanwhile, a dark aura shrouded All Might at the corner as he rubbed his forehead in gloom,"I'm just mad about how useless I was...I was relaxing in the bath while they were under attack...!!"
"I reckon we can't pretend to be undaunted no longer...like how we went and held the sports festival just after that other attack. Luckily Itsuka-sensei was there to prevent Bakugo from being stolen, otherwise, UA's already falling reputation would have fallen even more." Snipe inserted his opinion.
"At least we managed to calm the media down a little since there were no students that got captured, but we can't keep them away from losing trust in UA this time round. Two attacks within a few months?" Nezu sighed and spoke.
"Speaking of loss of trust, this seems like the right time to bring something up..."Present Mic interrupted and spoke seriously, his smile gone from his face,"It's absolutely clear at this point. We have....a mole!
Only we teachers and the pussycats knew about the training location! But we have to consider other suspects. If a student used the GPS function on his or her phone, then..."
"Cut it out, Mic." Midnight immediately tried to shut him down, but Present Mic continued,"Like hell I will! We have to take care of this, here and now!!"
"Can you even cough up proof that you're in the clear? We can't even declare that one of us ain't the traitor!" Snipe refuted,"Once we start suspecting each other and jumping at shadows, we'll destroy ourselves from the inside. If we're searching for a mole, we shouldn't do it in a panic."
"For what it's worth, I happen to trust all of you. That said, I have no clear way to prove my own innocence." Nezu said,"Anyhow, the task at hand is to ensure the students' safety."
Nezu saw that Shido had remained silent for the entire time, which was rare considering that Shido often butted in their discussion.
"What are your thoughts, Shido? You have remained quiet for the entire time, which is quite rare."
Shido opened his eyes and yawned,"I was just tired, but to your topic about the mole. We don't have a sure way to discover the mole without panicking, but let's forget about that for a while."
"What do you mean forget about it! It's a m-o-l-e! Mole that we're talking about!" Present Mic exclaimed,"Are you meaning to say that the students' safety isn't important?!"
"Don't put words into my mouth. I said let's ignore this for now, not forever." Shido narrowed his eyes at the accusation before smiling once more,"Anyways, they have a mole, but that is not to say we don't have one either."
"Are you saying that..." All Might and Nezu leaned forward to confirm what Shido was going to say.
"Yep~! I have pinpointed the league of villains' hideout." Shido said cheerfully before his eyes narrowed,"But he might have betrayed me and have started to have his own agendas..."
There was silence in the room before Shido blinked his eyes innocently,"Oops. Anyways, what do you say? Do you want to wait for the war to come to us, or bring the war to them?"
All Might's body suddenly started producing smoke,"When we find those criminals, I'm gonna say..."
"I...am here..." All Might reverted to his muscular form, revealing a huge bulk of muscles and a face with veins popping out,"...to fight back!"
*****************
A/N: Because Katsuki didn't get kidnapped and the Nomu died, the students didn't have a reason or a way to find where the villains were, so the next arc will just be the teachers fighting, not the students. This means that the content would be reduced...how sad...
If you want to support me or/and want 14+ chapters in advance, link:
https://www.patréon.com/spirits_everywhere
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