章 103: Chapter 103: Let's Pray
They had walked for over three hours. Shido might be tired, but Eri was used to it since she goes shopping.
It must be an innate trait of women to have infinite stamina when walking and touring around.
"Well, guess that's basically it. What did you think?" Shido leaned back as he took a sip of his milk.
"Hm...all of them are so weird and interesting. All the students differ so much from one another. Yet they are all trying their best and hardest to make this festival a success." Eri said thoughtfully and smiled, "So I hope that this festival would be a success."
"I see." Shido was glad that Eri was enjoying this festival. Ever since the Yakuza massacre, Shido was worried that Eri might somehow change for the worse due to the experience of killing. However, over the weeks, Shido found no abnormal behavior, tendencies, requests, or habits from Eri after the incident.
Obviously, she was unquestionably affected by the killing, but she managed to overcome it without any negative feedback. And Shido was just glad that her personality didn't change after experiencing killing.
After all, if there was some psychological trauma because of killing, her behavior and outlook will definitely turn darker.
A comfortable silence descended on them, and each enjoyed their own drinks.
Eri's eyes never stayed still. She regularly observed her surroundings and was particularly interested in Lunch Rush. His ability to cook was absolutely fantastic. She could never get bored of eating or drinking his food and beverages.
"I see you like Lunch Rush's food as well." A voice rang out, and Eri shifted her gaze from the cook to the source of the sound.
In her vision line, she managed to spot a creature that resembled a mouse, bear, and dog mixed together.
"Principal Nezu!" "Principal Mouse!" Eri and Shido greeted together, but with different names.
Nezu's nonexistent eyebrow twitched when he heard the way Shido call him, but calm down and resumed eating his cheese in a...unique manner. Seated beside him was another teacher.
""Midnight-sensei!" This time, the duo managed to call out the same name.
"Lunch Rush is someone I never regretted hiring to this school. Every other teacher has some weird traits that cause me headaches..." Nezu commented and complained at the same time, all while chewing his cheese.
Without waiting for either of them to reply, Nezu continued on, "I'm also excited for the cultural festival! To throw the best festival they can, many of the students bring encouragement, excitement...and try to create a good time for everyone!"
"Especially since we've gotten into various issues with police..." Midnight was about to continue, but both Shido and Nezu coughed at the same time, interrupting her.
"Watch it, Kayama-kun!" Nezu said as he got off the chair and started making his way outside.
"Well! I'll be going now. You all! Enjoy the cultural festival to your heart's content."
Seeing him leave, Midnight also started to carry her tray to the return area.
"I can't say for sure...but Principal Nezu seems to have worked pretty hard...getting this result after butting heads with a higher up."
"Yep!" Shido agreed as he slowly talked while sipping his milk every now and then, "We've fortified security even more. Then...in the off chance that the alarm sounds - even if it's a false alarm - we'll immediately suspend activities and evacuate. That was the condition for holding the event."
"That's rough..." Midnight wasn't sure about the exact details since she wasn't there personally when Nezu negotiated with the government officials. On the other hand, Shido goes wherever he wants to go, and nobody could stop him. That was why Shido had a lot of juicy information and gossip.
"Of course, that's why all the teachers are trying their best to improve security. Even Hound Dog was dispatched to watch over school premises."
"Dispatched..." Eri muttered, "What a weird word to describe Hound Dog."
"Well, we're all doing our best." Midnight checked the time before exclaiming, "Sorry! Break time is almost over, so I'll see you later! I look forward to your class's performance!"
"Thank you!" Shido appreciated the encouragement as he looked at Midnight's retreating figure.
"Well, I guess we're done here. Let's head back to the dorms, shall we?" Shido stood up and extended a hand towards Eri.
Eri brightly smiled as she took his hand.
"Sure!"
*****************
After reaching the dorms, Shido wanted to let Eri return home first, but she refused and decided to stay and watch them all practice. Mina, Ochaco, and Tsuyu didn't mind, so she remained with the dance group while Shido went back to the band group, where they were all in the middle of practicing with his clone.
The schedule went on as per usual, and everything was according to plan. However, there was one thing that Shido took out of consideration.
Eri.
She refused to go home, but Shido didn't mind and decided to let her do so. He called to inform her grandfather about it, but he wasn't too happy that his granddaughter would be away from him.
As per usual, Shido was too lazy to argue against the old man, so he immediately hung up after he finished his rant.
Of course, like the prepubescent teenage boys they were, they were very jealous when they heard that Eri would be sleeping with Shido on the same bed.
The girls didn't overthink about it since they were just twelve, but the boys, well, some of the boys were very, very jealous.
So Shido did what he should do to jealous people.
He smiled smugly at them before slamming the door shut on their faces.
*****************
A week passed by peacefully, and it was at this time, Izuku was fired from the dance team.
Or more accurately, Izuku was being recruited to the staging team since they were short on hands.
Due to some plans they made, they (the staging team) realized that they needed someone with the physical power to move Aoyama around while he was spinning since Shido denied them a piece of large-scale equipment to make that happen.
Izuku didn't mind, so he agreed readily.
Practice went as per usual until night, where they had dinner together.
"Quit runnin' off on your own and follow my lead, asshole!"
"What!? You're the one who keeps arranging things and making it all chaotic!"
Kirishima and Katsuki argued against each other.
"Huh?! But our Sensei managed to do it as well, right?! So why can't you do it and follow my lead, you asshole?!" Katsuki pointed towards Shido and shouted.
Shido was sitting on the couch while closing his eyes. He wasn't sleeping. He was resting his eyes when he suddenly smelled something wondrous.
"Hm? The tea smells fantastic today!"
Momo heard his words and explained, "Oh, you noticed?! My mother sent me a care package! This is the black tea said to only exist in Dreams: Gold-tips Imperial!"
"Please, enjoy it to your heart's content, everyone!" She said as she distributed the tea to everyone.
None of the other students had any idea what Momo had just said but appreciated the tea regardless since they could tell from the name that this tea sounded expensive, high-class, and bourgeois.
Ochaco tried to offer Izuku some tea, but she was shocked to see Izuku mumbling rapidly about All Might with equipment.
Of course, Shido didn't want to listen to his rambling about All Might, so he shut off all his senses and enjoyed the tea in peace.
*****************
One month passed by quickly, and at last, the culture festival performance would be happening tomorrow!
At night, the dance team was still practicing their moves in their gym uniforms in the gym, with Shido supervising them from the middle of the stage and the rest of the band team.
The staging team sat down in front of the stage and observed them performing.
"I need to close up the gym soon! So hurry and go over it once last time!" Shido decided to close the gm early today since the actual performance would be tomorrow, and they needed to have a good night's rest.
"Yes, Sensei!"
"Ba-Da Dum! Ba-Da Dum! Ha!" The music played while the dance team danced (duh). Mina was in front of them, correcting any last-minute mistakes made by the dancers.
"I'm getting nervous." Momo stated as she made a posture for an imaginary keyboard.
"Don't do any weird improv tomorrow, okay?" Jiro told Katsuki, who just gave her a glare.
"Huh?"
"There are some people who'll get confused, you know?"
Denki heard her words and complained, "Don't say stuff like that!"
"It's not just you that she's referring to, Kaminari." Shido stated as he checked the time.
"Oh shit!"
Just as Shido was about to say something, Hound Dog suddenly slammed open the door and growled loudly, "It's al-ruff ruff- already 9! You pups shouldn't still be here!!"
"Sorry, Hound Dog! We're going to finish up now!" Shido apologized before forcing his students to clean up and return to their dormitories. After ensuring that the students are all in bed after a little bit of post-practice discussion, Shido returned the keys to Nezu at midnight.
He allowed them to stay up till midnight, but that was the maximum he could concede. He wanted them to have enough rest for tomorrow's performance.
*****************
Knocking on the door, Shido entered immediately without waiting for any response.
"Hello, Shido. I assume that you're here to return the gym keys?" Nezu greeted before asking, his hed never leaving the paperwork he was doing. The moment he heard the door open without his approval, he already knew who it was.
How could he not know? There was only one person who dared to enter without his permission.
"Busy as always, Principal Mouse." Shido's voice replied, proving Nezu's assumption right.
Nezu paused in his paperwork and lifted his head to take a sip of coffee. Shido looked at where the cup was located and shuddered. Imagine if the table vibrates just a little, the amount of paperwork that would be destroyed...
"Well, tomorrow's a big day, after all. I don't want to do all this tomorrow. Even if I'm the principal, I still want to enjoy the festival with my students, you know?"
"Well, good luck then. And here's your gym keys." Shido said as he tossed the keys over to Nezu, who caught it in one paw.
He raised his nonexistent eyebrow and asked, "Are you not going to offer to help me with the paperwork?"
Shido gave him a large grin and gave a two-word reply.
"Hell Nah."
Seeing Nezu become speechless, Shido snickered and turned to leave.
"Wait!" Nezu stopped him, and, noticing that he had Shido's attention, he asked, "The underground world had gotten a lot weaker these days. Something about a drug known as 'Trigger' and some sort of quirk-suppressing drugs being scarce and disappearing."
[A/N: I didn't get it wrong. It's 'quirk-suppressing drugs' and not 'quirk-destroying drug' since without Eri, their experiment only produced a weakened version as compared to canon.]
"Do you have anything to do with it?"
"Why are you connecting all the incidents to me? Do I look like I would cause trouble everywhere I go?" Shido sighed exasperatedly and gave Nezu the most innocent smile he could muster.
However, to Nezu, that smile was the smile of a trouble-maker, not an innocent boy. He remained silent and waited for his answer.
"Well...partly." Nezu frowned at his answer.
'Someone had power on par with Shido here to make things just disappear into thin air?'
"Is your partner dangerous?"
"Her quirk is, but her personality is not. So you don't have to worry about her rampaging everywhere." Shido could tell what Nezu was thinking and immediately reassured him.
"Fine."
This one word showed how much trust Nezu had towards Shido. In fact, if some of his colleagues and friends were present, they would be surprised to know that the chimera that distrusted humans so much actually placed so much trust in one.
"Ho? You sure trust me a lot. I'm flattered." Shido smirked.
"Well, what else can I do other than to place my trust in you? Force you to reveal details? Threaten you with what power?"
Shido just hummed at his statement and waited for Nezu to continue.
Seeing that he could not find out anything more about this incident, Nezu sighed and dismissed Shido.
"Well, if there's nothing else you need, you may leave now."
"Alright, then. Good night." Shido walked away, but just as he was about to leave the room, he turned back to look at Nezu, "Let's pray that nothing goes wrong tomorrow."
"Yes, let's pray..."
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