บท 161: Likeness
_________ POV Beru _________
Finding Toga isn't all that difficult. If she's not training, then she should be somewhere around my room, watching TV or just eating snacks.
I took my time to walk towards the dormitory. It's actually been a few months since I've actually seen the entrance. I usually just teleport there.
The door to the dormitory was large, kinda like any other door in this school. Made to accommodate people of all shapes and sizes.
When opening the door, I could hear some stuff happening in the kitchen, there were students all around the living room and kitchen. Some were cooking, some seemed to just be playing around.
Hmm... Some of them do look familiar.
"OH! It's Beru!" One of the students immediately noticed me. I guess I do stand out a bit from your average student. Pretty sure these are third years though, they should be the same age as me.
I can only hope they won't fanboy over me too much...
"Sup~" I waved at them, don't want to appear rude or anything. Outright ignoring people isn't a nice thing to do.
They all seemed excited to meet me... One more so than the rest.
"How come you're here!?!" Twirled blue hair and yellow eyes. She just kinda floated towards me all excited looking. I don't remember meeting her though...
"I live here?~ I've been living here for quite a while now~ I just never used the front door~" My calculated and intelligent response managed to floor some of them.
"... Were you coming in through the window or something?" Asked a muscular yellow-haired student. He also seems a bit familiar, can't quite put my finger on it though.
"Sometimes~ Mostly teleporting though~" No harm in speaking with the students a bit. It's still afternoon, so there's not much to do. Visiting Toga won't take all that long either.
"I-I see..." The blonde young man spoke after stuttering for a second. Then he showed me a really wide smile and started introducing himself...
"I am Togata Mirio! A student in class 3-B, and also a huge fan of yours!" Damn, he seems like the type that talks a lot. Ironic coming from me though.
"I'm Beru~ As most of you know me~ Don't know what other nicknames people give me these days~ Just Beru will do~" My introduction is also short, but it seemed to be sufficient judging by their reactions.
They all seemed to be rather excited to meet me...
"I'm Nejire Hado! Hey, can you not remember us!? We all saw you back when we were in a training camp with the Wild Wild Pussycats!" She pulled another person towards me, a young man with spiky purple hair, he seemed to be rather timid though...
"This is Tamaki Amajiki! We're both from class 3-A!" She's rather quick to introduce her friends... The others seem a bit shyer about introductions. Which is nice, I don't have all day to listen to their names.
I guess that's why they all seemed familiar to me. Kinda odd that I've never actually seen them around campus... Or maybe I did and I just forgot about it? That could also be it.
"Nice~ So...~ Why are you all flocking towards me?~" A genuine question, but I guess it sounded a bit meaner than I wanted it to. I could see some of them get a bit disappointed.
"You all don't have to look so discouraged~ I wasn't shooing you off~ Just curious if you had anything to say other than standing and staring?~" Mirio smiled a bit at my question.
"We sure do! We've all seen you sparring with some of the first years. Also some second years, but none of us really asked you about sparring in Gym Gamma." He started speaking almost instantly, I could see some of the people behind him nodding.
"I hope next time we're there you can fight me!" He cracked his knuckles with that same wide smile on his face.
"... Sure~ I guess you third-year students are the closest to becoming actual pros~ Training you would be the right thing to do as a Gym Instructor~" I started scratching my chin, trying my best to look like I was pondering something important.
I should try and speak about some of the stuff heroes do... But I really don't have a clue what heroes do. I just kinda get called one, I never actually did anything too heroic...
I mean, does saving people from the trouble that I cause count as heroic? Maybe.
"You'll be up against real villains soon~ Soon you'll all start looking to start your own agencies or fully join the one's you've interned with before~ The school should've prepared you plenty~ But I guess a bit of training never hurt anyone~"
They all seem to be getting excited at the prospect. Heh, guess I really am famous.
_________ POV Narration_________
"Can we do it now?!" Asked the excited Nejire. She was also quite enthusiastic about sparring with Beru, although not as much as Mirio.
"Nah~ I'm done sparring for the day~ I'm also kinda busy right now~ There's plenty of days in the week~ Don't worry too much about it~" Beru waved their excitement off though. He was willing to stop and talk, but he was far too lazy to head back to the Gym and fight them at this moment.
"That's understandable... I guess we'll have to see to it tomorrow!" Mirio spoke, not looking discouraged for even a second.
"Yea~ For now though~ I'll be taking my leave~ I do still have some things left to get done for today~" Beru waved at them and simply teleported to his door. While his encounter with the senior classes was nice, he didn't really come to the dormitory to meet them.
He came to see Toga... Who was currently not in her room either? Beru simple tilted his head and teleported inside. He didn't really have a key to the room, so entering it this way was the only viable option... That and breaking the door down.
Looking around, the place was as much of a mess as he remembered it to be.
Toga only really cleaned up her stuff when Beru actually started complaining, but with him spending more time at Nemuri's house, he was no longer there to nag her.
Beru didn't really like the feeling he was getting. A rather disturbing bout of uneasiness in his gut. He decided to act quickly, grabbing a random shirt that belonged to her and taking in her scent.
He threw the shirt back onto the ground and then started tracking her scent. He flew around the school for a bit, then a certain trail led him outside of the school, which he followed at a decent speed.
Eventually, it started leading him to the worse parts of town. Namely, random alleyways and poorly lit districts. Places where the high rise buildings only served to cover the shady people in shadows.
Although the crime wasn't all that high lately, that didn't mean criminals disappeared, they were still lurking around, hoping to get a chance to unleash their desires onto the world.
Toga was obviously headed somewhere, and Beru could tell that she wasn't exactly going to some nice place hidden in the worst parts of town.
Eventually, Beru tracked her down to a random bar. He could tell by the feel of it that it wasn't exactly made for respectable members of society.
Beru walked in blind, knowing that there wasn't much that could threaten him either way. Inside was exactly what he had expected. A bloodbath.
Pools of blood all over the ground, body parts scattered all around the room, the carnage showed that the perpetrator cleared a path towards the basement.
Beru followed suit, this time with a bit more weariness. He didn't quite know that Toga was capable of doing so much damage.
He knew she could stab and puncture all of them to death, but most of the people on the ground had been hacked to bits. A lot bloodier than her usual modus operandi.
Beru could clearly see the basement, despite the fact that there was no light to speak of. A small corridor leading to a set of two metal doors.
There were still more people down there, all of them either dead or grunting in pain, their wounds were still fresh.
From the doors, Beru could hear the sounds of fighting. Familiar steel clashing, blood splattering and curses being thrown around.
No one that was inside the corridor was still in the right state of mind to notice Beru, who just casually walked over all of them and reached a larger room.
Beru could see something rather strange inside. It was... Himself? Rather, it was Toga taking on his form.
He watched with interest, as the transformed Toga seemed to cut open people left and right... With her claws?
'... The transformation that Toga's quirk allows is always purely cosmetic... How did this come about?' Beru thought to himself as he looked more clearly at Toga's opponents.
Clearly enough, this bar was rather populated. There were still quite a few people surrounding Toga, all of them seemed to be landing hits left and right, but they seemed rather ineffective.
Bullets bounced off, blades slid off, punches didn't leave a mark...
Still, Beru could see that Toga was running out of juice, he could see that some parts of her body were not covered by slime anymore, she was slowly turning back to her usual form. And by the looks of it, her injuries were already severe.
Beru didn't waste any more time. Just as a villain was about to slice his knife towards one of the uncovered arms, Beru appeared and simply dug his hand into the villain's belly, going straight through the stomach and grasping at his spine.
The man was shocked to see what had happened... But it was already too late, Beru threw him towards the wall and looked at the few others that were left in the room. He could feel their fear creeping in.
"T-This one's the real deal..." One of the villains said while taking a step back.
Beru shrugged, in less than a blink of an eye, all of the villains were cut to pieces. It looked as if Beru didn't even move from his spot. He caught the fainting Toga in his arms with a caring gaze.
"...Why would you be here alone?~" He asked with worry etched in his tone. He didn't really care about her killing the villains, but he cared about her putting herself in danger needlessly.
"I... I wanted to be more like you..." Toga said in a tired tone, by now, she was already back to her original form, prompting Beru to warp in a blanket and cover her body with it.
"Welp~ You've certainly copied my recklessness~," The insectoid said as he picked Toga up and started walking towards the exit.
The girl soon fell asleep, Beru didn't bother inquiring about her new abilities, she was in no state to answer anyway.
Thankfully, Beru had a few healing quirks now. His formerly pisspoor healing quirk worked quite well combined with the one Recovery Lady had.
It allowed him to heal Toga through his hands, using his own stamina, not hers.
'The wounds won't be an issue at least...
But the massacre might be.' Beru looked around a bit.
It was easy for him to cover his tracks when he took her out to kill villains.
He always teleported to the scene, he always made sure the cameras were either destroyed or not working, and he always made sure that it wouldn't/couldn't be traced back to Toga...
Now it would be a bit harder to do that. Her DNA was likely littered all over the room, and the police investigating the scene would definitely be able to find that she was somehow involved in it.
So, Beru only had one solution for this problem...
As soon as he reached the entrance to the basement he turned around, with a loud exhale, he spits out a torrent of blue flames that seemed to melt the door, they spread throughout the basement and turned everything to ash, melted the metals and turned all water and blood to steam.
He did the same for the bar as soon as he left the building. After which he just warped back to his room at the dormitory and placed Toga on his bed.
'Now... Let's wait for her to wake up and explain herself...' He sat down right beside her, looking at her with a concerned gaze.
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Hope you liked the chapter!
A shit test is coming for me this weekend, I barely know shit about anything related to my university btw. I've been out of the loop since I took on a full-time job. Well, look at me venting, have a fun day!
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