Chương 58: Chapter 57 - Repercussions
At the gates of USJ, there was a veritable human tide.
Police cars and ambulances clogged the road leading to it, police officers and paramedics going from one student to the next, either to take statements or to treat those in need.
I sat in the back of an ambulance, waiting for Recovery Girl to arrive to treat a superficial wound on my arm. Aizawa had been evacuated by helicopter and taken to the hospital for surgery; Bakugo sat next to me, his shoulder wrapped in a multitude of bandages. He hadn't been allowed to move to avoid reopening his wound; apparently he had been stabbed, but under the influence of adrenaline he hadn't noticed.
The rest of the students were huddled a little farther away, blankets draped over their shoulders and hands clutching hot chocolate. I watched them one by one, wondering who would be the first to notice that Mina Ashido wasn't there. Her body hadn't been evacuated yet - or at least if it had, it hadn't been through the main entrance.
I wondered how they'd react to the news that one of their comrades had died; Yuei was in for a real media circus.
"Your thing, with your sword," Bakugo grumbled.
I turned to him, surprised to hear him speak.
He'd been silent since the heroes had saved us an hour earlier.
"Teach me"
I raised an eyebrow.
"Maybe with a 'please'..."
His red eyes pierced me, but I didn't flinch, pushing the chakra behind my eyes to make my gaze even more intense than it already was.
The blond turned his head away and clenched his fists; he spat out his answer as if each word burned his mouth.
"Please"
I smiled at him.
"No"
And turned my attention back to the other students.
"What do you mean, 'no'? I said what you told me to say, now teach me !"
He fidgeted, and I caught a glimpse of the medic who'd bandaged him glaring at him sideways.
"I don't owe you anything," I said laconically. I don't see why I should waste my time and energy teaching you anything when I have a thousand better things to do.
Like improving my Fuinjutsu skills; after all, I had a mini-immortal to kill.
Bakugo grabbed me by the collar of my shirt.
"Who do you think you are, you extra," he threatened in a low voice, bringing his face close to mine to intimidate me.
"If you don't let go of me in the next second..."
Bakugo's eyes widened as he felt my fingers close around his neck.
He hadn't seen me move and thought I was at his mercy.
"I don't know who you think you are" I said, moving closer to him and making him back off, "but let me give you a warning"
My hand heated up against his throat.
"Give me another order and I'll blow your head off"
I've done worse, and I had no qualms about making good on my threat.
Bakugo stared at me slowly, as if trying to figure out if I was telling the truth.
Then he chuckled before letting go of my shirt.
"As if" he laughed, rolling his eyes.
But the fingers of his right hand bent and unfolded frantically, as if he was trying to contain his urge to hit me.
An evil smile formed on my lips as I called out to him again:
"Tell me Kacchan," I whispered, "Do you think-"
I fell silent and turned my head to the black car that had just pulled up behind the police cordon.
My father got out of it, looking serious, his blue eyes sweeping the crowd of paramedics and teenagers wrapped in mirror gray survival blankets.
I raised my hand and locked eyes with him.
Within seconds, he'd passed the police roadblock and joined me.
His hands went up to me and then back down to him, as if he was hesitating whether or not I would accept this physical contact - or as if he himself was trying to control his paternal impulses.
We were in public, after all, and judging by his blue eyes, which reflected his inner conflict, he was all too aware of it.
I watched him in silence, not trying to push his decision one way or the other:
Finally, he decided to wrap his fingers around the hem of his suit shirt, as if to avoid doing something he would regret.
I had a bitter taste in my mouth that I couldn't interpret.
"What happened to your face ?" my father asked in a loud voice, his eyebrows furrowed.
The nomu had managed to scrape off the top of my mask, revealing the bottom of the scar that ran across my left eye and eyebrow. It was superficial, and you couldn't see anything but a bit of skin, but I could imagine what it looked like from the outside.
He slid a finger inside my mask to pull it down and get a closer look at what he thought was a wound, but I grabbed his wrist to stop him.
"Not here" I warned him in a low voice.
I could already see the sideways glances we were getting because he'd crashed the scene like a rocket, and I didn't want to contribute to them by showing my - oh so sublime – face.
My father's eyes flew briefly over my head, assessing the situation ; his gaze turned cold and distant again, he pursed his lips and straightened before gently letting my mask rest against my skin.
His 'grumpy old man' expression amused me, and I saw him twitch as he met my gaze:
"You-"
"Endeavor-san, what a surprise !"
In a perfectly synchronized movement, both of our heads turned towards the newcomer.
"Nezu-san" my father greeted in a neutral tone.
The headmaster smiled gently at me before turning his attention back to him :
"You got here awfully fast," the little thing remarked, swaying back and forth.
"Even faster than the reporters; makes me wonder how you knew what was going on"
A flash of boredom crossed my father's face as he looked away; the principal's smile widened. I began to watch the mouse with new eyes, wondering what kind of relationship he had with the old man to speak to him so casually.
"You know very well how," the fiery hero replied in a brittle tone.
The mouse's eyes sparkled.
"Abusing your authority as senpai over your kouhai isn't very glorious, Endeavor"
If I hadn't spent so much time as a child training my face to be as neutral as possible under all circumstances, my eyebrows would have become one with my hair.
I glanced sideways at the group of teachers gathered in a circle around an ambulance, and many of them were looking nervously at my father.
Huh ? Is the old man scary enough to even frighten adults ?
I tried to take a critical look at my father: if you took away his six-foot height, his fiery beard, his mean look, and his reputation as the naughtiest of heroes, he was a perfectly ordinary man, indistinguishable from anyone else on the street.
I blinked slowly.
…no one could ever swallow such bullshit.
Still, I wondered where he got his reputation as the king of the underworld.
"I don't abuse anything," my father grumbled, narrowing his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest. They gave me all of this information out of the goodness of their heart.
Nezu looked very pleased.
"And they obeyed your every word when you were all in Yuei out of goodwill, too, didn't they ?"
My father nodded with the most serious expression I'd ever seen on his face.
"Yes, they did. You'll even remember that I was very popular with all the students at school, both older and younger"
The little mouse was rocking back and forth so fast that I thought he was going to fall at any moment.
"Of course, of course," Nezu puffed out in delight.
"Tell me more about what happened here" my father said. "A group of villains attacked, I understand ?"
Nezu immediately put on a straight face and motioned for Endeavor to follow.
"Let's go this way, Endeavor-san. Your insight might help us understand what happened today..."
Ah, of course they didn't know it was because of All Might; since Midorya hadn't received the One for All and hadn't faced Edward with the Silver Hands, the villain's famous useless dialog hadn't been started, so no one knew anything.
My father gave me a look over his shoulder that clearly meant I wasn't to move an inch until he returned.
"Your old man is really something," Bakugo hissed as he moved to my side.
I couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or if his voice was full of respect.
Bakugo slipped away to play the edgy teenager, standing back from the circle
formed by the other students in our class, but not too far to not hear them.
The moment I felt Inasa's eyes on me, I pretended to feel faint and went to lie down on a stretcher in an empty ambulance: better that than being stuck with that other idiot, and he was too nice to come and bother me when I was oh so sick.
My father returned a good quarter of an hour later, just as a bunch of journalists and curious onlookers started to show up. He didn't even need to call me, because I was already out of my makeshift bed and making my way to him almost cheerfully.
He gave me a puzzled look, but said nothing, preferring to put his hand flat on my neck and gently push me to the back of the police/ambulance vehicle - and as far away as possible from the journalists and curious onlookers who were just starting to show up.
"Let's not attract attention," he muttered in a low voice.
I broke free of his grip and walked alongside him; he let me do so without saying a word.
We walked between two police cars before circling an ambulance parked behind them. Two doctors, fresh from the USJ, wheeled a white-covered gurney in front of us; we stopped for a moment to let it pass.
My eyes scanned the silhouette of the body before stopping at the skull; there were two bulges stretching the sheet.
"Some collateral damage from your comrades' Quirks ''
A pink hand slipped out of the sheet, its slender fingers reaching into the void.
One of the stretcher-bearers rushed to tuck it back under the sheet.
I felt my father's eyes on my neck.
The wheels of the stretcher crunched against the gravel as it moved away.
Endeavor stepped forward with me, slightly behind, and lifted the yellow security tape around the camp to let me pass. As I passed him, he took the opportunity to lean forward.
"Don't say a word about what you've just seen" he ordered in a low voice.
Although the repercussions of such a sordid tale would have been highly entertaining there were more disadvantages than advantages to exposing this swamp at the moment.
Besides, the old man had said no.
"As you wish"
I'll find plenty of other ways to make my shonen more exciting in the future.
*
Author's note :
Power stones objective for the bonus chapter : 215
P@treon : Nar_cisseENG where you can read up to 50 chapters ahead, or copy the link below and delete the space p a t r e o n . c o m / N a r_ c i s s e E N G
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