Chương 1192: 42
Chapter 42: Level 42
Was it bad that she had forgotten that All Might was really a skinny man that was sometimes a buff man? Like, really, that just felt like something that had been glossed over in their whole "Try not to explode your limbs" pep talk they had on her very confused and guilt-filled trip to the actual entrance exam. Though at the time, she had been at least partially grateful she was dressed when Menu had summoned her and then promptly shoved All Might's hair down her throat.
At first she had been trying hard to cheer Izuku up in whatever way she could. This was something that he had earned and it was given to her instead. But, now that she had seen, actually seen, what All for One was, she couldn't help but be a bit resentful. Especially when she thought of her own quirk, that shadowed visage of her own quirk entangled and infused with All for One sent a shiver down her spine and made her stomach twist in a knot. She understood Menu's choice full well now.
She might even have made the same choice if she had known back then.
"So! Itsuka!" All Might gave a great big smile and gestured towards the tea he had prepared. He was wearing a suit that was way too big for him, but at the same time way too small for him. His recent occupation as a teacher had struck Itsuka as a bit odd, given how he was actually rather terrible at it. It wasn't that she disliked All Might, it was just, her expectations were rather shattered. "What can I do for you?"
Itsuka scratched the back of her head. She really didn't want to be here right now. The others had more exciting jobs. Momo was off to be the liaison at Sir Nighteye's office to gather info while Izuku, Nejire, and Shoko were scouting the new dungeon "Towers of Tomes." She was told that after she got all the information out of All Might that she'd be allowed to join the dungeon crawl.
Which was good. Because she wanted to punch, like, everything.
"So, I'm actually not sure if you can answer this, but I have some questions about One for All. And, umm, All for One."
All Might's demeanor grew dark, cold, and frightening. "Where did you hear that name? Was it Mirai?"
"No, not at all, he barely even mentioned One for All to me," He was kind of obsessed with Izuku's quirk though, but then again, so was she. She wanted to see her numbers go up more! She wanted a new feat! One that would let her do something really cool! One that would make it so she wouldn't lose to Momo's fear gas. "It was actually One for All that told me."
"Huh?" All Might's confusion outweighed all of his other more negative expressions. "How would a quirk tell you, it's not like they can-" All Might opened his mouth and blinked. "Did Izuku's quirk do something to it?"
"No, not at all." Menu avoided One for All like a plague. It was why she had so few feats that interacted directly with her quirk, unlike Momo, whose magic item creation feat had practically become so entangled with how she used her quirk that they were one in the same now, and Shoko's Expanded Elements feat that fundamentally changed what her quirk did in brand new ways.
But Menu, no, all of Izuku's quirk, had been steering her away from feats that would change her quirk.
"But, that's not important All Might. We need information, and we need it now." Urgency sprung up in Itsuka's voice as she glanced out the window. Summer was soon. And September followed quickly. "One for All, it said that All for One was going to be making his move soon, Something is going to happen by the first week of september. And we need to be ready for it."
"What makes you―" All Might began, but he shook his head. "I, never mind. I'll tell you what I can, though I must admit that a lot of this is new to me. To start with, All for One is the one who created―"
Ituska groaned as she spent far more time answering questions about what was going on than she did getting answers. Honestly, she had never once thought that All Might could be useless. He told her about the origin of One for All, about his fights with All for One, and perhaps the two most important pieces of information.
All for One could steal and give quirks.
At the same time, One for All was the only quirk that couldn't be stolen.
What Itsuka wanted to know was if that because One for All was sentient, and if so, could Menu-chan resist it as well?
If she could, then they'd only have to contend with the multitude of quirks at All for One's disposal.
[Sys-Admin: It's hard to say if I can or can't. Aizawa's quirk makes me drowsy, but whatever was in that quirk erasing drug Overhaul created was not something I can resist on my own. If it's something subtle like coercion, maybe, but something by force, it could be hard.
Itsuka Kendo: We'll figure something out. How's the dungeon?
Sys-Admin: Uhhhh, I don't think it was what they were expecting
Itsuka Kendo: Are you ever?
Sys-Admin: I'm consistently a pain in the ass.]
XXXX
"¡El contrabandista de la Mariposa de la Dinamita de dos burritos supremos dobles Xl Xl Xl Xl que sostienen las cebollas acaba de ganar otro combate con su último ataque de la captura de tetas!"
Izuku had no idea what the very excitable, and incredibly large owl-cat thing was even talking about. But it was really entertaining. The creature stood nearly twenty feet tall, with white feather-like fur along its underside with occasional darker spots on its chest, while its back was covered with a nice orangish-brown color. It was an odd creature, with three sets of claws on each of its four limbs, save for the large pair of owl wings on its back that were fully functioning. And for some reason it had on a bright blue and red mask on.
Apparently it was a Luchador.
And Shoko was completely enraptured by it, so much so that her red and white fox tail was swishing about wildly behind her while her ears were perked fully up as she watched Nejire wrestle several kinds of gigantic masked critters.
"Hey hey! Izuku Izuku!" Nejire bounded over to the corner closest to them, then she placed her hands on the top of the pillar and sprung to the top of it with effortless grace. The light blue leotard she had on hugged her every curve while leaving her arms and legs exposed. Similarly, there was a cut between her breasts that was designed to expose as much cleavage as humanly possible. The mask Nejire wore was supposed to be a butterfly mask. "Shoko! Shoko! Did you see that?"
Shoko stood, her own red and white leotard just as revealing as Nejire's was. She pumped her arms, stars in her eyes. "That was awesome!"
"Great job Nejire! One more and we'll finish this challenge!" Izuku cheered and glanced around the large stadium they had found themselves in. The dungeon itself was like a library times a million, the first of many challenges hidden inside the numerous books of various sizes that made up the terrain of this dungeon.
This challenge was easy to find due to the large, loud, owl-cat thing that was screaming about something.
The wrestling arena was a large storybook that shook the ground when it was first slammed opened and the arena sprung up from the pages. The scenic backdrop of the arena was magical, cliffs of books made up a nearly natural looking structure, and free pages fell like a waterfall while trees of origami sprung out from the cliffs. There were even paper cranes flying through the air.
Out of all the dungeons he'd seen, this was by far his favorite.
Though, the one where the girls were forced to wear bikinis might be worth a revisit. Wait, they shared a bath. But baths weren't bikinis. Wait, they slept together. Still not bikinis. Dammit. His brain had a point.
The owl landed on its perch, its three-clawed paw wrapped around the microphone, once again speaking in a language that Izuku didn't recognize. "¡Y ahora a la ronda final! ¡Aquí el amante de la almohada Doble Suprema de la Mariposa Dynamite se enfrentará a I! El búho-gato! ¡Por la primera pieza del rompecabezas! ¿Van a ganar? ¿O se convertirán en mi merienda?"
The page on the storybook arena changed, barely missing Nejire as she stood on the pillar ready to face what was to come. The previous fights had been against a caterpillar (that Nejire tried to befriend), a squirrel (that Nejire had tried to befriend), a bear (that tried to befriend Nejire), and a paperclip.
"I wonder what the next―" Izuku was interrupted when the owl-cat of unusual size jumped down into the arena and let out a shriek that caused the origami cranes to fly away and every nearby book to shuffle slightly. The announcer assumed a fighting pose, the microphone still in its clutches as it gestured towards Nejire. "Honestly, I shouldn't even be surprised."
Nejire let out a squeal and jumped down into the arena, once again leaving Izuku under the impression that she should wear a ponytail a lot more, even if it was forced like that because of her mask. It really did just make her look even cuter.
Same with Shoko.
Maybe that was why he got a crush on Ituska so fast. Yes, because it was surely her hairstyle and had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she was his first real friend.
"¡Preparémonos para la fiesta!" The Owl pumped a fist and a wing and cheering came from the stands as origami people began to form out from the pages of the books. "¡Uno! ¡Dos! ¡ Tres! Luchar!"
"Luchar!" Nejire bounced cheering along with the crowd as she entered her own fighting style. Which meant that she was going to have a lot of fun with this. Part of Izuku had been worried when the no energy blasts rules were announced―which was why Shoko wasn't participating―but Nejire had proved to be rather apt at hand to hand combat.
And Izuku had no idea how.
The Owl-Cat shrieked and lunged for Nejire. It's speed was far greater than a creature of its size should be; it towered over Nejire completely, the microphone in its claws was easily as large as she was. One powerful swipe and Izuku felt himself jump.
But Nejire dodged effortlessly. Beyond effortlessly, if that was even possible. The swipe missed her face, the air sending her hair up flying, but it didn't even come close to hitting her. Another swipe and Nejire made dodging it look like child's play as she spun around the attack. An attack with its wings made Nejire duck to avoid it, but despite being assaulted from four separate limbs, she never stopped smiling.
"Hey, hey, Mr. Kitty-Owl, what are you? I'm confused, are you a cat? An owl? An owlcat? A catowl? Do like being petted? Why do you have six limbs? Shouldn't you have four? Or eight? Six is a weird number. Do you have fur? Or just feathers? Does it feel good when someone pets you? Do you purr?"
As an agent of pure chaotic fun and boobs, Nejire was an unstoppable force of confusion that was quickly overwhelming the arena boss with her flowing dodges that would even make Ituska frustrated. Nejire floated along a particularly wide swipe from those page-rending claws, and moved behind to grab the cat tail.
"Woah! It is fur! It's really soft too!" Nejire glomped onto the cat's tail and rubbed her face in it. She wasn't taking this seriously at all.
The cat lifted its tail and brought Nejire to eye level. It swiped at Nejire again, but the blue haired girl maneuvered easily around that strike, and practically floated through the air for a moment before landing on the owl-cat's neck. The beast began to stomp around, flapping its wings as it attempted to reach Nejire, but found that not only was she too slippery to even be touched, but that she had landed on the exact spot that most people couldn't reach.
It let out a shriek in protest.
"Hey Mr. Kitty! I wanna see what you look like!" Nejire cheered, as she began to pull at the strings of the cat's mask.
The creature looked terrified, and attempted to roll on the ground to get Nejire off, but that proved to be fruitless as more and more of its mask was quickly unraveled. At the end, as Nejire undid the final knot of it's mask, the creature had resorted to begging. Neire jumped off with the mask in her hand, and as she did, the creature faded.
The story book that they had been fighting in began to shake and the wrestling ring around the pages sunk back into the book.
"Nejire!" Izuku shouted, running towards the book and pushing his way through the myriad of unfolding origami. "Run! It's going to slam shut!"
Nejire nodded and jumped into the air, darting out of the book just in time for it to slam shut behind her. The mask in her hands had shrunk to something that would fix a house cat. "Aww, did I do that?"
Izuku rolled his eyes and smiled. "Yeah, you did a good job Nejire, I knew I could rely on you."
"D'aww," Nejire leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. "Thanks Izuku! It was a lot of fun."
Shoko walked over and crossed her arms under her chest pouting. "I get to do the next one so I can kiss Izuku on the cheek!"
"You know you can do that whenever you want right?" Nejire leaned over and kissed him on the cheek again. "See!"
Shoko made a surprised face and then hopped over and kissed him on the cheek. "Good job Izuku."
He didn't even do anything though?
"Okay, I love you both too, but let's focus on what's going on for a bit." Izuku patted both girls on their heads, and enjoyed how cute they looked when pouting. This was his fault for saying that he could handle the dungeon with Nejire and Shoko. What was he expecting? Sanity? His girlfriends were in short supply of that trait.
"Oh right." Nejire looked around, and then looked at the mask in her hands. "This is the only thing we got. It's a bit small, hmm," she brought the mask close to her face and looked inside of it. "There's something written in it."
She handed it to Izuku, and he flipped it inside out to try and get a better look. Written inside was a single word.
"That," Izuku said, glancing at the mask, and letting out a long sigh. All that for a single word? Just how many challenges were in this dungeon?
AN: *Dungeon crawl time!*
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