Chương 2026: 45
"What do you mean she disappeared?!" Shouta was about to tear his hair out. "Shinso, she doesn't have an invisibility quirk or anything! She can't just disappear!"
"Well, I don't know what to tell you, because one minute, I had her in a capture hold and the next thing I know, I was holding air!" Shinso sounded like he was freaking out, which was perfectly understandable, considering the circumstances. "She just popped out of existence with zero warning! We've torn the entire agency apart and we still can't find her!"
"O-ok." Shouta took a deep breath. "Ok. Uraraka's missing. We can deal with this. Gunhead's already on the phone with Nedzu, correct?"
"Yeah." Shinso almost sounded like he was about to cry. "You-you'll find her, right?"
Shouta swallowed, "We'll certainly try."
He hung up and rubbed his temples. Of all the things he'd expected to deal with on internships, a missing student wasn't one of them. Noise complaints, behavior recommendations, maybe even a villain attack, that was all within the realm of possibility, but a student going missing? It was every teacher's worst nightmare and to make it even worse, they had zero leads because she'd gone missing from a secure hero agency in full view of a pro-hero and a half-dozen other interns and no one had seen anything. He didn't even know where to start.
His phone rang again and he picked it up without looking, "Shinso, if this is about Uraraka, it hasn't been long enough for us to find anything yet."
"Well, this is about Uraraka." Nedzu's voice sounded grim. "But I believe there is one lead you need to be informed of."
Izuku hopped up on the desk next to Mei, who was currently welding something or another, "Wasn't Dr. Shield supposed to be here already?"
"Who cares?" Mei shrugged. "If he needed to unlock the lab, that'd be a different story, but if we're just picking a project to work with anyway, then it doesn't really matter when he shows up."
"I guess…" Izuku said slowly, going back to his laptop. "I've been thinking about what I want to do and I'm not sure whether I want to do some sort of mapping software or maybe something to help with those earrings Melissa was wearing. Having an early warning sign for panic attacks sounds like a really useful technology. What are you working on?"
"Right now?" Mei tightened one last screw and pushed her newest baby to the side. "Nothing. But that was basically a portable artificial sun. I got the idea from that bird boy in Shinso's new class. There might be all sorts of other quirks sensitive to light!"
"Cool!" Izuku grinned and got out his notebook, "That would be really useful for a lot of heroes! Do you think there's an advantage to having it spherical or would it work better as a flashlight? What about…?'
He was cut off by his phone ringing. He looked at Mei to see if she knew who was calling, but she just shrugged and started taking her new invention apart, so Izuku just picked it up, "Hello?"
"Um, Izuku?" Hitoshi sounded panicked on the other end of the phone and Izuku immediately put down his notebook and waved Mei over. "Uh, you've got that whole man in chair thing going on, so you know how to keep secrets, right?"
"Uh, yeah?" Izuku put the phone on speaker as Mei came to stand beside him. "You're on speaker with Mei, by the way. What's wrong?"
"Well, uh…" Hitoshi's voice became a little softer. "I, uh, I probably shouldn't be telling you this, because it would be really bad if the media found out right now, so...but, uh, I know that you know a lot about quirks and thought maybe you'd have come across this one or something like it, I just don't know what to…"
"Take a deep breath, Extra-Credit-Kun." Mei instructed. "We're right here and the media are boring, so we're not gonna tell them and you know we can keep a secret, otherwise Izu-kun would probably be dead, so let's see if we can help."
Izuku nodded in agreement, "Take your time."
"Well, um…" Hitoshi groaned. "You know how I'm interning at the same place as Uraraka, right?"
Izuku and Mei exchanged a confused glance, "Yeah, why?"
"We can't find her."
Instantly, Izuku and Mei both sat up ram-rod straight,"What?!"
On the other end of the phone, Hitoshi sighed, "She just disappeared in the middle of a spar. One minute I had her in a hold and the next, she's just...nowhere."
Izuku ran to the nearest computer, "And there wasn't any purple mist, right? That's what happened at the USJ, so try to remember."
"Um, no?" Hitoshi took a deep breath. "She was just gone... wait, um, I might have seen a little bit of some sort of greenish glow? Or maybe it was pink? That might have been a trick of the light though, and there definitely wasn't a purple mist or anything. Does that sound like any quirk you've come across?"
"No." Izuku frowned and typed a few things into his search. "And from what I can see, it's not on the quirk registry either. Most warp quirks have some visual indication that they're being activated and if she were attacked by a villain, you would have seen that."
"We hadn't even left the agency!" Hitoshi insisted. "There were no villains!"
Izuku sighed, "I'm sorry we couldn't help more. We'll keep thinking and get back to you if we come up with anything."
"Thanks." Hitoshi sighed. "I mean, Aizawa and Nedzu are already working on it too, so hopefully we'll find her soon."
"Let us know." Mei said. "Gravity-chan is way too nice to just disappear off the face of the earth."
"Will do." Hitoshi said. "Thanks, guys."
"Yeah." Izuku hung up and looked at Mei. "I wish there was something more we could do."
"What can we do, Izu-kun?" Mei whined. "We're on a floating island hours away from Japan!"
"I guess…" Izuku bit his lip. "Well, back to work?"
Mei nodded and picked up her screwdriver grimly, "Back to work."
Shouta figured he should be getting used to getting angry on behalf of his students by this point, "So you're telling me that you not only gave my student an extra quirk without informing me, but that this impossible miracle quirk has painted a target on her back a mile wide because it comes with a nemesis that runs the goddamn league of villains! Oh, and considering that she disappeared into thin air, they're probably the ones who took her, especially since you didn't even give her any extra security after handing her a giant I Am Here sign. Am I missing anything, All Might?"
All Might cleared his throat awkwardly, "Um...well, I had not anticipated them finding her this soon."
Shouta glared at him, "Well, they did, so what now?"
"Now, we do everything in our power to find her." Nedzu said calmly, a cup of long cold tea on the desk beside him. "What's done is done, Aizawa. Uraraka is gone and dwelling on the past and what should or should not have been done will not help us get her back."
"My only issue is that no one present saw any signs of Kurogiri." Tsukauchi said. "Even when we asked specifically about purple mist, everyone present said that they didn't see anything like that and none of them were lying."
"So do we think the league got their hands on another warp quirk?" All Might asked. "With All for One at the helm, it is a possibility."
"There's also the possibility that she wasn't taken by the league at all." Tsukauchi pointed out.
"We can't afford to get our hopes up for that." Shouta said. "Out of all the possibilities we've considered, the most likely is that Uraraka was kidnapped by the league because this blond oaf decided to give them an incentive to do so."
All Might sighed, "I know."
Shouta noticed that Nedzu had been suspiciously silent and found him staring grimmly at his screen. He wasn't sure how this situation could get worse, but he had the sinking suspicion that he was about to find out, "Nedzu. What's wrong?"
"I just received an email from I-Island's security team, where Midoriya and Hatsume are interning." Nedzu turned to stare at them. "There was a security breach. The entire island is now in lockdown."
After two hours of waiting in the lab and working on various projects, Izuku decided it was high time to go find out what was going on, if only because he was getting restless just sitting at a computer screen when he knew one of his friends had gone missing, so he left Mei working in the lab and started trying to find Dr. Shield. So far, he'd just been wandering the halls but the few people he'd seen had looked worried for some reason and had been too busy to talk to him. Eventually, he'd found someone who was able to point him toward Melissa's room, so right now, he was hoping she'd be able to either take him to her dad or at least tell him why no one had even peaked their head in on them all morning.
He was just a few halls down from where he'd been told to go when he caught sight of Melissa and to make it better, her dad was walking beside her. Izuku waved wildly and started running toward them, "Hey! Melissa! Dr. Shield!"
"Oh, Midoriya!" Dr. Shield's shoulders were slumped and he looked much more tired than he had when Izuku had seen him last night. "Sorry I never showed up this morning. I should have sent one of the other inventors in my place, but we've all been working overtime with...well, everything. The current situation has thrown all of us for a loop."
"But what is the current situation?" Izuku asked. "Because if there is one, no one's told us anything about it."
"The island is currently in lockdown." Melissa explained. "I was just on my way to let you know. We had an intruder come into Dad's lab a few hours ago and until we're sure how she got in, no one's allowed on or off the island and communication is limited as well. It's...well, it's kinda a mess right now, but if it helps keep everyone here safe, then it's worth it, right?"
Izuku nodded, "Right. Did they get through by hacking or was it some kind of quirk? I know you probably have a lot better analysts and programmers and everyone here, but if there's anything I can do to help…"
Dr. Shield shared a look with Melissa before he turned to Izuku, "Honestly, we have no idea. It could be a quirk or it could be some tech we've never seen before. She just popped into existence right in front of me, no warning, no indication that anything or anyone would be arriving. Honestly, our scientists would be absolutely ecstatic about having a mystery to solve if it weren't such a threat to the safety of the island."
Izuku nodded, "Yeah I can see why that...wait, did you say just just popped into existence?"
Melissa nodded, "Dad was the only one there, but when we played it back on the cameras, one minute the room was empty, the next she was stumbling into the table and puking her guts out into the nearest trash can before she passed out. We've given her medical attention, but so far, nobody knows who she is or how she got into his lab."
Dr. Shield groaned, "Our only lead is that she was wearing what looked to be a hero uniform at the time. We're waiting to hear back from the company that produced it, but it doesn't match any licensed heroes."
"Because she doesn't have a hero license yet." Izuku muttered.
Dr. Shield stopped, "What?"
Izuku's mind was racing. If his suspicions were correct then how in the world had Uraraka gotten all the way to I-island in just a couple of hours? It had taken him and Mei over three hours to fly here and he didn't even know exactly where here was! Still, as impossible as it sounded, Shinso had described her disappearance in the same way that Dr. Shield had described the intruder's entrance: here one moment, gone the next. And the after effects of Uraraka's quirk would explain the extreme nausea and vomiting when she'd arrived.
"Was there a sort of weird greenish-pink glow?" Izuku asked finally. "It would have been really faint, almost to the point where you'd think it was a trick of the light?"
"I…" Dr. Shield looked at Melissa, who nodded.
"When I was watching the video, I thought it was just a lens flare." She explained. "It faded pretty much as soon as she appeared though, so it only lasted a second or two."
"Why?" Dr. Shield asked. "Do you know what's going on?"
"Oh, I don't have a clue." Izuku answered. "But I'd like to see her, if possible. I think I might know who she is."
Ochako was exhausted. She didn't think she'd ever felt this tired and gross in her entire life, but even with all that, there was still too much energy vibrating inside her and she kept her eyes screwed shut, hoping that if she could just keep it all in, then maybe it would go away and she'd be able to fall asleep again. She really hoped that the last thing she remembered was actually a weird dream, because if it wasn't then she didn't know where she was on top of everything else, but if she just kept her eyes shut and pretended to be asleep, then she could just pretend she was safe in Gunhead's agency and wouldn't ever have to know the difference.
A door opened and she heard a few people walk into the room before an unfamiliar voice started speaking, "She seems to be suffering from quirk exhaustion, but since we're not sure what her quirk is, then there's no way of knowing whether that's from coming here or if it's from whatever she was doing before."
"Hmm. Well, this is interesting." This voice was familiar and Ochako's eyes shot open. The room spun as she sat up too quickly, but she was too relieved to care. Midoriya smiled at her, "Hey there, Uraraka. You're not supposed to be here."
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