atxlxs

[atxlxs]

Beyond The Veil: Chapter 20

Eras was finishing up her emails, conveniently not thinking about the fact that Aizawa’s head was currently resting on her shoulder (She had around a 5 minute panic before she pushed all thoughts out of her mind), when she could smell chamomile and the distinct odor of a ferret (that she only knows because of Muska’s old pet cheeze) she closed her laptop.

Nedzu popped out of the vent above her, much like Aizawa had just moments before, and grinned a toothy grin at her. Eras nodded before turning to the side and nudging Aizawa awake. Holding back a chuckle as the man woke with a small snort and blearily reached for the coffee thermos from before, she reached over to grab the container. As she handed him the liquid in question, Nedzu dropped out and landed on the opposite couch. A steaming tea cup already in hand.

How? She really doesn’t know.

“So, the verdict, Eras-san?” Nedzu started, a paw gesturing to the laptop that was placed next to her on the couch.

Sighing, she reached for her own coffee and took a sip before responding. Aizawa looked awake enough to retain information by this point so she responded after getting some caffeine in her system.

“Well, the person in question agreed to look into the situation, not that he had much of a choice,” the last part was muttered under her breath, but she could tell they both heard it, “and will report back to me when he finds anything. For now he’s gathering a few people to put some protective wards around the school. It won’t impact daily life in any way, but it’ll cast a nasty wound on those from the veil that attempt to come in without permission.”

She’s seen what those wards could do in person. It’s brutal.

Aizawa nodded and Nedzu just smiled wider. Instantly, he had both their eyes on him. The rat-ferret was up to something and it probably wasn’t anything good.

“Eras-san,” the shit started, his voice eerily cheery and a gleeful expression shifted onto his features, “how would you feel about a job offer?”

…

Alright, what the fuck? . . . .

Muska felt relief wash over her as the bell to lunch rang. She had been slowly getting restless after being stuck in a seat for as long as she had, and she was fucking starving so yea, she was looking forward to LunchRush’s food. Plus, the man takes requests.

She was bordering on desperate to get a hand on dumplings made by him.

Standing up from her seat, content to leave her bag in the classroom due to the sheer amount of cameras placed around the school, she went to follow Izuku out of the classroom but was stopped by a fucking mob. She was so done with everything.

The mob was quickly antagonized by Pompom and Muska bit back a sigh that threatened to escape. A few shouts, some kid poking fun at trauma which Muska had feelings about, and suddenly a teen with lavender hair that defied gravity walked out of the crowd to stand in front. He had eyebags deep enough to be a concern and a lazy posture with a smirk etched into his face as he glanced over the class. Hands shoved into his pockets as he deliberately let the silence hang in the air for dramatic effect. Well shit, he was kinda hot.

“You know,” the purple haired teen drawled, purposefully tilting his head in challenge, “the sports festival isn’t just a chance for you Hero course students. If someone scores high enough, they can transfer into the Hero course.”

Muska did know this, if only due to Eras’s research streak to make sure she had a chance to get into the harsh program. Ah, he was declaring war. She couldn’t quite keep the sharp but small smile that carved it’s way onto her face. There was the barest flicker of surprise on the teen’s face but he hid it quickly.

“Yet, there can only be so many Hero students a year. So if someone scores high enough, someone will need to be kicked out. So keep your eye’s peeled Heroes, or I’ll take that opportunity away from you.”

With a lazy wave and a sharp pivot, the teen turned around and disappeared into the crowd. Muska was impressed and maybe a bit curious. Though, those feelings were quickly squashed by annoyance as she had to force her way through the crowd just to go eat lunch.

Izuku and Ura- Ochako were chatting up a storm as they all started heading their way down the hallways when it happened. As the conversation had drifted to what they were getting for lunch, Muska’s phone chimed an old pre-quirk meme as a text tone and ‘oH No oUr TaBle!’ echoed in the somewhat empty hallway. Muska faltered for a second as she dug out her phone and ignored the wide eyed stares of Izuku and Ochako.

Platonic Soulmate

Tw*l*ghtWannabe: what the fuck did I just go through I-

Trauma™: fuck if I know??? I’m not omniscient

Tw*l*ghtWannabe: I came here as a veil representative to fix this bullshit and instead I get a job interview

Trauma™: excUSE ME?

What do you mean you got a job interview?

Tw*l*ghtWannabe: you know what I meant

Honestly kinda considering it

It’s not much different then what I do anyways with the rest of my businesses, plus money.

Trauma™: are you sure? It is a highschool you know

Tw*l*ghtWannabe: …

Yea

I’m pretty sure

Trauma™: alright

…

Wait..

Does that mean you're still here at school?????

DON’T JUST DISAPPEAR?!?

***

Grumbling to herself, Muska looked up and saw Izuku and Ochako staring at her with horribly hidden interest. Suddenly realizing she had just stopped in the middle of a hallway to text, Muska put her phone in her pocket and sighed.

“Sorry about that,” she started her way back to the cafeteria, the other two falling into step with her, “I got a text from my guardian and wanted to see what it was. As usual, I feel like I’m in a fever dream after dealing with that but oh well.”

Izuku snorted and immediately blushed in embarrassment but this time he didn’t apologize. Progress. Ochako, on the other hand, was busy giggling away.

“That reminds me,” Ochako started after the giggles had calmed down some, “what's so scary about your guardian that the explody kid called her an…what was the word…… ah, S-class threat?”

Muska huffed a short laugh as Izuku watched on in curiosity.

“To be honest with you? She’s strong enough to be a threat, physically and metaphorically through more than just what you can see, but I have no clue what she did to scare Bakugo.”

If her two newest friends were alarmed by that info, they didn’t show it, instead choosing to just nod along as the cafeteria doors came into view.

Lunch was a short affair, and yes the dumplings were good enough to be worshipped, so Muska was leaning against her hand as she watched Iida and Ochako talk about their future practical heroics lesson. Izuku had been borrowed by All Might to have lunch and she had a few thoughts about that but nothing concrete. Maybe she could ask Eras?

She had been silently debating something for the last 15 minutes and now it was more of a did she have energy to do it problem. Checking her phone, which showed that they had another 45 minutes for lunch (seriously, she was not used to having an hour dedicated to lunch. America had 30 minutes max) and listening to the increasingly loud lunchroom, she came to a decision.

Time to terrorize the faculty with Eras.

“I’m going to stop by the faculty room for a bit. I have something I need to talk about, I’ll see you in the classroom?”

Gaining a round of nods, Muska left the lunchroom and headed for the faculty room. . . . .

Eras had been calmly staring into the abyss as she finished up writing her signature on the piece of paper that, surprisingly, didn't feel like selling her soul despite the literal stack of papers to her side that had probably resulted in 4 dead trees. Though she supposed it was because Nedzu was all too familiar with the desperation brought by being under someone's control. Privately, in the darkest part of her mind that whispered words of the past, Eras understood.

Aizawa had given her a suspiciously understanding nod when he caught her staring at nothing and everything, which makes Era incredibly curious as to how he was brought on to the teaching position, but otherwise was content to go over any of the rules and regulations in the school that would apply to her. Well, the ones that Nedzu wouldn’t need to specifically mention considering she was taking up the position of Vice Principal. The rat-ferret had too many good points for her to refuse and here she is, signing up for a job she probably had the qualifications for.

Plus, who wouldn’t want to be able to tell the commission to ‘fuck off’ legally?

It was a few minutes into Aizawa and her newest conversation about the best coffee brands when the world shifted slightly. Not literally, but the feeling was there. Sure enough, when Eras turned to look at the faculty room doorway, Muska sat in the entrance, door propped open for her to dramatically stand there and observe the room, with a face of promised mischief.

She could practically feel Aizawa’s headache when he turned to look as well.

“MOMMMMMMMMM,” Muska whined, “did you know that there is some blond bitch who likes to disregard trauma because he claimed it gave 1-A a spotlight???”

With her keen ears, Eras heard Vlad's muttered ‘monoma’ and Aizawa's condescending snort.

“You poor thing,” she deadpanned while looking over the last paper before adding it to the pile, “did you rip his head off? Subtly send him aggressive mental thoughts? Supply images directly through his brain stem of what you’d do to him?”

Oh it was so much fun to see the heroes still in the faculty room stare on with horror and shivers racking up their spines. Aizawa and Nedzu being the only exceptions with their carefree acceptance of the implied mental violence.

Muska snorted, “Nah, but there was this one teen with purple hair that was hot and declared war on the class.”

“Drama, how fun.”

“You know you secretly love listening in on the drama so you could later whip it out and ruin someone's career.”

With a roll of the eyes, she did enjoy it but the call out was undeserved, Eras turned to the side to push the papers over to Nedzu, who took them with his paws and a giddy expression on his face, before turning to Muska at the exact moment she plopped down onto the couch next to Nedzu due to Aizawa being sat next to her.

Wait, shit Aizawa was sitting next to her-

Goddamnit, she really wants to wipe that smug look off of Muska’s face.

“So,” Muska drawled, subtly glancing between Aizawa and herself with mirth dancing in her eyes, “what job did you just get offered by the rat?”

She grumbled a bit before going to speak when Nedzu beat her to it.

“Considering the situation at hand and the involvement of certain people of importance,” Nedzu chirped, smile sharpening darkly at the mention of the incident, “I believed Eras-san here would be a lovely fit as a vice Principal. Both to help keep undesirables out with legal authority not bought, and also keeping the commission out of our business!”

“You are one sadistic existence and I love it.” Muska seemed surprised by her admission but never retracted the statement. Eras just nodded along with.

Nedzu beamed.

“Say Nedzu, what are your thoughts on mild psychological torture used to keep people on their toes and to reinforce the belief of having an eldritch horror status?” Muska asked innocently, a small thoughtful smile on her face.

Nedzu’s smile got wider.

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Tags:

@baguettehead

[atxlxs]

Beyond The Veil: Chapter 19

In response to the USJ incident, the school had a three day weekend that had Monday off as well as the previous Friday for rest reasons. The time was spent upping security and Eras had been busy investigating and bringing in the necessary resources to ‘veil’ proof the school grounds. Muska had been stuck between feeling sympathy and amusement towards her friends' incredibly done expression as she came back from meetings.

On the Tuesday that they all came back to school, Eras had driven her to the gate and said “Good luck, fuck em up, and let me go wallow in my despair as I have another meeting to attend with the rat.” Muska had given her a suitably unimpressed expression and said “as if you would pass up the opportunity to see your new friend,” stressing the word friend since Muska was almost a 100% convinced that Eras was developing a crush on the man.

She was all but thrown off of the motorcycle afterwards but it was worth it.

Walking into the classroom, only to be bombarded by over-emotional classmates that were worried for her safety was bittersweet since, while she appreciated the sentiment, they were too close to her. Thankfully Midoriya, the godsend he was, sensed this like the overly analytical mastermind he was. Softly, and oh so very polite, Midoriya chastised his classmates for impeding on her personal space and managed to make every single person that had been doing so feel guilty.

“Thanks Mido,” she said, quiet enough for just him to hear.

“Please, call me Izuku! I believe were close enough due to the literal death threat we faced together.”

As soon as that reply was out of Mid- Izuku’s mouth, he had clamped it shut and turned wide and panicked eyes towards hers. If it weren’t for the blatant panic that Izuku was facing after that reply, she would have snorted.

“Trauma bonding, gets to the best of us,” she drawled, satisfied by the shaky and relieved smile she got in return, “go ahead and call me Muska then.”

Sending a quick ‘give me a minute’ glance to the rest of the class, Muska walked over and deposited her bag at her desk before slumping into the chair.

“Alright, questions?”

Immediately there was an uproar and Muska just stared at the rest of her classmates, uncomfortable by the loud noise but also too exhausted to do anything about it. Thankfully, Yoyo calmly got them under control like the goddess she was, and stood out from the rest.

“Sorry about that Viridis-san, the class was just worried about you since you didn’t leave with the rest of us.”

“Ah, yea sorry ‘bout that. I had to give my statement, since I was in the plaza with the main baddies, to Nedzu and the detective so they kept me back. That, and Nedzu was terrified of letting my guardian know what happened.”

Muska studiously ignored how Bakugo, who was ignoring the world up front, shivered at her mention of her guardian. She has elected to never ask Eras what she did that day.

“Why would the Principal be afraid of your legal guardian!?” Iida chopped out, “I find it hard to believe that the principal of such a studious academy such as UA would be afraid to inform a student's guardian of an extreme circumstance such as the one we faced!”

The class winced at the reminder and while Muska was going to respond, Bakugo’s gruff voice interrupted the room.

“Witch Bitch over there’s guardian might as well be classified as an s-class threat to the country. Why wouldn’t the rat be fuckin afraid?!”

Muska snorted, harshly before smirking.

“Ya know, I never asked what she did during her meeting with you and your parents after the battle trials.” She raised an expectant eyebrow and had to choke back her laughter as Bakugo’s face paled.

“You don’t need to fuckin know.” He grit out, turning away from the room and staring out the window to ignore everyone.

In the now quiet of the room, Izuku’s small and quiet voice could be heard clear as day.

“Kacchan’s afraid of someone?”

Poor guy, he sounded terrified.

.

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.

.

---Eras Pov---

Eras parked her motorcycle in the staff parking lot and walked over to the gate while slipping off her helmet. Nedzu was waiting by the entrance, waving a paw in her direction with his feral grin in place.

“Welcome, Eras-san! Classes will start in another 10 minutes and homeroom will end after another 15 so Aizawa-kun will join us shortly afterwards! We’ll be staying in the faculty room during that time so go ahead and relax when we get there!”

Eras nodded and followed the chimera as she slung her backpack over her shoulder. She had given up on looking presentable since she would much rather be at home, so instead of her business outfits she was dressed as normal. Sweatpants and hoodies.

It took a nice 5 minute walk to reach the staff room, mostly due to Nedzu’s short stature though Eras had a feeling that the rat could be faster if he wanted to be, and Eras had collapsed on the nearest couch and took out her laptop. Currently, Present Mic, Midnight, Thirteen, Snipe, and All Might were all in the faculty room. The latter of which was in his small form and shivering with a healthy dose of learned fear when she had shown up.

Why was she at UA for a meeting with the rat? Well, not only did she need to keep them updated on the investigation, she also had to explain some veil terms and in general act as a deterrent.

Sighing, Eras opened up her bag and grabbed 1 of the thermoses filled with coffee and cracked open the first email. Today will be a long day.

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---Muska Pov---

After the whole Muska-has-a-terrifying-guardian moment, Yoyo asked if she was ok and while not really mentally physically she was fine enough so she responded as such. Izuku sent her a knowing look like the cinnamon roll bastard he was but Yoyo had taken it at face value.

They spent the rest of the morning chatting quietly together with Uraraka while the rest of the class settled back into their normal routines. It had been around 10 minutes when Tsu had spoken up loud enough for everyone to hear.

“I wonder who will be substituting today, Kero. With the injuries Aizawa-sensei had I don't think he’ll be coming in soon.”

Ah poor naïve Tsu. Aizawa was just as much a worrying existence in need of therapy as Eras. She distinctly remembered tagging along with her to the hospital to see Aizawa and ended up in the backseat of the jeep while Eras drove Aizawa-sensei home. He had discharged himself against his friends wishes and they weren’t going to help him home as a deterrent from doing so. Much to their chagrin, Eras was perfectly up to the task since the hospital made her uncomfortable as well. Muska could understand, though she really could have used a quiet ride home. Not the basically-flirting-banter she had to listen to instead.

Not that she would say anything, it wasn’t often Eras opened up to people besides Muska. No way in hell would she interrupt that.

Sure enough, the door slammed open in the same dramatic fashion Aizawa seemed to favor and said man stood in the doorway. His elbow was still wrapped but no longer in a sling and his left was still in a cast but it was closer to the usual type and not the literal marshmallow man arm it had been before. Under his right eye sat a crescent shaped scar but otherwise the man looked fine. He seemed to expect the outburst that came afterwards because he just sighed, an inaudible thing, before sending a red glare their way.

“Settle down,” he stated and the room hushed instantly. Except for the raised hand of Tsu.

This time the man did sigh with volume before giving a lazy nod in the girl's direction.

“Are you ok Sensei? We were worried about you, Kero.” Tsu croaked, the rest of the class nodded with agreement.

“I’m fine, nothing but minor annoyances at this point. Recovery Girl will heal me up before the end of the week. No point in staying home when I’m perfectly able to work.”

Aizawa immediately cut off any other questions, and probably wanted to refrain from hearing Kirishima saying ‘so manly’ again, by continuing.

“That being said the fight isn’t over yet,” he ducked his head into his capture weapon at the exclamations that rose out of the panicked class, “The sports festival is approaching.”

Muska honestly thinks Aizawa-sensei is a sadist. Sighing at the chaos that erupted in the room, again, Muska tuned out the rest of homeroom. She had already heard this info from Eras after she came back from a meeting with Nedzu that Saturday.

As Aizawa-sensei left, Yamada-sensei taking his place, Muska was struck with the knowledge that apparently their teacher travels by the fucking vents. WHY were the vents big enough for a 6ft tall, 183cm, man to travel through??????

.

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---Shouta Pov---

The vents of UA were a favorite shortcut for Nedzu and Shouta by extension. When the rat had redesigned UA’s building, he had made sure to implement several different routes and hidden halls/rooms. Shouta was allowed access the day Nedzu had taken him in as a personal student. Currently, the faculty have suspicions but nothing confirmed when it comes to how the two of them travel at the speeds they do.

This apparently, doesn’t apply to Muska or Eras anymore.

He could feel eyes on him when he had left and the only student capable of that would be Muska, especially with the witch thing she has going on. A quick check through the vents opening confirmed it. When he had gotten to the opening over the faculty room couch, which Eras was currently sitting, her glowing green eyes had snapped up to meet his through the vents cracks. When she seemed to recognize him, the glowing green was replaced by the usual black followed by a raised eyebrow and a small smirk.

Ignoring whatever crossed his mind at the sight, he waved a hand with a vague motion towards the rest of the room. In response, Eras gave a quick look around and returned her eyes with a thumbs up while subtly moving away from the vents opening above the couch. Taking the invitation for what it is, Shouta promptly opened the vent and dropped out, landing perfectly on the couch and instantly slouching. He was about to say something when a thermos appeared in his line of vision.

“I would seriously maim for you.” He deadpanned and took the coffee carefully before taking a sip. How the fuck does she make coffee taste like that? Heaven in a cup.

Several teachers, All Might especially, jumped at his sudden appearance. They snapped to look at him like one would look at a ghost.

“Appreciated but unneeded. If I called for help over something upsetting I have a feeling it would be for a body bag instead of extra muscle,” Eras responded, not skipping a beat while she typed something into an email on her laptop.

“Noted. What's on the agenda?”

“Usual bullshit. Currently sending a passive aggressive email to someone from my clan so they get the memo and get their asses in gear before I personally make a visit. I haven’t been over to the main house in 20 years but I might break that streak. They’ve become complacent.”

“Ugh.” He grimaced but sighed contentedly when he took another sip of his coffee.

“Exactly my thoughts,” she sent him a small smile, fangs peaking out just a bit, “but other then that, I’ll talk with you and Nedzu to solidify a plan for the league and the sports festival which seems to be untargeted. Probably due to the pro hero appearances in the stands.”

He nodded and leaned back on the couch, closing his eyes. He listened to the white noise of fingers typing away at the keys of Eras’s computer. The occasional break to sip coffee before the typing resumed. Almost without his permission, he started to fall asleep. The coffee he was holding, that was half empty already, was gently pried from his fingers.

“Go ahead and sleep. I’ll wake you for the meeting later.”

Well, he supposed, it would be dumb not to take up the offer.

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Tags:

@baguettehead

[atxlxs]

Beyond The Veil: Chapter 18

Murphy's Law.

Currently, that was the only explanation for the sheer amount of bullshit that is currently sinking its teeth into Muska’s daily life. Eras has had enough. If she gets one more phone call about a serious event that either could have, or has, injured her friend she will go completely ape shit.

No one wants to see her go ape shit.

It doesn’t help matters that one of her newest friend(?) has found themselves in the hospital while keeping their class safe from quite possibly the worst clusterfuck the ‘veil’ has ever seen. And yes, she meant the veil part because apparently they were involved.

Eras watched as the bus from the USJ pulled up to the side entrance of the school. She tapped her foot impatiently with arms crossed and a scowl plastered on her face. The bus was taking, decidedly, way too fucking long.

When the teachers unloaded along with Muska, who as stated had minimal injuries, Eras let out a sigh of relief and let her shoulders sag. Walking over to her friend, Eras clasped her hands together to make sure she didn’t just jump and pull her friend into a hug. She had learned by now that no matter how physically affectionate she wanted to be, Muska didn’t always like the feeling of skin on skin contact.

Muska gave her a small smile and a small wave, then gave a thumbs down. Ah, not a touch day then. Nodding, Eras removed her hands from their death grip on each other and shoved them into her hoodie pockets. She had been called during her usual work time so she had run out of the house in an oversized hoodie and sweatpants. Her usual combo. Hair swept back into a half up style, kept in place by a hairclip.

Eras stalked over to stand beside Muska, and to get a closer look to make sure she really wasn’t injured, which alerted Nedzu to her presence. If the chimera was shocked by not seeing her first, he didn’t show it. Instead, the mammal set his features into grim determination and headed over to her.

“Ah, Eras-san. I sincerely apologize. This was not meant to happen.”

Well that's good. She would sincerely hope so given the moral and ethical challenges this would be as a planned event. If you couldn’t tell that was sarcasm. Before the rat could do anything embarrassing like bowing to her, Eras sighed and spoke up.

“Nedzu, your intentions are clean. You had no control over this. Especially considering that the ‘veil’ was involved, but that's besides the point. “ Sighing, Eras turned a little more so her words addressed the majority of the teachers present. This was a nightmare. “As of this moment, based on the unknown factors and through unanimous vote by the representative parties, I was put in charge of this ‘case’.”

Eras waited for the information to sink in, observing the various reactions to her statement. The teachers all shared the same levels of curiosity and grim seriousness.

“I’ll be bringing in the respective members to investigate this case and keep it hushed from the rest. Nedzu, we’ll be working with you to keep the school relatively safe and inform you of our findings. As of this moment, you are all under Ouroboros protection,” Eras heard the sharp intake of air from Muska and had to hold back a sigh, “I really, really, wish I didn’t have to do this but the circumstances require it. For now, get rest. I’ll speak with Nedzu and the rest of you tomorrow.”

Dismissing them with a wave and a sharp look that implied ‘speak of this and die’, Eras walked over to Nedzu.

“What hospital is Aizawa in?”

…

Why is the rat grinning? Better yet, why do all the teachers look vaguely constipated???

Did Muska just snort at her?

.

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The statement’s didn’t take too long. Detective Tsukauchi had been previously aware of the ‘veil’, if anything having a lie detection quirk was as much as a curse as a blessing, and had taken Muska’s statement. Eras had pulled the necessary strings to make sure only Tsukauchi would deal with the impending investigation. Much to the exhausted man's reluctant acceptance.

When she had finished, Muska and Eras had loaded into Yamada’s (As he wished to be called) car, along with Kayama. Thankfully, or not, the silence was more nerve induced than awkward as they headed for Musutafu hospital.

When they got there, Yamada and Kayama flashed their hero licenses and got them a fast track process through the security clearance into the hero ward where Aizawa had been treated and was now resting in his room. They approached the door, Yamada and Kayama at the head of the group, and opened it with frantic energy.

Sucking in a deep and unnecessary breath, Eras took in the sight in front of her.

Aizawa was fast asleep in the large and uncomfortable looking hospital bed. An arm wrapped up in a cast laid limp by his side, the other had a wrap around the elbow and was set in a specific position. He had a patch on his right cheek just below his eye. The dark and ever present eyebags seemed even darker against the pastel blue’s of the bed and white of the room. He looked worse for wear but every intake of breath was a soothing balm on her soul.

God, she got attached quickly didn’t she? Eras could hear Muska’s mocking “It’s the trauma” in the back of her mind.

When she had gotten closer, Yamada had for some reason pushed her in further despite her being closer to an acquaintance, Aizawa had stirred. Eyes snapped open and the heart monitor had sped up, panic settling over his features. In a moment of her own uncharacteristic panic, Eras had launched forward and into his view, a hand laid carefully on the man’s shoulder.

The effect was instant. The obnoxious beeping of a heart monitor calmed to a sedate pace, frantic eyes blinked and his pinched expression soothed into a relaxed exhaustion.

“That's it,” Eras’s voice cut through the now quiet room, so soft it could barely be heard, “Your safe and your students are safe.”

“Good.” The man croaked.

Eras snorted, softly, before grabbing the nearby water cup a nurse must have placed in the room.

“I should thank you myself.” She said, smirking as the man grumbled into the cup she held up so he could take a sip.

“Not that bullshit,” he groaned, “I’d rather not deal with the emotions. Thanks.”

“I’ll make you coffee as thanks then?”

“I accept your gratitude.” Aizawa sounded almost desperate.

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---Shouta Pov---

“Good,” Eras echoed, because she was a little shit. Restraining himself from grumbling, again, Shouta just faux glared at her.

“Why or how, I guess, did you get here?” He asked, the cup she had been holding now discarded and empty on the bedside table.

“Well, I tagged along with two other teachers, I’m guessing friends of yours, to head over here.” He narrowed his eyes immediately.

There were only two teachers that would claim that title. Sure, the rest would claim colleague or sempai from highschool, shut the fuck up snipe, but he had two idiots who placed themselves directly under the friendship category. A place Shouta wouldn’t admit he had unless under torture.

Seeming to sense his distressed thoughts about his gossip prone friends being here, Eras clicked a button to raise the bed. Understanding that saying something like that warrants confirmation, considering he definitely wasn’t just enjoying the easy banter that would cause teasing for weeks from his bastard friend's. Nope. Not him.

Once he was settled into a sitting position, Shouta was met with the sight of his two best friends grinning maliciously with mirth. Fuck. They saw all of that, didn't they? Thankfully, Viridis decided her phone was more interesting than the situation- Nevermind, She was definitely recording. Double fuck.

Shouta glared at the two idiots in hope of instilling (fond amusement) fear into them about everything that just happened. Verging on desperate to prevent the teasing remarks that were on the tip of their tongues. His hopes were shattered when their grins just got wider in response.

“Shochan you didn’t mention you made a new friend!” Nemuri cooed.

He felt his eyebrow twitch in annoyance, the shits just grinned even more.

“That entire sentence is exactly why,” he gritted out between clenched teeth. Can’t he get a break from their combined idiocy considering he was in a hospital bed?

“Awe, shochan wanted to keep it a secret from us? Scandalous!”

That was Hizashi.

That's it. He was definitely putting glitter in the cockatoo’s hair gel.

Shouta was broken from his revenge planning when the two idiots came closer and dropped their mischievous gazes, worry poking through green and blue eyes respectively. He sighed, a weary thing, and nodded. The two threw arms around his shoulders and held him close. Whispers of thank yous and glad your oks were passed between the three of them for what seemed like hours. When they finally let go, Shouta had to shove the two off of him, they collapsed in the offered hospital room chairs. Eras, who had apparently left at some point, came back in then. He raised an eyebrow in her direction, glad that she took it for what it was and answered the silent question.

“I took the time to drop Muska off at our house. She just wanted to make sure you were healing alright from the quick job she did earlier this morning during the fight.”

Nodding, he gestured lazily to the chair on his right. The only side empty as Nem and Zashi had taken the left. Accepting the offer, Eras all but collapsed into the seat next to him. He almost winced in empathy at the bone deep tiredness he saw in the features of her face.

“Speaking of, I owe you an explanation of what ‘veil’ ground rules are, don't I?” Eras gave him a pinched look that seemed to combine exasperation and gloominess into one.

“That can wait for when I’m not in a hospital bed,” He drawled.

The chuckle he received soothed some ruffled part of him he didn’t even know was anxious. Eras leaned over to her bag and grabbed out a thermos. Handing it over with a gesture to open it, Shouta gave her a skeptical eyebrow but complied. When he cracked open the lid the slightest bit and got a whiff of coffee, he couldn’t help the sigh of contentment as he immediately took a sip. It was heaven.

“Really Shouta!? Coffee won’t help the recovery process! You're already addicted to the stuff!”

He didn’t respond but felt a feeling of smugness creep up his spine when Eras turned towards them and deadpanned,

“Coffee is the sweet nectar of the gods. Take your slanderous opinions elsewhere.”

He took one look at his friends' shocked expressions and decided, to hell with it, and cackled.

The two paled considerably, reasonable since the last time he cackled Nedzu had helped in taking down his old middle school back in 2nd year. It was cathartic. Eras just grinned herself, a manic gleam to it that seemed to reflect off her canines.

Pushing down a warm bubbly feeling in his gut that Eras didn’t mind showing off her inhuman qualities around him, Shouta calmed down and went back to the easy banter. His students were fine and he got off light, injury wise, thanks to the witch. Sure, he hated hospitals with a passion but he was alive. Maybe he could sneak out tomorrow and discharge himself. For now though? He’s going to enjoy this damn good coffee and the presence of his friends.

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[atxlxs]

Beyond The Veil: Chapter 17

Muska stared at the back of her homeroom teacher, absolutely flabbergasted, and maybe a little in awe.

The man had literally been laying in a crater of cement with several broken bones mere minutes ago and yet at the sound of a threat towards his students, he had just launched himself up. Honestly, the tone of his voice was enough to send shivers down her spine. He sounded scarier than Eras and Muska has seen that vampire break a spine in two.

Muska couldn’t spare too much attention to it, though, since she was currently preventing the bird bitch from waking up to Handjob’s orders. It took a lot out of her to prevent the Bird’s brains, yes plural, from forming a coherent thought to the order. She had to hang on for three minutes. Three minutes and they would get here.

She had sensed their presence when Midoriya had flung them across the literal sky in the plaza’s direction before splashing into the water. A few energy fueled punches and whirlpool later, Muska was granted the sight of her teacher on the ground covered in blood and a few suspicious white pieces sticking out in places they shouldn’t.

Currently, Shigaraki was fuming. Like, trembling from the force of his own anger kind of furious. It was unpleasant but Muska digressed. Aizawa-sensei could deal with him for now.

Well that was the plan until Izuku-fucking-Midoriya decided to launch himself at Shigaraki the same time Handjob decided to go after Aizawa.

She was going to take the biggest nap of her life when she got home. Eras can deal with the aftermath of this bullshit.

If it weren’t for Aizawa, Midoriya’s arm would've disintegrated. The punch that caught the man's face, unpowered since Muska was not going to regulate that bad decision, knocked him down, and on the way Handjob had grabbed his arm.

Aizawa immediately threw out his capture weapon and yanked Midoriya away before closing his eyes, canceling his quirk. When he reopened them and turned to face Midoriya, Muska got to see the face of nightmares. Hardened eyes that looked incandescently furious glared at Midoriya, piercing the teen with a stare so harsh Muska could feel the after effects. The room seemed to drop in temperature. The blood that leaked from the wound underneath his right eye only enhanced the image.

Aizawa returned his gaze to Handjob, the glare only after lasting long enough to prove a point, and he clenched his jaw.

“Touch my students and die.”

Honestly, Muska would be so down to see it happen. As it stands, Handjob is aware of the ‘veil’. Which means this fight fits ‘veil’ ground rules. Oh shit. This fight's on veil terms.

“Aizawa-sensei,” Muska started, Shigaraki turned his crazed red eyes to her as Aizawa turned his head ever so slightly in her direction, still not removing his gaze from the villain, “Since Shigaraki is aware of the ‘veil’, you would be permitted to fight on ‘veil’ ground rules. I would stand as witness to it.”

“And that means?” came the curious voice of Aizawa who was now watching Shigaraki pale rapidly, though, he still never losing the crazed anger.

“Death match terms. Seeing as the villain in front of us either dabbled, or allowed human experimentation,” Muska gave a glance to the bird-thing “then he is to be branded. Meaning you are within authority to remove him.”

“I see.” He nodded as if to punctuate his words. “I assume I will be informed later about what rules the ‘veil’ establishes for future reference but for now I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“Sure, also,” Muska let her shoulders loose a bit of tension as the sound of a crash resonated through the USJ, “It seems reinforcements have arrived.”

“I AM HERE!” . . . .

The remaining villains were rounded up in a flash, All Might’s involvement cutting down on the time necessary to clean everything up.

The Nomu, which Muska only relinquished control of when Shigaraki was forced to retreat with Kurogiri, was constrained in a heavy duty police van. Supposedly the walls of the vehicle were made of quirk supresscent materials.

Aizawa was loaded onto an ambulance and quickly transported, Muska may have healed the breaks and fractures (as many as possible during that time) but the man had lost a lot of blood. Her classmates were fine, a few scratches and some deep enough for stitches but nothing fatal. It was a relief. All Might had disappeared at some point and the skeleton man had replaced his presence. The only ones who knew of his real identity seemed to be the teachers and Midoriya, along with Muska.

It had been over 30 minutes after the absolute mess of the USJ when Muska had a dawning realization.

“Ah Fuck.”

The teachers around her all turned to look at her with curiosity, Nedzu looked on with apprehension.

“Yes, I would appreciate it if you could call her first… If only to explain that you’re alright. I don’t believe she would believe me to be honest,” the rat said.

Fear looked out of place on the chimera, but Muska could understand. The teachers close enough to hear the rat's statement weren't faring much better. What the hell did Eras do during her meeting?

“Yea, that would be for the best. Considering the circumstances….”

Groaning, Muska grabbed her phone from her pocket and selected Eras’s contact. The heart possum meme set as the contact photo mocked her as the phone began to ring.

“Hello?” filtered through the phone after 2 rings. Curse Eras’s quick response time when it came to her.

“Hey, so apparently villains teamed up with the veil to produce human experimentation in order to kill All Might. So, I’ve got a few scratches but otherwise I’m fine.”

The line was silent besides what sounded suspiciously like breathing exercises. Eras doesn’t even need to breathe dammit, this shits terrifying.

Well, doesn't need to breathe as much as humans. Her heart just beats too slowly to need it.

“Your okay right?”

“Yea, I’m fine… My homeroom teacher had the worst of it. He was sent to the hospital for fractures, broken bones, and blood loss but I healed most of the other stuff. I can’t heal concussions though.”

“Aizawa?”

Oh? Since when was Eras on a no honorific base with Teach?

“Yes? He’ll be fine. Ah, were heading back towards the school to give statements and stuff like that.”

“I’ll meet you there.”

*click*

Muska sighed and turned back towards Nedzu. The chimera was still watching her but it was with an incredibly indecipherable expression.

“She’ll be meeting us at the school. I made sure to warn her about what happened. She’ll still be angry but she’s more worried for now. Uh, she may ask about Aizawa-sensei though.”

“Oh? Why is that?” Damn that rat, always curious.

“To be completely honest with you? She’ll say she just enjoys his company and is a good friend. I would say that he’s exactly her type.”

The USJ got silent for a moment, a quick moment in which Muska realized the only people left inside were the teachers, before it erupted in exclamations. Nedzu was cackling, Yamada-sensei was screeching, Kayama-sensei was straight up squealing. The rest of the teachers were choking. Muska could’ve sworn she heard Vlad say something along the lines of “That hobo of a hero?” but she ignored it. They needed to leave before Eras got tired of waiting.

“Alright children! Hop to the bus!”

“Did she just call us children?”

“Vlad, she’s older than you. She may be a teen for her otherworldly life but we're definitely younger than her.”

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[atxlxs]

Beyond The Veil: Chapter 16

Bakugo Katsuki has had enough.

These last few days have been a bunch of clusterfucks shoved into what was supposed to be a, frankly, amazing start to his hero career.

Instead, he had a few emotional crisis’s, learned that his past teachers had been incompetent (He wasn’t all to surprized about that one), De-Izuku had a quirk now (Hound Dog had made it a point that he had to refer to him by his name and not an insult, if anything it would help with the guilt), and now he was forced to attend therapy and anger management. It was safe to say not only was he confused, frustrated, and resentful (Whether about his own actions or De-Izuku’s, he still wasn’t too sure); He was also angry.

What was he angry at? He wouldn’t be able to tell you.

So faced with several live target practice dummies in the form of villains in which he was morally obliged and ethically allowed to set in their place, if anything it was justified by self defense, Katsuki was going to have fucking fun.

The first explosion to a face had been cathartic.

(Maybe he should take up that anger management shrink’s suggestion to go to one of those destruction rooms.)

---Izuku Pov---

Izuku sat in a crouched position, Muska was currently on his back, piggyback style, as Tsu-san wrapped her tongue around them as both a seat belt and a rope to pull them along when she jumps.

“Alright, to reiterate the plan; Muska will take control of my regulation while I put in the legwork. Tsu-san when we jump, follow along with it to prevent too much resistance from slowing us down, and when your jump runs out we can tug you along.”

The two nodded their agreement and Izuku relaxed as much as he could without dropping Muska, relinquishing control so that Muska could act as his regulator. What happened next was the weirdest, yet most fascinating thing Izuku had ever experienced besides the thrum of the quirk he now had curled in his gut.

One for All was an enigma. The quirk itself is older than the ideas of heroes, created in a time before even the quirk wars. It was fiery hot, yet gentle in its warmth. It curled around his bones with a crackle of energy and intensity every time he used it, though, said crackles always seemed to tear his bones into pieces under the sheer force of their power. It always seemed like the quirk was bursting at it’s seems, desperate to get out of his body and to surge forward towards it’s target, regardless of the mess it made of his body in the process. Izuku had always just believed that it was because his quirkless body was unready to handle the quirk. (That he was truly useless and shouldn’t have been chosen-)

When he felt the energy that quaked in his bones flow without prompt, filling in the extra space in his body like a gentle river, Izuku was astonished by the difference.

There was definitely less energy than usual, not the full a hundred percent, but there was a large chunk. Just enough to feel his bones creak but not ache. It laced like latticework over his bones and seeped into his muscles, though not just in his legs. It was everywhere. He was so far gone in his wonderment that he didn’t notice the green lightning sparkling around him with crackles and pops. Didn’t see the red veins crawl through his skin until it glowed.

(Muska and Tsu did, their jaws slack in awe, though they quickly shook themselves out of it, they couldn’t be too distracted.)

“Hop to it, bunny boy.” Was all Muska was able to say before they launched into the air in a burst of lightning snaps and glowing light.

It was freeing.

---Shouta Pov---

Shouta was done. So very fucking done.

Currently, he was having a stare down with Shigaraki Tomura, as Kurogiri had helpfully said loud enough. Well, in between the various thugs he was dispensing like a gum-ball machine that had a broken latch. This was until his attention, not all of it he wasn’t new to the heroic’s scene, was caught on a flying ball of lightning that had two figures attached.

Shouta knew it, he was a fucking problem child.

He easily ignored the relief he felt in his gut at the sight of the three students alive and on their way out of a nasty situation. Though he was curious about the fact that Midoriya wasn’t covered in broken bones from the quirk use.

He regretted his lapse of attention not even a minute later when the thugs he had been previously fighting were replaced by the zombie-bat-monster thing.(There was no way something with eye’s like those were alive. Plus, he sincerely doubts that seeing something’s brain equates to life.)

Before he was even able to react, a large hand slammed his body into the ground, reminiscent of a toddler throwing their doll in a temper tantrum. The feeling of bones breaking and fracturing as he met cement was pure agony. Pain curled around his body like pins and needles that stabbed and burned with every slight movement.

Pushing past the pain, Shouta attempted to get up, to stand, he couldn't stop there. His chil-Students weren’t safe. They weren’t ready for this. They needed someone to help. To protect them. To keep them alive. (The shadows at the edges of his vision darkened. Memories of clouds that floated close to the ground, blue hair flowing in the breeze, sat at the forefront of his mind as he desperately tried to prevent it from happening. To prevent his students from feeling the same agony he had-)

His efforts were fruitless as the too large hand slammed him into the ground once again, leaving the hand there as either a warning to not get up or as a sick power play, he didn’t know which was worse.

“You’re cool, Eraserhead. To protect your student’s with such fury. You must be an important NPC huh? Like a tutorial guide.”

Shigaraki’s voice was scratchy and gleeful. It grated on his nerves in every wrong way it could. It sent shivers up his spine that he pushed down until they sat still.

“Kurogiri, All Might is supposed to be here! Where is he? Where!? How can we kill him without him being here!?”

All right, Shouta was going to strangle the blond buffoon when he got out of here. When not if. He wasn’t going to die here, and neither were his students. If he heard correctly, and he did, then Iida would be heading back with reinforcements soon.

“Sorry Tomura, however the schedule had said that he was supposed to be here.”

Great, they had access to the schedules. Well, seeing as he had already realized that this brat was the reason for their disintegrated gate, he could see why they would have that information.

Shigaraki was now scratching his neck hard enough to make Shouta wince at the sound. The man-child kept shouting from there, claiming that he All Might was useless and disgusting and all the other insults a playground would consider harsh. If it weren’t for the bird thing currently holding him down in a crater of cement that had caused his broken bones, or the missing skin of his elbow, then Shouta would’ve snorted. Bakugo was a hundred times better at the insult business, and he had heard the teen call Sero soy sauce face.

“Maybe…” Shouta did not like that inquisitive tone, “If we killed some students, would that make him arrive faster?”

Shouta could feel his heart stutter badly in his chest as a cold feeling settled over his broken bones. He started to thrash on the ground under the punishing grip the bird-thing had on his body, helplessly trying to get up and move dammit. The bird-thing didn’t even budge, but Shigaraki noticed. Oh he noticed alright. That damn gleeful and psychotic grin was bone chilling and too happy about his pain to be anything good. As if anything about this situation was good.

“Nomu, K-”

“YO HANDY-MAN! Yea you, with all the hands! What kind of handjob wanna be wanker are you, huh? YOU LOOK LIKE THE PRESCHOOL VERSION OF A WANNABE VILLAIN BITCH”

Shouta knew that voice. He realized this with the same agitated exasperation of a teacher who has had several student’s make horrible decisions right in front of him. The bird, who had started to move when Shigaraki called him, had given Shouta enough room to raise his head and turn it in the voices direction.

Muska was standing, drenched, in front of Midoriya and Asui at the side of the plaza closest to the lake zone. A finger was pointing directly at Shigaraki, paired with the angriest face he has ever seen on a person before.

“You-” Shigaraki was agitated once again, his hands scratching insistently at his neck, “You’re just a NPC! A side character!”

“Bitch I’m the whole damn DLC.”

Shigaraki was speechless for the first time Shouta had seen them. Frozen in his spot. Muska was inching towards him, which he desperately tried to convey with his eyes (Speaking would break Shigaraki from his shock and thus fast track a nomu order) is a bad idea considering the fucking bird thing that's currently still on top of him.

Instead of listening to the silent order, Muska stood right next to him, back turned so that he was behind her along with the goddamned bird, as she flipped Shigaraki off. Honestly the fucking nerves of this witch.

Wait a minute.

Settling down, Shouta idly noticed that Muska had stepped backwards a bit until her shoe was touching Shouta’s wrist and he watched in quiet awe as tiny red beams of light were absorbed through his skin. He could feel the bones that were broken slowly but surely creak and snap back into place properly, the Birdbrains hand having left enough room so that the pressure didn’t cause the bones to heal the wrong way.

“You…” Snapping out of his wonderment easily at the cold venom in Shigaraki’s voice, he turned his attention back to the coordinator of this hell. “You’re not a part of this side are you.”

Shouta cursed himself silently. Of course a guy planning to kill All Bitch knows about the veil.

“Your right Handjob,” Muska had responded, voice cold and angry, “I’m worse than that.”

A hand rested behind Muska subtly and Shouta struggled a bit to look up at it but he managed. 3 fingers. 3 minutes. Why does she need 3 minutes?

“What are one of your kind doing in a place like this?” Shigaraki practically spat the words out.

“Why does anyone do anything?” Muska countered, sounding way to smug for someone showing down a villain.

“NOMU, KILL HER!”

Shouta jerked, yanking his head up along with his upper body as he casted a quirked glare at Shigaraki, as if desperately trying to prevent the order from being issued despite it’s verbal command not being a quirk. He glared at the villain, not really registering that he had just yanked his body from under the Nomu's grip.

“You will do no such thing you brat.”

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[atxlxs]

Beyond The Veil: Chapter 15

Panic.

The only thing Muska could process as she was flung into the air by a conveniently placed portal to god knows where, was panic.

Muska had not retracted her hand from it’s clasp on Midoriya’s arm, thus, the two of them stuck together as the mist man opened a portal (Why did it feel familiar yet not?) and they were encased in darkness. Floating in an abyss. That’s when, as if someone flicked a light switch, the world gained color and flooded with light. Opening their eyes to discover that the world was moving rapidly past them.

They were falling.

Well, Muska was starting to understand Eras’s wariness of schools now. It didn’t help that the two of them were falling towards the water. Her phone’s not waterproof thank you very much.

Quickly, Muska took in her surroundings, first she saw water. Then she saw the boat which was infinitely closer than the shore. Vaguely, she was aware of the numerous other people in the water which also tossed that off the list. Also, Midoriya doesn’t have control over his quirk. That’s an important thing to note.

“Midoriya,” pine-green and terrified eyes snapped to her own, “Hold the fuck on.”

After hands returned the vice grip that she had on Midoriya, Muska dragged all the energy in the area and pushed. Their bodies were sent flying in the direction of the boat, like a plastic bag during a hurricane instead of drifting in the wind.

Now was not the time for a K*ty P*rry song.

Muska definitely wasn’t strong enough to continuously slow their descent, so she had to make due with bare minimum. Turning towards Midoriya, she yanked him in front of her and climbed onto his back.

“I CAN ONLY SLOW US DOWN SO YOU’LL BE IN CHARGE OF STICKING THE LANDING”

Not even waiting for a yes or no, though she got a quick and firm nod, Muska sent up a wall of energy over the boat and braced for the loud *SMACK* of them hitting it head on. Stopping their horizontal momentum.

Next, they were falling out of the sky. Again.

A small headache was building in the back of her head but she pushed on. A headache was better than becoming a concrete pancake. Planning on using the energy around them as friction to slow their descent down, Muska took a deep breath to prepare for the absolute fucking migraine she was about to have.

Or at least, that was the plan until a tongue (What the fuck?) wrapped around them and yanked them towards the boat at a way slower speed than the one they were previously traveling at.

Oh, Tsu.

As Muska and Midoriya were safely deposited on the deck of the boat, thank the forest, Muska had made a decision.

Tsu deserves the fucking world.

—-Midoriya—

The world gets some kind of sick perverted pleasure from ruining his life.

This conclusion was made at the exact moment he had felt his body make contact with solid ground. Well, as solid as they could get for now. As Midoriya groaned and sat up off the wood deck of the boat, he was never more grateful to the feeling of his feet on a steady surface than at this moment, he cast a quick glance at Muska. She wasn’t doing much better but the usually blank facial features were pulled into an expression of awe as she gazed at Tsu-san. He understood the sentiment intimately.

“Thank you Tsu-san,” he muttered, relieved and anxious all at once. The worst combination to have, really.

“Tsu I would give you the fucking world and you deserve to know that,” came the deadpan tone that hid none of the nerves Muska was feeling at the moment.

“Thank You, kero, but I’d rather we got out of this place instead,” was Tsu’s equally flat response.

Right.

They were stuck here.

How fun.

Muska mumbled something under her breath but nodded and Tsu looked out over to the water. Midoriya followed their gaze and wanted to ‘Detroit Smash’ his face into the ground.

There were several villains in the water. All had obvious water based mutations or quirks that were put into effect. They circled the boat like hungry sharks before feeding and Midoriya was very much not going to like being Shark bait so he observed. He needed a plan if they were going to get out of this alive.

There was a good chunk of distance between the boat and the shore. Sitting between them was an unknown amount of villains that were obviously chosen for this zone for a reason. Which also means that there was prior planning involved and leaked information but that was for future Midoriya to wonder about. Tsu had a frog mutation quirk, which means that student information was either not taken or they messed up considering the zone they found themselves in. The former option is more likely so that adds a point in their favor when buying time, which also explains why the villains are hesitating right now. That means their greatest advantage is how their quirks were a secret. If he could just knock out the villains while providing a boost for Tsu-san….

Broken bones it is.

He snapped his head up to meet Muska’s eyes and opened his mouth to speak before Muska sighed, cutting him off.

“Greenie, I didn’t want to do this considering quirks are personal and shit but can you give me permission to manipulate the energy you have a bit? I may have a way to keep your bones from breaking but there is also a very real possibility of it failing and this situation is life or death. We need you in top condition but I’m still gonna respect your decision.”

Honestly, Midoriya is starting to believe that Muska’s quirk allows her to read thoughts. She was way too accurate in reading him.

Wait a minute.

“Borrow my energy? Prevent bone breaking?”

He’s pretty sure that he may have had a bit too much excitement in his voice for the situation but he can’t help it. Muska’s quirk was so cool!

“Your quirk relies on energy Greenie. I manipulate energy. I can also see energy. I have a pretty solid idea as to why your bones break like overcooked bread and as long as I act as a regulator I may be able to keep you at a manageable level while also reinforcing your bones with energy to prevent the breaks.”

Midoriya didn’t notice the small yet feral smile that oozed onto his features. Didn’t notice the shiver Tsu-san had when she saw it. Nor did he pay much mind to the knowing smirk on Muska’s face. The only thing he paid attention to was the golden ticket that was just waved in front of his face.

“Alright, here’s the plan…”

Yea…

Muska’s quirk is a god send.

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[atxlxs]

Beyond The Veil: Chapter 14

Sometimes, Midoriya thinks he must have crossed some particularly vengeful god during his past life.

There is literally no other explanation for this.

Today started out fine, great even, when they had arrived at the USJ. He and Uraraka bonded over their mutual awe in Thirteen for what the Pro Hero has accomplished and Muska was standing a little to the side but behind him, a shield to whatever or whoever came up behind them (not that that was on purpose but he appreciated it all the same). He noticed Aizawa-sensei whisper something to Pro Hero Thirteen and he had wondered about it until he saw the man hold up a discrete 3 fingers. All Might. His time limit.

Oh.

Ignoring a creepy feeling of familiar weariness that fought its way up his spine, today was supposed to be fine, Midoriya returned his attention to the lecture Thirteen was giving about the dangers of using one's quirk on another without the proper training. (Training that people encouraged Kacchen to try, to harm with-) Suddenly, he was grabbed back by Muska’s hand. Turning wide eyes in her direction, in confusion, and he felt a pit drop in his stomach when he took in her expression. Wary, scared, and serious. Something was about to happen, something that wasn’t good.

Sure, it’s only been 4 days since he’s been able to consistently spend time with Muska. Reliably, one wouldn’t fully trust someone after only 4 days but Midoriya isn’t one to do reliably. He doesn’t rely on anything, that makes him vulnerable and his life has taught him that you can’t be vulnerable. Instead, he does what he’s always done. A habit he’s never been able to break since the day he turned 5.

He analyzes.

Muska does several things consistently. 1; she always watches someone's mannerisms when they talk. It seems to be subconscious and after a few minutes of watching she tends to adopt some of that person's mannerisms for herself during the conversation. Midoriya understands the need to do that on an empathetic level. He may not adopt other peoples mannerisms, but he adopts a personality that will prevent the other from getting irritated or harmful towards him. 2; she never speaks first when she’s put in an environment with new people unless she has too. 3; when her guardian showed up at the infirmary, Muska dropped her mask and became entirely comfortable. Comfortable enough to speak first and joke around with even more sarcasm than he’s heard before. 4; when something screams danger on some kind of energy level (Her quirk was so cool!), much like with the battle trials before Kacchan released his gauntlet, she freezes.

Muska was frozen.

Snapping his head around to the plaza where the fountain was starting to splutter, the place where Muska’s gaze was locked, Midoriya called out to Aizawa-sensei.

“Aizawa-sensei! Viridis noticed something strange in the plaza!”

The lights began to flicker and shut off for a moment before coming back on. Aizawa-sensei had already snapped into a defensive stance as he turned towards the plaza himself, Thirteen mirrored his actions and that’s when Midoriya noticed it. A back mist that seemed to fluctuate had appeared in front of the fountain. It spazzed and startled until it started steadily growing larger until it was large enough to span the length of several people. Slowly, oh so slowly like time was solved down to compensate for the growing fear, someone walked out of the mist.

He was covered in hands, Midoriya prays that they aren’t actually from human bodies but he doubt’s it, had pale blue hair and stood in a slouched posture that put Aizawa-sensei’s to shame. Midoriya couldn’t see his mouth due to the hand hiding it, but based on the way it moved the man was saying something. Next was a bird mutation(?) based giant that had it’s brain exposed and-

So many. So many people were flooding the plaza. Aizawa-sensei tensed and Thirteen took a step forward in front of the students, a hand raised to usher them back. Muska’s grip tightened until he was sure it would probably bruise but that didn't matter. Nothing else mattered except for the sternly, steel laced, spoken words of Aizawa- no of Eraserhead echoed around them.

“Stay back! Those are villains, Thirteen protect the students!”

---Aizawa Pov---

Shouta Aizawa hated field trips. Locked in chaperone duty with glorified overpowered toddlers is never a fun experience and usually ended up with at least one injury. The size varies but the USJ trip had ended in broken bones and a concussion before so he was justified in his distaste. Plus, he would much rather spend the time getting a nap or teaching situational awareness. Teens always seemed to lack this particularly life saving skill.

Standing there in front of a villain covered in hands, handy-man as he’s been mentally referring to him, as his elbow ached painfully Shouta made a vow to himself:

No more fucking feild trips.

Nedzu owes him a raise and paid leave. (Not that he would take the vacation, he’s too much of a worry driven workaholic) Really, the day had started somewhat normally as well.

After waking up after his nap from last night's patrol, Shouta had downed his 2 coffees as usual and headed to UA where he promptly collapsed on the faculty room couch for another nap. Waking up at 10 minutes before the bell, Shouta responded to a few texts (From Eras, dropping the -san due to her insistence) and headed to class to wrangle the overgrown toddlers onto a bus and they shipped out for USJ.

Thirteen was always a pleasure to work with, they were nice and knew when he was in the mood to speak or not so that was a plus. He got the brats somewhat under control and Thirteen started their usual lecture as he observed.

That's when everything decided to go to shit.

Because of course the world just never gives him a break.

He hadn’t noticed at first, but when Midoriya called out to him despite the kids obvious anxiety with no stutter or hesitance he snapped immediately to attention. The fountain started sputtering as if on cue and the lights had powered off for a split second before a goddamn warp quirk dragged hundreds of villains into the USJ plaza. How nice of them.

“Has the exercise already started?”

Shouta was adding in observational awareness classes as soon as possible, regular class schedule be damned. (If they even get out of this mess-) With his hero persona in full affect, Shouta ordered,

“Stay back! Those are villains! Thirteen, Protect the students!”

Launching himself down the stairs, Shouta gripped his already flaring capture scarf and braced for impact at the bottom of the stairs. The thrum of a steady beat in his chest acted as the tempo as he got to work.

The closest, 2 villains with obvious mutations, 10 and 2 o’clock.

Two strands of capture weapon went flying, strangling the villains and he pulled, launching them into each other with a painful thud. With a sharp movement, the scarf came whipping back into ready position as the villains laid unconscious at his feet.

Next, 3 villains, only one of which was a mutant, between 11 and 12 o’clock.

The burn behind his eyes as his quirk activated was an afterthought, he was relieved it was an easy patrol last night, and he left two of the villains quirkless. Their surprise acted as an opening as he launched his knee into the solar plexus of the mutant type, sending him careening into the other two. Yanking the two together like bowling pins for the mutant, the three went sprawling onto the ground.

Like clockwork, Shouta slowly started working on the villain's numbers. His breaths intertwined with the beat of his feet against the ground. Each punch, each kick, perfectly timed in a rhythm only he knew the direction of. He hoped that the students managed to get away but he knew better. The enemy had a warper. God fucking damnit. None of his the kids were going to die on his watch. Not if he had anything to say about it.

Continuous fighting, villains upon villains. No matter how many he took down there was another one waiting to just fill the spot. They were low level thugs but there were enough of them to be a danger, he works best in spontaneous small fights after all. Shouta fought his way through them, punching his way into their focus, steadily drawing their attention and bodies further into the plaza. He needed to get them away from the stairs where his students were currently waiting at the top.

“THIRTEEN!”

Fuck.

Shouta had forgotten to keep track of the warper, who was now standing (floating(?)) at the top of the staircase that was missing over half his class. Dodging a fist, he jumped back, closer to the fountain now he picked up the sound of fain mummering. He heard numbers being thrown around, first 27, then 25, 23, 20, 18, and more. He racked his brain for an answer to the why one of the villains was counting but he didn’t fully register his answer until there was an indescribable agony shooting from his elbow. Gritting his teeth so hard they should have cracked to prevent the scream that wanted to be released, Shouta kneed Handy-man in the stomach and backed up a few meters. His arm limp at his side.

He spared a quick glance at it and noticed that his skin was flaking off.

A quick flash of a memory swept through his brain and Shouta cursed.

Disintegration.

And based off of what the gate looked like two days prior? It was powerful.

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[atxlxs]

Beyond The Veil: Chapter 13

Thankfully, for Muska’s sanity, the next day the gate was repaired (because apparently it had been broken) and there were no reporters at the gate. That was probably due to Nedzu hounding them ‘politely’ which is honestly scarier than being called out.

She wasn’t too sure if blackmail was involved but she wouldn’t put it past him.

The day started normally, meeting up with Greenie and Gravity, the nicknames stuck, and heading into class. Bakugo was in his seat that morning, which considering yesterday they hadn’t seen him, was startling but she ignored him since he was treating the world as if it didn’t exist.

They spent the morning talking relatively quietly and when Iida approached to join Muska didn’t scowl or glare so overall, it was a calm morning. Well, except for Greenie’s subdued personality from the first day of school.

So it was a Bakugo thing.

Shoving that to the back of her mind for now, Muska focused on listening to the present conversation. She would have to talk to Eras about what to do while going forwards. Eras had always been strangely aware of the emotions people were feeling and what caused them to feel that way. Picking apart their behavior and posture to read them like a book emotionally so she could respond properly without harming the other person. For someone who hated dealing with her own emotions, she made damn sure to respect and treat others with care. Always telling them that what they were feeling was valid and that their response was normal for them so they shouldn’t have to change themselves just to make others more comfortable. If only she would take her own advice.

She was yanked back out of her musings when Aizawa walked through the door, his face set carefully blank as he reached his podium and commented about how it only took 8 seconds to quiet down that time.

“Today’s heroics class will be special,” a red quirked glare shut off the conversations and cheers that wanted to spring loose, “we will be taking a trip to a separate building on campus. You can choose whether or not you wish to wear your costumes or gym uniforms to go there.”

A very pointed look settled on Muska and traveled to Midoriya. Ah, obviously since their costumes were ruined (Midoriya’s more than her own) they would end up wearing the gym uniforms. She gave a subtle nod and Aizawa returned his gaze to the general class.

“Go head to the locker rooms and meet me at the buses.”

Leaving out the door much like the first day before the assessment tests, Aizawa was gone before her classmates could even ask questions. This time, thankfully, they got the memo relatively quickly and they all filed out to head to the locker rooms seconds after their teacher left.

Muska and Midoriya ended up being the only two who were stuck in the gym uniforms and honestly, yea that was expected. Why wear school sanctioned uniforms if you could be dressed as a robot. Speaking of robots, Iida was blowing a whistle, of all things he could carry around on himself, and was directing the class to line up in some kind of order. Taking his responsibilities as a class representative, which Muska had no clue what those responsibilities were, very seriously.

“Line up in two lines by seat order so we may properly board the bus!”

The class, reluctantly, started to get in those lines and Iida seemed to be quite proud of himself until he saw her. Muska was, admittedly, very confused and was just standing off to the side. Her facial expression betrayed none of her inner emotions and stayed carefully blank as she stared at everyone who in return stared back at her.

“Viridis-san! Why are you just standing there?! We need to get ready for the bus!”

Slowly, so slowly in fact that her neck should have creaked, Muska stared directly at Iida. Her eyebrow slowly raising until her face showcased confusion and she deadpanned,

“I have no clue what my number is Iida, what the fuck is a student number?”

Silence covered the class. The chirping of birds could be heard in the distance and Aizawa, who was just standing off to the side to avoid them, looked like he wanted to just take a nap. Muska could understand that on an emotional level.

Suddenly, because class 1-A can’t stay silent for long, a burst of laughter echoed from the line. Uraraka was clutching her side as she laughed and Midoriya stared at her, confused for a second, before a drawing realization appeared on his face.

“Ah, Viridis-san You sit behind me making you student number 19. I’m student number 18.” Midoriya elaborated.

Nodding, she headed over to stand behind him as Uraraka’s laughter seemed to subside into quiet giggles. When she finally looked up to see the bewilderment on her classmates' faces, she snorted before going to explain.

“After the practical exam, Viridis let it slip that she’s actually from Canada and despite living here for a while, she isn’t used to the way everything works due to habit.”

“I was homeschooled too so not much interaction with classrooms here anyways.” Muska added.

3 apologies from Iida later and 2 snorts from Uraraka that were reprimanded without heat, the class headed onto an open layout bus. Which warranted an extra snort from Uraraka and Muska at Iida’s down trodden expression.

Muska sat down next to Midoriya, he seemed to need a comforting presence nearby and he was kind and not touchy feely so it’s a win-win situation.

---Midoriya Pov---

Midoriya is confused.

It had all started with the practical entrance exam (That he absolutely tanked if it weren’t for the rescue points, god he was such a disappointment-) , Well, to be completely honest it had started in the auditorium where the practical was debriefed. Muska, who is an enigma herself, had taken it upon herself to reprimand Iida for calling him out. Saying his muttering was normal. That it was a natural way to think and therefore a testament to how serious he really was. He… He doesn’t really know how to deal with that so ignoring it seemed like a good option. (He was too used to teachers jeering and calling him creepy, that his muttering was an annoyance-)

Then there was her reaction to his rambling when she had caught him after Uraraka released his gravity. She listened and responded. She didn’t call him creepy, or drop him to deal with his injuries on his own. He didn’t even introduce himself and yet she was already responding to his questions and elaborating on what her quirk actually did! It was such a surreal experience.

The next moment when he was thrown for a loop, again, was while they were in the infirmary after Kacchan got… upset again. First, Muska introduced him to her guardian (who looked ethereal, her skin had a not quite alive appearance to it and her voice was as smooth as silk when she addressed him. Movements were graceful and fluid, yet a bit stilted with worry and anger(?) that he knew was not directed at him.) She had thanked him for saving her ward.

Midoriya didn’t know whether or not to be worried about the supposed body hiding capabilities but he chooses to believe it was a joke.

Then came his less than optimal decision to tell her that he hasn’t always had a quirk. (He was so caught up in her belief, in the casualty of the statement, that he was a hero, that he craved more. To know that wanting what he was working towards wasn’t wrong-) She just… blinked and asked why it mattered. Why being quirkless mattered when it came to being a hero.

He cried again at that.

Now, he was sitting beside her on the bus. The bus heading towards a special heroics class. Her casual decision to sit next to him was mind blowing. Not really talking, but then again Muska rarely talked unless it was quips or sarcastic responses. (He could tell she meant for none of it to be harmful, he knows on an instinctual level after having nothing but disdain and hatred aimed in his direction-) His nerves were still a little shot, school environments have been nothing but bad for him since he was 4, but having her beside him was soothing. There was someone here that he knows doesn’t care. Who doesn’t see him as any less for what he had been. This thought is what untenses his shoulders, why he relaxes when he saw her sit next to him when they first got on the bus.

It had been 5 minutes in when Asu- Tsu-san had asked him a question that had him tensing again.

“I apologize in advance since I’m blunt to a fault, Kero, but I say what's on my mind. Your quirk is similar to All Might's, Kero.”

The words “similar to All Might's” rang like warning bells in his head. Pounding against his skull as he scrambled, reaching in his thoughts for an explanation that wasn’t damning when he felt something strange.

It was as if something, gently, pried his thoughts away from the jumbled mess that they were. Soothing wash of clarity smothered his worries and he gave Tsu- san a small smile.

“In a way, though that’s probably due to strength enhancement quirks being more common than people expect. Just not to the length that All Might’s is.” He responded.

Strange, was all he could think as Kirishima cut in saying something about broken bones. The attention effectively mitigated. He had definitely never calmed that quickly before, he didn’t even stutter. It was as if his anxiety was just… washed away? He racked his brain for an explanation but came up empty.

Yet, it seemed familiar?

He was drawn out of his thoughts when Kacchan had started yelling and he was beyond startled that Kacchan was being teased. The bus arrived at the location and they all filed off the bus and headed over to the “USJ” as was explained by Thirteen, (Thirteen!) and he listened to Uraraka fangirl much like himself when it clicked. He turned his head ever so slowly to glimpse at Muska. She was standing behind them, slipping her phone and headphones back into her pocket, and Midoriya distinctly remembered an instance where she had shown off this specific ability before.

The reporters.

He subtly raised an eyebrow when they caught each other's eyes and Muska smirked.

He gave her a small and soft (relieved) smile and turned his attention back to his teachers. Gratitude settled in his chest as he listened to the exercise being explained. Hopefully, today will be a good day. He might not even break his bones!

Oh how wrong he was.

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[atxlxs]

Beyond The Veil: Chapter 12

Eras was in the middle of waking up that morning with her smoothie, Muska had left 30 minutes ago to head to UA, and she was zoning out the window next to the dining table.

The pungent scent of week old blood wasn’t the best of scents, yet Eras refused to obtain blood any other way except through blood banks. Most Vampires had donors or they just asked politely for consent (When the veil was made there were rules put in place to prevent vampires from extorting humans or keeping them as glorified blood bags for their whims, a lot of rules-)

A soft chime from her phone brought her attention back to the dining room table where her phone laid face up, the words ‘Message From Unknown’ were bold and sat at the top of her notifications. With a confused tilt to the head, despite no one being around to see it, Eras opened the notification.

Unknown

123-xxx-xxx: This is Aizawa Shouta, your ward's homeroom teacher. I believe I promised to keep you updated so I recommend watching the video file I’ve sent below.

123-xxx-xxx: *Video File ‘punishment.vid’ Attachment*

Tapping on the file, Eras watched with mild skepticism as it downloaded, hoping that this isn’t some weird scam text message even if logic dictates it isn’t. Once it finished, Eras felt her lips twitch as she saw a bundle of cloth being hung from the ceiling, suspiciously familiar blond hair sticking out of the bottom.

The video did not disappoint.

The camera shook slightly, as if whoever was holding it was holding back giggles as the familiar rugged man rolled in one of those ancient box T.V’s that schools used to keep for educational videos in elementary school. The cloth bundle swaying fruitlessly in the wind as whoever, most definitely All Might, was in it struggled. After stopping the table roller with the T.V in front of the bundle, Aizawa walked over to the cloth and with a few quick movements, uncovered All Might's eyes and spun him to be stuck facing the T.V. Pulling out a cassette tape of all things, those were impossibly older than the T.V itself was, Aizawa loaded the T.V after turning on the power.

Eras choked on her smoothie when a Nedzu mascot appeared on the screen with cartoonish glee to its expression as it gestured animatedly at the title on the screen.

‘Teaching For Dummies! Vol:1 of 126: Safety 101’

Aizawa then pulled out a second roller cart that was filled with cassette tapes, most likely the other 125 volumes of the Teaching For Dummies series, as his grin bordered on maniacal.

“You’ll be hanged for your crimes as you watch Nedzu’s Hell Course videos on teaching. You will then be assigned a 5 thousand word essay on how you could improve based on what you learn. Good Luck”

Aizawa then turned towards the exit and power walked out of the room as muffled screeches came from the restrained All Might, the person holding the phone started guffawing and ended the video abruptly. The now black screen reflected Eras’s face as it was stuck in a sadistic grin.

Eras cackled.

*Eras changed Unknown’s name to AizawaShouta*

Eras: Appreciated, shall I send you a gif of him struggling like a worm on dry concrete?

AizawaShouta: yes

Eras: *wormwiggle.gif*

Eras: will you be getting an after shot of the torture?

AizawaShouta: Oh definitely, I assume you’ll want that as well?

Eras: it’ll be a good reaction image to use

AizawaShouta: …

AizawaShouta: i’m going to torment the teachers group chat with it

Eras: as you should

Chuckling to herself in the dining room, Eras sipped on her smoothie as she sent messages back and forth with Aizawa. The tension easing in her shoulders as time passed. She was still tired, exhausted really, but the air seemed a little lighter each time she breathed.

AizawaShouta: I do still wish to apologize myself though, I don’t exactly know how the blond buffoon had managed to get battle trials accepted but normally I have them learn safety and test out costumes on the first day.

Eras: unnecessary but accepted. Really Aizawa-san it was just as you said, the quote “blond buffoon” unquote is at fault for this so no harm no foul.

Eras: Though if you did happen to do something yourself that warrants my visit you’d be lucky to still walk the next day.

AizawaShouta: ….

AizawaShouta: mildly terrified

Eras: only mildly? I’ve lost my touch

AizawaShouta: No, no I would be more affected if it weren’t for my policy to not harm students or allow them to get hurt by being overly cautious about what they do.

Eras: Ah, I feel a bit better than.

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Shouta laid on his side, wrapped up in his obnoxiously colored sleeping bag, with his phone resting between his hands in front of his face.

After Eras had left the meeting yesterday, Shouta had been stuck there for another 3 hours as Nedzu let them know that Bakugo would be pulled in for his own meeting with the principal this morning to discuss his previous schooling as well as his punishment. If he said anything concerning, which was definite at this point, then Nedzu would launch an investigation into Aldera. Currently the walking bomb was going to be in ISS as well as attending a counselling session. (Since mandatory therapy wasn’t an option without further evidence to prove their theories about his mental health) If Hound Dog says it’s necessary, then anger management will be added.

That had drained him in more ways than one. Though the universe did decide to give him a break in the form of free reign of All Might’s punishment. Which was carefully planned. When the meeting had ended, and the parents had left the premises, Aizawa had wrapped All Might in his capture scarf and dragged him back to the faculty lounge. The remaining teachers watched on in amusement as he hooked the weapon around a support beam on the ceiling and left the blond hanging from the ceiling.

Before he could leave to grab the… videos, Shouta tossed his phone to Hizashi.

“Record this.” He simply stated and walked towards the storage closet in the lounge.

He could tell Hizashi knew what he was grabbing because as the cockatoo caught the phone, his eyes widened before he slapped a hand over his mouth to stop the laugh he wanted to spill and immediately flipped on his phone; swiping for the camera.

Once he had finished setting up the torture, he left. He would not stay around to hear Nedzu’s hell videos. The cheery animated mascot talked condescendingly the whole time and seemed to read your mind as it tore down your thought process to the simplest of structures before ripping into your teaching style.

Each of the staff have had to sit through all 126 volumes at least once and each and every single one swore to never need to again. It was cursed in all the wrong ways.

It was around 7 in the morning when Shouta had remembered a particular part of the meeting from yesterday, turning on his side he whipped out his phone and pulled up the newest contact he had added in his phone for this exact reason. Sending a quick explanation of who he was, he sent the video Hizashi had taken for him to her.

He was not at all expecting to actually enjoy the conversation that followed.

He could admit with little fanfare that he was not the most conventional person to talk to. He was gruff, sarcastic, logical to a fault, and used dry humor that bordered on morbid some days. This is why he was genuinely surprised to see Eras not only take his humor in stride, but to respond in the same way.

Now at 8 o’clock in the morning, 25 minutes away from the start of homeroom, Shouta was actually going to miss talking to someone. Hizashi could never know.

With a sigh, he sent a quick goodbye and snorted when he received a picture of a cat with a face of disgust in response, he got off the couch and headed to his classroom. God it was the USJ field trip today too, grumbling he slid open the faculty door and left.

Completely missing the looks of horrified bewilderment on his colleagues' faces.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tags:

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[atxlxs]

Beyond The Veil: Chapter 11

The infirmary was nice, quiet, and completely boring so Muska was more than glad to be home. Eras had all but dragged her to the car and fretted over her the entire evening. Even making all her favorite foods and giving her space to settle. Eras had always been attentive to small changes in her mood and knew when she just needed to be alone. That didn’t stop her from making sure she had everything she needed before she left Muska to her own devices.

Eras was in the observatory now, probably destressing from the emotional day she had and really, she couldn’t blame her. When Eras had stepped through the infirmary door, Muska could tell she was on edge. She wasn’t entirely sure that Eras had noticed either, however Muska noticed that she had flinched when she saw the bandages on her arms paired with the word ‘burns’. That's when Muska remembered. She had only seen the scars on Eras’s back once and it was only a quick flash. They were Burn scars.

Fuck, no wonder she was so nervous and on edge. That’s why she relaxed when Recovery Girl promised they wouldn’t scar.

She knew what being burned felt like.

...

....

.....

Absolutely not, she was not dealing with this right now. This emotional revelation will be pushed aside for when she wasn’t absolutely decked by Recovery Girls quirk. Maybe she could even sleep tonight.

Surprisingly, she did actually sleep.

By morning, Eras was back to normal, which is still just as concerning as it usually is. Muska was almost positive that there were some heavy negative consequences to that kind of approach to emotional processing. She may not be a therapist, but her dad had been one so she knew, at least, the basics. Plus, who lives for centuries without gaining some kind of mental instability? At some point she was going to convince her to attend therapy, she just has to find a qualified therapist to handle a young adult vampire with years of memories and possible trauma to get through.

For now though? She was going to focus on her coffee, lovingly made with the higher end brand of coffee Eras had express shipped to their house because she’s desperate like that. Eras also chose not to give Tibbles treats for the next week as punishment which caused Muska to carry around headphones to ignore the loud and meowed complaints voiced during the entire discussion.

The calm and quiet atmosphere that had settled in that morning was shattered by the sound of a blender going off and Tibbles flinging himself from the table to the air and back. A grumbled [Bitch] followed right afterwards which caused Muska to cackle at her familiar.

“Smoothie time huh? It has been awhile since you last ate.” Muska mumbled, even over the sound of a loud ass blender she knew Eras could hear her. Her hearing was freakishly good.

The blender stopped and a few moments passed before the scratch of a pulled out chair was followed by the thump of a physical body collapsing in said chair. Looking up from her coffee, Muska cringed a bit at what she saw.

“Yea, I just… I’ve been a bit tired recently.” Eras looked deader than usual. The pale white skin was bordering on translucent a bit and the deep eyebags normally kept at bay were back full force.

Sighing, Muska sent Eras a rather pointed look. She knew her friend refused to fully sleep so instead she relied on the energy boost coffee and blood gives her to keep going. Along with maintaining a vegetative state close to meditation to make up for not sleeping. Eras rarely ever truly slept and whenever she did she was always off the next day. Energized, but also wary. On edge. Probably nightmares but Eras sleeps in the observatory to prevent Muska from hearing anything so she couldn’t confirm.

Eras ignored her stare in favor of sipping on the smoothie in front of her.

Sighing, Muska dropped the conversation. Eras would just clam up if she pressed further.

After getting ready and heading out, taking the train this time, Muska ran into Midoriya and Uraraka on the way to school. They greeted her with sunshine smiles and dragged her into the conversation. When they got to UA and were still conversing, she had almost missed the loud and angry demands made near the gate of UA.

Reporters.

Muska hates crowds with a passion and they brought one to her school.

Safe to say she absolutely hates them now.

Muska sighed and racked her brain for anything that could help in a situation like this. Energy could be manipulated to push them aside but that’d be a public quirk use law infraction. Witch stuff then. The type to be hidden in plain view. Manipulative…..

Muska grabbed her two new friends' arms and led them through the reporters with ease. The crowd moving and melding around them but not actually recognizing. She was using the energy produced by the human body to limit the signals sent to the brain and pushed the thoughts of “not here” and “just another reporter” to prevent them from being recognized.

She heard the soft mumbled “This is so cool…” behind her from Midoriya and she almost lost her control a bit in her surprise. That would’ve been a nightmare.

They managed to get through unscathed and passed by Aizawa-sensei, keeping the reporters back and helping other students through. Present Mic, or Yamada-sensei as he wanted to be called, was there with him whispering about something.

When they reached the classroom, a sigh escaped Muska as she finally relaxed. There weren’t too many other classmates present, probably due to the reporters outside, and those that were there were relatively quiet. Besides Iida, though it looks like he was refraining from speaking just yet, he did give a nod in their direction though so that was possibly Muska’s fault.

She just really hates when people have a strict view on how you're supposed to operate and act, hates being controlled like that.

Muska Bee-lined for her seat and sat down with a thud as she hooked her book bag on the side of the desk. Relaxing into her seat. Midoriya sat in his seat in front of her and Uraraka deposited her bag on her desk before making her way over to continue talking.

“By the way,” Uraraka started, turning to face Muska who was slowly collapsing in on herself for a nap, “I never got to ask but how were you yesterday? I managed to see Mido here before he left the school yesterday so I was able to ask him but you disappeared.”

Muska sat confused for a second before her brain caught up to the attention.

“Ah, my guardian came to the school for the meeting about what happened and she took me home.” She explained.

“Your guardian?” Uraraka and Midoriya echoed before they both shut their mouths with a click, Uraraka jumped in before Mido to stammer out “Ah! sorry that's rude to inquire about!”

Muska just waved her hand in a dismissive gesture.

“It’s fine. My guardian is a friend and a friend of my family. When My parents passed away a long time ago, she took me in.” Which was the truth. Eras had found Muska when she had just joined the veil and had promised to take her in after her parents passed away. It’s just that her parents died of old age and not an ‘accident’.

The two nodded before Uraraka brightened again.

“What are they like?!” She asked, hands waving around as if getting rid of extra energy.

“Her name is Eras, so Viridis Eras. She's nice and a bitch.”

Uraraka sputtered and Midoriya muffled a snort. Iida snapped his head around with wide eyes but didn’t actually snap out an etiquette speech. Instead, he grumbled a bit and headed over. Before she could even glare, Iida bowed.

What?

“I wished to apologize for my actions regarding you the past couple of times! I spoke with my brother and he agreed that your advice was applicable to the way the world truly works and so I shall better myself and that starts with an apology!”

Muska was speechless. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Uraraka and Midoriya smiling knowing smiles towards Iida so they had probably had a word with him outside of school. That didn’t help her though. Iida was very earnest in a way she had never actually seen in a person before holy hell. What kind of childhood do you live to be this engaged all the time?

“Ah, sure, apology accepted?”

The rest of that morning was spent with Muska listening to her two friends and Iida talk about what could be happening today. Though Robocop did manage to complain about her calling Eras a bitch before class started, it wasn’t as heavy as his usual lectures.

Muska just wants normality please and thank you, but based on this morning so far she doubts she’ll receive a normal day. That thought plagued her throughout the class representative vote and her first few educational classes. (Was she getting different paperwork? She was definitely getting different paperwork...) The bell rang and her classmates all started congregating to head to the cafeteria while Muska just sighed and got up from her seat. Today was definitely not going to be normal and though she wanted to be wrong, it was not to be.

She just didn’t expect an alarm to prove her right.

The minute the alarm started blaring in the middle of Lunch, Muska did as any student that's been through American public education does. She kept eating. The rest of her classmates that had sat at her table, Mido Uraraka and Iida (for some reason), had already jumped up and started running towards the glorified mob at the doors. She just finished off her absolute heaven of a meal, Eras should meet this Lunch Rush dude (Midoriya had fanboyed loud enough for her to learn his name) their collective chef skills would crush Gordan Ramsey’s taste buds and have Guy Fieri screaming flavor town.

Vaguely, she heard Iida shouting about something and a cheery ‘PLUS ULTRA’ shout but she paid little attention. Instead, she headed back to class.

She would later come to regret not paying closer attention that afternoon.

If she did? She would have noticed the oil like energy tainting the harmony of the school.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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[atxlxs]

Beyond The Veil: Chapter 10

The Bakugo family dynamic was one of the most unusual Eras has ever seen.

Mrs.Bakugo was an aggressive woman with a confident set to her shoulders and a mouth that puts sailors to shame. Mr.Bakugo, Masaru, was calm and serene. He only stepped in when Mitsuki, Mrs.Bakugo, either didn’t get her point across or was getting riled up. The two complimented each other well and Eras would have been amused if they weren’t currently grating on the last of her nerves.

The word “conditioned” came to mind when she remembered Muska’s parting words from the nurse’s office.

She really hopes these people didn’t help create whatever mental state the ‘Bakugo’ responsible had. She was also starting to realize how confusing referring to people by last names was. You’d think she’d be used to it after all these years. God, she wished she wasn’t here.

During this thought process, the glare she pinned All Might with from earlier never let up. The man was shivering.

“Ah, Welcome! I see You’ve already met Midoriya-san?” Nedzu asked.

The three newest members of the meeting room all nodded as they sat down. The Bakugo’s spared more than a few glances at the newly inflated All Might and Eras herself. She could understand on some base level that seeing someone glare at the number 1 hero was probably rare.

“We’ve been best fucking friends since highschool. Also, I already know it’ll be fuckin confusing so just call Me Mistuki and Masa here Masaru.” She said head held high yet Eras noted the slight defensiveness in her posture.

That was expected, they were here for a training accident after all. One caused by her son but Eras had a feeling she didn't know that yet.

“You can call me Inko as well,” Inko shifted with nerves as she wrung her hands together in an effort to still them, “Is my son alright?”

Nedzu nodded and went to speak, however Eras spoke up first, finally tearing her gaze away from All Might. The man let out a barely audible sigh of relief as she did so.

“You son is doing fine Inko-san. He was quizzing my ward when I went to the infirmary earlier. Sorry to cut you off, Nedzu, however I believe a first hand account would be better than one given by a principal, even if she doesn't know me personally.” Eras saw the tension ease a bit in Inko’s shoulders in response.

“Ah thank you, You're right about that. Your ward? Ah sorry I never caught your name either.” Inko asked, a nervous but nonetheless bright smile on her face.

“My name is Viridis Eras, You can call me Eras considering we’ll be speaking of my ward during this meeting, and I say ward because though she is not my child she is under my care. I was good friends with her parents and so after they passed she came under my guardianship.” Holding up a hand to preemptively silence the condolences, she continued. “It happened years ago so no need for the sorrys.”

The newest occupants of the room all nodded as they redirected their attention to Nedzu, confusion evident on their faces. Nedzu, seemingly able to sense the need for an explanation, cleared his throat and replaced the polite smile on his face with a serious look.

“Thank you for that, Eras-san, though I believe I need to specify why I have called you all here today." Well that confirmed her suspicions from earlier, " As Eras-san already knows, considering her circumstances she was given a summary before getting here, there was a training accident during class 1-A’s heroics class. The injured participants were Viridis Muska and Midoriya Izuku. Though both are completely healed now, except for some aggravated skin where burns were healed.”

Inko looked to be on the verge of crying and the Bakugo’s looked to be edging on realization to why they were called. The word ‘burns’ probably clued them in. They kept shooting glances between Inko and herself.

“The cause of these burns was a gauntlet used as support equipment for Bakugo Katsuki. He was warned beforehand that at close range and indoors, his equipment could be lethal and was ordered by the present instructor, All Might, to stop. He didn’t listen.”

Nedzu paused and let reality seep in. Inko was now actually crying, though not as much as Midoriya was in the infirmary, and the Bakugo pair were now pale. Eras sighed and it dragged the attention back to her. Confusion starting to invade previously horrified faces. Eras allowed her gaze to remain neutral as she turned it onto the Bakugo pair.

“Before I speak my mind on the matter, I would like to ask whether or not this behavior present in your son was encouraged,” once again raising a hand to silence the onslaught she continued, “not that I expect you to encourage violence in him, but did you ever notice previously that his schooling may have intentionally avoided discouraging his tendencies?”

Mitsuki opened and closed her mouth, obviously wanting to retaliate but she sat back and shut her mouth with a scrunched expression. Probably searching for any moments her son’s schooling did in fact do such a thing, after all the person who asked had a child under her care that was just fucking maimed so, small mercies. Surprisingly, it was Masaru who spoke up for the first time since he entered the meeting.

“I believe they did encourage his more… aggressive... ways. It was subtle at first glance but as he grew older I noticed that he stopped speaking about his schooling and instead focused only on himself. As if there was nothing else but his aptitude.” He said with a grimace.

Mitsuki looked appalled for a good second before something may have clicked. Wide eyes of disbelief followed shortly by a sigh of resignation. Eras watched it all, evaluating, analyzing. Once she determined that the parents were, disappointingly, unaware of their son’s habits, she spoke up.

“Muska had warned me before coming here that she believes Bakugo was conditioned into what he is now. Seeing your confirmation, sadly, only proves her right. I have a feeling that his previous schooling was sub par when it came to actively punishing or at least telling him no. This means that he doesn’t even realize that what he did was wrong.” Eras sighed, once again, as she thought about how much of a mess this all was.

“I agree,” Nedzu stated, he had his computer out and seemed to find something on it that prompted his involvement, “I pulled up his middle school records and some concerning things have been made apparent. His record is squeaky clean, even described as a pleasure to have in class and works well with others.”

A snort came from Aizawa who was still leaning against the wall, drawing attention to himself. He sighed as he realized that attention was now on him. Ah, what a mood.

“First day of school he called a student an ‘extra’. I sincerely doubt he was a pleasure in class. Also, considering during the exercise today he immediately left his partner to hunt down the glory for himself, I don’t believe he works well with others either.”

Dry sarcasm is the bane of Eras’s continued intimidation tactic. Seriously, if this man keeps up she may just actually snort. That would ruin the image she was trying to convey damnit.

The group of people sat in silence for a minute. Nedzu sat silently watching the group though, by his tail movement, Eras could tell he had settled on something already. Eras turned back towards All Might with an unimpressed face. Time to wrap this meeting up.

“I recommend giving Bakugo a second chance. Not suspension, but something else. Muska recommended therapy and I recommend anger management. Both may be the best option. As for All Might, I’ll let Aizawa-san rip into you himself regarding your, frankly, stupid idea to set teenagers with little to no training loose in a battle exercise.” Eras glanced at said gruff teacher who gave her a subtle nod and an impish grin. Satisfied that he would take care of it (and he will enjoy the hell out of it), she continued, “Now I will excuse myself to the infirmary once more. Hopefully, I don’t need to come back for a reason like this one again.” The ‘you won’t like what happens’ went unsaid but by the looks on their faces, it was understood.

Standing up, Eras walked over to the door and cracked it open, turning her head to Aizawa, she smiled a fanged smile.

“Keep me updated. I’ll trust your judgement for his punishment.”

With that, she left.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He was confused.

Scared.

Lost.

Constricted.

It's been years now hasn’t it? When was the last time he could control his own body? Could he even remember his name?

oboKurogiri

No that’s not it…

He was OboroKurogiri.

Why can't he remember???

An insistent pulling kept tugging at his mind. Trying to do… something, but he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what. Vaguely he knew that the pull came from something or someone else. Something unnatural was crying out in desperation and hurt. To find...what? What did he need to find?

Sighing, Kurogiri turned to Tomura. The young adult had been extraordinarily calm as he stared at the T.V. The game he was playing early was currently paused. As he continued to clean the bar’s glass, Kurogiri allowed himself to keep an eye on the man. The last time he was so still, his bar’s stools disintegrated.

“Kurogiri.”

Snapping to attention (he begs for his body to stay still, to run, to get away he doesn’t want to be here-) Kurogiri turns to the T.V that sat ominously in the bar.

“Yes, sir?” Kurogiri asked.

“Tomorrow morning, take Tomura to UA, the coordinates will be given in the morning. I think it's time we paid them a visit and gathered some material.”

Nodding his acceptance, Kurokumo can’t help but despair. He doesn’t know why. Can’t figure out who or what was at UA that he didn’t want to see. Or was the word he didn’t want to use harm? He really just couldn’t tell. He couldn’t tell and it tore him apart inside.

The metal on his neck burned, he wanted to rip it off. To be free.

Instead, he polished the glasses in the bar once more.

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Tags:

@baguettehead

[atxlxs]

Beyond The Veil: Chapter 9

As she and Aizawa approached the door to the principal's office, she noticed he went to slow down to knock but Eras wasn’t dumb.

She saw that camera hidden in the wood of the door.

Without missing a beat, she walked forward through the now open doors as Aizawa faltered for half a second. Muttering the words ‘fuckin rat’ under his breath and Eras took a sharp breath as she held back a snort. Instead, she turned her attention to Nedzu and All Might. The latter was sitting on a couch and the minute Eras turned her head to him and sniffed, she could smell the metallic scent of blood. He was covered in the scent. A tell tale sign of injury.

Not that she didn’t know about that before she entered the room.

Is it really that surprising for a few people to figure out a national secret when it was literally walking around?

“Ah Eras-san,” of course the rat had listened in on their conversation at the gate, “Welcome, please have a seat. Tea?” Nedzu asked, his tone deceptively light.

“Thank you, If you have any green tea that would be delightful. I can only stomach certain kinds of tea.” That was a lie, well kind of. In reality Eras just didn’t like most human drinks or food, preferring coffee and Boba to just tea. Green Tea’s are the only kind she can have without it tasting like getting hit in the face with a bunch of spices. A consequence of her vampire attributes.

“Of course, I'll prepare that right away!” Eras nodded and watched as Nedzu started making the tea before taking her gaze off of him to settle it on the #1 pro.

She narrowed her eyes.

The man flinched.

Good.

“Before we start Nedzu,” an flip of the tail told her he was listening, “I think we could agree that All Might should save his time for when the Bakugo’s get here considering it would be a shock for them to see the hero deflate like a balloon after a 5 year old’s birthday party.”

All Might instantly deflated and started hacking up blood. Nedzu was cackling and Eras could hear the softly muttered ‘deserved’ from behind her where Aizawa was standing, leaned against the wall.

“How?!?” All Might stammered. Eras just sighed and looked at him with a raised eyebrow, her face the picture of unimpressed.

“You are a walking national secret that could potentially throw the country of japan into chaos with merely announcing said injury. I believe it's quite honestly predictable that at least someone would know about it. Besides, Nedzu wasn’t the only individual trying to get access to the veil. People in the veil are beyond what constitutes as human. Especially when it comes to life expectancy. Some people who wish to live long lives to further their ideals come to the veil seeking answers. Supervillains and the like.” The man's face paled at the last part and Eras felt a bit of relief at that.

At least he wasn’t a total idiot when it came to reading between the lines.

(Eras had been keeping track of All for One since she learned of his existence. Even after the man supposedly died, she made sure to keep an ear out.)

“Besides, even if I didn’t know beforehand, as you’ve demonstrated you're consistently either covered in blood, or seconds away from expelling it. I could smell it the moment I walked in here.” Eras stated simply. Reveling in the man’s confused fear.

That was until a tea cup was placed in front of her.

Nedzu was vibrating with glee.

Oh. Oh no. She had forgotten Nedzu didn’t know what race she was yet. Fuck.

“Thank you.” she said, conveniently ignoring her slip up. What he doesn’t know can’t be used against her.

“You're quite welcome. The Bakugo’s will be here in another 20 minutes since it does take a bit of time to arrive from their place of work.” The rat smiled that polite smile that grated her nerves wrong. That was the fake smile of something inhuman trying to act as society demands.

Just like her own tight lipped smile.

She sighed and turned to Nedzu. Eyes that were once black were now glowing a toxic green as she allowed herself to smile fully, fangs displayed for everyone in the room to see. Ignoring the sharp intake of breath from the occupant still leaned against the wall and sputtering All Might, Eras kept her gaze on Nedzu. Conveying with her inhuman qualities that she wouldn’t judge him.

The feral smile she got in return was satisfying.

“You can ask Nedzu. You have 20 minutes after all.” Eras allowed her eyes to dim back to their black and returned to her usual smile.

Nedzu kept his feral smile in place as his eyes gleamed and Eras came to a conclusion. She liked the chimera. Sure she will still call him rat man and other nicknames but he was truly just curious. Also, he stopped at verbal answers instead of testing every and anything like the elves.

“Based on what I’ve seen, you're a vampire. Though you do greatly contradict the basic stereotype for your kind found in lore and novels. Evident especially with the green glow we were allowed to witness, as well as having short fangs on the bottom row of teeth with the usual top and longer ones. Is that the norm or are you different?”

Right for the gut huh? Eras returned her sharp smile to her face. She could appreciate intellect and getting to the heart of a matter quickly and efficiently.

“As you’ve already hypothesized,” she saw Nedzu’s grin grow wider, “I am not normal for my kind. Specifically, my title is an ‘Origin’, in lore and new veil members though, I am referred to as a pureblood. True to the name, I was born the way I am a long time ago.”

“How intriguing. Muska had informed us before but vampires were the original members of the veil and held most of the information. I won’t press for more since we were already told we were going to be limited, however what exactly is the hierarchy like for Vampires? I assume Origin is a title for someone relatively high on the social hierarchy.”

Eras leaned back in her chair, sighing a bit as she remembered the fact that she was directly involved in politics, even if she was only called upon for those meetings, but she shook her head to get back on track.

“Essentially, we are ruled through clans, which then are ranked socially and politically by generation. Not generation as in blood descendants but generation by creation.” Eras shifted a bit as she gestured to her fangs. “Purebloods can create vampire brethren, fledglings, through a process I will not explain for reasons. These are known as 1st generations and resemble what you’re used to except things like weakness to silver and garlic. Honestly, I have no clue as to where that comes from. As you expect, anyone they turn are 2nds and they make 3rds. There are rules in place for those who are 4th generation though because at that point, for unknown reasons, the created creature is not a vampire but a Parafron, a bloodthirsty hunter that loses its mind within the first 100 years.”

Nedzu seemed to catch the implication because his eyes seemed to gleam brighter, if that was possible.

“You're a clan leader.” He simply stated. Eras nodded with a small smirk.

“Yes, as you may have noticed, I have a… mark... on my neck. Contrary to belief, I didn’t get a tattoo. I was born with it to mark what clan I’m from. A side effect from being an origin. My clan, however, is smaller than the rest due to my specific responsibilities that come with the mark.”

She could tell Nedzu noticed she was skirting around names and titles. Thankfully the chimera simply nodded and looked towards his computer. His smile dimmed and the gleam faded from his eyes as he turned back.

“Seems the Bakugo’s have arrived! Present Mic is currently meeting and leading them here.”

Eras nodded and she returned her now narrowed gaze to an All Might who squirmed. He had definitely forgotten her ire during her and Nedzu’s convo.

A mistake.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Muska was very concerned.

Why?

Greenie was very concerning.

When Eras had left, Muska turned back to greenie who had been spluttering still from Eras' blatant appreciation for saving her ass. The teen looked shocked, as if he didn’t just save her from third degree chemical burns. Sighing, which grabbed the teen’s attention back to her, Muska raised an eyebrow and stared at Midoriya.

“Did you expect her not to thank you? You literally dragged me out of the way of an explosion while I was frozen. Admittedly, not my best moment. You acted just like a hero and all that jazz, you deserve the thanks. Oh btw, when Eras means if you need anything, she means if you need anything. Even hiding a body she’d help as long as she gets plausible deniability.” Muska said, watching as very green eyes started to water.

At the last bit, Midoriya let out a wet snort and held a hand to his mouth to muffle it. Then he darted up, ramrod straight, as he returned wide eyes to Muska’s. He seemed to search her for something which made Muska more than just a little confused.

“Do you mean it?”

It was softly said. She almost didn’t hear it, but when she did she was even more confused.

“Mean what?”

“That I acted like a h-hero?”

“Of course? Why would I lie about that?” she asked, confusion lacing every word in genuine puzzlement.

It seemed that was the breaking point because Midoriya broke out into sobs. Not knowing what to do, Muska stared wide-eyed as her new friend(?) started to break down in front of her. Not knowing if touch would help, which she also really didn’t want to do because she wasn’t fond of contact with people she didn’t know well (nor did she know what to say), she just stared awkwardly. The part that worried her most though, was how near silent his crying was. As if he wouldn’t, no couldn’t, make a sound.

The sobs tapered off and Muska sat up and turned towards Midoriya. She made sure he calmed down enough to listen, but not quite enough for the sheepish ‘I’m sorry’ to finish coming out of his mouth.

“It's a fine greenie. If you’d be willing, mind explaining if I did something wrong? I also assume I’m on friendship level one considering it’s the second day of school so I don’t expect answers but I’d appreciate a heads up. Are they at least happy tears?” Muska made sure her features were softer than normal, a hard earned skill since she had a resting bitch face that scared people away when she wasn’t focused on playing nice.

That and the barking. Could you blame her if it worked in keeping assholes away?

Midoriya snapped his head up and started throwing his hands around in a rejection gesture before he whipped off excess tears in order to speak over the floodgates of his eyes. Seriously, he could probably fill a bathtub.

“Oh no no, these are happy tears! It’s just, no one has ever really said that to me before. The hero thing. So I was just… really happy?” A hand raised to sheepishly hold the back of Greenie's neck as left over tears spilled and a bright red blush poked through tan freckled skin.

“Why wouldn’t they? I mean Hero’s seem pretty important to Japanese society so like, there must have been a few?” Muska said. This conversation was giving her very bad vibes. Like curtains that block you from seeing someone in a hospital bed. All ominous and nerve wracking.

“I uh-” He cuts off, thinking hard about what he was about to say. He glanced over a few times, soaking in the honest confusion on her face, and possibly going over every detail of their meetings so far this year.

“I- I well, I may have manifestedmyquirkduringtheentranceexam-” Midoriya stuttered and launched the words out of his mouth fast enough that they were barely intelligible, only to slam his mouth shut with a click and wide eyes.

“Ok? I am…. Still very confused here. What does manifesting your quirk that late have to do with the hero bit? Granted that does explain your lack of control.” Muska added, somewhat regretting the last bit when Midoriya flinched,

Then, he shot up ramrod straight and disbelief started to enter his eyes as he processed her last statement.

“I was- I was quirkless most of my life?” He added, his posture defensive and prepared to take a hit. Emotionally or physically.

“So?”

A minute passed. Then 2 more.

Midoriya promptly burst into tears again and Muska sighed. A world weary heavy sigh.

She’s so done with everything today.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tags:

@baguettehead

[atxlxs]

Beyond The Veil: Chapter 8

There was one stupid stereotype that seemed consistent in vampire lore that humans have written.

They tended to paint Vampires as creatures with very minimal or muted emotions that only really show said emotions when in relation to amusement or anger, and depending on the novel; sadism. That was a load of bullcrap.

First of all, most vampires have normal emotional levels. After all, most of them were human at some point. It’s just as time passes, they get incredibly good at either hiding their emotions, or mellowing out under years of experiences and logic. Eras was born the way she is, so she just experienced emotion differently than most.

She just prefers to ruthlessly stomp the feeling out of existence in order to embrace logical processing. She still feels the emotion! Just hours later when she's ready to process it and it has shrunk into a minor inconvenience. The problem with that though is that when something does manage to get to her, it hits hard.

Currently, Eras was sitting in her car while calmly letting the tension that had been building leave her shoulders. After 4 meetings that could have, quite frankly, fucked off and been an email; she was tense and annoyed.

This was not at all improved by the insistent ringing of her phone.

Without checking the number, a rare occasion for her but she was stressed, Eras answered and placed the phone on her ear. She could barely hold back the snap that wanted to peek through as she kept her voice level and polite.

“Hello, may I inquire as to the purpose of this call?” Was she defaulting to formal speech to prevent her frustration from coating her words? Yes, yes she was.

A feeling of wrongness from that morning pricked under her skin when she was answered by the voice of Nedzu.

“Ah yes, Viridis-san correct?” a skeptical hum of agreement prompted Nedzu to continue, “Great! I’m calling to inform you of a serious matter and I must ask, are you able to listen at this specific moment?” The faux cheerfulness Nedzu presented was not thick enough to hide his notes of seriousness from her keen hearing.

The feeling started to boil.

“Yes, I am.” This time, some of her curtness leaked through. She has had enough with pleasantries at the moment.

“Alright, I’ll just be forward then. Currently, due to a training mishap during All Might's foundational heroics class Viridis Muska is currently on bedrest in the infirmary, healing burns from an explosive attack from one of our other students. She’ll make a full recovery without any scarring since it wasn’t too serious thanks to another teammate who dragged her out of the way, however she’ll be sleeping for a few hours considering she was on low energy before Recovery Girl healed her.”

Eras almost snapped the steering wheel off with how hard she was gripping it. A stillness impossible for those that breathe settled over her like a blanket as her blood burned its way through her veins. Its toxic properties popped in her head as it ran simulations for various scenarios she could act on. First, though, she had an idiot to check on.

“Thank you for informing me.” Her voice was cold, and deceptively calm, “I’ll be showing up in 10 minutes. I am meeting my ward first and then I’ll need some questions answered. None of this is optional. I’ll see you soon, Nedzu.”

There was 25 minutes between where Eras was currently and her destination.

She showed up in the promised 10.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All Might stared at the phone on Nedzu’s desk like it had just signed off on his will and dug his grave.

To be fair though, it kind of did.

Shouta would grin his cheshire grin in sadistic glee at that if he wasn’t worried about what had just happened as well. Nedzu, surprisingly and hauntingly, was not smiling. His face is dark and serious. Shouta couldn’t blame him though. Viridis Eras could kill with her tone of voice alone.

He had never been so effectively threatened by words not even targeted at him before.

He sighed and got up from leaning against the wall. He turned towards Nedzu who had tracked the movement with his ears.

“I’ll go and head to the parking lot, She’ll need a guide.”

He was dismissed with a nod and he ignored the fearful stare that was pleading in his direction as he left. He shouldn’t have conducted fucking battle trials if he wanted a savior. Shouta was still pissed off about that. He also had tapes to watch and testimonies to get when deciding on future punishment. The Bakugo’s had been called and were heading in the school’s direction as well but considering Viridis would be their first? Hizashi had gotten off scot free when he stole his coffee this morning so he could deal with them. If they were anything like his student? Well...

Shouta Aizawa was not ashamed to admit he was a very petty man.

He sighed as he finally reached the parking lot gate. Leaning against the side and taking out a jelly pouch to pass the time while also getting some kind of nutrients, He had hoped that Viridis would take a bit longer so he could catch a break, but that’s definitely not happening.

He was proven right when in the next 5 minutes a black jeep pulled into the parking lot space closest to the gate where he was standing. Straightening his posture from the slouch it had been, he didn't want to make a worse impression, Shouta watched with hawk eyes as Viridis exited the vehicle and walked over to him.

She was around 171cm but that was probably due to the heels adding on some height. Hair, that was styled in a sleek bob cut, would blow in the wind occasionally. Revealing perfect snow white hair underneath black. As the distance rapidly closed between them, Shouta noticed the beauty mark that sat on the left of a smile that put Nedzu’s politely pissed one to shame. Eyes that were a darker black than his own, did not hide the angry cat like slits they held in them. He felt a shudder try to work up his spine the closer she got and he mercilessly pushed it down.

Once she was close enough, Shouta gave her a quick meaningful bow before talking.

“Hello Viridis-san, My name is Aizawa Shouta,” returning to full height he noticed the tattoo he had been trying to see from a distance turned out to be a snake wrapped around her neck and biting its own tail, “I’ll be your guide to the infirmary and then afterwards to Nedzu’s office. I’m also your ward’s homeroom teacher.“

Eyes seemed to pierce through him as they racked down his body with an assessing gaze.

“I see,” and wasn’t that voice the definition of syrupy sweet? “As you know the name is Viridis Eras, however just call me Eras. I’m not only used to it but with more than one Viridis, things will get confusing. Lead the way.”

With that command, Shouta turned around and immediately headed for the infirmary. He could only pray, despite not believing in such things, that they would all get through this alive.

Minus Yagi.

Shouta was pretty damn sure the man would be lucky to still walk after this.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As Aizawa led her to the infirmary, Eras took the time to focus on calming down.

Thankfully, she hadn’t snapped the man's head off when he had introduced himself. He was nice, definitely has the voice of a god, and… She's getting off track.

Aizawa doesn’t deserve the snappish angry attitude she had at the moment. That was reserved for All Might, and possibly Nedzu, due to his involvement in the cause of whatever the fuck she was walking to go see.

They reached the infirmary relatively fast, and Aizawa knocked twice before opening the door and stepping aside to let her walk in first. Stepping over the entryway, she immediately snapped her head to where Muska was lying on a bed talking to a teen next to her with the greenest curls she had ever seen.

That however, was the least of her concerns.

“Oh, Hey Eras.”

Eras was at her side within seconds. She assessed any and all bandages she could see, which compared to greenie in front of her was relatively few. The skin that wasn’t covered was red but in the sensitive way skin is after coming in contact with something hot. Nothing was scarred. Releasing the tension in her shoulders, Eras slumped into the seat next to her best friend's infirmary bed.

“Hey Muska, you just had to give me a scare huh? I almost broke my steering wheel when I received the phone call.” Eras narrowed her eyes but the glare had no heat.

The little shit just cackled at the thought of her friend breaking a steering wheel, again, and gestured to Green boy as she calmed down. Said boy looked like a deer in headlights at the action.

“Meet Midoriya Izuku, he’s the one who pulled me away from PomPom boy's blast and honestly could use more of your fretting than me.” Muska said, a shit eating smirk on her face as said boy ‘eeped’ at that. He was also blushing fiercely and stuttering out reassurances along with trying to downplay the role he had in helping Muska. Oh, this is red flag boy.

Eras inclined her head slightly and smiled a more genuine smile, still not showing teeth though. The nervous teen relaxed slightly at it. Good.

“Thank you for that Midoriya. I appreciate you saving my friend like that. Are you alright as well?” she asked, eyeing the bandages wrapped around his arms and torso. Muska just muffled a snort at her wording. So what if the last thing she heard her say that morning was "dictator daddy's all have that condescending smile." She could be formal! It's called a customer service voice for a reason.

When he tried to brush off the damage they could both see, Muska sighed and turned to Eras. Gesturing to her mouth and then to her neck, she pretended to swipe it and played dead. Eras snorted and just sighed afterwards. Shaking her head to say no she was not about to murder a public figure. Maim though....

“As long as you’ll heal alright then I guess it was fine. Really though, Midoriya, I owe you. If you ever need anything, let me know." Muska's eyes widened at that and snapped to Eras who just shook her head once again, "Muska, I don’t plan on it but it’ll be close. I’m pissed and it’s not really leaving just yet. I’ll be entering a meeting after this visit and I have a feeling the Bakugo’s were already called in as well.”

Muska nodded along until the Bakugo part. Then she had a constipated look on her face before leaning in and whispering.

“He needs therapy, his emotions had run wild during the exercise and I don’t think this was a product of just anger. This feels conditioned.”

Eras gripped the chair at that. Gritting her teeth, she nodded. Giving a slight bow to a still sputtering Midoriya, Eras walked out the infirmary door and closed it quietly. Aizawa leaned against the wall to the left and she took a few seconds to appreciate the silence before nodding in his direction. Luckily for All Might. Seeing Muska had calmed some of the anger she was still feeling.

She had a rat to go meet.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tags:

@baguettehead

[atxlxs]

Beyond The Veil: Chapter 7

(This chapter is going to be a bit shorter this time but the next will be back to the usual length! I wanted the suspense of ending it where I did >:) )

As Muska watched, her classmates flooded in from the locker rooms.

First of all, that is a fuckin robot. Robocop was starting to fit more and more. Next, Yoyo was looking anxious as all hell and was scrunching into herself. Probably due to all of the skin showing at the moment.

Muska cringed a bit at that. She had seen her quirk in action the other day so she knew that skin was needed, but wearing clothes you were uncomfortable in was a great way to enhance body dysmorphia and anxiety in all the bad ways. Clothing was supposed to empower you, not make you cage up.

Midoriya and his absolutely horrible bunny costume hood, it looked like those bad leather kink memes Eras would send her at 4 in the morning from the pre-quirk era, came bouncing over with stars in his eyes. Uraraka not far behind.

“Wow! Viridis, you look so cool!” Midoriya cheerfully stated, the bounce never disappearing. That was kinda adorable. Honestly what a cinnamon roll.

“Yea!” Uraraka commented, drawing Muska’s attention to her, “Its so fashionable while still staying practical! The witch aesthetic is also unique in the best of ways!”

How did snarky and sarcastic Muska manage to make friends like this, all sunshine and smiles, when she had a resting bitch face and would not hesitate to stomp a bitch?

“Thanks, my friend designed it for me along with my gear,” She started, motioning to the visible whip and brass knuckles that were stylishly black with white accents, “Yours too, I like the space vibes. Midoriya looks like a bunny.”

“He does!” “Wha-!”

Uraraka giggled while strawberry-midoriya made an appearance. Before they could tease him too much though, All Might(?) called their attention in order to start the lesson.

The battle trials were team based and the teams were picked through a drawing, much to Robocops chagrin, Pairing Mido up with her. Uraraka managed to pair with Yoyo and it looked like a soon to become girl boss team. Their opponents seemed to agree considering the gay panic coming off of Jirou and the bisexual disaster that was a Kaminari was barely keeping himself from short circuiting.

Her gaydar was sharp but the fact that she could tell what emotions they were feeling helped too.

Muska’s team was called and she followed Mido out to the city scape and stopped in front of the building that they would soon throw down in. Worryingly, ever since the announcement of the teams and their enemies, Mido has been an anxious mess. He was verging on panic and that was not good. Before Muska could ask though, Greenie opened his mouth.

“So I went to school with Kacchan,” and wasn’t that worrisome considering that the greenie was practically vibrating out of their suit right now, “and he will definitely come after me first. He doesn’t work with others well,” -an understatement really- “and will probably leave Iida to guard the bomb.”

It took a second to remember who Iida was before it clicked. Considering Muska hadn’t bothered to remember the annoying blue teens name. Mido was about to say more but Muska cut him off.

“Alright, I bet you and your self sacrificial tendencies will say you're going to go after him alone despite not having a handle on your quirk that’s good enough to not break bones.” yes, she was calling the green bean out.

Considering the shocked expression she got in return, she was right on the money. Sighing while dragging a hand down her face in exasperation, silently debating on whether this is what Eras felt every time she did something dumb as fuck, Muska shook her head and stared at Midoriya. Decidedly not impressed by the greenie’s idea.

“Yea no. First of all, I won’t fight you about this since you look like you’ll retaliate with bad reasons until I agree, but I will be nearby on standby. It's better to go ahead with two against one to quickly end the fight. Secondly, after we subdue Blasty we’ll go ahead and get Robocop. My quirk, which I’ve already explained, will be great to counteract someone that just moves fast.”

The fight slowly drained from Midoriya’s eyes under her glare and silently he nodded. Though, there was less tension in his shoulders and he wasn’t as vibraty as before so she’ll count that as a win. God, she was going to have to talk some sense into Blasty using authoritarian force at some point… wasn’t she? Curse her luck.

An alarm sounded along with All Might's voice booming through their given headpieces, telling them “The Fight Has Started!” with enthusiastic energy.

Well, as long as they stick to the strategy they should be fine. At worst she would just have to fix some bones before passing Mido off to Recovery Girl while also talking to the heroine herself for medical lessons.

----

Whoever cleared a very angry Pomeranian to carry fucking BOMBS on his arms was going to feel Muska’s eternal wrath.

The fight started easily. They walked together silently up the stairs and through the hallways, navigating the building and checking all the doors for possible bomb locations. Sure enough, as greenie predicted, the angry Pompom boy could be heard before he was seen. Angry shouts of “DEKU!” reverberated through the hallways and the telltale sign of quirk use through explosive sounds guaranteed it.

Muska caught Midoriya’s eyes and raised an eyebrow. Nonplussed at the anger issues coming off the blond in waves.She couldn’t really judge the anger issues though, plus that seemed like a childhood problem that therapy could probably help. Midoriya sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck before they were forced to turn their attention to the angry pomeranian.

“Deku…” Bakugo started, his agitation clear in the venom the words were spat with. Subtly, Muska felt for his emotions and was decidedly not going to deal with whatever that was.

The explosive blond was angry, that's for sure, but there was also confusion and guilt. The guilt was triggered by the anger, which then made the blond more angry because he either didn’t want to continue to feel guilty or didn’t want to be doing what was making him feel guilty which was frustrating. Which made him angry again. It was a violent circle of emotions that was complex as all hell what the actual fu-

Muska’s thoughts were cut off as Midoriya and Bakugo lunged at each other, Mido dodging and Bakugo exploding empty air before dodging Mido’s retaliation. Blood thirsty punches were exchanged as Midoriya’s shoulder held tension and eyes held determination.

Muska hid around the corner of the hallway, observing silently for an opening. The beat down was verging on brutal and by the look on the blonds face, he wanted it that way.

She unlatched her whip from her belt and loosened its coiled up state. Gripping the handle, she turned back to watch just as Midoriya body slammed Bakugo into the ground. Backing up a bit to hold a fight stance. Breath coming haggard from exhaustion. The slam seemed to empty Bakugo’s lungs as he gasped for air.

Muska rushed in, dragging the capture tap out of her pocket and binding Bakugo’s hands together as he attempted to get up. He shouted angry curses at her, his face holding an almost feral anger to it. Muska actually stepped back at that slightly. Something seemed off.

She stepped away slowly and when she began to believe he was captured, All Might’s declaration of so calmed some nerves, she turned to Midoriya who was staring at his hands like he had never seen them before. Disbelief conveyed through his expression. Muska brought up a hand to wave in front of his face when she heard All Might yell through the headphones.

“BAKUGO DON’T! YOU’VE ALREADY BEEN INCAPACITAT-” The teachers shouting was cut off by the sound of metal clinking together.

Muska whipped around with wide eyes. Bakugo was standing, hands that used to be restrained were aimed in her direction and one was settled on the pin of a gauntlet, anger radiated off of him as his mind refused to acknowledge any of the other emotions she could feel through the energy surrounding him.

“Fuck you DEKU and YOU! I Wouldn’t have been captured if it weren’t for your fuckin interruption!” He screamed, eyes clouded a bit as he lost control.

Muska went to move but felt frozen to the ground by the all consuming anger she felt, Midoriya moved first. Grabbing her and starting to move himself. All Might's warning lost to the wind as the tell tale clink of a pin being removed seemed to echo in the near silent hall.

“They won’t die if they manage to dodge!” was the last thing she heard before a blast rendered her hearing to nothing but ringing and pain.

Burning pain.

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Tags:

@baguettehead

[atxlxs]

Beyond The Veil: Chapter 6

A glance at the time told Eras that Muska was still stuck in the meeting. Unsurprisingly, but also disappointing. She had hoped the meeting would go faster so Muska would get home an hour ago. She really wanted to get food started so she could relax, the nerves of Musa going to a highschool had eaten at her all day.

Great, she was starting to sound like an actual mother.

*sigh*

Pulling out her phone, Eras opened the phone app and pressed call on Muska’s contact. Conveniently titled ‘parasite’. It rang for a total of 3 times before it clicked, suddenly two voices flooded through the phone. One, that was Muska, the other was definitely Nedzu. So the witch put her on speaker phone. Nedzu was probably trying to get her to answer more questions then they agreed to answer.

The chirpy “I wouldn’t want to keep you from your meal but if I may inquire, is your guardian real or not? I know you're older than most of us but as you said you are a minor for your kind. We would like to get you in a safe environment for the time you spend learning here and research revealed nothing but a name, Viridis Eras if I remember correctly.” was surprisingly soft and sounded genuinely sincere.

Maybe, Eras wouldn’t have to worry constantly about her friend.

“I am very much a real person, Nedzu.” She said simply, her voice coming across smooth and melodic. The other side of the line went dead quiet. It almost made her chuckle but she refrained. Intimidation was hard to maintain through giggles.

“Hey Eras, what's up?” Muska asked, a hint of relief in her voice. Ah, Nedzu definitely was trying to pry more details out of her.

“The person that actually needs to eat physical food is not in my house to eat it. Since school ended 2 hours ago and my parasite wasn’t here yet despite me stating it was a pasta night, I got worried.” Eras responded, ignoring the soft “actually need to eat?” from the background of the call.

She wasn’t lying. After school had ‘released’ she had been checking the clock every 10 minutes. Anxiety over what could be happening kept her from focusing so she had sat down on the couch and glared at the fireplace for the entire 2 hours.

So what if she was overly worried, and for nothing it seemed? She has had bad experiences and experience is always the best teacher.

“Awe, was my sugar mommy worried about me?” Muska said, her tone teasing and Eras could pick up the faint sounds of choking from the other side of the line. Of course she would throw that term around in front of others.

“You wish, gremlin child.”

“Old woman.”

“Bitch witch”

“What kind of pasta?”

“Spaghetti, homemade, and with a homemade roasted garlic seasoned meat sauce. As well as a salad but Who knows if you’ll have the appetite for it. It’ll be there though.” Eras had gotten up at this point and was shuffling around the kitchen. “Will you need a ride home?”

“Nah, Nedzu is practically vibrating in his place at the thought of another veil member, which he has correctly hypothesized you are, and would most definitely stalk the gate for you.” Muska returned, amusement bleeding into her tone as Eras caught snorts from around the room she was in.

Suddenly, a cough snapped her attention back to the conversation as said rat cleared his throat.

“As amusing as this is, Before you leave would I be able to ascertain who or what you are? Considering the age of the witch present, for her to address you as ‘old woman’ I assume you must be someone who has lived far longer.” Nedzu stated, interest coating his words.

Before she could respond someone in the back of the room, a gruff voice that was deep as fuck holy shit, spoke up with a warning present in his voice.

“Nedzu, I don’t believe interrogating them will get you any of your answers.” the voice said, agitation and resignation in his tone. He was probably well versed in Nedzu.

“Thanks Aizawa-sensei.” Muska said, a little choppy on the sensei but that was expected honestly. Well, nice to know the name of the voice. However, Eras wanted to make the rat suffer a bit. He spent a few hours interrogating so she might as well dangle an interesting opportunity in his face and not allow him to reach for it.

“Yes thank you Aizawa-san, I don't mind telling you what race I am , Nedzu. I am also much older than the teen witch in front of you at the moment. Yet, alas,” she said with faux disappointment and sorrow, “I seem to be needed somewhere else. The pot that hasn’t even begun to boil yet is very threatening to me so I simply must end the call here. See you at home bestie.”

With a response of “You got it bestie.” the line clicked and went dead. Snickering to herself as she finally started the stove.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aizawa Shouta has had several revelations as the day passed. First of all, the broken bone boy was very determined to keep his place in the heroics class. He’s going to be a problem child, he has a sixth sense for them at this point. Secondly, one of his students is an enigma. She looks to be a bit older than 16, maybe 17, yet is over 2 and a half fucking centuries old. When he had first come across the term ‘beyond the veil’ he knew there were probably things that far surpassed humans in different areas but that old? That counts as a teen?

With a heavy sigh, Shouta sat through one of the wildest faculty meetings he had the displeasure of being forced to attend. That was saying something considering his employer was Nedzu. Granted, he wouldn’t have skipped this one anyways when knowing answers to the veil would be given. Understandably, not all of the answers, but now they had a firm idea about what actually lived beyond it. Also understandably, the new information was perplexing. Shouta wouldn’t touch any more information with a ten foot pole until whatever he was just given was processed.

As Viridis left the room, thankfully less chaotic than when she had entered, Shouta let out a sigh of relief. He rubbed his hands down his face and contemplated what he just heard. Finally, they had an overall summary of the types of races present in the veil and a somewhat structured hierarchy that would have to be explained further at some point in case they stumbled into the veil now but that could wait.

Shouta shivered as he remembered how oppressing the air had gotten in the room during Viridis’s talk about the forgotten. He had met hardened villains that had less presence and conviction then she did during her rant. They would need to hear about the taboos as well, he really didn’t want to be branded thank you very much.

Luckily, the goblin of a teen did actually have a guardian that existed. (No ‘Zashi, his jaw was firmly in place and had not dropped when the person spoke, even if it did that was warranted because he's sure he saw even nemuri marvel at how smooth it was, and no he did not snicker when they obviously baited Nedzu.) They wouldn’t have to worry about finding a place for them to stay safely while attending their school. This brought up some new considerations though. Groaning he slammed his head onto the table dramatically, the other teachers swiveling their heads to snap their gaze to him.

“Nedzu, she’s probably already done with the general education curriculum. If we don’t find a way to occupy her, we’ll have to deal with whatever chaos she makes to entertain herself while bored in class.”

All the teachers nodded in agreement. Fear flashing through their eyes at the idea. The flashy pro’s were unusually subdued after that showing. Whether from the presence of something completely unknown to them that was downright terrifying, or just the way Viridis acted and spoke to Nedzu, Shouta wasn’t sure.

Honestly though? Rat-man was his new favorite nickname to call the chimera in his head, it was stuck and was hilarious.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The morning of the second day of Muska's highschool life, Eras felt off, like something bad was going to happen kind of off.

When she had ‘woken’ from her vegetative state that morning everything just felt wrong. Then as she got up to start the day things just kept happening. None of them were good.

First, she found out that Tibbles had knocked over her higher end coffee grounds. (Accidentally of course, Tibbles may see them as servants but he was smarter than most and knew better than to ruin something a vampire enjoys. Eras could hold a grudge and it isn’t pretty) Next, she was informed that she had 4 business meetings, back to back, since there was a supply disruption and her pseudo-bosses that she pays to handle shit like this were out of their depth and had never experienced this before. Great.

Rushing, Eras made the coffees out of the cheaper brand and it hurt her soul to do it, coffee was sacred, and ran back to the observatory where her closet was to get dressed.

Grabbing out one of her many business related outfits, she threw on the first one she saw and paced over to her full length mirror to adjust it. A forest-pine green silk button down, the top three buttons were left open and a mesh underbust corset tied it together and tucked it into black dress pants. She tugged on black platform heels that came to a stop above her ankles. A charcoal black coat that stopped at ankle length hung off her shoulders. Since fall was starting to approach, the days have gotten cooler so it was there just in case.

Not that she actually felt the cold, she was technically undead, but the aesthetic was important.

A few extra accessories to tie it together, a silver chain necklace and several statement rings that were scattered on both hands along with earring sets, and after fixing her middle part she was done. Black circle sunglasses were grabbed absentmindedly through habit as she left the room. The sun was bright and Eras’s eyes were made for the night.

When she walked back into the kitchen to grab her thermos filled with a caramel macchiato she heard a wolf whistle from the dining table. Spinning around, she noticed Muska staring at her with surprise.

That was warranted, Eras dressed like a gym obsessed hobo most of the time.

“Holy shit, Lookin hot as fuck, Damn bestie. where are you heading to?” Muska said as she idly sipped her coffee while the phone she was scrolling through laid on the table, opened up to some kind of story based on the paragraphs of text she was seeing.

“Thanks, I have 4 business meetings that are emergencies because apparently a food supplier that I relied on had to recall everything, so I have to go down and explain what to do and listen to suggestions all day. I should be done by the time your school gets out so I’ll swing by and pick you up if time favors me.” Eras rambled a bit towards the end while fidgeting with her cup.

She was never able to gracefully accept a compliment outside of a text message, no matter how many years Muska’s been with her and hyping her up. Grabbing her keys, this time to her car and not the motorcycle (no matter how much she loves that bike she doesn’t want her hair ruined before she gets to the meeting, she's about to rip into some people.) She turned to Muska.

“Want a ride there?” She asked with a raised eyebrow.

A total of 3 minutes passed as Muska’s sleep-addled brain caught up and she nodded, downing the rest of her coffee like a shot and slipping into her room to change into the uniform.

That was also a new weird thing, Eras was definitely not used to seeing Muska in anything but various black outfits with the occasional color. She missed seeing the edgy outfits and platform heels that were always an unneeded height since Muska was fucking taller than her. (she could change that but she was comfortable with 163cm)

Once Muska came back out, a quick pet to Tibbles given on the way which gave them a meow (Muska immediately glared at the cat. Sadly, Eras was at a loss as to what the cat was saying. Again.) and they both walked out of the door. Despite living on a mountain, they had a stone path that led to a fairly sleek building that blended in with the surrounding trees and mountain terrain. Once inside, parked along the furthest wall and facing the exit were three vehicles. The motorcycle that Eras had driven Muska with on the exam day, a military grade jeep that was blacked out and decked out, and finally, a 1970 volvo. It was a pastel mustard color and belonged to Muska.

Swinging open the door to the Jeep, Eras climbed in and started the car. Opening the garage door with the touch of a button and left the moment Muska was strapped in.

The ride to UA was easy and calm, except for the blaring of Muska’s playlist that Eras didn’t dare tell her to turn down because it was one of her favorite songs and she was loudly singing along. Pulling up a block away from the highschool, Nedzu precaution, Eras waved Muska out of her car and yelled another “KICK ASS WITCH BITCH!” before cackling as she drove away from a very aggressive middle finger from her friend.

Time to go deal with meetings that could have been a conference call.

“I AM-” A loud voice sounded from the hallway, startling Muska from her glare down with PomPom, “COMING THROUGH THE DOORWAY LIKE A NORMAL PERSON!”

That is, not how normal people enter a room what the fuck?

The newest blond in the class stood at around 200 fucking centimeters tall and wore spandex like a second skin. In american colors. Muska had never paid attention to the #1 Pro hero before but the more she looks at this walking american flag the more she’s grateful for not paying attention. Then something caught her attention.

The man had the same leaking weird energy as the twink from the faculty room.

How the hell did the solid brick wall of meat turn into the skeleton of a man she had seen literally yesterday????? Not only that but the leaking energy seemed to travel through the classroom, as if closer to the source of what's gathering it. As she followed the line of energy she noticed it stopped in front of her, going right into greenie….

What did she just stumble upon?

This feels like national secret type shit.

She tuned back in to hear the hero describe the battle trails they would be facing. 2 on 2 battles with full quirk use and indoors with a fucking bomb to locate. Paper mache but still, this was kinda advanced. She did, however, perk up when he mentioned costumes.

That, she was extra excited about.

Despite not really coming to UA for the hero aspect but more of the quirk training aspect, Muska still felt pretty excited about the costume. Also, she would legally be allowed to beat people up as a hero as long as they were classified as criminals or villains. That sounds like a good stress reliever within reason. She wasn’t going to just maul them. That’d be an abuse of power.

After being dismissed to change, Muska ran up to snatch her costume and bolted to the locker room. She had some say in the weapons but Eras had actually taken the time to design the costumes basics in order to cover everything that might be flung after her. It was also a way to help placate her. For some reason Eras had been extra fidgety ever since she started going to school. There were some things she didn’t know about Eras’s past, but she definitely knew that there was some kind of trauma there, and whatever caused it happened in a school setting.

Opening the case, the first thing Muska noticed were the knee high steel reinforced combat boots that had armor built into it to act as knee braces as well. Next to them was a pair of mirror sunglasses that were purple, placed on top of a letter.

[You’re probably wondering about the glasses. I sent them into a support company for a little upgrade to help you out on the field. They're not necessary so if you want to skip wearing them that's fine but at least check out the surprise I’ve added ok?

Kick ass witch bitch

-E.V ]

Placing the sunglasses on her face Muska almost jerked them off in surprise as a cat mascot character appeared on the right side and waved before jumping across the glasses and they powered up, showing an HUD layout. Something said ‘put on suit to connect’ but that was ignored in favor of the other abilities. The right side had facial recognition software and a tracker for things that are marked in view. There was also a marker that she could activate to aim weapons, like a video game. The left had the ‘connect to suit’ warning at the top but underneath that was a mini map of the surrounding area using a fucking satellite. How the fuck?

Taking them off for now, Muska went and picked up her suit to throw on. There were Two layers. First was a black body suit with colored accents that glowed when wanted, right now they were purple but they could change colors. It was Kevlar and another special type of alloy to make it shock resistant, fireproof, frost proof, and immune to knives and bullets. Next, was a cropped hoodie and shorts which stopped at the upper thigh. The cropped hoodie was purple and the hood part of it looked like a witch hat, the long point fashioned after the stereotypical black witch hat.

There was a tactical belt that wrapped around her waist and connected to two belts that wrapped around her thighs below the shorts. The belts that went vertically on the side of her thighs held pockets of medical supplies and smoke bombs. The previous on the left and latter on the right. The belts that were wrapped around her thighs carried the pockets that held her brass knuckles. The belt around her waist held the whip so it dangled while coiled up off her right hip. Slipping on the boots and lacing them up surprisingly quick, the full outfit was on.

Putting on the glasses once more Muska discovered why it said to put on the full suit. At the top left of the sunglasses was a full body scan that continuously displayed her vitals. It was green for now but if she retained injuries it would slowly move between green to yellow to red. Red being critically or fatally injured.

Holy SHIT Eras! This is some Tony Stark shit?!?

Tags:

@baguettehead

[atxlxs]

Beyond The Veil: Chapter 5

The assessment test was pretty consistent.

Those that had the quirks suited for it at first glance had dominated while the rest all seemed to get variations of the same base score. Some slightly better, some slightly worse. This made it pretty easy for Muska to just, consistently get good scores.

When your quirk, *cough* and other things *cough*, essentially affects anything and everything as long as the energy itself isn’t being used by something else it becomes easy to just enhance everything.

Ball throw? More like sniper propulsion. Long jump? Ha, more like flying to the opposite side. Grip strength? She doesn’t even need to touch it. Just contract the energy surrounding the mechanism. Flexibility? She used to do ballet, like, a century ago but muscle memory counts.

She had some tests she couldn’t do well, like the endurance test. She was here to train her quirk after all. Plus the longer the tests went on the harder it was to continue. If she continued at the level she was doing, she’d have one hell of a headache. It was starting to hurt as well. Every time she tried to go over her limits, using the energy actually hurt so she’d rather avoid that.

By the end of it all, Muska had placed a solid 3rd place. Beating out Robocop and PomPom (Bakugo), looking down the list with curiosity, Muska cringed at Midoriya taking last place. The kid definitely couldn’t regulate the energy belonging to his quirk, which felt really weird whenever Muska looked into it, and had broken his finger on the ball throw. However, what she didn’t expect was the feeling of mirth coming off of Aizawa.

Wait a damn minute.

The fucker wouldn’t.

“It was a logical ruse to make you all perform at your best capabilities.”

The fucker did.

Now, even as the class started shouting once more that evening, Muska was highly focused on the man in front of her. That was a lie. He lied about it being a ruse. The energy had fluctuated just slightly when he said ruse, going from mirth to a hazy feeling. The indescribable experience one goes through when they white lie or bluff.

He was going to expel the person who came in last. Something changed that though. What the fu- Oh. Ooooh.

“...If you won’t take this seriously as the hero in training students you are…”

The bastard was judging our potential and disguised it as an assessment!

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Rat-man hadn’t given Muska a map, either expecting her to ask someone to help or look at the map and guess. She would do neither. Asking for help would warn them beforehand and she might be waved off considering it was a staff meeting. Secondly, she just doesn’t want to.

Instead of her quirk, Muska closed her eyes and felt around the harmony. Surprisingly, the school was ‘clean’ for the most part. A few dark patches here and there but nothing horrendous. That was when she noticed it. A room towards the top of the fourth tower, left side in the back away from the gate, was filled with several aged energies. One of which seemed to be escaping slowly towards something else. That was weird, but definitely where she needed to be.

It took 10 minutes of dedication to get to the tower needed, and 10 more to not stab the principal on sight after she got up the stairs and walked over to a steel door that had a key code. Disregarding the key code box since she definitely didn’t know said code, she decided that knocking in the tune to “Crab Rave” was a good alternative.

The door opened before the first verse was done to a very confused woman in spandex. Giving her a smile, it definitely had an annoyed flair to it since she could be at home and forcing Eras to be cooking right now, Muska slipped past her and into the meeting room. The Rat-man stood on the large table, surrounded by pro hero’s (based on the flashy getups…. Is that a horse gas mask?) and seemed to be in the middle of something. A beat of silence followed as Muska walked over to an empty chair near the front, it looked to be Nedzu’s but the short rat-man didn’t need it, and sat down. Pulling out her phone and starting to scroll through Tiktok. It was an old app but it stayed strong through the years and was still running.

“Uh, whatsa youngin like ya doin here?” Horse gas mask man asked. The heroes all subtly nodded along, too shocked by her nonchalant actions about crashing a very obvious faculty meeting.

Muska’a face twisted into a small frown as she turned her attention up to see the man. Aizawa, who she just now noticed was sitting at the back corner of the table, was just glaring down at Nedzu. Smart move and he was right.

“First of all, don’t call me youngin, I can guarantee I'm older than you. Second of all, ask Remy the rat here for that info.” Muska stated, about to return to her phone before perking up again and continued, “Also rat-man, if you want answered questions they better be done before 5, I have pasta being cooked by a glorified 5 star chef waiting at home.”

Several heroes choked, Aizawa hid a snort into his scarf, at her words. Nedzu, the fiend, just smiled wider.

“Of course!” The chimera chirped.

Yes chirped, maybe he had some bird DNA mixed in?

“I wouldn’t want to keep you too long! Faculty, this is Viridis Muska, Viridis, these are the pro heroes on staff that I trust to keep their mouths shut under oath of an NDA! Your guardian was kind enough to email it over to me this afternoon.”

Muska snorted at that. “Yea sounds like her.” Placing her phone face up on the table next to her, she tapped on the table expectantly as the Rat took his sign to continue.

“The most obvious question should probably be first and I know my dear staff are confused, what did you mean by you being older?”

It was an innocent question, she’ll answer it.

“Why Remy, that's cause unless Humanity has managed to surpass their expected due date of at max 120 years, then I am very much so older.”

The room was filled with confusion. It radiated off them in waves as distress rose at getting such vague answers. Aizawa in the corner sighed and snapped his gaze from the rat to her.

“I’m sure what the rat meant to ask was how old are you exactly and how did you reach that age.” Aizawa stated. Clear and concise.

“Of course, if I remember correctly I should be turning 267 this year,” she said, not pausing even when coffee was spat all over the table from a few of the people around the room, “and I was born a human, however upon entry into the veil and my chosen profession as a witch, I was changed. Reaching the height of my craft has allowed me to unlock certain aspects of my being, immortalizing my body for now. I’m still technically in my ‘teen’ years considering the average witch you’ll meet has passed a thousand years in some capacity.”

Aizawa ran a hand down his face in exasperation and a quiet mumble of “fucking problem ch- witch” escaped. A few other heroes were pale, and the spandex woman looked very intrigued. A twink with blond hair that had the weird energy actually coughed up blood. Muska’s gaze snapped to him at that. The need to heal over writing her focus for a moment before Nedzu cleared his throat for attention again.

Reluctantly she returned her gaze to the rat. If she didn’t know any better she would have thought he was undisturbed. She did, however, know better. The rat was practically vibrating where he stood in excitement.

“Viridis, do you think you could give us a basic rundown of the veil?” Nedzu quizzed, looking more and more like the sadistic researcher he was. Fuck, He's just like the elves.

Muska leaned back and sighed. She expected this and went over it with eras last night. They came up with what could, or couldn’t be talked about for the beginning until they were all deemed trustworthy.

“I can give you a short, very short compared to all the details of the veil, summary but frankly the veil doesn’t want certain info getting into certain hands.” She said, voice cold and steely. She would not be taking a no for this.

“I understand! Anything you can trust us with for now would help the mystery that has been plaguing me for years.” Nedzu said, which caused Muska to cackle a bit.

“I know, the… reps of certain races and collectives have placed bets on when and who would slip and give you the info at some point.” watching with amusement as Nedzu’s whiskers twitched, she sighed and leaned forwards. Pointing a finger at the white board behind her.

Nedzu, who of course understood exactly what that meant, nodded.

Muska stood up and grabbed three markers. One black, one green, and one red. Taking the black marker, she drew a large circle and wrote ‘The Veil’ above it. Uncapping the green marker, Muska spoke up as she marked off sections in the circle with black and labeled them in green.

“In the veil there are set collections and races. I, as a witch, belong to the group called Magia.” Magia was written in a section taking up a 5th of the circle, “It's a collective that represents those who follow magically tied professions, no matter the race you are, since once you become a part of what defines the Magia you are assigned this section. Of course like nations there is also dual representation. However, that's more complicated and this is the short version.”

A quick glance told Muska that everyone in the room was listening with rapt attention. Especially Aizawa and Nedzu, one more concealed than the other.

“Next is the elvish. Yes, elves, and yes, they are very pretentious. The younger ones are more lax and ready for mischief, but the elders tend to be stuck in their ways or research. God the research they do. They’re called the scholars of the abyss. Do you need to know something? Ask an elf. They write and read practically everything there is to write and read.” Another section gets cut off and labeled.

“Then there's the dwarves, oh and I’m listing these in population order as is the sectioning. The more people the bigger the section and so on. I’ll get to influence later. Back to dwarves. They aren’t all blacksmiths as myth leads you to believe but they do make the best weaponry and armor. You can find quite a few in engineering professions. A lot find jobs in mixology and brewing as well.” Another section. So far all are labeled with green.

“Next is the Vampires. These guys are incredibly important in the veil since they were the first members of it. Treated the closest to monsters, they had to run away from society's view earlier than loved races like elves and dwarves. Hell, even witches had some supporters when Halloween started to become a festive rather than a lore holiday. If you want to truly know about the veil? Then ask a vampire. They have every secret tucked away and safe guarded by their Origins.” Muska said, a small mischievous smirk was hidden as they faced the board. The energy shift in Nedzu told her the first time he met Eras would be cathartic considering it's her quirk registry game that led her here.

“Next is a much smaller group called the Fae. They are everything you’ve read and more. Do not engage with them until you’ve gone through Celtic mythology. You’ll become moss like that. I fuckin hate the imps sometimes.”

“In a more general group are the smallest numbers. Collectively known as the ‘inbetween’ these members range from the sirens in the waters to the spirits that haunt the earth and fuel the energy. Demons fall under here too but they rarely visit earth and always do so under contract so they don’t have much of a voice. Dragon descendants too, the last of the actual dragons died thousands of years ago but their blood lines are in half dragons. They have wings on some, horns and scales on others, but all carry the boiling blood of their predecessors.”

Muska took a deep breath after labeling one of the last spaces with green. Capping it, she uncapped the red and wrote a bold ‘FORGOTTEN’ in the smallest space. Turning around she dropped all smiles and pleasantries. Voice harsh and cold as she spoke venom with every word.

“Never, ever, look for those in the forgotten. They do not have representation but they are known and branded. A red circle with a line in the middle along with text that only certain people can read is their symbol and it's burned into their skin. The forgotten are the, essentially, criminals of the veil. The veil is filled with people of dubious legalities to humans but there is a special place to rot for those that cross veil taboos. Whether it’s a necromancer practicing on those that are alive, or a vampire who has gone blood crazy and slipped into the view of humans as food. Elves committing experimentation on live creatures for research or sirens drowning sailors into the ocean out of amusement. These are all examples of forgottens who get branded soon after they are recognized.”

The air seemed stale as Muska ran her glare over the heroes present. Even Nedzu shuddered as the energy in the room seemed to freeze and burn those that took too deep of a breath despite not actually happening.

The heroes nodded once they realized she was looking for a response and her gaze softened but still held a serious edge to it.

“The brands are placed by chosen representatives of the race where the forgotten came from. The representative is chosen by a council meeting between the heads of each race, the heads themselves are chosen by vote or position within the race and the job is carried out within 24 hours of discovery.”

Speaking of the representatives of races,

“Any questions before I head home for my fuckin pasta?”

(She just really wants her pasta)

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[atxlxs]

Beyond The Veil: Chapter 4

The first day of UA high was vaguely threatening. Nedzu was a character that has been looking for an in to the veil for years. Everyone knew about it and everyone was betting on when someone would slip up and let him in. Now Muska had to be the reason Nedzu got in. Great.

The rest of the witches won’t let her escape unscathed. She’ll be hearing about this for years.

It didn’t help that Eras hadn’t stopped cackling since she woke up.

“Cackle one more time and I tell Nedzu that you're an old woman who is older than me and therefore has more knowledge and someone very important in the veil.”

It was an empty threat, Muska wouldn’t tell anyone about Eras’s titles and race. Not even under torture. Eras knew this. It still worked like a charm to shut her up though.

“Want me to take you or do you want to ride the train yourself?” Eras asked, passing a thermos to her.

Coffee, the sweet nectar of the gods, forged for our benefit.

“I’ll be fine on my own this time. Don’t want to be caught outside UA while Nedzu’s looking into the veil.”

“True, I’ll still be in town today though. A cat cafe I purchased a few years ago got a new batch of rescues and I wanna meet them.” Eras said, giving Tibbles a scratch under the chin eliciting a purr.

It sounded suspiciously like [Ah yes, favorite servant gives good scratches].

Ignoring her familiar, Muska nodded to Eras as she adjusted the skirt of her uniform (Ugh). She had emailed the rat-man last night that she would be willing to attend a meeting after school if time permits it. The rat had responded that despite there being a staff meeting that day, Muska could come and join it. Since Muska was given permission, she’s gonna crash it.

“See you later bestie,” Muska called out, as she left through the door, backpack in hand.

“Bye bestie!” came a shout back and yea, Nedzu might feel like a vague threat, but at least she could squash the rat like a bug. Who knows, she might just get along with him.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

UA was a fucking maze and it’s the rat’s fault.

Muska was so close to just setting Tibbles loose on the principal. Even if that would give her a murder charge. As far as she’s concerned, she has a sugar mommy fully capable of paying bail. Fortunately for the rat, Muska found the 1-A labels door within the next 10 minutes. Sliding it open, She found Blue- annoyingly- giving another etiquette lecture to a very angry blondie. At least she would have some form of eye candy.

“So I guess it wasn’t the exam stress that twisted your panties. You're just built like that.” Muska said as she walked into the room. Blondie, surprisingly, snickered at her words. They then proceeded to look confused as to why. As if Muska was anything less than hilarious.

“Y-You!” The now called robocop boy stammered.

“Me.” Muska deadpanned. Moving her gaze to the board, she caught sight of her seat and thanked the forest that she was placed in the back, well not fully in the back. She was behind Greenie and in front of Yayo-Yaoyorozu? Yoyo. The girl will be dubbed Yoyo until future notice. She moved down the aisle and placed her bag on the desk hook, sliding into her seat and resting her head on her hand.

“How dare you! It is inappropriate to be so rude and mean to your fellow classmates! UA is a-” Muska cut him off with a glare.

“A school for teens. If you're so black and white that you can’t seem to relax then you should probably leave considering the world isn’t black and white. It's grey, and you’ll break one day if you can’t bend Robocop.” Muska stated, curtly. Damn this boy was annoying in the worst of ways. Midoriya turned around in his seat to give a smile and a small hello, despite his shaking frame that betrayed his somewhat confident introduction.

Not letting her frown at that show, Muska nodded and gave a hello back. As well as a wink to make him blush. It works and she wants entertainment. Eras would always quip back to their mock flirting. This could be just as fun if it always gets that much red on greenie, making him a strawberry.

Though blondie, looking up at the board revealed his name to be Bakugo Katsuki which- really? Why are the names so on point?- , was more of her type. Speaking of, Turning her attention towards the spikey blond hair, like a Pomeranian she idly noted, she found a piercing red gaze already directed towards her.

If it wasn’t for the fact that as a witch she could tell he wasn't one of them, she would’ve assumed some regular vampires had an influence in his genes.

Tilting her head, she let a smirk and raised eyebrow do the talking and watched with amusement as the boy scowled. Cocking his head he glared harshly and his eyes held a determined glow, practically speaking the thoughts “wanna go?” which was returned with “You fuckin bet.”

Before they could act on that declaration, Muska felt an energy shift and broke her eyes away first. Turning to the door, she saw the energy sluggishly inch forwards like a caterpillar. Quietly she pressed her hand to her mouth to stop the laugh that wanted to break free. Taking a few calming breaths, Muska shifted slightly to pay attention as the caterpillar revealed itself to Gravity Girl who had just made it in the door and was chatting with greenie which- when did he get up?

(Around the time he saw Muska and Bakugo glaring at each other, he wasn’t going to be caught between them. He might have self sacrificial tendencies but he had some form of self preservation-)

The caterpillar, who shed his sleeping bag to reveal a scruffy man who definitely needed some sleep, spoke up with a disappointed glare. Face a mask of indifference as he said,

“It took all of you 8 minutes to notice me, sans Viridis and by extension Bakugo, not fast enough. You’ll need to work on your spatial awareness if you want to become Heroes in the future.”

The man walked to his podium as Midoriya and Uraraka scrambled until they were seated. He reached behind it and took out a box and placed it on a students desk who was huge and had 6 arms.

“My name's Aizawa Shouta, your homeroom teacher for 1-A. Take these and put them on, meeting me in the training area.” A booklet was also placed on the desk and Muska assumed that it was the map booklet.

With that, he left.

Muska got up and walked briskly over to the box and snatched her uniform and opened the booklet quickly to find a red marked line of directions on a map. Nodding to herself, she left. Leaving the booklet for others, one picture heavier, Muska walked out of the room with her phone open and a gym uniform. All before the rest of the class reacted.

She was almost to the first turn when she heard the classroom door open and close with a slam and stomping feet. A quick glance told her that Bakugo had been the first to react. Turning back around, Muska made sure to be at the locker room and out within the 10 minutes given.

Remarkably, she managed just fine and was out of the locker room as others were just filing in and walked onto the field where her new homeroom teacher stood ominously. She could tell he was trying to stay neutral with a hint of intimidation but with years of dealing with Eras, Muska couldn’t find it in her to be scared. Really, they should meet each other, they’d probably enjoy each other's companionship.

A raised eyebrow in her direction asked the silent question and Muska huffed.

“They didn’t start moving until I was already down the hallway. They were filing in the locker room when I left.” She stated, amused.

Aizawa-sensei, god she felt like an anime wanna be weeb, just gave her a curt nod and went back to being entirely expressionless.

It was 3 minutes after the 10 minute allotted time when everyone made it onto the field and Aizawa lost his mask of indifference as he scowled. With a glare, he returned to lecture mode.

“Next time keep it within the time limit,” he stated, harshly, before continuing, “Today we’ll be having a physical assessment with quirks allowed.”

As expected by such an admittance, chaos reigned down on the class as everyone shouted questions. God, does Japan not do raised hands or somethin? Judging by the angry, quirked glare they got, which Muska noted cut off her connection to her quirk, they did do said raised hand trick.

“Quiet.”

Instantly, a suffocating hush covered the class. Seeing as Gravity Girls' question was the most offended sounding (something about orientation which Muska would happily skip with permission any day), along with the help of Robocop, their teacher addressed that first.

“UA offers teachers freedom to teach their classes however they want. This includes approval to skip unneeded ceremonies such as orientation. Question my authority again and I’ll expel you.”

After he blinked, floating hair and red eyes returned to normal. His gaze swept across the students and they landed on someone. He halfway ducked his head into his scarf thing and Muska could have sworn she saw a smirk.

“Bakugo,” He started, gaze burning holes into the student in question, “How far was your ball thrown in middle school?” The sentence was a question, but the deadpan and toneless delivery made it sound like a statement.

“67 meters.” Bakugo answered, sounding slightly irritated but obviously not wanting to test the teacher with being rebellious.

“Alright, take this ball and throw it, however I want you to use your quirk this time. Anything goes as long as you stay in the circle.” Aizawa stated simply, tossing the ball in Bakugo’s direction who caught it with ease.

A feral grin stretched onto Bakugo’s features as he stepped into the circle. Before he threw it though, he tilted his head in Muska’s direction and narrowed his eyes for a fraction of a second, before stretching his arm out. Oh he was challenging her.

Next thing he did was rear back and shout a loud “DIE!” before an explosion followed, propelling the ball forwards and into the distance. A beep sounded on the device Aizawa had fished out of somewhere.

“Here at UA we test your limits in going beyond, that's why we have these assessments. It’s only logical to get a base for where you are before we begin training.”

The class erupted in excited chatter. Words like “cool!” and “Fun” were tossed around as one student in particular called out about how “this would be so much fun!” Muska, however, has an energy quirk that also helps her witch abilities. Combine the two and she’s able to get a read on what people are thinking or feeling. The dark aura coming from Aizawa promised anything but fun.

“Fun? This sounds like fun to you? Fine, if you won’t take this seriously as the hero students in training you're supposed to be, then I’ll just have to make it serious. The points you get from the tests will be tallied at the end of the assessment. The person in last will be expelled.”

Aizawa’s cold gaze sent shivers up some of the students' spines. Outcries of unfairness were startled out of the students under their unforgiving teachers gaze. The man’s eye twitched in irritation. Muska could understand why though. Life was never fair. Eras’s past and their own made sure they understood that.

“Unfair? Life is unfair. Natural disasters are unfair. Villains are unfair. Life won’t give you fairness and you shouldn’t expect it. Your training to become heroes, if you can convince me you deserve to be, you're going to be going against the unfair. Now, Tokoyami, You're up.”

She was so going to rub that blondie's face into the dirt.

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@baguettehead