Author's Notes: Chapter edited and corrected by Scott Fellman.
August 12, 2xxx - Taylor Pov.
It was already dawn, at least 8 hours had passed since Izumi had been kidnapped, and none of us had been able to sleep a wink.
I was lying in bed, leaning against the headboard, staring at the ceiling for no reason, my thoughts consuming me. My bugs were constantly moving around aimlessly.
I thought briefly about my insect monsters; they were in a holding cell. I couldn't let them loose in UA, even if I could constantly monitor them. When I slept, they would be a problem, but I guess since I wasn't able to sleep a wink, that wouldn't have been of much use.
Ruby was lying next to me, hugging me tightly. I could see her face tremble occasionally, as if she were trying to stop herself from crying. I placed my hand on her shoulder to try to comfort her, but it didn't have much effect since I was just as tense and full of anxiety.
Azula sat on the couch, trying to appear nonchalant, but her tense jaw and the constant tapping of her foot revealed her anxiety and worry.
Meanwhile, Darkness had her collar on and was kneeling on the small pillow Izumi had placed for her 'games', with her shield on her lap, seeking solace with Izumi's gifts.
Izumi's belongings, which had been inside his shadows but expelled, were also brought in on a moving path, which was still placed outside the dormitory, waiting to be emptied. The only saving grace was that none of his swords were there, so he was able to hold onto them for the time being, but that seemed to be all he had left.
I gritted my teeth in frustration.
"We have to find Izumi," I said hoarsely, tiredness and fatigue leaving my throat with difficulty.
"Unless you're suddenly able to cover all of Japan, and possibly the entire world, with your insects, or you've acquired another quirk, we don't know where it is; it's useless to think about it." Azula spat mockingly before grimacing and lowering her head. I took it as the apology it was. Azula rarely lashed out at us despite having a sharp tongue. The situation certainly wasn't easy for either of us.
"Even so... I can't just sit here waiting for the heroes to bring him back, the longer we take... who knows what they're doing to him." I said darkly, which made the other three shudder slightly.
" I... I prefer to believe that he'll be fine. He still has his swords, like you said. He's probably already fighting his way out of that place." Ruby said hopefully. Azula snorted.
"Yeah, he's going to escape from the villains and then get lost. In fact, that way we wouldn't find him again, or he'd probably appear around some corner," Azula said dryly, and despite myself, I smiled slightly.
" Yeah, I never really thought anyone was capable of really getting lost like that." I said playfully.
"Even with that test we did to see if he could make it from the dorms to the classroom, it was incredible. If we weren't following him, I wouldn't have believed he was about to take a train out of the prefecture." Ruby said, letting out a small, weak laugh.
"Izumi is special," Darkness said dreamily.
"Yeah, it's a good thing his mom put a-" I froze completely, and the girls looked at me, confused. "His mom put a GPS in his piercings." I said immediately, which made the three girls freeze just as it did me, and they straightened up immediately.
" Ugh !! How could we have been so stupid! " Ruby growled as she disappeared and brought her scroll. I did the same with my bugs. Azula and Darkness also took theirs.
The four of us turned on our Scrolls with renewed hope and simultaneously opened the GPS tracking app. It took a few long, intense seconds before the location appeared on the map.
"Yokohama… It's in Yokohama City." I said with a sigh of relief. I could feel my whole body visibly relaxing. The four of us sighed in unison. He was still in Japan, not even far away, if I calculated correctly, about three hours by train. It was much better than thinking I was on the other side of the world.
"Okay! What's the plan? " Ruby asked, sounding much more excited than she had been a few minutes ago. I allowed myself to smile genuinely for the first time in hours.
"Should we tell the teachers?" Darkness asked carefully, and the three of us looked at her, making Darkness blush slightly and look away. "I-I mean, I wouldn't want anything more than to go find Izumi, but he's probably surrounded by villains, so... All Might." Darkness said shyly.
And I wanted to grimace and refuse immediately, but Darkness had a huge point. All Might. And it was a huge, brilliant point. If there was anyone who would win Izumi back immediately, it would definitely be All Might.
I took a deep breath and nodded.
"Okay, we'll go tell the teachers," I finally said, and the others nodded. With that, we practically ran out of the dorms and headed to the main building. I quickly searched for the teachers with my bugs and saw them all in a lecture hall.
I didn't even stop to knock, just swung open the door and hurried in, the girls right behind me. I could see the heroes tense up suddenly. I looked around, and there were Principal Nezu, All Might, and the other UA teachers.
"Miss Hebert, what a suc- "
"We know where Izumi is," I said immediately. The teachers froze and stood up. I was about to speak, but Nezu cleared his throat. I could feel him staring at me intently, his black eyes fixed on me with a seriousness I hadn't seen during our previous meeting.
"You say that... you know where Izumi is, how? " Nezu asked directly. I nodded and took out my scroll.
"As you know... Izumi seems to be from DTD, so he often gets lost and wanders far away. Izumi's mom was really worried and ended up putting a GPS in the piercings he wears. She gave us the code and the tracking app." I said while showing the map to Nezu. All the other teachers crowded around him.
"Kamino Ward, Yokohama City." All Might said, staring at the map intently. I nodded slightly.
"How reliable are these GPSs? Is it possible they've been tampered with? " Present Mic immediately asked.
"I don't think so... besides us, Izumi and his mother, no one should know about GPS, and they are discreet enough that it won't be noticeable or different from a normal piercing. Unless they decide to cut off his ear or are paranoid enough, the map is showing Izumi's real location." I said confidently.
"Well done, Miss Hebert." Nezu said, nodding. "I'll borrow your scroll if you don't mind. Until everything is resolved."
"No problem." I said immediately. "The password is 1704." I said without hesitation, Izumi's birthday.
"Good job, girls!" All Might said, giving a thumbs-up. "Now let us take care of it-"
"I want to go." I interrupted suddenly. "We want to go." I corrected myself as I saw the three girls behind me nod.
"Miss Hebert… I understand that you're worried about Izumi, but-"
"I promise to follow all your orders." I interrupted him again, almost desperate. "I'm perfect for spying with my insects. I can place them inside the villains' lair without them knowing. Darkness can enhance all the heroes with her shield. They're huge advantages," I added.
"no -"
"Alright." Nezu said immediately. I wanted to sigh in relief and smile hugely all at the same time, but I suppressed it as Nezu stared at me.
"Is that okay? Will you let the students go fight the villains?! " Midnight asked incredulously. Nezu hummed lightly.
"Yes, for the simple fact that I'm not stupid enough to believe that if we deny them, they'll stay put in the dormitory." Nezu said dryly. I grimaced slightly. "The moment we're not careful, they'll go straight to Kamino without our permission."
"Hebert already said it, Izumi's mother gave all of them the way to track him, even if we seize their Scrolls, they will go to Kamino one way or another and search for him blindly, we can't stop them unless we lock them up." Nezu added while laughing.
"I can knock them out for several hours, until it's all over," Midnight said, pinching her suit and raising an eyebrow. I frowned slightly, not even tensing at the threat.
"No need," Nezu said with a smile. "I'd rather have them stay on top of things, follow orders, and be visible on the battlefield than have them show up unexpectedly and ruin all our plans," Nezu shrugged. "Besides, what Miss Hebert says is true. They can really be helpful."
"Thank you, Principal Nezu! We won't let you down! " I said with a relieved smile, the girls behind me following my words. Nezu just nodded.
"Now go rest, and this time try to sleep, don't talk to anyone else about this. There will be a long day of preparations; you have to be at full power if you want to help Miyamura. It will take us a while to prepare everything." Nezu said goodbye to us.
I almost wanted to argue about going right away, but Nezu's glare silenced me. I took a deep breath. He was right. We had to prepare, not only because the goal was far away, but also because rushing anything could make everything go horribly wrong. So I just sighed in relief.
The four of us nodded and left, our steps lighter than before. It pained me a little that I couldn't tell the others about this, since everyone seemed incredibly worried about Izumi, especially Jinx, Tanya, and Visha, but orders were orders.
Wait, Izumi, we'll come get you soon. Stay safe.
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Izumi Pov.
"6 out of 10," I said immediately when I regained consciousness as I appeared in what looked like the living room of a house? Not a bar? So they changed location? Would I still be on Kamino?
I tried to move, but I saw that I was tied to a safety chair full of restraints on top of me that surrounded me and barely let me move.
"6 out of 10?" Cinder asked, raising an eyebrow. I hummed as I looked at everyone. I guess it makes sense that it's somewhere else. The large number of people here wouldn't fit into the bar, or they simply changed because of Shigaraki's rebellion. Since she should know the original location, it's possible AFO didn't want to risk it.
Besides Cinder, there were Esmerald and Mercury, the six members of the League of Villains, and the Travelers; to my surprise, all the Travelers, not just the three who went to the camp to attack.
The six members of the Travelers were fully assembled: the three who helped attack Trickster, Sundancer, and Ballistic, and the three who hadn't appeared before, Genesis, Oliver, and Noelle. The first four were fully masked, wearing professionally tailored outfits.
While Oliver and Noelle, or well, whatever their names were now since they had swapped genders, Oliver was a woman and Noelle was a boy, both wore domino masks over their faces.
I looked at 'Noelle' suspiciously. Noelle's parahuman power had been completely broken in the Worm canon. Broken in the sense that it was too strong and too uncontrolled, to the point of becoming a pseudo-Endbringer when let loose.
Yes… Her powers were obtained artificially and made in a very crude way, so it is possible that that had a lot to do with it, but until now, all the powers that the original Cauldron had created had been replicated in this world as natural quirks.
The Triumvirate in the United States was the greatest proof that could be seen.
So, that could mean that 'Noelle' still has her power out of control... or not...
Or the reason they came to AFO's payroll was to find a cure, if AFO had acquired Noelle's quirk capable of creating evil clones, with their own variant quirks, uncontrolled and loyal to their creator... my stomach dropped several degrees at that implication, this was bad... very, very bad.
I didn't even want to consider if I could steal the quirks from the evil clones to accumulate variations of the same quirk over and over again; it was horrible.
"Yeah, 6 out of 10, the trip, I mean. I wouldn't recommend it. The black ooze smells awful. I can still smell it in my nose, and I just woke up, and all my joints are stiff; it's a bit annoying." I said with a mocking smile.
"My apologies, I'm afraid there's nothing that can be done to improve it," Compress said, bowing slightly.
"Meh... don't worry about it," I said dismissively with a shrug. "Does anyone have any chocolate? I must say the trip really opened my stomach," I said distractedly as I looked around.
"You seem a little too comfortable for someone locked up with villains," Trickster mocked. I smirked at her.
"Villains? I don't see villains, at least not when I look at you. I just see kids in costumes, don't I? Krouser?" I asked with a huge, wide grin as I said her name slowly.
The Travelers visibly froze, and I only smiled wider. Should I be irritating and annoying the villains who had me trapped and significantly outnumbered me? Definitely not. But I've never been good at doing exactly what I should.
Besides… these bastards kidnapped me, I had every right to bother them in every way I could find.
If my body sensed it correctly, it was early morning; it had already been dawn for a couple of hours, but it wasn't even noon yet. It was good that my body could sense the sun's position somehow, but also weird, but I wasn't complaining either way; it was a pretty useful skill since I couldn't even see the sun.
The question was, what day was it? If it's only been a few hours since I was kidnapped, then it would be like a day and a half before the heroes and All Might come to rescue me if Momo planted the tracker on any of the villains, obviously.
So once again, it was a bad idea to bother the villains before that.
Although if they got angry, they'd be more likely to reveal something they were hiding. I was really curious about Cinder here. Although, well, with Arthur Watts working for AFO, I shouldn't be surprised.
At this point, I'm almost expecting Tyrian, Hazel, and the other members of Salem's inner circle and their allies to appear under AFO's orders. I wouldn't hold my breath.
On the other hand, I had my swords inside my shadows, and I could try to escape without holding back in the slightest.
Really, I was more upset with myself for letting myself get captured than anything else. Yes, the combination of Trickster, Twice, and Compress really caught me off guard, and I was able to stop them at the time, but I didn't even think my vision of the future could be fooled in any way. I got careless, completely and utterly my fault.
But now I had complete faith in facing them head-on, as long as AFO didn't suddenly appear. I was strong, but not arrogant enough to think I could take on that monster head-on just yet.
But escaping quickly might be possible... Maybe. Maybe if I cut Trickster in half. She was the most annoying person here, and besides, I didn't like her.
That said… it was all just an excuse to mess with the villains in front of me while somehow justifying it. Yes, it was a very stupid idea to upset them, but it wasn't something I could actively avoid; I was stupid.
Now let's see how much I could drive these villains crazy.
I smiled widely.
Author's Notes:
Taylor: I hope Izumi is safe.
Izumi: I'm going to anger the villains who have me kidnapped.