Chapter 40: The Counterattack Plan
Izuku Midoriya couldn't bear to see Aizawa-sensei being pinned to the ground and beaten, but he was completely helpless. He composed himself, walked over to Yoshikage Kira's left, and whispered, "You said you have a way to contact the other students. What do we need to do?"
"I'm sorry for Aizawa-sensei, but the enemy doesn't seem to intend to kill him. So, the most important thing for us right now is to ensure the safety of all our classmates."
Kira let go of the edge of the pool, sank back into the water, and gestured for them to come closer. When they had formed a circle, Kira took something out of his pocket, sealed in a clear plastic bag, and said, "You should be familiar with this, right?"
"This is... a walkie-talkie! And it's waterproof!"
Seeing the looks of surprise and joy on the faces of Midoriya, Tsuyu Asui, and Minoru Mineta, Kira slowly recounted what he had been doing.
Midoriya was ecstatic. "So Kira-kun and Ojiro-kun took care of the enemies in the Conflagration Zone and then split up to find the other students! As expected of our class president!"
Tsuyu Asui looked at Kira with disbelief, her finger on her chin. "Kira-chan really is reliable..."
Mineta raised his hand and shouted, "So that means we're all going to be okay? All Might is coming to save us?!"
Kira nodded, a little surprised by the familiar way Asui was addressing him. Are we that close already?
"Ojiro-kun is very reliable. The students over there should be fine with him around," Kira said, then looked at Midoriya with approval. "I was prepared for a fight, but I didn't expect you to have already dealt with the enemies so smoothly. I snuck over to where they were tied up and got the walkie-talkie from their leader."
"Kira-chan, how did they just hand over something so important to you?"
"Ah, that's all thanks to Mineta-kun," Kira said after a moment's silence, a little reluctant to recall the scene. "Some of the 'grapes' Mineta-kun threw got stuck in their noses, ears, and mouths. Because of the super-strong adhesive, they were completely restrained and had no way to remove them. When I swam over to them, I just asked if they had anything important on them, and someone eagerly sold out their boss... and that's how I got this walkie-talkie."
"I see...!" Midoriya slapped his fist into his palm, a little regretful. "I should have interrogated them."
"It's not your fault, Midoriya-chan. You did a great job," Asui comforted him, then asked Kira, "Can we really not wait for All Might?"
Kira had already told them his theory that the enemy's target was All Might. Although Midoriya had a hard time accepting it, he didn't argue. Perhaps it was because he had a similar thought in his own mind.
"Right now, the most important thing is to confirm the safety of our other classmates. Only when we know they're safe can we be at ease, and Aizawa-sensei can be at ease."
"...You're right, Kira-chan. Let's begin."
Seeing that the three of them had no objections, Kira turned on the walkie-talkie and tuned it to the code and frequency he had gotten from the enemy.
Landslide Zone.
"Monster! This guy is a monster!!"
A man from the group that had ambushed U.A., led by the League of Villains, was now hiding behind a large rock, trembling. "What's going on?! Is this guy really just a kid?!"
He had been assigned to the Landslide Zone to help trap the scattered students and use them to threaten All Might. However... they, the hunters, were now being completely suppressed by a single prey!
He was the only one who had been clever enough to hide far away and avoid being taken out by that terrifying attack. But even so, he had no time to catch his breath. The person was now systematically searching the area, cutting off his escape routes.
"So you were here..."
Hearing the somewhat cold voice, he didn't hesitate to dive forward. Instantly, the rock that had been his cover turned into a block of ice, and even the ground around it was frozen solid.
Damn it! Why does he have to keep chasing me?! I don't even want to attack him anymore!
"Can you stop running? I'm losing my patience."
He kept running, with no intention of stopping. He had already witnessed the fate of his comrades—frozen solid in blocks of ice, with only their faces left exposed to the air for this tyrant's interrogation!
Suddenly, he looked down and saw a round, black dot growing larger in his own trembling shadow.
He looked up in terror. A ten-meter-long, cone-shaped block of ice was flying straight at him from the sky, like a heat-seeking missile. It slammed into the ground right in front of him with precision!
BOOM~
The ice block landed, embedding itself several meters deep. He had no time to react and crashed into it at full speed. Instantly, his mind went blank, and he collapsed to the ground like a limp noodle, feeling as if he had a concussion.
His face was pressed against the ground as he watched the red-and-white demon in the U.A. tracksuit walk toward him. He could only say in a panic, "Don't kill me! I don't know anything!"
"What a useless guy. Besides your Quirk, you're just at the level of a street thug," Shoto Todoroki said with disgust, freezing the man's legs. "I'm surprised you could run this far..."
Todoroki had already gotten the information he needed from the group of attackers. Only this guy had seen things were going bad and ran off. To prevent him from reporting back, Todoroki had spent some time tracking him down.
As a side note, his Quirk was "Chameleon." Hiding in this brown, landslide-filled area had made it quite a challenge for Todorok, whose vision was still a little blurry from Kira's attack, to find him.
"That... that demon is back!"
When Todoroki returned to the frozen enemies, ready to leave the area, he saw their terrified faces and sighed silently.
"Who's the villain here...?"
Suddenly, he heard a very business-like voice coming from one of the men:
"Please respond, please respond. This is Area 3. All targets have been captured. What is the status of Area 5?"
Todoroki walked back, partially melted the ice on the man's body, and pulled out a walkie-talkie. A somewhat noisy voice came from it, and he could even hear Midoriya's frustrated roar in the background.
Is this the enemy's communication method...? Indeed, when there was no signal, a walkie-talkie was the most convenient way to communicate. They were widely used in disaster relief situations, just like the firefighter's uniform Kira had been wearing, which was usually equipped with one.
"All your men have been defeated by me. If you want to save them..." ...you'll have to trade our people for them.
Todoroki was halfway through his sentence when he was excitedly interrupted by the person on the other end. "Is that Todoroki-kun?! It's Midoriya! I'm so glad to hear you're alright!"
??? Didn't they say they had been captured? Why am I talking to them...?
Filled with confusion, Todoroki held his breath for a long time before finally managing to say one thing.
"...You're alright. That's good."