An Undead Academic Experience 8

Chapter 8: A Not-So Harrowing Escape

<<<Kana Sato>>>

Soft clinks echoed in her cell, the chains slowly swaying with herself. It was time consuming, gathering power that way. Millimeters back and forth, dozens, perhaps hundreds, of joules in each movement. The thrum and bangs of noise added a touch more, but it was only ever a touch. With what she had, what she could do, it would take time and time again to gather the power to escape.

But she had time, plenty of it if her pets didn’t arrive.

But it was irksome all the same, she could imagine Lily working herself into a frenzy. She seemed, at least from her observations, the most likely to go AWOL with how easily she got attached. Another mechanism to control her, if she were an uncompromising owner, of course. If she gave a pet plenty of slack and treated them well, they would fight God himself to keep their owner safe after all.

Allowing a faint sigh to escape her lips, she looked up to the ceiling and wondered how long it would take for her pets to find her. Or how long it would still be for her to gather the necessary energy for her to escape.

She paused in her movement as one of the patrolling goons shuffled past the door to her cell. She couldn’t hear him, per say, but his slow steps vibrated the door just so and told her which one it was.

Limpy! He always came by with some extra food for her, and so she tolerated his presence. It was only occasionally poisoned as well, which was nice of him.

Besides, compared to the raging Manchild? Limpy was a bastion of civility and rationality… which was rather disappointing, really. You’d think the supposed ‘successor of Sensei’ would be more… composed.

Right on que, the door slid open and Limpy tramped in with her lunch for the day. The same lunch as every day, but that was fine. It did have a different flavor, maybe they’d run out of vanilla protein powder and went with chocolate instead? It was a pleasant change of pace regardless as she drank the thick and rather chalky shake through a straw held up for her.

Figuring there was no harm in it, she figured she’d ask. “Chocolate and peanut butter today?” Her voice was polite as she looked into his eyes, “Why the change? I’m not opposed to it, but it’s unexpected.”

Limpy just chuckled, another change, and he just put a finger to his lips.

“Mm, fine then, don’t tell me,” She huffed, “Which poison is it today? I know he was testing cyanide last time, but I didn’t taste any today. An anesthetic? I wouldn’t mind finding out one of those worked on me, it would make the time pass a little faster…”

“... You got some good friends, kid, keep’em close.” Is all he said as he motioned for her to finish the shake.

“... Okay…” She replied, trailing off as she did so. No reason to refuse the offer, worst case was she got poisoned again and while that was unpleasant it hadn’t been lethal.

As she finished, Limpy… if it was really him, just checked his wrist, “Not long now…” He murmured, “Just hold on, no pun intended, calvary’s on its way…” And just as he said that she heard explosions from above and the sound of fighting.

“... Please don’t tell Lily that I compared her to a golden retriever,” Kana started, “I don’t think she’d be in much disagreement, but then she’d ask what our classmates are too and I don’t know that many dog breeds.”

That would just be… not embarrassing, but annoying at least. She’d get swarmed with information that she didn’t care about and would have to pretend to be interested in.

‘Limpy’ just chuckled before he started working on the shackles keeping her in place, “Heh, that might be a moot point for you kid,” He said, “Not supposed to talk about it, but you’ll find out eventually. Your villainous monologue was recorded and sent to your friends.”

“I see, I had wondered what led them here…” She mumbled, “No matter. They came regardless.”

“They’re not here,” ‘Limpy’ replied, “They brought it to Nezu, and Nezu organized it all.”

“Here in spirit,” She clarified, “It would be a poor idea for them to be here in person. The villain that bound me is rather powerful, you can tell because he bound me.” She growled the last word. “Gonna free me now, then I can get out with you and we can deal with the fallout?”

‘Limpy’ just chuckled, “Fair enough.” He said as he sliced through the shackles with a softly humming blade… one which hadn’t been there a moment before. Neat quirk, she’d been wondering about the sword in his soul. “Yeah, come on kid. Everyone’s distracted so we got a clean shot.”

Floating down to the ground to gather a touch more power, she moved to follow him as the building shook as though a god had struck the earth. She was used to earthquakes, they were in Japan after all, but the shock was too sudden and lacked the same vibrational echo those had.

“They’re making him work for it, I do hope All Might is prepared today…” There weren’t many heroes she knew of that could handle him, maybe Endeavor as well?

She shook her head, it didn’t matter really. She couldn’t influence the outcome of the fight and if she tried she’d just get in the way. If she had time to work, to gather power and ready herself, then she could do something.

As she and the Underground Hero disguised as Limpy, unless Limpy was always a plant but she doubted, made their way through the underground she nearly tripped as she felt some new additions to her collection.

A Hero if she wasn’t mistaken… and two civilians.

And as much as she’d enjoy getting to know her new guests and inspect their quirks, she currently had more important matters to attend to.

“Three deaths, if I don’t leave now I’m going to have one hell of a headache and might actually explode,” She noted, hating how off she sounded in that moment, “I’m not entirely sure I can absorb several dozen or hundred people at once and if I can’t, it might be wise to evacuate the, uh, province?” She coughed, “I don’t know how violent it would be, depends on the quirks in question.”

“Already in the works,” The Hero said.

“Oh, good. What’s your name, for future reference?” She asked, slowly starting to speed up, “Thin wall ahead, you should be able to break through.” She could probably do it too, but she had her own idea for how to escape and that needed energy. Picking him up and jumping would do it…

“Masamune,” He answered as she ran, “I’m an Underground Hero, so you’ve probably never heard of me.”

“Correct, I haven’t,” She replied, “Nice to meet you-” Kana cut herself off as he, ha, cut through the wall, letting her see sunlight for the first time in almost two weeks, “properly.”

“Talk more later, get to safety now!” Musmune said just as a larger tremor struck, “Think the big guy is starting to get serious! Move!”

Three more civilians made her stumble, their minor quirks meant their panic was quelled under her will quickly. She could be nicer to them when she, and thus they, were out of danger.

That done, she grabbed Masamune and leapt, cracking the concrete underneath their feet and rocketing off. They didn’t go far, only a block, but another jump on landing kept them moving. “How far do you think I should go?” She asked her rescuer, “All the way to the school?”

She didn’t have to raise her voice, the good thing about needing to gather oh so little energy for a week meant her control had improved quite a lot and so she could simply drain the sound waves of energy instead of needing to hear them.

“No, there’s an evacuation point.” He said as he pulled out his cell and showed her the location.

Kana nodded, “Will they be there?” She asked, adjusting her course, “Just so I know what to expect?”

“Maybe, that blue one seemed particularly feral about getting to you,” Masamune said.

“Lily, or Xaio Lang,” Kana noted, “She’s very pleasant.” One more jump before arrival, smoke was rising behind them; the ash and dust staining the sky. “She helped me kill the beast.”

“Impressive,” He replied, sounding like he meant it.

[hr][/hr]

“KANA!” Before she could even say anything she was scooped up by a frantic clingy blueberry and hugged her tightly, “I’m sorry! I should’ve done something!” She muttered as she hugged her like she’d disappear if she let go.

Kana awkwardly returned the hug, all the while trying to figure out how and why Lily had grown so attached. Was it a result of her ostracization by her homeland? Was she simply that naturally prone to bonding with others? A quirk of her personality? She didn’t know, and ultimately it didn’t matter.

At least she knew her pet was a very loyal one.

“You could have done nothing to help,” Kana stated, “And I will not hear you blame yourself for something you didn’t do. More lies will not help you or I.”

“Yaomomo said the same,” She mumbled, “Still feel bad though.”

Kana just sighed faintly, she didn’t understand but all the same she just hugged her friend and rubbed her back. “Without you, the beast would have at best maimed me or someone else and at worst killed me. You did help, and a lot. Now, I was told that you were given a video of me?”

“Yep, and I don’t care if you’re a socio-whatever. You’re my friend!” Lily said, “Besides at least you consider me a Golden retriever. It’s better than being called a freakish mutt.”

“Muts are hardly freakish,” She replied with a frown, “Were I a dog, that is what my quirk would make me. They are simply amalgams of other breeds. And the term is sociopath, or psychopath? I’m not sure and none of the souls in me know either, even the newly acquired ones who, yes, I will do my best to ensure aren’t suffering and such please stop screaming, I’m not trying to eat people it’s automatic…”

“They’re interchangeable from my understanding,” Lily said as she took a breath and tried to relax, “We’ll figure it out. Now come on, we can’t help the heroes but at least we can help out here.”

“I’m going to need some headache meds,” Kana sighed, “The medical tent over there could use my assistance in ensuring no sharp movements hurt people with broken bones anyway; so I shall gather such from them. The souls are particularly loud today.” She’d only just gotten the ones gathered from the beast to stay quiet, why did she have to deal with more?

“Let’s see… a minor light creation quirk, a remote observation quirk that uses charged objects (that one is useful), a minor… was your quirk really about knowing what food was made from? And you weren’t even a chef or food critic!? Of course I sound like your mother, you could have made bank!” Kana pinched the ridge of her nose in exasperation.

The fact that her own mother and father were clearly amused didn’t really help much.

“Ok, moving on… metal sensory quirk, that explains some of the headache.” That the soul it came from was apologetic about that was, at least, something. “Oh, minor energy shield quirk, only stops fire but useful .And a… you wouldn’t happen to be related to the Midoryas?” 

Why did she ask? Her quirk was literally “Waterworks” so it was a reasonable question in her mind.

It was good that she could give context to the souls in her, the woman giggled. She was a hero that had decided to help in keeping fires away after and during the fight. It was bad luck that the blast killed her, building debris had crushed her. Unfortunate, she seemed like a good person… but at least she was helping her calm the civilian souls, so there was at least one silver lining.

And three more joined in…

“This day officially sucks…” She thought with a grump making her parents and the Waterworks hero laugh.

“If there’s a hero with a movement quirk around,” She started, “I require movement elsewhere. I can’t shut off my Soul Harvest quirk and they’re getting really loud.” She paused for a moment, “And I may pass out now, don’t worry, I have Regeneration too.”

She rather hoped that being unconscious would shut the quirk down, otherwise she was going to have problems on waking up…

Darkness took her, mercifully. Maybe her parents and the heroes in her brain would convince the civilians that working with a sociopath wasn’t all bad?

[hr][/hr][hr][/hr]

Unmentioned quirks:

Scaled Skin: Have… scaled skin

Sparkles: Can create sparkles

Augmented Tongue: A long and dexterous tongue

Gold: Make things become gold colored and gain the weight of gold
Flatten: Smooth out the ground around the user

Two quirks were gathered after unconsciousness as she was taken away from the area.