Chapter 71: Meeting with who?

"A brat and a guy with no manners? Are you sure you're actual villains and not some wannabe playing pretend?" Himura asked his partner-in-crime as he drank from his wine glass.

"Huh?" A little girl around sixteen tilted her heads sideways and asked in a confused expression while the guy just stood there and did not say anything.

"Come now...they've travelled all this way just to see you. You could at least humour them with a little chat, Tomu-I mean, Himura Shigaraki."

"I TOLD YOU NOT TO REFER ME AS THE FAILURE!!!" Himura screamed as he smashed the wine glass at the wall.

"I apologise." Kurogiri replied but his voice didn't sound very apologetic.

He just continued speaking while cleaning up the glass shards,"What's more, if they're being introduced by our influential broker friend here...we can be sure they're at least competent fighters."

The broker, who stood leaning against the door until now, spoke,"Either way, I'll take my finder's fee now, Kurogiri. As for introductions..." He started moving towards the girl and pointed at her,"Let's start with this high school cutie. The media's kept her face and name under strict lockdown, but she's a person of interest in a string of deaths by blood-letting."

"I'm Toga! Himiko Toga. Life is too hard! I wanna make a world that's easier to live in! I wanna be Mr. Stainy! I wanna kill Mr. Stainy! So lemme join you, Himura!"

"I don't get it. How does Stain have anything to do with your reason for joining this? Are you some kind of freak?" Himura, who had calmed down, observed and asked her.

"You see, although he never explicitly said anything, his actions proved that we all can live in a wonderful world together! Some place where life won't be hard!"

"Anyways, both of you have similar goals. I'm sure she'll be useful to you." The broker cut in before further discussion could continue, pointed at the young man and said,"Next, this young man has no criminal record to speak of...but he's enamoured with the hero killer's ideals."

"I'm not sure about this...is this bunch really so dedicated to the cause? I mean, they're about to let this nut job join up."

"Hey, hey. At least freak girl here can state her own name. If you're a proper adult, how about you try doing that?" Himura was annoyed at the attitude of the young man and ordered him to introduce himself.

"Tch...I go by Dabi right now."

Dabi was a fairly tall, pale young man of a slim, somewhat-lanky build, who seemed to be in his early twenties. He has longish white hair, dyed black, that spikes upward around his head, hanging low over his eyes, which are thin, turquoise in colour, and heavily lidded.

His most distinct features were undoubtedly the patches of gnarled, wrinkled, purple skin that cover much of his lower face and neck, all the way down past his collarbone, below his eyes and on his arms and legs. These appear to be attached to the rest of his skin by multiple, crude surgical staples or hoop piercings, making it impossible to tell if these scars were accidental or self-inflicted.

Himura didn't seem convinced by his name and said,"No good. Your real name."

"You'll know it when you need to." Dabi refuted him and continued his speech,"Anyway, the hero killer's will...I plan to make it a reality."

"Tch...why are you so infatuated with the failure? You're in love with him or something? And what is this 'will' you are referring to?" Himura was getting pissed that everyone only came here because of Stain's so-called 'will' and not because of his presence.

"Stop mocking the Hero Killer!" Dabi frowned and at the same time, blue flames started rising from his body.

"And stop talking to me with that tone." Himura stood up as well and walked towards Dabi.

"In case you have yet to realise, I'm the leader of this organisation right here. And you're my subordinate the moment you walked into this room and decided to join us."

At the same time, he placed his hands on Dabi's shoulder and the blue flames immediately disappeared.

"Do I make myself clear? I'm in...a bad mood." Himura's eyes were bloodshot, but Kurogiri didn't stop him as he knew that Himura, unlike Tomura, wasn't impulsive and attacked without reason, well, most of the time.

Dabi found himself unable to breathe, and couldn't reply at all.

"Ack...ack..." He choked on nothing before nodding desperately.

"Good." Letting go of his hands, he went back to his seat,"Remember, flames can't burn without oxygen so you are reliant on oxygen, meaning you are reliant on me."

Himura quirk: Atomic manipulation.

He is able to control atoms to certain degrees, able to move and shift atoms as he pleases. Removing certain gases from an area, tearing atoms apart from one another (melting and boiling), pushing atoms together (freezing) and increasing their kinetic energy are just some of the things he is able to do.

However, the more he uses his quirk, the faster his cells die as the quirk requires a huge amount of energy to use. Thus, he needs to 'absorb' the energy from other people's cells, turning them into mummy-like structures after he's done 'absorbing them' to prevent himself from dying.

It only affects in a small area around him, so if the person is not within arm's length, he would not be able to affect anything.

"Good job on calming yourself, Himura Shigaraki. If we're to act upon your desires, this organisation is a necessity."

"Don't need to remind me. I know that this is our chance while we're in the spotlight, so I would accept anything we have, including a nut job brat..." Himura was interrupted by a knife that was aimed at his head. He immediately dodged by tilting his head sideways before glaring at the girl.

"...and a guy with no manners or respect whatsoever."

"Shut up." Dabi immediately retorted but there was still a little fear in his eyes.

"Alright, let's get business done, shall we?" Seeing no one else say anything, Himura turned towards Kurogiri and told him to pay the broker.

"Hmm...one, two, three, four...yep! All accounted for. Thank you for the business." The broker counted the money before leaving.

Waving his hands behind him as he left, he said,"I look forward to future co-operations."

"Tch...so expensive."

As soon as the broker was gone, Himura complained before turning towards the two,"I hope the products are worth their money."

*****************

RIIINNNGGG!!!

The moment the bell rang, the door of class 1-A immediately slammed open and two figures entered.

"That's the bell, be seated."

Reaching the podium and seeing that the class had returned to their original seats, Shota continued,"Morning, about your final exams....sadly, we had some failures. As such...."

As he reached this point, the class went into a depressed mood.

"...you're all going to summer training camp."

"WHAT A TWIST!!"

Four students in particular screamed louder than the rest of the class.

Shido continued from where Shota left off,"Everyone cleared the written tests. But in the practical...Kirishima, Kaminari, Ashido, Sato and Sero all failed."

"Wait! We're really allowed to go?!" Kirishima raised his hands and asked.

Shido smiled at him and gave a positive answer.

"As the villains in this test, we teachers came up with assignments perfectly suited to all of you. Ones that would give you chances to devise winning strategies. If we hadn't, none of you would've stood a chance."

"So when you said you were really going to crush us..." Ojiro tried confirming with the teachers.

"That was to push you. We are talking about training camp after all. More than anyone else, those who failed are in dire need of this." Shota gave them a maniacal smile,"This was another rational deception."

As the class cheered, Tenya stood up and mentioned,"But...! Now that we've been lied to twice, aren't you worried that our faith in you has been shaken?"

Shota didn't deny his claims and replied,"Perhaps. But consider the facts. It wasn't entirely a lie. Failure is still a failure. You five will receive special supplemental lessons."

At this point, the five failures stopped cheering and their facial expression only got worse when they heard the next words,"And to be honest, they'll be far worse than summer school."

Shido tried not to laugh at their facial expression and announced,"Anyway, I'll be handing out camp manuals. Take one and pass it back."

*****************

The next morning, Shido woke up for no reason at all.

"Why did I wake up?"

No one knew. It was one of the biggest mysteries on Earth. Why do people need to wake up? Won't it be great if everyone just continued sleeping forever and ever? No arguments, no pollution, no wars.

Wouldn't it be peaceful if everyone just slept until they died?

But that's besides the point.

Now, Shido was sitting up right on his bed as he stared out of the window.

'Why am I awake?'

Just as he decided to go back to sleep, the door burst open, revealing Eri who was already all dressed up and ready to go out.

"SHIDO! WAKE UP! Oh, you're already awake? Good. Let's go shopping."

Shido made an agonising face and decided to lay back down on the bed, pull the blanket over his head and sleep.

"Hey!"

Eri jumped on the bed and tried grabbing the blanket from Shido's hands.

"Geeeettttt uppppp!" She used all her strength to pull the blanket away from Shido.

"I'm not going shopping!" Shido tried arguing his way out.

"Yes you are. You're coming out with me. Could you bear to let a poor, little cute girl go out by herself and risk getting kidnapped?" She argued back as she continued pulling the blanket away from him.

"If that's what you're worried about, I can transform you into an ugly old man so no one would even want to come close to you." He didn't give up and countered her arguments, refusing to go out.

"That's not the point! I want you to come with me!"

"Never! I'm never going out!"

*****************

He went out.

He had no choice, she pulled her special move known as 'puppy-eyes' and it successfully tugged Shido's heartstrings for a moment.

But a moment was all she needed to catch Shido off-guard and she managed to pull the blanket away from him.

"Great, now my suffering begins..." Shido muttered under his breath as all life drained away from his face when he thought of his bleak future.

"Hm? What did you say?" Eri turned towards him and asked with a smile.

"Nothing. I'm just wondering what we should get for lunch."

Just as she was about to reply, a voice was suddenly heard.

"Eri-chan?! Itsuka-sensei?!"

They turned towards the voice and found the duo they met during the break of the UA Sports Festival, Momo Yoayorozu and Kyoka Jiro.

"Morning, and please just call me Shido outside. What are you guys doing here?" Shido asked with curiosity.

"Morning Shido-kun then. We're here to get out stuff for the training camp." Momo replied respectfully before turning towards Eri and picking her up,"Eri-chan! You're cute as always."

Kyoka returned the greeting as well before turning her attention to Eri as well.

'Why am I even here if they're just going to both Eri? I should never have come....'

Just as he was about to tell Eri that he was going home (and hoping she would allow it), he suddenly spotted Izuku on the first floor along with another man with dirty red hair. It was really obvious as his dirty red hair stood out from every other dull-coloured hair.

"Hmm?" Shido frowned a little as he could feel slight malicious intent from the man from far away.

"Eri." Shido turned towards her and, interrupting the girls' conversation, he said in a serious tone,"Stay with them, alright? I'll be back soon."

Seeing Shido don a serious expression, she didn't argue and nodded immediately.

"Good girl." Saying that, he slunk back into the shadows, disappearing from sight.

Seeing that Shido have left, Momo and Kyoka realised that Eri had a slightly red face.

"Ooh?" Momo and Kyoka had a teasing smile on their face.

"Is a little girl in love~?"

Eri blushed harder at her words and pouted,"Don't tease me..."

*****************

"Ohhh, cool...you're from UA! Can I get your autograph?" A man with eyes slanted inwards waved at Izuku.

Izuku turned his head and faced the man with red hair.

"Huh?"

"You're the kid who won in the sports festival, right?!" The man, seemingly not aware of something known as 'personal space', went towards Izuku and placed his arm around his neck.

"Then, during that business in Hosu, you ran into the hero killer! You're something else!"

"You sure know a lot about me..." At this point, Izuku got suspicious. Not anybody knew about his presence during the Hosu incident, much less a fan?

His entire body tensed up, and the man must have realised it as well. Before the man could do anything else, Izuku immediately grabbed the arm that was slung around his neck and backflipped the man.

"Who are you!?"

*****************

A/N: Now that I have finished writing the final fight of MHA, I'm going to start writing on the second world tomorrow.

Do you guys want to know the volume name now? Or should I leave it until we actually reach the second volume here?

If you want to support me or/and want 14+ chapters in advance, link:

https://www.patréon.com/spirits_everywhere