Stop That Flame, Hide That Power

8. Black Friday

I bet you can guess where this chapter is going.

"It was burnt off when the muscle guy dragged it into the fire." Shoji explained, like losing an arm was normal and this had happened multiple times before.

Almost like he could just grow it back again.

"Are you sure you'll be alright?" Midoriya pushed, but Shoji just nodded.

"It'll be fine. Now, Bakugo."

As if on cue, one of Bakugo's screeches rang out, echoing throughout the domed building. They were definitely getting closer.

They were slowed down considerably by Uraraka's limping, and Kota starting to feel tired to running, but they persisted. Eventually, they got a another curtain of fire, which they would have ignored if they couldn't hear Bakugo's angry cursing on the other side.

Midoriya's face hardened as he reached out, refusing to look at the others, but Uraraka stopped him.

"Deku, what are you doing? I know you know a lot about fire, so you should know more than most how fire burns, right?" She looked at Shoji, who shook his head in disagreement.

"Let him do what he needs to do. You'll need to lean on me to pass through, come on." With no extra hand, Kota held onto her instead. She looked beyond confused but if Shoji trusted him so do something so stupid, she couldn't stop him.

Midoriya was also confused. Why was Shoji so unfazed by his powers? He almost... Encouraged him to perform them? He thought as he grabbed onto the fire and hauled it backwards. This time, there was no doubt, Shoji immediately running through, yanking the other two along with him.

When he stumbled through too, Uraraka had the same dazed look on her face as Kota did when he'd done the trick before, but he didn't care. Moving such a large amount of fire in such a small time was really taking its toll on his body, his knees were weak and he tried to slap himself awake.

"You... You can't tell anyone.." He told Uraraka through deep breathes. She quickly nodded, showing she understood. He stood up slowly, witnessing the mess in front of him.

Bakugo and Todoroki were in the middle of fighting three, yes three, criminals, the blonde girl with a knife from earlier on the sidelines. One of the criminals was covered in tattoos, both arms had sleeves and the ink went up his neck and onto his face, stopping just bellow his cheek bones.

Another had a plastic looking mask over his face, and a top hat similar to a stereotypical magician, obscuring his identity completely, and the other also had a whole face mask on, this one cloth, split horizontally, being black from his nose downwards and grey over his head. They were back to back, and the split guy seemed to keep jumping from being outraged to apologising? A weird strategy, because it wasn't working against either of the boys.

"Uraraka, wait here with Kota while me and Shoji help Kacchan and Todoroki." Midoriya told the girl, who looked ready to protest.

"But I want to help--"

"But you can't. You are injured, and All Might hasn't taught us how to properly fight yet, let alone while hurt." Midoriya shut her up. "Be on guard for the girl from earlier, she could always try and hurt you again."

She sighed, but looked at the fight, then down at her leg and nodded, taking Kota's hands. Midoriya immediately went running into action, Shoji joining.

The fight probably lasted less than two minutes, but so much went wrong in such little time. When the blonde girl saw that Midoriya was back, she jumped into the fight, or, onto him, after throwing a knife at his head. He landed awkwardly on his left arm.