ⓒⓡⓘⓜⓢⓞⓝ ⓡⓔⓓ
Evil wiggling on the underside of the showy superhero society, no matter how many times they were driven back, they hid in the darkness, storing up strength and now, they started to move again. To join hands with Shigaraki, meant that she had to abandon her morales and stand with the other side of darkness, against the heroes. Being a hero was never her ambition, she simply wanted to inherit her father's business but once she met Vivi, she just knew deep down in her heart, she wanted to save her.
"U.A High has finished its first semester and started summer vacation. However, those of you trying to be heroes will receive days of rest. At this training camp, we'll have you aiming for even greater heights for Plus Ultra!"
"Yes, sir!"
"Sophie-chan, it's finally time for the training camp in the woods!" Kaminari dashed to her with his eyes glittering in excitement and a hint of redness colored his cheeks when the girl smiled a little over his cuteness.
She was about to say something to him but a hiss from Juju, her cat, stole her attention and it seemed that someone let Monoma out. As usual, he tried to provoke them by harassing her, fortunately, the class monitor of Class B managed to take him away. Looked like both classes will join this trip and Sophie let Juju wander around, knowing her cat, she would mostly waddle to Todoroki, to take advantage of his Fire Quirk. She took a sit beside him on the bus, thankfully, Aoyama was kind enough to let her swap places with him.
Or else she would be stuck with Bakugo. The ride was peaceful, Todoroki was really considerate, he knew how much she liked to avoid talking to people, and so he tried to stay low. They only shared a few words about school and he offered her some candies. He was a good guy, Sophie knew it. Despite him looking intimidating at the first glance Shoto Todoroki was a gentleman, unlike some purple head. He didn't say a thing when she accidentally fell asleep and laid her head on his shoulder.
He just let her, although he had gotten used to her new appearance, Todoroki had to admit, he did miss her old cheeriness. He still remembered the first time they met, she told him, she liked his eyes, something that he was insecure about since he was young. But, the current Sophie Vlad was better. He now can see her true feelings in her eyes, whenever she looked down on her feet, he can see her feeling distressed, whenever she had a stoic and cool face, he can see her worrying over her friends. But, there's one thing he can't interpret her, why did she smile like she's going to leave them sometimes?
The bus stopped and he blinked his eyes to snap out of it. His head turned aside slightly, tapping the sleeping girl on her hand softly to wake her up. Seeing no sign of waking up, Todoroki fidgeted on his seat and inched closer to her, his fingers brushed her skin carefully. He didn't know what had gotten into him, but he was caressing her cheek. Those plump cheeks had him flustered, they were very soft and pinchable and so, he pinched her cheek. Pinch. Her eyes fluttered open and certainly, she didn't expect to see his face approximately nine centimeters away from her face and his fingers were pinching her.
"Todoroki-kun?" Her voice muffled a little bit.
His eyes widened and he immediately retracted his hand. "Ah, sorry. I just want to wake you up. We have stopped."
Sophie made a face at him who was quick on his feet, running, Juju was still sleeping on his shoulder though. The whole class was confused once Aizawa saying something about arriving when they were in fact, on the hill. A few seconds later, there were two women introducing themselves as Wild Pussycats, a four person hero team who set up a joint agency and a veteran team that specialized in mountain rescues. Sophie stretched her arms, looking at her surrounding.
She was mentally exhausted, she felt as if her head had been banged multiple times, no signs of Vivi awakening yet and still no final decision about Shigaraki's offer. Pushing all of those aside, Sophie made a mental note to focus on the training camp, Aizawa had told her last night that she will be focusing on controlling blood since her water manipulation was already good. By controlling blood, she might enhance her ability to heal any light injuries or even better major injuries with water manipulation ability.
"You all will be staying at the foot of that mountain." One of the Wild Pussycats pointed at the furthest mountain.
Sophie understood now. That's why they stopped on the hill. The training had already begun now and looked like the others can't really accepted the truth, it's 9.30 in the morning now and those who didn't make it by 12.30 won't get any lunch. Everyone immediately turned around to get on the buss but of course they can't run away. The last thing they heard was, they were allowed to use their Quirks as they wished, before the ground rising up and they were thrown away. What a great way to start the camp with Sophie landing on top of someone and by the smell of the person underneath, she can't help but pray it won't be him.
But the universe hated her.
"Oi get off me shrimp! You're heavy!"
Sophie sighed. She looked down at him with an uninterested face. "You know you can just push me away right? So why don't you do that?"
"I—" His face was red and his hands were spread on the ground as if he was being gentleman not to touch her on inappropriate places. Of course, he can't just tell her that he purposely let her fall on top of him to catch her. That was Katsuki Bakugo being nice and he was actually apologizing in his own way. "Just get off me, damn it!"
She rolled her eyes and got up, brushing her skirt. Why did they have to wear their school uniforms on the day they went to the training camp? They had three hours to get to the campsite and the forest ahead was called Beast's Forest. Kirishima exclaimed that, the name alone sounded like it came right out Dragon Quest but it's no use complaining. They just had to go and looked like, there was a beast coming right after them. Koda tried to talk with it but Sophie guessed the beast was controlled by the Wild Pussycats so it won't work.
"Juju, stay with me."
Meow!
As much as she disliked working, Sophie had no choice but to fight. She absorbed the water from the ground and trees to create a huge whirl to take down one beast by herself. It wasn't that hard but those beasts just kept coming and it won't be an easy ride for everybody. They needed to get through there and take the shortest route, it's the safest and quickest way, or else they won't get their lunches. The whole class teamed up with Jiro and Shoji exposing the beasts' positions while others stood by to take them down.
"Sophie-chan! Leave it to me! 1.2 million volts!" Kaminari ran towards her and electrified one, defeating three beasts in an instant thanked to a pool of water surrounded them. "Yay!"
Sophie watched him losing a fuse in amusement, they fought the beasts for hours, it was exhausting but she had her fun. Hagakure was running around to be the bait and Yaoyorozu created cannons to destroy all of them while the boys and others attacked them directly. It was a good exercise for Sophie but of course, she was getting sleepy now after a huge amount usage of her Quirk. Fortunately for her, Juju kept poking her cheeks to keep her awake and the class arrived at the facility in the evening.
They were all looking like survivors from an apocalypse and Aizawa congratulated them for reaching there sooner than he expected. They didn't have as hard a time beating the earth beasts as he thought they would and thanked to Sophie, they had a water supply. The Wild Pussycats complimented them and pointed at Sophie and other four students which were Midoriya, Ida, Todoroki and Bakugo. They were able to act quick without hesitation because of their experience and the blonde woman whom Sophie didn't really pay attention to her name, attacked the boys.
Juju went to Aizawa and Sophie finally realized that they had another company there which was a kid. Mandalay told them that he was her cousin's kid named Kota and Midoriya went ahead to introduce himself but his friendly gesture just got himself kicked on the crotch. Kota glared at the boy, saying he didn't intend to hang out with guys who wanted to become heroes. Sophie covered her mouth to hold back her laugh as Kota did really look like mini Bakugo. She elbowed the spiky blonde hair reflexively. "Hey, he looks like you."
"Ha?! Not at all!"
Todoroki looked at him back and nodded. "She's right."
"Shut your mouth up icy hot!"
"Sorry."
Aizawa sighed. "Enough with this charade, get your stuff off the bus. Once you've out your bags in your rooms, we'll have dinner in the cafeteria. After that, you'll bathe and go to sleep. We'll start for real tomorrow. Now, move quickly."
Dinner later was quite nice to Sophie, there were lots of food however, she didn't have any appetite to eat, perhaps because she was too sleepy. Knowing her would decline to eat, Aizawa stood by in front of her room and pushed her forcefully to the cafeteria. She only had her breakfast, that's why he was so keen to make her eat. Tomorrow will be a rough day and if she didn't fill her stomach, she would collapse anytime. Sophie hated how much her teacher could see throughout her, she didn't expect to have him acting like her father when months before he had told her that he won't ever have a favorite.
"You like cats?" Seeing Kota playing with Juju outside her room, Sophie decided to talk to him since she knew about his parents, after all, she had an ability to discover someone's Quirk and he had a Water Quirk, kinda like hers. A smirk made its way to her lips when she saw the kid shaking his head, pretending to be not affected by Juju's cuteness but then he had changed his mind once she curled around his leg. Holding a towel in her right hand, Sophie smiled sincerely at him. "You can take care of her, I have trainings to do tomorrow but you can play with her though."
"Really?!" His face completely changed into excitement and Sophie nodded.
"Yeah, sure kid." She waved at him before following after the girls to the hot spring, it's unbelievable that there were hot springs there but then again, that's U.A they were talking. Sophie got in the water and relaxed her muscles after hours of fighting and using her Quirk. She couldn't believe that they made them undergo a training as soon as they arrived there. Her ears caught yells and screams—they belonged to Mineta and she looked up over the wall. Kota and Juju were there, perhaps watching over the boys.
Juju clawed Mineta on the face and did a high-five with Kota. "Before learning to be a hero, you need to learn about being human." He slapped the purple head and the girls thanked him. However, he did a mistake by looking at them—they were all naked and Kota had tripped over the stairs, losing his balance while Juju tried her hardest to grab his shorts and Sophie immediately ran towards him, to catch him, but fortunately, Midoriya had saved him on the other side. She sighed in relief.
Sophie told Juju to follow after the boy and soon, it was time for them to rest and sleep since Aizawa had given a heads-up to them, they will be starting the training in early morning which they weren't expecting it to be at 5.30 in the morning. They will begin training camp to increase their strength in earnest, the goal was to increase everyone's strength and with that for everyone to obtain their provisional licenses. Said their teacher, it was to prepare them all to face hostilities that were becoming more real by the minute.
Aizawa threw a ball from the fitness test before to Bakugo. "Try throwing that. Your previous record from right after you started school was 705.2 meters. Let's see how much you've improved."
It's normal to expect him exceeding his previous record since a lot of things had happened but he only managed to get 709.6 meters, less than they thought. It had been about three months since they started high school, through various experiences, they all had definitely improved but that improvement had mainly been at the mental and technical levels with some increase in stamina. Aizawa smirked. "As you can see, your Quirks themselves have no improved that much. That's why we will work on improving your Quirk starting today."
He told them try not to die and Sophie thought she had now understood what he meant by that, it was a hell. They needed to start at 5.30 in the morning and now, it had been almost three hours and they hadn't even stopped for a rest yet. Her head was pounding, luckily, Aizawa had prepared a bed beside her in case she fell asleep but trying to control blood was difficult, she had to memorize all of the vessels to manipulate it while enhancing the Quirk by increasing her strength.
Slicing her palm to make it bleed in order to make a scythe, a weapon that was suitable for her—it was light and easy to swing around, Sophie now had gotten used to the pain, her blood manipulation was quite different than Vlad-sensei, the homeroom teacher of Class B. To use her Quirk, she had to use her own blood to attack and that's why she had to minimize the usage of it or else she would lose her energy quicker. Besides that, she was able to manipulate somebody else's blood as well, she can make it flow faster or stopped, or perhaps even worst, she can make it reverse which could be lethal for mere humans.
Alternating between forming weapons and manipulating the blood her teacher had prepared on the table, this training was effective to get her body used to quick thinking and slight lightheadedness, also, had her tried controlling both techniques at the same time. She might be able to use both various skills of water and blood manipulation at once eventually. Although it had been only three hours, her body was sweating a lot and she's getting sleepy. "No–more, damn it."
Just as she was about to throw her body on the bed, the ground rose up and Sophie widened her eyes when she was thrown away across the mountain. She heard one of the Wild Pussycats shouted at her for being such a lazy ass and Sophie groaned frustratedly. They told her to give them 'Plus Ultra' and in anger, the girl ran to them and demanded to have a combat battle to test out her new techniques. Aizawa shook his head, using his scarf to pull her away from messing around with a Pro Hero. "Go continue your training."
Everyone experienced the hell training for more hours and once the day hit evening, they were told to prepare for their own dinners. They had to make curry and Sophie was constantly asked by many to produce water with her Quirk which she absorbed it from trees and underground, it's clean though. After an hour cooking, they finally sat down and enjoyed their dinner, thanked to Sophie and Momo, their curry tasted better than they expected. Juju was nowhere perhaps, she was with Kota and Sophie didn't mind it as long as he wasn't alone.
The second of training camp went the same, she repeated the same techniques all over again and could feel her body had gotten used to it. She felt much lighter and better since she can handle the dizziness and sleepiness a whole lot better now. For everyone, no matter what they were doing now, they should always be aware of where they came from, that's what it meant to improve. Sophie rubbed her forehead. "Where I came from huh? Revenge? Is revenge my priority now? Or is it justice?"
Her eyes unconsciously turned darker and a pool of blood began to form in front of her, it was big enough to cover the whole table and fortunately, before it could consume a huge amount of her blood even more, Aizawa disabled her Quirk and his eyes glared at her. "Oi, what were you thinking? You could've hurt yourself. Pay attention to your training! Don't be such a slacker." Sophie looked at him blankly and he was taken back by her stoic face, as if she was compelled to be like a robot however, her expression changed immediately once he snapped his fingers.
"Sorry, sensei."
He only scoffed and the students were told that they will have a test of courage with the classes, pitted against each other later. Sophie made a weird face at the announcement thinking of who's she going to pair with since there forty one students. Perhaps she could make an excuse to ditch it. A grin crept up on her lips and as if Aizawa can read her mind, he quickly pulled her neck with his scarf harshly, telling her to stop thinking of what he's thinking. She rolled her eyes and asked him to have a mock battle.
"Tch, don't blame me if you lose."
Sophie smirked. "Loser has to clean the house and cook for both for a week."
"I want hotpots."
∆∆∆
They had meat and potato stew for dinners and now, it's time for the next activity. Hagakure, the Invisible Girl, had noticed for a while now that Sophie had been glaring at Aizawa and she asked the girl what had happened between them since those two were known for having a cute father-daughter relationship even if Aizawa wasn't Sophie's real father. Sophie shook her head, saying it's nothing although her actions might mean something different as she was punching a tree. She had lost the battle and Sophie had to take over the house chores for a week.
"That stupid bet is a mistake."
Hagakure then slowly sneaked away to run as Sophie was turning into a psychopath now. Sophie let out a sigh, everyone seemed to be pretty excited for the test of courage but unfortunately for the extra lessons group, Aizawa had to call them for classes with him now and looked like, there would be sixteen students left. "Damn, we are even now." Sophie groaned, making Midoriya who had been standing beside her try to comfort her. She was willing to redo her training to escape that, anything but that.
The Class B will be the scarers first and Class A will leave in pairs every three minutes. Sophie didn't even care to listen to the instructions, she was too busy tuning out until her name was called to draw lots and she didn't expect to finally end up being paired with Midoriya. Honestly, she had started to feel a certain feeling towards him and she was sure that it wasn't a good thing. After all, Stain had acknowledged him as a true hero while she's not. She knew she was being petty but the creature in her head just kept screaming at her to kill Midoriya.
They told her to eliminate him.
"Uwah, Vlad-san, I'm glad I'm with you!"
Sophie offered him a blue steel smile. "Of course, Midoriya-kun."
The green haired boy averted his eyes away with his cute freckled cheeks reddened, thanking the dark sky for hiding his blush. "Actually—I'm not really great with gho—"
"Midoriya-kun, shut up for a while would you?" Her words accidentally came out harsher than she thought and Sophie ignored the need to apologize to him as there was suddenly black smokes all over on the mountain.
Midoriya didn't take it to heart as he caught what she was saying. His eyes followed her eyes and he was smelling something burning. "There's fire? What's happening?" Everyone was completely confused and something was tugging Sophie on her heart, something wrong was happening and she was worried about other students who had already gone into the forest for the test. Pixie Bob, a member of Wild Pussycats was attacked by two villains and for some reason, Midoriya started to run somewhere else.
"Midoriya-kun, where are you going!?"
"Kota-kun—He is in danger!
19/6/21
Villain Sophie?