Gentle Criminal continued to bounce off the air, keeping Yuji trapped in one small area. He kept dodging, which infuriated the villain to no end, but he couldn't keep that up forever. He had to figure out how to win.
"I was almost a hero you know." Gentle revealed, taking a small break from bouncing at Yuji. "Its not worth it. You have no business protecting this school. Its simply a monument to favoritisms!".
"I don't even go here dude!" Yuji replied, "I just don't want you ruining my friend's fun because of this. You should be in therapy, not bullying children!". He reached into the bag blindly and was relieved when he pulled out a disk.
He flipped it in his fingers as Gentle tried to get him to bounce on the ground. He stepped out of the way just in time to avoid the solid air.
"How do you keep dodging?!" Each word was punctuated with a new blast of air.
"You should have gone for a frog theme." Yuji realized, "Oh my god a frog theme would suit you perfectly! Like a tree frog! You should rebrand.".
The villain was beyond annoyed. Who was this talkative brat and what did he think he was doing? How dare he injure La Brava then spout all this nonsense?
And he said he didn't go to U.A, how was he avoiding Gentle's attacks if he wasn't a hero student there? It didn't make sense.
Yuji on the other hand was less annoyed, more cautious. They were far from alone on the campus. In fact a team of U.A staff members were on their way already and from the smell of it Hound Dog was coming too.
Call it instinct, but two people with blood hound noses would smell and recognize each other. Which meant Hound Dog knew Yuji was there too.
And he still had rope to deliver after he got rid of the petty criminal. Ha, he should say that one out loud. It would infuriate him.
"Calm the fuck down or I'll use this." Yuji threatened, holding the disk up. The villains both took a step back.
"W-What is it?!" La Brava asked, worriedly.
"Secret weapon." Yuji said, nodding to himself, as if he was the one he was trying to convince. "My quirk makes 'em. Pretty powerful. You might die.".
"DIE?!" La Brava gasped. Yuji nodded very seriously.
"And you were trying to attack my friends, so this was all in self defense." He said, "I don't want to use this, but you might have forced my hand.".
The group of U.A staff members got closer and closer as Yuji bluffed to the villains.
And then-boom. The moment he could actually see them in the trees Yuji chucked the disk at the villains and ran for the campus, hoping the real criminals would be enough to distract the heroes and let him deliver the damn rope in peace.
The villains screamed as the disk was tossed at them, but it wasn't even a taser disk. It expanded out into a large net made of a special, easy to compact mesh.
Yuji passed the heroes, trying to be as quiet as possible as he gathered his skirt in his arms, hoping he wouldn't rip the dress as he kept running.
To say Vlad King and Hound Dog were confused when they arrived on the scene to see two random villains trapped in a net would be an understatement.
"What on earth happened here?" The 1-B homeroom teacher asked.
"We were just walking around and some teenage boy in a blue dress attacked us!" Gentle Criminal lied.
The heroes gave him a skeptical look. "You are aware you're on U.A property, right?". Hound Dog assumed that whoever they had encountered had been a student on their way to a performance or something, considering a blue dress wasn't he uniform. They handled the situation well and effectively and they immediately rushed back to the campus. The fact they had been described as teenage solidified that.
"I've never heard of U.A in my life!" La Brava shouted. The two heroes shared a look.
"Tell that to the police. You're coming with us." Vlad King huffed.
"Glad they didn't get too far," Hound Dog said with the closest thing to a smile he could manage, "if they'd gotten much further we would have had to close the whole thing down.".
"We'll have to find that student and thank them later.".
--------- ---------- ---------- --------- ---------- ---------- -----------
"Did someone order some extra strong rope?" Yuji asked, poking his head in the gym.
Aizawa was standing surrounded by a group of worried students, Midoriya included. He turned sharply at Yuji's announcement, everyone did actually.
Their eyes seemed to bulge out of their heads. Sure, it probably wasn't everyday you saw a random dude you didn't know in a skirt in your high school when no one else was allowed in carrying a bundle of rope.
"Yuji!" Izuku called out, rushing over to him. "Thank you so much for brining the rope. We were going to have to cancel Aoyama's part!".
"Anything for you sweetpea." The blue haired teen said with a smile. "Now go set up, the show starts in 15 minutes!".
"Oh-right!" Izuku said, taking the rope and running off with most of the crowd that had been surrounding Aizawa.
The teacher then approached Yuji. "So, what's your explanation for this one?".
"Uh...I make really good rope?" He laughed. Aizawa shook his head fondly.
"And the scrapes on your knees? Did you fall or something?" He was genuinely worried. Yuji just laughed awkwardly.
"Yep. Just tripped nothing else." He said, rocking back on his heels. Aizawa eyed him suspiciously. "What? Looking for the answer to write itself on my forehead, old man?" Yuji joked.
Aizawa rolled his eyes. "Come on, I'll get you patched up before the show.".
As the pair walked off the students that been watching stared at each other in shock.
"They spoke so casually to each other..." "He called him old man..." "He was worried about him!".
And like that they all reached the same conclusion.
"Holy shit." Mina said, realizing what must be the truth. "Mr. Aizawa has a son!".
--------- ---------- ---------- --------- ---------- ---------- -----------
The closer the performance got the more nervous Yuji became.
Flashing lights and loud music...not really his jam. He loved live music, don't get him wrong, and he really wanted to watch Izuku and Katsuki perform. And he wanted to be with Eri, because it was probably scary for her too.
But his quirk was overactive to say the least. He didn't want to have tinnitus for hours afterwards and god forbid he had an actual panic attack.
Still, Eri was holding his hand as people started to enter, so he just let it happen, dread filled his stomach. He flashed Eri and Mirio a smile as the lights dimmed, although he could still see just fine.
Lights flooded the stage and Bakugou shouted. The music was loud, but tolerable in volume. Yuji started smiling for real as he watched Izuku dance while Katsuki played the drums.
They weren't half bad, and as cringey as the lyrics were they were exactly what someone would expect from a hero school. It was cute in its own way.
Then Izuku disappeared from the stage. "He went away..." Eri mumbled, voicing Yuji's thoughts.
"Don't worry, he'll be right back!" Mirio assured her. The music went slow, calming down for a moment.
Then all at once the singer sang a loud and perfect note and the world was flooded with coloured light.
What must have looked like a beautiful explosion of colour to everyone else was like a kaleidoscope nightmare to Yuji.
His senses were immediately overwhelmed and he just-collapsed.
Just fell to the ground, completely motionless with eyes hollow. His brain stopped processing anything other than overstimulation.
No. No fuck this hadn't happened in so long.
Someone reached out to touch him but Yuji didn't know who it was so he whimpered and flinched away.
More voices-closer voices-that he could hear over the music.
He covered his ears with his hands and clamped his eyes shut but he felt like he could see through his eyelids. That he could hear through the walls. That he could smell everything on the campus right now. He felt like his skin was vibrating.
Then suddenly someone was pulling his wrists off his ears. He pulled them back immediately, but was stopped by...headphones. Noise cancelling headphones.
They didn't do much, but they were definitely better.
"Its okay kid." A calm, really close voice said. "I'm going to hold these to your face, okay? Push them away or tell me if you don't want them on, okay?".
The pattern of the goggles that covered his face was familiar. The bar like structure...shit. They were Aizawa's. Aizawa was holding his glasses to Yuji's eyes.
The things were phenomenally dark. He wondered how a normal person saw through them when they managed to actually improve his sensory experience, which meant they made a dent on his senses at all.
"Its going to be okay. Just breathe.". He was wiping tears off of Yuji's cheeks. When had he started crying?
"Its going to be okay.".
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So...I'm sorry I ended that with some sadder stuff. 😅
(The angst is going to be toned up a bit in this story for the next arc😶)
But it really is realistic for Yuji to be overwhelmed sensory wise by something so flashy. Especially after a stressful day.
But we'll see a bit more of the festival in the next chapter, so don't worry!
And yes, everyone thinks Yuji is Aizawa's son and can you blame them? No.
The real reason for the double update is mother's day is coming up and I want to shift the upload schedule so the next chapter of off the rails goes up on mother's day because he literally has two moms and this is their time to shine ✨
As always, lets here it for just straight up punching villains. And stay tuned!