You know, Taiya never considered his eating problems to be saving him. Helping him out, sure, saving him from gaining too much weight, definitely.
But saving him? Unheard of.
But here he was, puking up deer meat and guts because he couldn't cope with the feeling of being full, and he was pretty sure the world was ending outside.
He decided to head to the bathroom because he wanted to avoid the test of courage lest it became a test of how strong his stomach was.
The sheer discomfort he felt knowing what his body was trying to digest...he wouldn't be able to keep it down anyways. That's what he told himself at least.
The sound of another wall breaking brought Taiya out of this thoughts and confirmed that something strange was happening out there.
Wiping off his mouth, he tried to get to his feet but found his vision immediately turned to tv static.
"Fuck." He gritted out, ducking his head to the ground and taking a few deep breaths before he tried to stand again. This time he was fine and managed to stumble to the window.
Fire. That was the first thing he noticed. Bright blue flames licking the mountainside, inching towards the base at a startling pace. But there was something going on the mountain too, he couldn't quite make anything out, but there were a few harsh, echoing bangs coming from that area.
He tried to search the area close to the building for any of his classmates, but he didn't see anyone.
'Shit am I alone?' He thought, the hairs standing up on the back of his neck as the realization set it. No. No way, they wouldn't just forget about him and evacuate without him.
Would they?
Another wall breaking sound rang out from downstairs and Taiya realized that, no he wasn't alone. Someone had to be making all that racket.
Whether or not he was alone with villains or not...that he was about to find out.
Quickly he walked over to the sink, sticking his head under the faucet and taking several gulps of cold water. He breathed a shaky sigh as he straightened out again, mentally preparing himself for what was about to go down. He also texted Mori to start driving to his shared location with absolutely no context before switching his phone off so it didn't go off and give him away.
Slowly and silently he crept to the door and put an ear to it, letting it morph just a little bit so he could hear better. Everything seemed to be coming from the floor below him.
"Come on Taiya." He whispered to himself as he gripped the door handle to the washroom. "You got this. Come on!".
His fingers trembled a little. Only a little.
Gritting his teeth, he slowly opened the door, poking his head out to look around before stepping out when the coast was clear.
His slippers didn't make any noise on the floor as he walked around the uppermost floor. Still, he kept his breathing low and slow through his mouth and tried not to be heard.
As he reached the stairs he saw in the corner of his eyes a black haired villain in a trench coat approach a door. A door with movement behind it. His classmates, probably.
Fuck they were in a lockdown, that's why everything was silent.
Grabbing the railing, Taiya launched himself over it and straight into the villain, nailing him in the back and slamming him into the ground.
The door to the classroom slammed open and Vlad King rushed out. "Tachibana!" He called out, shocked to see the student.
Taiya was more distracted by the fact the villain had turned to mud under his feet.
Aizawa rounded the corner on the stairs at the same time and the trio shared a moment of silence as the realization the villain was just a copy sank in.
"I fought another double outside." Aizawa said, breaking the silence.
"What do we do now?" Mina asked, rushing out of the classroom with the rest of them.
"You all stay here and wait for more of your classmates to make it safety." The teacher instructed. He started making his way back towards the stairs as the rest of the class protested, wanting to go outside. Taiya saw his exit narrow.
Quickly he jumped over the banister and down the stairs ahead of Aizawa, ignoring both teachers as they shouted at him to get back inside. He needed to know what was going on out there and he needed to help.
---------- ------------ ----------- ----------- ------------ ------------ -----------
Taiya could hear the echoes of his classmates voice through the trees. It was an advantage of his quirk that, due to his lack of time in nature, he had never discovered before.
But he didn't much enjoy it as right now all he could hear was screaming. Mostly people screaming for Bakugou and as he closed in on where the fight was happening his nerves became more and more frayed, wondering what on earth was happening.
As he got within five feet he slowly morphed some of his features back to human. Being a celebrity had taught him that even in an emergency, image comes first and that was a hard habit to shake.
From the tree line he could see Todoroki raise an ice wall to defend against a reptilian villain. The wall prevented him from seeing the rest of the fight so he decided that was his moment to step into the clearing.
"On your right!" He shouted to Todoroki as he extended his claws and ran up the ice wall.
When he reached the top he saw the villain from earlier, or at least another copy, holding two marbles while Midoriya chased after him.
Quickly, Taiya leapt from the wall, landing and rolling just a few feet ahead of Midoriya, but closer to the villain.
"Oh look, backups arrived." The villain taunted. "I don't think it'll help you get these two back though.".
The magician looking villain lifted his mask, opening his mouth and revealing two marbles. Taiya was confused until he saw Midoriya's horrified expression.
"Tokoyami, Kacchan..." He muttered, his eyes glued to the marbles.
Taiya's brain all but stopped working when he realized those were his classmates, trapped in tiny little balls.
In his moment of hesitation a giant blob appeared on the scene.
"Kurogiri, take us out of here." The villain ordered.
"That's the warp villain from the U.S.J." Midoriya informed him. Taiya swallowed and nodded, trying to make a plan in the half second before the black haired villain disappeared with his classmates.
In that time, a nomu appeared, similar to the ones they had fought at the U.S.J. God this felt like U.S.J part two, especially with Taiya missing half the action.
The magician villain was about to lower his mask when suddenly Aoyama's navel laser hit him square in the face. Taiya lunged for the marbles, managing to grab one. Todoroki however, was unable to grab the one he had jumped for, the black haired flame villain snagging it at the last second instead.
"Why don't you turn off your quirk and we can blow this joint." He suggested. The magician looking villain nodded and suddenly the marble in Taiya's hand turned into Tokoyami.
The other marble turned into Bakugou, who stared at the group with a fearful expression as the villain held tightly to his neck.
"Take us home, Kurogiri." The villain smirked.
"Kacchan!" Midoriya shouted, running at him. Taiya quickly rushed forwards, hoping his quirk would let him catch up in time.
Bakugou's wide eyes were the last thing to disappear alongside about an inch of Taiya's hair.
That's how close he had been.
But when the portal fully disappeared, Taiya crashed into a tree, unable to stop himself in time. Midoriya took a tumble as well, staring at the space his childhood friend had been not a second before.
The reality of the situation finally set in. Taiya had been so scattered, so uninformed throughout this whole fight, but now that it was over he finally understood the stakes.
They had just lost Bakugou.
Struggling to his feet, the actor ignored the blood gushing from his nose and started back towards the main building. He picked up into a run once he could, ignoring the shouts of his classmates to stay back and not rush into anything.
And that's how Mori saw him. T-shirt and shorts on, blood soaked and filthy. Taiya wasn't even wearing shoes and his hair was a legitimate disaster.
The teen threw himself in the passenger seat, bouncing off the back a little upon impact with the seat. "Drive." He ordered, his voice shaking but resolute.
"What's going on?!" Mori demanded instead, "The forests on fire, shouldn't I be helping more people? I've called fire patrol, the police. You need an ambulance, you look hurt. What's going on?".
"I can't explain it all now just drive before someone sees me leave."
"You didn't do something, did you?". Mori swallowed, nervous for the answer.
"Of course not!" Taiya snapped, then he stopped for a second, pulling out his phone. It was sporting a freshly cracked screen, but still worked luckily enough.
"I'm about to though, so drive.".
Sometimes Mori had to sit there and wonder, who's side was he on? He was supposed to be taking care of the kid, not helping him with whatever his plan was. It was probably to get back at whoever hurt him and set the forest on fire, if Mori had to hazard a guess.
But at the end of the day, he knew who's side he was on. Its why he hadn't stopped all of this child actor stuff.
Because he was and always would be on Taiya's side and if that meant doing crazy shit, he'd do it.
Though he did decide that since Taiya had specified where they were driving too, that he would be driving to the nearest hospital.
"Don't do anything I wouldn't do." He joked, trying to break the tension in the dark car. It was still nighttime, no where near daytime. It made everything that was happening feel a bit like a dream. Like they might drift off and awaken perfectly fine to a bright orange sunrise.
The automatic lights in the car lowered down until just the phone screen was left to illuminate them.
Mori could still see the blood on Taiya's face, shining in the darkness.
He could also see Taiya's phone screen as he hit send on some sort of social media post that was written and posted before Mori could even read it.
"Please." Taiya said, even more sure than before. "Drive.".
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I'd like to start of by saying that rumors of my death were, at best, greatly exaggerated.
That's right everybody, I'm still alive and I'm not abandoning anything.
Bet I had you thinking that for a second, didn't I?
If you've read enough of my stuff at this point you know I'd never do that to you guys. I'm a sack of meat of my word, after all.
So to explain the absence, I had the flu.
That's it. I was just really sick for like, two weeks. It was awful.
But I'm back now and more alive than ever (that is a lie, I am tired and still reeling from having the flu for two weeks lol). Point is, computer screens no longer make my head hurt so much I look at them once a day to make sure nothing's exploded so I'm back to updating.
Nice to see you all again!