Standing before us was this monstrous beast made out of dirt. Midoriya helpfully informed us that this dirt monster was made with Pixie-Bob's quirk, that it was more or less a golem.
"Give me a few minutes, I'll transform and help take out any others that we may cross paths with..." I told them.
They acknowledged me and went to attack the beast themselves as I stood against a tree and meditated. The cheering from the class after they defeated it gave me courage, which gave me the boost I needed.
I transformed my arms and legs, and clenched my fist. "Alright! Let's go! We got a long journey ahead of us and probably a lot more of those monsters to fight."
Bakugo shouted, "Hey, who died and made you boss?"
"I wanna have lunch, damn it!"
Steadily gaining more confidence in myself, I ran ahead of the group, the rest of them trailing behind. Another monster appeared, and I leapt up to it, smashing it to pieces in a single hit.
It had taken a team effort from several others before to take one down. They were all stunned, as was I, at the display of raw power.
Jirou plugged her earphone jacks into the floor and told us about two more coming towards us. We took them out with ease too.
This was just too easy! It wasn't anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be! However, we still had a long way to go.
We kept trudging forward for what felt like hours. Wait, it had been hours! The sun was starting to set lower in the sky, yet we'd arrived at the edge of the forest at around nine am.
It took us a total of eight hours to get through the forest, and as much as I liked walking, even I was exhausted by the time we got there. We all were.
Pixie-Bob admitted she thought it would take us longer to get there and commended us for being able to deal with her earth beasts so quickly, especially me.
I felt pretty good about myself, as Mr Aizawa told us to gather our belongings from the bus and to go to the dining hall for food. Thank goodness, I was starving!
After having an absolutely amazing meal provided for us by the Pussycats, we were told to have a bath. I wondered where, until we were brought to the hot springs.
"Wow!" I beamed, "I've never been to hot springs before!"
"They don't have hot springs in Ireland?" Midoriya asked.
I could barely contain my laughter, "Oh, hell no."
We changed out of our clothes, and I kept my swimming boxers on as we got into the springs. It felt absolutely amazing. I actually made it a custom to visit hot springs at least once a year after that.
It was like a Jacuzzi, but so much more relaxing. And less chlorine. Mineta suddenly piped up.
"You hear that?" He started, as we all fell silent. On the other side of the tall wooden walls, we could hear the girls talking. "The girls are bathing at the same time!"
"Mineta, restrain yourself!" Iida demanded.
He ignored Iida, quickly starting to scale the wall using his sticky balls to climb up.
"Hey!" I shouted at him, "Get your perverted runt behind back down here before I beat the daylights out of you!"
He also ignored me, and continued climbing. However, in a humorous turn of events, Kota, the young boy with the Pussycats, appeared at the top to push him back down.
Cursing the young boy, Mineta fell down, landing on Iida. A few moments later, Kota also fell down. He must've seen the girls... Bathing... Together...
I shook my head and tried to push those thoughts out, knowing it would only lead to trouble, and glared at Mineta.
"Give me one good reason I shouldn't hang your balls by your balls." I looked down at him with a dark aura. If this were an anime, you'd actually see the darkness coming off me.
I smacked him round the back of his head as Midoriya carried Kota to Mandalay. The rest of us enjoyed our bath time together, which was something I never thought I'd say.
Afterwards, we dried off and went to our cabins to sleep. Of course, the sleeping quarters were also gender separated.
There were two rows of bunk beds, five on each side, with two beds, one top, one bottom. I took the bunk below Sato, and kept worrying about its stability as it looked like it could collapse on me any second with him on it.
We all got to sleep very fast, considering the day we'd had. And since we would all have to get up early the next morning we tried to get an early night.
The next morning, we were dragged out of our beds at the ungodly hour of five in the morning. We were outside by five thirty, and Mr Aizawa was there to tell us our goals for the day.
We were to undergo reinforcement training to strengthen our quirks. He then hands Bakugo the ball from the quirk apprehension test and gets Bakugo to throw it.
He does so, and only ends up throwing it a few meters further than last time, which was a surprise to us all. Despite our mentality strengthening, our actual strengths hadn't.
Every one of us had our quirks put to the test. Koda was sent up a little bit to shout as loud as he could to strengthen his voice. Tokoyami was sent into a dark cave to strengthen Dark Shadow.
Bakugo had his hands put in boiling water and was causing explosions under the water, which honestly sounded like the worst out of all of our tasks to me.
"Alex." Mr Aizawa started, grabbing my attention. "We understand your quirks are both situational, however, we have a few tasks for you still.
Today, we want you to focus on your teleportation. Several students were talking about your performance at the volleyball tournament you held.
So, for today, you need to teleport as fast as you can, try to effectively create clones of yourself. You made four images of yourself last time. Do that again."
I nodded, and started teleporting around the area, at extreme speeds. There appeared to be two of me, then three, and then four.
"Good. Now make five."
What? Five? Well, I guess we were supposed to push ourselves to the limit right? I went up a gear, going faster again, causing myself to appear five times in the small rocky area.
"Well done." Hearing those exact words from Mr Aizawa would be the equivalent to being worshipped from someone else. "Now, six."
It was starting to hurt now... The human eye can only follow sixty frames per second, a sixtieth of a second being about sixteen milliseconds.
I wasn't quite fast enough to be flawlessly in five places at once, but when I was in four places at once it looked perfect.
Pushing myself again, I managed to get to six mirages, however it was starting to look less like being in six places at once as opposed to just being really fast.
"Seven." He can't be serious... No, I was done.
I stopped teleporting and bent over forwards, touching my knees as I breathed heavily, shaking my head.
"No, I'm sorry, I can't. I can teleport two hundred times a second, that's my limit right now. I can't go any faster, I need a quick rest first. My back feels like it's gonna break."
He looked at me with his cold lifeless eyes, but acknowledged my request. "Hydrate yourself and try again in ten minutes."
Leaving me to my own devices to focus on other students, I got myself some water, as one of the Pussycats came over to me.
"Hey! Wow! Your quirk is super cool! You must be really fast to look like you're in four places at once!"
It was Ragdoll, the most... Enthusiastic of the Pussycats. Yeah, enthusiastic, let's go with that.
"Yeah, I did the math, I'm able to teleport around two hundred times a second. But now, after doing it that much, my back is killing me. I don't think ten minutes is gonna be enough..."
She looked at me curiously and closed her eyes for a moment. She opened them and smiled, pointing her finger upwards as if she'd thought of some brilliant idea.
"So your weak point is your back, and your stomach!" She stated.
"I didn't say anything about my stomach..." I said, confused.
"I used my Search quirk on you! I don't know much about physiotherapy, but you should definitely soak in the hot springs every night for your back muscles!"
Already knew that, but thanks anyway... She was trying to be helpful which was nice of her as she didn't need to, but it wasn't anything I didn't know already.
However, Mandalay came over to add some of her own wisdom into the mix. "You can try yoga, or perhaps other exercising techniques to stretch your back muscles, perhaps."
I thought briefly before responding, "Yeah, that's a good idea that would probably help. Thanks, you two!"
A bit vague, but back stretching could help at least a little. After all, just lying around doing nothing would cause my muscles to seize up instead, making it worse.
At the end of the day, I'd managed to create seven mirages. I had improved slightly, but still couldn't make a seamless five mirages. I'd need to teleport closer to three hundred times a second to do that.
Six mirages would be three hundred and fifty, seven mirages would be four hundred, so on and so forth. I remember back when I first started getting the hang of teleportation...
I could teleport one hundred times and I'd be done in for the day. Then just messing about in my own time I started to get a bit stronger. And then I set my heart on U.A...
And now... Teleporting hundreds of times per second for several minutes... I must have teleported ten or even twenty thousand times. It's incredible what the human mind and body can be capable of if trained right.
We stopped training at around four in the afternoon, almost evening. This time, we had to prepare our own food. Ashido complained, but Iida said it would be a great survival experience.
Iida suggested we make curry, so we all started to make our own variations. It almost turned into a competition, everyone trying to make their own versions of curry and agree to try each other's out.
Now this was a sport I could get behind! I always had to cook or bake for myself, so this should be a piece of cake! Or... A bowl of curry.
We all finished making our curries, and tried a bit of each. Sato's was really, really good! Bakugo and Yaoyorozu did pretty nicely too. Everyone liked mine as well, which I was pleased at.
But for sure, Sato definitely won that competition. He was an amazing chef, and as we'd learn later, baker. Nothing else really unique happened until the next day.
Same routine as before, only this time my back was severely aching. Thank goodness this day was going to focus on transformation. If I had to do more teleporting I'd probably keel over and die.
Mr Aizawa was busy giving the students who failed the Final Exam extra lessons, so he asked Mandalay to help me a bit.
"So, it takes you about five minutes normally right?" She asked, with me nodding.
"Hmm... Perhaps there's a trigger that can help spur it on faster?"
I put my hands up, worried, "No, no way. The only times it's been triggered is from extreme anger or someone else getting hurt, and then I lose all control. That's a bad idea."
"Well, then is there a way you can meditate... Faster?"
Gee, I hadn't thought of that before. Why don't I just whip out my meditation stick and make it go faster? I made sure not to let my irritation show as I calmly explained.
"That's... Not really how meditation works. However, I have managed to make it faster over the course of a few weeks."
"In that case, let's time it! You just need practice, right? Dinner isn't for several hours, and if it was taking five minutes before, I'm sure we can at least half that!"
Agreeing to being timed, we sat down together as she got a stopwatch and started timing me to see how fast I could transform. The first time around, it took me five minutes and twelve seconds.
"Very good, Alex! I must ask though, why are you not transforming your head?"
"I'm... A little nervous that transforming my head could also transform my mental state and I could go on a riot.
Not to blow my own trumpet but I don't think anyone here would be able to stop me without getting hurt, so I'd prefer to be safe. We don't have All Might or Midnight here so..."
"Fair enough. Let's go again! I'm sure you can do it faster this time!"
I don't think she meant to, but she sounded a little patronising sometimes. I'm not really sure what it was, just her tone of voice and her way of phrasing things. But then again she did have a young child to look after now.
Four minutes and fifty eight. That was fourteen seconds faster. We did it again. Four minutes thirty seven. Twenty one seconds faster. We went again, four minutes twenty nine. Eight seconds faster.
After hours of trying and retrying, we eventually cut it down to three minutes thirty seconds. Still, that's a huge improvement, and to our knowledge, we had several days to cut it down even more!
However... That wasn't the case... A certain group had other plans for us that night, and everything was going to go downhill from there.
We had our dinner again, making it from scratch, and enjoyed a meal together. Both classes, all together. I sat to the left of Tsu, and to my own left sat Pony.
My plan had been to talk to Tsu, but she ended up being engaged in conversation with Jirou and Yaoyorozu, and Pony had started talking to me more.
She told me about her teacher, Vlad King. I didn't remember what his quirk was, but remembered not liking it, so I asked her to refresh my memory.
"He can manipulate his blood after it leaves his body. He has a gauntlet that squirts blood out!"
I flinched and grit my teeth. "Ah! That sounds horrible! I hate blood, I'm so glad, I'm not in your class. No offence."
She giggled a bit. "Bit haemophobic?'
"Ha! That's putting it lightly... If I had one weakness, it's blood. You know, last time I had a blood test, I passed out. Just thinking about it makes me uncomfortable, I really don't know why."
She shrugged, "Everyone has their fears." She looked around before leaning in closer to me and cupping her mouth to my ear. "I'm scared of clowns."
I chuckled, "You wouldn't like Bakugo then."
She giggled again and we finished our meals. We then prepared for the night's test, a test of courage! Pixie-Bob and Ragdoll explained the rules.
Both classes would have the opportunity to be the scarers. First time around, it would be 1-B doing the scaring. Class 1-A were to go in groups into the forest to retrieve a letter with their name on it to prove they went through.
The scarers' job was to... Well, scare us. Pretty simple really, though it would take a lot to scare me so I was interested in seeing what they'd come up with.
After twelve minutes, the fifth pair from our class, Tsu and Uraraka, delved into the forest. A few moments later however, the forest became covered in a thick purple gas.
It was obviously not fog, and we all got a bad feeling. That wasn't one of our quirks. Suddenly, two villains appeared behind us and knocked out Pixie-Bob. Midoriya realised Kota was alone and ran off to rescue him.
The League of Villains had a few new recruits, and they weren't messing around. They weren't clueless nobodies, they all had experience. I gasped and looked into the forest, knowing Tsu was with Uraraka, the two of them vulnerable.
"I'm going to get Tsu and Uraraka! If there's more villains, and judging by that smoke, there is, they're not safe!"
Tiger, the only male of the Pussycats, forbid me going in alone to fight, which I ignored. I ran in anyway. I didn't care what any person or any law said, I wasn't going to let anyone hurt Tsu, even if it set my own career back!
As I ran along the path, I saw a glow in the distance. Oh no, was someone already after them?! I ran towards the glow, and saw something... Weird...
There was a man standing there, he was tall, a little taller than six foot, but not quite as tall as Kinzokuma. His whole body seemed to be covered in some glowing substance.
It was glowing yellow, like a light. He also wielded a weapon coated in the same substance. No, it wasn't a coating, if I looked hard enough I could see through it!
Was his clothing and weapon actually made out of light? He had armour on, a little similar to a Roman legionnaire, a helmet and chestplate, with leggings. His weapon was a longsword also made of light.
Yeah, no thanks, I was about to nope out of that situation. I turned around and started to walk away, but of course I just had to not be looking where I was walking and tread on the loudest twig in the whole damn forest.
Could've teleported, could've done anything other than what I did. But fear makes people stupid sometimes. He turned to face me, a very serious look in his eyes. He called out to me.
"You. Are you the one they call Fumikage Tokoyami?"
I gulped. What did he want with Tokoyami? I shook my head, "My name is Alakan."
"Oh, the hero who took down the metal demon. Very well, I'll spare your life. I am Amaraito, the Son of Light, sent to kill the Son of Darkness and stop the Antichrist from bringing the end of the world.
After extensive research and many purgings, my soul found no rest. But then I found him. At the Sports Festival. I saw him, I knew it must be him, the Son of Darkness!
I must slay him to save the rest of humanity! Direct me to him, and I'll make sure your friends don't get hurt in the process."
I didn't know why the hell he was telling me all this, it was like an expositional dump, but one thing was for sure. I wasn't going to sacrifice Tokoyami to this nutcase.
[A/N: Things are going to get intense next chapter, with the introduction of my new villain, plus the rest of Class 1-A and 1-B being attacked by the Vanguard Action Squad! How will this affect Alakan, fighting the so called Son of Light? Find out on Monday!]