After a brief and powerful warning, Ryuga wasted no time, silently going straight inside to rest, leaving behind the three pro heroes with a bewildered expression and a series of unanswered questions, along with a boy who didn't understand anything but still felt that the person had an extremely unheroic aura...
When his back had disappeared behind the door, Pixie-Bob finally came back to her senses, her usual mischievous smile had disappeared, replaced by a rare serious look.
"Hey, Erazer," she lowered her voice, glancing quickly at Kota who was standing in the corner of the yard, making sure the boy didn't hear. "That Onodera brat... what's going on? And what's this about 'The Traitor'?"
Mandalay also nodded in agreement, her face unable to hide her worry. "He's acting very unusual. His calmness and approach to the problem is not like that of a first year student. Or even…any hero…"
Aizawa sighed, a breath filled with exhaustion and complexity. He glanced towards the cabin door where Ryuga had just entered, making sure that he wasn't seeing from inside before he began to respond.
"His personality is extremely bad, vulgar, cunning, selfish, and most of all, he lacks almost the compassion of a hero, willing to trample on anyone who gets in his way…" he began bluntly, true to his style. "It's hard to understand this boy's thoughts without putting yourself in the perspective of a psychopath… Even I can't understand it clearly…"
Both of them frowned, but Aizawa continued, and his next words made them even more stunned. "…But it was that, along with the cold-bloodedness that went beyond the normal hero, that really helped us see the problems we were about to face. Remember that 'Hero Killer: Stain' that was previously reported to have been executed? That kid did it by himself."
A silence filled the air around. Pixie-Bob and Mandalay looked at each other, trying to take in the shocking information as if it were a joke, but when they looked back at the narrator – Aizawa Shota a.k.a Erazer Head – they understood how… creepy this was. The Hero Killer, the one who had disabled many heroes, including Ingenium – a famous pro hero, to be defeated by… a first-year student?
"Not only that," Aizawa continued, his voice growing deeper. "His vague ability 'prophesized' to All Might and Principal Nezu events that would happen in the future, along with a billion ways to prevent them. The warning about the traitor you just heard from him…was also part of them."
Both Mandalay and Pixie-Bob were about to ask more, but at that moment, gasps and the sound of staggering footsteps from the edge of the forest interrupted their conversation.
...
The rest of Class 1-A, had finally arrived.
Everyone was exhausted, covered in mud and dirt, and most of all, everyone was in a rather...bad mood.
"What do you mean? It took us 3 hours?"
"That's the time it took us to get here, sorry." Mandalay looked at everyone and replied.
"Are you trying to bluff that you're better than us? You are so cruel!!" Sato sighed with an exhausted look.
"So hungry...I'm dying..." Kirishima lamented, sitting down on the ground.
After Pixie-Bob's strange expression, she actually complimented the class that they got here faster than she thought, and that it was no trouble at all that they were able to defeat those Earth Beasts so easily, especially Izuku, Tenya, Shoto, and Katsuki for acting quickly against one of her Earth Beasts, thus concluding that they had experience fighting bad guys.
"But... I'm surprised too. Onodera, he actually came here solo and didn't fight at all." Pixie-Bob said as she headed towards the student resting area, only to be startled when she realized that he came out with... over a dozen of some kind of suspicious-looking white packages and a cold expression.
"Oy, everyone, catch them." Ryuga called out as he threw the packages one by one to everyone.
"What's this?" Izuku looked at the white powder in his hand and asked suspiciously.
"Glucose. Moving this from pebbles to small, small baggies like this in such a short period of time is really torture. Anyway, everyone should use it and rest."
"Do you really think we're weak enough to do this?" Katsuki started to grumble and looked at Ryuga with an annoyed expression.
"You're lucky I didn't feed you sugar through your nose, Bakugay." Ryuga replied jokingly with the same calm face that was scary.
Immediately, after that statement, everyone looked at Ryuga with a suspicious look that really made him shiver.
"You guys really don't know how to joke..."
Ryuga's joke made the atmosphere heavy. Even Kirishima, who always tried to connect, didn't know how to respond, because he really couldn't tell if this was a joke or not, because no one was "creative" enough to joke about drugs in this situation.
Aizawa-sensei just sighed, seemingly used to the shocking statements of this special student.
"Okay, that's enough," Pixie-Bob spoke up, breaking the awkward silence. "Everyone did well. Now go inside, put your luggage and prepare for dinner."
"Hey, I think I have some leftover sugar." Ryuga pulled out another bag of sugar from his pocket. "You might need this, although sugar isn't really good for women of your..."
Before he could finish his sentence, Pixie-Bob's cat glove with sharp claws was already close to Ryuga's face, "killing intent" clearly visible on her face.
"You've crossed the line a few times today..."
"But he was only talking about yours age..." Izuku explained, only to be met with the same glove as Ryuga and asked a threatening question.
"What about my age..."
"It just makes me a little curious..." He replied a little flustered. "By the way, who is that kid?"
"Oh, he's the son of one of my relatives. Come on, Kota, say hi to everyone. You'll be staying with them next week..." Mandalay replied to Izuku a little excitedly.
According to the plot, of course, as soon as Izuku came out to greet him politely to get acquainted, that Kota boy immediately gave Izuku a straight punch without hesitation to the groin, making him...of course, hurt to the core and then walked away as if nothing had happened.
Mandalay, now with a face full of regret, wanted to stop Kota but couldn't, and ran to Izuku's side with Tenya to check on his condition and didn't forget to scold Kota.
"You're so mean, kid!! Why did you hit Midoriya in the groin?!?"
"I'm not interested in getting to know people who want to become heroes."
...
It was just the same thing. Old Aizawa, having had enough, asked the class to take their belongings to their rooms, then go to the dining room to eat, then take a bath, and finally go to bed. The challenge starts tomorrow, so I don't have to worry too much...
After waiting for Class 1-A to finish putting their luggage away and join them in the dining room, what greeted us was a mountain of food. Yes. A mountain of food, all kinds of food, and you have to see it with your own eyes to see how beautifully and simply it was arranged.
"Bon Appétit" Pixie-Bob said as he watched us eat our food deliciously.
And it was really delicious, more than I thought. Every piece of meat, every leaf of salad, every grain of rice, somehow it really made me feel comfortable with its mild taste, even the things I didn't like to eat and didn't want to eat - crustaceans like shrimp and crab, because I used to be allergic to this stuff at an indescribable level. Hospital bills in America, of course in real life, not in this world, are like robbery in public. You don't have insurance? Congratulations, you spent $8,000 on a dose of allergy medicine that was totally useless.
That's what I experienced before I transmigrated, and for me - the one and only Onodera Ryuga of this world - eating shrimp was no problem, I just sometimes unconsciously avoided it...
"Tempura is really this delicious...?"
This feeling of eating like this is completely different from anything I've ever experienced.
When I'm alone, I don't care about whether the food is delicious or not, but instead "is it edible" and "is there any problem with eating it" only. Before, I had to dig through the trash to find something edible, and it was really not a fun experience even though this was the only way to get food when the translation money was only enough to rent a shabby apartment. If I was lucky, I could get almost half a meal at KFC or McDonald's, but if I was unlucky... yeah, not only did I get nothing, I even got beaten up by homeless people and the restaurant staff. Painful? Yes, a lot, extremely painful in many ways. Those things haunted me to the point that now in this world, even with a lot of money, I still can't treat myself to a decent meal without a specific reason.
When I eat with Himiko, the feeling of having someone by my side is like a romantic dinner, although it's not really fancy, but for us, a meal is exactly about sharing our feelings, and whether we eat or not doesn't matter. Meals like this used to be quite short at first, because 8 out of 10 times our emotions were always pushed to the highest level of affection and then we turned to make love to each other intensely and wildly right next to the dining table, and then when we came back the food was cold. And then I still reheated the food and we both sat down to eat together, watching each other eat.
But this feeling, it's... very different... I don't know what's wrong with me...
This cozy feeling, the feeling of being part of a group, eating together, laughing together after going through hardships... it... is so strange.
Maybe... this is the feeling of eating with "friends"? How interesting...
"Onodera, are you...crying?" Kaminari, who sat across from me, asked with a surprised and concerned look, his mouth still full of food.
"Damn... It's been a while since I've had something this delicious...." I changed the subject, picking up a piece of Tonkatsu and putting it in my mouth while slowly chewing.
Maybe my own feelings were actually...more human than something I was imagining...
...
After dinner, the whole class headed to the hot springs to relax after a long tiring day. The baths were divided into two, one for men and one for women, separated by a wooden wall high and thick enough for a child to walk on top of the wall without any problem.
"Actually, to be frank, food and supplies aren't that important. That's not what I'm thinking here. I know a lot, at least. What I'm here for is by that wall…" Minoru monologued while looking at the thick wooden wall.
"Are you talking about yourself, Mineta?" Izuku asked while looking at him while soaking.
"Look, they're there…" Mineta pressed his face against the wall with a lewd expression. "Nowadays, not having them take the time to bathe the boys and girls is an accident… Yes, an accident waiting to happen…
I knew this would happen.
"Mineta, stop it! What you're doing is degrading you and those girls!! "That's a shameful behavior." Tenya criticized as he walked towards Minoru with a serious expression.
"Is your head really useless other than growing those sticky balls?" I glared at him with a hint of intimidation. "Don't you remember what I taught you and the good image I built for you?"
Surprisingly, Mineta didn't try to climb the wall or find a hole in the wall and criticize us as much as I expected. He just sighed regretfully, went back to soak in the hot spring, and muttered loud enough for the people nearby to hear.
"Mel is worth more..."
Wait, did I hear wrong? "Mel"? Melissa? The two of them even developed an ambiguous relationship or something?? Well, it seems my advice was more effective than expected...
"Wow, Onodera," Kirishima suddenly spoke up, attracting everyone's attention. "I didn't expect your body to be so strong! But... why are there so many scars? What are those bruises on your body and...teeth marks?"
All eyes turned to me. Aside from the old scars from previous battles - which were obviously quite gruesome - on my neck and shoulders were still faint teeth marks and hickeys that Himiko had "kindly" left.
I coughed awkwardly.
"Ah... it was just... a training accident. Oh right, just a training accident. You know, sometimes...this...that..."
Obviously, no one believed this bullshit, except for Izuku - who was innocent as hell - and Tenya - who was so serious that he didn't understand what all this was about since their internship together at Hosu. Except for those two, everyone looked at me with judgmental eyes, making me even more embarrassed.
Suddenly, on that wall, it seemed like someone was...watching us... And according to the lore running to this part, besides that Kota kid, who else could be here?
A mischievous thought flashed through my mind, and I stood up and walked out of the hot spring.
"Do you mind if we add another person to the bath with us?" I asked everyone with an excited expression.
"That's...fine... We don't have any problems. But why are you asking?" Izuku replied to me with a puzzled expression.
"Good. Because we have a nosy person here." I told him. "Use Full Cowl to push me up this fence to one side, then up to the other side. I kind of hate being peeped at."
Following my instructions, he actually stood up, activated "One For All-Full Cowl" and lifted me up to the wall perfectly, then jumped up to surround the "target" according to my instructions in perfect harmony, making me really feel like I was...more compatible with this guy than I thought.
"Where are you going, kid?" I smirked, grabbing the boy easily. "It's no fun if we don't bathe together."
I picked Kota up, intending to jump back to the boys' side. But Kota started struggling violently, screaming. "No! Let me go! You pervert!"
The sudden struggle on top of the narrow wall made me lose my balance. My whole body—still holding Kota tightly—wobbled and I fell towards...to the girls' side.
"Shit!"
"ONODERA-KUN!" Izuku shouted from below, reflexively jumping up to try to catch both of us. But the fall created a chain reaction. He grabbed my leg, but instead of pulling us back, he was pulled along by the force. The three of us plunged down like a chaotic comet.
*SPLASH!*
After a violent fall, the three of us emerged from the hot water. There was a deadly silence all around. All the girls of class 1-A were frozen, their eyes wide open, staring at the three unwilling intruders.
Izuku and Kota, upon realizing the situation, their faces turned red like ripe gooseberries. Both of them immediately covered their eyes with their hands, unable to form words.
As for me, after witnessing "things that shouldn't be seen", I just calmly brushed my wet hair back, looked straight at the mess, and said one sentence before being cooked.
"Welp, we're fucked."