The Forest Thing

Chapter 20: Fighting in the forest

It didn't take long for the forest to be set ablaze and for the students to be scattered amongst the trees.

Five minutes, actually.

Within five minutes Shouta had gone from teaching the students who had failed their exams to running outside after hearing some sort of commotion, only to be attacked by a villain covered in scars.

The fight didn't last long, though, Shouta was able to take him down quick enough. Too quick in his opinion. It was suspicious.

It was like the villain wasn't fighting as hard as he could have been. Like he didn't *need* to because Shouta wasn't actually a threat, which wasn't the case.

What made matters even more confusing was when the villain melted right in front of him, he turned into some grey sludge and became nothing but a puddle on the ground. Shouta knew it wasn't his quirk since the villain had been using fire against him, no doubt he was the villain who lit up the forest, so logically he knew there had to be others helping.

But why were they even here?

"Eraserhead!" Shouta looked towards the trees to see the humanoid version of UA's cryptid running towards him, faster than a normal human should be able to move, with Kota clutched to his chest.

"Villain's found the camp!" Izuku skid to a stop in front of him, already handing Kota over to him. "Take Kota somewhere safe while I help everyone else."

As soon as the child was in his arms, the forest thing was turning to run back into the forest, leaving no room for Shouta to protest anything he had said.

"Izuku," Shouta grabbed him by the wrist with his capture scarf. "Get Mandalay to tell the students that they can use their quirks to protect themselves."

Izuku nodded to him before transforming into his dog form and running into the trees.

Faster.

Need to go faster.

Need to protect them.

Izuku weaved through the trees as fast as he could. He had defeated Muscular, given Kota to Aizawa, gotten Mandalay to relay Aizawa's message to the students, now he has to find them.

Whether them means the students or the villains, he doesn't know. He just needs to find someone. He just needs to help.

Izuku knew that he would always be able to protect them, they were going to be heroes, after all, it's not a very safe job.

But they were still students, still children. Even if they could fight and take care of themselves, helping them was his biggest priority.

Izuku jumped through a wall of blue fire, the flames singeing his fur, though he barely felt it.

Fear and distress from others surrounded him in almost every direction, not yet enough to overwhelm him as it had back in Hosu, but enough to make him push himself to go faster and be stronger, a feeling he could only assume was what it felt like when humans got an adrenaline rush.

Izuku reached out to his senses. Everyone's fear blended together and it was hard to make out a single person, but if he could find someone who felt familiar he would be able to find them, instead of running aimlessly through the woods.

He reached further, pushing his senses to find someone, anyone, within the cloud of emotion that was the forest camp.

And he found it. Two people close enough to break through the hazy fog. They were close, but he couldn't hear them yet. He couldn't tell who it was either.

The forest thing followed his senses towards the two people who seemed to be jumping and running around a small area, probably fighting, but not each other, which meant there was most likely a third person.

His other senses were obscured by everything around him so he wasn't able to rely on those very well at the moment. There was too much noise coming from every direction to hear specific things, too much smoke from the fire to sniff anyone out, and licking things wouldn't do much. So Izuku just had to hope his sight emotion sense would be enough.

As the forest thing got closer to the fight he began to hear voices. He couldn't exactly make out what they were saying, but he could tell all three of them were female and one of them sounded like Tsu, which meant Ochako was probably there as well.

Izuku slowed to a crawl as he approached, staying low in the bushes and watching through the leaves.

Sure enough, on the path was Ochako fighting a blonde girl in a school uniform, though despite the uniform Izuku knew she was a villain, while Tsu was pinned to a tree by her hair, ouch.

He watched as Ochako threw the girl to the dirt, pinning her down. Usually, Izuku would be proud, but there were more important things to do right now so he'd have to do that later.

The villain kicked Ochako off her, pinning her to the ground instead and jabbing some sort of needle into her thigh, Izuku had seen enough.

He growled and leapt out of the bushes, using his body to knock the girl off his kid.

She stood and glares at him "Stupid dog! You are so not cute!" The blonde villain ran at him, knife in hand and ready to stab.

Unfortunately for her, Izuku was faster.

The forest thing ran forward, quickly closing the gap between him and the villain before using his head to hit her in the shins, knocking her down again.

"I'm out of here!" The girl glared and pouted as she ran into the forest.

At least it was easier than fighting Muscular.

Izuku turned his attention to the two students as Ochako helped Tsu down from where she was hanging by her ponytail.

"Are you okay, Tsu?" Ochako asked quickly as she helped her friend.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Tsu rubbed at her scalp, no doubt it was sore from holding all her weight.

The girls held hands as they walked over to Izuku, petting his head and giving him their thanks.

"You should come with us, Izuku, we're going to find the others," Ochako gestured for him to follow as they walked down the path. "Bakugou said you're good at finding people."

Izuku walked in front of the girls as they made their way down the forest path. The pace was slower than he would have liked, but at least they were walking fast. He couldn't expect them to go as fast as he could when he ran.

As the three walked, Izuku stayed on the lookout for other people but came to the same problem he had before. All of the emotions blended together making an indecipherable cloud of emotion that prevented him from finding the locations of the students.

That is until someone came close enough to break through the fog. Someone who was running right for them. Feet hitting heavy against the ground as the tall person barreled towards them.

Izuku stopped walking, crouching lower and getting ready to fight if he needed to. He couldn't tell who the person was, he just knew that they were big.

Tsu and Ochako noticed Izuku's aggressive stance and stopped walking as well. Both of them got ready to fight, standing back to back to get a better view of the area as they watched for whatever Izuku was snarling at.

Then the large person ran out of the trees, stumbling to a halt on the path in front of them. They looked like they were carrying something on their back

"Tsu! Uraraka!" The girls quickly turned to look at the person as Izuku dropped his aggression, running over to them without hesitation.

"Shoji!" They exclaimed as they followed the forest thing over to their friend and classmate.