Chapter 24

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She tried to pull her foot out of the petrified shell and gritted her teeth in pain, but it was no use. For a few minutes she still had hope that someone from 1A would find her and they could then fight on together, but she quickly lost patience. Although only one student had passed so far, she felt pressured. She was afraid that she would not pass after all if she hesitated. Impatiently, she looked around one last time. She was not feeling well. She was getting weaker and weaker because of the headaches and her physical condition. "If I don't get ahead now, I will lose in the next fight." She resolutely took the boy's ball and activated all three targets. "The second contestant is one round further! Still, the whole thing is going far too slowly, in my opinion." Her targets glowed blue, but she still couldn't get away from this place. "Looks like this competitor is as tired as I am. You're supposed to go to the waiting room, you know.... I don't care do what you want."

...

"I would have thought Kaede would have been here a long time ago." "Wasn't she with you, fighting with you?" "No, we were separated from our group when we were attacked." "I guess we should just wait."

...

"Everyone is here... Everyone except..." "Noooo. We left her alone and now she didn't make it!" Mina looked around as if she still had hope Kaede would turn up somewhere. "It would have been nice if we could have continued as a whole class." "It wouldn't have been nice. It's Kaede. She wanted to get this far, she trained for it like the rest of us, and yet she's not here now." Downcast, even though they had all won, the 1A students waited for the rest of the exam.

...

When Kaede came through the door, everyone looked at her. The other students were interested to know why she was only arriving now and her own classmates were incredulous but happy to see her. "Kaede!" Toru suddenly stood beside her and pulled her along. Momo stood up from the bench for her "How did you pass after all? It's already way too late." "Well, technically I was the second to pass, but my opponents had me pinned and I couldn't get away. That's why the examiners couldn't get me out until everyone had passed." "Woaaaah, that's really cool. The second one?" Eijiro held up his fist laughing. "So you're the one who fell asleep?" Embarrassed, Kaede blushed. "Well it was so boring waiting and you guys took so long." "You know, it was actually pretty irresponsible of the examiners to just leave her there." Izuku nodded. "There was really a lot going on and if she really was asleep..." "Guys, it was my own decision to sleep, leave the poor examiners alone. Can anyone get me something to eat?" "That was a quick change of subject."

When the next exam began, Kaede found it difficult to keep up with the others. She looked around the battlefield. It looked exactly like Kamino. Only this time the emotions that pulled at her were very weak, they were just not good actors. "Someone is in pain in that direction." Izuku ran in the direction she pointed and she trotted after them. "Eyy, where are you going again?" Eijiro and Denki looked around as they ran, "I don't know, Katsuki took off again." "That little rug rat." Torn, she looked around. It was important to her that everyone in the class passed, was Katsuki as good at saving as she was at fighting? She saw a girl walk past her carrying an injured man. "heyy, where do they take the injured?" "Look around. The camp has been set up back there." "Oh yeah, thanks I didn't see." Kaede made her way to the injured camp. Running around was difficult with her leg and so was searching through the ruins. She made the injured feel safe, took care of them gently and told the hero candidates who brought new casualties where there were more in the ruins. She kept it up until the villains showed up.
It would have been too good if it was that easy. Shoto and Yoarashi got in the villain's way and bought the others time to evacuate the camp. When the injured were on their way she turned back and was startled to see both Shoto and Yoarashi lying motionless on the ground. The only positive thing was that the villain Gang Orca was trapped in a wall of flame by both of them. However, when many henchmen attacked her comrades from behind, she ran to the rescue despite her foot. She attached the chain to her knife, threw it into the ground and swung around on it. As she did so, she burrowed through the villains and kicked hard and landed on her leg. When the wall of flames collapsed, she ran to Gang orca to get him to let go of Shoto. He fended off her kick, but her hand grazed his head so that she randomly evoked one of his emotions very briefly in the extreme. He was just in shock, so his attack was stronger than he had intended. But in that second he showed that Kaede was not even close to being as strong as he was. Kaede was thrown backwards by the violent impact of the waves. Even when she hit the ground, she flew back up because of the impact. Izuku tried to catch her, but he was only carried away by the momentum. Gang orca watched the whole thing guiltily. "Oops"
Izuku pushed himself off the mountain to lessen the impact even more and then jumped again in another direction. He braced himself with his legs and pressed Kaede against his chest as he stopped the final swing. He exhaled deeply when he had solid ground under his feet and fell to his knees. "Kaede, are you all right?" She murmured unintelligibly. The waves had made her head extremely confused. "Go back to Shoto, he needs help." She felt his mind racing and Yoarashi was giving her shivers too. Gently, Izuku leaned her against the mountain. "I'll let the others know you're here." Then he ran off.

As she lay there trying not to move, her whole body shook. If Izuku had not caught her, she would have broken every bone in her body. Maybe she would be dead. The waves also messed up her sensory abilities. She saw two figures approaching. "Kaede!" The two came running towards her faster. "What about her?" "I don't know!" "Give her a shock so she'll be clear." She felt Denki touch her forehead, then felt a violent electric shock and she accidentally knocked Denki off her trough the pain. "But not so hard!" She breathed heavily and looked around in panic, then threw up after all.
"What happened? The fight is back there, isn't it?" Eijiro Patted her back and hold her hair. She answered only after the taste of vomit was gone: "Gang Orca threw me away with its waves." Denki looked at her with widened eyes and and Eijiro looked around. "But that's back there.... that far?" "It would have been further if Izuku hadn't intercepted me." "Let's get you out of here." They helped her up and supported her, but she couldn't stand for long because she couldn't feel her legs. Eijiro carried her on his back.
"Shitty hair what are you doing, there are still more injured people!" Bakugo suddenly came out from behind a corner, also carrying an injured person. "It's kaede, thrown here by Gang Orca." Bakugo stared past Eijiro and glared at Kaede, who smiled weakly. "Stupid shit." They walked together to the infirmary. The three of them said goodbye to her and turned back to look for more injured people. "That idiot just can't handle injured people!" The injured woman who was being carried by Katsuki complained loudly, so Kaede went to her and patted her arm. "Do you mean Katsuki? Katsuki Bakugo? You felt so comfortable in his arms, so safe. He did everything for you to keep you safe. You're so happy that you, of all people, were saved by him." The woman looked deep into Kaede's eyes and a smile formed on her lips while the hypnosis formed her emotions. "Oh yes, I feel so good." Kaede nodded in satisfaction. If this idiot failed because of his unfriendliness, he was in for a treat. Kaede looked in the crowd for someone else who had also been saved by Katsuki, and did the same to him. That was all she found, but she hoped it was enough.

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