Chapter Eleven

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"Hey, Tsukauchi," Maeve yawned, looked up from the crippled forms of All Might and Midoriya in hospital beds. The remnants of 3 empty coffee flasks littered her desk.

"Maeve, good to see you. I'm sorry that this has happened, it must've unearthed some bad memories. How are you feeling?"

"Shit," she replied matter of factly. "And I smell even worse than I feel. You?"

"I've had better days, but I think your one tops the charts for general crappiness. You must be exhausted, so I'll make this quick and get out of your hair."

Maeve liked Tsukauchi. She could be as rude as she wanted around him and he didn't care, remaining as good natured as ever. He hadn't mentioned the stench at all, and she knew it was pretty overpowering. The guy had been in charge of interrogating her mother back in the day. Compared to that witch, she always looked the perfect angel in comparison.

"That sounds good," she said. "How about I give you a full report and then wake up these two for a chat? Midoriya should meet you sooner rather than later anyway. He's a character, you'll like him."

"Great, I'm sure I will," Tsukauchi replied.

She sat down at her desk with a sigh and rubbed her eyes. Maeve had miscalculated. There hadn't been time for a shower, so instead she'd asked her stretcher bots to douse her in sterilising spray outside on the field before entering her office. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Until she realised halfway through that the entire student body was being evacuated past the field and could see her getting drenched. Maeve sensed the collective initial amusement, as several students opened their mouth to give friendly teasing. Then the collective intake of horrified breath when they saw that the rivulets of fluid running off her were red. Several of the third years, including Mirio, immediately broke from the ranks towards her. Maeve had just smiled at them as brightly as she could, giving a wave.

"Don't worry, everyone's okay! Stay with your homeroom teachers."

It hadn't crossed her mind that they thought the blood was hers. Or she had a massive bandage over her forehead and extensive bruising on her throat. She could barely form the words of comfort.

Maeve had gotten clean enough to immediately tend to All Might and Midoriya without contaminating their injuries. She still smelled like brains. The stench was familiar to her, but it had never been this strong. Years of practice holding in her gag reflex was the only reason she hadn't offloaded her already empty stomach. Maeve's hair was a rat's nest in the vague semblance of a bun. Now that the adrenaline coursing through her system had run out, the throbbing in her forehead threatened to send her straight to sleep. There were bruises all over her arms, and she was sure her torso had a lovely purple hue. The exhausted girl couldn't risk checking, to be honest, she didn't particularly want to.

"So, a dark purple portal opened in the middle of the plaza at approximately 9:30 am, I wasn't looking at a clock. 54 villains that I could observe climbed through it, although the surface remained almost black so it was impossible to see where they had come from. Something interesting I noticed.."

Tsukauchi hurriedly pulled out his notebook and began frantically scribbling. She felt a bit sorry for him and activated her visor to record their conversation, to send to him later. Maeve had the events of the morning playing out in her mind it was if she was reliving it. If the nurse wanted to, she could give him a word for word transcript of every conversation, and photo realist sketches of every villain. She'd never considered herself a good drawer, but with her memory she could practically project an image onto paper and just fill it in.

But she was tired. Tsukauchi was tired. She'd give a perfectly insightful and detailed report without overwhelming him.

***

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