Controlee

59. Those Red Eyes

Rule 24: Distractions can kill.

Aizawa was leading 1-A from the entrance to the Beast's Forest (where the test of courage was going to be) over to the main camp building. Vlad was there with the remedial students who only knew what was going on thanks to Mandalay's telepathy quirk. They'd been lucky so far, that the villains hadn't started their attack yet.

Aizawa knew it wouldn't last.

The Pussycats were all in the Beast's Forest, searching for as many of 1-B as they could find. The students had been told to stay together as much as possible and head back to where they'd entered the forest. Otsuka was with them, using her new sensing ability to assist in finding the stragglers— it was an ability they couldn't afford to waste. Aizawa didn't like it, but Tiger was with her and he'd promised to stay with her while they found the kids.

That wasn't even the worst of it though. Todoroki and Midoriya were on their own. The child, the boy who was the nephew of one of the Pussycats, the one who acted as the girls' guardian angel when Mineta acted out at the baths, he was missing. Apparently the child, Kouta was his name, had a secret hideaway he went to when he was upset and naturally Midoriya was the only one who knew where it was. Midoriya was just that good at getting into trouble. The Problem Child. At least Todoroki was with him.

They were metres away from the entrance to the camp building when it finally happened. The first villain made his appearance and Aizawa was sure there would be others.

"Eraser, we meet again."

"Stay behind me," he ordered his students, keeping himself between them and Scarfaced-Not-Daniel.

The man eyed the students a little too closely for Aizawa's comfort. "Oh, don't you worry, Eraser. We both know I'm not here for any of these precious students of yours, the one I want seems to be missing."

Otsuka. Otsuka who was currently in the trees helping find the 1-B students because she knew she could do something to help and was intent on doing it. "What's your interest in her?" There was an obvious answer, of course. She was powerful, incredibly powerful. That strength was only growing as she experimented more with her quirk, finding more uses for it than she ever had when she was limited by being a controlee. But this man was different.

He may or may not have stolen Otsuka's cuff on the day of the sports festival. And then he returned it soon after her episode. He attacked her at the internships but the attack failed when Bakugou and Best Jeanist found them— it was lucky she was found, very lucky. He burned down the only home she'd had for eight years. He had a conversation with Aizawa in the mall, one all about Otsuka and the control school, about how she was treated there. It didn't add up.

Then at I-Island he'd spent a whole day with her, introduced himself as a stranger alone and left as soon as her classmates appeared. She said they'd had fun, that he'd helped her ask a question she was too nervous to ask. And then when the island was attacked, he watched her back, protected her.

Something about this guy was off.

"You should be more worried about why everyone else is here, Eraser." The villain's skin lit up blue and Aizawa instantly snuffed the light out with one red-eyed look. His capture weapon lashed out and the villain's flesh tore, melting away into a pile of brown muck.

It was some kind of double. Which meant Scarfaced-Not-Daniel was still out there somewhere, hunting Otsuka. Damn it.

He had to trust his fellow heroes to do their jobs and get his own done. "Everybody inside!"

The students did exactly as he said, thankfully, or most of them did. Iida had stayed near the back of the group the entire way to make sure everyone stayed together and nobody fell behind. Now he was one of the students left standing by Aizawa when they were meant to be going into the safety of the camp building.