Izuocha's Love Stories

47 - JUST FEEL

By WingSongHalo

"FEEL THE LOVE!"

The shrill screech of their opponent, a lunatic who called herself Aphrodite, rang through the air, giving only a moment's notice before one of her arrows zipped by. It only narrowly missed Deku's ear as he moved out of the way.

"Careful, Deku!" Uravity's voice came over Deku's earpiece, crackling slightly. "I think I saw where her arrow hit—it totally busted up a fire hydrant over here!"

"I'm fine, but I can't get close with her firing arrows everywhere, even with Blackwhip," he replied. Uraraka was supposed to be his partner on this particular job as provisional Heroes, but Aphrodite had made a building collapse between them before they could even work out a strategy, separating them. They'd decided to make their way around both sides of their opponent in a horseshoe formation and corner her from behind.

"No problem," his friend said confidently. "I'll slow her down."

Only 3 more seconds had gone by before Deku heard Aphrodite yell in alarm. Uravity had evidently used the destruction from earlier to make impromptu projectiles as a distraction, and they were plummeting down around the fuchsia-haired woman they were pursuing.

"No—not yet!" she protested, a desperate edge to her voice, as Deku closed in on her. One for All crackled through all his limbs and sparked in his peripheral vision as he sprang closer in powerful bounds, like a superpowered rabbit. "I haven't spread enough love yet!"

"We'd love if you came quietly," he fired back, but his attempt at a one-liner must not have been very pleasing, because Aphrodite growled at him and drew back on her massive bow, quickly aiming and letting her arrow fly.

Deku let out an un-Heroic squeak and ducked, but he needn't have bothered, because their foe had been aiming above him anyway.

Ah. She was trying to repeat her little building-collapse trick, this time with the intention of crushing him under the wreckage. Why did they always have to wreck buildings?! What were those arrows made of, anyway?!

"Oh no you don't!" Uravity's voice echoed, both right next to his ear and a few yards away. Deku caught a glimpse of her, leaping into the air and touching the chunks of heavy stone one after another before they could slam down around him. The concrete now hovered in the air like a small, industrial asteroid belt.

"This would be a lot easier if you had just let me hit you!" the villainess snarled. "Much less destruction!"

"No thanks!" Deku lunged up with Float, using Uravity's new concrete asteroids to propel himself even closer and letting Blackwhip's dark tendrils spiral down his right arm to strengthen it. While it was true that Aphrodite's Quirk, Cupid's Arrow, did not harm people physically if they were struck, it was nevertheless much more dangerous than if it hit inanimate objects.

She was within reach now, but Aphrodite's violet eyes narrowed in defiance anyway, and this time when she drew her bow, she aimed right for Deku, who was barreling towards her from above.

"Watch out!" Uravity's panicked warning was hardly necessary, as Deku's arms shot down to cover the last bit of distance separating him from Aphrodite, quick as lightning.

But as Deku's gloved hands closed around the woman's arm, the arrow torpedoed right at his face.

With the split-second of time he had to react, Deku sucked in a breath and bent backward, his spine curving to let the glowing pink projectile whiz over his head, mere millimeters from the side of his nose. The black feathers that made up the fletching grazed his cheek, slicing against his skin, but still he held fast to his quarry as he used the backward momentum to swing her over his head. He spotted Uravity at a short distance in the instant he was upside-down, her eyes wide with fascination as he rolled into a backflip, swinging himself up in midair and at last slamming Aphrodite down into the ground. His armored knees pressed into her shoulder blades, her arms still twisted behind her in his grip.