Ultra Responsibility (My Hero Academia X Spider-Man Reader)

Issue 61 - You're All the Bad Guys!

The forest was screaming.

Not in the poetic way people wrote about in books. In the real way. Branches snapping like bones. Heat rolling through the air in waves. The sharp, bitter stink of smoke crawling into my throat with every breath like it paid rent.

Aizawa and I tore through the trees, boots slamming mud, leaves whipping past my face. Somewhere ahead, firelight flickered between trunks. Somewhere else, deeper in the dark, metal shrieked against wood and the ground trembled with the kind of impacts that meant someone was getting folded in half.

Two fights. Two disasters.

Aizawa slowed just enough for his head to turn, eyes narrowing. Even with his deadpan face, I could see the calculation. The hesitation. The ugly math of triage.

"Two fronts," I said, already knowing what he'd say and hating it. "We split."

"No," he snapped automatically, like the word could physically glue me to his side.

I didn't stop running. I just looked back at him over my shoulder, rain-stuck hair in my eyes, suit crawling under my uniform like a second heartbeat.

"Aizawa," I barked, louder than I meant to. "If we don't split, someone dies. You know that."

His jaw tightened. He hated it. I could feel it in the air.

Then he exhaled through his nose, sharp and angry. "Fine."

He pointed with his chin toward the orange glow. "I'm taking the fire."

I nodded and hooked my thumb the opposite direction. "I'm taking... whatever the hell that is."

Aizawa's capture cloth snapped behind him as he pivoted away, already vanishing into the smoke like a ghost with a caffeine addiction.

I turned the other way and launched.

Web out. Swing. Land. Sprint. Swing again.

My Spider-Sense kept flickering, not full alarms, more like the universe tapping me on the shoulder every three seconds going hey, idiot, remember you're fragile.

Then Mandalay's voice slid into my skull like a radio signal I didn't ask for.

Everyone, listen carefully! Her voice echoed through my thoughts, urgent but steady. The villains have a target. Bakugo is one of them. Aizawa has authorised you to defend yourselves. Do not hold back. Stay alive.

Bakugo.

Of course.

Because if there was a villain in the world who woke up and thought, you know what would really improve my day? Kidnapping the angriest teen alive, it would be these people.

But my brain didn't stay on Bakugo for long. It kept looping back to the same question, over and over.

If they wanted Bakugo... why was Otto here?

Why split us up like pieces on a chessboard?

Why did it feel like I was being herded, like the forest itself was trying to funnel me into the perfect spot to get jumped?

And then...

Snap.

A branch broke to my left.

My body reacted before my mind caught up. I whipped my arm out and a tendril snapped forward like a living whip, slicing the air with a violent hiss.

It missed by inches.

Shoji jerked back, one of his extra limbs wrapping tighter around Midoriya as he carried him. Todoroki was beside them, ice and steam clinging to him like a storm. Tokoyami hovered in their wake like a shadow with teeth. And Bakugo...