Shrine Maiden [BNHA]

Chapter Seventeen

~Erina's POV~

The second game was to be a team cavalry battle. We were able to split up into teams of two to four as we saw fit. We were all assigned a point value based on where we finished in the first game, though Midoriya's was ridiculously high (ten million) since he was first, which put a big target on his back. A part of me was worried for my former best friend, but another part of me that was still hurting told me he was a big boy now and had a quirk, he didn't need his old quirkless friend to protect him anymore. I felt a sense of bitterness well up inside of me at this as I let a very toxic thought cross my mind, had I just been a convenient friend all this time and now that he'd got a quirk and surpassed me, he had no need of me? I shook my head at this thought, Midoriya didn't really have a mean bone in his body, that's not something he would do, not intentionally anyway.

I'd lost myself in my morose thoughts as time began for us to find our groups, I hadn't even realized my classmates were already pairing off. Someone tapped me on the shoulder, jarring me from my brooding thoughts. I turned curiously and spotted a tall boy with unruly indigo hair and indigo eyes that looked as if they had bags under them. He'd stopped by our classroom the other day with a majority of the other students. What did he want?

"Hey, want to team up?" He asked with a sly smirk.

The beads on my wrist suddenly grew hot, to the point I thought they might have burned me. I let out a hiss of pain and raised my hand to look at my wrist. The beads were glowing blindingly bright. The boy flinched as the light momentarily blinded him. 'Don't answer!' A powerful booming voice screamed across my mind. A gasp escaped me and I put my hands to my head.

The boy recovered and stared at me in awe as I threw a wary look in his direction and walked away without a word. Why did Hogo Kami Sama do that? Once I moved away from him, the beads cooled and stopped glowing. I cast a look back at the boy and saw him cast an annoyed look in my direction. That clearly wasn't what he wanted to happen.

Unconsciously I rubbed my wrist as I looked around, a lot of people were already in groups of four. I frowned, was there even going to be a group left for me to join? I spotted Midoriya scrambling to get people to join him and averted my gaze not wanting him to see me. Quickly, I moved away from him and almost smacked into Bakugo and Kirishima who'd appeared to have already made a team with Mina Ashido.

Bakugo looked to me, "there you are, you're with me."

"Now we're definitely going to win." Kirishima beamed as he extended his hand to me.

I grasped his hand in mine giggling as he pulled me in for a manly bro-shake that turned into a hug. It was feeling more natural to hug him now. Emiko's words echoed in the back of my mind, reminding me I was supposedly the destined bride of Hogo Kami Sama and I frowned slightly. What did my supposed intended husband think about Kirishima and how close we were getting? This thought made me feel uncomfortable and embarrassed. My beads weren't reacting in anyway, either he didn't care, or he was too angry to do anything. Both options were a little worrisome.

Mina greeted me with a smile. "Yay! With Erina on our team we're now the most badass team!" She giggled.

"I don't know about that, but I'll take it." I giggled with her.

Bakugo looked to us all, "Erina," his gaze flicked over to Kirishima, "dumb hair-."

"My name is Kirishima! And my hair's not that different from yours!" Kirishima snapped.

Bakugo ignored him and looked to Mina, "and raccoon eyes." It looked like he was running through some strategies and considering the make-up of the team to make sure he'd made the right choices.