- Don't you wonder why the principal put us together? Why our exercise is different from everyone else's?

Bakugo looked at me, the ice cube he was sucking (like a pacifier) in his mouth and the sweat rolling down his temples. The afternoon had turned into a furnace, and he obviously wasn't taking it very well.

He wiped his forehead with his arm before removing his ice cube with one hand:

- Aizawa said it's because you're problematic and I'm too great to be with one of these losers.

He paused to answer me, out of breath, and I did the same, pretending to need it, too : we'd left the other students at the starting line over half an hour ago, having decided from the beginning that we had to be the first to reach the oasis. Their confused expressions as we took off, me with my Hell Flame and Bakugo with his explosions...

When - after about ten minutes - Bakugo began to show signs of fatigue, I pretended to need a break, too; I had to act like the mature one, otherwise he would have continued until he was exhausted, and I would have had to drag a corpse to the finish line.

And I've got better things to do today than to carry a dead weight.

Which brought us to the current situation, which was me planning to fuck the stud again - or at least thinking about it.

I shook my head.

- No, that's what he said at the beginning; when you asked him the question 'Why would he do that?', he answered very precisely : 'There's a mouse, and we need hunters'

- Aizawa-sensei is just a weirdo, he said with a shrug. I mean, if I met him on the street, I wouldn't even touch him with a stick.

I opened and closed my mouth, unsure of what to do.

The summer camp scenario is that Bakugo will be captured before we get back to Yuei; if we assume that I reveal my suspicions to him, but he gets kidnapped anyway, won't he be more suspicious of the other students ?

He might find a clue, once with the villains or before he is captured, that would expose the traitor. I can't let that chance go by.

Not to mention the fact that All Might still had no successor, and I could see him eyeballing the 1-A students far too closely; he'd only have to give his Quirk to the spy working for One for All and it would be over.

Admittedly, I'd end up with the end-game scenario in my first year at Yuei; it wasn't too bad since I'd set my sights on blowing up the cannon, but it was too risky.

If AFO had been more than what All Might had said, I could have the end of the world on my hands.

So I decided to change my approach:

- How did you feel about the attack on the USJ?

He took a moment to think.

- Apart from the bird and the guy with the hands, the basic villains really suck.

- So ?

- What do you mean, ‘so’ ? There's nothing else to say, they're just a bunch of losers.

...if I didn't trust Nezu's genius intellect to make sure that Bakugo wasn't the traitor, I would never reveal one of My Hero Academia's most important plot twists to that idiot.

Because I couldn't think of any reason why the headmaster would have paired me with Bakugo, even after Aizawa had revealed the rules of the 'game'. Just the way he'd said it, and the hard look he'd given me...

Look underneath the underneath.

What if I was wrong ?

These guys were heroes: using students as bait, with a flare gun as the only way out...

But there would be no other reason to give us a flare gun.

They could have putcameras in the oasis, and a bunch of microphones with them: if they didn't, they must have suspected that the traitor in our class had a way of jamming communications - exactly what had happened at USJ, now that I think about it....

That was the only reason they would send two teenagers to the grindstone.

But the way Aizawa was staring at me...

Did Nezu think that I knew about the traitor ? Was he trying to test me ? To see if I would warn Bakugo, my 'teammate' ?

Shit, is this a loyalty test ?

I had thought about it a lot since I had met Gunhee and Jin-woo; if they had even managed to get a copy of the docks video - even though my father had assured me that he had disposed of all incriminating evidence from that day - who was to say that others, like Nezu for example, didn't have it in their possession?

Maybe I had been fucked up for years and didn't even know it.

I should have taken care of the videos myself, I should have burned the damn place down, I should have-

- Give me a new ice cube, double-face.

He held out his palm to me and raised his eyebrows, moving his fingers to emphasize his words.

- Give me your bottle.

He squinted, but handed it to me without flinching, taking it from his empty picnic bag, which he'd zipped up so it was a makeshift backpack, the white handles wrapped around his shoulders.

- I don't even understand why you don't bury it in the sand.

I laid two fingers across the rim of the bottle, activating my quirk: ice filled it to the brim. Then my hand heated up, mist clung to the plastic walls and smoke rose from the bottle in white swirls. Bakugo snorted scornfully.

- We're heroes, not pieces of shit too tired to throw our waste into a garbage can.

I cleaned my ear with my pinkie, my eyes never leaving the water-filled bottle for a second.

- I never expected the great Bakugo Katsuki to be an ardent defender of the environment, I said sarcastically.

Again a poor people’s invention.

Whether there was less water or less good food, my family had more than enough money to ensure that I never had to worry about such trivial matters.

- You don't have to be an eco-junkie to not be a shitty human being

He barely caught the steaming bottle, which almost hit his nose.

- What was that for?

His eyes crinkled : he clearly didn't appreciate it.

- Hurry up and drink, we don’t have all day

He glanced warily at the bottle, raised it to his lips and swallowed hard. He'd been thirsty, but obviously not thirsty enough for his ego to force him to ask me for water.

He would have been content to suck on ice cubes for the rest of the day, even if it meant freezing his throat and getting sick.

Or risk hypothermia.

Can you get hypothermia from eating ice cubes while your flesh is cooking at 40 degrees ?

He grunted in satisfaction before wiping the water from his chin with the back of his hand. I grabbed the bottle he tossed me without looking.

- Show off

I smiled at him as hypocritically as I could.

- Did you say something?

He rolled his eyes; I raised the bottle to my lips (after wiping it clean) as he called out to me:

- Wait, how are you going to drink now?

I raised an eyebrow:

- It's just a mask, the water will go through

Bakugo made a face of disgust.

- So you wipe the bottle after I drink, but you don't mind drinking the mixture of sweat and dust stuck to your mask...? (He looked flabbergasted : he crossed his arms over his chest and turned his back to me) Drink.

I smiled briefly when I saw that he didn't seem to have planned to turn around and take a look at me.

- Hurry up, we don’t haveall day, he growled.

I lowered my mask and promptly drank the rest of the bottle.

- Finished ?

I threw the bottle back at him; he put it away just as quickly.

- Tell me, your mask…

He put his makeshift suspenders back on and we started walking.

- Is it because you're ugly underneath ?

I stumbled.

On air.

- I mean, why else would you wear a mask?

- There could be a million different reasons why I wear a mask, and you're wondering if it's because I'm ugly ?

- Being ugly could be one of a million reasons, he argued. You'd have to be pretty disgusting to refuse to let everyone see underneath.

- My father can see what's underneath

- I'd be more surprised if he couldn’t, he said, rolling his eyes.

A comfortable silence fell as I estimated the distance to the oasis.

If I assume that Bakugo is rested enough and that we can take to the skies again, we should be there by-.

- So... are you ?

He tried to look nonchalant, as if he didn't care about my answer. I decided to be lenient because he wasn't too annoying.

- Quite the opposite

- Ha, I don't believe you at all.

I smiled.

He asked me the same question at the championship.

Any more and I'll start to think he wants my ass.

- And what should I do ? Show you my face ?

He shrugged.

My smile widened.

- You really think I'm one of the idiots in our class, don't you ?

He grinned to himself.

- I tried

Flames shot out of my hands and propelled me into the air.

Half a second later, Bakugo was behind me, explosions coming from his hands.

I could see the other students only as small black dots - like lice on a bald head - moving between the dunes in the distance.

- Let's not waste any time, I yelled

He nodded, and we sped toward our rendezvous point. Once there, I would have to decide whether or not to tell Bakugo.

But if I do... would he believe me ?

*

Author's note :

Delayed chapter because I got wifi issues.

I posted a quick note on the public space of my P@treon - I suggest you checking it in the future if you don 't see any chapters uploaded at the supposed time (to know for sure that I'm not dead in some dark corner).

Anyway, I will upload the saturday chapter sunday.

Tell me what you thought about the story - and what you believe will happen in the following chapters.

Power stones goal : 250

If you want to support me/read ahead of schedule, you can do so on my P@treon, Nar_cisseENG

See you in the next update !