#i dont scream unless its like a funny little squeak

[darkclouud9]

why do i keep having dreams with really loud sounds

I never used to be able to hear in my dreams.

[chockfullofsecrets]

Class 1-A vs. Tickle Might: Part 2

Rating: Gen

Summary: ...title is really the best explanation I can offer

Word Count: ~3.2k

A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who’s reading these and leaving me feedback, and to @gigglingknight for proofreading :) This brings us to nine students down and... quite a few still to go. Let me know what you think!

 <<Part 1 :: Part 2.5>>

While it was difficult to track a villain through a crowded city, there was usually some kind of trail to follow: explosions, destruction, screaming. Things became even easier when the villain was running to something –an exit, perhaps.

However, this exercise required All Might to track down twenty teenagers that were trying their absolute hardest to hide and wait him out. He was going to need a little more than just his observational skills.

A little more, it turned out, was an app on his phone attached to the training ground’s security cameras – a simple map that showed a red dot in every location where detection algorithms noticed a humanoid form. Cheating, perhaps, but he and Aizawa had agreed that it might be necessary.

He fished the device out of a pocket on his skintight suit, squinting at the tiny screen. Several dots in his vicinity, and – ah, five or six of them clustered together in the same building. Definitely a good place to start the next phase of his attack.

The mockup of an office building was windowless, pale concrete glittering in the daylight. Starting on the first floor and working his way up was the obvious plan; anyone on the higher floors would be trapped unless they could sneak past him.

He momentarily considered entering through the front door, then remembered that he was playing a villain and knocked his way through a wall instead. “I AM HERE, READY TO CONQUER MY OPPONENTS!”

The room was empty save young Ojiro, who backpedaled frantically as one of All Might’s hands came perilously close to grabbing him. The boy skidded to a stop in the opposite corner, feet planting firmly as his arms came up in a defensive stance.

All Might crossed his arms and stared him down. “Young Ojiro! I’m glad I found you!” he boomed cheerily, then winced as the look in his student’s eyes teetered on the edge of outright panic. “That’s an excellent stance!” he complimented, a little softer.

Ojiro blinked at him. “Ah, thanks?”

The boy’s tail twitched as All Might drew closer. He held up a conciliatory hand. “Just taking a closer look. Feet turned to avoid any buffeting from the front, yet positioned to spring easily to either side, tail used as a counterweight… it appears very sturdy!”

He grinned as Ojiro flushed a little under his praise, still watching warily for a potential attack. “Uh… are we going to…”

“Fight? Only if you don’t wish to surrender first, young hero.”

Ojiro shifted his feet, smiling a little. “I’ll take my chances!”

All Might feinted forwards, expecting a sideways dodge. Instead, Ojiro dropped straight to the ground. Rolling forwards, he wrapped his tail around All Might’s leg and tugged. The hero tumbled backwards, but with his quick reflexes he clapped his legs together and trapped Ojiro’s tail between them.

Now they were both on the floor. Ojiro made a swift move towards the pressure point on All Might’s left knee, but his wrist was quickly caught in his opponent’s massive grip.

“Young hero, it’s very unwise to get tangled up with someone who has a longer reach,” he tutted. For example, I could do this!” He reached out, barely stretching his free arm, and scampered his fingers up Ojiro’s vulnerable ribcage.

The boy snickered, eyes widening. “W-wait… this is…”

“You see,” he continued, drilling his finger into the soft side within his reach and watching triumphantly as Ojiro was overtaken by giggles, “I have some knowledge of pressure points too.”

Ojiro squirmed like an eel as he tried frantically to separate himself from All Might, his free hand slapping at the ground. The room was filled with his laughter, rebounding off the concrete walls, but – there. Another giggle, much higher pitched.

All Might raised his head and looked around. Nobody. “I take it we have a certain invisible student with us?”

The higher-pitched giggling stopped. Ojiro, whose side was still being mercilessly tickled, choked out, “Tooru! Yohohou were s-supposed to attack stehehealthily!”

“Sorry, sorry, the two of you just look funny! I’m helping!”

A pair of invisible hands started to pry All Might’s right hand off Ojiro’s wrist finger by finger. “The other hand, Tooru!” Ojiro pleaded, still trying to worm away from the invading digits of his left.

“I need both hands for this,” she chirped. “C’mon, you can hold out for a bit longer. A little laughing never hurt anyone!”

“It tihihickles!”

“Okay, okay!” Something smacked against All Might’s other hand – Hagakure’s foot, most likely. “Don’t be mean, sensei! Shoo!”

He laughed, pausing his attack to wrap his hand around her ankle. “A noble sentiment, young hero, but you’ve put yourself in danger now!”

“No!” It was chaos for a few seconds – Hagakure trying to pry her leg free, Ojiro giving a mighty tug with his captured tail. He wouldn’t be able to contain both of them this way.

Hagakure was the more valuable target; she didn’t show up on any of the cameras and would be much harder to find if he let her go now. He released Ojiro and rolled to his knees, casting a hand in front of him to find the girl’s waist and pull her down. Ojiro, gasping, pulled his tail free and climbed to his feet, stumbling for the exit. “Tooru, let’s run!”

“Ojiro, help!” Hagakure yelped, facedown on the floor. “He got me!”

The boy wavered for a moment, still in range for an attack, then turned back to the door. “I’ll get help from the others upstairs; just hold on!”

His indecision would cost him. All Might managed to pin Hagakure with a knee pressed gently into the small of her back, and, both hands free, grabbed Ojiro’s tail and sent him sprawling with a decisive pull. “Hah! Two heroes captured!”

“And no hands to tickle them with, villain,” Ojiro growled, bending double and latching onto All Might’s free arm. “Gotcha!”

“I’m willing to work with what I have!” proclaimed All Might, turning to Hagakure and dragging Ojiro with him.

“Wait, wait! Not that!” Hagakure squeaked. Evidently she had her head turned to watch the both of them, and as the tuft of Ojiro’s tail drew closer to her she knew what was coming.

Squealing, loud and unrestrained, filled the room as All Might lightly dusted the end of Ojiro’s tail over Hagakure’s unprotected back and sides. “Nohoho! Go away, go away!”

“Sorry,” Ojiro called, laughing despite himself. “Didn’t you say a little laughing was okay?”

“Shut uhuhup! Why is your tahail so soft!”

At that affront, Ojiro reached out to tweak her side. “Don’t be mean!”

“Ahahaha! Not both of you! I surrender!” she squawked. All Might lifted his knee to let her get away, but they could both still hear her heaving for breath. “Ha… man, this exercise is different than I thought.”

“A valiant effort nonetheless, young Hagakure!” he praised. “Your stealth makes it nearly impossible to attack when you’re not forced to engage with your opponent.”

Footsteps crossed the room, and Hagakure’s shoes and gloves appeared from behind a corner. “Thank you, sensei!” She started to put them on. “That was kind of fun! I didn’t know Ojiro’s tail could tickle that bad!”

“Neither did I, my girl! A lucky occurrence on my part.” He turned suddenly to the owner of said tail, still clinging to his arm. “Now, what shall I do with you?”

Ojiro was already grinning nervously as his friend skipped over. “Try his tail, All Might-sensei! Kaminari messes with it in class sometimes, and he always freaks out!”

“Tooru, come on!” Ojiro protested.

“You didn’t save me!” she retorted, gloves on hips. “Actually, you were helping him!”

“Hah, a rivalry!” All Might grinned. “My girl, would you care to demonstrate?”

Hagakure took hold of a struggling Ojiro’s tail, gloved fingers scratching lightly into the tuft of hair at the end. “You’d expect that it would feel good, like when you get your head scratched, but I think it just tickles him a lot!”

“And what do you think, young Ojiro?”

Ojiro didn’t answer, but his collapse into helpless cackling proved her theory correct. She let her teacher take over, helpfully rubbing her friend’s shivering back as he laughed himself silly. By the time he called for mercy, there were tears welling up in the corners of his eyes.  

They helped him sit up. “You’re both… so mean…” he panted.

“Don’t you feel less stressed now that you don’t have to worry about All Might-sensei destroying you in combat, though?” Hagakure asked.

“Heh, I guess so.” Ojiro ran his sleeve across his face. “Thanks for not killing us!”

All Might chuckled. “You’re welcome, my boy. Go to the exit, you two, and enjoy your summer break!”

They left through the hole in the wall; he headed for the stairwell, sure that some of his students were still in the building.

He wasn’t expecting to find four of them right there in the hallway.

Sero, Aoyama, Shoji, and Tokoyami were all rooted to the ground in the dimly lit corridor, apparently halfway though a rushed evacuation. They stared up at him like he’d just melted from the shadows, and in return he graced them with a brightly villainous smile. “Ah, more young heroes. And you’ve even lined yourselves up for me!”

“Merde,” Aoyama hissed, an octave above his already high voice, and that broke the spell.

“Run!” Sero shouted, shoving them all to the door, and the five of them spilled out into the daylight on each other’s heels.

The four boys were still huddled together, backing away from his imposing figure. Sero, in front, looked wildly around. “Aoyama, get out of here! You and Dark Shadow can’t fight in the same space!” When the shiny-surfaced boy failed to move, he slung some tape around his waist and, with a grunt of effort, sent him sailing up to the nearest rooftop.

“Not so fast!” All Might sprang forward to grab the tape-slinging boy – one arm around his waist, the other moving to grab the tape before it could disconnect. Aoyama wailed in surprise as a sharp tug sent him tumbling back down into the fray.

He grinned at them both. “You’re right, young Sero! It’s a definite advantage for me to have Aoyama here. And you really should stop slinging your teammates into the air without any regard for your own safety.” He deftly bound Sero up with the still-dangling length of tape –“don’t get yourself tied in knots, my boy, I’ll be right back for you” – and carried Aoyama with him as he turned to face his two remaining opponents.

Shoji and Tokoyami were running, Dark Shadow unfurled behind them. Even with a wriggling Aoyama hoisted over his shoulder, it took him about five seconds to catch up to them. Dark Shadow squawked an alarm, and the two students spun around. Shoji leaned down, whispering something into his friend’s ear, and Tokoyami nodded sharply in response as he held a hand up. “Dark Shadow, shield us!”

The shadow folded in and around, encasing the two in a bubble of swirling black with two flashing red eyes. “A defensive move, huh?” All Might stopped a few feet in front of the enclosure, lowering Aoyama to the ground. “Young Aoyama, I think we both know what’s going to happen next.”

The boy was hugging himself over his armor, a desperate attempt at protection. “I won’t let you use my amazingly bright twinkling to get to Tokoyami!”

All Might rocked back on his heels, considering. “Well… you could surrender, if you don’t want to take that chance.”

“I don’t want to do that either!”

“In that case…” He wormed a finger into one of the gaps in Aoyama’s ostentatious torso armor, jerking back in surprise as even that slight brush against his belly produced a reluctant squeal and a bolt of blue energy from the boy’s navel laser. “My boy, I don’t think you’re in much of a position to bargain.” Seeing his student’s expression sour in disappointment, he leaned in and patted him gently on the head. “Besides, helping me out wouldn’t be something to regret. Don’t you think that those two could use some more, ah, enthusiasm?”

Aoyama beamed at that. He really was very bright; All Might almost felt the need to squint when confronted with his blinding white teeth. “Of course! Even a failure on my part will bring sparkles to the eyes of my classmates!”

“Exactly! Well, my boy, let’s see just how brightly you can twinkle!” Aoyama’s armor was loose enough to wriggle his fingers underneath, and the mere action of doing so was enough to send him into cascading squeals of laughter while creating his own little light show. “Hm… perhaps a little calibration…” He rolled his student over a little, aiming the random flashes of his laser roughly at Dark Shadow, who began to writhe under the sparkling assault.

The poor shadow disappeared into Tokoyami’s chest with an empty fizzle, and almost immediately Aoyama giggled out his surrender. “Mission… accomplished…” he wheezed into the ground. “Prepare for the sparkle of life to overtake you, Shoji and Tokoyami!”

With one last congratulatory pat to the boy’s head and a reminder to leave the training ground, All Might stood and turned to face his next victims, both of whom were backing slowly away from him. “Ah, you two have come back to the light! Who should I take on first!”

“You protected us admirably, Tokoyami,” Shoji said, stepping forward. All six of his arms were wrapped around himself. “If you run now, maybe Dark Shadow can still recover.”

“A noble effort indeed,” All Might agreed, wrapping a friendly arm around Shoji’s wide shoulders and pulling him aside. “Not even trying to mount a defense, huh? You seem very nervous.”

Even with his ever-present mask, it was easy to see Shoji’s jaw work as he decided what to say. “All Might-sensei, I – well, I have six arms.”

“And six armpits,” All Might said, nodding companionably. Shoji’s face was slowly reddening. “If I had six hands, I would definitely take advantage of that.”

“No one has six hands. Except me.”

“Exactly. Even I just have the two, so really there’s nothing to worry about! Just relax! You can surrender whenever it becomes too much.”

Shoji’s arms loosened a little from their death grip around his torso, and he took advantage of the opportunity to pull the uppermost pair above the boy’s head and pin them in one of his hands. A menacing wiggle of his fingers caused Shoji to freeze in place, strangled giggles already making their way out through his mask. “I – Ihih’m – pretty, uh, pretty ticklish, so I don’t think I’ll last very long.”

“That’s fine, my boy! Now, I know the mask will hide it, but I hope you’ll give me your brightest smile anyways!” He softly stroked the membrane between Shoji’s first and second pair of arms, inwardly cheering as the boy squeezed his eyes closed and dissolved into laughter.

“Ehehehe! I’m smiling, I’m smihihiling!”

“Excellent! But can you smile… bigger?”

A foray directly into the hollows separating Shoji’s arms proved that he could, as evidenced by a ticklish scream and several flailing pairs of arms. “AhahHASTOPSTOPPLEHEHEASE!”

Shoji used the sudden freedom of his hands to bury his face in four of them. All Might, trying not to laugh at his embarrassment, drew him into an engulfing hug. “It’s all right! Aizawa-sensei and I weren’t expecting anyone to be immune to my battle techniques, and you were very brave in defending your friend!” The boy nodded sheepishly into his chest, and he sent him on his way with one last squeeze.

Perhaps he’d handle young Sero next. He peered down the street, looking for the restrained boy, and noticed with some chagrin that only a pile of sticky material remained. Really, he should have expected him to be able to break free of his own tape. Regrettable, but surely he’d be able to find him later.

He turned just in time to be barraged by Dark Shadow, back to nearly full strength. “Ah, young Tokoyami! You’ve recovered!”

“I have,” the boy conceded, bowing his head. “Not in time to rescue Shoji, but that doesn’t mean Dark Shadow and I won’t try our best.”

“I would expect nothing less from you, my boy,” All Might declared, and was immediately forced into a wrestling match with Dark Shadow as the feathered entity tried to swallow his head whole.

The shadow was corporeal, to an extent, and after a brief struggle he managed to get a grip on the thing’s neck and force it back a bit. On a hunch, he buried his hands in what would have been neck fingers and wriggled them around a little.

Dark Shadow snapped at him unhelpfully. More telling was Tokoyami’s reaction – under the assault on his shadow, he flinched and let out a sound that was nearly a chirp, his hand twitching towards his neck.

“You two really are connected, I see. Tell me, can your Dark Shadow feel this?” He dug in a little more enthusiastically, and this time the disembodied head seemed to show a bit more of a reaction, shivering furiously in his grip.

“He can,” Tokoyami conceded through gritted teeth. “Although it – heh – it seems he’s passing most of it on to me.”

“Good bird,” he commented, and tickled it under its chin until, squawking in silent hilarity, it melted from his grasp and tucked itself neatly back into Tokoyami. Said student was shaking slightly on his feet, the occasional snicker trickling from his beak, but he managed to raise his head and look All Might firmly in the eye as he approached.

All Might poked him in the stomach, curious to see the reaction. When that produced another flinch, he moved onto carelessly scribbling over the boy’s belly and ribs, feeling the muscles strain as Tokoyami fought to maintain his composure while staying completely still. “H-how – the embodiment of darkness does not normally – giggle.”

“Your Dark Shadow? It does seem to have a mind of its own sometimes. Maybe it likes the tickling.” A particularly good squeeze to Tokoyami’s side had him folding in on himself, beaked head dipping sharply as if to hide the laugh that slipped out. “At any rate, you have more ticklish spots than it does, but maybe the two of you share one in particular.”

He gently tilted Tokoyami’s head back up and scratched under his chin, cooing to himself as the boy’s eyes fluttered closed and he made that chirping sound again. “Ah, is that what your laugh sounds like?” He tried the tickling again – his ribs, his belly, the silky feathers at the back of his neck. Tokoyami fared much worse this time, arms flying up to push at the attacking hands as he continued to chirp, the occasional recognizable laugh coming out as well. “There it is! Tickle tickle tickle – don’t be embarrassed, my boy, it sounds quite nice!”

Tokoyami was in a pile on the ground before he admitted defeat, leaning weakly into his teacher’s side as he giggled breathlessly. All Might rubbed his back, mentally calculating how much time had passed and wondering if he had time to walk his student to the exit.

It was then that the sensation came over him. The scuff of a foot against gravel, some sixth sense from decades of hero work, all of it assembled unconsciously in his brain to alert him.

Someone was watching them.

He looked up, wary, and there it was – a pair of mismatched eyes looking coolly back.