Chapter 36 - Haunting Dreams

Movie: Check

Popcorn: Check

Toothbrush: Check

Five Intense Showers: Check

Perfume: Check

"Almost done with my checklist!" Mina was excited as she looked at the list for everything she was going to need. It was after, and the movers were transporting her things to U.A.'s dorms (her parents had agreed to her moving into the dorms), so she had some time to kill before she had to get back. She would sort her room out after school the next day, she didn't mind living in a mess for awhile, not when she had something so important that she was going to do. She had checked her calender for this day, and marked down that this was the best possible day for everything she wanted. She had finally decided, after seeing Midnight's punishment, what she finally wanted.

She literally just finished having her period, so it was the best, and safest time for what she was going to try and get Naruto to do.

"Aren't you a little too young to be buying ċȯndȯms?"

"... Just shut up and take my money." Mina stated with narrowed eyes. She had grabbed a box in each of the sizes, other than small since after seeing Naruto's bulge, she got a pretty good idea of what his size was not. "Now... these are Quirk-proof right?" Mina asked as she looked at the different boxes. Her cheeks were burning red, but the woman in front of her simply picked up the boxes and looked at the backs of them. She had done some research, and learned that ċȯndȯms came with different anti-Quirk measures for a great number of brands.

"These are Fire, Ice, Electricity, and made with enhanced Durability."

"Do they protect against Acid though?" Mina asked with a serious face. She knew she didn't have the best control over her Quirk in the world, the fact that she had melted through her own clothes enough times going through school proved that. But since starting high school, she had really started to get a handle on her Quirk. She was 90...80... 75% sure that her Quirk wasn't going to activate when she had sėx. That was a C on the grading scale, which was a passing grade... right? Just to be safe though, she wanted to at least try and see if there were ċȯndȯms that were resistant against her Quirk. "I don't want to hurt my boyfriend." Mina stated with an awkward look behind her, as her items in her basket were rung up.

Thankfully, nobody behind her seemed to care about what she was saying, mostly because the guys were wincing in pain and covering their crotches, no longer imaging themselves in her boyfriend's position anymore.

Girls who spewed Acid were not in demand for sėx.

"Acid? Maybe, I don't know, I've never met a person with that Quirk who found anyone willing to be with them."

"Wow... you're super helpful." Mina sighed to herself. With all of the measures she was taking to make this work, Naruto better be willing to work with her. As in, he better put aside his possible fear of penile harm, and stick it in her.

-With Naruto-

"Been awhile since we trained like this... you're sure pumped up!" Kirishima shouted as he trained with Naruto in his room at the dorms. Kirishima was already done moving in, so they had decided to get in some practice for the Sports Festival coming up. That meant that Kirishima was getting hard, and Naruto was punching the shit out of him until he couldn't stay hard anymore. It was a good training method, but it seemed that Naruto had really stopped getting anything out of it. "What are those by the way?" Kirishima asked as he looked at the bands on Naruto's arms.

Naruto punched him in the face.

"A girl in the support class made them for me, these sense how much my body weighs, and becomes half my body weight." Naruto explained as he socked Kirishima in the forehead. Naruto had 10 of them on each of his arms, and 10 of them on each leg. The amount of weight that Naruto was adding to his body was no small amount, and the layer of sweat Naruto had produced was more than Kirishima had ever seen of Naruto. Naruto kicked Kirishima in the ribs, and broke him from his hardened state with ease, the powerful kick destroying his hardness.

Kirishima collapsed and held his side.

That hurt!

"Going to feel that tomorrow!" Kirishima grunted out loudly, pushing himself back to his feet to start again. Naruto was his most regular sparring body, and ever since they started this, Kirishima had learned a good deal of martial arts from watching Naruto and learning from him. Naruto was increasing the strength of the bones in his fists and legs by attacking him, thus raising the amount of power he could attack people with, without worrying about hurting himself. That was... until Naruto's bones had become even harder than his own hardness, making what Naruto gained from this training practically worthless to him. "You're already super strong, shouldn't you be training in your fox-"

"I'm not going to use my Quirk in the Sports Festival... I've been relying too much on my Quirk lately. Kirishima... I rampaged... I lost control... I can't let that happen again. I locked away my Hoshi no Tama in it's safe again. Until I'm stronger... I'm going to try and use my Quirk only when I absolutely need it. The Sports Festival is going to be the perfect place to test myself." Naruto denied him easily. Kirishima didn't know what it was like to have a Quirk that could make you become a murderous monster at the drop of a hat. He had only really used his Quirk so much against the Supervillain because he could not afford to hold back his Quirk, so many lives were on the line at that point.

Kirishima tried to punch Naruto, but Naruto caught it and flung him to the ground, before he kicked him in the side, rolling him onto his stomach with a loud gasp.

Kirishima got on his hands and knees.

"... You rampaged? I thought you just used all of your power against that super strong-"

"-luck... it was sheer luck I only killed that Nomu. If Aizawa wasn't there to stop me, I wouldn't have stopped there. I'm scared... I'm really scared of what I could have done." Naruto knew he was safe to talk about this. Kirishima wasn't going to judge him, and it felt good to have somebody to rely on for this. Getting this off of his ċhėst felt good, and his friend seemed pretty happy to be trusted with it. "... Nomu beat me... my Quirk activated on it's own. It's scary... knowing that every time you use your Quirk, something could push you over the edge." Naruto stopped punching Kirishima, and kicking him, in favor of sitting down on his bed and speaking.

He didn't want to kill anyone, even villains, if he could help it. Yet, his Quirk thirsted for blood, and the more power he used of his Quirk, the higher the risk he could fall into another rampage. Even using 4-Tails form was pushing what he was capable of handling. Any further and he would usually stop being able to see friend from enemy, so he could only use that number when the only people he could see her all enemies.

Kirishima sat next to him.

"... Like your mom?" Kirishima knew he was stepping on a landmine.

"... Like my mom... My father is the Thunder God, the Legendary Number 2 Hero, famous for his Teleport Quirk. He had once saved over 1,000 people in under a second, from a gasoline explosion and a collapsing building... but when people see me, they remember my mom... She lost control, and all my life, people who knew my mom, looked at me with eyes that told me they were afraid of me... you and Mina were my first friends for a lot of reasons. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy I met you... but ever since I've met all of you and learned how to be happier... The bloodlust has gotten stronger..." Naruto laid back and looked at the ceiling. Making friends had made it even easier for him to fall into the bloodlust. Imagining them getting hurt, or seeing them hurt, the thought alone could make him so angry. They were precious to him at this point, and losing them? He didn't want to go back to having no friends.

Kirishima laid down next to Naruto, both of them looking at the ceiling.

"You need therapy, you've got a lot of emotional baggage." Kirishima gave his professional advice for this. "Not to mention you're constantly being attacked by real freaks, and can't go into the city without a villain popping up... and in the last 2 weeks, you've nearly died 3 times."

"4"

"4? When was the fourth time?" Kirishima didn't remember Naruto almost dying. He was pretty sure he would have noticed it in the news if Naruto had fought a villain and nearly died from it.

"Last night I had a nightmare so bad, I actually woke up and had an anxiety attack... felt like I was going to die." Naruto didn't want to mention that. Naruto didn't like that he had been having nightmares every once and awhile, but they had been happening.

"Dude, we should take you to a hospital or something. That is really serious, do you know what is causing it?"

"Himiko Toga... I dreamed that you guys had never came to save me. I honestly though I was over what happened, but a couple of times a week, she appears in my worst nightmares... and next to her are a group of villains... being lead by that bastard covered in hands... The dreams feel so real too... sometimes... I see the face of a man with no nose... dripping with the blood of heroes... and then there are times I dream of... something worse." Naruto sat up with Kirishima. The dreams had always felt so real to him, to the point when he had those dreams he would wake up in a cold sweat. "... I'm having dreams of a little girl... with a horn on her head... and she's being hurt... she's being hurt really bad..." Naruto didn't know what his dreams were trying to tell him, but it was pretty fuċkėd up.

The girl was small, she couldn't be older than six... and her arms were covered in scars. Her clothes were little more than rags, and her red eyes called for him without saying it.

"Dude... dark..."

"Monster Fox... It was formed when the a person with the Nine-Tails Quirk and the Gigantification Quirk had a child, and that child gained a composite Quirk. The Nine-Tails Quirk gave the person with it the power to transform into a Nine-Tails... and manifest all of the abilities of the legendary creature... With my Monster Fox Quirk, I think I've been awakening the hidden powers of the Nine-Tails Quirk... I'm afraid these dreams... that they aren't dreams." Naruto hated that thought so much. If so, then his visions were visions of the future. They were visions of people suffering, and there was a little girl who needed his help. His contact with his Tama had been when he started to get these dreams, and now, they wouldn't stop even now that he had locked it away again.

Kirishima didn't know what to say, so he just placed his arm around Naruto's shoulder.

Naruto looked at him, and he stopped with that.

"Sorry."

"It's fine... If these dreams are true though, then there is a little girl out there, scared and abused... and I have the power to save her. My dream last night... was when I saw the little girl... Eri... is" Naruto spoke in a practical whisper. He had just heard her name briefly in the dream, and he didn't know what her last name was. "She's just a kid... no kid should be treated like a menace by ȧduŀts because of a power they didn't choose-"

"-like you?" Kirishima asked with a look at Naruto.

Naruto looked at him, shocked.

"What?"

"You're seeing yourself in this girl, right? I mean, the government told the Top 10 to kill you if it came down to it. You didn't have any friends growing up, and you grew up with the knowledge that your parents killed each other... and everyone is always putting a ton of pressure on you. This girl in your dreams, you're relating to her situation, because you can understand her... not to mention you've been tortured and abused by that blood-freak... and you've nearly died several times." Kirishima wasn't smart by any stretch of the word, but even he could see that Naruto was seeing himself in this girl. Their situations were mirrors of each other, where Naruto had his uncle, it was only latter in his life that he got the support of others.

Everything this little girl was going through, Naruto had experienced at some point in his life, so it was easy to see himself in this girl's shoes, and it just made everything they were doing to her in the dream that much more horrible to him.

"... That makes me feel worse..." Naruto pointed out.

His friend suċkėd in his breath... whoops.

"Have you talked about any of this to your uncle?"

"Of course not... he's got so much on his plate. I don't want him to have to deal with my problems, ya know..." Naruto turned bright red when he realized what he had just said.

"Ya know?"

"Don't repeat it!" Naruto tackled Kirishima and covered his mouth to prevent him from saying those words again. He had a verbal tic, and he didn't like it when people knew about it. He had spent so long trying to get rid of it, but it would seem that in his moment of weakness, his verbal tic had decided to make a reappearance. The two of them wrestled on the bed for a moment, before Naruto got him in a rough headlock. "Don't you dare tell anyone, got it?" Naruto threatened in a low growl.

"Got it... ya know."

Kirishima went flying out the window.