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Looking back on it, it should have been blatantly obvious that Ibara Shiozaki- the girl who had single handedly gotten the use of pesticides banned on campus- would not take no for an answer. He should have known that that stubbornness that even the ever-patient Vlad King had come to dread, would likely come to face him head on. And he was prepared.
Well, he sort of had to be prepared considering the girl had been pestering him about some sort of club she wanted to have for the past half hour. She had a surprisingly well-made PowerPoint presentation, a 600-page Google document, and an entire persuasive speech. All of them were pointless, because Nezu already planned on saying yes. An environmentalist club seemed pretty harmless after all.
"Alright, alright, you've convinced me. If you can find three other members to join your club, I'll allow you to have it." the principal stated, watching his students fall.
"But... Mr. Nezu, I believe I don't have three friends..." Ibara protested.
Well, that made sense. Anybody with friends wouldn't have a 600-page Google Doc dedicated to a club that didn't even exist.
"Nevertheless, I expect you to find three members. After all this is exactly what clubs are about! meeting new people and having new adventures! Now run along now and do whatever it is humans do." Nezu hummed, taking a sip of his tea, more curious about the crestfallen look on the girls' face.
But nevertheless, she obliged, and as she walked out of the office, he saw her expression harden into something akin to determination.
Nezu couldn't wait to see what happened next.
Ibara Shiozaki didn’t have a lot of friends. She had figured out the hard way that her hyper fixation on religion tended to rub a lot of people the wrong way, and her somewhat judgmental attitude didn’t help very much either.
Nevertheless, people had found a certain enjoyment in being around Ibara. Once she had finally calmed down and relaxed, she was actually somewhat fun to be around, which would have gotten Ibara a lot of friends. Unfortunately, Ibara happened to be the most socially stupid person on planet Earth, so instead of having a classroom full of friends, she stubbornly insisted she had one friend and a Kendo (which was sort of like a friend, except Kendo tried to actively stop people from acting out.)
Either way, Kendo wasn’t answering the phone, so it made sense that Ibara would go to the one friend she had: Kinoko Komori.
Kinoko Komori was… a bit odd, in Ibara’s opinion, because while Kinoko certainly was adorable and cute on the exterior, she happened to actually have the personality of a honey badger underneath. What she lacked in physical strength, Kinoko more than made up for it with wit and a determination to spite God Himself.
Ibara loved it.
Walking up to Kinoko, Ibara saw she seemed to be growing small white capped mushrooms on a stuffed dog with a grin on her face that promised nothing but malicious intent.
“Hiii, Ibara! It’s so good to see you again, shroom! I bet you just couldn’t resist coming to visit your best pal in the whole world, could you?” Kinoko said gleefully. Her expression hadn’t changed from the creepy smile, and despite the overly cheerful buttery words, she didn’t look up from the toy.
“I suppose I couldn't.” Ibara said, then gave a small hum as she peeked over Kinoko’s shoulder to look at the toy- which was so coated in mushrooms Ibara wasn’t exactly sure what type of animal it was. “I was wondering if you would like to join the environmental club with me. Mr. Nezu told me that I needed three other members.”
Now Kinoko turned and looked up at Ibara, excitement clear in her face. “I’m in.”
Well, that was one member down.
The only reason they had ever asked Setsuna was simply because Kinoko claimed to have seen her first, although Ibara suspected she just enjoyed it when Ibara and Setsuna argued. Either way it didn’t matter, they were there now, and Setsuna was giving them both the most uncomfortable look she had ever seen on the girl.
“Ah, gee guys, I’d love to join tree cult-”
“Environmental club, shroom.”
“Right, environmental club, see I’d love to join, but I’m pretty busy with other clubs, and things, so sorry I can’t join.” Setsuna finished. The whole thing sounded lame, she was well aware, but getting dragged into the forest to look at trees with Kinoko and Ibara sounded like the start of one of Reiko’s horror movies.
Ibara’s expression didn’t change, but that was pretty normal for Ibara and didn’t exactly indicate any big emotion. “Oh, what a shame.”
Setsuna got the distinct feeling that Ibara didn’t really feel like it was a shame and was sort of being polite to save face.
“Hey, Setsuna, can you really just take off your arm?” Kinoko asked very suddenly, standing on her tiptoes in an attempt to look better at Setsuna's arm.
Setsuna narrowed her eyes. It sounded like an innocent enough question, and if it wasn’t coming from Kinoko it might have actually been one. Still, to prove a point, Sestuna popped off her right arm and waved it around.
“We’ve gone to school together all ye-”
Before she could finish, her arm was yanked from her grasp and Kinoko was bolting down the hallway, her arm in one hand and Ibara’s hand in the other, while screaming a loud “THANK YOU!”
“Wha-? Hey, my arm! GIVE THAT BACK, I HAVE AN ESSAY TOMORROW!” Setsuna bellowed and bolted after the two.
This meant war.
How they managed to evade Setsuna, neither girl was exactly certain, but found themselves grateful for, nevertheless. Setsuna could be quite the devastating force when she felt like it, and neither girl particularly felt like becoming target practice for the esteemed Lizardy.
And yet here they were slumped inside of a broom closet, their chests rising and falling as they panted, the effort of outrunning catching up to their bodies, now that they were no longer fueled by adrenaline.
"Setsuna is going to be terribly cross with us, and we didn't even convince her to join! Why did you steal her arm?" Ibara spoke first, breaking the silence with a rather cross sounding accusation.
Kinoko gave a very unsettling grin as a response, then held up the arm as if it were a great prize, and not a stolen severed limb from a classmate. "Don't you see, shroom? We have our new member right here!"
Ibara's eyes narrowed as she searched the small, cluttered space, searching for the member, and hoping to her God that Kinoko didn't mean what she thought she meant. "I do hope you aren't serious."
The grin Ibara received in return simply confirmed her deepest fears.
"Meet our newest member, shroom, Gerald!"
"...You named Setsuna's arm Gerald?"
"Gerald is a fine name, for a fine arm, shroom!"
Ibara sighed deeply, a long deep sigh that she let go on for just a bit too long, trying to convey to Kinoko just how much she disapproved of this. Kinoko didn't seem to take the hint, simply growing the arm of a small mushroom hat. then Kinoko began to ruffle through the various cabinets- which made the already cramped area downright uncomfortable as they opened and took up space that had been previously occupied by Ibara's knees, forcing the taller girl to shuffle back and hit her head on a low shelf.
"Ow!" Ibara cried and clutched the area where her head had been hit. "Kinoko, what on Earth are you looking for?"
More shuffling emitted from the closet as Kinoko searched through the cabinets. this small broom closet had clearly been made for one person.
"A marker." came Kinoko's muffled reply.
"Why on earth would you need a marker?" Ibara asked, but received no answer, as a muffled "Ah-Ha!" emitted from the cabinet.
Kinoko emerged, Gerald in one hand, and a thick black sharpie in the other. She said nothing to Ibara at first, simply uncapping the sharpie and beginning to draw something that Ibara couldn't quite see on Gerald- who was squirming to get back to the rest of their body.
After a few awkward moments, Kinoko held up the arm proudly, looking something akin to a parent who had just watched their child do something particularly interesting, and upon seeing it, Ibara gave a small snort.
Drawn on Gerald was an almost childishly drawn eyes, and a curved line upwards for a mouth.
A face.
Kinoko had given the arm a face.
Ibara wasn't sure why she was even surprised anymore.
"...That's not going to fool Nezu into thinking it's a person." Ibara pointed out.
"I cannot BELIEVE you would say that about Gerald, shroom. He's clearly alive, I mean if he wasn't alive, he definitely wouldn't have a face! and I just happen to know that Gerald is DYING to join your knitting club!"
"It's an environmental club."
"Whatever." Kinoko huffed out. "Is he in the club or not, shroom?"
"...Alright, fine, but I don't want him causing trouble." Ibara said with a huff, which caused a rather overly cutesy grin in Kinoko. A grin which may have seemed sweet and kind, but Ibara knew Kinoko, and she knew that grin promised nothing but trouble.
For better or worse, they had earned their newest member.
Meanwhile, a certain lizard themes hero wandered the halls of UA, wondering how the ever-loving fuck she had lost Ibara and Kinoko of all people. While both of them weren’t the most unathletic, being in the hero course was rather physically demanding after all, they definitely shouldn’t have been fast enough to outrun Setsuna.
So, Setsuna prowled the hallways, searching every which way for her missing arm. Sure, Setsuna could regrow her arm if push came to shove, but it would take her weeks, and Setsuna really didn’t want to have to do her schoolwork left-handed.
“Hey.”
Setsuna whirled around to find out who had said that eyes narrowing in suspicion and body ready to split to fend off this new attacker. Whoever they were, that had made quite the mistake bothering Setsuna now, especially considering her currently foul mood over the loss of her arm.
She was almost disappointed to see Itsuka Kendo, who definitely could be a threat if she felt inclined enough too, but at the moment, certainly not who Setsuna was trying to kill.
“Oh, hey Kendo! I have a quick question, alright? Have you seen Kinoko or Ibara? They stole my arm for some club thingy, and I kinda need it back before class tomorrow. I am not writing a five-page essay left-handed.” Setsuna explained, motioning her left hand to her missing right arm.
Kendo nodded, looking more amused than upset. While Kinoko and Ibara weren't exactly a new combination, they certainly never ceased to be chaotic when they were together. While Ibara was too smart and steadfast in her morality to actually kill anybody, Kinoko happened to be convincing enough to get Ibara to go along with whatever bizarre thing Kinoko had planned that day.
Needless to say, whenever they were together, Kendo made sure to keep an eye on them. Partly to make sure neither girl went too far, and partly simply because she took a great deal of amusement in watching the two get themselves into trouble time and time again. They never did seem to learn.
“I haven’t seen them, but I’ll definitely keep an eye out for them and your arm.” Kendo answered.
“Thanks Kendo, if you haven’t noticed their waaaaaay out of…” Setsuna paused and quirked her mouth up into a grin. “Arm's length.”
“...I’m leaving.” Kendo said, already turning to walk away.
“No-! Wait, Kendo please, they've taken away my right to bear arms-!”
“‘Yep, bye!”
Sitting in a circle with two teenage girls, an arm with a badly drawn face and a mushroom hat on it, while sitting in a chair that was far too small for him, wearing a (hopefully not toxic) mushroom hat of his own, wasn’t exactly where Allmight wanted to be tonight. Then again, there were a lot of places Allmight didn’t particularly want to be.
“How did I get talked into this?” Allmight hissed out, mostly to himself.
He must have been louder than he thought, because Ibara actually gave him an answer.
“Well, at first, I asked you and you laughed fairly loudly. Then Kinoko showed you something on her phone that made you turn a rather peculiar shade of white, and you stated that you wouldn’t ever join our club.” Ibara stopped to take a breath before continuing, “But then I started to cry, and you quickly said you would join if I stopped crying.”
“Right...” Allmight sighed. He wasn’t exactly expecting an answer. Shiozaki must have been a bit dense.
“But at least now we may all be in an environmental club together!” Ibara said excitedly.
“That can happen, but we need a plan, shroom!”
“A plan? Why on Earth would we need one of those?”
“I said we need a plan!”
Apparently, they needed a plan.
“I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT ACTUALLY WORKED-” Allmight boomed out as the four club members walked down the hallway. They had all just got back from Nezu’s office, and after a lot of confusion, hesitation, and tears (mostly from Ibara), the group had finally gotten their club approved by Nezu.
“Yeah, good job on the fake crying Ibara!” Kinoko congratulated the girl and patted her on the back while waving around Gerald the arm, as if emphasizing something unknown. “And after you said you weren’t gonna participate in the plan, too! I really didn’t know you had that in you, shroom!”
Ibara blinked, her face scrunching in confusion. “...Fake crying?”
Allmight was about to say something, when they heard a very familiar, very angry sounding voice. “Kinoko Komori.”
The club members looked up- aside from Ibara who was still staring confusedly at the ground as if it were going to give her answers to her questions- to see none other than Setsuna Tokage, still missing her arm. Her hair was disheveled, her clothes were torn, there were sticks and leaves in her hair, and for some reason she had several TV remotes on strings attached to her. And she looked pissed.
She bolted at them, and Kinoko didn’t waste a single second. She grabbed Ibara’s hand and bolted, letting Allmight run alongside them (later Allmight would say it was because he wanted to make sure Setsuna didn’t kill Kinoko and Ibara, because the number one hero absolutely did not fear getting mauled by an angry student, no siree.)
Later, they might finish whatever discussion had been about to take place, but for now, that could wait. They had to evade Lizardy.
Months later, four faces huddled together, looking at a blurry photograph of Setsuna chasing the club members, determined to get back her arm. Disappointment was palpable in the air.
"WELL, THAT WAS AWFUL." Allmight boomed out, shouting despite their close proximity to one another. Ibara, Kinoko, and Setsuna winced at the volume.
"Well... Yeah, shroom." Kinoko agreed.
"Agreed." Ibara sighed.
"I cannot believe you guys talked me into joining your dumb club." came Setsuna's grumpy protest.
Kinoko grinned rather unsettlingly, then let out what might have been a cute noise if it weren't for her expression. "Well, you wanted your arm back, right?"
"Duh, I chased you guys two miles for it!" Setsuna snapped.
"Then you had to join, since your arm was already a member!" Kinoko said, amping up the cuteness.
Allmight nodded sympathetically. He had also been forced into joining.
Ibara cleared her throat. "Alright, well, that's enough out of both of you! Our meeting is starting, and today we're covering how grass and Jesus are related."
Everybody but Ibara groaned, but in the end, not even Kinoko could tell Ibara no. Not with that tiny subtle smile she got when discussing things such as the bible and grass. Things that only Ibara could really be excited about.
But it was alright. After all, the environmental club was made from the strongest bonds in the universe. Bonds so strong that even Allmight himself couldn’t punch his way out of them. Bonds such as blackmail, death threats, and Ibara’s uncanny ability to cry and get new members.
Bonds such as these would hold up and remain, even when the world crumbled.