Chapter 16 - USJ Part 3
The last thing Bakugo remembered was the feeling of the ground vanishing beneath his feet.
One moment, he was snarling at the talking smoke cloud, ready to blast it into next week, and the next—he was falling. Tumbling through cold, twisting void. His ears rang, and his skin felt like it was being peeled away layer by layer by the rush of warped air. Colors inverted. Sound stretched. For a single, horrifying second, he couldn't even tell up from down.
And then the world snapped back into place—with force.
He hit the ground hard, skidding down a steep incline of loose rock and gravel. Dust clouded his vision as his momentum carried him halfway down a ridge, his palms instinctively lighting up to blast the earth beneath him and slow the slide. Pebbles scattered like shrapnel in his wake.
"Shit—!" he spat, planting his boots against a jutting stone to stop his descent. His hands smoked from the blasts, already tight with tension.
Where the hell was he?
As the dust settled, Bakugo forced himself to his feet and took in his surroundings. It looked like a collapsed mountain range had been dumped into an oversized sandbox. Jagged stone columns jutted from the earth like broken teeth. Unstable slopes loomed overhead, casting long shadows over the uneven ground. Boulders the size of compact cars teetered precariously on ridges above, just waiting to crash down on anyone dumb enough to breathe too loud.
This was the Landslide Zone.
"Tch." His red eyes scanned the area, sharp and calculating. "Freakin' perfect."
A soft sound behind him made him turn, palms crackling. A figure scrambled up from a patch of disturbed gravel—slow, cautious, and definitely not a villain.
It was Koda.
The guy looked rattled but unhurt, his wide eyes scanning the cliffs nervously as if they might collapse again at any moment. He didn't say anything—typical—but the way his hands clenched into unsure fists said enough.
Of all the people I could've been warped with, Bakugo thought, his expression hardening. I somehow ended up with the guy who talks to animals.
Before he could even shout at him to stay out of the way, there was movement above.
Voices.
Low, sneering ones.
Bakugo looked up and spotted a group of villains gathering near the top of a ridge, staring down at them like vultures circling wounded prey. One of them—tall, lanky, covered in mismatched armor—grinned with sick satisfaction.
"Hey boys," the villain called, cracking his knuckles, "looks like we've got ourselves a pair of lost little lambs."
Bakugo's lip curled into a feral grin.
"Wrong. You've got yourself a ticking bomb, dumbass."
His hands ignited with a low, angry hiss.
The orange glow in his palms cast jagged shadows across the rocks around him, bathing the slope in an angry light. That grin stayed on his face, all teeth and fury, even as more villains began fanning out behind the first—three, four, maybe five of them in total, each armed with some cobbled-together combination of weapons, tools, or visible mutations.
One of them—a hunched woman with limbs too long for her frame—let out a shrill, scraping laugh. Another, short and boxy, had what looked like a car muffler jammed into one shoulder. A puff of dark smoke leaked out of it every few seconds.
They didn't look organized. But they looked ready to kill.
Beside him, Koda took a careful step back, boots crunching over loose gravel. He didn't speak, but Bakugo noticed him reach into a pouch at his hip and pull out a small, cylindrical device—a whistle. Not the kind for signaling people. The kind that worked for calling something else.
Bakugo didn't spare it more than a glance. His focus was locked on the villains, his stance sinking lower, like a coiled spring.
"You assholes are too cocky," he muttered. "Thinking a few numbers are enough to deal with me."
He shot forward in a burst of smoke and light, kicking off a boulder and launching himself toward the lead villain. The explosion that followed his jump cracked the stone apart, scattering shrapnel in every direction.
The armored villain barely raised his arms before Bakugo slammed into him midair, gauntlet first.
BOOM.
The explosion lit up the ridge like lightning. The shockwave kicked up a plume of dust and sent chunks of stone tumbling. Bakugo landed in a crouch, smoke trailing from his shoulders.
But the bastard was still standing.
Groaning, the villain stumbled back, his armor charred but intact. Some kind of shock-absorption plating, maybe. A nasty burn blistered his jaw where the helmet didn't reach, but he was grinning like he enjoyed it.
"Tough guy, huh?" he rasped.
"Yeah," Bakugo snapped, flicking his wrist as he launched another explosion. "Tougher than you!"
Another blast came at the villain's feet, forcing him to leap back—and right into a patch of loose rock. His balance failed. He fell, crashing into the gravel with a yell, and slid down toward the lower ledge.
"Now," Bakugo snarled, turning back toward the others, "who's next?"
But just as the others were preparing to charge, a high-pitched screech rang out across the slope.
The villains froze.
Bakugo blinked.
Koda stood off to the side, hands held firm around the whistle as a swirl of wings descended from the shadows above.
Bats.
Dozens of them.
The fuck?! There are bats in the USJ?!
The winged silhouettes tore through the air, diving at the villains with eerie precision. Razor-sharp claws and tiny, stabbing fangs turned the air into a flurry of confusion. One of the villains screamed and clawed at his face as three bats latched onto his head. Another flailed wildly as his coat became a nest of wings.
Koda raised a hand—and suddenly, more shapes slithered from cracks in the rocks below. Snakes. Long, lithe, and silent.
Snakes too?!
He grinned.
"Alright Rock Face, seems you can pull your weight," Bakugo said with a grin, as he focused his attention squarely on the remaining villains," just try and keep up now."
—
The Mountain Zone was nothing like the training fields back at U.A.
Massive stone ridges curved into the sky, their craggy faces jagged and treacherous. The artificail wind whipped through narrow ravines and chasms like a living thing—howling, angry, unpredictable. Dust clung to the air, and the dry metallic scent of artificial earth hung heavy. Shinso had expected a rescue scenario. Maybe a fake stranded hiker. Instead his first trip to the USJ had been marred by the presence of villains and he was fighting for his life.
Through some ill fated luck, he'd been warped here by that mist villain Kurogiri. Shinso only regreted not sniping at him and getting him under the thrall of his quirk.
They were under attack. And fighting on a slope this steep was hell.
He ducked behind a sharp outcropping of rock just in time to avoid a barrage of jagged debris flung by one of the villains above them. The blast rained pebbles and splinters onto his shoulders, each one a little promise of how easy it'd be to die here if he made one mistake.
Across the incline, Jiro was moving fast—too fast for someone in terrain like this. She dug in her heels with every step, letting her sound blasts clear the path. Her earjacks sparked against the rocks as she stabbed them into the wall beside her, releasing controlled shockwaves that made their enemies flinch and stumble.
Just above them, Asui leapt from boulder to boulder like gravity was just a polite suggestion. Her tongue lashed out mid-air, snagging one of the villains who had started circling behind them. She yanked them down hard into a patch of scree, where they vanished behind a plume of dust and impact.
They were doing fine. Better than expected.
But Shinso couldn't shake the feeling that he didn't belong here.
The adrenaline made it easier to think, made the dull throb of his doubts quieter—but not silent. He didn't have the brute strength of Kirishima. He didn't have the crowd-stopping presence of Todoroki or the raw power of Midoriya. What he had was a voice. And that wasn't much good in a fight where everyone kept their mouths shut.
He gritted his teeth, pushing off the wall. His metal staff swung into a guard position, fingers wrapped tight around the grip.
"You need to watch your right!" Jiro shouted.
He turned just in time.
A villain lunged through the thin mist, face half-covered in a makeshift mask. Their knuckles crackled with a strange energy that looked close enough to some sort of black electricity that Shinso decided he really didn't want to get hit by it. As they raised a fist, aiming straight for his ribs, Shinso didn't hesitate.
He stepped in and brought the end of the staff into their gut with all the force he could muster. It wasn't pretty, but it knocked them back—long enough for him to plant his feet and throw out his voice.
"That all you've got?"
The villain, dazed but still coherent, blinked.
"What did you—"
Click.
Their body froze.
Shinso stepped back, breathing hard. He always hated that moment—the flicker of awareness in their eyes just before it went out.
There was no satisfaction in it. Just necessity.
He'd hated in middle school the distrustful looks his classmates had given him. Hated how he was shunned for having a "villainous" quirk. Looking towards Asui and Jiro who were fighting with everything they had, he felt glad that he had left that part of his past behind. Despite Shinso's quirk, his classmates were counting on him to back them up. Now wasn't the time for a pity party.
He turned quickly, already searching for the next target. That's when he saw it—movement on the upper slope. Three more closing in. They were sticking to the high ground, trying to box them in. Smart. And dangerous.
"We've got incoming!" he barked over the wind.
Asui landed beside him, crouched low. "Three above. I'll take the one on the right, ribbit."
"Go," he replied.
She shot off without hesitation, vanishing into the rocks with a powerful leap. Jiro joined him a second later, panting slightly from exertion.
"They're trying to funnel us downhill," she muttered, eyes flicking up to the ledge. "Force us into the kill zone."
Shinso nodded. "We don't let them."
He wasn't fast like Asui. He didn't have shockwaves like Jiro. But he had something they didn't expect.
He raised his voice again, calm and clear, aiming it at the one just starting to climb down after them.
"Think you can handle us on your own?"
The villain paused. Then snarled.
"You cocky little—"
Click.
The second he answered, he was his.
Shinso surged forward. Not to fight—but to position. He pointed at the other villain on the ridge and gave the command.
"Push him."
Under his control, the first villain turned without hesitation and lunged at his comrade. The result was chaos—both tumbled down in a mess of flailing limbs and curses.
"Nice," Jiro breathed, tapping her earjack to her wrist. "Buying us time. I'll keep them pinned with echo bursts."
Shinso nodded and allowed himself a short breath, turning towards the Black Lighting Fist quirk user he had under thrall.
"Join your friends in the ridge, knock them out with your quirk if you can," he ordered, watching as the villain quickly loped away to follow his will.
He wasn't a heavy hitter. He wasn't flashy.
But here, in this chaos of dust and rock, he wasn't useless either.
—
The Windstorm Zone of the U.S.J. was a brutal mimicry of a city caught in the heart of a hurricane.
Skyscraper facades loomed around the perimeter of the field, many of them battered and splintered, with glassless windows that gaped like open mouths. Some buildings leaned at impossible angles, as though ready to collapse with the next strong gust, their skeletal frameworks exposed beneath torn concrete and twisted steel. Scattered debris blanketed the flooded streets—bent signs, mangled streetlamps, shattered cement barriers—giving the entire landscape the look of a war-torn metropolis.
A near-constant howl filled the air as artificial winds surged through the zone in shrieking gusts. At times, the gusts were strong enough to fling loose rubble across the field or stagger anyone not properly braced. The wind twisted erratically, slipping between the wreckage of buildings and narrow alleyways, turning corners into wind tunnels that could lift a grown adult off their feet.
The rain came down in sheets, nearly horizontal, pelting the zone with a force that stung exposed skin. Puddles turned into shallow rivers, and storm drains overflowed with rushing water. Electrical poles sparked intermittently, wires swinging dangerously overhead, while flashes of simulated lightning lit up the zone in stark white bursts—never enough to give comfort, but always enough to reveal just how treacherous the terrain really was.
In short, the Windstorm Zone was chaos incarnate. A city swallowed by catastrophe, where every step forward was a fight against nature itself—and where one wrong move could sweep you away.
Momo clutched as the jagged edge of a bent guardrail, grinting her teeth to remain standing in the fierce gusts. She'd crafted a water repllenet cloak to cover herself in but it had proved fruitless at keeping the chill away and keeping her dry in the torrential downpour. Every step was oppressive in this zone, the very environment doing its best to keep and push her off balance.
She turned to look at Todoroki not too far away. He was a few meters ahead and was asseessing their surroundings. He stood with his back straight, unbothered by their chaotic environment, his hair was tossing violently in the wind though he paid it no mind. He stood where the gales were strongest, ice having formed from his feat to keep him anchored. Calm. Precise. Unshaken.
She hated how composed he looked.
No—that wasn't fair. It wasn't hate.
It was envy.
Thrice they had been ambushed. The wind, rain, and darkness of the cityscape hid their attackers easily enough. The villains that had taken ahold of the U.S.J had hidden amongst the labyrithine environment of the delapitated city.
The first ambush had been jarring. She hadn't even caught her bearings after Kurogiri had warped them here when villains were upon them. It was only Todoroki's quick actions that had saved them.
The second ambush she'd only had a second to respond to. In her training drills, it was always so easy to just whip out a shield or quarterstaff to defend herself with. However, comfronted with her first villain she'd frozen up, and only a quick wave of ice had saved her from the viiscious tiger claws the villain had lept at her with.
The third ambush? Well, it seemed it was just happening.
A villain dropped from a nearby ledge with a guttural scream, swinging a club reinforced with steel rebar. Momo gasped and stumbled backward on instinct. Her mind blanked for a half-second. She needed something—anything—but the gale howled louder, screaming into her ears, and her thoughts scattered like loose pages in a storm.
A capture net? Too thin in this wind.
A stun baton? What if it slips from my hand?
The villain was too close.
He raised the weapon.
"I can't—!"
A wall of ice erupted in front of her.
The villain slammed into it with a crunch and a startled yelp, his momentum frozen—literally—by a jagged shield of frost.
Momo stood frozen too, panting hard. Not from exertion, but from the sudden spike of fear that still hadn't left her chest. Her fingers trembled slightly as she stared at the ice.
Todoroki stepped forward without a word, his steps slow and methodical as he approached the downed enemy. Another sheet of ice spread outward, pinning the villain to the ground before they could recover.
"That's three down," Todoroki muttered, glancing skyward. The wind barely ruffled his hair.
Momo swallowed and forced herself to speak. "Thank you. I was just—"
"Don't freeze up," he said plainly, not unkindly, but not gently either. "You'll get hurt."
She flinched harder at that than she had at the villain's club.
He turned away, already moving to scan their surroundings for the next threat, but the words clung to her like frostbite.
Don't freeze up.
I wasn't trying to.
She pressed her palm to her chest and focused. Steel cable launcher. She needed something simple—reliable. Something that wouldn't require intricate setup or sustained mental focus in this wind.
The metal compartment in her armlet opened, and a small coil began forming rapidly from her skin, piece by piece. It felt sluggish. Her heart still hadn't stopped hammering from before.
You're supposed to be a strategist. The one who supports the class with quick thinking, not one who panics when things go loud.
The shriek of wind carried a roar from somewhere above.
She looked up—just in time to see a glider-like villain swooping toward Todoroki from the air, his arms outstretched like a hawk about to dive.
"Todoroki!" she shouted.
He reacted instantly. His ice bloomed outward like breath in winter, catching the villain mid-dive and sending him spiraling into the side of a broken wind turbine. He didn't even flinch.
Momo gritted her teeth and adjusted her stance, forcing her shoulders square.
Her cable launcher finished forming, and she immediately fired it at a tall support beam to her left. The hook wrapped tightly, giving her a much-needed anchor. Bracing her feet against a concrete lip, she scanned the area again.
A heat vision visor formed out of her chest and Momo quickly took the opportunity to look around, the high ground of the building they were on providing them ample sightlines from which she could spot out villains.
The visor immediately proved useful, three villains lighting up easily on the display. They were circling their position like hungry jackals. With the right opening, they could easily blitz in. It seemed these three were taking advantage of the shadows, haivng caught on that Todoroki's vision was limited in the storm.
Momo closed her eyes for half a second and breathed.
Focus.
A search light sprouted from her arm, revealing their hiding spots for Todoroki. The sudden flash was enought to draw Todoroki's attention. He followed the light source, catching sight of the now incoming trio.
With no hestiation he responded to their advance.
A ramp of ice raced from the building, narrowing the paths that attackers could use to advance. Barriers appeared behind them, blocking off their escape. One of them was reckless as tried to fight his way throught the ice, but the combination of ice and pounding rain made traversal trecherous at best and he quickly found himself unable to maintain his purchase.
The other two tried to regroup. One of them spotted her.
He rushed in.
Momo gripped her tether and swung under a collapsed awning. She twisted her body and came up hard on the other side, firing a second cable into the villain's legs to bind him mid-run. He stumbled and dropped with a shout, and she used the rest of her momentum to get herself back at her original position.
Todoroki's voice echoed through the wind and rain.
"Well done."
Her breath caught.
Not because he complimented her—but because it finally felt like she'd contributed.
Her body felt heavy, her pulse still off-rhythm from earlier, but she'd made it through.
Todoroki was walking toward her now, his expression unreadable.
"You came through," he said.
She offered a shaky smile. "Not as clean as I'd like."
"We're not here to look clean," he replied. "We're here to survive."
He looked back to the battlefield.
"And you're still standing. That's what matters."
And for the first time since landing in the Windstorm Zone, Momo felt like she might actually be useful after all.
—
The air was thick. Choking.
Tokoyami landed hard on one knee, the warped aftertaste of Kurogiri's teleportation still lingering in the back of his throat. He didn't rise immediately. He crouched, letting his cloak settle around him, narrowing his eyes as the searing heat bit into his skin beneath his costume.
This was not where he was meant to be.
Around him, the world burned.
It was a hellscape—nothing more, nothing less. The Fire Zone was a mockery of civilization, a scorched urban block in perpetual combustion. Flames licked the remains of overturned vehicles and crumbling storefronts. Ash drifted in the air like snowfall from a dying star. Thick plumes of black smoke coiled upward, curling around broken streetlights and fire-charred ruins, casting the entire field in a twilight haze of reds and oranges. The skies above—simulated as they were—boiled with smoke-stained clouds, and the only illumination came from the fire itself, crackling and writhing as though it hungered for anything still untouched.
Sweat already dampened Tokoyami's brow beneath his hood. The air shimmered with rising heat. Every breath he drew in was like inhaling from a furnace.
He rose slowly, surveying the scene with calm precision. No sign of his classmates. No immediate movement. But he wasn't alone.
"Dark Shadow," he murmured, voice steady even as his eyes narrowed.
I'm here, the entity whispered in his mind, already forming over his shoulder in a surge of flickering darkness.
But even Dark Shadow felt sluggish here, uneasy. The firelight disrupted its strength. Brightness—even flickering as it was—was not a welcome ally.
"It's going to be harder for you to fight at full strength," Tokoyami noted aloud, his voice low and calm, even as the flames popped and danced all around them.
I can still protect you, Dark Shadow said, though Tokoyami could feel the strain already—a tension running through the dark tendrils that usually flowed like smoke. Here, they jittered and twitched, agitated by the ambient light.
That's when the first sound reached him—a boot scraping against melted pavement.
Tokoyami turned just as two figures emerged from the fire haze. One was bulky, wrapped in scorched riot gear, a nasty burn running along his cheek and a spiked bat gripped in his gloved hand. The other was thin, twitchy, with a series of jet-nozzles fixed to his back, expelling small bursts of flame with every movement.
Villains. Fire-types, probably.
The jetpack user spotted him first and laughed—a high, choked thing. "Alone, huh? Bet you're regretting that costume choice now, bird-boy."
Tokoyami didn't reply. His stance dropped lower, his hand twitching with the command.
"Dark Shadow—cover."
The entity surged forward, shielding him in a curtain of flickering black, though its form writhed under the exposure.
It's too bright, it hissed, shrinking slightly in the blaze.
The villains didn't wait.
Jetpack launched first, igniting his boosters and firing toward Tokoyami in a spiraling arc, flame trailing behind him like a comet. The spiked-bat thug followed from the side, clearly hoping to flank.
Tokoyami's heart thudded—but he was still. Focused. He sidestepped to the right, just outside the first flame burst as it scorched the street he'd been standing on a moment ago.
"Dark Shadow—pincer!"
Dark Shadow whipped around, tendrils snapping toward the second villain—slamming him back with a shriek as the creature grappled with him in the narrow alley between buildings. But already Tokoyami could feel the loss in strength—the light was too strong here. Every burst of fire made his quirk recoil, retreating like a shadow at noon.
Jetpack arced again, this time sweeping lower. Tokoyami rolled under the flame burst, his cloak smoldering at the hem. He came up with a growl of effort, eyes flashing as he extended one hand.
"Obscure!"
Dark Shadow responded, creating a smokescreen of darkness that swallowed the alley behind him in a pulse of black, briefly pushing back the overwhelming light of the fire. It wouldn't last long, but it was enough.
The thug who'd been caught screamed as Dark Shadow threw him—bodily—into a flaming wreck nearby, the explosion lighting up the space like a miniature sun.
But it was too bright now.
Too hot.
Dark Shadow hissed and shuddered, curling protectively around Tokoyami before shrinking, becoming more wisp than creature.
I can't stay out… not like this…
"I understand," Tokoyami said, his tone grave. He backed toward a collapsed wall, keeping himself in the shifting shade of its shadow, even if that shadow was paper-thin.
Jetpack was still airborne, scanning for him, fire blaring from his heels.
Tokoyami narrowed his eyes. He couldn't rely on brute force. Not here. Not like this.
He would have to get creative.
"Let them come," he muttered, voice quiet and resolute as he melts into the shadows with the quiet confidence of a raven in the night.
—
The storm of battle was finally starting to settle.
The Shipwreck Zone had been a mess too traverse, with multiple shipwrecks scattered throughout an artificail lagoon in various states of disrepair. Most were too far for her to leap to, but there were plenty of floating obstacles and debris with which to make a raft were it not for the multiple water based villains that had harried them as Midoriya carried them closer to the shoreline before using the shallowerer water to bring the fight back to the villains .
Toru Hagakure blinked invisible sweat out of her eyes as she clung to the jagged edge of an overturned shipwreck, her invisible fingers trembling from exertion. Her heartbeat still thundered in her ears, but her voice caught on a breath of relief as the last of the villains reeled from Kaminari's electrifying finale.
"That got 'em!" she shouted, pumping her fist in excitement.
Below, the villains who'd been lured into the rusted basin of the ship graveyard now twitched in the knee-deep water, paralyzed by Denki's indiscriminate surge. Their bodies spasmed, muscles locking up, groans of pain cut short by unconscious collapse.
It hadn't been clean. It hadn't even been the plan originally.
But Midoriya had made it work.
He'd darted between the listing hulls and half-submerged decks like he could see the whole battlefield at once—probably because he could, she reminded herself. With those strange eyes of his active, he'd called out enemy positions, mapped cover, and baited the villains into a tight cluster.
Kaminari, shaking like a spark plug about to blow, had taken the shot the moment Midoriya shouted the cue.
And now they were done. It was over.
Mostly.
"Midoriya! We did it!" Toru called from her precarious perch, her voice breathless but thrilled. "That was seriously awesome!"
"Thanks," he said, turning away from where he'd been scanning the downed villains. His voice was calm, but there was something tight about it—something wired.
Kaminari, for his part, had collapsed nearby. He sat on the sloped deck of a rust-eaten freighter, cross-legged and giggling to himself with his thumb held out like a pretend gun.
"Pew. Pew. Pew~," he mumbled, eyes completely vacant.
"Yep. Totally fried," Toru muttered, hopping down to Kaminari's side. "Midoriya, I think he used way too much juice."
She half-laughed, half-grimaced. Despite the victory, adrenaline was still simmering under her skin.
"We should get moving," Midoriya said. "This section is secure, and we need to regroup."
Toru nodded and reached down, carefully slinging one of Kaminari's arms over her shoulder. He leaned heavily on her—deadweight, practically—but she managed to prop him up with some effort.
Then Midoriya froze.
It was only for a second, but Toru saw it—how his body stiffened like someone had just slapped ice water down his spine. His head turned sharply, and both his hands clenched.
"…What is it?" she asked, her invisible form tensing beside the limp weight of Kaminari.
"I… I see something," Midoriya murmured, his tone darkening. "Something bad."
He was using his Quirk again—his right eye pale and pulsing, the veins around it standing out starkly. He was staring off into the distance, as if looking at something she couldn't see, which with his quirk was entirely possible.
"Aizawa-sensei's fighting… but…" His breath caught. "No, something's wrong. That monster—the big one—it's moving. Fast."
Toru's breath hitched.
She wanted to ask him more, but the expression that came across his face shifted from shock to horror.
"I have to go help. If I don't—" He stopped himself, as if the words were too heavy.
Toru stared at him—or tried to, anyway. It was always disorienting, looking at someone when you weren't sure if they were looking at you.
"But what about—?"
"You need to get Kaminari to the entrance," he said, stepping back. "Thirteen-sensei and the others might still be there. Get him to safety."
"You're not serious—"
"I am," Midoriya said, turning toward the path back to the central plaza. "I'll be faster on my own, and it'd be reckless to drag Kaminari into that warzone. Get him to the entrance."
Toru hesitated, torn between the need to stop him and the gnawing instinct that told her: he's right.
"Be careful, Midoriya," she finally said, her voice coming out as barely over a whisper.
Izuku didn't reply.
But she saw the nod before he sprinted away, vanishing into the maze of broken ships and steel, toward whatever nightmare he'd just glimpsed through that pale, glowing eye.
And Toru was left with a brain-fried human battery leaning on her invisible shoulder, whispering "zap zap" like it was the funniest joke in the world.
"You're lucky you're cute when you're stupid," she muttered, adjusting her grip and heading for the exit.
Silently she prayed that Midoriya would be okay.
—
Itsuka Kendo had never thought of herself as the kind of girl who rattled easily.
Even now, standing at the jagged mouth of the Ruins Zone, her costume streaked with soot and concrete dust, she felt a strange sense of clarity—calm, even. She and Kirishima had handled themselves well in the initial scramble. The ambush, the collapsing debris, the back-to-back skirmishes against two mid-tier villains—it had been frantic, and terrifying, and… oddly exhilarating.
She could still feel the strength in her arms from the last punch she'd thrown, adrenaline buzzing in her veins. That mix of fear and focus, danger and drive. This was the real deal—and they hadn't flinched.
Kirishima, always smiling even when the world was falling apart, had grinned at her afterward and said, "Now that was manly."
She wasn't about to argue with that.
But the feeling didn't last long.
As they picked their way through the collapsed buildings and broken structures, heading toward the only visible route out—the Central Plaza—the energy shifted. She felt it before she saw it. A heaviness in the air, like the air itself was holding its breath.
"Hey," Kirishima muttered, his voice unusually tense. "Look."
They stopped at the edge of the rubble, peering through a twisted arch of collapsed scaffolding.
In the plaza below, surrounded on all sides by a mob of villains, stood Aizawa-sensei.
Alone.
And winning.
Itsuka's breath caught as she watched him move—fluid, brutal, relentless. His scarf whipped like a live wire, snatching limbs and necks, dragging bodies into the pavement with surgical force. Even outnumbered, he fought with a kind of cold efficiency that was terrifying to witness. Villains lunged, snarled, tried to overwhelm him—and each time, they were taken down in less than three moves.
"He's… incredible," she whispered.
Kirishima nodded, eyes wide. "That's a pro."
But they weren't the only ones watching.
From the far end of the plaza, a villain stepped into view. His pale, disjointed figure moved with a lazy, off-kilter gait. Hands clung to his body like a second skin, and one covered his face, fingers twitching as if impatient for violence. He said something low to the Nomu beside him, a hulking shadow that loomed like a walking nightmare.
Then he stepped forward alone.
Itsuka's eyes narrowed. "What is he doing?"
The villain's approach was slow, deliberate—like he was bored of watching others fail. A villain like him didn't seem the type to care about honor or revenge. No, this was something else. He was testing something. Playing a game.
Aizawa didn't hesitate. He lunged for Shigaraki without fanfare, scarf flashing forward like a strike of lightning.
For a moment, it looked like he had him.
The villain was craftier than he appeared, as he stepped out of Aizawa's attack and into his guard, a hand reaching forward with malevolent intention, it latched onto Aizawa's elbow at a time when his quirk had been deactived.
The scruffy hero managed to hold back scream, and dislodged the grip a second later to make some distance. His elbow was in a bad state, from Itsuka's perspective whatever that villain had done was exposing bone. She could already imagine Izuku mumbling up a storm about the capabilities of his quirk and she was never more grateful for having some a nerdy boyfriend.
Touch-based, like Uraraka's. From both hands then. Watch those hands.
The villain moved in again, coming in low and with a disturbing amount of confidence.
However, instead of backing off, Aizawa pressed the attacking. Even with one-arm showing that he wasn't a pro-hero for nothing. An extension of his capture scarf caused the villain to stumble, and with Aizawa's quirk actived it would be so easy now for her teacher to defeat the villain.
Then the Nomu moved.
Faster than Itsuka expected for something so massive. The air cracked with a burst of speed and, in the blink of an eye, it was between them. Its black body slammed into Aizawa, pinning him to the ground, one arm crushing down against his ribs while the other twisted toward his head.
Aizawa fought to breathe, his scarf flailing—but it was clear he was struggling to escape.
"Midoriya said something about that thing having multiple quirks," Kendo said, eyes wide with horror. "If it's strong and fast—"
The villain he'd just been fighting moved forward, calm and smiling beneath the hand on his face.
"Don't move," he told Aizawa in that cracked, childlike voice. "Or I'll make sure you die screaming."
His gloved hand reached for Aizawa's face—five fingers outstretched.
Kendo's body moved before she'd even finished thinking.
So did Kirishima.
"Sensei!" they shouted together.
Kirishima hit first, his hardened body crashing into the Nomu's side like a battering ram. The impact rocked the creature, dragging it off balance and breaking its grip on Aizawa. Had Kendo not been focusing on her own enemy she might not have missed that the stumble on the Nomu's end stemmed from nothing more than surprise instead of any realy damage.
Kendo followed up, springing forward and positioning herself between the downed teacher and the advancing Shigaraki. Her hands expanded, growing to the size of car doors, ready to crush, block, whatever it took.
Aizawa coughed, gasping for breath as he rolled to the side. "What are you two doing—get out of here!"
"Not a chance," she snapped. "We're not just gonna watch you die!"
Shigaraki tilted his head, looking annoyed. "Ah…seems the mini-boss has mobs as well. Tch."
Kendo lunged, throwing a punch that would have shattered a brick wall—but the villain twisted away, nimble and eerily graceful. His fingers grazed the air where her wrist had been a second ago, and she felt her skin crawl.
They exchanged blows—hers controlled, calculated; his erratic and lunging.
Behind her, Kirishima stood protectively over Aizawa, arms raised.
"Nomu," the villain said, dusting off his sleeve. "Stop playing around."
The order was casual, but the effect was immediate.
The Nomu's eyes flashed red. It turned toward Kirishima with sudden, inhuman intent—and moved.
Its charge was a blur of raw power.
Kirishima had just enough time to harden his arms and cross them over his chest.
The punch hit like a freight train.
The sound of the impact echoed through the plaza—metal on stone, a deep boom that rattled her ribs. Kirishima's body was lifted clean off the ground, flung across the plaza like a thrown doll, crashing through a broken concrete wall.
"KIRISHIMA!"
Kendo's voice cracked with fear, her balance faltering for a split second.
She couldn't tell if he was breathing.
He wasn't moving.
Her hands trembled.
The villain giggled.
"Well then," he whispered, stepping closer. "Let's see what breaks first, shall we?"
And Kendo turned back toward him, raising her hands again—heart pounding, vision swimming—but her stance unshaken.
If she had to go down protecting her teacher, so be it.
She lunged, looking to crush this villain in one blow of her fist, but he weaved away and it was all she could do to quickly deactive her quirk to avoid a brush of his hands on her fists.
She quickly took up a defensive position, one hand forward while another reached behind her into the ground pulling out a clump of dirt the size of a bowling ball to give herself some options.
The villain was reckless and wild however, and it was all she could do to evade his attacks.
Sh let loose the dirt and gravel into the side of his face, hopig for a breather but he pushed through the dust a wicked gleam in his eyes and his hand extended forward.
For a brief second his hand touched her outstretched fist. Itsuka prepared herself for the worse, but nothing seemed to happen.
"Earserhead!" the villain growled angrily, before turning to the hulking brute," Nomu, kill him already!"
Itsuka knew it was reckless, but she lept towards her teacher anyways. One fist grown out as large as possible to push him away.
The kick the Nomu gave Aizawa was brutal, and her teacher was sent flying across the plaza. She was still recovering from the sonicboom that kick had released when she saw she was leaping towards empty space.
Her teacher now lay across the plaza, well away from her. Laying just as still as her friend.
She hit the ground hard, and turned to sit up.
The villain she had ignored was standing above her, hand reaching down towards her face.
Everything lost meaning as the hand slowly encroached.
She heard the villain gloating over something.
Itsuka couldn't be sure.
Unable to move, her ankle sprained from the desperate leap she'd made, she closed her eyes.
Izuku, I'm sorry.
Chapter 17 - USJ Part 4
Tomura Shigaraki was not a patient man.
Waiting made him itch—literally. His fingers twitched and scraped at the patchy skin of his neck as irritation clawed its way through his body like an invasive parasite. This whole mission, this so-called "assassination raid," was supposed to be a flawless speedrun. Drop in, unleash the Nomu, kill All Might, and leave a message written in blood and rubble.
Instead? They hadn't even cleared the first phase of the boss fight.
His "raid party"—the League's freshly recruited cannon fodder—had been completely wiped out by a single hero. A scrappy mini-boss with a capture scarf and sleep-deprived eyes going by the name Eraserhead.
Tomura's fingers drummed anxiously against the disembodied hand resting across his face, that familiar phantom itch creeping higher the longer he stared at the ongoing battle.
"This was supposed to be easy," he muttered to no one in particular, voice thin with disdain. "All Might was supposed to be here."
Instead, he'd been forced to watch as his carefully stacked dominoes collapsed out of order. The students weren't helpless lambs—they had claws. And teeth. And teamwork.
And that damned Eraserhead had turned out to be more than just an annoyance. He'd torn through the League's frontline villains with surgical efficiency, dismantling them like bugs with their wings pulled off—quick, methodical, merciless.
It pissed Tomura off.
It wasn't even that the plan had failed—failure was familiar, even expected. It was that it wasn't fun anymore. The game had changed the rules without warning, and Tomura hated that.
He turned toward the central plaza, red eyes narrowing behind the fingers of his mask as he watched Aizawa fight. The man was bleeding, but still moving. Still ruining everything. Still breathing.
Tomura wanted to scratch the skin off his own arms just thinking about it.
At least the NPC villains he'd brought had served their purpose. Dumb grunts, the lot of them—but useful in that they'd kept Eraserhead busy long enough for Tomura to sit back and analyze.
Every movement, every twitch of muscle. Every weakness.
Tomura's fingers twitched at his sides as he stepped closer to the edge of the broken plaza, knuckles popping one by one. He could hear the sound of combat echoing through the artificial disaster zones behind him—students scattered, villains swarming—but none of it mattered right now.
The original plan had been to kill All Might. Fine. But if the Symbol of Peace was too cowardly to show his face, then Tomura would settle for something else.
A teacher.
An icon.
A pillar.
Break the support structure, and the whole thing comes crashing down.
"And if we scream loud enough," he muttered, voice low and full of scorn, "maybe the hero everyone's so obsessed with will come crawling to watch the end in person."
He tilted his head, red eyes fixed on the man in black who stood in the center of the battlefield. Eraserhead's hair still floated with that telltale static—Quirk active, vision locked in, posture tight and alert.
Tomura's grin split wider, stretched under the fingers of the decayed hand that covered his face.
"Let's see how long that erasing quirk of yours holds out, Mr. Mini-Boss," he said, stepping forward into the ring of fractured concrete and bloodied bodies. His fingers curled slowly into a claw. "Game over."
As if on cue, Eraserhead dispatched the last of the remaining League fodder with surgical efficiency, slamming a final villain into the pavement hard enough to crack it. He didn't hesitate. The moment he saw Tomura approaching, he shifted forward into a run.
No wasted energy.
No opening monologue.
Just silent resolve.
But Tomura had already seen the fatigue setting in—watched the micro-slips in Aizawa's footwork, the slight delay between eye movement and muscle reaction. Fighting a dozen opponents solo would drain even a pro hero, and Eraserhead's Quirk, as powerful as it was, didn't come with a stamina boost.
All it took was one mistake.
And Eraserhead made it.
His capture scarf lashed out like a serpent, aiming to wrap Tomura's limbs and immobilize him—but Tomura was ready. He ducked low, let the scarf whip overhead, and surged forward like a shadow off its leash.
"Too slow."
A blur of movement, a rush of air—and then Tomura was inside his guard, his hand snapping out faster than the eye could track.
Contact.
Eraserhead's arm jerked up instinctively to block—but Tomura's hand landed square on the elbow joint.
For a fraction of a second, nothing happened.
Then flesh turned to ash.
The sleeve of Aizawa's jacket blackened and began to curl. The skin beneath it blistered, cracked, and flaked into nothingness, eaten away at the cellular level as Tomura's Quirk activated. Only for a second—but a second was all it took.
Aizawa's Quirk flared in response, canceling the disintegration effect before it could spread farther—but the damage had already been done.
The outer layer of skin was gone. Muscle beneath had begun to break down. Bone, visible for an instant beneath half-charred sinew, gleamed white and wet in the light.
A strangled grunt of pain tore from Aizawa's throat as he twisted back, retreating with his injured arm cradled tight against his side.
Tomura didn't pursue—yet. He tilted his head, watching the hero stagger back, eyes narrowed in barely restrained delight as he took in the weakened hero..
His teeth were clenched too tightly for speech. Blood ran freely down his forearm, dripping from ruined muscle onto the cracked tiles below.
Tomura took a slow, lazy step forward.
"Still think you're the boss of this level?" he asked, before suddenly lurching forward once again.
Tomura's voice dripped with derision as he threw himself into a sprint, teeth bared, hand outstretched like a clawed curse. The grin beneath the hand on his face twitched with anticipation. Just one touch. That's all it would take. A single contact. Skin to skin. Five fingers.
Disintegrate. Delete. Erase.
Aizawa didn't flinch.
The underground hero was already moving, shifting his weight low and tight into a grappler's stance. His capture scarf snapped forward, aiming for Tomura's wrists—but Tomura twisted past it, ducking under the arc of fabric and driving in close.
Got him.
He swiped at Aizawa's chest with an open hand, grazing the edge of his capture gear—but in the instant before his fingers found flesh, Aizawa rolled into him.
They collided in a sudden, violent tangle of limbs and grit. Tomura lost his footing for half a heartbeat as Aizawa redirected his momentum, then twisted. His scarf looped—tight—around Tomura's ankle mid-motion.
The bastard planned for this!
Tomura crashed to the ground in a half-spin, his shoulder slamming against cracked pavement. Pain lanced up his spine. Dust exploded around him. He barely had time to throw up his hands before he was dragged across the concrete like a sack of meat.
The scarf yanked him toward a jut of broken rebar.
He growled and lashed out, raking his nails across the scarf. The fabric began to fray—just as Aizawa released it and charged.
What the hell is this guy made of?!
Despite the blood matting his face, the tremor in his busted arm, the way his body leaned too heavily on one side—Eraserhead still moved with purpose. No hesitation. No fear.
Tomura scrambled up in time to deflect a kick aimed at his ribs. He hissed as the blow clipped his thigh instead. His leg gave for a second, his balance thrown. A blur of motion. A fist came next.
He ducked—barely—and retaliated with a swipe of his own, this time clipping Aizawa's shoulder. The cloth of the hero's costume hissed and blackened instantly.
Aizawa fell back. Tomura lunged forward again, hand aimed squarely at his neck—
Only to be blinded as Aizawa's capture scarf whipped upward, coiling around Tomura's arm like a snake.
Snag.
Tomura's momentum turned against him as the scarf pulled. His hand was yanked off-target, thrown wide, and Aizawa spun, using the scarf to drag him off-balance and send him stumbling into a chunk of shattered wall.
His head cracked against stone. His vision dimmed for a heartbeat.
"Goddammit!" Tomura spat, tasting blood.
He pushed himself up, fury blooming in his chest.
"Stupid—stupid mini-boss!" he howled. "You're supposed to be dead already!"
His lip curled. Rage boiled beneath his skin, his quirk aching to be used—starving for it. His fingers twitched. His shoulders trembled.
He raised a shaking hand and screamed, "Nomu!"
The name tore through the air like a curse.
From the rubble at the edge of the plaza, something massive moved.
The air shifted—subtle at first, like the world itself holding its breath. A low, unnatural pressure crept into the atmosphere, as though something massive had entered a space it was never meant to occupy. It was the kind of suffocating stillness that came just before a thunderstorm, when the sky swelled and the air buzzed with electricity. Then—the sound. A deep, bone-vibrating thud rolled across the plaza, followed by another, and another. The ground trembled beneath each step, tremors spreading through cracked pavement like ripples in glass. Chunks of concrete shifted and clattered in protest. Loose debris scattered from its path—pebbles skittering away, metal beams toppling with sharp, hollow clangs—fleeing before the weight of the monster that approached.
And then it came into view.
A walking nightmare.
Its silhouette was grotesque—an abomination sculpted from nightmares. It loomed unnaturally tall and wide, its body packed with coiled, corded muscle that bulged and pulsed beneath skin stretched taut and glossy like oil-slicked rubber. Deep, jagged seams crisscrossed its flesh where different tissue had been crudely stitched together, like a butcher's patchwork. Each seam looked raw, as if it had only just healed—or never quite had. Atop its hulking shoulders sat an exposed brain, grotesquely pulsing with every step, nerves and tissue twitching in erratic spasms, like it was in constant pain... or still trying to flee its own body. Its face was little more than a blunt snout beneath a beastlike brow, its eyes lost in shadow, sunken and unreadable. But it didn't need to see. The Nomu smelled blood. Its thick nostrils flared. Its head cocked once, twice, like a predator locking onto prey. And then it began to move faster.
It moved faster than it had any right to. One instant it was walking—and the next, it was gone.
Eraserhead never even saw it coming.
CRACK.
The sound of the impact echoed like a cannon blast. A blur of motion, a rush of displaced wind—and Aizawa's body went flying.
The pavement exploded beneath him as he was driven downward, his body slamming into the ground face-first. A plume of dust and concrete erupted from the crater as his limbs spasmed beneath the weight.
The Nomu stood over him, hunched forward like a predator claiming its kill. One massive foot pressed down between his shoulder blades, pinning him like an insect. Its fingers—grotesquely long—moved to close around his skull.
"No, Nomu," Tomura said, voice casual, almost pleasant. He lifted a hand, still flexing from the quirk he hadn't yet used. "Just lift his face. I want him to see me. I want him to know what's about to happen."
The Nomu paused mid-motion. Then, with terrifying gentleness, it obeyed. Its hand cupped the top of Aizawa's head, forcing his bloodied face upward like a broken doll.
Tomura stepped forward slowly, savoring each step like a final boss descending into the arena. His boots crunched glass and dust as he moved.
He couldn't help but laugh.
A sick, childish giggle bubbling up from under the severed hand that clung to his face like a mask.
"You're not even the real challenge," he sneered, crouching low so Aizawa could really see him. "But you've been such a pain. Honestly, it's impressive."
Aizawa didn't respond. His eyes were half-lidded, barely conscious—but still, somehow, glaring.
That just made Tomura grin wider.
"Don't worry. I'll make it quick," he whispered. "Well—quick enough."
His hand hovered just above the broken pro's face—five fingers outstretched, trembling with anticipation. One touch. That was all it would take.
Five seconds. No, three. Maybe less. The thought danced in his mind like static. Erase the threat. Erase the trash. Erase the rulebook.
Then—
Voices. Yelling.
"Sensei!"
Two flashes of movement. Too fast, too loud, too alive.
The red one struck first—spiked hair, cocky expression, that dumb "manly" attitude. His body smashed into Nomu's side with a crack of impact. It was like watching a toddler try to knock over a refrigerator. But the beast stumbled.
Tomura blinked.
Why did it stumble? Not because of power. It couldn't be. That freak hadn't done any real damage. No. Nomu had been surprised. Curious, even. Stupid.
Don't be stupid, Nomu. You're a weapon. Act like it.
The orange-haired girl landed in front of him next, sliding between him and his prize like a cutscene interrupting his final attack. Her hands ballooned outward—absurd, oversized things like props from a broken game engine. Tomura's eye twitched at the sight of them.
"Get out of the way," he muttered, fingers curling in irritation.
"What are you two doing—get out of here!" the pro rasped as he flopped to the side in a hopeless attempt at gathering his strength.
The girl snapped back, "Not a chance. We're not just gonna watch you die!"
Tomura stared. It annoyed him. All of it. The defiance, the noise, the blind devotion to a system that had already failed them. Trash, all of it.
He tilted his head. "Ah… seems the mini-boss has mobs as well. Tch."
He sighed, dragging his nails lightly across his neck in irritation.
She came at him swinging—fist big enough to cave in a skull. He moved, weaving low, slipping past her reach like fog curling around stone. His fingers grazed where her wrist had been
The girl lunged, her oversized fist arcing toward his head. Tomura tilted back, barely moving, letting the strike pass in front of him like a gust of wind. Her movements were disciplined—trained. She wasn't like the others who swung wildly. Still, it didn't matter.
He reached for her, fingers dancing toward her wrist. She recoiled fast, too fast for him to land a touch, but he saw it—felt it. The way her skin tensed. She'd felt it too. That brief brush of death.
They clashed, blow for blow. Her fists crashing down like hammers, his own countering with lunges and feints, aiming for exposed skin. She fought like a hero. He fought like a monster in the dark.
Behind them, he heard the scrape of boots and labored breath.
The redhead was still trying to play bodyguard. Idiot.
Tomura didn't even turn.
"Nomu," he said, brushing imaginary dust from his sleeve, "stop playing around."
The shift was instant.
The Nomu's red eyes burned brighter. Its muscles tensed. The mindless calm it had fought with vanished. Now, it hunted.
It turned toward the hardening brat, each step like a quake through the broken ground.
Tomura watched. Interested.
The student raised his arms, bracing himself with the confidence of someone who thought effort meant protection.
The Nomu moved like a bullet.
The blow came down—a brutal, clean punch directly to the boy's guard.
The sound it made was glorious.
Tomura clearly heard the snap of broken bones, before a crack not disimilar to thunder filled the plaza as the red-head was lifted off his feet and launched backward, skipping across debris and concrete before slamming into a concrete wall with he sound of a sickening crunch.
Beautiful.
Tomura let the echo ring in his ears, savoring it like a fine note in a symphony of destruction. The kid wasn't moving. Limbs twisted. Broken. Maybe unconscious. Maybe not. It didn't matter. He wasn't getting back up.
The girl screamed his name.
Kirishima, right? The hardening brat. Well, not hard enough.
Her voice cracked. Delightful.
She hesitated—just for a second. A stumble in her stance. A flicker of uncertainty in her posture.
He drank it in.
She didn't know if the red one was still breathing. The panic in her eyes said enough. Her hands trembled.
And Tomura giggled.
A short, gleeful sound that came from somewhere deep in his hollow chest.
"Well then," he whispered, taking a lazy step forward, savoring the moment. "Let's see what breaks first, shall we?"
Her spirit? Her body? Her mind?
Didn't matter. He'd break them all eventually.
But then—she raised her fists again. Quirk active. Hands swollen to grotesque size. She wasn't running. Even with her fear practically bleeding into the air, she still chose to fight.
So irritatingly heroic.
She lunged—trying to end it with one clean hit, like that would ever work. Tomura sidestepped with a grin, limbs twitching with anticipation. Her fist passed inches from his face.
He could feel the heat of her swing, the air displaced by her Quirk.
So close.
If she hadn't pulled her power back in time, she would've tagged him. Instead, she deactivated and recoiled, smart enough to know better than to let her overgrown mitts get anywhere near his fingers.
Not bad, he thought, amused. But you're still going to die.
She shifted defensively, lowering her stance. Clever girl. One hand up, ready to block, while the other dug behind her—grabbing a chunk of dirt like a makeshift grenade.
Tomura's fingers twitched.
He moved again, faster this time. No rhythm, no technique. Just chaos—like a puppet on fraying strings. He lunged for her, erratic and wild, his movements impossible to predict.
She was holding her own. Barely.
Tomura ducked a swing, feinted left, then charged from the right. Her chest rose and fell too fast. He could feel it: the burn of adrenaline beginning to sour into fatigue.
Then came the dirt.
She flung it, a sudden splash of earth to his face—bold, desperate.
Dust filled his eyes, his mouth, clogging the air.
He should've been slowed.
He should have retreated.
Instead, he pressed through it, grinning madly, that itch beneath his skin now clawing to be satisfied. His vision blurred, but his hand shot out through the cloud, fingers extended.
Got you.
His fingertips brushed her fist.
Contact.
YES.
But then—
Nothing.
No disintegration. No skin flaking. No screaming.
Just… her standing there. Still whole.
Tomura blinked.
Then he felt it. That buzzing emptiness. That cold disconnect between him and the world.
Rage flared in his throat like bile.
"Eraserhead!" he snarled.
His power had been turned off.
That bastard was still conscious. Still watching.
Still interfering.
Tomura's head snapped toward the Nomu, fury bubbling past the point of containment.
"Nomu!" he shouted, voice cracking with rage. "Kill him already!"
Tomura watched her lunge—no hesitation, no second thoughts. Just pure desperation wrapped in some inflated sense of nobility. Her fist swelled grotesquely, bloated and unwieldy like a joke weapon in a glitchy mod. And she wasn't aiming for him. No, of course not. She was trying to save the teacher.
Always saving someone.
Pathetic.
The Nomu reacted first. No noise, no showmanship. Just motion—violence. A single kick, casual but thunderous, crashed into Eraserhead's ribs. The hero's body bent around it unnaturally before it was flung like dead weight across the plaza. There was a gust of displaced air, a snap of bone—maybe in the leg, maybe in the spine. It was hard to tell. The body just flew.
Tomura's grin widened beneath the hand covering his face.
He didn't even look to see where the teacher landed. He didn't have to. He'd felt the impact in his bones.
The girl—the redhead, the one with the oversized fists—was still in midair. Her whole leap had been based on getting to the teacher. She must've realized, just then, that he wasn't there anymore.
She was flying into nothing.
Beautiful.
She hit the ground like a sack of rocks, crumpling on impact, limbs sprawled. A roll, a grunt. She tried to push herself up—but it was clumsy, slow. Painful.
Tomura stepped forward.
Right up to her.
Her head turned. Her eyes found his. Wide. Terrified. Still trying to process the last five seconds.
He could see it in her face: the realization that she wasn't going to make it out of this.
Not without scars.
Not alive.
His hand reached out, fingers spread. Slowly. Deliberately. No need to rush the moment.
So close now.
Just five fingers.
That's all it ever took.
And she just lay there. Her ankle was twisted—bad landing? Broken? Sprained? Not that it mattered.
She couldn't run.
She couldn't fight.
Tomura tilted his head, savoring her stillness. He thought about saying something—some little quip, some line to twist the knife.
But no, he was already grinning under the decay-stained hand. Let the silence drag. Let the fear fill the space.
Her eyes squeezed shut.
Tomura lowered his head, a strange sensation settling over him like a building migraine.
He scratched at his neck in annoyance. Perhaps he should wrap up the raid, those NPCs he'd brought along could stay behind, none of them were worth keeping anyway.
First he'd finish the job. Leave a statement behind. A dead student would have to do.
He let his fingers close around the orangette's face.
For a single heartbeat, there was contact—real, tangible. Then came the reaction. The telltale crumble. Dust beginning to bloom across her cheekbone like frost on glass.
He watched as it spread—familiar, practiced. From jawline to shoulder, across her torso, dissolving her into fragments too small for the wind to keep. Just like the others. A quiet end. Fitting.
He tilted his head slightly, exhaling through his nose.
"She's gone," he murmured, more to himself than anyone else.
And yet… something about the moment didn't land quite right. Not wrong. Just… muted.
There was no scream. No final twitch. No resistance—not even reflexive flinching. It had been clean. Too clean, maybe.
But that was good, wasn't it?
Tomura flexed his fingers absently, brushing them together. Dust clung there, dry and chalky. He squinted at the bits caught beneath his glove. For a second, he thought he saw something glimmering—then it was gone, scattered by the breeze.
His lip curled.
He'd wasted enough time.
He let his hand fall to his side slowly, like a curtain dropping after a well-rehearsed performance. A faint plume of dust twisted upward in the still air, coiling like smoke over a fire long since dead.
"Did you see that, Nomu?" he asked, not really expecting an answer. "It's not just All Might's time that's over. This whole rotten little stage they built—it's ready to collapse."
But even as he spoke, a crawling irritation itched under his skin.
No alarms had sounded. No reinforcements had arrived. And most damning of all—
No All Might.
His fingers twitched at the thought.
This was supposed to be the big moment. The raid. The declaration. The death knell. And yet…
The Symbol of Peace never came.
He turned on his heel, a sharp snap of motion. His bloodstained sneaker crunched over gravel. His red, cracked eyes locked onto the hulking form of the Nomu, which stood silent, obedient—dripping with another man's blood.
"Tch. Enough," Tomura muttered. "This isn't worth another second."
His voice was flat, dismissive, but his posture was strained. Something about the way the wind didn't quite whip his hair right. How the blood on his gloves looked darker than usual. And that shape, off in the corner of his eye—it looked like Eraserhead had moved. But when he blinked, it was gone.
Just static.
"Let's go," he snapped, waving a hand irritably toward the mist hovering in the air behind him. When did Kurogiri get back? Tch, doesn't matter. "Kurogiri. Open a gate."
A polite shimmer rolled through the air, and the purple swirl of his comrade's Quirk began to bloom open. For a moment, Tomura stared into it, his hand twitching near his neck—right where that damn girl had splashed dirt on him. Still gritty. Still there.
He scratched at it absently.
"I told you this would happen," he said to no one in particular, voice low. "You let All Might walk around unchecked and now you've got a corpse in your school. Let that fester in your minds."
He cast one final look back at the ruins of the plaza. His gaze lingered on a smear of dust that his mind still insisted was all that remained of Itsuka Kendo. The wind tugged at his coat. A few stray drops of blood trailed from the Nomu's claws and vanished in the dirt.
He smiled.
"There. That should be loud enough."
Without another word, he stepped into the mist.
Nomu followed.
Kurogiri gave a short bow to no one in particular, and then collapsed in on himself like a dying star—vanishing.
And just like that, the eye of the storm fell silent. The air cleared.
The monsters of USJ were gone.
For a moment, all that remained was the soft whistle of wind threading through broken concrete and shattered glass. Dust swirled in lazy spirals—ghosts of the battle just passed—before a sudden gust swept it all away.
And there, in the center of the devastation, knelt Izuku Midoriya.
His chest rose and fell in ragged gasps, his arms locked tightly around Itsuka Kendo, who clung to him with trembling fists, sobbing into the fabric of his costume. Dirt and blood streaked both of them, but they didn't move. Didn't speak. They simply held each other, surrounded by the wreckage and silence.
Tears ran freely down Izuku's cheeks, tracing the bruises along his face, one eye pale and gleaming, the other a vivid red.
In his Sharingan, three tomoe spun slowly—smooth, deliberate, unblinking.
Watching. Remembering.
A witness to the storm.