"Any problems on the trail, Ragdoll?"
Mandalay's voice, clear and calm through the communicator, broke the silence of the watch post. Ragdoll bounced on the balls of her feet, a smile painted on her face as she watched the mental map only she could see.
"Not at all! Everything's purr-fectly fine over here!" she chirped in response. "Kaminari and Sero's team just ran into Class B's scare. I think Kaminari's scream scared off every bird within a kilometer. It was adorable."
A muffled laugh from Pixie-Bob came over the channel. "Poor kid. Still not used to this stuff?"
"He'll never get used to it," Aizawa intervened, his monotone a fun contrast to the Pussycats' energy. "Anything else to report, Ragdoll?"
"Negative, Aizawa-sensei," she said, enjoying the sigh of exasperation she knew he would let out. "Your kids' blue dots are moving in pairs, just as planned. My girls' orange dots are in position. Everything is under control."
Satisfied, she expanded her perception, a habit ingrained from years of experience. Her Quirk spread out silently, sweeping past the trail, beyond the camp, to the very edge of her range.
And then, they appeared.
A patch of dark purple dots materialized on the edge of her map with a speed and precision that chilled her blood. They were inside. They were inside the perimeter that was supposed to be impenetrable.
The humming died in her throat. The air caught in her lungs. The situation, once a fun game, had become a deadly threat. They were hunters, and the children were the target.
Her hand slammed down on her communicator button, the force of the impact nearly shattering it.
"CODE RED! THEY'RE INSIDE! I REPEAT, THEY'RE INSIDE!"
Her voice, normally a torrent of joy, broke into a raw, terrified scream that echoed in the ears of everyone wearing a communicator.
"Mandalay, answer me! They're in the forest!" she yelled, panic evident in every syllable. "Multiple targets, moving too fast! I can't read their Quirks, they're blind spots on my map! They're heading for the trail! They're going for the students!"
Her mind struggled to process the flood of information. The purple dots moved with terrifying discipline, splitting into smaller squads. They were ignoring their watch posts. They weren't heading for the main lodge. Their objective was unmistakable.
"They're hunting," she whispered to herself before shouting it into the communicator. "They're hunting the students!"
Her Quirk overlaid their trajectories, drawing lines of interception on her mental map. Her heart stopped. A group of three purple dots was heading in a perfect straight line toward a specific position on the trail. A position occupied by a single, solitary blue dot.
"They're heading straight for Midoriya's position!" she screamed, her voice breaking with desperation. "He's the closest one to their entry point! They're cornering him!"
She didn't wait for a response. She didn't need orders. Her purpose as a hero burned within her: to protect. Without a second of hesitation, she abandoned her post. She leaped over the lookout's railing, a ten-meter drop, landing on a thick branch with silent agility. Then, she launched herself into the darkness, a green shadow moving through the trees, racing to intercept the villains before they reached the student.
*****
At the starting point of the test, Ragdoll's scream brought a tense silence.
"What was that?" Inko asked, turning to Aizawa. The tone, more than the words, had sent a shiver down her spine.
Aizawa was already on guard, his body shifting from a relaxed stance to a fighter's in a split second. "Ragdoll. Something's wrong."
The communicator on Mandalay's belt came to life again, this time with Ragdoll's voice, clearer but just as terrified. "Mandalay, multiple villains! They've breached the perimeter! They're heading for the trail!"
The blood drained from Mandalay's face. "Villains... in the forest," she translated for those without communicators, her own voice a disbelieving whisper.
"Pixie-Bob!" Aizawa yelled, "Gather the remaining students! Get them inside, right now! Lock down the building and don't let anyone in!"
"Got it!" Pixie-Bob responded, her usual cheerfulness replaced by a grim seriousness as she began to gather the few students who hadn't yet entered the forest.
"Tiger, you're with me," Aizawa continued. "We're going to intercept them on the trail. Mandalay, use your telepathy to warn everyone in the forest. Tell them not to engage, to return to camp if they can, or hide if they can't. And tell them combat is authorized."
"I will," Mandalay nodded, closing her eyes to concentrate.
But Inko wasn't listening to the tactical commands. Her world had narrowed to a single question, a single fear. She grabbed Mandalay's arm, her fingers digging in with surprising strength.
"Where is my son?"
Mandalay opened her eyes, meeting Inko's gaze. Her face was a mixture of terror and compassion. Ragdoll's information was still streaming into her mind.
"Ragdoll saw him," Mandalay began, her voice trembling slightly. "He's on the trail... alone. He was in the individual study section. He's the closest to where the villains broke in." She paused, swallowing hard. "Ragdoll says... she says a group is heading directly for him."
Inko's world shattered. The sound around her became a distant hum, and the faces blurred. All that existed was the dark entrance to the trail, the place where her son had disappeared.
And then she ran. Her body moved before her mind could process it, driven by the primal instinct to protect her child.
"Mrs. Midoriya, stop!" Aizawa shouted behind her.
She ignored the shout. She ignored the danger. She ignored everything except the overwhelming need to get to Izuku. She ran into the darkness, a single, desperate purpose burning in her heart.
*****
Ragdoll moved stealthily through the trees, her feet barely touching the ground. Her mental map was a chaos of fast-moving colored dots: the students' blue dots, scattered and vulnerable; the villains' purple dots, converging relentlessly. Izuku's solitary blue dot was only a few hundred meters from colliding with the first enemy group.
I'm not going to make it in time, she gasped, pushing her muscles to their limit. Damn it, I'm not going to make it.
That's when she heard it: the clumsy, desperate sound of someone running blindly through the forest. Snapping branches, crunching dry leaves, a ragged and short breath.
She landed on the ground in an instant, dropping into a combat stance, ready to face whatever was coming. She expected a villain who had outflanked her. She braced for the fight of her life.
From between the bushes, tripping on a root but not falling, Inko appeared.
Her face was scratched, her clothes snagged by branches, and her lungs were fighting for air. But the intensity in her eyes made Ragdoll, a professional hero, instinctively take a step back.
"Mrs. Midoriya!" she exclaimed, surprise momentarily overcoming the urgency of the situation. "What are you doing? Go back to the camp! This is incredibly dangerous!"
Inko bent over, hands on her knees, taking two deep, shaky breaths. When she looked up, there wasn't a trace of fear in her.
"My son is out there," she said, her voice hoarse but firm. "I'm not going anywhere without him."
"You don't understand!" Ragdoll insisted, stepping toward her. "They're professional villains! You don't stand a chance! My duty is to protect you, and that means getting you back to safety!"
"And my duty is to protect my son!" Inko shot back, her voice rising, sharp and cutting. She stood up straight, taking a defiant step toward the hero. The kind, soft-spoken woman was completely gone. "You don't understand. I'm not leaving. If you try to take me back, I'll fight you. If you leave me here, I will keep running in that direction until I find Izuku or until one of those villains finds me. At least with you, I have a chance of finding him before they do. You can see them, can't you? With your power. You can see where he is."
Her eyes locked onto Ragdoll's.
"Take me to him. Now."
Ragdoll stared at her for a long second. She saw the truth in her words. There was no dissuading her. Arguing with her was wasting time they didn't have—time Izuku didn't have. And her hero's instinct perfectly understood that maternal fierceness. She made a decision.
"Alright," she said, her voice becoming hard and professional. "But you will stay directly behind me. You will not make a sound. And you will do exactly what I say, the instant I say it. Understood?"
Inko gave a single nod, her expression unwavering. "Understood."
"Good. Let's go," Ragdoll commanded.
And the two women, one guided by her Quirk and the other by instinct, plunged together into the danger.
*****
Izuku walked along the path, the beam of his flashlight dancing over roots and stones. Something was wrong. The forest had gone silent. The startled screams and nervous laughter of his classmates had died out, replaced by an unnatural stillness. Not even the nocturnal insects were making a sound. A deathly silence had fallen over the place, the kind of quiet that precedes something terrible.
"Hello?" he whispered into the air, the word sounding strangely loud. "Uraraka-san, are you around here? Todoroki-kun?"
No one answered.
Then, a strange smell reached his nose. It was sweet, almost floral, but with a chemical undertone that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
"Gas..." he murmured to himself, his heart starting to beat faster. His mind instantly flashed back to the USJ incident, to Kurogiri's mist.
Almost at the same moment, an unnatural glow flickered through the trees to his right, far in the distance. A pulse of bright blue light that illuminated the forest for a split second, casting long, macabre shadows.
Fire... he thought, his eyes wide. Gas and fire. This wasn't part of the test.
The attack had begun.
His first instinct was to run. He turned, intending to go back to the starting point, to raise the alarm. But the smell of gas was thicker in that direction. He could see a faint pink mist seeping between the tree trunks, blocking the path he had come from.
"No, no, no..." he coughed, a dry, harsh cough that scratched his throat. His lungs began to burn. He felt the edges of his vision growing blurry.
Panic gave way to a terrible realization: his isolation hadn't been a coincidence. The test of courage had been the perfect bait.
He tried to change course, moving deeper into the woods, away from the main path. But his legs felt too heavy, and the world was spinning. He stumbled on a root he didn't see and fell flat on his face; the flashlight rolled across the ground and went out when it hit a tree.
He stayed on the ground, coughing violently, trying to expel the gas from his lungs. The world swayed around him. With a monumental effort, he pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, struggling to stand. He looked up through the mist.
And then he saw him.
A huge figure blocked his path. It was a man, though his size and musculature seemed to defy human biology. He was over two meters tall, his body a mass of overwhelmingly dense muscle. He wore a gas mask covering the lower half of his face and a glass eye that glowed with a faint, sinister light in the dark. His arms were crossed over his chest, watching him with a predator's calm.
The villain leaned forward slightly, and a cruel, bloodthirsty smile formed on the visible part of his face. His voice was a deep, harsh rumble, loaded with malicious glee.
"Well, well. Look what I found," he said, his voice echoing in the silent forest. "A little lost lamb, far from the flock. Just the one I was looking for."