Chapter 9: Unforeseen Invasion
The bus ride to the Unforeseen Simulation Joint was filled with the bright, chaotic energy of excited teenagers. The students of Class 1-A, flushed with the novelty of their first off-campus exercise, chattered loudly, their voices a vibrant tapestry of boasts, jokes, and earnest questions. They were children playing at being heroes, blissfully unaware that they were speeding towards the end of their innocence.
Gaara was not on the bus. He was an eternity away, waiting in a silent, suffocating darkness, a single particle of sand in the vast, swirling void of Kurogiri's warp. He stood beside Shigaraki and the seventy-odd villains, a silent congregation of malice waiting for their cue. There was no sound, no light, only the cold, shared purpose that bound them together.
The students arrived first. As they stepped into the breathtaking expanse of the USJ, a massive domed facility containing meticulously recreated disaster zones, their excitement reached a fever pitch.
"Whoa, this is huge!"
"It's like a whole theme park for heroes!"
They were greeted by the Pro Hero Thirteen, the space-suited rescue specialist, who gave them a warm, introductory speech about the dangers of Quirks and the importance of using their powers to save lives. It was a wholesome, educational moment, a perfect picture of the heroic ideal they all aspired to.
Mr. Aizawa stood beside Thirteen, his usual tired expression on his face. "Alright, that's enough," he said in his monotone voice. "The exercise is about to begin."
And then, it began. But it was not their exercise.
In the center of the plaza, a hundred meters below the entrance where the students stood, the air began to shimmer. It was a small, dark smudge at first, like a heat haze on a black road. Then it widened, swirling into a vortex of bruised purple and inky black. It was a silent, unnatural wound opening in the heart of their sanctuary.
A hand, pale and gaunt, emerged first. Then a head of messy, light-blue hair. Tomura Shigaraki stepped out of the portal, followed by the hulking, monstrous form of the Nomu. Then came Gaara, his face an impassive mask, the gourd on his back an ominous, alien shape. And behind them, a tide of malice poured forth as dozens of villains emerged from the warp, their grins wide and their eyes filled with destructive glee.
The students stared, their excited chatter dying in their throats.
"Whoa, has the exercise started already?" Eijiro Kirishima asked, his eyes wide with admiration. "They even have fake villains! They look so realistic!"
Aizawa did not share his enthusiasm. His entire body had gone rigid, his hand instinctively going to the capture weapon around his neck. There was no playfulness in the air, no sense of a controlled drill. There was only the cold, sharp tang of genuine danger.
"Stay back," he ordered, his voice a low, urgent growl that cut through the students' confusion. He pulled his yellow goggles over his eyes.
"Thirteen, protect the students."
The students finally understood. The smiles fell from their faces, replaced by dawning horror.
"Those," Aizawa said, his voice dropping to a chilling whisper that carried the weight of absolute certainty, "are real villains."
Down in the plaza, Kurogiri's misty form fully materialized beside Shigaraki. He addressed the heroes and their terrified charges, his voice unnervingly polite and formal.
"Greetings," he said, his yellow eyes glowing in the gloom of his form. "We are the League of Villains. We have taken the liberty of inviting ourselves into this bastion of heroism, your U.A. High School, to have a word with the Symbol of Peace." He paused. "We were hoping All Might would be here. Perhaps he will join us if we give his students sufficient motivation."
Before anyone could react, the misty villain expanded, a fog bank of pure darkness that shot up towards the students. Several of them cried out, but the mist wasn't aiming for them. It flowed around them, engulfing the exit.
"You will not be leaving," Kurogiri's voice echoed from all around them. "My purpose here is to scatter you, and to torture you to death."
As he spoke, a villain with twitching antennae on his head grinned and activated his Quirk. In Iida's pocket, his phone went dead. The USJ's communication systems went dark. They were cut off. Trapped.
For a moment, there was only the terrified, frozen silence of the students. Then, Aizawa acted.
In a breathtaking display of courage, he leaped. He threw himself off the long staircase, a lone dark figure plummeting towards an army of over seventy villains.
"Mr. Aizawa!" the students screamed.
He landed in a crouch amidst a group of three villains. One, a large brute with rock-like skin, lunged at him. Aizawa's eyes glowed red beneath his goggles, his black hair flying upwards. The brute's rocky skin crumbled away, revealing a confused, fleshy man. Aizawa's capture weapon shot out, wrapping around the three of them, and with a series of precise, brutal movements, he slammed their heads together, knocking them unconscious in a single fluid motion.
He was a whirlwind of black cloth and calculated violence. He erased a laser-beam Quirk with a glance, used his weapon to swing to a higher vantage point, and dropped down on another group, his hand-to-hand combat skills utterly sublime. He fought not like a flashy Pro Hero on television, but like a seasoned special-forces operative, neutralizing threats with ruthless efficiency.
Up on the platform, Shigaraki watched the display with a detached, analytical gaze, scratching idly at his neck.
"Wow," he muttered to Kurogiri. "He's really good. Eraser Head. The hero who can erase the powers of others just by looking at them. But…" he paused, a slow, cruel smile spreading across his lips. "He's a close-combat specialist. That means he has to get near his targets. And he has a tell." He pointed a finger. "When his hair drops, he has to blink. That's his cooldown. It's a small window, but it's there."
Gaara watched, too. His perspective was different. He was not analyzing tactics or admiring skill. He was assessing resources. And from his cold, logical viewpoint, their side was losing assets at an alarming rate. The pawns that were meant to soak up damage and overwhelm the heroes were being dismantled with embarrassing ease by a single opponent. The plan, as it was, was inefficient. The variables needed to be changed.
This powerful, disruptive piece on the board needed to be removed.
Gaara's face remained a mask of calm. He felt no anger, no excitement, no desire to prove his own strength. There was only the quiet, cold imperative to correct a flaw in the system.
He raised a hand.