Chapter 27: USJ ARC Part 11
Bang Bang Bang Bang
Momo's newest gun, a modified Barrett M100, cracked the air as she killed her three new shadowy flying enemies around 650 meters away, the armor-piercing round killing the shadows with relative ease. She had dropped her previous automatic weapon for a sniper when the flyers started appearing. The winged shadows, unlike their ground-based counterparts, did not charge recklessly into gunfire or the range of her classmate's quirks. Instead, they stopped outside the effective range of their attacks to fly high and throw chunks of rock they took out of the ground at the bus.
Bakugo, Aoyama, and Tokoyami had managed to take care of them before any effective damage could be done so nothing came of the monster's attempts to be smarter and if Momo was being honest with herself, she felt that snipeing the flyers offered a very relaxing calm. When she was on her belly, focusing everything on hitting her targets, she felt the world around her fade into nothing but her and the shot. Hitting the mark effectively also gave her a sense of self-satisfaction which made her try harder to hit her shots more effectively.
This calm Momo felt with each shot did not mean that everything was okay for class 1-a because it was not. However, things were manageable. Momo got off her stomach to survey the scene around the class and saw the galant final stand she had always imagined taking part in as a child. Classmates united together, back to back, shoulder to shoulder, utilizing both guns (she had decided to spread the wealth after realizing most of the class had very little in the way of long-range attacks) and quirks to hold back an almost literal wave of darkness. Momo wished the situation wasn't so stressful but she would not complain if everyone made it through this ordeal alive.
Speaking of stress.
"Holy shit, it's a fucking army! We got an army of those shadow things heading to us from the north side," Mineta, one of the four members of the intel division, shouted into the class coms. More reports on coms followed suit.
"Shit," Sero cursed as he gave his report, also on the coms. "Thousands of flyers are approaching from the south. There's so many of them I can't see the ground with my drone. They'll be on us in minutes!"
Koda gave his report next with some of the stuttering but none of the quietness he was known for. "W-west side is the same."
Toru, the invisible girl, brought brighter news to the coms. "We have lots of shadow monsters on the east side but there are heroes too and they're fighting their way through the horde towards us! I think I even see Endeavor."
'Finally some good news,' Momo thought a bit happily as she dropped the sniper to pick up her assault rifle, made another magazine for the gun, and reloaded before speaking into her coms. "Everyone, execute formation C. We're hunkering down with everything we've got until the heroes get here."
Momo could hear the class shout in affirmative even with the sound of battle and gunfire all around. Ideally, Momo would have organized the class to make a push out of their current encirclement and toward their allies, the heroes, but she did not do this for fear of turning the class into easy picking for their attackers. Their enemies were strong enough to nearly topple a bus just by punting someone into it. A direct hit or multiple hits may even tear through an armored vehicle, not that she knew how to make one. Before today, she never had the lipids necessary to make something like an automobile so never bothered committing a design to memory, an oversight she would rectify very soon.
Even if Momo could escape by vehicle she would not choose to because the new girl had gotten too big to fit into any vehicle that wasn't specially designed for giants and so any plan to escape in a vehicle would mean leaving her behind, which was unacceptable.
While these thoughts were passing through Momo's mind, she and her turrets were laying cover fire on the members of the class who had to move around near enemies to set up the defenses necessary for formation C. A formation wich would concentrate most of its defensive power centered on which defensive power on the left and right (north and south sides) flank while leaving its front (west side) to the new girl and its back (east side) to the weaker members of the class like those of the intel division.
For a little while, the reorganization of the formation was going surprisingly smoothly despite the fact the class had not had time to practice it before execution. Then hiccups came, and a blaze and a fire erupted near the edge of the formation near the north side, nearly catching members of the class around it.
At first, Momo believed it to be the result of the new girl making a mistake, but then the coms came to life with Jiro's worried and frantic voice coming through it. "Class rep, Todoroki's got hit by a shadow and burst into flames, he isn't even responding to my voice!"
Momo was halfway through making an industrial fire extinguisher when Todoroki's voice came through coms. "It's alright," he said with clearly labored breathing. "I got overwhelmed by the pain and accidentally let his power out. But I'm fine now, Midoriya's power is healing me. You can continue with the plan."
Right as Todoroki finished his words, the flames died down to nothing in an instant and were replaced by a glacier of ice with many shadow enemies trapped within. Momo briefly wondered what Todoroki meant by "his" power but could not give it much thought as another person required her attention.
"Class rep," Mineta shouted at her to be heard over the constant gunfire. "All the defenses for the formation have been completed, they are all ready for you to activate."
"Just in time too," Sero spoke up as he pointed into the distance. "The new wave of enemies is here."
And it was like the intel division had said, there was an army. All around them was a sea of black, on both land and in the sky, and all of it was coming towards her, to them. Momo felt her heart hitch in her chest at the daunting sight and she felt fear and despair. She questioned how she was supposed to lead her classmates to safety against these impossible odds, against this overwhelming force but could not find an answer to such a perplexing question. She could see on the faces of many of her classmates they felt the same way, and not for the first time since she began leading everyone did she wish Midoriya was awake to take the burden of leadership off her shoulders. She very clearly wasn't qualified for such a position if she was reduced to her current state at just the sight of her enemies.
But lead she goddam would. With a shaky and unsure hand, she activated her coms and spoke with confidence and assurance she didn't feel.
"Everyone get in position, engage all defenses...and make sure to kick some ass, PLUS ULTRA!"
"PLUS ULTRA," was her classmate's response.
| Bakugo P.O.V |
The mid-afternoon sun painted long shadows across the battlefield, where Class 1-A found themselves surrounded by a seemingly endless horde of shadow monsters. The air was charged with tension as the class stood within the circle of metal barricades.
Even though the class rep's little speech had boosted the morale, Bakugo could still tell that the people were scared. However the same could not be said for him, Bakugo had worked to master his emotions for years after the...attack so that they would never again lose anything because of them.
The whirring of a dozen automatic turrets, strategically positioned to help the class defend the barricade and hold the line should any part of the wall be breached, made him look to the leader who set all this up. Atop the bus, surrounded by turrets and ammo belts, she stood tall and proud, face etched into one of determination, with a gun in hand and her ponytail waving relaxedly in the breeze. She looked like a badass to him, which increased his confidence in her ability to lead.
Momo had his respect, at first Bakugo had thought she wasn't going to be that much help, and that Izuki and him were going have to put in overtime with our elbow grease on to make sure everyone came out alive but then she had started busting out guns and turrets with live ammunition. That move alone was enough for Bakugo to acknowledge that he was wrong about her usefulness and that she was going to be an asset in fending off their attacker but then she went even further beyond that.
She gave their classmates guns to help those like Earphone Jack's girl who only had stopping power be more useful and give the close-range fighters of the group like shitty hair ranged capabilities. Naturally, most people would stick quirk instead of the guns but that was fine. The point was for them to have options, not necessarily for them to use it. Anyways, that demonstration of her ability and planning had skyrocketed Momo past him and Izuki in terms of Combat effectiveness. This meant if it came to it, and Bakugo hoped it didn't, he was going to prioritize Momo's safety above the others in the class.
Done with his thoughts, he focused on the horde that had now gotten closer to the class. In seconds, they would be in the effective range of the turret and then the battle would begin. Bakugo's crimson eyes glared at the approaching monsters. His fists clenched, ready to unleash controlled chaos in the enemy ranks to stop the barricade and the people manning it from getting overwhelmed.
The horde descended upon them, crawling over one another, reaching for the barricades. Then turrets began to unleash a storm of firepower upon the approaching tide of darkness. Bakugo, with his explosive quirk crackling with energy, blasted himself from the ground and got airborne. The flying bastards noticed him immediately and a huge chunk of about a hundred or so began to dive to meet him halfway. Bakugo smirked as he realized the flying monsters had not decided on their tactic of flying straight ahead to the enemy before he lost the smirk as he began to completely lock in for the battle.
When the bastards got within arm-length he lifted his arms to unleash a huge explosion that completely annihilated the one hundred flyers and the enemies behind them. This caused a small hole in the blotted-out sky but just like Bakugo expected the hole was getting filled up by more of the enemies.
This did not deter Bakugo though as had recovered from the recoil seconds later. Explosions erupted from his palms as he beelined toward the hole in the swarm. More flyers began to break off to deal with Bakugo but he was easily making his way through them. With a combination of evasive maneuvers with his explosion and acrobatic twists of his body, he avoided the many swipes and tackles directed at him until he was close to the quickly closing opening. Then on the final stretch of his goal to break past the swarm he was hit with a tackle from the back that nearly knocked all the air out of his lungs. If not for Izuku's healing it would have been much worse. But since it was not, Bakugo recovered quickly and blasted his shadowy attacker into nothing before reorienting himself mid-air with a flip that had unintentionally landed his feet on the face of another shadow which he used as footing to launch himself into flight. The hole in the sky was almost completely sealed up but Bakugo gave another powerful blast to propel himself through the tiny opening just before it was filled. Above the swarm, he turned around without stopping his ascent, and just like he thought, Bakugo could no longer see the ground, only the occasional stream of bullets pierced the black expanse.
Incidentally, the flyer who pursued him as he made his way up here had crashed into other flyers distracting them enough to allow a moment of respite but no more. Thousands of other flyers had noticed Bakugo climbing higher and higher into the air above them and he attracted the attention of thousands more by raining hell on their numbers from above with his rapid-fire AP shots.
Then just like Bakugo had planned, the flyers, like locusts, surged up toward him in pursuit. Seeing the unholy sight in front of them, most people, and even some pro-heroes would have run or at least have been afraid. But not Bakugo, there was nothing to fear for he had the high ground.
"Die," Bakugo spoke calmly as he processed to unleash full power blast after full power blast into the seemingly infinite swarm, decimating swathes of them like lambs to the slaughter.
The blast recoil was pushing him further up and away from Izuku's healing range which meant he could not keep his pest extermination efficiency up forever. The swarm however seemed it could because even though what he was doing thinned the black cloud below quite a bit -not enough to see the ground but enough that the turrets alone made huge holes in the swarm below- there was still no end in sight of these monsters.
But regardless, Bakugo would continue to fight for as long as it took to get everyone to safety. He would not lose anyone else again, this he swore.
| Kaminari P.O.V. |
It's official, today was the craziest day of Kaminari's life. Not crazy in a haha way or fun way but in the I'm facing down an army of shadow monsters with my friend's way. Right now, he was going full blast with his quirk tagging any limbs and body parts of the shadowy monsters that attempted to climb his side of the wall.
But despite everything, the fear, the anxiety, the mental exhaustion, he kept fighting the hardest he could. Nothing less than his best would be accepted by himself or the class rep, aka General Momo as he and most of them had nicknamed her. She had demanded Plus Ultra effort from them and they were giving the defence everything they got.
Ashido was hose-spraying her acid quirk over the wall, her quirk eating away at the monsters until they died. Kirishima, unyielding as ever, formed a protective barrier with his hardened skin to protect her from the odd flyer or shambler that made its way over the wall.
Kaminari could hear Jiro's sonic waves through the battlefield, every time he could he looked to the side she was defending to see if she was okay. Which she always was, her heartbeat sonic blasts were strong enough that the monsters stumbled trying to get close which allowed Tokoyami's Dark Shadow to combo with her and finish the enemies.
There were probably more people comboing their quirks but he didn't see them and he didn't have much time to be distracted. The monsters were relentless in the pursuit of his class's destruction. He could however see Bakugo or more accurately what he was doing to thin the horde in the sky. The constant booms and flashes so high up couldn't be anyone but him.
Thanks to Bakugo the sky had cleared up enough flyers for General Momo to focus more turrets on our side of the wall to eliminate the ground forces. Making the job of defending the wall much easier than before.
After minutes of fighting, which felt like hours Kaminari finally had the chance to look around again but this time, instead of checking on Jiro, he looked toward the class's glorious leader. He could see and hear Yaoyorozu coordinating the defense, her mind working tirelessly to adapt to the ever-evolving battlefield. Behind her Todoroki's signature multiple of Todoroki's now signature glaciers appeared, probably to create barriers to slow the advance of the enemies near his wall.
Then when Kaminari was distracted it happened, dozens of hands gripped the wall near him and started peeling it back like a banana. The process was slow but steady and Kaminari realized what was happening fast and panicked a little. Then with speed and precision, he didn't know he had Kaminari reached out and tapped all the hands fast peeling the barrier back, disintegrating all enemies touched.
"Kaminiari, what the hell," the voice of Kirishima called out to him, his classmate's voice sounding surprised.
"I'm sorry man I was just..." Kaminari immediately turned to begin apologizing but was interrupted by Momo on coms.
"Kaminari, what's going on with you? Has your quirk gotten stronger," She asked.
'Power increase?' The electro kid in question thought in confusion until he focused on his current output of electricity and realized it was higher than his current max. As a matter of fact, he felt like he wasn't even going all out. Not only that he felt...faster.
As a test, he raised output by about eighty percent and his perception started warping. Everything around him seemed stretched out, places further ahead seemed just a bit more narrow and electricity was arcing off him like crazy. Most of it went to the wall, zapping a monster he wasn't even looking at, but a few arcs strayed toward the bus and turrets without getting close. It was actually pretty fun to look at.
"Tuuuuurrrrrrnnnnn iiiiiittt dooooowwwnnnn," the Kaminari heard the voice of the General speak in his ear. Her words were panicked and slurred, no, slow but he heeded them and turned down his power.
"Kaminari," the general said with barely restrained frustration even as she kept shooting more enemies. "You can't have electricity flying into the wall or you can electrocute our classmates and fry the turrets covering your sector of the wall. "
Despite the reprimand, Kaminari was excited, happy even. He had finally become more than just a human-shaped cattle prod. And he was fast now! Probably thanks to Izuku aura or he would have fried his brain long ago.
Kaminari wanted to see what one hundred percent output looked like but if he did that behind the wall he would fry the turrets and hurt his teammates, jeopardizing everyone's safety. So that means he has to go outside it. The notion sounded crazy but the desire to see what was beyond his limits, to truly go plus ultra, outweighed any fear for his safety.
So with a smile on his face, Kaminari tapped his communication earpiece to talk with the general. "Hi hi Ms General Momo, this is Denki Kaminari speaking, I heard you loud and clear." He cleared his throat and continued talking while defending the wall with his quirk set to its previous unboosted level. "If being in the walls is the problem then I'm requesting permission to step outside it."
There was silence on the other end of the coms for a few seconds. Kaminari wanted to turn around to see what was wrong but he restrained himself and kept his eyes on the enemies.
Just when he thought General Momo would reject his request she spoke up again. "If you believe, beyond a reasonable doubt, that you're capable of handling yourself out there then I wish you good luck on the other side."
"Roger Roger," Kaminari confirmed with a wide smile as he started powering up again.
The world began to slowly warp and Kaminari felt himself getting faster. He got into a crouching position, thinking his enhanced body would make the jump over the relatively tall wall.
Just before he made the leap of faith, Kirishima started talking to him again from his position on the wall. "Kaminari, you sure you wanna do this? If you go down too far out the wall, I won't be able to get to you in time... You could die"
Kaminari, not wanting his friend to worry, put on an air of confidence he wasn't really feeling due to how objectively dumb what he was going to do was. "Don't worry, Kirishima. I'm not short-circuiting anytime soon, not after getting this new spark."
Then with unexpected physical prowess, leaped clear over the wall, yellow electricity trailing him, as he began powering up as much as he could. When he reached his proverbial ceiling the world slowed down, not to a crawl, but to the point that Kamanari could see everything before him as if it were in extreme slow-mo.
The horde of enemies in front, the hordes of enemies bellow, and the swarm of enemies above. Basically, the same view Kaminari has been seeing for the last ten minutes, just slightly closer while looking marginally further away.
The enemies below were moving at a snail's pace but still reacting to Kaminari. The arms were coming up to grab at him, slowly but surely, they would probably reach him in three to five business days. However, despite his joking attitude, Kaminari remembered something very important. He hadn't made any plans on how he was going to land safely in a horde of monster shadow people.
He had gotten all caught up acting cool in the moment that he didn't make a plan and just jumped like an idiot. Just as he was worried that he had jumped over the walls only to be torn to shreds, his lighting lashed out at every nearby monster and nearly instantly vanquished them. Clearing a decent-sized spot in the enemy ranks for him to land. When he touched the ground, his electricity pulsed out and cleared an even bigger area around him.
"Alright!" Kamanari shouted while pumping his fist. He was geeked out about his new abilities and wanted to see more of it.
As if responding to his will, his electric aura hand snaked out at any shadows who had gotten within arms reach of him, quickly and surgically destroying them. Passively, he was already taken out around a dozen or so and all he had done was land and stand still. However, while this power-up was great Kamanari wanted to test one additional ability more than the others. His speed.
Reaching up to the cosmetic glasses of his costume, Kamanari pulled them over his eyes with a cocky smirk. He briefly considered getting into the running position he had seen Lida use before dismissing the idea and using one he had seen kids in the track and field club use.
While he was doing theatrics, the shadows were trying to get close but were unsuccessful due to his quirk's newfound power creating an absolute field around him where no monster could exist. Though cm by cm the monster etched a little closer to him.
"Ready..." Kamanari spoke with excitement in his voice as he brought one of his knees up from the ground. "GO!" Like a lightning bolt, he took off, heart beating like a drum in his ears, nerve signals and neurons firing at speeds impossible for a normal human body. He was speed, he was lightning carving a path from heaven to the earth or in this case, carving a path through his enemies. Thanks to his aura, they couldn't even touch him. Hell, he couldn't touch them.
With every zip and dash, Kaminari reveled in the exhilarating speed, his laughter echoing like thunder. "Oh, what a day! WHAT A LOVELY DAY! HAHAHA!"
| Stella P.O.V |
Sitting at my control desk, I was eating popcorn while watching class 1-a fight for their life against impossible odds. Those impossible odds were just made less impossible thanks to the Kamanari of all people gaining some sort of speedster powerup and zipping around the battlefield like a lightning bolt. The kid didn't feel or know it thanks to the healing effect of Light Projection and the adrenaline in his veins but he's been tearing up his leg muscles, bones, ligaments, and nervous system like crazy from pushing himself so hard despite his body not being built from the sort of speed he's been using. It was anime as hell.
As anime as it was fucked up since I was sitting on my ass watching a bunch of kids fight for dear life while holding the one person who could save them all with relative ease hostage. Now, I obviously wasn't going to let class 1-A bite the dust just yet. Possibly get PTSD and debilitating injuries? Maybe but not killed. This was supposed to be a lesson for Izuku about holding back on the battlefield, not a torture session where he watches his classmates and soon-to-be friends get killed one by one until there all dead.
"Speaking of their savior," I said aloud while turning to face my leftmost monitor. On the screen was me in my matrix cosplay and Izuku sitting in the white world. Izuku was trying to convince me to let him out of the system to help his class. There was no audio coming from the screen but I didn't need it to hear what he was saying.
Aside from the fact I had other me there to hear what he was saying, I was the system, I was everything in this world from the popcorn I was eating to the chair Izuku was sitting on. Unless I decided otherwise, I would know everything going on in her no matter what it was
Right now, Izuku was trying to convince other me that I had to let him out or his friends would certainly die. Naturally, I knew better thanks to my handy dandy simulation program. It wasn't designed for one hundred percent accuracy in regards to telling the future because I hate the idea of manipulating fate and subsequently free will. Despite its limited accuracy, it was good enough to trust almost implicitly and the number looked good for class 1-A.
That was weird, considering they weren't going to get recused by the heroes- I checked- who had finally started making progress through Shadow minions toward USJ. I considered using the numbers to figure out how they would be fine but decided against it. Spoilers were for pussies anyways.
I drag my eyes back to the screen with Class 1-a to see that I had missed a lot in the few seconds I had looked away. Momo had placed a dozen more turrets all around the bus, and those were mostly focused on shooting down flyers to allow the students to defend the barricade from being overrun. She looked close to what I thought the Chainsaw Man's gun devil would be like before its big and nasty reveal with all the ammo belts that were coming out of her. The way bullet streams were firing into the air from the turrets made me think of AA guns trying to shoot down planes in WW2.
The horde of zombie-like minions from Shadow started smashing against the thick interlocking metal barricade that my scans showed me was made of titanium steel alloy which could weather the blows of the horde for a time before failing. The kids manning the wall tried everything they could to hold the tide back but if it wasn't for Izuki drawing considerable agro and scorch-earthing the bastards, none of their currently worthwhile efforts would amount to anything since they would be dealing with a full seventy-five percent of the horde instead of the fifty percent they are dealing with thanks to Izuki and the pro heroes trying to make their way to the class taking around fifty percent by themselves.
Right now, Izuki was getting swarmed by the horde and pressured due to their death by a thousand paper cuts strategy and having to look out for the class but this pressure was fueling her growth into a full-on dragon. Already she was much bigger than she was before in both stature and mass. She had an elongated neck, hind legs, and a deadly tail. The only thing left was for her two sets of wings to grow out and one pair was minutes away from complete.
I watched them for a bit longer as the situation for the class became more stable. The battle had gotten a sort of flow to it that allowed the shotty teamwork of the class to become nearly perfect and at the same time kinda boring. It had me wondering, what would break the cycle when a change happened.
BEEP BEEP BEEP
The simulation program had started adjusting the results, I looked above me at my upper monitor to see that the number suddenly didn't look so good for class 1-A. More accurately, the outcomes in which they survived started rapidly plummeting. In a few seconds, their probabilities of survival would plummet to zero.
I am not gonna lie, I began panicking, my fingers raced across the keyboard and mouse, rerunning, restarting, and resting my simulation program to no avail. I even went as far as cranking my simulation to one hundred percent accuracy and that didn't work. There were no external factors that were changing the numbers, at least one that I could detect, so I thought there was something wrong with the program and by extension me.
I should have been more worried about the kids and that their chances of survival would hit zero soon but I was too focused on myself. I was scared, was there something wrong with me?
All Systems Nominal
'Then why the fuck isn't the simulation working?'
Emotional State Of Host: Izuku Midoriya Is Affecting Output Of System Ability: Light Projection.
I took a breath of relief that it was not me mucking everything up before asking. 'How do I stop this?'
Completely Sever Mental Connection Between Host: Izuku Midoriya And His Physical Body
I can't do that. That going too far and without a consciousness to anchor his soul to the material world, it's possible it'll leave his body.
'What are other options?'
Forcibly Calm Host: Izuku Midoriya
Rewrite Ability: Light Projection to work without emotional input.
Replace Ability: Light Projection with a similar healing ability
Allow Host: Izuku Midoriya to assist classmates
Manipulating Izuku like that is off the table, changing light projection, and or replacing it as well. It's part of the healing process for Izuku. So that leaves the last one.
Letting Izuku off easy for jobbing in a life-or-death fight is a big no but wasting time requesting more solutions that will probably equate to my current options, just more complex, would be dumb. However, I still want to stand by what I decided so Izuku is going to have to fight to get back out there.
My focus shifted to the white void hosting other me and Izuku. He was still trying to convince me with words as force would be an impossible alternative. But I'm not interested in hearing all of that, so I interrupted in the rudest way I could think of at the moment.
"Wah wah wah, I don't wanna fuckin hear it," The suddenness of my outburst shocked him into silence. I suppose it would be a surprise to see someone who he thought of as a calculated and calm person suddenly become brash and loud -like watching Izuki act like a proper lady.
While he was still stunned I got out of the chair I was sitting in and got in his face and he stood up to match me. He was a couple of inches taller than me and didn't back down but I didn't care. This wasn't an intimidation tactic or anything like that, I just wanted him to look me dead in the eyes so he would know that me going back on my words or not letting him help wasn't me going easy on him.
"You want to help your friends? Fine, but I'm not letting you out of here." I spoke in a tone that brooked no quarter and I knew he knew that I wasn't going to budge.
"If I can't get out of here, how am I supposed to help them?" Izuku questioned calmly despite how he was gripping his fist in anger.
I grinned a devious smile when I spoke my next words. "Fight."
"I can't win against you," Izuku immediately replied.
My grin grew wider, but it did not unsettle Izuku even a bit. "You're not gonna be fighting me directly. You're going to be fighting my will."
Izuku looked at me incredulously before asking the million-dollar question. "How?"
"It's pretty straightforward," I said, taking a step back and trying to sound casual. "So, soon you'll get control over your body again, but not like you used to. It's gonna be like you're kinda half awake and half asleep, you know? One part of your brain will be in here, and the other part will be out there." I jabbed my finger at the screen showing the class and heroes battling Shadow thralls before carrying on. "This is how the fight happens. My will's gonna try to pull your mind entirely into the system, and yours is gonna fight to keep your mind in your body. We're basically gonna play tug of war with your consciousness."
Despite my leniency, Izuku's frustration was palpable, and he voiced it with a furrowed brow. "If you're some borderline all-powerful being like you claimed in the past, how am I supposed to stand a chance against you?"
I chuckled, appreciating the skepticism. "Easy there, I'm not planning on going all out. I'll keep it fair, using a level of willpower around yours. No need to worry about getting crushed right away. So, what do you say? Ready to throw down?"
Izuku shot me a determined look. "I'll fight."
"Good choice," I replied with a smirk, reveling in the challenge. "As a little bonus, I'll even give you some intel. Might come in handy to tip the scales in your favor if you still decide to hold back."
| Izuku P.O.V |
Everything was blurry, everywhere was loud, what was he doing here again? He was supposed to do something...save something...but he couldn't remember what, or was it who? Whatever it was he was supposed to do he couldn't do it lying here.
So he got up, it was hard at first, his body felt so sluggish that he felt like he was made of jelly or something. He felt like he should just lay down a fall asleep again. But something in him told him he couldn't. He had to fight. FIGHT!
With great exertion, he lifted himself from his resting place. His eyes and found that he could hear and see just a bit better now.
"Shit!" A familiar female voice above him said. "What's Todoroki doing?"
Izuku stumbled his way toward the exit of the...bus...he realized. He had nearly fallen over a dozen times on his way out. His head was throbbing and he felt his sense fade in and out constantly but he kept moving forward.
"Even after seeing how dire the situation is, he still won't use his fire! What about the new girl?" Once again he heard the familiar voice speak before it was cut off as his senses once again became unclear.
He kept stumbling, kept moving, kept fighting. Against what, he didn't know but he kept fighting it and soon his senses were getting better than before, and his motor control was also getting finer.
"Dammit! Why did this day have to turn out like this?" Yaoyorozu he finally recognized shouted over the loud noises all around as he finally made his way out of the bus.
With a flex of...something...he created a platform to float to the top of the bus. He had to talk to her, to tell her something but he didn't know what he needed to say no matter how hard he thought. So instead, he told her what he wanted to say.
"Itz okay," His voice was lazy and slurred and almost dismissable over the sound of fighting around but she and...Bakugo...he realized, heard him. Both wipped around pointing their weapons at him in surprise before realizing who he was and lowering them. " Waai? Cuz Iiimmmmz Hear!"
Both people looked at each other, then at him, then back at each other, before laughing. His vision and hearing were going fuzzy again so he couldn't hear or see what they were doing. Oddly enough, now he remembered what he was supposed to say. Pointing northeast of the bus he "....enemy on the other side.....if we destroy him....we will....we'll be safe."
More sounds he couldn't understand appeared around him, someone shook him, but he couldn't make out who. When his mind and senses cleared up again he could finally understand what was going on around him.
"Everyone on the bus, we are ending this now!" Momo shouted into an earpiece before focusing on him again. "Izuku are you sure about this? I'll follow you because your class rep and because I trust you but if you're wrong..."
She did not get to finish her sentence because Izuku, in a sudden moment of clarity spoke again, this time succinctly. "I'm sure. We can't leave yet. Have to stop it, they're attacking the entire campus and the city."
Momo nodded, her eyes expressing some doubt at his information but she said nothing and returned to helping Bakugo and the dragon cover the retreat of the class from the barricade as more enemies spilled in. Once everyone was either on the bus or on top of it in the case of Bakugo, Momo, and Izuku.
Izuku began to flex his power to make a platform strong enough and big enough to fly the bus but with his mind not all there it was a difficult and slow process.
"Oi, Izuku," Bakugo said through painfully gritted teeth while unleashing explosion after explosion. "We're going to get overran in seconds if you don't hurry it up."
Seeing how slow the life process was going, the dragon must have decided to take matters into its own claws because a second later it swiped both Bakugo and Momo into its hands and stuffed them inside the bus through a small hole in the roof it made wider but forcing its bigs hands through it. Then when it pulled its hand out it grabbed the underside of the bus and began flapping its wings two sets of wings hard enough to blow away all the enemies trying to crawl on it.
The lift-off was slow until the dragon began creating fire underneath its wings which somehow enabled it to fly higher and faster before heading northeast. The class had escaped their ground-based enemies but the ones in the sky, not so much.
Like ants, the creatures swarmed the dragon, tearing into its wings and smashing into the bus. The wings were healed easily enough thanks to the golden light radiating from Izuku and the creature's impressive regeneration so they were not at risk of crashing and the bus was being defended by the class the same way they had defended to wall. However, this could not go on long. The creatures were endless and unrelenting and eventually, the damage would pile on to the point of no return if left undisturbed.
Izuku had to do something but in his limited state, he could barely keep his healing up, much less make a useable shield. So he was only left with the brute force method.
Using his power to get on top of the scaly dragon's head he didn't bother saying anything, he just started to blast blasting energy attacks everywhere. That didn't last more than a few seconds before he ran out of energy for the healing light and his energy blast. Though it did clear the sky for a bit
The dragon, seeing the opening in the dark sky as an opportunity, flew hard toward it and through it before the flyers closed it up. Naturally, the flyers still gave chase but they were less annoying now that they couldn't dive-bomb them.
Then, as if to spite their efforts, the entire legion of flyers rose as one to form some kind of cacoon over them, casting everything into darkness. The dragon roared in defiance and let its flame explode to light the way but there was still nothing but darkness around.
"Is this it," Izuku thought as he kept fighting the sleepiness that was keeping him from utilizing his abilities properly. "All this fighting is going to end in darkness with nothing to show for it? No, this can't..."
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
The shockwave rippled through Izuku's senses before the deafening boom reached his ears. Despite the explosive power, the impact seemed strangely subdued, leaving everyone shaken but relatively unharmed. The enemies surrounding them had borne the brunt of the blast, inadvertently serving as a makeshift shield. As the dust settled, Izuku surveyed the aftermath, revealing a nuclear explosion that dwarfed any seen before, emanating from the former location of USJ. A chilling thought lingered – had the villains resorted to nuking All Might?
But dwelling on that question was a luxury Izuku couldn't afford in the chaos. Surprisingly, the explosion had an unexpected effect on him – a sudden clarity that cut through the haze clouding his mind. This was the moment to distance himself from the swarm, from the battleground, and track down the mastermind orchestrating the shadow army's assault on his classmates. The urgency of the situation propelled him forward, leaving the aftermath of the explosion behind as he sought out the perpetrator with a newfound determination.
All he had to do was use that ability and surprisingly it was pretty easy to do it despite the trepidation he previously held toward the power. With a sigh, Izuku closed his eyes and began to focus on the sealed-away ability he hated and everything that had gone wrong with his life until now to achieve maximum power. Then he called upon its, no, his power.
"Everyone," Izuku shouted over the turbulence, hoping to be heard. "Hang on tight and don't freak out."
Secret Unsealed: Shadow Projection
Darkness erupted from Izuku like a tempestuous storm, engulfing UA in its inky tendrils at a speed that defied reality. The night seemed to hunger for daylight, a ravenous force swallowing the campus whole. The city, too, succumbed to the shadowy assault as the monstrous tendrils extended their reach, giving Izuku an otherworldly, omniscient connection to every corner of the engulfed landscape.
Beneath him, the chaos unfolded as his classmates panicked, the once majestic dragons faltering in their flight, threatening to plummet to the ground in disarray. The urgency of the situation pressed against Izuku's every nerve, demanding action.
Summoning an immense exertion of power, Izuku used the shadows to transport his entire class, the bus, the floundering dragon, and the heroes who had tried to come to their rescue, along with All Might, back to the entrance of the campus. Simultaneously, he descended to the ground below, not going with his class in the hope of concealing his multiple abilities in a shroud of secrecy for even a little longer.
Then with a mere flick of his will, Izuku banished all his classes' shadowy assailants – both aerial and grounded – to the shadow realm, a realm of his power's creation, to be dealt with later. As the dust settled, he delved into the shadows to identify the puppet master orchestrating this malevolent symphony.
To his surprise, the mastermind behind the attack on his classmates was none other than Umbra, the notorious kid villain. Questions swirled in Izuku's mind about why Umbra would do this, his fatigue and frustration mounting. The mysterious lethargy that had plagued him earlier returned with a vengeance.
"It doesn't matter," Izuku growled with a combination of anger and exhaustion. "I'm ending this now!"
Just as he prepared to banish Umbra to the shadow dimension, the villain materialized right before him. Shock seized Izuku as Umbra, utilizing the same shadow-travel ability, stood mere inches away. An overwhelming lethargy blurred Izuku's defenses, and Umbra, raising his hand, began to speak cryptically.
"Help me, save me, save-," the shadow boy uttered before Izuku's reflexes, fueled by a surge of defensive instincts, yanked Umbra into the shadow dimension, cutting his plea short.
With all threats neutralized, Izuku allowed himself a moment of respite. Releasing his grip on the Shadow Projection ability, his shadow snapped back to its normal size in an instant despite how far it reached a moment ago. Fatigue overwhelmed him, and he succumbed to the mysterious drowsiness that had haunted him throughout the battle.
"What the heck was that kid talking about?" were Izuku's last words before slipping into a well-earned slumber on the desolate battlefield.
__________________________________________________________
A/N: Finally, only one more to go.
Thanks to for the stones Genskot, Minichip, and ICExAIS. Yall the best. See you in the epilogue
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone