These Stones We Skip

by miraimisu

Uraraka, as a newcomer to the most powerful guild in this forsaken village, had not only one, two; but three responsibilities: grow stronger until she was able to pin the world down, untangle the mystery that her past was and survive under the eyes of a crowd that watched over her as night chased the sun, the charade going on and on until the thread... suddenly snaps. [MEDIEVAL!AU]

10. Ch âp t r 1 5

[A/N ]: LISTEN I thought updating would take LESS BUT NOW I'M HERE A MONTH LATER WONDERING WHERE MY PACE WENT JBHFJEWDKWOSLP but well YEAH so like we got uh 2 chaps away, 3 including this one, and the one now is a RIDE I guess but that's my opinion ahaha with some nice and pretty kaccha stuff owo please stay tuned I love you don't get cranky! :D

---

"Miss? The lord wishes to see you." came a voice from the cerulean double doors, making the girl turn from the window to look at her unexpected visitor. "Shall I let him?"

Ochako wasn't used to these fancy, posh mannerisms. She had just gotten to this land and she was already being treated as the princess, as a deity she truly wasn't, which for some reason irked her. The impersonal and distant treatment she received here − albeit attempting to be warm− was so different to what she was used to.

Still, the girl decided to act politely and responded with a simple nod. "Please, do."

Ugh. That voice was so not hers, and she hated it. But Ochako had decided to cooperate, so she had to suck it up and continue to allow this charade to continue. She wiped at her dress − she had been playing with some tigers at the backyard and had covered that new dress of hers with hairs and mud− and waited for her guest to come in. Soon enough, a man she had come to know very well opened the doors, and the guard left in his presence.

"It's good to see you here, Ochako. You're surprisingly docile after all this time." his tone, surprisingly, held no cruelty, but held the venom of a reality he knew would make her flinch. She didn't, yet the flash of recognition crossed her eyes in a spell. "It's not like you are here against your own will, though. I'm curious as to why you came here, of all places."

Ochako's eyes shrunk in something similar to a frown, yet not quite as angry. "I have the same enemy as you do, right now." which was partly a lie, but she would play along that line. "I know what you two did. I know my friends, and you are not one of them."

"Well, that's just mean to say." Ochako hadn't noticed the door was open until he leaned back to close it, and it made her feel somewhat intimidated. She wouldn't back down yet, because for all she had of a sweetheart, she could also take her fangs out. "I thought you would at least be friendly to us. Aliens like you aren't taken lightly in this territory, but you still came and offered your head to me as if it was worth something."

The girl saw the manipulation attempt there. "You have heard me: I know what you two did, and I know the worth in these hands. If you thought I'd come to this place where I should have been murdered in sight without a plan and an idea of what I was getting into, you are sorely mistaken."

The man was clearly taken aback by this, but he still remained stoic. "If you know what happened, then I'm not sure why you're here, out of all places." it was a good point, she couldn't deny it. Ochako wasn't acting in the most rational way as of now. "You could have gone anywhere, but you must have something to do if you didn't run away."

"I'm not a coward."

"I know. But you wouldn't be a coward for running away from a divided territory that only wants to use you. In the end, you're no more than a weapon."

Ochako know this, she had interiorized it, but it hurt to be stripped from your human nature to be defined as just a puppet that would be commanded to destroy people. She wasn't ready for whatever plans they had for her, but she was forcing herself to be strong and carry out what she had planned.

Her fingers curled to a fist. "I know.·

"Then why are you here?" asked he in almost a sneer, as if mocking her for dragging herself around like a broken doll. Ochako could understand his curiosity. "What would drive a loyal citizen to treason in the wake of war?"

This was the part where Ochako knew she had to act candid and sweet, and lower her somewhat grave tone to one of the child she truly was. With that in mind, Ochako folded her arms behind her back in what seemed to be an innocent posture. "They lied to me, told me I was part of their family… I hate them." she mustered all hatred and disdain she could despite how fake it sounded to her. It was a real statement to a certain extent.

"So, you're choosing to be our ally in war?"

It was weird to see this little girl stand idle before what should be his mortal enemy, and as the captain of that side of war, he couldn't help but feel anxious about this war weapon turn so suddenly in their favor. Everyone could take advantage of this, and he knew her reasons were true and she wasn't lying, but the sudden turn in events made him suspicious− but mostly, he felt earnestly curious about this special individual.

He would take advantage of her for all time he could. It wasn't like she could actually turn against them since she was in the enemy's territory. If she was clever − which he knew she was − she would behave. Those aliens would know soon who Earth belonged to.

"I want to get back at them for what they did." she mused in a lower voice, yet all it was showing was the pure desire to destroy those who wronged and destroyed her family− unbeknownst to the man before him, she wasn't speaking the whole truth, and given the context, that would play to her advantage. "I will avenge my family. And I will do anything to achieve that."

The captain of this village was well aware of the fact that she could kill him on the spot. Her stance was stoic, innocent, like the scarred child she was. A part of him, buried deep within, felt pity for her. As soon as he remembered he would win the war with her by his side, that feeling of sorrow would be washed away as quickly as it came. The brief flash of grief was replaced with a small smirk of confidence.

"You will get them if you work with us. You made the right decision the day you bowed your head to the winner of war." now, he stepped closer to her with this smirk that gave off weird, creepy vibes. Knowing Ochako would remain docile, he even dared grab her jaw and tip it up to meet her eyes, which were hooded with a will to remain peaceful. "My. This sure will be a stellar battlefield. You'll carve the path of success for our kind. A misguided human leading the next generation to war. Ironic, right?"

Even after so much turmoil and devastation, it felt utterly wrong to be called out in her true nature− because to her, she would always be the weird alien, and never one of the humans that also collaborated in her family's execution. At this point, she didn't know what she was, what she wanted to be, but of one thing she was sure: she didn't want to be either of them.

Without realizing, her small hand clasped around the man's wrist in a silent warning, not meeting his eyes but putting in enough force to let him know she wasn't completely docile. The man sensed the danger blooming in her grip, and he let go of her chin abruptly, making the girl immediately relax when the true danger was gone.

That man could be terrifying with one touch. The whirlwind of negative emotions she had felt with a single grab could pin down a whole life of traumas and lies. "You're one of us at the end of the day. And you know this."

He was setting up to leave before Ochako spoke up again, hands bawled at her side with a frustrated expression, knowing things wouldn't be as easy now. "I can be whatever I want to be."

Regardless, the man didn't listen to her, and as he was leaving, his eyes landed on a table right by the cerulean doors, his fingers tapping a few papers on top of a golden table, right by a world globe and a quill with ink. He traced small circles along the papers, looking at them with a deep glint she hadn't seen on him before. "My master told me about gods, about ties, how everything ties together and then unties, all up to the gods above us watching us… the Seven Devas, the rulers of time and space…"

Ochako perked up at this, remembering that man that had helped her out of the mud, how their tones were laced with a similar washing of anguish and a drop of fear. It made her shudder lightly, hands to her chest as he spoke about things she didn't understand yet.

"They watch us," he traced a sharp diagonal line. "they judge us," he traced another horizontal line. "they forsake us. Or they punish us." he drew another, forming a whole triangle, all whispered in a low voice. "They are always judging. Perhaps they are judging your actions now and relishing at your change of heart. I guess your faith is in your own hands."

His last sentence was used as a warning that didn't fully reach her, but as the door closed behind him, all Ochako knew was that her heart was filled with dread and fear that hadn't been there before.

---

"This place is… huge! How the hell can there be this much space underground?" Kirishima's voice was itching with both surprise and a small fraction of fear, peeking from a wall down a string of stone stairs.

The cold, cobblestone walls were dimly lit with a red undertone, the walls cold to the touch. However, the warriors weren't sure if this was due to the evident humidity or their hearts starting to freeze in intimidation. Ahead of them lied a long hallway with bars to the walls and a few guards standing around, who didn't seem to be human. Not much seemed to be happening, so the Jirous hadn't noticed their presence yet.

Uraraka, who was leaning against the wall behind Kirishima, was cautious when speaking. "How many jails are there? If there are too many guards, work will get even harder for us."

"I would say no more than 10, but there must be more of them ahead. I doubt such big organization has this few hostages." yet, it could also be said that this organization didn't specialize in rapture, but the point still stood. "There's a lot of light coming from the end of the hallway, and I can hear some noise."

Kaminari and Uraraka had also heard that racketing that came from afar, and the fact that they couldn't count the number of voices there made it increasingly frightening. How many people could there be there? They had no idea about what they would encounter once they stepped out, they were right before the starting line but starting had never been so frightening.

To put it briefly, they were starting to get cold feet.

But they hadn't gotten there for nothing. "Jack could be working back there, assuming the factory chain is at the end of the hallway. They could be doing weird stuff with her like what you guys saw at the laboratory− or even worse." the blond gulped, eyebrows trembling in fear for what could be happening to his comrade− because he still considered her a friend. "We need to step out now! We can't walk away from this thinking we were a second too late!"

His voice was no more than a whisper but it transfixed his worry perfectly. Uraraka nodded in agreement, talking with a shaky smile, because it was hard to give encouragement at times like these, but she knew every bit of encouragement helped. "Then what should we do? I'm sure we can pull through, but we must plan this carefully."

Kirishima and Kaminari looked at her with a somewhat impressed daze, then looked at each other in decision. "Kaminari and I are short-range fighters, but you can take them out from here and, if possible, do it silently again. Being silent isn't our biggest priority, but if we can avoid workers from the factory running in, those are points for us."

Uraraka's narrowed eyes peered from the wall corner, right under Kirishima. "How can I immobilize them without making a fuss, though? There is more people around, and the space is notably smaller." she pointed out, whispering as she analysed their surroundings. "If you want me to go a bit more harsh, then I might manage. But there is really nothing I can work with here…"

Kaminari urged her with a frown. "We need you for this! There must be something you can use− hey! Maybe there are vines under the wall?" he suggested, recalling how she had used them a few minutes back in time.

But even Kirishima knew this was impossible. "I doubt those vines reach this deep below the ground. We have gone several meters under already, not many plants would survive here, right?" Uraraka didn't have an answer as eloquent as Kaminari's was, so she just nodded. "There must be something in here. The air is hella humid, can't you do something about that?"

They talked about her magic as if it was some sort of twisted alchemy, which in a way, it was− but it was also more complicated than that. She could transform particles in her body into iron, make the air go frozen, change body temperatures, but this particular trick had a very specific problem. "I can't really control water that well, but I bet Asui could pull it off. Making them drown would also make water reach the workers and alert them, though."

"It could also ruin the goods they got back there." Kirishima countered, looking at her with a small frown.

"We don't know how water works in those processes, so it's better not to risk it. Remember our operation's motto? Sharp, clean, and silent. As if we were stealthy assassins."

Kaminari gave her a small smirk. "Which you are. So you gotta figure it out." Uraraka turned to give him a mean pout. "I don't mean to pressure you, but we got no time to waste! Think carefully!"

Uraraka glanced at her surroundings and in two seconds she came up with a pretty botched plan. She gulped slightly at how risky it was, though. After all this time, the sorcerer was becoming more and more aware of how bad she was at filtering her power. She was plenty creative as her profession asked of her, but she had always been better at going all in like she had with Bakugou ages ago. Holding back was so much more difficult for her, being the blunt, hurried person she was.

She just wanted to get things done. And this circumstance was no different.

Uraraka's hand landed flat on the slate wall, as if trying to feel any sort of disturbance within the surface. She found none. It was as silent as a graveyard, and it felt cold to the touch. "I will try to be silent." she pressed her one hand harder against the walls. "But don't judge me for whatever happens back there."

"What do you−"

Uraraka's fingers curled into the wall, and with a grimace, she canalyzed her magic through the creases of the bricks, morphing them to her liking. She visualized her surroundings, the monster guards fooling around, where the jails were, how the walls felt under her hands, the lights, the blood…

Suddenly, there was a gross, visceral sound in the air of something thick and wet splashing on the floor, and then several thumping noises as the bodies collapsed to the ground. Kirishima, who had seen everything, widened his eyes and let them quiver in terror at what the sorcerer had pulled off so quickly, seeing the blood soak the stone floor and flow into the creases of the bricks.

When Uraraka spoke, her voice was small. "Did I aim well?"

Kaminari decided to look as well when his redhead companion didn't answer, and his voice came out in a shaken murmur. "Holy shit! You just beheaded them!" he said, mixed with enthusiasm for how badass that was but also horrified at the awful display.

Uraraka stepped out of her hiding spot to stand right at the entrance of the dungeon, fumbling with her wrist and cracking her knuckles. The crimson liquid was reaching her boots, making her grimace internally, but it didn't stop her. In fact, it only made her want to go further. "We need to tread carefully and quickly." she didn't even spare a glance at the decaying monster corpses. "Somebody could come soon."

Kirishima and Kaminari guessed she had gotten used to this bloodshed during her journey with Shinsou, yet this looked oddly gruesome for the ways she usually used with humans. Back at the main lobby, Uraraka had spared the guards' lives and only poisoned them into slumber, whereas these guys were… they had had a gross, brutal execution that didn't seem to click well with Uraraka's gentle but fierce personality.

"You sure went all out with these guys." commented Kaminari, earning a glance from the sorcerer. "You weren't as kind as with those guys up there at the entrance."

She remained silent. True, she hadn't. But, in the end, those creatures that lied dead at her wake were just ugly, evil and simple monsters. To her, monsters had no heart. To her, monsters were just that, monsters, aliens, and she wouldn't hesitate to execute whichever monster that stood on her way. She despised aliens, she hated monsters,

It didn't seem right to think that. Were those her actual thoughts?

Uraraka shook that little nagging thought away and continued walking. As she did, she realized with a great surprise that most cells were empty, and that the few people who were there were… actual children. One cell called her attention so much she turned in her step to see a small crowd of little kids cowering in fear upon seeing her, a bigger girl protecting the other three smaller ones. Still, she looked as terrified as the smaller ones did.

Kirishima stopped before them, too. "What's up with them? Did we scare them?"

Kaminari stood by Uraraka, looking at the children in slight worry. "I guess seeing a man be beheaded before you kind of sucks. Do you think the Jirous have touched them?"

The hunter's eyes sauntered down to see a few poorly hidden wounds on the girl's legs, who was growing more and more anxious the more time the warriors stood there. "The kids look feisty. They probably fought back and got a beating." he took a small step forward and gripped the bars. "Yo! Are you kids alright?"

"Back off!" shrieked the girl that protected the rest, fiercely scowling at them in a not so threatening glare. "We already gave you what you wanted! What else do you want from us now, huh!?"

Uraraka's eyes widened. Kaminari tried to explain themselves. "Be quiet, missy! We're here to take you guys out! Do we really seem to be some sort of mafiosi?"

A kid from the back perked up at the question. "Well… you guys look tough and… we've been here for so long, we don't want to be beaten up anymore." the other kids agreed. All of them had peculiar red or white hair and blue eyes, whereas the bigger girl had white hair and red streaks. Uraraka guessed they were around 10 years old, and their eyes were awfully familiar to her somehow.

"Please, let us out. We've been trapped down here for months after our dad… he…" the other boy's lips trembled in what seemed to be the reminiscing of a terrible memory. Uraraka felt sorry for them. "Please! We want to see mom again… he used us as stepping stones!"

Kirishima arched an eyebrow but was quick to hide his skepticism from the kids by turning to his comrades. "Do you know what they are talking about?"

The girl that was serving as a barricade for the rest stepped to the jail bars, her expression more relaxed but by all means not less urgent. "We need to get out of here. It's been so long since we last saw sunlight. Could you please take us out?"

Uraraka offered them a sweet smile and kneeled down to stand under her height. It was weird to see somebody with the title of assassin be so kind to a child. "We'll take you guys out and I'll heal your wounds." still down on her knees, she looked at Kirishima. "Can you break the bars open? I don't want to spend much magic before we get to the real deal."

If Uraraka was correct, Kirishima's ability made his body get harder than steel. He had showed her the very first day she came to that guild and it seemed like he could do it effortlessly. On cue, Kirishima's arms and hands hardened to the point they were sharp shards of rock, making her nod as he complied to her wish.

"These bars look nasty and rotten. Man, this can't be a sanitary environment for children." his hand wrapped around the bars, and the girl was prompted to pull away from them in case he decided to do something crazy. Soon enough, his hard skin was piercing through the obsidian bars and cracks showed up. "I'll probably have to ram in after I weaken these little guys."

Kaminari looked concerned about this idea. "Can you really do that?"

"Those bars look weak and bitten by the humidity here. It shouldn't take much more than a severe hit to destroy them." theorized Uraraka, running a finger down the rotting bar. "But it's good he is testing their endurance. We don't want a shattered Kirishima, do we?"

She said it with a light tone that still alarmed Kirishima. "I wouldn't break so easily! But… yeah, I think I can manage." he stretched his shoulders and took a few steps back. "Kids, stay far! I don't wanna hurt you, so back off!"

And with that, the boy ran straight for the bars with a gust of cold wind, ramming through the bars and making the cell's imprisonment shatter with the delightful noise of bars falling apart and breaking under the boy's assault, who crashed against the wall and landed with a hiss of pain.

Kaminari now realized that they had made an alarming amount of noise. They had been so moved to save the children that none of them dwelled on the secrecy of their mission.

The kids seemed mesmerized at the hole that had been pierced between the bars, and after so much time behind bars, they ran out of the cell with renewed joy as Uraraka urged them to come to her, green light issuing from her hands. While she healed the several bleeding wounds of the little children, Kaminari went in the cell to check on his friend. "Yo, dude."

"I'm fine." he mumbled, getting up and moving a bit the arm that had hit the bars. It hadn't hurt as much as he had expected. "It just stings when I overuse my ability, but I'm fine. Just peachy."

A few feet away, Uraraka's hand hovered over the girl's belly, where she had a pretty nasty bruise. "This one must have hurt a lot. Does it feel better?" Uraraka's demeanor was serious during this operation, but the kids didn't need that face of hers when they were scared to death like they were now. So instead, she tried to remain sweet and tender. "Do you know if there are any other kids around here?"

The girl inched a bit closer to the magic treatment, and Uraraka took the hint to intensify her cura. Then the kid answered her question. "We haven't seen kids be taken here, but we know the mistress is here. The mean woman took her here yesterday."

Uraraka guessed this mean woman was Midnight, but "Wait, mistress? Who is this mistress you are talking about?"

The little white-haired girl took Uraraka's hand and attempted to make her walk with her, so the sorcerer got on her feet to follow the girl as they sort of scampered through the hallway, stopping a few cells down. She pointed at the inside of the cell, and once the brunette also looked in, her heart started beating faster.

"Oh my God, Jack!" her hands gripped the bars that concealed the unconscious hunter from the outside, trying to break them absentmindedly. Jack was awfully idle and there were faint traces of blood scattered across the cell's space. The way light was so dimly thrown towards Jack's body made it look like there had been a murder there.

Uraraka prayed for it not to be the case.

"Midnight took the little mistress here and tossed her in. The noise that did was super gross." complained she, scrunching her nose at the memory. "My brothers were asleep when they took her here, it was super late." Uraraka tried to look further into the cell, but only darkness came through. "Can the rock guy take her out? She looked like a kind girl. She doesn't seem to belong here."

The girl was absolutely right. While Jack's looks matched this dumpster, her heart was too golden to be tarnished by the darkness under all the rubbish that Midnight had built out of nothing. Uraraka's hands started growing cold, but upon seeing she was letting her feelings take over, she let them heat up again, to the point the little shards of ice were melting along with the rust of the bars.

Uraraka, again, stopped herself from overusing her magic, and tried to think of any other way. Kirishima was probably done for now, she could hear him talk about how he would have to save his strength for later. Uraraka had to reach Jack and cure all her potential injuries. She couldn't smash the bars open like Kirishima had. The only way to enter without potentially hurting Jack was to be gentle.

Uraraka's hands started steaming again, and she grabbed two bars decisively. Soon enough, the metal hissed in response, blistering the brunette's skin. "What are you doing?" asked the girl, a bit concerned.

"I'm bending the bars open." retorted Uraraka, grimacing a bit and biting the inside of her cheeks. She had never applied this direct pleasure to a surface like this, and the pain she was feeling was all but inconspicuous. "Go tend your brothers while I−" the girl groaned a little as she started bending the bars outwards, her arms trembling as she did so. "There is a big cura in my right pocket. Take it and apply it on your brothers' wounds."

"But…"

"Don't worry about us." insisted the sorcerer, bending down a little to bend more parts of the makeshift opening. "Tell the blond guy to help you out with it if you don't know what to do, and run away from here. We have a group of people outside to protect you and the guards should still be knocked out."

The little kid's eyes shone at the prospect of getting out safely once and for all. Maybe they could even meet their big brother once again. "Miss, we…" her eyes closed, then opened in a stubborn determination to not let these kind strangers down. "we are very thankful. If we can ever help you guys out… please, call out for us!"

The sorcerer stopped with her task to watch the girl skip away from reach to aid her brothers, who were happily thanking a beaming but hurt Kirishima and fawning over his cool knives and his cool abilities. Uraraka let herself a small smile, and then resumed her task of bending it open like a specialized craftsman.

All of a sudden, somebody tried to help her bend the bars from up above. Kaminari was grunting above her. "I thought I was a bit more buffed up. I guess I'm a bit lanky still."

The girl stared at him in bewilderment for two seconds before resuming her task and smiling once more. Right as she did, there was some strained coughing coming from deep into the cell, making the girl speed up her ministrations and send all her work to hell, becoming too impatient.

She gave the bars a big tug that made access available, so she and Kaminari leaped between the bars and rushed to Jack's body, curled into a corner and still clad in her purple armor. "Jack! We're here!" called the archer out frantically in a whisper to not be noisy, letting the sorcerer cradle the body to her lap and inspection it. "What's wrong with her?"

Uraraka's brows were furrowed in worry, and her hands issued a warm green light settled on the warrior's temple. "I'd say nothing but a scratch. She looks pretty beaten up." answered Uraraka sharply, focusing on driving her energy into the fallen girl. Soon enough, she started stirring, which tranquilized the blond boy.

Jack's eyes fluttered open slowly with rapid bats of her eyelashes. "Uh…?" the ceiling was moving, all blurry and the noises around her drowned out in a distant echo. What was blatantly palpable though was the gentle touch of a very familiar sorcerer, as well as a gentle pressure on her right hand. She tried to prop herself up. "What…"

Uraraka forced her down again. "Stay down. We gotta take care of you. Does it hurt?"

Jack feebly tried to lift her hand up, and with clouded vision she saw her fingers were tainted with browned blood. "I don't remember much right now… my mind's a little foggy right now. Where… where are we? What are you guys doing here? You can't be here−"

Kaminari's hold on her hand tightened a smidge. "Midnight threw you into prison for some reason. We came here to take her on and take you out."

Upon mentioning her name, her eyes blew open and she winced to get up, breaking Uraraka's spell and making her temporary nurse pout in annoyance. "We're at the prison… so we are close to the factory! We need to take the opportunity to destroy that!"

Her urgency broke Uraraka's pout. "Calm down, we had planned to do that already. It's actually one of our main missions here. The rest of the guild is guarding the fortress and looking for your mother."

The brunette used the term 'mother' purposefully to see what reaction she would get from the hunter, who didn't really seem to mind their friends going against her mother. This revelation made the task easier for her. Uraraka had all intentions to make Midnight bow before her, no matter what it took.

Jack held one side of her face with her hand, trying to remember, eyes closed and expression grim. Flashes of recognition and memory spurted within her, and the panic from before grew significantly. "Midnight… she… we need to stop her! Today is one of the last days before she... "

Jack trailed off after this, but before Uraraka and Kaminari could pry any further, Kirishima came to the cell and pointed at the end of the hallway. "Those guys are starting to make some darn noise. If we don't make a move, they'll make a move on us first." Kirishima had come to a troublesome conclusion when he saw workers start making more and more noise. "We never really took into account that these guys also change shifts. And we don't know when they will−"

"They don't change shifts." confirmed Jack. "They are trapped down there. I never got to see what goes in at that demonic factory, but it sure ain't pretty. Mother talked about them all the time with her subordinates. She probably didn't think anything of me being in the same room." her expression turned defeated. "She can be so naïve."

"What are you even doing here?" asked Uraraka, lending Jack a hand to get up. When Uraraka tried to put a hand on the girl to cute her further, the black-haired hunter rejected it with a shake of her head. "You are part of her family, aren't you? And you came here on your own."

She didn't mean to sound accusatory but for some reason Jack seemed hurt by that statement. "I'm… sorry for that. And I promise I will explain later when it's over, but you gotta trust me on this. I can help you guys, I know… I know how to defeat them."

The three sharply turned to Jack when they were exiting the cell. "Say what?" exclaimed Kaminari in shock. "How?"

"I have been trying to get down here to investigate what went on down here, but I was always met with guards wooing me to back off because this was no room for little ladies like me. Bastards." Jack seemed angry, even if this was supposed to be her family. It totally didn't seem to be like it. "I know some things about them for what I heard from Midnight."

So Jack had come here just to spy? Because that was what it looked like, as if she had only come here to sneak in and feed information when the time came− yet with the even twist that she had been thrown into prison before she had been able to get out. Uraraka wanted to believe that, because she was a bit too naïve to think badly of a dear comrade, but also too kind to believe somebody relatively close to her was a traitor.

"Midnight told me those machines or whatever are incredibly sensitive to heat. Us Jirous have incredibly sensitive skin, specially with hot temperatures." she explained. But this was something everyone already knew. "The quickest way to destroy the place is to burn it to the ground."

There was a bit of silence. That plan seemed to be too easy to not have a big BUT at the end of it. "But?"

"This building is in extreme decay." yeah, the moss and humidity that clung to the walls was a pretty telling clue of this. "The underground could come crashing down with the change of pressure consequent of the heat. I can't say we would be trapped down here to burn with the fire, but it's definitely likely."

The warriors gulped in response and shared a look with each other. Being burnt to death in a decaying humid furnace didn't seem… enjoyable. Uraraka had used her whole body as a fire bullet and while the experience had been bearable, it hadn't been pleasant. Thinking of reviving the same thing again but on a higher scale brought chills down her spine. "Isn't there any other way?"

"We could manually break down all of it, but it's all too complicated and we could risk blowing up something. A moderated quick fire could kill all of it fast, but we wouldn't be able to make it out in time most likely."

Kaminari blinked, and soon enough, Jack was walking out of the prison, clutching her shoulder as the rest followed her to the end of the hallway, right before the factory's stairs down to where the madness lay. The stairs were incredibly steep, so much so you could fall over, glued to the rock mossy wall and sinking deeper and deeper to the floor below. The factory lay approximately 10 meters below prison, the fervor of workers working below echoing to the warriors' ears.

"We wouldn't make it in time," there was a high-pitched feminine laugh coming from among all noises. "because they'd make sure we burnt down with them."

Kaminari took a step back, taken aback by the views. "The stairs are… so steep. And there's so much people in there! There's even a monkey swinging about!"

"That's not a monkey." clarified Jack, squinting her eyes at the dreaded little girl. "That's Toga, Toga Himiko. Her being down there is bad news."

Kirishima looked skeptical about this information, peering over the edge with an arched eyebrow. "She looks pretty soft to me. She's only bouncing around, how old can this chick be?"

It shouldn't have surprised them when Uraraka spoke about this matter. "I've heard about her. She's not good news." her other peers looked at her, curious. "She's a pretty skilled illegal assassin. A pretty sadistic one I'd say."

Kirishima seemed pretty freaked out by how certain she sounded. "Geez, how much shit did you study before coming here? Have you been to war or something?" nobody said anything else, but their perplexed looks were self-explanatory about their agreement with the redhead.

Uraraka became mildly flustered, and pouted at how mean he sounded. "I didn't! But one's gotta do their homework before coming in. Besides, while I was travelling around the country, I heard lots of nasty rumors about her. Jack must know more, though."

"Well, whatever creepy story you heard about her is likely true, she can't stay idle for too long. Midnight usually gives her the worst and dirtiest jobs when she doesn't want to bother cleaning up a crime scene, and Toga rarely complains." explained Jack, arms crossed and seeing the girl talk excitedly to the other workers. Knowing her, she could either be making friends or plotting to kill them. "If she is down here, whatever they are crafting now must be important."

Kaminari patted her shoulder. "I guess you're the one who should know. You've been here for longer than us."

Most of the lines each of the delivered relating to her Jirou blood were often born to be kind but always sounded very double-edged. It irked her, but they were cooperating with what they probably thought to be a traitor. She couldn't really complain.

"They are probably just working on another batch of gems. There are no monsters around here though, which is strange. I'm sure I've seen mother bring some nasty creatures down here." the hunter looked around in suspicion. "They must be hidden somewhere. I'm sure that if we burn the factory down, the monsters will die, too."

Uraraka remembered something right then. "Jack, we heard a secret passage is being made between the Capital and this lair. Could it be the passage is already finished?"

"Mother never told me about it being finished, but I know it's at least halfway done." responded she. "I doubt they'll ever go through with it, considering the terrain is pretty root-ridden from the forest. I wouldn't call it an impossible mission, though."

"So I guess the monsters couldn't be there, right?" asked Kaminari.

"No. Mother wouldn't leave her precious good under a crumbling roof, she's too cautious to let that happen." her expression became pensive. "We need to burn this place to the ground. It's the only way we can finish this trade forever."

"But you said it was too risky!" exclaimed Uraraka, surprisingly enough moved to panic by the idea of those flames consuming them. "How are we supposed to light a fire without neither us being killed or them trying to put out the fire?"

Jack remained silent for the next two beating seconds. "Not all of us need to remain down there. When the fire is thriving, we must escape. But somebody must stay down there to make sure everything burns down. We can't check from up here, and if we don't fulfill our task, it will all be in vain."

The three foreigners shared a complice look. Jack talking about people risking their life and making the situation worse than what they expected was highly suspicious. Uraraka's eyes were narrowed in faint suspicion, but the three concluded they hadn't come into war with a dark clan to back off now. They had risked their lives before, this was no different. And at the very least, all the goods down there would be destroyed, even if it took their lives.

"Would we even make it up those big stairs?" asked Kirishima, pretty doubtful. "The whole place would burn, and you said everything here is sensitive to heat. The flames would take over everything."

"We got no time to think about the what ifs." reminded Uraraka, frowning and imagining how chaotic this could get. The possibility of a breakdown was getting more and more possible in her frantic mind. "We need to take action now. How are we supposed to do this?"

Jack pointed at a door right before the steps to the factory. "There are worker uniforms in there. We gotta take those and sneak in. However, the moment we set it on fire, it has to be wild enough for the workers to either be killed on the spot so nobody can escape or put the fire out. Those guys must be ready for anything."

While Jack spoke, Kaminari had already headed to the closet and taken out the black uniforms, holding them up and offering them to the gang. "Then what are we waiting for? If we are gonna march into death, at least let it be quick!"

Those were not the right words for this situation but they were all somewhat grateful for his light-hearted spirit. The uniforms were on a minute later, disguising their tarnished robes, and they quickly put their working hat on to conceal their faces and hid their weapons under the buttons. They started their march downstairs, somber.

Toga didn't even mind them. Instead, she focused on the ones who were frantically taking gems out of the furnaces, kicking her feet against the stone of the oven as she sat on top of it. "You guys are so slow! And you still wonder why the Madame wants to use you as cute little pets? Be faster, or I'll feed you to the fishies~!"

The small workers below her feet nodded frantically and their shaking frames put out a bigger effort to take the gems out faster, some of them even burning their hands. When the gang arrived to the workplace, Toga hopped off the furnace. Her black heel-less shoes swatted off some dust, her black and golden cape dangling off her slim shoulders. "You guys are late! What took you so long? These guys are super slow."

Kirishima saluted obediently, and the other three followed suit. "The young mistress needed food! We took a bit too long to feed it to her, we're sorry."

Toga took out a black and gold fan with gleaming golden hearts from her cape and opened it, covering her mouth and giggling. "Don't sweat it! Four dogs more won't really make a difference, just try to not piss me off or else!" she then hit her palm with it and smiled at them, turning to show them where to work. "Follow me~!"

Uraraka blinked several times and tugged her cap forward, tipping it and looking at Jack. "She's fairly nice. Maybe a bit annoying."

Jack's expression didn't change. The four disguised workers walked in a beeline to another furnace, where Toga had stopped to supervise others' work. "Just wait until somebody messes up. That fan isn't only to cool herself down."

"What do you mean?"

Suddenly, Toga's fan snap closed and turned into a butterfly dagger that stabbed one of the elder workers and left him bleeding and convulsing on the ground, her smile never wavering and a foot of hers digging into his shoulder.

"Tch, what a little loser! You broke one of the Madame's ice gems, and you still apologize? You know we don't allow any wimps in!" she made the bleeding corpse roll over, and scrutinized the wound with piercing golden eyes. "You two, take this fella' to the chamber. We should find him and the rest some use, right?"

Her beaming smile was terrifyingly creepy, so much so the workers obeyed in a heartbeat and carried to poor body off to a wooden door at the back of the factory. The heavy door swung open to reveal a dark room where the workers disappeared, and the rest of the crew continued their work, this ghastly murder forbidden. Toga licked her dagger clean and opened her fan again, shoulders shaking in another fit of laughter. "What a mess!"

The four guildmates shivered, but Jack was already used to this woman's shenanigans. "Told you to not take her lightly. She is an expert at this sleek assassination, so you gotta tread carefully." the Jirou hunter adjusted her cap. "Let's stay low for a bit 'til this calms down. Maybe we could hijack some furnaces to create confusion."

Kirishima walked to Jack's side, frowning profusely. "We are right under that sadist's eyes! I bet she won't let us move an inch, her eyes are everywhere." the girl still cackled and shook as the body disappeared, whipping around to flash her golden eyes at them. "She's so damn creepy, dude."

"What are you all staring at? You're gonna grow some nasty roots and bugs if you stop and stare!" she beckoned at them to follow her again. They gulped and did as she asked, their eyes shifting around the area to find a weak spot to strike. "Today is a busy day, you see. Some weaklings also come looking for easy profit. Don't try to steal any shiny stuff, or else."

They had none to zero interest in getting gems before, but now that Uraraka thought it, Asui could have an interest in taking a closer look at these gems that were at their prime. It would be hard to do so, but they could even get to use them against Midnight too, if they were lucky.

Toga eventually led them to a rectangular slabstone furnace. Flames roared from within, cracking with the heat and breaking the wood underneath. Being in close proximity to the heat, Toga started accordingly fanning herself. "Well, you guys should know the drill. Get the unprocessed ugly cores into the furnace, bake them real good, then polish them nicely! We can't have unstable raw cores, or our little monsters would die immediately! That would totally suck, wouldn't it?"

Uraraka stepped close to the shiny unprocessed gems. They had gleaming little galaxies within them, which were swirling very slowly. It did seem to hold a great deal of power. The sorcerer took one of them and carefully tossed it up and down with a hand. "So heat makes them stable?"

"It's all science mumbo-jumbo I don't really understand. The Madame said they grow some sort of nice thick layer of crystal that holds the power better, it's some sort of weird reaction. But it's not your business!" she pushed Kaminari and Kirishima closer to the furnace. "Chop chop! Go do your stuff! Remember that if you don't complete your quota, things will get nasty for you~ make us Jirous proud!"

The blonde walked away from the group, leaving the trails of a shudder running down their spines. It felt like the undercover mission had transformed into a compromise with this forsaken family. Jack frowned. "Right, like that girl belongs to my family. What a pain."

Uraraka took a few gems and threw them into the iron grid that lay in the flames. Soon enough, she could hear small cracking noises. "How much do we gotta bake this for? She didn't even tell us how much we had to crystalize them for!"

Kirishima looked back to see Toga hopping around in search of another victim. "She doesn't really shine for being professional. I guess we'll have to work while we figure out where to attack, this place looks hectic as hell."

"Yeah, it isn't as busy as it is today usually. It's hotter, too." Jack tugged at her collar, trying to get some air into her body. "We need to think fast. Just the thought of how hot this will be when this place burns down is making me sweat even more."

Uraraka couldn't agree more. She had felt the fire stick to her skin and clothes before, like a phoenix in flight, but it looked like once the fire was set here, the phoenix would be trapped beneath the smoke and rubble if things went wrong. They had to be careful. Much to their chagrin, their battling uniforms were making their bodies boil an extra lot.

They would end up trying to figure out a solution out of sheer desperation. Kaminari grimaced. "I'm gonna melt at this rate." he knelt down next to Kirishima to observe the gems baking while Uraraka inspected the raw ones, now looking at the boys. "I think our best option is to sabotage the furnaces. This place doesn't seem to have much more than furnaces, tables and creepy-ass drawings and shit. I don't even wanna know how many bodies are in that room at the back."

Jack gulped. "I hate to say this, but they are probably being used to stuff the gems in. If we burn this place to the ground, we'll probably give them the happiest ending they can get at this point." she looked around sneakily. "If we create a big intense fire, they will probably run away. You guys got people waiting outside, yeah?"

"I don't think we will need to execute these people. These guys look more like hostages to me." responded Kirishima, making the crystals shake with the handle of the grid. "If they run away, Mina and the rest will probably notice and let them go. I don't know what will happen with that Toga girl."

Uraraka placed the raw gem on the tray by the furnace carefully, musing over how smooth the surface was. "I'm guessing she will try to run up the stairs. But we can hold her back if we make it out of here faster. Or maybe she will stay down and burn herself to death just to hold us down."

Kaminari arched an eyebrow as the blonde wacked one of the workers with her fan. "She doesn't seem to be very bright. She looks more like the scaredy type."

"She's an A class assassin. Again, don't take her lightly." knowingly, Jack looked into the furnace, nodded, and took the grid out to dump the steaming crystals on a basket at the other side. She offered the grid to Uraraka and the sorcerer started placing more gems on it. "But we need to act fast. We are just wasting time by staying idle."

"What will we accomplish by attacking the furnaces, though?" asked the blonde archer, helping Jack pull the gems in. "These are just furnaces."

Uraraka frowned, patting the big furnaces. "They aren't just furnaces."

Jack arched an eyebrow. "Oh, you noticed too?"

"Noticed what?" asked Kirishima, crossing his arms.

"You can't magically make gems become properly functional with just heat. Physics ain't that easy. I'm sure Midnight tried to woo Toga into thinking that just to not bother explaining, but I'm sure there's a big mass of energy contained within these, as if they were tanks." if she focused, she could feel a large mass of corruption radiate from beneath the walls of stone. "It's heat, and a surplus of energy. I'm sure these will react to the excess of heat, as they are pressured inside the furnace."

"So they will… explode?" asked Kaminari, grimacing at the prospect of this weakly assembled place trying to withstand such explosions.

"I'd say so." responded Jack, inspecting the seemingly harmless furnace. "If we attack one furnace with a strong blow of fire, they will probably become unstable and explode. The surge of heat could trigger a chain explosion with the rest of furnaces. This… could be a nightmare, but very possibly a success, too."

Kirishima winced lightly as he imagined the place crumbling and burying everyone (potentially him and his comrades too) under the debris. While thinking about that, he looked up at the endless ceiling. "Wouldn't the floor of the whole lair break down? Wouldn't the whole lair crash down on us?"

Jack's arms were crossed as she followed Kirishima's eyes. "Not necessarily. The ceiling is pretty thick, you have seen the deep stairs you had to take to come down here, right? I'd say only the ceiling of this cave would fall down on us."

Kaminari let go of a small gem he was polishing to shriek. "Hold up, so we are considering being lapidated in here?"

"We can't really overlook any possibilities." pondered Uraraka, looking up as well. She could tell the ceiling was already presenting signs of decay, based on the small peebles that would fall of occasionally. The heat here was already brewing some nasty pressure, even her delicate ears could feel it. "But we need to act as soon as everyone is distracted."

Jack looked around again after taking out the tray of freshly cooked gems. Toga was walking around in their direction now, prompting the new workers to hide their faces better and mechanically continue with their hazardous work. The blonde treaded close, and inspected their work for a minute in which the guild mates felt her golden stare on their necks. Everyone was sweating, waiting for her to say something.

Soon enough, Toga broke the tension with a sigh. "Ugh, work is so slow today. Nobody's getting anything done properly either, this sucks!" lamented the girl, and the rest could exhale in relief that she was just there to whine about her labour and not scold them for whatever bullshit her twisted mine could fabricate. "Anyway, how are our babies coming? Are they bakin' good?"

"I would say so." responded Kirishima, knowing perfectly that if Uraraka or Jack spoke, Toga would most likely recognize the voices of a known Jirou member and a skilled national assassin. "It's getting pretty hot here, though."

"It always does." she stated, somewhat annoyed by that. "And we gotta drag these robes around− they are super fancy and shiny but they are so warm! The Madame could have spoiled me a bit and bought us something thinner to wear!"

"Us?" asked Kaminari, pulling his attention away from the furnace and letting Jack take over.

The blonde nodded with a smile, her eyes somewhat glimmering. "Yeah! Like, us officials have these elegant things to wear. The Madame even got me a fan matching with hers, everyone has these capes and… they are fancy, but they are so annoying when your shift is down here."

Jack frowned at this information. Mother didn't seem to care much about her workers, which was odd considering how much of a businesswoman she was. It wasn't in her to be so careless about the people she had under her strings.

"Anyways, you guys better hurry and get your batch done. The faster, the sooner you go home!" smiled she almost kindly before skipping off to her next victim. Her last sentence made everyone attending the furnace grow cold, looking at each other, puzzled.

Uraraka's eyebrows were trembling, her eyes slowly scanning the batch of workers around them. "Hold up… they are not hostages?"

Jack has severely misestimated the situation. "I refuse to believe people come work here willingly but… could it actually be?"

"No, impossible." Kaminari gulped as he saw one worker collapse out of exhaustion, making others swarm athim with haste. Toga didn't even take a step in their direction, she just opened her fan and giggled. "If I saw this everyday I would quit it right away."

Uraraka's eyebrows sunk in suspicion. "I'd say these guys probably can't quit. The Jirous are also known for being skilled extortionists." she didn't realize she had said it right in front of Jack until a second has passed, but the hunter didn't seem offended by the statement. "Let's get into it right away."

As Uraraka tugged her gloves on even further, Kirishima regarded her with a lingering question. "So we're gonna do it now? And you are gonna do it?"

Uraraka blinked at him as if those questions had the most obvious of answers. "We can't keep on fooling around. If we lose this battle and the Jirous continue making business after this, all gems they get done will make the future situation worse. Also, I don't think any of you guys can make a proper fire."

Jack took a step back, and Kaminari followed suit. She smirked playfully. "You're saying it as if we didn't know how to start a fire in a forest."

In the midst of the busy day and the blistering heat in that factory, nobody noticed Uraraka lighting her hand in flames. To any stranger, she was probably just fueling the fire, but nobody knew better and thus, nobody was there to stop the madness that was about to ensue. Uraraka's eyes gleamed in orange, and before long, she threw the flames against the furnace.

It was a cracking battle between the two energies, Uraraka's and the corruption within the furnace, before the magic core overloaded with heat and a chaotic explosion rippled through the factory, knocked the various workers out of orbit, the fire soaring and setting the gems and the papers around on a wild, hellish fire.

However, as the sorcerer tried to pick herself off the ground and the people around her started squirming in anticipation, shaking the blur of the explosion in her sight off, she could distinctly hear the dreadful noise of the few gems they had crafted cracking as well as they reacted to the sharp increase in temeprature. While Uraraka couldn't see well yet, she could drown out the havoc around her to hear how the energy started being released.

She had made a gross miscalculation. An incredibly big and gross one.

As her eyes zeroed on the tray of gems that were shadowed by the soaring wildfire, Toga quickly came to inspect this. Her dagger was already out, as expected. "What the hell did you do!? Madame is gonna kill us for th−"

Before long, another bigger explosion boomed before them, but this time it reached even further and the flames reached the next furnace, which started cracking at the unstable activity and consequently exploded, along with the gems it held inside and the few other furnaces that were to come. The fires were spreading easily, the temperature was rising to a point it brought the word "hell" to mind.

Most workers had started running away after the first explosion and were making their way up. Toga and the guildmates had been knocked out shortly after the second explosion, knocked back and hitting some debris that was starting to fall down onto the factory. The place was, as predicted, starting to crash and fall down. However, the remaining people lay motionless in the heat and dangerous ground.

The first one to wake up was Jack, who was able to shake Kaminari awake. Her working uniform was starting to burn off, just as everyone's was. "Kaminari, wake up! We gotta get away from here!"

The boy found himself stirring. He was met with a blurry image of Jack's shadow, flames behind her, debris from the ceiling falling right behind her, and the distinctive sound of several minor exploding gems echoing throughout the underground facility. As he sat up, drowning in heat, his eyes immediately sought Uraraka and Kirishima's bodies. "Where are the rest?"

Jack's eyes roamed around the room, and she noticed a small hand behind a pile of debris. "I see a hand!"

Kaminari turned a bit when he heard a pile of rocks being moved around, and from underneath emerged Kirishima, limping on the pile and making the blond stand up abruptly, feel lightheaded, but still help the redhead out nonetheless. The archer swung his friend's arm around his shoulder and helped him step forward. "C'mon buddy… can you walk?"

Jack shook her head at the duo. Kaminari had just woken up from a potential life hazard but there he was nonetheless, standing up and making it seem that walking was just as easy as breathing, except both cases were actually extremely difficult to do under there, in the suffocating and alarmingly rising fires. Ashes were being blown in the scorching heat, smoke rising from the pires of fire.

The female hunter busied herself going to that trembling hand behind the fires, and she stumbled with a very red Uraraka who was struggling to breathe, also starting to get up, now aided by Jack's hand. "Get up, Uraraka! We have to get away from here!"

Uraraka's eyes fleeted open, breathing jagged, fingers curling into the tainted floor that was coating her palms with dark ashes. Her ears had been temporarily deafened due to her proximity to the explosion, causing her head to swim in a daze and confusion to flood her eyes as she gazed into the fires that were eating the factory alive.

She tried to get to her feet with Jack's help, but the latter deemed she could stand properly when Uraraka shook her head serenely, wobbling a bit on her feet. Her head turned to see Toga passed out on the floor, a small poodle of blood surrounding her blonde locks. Everyone knew better than to be hopeful, though.

They got a final warning when the factory shook drastically, knocking Uraraka to her knees. She spit a small amount of blood, realizing that her mind wasn't only foggy because of the collision− the sorcerer clutched her stomach, her blurry hand now tarnished with rich crimson blood.

She cursed under her breath. Jack didn't see this small part and went to Kaminari and Kirishima, supporting the other hunter by swinging his arm over her shoulders. "Let's get going. We can't stay down here and−"

There was a small, maniacal giggle coming from near the flames, and the group turned their heads to Toga's shaking body that was losing alarming amounts of blood− but as expected, she wasn't dead yet.

Jack attempted to step to her, but Uraraka raised a somber hand and stood before them, leaving the group behind her. Her hair moved with the dance and flicks of the flames, debris falling in the distance and small meteors crashing with the ground. "I will hold her back."

The three teammates turned to her in shock. Jack frowned and let go of Kirishima to step closer to the sorcerer. "Are you insane!? We can't leave you down here!"

Uraraka turned her head slightly to them, not fully facing them. "I will find a way out! We said the operation was all that mattered, right?" she turned back to the flames, and her hand didn't fall back to her side. Instead, it curled into a fist. A promise. "I will meet you guys at the surface!"

Just as she did this, she was clutching her stomach. Jack insisted, though. "I'm not going to let you die down here! I'm a part of this, if anybody deserves to stay down here, it's me!" Jack stepped closer to the sorcerer, her eyes urgent. Uraraka couldn't stay down there and be buried with her family's mistakes− she wouldn't let that happen. "You must go up to the surface with the rest and find my mother to put an end to this, I will be alright and−"

"If she stays here, she will die."

Everyone turned to Toga. Her face had turned to the useless dramatic banter between those girls, indifference etched in her features. Feigning some sort of helpful behavior, she articulated her next words very carefully.

"Our master told us long ago. He has seen it happen over and over again in the past. It's a fact." the meaning was vague, but something about it was familiar to Uraraka. "If the little Mistress remains down here, she will die."

Uraraka's eyes flashed with a hint of suspicion and very sober frustration. "But if I do… I won't, right?"

All Toga had to offer about that was a pregnant silence. At this, Jack was unsure of what to do. What was Toga even talking about, and who was she talking about? The hunter knew this affirmation of danger was enough to make Uraraka reject all sorts of help.

"I don't care what family you belong to, you don't owe us any sort of sacrifice. It will all be in vain. Besides, you still owe us an explanation." her eyes turned sincere, serious, trying to encourage her to leave her behind. "You can tell me all about it when we reach the surface. Just get away from here!"

Kirishima winced besides Kaminari, looking at Uraraka in deep worry but not able to articulate a sole word. The same case happened with the blonde, who was also aware that it was most likely that the only person who could escape this hell by her own means was Uraraka.

Jack was taken aback by her demands, but when she heard debris falling near the stairs, she knew all she could do was have faith in Uraraka's inmense power and leave the situation with Toga on her hands. "I'll see you up there. You better survive this."

The playful order made Uraraka chuckle, but the animosity in the situation was gone as soon as the three comrades started their way up the stairs and Uraraka stepped deeper into the flames, standing directly before Toga, who was inspecting the brunette as if she was the most delicious meal she'd get to taste in a long time.

Uraraka frowned at the sadistic look in those golden eyes of hers, disturbed by her ignorance towards the absolute nightmare those two were going up against. And Toga was doing absolutely nothing to save herself from this despair. Instead, she seemed happy. Like a puppet that had finally finished her role in life.

"You sure look calm despite being at the brink of death." surprisingly, it was Toga who said this, her eyes piercing into Uraraka's. "It would have been much easier to drop the little girl here and wash your hands."

The sorcerer felt a bitter taste at the bottom of her throat, sensing a vile tone laced to the girl's voice. "Whoever is playing with the strings of this messed up world has never let me rest. Even in death, they'd probably chase after me, too. But I don't think they'll ever leave me alone and spare my heart by taking my life."

The blonde's smile curled even more. "Oh, really?"

Uraraka had no doubt about this, and nodded.

Toga let her shoulders rise in an attempt to giggle, but the heat was wearing her giggles dry. "Turns out you are starting to see things clear." and she left it at that. There was a gap of silence before the Jirou commander talked again. "You know they don't care, right? About you. Deep inside, they don't care."

If this was some sort of attempt in her part to taunt Uraraka into depression before death, the brunette was already a step ahead of her. She had been living with this possibility in her mind after coming back from the dead and back into this family where she didn't fit in anymore. Clearly somebody telling her about this was like letting a drop of water into the ocean.

"I know." she responded sharply. It hurt. Deep inside, the thought itself was latched to her heart like a spiky thorn, a consequence of her bad choices. But she had learned to live with that pain.

Toga didn't seem to care about this, either. "You know, once this is over, you'll be forgotten again. Nobody will remember you." this she out more emphasis on. Weirdly enough, it didn't sound mean. If anything, Toga regarded Uraraka with a tint of pity. "Aren't you tired of making the same mistakes over and over? It must hurt to live knowing who they are, but also knowing they don't remember you at all. It must be annoying, huh?"

Uraraka wouldn't understand what she meant until much, much later. With her surroundings enshrouded in fire and heat, she remained silent.

"Ah, but you don't get it. Our master told us you wouldn't understand yet. I guess that's okay." conceded Toga. As she talked, she watched the blood at Uraraka's feet grow just as hers started to pool around her barely moving body. The heat was making it impossible to breathe. Uraraka could feel this, too. She was suffocating.

Despite her faith in herself, she was starting to lose energy like a dam that had broken overnight. She was starting to doubt herself, to think that maybe, just maybe, she'd be allowed release before she could give this world the release it needed. Perhaps it was better this way.

And for that, she smiled.

"You're… nasty." commented Toga as the girl fell to her knees. Her uniform was stained with a delicious blood she wished she had stopped to contemplate further, to watch it drip onto the ground and appreciate the noises it did as her enemy lost her life to the flames and heat. It should have been an uplifting experience for her to see such treasured sorcerer lose her life visibly before her own eyes. To see that light in her eyes fade.

Hadn't it been for the fact that Toga was dying and perhaps the blonde would have relished in watching Uraraka's soul give up on its chains to her human body.

"Heh…" Uraraka spit a bit of blood again, and couldn't help but curl on the ground besides Toga. "I guess you dragged me down with you. Maybe I won't be able to… save myself now."

The Jirou member had nothing to say about this. She just watched the sorcerer go still. Perhaps the brunette was, for once, waiting for somebody to come save her from this mess she had dragged herself into. Maybe, she had just given up. Toga wished she had been able to see the situation unfold for that curious little mage.

However, her eyelids became too heavy for her to bear, and the world around her faded, the last thing she heard being Uraraka's ragged breathing as the sorcerer in rags waited for an answer.

The brunette coughed again. Her master had once said that fate was written in stone for her, and that she was bound to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. Maybe the gods above her had decided this was the best ending to save their precious world from the hero Uraraka had once strived to be.

Maybe, in the end, she was nothing else but a villain bound to die to the thriving flames and falling sky of that illegal factory.

Before long, a big piece of debris crashed down around her, the lair starting to give up completely as the fires gave one last breath of chaos and decided to end everything. The last thing Uraraka heard was not the ragged breathing of her enemy. She didn't die at the hands of her enemy.

Instead, the last thing she heard was the indomitable crash of the world falling down on her, and her world turning to black.

---

"Ochako? What are you doing up so late?"

A small old maid approached Uraraka as she caught the little girl sneaking through the corridors. She didn't seem in any way concerned about this, but rather surprised to see such responsible girl skipping her curfew to sneak around the residence. Her feet had ghosted across the fancy carpet of the corridors before bumping with this maid, who was now in her way.

"I couldn't get much sleep, so I was hoping that a small walk around here would soothe me."

That was a complete lie. Ochako wasn't keen on lies but this once she had to play truant on her duties and wiggle for some information that was being hidden from her currently. She knew by now where the room of the chief was, and she had heard maids talking among each other about secret meetings held in the dead of the night.

If she was correct, that man that was watching after would be meeting tonight with one of his counselors.

It was nothing really, but it was better than being clueless.

"That's great, Ochako." the kind maid smiled to her very warmly, hugging the basket full of towels and rags close to her. "Please go back to bed soon, though. The master doesn't like children sneaking around without permission."

The girl gritted her teeth as the smiling woman brushed past her. She was no child! Ochako sure had some cute features that made her look as enchanting and cute as a baby deer, cheeks rosy and personality bubbly like that of an infant. However, she knew how to use that misunderstanding against her foes and it would sure trap them all like moths to a light, specially that gross, naïve leader of hers.

He'd pay. Him and the other would pay.

She didn't really know where the meeting room was, so she had been wandering for a while in circles through the several floors and wings of the building. However, within time, she realized that it was probably located between wings in a reachable point of the building.

Just when she had decided to head there, she passed by the chief's bedroom and heard hushed talking, making her stop in her tracks to obviously spy on them. The doors were open just a crack, letting one see two figures talking to the other, shadowed by the moonlight and throwing shadows in Ochako's direction.

The girl stayed quiet, hearing the exchange.

"Are you completely sure they were not kidding?"

"I don't think that man is one to joke around." spoke the chief in a grave voice. His arms were folded behind his back. "It sure is relieving to see he was able to stop this madness and wants to give up now that Ochako has come to us. That clan would have never survived against us, without the mage or not."

"Then, is this war over?" asked the minister excitedly. If Ochako could tell, she'd say that man was brimming with ecstasy at the victory… but what were they exactly talking about? She frowned, sensing trouble for her plans. "Are they going to retreat?"

Ochako's eyes widened dramatically before clouding with a shadow of danger. Her fingers curled into a fist. This was a serious dent to her plans, this could not happen. "They have put forward a peace treaty for us to take a fraction of their lands and now live peacefully. We will keep their sweet mage captive so they won't try anything risky."

"Wait, they agreed to it?"

"Naturally. They don't have anything to do now, they're cornered." there was a snicker in the air, and the embers of a smirk. "They basically sold that child to us. She's back to humankind, right where she belongs. She's still the puppet they kept around for so long, and she'll remain as such for the rest of her life."

There was no speck of empathy coming from that man, and it was fueling her even further to hear such despicable words coming from a mouth that spoke of miracles to his clan. And… did he just say her clan had…? Ochako cursed, somewhat even further disappointed than before at the thought of what used to be her foster family trading her so easily.

But from that momentary sadness surfaced a wanton to have her revenge twice as hard. Revenge on the people that killed her family and were about to use her, revenge on the people who were still going to use her as a puppet even when she rot to hell in those filthy prisons where they'd chain her.

This didn't change her plans. If only, it changed when she'd actually give things a spin. The minister kept on talking, though. "That's so sad. Does the girl even know about this?"

"If she did, she'd wanna fly back to her parents and it'd ruin our plans. If she stays here, there will be peace and we won't lose any soldiers in this stupid war. Those territories are tempting, but I value my men more than my power." that sounded like a lie told through his teeth. "We'll be fine like this."

"This is excellent news." stated the minister, chuckling as both men looked into the moonlight.

"A new era of peace and domination is ahead of us." spoke the chief in bliss, like a pirate sailing into a new land and being hit by the breezes of the ocean. "This country will someday rule over this rotten world. Isn't it wonderful?"

No, it was not wonderful. And Ochako would soon show them that she could be more cunning and calculating, strategic and mean than they could ever be. She peeled herself off the door and walked silently into the dark hallways, scheming her plan silently, her robes flying with her walking.

Her eyebrows sunk into a menacing growl. "We'll see who laughs last, mister."

---

"W-Wake up." Uraraka heard this voice swimming above her head, blurry and like a far away echo. "Wake up, Uraraka."

"F-For fuck's sake… W-Wake up! It's a fucking command now!" huh? Who was that? What was going on? Her fingers twitched to move. Her lips tried to speak, to part and murmur some consoling words. She felt cold. She should be burning in hell, but for some reason, that felt like a distant memory now.

Everything was black. But his voice prevailed in the darkness.

"What the fuck do you think... that you are fucking doing, angelface?"

Her body was feeling lighter and lighter with each passing second, her mind getting more jambled as his voice grew louder but fuzzier. She could feel a light pressure on her hand, and distant silent crying in that trembling grasp of his.

"Please… come back to us… Ochako."

She could feel a blinding light on her closed eyes, opening like doors before it completely burned her eyelids and forced her to slowly flutter them open. Chirping birds around her, it felt like absolutely nothing was happening. Then, she felt a warm touch on her stomach, and the raspy, hoarse voice she had known for pretty long now. Her eyes flickered out of her blurry sight.

"Uh? She is starting to wake up. Took your sweet time, fairy." when the blinding sunlight finally faded out from sight, she was welcome with a mess of purple hair and dead eyes staring down on her. "What the hell were you doing down there? That place is still burning down and getting worse."

Uraraka tried to move, but a gentle, hard hand pressed her against the ground again. "Don't try too hard, fairy." she looked up and saw a man with silver hair and a kind, cheery smile, just like Kirishima's.

"Hey, Tetsutetsu, no need to borrow my nicknames. Only I call her that way." it didn't sound possessive, just chiding. Uraraka knew that if Bakugou had said that sole thing, her heart would have squeezed painfully. That was the duality of her heart. "You got some nasty burns. What were you thinking?"

Uraraka winced and tried to sit up again. This time, Tetsutetsu helped her. She held her head with her hand, teeth gritted. She could feel the stinging of her blisters with each brush of the fabric of her uniform against her skin. She hissed at the several burns she had scattered all over her body.

"Yeah, tried curing those, but it'll be better to let them heal naturally." explained Shinsou, his green hand still hovering over her stomach. It was then when she looked down to see the previously gushing wound was slowly closing. "Don't force it. We need you nice and fresh. You did enough already."

"Enough!? You're saying is as if…!" she finished her sentence with a gasp, air being knocked out of her. That wound was uglier than she had expected, but at least it wasn't leaking out anymore. "I did what I could. You weren't even there!"

"I was waiting out here, stupid."

"Shinsou!" exclaimed a woman with auburn hair, frowning at the sorcerer man. "Don't insult her!"

"Whatever." his tone was just as dead as ever. It was good to see some things never changed. "Why did you have to do that kamikaze spiel? You could have just killed that Toga girl."

"Yeah, just wait until some crazy greedy investigator finds the gems and does something with them." her eyes closed for a second, and then her mind caught up with the events from before and they opened again. "What happened to Toga? Is she…?"

There was an uncomfortable silence. Shinsou had no problems of tact to say how it was, he was just as unaffected as always.

"We think we found her burnt to a crisp. I don't think she was a Jirou by blood, but she was just as sensitive to heat as them. We let her burn there. She was plenty corrupted and crazy, so as they say, let the fire purify the world."

Uraraka gulped thickly at how cruel he was with his words, but she guessed it was better that way. "I… guess." she looked at her surroundings and soon enough, she could hear the cracking of the fire as it destroyed all at its wake in an endless cycle. She realized that they were standing close to the walls of the fortress. There was a big hole by her side, where hell was being boiled angrily. "How did you…"

"We were planning how to enter the fortress when we heard explosions and the ground trembled." explained the red haired girl. "Then the ground broke in twain and we saw you down there, basically bleeding to death. Shinsou jumped in and took you out."

Uraraka turned to the mage who was purposefully avoiding her eyes. "Don't. We are still partners to catch Midnight even if we've been away for a little time." his hands had been withdrawn from healing her and was looking at the ground. "So get up, we gotta find her. Your comrades must have found her already… or so I hope."

Uraraka shook some of the remaining dizziness away and was brought to her feet by the auburn haired girl, at whom Uraraka smiled a bit. "The name's Kendou. It's good to finally meet the person who has kept Shinsou in the legal lines."

Well, 'legal' was a bit of a broad term. "It's nice to meet you too."

Shinsou's arms were crossed at this encounter. "Don't get cozy here. We need to get to your people and help them out, fairy." Uraraka nodded, all gentleness washed away from her face as she was reminded of her mission. "Where do you think they could be?"

Her eyes darted down as she thought about their current location, lips pursed together before she came clean. "The upper floors are where Midnight's highest commanders and her own office are located. Though, seeing how Toga was down there at the factory, I get the feeling they may be more scattered than we bargained."

"Is Midnight still here, though?" asked Tetsutetsu, rubbing his chin in thought.

"Our spying convoy told us that, at least."

Shinsou frowned and deadpanned again, adjusting his black cloak around his neck. "Then it's worth a shot. Let's get going." the leader started walking away, with Uraraka, Kendou and Tetsutetsu following suit. Unbeknownst to them, Shinsou's expression had been drowned to a horrifying expression of revenge. "Let's see who laughs last, Madame."

---

"Where even are we?"

"Does it fucking look like I know? Deku here should know where we are going." barked Bakugou as they walked through the corridors, boots thumping against the hard rugs that covered their step. The blonde's frown was always present and at attention, so close to tasting the honey of victory he couldn't think of absolutely anything else.

Not even the vase he was about to bump with.

Todoroki pushed him out of the vase's way as he talked to Midoriya. "Where are we exactly?"

Asui wisely decided to speak in a low voice, glancing at the chain of doors at their sides. She knew there are plenty laboratories nestled behind doors, and workers could be in there as well. It was better to still walk silently and make this operation a clean stab as they had intended to begin with.

"Midnight must be around here somewhere. Knowing that woman, she probably has this grand office with a lot of statues and all that extravagant stuff." she saw this proof in how the rugs were ornamented with the clan's shield, as well as golden details that covered it and the fierce lion statues between each of the wide dusty windows. This place was surprisingly akin to a labyrinth.

If Midnight had intended for this to be a maze to the naked eye, she had done a great job. But Bakugou would never let her win.

"Then we gotta find that place. I'm not gonna let that skank off the hook ever again." his expression contorted into a confident grin, one that was way more menacing than any of his explosions or his blades. His big, cursed blade clinked against the metal at the back of his belt.

Midoriya regarded the leader with a worried glance. Usually, he'd let Bakugou do as he pleased and go as crazy as the blond desired− but this time was a little different.

The situation at hand was complicated, messy, and considering Uraraka had a personal implication with this matter, it wasn't far-fetched to say Bakugou did, as well. Midoriya had heard him before, talking about not willing to let Uraraka take such tremendous enemy down. The kind leader knew this was Bakugou's way of caring for somebody− being brash, being quiet, and trying to not let harm come his beloved's way.

And Midoriya also knew what had happened last time when Midnight made Bakugou basically collapse with a bat of her lashes. Bakugou was probably thinking Uraraka was making this too personal albeit there was a high chance the blond himself was also doing that as well. Midoriya regarded him with a slight crinkle of his eyebrows, concerned again.

Before he could voice his concerns to the other leader, he found himself tripping and stepping into a hole that had cracked itself into the floor, and Midoriya shrieked in a drowned voice as he held onto the edge of the hole for dear life.

His people came rushing to him, except Bakugou who took is sweet time under the presumption that Deku had just tripped again− but upon arriving to the scene he realized he was wrong. "What the fuck?"

Midoriya showed them all a nervous smile. "I swear I don't know where this came from…"

Yaoyorozu helped the leader up. "It must be those time distortion thingies acting again. I didn't even realize the floor was made of wood before you fell in there."

Todoroki realized something curious when she said that. "Wait. None of the floors are made of wood, this is a stone fortress." when Midoriya was up and standing, Todoroki had the wonderful idea of looking into the darkness of the hole, kneeling down while Bakugou crouched with his elbows on his knees.

"Nothing worth crying for here. It's just a dusty pit, no need to turn into a fucking detective." deadpanned Bakugou, looking at Todoroki with a bemused expression. "What's that long face for?" asked the blond, frowning a bit.

Todoroki's expression had turned concerned, suddenly. "Look closer."

Everybody complied. Seconds passed and nothing was seen, nothing was heard other than birds chirping outside and some light noises from behind the doors. Bakugou's frown deepened, feeling he was just wasting his time− however, a very familiar growl came from deep within, which startled the leader to a point he stood up with a look of panic nobody had ever seen him wear other than… when Uraraka died.

"That's…" another weak growl came from within and he gasped in anger, realizing who was deep within that crevice. His eyes flashed in pure, sheer unstoppable ire. "That's Amelie!"

Todoroki wrapped his hand in flames to look into the cave, and soon enough, a weak-looking red dragon was looking at them in a plea for help, one Bakugou obeyed immediately as he jumped into the darkness. There was the sound of his boots scraping against the cobblestone and the dragon whining as her owner came to rescue her.

Bakugou could be as brash and wild as he wanted to portray but his sensitivity towards animals was evident in moments like these. There was a question in the air along the lines of what the fuck are you doing here? laced with deep concern for the wounded creature.

His calloused hand gingerly felt the cheek of his wounded ferocious pet, and he shot her a worried grimace before looking up at his peers. "I gotta get her out of here! Go on without me!"

Everyone was shocked by his request. Knowing him the most, Midoriya talked back. The situation must be dire if the most fearsome of leaders was refusing to go forward. "We can't leave you here! The clan will find you and−!"

"I don't give a shit." he interjected, his tone strangely determined and eerie. "I will find a way out of here! I'm not gonna let her die here, so I will meet up with you all later!" the dragon let out a whine in response, as if not wanting his help, but he refused to leave her to rot there. "Don't fuck up or I'll send my baby to toast your asses!"

The whole gang arched back at his brazen words, but when Bakugou broke free from his minor concerned phase, Midoriya allowed himself to breathe and take a step away from the crevice, surprising everyone around him. The boy gave them a soothing smile.

"Let's let Bakugou do his thing. If we hang around out of fear for him, we will never make it out of here." explained the leader, and took a last glimpse into the hole to talk to Bakugou one last time. "When we find Midnight, we'll make some sort of signal! Don't be too noisy, will you?"

The blond looked up from the dragon to hiss at his peer. "For fuck's sake, just go already!"

Todoroki tugged at Midoriya's arm. The crew had already started walking away into the hallway, leaving Bakugou behind as he tried to look after his wounded pet. He could tell the animal was unscathed, but severely malnourished. He had told that stupid engineer of theirs to look after Amelie, what the hell had happened for her to end up here?

He wisely decided to grab a dusty plank he had found there and put it over the crevice to cover his tracks. Then, he went over to his dragon again, palming her muzzle with an uncanny display of tenderness. He had always had a soft spot for this creature ever since he got his hands on her. Months and weeks and endless days of taming so this beautiful beast could actually obey and respect him. He had never had trouble with anyone to respect him, other than Amelie and to some extent, Uraraka.

When he thought of her he banged his forehead against Amelie's neck softly, cursing under his breath. The red dragon nuzzled him back, whining softly in hunger. The blond was now busy wondering if Uraraka was alright, but no part of him was uneasy. He knew she'd come back unscathed. Bakugou could count on it.

He still worried about it like a kid, though.

Coming back to Earth, the hunter inspected his surroundings. He let out a small explosion to temporarily light up his surroundings. They were currently trapped in an empty rock and wood room that had no use other than occupying space, full to the brim with dust and a clinging humidity that made his urge to escape increase in tenfold. The silence around them was unbearable, it was tense and eerie as if some other beast would come from the pitch darkness to swallow them whole.

Bakugou gulped.

The dragon sensed his unease and tried to reach him with her tail, but the leader was rolling the ball again, scheming a plan to get her out of there without risking the operation. He didn't know if there were guards around the fortress, at the other side of the wall where he could hear birds chirping outside.

He looked back at her with a deep scowl. "How the hell did you get in here?"

Amelie gave no conclusive answer other than a throaty growl. Katsuki sighed and jumped up to push the plank out of the way, and grabbed the edge to prop himself out of the crevice, his muscular arms making the job easy and smooth. The dragon looked up with a sad whine, as if questioning why his master was abandoning her. His heart squeezed at that, it made him kind of sad he had to leave her just for a bit more.

"I'll come back, I gotta make sure there are no guards to injure you any further." he explained, and the dragon seemed to understand. "I'll let you grab the bodies of the fuckers I might find there. There might be some sorcerers too." the word made the dragon lick her teeth, and Bakugou grinned in a predatory way. "I know. Tasty. Their blood is rich as hell." mused Bakugou.

He got up from his crouching position and signalled her to stay quiet while he covered the crevice with the plank, then went back to fix the ugly rug so it covered the place again. He went back on his step to go outside, knowing there would be nobody to stop him. He looked back just for a second to check in silence if there was any disturbance in the air.

All that greeted him was silence. Calm, he turned around again to walk out of the building, seeking his guarding comrades so they could help out.

Meanwhile, Midoriya and the rest had taken a sharp turn to the right in search of the dreaded dark leader.

The group marched into a mahogany corridor with a more humble set of rugs and golden embroidery. This time, the walls had become so thick and the way so thin the warriors were overcome with a sharp sense of claustrophobia, but the golden sheen that swam around the narrow passage made it a bit more bearable.

The place was uncommonly classy. The fortress had been dominated by stone, wood and certain decorative elements like those of a cathedral. However, the deeper they walked into the dungeon, the more they noticed the structure was resembling a cozy palace more and more, the grand palace for a great villain with a family.

It was starting to resembling a home.

"This place is… fancy." admitted Todoroki, walking through the narrow corridor with Midoriya by his side, who agreed with him with a nod. "I had expected this place to look more grim, to be absolutely honest."

At the end of the hallway, Yaoyorozu saw a set of double doors bathed in the salmon sunlight of the morning. Silence permeated the room like heavy rain. But it wasn't raining, was it? Then how could it be the mood was set to unleash an angry storm upon the trespassers?

"That must be it." concluded Asui. The gang took a few steps forward until they were standing before the office. It felt like once they took another step in that direction, they wouldn't be able to look back. It was a step before the final battle. There was an ominous feeling of intimidation stinging their hearts.

But Midoriya wouldn't let the fear win. "We will distract Midnight while Bakugou and the rest come back from taking Jack out of the basement."

Asui's voice was stale unlike no other. "Do you think they did it?"

"I don't think so." Midoriya smiled to himself, and pressed a hand against the door, positive things would work. Regardless, his other hand clutched his sword carefully, feeling its power push him forward. His eyes were set on the doors as they cracked open, and everyone readied their swords for battle.

The doors pushed open with a sinister groan, but when the light that illuminated the room faded away, the only thing they saw in it was an empty office. A posh, empty office. A big mahogany desk, bookshelves, papers, a sack of gems, parallel clean windows, and several Jirou uniforms with suspicious red spots. But the most important part of this raid, Midnight, was nowhere to be seen.

Everyone was shocked by this. An empty feeling of disappointment settled in their hearts when they found out their desired enemy had escaped their clutches once more. It had suddenly thrown their neat almost complete puzzle in the air and the pieces were scrambled once more.

In other words, their strategy had been royally fucked.

"Where is she!?" exclaimed Todoroki, frowning. Asui padded into the office to look for the desired villain, just in case she was hiding, but found nothing. "We lost her!"

Yaoyorozu realized something frightening. "Could it be… Uraraka and the rest crossed paths with her at the factory? It… It can't be, right?"

Everyone was invaded with that fear in a matter of seconds, but Asui, knowing what was up, shook her head. "Midnight is also extremely sensitive to heat, maybe even more so than the workers down there. She must just be somewhere else."

But where? wondered Midoriya. She didn't look like the sort of woman to work at the factory, but instead was more like the type of leader that worked behind the scenes with strategy and numbers, and maybe was also a badass necromancer with the power to destroy entire villages. She was an attacker and a schemer, but not a worker.

A moment later, they certainly discovered she was more than a schemer and a warrior.

The ground under their feet started shaking uncontrollably, as if the Earth was about to break in twain and swallow them like the pits of hell had been opened for them. The wooden floor started cracking, the walls quivering at the pressure as something tried to destroy the floor from below them. Soon enough, the floor suddenly crashed open, and the warriors found themselves falling down for a split second, head first into the void, and closing their eyes readying their bodies for whatever nightmare was about to ensue.

Their numb bodies met the hard concrete of the hallway that had been ran down by Uraraka and her vines, and a victorious Midnight held the bodies of the people that had been guarding the doors with a vine of hers, smirking as the warriors of Yuuei realized they had been trapped.

"You guys are complete fools, aren't you?" barked Midnight with a lustrous, arrogant voice. Mina, Iida and Tokoyami crumbled to the floor, unconscious. The rest watched the scene unfold with blurry eyes. "Did you think I didn't see the ants sneaking into my fortress? You should thank the Moon Fairy for tugging at my precious vines earlier, or else I would have never noticed."

The evil leader was, for a reason, letting them all recollect themselves and sit up to realize the ceiling was open, rocks falling down on them while the black-haired necromancer took out her cursed staff. Midoriya winced in pain. "And you didn't dare send your useless guards to us? You truly are a coward."

His words were daringly brave considering this woman led an illegal empire based around death and deceit. Midnight liked that spurt of cockiness, and licked her lips. "It's not you guys I'm looking for. I'm just waiting for the Moon Fairy to show up."

Todoroki knew that nickname and gasped hoarsely. "Uraraka? What do you have to do with her?"

Suddenly, Midnight barreled them all with a swipe of her staff, sending them towards the spiky vines that had begun to drag around the walls of the facility, hindering any risky move the leader could pull. Midnight knew about Midoriya's spiels and how he liked to jump around, and she had come ready to take them all on. She wouldn't lose.

The four warriors cried out in pain, but it wasn't enough to make them double over, just as Midnight expected. Her eyes narrowed an inch when she saw this little warning attack hadn't gone as expected. Frowning, she commanded her vines to roll around the warriors' weapons wrists so they'd let go of their weapons, which they did, and when the weaponry fell down, the vines hooked around their ankles and tugged up until the four were dangling upside down.

They seemed unaffected by this. And again, Midnight knew this. And yet again, she had no interest in harming them, but her.

"I had thought that if I played with her friends a little bit, it'd be fun and she would come out, but I guess she is just still as shy as ever, isn't she? I guess I'll have to press a bit harder." spoke the woman, glaring at them.

Then, she hit the floor with the tip of her staff to make a surge of fire run deep through the vines and start burning the surface of the plants, hissing to get to the heroes' ankles at a blistering velocity. Soon enough, the fires surfaced from within the ground, vines shaking up, and starting to whip in their direction to blister and burn them to ashes.

One of those whips surged in Midoriya's direction and pierced through his shoulder, causing the leader to cry out in pain. The others shouted his name in panic as the leader wiggled, only hurting himself further as he wiggled into the thorns. Smirking, Midnight was decided to poke more holes into that divine body of his.

However, a shadow appeared behind her at breakneck speed, eyes wide in fury and staff cast, ready to snap her neck before she could take another step in their direction. One of the windows had been shattered, shards on the ground. Before Midnight could respond to this, she was sent to the contrary wall with a physical kick, flying past the heroes and landing with a painful gasp.

The intruder cupped her stomach, breathing for air. "Uraraka!" called Asui, seeing her injuries being reopened by this sudden movement. Deku's shoulder was also pouring blood very slowly, staining his green uniform. She tried to drive the poison out of her own body with her water-based magic, but Midnight's grip on them was so tight Asui was having issues breathing.

Uraraka slammed her foot on the ground to make the ground quake so the weapons would jump up to the warriors' height. Some of them had their arms freed, like Todoroki, who grabbed his sword and cut the burning vines until they were nothing but a chopped mess. Midoriya utilized the opportunity to also slice his in half, and when the vines' skin had burned thin enough, Yaoyorozu created a sword to cut them as well. Midoriya helped Asui out of it as well.

The group of warriors rejoined around Uraraka, smiling confidently. Midoriya had to chalk the smile up through the pain, and while Uraraka's body heaved up and down in a panting mess, her wound reopened despite Shinsou's clumsy caretaking. Asui lay her hands on Midoriya's shoulder and Uraraka's back, silently curing them.

Midnight got up from the rubble. Her hand wiped a small stain of poison away from her chin. "Tch. I don't give a damn about you kids." her murderous glare was directed at Uraraka, whose eyes had turned into a familiar tone of steel. "I'm only here for the Moon Fairy. She's the only one that can take me down this time."

Todoroki's sword was drawn towards her. It didn't look like the poison was slowly exhausting Midnight's body like it was tiring theirs. Fortunately, Asui was working on that aspect now while Yaoyorozu examined their surroundings with great care, trying to find a cranny of that wall they could use against that woman.

She looked so fixated on Uraraka it was difficult to know how she would fight. It seemed to them that if they tried to attack her, Midnight would swat them off easily and just focus on the sorcerer. It turned out that it wouldn't be a matter of who was the strongest, but of untangling those hissing hyenas from one another.

Of course, everyone knew they had something personal with the other. Uraraka had had an unsuccessful clash with her in the past, and Midnight had sworn vendetta against her who threatened to ruin her business.

Weirdly enough, she wasn't going for a direct kill and striking at her weakest points like the true strategist she was. Midnight was letting Uraraka act. She either thought she had the upper hand or had a trick up her sleeve. None of them were good news.

"I don't know who you think you are, but it's over, Midnight!" Uraraka bellowed, frowning. "Our guild has surrounded the fortress and the factory has been taken care of, along with some of your workers down there." at the mention of that, Uraraka peered over Midnight's shoulder into the stairs. Where had those three gone? "We also have Jack with us, it's over!"

Midnight didn't look surprised by this. "Oh, you got Kyouka with you? Unsurprising. She was always threatening me with empty lies about how you'd come save her. I guess they weren't as empty as I expect−"

A big gust of fire roared in her direction, causing her boots to skid against the pavement and her skin to blister momentarily. But, as soon as the fire reached her, it was being knocked back at Todoroki in the form of a blaze of thunderbolts, stopped by a makeshift shield of wood Yaoyorozu created.

Uraraka had forgotten that she was an actual necromancer that could absorb all sorts of magic. Midnight's eyes had turned into a dark, wicked glare as her hand stood outstretched, fingertips burnt from the surge of magic she had taken in. The heat had been soaring, making her pant a little. "I told you to not interfere, did I?" her voice was quiet and eerie, a warning.

Midoriya spoke up. "We will not let anybody harm a friend that is trying to protect us." he stepped right in front of Uraraka, his back to her. He he heard the girl whisper his name in wonder. "She has been gone for a long time. But she's protecting us. So, if you want to harm her or any of us…"

Todoroki, Yaoyorozu and Asui also stepped around the girl, frowning. Uraraka was flabbergasted by this, eyes wide in surprise. The hand on her tummy went to cradle her poor beating heart. A pained expression was itched into her face. It felt like her heart was throbbing within her.

Yaoyorozu took out her polished powerful sword and yelled with her friends. "You're going to have to kill us first!"

Uraraka was taken aback by this sudden outburst of courage from her friends. Midnight though, she didn't look so convinced. Her grip on the staff tightened. "I'm not sure how a bunch of kids is going to step between us. I can see her fangs showing already. Stop meddling or I'll make sure you four shut up forever." her threat was solid. "Besides, it looks like Midoriya's arm is about to fall off."

The boy was, indeed, clutching his shoulder with a wince sketched in his features. His body was sagging slightly, not enough to be noticed by the naked eye. He still looked exhausted by the poison, and Midnight wouldn't let them stay still to cure each other.

Uraraka read the situation really quick and had decided to step in before Todoroki took a few steps forward. His back shielded the group from seeing the necromancer. "Stop talking, Midnight. Our leaders ordered us to protect Uraraka. Whatever issues you have with her, you'll have to get through us first."

As the knight tugged his gloves further in, Midnight couldn't help but talk big again. "So you're telling me you're some sort of menace? You can't use sorcery against me. What the hell are you doing to do then?"

Todoroki's right side started issuing flames as his dark navy coat floated away in the wind. "Stop talking already!" he threw his hand forward again, shooting fire in her direction that roared like a demon, his frown deep and focused. Midnight shook her head and took a step forward to deflect and absorb the magic energy, blistering her fingers as she did so.

Unbeknownst to her, a figure had sneaked from the team and successfully flashed behind her like a lighting bolt, grunting as she gave Midnight a hard kick to the neck, plummeting her to the ground as the fire erupted from within her and boiled her body momentarily. The woman screeched at the pain, and Uraraka stood before her with Todoroki as she tried to tame the fire magic within her.

"Is that… all?"

Uraraka didn't have a clear answer. As the dark leader throbbed at their feet, the only thing that crossed her mind was that things were never this easy. Midnight was being too easy on them. It could also be that she was just more menacing than strong, but just when that sole idea was brought to mind, the leader stopped convulsing.

She went eerily still. "Is it…?" Midoriya stepped towards them. "It can't be, right?"

Suddenly, a laugh came from that woman, who was still lying motionless on the floor. Todoroki readied his hand again. "What in the world is so funny, Midnight?"

"You children are so naïve…" mumbled she, as if mocking them all. "How is it possible you try to come in and defend that woman… you don't know a single thing. You know absolutely nothing!" she bellowed, turning her body around to face them. Something was not right about her calm expression, and how blood was dripping down her forehead.

Uraraka was certain they had succeeded yet something was wrong. She should have realized from the first moment. The Jirous never absorbed fire magic. It was an abrasive element for their kind, and absorbing it would only hurt her, like it was doing now, killing her from the inside. Maybe not visibly, but their insides would be churned. The Jirous always dodged those sorts of magic.

It would only take so long until Midnight snapped and released the fire within her.

So enthralled in her turmoil, Uraraka failed to realize the Midnight's hand was pressed had against the ground, and before anyone could move away, the ceiling gave up right above them, pieces of rock and vines crumbling to big chunks of debris. The attack came down so fast all they had time to do was gasp and let out screams of horror right before being buried under the rubble and poisonous plants.

Only one person was left unscathed. The dark leader reached for Uraraka's ankle and threw her to the opposite wall, hurting her greatly with the impact but also saving her from a brush with death.

Midnight coughed out, spitting a ghastly amount of boiling blood, and then wavered to stand up and and climb up the rubble of debris, past the sorcerer's bodies and closer to the girl. Her march was slow, cold, silent and as terrifying as the murmur of a snake. Her heels tapped with the broken blanket of pebbles, grainy, enveloped in a cloud of dust.

When Uraraka got back up on her feet, panting, her eyes widened at the sight of blood seeping from underneath the spiky, dusty rocks. Light hit on the rubble and the victorious witch as she travelled down the mount.

The woman looked serious now… "No." panted Uraraka, her eyes zeroed on the rubble and blood. Her heart was beating a hundred miles per hour, a marathon occurring in her heart at the thought of her friends… no, no! It could not be!

Midnight's victorious stance, however, told another story. "I told you I'd get rid of your friends if they didn't behave. Your ties to people are again putting them in danger. After all this time, you're still a damn fool, Uraraka." cursed Midnight. She was visibly put off by her kneeling position, angered at her weakness, watching as the brunette realized her friends, just like that, could be… gone.

"It can't be." mumbled Uraraka finally gathering her wits to stand up again. Her expression had been contorted into one of temporary disbelief that transformed into uncontrolled anger. "I can't be!"

Seeing her start to lose it, Midnight smirked. Her staff was summoned to her arm instantly. "You're still a fool, after all this time. It would have been better if you killed them off yourself to spare their lives. In this world, it's death what awaits you. Dead in the cold, rainy cemetery."

Uraraka bared her teeth at the menacing woman. "No. It's not−"

"I got to them before you could. I might have made you a−"

Uraraka was right before the leader and with the bat of a lash, the leader being kicked back into the mount and debris by the furious mage. The young girl panted, fingers curled into fists as a sudden surge of revenge spiralled within her. Much to her chagrin, the rocks moved as Midnight surfaced from the rubble and stood up. She wiped a small smudge of dirt off her jaw, and from the back of her uniform she took a black fan.

Her expression had changed now. She didn't look as merciful as she had before.

With a big swipe of her fan, the debris from behind her was picked up and thrown in Uraraka's direction, who tried to defend herself with a shield screen but was thrown back by the small sharp meteorites that were too heavy to hold back. The shower hit her like an avalanche, making her dizzy and whimper at the sharp debris being thrown at her

Uraraka was too weak at the moment to use too much magic, and her body limped with it. A rock hit on her shoulder blade and a small clicking sound resonated in her ears, making her scream out in pain and grab her shoulder. At this, Uraraka quickly slapped a hand on the shoulder, slowly fixing the broken joint while looking forward in attention. The leader was walking forward from the fog, her fan open before her mouth and speaking in a mysteriously coy voice.

"Maybe you aren't suited for your mission." she spoke, looking down on her. "If you aren't going to do what you were created for, then you should as well die. And it'd be my pleasure to give that man a lesson on who to play with, destroying his puppet!"

Uraraka's eyes widened in horror when she tried to move her arm in order to defend herself, but the leader's fan was wrapped in sparks and she was looking at her with a glare that pretty much buried a grave for her. Uraraka tried to get up, but she was so shell-shocked and momentarily terrified that for the first time, her knees gave up beneath her.

For the first time ever, Uraraka could not move. It was over.

"Say your last words, misguided puppet." Uraraka's head was low, her knees bent on the floor and hands on her lap. "And become one with the soil."

Uraraka's eyes were screwed shut as she heard the zip-zapping of the bolds running deep within the fan, ready to end her life. Her body grew cold, numb and so terrified. She had been cornered to kneel down before her enemy, one that was now looking at her as if she was an ant to be crushed.

She braced herself, read for the thousand bolts to crack through her body and to taste the blood on her own tongue, a flavor so unnatural she knew this was what death felt like.

But nothing came. Instead, she heard a gutural gasp and the drip-dropping of blood. Before her, a big spade had pierced through Midnight's stomach, blood spilling to the floor and soaking her uniform. The leader was looking up at the attack in disbelief, shocked. Behind this exchange, Yaoyorozu had stood up and created a long weapon to strike her with, and the night was now panting as the spade stuck out of her side.

After the attack had been done, she crumbled to her knees, panting. Midoroya stood up as well, red lights cracking around his body. The remaining rubble had been cleared to reveal the still standing heroes, their eyes fiercer than before. Midoriya saw the woman fall to her knees, and then fall on her back as Uraraka got to feet once more.

"You can try to wipe us out." he adjusted his gloves around his hands. "But we will not let a broken castle hold us back!" Uraraka stepped in their direction, wincing as she did so, still a bit overwhelmed by her brush with death and her shoulder throbbing. "Asui, help Yaoyorozu and Uraraka out, then try to get Iida and the rest back on their feet."

"Will do."

Todoroki and Midoriya walked to the fallen leader, who was gushing blood like a torrent. The knight, however had other plans. His hand was calling out fire to finish that woman off, just in case she woke up. However, Midoriya didn't allow him to attack her, an arm stopping his steps.

"Hold on." the dark leader started shaking, and blood continued pooling. The air had gone cold around them, wrapping them in a tense atmosphere of suspicion. "Something is wrong."

Out of the blue, the dying woman started chuckling, giggling, and then erupted into boundless joyful laughter. The abnormal sound surprised the two warriors to the point they jumped back to stand right next to their people. Meanwhile, Midnight started getting up, blood still dripping down her body, fan shaking in her grasp.

She was still laughing.

"Man, these kids are so damn annoying. What a pest." she said to nobody, speaking to the air. "Look at this mess. I'm losing so much blood, so slowly… this is bad news!" when she turned around, the guild mates found out that she was licking the blood out of her hands, a glint of sadistic need for revenge twinkling in her narrowed eyes. "You're over."

This was no longer a necromancer. Those were the eyes of a clear, sick murderer.

The leader moved her fan behind herself and in no time, the crimson and black instrument had grown in size. It was spread behind the leader as she held it behind her, and the fabric finally tapped the ground as the leader looked at them defiantly. It was a look that was telling them to get ready, because they had messed with the wrong person.

"I'm already tired of this body. It's… not enough for the power throbbing inside of me." the woman's hair moved with the wind as a powerful storm started brewing outside. The fan was issuing a cold fog. With the last traces of sunlight, light hit the neck of the leader and the skin gleamed wherever the sun hit.

Uraraka urged her friends to take a step back. The ground started shaking under their feet in a cry for help. Her expression turned into a sadistic frown and grin, showing her fangs. "I guess I'll teach that man and his puppet a lesson!"

When her body started convulsing and gross noises of skin tearing apart echoed, Uraraka took her staff out again and jumped back. Everyone adopted fighting stances, weapons out and frowning with their eyes glued to the transforming leader, who was enshrouded in fog and increasingly animalistic bellows of power.

There had been a twist to the story.

Midnight was not human. She was a demon, just like the ones she had been holding captive under this very earth. Midoriya grimaced as the fog started clearing, and as the shrieks grew louder, their hold on their weapons grew tighter. Suddenly, two small claws started clearing the fog away, and the beast that was revealed was terrifying.

A massive bee fluttered above them, almost as big as the wall of the fortress and shrieking for the offenders to go away. The claws were gleaming under the dim thunderbolts that struck in the distance. Midnight's eyes were now pure red, big and bulbous like those of a real insect. A big hook at the bottom in the fashion of a sting promised the worst of bruises. Her wings were dark and thin, her body hard like stone and curvy like the handle of a knife.

Rain was falling hard in the background as Uraraka whispered in disbelief. "This is… the true Hive Queen."

The queen screamed one last time before the monster tried to tackle them all, piercing the ground with its claws of metal. Uraraka and Asui jumped away in time, Midoriya and Yaoyorozu slid under her body easily, but Todoroki had been the brave one to let her pin him down.

Her fangs were bared and drool leaked down her foul mouth, but Todoroki slammed his hand on her belly and started burning intensely, making the massive bee stumble back and struggle to fly. Midnight shook her head to shake the dizzyness away, but the blistering mark was still there. Todoroki leaped back to the others' level as the bee also retreated.

The beast hissed. When she talked, her voice seemed to be distorted, as if it held the lives of others inside. "You will never get away with this! I will eat you little kids ali− AH!"

Midnight was knocked back again when a large whip rolled around her body and a pair of strong arms used the momentum to smash her body against the stone, a whip that was shortly after covered in sparks thanks to Kaminari's help. The bee attempted to wiggle free, but it was paralyzed for a while.

Jack ran to her friends as they recovered from this attack. Midoriya and the rest scampered towards her. "Jack! I mean… can we still call you that way?"

Jack smiled a little. "Of course you can, but now is not the moment to talk about that." soon enough, she saw Uraraka between them, and Jack gently walked to the girl to hug her tightly, arms curled around her as Uraraka blinked in surprise. "I'm… so glad you are safe." her voice was almost a whimper. "We were so worried…"

Asui inspected Uraraka's wound with a skeptical look. The mage herself was still standing a bit awkwardly. "Saying she's safe is a bit of a stretch."

Jack's eyes were directed at the paralyzed bee, who was wiggling still for room. She could see the little control they had over her was starting to be lost. They had to act quickly. "What even is this monster? How did it get here?"

Nobody knew what to say. Would Jack believe this freak of nature was none other than her own mother? How would the hunter react to this? Her eyes were narrowed towards the beast in utter confusion. She didn't know this demon, this monster.

The alchemist, the boldest one of them all, spoke up without hesitation. "It's Midnight. She's a demon, but she was disguised as a human." Asui cocked her head towards the beast. The whip was starting to be torn apart, the ripping sounds startled the heroes.

The Jirou member stared in disbelief and shock at the monstrosity that bellowed in pain. That… it didn't sound like her mother. It didn't sound like the leader of her family, like the dark spiky umbrella that had sheltered her from the constant rain that had surrounded her everywhere she went. That woman… this demon. It couldn't be, right?

But… it just was. Midnight had always been a threat to society, and Jack had been too much of a coward to stand up to her. Nonetheless, they were at time of war now. And Jack had to make whatever changes necessary to win it.

Jack's whip finally snapped when the claws of the demon dug into them, and Midnight finally broke free. She was panting, claws now on the ground for some leverage to try and regain control over her cloudy sight. She was shaking her head to clear out the confusion, yet Jack had other plans. "Kirishima, the whip!"

The other male hunter ran towards them, and threw the torn yet still long whip in Jack's direction. She took a step forward, then another, until she was standing at the front of the group with the other end of the black whip on her other hand. She gave the whip a hard yank, snarling.

"I'm sorry, mother." she mumbled between gritted teeth. "But it's time to prove what a Jirou's name as a beast hunter is worth."

The bee shook in her flight until her hovering was stable enough. There was a confused buzzing in the air, and the more she hurt, the angrier Midnight felt. Her hard carcass of a skin was steaming a thin layer of smoke, her body warm and tingling. In that state of daze and overpowering, her body was harder and harder to maintain out of control.

But Jack was there to change that. She took another step forward, and grabbed one of Midnight's sharp claws to bring her back to the ground again. The whip rolled around her claw immediately, but the moment she started tugging her down, Midnight cut it in half. The momentum of the pull knocked Jack backwards, but before the enemy could take advantage of this, Uraraka was already before her.

The beast sent a dark light beam in her direction, screaming, and Uraraka quickly deflected it with a plasma shield. However, the energy wasn't absorbed, but deflected, and the beam landed on one of the walls of the hallway. From the corner of her eye, she saw Asui take Tokoyami out of the fortress by sneaking out of that hole.

Midnight saw this, but before she could chase them Todoroki sent his soaring flames towards her once more. This time though, the flames only scorched her skin lightly, causing the bee to hiss at the interruption. It gave enough time for Asui to escape.

"Her skin is getting harder with each magic attack we use." stated Midoriya. He set a foot back, another forward, and pointed his sword at her. Uraraka had never seen his sword shine this bright, as if brimming with remains of a god inside of it. "We need to break that shell of hers, or we will never make it out alive!"

In response, the bee shrieked again. Kirishima padded close to them, making his fists clash in what Uraraka knew to be a 'manly pose'. She saw now that he had Kaminari's left sleeve wrapped around his arm, and smiled a little. But now wasn't the time to smile. "We need to use physical attacks, right?"

"We gotta bring her back to the ground!" Kirishima readied his knives on in his hand. He made them spin, feeling the leader of the handles on his calloused hands. "We can't let her have the upper hand!"

"You fools!" shrieked Midnight, her body tensing and her claws open. "Do you think you can defeat the Hive Queen so easily!?" her body started glowing in a treacherous and fearsome power, one that started overpowering the leader herself. It seemed like the delicacy of strategy and intuition was lost to her fear of losing this great empire she had built.

Her shaking body released a pitched noise, and the leader released another screech of dominance, her control over her body completely lost. "Think again!"

From her mouth she shot a powerful laser beam that was directed right in Uraraka's direction, but she quickly put up a high shield to absorb the impact. Midnight was using her last remaining control over her demonic body to defeat them before she went into overdrive, and the attack was too strong for the sorcerer to withstand. Her feet were starting to skid against the ground, Uraraka felt like her body would bend in twain if she continued with this any longer.

Out of instinct, she ducked out of the beam's way, just as her comrades did. All, but one.

There was a scream of blank and horrible pain coming from behind her, and as soon as it echoed in everyone's ears, the laser beam disappeared. Jack clutched a part of her chest with a contorted expression of terror, making Uraraka's eyes widen at the amount of blood that was pouring between her trembling fingers. Everyone turned to look at her with terrified looks.

"Jack!" shrieked Yaoyorozu, going to her side. A few feet away, the wrecking bee stared at the scene in silence. Everyone circled around her. Absolutely everyone was panicking at the sight of how much blood was tainting her clothes. It was horrifying. "Please, hold out! Uraraka!"

"Yes!" she immediately crouched to put her palm over the wound to stop the bleeding. However, her ears picked up the buzz of the beast again, and knew that Midnight was getting angry again.

"What…" she growled menacingly, then shrieked again. This sound actually picked up a breeze inside the fortress, the wind moved Uraraka's hair as she looked at Midnight, eyes wide and hand on her hat. The dread that flooded Uraraka dove beyond the bones. "what the hell have you done!?"

Everybody covered their ears as a high pitch noise ran deep through the fortress and branched into their hearts. Uraraka heard the distant flapping of wings, and seeing how Midoriya's eyes widened, he knew something was up. Jack slumped over, coughing out a great deal of blood that splattered on the floor and left a gross stink of metal.

The rain was only getting harder and harder outside. The fortress was cold like the prison of a hollow family, like a child without a heart or the sky without a sun. As the fortress bathed in the darkness of the storm outside, thunder rolling outside, Midnight's true nature surfaced, the nature of a bloodthirsty demon that could no longer see a daughter in front of her.

"You will pay!" the distorted voice of the leader dripped with venom, with hatred, the many lives inside that gem uniting with the sole purpose of destruction. The power in that gem, the one posed on her forehead, was vibrating with greed, and making the storm outside thrive. "You will never get away with this!"

Uraraka looked at Jack in her arms, whose eyes were closing, and whipped her head to Asui, who was rushing to her. "You need to take care of this! Take Jack away from here and stop the bleeding!"

Asui took Jack's body in her arms and nodded, already applying magic to stop the bleeding again and scampering back to a corner. Midnight saw this, but before she could do anything, Uraraka swung her staff in her direction to send all the fallen debris from before in her direction, along with a rain of sparks extracted from the storm outside. Her feelings were brimming with fury, and with that, her control over magic was quivering with stability, but thriving with power and range.

Midoriya's body was surrounded with streaks of red light, and once the rain of magic was over, he jumped up in the air in slow motion, spun around and with a deep scowl and a loud grunt, he dove in to give the monster a dangerously hard punch on the belly, making it stagger back and yell in pain. The leader retreated back to his friends, just to see a quick shadow glitch in time past him.

A quick shadow arrived from behind at a staggering speed to where Midnight was supposed to land, an incantation circle surrounding her feet. A shadow covered half her face, her eyes gleamed in fury at this creature with a glare that promised revenge. With her staff in hand, Uraraka propelled herself up with a battle cry to send the monster back again, giving it a tough kick on the back to allign it where she wanted.

As the monster fell right where Uraraka needed it to be, she drove her staff into the concrete while in mid air, and a blinding white circle started burning right under the monster's location. Uraraka locked the creature in and impulsed herself to a side, skidding to her knees as she held her hat down, looking at the beast from the corner of her sight, dark.

A blinding beam of light shot right through the bee's side and stuck through the roof and into the sky, into the storm, causing Midnight to squirm and let a pure scream of agony at the torture. The beam didn't let up and made blood pour out of the demon's hard carcass like a steady waterfall. The thick crimson substance fell on the floor from her mouth, eyes twitching and the gem wiggling out of control. The bee convulsed, fluttered in terror, and confusion as the many powers within her started losing control, her mind going blank.

Everything inside of her was being destroyed in a slowburn torture that made all her organs twist and yell in terror and pain. The storm outside was only getting worse, the world seemed to be reaching an ending as thunder only grew closer to the fortress. But the worst was about to come.

Suddenly, a hard crash threw down the whole wall of the fortress as a tail whipped destroyed all in its way. Debris started falling down from it, dust was picked up, and a familiar red muzzle peeked in as it roared in a mighty, kingly growl of dominance. A familiar figure was perched on its neck, crouched with his hands up and a shit-eating grin.

Bakugou frowned at the sight, but his smirk was still there. "Oi! You bastards wanted to have all the fucking fun, didn't you?" bellowed the blond, pointing at the monstrosity that was squirming on the ground. "Amelie! Burn that bitch to the ground!"

What ensued next was pure and uncontrolled havoc. Uraraka conjured a quick shield for her comrades that were far away from her while she leaped to be right under the dragon's wing. Amelie shot out a tornado of fire that enveloped the whole room, roasting the dying bee alive as it wailed and screeched in pain, deafening and making the warriors' hearts shake. The creature wiggled to get out of the boiling floor, but she was surrounded by fire everywhere her eyes reached.

Midnight was being boiled and burnt to death. The gem begun to wither, the storm outside lost power until all that remained were the fires on the trees and the fire that Amelie had provoked. The sun shone again in what restarted as a gloomy, cloudy day.

The fires started dying around Midnight, but the vines that had ran deep under the building had been caught on fire as well, plus the inestability Amelie had caused with her entrance. Soon enough, there was a loud crash outside, and the building was starting to shake as it announced it'd be burning down to the ground and crash down, too, in its own twisted irony.

When the fires were off the demon, all that remained was a blood-stained Midnight laying on the ground. Besides her, a pit had been open to the underground factory that still continued burning. Debris was falling down to the abyss and consuming all that it could take. The Jirou lair would end up falling down into the pit.

When it was safe to walk, Uraraka stepped out of under Amelie's wing. Nobody dared move but her. Anyone would have expected the girl to give Midnigh a kick in the right, fated direction. Instead, the sorcerer knelt right by the woman, hands on her lap and panting.

When Midnight spoke, it was barely a whisper.

"You and your master… are similar, in a way." she said. A weak laugh hung from her chapped and busted lips. "I guess that maybe you are younger and a bit brazen. But… he educated you like this. When I started working with him… he said you would surprise me."

The woman glanced at Uraraka, who was glaring daggers into her in silence and with a set of eyes that could be mistaken as calm and serene. A fire of her own was being cooked in that gaze of hers.

The dark leader chuckled. "He wasn't wrong." her voice was now a whisper, speaking clearly. She stared into the ceiling as it started falling down. She was… smiling. "He has his own way around things, you know. He doesn't like people getting in his way… that impatient, foolish man." her tone held a certain light Uraraka hadn't seen before. "I started being a hinder, I guess. If that wasn't the case, you wouldn't be here."

Confused, Uraraka spoke. "I don't get it. Master sent me here… what for? Is it even worth it?"

The woman spit out a bead of blood. "I know what he is planning and… it's not good. Aizawa… that man has you where he wants you to be. It's never been about what you want, has it? I couldn't let you reach him." Midnight's eyes narrowed in regret. "If you do… you'll make the same mistake again. But I guess I'm just another puppet… one of the many."

Uraraka didn't understand anything. "The same mistake? What do you mean?"

"You don't get it yet. I failed at stopping you so… it seems you'll find out very soon. I'm just a puppet. And I have played my role." a piece of ceiling fell and leaked some blue into the fortress. She smiled. "Maybe, you are one too… but that's for the high and mighty to decide."

Uraraka's hands trembled on her lap, her eyes were narrowed in sheer bewilderment. Why was she so vague? Was she insinuating Aizawa was manipulating everybody? With what purpose, then?

Midnight's eyes turned to Uraraka's and she found exactly what she was looking for. "If I allowed you to live… things wouldn't have ended well. They never do, or at least that's what he said." her hands curled into a fist. Blood was soaking the floor and reaching Uraraka's clothes. "I just wanted to be queen for a while, you know. But now that you're here, there will be no place left for anybody."

Their eyes met once again.

"So… your mind's made up, huh? You're going to do it."

Something clicked inside of her and it made the sorcerer shudder, feeling observed. The dying necromancer never said anything about that, just… stared with lifeless eyes. Her mouth was still moving.

"I can't blame you… what you've been through… what Ochako's been through. It's a lot, huh? You're two halves of the same coin." Uraraka's eyes didn't move from her face. Her hands were trembling even more now. "After all, I'm the dying proof of how humankind is rotten to the core, am I not? I tried my best to stop you but… I failed. Again."

There were staggering steps behind them and voices trying to get the warrior back to her resting place, but clutching her slightly leaking wound, Jack spoke up. "Mother…"

Uraraka looked up, eyes wide, and scooted to a side while processing what Midnight was saying. "Kyouka… you're looking healthy. Who would have thought it, huh."

The hunter coughed out again, bending over slightly. Her blood marred Midnight's uniform as she spit out some of that thick liquid. "Why… why did you do this, Mother? We could have had a family, a happy home, and not this. Never this."

Midnight's eyes flickered to Uraraka, then to her daughter. "I had a mission to do. Or… I had somebody to shake off my hairs. A bad old man doesn't like it when his associates argue with him about existential matters. I have always been rebellious… just like you."

Kyouka's shoulders shook at those nostalgic words. This woman was a villain, a monster… but families never regarded good or bad. Her bloody hand took her mother's gingerly. "You could have stayed silent… none of this would have happened!"

"There are things that are better left forgotten… but don't worry, sweetheart." Jack took the hand to her cheek, and Midnight curled her digits into her daughter's cheek. "Your friend right here… she will take over soon enough."

Both warriors' bodies stilled at this. "What do you−"

Jack started to violently convulse and cough, on her knees now as her blood mixed with Midnight's. Her chest wound was now gushing blood again, open as Asui's seal disappeared. "It doesn't look like you'll live much longer to see it happen… but it would be a glorious display I bet."

Uraraka tried to start curing the wound again, but Jack shook her hand off. "Stop! Stop this… you're making no goddamn sense!"

Uraraka turned around and got up as Midnight started breathing more erratically, her eyes fluttering shut. The leader's grasp on the world was becoming more fragile, the ceiling was floating more and more away, her body was growing cold and numb… Uraraka wouldn't let Jack see this. "Asui!"

The alchemist leaped and tried to take Jack away again, frowning because she shouldn't have let Jack see her mother once more, above all when the former was hurt. The hunter wiggled for freedom. A heartbroken expression surfaced across Jack's bloodshot eyes. "Mother!"

It was horribly sad to see the hunter be taken away from her mother, who didn't move an inch for her daughter. She was just a heartless as she behaved, and it made the sorcerer frown as she looked down at her. "You are right. You are just scum!"

"The fire is… killing my organs slowly. It's warm. I haven't felt that in a long time." mumbled the leader. She was still smiling. It had no evil intent behind it. "I have already played my part in this charade. If you go back… you'll find nothing. There's no way out of this mess. The lines are too tangled and messy now. It's up to you to change that now. You know that at this rate, there's only one solution, right?"

Before Uraraka could ask, once again, what Midnight meant with all that bullshit, a calloused hand clamped on her shoulder. "Don't listen to her, roundcheeks."

Bakugou's warm hand made her stop. Uraraka was overcome with the need to swat it away again and not depend from him. She didn't. Instead, she stepped out of Bakugou's hold and put a foot over Midnight's arm. The fire was thriving deep inside the decaying underground facility. That, Uraraka decided, would be Midnight's grave.

But Midnight's words resonated within her. And she knew this.

"You'll soon realize… that there is no way out of this. And you will see what he wants from you. What he wants you to do."

Bakugou really tried to intervene and ask what that was about. He was too late.

Everyone watched as Uraraka nudged the decaying body of the leader and made it roll further closer to the crevice. The fires were cracking underneath, as if greedy to welcome Midnight into their arms. Before Uraraka pushed her further, a slow whisper reached Uraraka's ears.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled. "for what she is about to do."

And then, Uraraka remembered all she had done to the people around her. Torturing Bakugou's mind with the memory of his mother, almost killed her own daughter, toyed with the lives of thousands just for power and had turned them into monsters without a heart. It pushed her forward. It pushed Midnight past the ledge and into the burning abyss, carrying Uraraka's mission with her.

Midnight's body fell silently into the crumbling factory, and with her did the legacy of the Jirou clan. The fortress was shaking as it reached it weakest limits and welcomed Midnight into the darkest pits of hell.

Nobody dared speak a word after that.

In the background, there was another faint cough and a groan. Uraraka and Bakugou turned their heads from the fires to see everyone had gathered around Jack, forming a circle as Asui cradled her to her chest. Uraraka noticed the alchemist's hand wasn't on the pouring wound anymore.

"Why aren't you curing her?" asked Uraraka. Asui's hand glowed on Jack's chest for a second, but the energy flickered and died seconds later. The brunette sorcerer realized something in that exact moment.

"Midnight had the form of a demon when she attacked. Her magic attacks were cursed." Asui's voice was breaking down like a dam giving in to the pressure of a river. "We can only hold her blood back from flowing but… it will only make things worse, ribbit."

Everyone's breath was caught in their throats and the small gasps from the warriors filled the crumbling fortress. It wouldn't be long until they had to run away from the scene. However, what Asui was probably implying meant that not all of them would make it out alive.

Yaoyorozu was the first to speak. Her voice was shaking. "We… what are you implying?" the alchemist never responded, just looked down at her friend as life seeped away from the hunter. Her lips were parted, a perpetual groan escaping her lips as she bled to death. Her arms were limping on her sides, and her eyes were being screwed shut further with each beam of sunlight that hit her.

"We… we can't give up now!" exclaimed Midoriya. Uraraka and Bakugou stared at the scene with horror. They could hear the tears in their leader's voice, yet nobody could bring themselves to tell him everything would be fine. Nothing was fine. "We can stop the bleeding and take her to Shuzenji! She must be around the Capital still! We can−!"

"You… won't make it in time."

Jack's eyes were still closed as she spoke. It was no more than a whisper but it resonated throughout the whole space. "The forest is burning down. Soon, you will… you can't get away in time carrying me and curing me. You have to get away from here before this place collapses." her eyes opened a crack, seeing the pitiful look in everyone's eyes. "And you know this."

Midoriya frowned at her negative demeanor, refusing to let tears fall down. "We won't leave you here! Guys, we gotta…" nobody was moving. Instead, they were looking down, heads bowed, accepting the hunter's fate in silence. Not even Bakugou was revolting against this. "Guys?"

"She… is right." mumbled Asui, cradling the girl closer to her chest. Feeble tears started rolling down her soft cheeks, and a sob escaped her dry throat. "She will die on the way to a safe spot, and very possibly, we will die as well. We… we won't make it."

Bakugou tried to fight the view he was seeing by speaking up again, harsh and brazen. "We gotta find a way, damnit!" he turned around, desperate, and crushed Uraraka's shaking shoulders with his own trembling hands. "You gotta do something! I bet you know a way to save her!"

His desperate need to protect a guild mate he was fond of betrayed the fortitude of his soul, one he was trying to put up in his eyes. Uraraka knew there was nothing they could do. She knew that, deep inside, Bakugou knew this too. "Bakugou−"

"Do something!" he gave her a shake. His frown was full of ire and impatience. "Aren't you supposed to be a high class sorcerer? Fucking prove your worth!" his voice was a bellow that, in her vulnerable state, made Uraraka stagger with her words more than usual.

"I can't do anything, Bakugou!" everyone's hopes went down a little bit more. "If what Asui said is actually true, there is nothing any of us can do!"

Midoriya finally stopped fighting it and listened to the other sorcerer. His brows were dent down in disappointment and devastation as a tear finally rolled down his face. "N-Nothing?"

Uraraka pursed her lips and her frame sagged over a little in defeat. Her eyes were lost in the lake of blood that was surrounding Jack's body. "Nothing."

The only thing that was heard after that word was Uraraka falling to her knees right by Jack, her knees splashing on the blood, and the murmur of Jack's whimpers as pain cracked through her skin momentarily, then passed. The world around her was becoming delicate and faint, she couldn't breathe well with a part of her lung destroyed, and she was well aware that her insides were flooding.

Her eyes became increasingly heavy, and the birds outside became a low, distant jingle. "I… thank you all for all the time you gave me in this place. They were my most joyful days, even when… Bakugou just wanted to beat our−"

She went into a coughing fit. Nobody said anything. They allowed her to continue. In silence, tears were steadily falling down most faces in the room, hearts breaking and hope shattered at the view.

"I'm sorry for… letting myself be scared. For giving in. For letting… my blood win and turn against me." she let out a small chuckle that made Kaminari and Yaoyorozu fall to their knees. They looked at Jack from Asui's side, and each held one of her hands. Uraraka scooted to Kaminari's side, taking his hand so he could borrow strength from her.

He squeezed Uraraka's and Jack's hand in a painful, grieving moment.

Soon enough, everyone was standing close together, looking at Jack and imprinting the last sparks of joy in her eyes as she faded away, but a smile was lingering in her face. "I'm glad… I got to meet all of you. And that I at least… got to spend my last moments with all of you."

A sob broke free from Yaoyorozu's throat as her silent crying turned into a low, quiet wailing. The warm hand of a prince was slanted on her shoulder. Quiet sobs erupted into the scene. Uraraka's own shoulders were shaking as she tried to hold it in. Things shouldn't have happened this way. It was too crude to believe. But the reality she was witnessing was crisp and harsh, a pill hard to swallow.

"Thank you… for everything."

Jack could see the sun peek from a hole in the ceiling, blinding her temporarily, but the girl welcomed the light into her heart with a gentle, soft smile, closing her eyes as she let the heavens take her. A gentle breeze swept under her hair, like the cradle of a loving mother, and soon enough, she could feel a purifying sense of tranquility rain on her bloody corpse. The chirping birds, the flow of the river, the cicadas announcing the beginning of a summer.

She felt her body being lowered to the ground as the ground beneath her hands with a final warning. The faint sound of steps fading away in the distance left her mind, and she heard her real name being whispered one last time by a boy she used to love.

Kyouka.

Just like that, she would be reborn from the flames again.

Behind the marching guild, the building was crumbling to the pit of hell under the surface. In the end, the great dark empire had been swallowed whole by its own machinery. Monsters, humans and rubble would be consumed all together by the fire that had started everything. The walls were falling down in the distance, the body of a dear colleague resting amidst the chaos with a curled hand on her stomach, a small smile in her face.

Soon enough, that floor crumbled as well and disappeared. Uraraka looked back. There was nothing left from the structure anymore. The only proof of the guild's existence would be the fire that would thrive for days before disappearing, and the memories each member had imprinted in the minds of children, towns, and families.

Uraraka had stopped walking to admire the beautiful fires as they cracked away from her. Her teary eyes watched the spectacle. A hand was slanted on her shoulder, and a torn leader tugged her forward. "We gotta go."

Her expression ended up giving in to her turmoil, and contorted into one of pain. She wiped away her tears like a child. "It's not fair!" she bellowed as Bakugou led her away. Some people were also being dragged away from the scene. Staying to contemplate it and grieve was too tempting. Uraraka shook under Bakugou's shaking grip. "It's… it's not fair!"

The Jirou clan ceased its existence that day. However, everyone was sure Kyouka's spirit would find rest in the arms of a benevolent god that would see in her sacrifice a child that had done no harm. The world would be purified from this illness, and the cycle of terror would finally stop.

There was a distant explosion. Ashes were blowing in the wind and reaching the feet of the remorseful heroes, who walked away with their heads bowed down and a fist clenched to their heart in Kyouka's memory.

Uraraka remembered a few last words.

"As they say…" the fire grew behind them, cracked, threw embers of a great empire their way. "let the fire purify the world."

---

Rain was falling down when Uraraka woke up. Her eyes fluttered open and stared at the beige ceiling of her tent, where the pitter-patter of the rainfall cluttered her ears and consumed her soul. Her eyes were still reddened from crying earlier before slumber, and her throat felt dry like sandpaper.

She placed a hand on her damp forehead and sat up slowly, sighing out as she did. Her eyes were closed as she went over the last events that had taken place. Jack− Kyouka was dead, and so was Midnight and her guild of misery. They had put an end to a major criminal ring and in the days to come, the results for their battles would blossom: Gunhead would probably give up his position and the remaining clan members would disperse.

The results of their harvest would soon be there. She didn't know if she would be around to see them, though. The death of Kyouka in such unfair terms was gnawing at her like a bird pecking at a rotting corpse. Her eyes flickered to a side. The other side of her makeshift bed was empty, as Midoriya was probably at Asui's tent helping her cope with the loss of a great friend.

In the end, everyone was mourning in their own way. Some coped with it alone like Uraraka was. Others, they preferred the warmth of others' company and grieving together. The former option was the most likely outcome for her.

However, that prospect would change soon. Uraraka heard footsteps on the mud, boots against the wet soil, and a calloused hand she knew very well sneaked between the folds of the tent and pushed them away, revealing a familiar blistering gaze.

"Yo." he greeted, looking at her carefully, gauging if he should come in or not. Her eyes met his meekly. "Can I come in?"

Uraraka nodded lightly, hands folded on her lap as her lidded eyes looked at him from under her bangs. She could never deny him. Why would she start doing that now?

Bakugou nodded back and, sagging slightly so his head didn't hit the ceiling, he padded to crouch next to her. Her eyes were glued to her hands, and even while feeling his wine eyes on her, she didn't even flinch. He was used to her reacting to his very proximity, but she was completely silent and distant now.

Uraraka's mind was somewhere he couldn't reach, and if there was something he hated, was her going somewhere he couldn't follow.

"Hey." her eyes flickered into this realm again, coming back to Earth. Her head whipped around to see him sitting next to her, an arm on his knee as his eyes pried on hers. She couldn't help but feel slightly flustered at his proximity. She was feeling so out of it tonight. "You should be sleeping."

Her hand rose to caress his cheekbone with her knuckles. Dark rings rooted under his eyes, which seemed to shine in the darkness as her touch made his shoulders drop in relaxation. His cheeks were marred with small cuts and his skin was calloused under the touch. His breathing was slightly ragged, his eyes were droopy with exhaustion. Bakugou should be sleeping.

But there he was. With her. Crashing by her side. It was so worrisome to see him like this, so unusually vulnerable with a gaze that screamed for help. Her touch seemed to make him melt, just as his presence made her heart retaliate.

"And so should you." whispered she tenderly, and he didn't have the heart to disagree. He leaned into her touch, eyes closed now. He was nuzzling her like a scared kitty, fangs hidden. "You look tired.""

Bakugou let out a small hum of protest, but didn't pull away from her. The rain that fell outside were all they could hear, shielded by the thin tent that kept them warm. However, Uraraka could feel her heart pumping loudly at his soft approach, and she for a second feared he would hear her heart throbbing for him.

It was too intimate to be real.

"You look as if a tree had fallen on you." he declared. One of his hands rose, his eyes were focused on a patch of blistered skin on her jaw that he caressed almost fearfully. "The hell did you do down there?"

He was referring to the events down at the factory. Uraraka sighed into his touch. Bakugou was being careful to not apply too much pressure into her red skin. Her face in general had some patched up cuts and her lips were overly dry, she could tell. She probably even had some caked mud on her hair after the showdown with Midnight.

The jazz of her staccato heartbeat serenaded her into a momentary lapse of silence and calmness. "Stuff. You know I don't go easy on anybody that tries to bite me."

His voice was hoarse. "I know." he scooted a bit closer to her, then his nose brushed with her temple, eyes closed, and Uraraka gulped as she remembered the talk she had had with Bakugou before the events at the Jirou lair.

They would never be together.

Or, at least, he didn't know how. He didn't know if after the fact or during the fact anything would work. If Bakugou didn't know anything, definitely nor did she. But Uraraka didn't want to ruin the moment. Didn't want to let him know the truth was slowly killing her now that they were facing a crossroad. The playtimes were over for them.

But he didn't need to know it was destroying her. She leaned into his touch as well, needing that simple comfort. Her hand climbed up to his arm, it sneaked and tapped its way up until she had hold on his sinewy bicep. Her eyes were half lidded, cristaline with pure feelings, and their foreheads were brushing.

"You're so warm." she breathed out, taking in his musky scent that dragged some rain with it. Drops of water fell down his bangs to her nose and her cheeks as he stared down at her, listening and not moving. "It's cold outside."

His fingers were still tracing her jaw and cheek, his eyes never leaving her as he memorized each and every angle of her round face. His eyes were closing of their own accord. "Do you want me to warm you up?"

His hand was now cupping her cheek gently to bring her face up a little. Her fingers curled deeper into his bicep, biting her lip at the implication and knowing it was not a good idea. Her head was slightly cocked to a side, noses brushing, eyes twinkling, and her pupils drifted to his undeniably irresistible lips.

Her eyes fluttered close, voice reduced to a mere whisper. "You… should be sleeping."

His voice, too, was hushed, fearing he'd scare her away for good if he spoke too loud. "I gotta make sure you sleep well I guess." his other hand cupped her neck, fingertips grazing the ends of her hair. "I'm still your leader."

Her lips curled into a small smile. "Are you? You're not treating me like the iron-fisted leader I know would." she was teasing, knowing it would only rile him up quicker, and that's what she wanted. Her lips were a hair away from his, speaking in an unhearable mumble.

At her blunt statement, his daze was momentarily broken. He shook his head with a tiny smirk of his own, cupping her face a bit more roughly. "You're fucking impossible."

Their lips met then, soft and candid, just as natural as breathing but just as blistering and warm like the direct hit from a beaming sun. Her cheeks were splashed with a bright shade of red, one hand on his shoulder and another tangled into his golden tresses, stroking his hair as their lips met, parted, and inevitably met again like chains being let loose, then yanked at again.

Uraraka would pull him away for safety soon but… she needed this, too.

He wouldn't let her take a breather. If she dared pull away, he'd chase her back like a thirsty vagabond. If he dared stagger a bit, she'd pick up the pace. She pulled away for two seconds to pant out, just for him to swallow her pleas in a rush of pecks and not so innocent kisses that were leaving her lightheaded and trembling in his hands. Bakugou was taking good care of her, just as he promised.

She lacked the self-control to stop him before his kisses convinced her to stay, and as his fingers winded into her hair for more control, she let out a squeak that made him growl out in protest. She was becoming increasingly aware that he was making sure she couldn not get away, his hands were everywhere, imprinting the shape of her body in his memory for years to go.

For all the fierce, cool leadership he displayed, he was coming across as desperate and feral right now, like a lion caging his prey between his body and the ground. His hand tilted her head to a side to deepen the kiss and access her lips better, a foul tongue coming out to give her plump lips a sensual lick that left Uraraka shivering on the spot.

This couldn't end well. But for now, in the darkness of their tent, she couldn't bring herself to care. A whiny moan left her when he tugged at her hair, bit on her lip, and slid his tongue into her wet mouth to lick at the ceiling of her cavern. With so much attention from an almost divine man, she didn't know why she was exactly shaking− was it his touch? was it how he growled everytime she whimpered? was it how he marked her as his?

All she knew was that Bakugou knew very well she was vulnerable, and he would sure take advantage of that.

His tongue was tightly curled around hers, making love to one another as he dipped her down slowly until she was lying down on the makeshift mattress, her head between his elbows and body covered by his cape as it showered over his back. He sunk his kiss deeper against her, making her body arch in a plea for more, just more. He was getting her close to the point she was losing the will to pull him away, but only wanting him closer and for herself.

Her lithe fingers curled into his wild hair, moaning lightly when he bit on her rosy petal. He was letting out predatory noises of possession, of want, of desire, and it was making her head swim out of this world and into another universe where this they were doing was right. She should really push him off from her now that she could, but how even could she?

Bakugou let out a string of curses into their kiss as she brought him further down, their kiss getting wetter and messier as a familiar warmth coiled in the depths of her belly, making her squeeze her thighs subtly to null out the feeling. A hand snuck out of the lair of his hair to slide down his hard body, feeling his skin, tattered with scars, and the shape of his pectorals that rippled under her delicate but hungry touch.

At this, he pulled away, panting. A string of saliva connected their parted lips, eyes locked with each other. Her chocolate eyes melted into his just like butter in a fire. He looked just as unkempt as she did, and it brought a sense of relief crashing over her. "God, Uraraka…" he let out her name like a plea, one so hoarse and just lustful it made her feel even more aroused.

Her eyes focused on the dark spots of his cape. "Your cape is… wet." she tempted, curling a bit of the fabric with her fingers. "You should take it off…"

It took him a second to catch up, and when he did, he gave her a wolfish smirk. "You can take it off yourself. You're fucking drooling, fairy." he taunted her with that nickname, making her gasp lightly, and her eyes widened at the word.

Still, she complied. Her hands reached for the straps that went over his shoulders and started tugging them off, fingertips tracing the very ripe skin of his muscles as she went. The thought of those arms embracing her for all eternity haunted her mind and made her only more aware of how much she wanted to stay, of how much she wanted him.

The cape was off his body quickly, but instead of throwing it away, he pushed her body up with one of his arms to put it under her, and attached the straps to her own arms. The damp fur tickled her cheeks, the garment felt overly big on her small body, but the way he was looking at her right now made her heart beat to the rhythm of an unsteady constanza.

Uraraka was sure her heart would leap out of her body and run away. Instead, it remained within her chest, throbbing as his crimson gaze bled into her soul and made her feel so small, yet so cherished at the same time. The back of his hand caressed her cheek, his body looming over hers supported on an elbow, and she nuzzled against his fingers drowsily.

"You're so fucking small…" it sounded like a complaint, but it wasn't. It was more along the lines of a disbelieving man who couldn't imagine such a small creature could hold the salvation to this very wrecked world he held in a fragile grasp, the world in his palms and then, now under him, her. "I… shit."

The sorcerer had no words, either. Her hands were holding on to his strong shoulders, which she curled her fingers around as she stroked his skin. Uraraka wanted to memorize every curve of his body, too.

Her eyes blinked to his, meeting his gaze. She wanted to remember the fire behind his eyes, as well. She wanted his lips all over her body, marking her where eyes wouldn't reach so she would remember him wherever she went. It would only take one word and a kiss from him for her to bow down to every of his wishes.

But Bakugou would never do that to her. Uraraka wanted to convince herself that she wasn't sad about it, but recalling how there was no future for them after this night was over, she knew it was better this way.

"Please…" she breathed out, eyes falling half lidded and her head turned somewhat, biting her lip. "Kiss me again."

That was all it took for him to bow down to her, instead. Bakugou let out another set of choice curses as he leaned down, making her giggle. His hands were in her hair again, her fingers gently cupped his sharp cheeks, breathed in quickly, and let him claim her lips once more. His body was pressed against hers in a very unspoken need for contact, and she was not complaining. She would never complain about him touching her.

This time, all delicacy was thrown away by impatience. He shoved his tongue against hers and stroked it carefully. "Ngh…" she groaned out, her body already reacting without her consent to every of his touches. One of the hands on her neck cupped her hip, just as one of hers ran down his front to graze the skin of his abs.

That made the leader let out a loud "Fuck." against her, and he only interrupted their heated make-out to speak an inch away from her glossy, nipped lips. His hand right there was making a spark of sensuality spiral within her at the possessive grip he had on her. "You don't know what you're getting into, Uraraka…"

Her eyes instantly met his, just as brave as ever.

"Do I…?" insisted she, a small smirk forming along her bruised lips. Her body was stretched out underneath his own, tempting him to play her like a musician would play their favorite instrument.

Bakugou hummed in agreement, eyes descending down her shape and then to her shut legs under her slightly hiked up dress, giving light to patches of skin he had never seen. Uraraka brought a nail to her teeth, looking at him coyly in a way she knew he would love − and hell he did, his smirk right there was priceless.

A lighting bolt and a clap of thunder illuminated the scene one last time. "Then bite me, Katsuki."

---

It was dark outside. The clouds were an obstacle to the pure shine of the moonlight, that tried to break through the foggy atmosphere that permeated the river. Ochako hugged her gray cloak closer to her chin, and whipped her eyes to the grand moon above her. It stared at her through the dense clouds, peeking in suspicion and observing her very step.

Ochako took a deep breath, a step back, and leaped over the river, aided by her quirk. The imperial badge latched to the lapel of the garment gleamed in the night, red and blue with golden details over it. Hand splayed, she landed on the soft grass in silence, graceful as a dove.

The moment she was to take a step forward though, she saw a shadow standing in her way, unmoving. Scared of this individual's identity, Ochako hesitated to walk, but ended up doing so as she remembered the peculiar shape of that long, jet black hair. Her heart hardened its resolve, her mind sticked to her prior decision, and with balled fists, she marched forward.

She stopped right by Aizawa's side when he spoke up.

"Do you know what you are about to do?" asked he, voice gravelly with caution. "Are you aware of what you are about to unleash if you go any further?"

The distant clap of thunder echoed in the distance and made her ears twitch. "You were the one who insinuated all behind this. Don't try to act all innocent now."

"You don't know what you are playing with." he said, unaffected by her words. Ochako seemed just as unimpressed with his words as him, and only dedicated him a sideways glance. "I can see it in your eyes. You are angry. Angry at the people in this world, angry at this world itself." Ochako remained silent. As the saying went, who says nothing agrees. "If it were in your hands, you would not only murder most people that raised you up, you'd also destroy the very land under our feet.

A drop of rain hit her button nose, but she was unaware of the subtle drizzle. Aizawa didn't seem to be bothered by it.

"I'm unsure of what you will achieve with this, other than making your friends sad and miserable. You just want to trigger them into… a messy conflict, and then blow the candles off as if nothing had happened. As if you could go on with your life after that without a punishment."

Her eyes turned to his, skeptical. "Can I not? It seems like you can get away with your sins easily here." then, her melancholic eyes looked into the several cuts that marred her slender hand. Her eyebrows creased a little, then curled her fingers into fists once more, refusing to back down despite the risks. "Are you trying to warn me? If you hadn't spilled the beans, this would have never happened."

"It's my duty to bring the truth up, even if it hurts." spoke the man. His mouth was muffled under his scarf, hands shoved into his pockets. "No need to be so resentful over it. What's the matter? Do you wanna blame somebody for the sins you are about to commit?"

Ochako's head dipped forward, and she was decided to take a step forward and away from him. "Not at all. All of them deserve to meet the price of their sins. I refuse to back down ever again, even if it's against my foster parents."

She was about to walk away from him when his voice struck her like the distant lighting above her.

"You are doing things in the wrong order."

He sounded somewhat condoning, so she stopped in her tracks with wide eyes and waited for him to continue. Words of defeat danced out of his lips, almost regretfully, but knowing this man he probably wasn't that decided to stop her to begin with. He had started this, after all.

"You are being weak. Deep inside, you are still a brat." that made her body tremble at the harsh words, but Ochako bit her to not spat right back at him. "You just want to wipe all the impurities away without facing the people that still support you. Your love for them overpowers your cause, and that's why you don't wanna face them, huh?"

Could she even deny that? The mage gulped a thick mass of sudden guilt, and let him continue.

AIzawa had craned his head around to look at her, and then turned it back so he was looking at his feet in wonder. "You are being a coward. A weak big monster with the fangs of a wolf. If your cause was that important, you would have done this right after the mission was over, and not hidden like a wolf with their tail between their legs."

Ochako whipped her whole body around to scream a few choice curses at him before Aizawa rose a hand to make her shut up and pay attention. Mild and vulnerable, cold to the bone, Ochako complied.

However, when he spoke again, his voice was a hundred times louder and it resonated deep within her soul. It didn't seem like he was talking to her. Ochako didn't feel like she was herself anymore, as if time had been abruptly cut in and Aizawa was speaking to somebody else through Ochako's body.

Years, timelines and a hundred tears away, somebody shifted in her sleep, shuddering.

"Are you just gonna stand by and do nothing? Are you going to let your friends be hurt by a danger that will end up catching them? What are you waiting for?" the voice buzzed into her ears and cut clean through her fickle soul. "Will you let the world reach your friends and destroy them? Or will you actually do something about it?"

"What are you talking about?" she said, feeling disoriented, confused. "I don't get it!"

"This world is full of lies and misfortune. Not only for you, but also for them." spoke Aizawa in a softer tone. "If you don't put an end to it, perhaps nobody ever will. There is a greater enemy out there that only you can defeat now."

Ochako understood that, and she nodded. Her serious stance came back after those minutes of limbo, and her hands curled into fists once more, decided to now run away. However, she had one last question. "Who are you and… what are you doing here?

Aizawa had a simple answer to that.

"I already told you. I'm here to tell you the truth." he said, simply. "The rest is irrelevant. You'll understand someday."

Ochako, in her hurry, didn't realize this was important symbolic information. She just nodded and let her boots take her down the familiar path of her family's cottage, mud caking her legs as she sped through the rain. It was sad that her comeback would be devoted to a dirty mission like this, and it made her expression turn sour at the nostalgia she felt, dashing through the streets she had owned when she was a child.

She tried to rob herself off the sadness by grabbing the dagger on her thigh and bringing it to her hand, clutching it firmly.

There was a grunt in the heavy rain, then a splash of water and somebody climbing up a house.

At the tick of midnight, a body dangled from the ceiling, blood dripping down the corpse and into a thickening pool of blood.

Under the rotting body, the shiny pin had been thrown as a sign of who had done this. When the family came into the room, a piercing scream bounced on Ochako's ears as she ran away with tears of remorse, but knowing who this man had been, how her real parents had been robbed of a happy ending… she kept on running until the screams of what once upon a time was a family left her mind.

The morning after, war broke out.

---

When Uraraka came to, she abruptly rose from under the blankets, fingers digging into the fabric as she shook and panted in and out quickly. This dream had been vivid, distant but yet so tangible, and it made her realize this dream had been closer to her than any before. The sorcerer could still remember the words Aizawa had said as if they had been spoken to her directly in her ear.

What was that man doing there? Was it just a figment of her imagination pushing his persona there? She didn't know, but there was one thing she was aware of.

He was right.

He had been right about everything he said all along, and it made her shiver and realize that maybe, just maybe, the time had come for her to flee.

Just as she was about to leave, a hand on her abdomen fell on her thigh. She turned her eyes to see a peacefully sleeping Bakugou by her side, eyes closed in bliss and finally looking content, for a change. She combed his hair back softly, and he groaned in response as he leaned into her touch.

"I… don't know any solution to this. You'll be gone after this, I know, and… it's impossible to predict what will happen after that."

Her touch visibly recoiled from his smooth skin upon remembering his words, and her expression turned sour like that of a grieving widow, gulping down a victory they would never reach. They would be forever tangled with the other, dancing around the goal but never getting there, because he knew it wouldn't work between them.

He was a guild leader. She was a sorcerer, destined to save the world, destined to save her friends. What else could she have done other than hope? Her chocolate eyes were filled with unshed tears, and she fought to keep them at bay. The man beside her looked at peace, as if all the demons inside of him had been defeated.

Hesitant, a trembling finger caressed his cheek, eyes on the tattoos of his shoulder and remembering how terrified she had been the day they met, when things were simpler. Right now, she was terrified of saying goodbye. Uraraka traced the shape of his jaw, eyes distant, gaze tender, but heart resolved to do what she had been created for.

"I'm so sorry, Bakugou." she whispered, voice shaking, vulnerable, as if her heart was about to shatter asunder. "It's… too unfair. I won't let you be caught and suffer, not you, not any of you." she repeated, recalling what her master had told her to do. She had to go and find him.

It was time for the water to return to the ocean, and for Uraraka to face him once and for all, face him for all his crimes. As Bakugou had said, the creator of RampAge had been the one to cause the temporal disruptions. Her last resort now would be to face the creator of that monster.

She had to go against her master one last time. But she wouldn't let her dear guild get involved in any of this. As she was fated to, she would leave quietly into the night and not come back until the world was a safe, until everyone could get a happy ending. She wouldn't let anybody hurt her friends anymore, even if it meant taking Aizawa down with her.

A part of her knew things weren't that easy though. She knew that there was something behind all of this, and that she would soon discover what it was as it had been told to her, all this time. The pieces were finally in line for Uraraka to follow. All she had to do now was follow the path to the end of the line.

Uraraka leaned down and pressed a last short kiss on his chapped lips. Her mouth lingered over his for a bit longer, hovering above him as he stayed unmoving, unaware of the conundrum that rattled around in her mind. Her mouth curled down in a grimace of pain before moving off from him and getting up. Her eyes never left his as he slept, now curling towards her side as his body reacted to the loss of warmth.

It was now when Uraraka realized she had his fluffy cape tucked around her small frame. With a smile, she removed the straps from her shoulders and put the velvety cape over him, covering his body until the fur grazed his nose, which twitched at the soft contact. After that, she forced herself off from him, not allowing herself enough time to go back and think twice.

Uraraka grabbed her cloak and turned to the exit. She had one foot out of the tent, but then, she stopped.

"One last time." she mumbled, and turned back to see Bakugou stir a bit in his slumber. The fickle life of a candle lit the bed where they had been making out earlier. His body had traces of her nail's abuse, and he had a few reddened patches of skin down his neck, just as her body was littered with marks and bites she'd take with her to the battlefield.

She swallowed another gulp, mouthing an apology one last time and relished on the memory of him asleep by her side, the warmth of his body and his peaceful, handsome face to her heart. Uraraka would never forget about him, no matter where she went. The sorcerer would take his memory, his voice and his kisses with her wherever she went. No matter how far this adventure took her, Uraraka would always love him unconditionally.

One last glimpse of him, and Uraraka breezed past the folds of the tent and into the night.

Her body met a cold smack from the aftermath of the storm, and she looked into the darkness of the forest. The flames of the bonfire were extinguished and everybody was sleeping. She looked up at the sky, bringing her hat up past her eyesight. The stars were twinkling, all clouds gone with the rain, but a dim orange light could be seen in the faraway horizon.

She had to hurry before dawn rolled by, before her friends woke up and found out she was missing. Uraraka had to disappear before they could chase her back to their side Scheming, Urara started by trying to locate herself and Aizawa's lair, trying to find a sense of direction. However, Uraraka heard the low rustle of steps coming her way.

The perfect timing made her narrow the identity of this mysterious figure to one sole individual. His presence alone confirmed her worst fears: the time for her to go had come, indeed.

Shinsou stepped out of the shadows, hand on the back of his neck. His eyes surveilled her, and he was surprised to find no shock in her eyes. In the silence and darkness of the night, he looked like another of the demons plaguing her mind. Perhaps, he actually was one. "Glad to see you're still alive, fairy. We gotta go, now."

The urgency in his voice did take her aback. "Why hurry? What the hell happened?"

"Things are getting bad around the region. I've only seen tidbits of it, but I came back to our village and it was full to the brim with time corruptions, it was a fucking mess." this made Uraraka gasp in terror, eyes widening as a shadow settled on her trembling heart. "My guild wasn't there when I arrived, and your headquarters were a fucking mess. Pray for your little engineer to be okay if you sent her back home, because the village was empty when I looked around it."

Her voice broke a crack. "You're saying… that the timeline is already collapsing?"

Were they already running out of time?

"The edges are breaking. It's very likely that the disruptions are moving inwards in a circular motion, and they are advancing in Aizawa's direction." he spoke his name so bluntly as if it burnt him. Uraraka had a similar opinion about the man. "We gotta get there before it's too late. We might be able to save this place if we hurry. I'll tell you the rest on our way there."

Uraraka nodded in agreement and out of nowhere came his hand to tug her away from the camp. The girl looked back at it, tried to yank at Shinsou's arm so he would stop, which he did. Her eyes looked at the silent set of tents, remorseful for leaving without saying goodbye. Her eyes shed no tears, for she knew this was the right decision, no matter how it went down in the end.

Even if she died in the battlefield, if she was lost in the heat of salvation for her friends, for her lover, it'd be worth all this pain.

Everything was happening in a blur, too fast for her weak mind to understand. However, the only thing Uraraka knew to be real was the need to leave. Her time to act and conquer the enemy had come.

"Let's get going, fairy." his serious, dead tone made her falter her stance, and he took the opportunity to make her move to his wishes. Soon enough, he was taking her far away from the camp and into the dark forest, scampering between the trees. "The time has come for us to go."

Uraraka gulped. Her surroundings were fading into black as they were chased by sunlight streaming through the trees, awakening a sense of crippling danger within her heart. They were stepping further away from the tranquility of ignorance and closer to the depth of this swirling madness.

"Yeah." she conceded, stepping into a clearing washed by early bitter sunlight where a horse was resting and the only noise heard was the bubbling rattling in the silence. "Let's go."

A few minutes later, they were galloping away from civilization. The steps of the hurrying animal distracted her mind from the danger that was dancing right at her fingertips, teasing her heart and serenading her into a state of anxiety. However, she tried to harden her resolve, and pushed down all feelings of inferiority in order to leap up and finally, after so much time, uncover what lay under the sheets of disgrace and corruption.

This was the last time Uraraka would ever see the moonlight.