Back where we left off, Kendo lead the chase after Yui, who was throwing random stuff at the ground and using her Quirk to make them big, something that meant absolutely nothing when Kendo enlarged her fist and threw a punch every time.
"Get back here, Kodai!" Kendo yelled. "I want an explanation, and I want it right now!"
"Geez, Kendo's scary when she's mad," Midoriya remarked.
"Mad? Nah, she's currently upset," Monoma debunked. "Trust me, if she was mad, you'd think she was being possessed by a demon or something."
"Monoma! Shut the hell up and find a way to restrain her!" Kendo snapped at the guy.
The copycat wasted on time scanning his classmates for any potential. Outside of Shiozaki, whose Quirk was a type he couldn't copy anyway, he couldn't think of anything... until he looked at Midoriya.
"Midoriya, can you use your Quirk to speed up?!"
"I've never really tried it, but it could be worth a shot!" Midoriya replied before extending his hand forward. "But first, I think two swan knights would be better than one!"
Monoma nodded and smiled before he shook hands with Midoriya, copying his Quirk in the process. Then, the guys crouched down and did the first thing they could think of: they channeled Midoriya's Quirk on their feet.
Not only did it work, giving them small swan wings on the sides of their legs, but it allowed them to zip right past Yui and block her route, stunning her long enough to allow Kendo to snatch the teenager with her enlarged hand.
"I didn't think that would work!" Midoriya said as he shared a high-five with the copycat.
"L-Let me go, Kendo!" Yui demanded as she tried to break free from the giant hand's hold. "I got a pair of Quirks at my disposal and I'm not afraid to use them!"
"Quirks? Plural?" Inko asked out loud.
At this statement, Yui flinched and smacked herself in her forehead. "Me and my big mouth."
"Explain yourself, Kodai!" Kendo demanded as she turned her hand over to face the girl. "What were you thinking trying to stab the detective with a pen?! How did you even get one in the first place!?"
"As if I'd ever tell you what I did," Yui scoffed.
"I saw her making odd gestures with her hand moments before the attack," Shiozaki explained, getting everyone's attention. "The more she made those weird gestures, the more a sharpened pen levitated towards her hand."
"Which is exactly how my Quirk works..." Inko blurted.
Everyone's attention soon turned to Yui, who looked away with a stern expression.
"So, not only do you have two Quirks, but one of them happens to be similar to my Mom's..." Midoriya walked towards the captured teenager and folded his arms. "Were you the one who broke into my house and stole Hatsume's Quirk?!"
"Yes, I, the girl whose base Quirk only allows to her grow or shrink non-living things, somehow broke into your house and stole not only stole the Quirk of this "Hatsume" you're talking about, but your mother's Quirk as well," Yui dryly answered. "I mean come on, Midoriya, I know you're angry, but isn't there some space for common sense in your anger?"
"As much as I hate to say this, Yui has a point," Kendo remarked. "Besides the fact her Quirk can't take other Quirks, she doesn't even know where you live."
"Well, even if she can't take other Quirks, and even if she doesn't know where I live, she still has my mother's Quirk somehow," Midoriya turned back to Yui and leaned closer. "So, if she can't take Quirks..."
Yui raised an eyebrow at Midoriya's pause.
"There's the chance someone gave it to her."
Now seeing where the boy was going, Yui smirked, angering the boy as he asked next:
"Who did it?"
"My lips are sealed," Yui bluntly responded. "I can't make the gesture, but my lips are sealed."
"There has to be a way to make you talk," Monoma said.
"Well, if I was being pressed, like, say, being squished by a pair of gigantic hands, maybe I would spill a thing or two," Yui turned back to Kendo with a slight smile. "But I know you're not gonna do it. You're training to be heroes, you wouldn't go down the Endeavor route and be the bad cop, would you?"
"We'll take responsibility for whatever happens," Inko stated, Detective Tsukauchi nodding in agreement.
"Kendo won't do it regardless," Yui stated matter-of-factly. "We're best friends, and she would never hurt me. Right, Kendo?"
Everybody turned to the redhead, whose hold of the teenager loosened as she took a deep breath and answered, "Yui's right, I wouldn't hurt her."
Yui smirked, but just as she did, Kendo turned to Monoma and requested:
"So, with that in mind; Monoma, copy my Quirk and take over for me."
"I'm not it."
"W-Wait," Yui stammered, her smirk turning into a grimace as Monoma walked to Kendo's hand and touched it, copying her Quirk. "Y-You're not seriously planning to let him hurt me, right? You're kidding, right?!"
"Yui, it's true that I would never hurt you," Kendo said, slowly shrinking her hands back to normal as Monoma did the opposite. "But that doesn't mean I'm not going to
With his enlarged hand, Monoma grabbed Yui, who peeked out and shook her head. "You can't be serious!"
"The situation is serious, Kodai," Kendo responded, Yui flinching at the use of her last name. "If there's somebody out there giving and taking Quirks as they please, and turning people like you into their pawns, then we need to get as much information as possible!"
Yui narrowed her eyes, slamming her hand on Monoma's finger. "No, I insist, you have to be bluffing!"
Kendo turned to Monoma, who gave her a look saying he was ready whenever she was ready. Then she turned to the detectives, who told eyed her to be careful, then Midoriya, who did the same, and the rest of her class, who were looking away in preparation.
However, upon seeing her classmates, she noticed Tsunotori was talking with someone on her phone. Well, she'd reprimand her for that later.
"Monoma, press her a little."
Monoma obliged, and he squeezed as lightly as he could, causing Yui to groan in pain as she tried to free herself. However, once he stopped, Yui simply laughed.
"Okay, Kendo, you had your fun, now get me outta here."
Kendo narrowed her eyes. "Squeeze harder."
With slight hesitation, Monoma obliged, and this time, Yui spilled the beans.
"Okay, I get it, you're being serious, so I'll talk! Yanagi and I met a masked girl on the way here, and she gave us the Quirks with the condition that we do something for her!"
"And why did you accept the deal?" Inko sternly asked.
"As soon as we got the Quirks, we felt a rush of... something," Yui answered, scratching her head. "As if we had evolved into something more than human, yet still human... does that make sense?"
Inko pause and calmly shook her head.
"What did she even tell you to do?" Detective Tsukauchi asked next.
"Well, in my case, she asked me to deal with "the detective that can see through lies", so I think she wanted me to kill you," Yui answered, lowering her head in shame. "And thanks to the rush I was feeling, I didn't even think about it twice!"
"What do you think, Tsukauchi?" Inko asked.
"Everything she's said up to this point has been the truth," Tsukauchi answered, not removing his line of sight from the girl. "However, there's one other thing I want to ask."
"It's about Yanagi, I presume," Midoriya pointed out, folding his arms. "You said this masked girl gave you and her Quirks, and a mission in exchange for keeping them. What did she ask Yanagi to do?"
"I want to tell you, I really do, and not just because I fear my internal organs are gonna spill if I'm squeezed again," Yui answered, then paused before she shook her head and turned to the swan knight. "But I can't risk you flying into a rage and going after Yanagi too."
Midoriya raised an eyebrow. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"She means, Izuku," Inko said, walking towards her son. "That unless you keep your anger under control, she doesn't feel comfortable sharing that information."
"Keep my anger under control? I'm perfectly fine!" the boy snapped back. "Besides, she got your Quirk, can you blame me for being angry?"
"Izuku, when someone uses their Quirk to hurt someone, the one responsible isn't the Quirk, but the person," Inko answered back. "Kodai here is nothing more than a pawn to the masked Quirk giver, just as Kendo described her. If you want to be angry with someone, be angry with the girl who actually stole my Quirk."
Midoriya wanted to snap in that moment, but once he thought about it, he understood the situation was one where certain compromises had to be made. As much as he wanted to blow up if Yanagi had been ordered to kill one of his friends, he came to understand the one responsible was not Yanagi, but the person who gave her the Quirk and the mission.
He had to keep his anger under control, just this once...
Oh god, he was starting to turn into Bakugou!
"Fine, I'll stay calm," Midoriya took a deep breath and turned back to Yui. "Now, what was Yanagi tasked to do?"
"She was given the same mission as me: kill someone in order to keep the Quirk," Yui answered, and Midoriya already wanted to blow a fuse. "However, she wasn't told to kill a police officer or a pro-hero working here, or anybody like that."
With slight hesitation, Yui eventually finished:
"She was asked to kill a student."
Hatsume was thrown across the workshop, snapping some tables in half and making the gadgets on top of them hit the ground loudly, until the pink-haired gadgeteer hit a wall and slid to the ground.
And as she stood up, Yanagi slowly walked towards her, holding a smug smile on her face.
"Those eyes..." Hatsume remarked, clutching her chest. "I had those same eyes before Stain blinded me... how did you get them?"
"You said it yourself," Yanagi replied with a shrug. "You had these same eyes before Stain blinded you... before you lost your Quirk..."
Hatsume, upon connecting the dots, narrowed her eye and raised an eyebrow. "You're the one who stole my Quirk?!
Yanagi focused her eyesight and used her other Quirk to raise some gadgets behind Hatsume.
"I'm the one who got your Quirk, yes, but not the one who took it!"
Yanagi reeled her arm back and the gadgets followed her motion, with Hatsume ducking just in time to dodge them. The gadgets kept levitating towards Yanagi until she clenched her fists, stopping them inches away from her, before she threw a punch, sending them right back at Hatsume, who jumped out of the way.
"So it's true," Hatsume grimaced. "There really is a Quirk that can steal other Quirks!"
"You surprise me, Hatsume; you're more observant than the girl with the mask said you were," Yanagi narrowed her eyes. "Guess I'll have to update her on that once I'm done with you."
Hatsume raised an eyebrow, but before she could wonder what the girl was talking about, Yanagi used her Quirk to lift the gadgets around Hatsume and shot them right at her, the girl dodging them before she began running away.
Yanagi chased after her, levitating and throwing gadgets all over the place in hopes one of them would hit Hatsume. Even if they didn't kill her, as long as they stunned her or hurt her long enough to make the killing blow a breeze, she considered that a success.
Hatsume scanned her surroundings for anything she could use, but everything she found was either incomplete, or currently being used as a projectile by Yanagi.
Once she managed to find a gadget she could use, a gauntlet that generated an energy sword when a button was pushed, she swung it around to slice the incoming gadgets in half.
"You really should be more careful with those gadgets, you know? They're expensive to make!"
"Says the girl throwing them at me!"
Eventually, Hatsume began backing away as Yanagi approached her, throwing more and more gadgets at her until she tripped, but without hitting the ground. This was because Yanagi grabbed her and lifted her, with the gadgets dropping to the ground and shattering to pieces.
"Why are you doing this?!" Hatsume snapped, trying to break free. "What do you gain from killing me?!"
"A permanent upgrade to my effectiveness," Yanagi answered with a shrug. "You see, before today, I had to deal with the fact I could only lift things that I could see near me. If there was something I could use, but it was nowhere I could see it, I'd just have to deal with whatever I had near me. And I didn't always have something I could use."
Yanagi seamlessly removed the gadget from Hatsume's hand, making sure to not turn off the energy sword as she continued:
"But now, with your Quirk, I can look at usable objects from afar! And not only can I look at things from afar, but it also enhances the radius of my Quirk! With this combination, my effectiveness as a pro-hero is bound to skyrocket. Sure, I will have to train extra hard in order to make sure I can use both Quirks effectively, but it's a small price to pay!"
Yanagi moved the energy sword until its blade was inches away from Hatsume's neck.
"Now, any last words, Mei Hatsume?"
The gadgeteer looked at her side, and she smiled. "You know, Yanagi? I feel sorry for you."
Yanagi raised an eyebrow. "What are you pulling now, Hatsume?"
"I mean, you think my Quirk's so awesome because it works fairly well with your own, but you don't seem to realize on big flaw in it," Hatsume smirked. "It forces me to ignore the world around me!"
Just as Yanagi pondered what this meant, the underside of a pair of boots hit her in the back of the head, knocking her out and freeing the girl, who turned off the energy blade before they fell.
The one responsible for the undersides soon appeared, revealing himself to be Mineta, who ran up to the pink-haired gadgeteer and hugged her. "Senior!"
"Thanks for the help, Mineta!" Hatsume replied, patting the boy's back. "Did you manage to find Power Loader?"
"No, but I did find someone who told me where he was," Mineta replied. "He's apparently heading to the top of the building in order to deal with something with the other pro-heroes."
"They're gonna have their work cut out for them, then."
The gadgeteer duo turned around and saw Yanagi slowly stand up, blood running down her face as she flashed an audacious grin. This, however, wasn't enough to scare the duo, who asked in unison:
"What are you talking about?"
As Melissa and her classmates-except Yaoyorozu, who had been taken elsewhere-were getting ready to head back home to let the lockdown do its work, she couldn't help but overhear Iida talking with someone on his phone.
"Mhm... Mhm... I see, then the situation is far more dire than we expected," "Try to evacuate Class 1-B as soon
"Iida, what's going on?"
The blue-haired boy stopped on his tracks and slowly turned around. Once he did, he found the rest of Class 1-A, Melissa in particular, looking at him with concerned expressions.
"I was talking out loud, wasn't I?" he asked as he pocketed his phone. "It's nothing we have to worry about. Let's continue heading back home-"
"Sorry, Iida, but I'm afraid we can't do that," Melissa stated sternly, folding her arms. "You said the situation was getting dire, and you told whoever you were speaking with to evacuate Class 1-B."
"If I said those things, it's for a good reason, Shield," Iida answered, Melissa flinching at the mention of her last name. "Whatever's going on during this lockdown, it's not something we can help with. The most we can do is leave the area and let the police take care of this."
"Oh, so the police are going to take care of this?" Melissa sternly repeated. "Like how they took care of that giant villain that caused delays in train schedules?"
"M-Melissa-" Tenko stammered.
"Or how they took care of Stain when he decided to attack U.A.?"
"Dude, we know you're angry, but-" Kirishima said.
"Or how they took care of waiting until my father had already created an abomination of a gadget that gave them enough reason to arrest him!"
"Shield!"
"WHAT!?"
Melissa's eyes went blank as everybody turned to the source of both the voice, and the bells they were hearing right now. It was Shinsou, who walked up to the girl and prepared to snap his fingers.
"When I snap my fingers, you will calm down, and think about what you're doing before you rush off and do something stupid!"
As soon as he snapped his fingers, Melissa broke out of her trance state and turned to the guy responsible. "Did... did you just brainwash me or something?"
"You were getting really angry, and I feared that if nobody did anything, you'd end up blowing a hole through the wall or something," Shinsou answered with honesty. "Now that you're calm, please, think about the situation before you run off. Is it really the best idea to run headfirst into whatever's going on?"
"Yeah, the new guy's got a point, Melissa," Kaminari remarked, walking to the brainwasher's side. "As far as anybody knows, the police and heroes could be taking care of this as we speak!"
"Hmm... now that you mention it, I haven't seen Eraserhead or any of the other teachers," Melissa scratched her chin. "Where could they be?"
"Perhaps they're with the police, heading to the top of the building?" Iida suggested. "It would make sense for them to see what's going on."
Melissa turned to the bespectacled bluehead and narrowed her eyes. "Did your contact tell you about that?"
Iida flinched, and he adjusted his glasses. "Well, no, but-"
"Iida, stop it," Melissa stated sternly. "Something weird is going on, if not in U.A., then with you. If you're hiding something that could help us be calm or help at all in this lockdown, I suggest you spill the beans already."
The guy paused, and promptly lifted his head as he stated:
"Alright then, I will explain to the best of my ability."
"We should be reaching the top of U.A. soon enough," Nezu remarked as he lead the way. "Once there, I want all police officers to surround the area and load your weapons, just in case things get hefty. As for the pro-heroes, I want you to subdue whoever's invading U.A. right now, understood?"
"Yes, sir!" all the cops and pro-heroes answered in return... except All Might and Eraserhead.
"What a drag," Eraserhead sighed. "Just when it seems I can go back home and sleep some more, an intruder manages to get through the lockdown."
"Which I still don't understand," All Might remarked. "The only way they'd be able to get through the lockdown Nezu and I requested was if they could teleport, but those kinds of Quirks are extremely rare."
"You and Principal Nezu ordered the lockdown?" Midnight asked with confusion. "I mean, I can get Nezu, but why you?"
"I just feel it's for the best we fortify the defenses before another attack happens," All Might narrowed his eyes. "Also just in case something like this happened, in which case..."
All Might assumed his buff form.
"We can go all out against the intruder without endangering the young students!"
Midnight frowned, but decided to keep her concerns to herself as everybody reached the top of U.A. Above them was a crystal dome surrounding the building, probably the result of a Quirk, and the police officers surrounded the area as the pro-heroes searched for any sign of the intruder.
"Well, look who we have here..."
The pro-heroes looked up, and they saw a black mist portal opening in the sky. From the portal, a small figure jumped out and landed right on the ground, with the portal flying down to her side soon after, and morphing into a humanoid shape.
As for the small figure, she had a black bodysuit with red patterns resembling blood, a white mask with the kanji for "Exchange" in it, and very light pink hair, almost looking white as snow. Her left arm had the opera glove-like gadget shown in Mina's introduction to the doctor and his boss, making it quite clear who she was.
"It's good to see all of you again. Midnight, Eraserhead..."
The figure stood up and shot a look at the number one hero.
"And All Might too."
The number one hero's eyes widened.
"Young Ashido... That arm..."
Mina raised her left and looked at it. "Pretty neat, huh? I got it as a gift from a friend after they helped me recover from my injuries."
"Goddammit, so the beating you took in the sports festival wasn't enough to get you off our hair!?" Present Mic snapped, desperately holding back the desire to use his Quirk. "What do we need to do in order to make you stop messing with us!?"
"You'd need to do something that no hero, not even All Might himself, would be willing to do," Mina smirked as the portal humanoid began opening itself wide. "So, instead of bothering to explain my weakness to you, I think I'm gonna let my friends here have some fun with you."
Before the pro-heroes could wonder what the girl was talking about, a group of horrific, mutant creatures came out of the wide portal and rushed at the pro-heroes, who got ready to fight just as All Might threw a weak punch, causing a gust of wind hard enough to send the monsters flying back.
Mina was unaffected thought, and she soon responded by tackling the number one hero and taking the fight to the skies with him, clashing fists with him.
"You don't know how much I've been waiting to do this!"
