Izuku stumbled a few steps back from the villains in the center of the plaza. He was on the wrong side of the fighting, the wrong side of the USJ, and he had never felt more helpless than he did right then. The scarf tightened around his ribs, a silent but active reassurance that he was not technically alone in this, although he wasn't sure how much better it could be with a potentially semi-sentient scarf and no other help within reach. Half his class had been scattered to the far edges of the building from what Shoji had said. Kaminari and Iida were away, and he had to trust that they'd be able to get help quickly, but that wasn't going to do him a lot of good when he was standing right in front of the person who was probably leading the whole attack.

"I asked you a question, NPC," the man hissed. "Don't you have any dialogue to offer me?"

Izuku tried to back up again, but he felt his heel attempt to land on open air. If he backed up any further, he'd be going down the steps leading to the fountain and he didn't trust himself not to trip.

The black mist villain coalesced nearby, drawing the leader's attention away.

"Why did you bring me this one, Kurogiri?" the leader demanded. "He's useless!"

Indignation burned in Izuku's gut. He knew this wasn't the place for it, but he had been called useless almost his entire life, and UA was finally different for him. He knew the tall man and the mist person were villains, but he was still angry that that particular adjective seemed to follow him everywhere he went no matter what he did.

"Two of the students escaped with the intent to summon the other teachers, Shigaraki Tomura," the mist person replied, his tone almost bored. "This is the one who ensured it."

The tall man—apparently Shigaraki Tomura, if that wasn't a fake name being fed to him because he was there—turned back to look at Izuku. "What a clever NPC. Not smart enough to get himself out, though." Shigaraki tilted his head with mock sadness. "Pity. Noumu, get rid of him."

The hulking beast of a person that hadn't move since he arrived suddenly blurred, and it was only luck and years of training by bullying that managed to keep him from getting squashed immediately. And the scarf, which had wrapped around the beast's reaching arm, allowing him to slide beneath the danger with a near instinctual dodge. He wasn't about to thank Bakugou for anything he'd put him through, but it was mostly his fault that Izuku could keep enough of his awareness under pressure to be able to act in defense of his own life.

The other end of the scarf wrapped around the center of the fountain, and he pulled himself away as quickly as possible. Whatever quirk Noumu had was probably more than enough to turn him into a smudge on the floor, and Aizawa was still distracted dealing with the horde of villains they had brought along.

It was just a higher stakes version of the battle trials. Except in this scenario, he was both the villain and the bomb. If Noumu managed to touch him, it was all over, so he needed to play to his strengths. Unfortunately, unlike the battle trial, he didn't know where Uraraka was since she had been scattered with most of the rest of the class. And perhaps not having gravity wouldn't be as helpful here as it was then. Considering Noumu had more than enough muscle to throw him around as he was, it was entirely likely his weightless body would crash into something at a high enough speed to liquefy his bones if she removed his gravity. Mobility was what he needed the most at the moment but being weightless, if it had been an option, came at a much higher risk now that they were in an actual combat situation.

Mobility wasn't the only trick up his sleeve, though. Misdirection and trickery were also skills he had cultivated over the years out of necessity. If he could turn people against each other, he would be in a far better place. And considering Noumu hadn't moved until he'd been given an order, it was entirely possible he wasn't intelligent enough to predict his actions.

Provided, of course, that he wasn't being predictable. The chaos gambit really only worked when you weren't expecting it, and he had three opponents in the central plaza who could possibly pick up on his plan before he managed to move forward with it. Not ideal, but it wasn't as though he had any other choice. If he managed to hold the three of them off long enough, he could probably count on Aizawa's help, but surviving was the first thing he needed to do.

He really wished he'd managed to figure out how to modify the scarves on his own. None of the ones he'd grown deviated drastically from the original design, so while he had some form of mobility, it relied on being able to wrap around something to grip. The only things he had to work with here were the fountain and people. The hedges that framed the central plaza probably wouldn't take his weight if he tried to pull himself toward them, and he couldn't try anything he wasn't reasonably sure would work. A mistake here wasn't going to end with a failing grade—it would get him killed.

Noumu plowed after him as he yanked himself out of reach. The single-minded determination of this particular villain went beyond normal limits, as he didn't seem to care about himself at all. Perhaps he had a juggernaut quirk of some kind? Something that would let him crash through things without hurting himself. In the interest of keeping his main pillar of mobility intact, Izuku hooked the other end of the scarf on the steps leading up to the fountain and pulled himself off center. As he expected, Noumu swerved to follow him.

If he was right about it being some kind of juggernaut quirk, mobility wasn't going to be a strong point for Noumu. Even regular speed quirks sometimes fell short when it came to turning, dodging, or otherwise changing direction. The weak points could be trained out of a person, but it took a lot of work, far more than any regular villain was willing to put time into. If Izuku wanted to make sure he could keep up—or rather keep away—he needed to stop thinking and just act.

Dodging beneath Noumu's arm, he didn't think about the wind that ruffled his hair. He didn't let his mind spin out trying to determine the endless possibilities of what was going to happen next. Arms as big as Noumu had come with a weight he didn't have, and that worked against speed, no matter what his quirk could do.

What followed was almost a dance. Izuku had been through so many fights, had been the victim in most of them, had taken up martial arts to learn to defend himself and how to read his opponent's body. The movements were ingrained in him, ducking and twisting away, playing a higher stakes game of keep away than he'd ever played in his life. His experimental palm strikes and knuckle jabs didn't seem to register, so brute force was not something that was going to work with this opponent. That was fine. He wasn't really made for brute force against something like this.

Trickery and precision, however, were exactly what he was made for. There were places on the human body that couldn't be as well protected no matter what people did, weaknesses that came part and parcel with being corporeal. They could be in different places on people with heteromorphic quirks, but they were always there. That being said, Izuku didn't have the space or the time to take advantage of many of them while he was ducking around within Noumu's guard.

He did, however, have a number of support items in his belt that he could palm while evading a heavy swing.

Noumu may have been built like a brick wall, but there was one glaring chink in his defenses. It could have been a trap of some kind, leaving his brain so exposed, which was why Izuku grabbed three of the taser disks from his belt instead of one. If he was right and Noumu had some natural defenses against attacks aimed at his brain, three disks should still be enough to give him a bit of breathing room. Izuku knew he couldn't keep up his evasion forever, and he needed the space to back off and attack from another angle.

Izuku was distantly glad Aizawa was too busy to see the very risky move he pulled as he flicked the two ends of the scarf between Noumu's legs, then sent them up to wrap around his shoulders. Izuku pulled himself after the scarf, throwing himself up into the air in a flip over Noumu's head. At the apex of his flip, he buried the taser disks as deep in Noumu's brain tissue as he could before attempting to land.

Noumu was too quick for him, however, or the flip too slow. One of Noumu's arms came up and batted at him before he touched down. It would have sent him flying, if not for the ends of the scarf still wrapped around the villain's shoulders. Gritting his teeth against the pain as it stole his breath, Izuku retracted the scarf and tried to curl around his now injured ribs. Bruised or broken, he wasn't sure, but he had enough presence of mind to tuck and roll before he hit the ground near Shigaraki Tomura and Kurogiri.

He couldn't afford to stay down and sprang up as soon as he finished his roll. He wouldn't wish his time at Aldera on anyone, but it was an excellent preparatory course for taking a hit and keeping in motion while in pain. It wasn't the best thing for him, but he couldn't afford to stop.

The tasers kicked in suddenly and Noumu screeched. The sound was inhuman and full of pain, and it kept going. Apparently, there weren't a lot of defenses on Noumu's brain, and introducing not one, but three external sources of electricity was screwing him up in a bad way. It hadn't killed him, but he certainly wasn't able to shake it off after a bit like Kaminari.

"What the fuck did you do to my Noumu?" Shigaraki fumed, charging toward him with one hand outstretched. "How is an NPC like you able to take out my party's tank?"

Izuku sent a loop around Shigaraki's wrist, hoping to pull him off balance. The outstretched hand paired with the severed hand motif he'd gone with for his costume was sign enough that letting him touch anyone was a bad plan, so avoiding and redirecting him was probably the best course of action. It was even working for a moment before Shigaraki grabbed the scarf with his other hand and it started disintegrating.

Pulling the scarf back reflexively, Izuku felt suddenly off balance knowing that the scarf, the original scarf, was damaged so badly. Not even Bakugou had managed to damage it this much. He knew what Shigaraki's quirk was now, but he wasn't sure if it was worth it.

In the meantime, Shigaraki took advantage of his shock to move in close enough to grab him by the throat, one finger carefully extended. Izuku froze, knowing that any of his struggling would be violently and permanently ended by adding that last finger.

"You really are a troublemaker, aren't you?" Shigaraki hissed. "A real glitch in the game. My Noumu was made to kill All Might. There's no way a regular NPC could break it just like that."

Izuku held his breath. Angry red eyes were too common in his life. Bakugou had them, this villain had them. There were probably a few other people at Aldera who also had red eyes and hated him, but he hadn't noticed while simply trying to survive the most obvious antagonist in his life. Survival didn't look like it was possible where he was standing now. His ribs ached, his scarf was partially disintegrated, and his life hinged on the insane whims of a villain apparently intent on killing All Might.

"Do you know what happens to glitches?" Shigaraki whispered, a touch of excitement in his voice that chilled Izuku to his bones. "They get removed."

The final finger pressed down against his neck and Izuku braced for the feeling of his skin disintegrating. Only for nothing to happen. Shigaraki's head jerked up and he turned to where Aizawa was staring at him from the center of the dwindling crowd of villains. Knowing better than to waste the chance he'd been given, Izuku ripped himself away from Shigaraki, tossing one of the flash-bang marbles on the floor between them, followed up by one of the small explosive marbles.

It was enough to put a bit of space between him and the villain, and he palmed a couple more taser disks, hoping he'd have a chance to use them.

"Noumu!"

Izuku turned toward the hulking villain that had been fighting off the effects of the taser. He had gone eerily silent, but Izuku hadn't noticed while he was preoccupied with Shigaraki himself. Now Noumu was upright again and didn't seem to be suffering any ill effects from the taser.

Made, Shigaraki had said. Noumu had been made to kill All Might, so he needed to be able to survive whatever All Might threw at him. He needed to throw off super-powered punches like they were nothing, and a juggernaut quirk wouldn't do that. Juggernauts built up momentum to bulldoze through everything, and until they got up to speed, they were just as vulnerable as someone else.

But 'made'. A tailor-made quirk that could stand up to All Might would have to be equal to All Might's quirk, and no one knew exactly how it worked. It seemed like a general strength enhancer, but a quirk like that would have degraded a bit with age. If anything, All Might had only gotten stronger as his hero career progressed. So, a quirk that stockpiled strength was more likely, and it compounded on itself over the years. Growing up with a quirk like that would help one's body adapt to the stresses of increasing strength gradually, but if the quirk or the person had been 'made' as Shigaraki said, there had to be some way to counteract the weaknesses, as many of them as they could.

The taser discs hadn't put Noumu down for long, so there had to be more than just a strength quirk in him. Of course, if you could engineer a person with a specific quirk, why would you stop at just one? Why not add regeneration to make sure they could always stand back up again.

"Noumu," Shigaraki called again, "kill the glitch."

Noumu blurred again, and Izuku only just managed to throw himself to the side. He wasn't situated to make Noumu careen into Shigaraki this time, but that would hopefully hide the fact that this was his goal. The whole time he'd been there, Shigaraki had hardly moved from where he first emerged, and Izuku fully intended to use that laziness or confidence against him at the earliest and most convenient opportunity.

But surviving to do that was first on his list of immediate priorities.

"Midoriya!"

He couldn't focus on who was shouting his name, not when breathing and moving were taking his full attention. He was vaguely aware of the collection of figures emerging from the depths of the USJ facility, but he couldn't pay enough attention to who they were unless they became a threat to him.

Instead, he dodged again, feeling the wind as Noumu blew past him before turning again. He made a decision in the next moment. It would take too long to position himself in such a way that Noumu would run into Shigaraki. Which meant that he either needed to abandon the plan and keep dodging until he couldn't anymore—a deadline that was fast approaching with a distinct emphasis on "dead"—or he needed to drag Shigaraki into Noumu's path.

The maneuver had to be quick, and he needed to plant his feet properly to make sure he had the proper leverage to move Shigaraki. And knowing what he did about Shigaraki's quirk, it was going to damage the scarf, but they needed just a little bit more time. Kaminari had to have gotten a signal through to the school, help had to be coming.

Dodging Noumu's next pass, Izuku placed himself where the undisintegrated side of the scarf would be able to reach Shigaraki as quickly as he could manage it. Which, since he used it to jump off of buildings and swing to safety, one of the main things he had trained was speed.

Noumu turned, and this time Izuku was the one making things happen quickly. The end of the scarf shot out and wrapped itself up Shigaraki's left arm while Izuku simultaneously pulled and twisted, trying to ignore the sudden and sharp stab of pain in his ribs as he spun out of Noumu's path, leaving Shigaraki where he'd been standing. Shigaraki, who had almost immediately attempted to disintegrate the scarf, was left with the end still tight around his arm when Noumu crashed into him and sent him flying.

Shigaraki's scream of outrage was cut short by a portal which opened in the air before he landed and dropped him in the fountain. Noumu had stopped briefly, turning towards where Shigaraki had been going before the portal, then slowly shifted until he was facing the fountain where the villain had splashed down. Apparently there was some in-built loyalty in Noumu that demanded he protect Shigaraki, so Izuku's maneuver was possibly the best and worst thing he could have done.

As soon as Shigaraki was up again, he was going to be out for blood more than before. And Izuku's ability to escape was rapidly dwindling.

A flash of black and pink appeared out of the corner of Izuku's vision and he tried to reorient, expecting a new threat, in time to see Uraraka launch herself at Noumu's back with both hands outstretched. She landed with a meaty slap that reverberated around them and tumbled to the ground. And Izuku... well, he wasn't going to ignore the golden opportunity that had just landed in his lap. Noumu without his gravity was much less of a threat.

Sending out one of the truncated ends of the scarf, Izuku grabbed Noumu around the waist and spun around, using the momentum he generated to fling the villain towards the ceiling far above them. Up there, it wouldn't be able to act on any of Shigaraki's orders, making everyone on the ground that much safer. Even with negated gravity, the quick spin sent another wave of pain shooting through Izuku's chest. He choked back a cough and tried to ignore the heavy taste of iron in the back of his throat.

Shigaraki screamed in frustration, stomping towards Izuku out of the fountain. He didn't make it very far before Aizawa intercepted him, using his capture scarf to pin Shigaraki's arms to his sides, effectively preventing him from being able to get out and attack Izuku. Naturally, this brought Kurogiri back into the fight, but Izuku flicked a couple of the taser discs at the metal collar that was the only physical part of the mist villain's body. They connected like magnets and delivered a charge that lit up the mist in dark blue and violet. Then, a definitely physical body dropped to the ground, dark mist still swirling around aimlessly.

"Problem child," Aizawa said, pulling Izuku's attention to him. He reached into a pouch on his belt and pulled out a set of handcuffs. "Get those on him before he recovers."

He tossed the cuffs up in the air and Izuku snatched them with his scarf before they could hit the ground. Before he could put them on the mist villain, the entrance of the USJ broke open, revealing All Might. Startled, Izuku accidentally dropped the cuffs.

There was a cry of pain behind him and Izuku turned to see that Shigaraki had used the momentary distraction to break free, disintegrating part of Aizawa's scarf as well, before latching onto Aizawa's arm and disintegrating part of it. Then an unseen force knocked into him, pushing him away from their teacher. Then a similarly unseen force started pulling Aizawa away from him. From the way the blood was getting onto a pair of invisible hands, making them decidedly less invisible, Izuku assumed it was Hagakure helping him.

Jirou was suddenly at Izuku's side. "Midoriya, the handcuffs!"

"Kurogiri!" Shigaraki shouted as All Might advanced on the central plaza. "Get us out of here!"

The mist sort of floated upward shakily, but he moved toward Shigaraki, expanding out the way he did before. When Izuku tried to throw another taser disc at the collar, a smaller portal sent it away to the fountain where it short-circuited and sank. Before All Might could grab either of them, they were gone, leaving the rest of the villains they'd brought with them, as well as the floating Noumu behind.

A moment of stillness descended on them, heavy and dark. Tsuyu and Mineta crept closer from the Flood zone, Todoroki and a slightly smoking Ojiro from the Conflagration zone. Tokoyami looked half-drowned, coming from the Downpour zone. The rest of the heroes from the school were coming through the broken entrance as Ashido and Sero made their way to the plaza from the landslide zone.

Explosions announced the arrival of Bakugou and Kirishima from the Ruins zone, and Izuku knew that everyone else had been left at the entrance with Thirteen, who he hoped was okay.

Now that the danger was past, the energy and lack of awareness of the pain he was in was trickling away. There was a sharp piercing ache in his side, and he couldn't seem to get enough air in his lungs. As he tried to breathe in, he could feel the rattle in his throat and taste the blood in his mouth.

"Midoriya, are you okay?" Aizawa asked, his eyes pinning Izuku in place where he was swaying on his feet.

For a fraction of a second, he considered lying, but the blood in his throat and the rattle in his breathing were not things he could treat himself. His mouth was too wet and completely filled with the taste of blood, even though he hadn't bitten himself, so he just shook his head.

He watched the rest of the teachers picking their way through the crowd of villains Aizawa had been fighting. They were clearly still on edge, ready to put down hard anyone else who made an aggressive move. The stance was only slightly relaxed at the sight of the floating Noumu up near the ceiling, and most of the class clustered together around Aizawa and All Might.

"I'm going to go coordinate the paramedics and police response," All Might said, pulling away from the crowd of students.

Perhaps it was a hallucination from the pain, but Izuku thought he could see wisps of steam pouring off All Might's arms and shoulders. It was starting to make everything look a bit fuzzy and he pushed his way over to the edge of the fountain to sit down.

That was the moment everything just seemed to crash into him. His vision got fuzzier until it abruptly winked out, taking his consciousness with it.

Shouta wasn't sure when or why Midoriya had ended up in the central plaza, but the sight of him standing frozen with the lead villain holding his throat with one finger deliberately raised chilled him to his bones. Although the villain's quirk was still unknown to him at that point, the raised finger was an obvious sign of a five-point touch-based quirk like Uraraka's. Somehow, he doubted the villain had anything so benign.

Of course, he had learned what the man's quirk was for himself the hard way.

But of all the students to end up facing the lead villain, why did it have to be Midoriya? Shouta didn't get the impression that he looked for trouble like that. In fact, his actions thus far showed a specific bent towards avoiding direct confrontation, the exact opposite of ending up in the central plaza where the most powerful villains had decided to take up residence. Sure, he'd been reckless in the entrance exam when he charged the Zero Pointer, but it was clear he had a bit of a plan in retrospect. Not a particularly good plan, but a plan nonetheless. And one really couldn't argue with results, as it did put the Zero Pointer out of commission.

Still, he would have expected one of the other kids to draw the attention of the villain leader and his most immediate minions. Like Bakugou, who had yet to learn the meaning of restraint if it popped up and hit him in the face. At this point, the blond would be more likely to try and hit it right back. Todoroki was also a possibility to consider, as he was the son of the Number Two Hero and therefore a tempting target. Unlike Bakugou, he didn't think Todoroki would seek out the trouble, but he probably wouldn't have argued if put in the middle of things.

But Midoriya... He wasn't the type to throw himself headlong into danger without a reason. He would have expected him to end up in one of the zones with the other students. Instead, he had somehow gained the attention of the main villain enough to come under attack. He'd been doing well for himself, managing to dodge attacks and turn his opponent's energy against them. Shouta thought he was fine.

Now, though, as he barely managed to catch the kid before he tipped over into the fountain, he knew he had missed something important while he'd been forced to focus on the other villains. Continually dodging wasn't a feasible method of dealing with villains, as well he knew, and redirecting their attacks only worked if they couldn't overpower you anyway.

A bit of blood trickled out of the corner of Midoriya's mouth and Shouta felt a chill run down his spine. He hadn't seen the kid take a hit at all, but this wasn't like the main villain's quirk, and whatever internal bleeding he had wouldn't have been caused by a portal, which means that Midoriya had taken a hit from the mountain of muscle with the exposed brain. And then he'd kept going.

Shoving past the light-headedness of blood loss from his own injuries, he looked toward the entrance. "I need a stretcher and a couple of paramedics over here now!"

This was not how he wanted to lose a student. This wasn't how he was ever supposed to lose one. It was too soon, Midoriya was much too young to have been in the situation he was in.

He was also much too young to have the level of pain tolerance he had, but Shouta unfortunately knew exactly where that came from: growing up believing he was quirkless and having Bakugou as a constant bully over the years. But had he suffered enough that not even broken ribs could phase him? The kid hadn't even cried out, hadn't even really slowed down.

Adrenaline was probably the only thing that had been keeping Midoriya even remotely responsive. And Uraraka had probably saved his life by stealing the hulking villain's gravity. She and Midoriya really worked well together. He could see them possibly forming a hero agency together in the future if that's what they wanted. Even when they hardly knew each other, they threw in together as though they'd been doing it their whole lives.

At least the kid hadn't lied when Shouta asked him if he was okay. That was a distinct point in his favor. Most of the students he'd had to deal with over the years thought it was a smart idea to hide their injuries from him and pretend as though everything is fine. Midoriya, at the very least, had dropped the pretense once his life was no longer in danger.

Except, with injuries like that, his life was certainly, terrifyingly still in danger.

Two sets of paramedics arrived at the plaza with two stretchers, and it took him far longer than it should have to realize that one of them was for him. Hizashi was going to freak out later when the kids weren't there to see it, even though it wasn't as bad as some of his injuries over the years.

"Sir," one of the paramedics cut in, pulling him bodily away from Midoriya, who had been taken up by the other paramedics. "Sir, I need you to let us do our job and help you." She reached for his arm. "You're losing a lot of blood, and we need to make sure that your wound stays clean."

It was only then Shouta noticed all the pale faces of his students around him, all of them looking like they had been suddenly and violently robbed of their childhoods. Which they had, and one of their own was laid out on a stretcher and getting wheeled to an ambulance in front of them.

"I'll be fine," he assured them as he let the paramedics do what they needed to with his arm. "And so will Midoriya. We have Recovery Girl, and a number of other people with the expertise to deal with this sort of situation at hand." He glanced at Hagakure, whose normally invisible hands were stained into visibility with his blood. She had lost her gloves and boots somewhere, and he was sort of glad he wasn't staining her hero costume because he didn't want her to think of this moment every time she put it on. "I know this has been a traumatic situation, and I highly suggest talking to Hound Dog, the school counselor, if you're having any problems now or in the future. By that, I mean anything from nightmares to something more mundane, like test anxiety. The resources we have are there to help you, so you should take advantage of them as much as you can."

He could see Bakugou scoffing in the background, but the kid hadn't been particularly thrilled to get the therapy ultimatum before, so he was probably thinking this was more of the same. Still, there was a pale, haunted look in his eyes that never went away. As well as he thought he'd handled it, Bakugou was probably going to be one of those who needed to talk about what happened but didn't want to look weak.

God, there was always at least one of them. Telling him that needing to go to therapy wasn't the same as being weak wasn't going to mean anything unless he managed to come to that conclusion himself. Shouta made a mental note to have Hound Dog check in with him as he didn't doubt the kid was coming out of this with some sort of misplaced guilt.

He waved over Snipe and Midnight to gather the kids and get them on their way back to the school. They would need to give their statements to the police, but those could just as easily be gathered back on campus, where they were slightly more assured of the security. For now, that would have to be enough. Nezu was probably going to shut down the school for a couple of days to review and patch the security system that allowed such an intrusion. After that, Shouta would need to take the first couple of classes back to do damage control. He'd be healed by then, Recovery Girl willing, and so would Midoriya.

Although if they took both him and Midoriya to the hospital, that was one conversation he intended to have sooner. It would also give him the chance to talk to Midoriya's parents. Not a meeting he was looking forward to given the situation, but one he would have had to deal with anyway.

With his students out of the way, his arm carefully cleaned and wrapped, and the black starting to creep in at the edges of his vision, Shouta lay back on the stretcher.

"Just so you know," he whispered to the paramedic with a falsely conversational tone. "I'm about to pass out."

And then he did.

Sorry for the wait. This chapter was a little harder to write because I scrapped the version I had outlined to begin with. I like this version much better. More stakes, more drama... Just all of the things that better characterize my writing style.

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