Disclaimer: neither I or bunnscribe owns Mob or MHA
Marching Funeral in an Apocalypse
By: bunnyscribe (AO3)
Also, I got some wonderful fanart of Mob's costume so go check that out before you read here!
Izuku hits the water and the whole world turns topsy-turvy, coated in bubbles from the breath he lost the second he hit the water. He gags, tries to determine which way is up. He spins around until he meets eyes with a shark-man and feels his stomach drop. The shark-man grins at him, wide and ferocious.
"Hey kid," the man says, "this is nothing personal."
And then Tsuyu kicks him in the face, descending like an angel from heaven with the speed of a torpedo. Izuku's vision is starting to go spotty, but he hears Tsuyu call his name, feels her tongue wrap around his body and propel him up through the water.
He hits the deck of the boat with a loud thwack.
"Hey man, are you ok?"
Izuku takes a second to reorient himself, blinking the remnants of water out of his eyes. "Sero?" he slurs, bringing an arm to cover his face when the world gets a bit too bright. "What are you doing here?"
"Hey," Sero says, pulling at Izuku's arm to help him sit up. Sero's face comes into view. He looks worried for a reason Izuku can't place immediately. "Come on now. I know you probably sucked in a lot of seawater, but now is probably not a good time to pass out."
"Actually the lake is entirely freshwater," Tsuyu's voice says.
Izuku giggles a bit hysterically despite himself.
"Yeah, yeah," Sero says with a grin as he brushes her off. He turns, looking over the rails, and his face hardens. "So," he says, "Anyone got any bright ideas on how to get out of this one?"
Izuku follows his eyes to the water and spies quite a few heads sticking out above it, all people older than they are with a wide arrangement of water-based quirks. They're waiting, only semi-patiently, for the kids to make the next move.
"Shouldn't we wait for All Might? Though they did say they were trying to kill them, didn't they?" Sero says, crossing his arms. "Do ya think they could actually do something like that?"
Tsuyu brings up a finger to her mouth. "They must have figured out a way," she says after a moment. "Why would they come here just to get beaten?"
"Yeah, but." Sero looks uncomfortable with the idea. "It's All Might, nobody can beat All Might."
"I wouldn't put it past them to try though," Tsuyu says bluntly. "They promised to kill us off too, remember? Who's to say we can even hold off here till he gets here? Who says he won't get killed?"
Izuku thinks of the gaping wound in All Might's side, thinks about his missing stomach. No one has beaten All Might yet, but people have gotten close. "But why would they want to kill him though?" he mumbles to himself. "Because he stands against evil? Because they call him the Symbol of Peace?" Does it really matter? he thinks.
"I mean-"
"That's not something we can risk," Izuku says as he comes to the decision, interrupting Sero. "If they have something to kill off All Might, then we have to stop them before he gets here." He tries to mask his shaking hands by curling them into fist.
It doesn't work by the way the Sero's gaze immediately goes down to them. His face steels. "Alright Midoriya," he says. "I'm following your lead."
"Same here," Tsuyu croaks.
Izuku doesn't have time to dwell on the fact that he's been voted the leader of their escape as the boat gets cracked straight in half. "Ok," he says, taking a deep breath. "Ok, judging by the fact that they dropped Tsuyu here, that means they don't know about our quirks." He pauses.
"And that means?" Sero prompts with a wave of his hand.
"That means while they overwhelm us in experience and numbers," he knocks his fist into his palm, "we can exploit the fact that they don't know our quirks."
It takes less than a minute to hash out the plan because that's all they have. Then Izuku is leaping off the boat. "Go to hell!" he yells, trying to imitate Kacchan to ease the fear inside of him.
Then, in the same move he used to blast the wall open during battle training, he destroys his finger, aiming it towards the water.
The water dispels and then comes together with the force of the blow, dragging all the villains upwards with it. Sero wraps his tape around the villains when they're all pushed together, he moves quickly to toss them out of the flood zone and onto land.
Izuku goes flailing back towards the water. For a second he fears he's going to smack against it this time and break a few extra bones for his trouble, but Tsuyu's tongue wraps around him and suddenly his feet are hitting land.
"Thank you," he tells her earnestly, breath coming raspily as he clutches his broken finger.
"Of course," Tsuyu says, tilting her head. "You're my friend." Izuku feels his cheeks start to burn at the words and without trying to he starts to smile.
"So what should we do now?" Sero asks.
"Right," Izuku says, turning towards the plaza. "Right," he says again. He pauses. "Aizawa is getting overwhelmed, isn't he? He jumped in to help us, but crowd fights aren't his specialty."
"Midoriya," Sero says, hand coming to rest on his hip. The look he gives him is very stern fatherly like. "You're not saying what I think you're saying."
"I'm not saying we just rush into a fight," Izuku says quickly, waving his hands back and forth dismissively. "I'm just saying we see where we can step in and lighten his load."
This almost immediately turns out to be a grave mistake, as they stand a few minutes later and watch Aizawa's arm get snapped by a creature of unimaginable power. The warp gate appears next a man covered in disembodied hands, the black smog almost obscuring both of them. "Shigaraki," the smoke says in a deep, rumbling voice.
"Ahh," Shigaraki says. "Kurogiri." He reaches up to scratch his neck. "Did you manage to kill Thirteen?"
"No," Kurogiri says. "He's incapacitated, but one of the students managed to escape in the process."
Shigaraki begins scratching his neck in earnest now, leaving tiny claw marks in his wake. "Huh...Huhh..." he breathes. "You know, I'd kill you if I had the chance." His spins towards Kurogiri so he's facing him. "We won't be able to manage against a dozen of pros. I guess it's game over then, game over for now."
"They're leaving?" Sero whispers.
"But first," Shigaraki says, his eyes catching Izuku's. "Let's wound All Might's pride by killing some kids." He springs towards them and Izuku only has time to turn his head before all five fingers land on Tsuyu's face.
Nothing happens.
"Hun," Shigaraki huffs. "That was cool Eraserhead," he says, fingers still posed over Tsuyu's face. Izuku sees Aizawa's eyes, glowing red as his head is being pulled back by the Nomu.
Izuku rears his fist back. "Get off of her!" he shouts at Shigaraki.
The Nomu slams Aizawa's head into the concrete, once, twice, and then the roof of the Conflagration Zone is blown off.
.-.-.
Mob opens his eyes to a world of fire and brimstone. It looks like a scene straight from his nightmares, and he dizzily checks to see if he's still awake.
Thirty-nine.
When he pinches himself, he feels it. He does not open his eyes to his bedroom when he blinks. His feet do not move when he asks them to.
Forty-two.
He brings up his hands to stare at them. He looks for evidence on his fingertips linking him to blazing buildings surrounding him. He doesn't see any, but there isn't usually anything to find anyway. His hands shake.
Fifty-one.
Pressure coils around his insides, sitting atop all his organs and pushing them down towards his feet. He tries to take a deep breath like Takenaka and Reigen taught him, but only gets a lungful of ash for all his trouble.
Fifty-eight.
"Kageyama?" says a voice to his right.
Mob turns so quickly that the act of it makes him feel vaguely lightheaded. He clutches his hands into fists, curls them against his chest. He is met with the sight of a very sweaty Ojiro, looking at him with something Mob can't place.
Something of his internal struggle must show on Mob's face because Ojiro's expression immediately shifts. His eyes widen and he lifts his hands up in an appeasing motion. His tail shakes in a way that reminds Mob of a rattle. "Kageyama," he says again, but with more hesitation. "Are you ok?"
Sixty-six.
Mob looks back down at his shaking fists to avoid Ojiro's eyes. "No," he says eventually. "I'm not."
There's no time for Ojiro to respond to that, as a fiery burst of air hits right in between the two of them. It leaves the ground splintered, tiny embers flickering amid the cracks.
Mob looks up and leaps backward, barely avoiding another fire blast. The heat brushes over his face and his shoulder stings with the ghost of a previous burn.
He looks up again and finds the assailant. She is an adult, later twenties at the very least. She has cropped hair and gigantic wings, cover in shiny ivory scales that sparkle and reflect the orange from the fires. The forked tongue hanging out from between her lips reminds Mob of Tsuyu. The comparison makes him uncomfortable.
Seventy-four.
"Uh, Kageyama?" Ojiro says, walking back towards him. His body is tense, fist balled as he slips into a fighting position. "We've got company."
Mob glances down the burning alleys to find shadowy figures approaching them, blurred by all the soot in the air. All of them seem to boast quirks that deal in fire, whether it be that they're resistant to it or working with it.
Mob steps back himself and bumps in Ojiro. They meet eyes. Ojiro's wild-eyed and tense in a way Mob's never seen in training with him before.
It makes Mob think of Aizawa's words for some reason, of winning the rescue by winning the fight. His insides twist, forcing pressure back up into his chest.
His hair starts billowing upwards.
Seventy-eight.
He stretches out a hand.
Seventy-nine.
And he catches a fireball that's blown directly at them from above.
Eighty.
Mob stares at the glowing ball for what feels like minutes. His hand is in his line of sight as well, glowing that same hazy purple that coats the fireball itself. He's not sure where to go from here.
He looks over to Ojiro for guidance, only to find him in hand to hand combat with another villain. Mob's hand twitches at the sight and the fireball wavers.
"Hey, kids! Get ready!" a voice suddenly shouts from behind them. "I've been looking forward to this for a while now!"
Mob turns around to find a balding man with a large gut. That's all he has time to process before the man explodes fire out of his hands. Mob drops the barrier surrounding the fireball and instinctively draws it around him and Ojiro instead.
The villain Ojiro was fighting notices this too late, crashes into the barrier and falls down. He doesn't get back up.
"Thanks," Ojiro says, out of breath.
The man continues to surround them with fire, his hands falling apart like molten lava. The inside of the barrier is getting hot. The other villains are getting closer. "Can't keep that up forever," the man says.
"He's right," Ojiro says.
"What do I d-do?" Mob asks, voice cracking on the last word. "I don't know what to do."
"Hey," Ojiro says, resting a hand on Mob's shoulder. Mob flinches, but the hand stays. "Stay calm, we'll get out of this. Somehow."
Mob does not find this comforting. Pressure moves to his chest, crushing it, making it hard to breathe.
Eighty-six.
Ojiro drops his hand. His face twists up in contemplation. "Kageyama," he says. "Can you surround that guy with a barrier?"
"Yes," Mob says. "Couldn't that hurt him though?"
Ojiro gives him that look, the one that says something crucial has flown over his head. "They're trying to kill us. I don't think that matters too much."
Mob opens his mouth to speak. A flaming spear embeds itself in Mob's barrier, startling the both of them. Ojiro gets back into his fighting stance. "Do it, Kageyama, you have to. I'll handle these guys, but you need to lower the barrier first. You're the only one who can save us."
Eighty-eight.
Mob hesitates still. He bites his lip. His hands are shaking so hard that he can feel the vibrations through the rest of his body. This isn't right, he knows that his master taught him that. But his master isn't here right now. If he doesn't win, he can't rescue Ojiro. There are no adults here to help now.
He closes his eyes and shifts the barrier.
The man starts to scream.
Mob's knees give out on him at the same moment that Ojiro darts towards the other villains. He can feel tears dripping down his face. He hurt a person with his quirk again, he failed to never hurt a person with his quirk again. Warmth trails down his cheeks in the tears wake, the air so hot it evaporates them.
Ninety-five.
He drops the barrier and the man stumbles over, covered in blistering wounds. The pressure in his chest is becoming overwhelming. He gasps for air, unable to focus on anything else but the man's body, lying amid the burning wreckage.
Ninety-seven.
"Kageyama! Watch out!" Ojiro calls out. After a moment, when Mob can turn his head, he finds Ojiro staring at him despite fighting off villains at the same time. "Above you!"
Mob looks up. A rock, nearly a quarter of the size of the one that struck Sero, is falling towards him.
Ninety-eight.
Mob's the only one who can save himself now. Ojiro's still too busy defending himself from an overwhelming amount of villains. Only Mob can save himself now and that hardly seems fair, but for now, it's the only hope he has.
Ninety-nine.
He frantically lifts up a hand to stop the rock, heart stuttering in his chest. It slows to a stop, enveloped in purple. He stares up at it, hair ruffling above him, fingers dyed that same purple hue.
Mob thinks he's afraid, more afraid than he's been in a very long time.
When he finally manages to tear his eyes away from the rock, he finds that Ojiro has managed to disarm all the villains that had surrounded him with no help. His chest is heaving, fist clenched as he stands over top of one of his fallen opponents. He glances up at Mob, and does a wide-eyed double take.
He takes a step towards Mob, hand reaching out. "Behind you!" he shouts.
One hundred per-
Mob feels the blow against the right side of his head before he can react. He feels nothing more for a long while after that.
.-.-.
When the Conflagration Zone explodes, it hails down fire and ash that dances on top of the plaza before being slowly going out. The villains have stopped, the Nomu is paused where it stands with its giant fist still holding onto Aizawa's head against the concrete. Shigaraki has pulled back his hand from Tsuyu's face and turned to look, impassively watching the flames rain down. Izuku's arm is still raised and poised for a punch.
Izuku is filled with dread. Whatever's caused the villains to look as confused as they do can't be good.
"Shigaraki," says Kurogiri, the shadowy wisps that surround him flickering nervously. "I think that is our cue to leave now."
Shigaraki starts scratching at his neck again, fingers racking up and down it over and over. "No," he says. "That could be All Might, arriving ahead of all the pros. It would be just like him to make a thematic entrance like that. There's still time to win this if we wait." He turns to Izuku, who has started lowering his arm. "You got lucky this time."
Izuku's brain starts working a mile a minute. If All Might's out of time, why would he come? Why wouldn't leave it to the other heroes? Even he might have trouble holding his own against three villains with whatever limited time he has left. No, Izuku can't let All Might face off against all three of them at once. He can't eliminate the Nomu though, which leaves the other two. Shigaraki's closest. He balls his fist again and raises his arm.
A lone figure approaching on the horizon, however, gives him pause. Not nearly big enough to be All Might, the figure staggers towards them as though it's having a hard time walking. It continually slips in and out of focus, glowing lines of energy billowing powerfully above it. As it approaches, it gains more and more clarity, until Izuku realizes in utter shock who exactly it is.
"Mob?" he asks quietly. He feels Sero tense beside him.
"What the hell-" Shigaraki says- "is that thing."
Mob stops at the edge of the plaza and it lets Izuku get a better look at him. His eyes are a milky white, glowing brightly. His hair and clothes are floating upwards, blowing back and forth as though a strong wind was blowing underneath him. He looks unfocused, unseeing, blood drips down the side of his forehead.
Izuku feels scared for a moment and then he doesn't. The sudden shift leaves him feeling dizzy. He can't place why it happened for a moment until he sees thin white lines connecting Mob to everyone standing in the plaza.
He's absorbing their energy, Izuku realizes.
The glowing lines rising above Mob shine even brighter. His head lolls downward as though he was too out of it to keep it upright. He raises up his hand, the energy starts to accumulate around it.
Shigaraki screeches indignantly as he's picked up, flailing in the air as he's surrounded by the same glowing white that Mob is. Mob throws his hand back and Shigaraki goes flying into Kurogiri. Kurogiri shrinks down into something more person shaped and goes stumbling backward.
"Nomu!" Shigaraki yells. "Kill him!"
"No!" Izuku screams, reaching out towards Mob. His legs start flashing with little bolts of green and he doesn't know what he'll do but two broken is worth it if he can just save Mob.
The Nomu launches itself towards Mob so quickly it becomes a blur. It appears again a few feet in front of him, coated in a thin sheet of milky white. Its body shakes like it's trying to push forward but it's being held back. Like an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object.
Mob waves his hand and tears the arm of the creature straight off.
The Nomu screams inhumanly, it's arm starting to regenerate as quickly as it was torn apart. It pushes forward, steps slow and deliberate. It raises its arm and punches Mob clear across the facility.
Izuku faintly hears Sero hissing curses over his heart racing in his ears. Could Mob even survive a hit from something that broke Aizawa so mercilessly? He doesn't have time to start panicking in earnest though, as a hand starts tugging at his arm. Izuku turns to stare dumbly at Tsuyu.
Tsuyu studies him for a moment, seemingly making sure that she has his attention, and then nods in the direction of the plaza. "Look," she says.
Izuku looks and finds only the battered body of his teacher and two villains, scrambling over each other in an attempt to get up. "Wh-What?"
"Mob gave us an opening," she says with a ribbit. "It would be ignorant of us not to take it."
The words jolt Izuku back into reality, everything clicking back into place with a newfound clarity. "Ri-Right. You're right," he says. He glances from the plaza to the stairs in the distance. His brain kicks back into gear, trying to figure out how to get them and Aizawa out safely.
Shigaraki and Kurogiri are both standing now, looking off into the distance at something Izuku can't see from the angle he's at. There's an explosion of sound and Izuku winces.
"We have to get Aizawa out of here first," Izuku mumbles. "We have extremely limited options, anything we do will attract the attention of the villains. Sero or Tsuyu could grab him pretty easily from a distance, but there's no telling how that would affect Aizawa's injuries…No, we need to distract the villains first, but we can't touch either of them, so how could we…" he trails off, eyes traveling over to Sero. "Does it hurt you when anything happens to your tape?"
Sero looks at him oddly, tension clear on his face. "Like when it gets ripped and stuff?" he asks. "No, I can't feel anything. It's not a part of my body, I just make it, like, uh, well you know."
"Could you use it as a web? To hold someone down for a few seconds?"
Sero glances at the villains and then back at Izuku. He grins. "Yeah, I think I get what you're saying," he says, nodding. "Alright, give me a second."
Sero stretches his arms and stands up, elbows at the ready. He inches up closer to the villains who seem oblivious to his presence. Shigaraki is scratching at his neck again.
"Why does a brat like that have so much exp?" Shigaraki asks. "This was supposed to be a fight for All Might." The Nomu screams again.
"I do not know," Kurogiri says, the smoke around him flickers. "However, I believe it'd be best to leave while the boy is still busy with the Nomu."
Shigaraki breathes shakily, the scratching gets more intense. "It's not fair," he says. "It's not fair...it's not fair, it's not fair! He was supposed to be here!"
Then both of them get drowned in tape, wrapping around them and sticking them to the floor. Shigaraki screeches. "All right!" Sero says. "I can't believe that worked!"
Izuku starts rushing over to Aizawa, Tsuyu hot on his heels. "Help me get him on my back," Izuku tells her, squatting down. When he's positioned, they start to move again, all three of them moving towards the stairs.
"Well, this isn't good…" Shigaraki says. "It wouldn't do to be shown up by some students, would it?" He grabs the tape and it disintegrates beneath his fingers. "Come back, come back," he says. "You disgusting brats."
The entrance to USJ is ripped open, the doors practically falling apart under the amount of force used. A grim-faced All Might steps inside. Izuku stumbles over himself at the sight, Aizawa sliding down his back when his grip loosens. He's never seen All Might not smiling in this form, not through all his years of research.
"Fear not!" he says, voice echoing across the entire facility. "I am here!"
"Ahh," Shigaraki says, voice pitching up from excitement. He pulls off the last piece of tape from himself. "I've been waiting for you, you worthless trash."
All Might rushes towards them so quickly that he becomes nothing more than a blur. He knocks down several low ranking villains along the way, clearing the path to the stairs. He puts his body in front of them, blocking Izuku from even seeing the Shigaraki and Kurogiri.
"Get out of here!" All Might tells them "I've got this!"
"All Mi-Might," Izuku says. The shock of seeing his mentor kicks itself out of his head, replaced immediately by a reminder. "Mob! You have to help Mob! He's fighting the brain villain all on his own!"
As if on cue, the Nomu comes sailing through the sky, crashing into the central plaza and leaving a spider web of giant, splintering cracks in the ground beneath it. Mob swoops in from above, carried by a wave of white energy that trails behind him.
He looks worse than he did when Izuku saw him last. His head, where there had been a solid trail of blood before, is now coated in a thick red. His left arm is bent at an unnatural angle, hanging limply down by his side. He doesn't even seem to notice it, lifting up his hand and pressing the Nomu further down into the concrete.
Izuku can feel All Might's surprise and knows he's wondering the same thing that Izuku is. What caused this? Mob seemed to have an aversion to violence during the battle training exercise and the quirk apprehension test, so why is he fighting so viciously now?
Izuku has a theory, but even he doesn't like it. "All Might," he says it anyway, "I don't think he's aware of what he's doing."
All Might looks down at Izuku and then back up at Mob. "Young Kageyama!" he calls. "It is alright now, you can stop! I am here!"
The unconscious Mob hesitates for a second, lifting his hold of the creature. And in that second of pause, the Nomu launches itself up after him.
All Might leaps as well, managing to grab onto its leg a hair before it gets a hold of Mob. They go speeding towards the ground, Nomu going head first and All Might following right after.
Shigaraki laughs, "Are you sure you don't want to let your students do all the dirty work All Might? Tell me, is it true? Are you getting weaker?"
Izuku suddenly feels cold.
The Nomu is half into a portal, it's upper half reaching out and grabbing All Might's torso with an iron tight grip. Even from this distance, Izuku can see red starting to stain right where All Might showed him that ginormous wound so long ago.
"You see," Kurogiri says, "it's the Nomu's job to get around that blinding speed of yours and hold you down. And it's my job to close the gate when you're halfway through and immobilized. Thereby, cutting you into two."
"Tsuyu," Izuku says. "Grab Aizawa for me."
"Sure," she says, and after a moment of hesitation, she does. "But what are yo-"
That's all she has time to get out before Izuku is rushing towards All Might. It's desperate, it's reckless, but Izuku has to save him. He hasn't had enough time with him, hasn't learned enough from him.
"Wait, Midoriya!" Sero yells. "Come back!"
A gateway appears in front of Izuku as he runs to All Might, the wispy black smoke threatens to envelop him before Kacchan leaps out of with fire in his palms. He smacks a steel piece against the ground, it hits with a metallic twang. "Get the hell out of here, Deku!" he says.
At the same moment, Kirishima rushes toward Shigaraki, almost landing a hit on him with his hardened arms but only knocking the hand off of his face instead. "Damn!" he says, quickly taking two steps back, "Almost had him."
Ice suddenly curls around the Nomu enveloping it so it can no longer move. Todoroki appears, moving at an even pace. "Scum like you can't hope to kill the Symbol of Peace," he says. All Might breaks free of the hold, the Nomu's grip weakened due to being frozen.
Shigaraki seems frozen for a second, unmoving with his head tilted down just enough that it covers his face. He moves towards the hand, gently picking it up, careful not to touch it with all his fingers. "I'm sorry," he says as he places it back on. "Father." He pauses. "Nomu, take out that explosive brat," he says, "We need our escape route back."
The Nomu breaks itself in half to escape the gate and pulls itself out, muscles reforming the second it's upright again. It leaps as soon its arm is reformed, flying towards Bakugou with inhuman speed. All Might leaps forward, blocking the Nomu from Bakugou right as the creature stops mid-flight.
When Izuku looks, he finds Mob with his hand outstretched and head hanging down. The Nomu glows an even brighter white and then smacks against the ground, leaving a crater the exact size of the Nomu. Mob lifts it up and smacks it down three more times. On the third, it bounces upwards, soaring through the air like a super bouncy ball. It goes straight through the glass ceiling, disappearing into the sky above.
With the threat gone, Mob seems to run out of the last of his energy. The white streams of energy stop billowing above him, his milky white eyes close, and he falls straight out of the sky.
"Mob!" Sero shouts and Izuku can see an arc of tape arc out above him towards Mob. It wraps around him and pulls him towards the rest of the group.
Izuku runs towards him, arms outstretched.
"You see All Might!" Shigaraki shouts, throwing his arms out. He sounds hysterical now, and Izuku guesses he would too if his best weapon was tossed aside like a cheap toy by a high schooler. "Heroes and villains thrive on violence, but we're still categorized! That's just how it is. You say you're the Symbol of Peace, yet you raise up children who are just tools for violence! And I'll show you that by killing you and your students."
Izuku catches Mob and pain shoots up his arms from the weight of him, they both fall to the ground. Izuku smacks his face against the concrete, chipping one of his front teeth. Mob rolls a few feet away from him. Izuku scrambles up at the same time that Shigaraki launches himself towards them, hands outstretched.
All Might blurs, appearing next to Shigaraki. He grabs one arm and then the other, twisting his hands behind his back. "Don't pretend like you have any kind of ideals," he says to the villain. "You're just enjoying this."
Shigaraki squirms in his hold. "No," he says. "No, no, no! We can't lose the game yet, Sensei wouldn't let us lose the game this quickly."
For a minute it looks like victory is certain. All Might is safe and has a hold on Shigaraki. Bakugou's still got the one up on Kurogiri and is holding him down. The dangerous Nomu is out of the facility. Izuku kneels next to the unconscious Mob and allows himself to feel relieved.
Mob suddenly shoots straight up, back ramrod straight. His eyes are clear now, observing the situation. He looks up at the cracked open glass ceiling. Blood continues to drip down his face, enough so that Izuku is surprised he's awake.
"Oh, Mob!" Izuku says. The relieved feeling expands just a little bit. If Mob's ok that's enough for now.
But then he realizes Mob has started crying.
Big, blubbery tears cascade down his face. Each breath quivers, his whole body racked with his shaking. If Izuku had thought Mob looked emotional during battle training, it's nothing compared to now.
Mob wails, bringing up his knees to tuck his head in between them.
One hundred percent. Anxiety.
A burst of energy erupts from him, spreading across the facility and lifting everyone off of their feet.
Glass pieces start flying up into the air, like a reserve rain of glittering shards. They attach themselves to the broken ceiling that the Nomu flew out of, filling the space with splintered pieces all desperately coming together to fix something broken.
Bakugou loses his hold on Kurogiri while he floats up and the man completely vanishes. He shows up again next to Shigaraki and All Might, the black mist starting to envelop them both. "Come along Shigaraki," Kurogiri says. "It is time for us to make our exit."
Shigaraki cackles, squirming in All Might's grip until he can twist a hand around and get all five fingers on All Might's elbow.
All Might hisses in pain and his grip loosens, allowing Shigaraki to float back in Kurogiri's gate. "Until next time," he says, "All Might." And then he's gone.
"No!" All Might shouts.
Bakugou yells, outraged at the loss. "You let them get away!" he screams at Mob, who is still completely unresponsive. "We fucking had them!"
"Mob! Mob, look at me!" Izuku calls, tears forming in his eyes as he desperately reaches out towards him. Mob doesn't even seem to hear him, doesn't put any of them down, doesn't even look up. He continues brokenly sobbing all the way until Iida arrives with reinforcements, shoulders jolting with each unsteady breath.
To be continued…
Hello all! :D
I had about a third of this chapter written by the time I published the last one, so I kinda finished this one pretty quickly, lol! I figured I'd get it out to you all now because I know some "life stuff"(TM) is about to start happening, so it might be a bit of wait until the next one. In the meantime tho, I hope you enjoy the USJ arc!