Chapter 37: Setbacks and confrontations

A/N: For clarification, Nomu is under Shinsou's control not Shigaraki

"You damn brat, what did you do!?" Shigaraki demanded as the Nomu became still, "Nomu! Kill them!" Shigaraki commanded in vain.

Shinsou smirked with victory "Nomu, move away from Aizawa-sensei!" The monster obliged. Tsuyu ran to Aizawa and carefully picked him up, "Tsuyu, get back to Uraraka with Aizawa-sensei. Izuku and I will hold it here," Shinsou said.

Shigaraki chuckled at that, "Do you really think that we two are that weak," he pointed to himself and Kurogiri, "Brats like you-" Shigaraki couldn't finish as Kurogiri muffled him by using his cloudy body, "Don't talk to him. The Nomu went under his control as soon as it responded. He probably needs a retort to gain control,"

"Tch," Hitoshi grunted, irritatedly. The warp villain was too smart. Izuku was scowling at that too, "Even so, that doesn't mean you can take us on. We got the main villain,"

Shigaraki smirked, "It is true that you grabbed our strongest ally, but he's not the boss. Kurogiri!" Instantly, a warp gate formed underneath Shinsou's feet. Hitoshi stared in shock but disappeared quickly. Izuku stared after the fading portal with concern but had enough sense to jump away, as did Tsuyu. Sure enough, they barely evaded two more portals.

"As expected of the UA students. Good reflexes," Kurogiri praised, "But, it seems that the purple-haired boy's quirk doesn't have a range limit. I sent him quite far away,"

"Heh, we'll just find him and kill him right after we finish these two!" Shigaraki said.

Izuku's scowl grew deeper. He whispered to Tsuyu, "Tsuyu, you remember what Hitoshi said?"

Asui nodded, "Yeah. His control is still not very strong so even a pinch on the Nomu can remove the control,"

"Exactly, we will have to make sure the villains can't snap the Nomu out of it or we are done for,"

"It's not wise to talk with your enemy in front of you," Kurogiri suddenly appeared behind them. Tsuyu jumped out of the way but Izuku turned fast, "Neither is it wise for you to use close combat. SMASH!" he yelled and flicked his finger straight at Kurogiri's open physical manifestation. The gust cleared, revealing a prominent crack in the metallic body, surrounded by the clouds.

"Looks like you aren't too bad," Shigaraki said from behind as he grabbed Izuku's arm. Izuku hissed in pain as the decay started to take effect but Tsuyu lashed out her tongue at him, making him dodge, "Don't forget about me," She said as she carefully put down Aizawa.

Shigaraki seemed to grow agitated and started scratching his neck in anger, intensifying Izuku's anxiety. Tomura stopped suddenly and smiled, "You are certainly stronger than I thought. I will kill the frog but not you two. Sensei could use you two!" he cackled.

"Sensei?" Izuku raised his eyebrow but put it in the back of his mind for now. Right now, he and Tsuyu needed to lure them away from the Nomu and make sure it did not snap out of Hitoshi's control. "I hope Hitoshi fell near our classmates so that they can protect him. If a villain knocks him out, we'll lose our trump card,"

Ojiro tensed, "Another warp gate," he exclaimed as a purple mist appeared up in the air in front of them. The group tensed and got ready for a fight, when Hitoshi fell out with a scream, "Shinsou?" Denki exclaimed in shock.

Fortunately, Watanabe had kept his cool and used his chains to catch Hitoshi by the leg and pulled him towards them. Unfortunately, Watanabe had not taken into account that Hitoshi's momentum was too great. The two collided with a thunk and fell to the ground. Watanabe rolled on the ground, "My nose..." he hissed in pain as it started bleeding once again.

"Oh shit. Sorry!" Hitoshi said with worry, hurrying to try and help Watanabe.

"It's fine. Jiro broke it first actually," Denki said.

"He deserved it," Jiro huffed.

"What exactly were you guys doing?" Hitoshi asked, nearly facepalming.

"Don't be so loud in the middle of a fight!" Momo hissed out in annoyance as she made more bandages to stop Watanabe's bleeding nose.

"Someone save me from these people," Ojiro sighed.

"We should get back to the plaza," Shinsou told his classmates, "I got the Nomu under control. We can help everyone by using it,"

"Nomu?"

"The huge monster Watanabe told has multiple quirks,"

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Watanabe replied, "But you lose control of your brainwash if the victim is given some sort of shock like a slap?"

Shinsou nodded. "In that case, it's best to go with our original plan to try and fix the alarm,"

"What?" Shinsou argued, "If the Nomu is that strong, we can just use it to take out everyone!"

"No," Momo disagreed, "We are up against actual villains. From what I've seen they won't hesitate to kill us. Do you really think they will care about the Nomu if we use it to attack them? They'll probably try to fight it and end up removing it from your control," she explained.

Hitoshi clenched his fists, "But still... the other two are strong too. We can't just let Izuku and Tsuyu face them. They won't be able to take them on!"

"I have faith in Izuku. Plus, Todoroki and Bakugou are moving there too so they will have plenty of backup," Watanabe comforted.

"You sure?"

"Yeah, infrared gives me the outline of the body too so I'm pretty sure that-"

"He meant are you sure that Izuku and Tsuyu will be ok," Denki said.

"Obviously. I would ask Jiro and Ojiro to go as well but there are still a lot of villains nearby. We'll need to protect you so that you don't lose control of the Nomu and at the same time we have to protect Kaminari while he overrides the alarm," Watanabe explained.

"Yeah, but where is the alarm system. We've been walking for quite a while," Ojiro said.

"About that..." Watanabe gave a shaky smile, "It's right below us... underground,"

The group stared at Watanabe for a while in silence. Finally, Kaminari cleared his throat, "Could you repeat that?"

"It's not my fault!" Watanabe replied agitated, "There has to be a hidden switch or something to allow us to accept it but I can't find it even with my X-ray,"

"What do we do then?"

"Well, I was thinking Momo could make a power drill or something and burrow underground..."

"That would take too much time,"

"It's right underground, below us right?" Jiro interrupted.

"Mhm,"

"Alright. You guys move away then,"

"What are you going to do?" Hitoshi asked.

"Just see," She smirked.

The group gave her an uncertain look but Momo helped, "I'm sure Jiro can do it. Come on," she started to retreat.

Once the group was a safe distance away, Jiro started to do her work. She plugged her earphones into a jack on her right arm. She started to emit a low sound wave and slowly increased the frequency. Her hand started vibrating faster and faster and she punched the ground. Immediately, the land shattered revealing a metal box below.

The group watched from their position with their mouths agape, "I think... I should be lucky that I got off with a broken nose," Watanabe gulped. The others nodded.

"How did you do that? That was awesome as hell!" Denki gave Jiro a thumbs-up.

"Izuku's analysis. He saw me emitting sound waves from the speakers in my legs and told me to put jacks on my hands too. Since sound waves vibrate, my hand would vibrate along and the added momentum would increase the force or accelerate it. There was too much physics explanation. I wasn't expecting it to work so well on the first try!" Jiro said excitedly.

"See Watanabe, that's how to analyze! Not by making murder plans," Denki grinned.

"Whatever just get on with the alarm," Watanabe huffed. Ojiro chuckled and propped open the door to the box.

The group stared at it with renewed appearance, "Now what?" Jiro asked. Inside was a huge jumble of wires, "I can override all of them," Denki offered.

"No! All the simulated disasters might get triggered. We don't know where our classmates are and might end up hurting or even killing them!" Momo warned loudly.

Denki's face lit up in shock and he stepped back, "Watanabe can you trace which wire leads to the alarm?" Jiro asked.

Watanabe shook his head, "No, I can follow them till the plaza but after that, the ground is too thick for my X-ray to penetrate. Plus the wires are covered with something that is hindering my X-ray vision,"

"Not to worry, I'll find the wire for the alarm!" Momo said with determination.

Izuku panted as he flicked his finger once more to increase the distance between him and Shigaraki. Tsuyu had gone down a while back after she had overextended her tongue, giving Shigaraki an opportunity to use his decay on it. Her tongue was still there but it was terribly mangled in places. To make things worse, the decay had cut into the blood vessels too and Tsuyu was continuously hacking up blood in an effort to keep it away from her lungs.

Izuku was in no better shape. He only had 6 good fingers left and nearly had his eye taken out by Shigaraki's decay. Kurogiri's warp had caught them by surprise multiple times. However, Izuku could see that Shigaraki was tiring. Kurogiri seemed to be alright though which was concerning.

"I've noticed, you don't use the same fingers for your flicks and they're bleeding," Kurogiri observed, "Seems like your body can't handle such destructive power," he hummed and launched forward, "You only have a few more tries!"

Izuku's eyes widened and he set off another flick in panic but Kurogiri warped behind him along with Shigaraki's outstretched palm, aiming straight for his neck! Izuku froze as the fear of death set in, BOOM! Kurogiri was sent flying away. "What's that pathetic look?" Bakugou demanded as he appeared.

"Kacchan!"

"Don't you Kacchan me! I promised not to call you Deku again but seeing your performance, I'm not sure anymore!" Bakugou said.

"That's a poor joke Bakubro," Kirishima said, "You really need to improve your sense of humor,"

"No one asked you shitty hair!"

"It's not wise to call people names after you were beaten up specifically for that purpose," Shouto appeared.

"Tch," Bakugou remembered his fight with Watanabe, "That was different, I was in the wrong that time. I already apologized,"

"Hn,"

"Tch, you side characters are really annoying," Shigaraki scowled.

Bakugou's face twisted, "Side characters? You playing video games or what?"

"Hmph, video games can be used to describe anything, even life,"

"Well then, let me dumb it down for you," Bakugou cracked his knuckles, "You shoulda leveled up before going for the big bosses,"

A/N: I'm sorry for not updating last week. My school restarted and I'm still getting used to my new schedule. My update schedule might change sometimes and I might be forced to not update for a week in the middle. I'll try my best to update both Appearances can be deceiving and hero but not a pro but I will most certainly update at least once. That being said, this week is off for me so I'll try to stock up on chapters.

Now, getting back to the fic, please tell me how to include Izuku more. I feel like I'm not giving him enough time in my fic and I'd like to change that. Advise on this would be really helpful.