Fujino ran through Paradise's underground halls as fast as her legs could carry her. Genjiro had gotten a few minute lead on her, but she was doing all she could to catch up to him. There were so many twists and turns that Fujino had no way to know if she was going the right way. There were a few Paradise soldiers that blocked her path here and there, but she made short work of them with her Quirk. However, Fujino couldn't help but feel she had encountered far too few soldiers compared to what she had been expecting. Two possibilities came to mind. Either she had taken a wrong turn somewhere and she was nowhere near Genjiro. Or it was the opposite and she was being led right into another trap.

She much preferred the latter. Even if Genjiro had a trap set for her, nothing would stop her from making him pay.

Genjiro had done far more than cross a line this time. He had catapulted over it. Fujino's entire time at Paradise had been a nightmare, but once she managed to escape she imagined there had to be a light at the end of this tunnel. A time where she could be with her mother again and talk just like they used to. But now that dream was impossible. Her mother's memory, including the very knowledge of who Fujino was, had been wiped clean. And Fujino wouldn't rest until Genjiro paid for his sins in blood.

As Fujino burst through yet another set of doors, she found herself in what appeared to be a training gym. There were weights, treadmills, and other such equipment scattered about. But she soon had something else to focus her attention on. Someone whose face she had already been acquainted with. The very top of Paradise's soldiers.

King.

"Well now, it seems you finally made it." King said in a nonchalant voice. "I was hoping you would find your way to me."

"I don't have any business with you. Get out of my way." Fujino said coldly.

"Ouch. And here I thought we could have a nice long chat. Come on, there's no need to be so-"

"Burst."

Fujino aimed her Quirk directly at King, but the teen saw it coming and slipped out of its range. The explosion had been simply a small warning blast, but even she hadn't been expecting King to evade it without a scratch.

"Well now, that was rude." King said, still calm and collected. "Do you say hello to everyone this way?"

"I won't ask again. Get out of my way."

King sighed and rubbed the back of his head. "Oh well. Guess it's time to start fighting then." He followed up with a snap of his fingers. "You're up, big guy."

Suddenly, Fujino saw a shadow loom over her. She looked up and jumped away just in time as a figure came crashing down. When the debris cleared, she gasped at what she saw. It was a monstrous being with its brain exposed on its head. She had seen something similar to it during the training camp over the summer. A Nomu.

Although the thing standing before her was without a doubt a Nomu, Fujino could tell it was a different one than the one she had faced back then. This one had dark blue skin and a pair of muscular arms. Its legs were covered by a pair of black shorts.

One thing didn't make sense though. As far as she had been told, these Nomus were creatures used exclusively by the League of Villains. So that being the case, how did King manage to get his hands on one?

"Capture her. But make sure she's alive." King instructed.

The Nomu let out a strange cry as its arms suddenly stretched out forward like a pair of tentacles. Reacting quickly, Fujino ducked under the arms as they attempted to grab her and dashed to the side. She aimed her Quirk at the left arm, directly in the middle by its elbow.

"Burst!"

An explosion came, blasting half of the Nomu's arm off. The creature let out a pained shriek as the severed limb fell to the ground.

Fujino smirked confidently. "Heh, seems this one isn't so tough."

King's expression didn't change, not concerned with what had happened in the slightest. "Oh I must disagree I'm afraid."

Through the smoke of the explosion, the Nomu's other arm shot towards Fujino. Once again, the girl dodged skillfully. But just as she was about to ready her Quirk again to deal with the Nomu's second arm, she saw another arm stretch towards her. It grabbed her and slammed her into the wall.

"What's… going on?" Fujino questioned. As the smoke fully cleared from her earlier explosion, she saw the arm grabbing her was none other than the same left arm she had blasted off. "No way…"

"What's wrong? Didn't they teach you this at your fancy new school?" King asked. "Nomus have multiple Quirks. Stretchable Limbs isn't this guy's only Quirk. It also has Super Regeneration."

'Damnit. How could I have been so careless?'

"Well, I suppose I better wrap this up quickly." King said. "Sorry, but you'll have to be knocked out briefly."

"Not happening!"

The sudden shout caught both King and Fujino off guard as a blast of transparent violet light came from the doors Fujino had come through and hit King, knocking him off his feet and sending him flying back. At the same time, a figure rushed forward and slammed their fist into the Nomu, making it stumble back and let go of Fujino.

As Fujino's feet touched the ground, she saw who had come to her rescue. Three of her classmates that she had left back at the large room earlier with her mother. Alicia, Shinobu, and Daiki.

"Looks like we finally caught up." Alicia smirked.

Fujino stared at her classmates in disbelief. "You guys…"

"What? You didn't really think we'd leave you alone in this place, did you?" Daiki asked.

Shinobu kept his gaze on the Nomu in the room with them. "I can't say we were expecting to find something like this here though."

King took a step back. "Well it seems things have changed. Fighting multiple long range Quirks at once isn't really my forte. So I'll leave my friend here to play with you for now. Ta ta."

"Hold it!" Fujino shouted, but she was ignored by King who left out the doors on the far end of the room. And if she wanted any chance of leaving through them as well, she was going to have to deal with this Nomu first.

Daiki watched the Nomu get ready to attack again. "It's coming!"

Being the closest to the Nomu, Alicia was its first target. But she had absorbed enough moonlight on the trip to the underground base to still be in her beast state. Though how long that would last without any supply of moonlight down here was hard to guess. She dodged as the Nomu swung its fist down at her, but the second arm reached out and grabbed her right leg. It swung her around, slamming her into the ground painfully.

"Alicia!" Daiki exclaimed as he rushed in to help her.

Seeing Daiki run towards it, the Nomu threw Alicia at him. Daiki caught Alicia, his feet skidding back from the force. The Nomu lunged at them, but Shinobu used his Quirk to blast it back.

"There's a lot to say right now, Hatsu. But we'll save it for later." Shinobu said. "First we have to deal with this thing."

Fujino nodded her head. Their main priority right now needed to be taking down this inhuman monster. Everything else would have to wait.

The Nomu let out a wail as it charged at the teens. The four students all dodged the attack as they leapt to the side and quickly surrounded it. Fujino was to the right of the Nomu and quickly aimed her Quirk near its head.

"Burst!"

To Fujino's surprise, the Nomu showed impressive reflexes and moved its head away from the center of the explosion. It was still hit by the shockwave however, leaving it dizzily stunned for a brief moment. Shinobu took advantage of this moment to assault the Nomu's back with psychic blasts. Alicia then followed up by moving in and dealing a powerful punch to it. But the Nomu managed to endure and counter with an uppercut to the girl's gut. As the air left Alicia's lungs, Daiki got on top of the Nomu and readied himself to unleash his Quirk.

"Just go down already, damn you!"

Transforming his arms into electricity, Daiki attacked the Nomu. It let out a cry as electricity flowed through its body, but it endured and reached up, grabbing Daiki by the head before throwing him across the room.

Suddenly, the Nomu noticed a small distortion near its head. It quickly jumped to the side just before an explosion came from Fujino's Quirk.

'Damn. Missed again.' Fujino thought to herself. However, she soon realized something that felt odd to her. 'Hang on… It didn't try dodging when I attacked its arms earlier. And it has a regeneration Quirk. So why is it making so sure to avoid me blowing up its head?' Slowly the pieces came together as Fujino figured out what she needed to do. 'That's it!'

"Guys, I have an idea! Keep it pinned down! We need to keep it from moving!" Fujino called out.

"Easier said than done." Daiki groaned as he slowly got back to his feet.

Alicia ran forward at the Nomu. "We'll do what we can!"

As she neared the Nomu, Alicia ducked under a punch from the creature. She then dashed behind it and swung her leg at the back of its right knee, forcing the Nomu to kneel slightly. However, her excitement soon wore off when she noticed the fur on her arms beginning to recede. Her transformation time was nearing its end.

'No time to lose. I need to make as much of this chance as possible.'

Alicia kicked off the ground and swung a kick at the Nomu's head. She then kicked off its body to get some distance. "Shinobu, now!"

A bit of a distance behind the Nomu, Shinobu had both of his hands together, charging up as much power as possible for his Quirk. "Hope this is enough." he said as he fired off the powerful blast. "Take this! Compression Psy Blast!"

The Nomu sensed the attack coming as it turned around, but it was too late and was blown off its feet. The monster's back slammed onto the ground painfully. Daiki then followed up by changing his arms into a web of electricity to pin the Nomu down.

"Voltage Web!"

Electricity shocked the Nomu's body as it was held down by Daiki's ultimate move. It was a strong technique for trapping an enemy, but against something this powerful, Daiki knew he wouldn't be able to hold it for long. Voltage Web took a large amount of concentration, and the Nomu's strength made it difficult to keep the intricate web shape of his electricity.

"Fujino, hurry! I can't do this for long!"

"Leave it to me!" Fujino said. She stared directly at the Nomu's head. 'Sorry about this. But I'll put you out of your misery now.'

The Nomu thrashed about, but it couldn't move around much. Which meant it had no way to avoid the distortion forming near its head.

"Burst!"

With that, an explosion happened at point blank range for the Nomu. Due to the part of his body near there being electricity at the time, Daiki was safe from any damage, though he was forced to bring his arms back.

The four students waited silently as the smoke cleared. Finally, the figure of the Nomu could be seen again. Now however, it was lying perfectly still, with its head missing.

It went just as Fujino had planned. The Nomu had a Super Regeneration Quirk, but it was constantly protecting its head whenever it came into danger. That could only mean that losing a vital organ like its brain would kill it before the regeneration could save it.

After a few seconds of the Nomu not moving, the students breathed a sigh of relief. "What the hell was one of those things even doing here?" Alicia asked, her body fully back to normal now.

"Could Paradise and the League be working together perhaps?" Shinobu theorized.

"It's certainly possible. They haven't made any notable moves since this past summer." Daiki said.

"Great. Just what we needed." Alicia sighed.

"Regardless, we're done here. We need to head back and inform the pros of this." Daiki said. "Let's go Fuji-"

Daiki fell silent as he turned to where Fujino had been standing just a few seconds ago. Their classmate was no longer there.

"You have got to be kidding me." Shinobu sighed.

"She must have ran on ahead! We need to hurry!" Alicia told them.

Not wasting any time, the three Class C students quickly ran out of the room from the opposite side of where they had entered. They had come this close to preventing Fujino from walking into a trap. They weren't about to stop now.


Genjiro Matsuhari walked through the underground hallways. At his side was his trusted right hand woman Emiri Kiroki. From the lack of a status update from their soldiers that had been supposed to be taking care of Fujino and the uninvited guests, he could only assume that they had failed to capture her.

It was absurd. How had Paradise, the empire he had built from the ground up, been reduced to nothing by a single little girl? If he had known she would cause him this much trouble and grief, he would have never bothered dealing with her in the first place. By now, the pro heroes had likely been informed of this base. There was no other choice but for him to abandon it. He would only be able to escape with Emiri and a handful of soldiers, sacrificing the rest to get away. But no matter what, he had to make it through this. As long as he got away, he could start again.

Genjiro placed his hand on a scanner near a door. Once it read his handprint, the door opened up and he and Emiri walked inside. They were now in an open room. The door on the other side led to a hallway that would bring him to the surface. A helicopter was supposed to be there, set to take off at any time. By the time the heroes reached this point, he would be long gone.

"Inform the designated operatives to get here as quickly as possible, Ms. Kiroki." Genjiro told his secretary. "We cannot afford to dawdle."

"At once, Mr. Matsuhari." Emiri said as she began typing away on her tablet.

As the two adults walked through the room, reaching the halfway point, a voice called out to them from behind. "Yo, boss!"

Genjiro and Emiri turned around to see King and three others from his team of Checkmate standing at the doorway, walking inside. Genjiro showed a sigh of relief. "Ah King, I'm glad you were able to get here without anyone following you." He glanced at the group and noticed one person missing. "Hm? I don't see Rook here."

Knight let out a frustrated sigh as he rubbed the back of his head. "Unfortunately, those damn students were tougher than we thought. I managed to get away when things went south, but Rook got captured."

"I see. That is indeed a shame." Genjiro commented. "It cannot be helped though. We will simply have to make our escape without him."

"Yes, it seems we will." King nodded in agreement. "We should hurry though. No telling when the pros might get here."

"Indeed."

As Genjiro and Emiri turned back around to continue making their way to the far end of the room, King glanced at Queen and gave a silent nod. Following King's signal, Queen took her toxic syringe and shot it forward at Emiri. To all of their surprise however, the secretary showed impressive reflexes and turned around, catching the syringe with her hand before it could pierce her.

"Would you mind explaining this, Queen?" Emiri asked.

King clicked his tongue in annoyance. "Tch, you're even sharper than I gave you credit for."

Genjiro turned around and narrowed his eyes. "What do you think you're doing exactly, King? Do you plan to betray me after all this time?"

"Sorry, but I've gotten kind of sick of following a guy who's so ready to discard his subordinates to save his own ass." King replied with a smirk. "I've got a small group of Paradise soldiers I turned to my side coming this way soon. We'll be making our escape. But you two I'm afraid aren't on the flight list."

Suddenly, the force from Queen's syringe increased in strength, slipping out of Emiri's grip and piercing her near the shoulder. Emiri quickly grabbed the line the syringe was attached to.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Queen." Emiri said. "If you inject me with that drug from your Quirk, I'll use my own Quirk to erase your memories. You'll forget all about your precious King and what he means to you."

To Emiri's surprise however, King let out a chuckle. "You really shouldn't make such a sorry bluff."

Queen didn't hesitate and injected her drug into Emiri. Within seconds, the secretary lost all of her strength and fell to the ground unconscious as Queen retracted her syringe back towards her back.

Genjiro narrowed his eyes. "How did you know?"

"Try and give me some credit, boss man. I've been a part of this gig for a while now." King told him. "One thing always struck me as odd about your little system. You'd kidnap kids, train them to be soldiers, and only after they had finished their training would you have your little secretary erase their memories. Logically, it would make more sense to erase their memories two times. Once before training and once after. And you may be many things boss man, but you're not dumb. So I knew there had to be a catch. And that's when it hit me."

Genjiro let out an amused chuckle. "Very perceptive of you. I'm impressed."

"That woman's Quirk has a limit. It can only be used once per person. It doesn't work on them twice." King explained. "It was the only way it made any sense. And since she already wiped our memories from when each of us finished our training, she can't use it on us again."

"Betcha didn't expect us to figure that out, huh?" Knight commented with a smirk.

"Oh I highly doubt you did much in figuring it out, Knight." Genjiro responded. "I'm sure that was mostly due to King."

"What was that, you stinking old-"

Knight was cut short as King signaled for him to stop. The leader of Checkmate then turned his attention back to Genjiro. "I can appreciate your little ambition, Genjiro. But you don't value the pieces you have. To you, everyone but yourself is expendable. And that's why I can't follow along with your plans anymore. So from here on, I'll be calling the shots as Paradise's leader."

Genjiro responded with a slow clap of his hands. The sound of them echoed throughout the otherwise silent room. "I must say, I'm rather impressed, King. You've done quite the job with this little coup of yours." He then stopped clapping. "But I'm afraid there was one small miscalculation you made."

"And what is that?" King asked as he and his teammates readied themselves to fight. "You're not honestly going to say you can take on all of us, are you?"

"No, nothing of the sort. Though I can't say I'm certain who would win if I'm being completely honest." Genjiro said. "Your mistake was that I've been aware of this plot of yours for a long time."

King widened his eyes. "What did you say?"

Genjiro let out a chuckle. "May the queen dethrone the false king."

The next thing King knew, a stinging sensation came from his back. Before he could even react, he felt his body go numb and fall over. He managed to turn his head just enough to see the one who had attacked him was Queen, injecting him with her poison.

As the realization of what she had done hit her, Queen gasped in horror. "No… What was… I didn't mean to do that."

"Queen, what the- Augh!" Knight let out a cry of pain, followed by Queen as pain erupted from both of their backs. The two of them fell with a sword sticking out of each of their backs. King glared at the only member of Checkmate still standing, knowing it was him who those swords belonged to.

Bishop

"Damnit all…" King grunted. "Bishop… you betrayed us?"

Bishop responded with a bow. "Apologies, but I was never on your side to begin with, King. My loyalty belongs solely to our lord. Genjiro Matsuhari."

"Bishop informed me of your plans to set a coup up months ago." Genjiro explained. "So I took various precautions to prepare for the day you would finally put your plans in motion. I've had Bishop giving me regularly reports on what you've been up to. In addition, I secretly had Queen undergo brainwashing as a sleeper agent set to use her Quirk on you once I said a specific phrase. And as you've seen, it worked quite well."

"You bastard…"

"Now, now, I'm simply the better player in this game of ours, King." Genjiro told him. He suddenly felt an increase in gravity, no doubt the work of King's Quirk, but it was significantly weaker than usual due to King's body being so weak after taking an injection from Queen. "Honestly, is this really what you've fallen to? Futile struggling? How disappointing."

"Shut... up…" King could feel his consciousness slowly fading. It wouldn't be long before Queen's Quirk had him out cold. He glanced back at Queen and Knight. Both of them seemed to still be alive, but they were badly bleeding and likely could barely move.

Genjiro walked over to Knight and pulled the sword out from his body before walking over to King. He held the sword down as he walked, the tip grinding along the floor. "You served me well these past few years, King. But it seems this is where your usefulness comes to an end."

King watched as Genjiro lifted the sword up, ready to cut him down. There was nothing King could do. His body was too weak to move. He had lost.

"Farewell, traitorous fool!" Genjiro shouted. He prepared to swing the sword down, but just as he did, a distortion in the air appeared before him. Genjiro gasped as an explosion came and blasted him back, knocking the sword out of his hand.

Bishop widened his eyes as he turned around. "What was-" the rest of the statement died on his tongue as he was hit by an explosion next that blasted him off his feet. His body hit the floor and he was out cold.

Genjiro grunted in pain as he sat up and saw who had attacked them at the entrance to the room. The girl this entire failed operation had been revolving around. The girl who had caused him no end of grief was finally standing before him.

Fujino.

A/N: Sorry this chapter is a few days late, readers. It's been a busy week for me. But we're winding down to the end of the War on Paradise arc. How will things end? You'll just have to wait and find out. Until then readers.