Dr. Okimi stepped into the room but frowned when she saw Eri out of her bed standing at the window. She walked over to the girl's side and lowered herself so she was relatively even with the girl's height.
"You can't stay here Eri, we need to move you somewhere safer," Okimi said softly, trying to turn Eri away from the window
Eri turned to look at her, and Okimi saw something strange in her expression.
"Something bad is about to happen," she said simply, turning back to the window.
Okimi glanced out of the window, where the earth had seemingly destroyed a part of the city. As she watched, she felt a tremor go through the building again. She could see the destruction caused as something was sent flying from the massive dust cloud and went through multiple buildings in the distance.
"Something bad has happened..." Eri said, a shiver going through her.
Putting that aside, Okimi was able to guide Eri out of the room. The girl looked completely out of it. She had a blank expression and her movements were weaker than normal. Okimi decided carrying the girl would be easier so she easily lifted the girl into her arms and made her way down the nearby staircase. When she got to the ground floor, she walked briskly to her office, where she deposited the girl.
Before she could even open her mouth, Eri spoke again.
"People are coming... They want me..." she whispered, curling into a ball.
Okimi swallowed what she had been about to say. "Yes," she said instead.
"That's why you need to stay here, it's safer than your old room," Okimi said.
Eri just nodded in response.
Okimi went over to her desk and opened the bottom-most drawer. She pulled out a small blanket she used when she had to stay at the hospital overnight during the winter. She dropped the blanket over Eri and gave her a quick hug. She felt the girl lose some of the tension, and when Okimi stepped back, Eri seemed to be a bit more in the present.
Okimi went to the door, locked it, and then left.
Okimi made her way to the front desk, where Mei was frantically trying to organize the staff and keep the influx of injured people orderly. Okimi joined in the discussions and organizing, she provided quick healing to those who had the most severe injuries but otherwise conserved her energy. Okimi had just finished healing a citizen who had been brought in with a piece of concrete lodged in his chest when she heard Mei give a gasp and drop the clipboard in her hands.
Okimi turned toward her and followed her gaze out the front door. She could see a group of people, some were dressed as gangsters, but she could see four black armored individuals in the group's midst as well. She also saw a woman in a white coat at the front of the group, one sleeve flapped in the wind and it was clear she was missing an arm.
"I'll handle this, but put the hospital on lockdown and make sure the guards are ready in case they breach the barriers." Okimi snapped to Mei who nodded and scurried off.
Okimi walked out the front doors, she stripped off her coat and placed it on a bench just outside the front doors then she turned and made her way towards the oncoming group of villains. When Okimi got close enough, the woman leading the group stopped and so did the rest of them.
"If you are here for help, I'm afraid you won't find any here. We make it a point not to help terrorists." Okimi said blithely
"We're not here for help, just to collect something that is ours." Said the woman, adjusting her glasses.
"This isn't a lost and found," Okimi said flatly.
"Give us the child Eri and we won't set foot inside your hospital." Snapped the woman.
"I see. So you want someONE, not something. In that case, I can't help you either. You'll have to leave the premises." Okimi said.
"So you won't give us the child?" Asked the woman, her eyes narrowing.
"No. And if-" Okimi's words were cut short when there was a thrumming noise, and a neat hole was bored through her chest.
Okimi fell forward, hitting the pavement with a sickening thud.
It had been years since Sasakura had pushed his body this far. He wasn't sure how long he could keep it up. His body just wasn't what it was like when he had been young. He was effectively a sixty-year-old between heart problems and other health conditions despite being in his early forties. Without his quirk, he wouldn't have made it even this far.
He panted with the exertion as he dispatched the last of the rabble. The entire time, Zeus's lieutenant had watched, never once intervening. Whatever the man's reason, Sasakura took the opportunity to catch his breath and try to get his heart rate under control. Though he noticed distressingly that his heart rate was pretty high.
When he had taken a moment, he turned toward the Lieutenant, and the eight mercenaries arrayed around him. He flipped his sword around, the lethal end toward the mercenaries. These were not ruffians, they were a serious threat and he wouldn't risk the safety of the students.
The lieutenant narrowed his eyes at Sasakura, then he jerked his head toward him. Two mercenaries detached themselves from their group and came toward Sasakura. One manifested a chain out of his own hair, and the other raised steel spiked fists; Sasakura noted that he had extra joints in his arms and legs. They didn't try to circle around behind Sasakura, instead preferring to stand a few meters away. The lieutenant gave another jerk of his head and the two mercenaries charged at him.
It was like some kind of sick test, but if it meant an easier fight, then Sasakura would play along for now. He didn't fancy his odds against eight trained assailants all at once in his current state.
As he feared these mercenaries knew how to fight, they knew exactly when to press the attack and relax it. Sasakura evaded what blows he could, but the team was too well coordinated and some of the chain hair wrapped around an arm.
He tried to overpower the user, but a spiked fist slammed into his leg. The extra joints gave the other mercenary a ranged advantage Sasakura had never encountered before. Another chain wrapped around his other leg and with a quick pull he fell to the ground. Then another chain wrapped around his neck and the other arm, he desperately tried to free himself but to no avail.
His situation was dire, and so he used his quirk a third time. He summoned the old conditions once more into his mind and signed the second set, leaving only one more unsigned. Power once more surged through him and with greater strength he overpowered the hair chain binding his sword arm and sliced the hair around his neck apart with one deft swing. The mercenary binding looked shocked at Sasakura's casual display of immense strength. Able to swing his sword with enough force to cut through the hair with the same arm still being restrained.
Sasakura freed his other arm, then ripped the hair binding his other arm apart with his bare hands. The second mercenary tried to smash his face in with a punch that looked comically slow to Sasakura's newfound power. He casually severed the hand of the other mercenary.
The mercenary screamed and stumbled back, Sasakura stood up, slicing apart a chain that tried to bludgeon him, then threw his blade into the first mercenary's throat. Before the mercenary even hit the ground, Sasakura was pulling the blade free. The second mercenary desperately tried to dodge but Sasakura's blade found its mark in the man's chest. As the mercenary collapsed backward, he let the man's fall pull the blade free for him.
He glanced over to where the lieutenant still stood, but his eyebrows had raised in surprise. Sasakura turned to face him and raised his sword.
The mercenary leader grinned and pushed himself off the wall and took several steps forward until he was only a few meters away.
"You impress me." Said the man in barely passable Japanese.
Sasakura said nothing but used this time to recover. The conditions were exhausting, and while the third of the conditions would solve that problem, there was a very real chance he wouldn't survive it.
"My elite men not easy to beat. I fight you myself. Your strength will fail against me. I am Ares, Zeus's strongest." He proclaimed, then he put both arms out to either side as if inviting Sasakura to the fight.
Sasakura tensed, then sprung forward in a sudden burst of speed. The world blurred for a moment but as he swung his sword the man vanished. He cut nothing but air, then he felt something smash into his side. He flew sideways, skidding and rolling across the ground. When he stopped rolling, he got to his feet and sprung at him again. This time, however, before he got into swinging range he threw his sword forward. Hoping to catch the man off guard before he could teleport.
Once more though, the man vanished just before the blade made contact and he felt something smash into his back and he went flying. He rolled across the floor once more and came to a stop beside his blade.
He lay there for a few moments too stunned and winded to move, then he picked up his sword and got his feet once more. Turning the man was simply standing where he had teleported behind Sasakura, and based on the force he'd been hit by, he had physical enhancements too.
Without much choice now, he signed the third condition. The same condition that forced him into retirement, and created the host of physical ailments he now had in exchange for the immense power it granted him. Every pulse of his heart hurt, his blood burned his veins and his muscles burned. He immediately lost his sense of taste and smell but didn't notice, all his focus was on the mercenary leader at the exclusion of all else.
He ran at the man, and it was as if the world slowed down around him. He felt his muscles almost tear, his bones creaked, and his joint protested in pain. The man didn't so much as twitch, as he appeared frozen in time. Sasakura brought his blade slicing upward, but once more he vanished. He slammed a foot down in front of him, halting his momentum using the leg as a brace he put a deep furrow into the floor of the Gym. He used his upward slice and used the momentum to carry the slice back behind him, right where the man had teleported. His blade came down, but once more the man vanished and Sasakura's blade sliced into the floor, putting a deep gash into it.
Then the man smacked him from the side and he flew into the opposite wall. Despite the impact he landed on his feet, ready to go again when he felt all his power leave him. He collapsed to the floor and clutched a hand to his chest. His heart rate had exploded to an unprecedented level, and now he was in the midst of a heart attack, or perhaps he'd been having one the entire time and didn't notice? His sword fell from his grasp as he sank to the floor and collapsed.
He opened his mouth, but nothing happened. He just opened and closed it trying to suck in air but even his lungs had given out. He saw the terrified expression of his students and he tried to rise to his feet but nothing happened. He hadn't even managed a twitch.
Then his heart simply stopped, and the world dissolved around him into blackness.
Ochako awoke slowly, she groaned and tried to move but couldn't. She opened her eyes but immediately shut them in pain. Something was in her eyes, but she couldn't move her arm to wipe it off. She felt trapped and as she struggled it felt as if the weight of the object atop her was pressing down. She felt like she was being crushed, she started to sweat as if she was in a furnace, and panic welled up inside her.
She could feel the wooden beam impaling her breast, the fire seared her skin, and her hair was burning, the acrid smell of burning hair all around her. The smoke choked her lungs and she coughed as she tried to desperately push against the beam. It didn't budge and if anything it seemed to dig deeper. She screamed in agony as she felt her ribs start to give way. She desperately tried using her quirk to alleviate the pressure but while the gravity affecting the individual beam ceased, the mass of debris atop it, slowly pushing downward didn't abate. She tried to extend her quirk farther, and deeper into the mass of debris. The fire continued to burn her, her ribs continued to crack and she screamed as tears rolled down her face. In one final act of desperation, she threw everything she had behind against the beam and it was as if something snapped within her.
A shudder ran through her body and she felt her quirk extend outward. It encompassed all of the debris and went still further. The pressure lifted and she breathed in a lungful of smoke and coughed. She needed to push the beam off of her entirely, she needed to escape the smoke and get her parents out of here. As if her quirk reacted to her thoughts, she felt a wave roll out from her and into the beam and debris. Exhaustion hit her but even as her consciousness faded she watched in surprise as the ceiling exploded upward, revealing the sky for a moment before it was engulfed in smoke...
Ochako screamed in anger and panic, and whatever was pressing down on her vanished into a mass of noise. She brought a hand to her face and wiped the dust and dirt out of her eyes. Tears pooled in them and they helped to wash out the last of the grime. She blinked and looked around her. She wasn't sure what she was looking at, and for a moment she thought she was back in Deika city following Gigantomachia's rampage. Then recent memories took hold and she jumped to her feet. The entire area around her had been turned into a junkyard. No building, save the one she was on, lay unmolested and she could see only some of the more sturdy buildings had anything beyond a fourth story intact. Even those buildings didn't have anything past the sixth story, just jutting metal supports reaching to the sky like bony fingers.
She looked down and saw with relief that she'd managed to keep the majority of the police headquarters intact. A few walls were missing, but the overall structure had been saved. She looked back at the wasteland before her. It was hard to tell how much of the city had been laid to waste as a massive dust cloud covered the land and night had crept closer while she had been unconscious.
She staggered to a hole in the roof and climbed inside. She started to make her way down, thankful that the stairs had remained intact. She had to bash a door open but eventually, she found herself in a hallway. She staggered down it, helping people along the way who were trapped by fallen debris.
"Ochako!" came a familiar voice.
She turned her head and saw Naomasa limping toward her from the end of the hallway she was currently in.
"Thank god you're alive, what the hell happened?!" he half asked half demanded.
"I don't know, I turned one of the towers on when I saw a wave rippling across the city. It was a tidal wave but on land, it was all I could do to keep this building intact." She said, still in shock at the destruction wrought upon the city in but a few moments.
"This is undoubtedly Zeus's doing. A new weapon or perhaps someone with a powerful quirk. You need to go to the epicenter and ascertain the situation, then report back to us." Said a voice from behind Naomasa.
Ochako peered from around Naomasa and saw the QSU officer also limping toward them. Blood ran over a closed eye and he was holding an arm to his chest.
Naomasa went to say something but the officer cut him off.
"That isn't an idea, it's an order. What happens to us doesn't matter, we HAVE to know what caused this and either destroy the source or else prepare for it again in the future." he snapped.
Ochako straightened and nodded, then she started to make her way back out of the building. When she finally got back outside she flew high into the air and surveyed the scene from high above.
The damage was less than she'd feared. The underground storage vault was pretty close to the police headquarters for safety reasons and the wave of destruction hadn't spread much farther than the headquarters building. About six or seven city blocks she estimated, almost nothing compared to the entire city as she'd initially feared.
With some level of relief, she blasted toward the epicenter which she saw was nothing but a clear crater. As she approached she could see a lone black dot in the center, the remains of the weapon?
She put on more speed and as she got closer her rage built. She smashed into the earth, creating her own small crater and explosion of dirt. She walked out of her dust cloud and froze. A person stood in the center of the large crater, looking down at their hands. She got closer and the features of the person's face started to come into focus. Then he turned his face toward her and she stopped dead as everything seemed to come to a standstill.
The figure smiled, a smile she knew.
"Ochako! It's good to see you, I was a tad worried you might have been killed in the quake." Said Yo Shindo, his QUEESS glowing faintly in the dusk.
"I was hoping I'd get the opportunity to talk to you before long. Even if HE wanted me to just abandon you I couldn't do it without at least asking you first." Yo Shindo said casually as if nothing had happened.
Yo Shindo clapped his hands and a wide smile broke across his face, "I wanted to give you the opportunity to join me!" He said brightly.
Ochako could feel herself starting to hyperventilate, and her brain only dimly recognized the question.
"...what...?" she said faintly.
"Join me!" He reiterated, holding his hands out away from him as if ready to embrace her.
"You and me, we could take back what was ours! Zeus would be a footnote in comparison to our strength! We'd be invincible! We could take revenge against the government and the heroes for what they've done to us! They fear us, you know, that's why they took our QUEESS away from us. We were a threat to their power, but I was different, they couldn't twist my thoughts into serving them so they locked me up. But you..." He said, a sad and pitying look coming over him now.
"They got to you, don't you see? They used their tricks to twist your mind and make you think you were on the right side. But I can see the truth, the voice has illuminated the way and he can do the same for you! I know he can! So join me, and let me help you!" He said, smiling again as he gestured for her to come to him.
Ochako took a step back, gazing at her friend, comrade, and fellow angel in horror. She saw now why they had put him into an institution, he was clearly insane. The QUEESS had driven him insane as it had almost done to her.
"You... you did... this...?" she asked weakly, looking around them.
"Hmmm? Well yes, I had to ensure my power had not waned. This city is the first step, it and the U.A. must fall. They are a symbol to the entire world, if they fall then the rest of Japan will as well, and after that, so will the H.A. It's a necessary sacrifice to build a world free from their control." He said as if he were stating the obvious.
Her horror grew and with it, came a wave of anger so great and so strong it made her lightheaded. She felt her other side rage within her, she had never been so angry, so filled with hate as she was now. Not even the seal binding her could withstand her fury, it started to crack under the pressure. With the anger and hate, however, she could also feel an undercurrent of deep pain to it, a pain she also felt.
It was as if the world had fallen from under her feet, she put a hand to her head and another out to her side as if to steady herself. This couldn't be real... Yo Shindo, a traitor? After everything they had been through, after witnessing the horrors brought upon the world by AFO, Shigaraki, and the League, he had gone and become a monster just like them. It couldn't be real...
She... she was alone... In all the world, there was no longer someone like her. She was the last of the six angels, and now it fell to her to fight and kill her former friend and comrade.
"I... You..." She stuttered, struggling to process it all.
Yo Shindo took a step toward her, holding a hand out to her, an encouraging look on his face.
Ochako took a step back and her confusion resolved into revulsion, mixing with her horror which spread to her face. A deep fear that had been with her since the end of the war, a fear that had been made manifest in Yo Shindo.
"I... I... No... You're sick...! You need help! Please! Yo Shindo, let me help you!" she pleaded with him.
Yo Shindo's smiling face fell into one of stony neutrality and he started muttering to himself.
"I see... The voice was right. You really are too far gone... Then there is only one thing left to do, I have to put you out of your misery..." He muttered.
Then he suddenly shot a fist forward, sending a shock wave at her. She dodged sideways, the attack smashed into the ground sending a massive wave of earth and dust everywhere.
That settled the matter in her mind, there was nothing she could do for him at this juncture except to beat him into unconsciousness. Then she could get someone to help him.
She flew to the side and blasted toward him, trying to hit him with a haymaker but he lazily dodged the attack. She spun around to hit him with a roundhouse kick, but he caught her leg and pulled her toward him. She tried to send a fist at him as he pulled her closer but he moved his head out of the way and clamped a hand around her throat.
She had badly miscalculated, she'd let her emotions blind her to the fact that Yo Shindo had his QUEESS and as such was on a level she couldn't match without her own. She choked, but before she could try and smash his face in, he brought a knee into her stomach. The shockwave exploded out from his knee as he caused a quake to run through her body and into the air behind her. The sound of the impact echoed across the ruins that surrounded them.
She felt every rib shatter, several organs explode, and her spine fracture. His grip on her throat prevented her from even expelling the sudden flood of blood in her lungs. The sudden onslaught of damage prevented her from moving, she didn't even feel the pain, just numbness from the shoulders down, all while he held on like a vice around her throat. He turned his lip up at her and tossed her into the air like a ragdoll, she flopped around helplessly as blood spilled from her mouth. Yo Shindo jumped up after her, meeting her at the peak of her height of about 20 stories, and slammed a fist into her. He floated there and watched as she went flying.
She didn't feel anything, not when the impact threw her halfway across the city, not when she went through several buildings, not when she crashed into a street leaving a small crater, or when she slipped silently into death.
