Their Hero Academia – Chapter 68: We Gotta Get Out of This Place

"I don't know!"

When the words left Toshi's mouth, Sora felt a surge of fear go through her. Her boyfriend was one of the most capable people she knew and he always had a plan. He could think on his feet like no one else she knew. And while she knew that he was going to be making a deliberate effort to let others take the lead and not allow the class to become dependent upon him, she also knew that in a situation such as this, he would not hold back like that. But an assessment of the facts was needed.

One, something or someone dangerous had been introduced to the environment. The extent to which it has spread was unknown. It had to be something that required direct contact and was likely not airborne, as none of them had been infected.

Two, it appeared to be something that affected your perceptions. Some people were experiencing a fear-based reaction, while others reacted with anger, or as if perceiving imaginary enemies.

Three, you could identify who had been infected and who was not by a very obvious orange glow. That would make recognizing who was affected easy, which was further helped by point four.

Four, it appeared to be transmitted by touch. There appeared to be some transmission via body parts as well. Earlier, a man had fired his quills, and those had carried the madness to their targets, as had the mobile appendages of Sisicross. However, other emitter type projectiles, such as the bubbles she saw one infected generating or energy-based projectiles, did not.

Five, her Quirk, her brother's Quirk, and Toshi's Quirk all relied largely upon physical contact to be effective, though Toshi was capable of limited long-range attacks. And the number of Support items she had that were long range was limited. That was something they could consider at another date, and she filed the idea for upgrades away for later. Togata's Quirk was non-combat based. Of the five of them, only Sero might possess the ability to use his Quirk on the infected without becoming so himself, and she was unwilling to suggest he try without further data.

"Can I vote we get out of here?" Togata asked, waving a long fingered hand in the air. "This place is getting worse by the minute."

"I hate to say it," Sero said, "but I think I agree with him."

"Sometimes, a tactical retreat is the best option," Tensei added.

Toshi frowned, but nodded. "Most of our Quirks need more space to work too… and we need to at least get Dave somewhere safe…" He looked around at the unfolding chaos. The only saving grace to all of it was that Sisicross was, in a way, doing more good than harm. Everyone he immobilized with his Meatball Quirk was infected, but also unable to infect others. Perhaps it was best they ran.

"I must concur," Sora said. "This is a scenario we are ill-equipped to stop."

"Let's make a break for it," Toshi said. He clenched a fist. Sora knew running did not sit well with him, but there were clearly no other options.

Unfortunately, it was at that point that Sisicross noticed them. His arms remained behind his back, while multiple fleshy missiles orbited him like a miniature solar system. He seemed almost gleeful at the prospect of cutting loose.

"Thought you could hide from me, eh, Villains?" he laughed. "You'll pay for that undisciplined arrogance!" The orbiting flesh-missiles stopped their rotation and pointed at them. Sisicross gave a small nod and they shot forth.

"Not while I'm here you won't!" a voice shouted. It was in Japanese, but lightly accented, as though it wasn't the speaker's first language. Almost faster than the eye could follow, a massive man, easily as big as All Might, ran into view. He was carrying a heavy looking piece of machinery, some kind of computer, and he swung it like a baseball bat, easily deflecting the missiles. The man was obviously physically powerful, his muscle straining at his dark suit, but he was older, with silver hair and tired eyes.

There was also a dog, a golden retriever, at his heels.

With a fluid motion, the man threw the computer at Sisicross, knocking him out and pinning him under it. Sora thought that the throw seemed harder than warranted, and winced at the sight of it. That the computer was damaged was regrettable, but not the biggest concern. The action had been swift, decisive, and brutal. Sisicross groaned, but did not stir.

"That's… that's Insomniac!" Toshi shouted. "Head of the SSZ, the multinational Hero school! His Quirk makes him stronger the longer he goes without sleep! He can be nearly as strong as Grandpa Might used to be!"

"Now is not the time to be geeking out, Toshi!" Togata said.

"Trust me," Sero said, "we've tried turning him off. It doesn't work." Sora shot him a quick glare. Now was not the time for his humor.

"Hero students?" the man—Insomniac—said, sparing them a glance. "Get out of here while you have the chance, kids! This is only going to get uglier." His eyes darted around, looking for more trouble. And that was something Sora could see there was plenty of.

"He says that like there's somewhere safe to go," Sero said.

Toshi frowned. "Still…"

"You want to go find your other friend, don't you?" Togata asked.

"I am worried about Haimawari," Toshi agreed. "And Tamaki."

Sero sighed. "We are the kids of the class that was always running off into trouble," he said. "Might as well keep up the tradition…"

When the alarms first went off, Melissa had done a good job of keeping her self-control. As the wife of a Hero and a close friend of many more, she'd been in dangerous situations any number of times. Hell, she'd been in danger the first time she'd met Deku, for that matter. So she was no stranger to life threatening situations.

Now, even though it had been less than twenty minutes, that self-control was waning. Jinsei had brought up the security feeds from around the island, populating them across the lab's monitors. Her eyes kept darting between them, searching for any sign of her kids or her friends' children.

"Argh!" She tugged, futilely, and not for the first time, on the lab's door. Right now, she wanted to be anywhere but where she was. But with security lockdown protocols in place, she was trapped in the lab until the crisis ended.

If it ended. From what she could see on the monitors, that was a highly debatable outcome. A handful of Heroes with long-range abilities were successfully containing some of the outbreaks, but many more were falling prey to it. The I-Island security forces were ill-equipped to handle this and the defense systems were built on repelling an attack, not on crowd containment, and were definitely not designed for innocent citizens running out of control.

A lot of people were already hurt. Who knew how many more would be by the end of it.

On one camera, she could see David, Toshi, and their friends making their escape from one of the Expo halls. It looked like things were finally starting to calm down there. Sisicross's rampage may have spread the infection, but at least his targets weren't going anywhere else. Even after reverting back to their normal forms after he had been disabled, the strain of the transformation had left them senseless. She watched as the kids crossed from one camera feed to the next. There were plenty of spots where they could have taken shelter, or at least moved away from the action.

Instead, she watched as they turned and headed back to the Expo, where she could see more violence breaking out.

"Like father, like son," she muttered to herself. Izuku was a beloved friend, but he still had a tendency to rush headlong into danger. At least he didn't leave himself broken like he used to. But it looked like Toshi had inherited his lack of self-preservation as well.

On another monitor, she could see Tamaki and the boy from the Sports Festival, Haimawari, working on crowd control. With a green glow spreading throughout his body, Tamaki brought a foot down in a powerful stomp. The shockwave spread out and knocked down a great number of the infected. Haimawari backed up his assault with a quick series of low-power energy bolts, striking each one in the head hard enough to put them down. Not the most ideal situation or solution, but the infected were a danger to themselves and others. If they could at least be temporarily taken out, then maybe they stood a chance.

Where was Nejire? As long as she could use her Quirk, she'd be fine. Her intangible state was on par with Mirio's and when she increased her density, she could give Tamaki a run for his money in the hitting department. But right now, she didn't see her daughter anywhere…

She paced more furiously now, looking at each screen with such intensity that if she'd had an optical-based Quirk, she'd probably have burned a hole through them.

"Melissa!" Jinsei's voice suddenly shocked her back to reality.

She looked over to where he was furiously tapping away at a keyboard. "Sorry," she said. ""I'm just worried."

He nodded. "I understand," he said, sympathetically. "Your family is out there. And we're stuck here."

"Any word from the higher ups?" she asked.

Jinsei frowned. "All the research and development buildings have gone to full secure lockdown. That still leaves a lot of people out in the open and in public buildings. And a powerful enough Quirk could pass through some of the countermeasures. They've sent out a distress signal, but we're far enough out in international waters right now it will take time for any Heroes to get here."

She stole another worried glance back at the screens.

Jinsei continued inputting commands into the keyboard, until a hologram appeared. It was a sleek robot, weapon-barrels built into arms ending in clawed hands, with built-in rockets and wings. "I've got a half-dozen test models," he said. "They can't be infected. They could buy everyone the time they need."

Melissa bit her lip. Fielding prototypes like that, it was risky. But what choice did they have? "What do we need to do to get them ready?"

For a moment, at least, Isamu was starting to believe they could win this. They were making progress in containing or disabling those infected with the madness, though it had called for more violence than he'd have liked. He really disliked the number of people he'd had to use his Quirk on, firing bolts of repulsive power that put them out quickly, and cleanly. He'd practiced long and hard to already to get the amount of power needed to do that just right, but he never expected he'd be turning it on Pro Heroes and civilians.

He'd just been thankful there had been no children. He wasn't sure he could have turned his power on kids and still looked himself in the mirror the next day. Even now, he had to tell himself that there wasn't any talking them down, no matter how much he wished there was another way. Fortunately, they'd been joined by a three other Pro-Heroes, two of whom had Quirks which were well-suited for containment. They couldn't contain everyone, but at least it was a start.

He let out a shriek as one of the infected got close to him, a badger-shaped woman with sharp claws. He fell backwards onto his butt and brought him hands up to defend himself, but the blow never came. Instead, the ground itself rose up around the woman, imprisoning her in a dome of solid rock.

He looked past the dome to see a short, dark-haired Chinese woman in a green and yellow uniform that left her feet bare. "Watch it, Twinkle-Toes," she said, in heavily accented Japanese. "These guys ain't going to give you a second chance!"

Isamu gave her a nod of thanks and quickly got back to his feet.

A dark-skinned American man in blue and white possessed some kind of ice Quirk, and he was making good use of it, containing the infected he could in prisons of ice. "Not going to hold them for long," he said in English. "Man, why'd I agree to take Bob's ticket? I get killed, my wife's gonna kill me!"

Sequoia Rose, from Japan, wasn't having as much luck. The daughter of Kamui Woods and Mt. Lady, her Quirk let her create wooden constructs from her body, but since they were a part of her, she couldn't use them on the infected directly without risking becoming infected herself. Instead, she was forced to pick up various objects and slingshot them at the infected.

"Reminds me of the time we fought that guy at the Tokyo Film Fest, eh, Rosie?" Togata asked, fighting next to her. He was glowing brightly now and must have had his density turned way up. His strikes were pushing a lot of air around and he continued to employ powerful stomps when he could.

"The guy who pulled all those zombies out of the American movie?" Rose asked. "Don't remind me, Togata! And don't call me Rosie!"

"Get back! Get back!" Isamu's head snapped in the direction of the call for help. Behind his goggles, his eyes widened in surprise. It was Tokuda, the journalist and author from earlier. He was carrying a small child in one arm and was surrounded by the infected, each ranting about their own personal fears or grievances. He was holding them off for the moment, with camera lenses sprouting from all over his body and releasing blinding flashes that left them disoriented, but with each moment, the cameras were sprouting more slowly, the flashes getting dimmer.

He wasn't going to be able to hold out for long. The Pros were all busy. It was up to him.

Isamu dove forward and caught himself with his hands, rocketing himself forward with his Quirk as soon as his feet touched the ground. As fast as he had ever pushed himself, he swerved around the horde of infected, stopped, and came up firing. Rapid fire bolts of power flew from his hand, mowing down the infected, none of whom seemed to have powerful Quirks.

"Are you okay, Mister Tokuda?"

The man had lost his glasses at some point and his hair was disheveled. "Kid, anyone who saves me life like that definitely gets to call me Taneo." He shook his head. "I was trying to get this little one back to her family when they got the drop on me." The kid, mercifully, had passed out, probably from fright. Maybe she'd sleep through the whole thing.

A mighty roar and the shaking of the ground cut off anything else he might have had to say. A massive shadow appeared from behind the nearest building, growing larger as the noises got louder.

"Oh no…" Isamu said.

"Don't tell me they got him…" Tokuda said.

But the evidence was before their own eyes. Large and glowing bright… it was Godzillo.

Rei tapped a foot impatiently, as she and Compress waited on the pier. "Why is it every time I need Overdrive to pick me up, she's running late?"

Compress shrugged, idly spinning her cane in her fingers. "Really, dahling, it's only been a few minutes. We were early, after all. I'm sure our silent teammate will be here as promised."

"Do you think she can't talk or doesn't talk?" Rei asked. "'Cause I got a bet going with Amp. She thinks Overdrive can't. I say she just doesn't. On account of giving everybody the silent treatment. Either that or she got jinxed and nobody ever said her name."

Compress turned to stare at her for a moment and Rei was certain the other woman's eyes were going wide behind her black and white mask. Then, Compress began to shake, giving way to loud, trilling laughter. "Oh, you really are too much, dahling," she said. "How show business missed you, I have no idea."

Rei just shrugged at that and went back to watching the water. There were a few boats docked there. Most people visiting I-Island preferred to fly there, but occasionally people did arrive by boat and many supplies also came by ship. Something caught her eye though.

Heading to one of the mid-sized ships were a pair of figures, the larger of them carrying a large sack over his shoulder. A sack that appeared to be moving. Rei's left hand dropped to her knife. She wasn't surprised other people were up to no good on the island. It was a treasure trove of technology and Quirk research. The chaos they'd unleashed had probably only aided in it. She felt a brief flash of guilt.

"Hey, Compress," she said.

"Hmm?"

"Boss man didn't have anybody else on the island, did he?"

"Not that I know of, dahling."

"Then what do you make of that?" Rei asked as she pointed.

Compress turned to look, then sighed. "You want to get involved, don't you?" She didn't even wait for Rei to answer. Instead, she started walking in that direction. "Come along then. Might as well kill some time while we're waiting."

"Might kill some people while we're waiting too, depending on what's in the sack," Rei said. It was a stupid idea. Criminal organizations took advantage of the chaos others caused all the time. And often operated in the same areas, so long as their goals weren't incompatible. But something about this just set her on edge.

The two men were well dressed, wearing suits, though only the smaller man looked comfortable in it. They would have blended in perfectly with the Expo guests. The smaller one kept shooting furtive glances around, trying to see if they were being watched. He actually jumped in surprise when he saw Rei and Compress.

He said something to the big one in a language Rei didn't recognize offhand, but might have been Russian. He pointed at them and snickered. The big one said something in the same language and also laughed. She was pretty sure they were talking about them, and even without understanding it, didn't much like what she was hearing.

Compress tapped her cane on the ground sharply, getting their attention back. She said something, again in the same language.

"You speak that moon language?" Rei asked.

"Russian, dahling," Compress said. "A particular dialect too. I do believe these two are working for Chernabog. They seemed rather disinclined to explain themselves, however."

Chernabog. The name was instantly recognizable to anyone with any standing at all in the criminal world. The name of the crime lord who controlled most of the underworld in Eastern Europe. A name associated with the trafficking of drugs and… other things.

Both her hands went to her knives.

Whatever was in the sack stopped moving. "Is there someone there?" a voice asked. "Help! Help me!"

The voice was high and squeaky. A child's voice.

The knives left their holsters. "Tell them they've got five seconds to let the kid go."

So. Godzillo. On the scale of how bad things could be, that was somewhere pretty far up. Though long retired from Heroics, the gargantuan lizard man was still incredibly powerful. Isamu was pretty sure a few power bolts to the head weren't going to stop him.

"Guy looks pretty riled up," Tokuda said. He huddled the little girl he'd been carrying closer to his body.

Godzillo, glowing the same bright orange as all the other infected, planted his feet and let out one of his trademark roars (Literally trademarked, if he remembered correctly.). Even from as far away as he was, Isamu struggled to stay standing, using his Quirk to pin his feet against the ground from the sheet force of it.

"Washed up!" Godzillo roared. He struck out, smashing through the upper floors of the nearest building. "A has-been! Over the hill!" His tail lashed out behind him, doing yet more damage. "I'll show them who's washed up!"

He started sucking in a breath and then his mouth began to glow. Isamu let out a soft gasp of fear. Godzillo's most powerful weapon: Atomic Breath. They had scant seconds before it powered up…

"I go high, you go low?" the ice-Quirk using American said to the Chinese woman in English, gesturing quickly with his hands.

Even if she didn't understand the words, she seemed to understand the gesture. She nodded and took a step forward. From her foot, the earth began to stir, reaching out to entrap Godzillo's feet. The ice-Quirked American threw up his hands, shooting a stream of ice at Godzillo's head.

They didn't stand a chance. Godzillo broke free of the Earth bindings easily and unleashed a powerful blast of his atomic breath. It made a noise that was thousands of times louder than anything he had ever heard in any movie, shattering all of the nearby glass.

"Haimawari!" Togata shouted. "Move!"

Acting on instinct, Isamu grabbed Tokuda hand and dragged him back, trying to get as much distance as he could without using his Quirk.

Both foreign Heroes tried to form a barrier against the attack, aided by Sequoia Rose's wooden constructs. The combination of rock and wood and ice held for a moment, then shattered under the intensity of the attack. When the sound stopped, Isamu looked back and saw that only Togata was left standing, steam rolling off his body, glowing a bright green, brighter than Isamu had ever seen,. For some reason, it reminded him of when Deku had called on his full power… Sequoia Rose and the other Heroes were collapsed on the ground.

This wasn't… this wasn't good. What were they supposed to do? They were no closer to finding the source of this than when they started and had really only succeeded in knocking a lot of people out. Was this what Heroes were supposed to be? What did Heroes do when things were this hopeless and out of control?

He knew the answer. They kept on fighting, doing the best they could, to save everyone they could. Early into their first term, at the USJ, All Might had talked about how they couldn't always save everyone. Aizawa had brought it up again, after the final exam. That every choice they made was important, but that every choice came with consequences. No one could save everyone… but they could save as many as they could.

He'd made the best choices he could. Everyone he'd had to hurt had been to protect someone else, to keep things from spreading. There were people who had been able to escape because of the violence he'd unleashed and the harm he'd done. It didn't mean he had to like it, but he could tell himself it had to be done.

Looking over at Tokuda and the little girl, he knew he had saved at least two. For how long… well, that was a different question.

Godzillo was readying another blast, his eyes narrowing as he sighted up Togata. "Think you can get away with calling me a no-talent hack?!" he roared. "How's this for talent?!"

Togata looked back for a second. "Haimawari! If whatever this is gets me… you need to hit me with everything you've got, the second I start glowing! No hestitation!"

What? He was going to fight Godzillo? Could Togata hit that hard?

Togata didn't hesitate any longer and instead briefly crouched then shot into the air at Godzillo like a missile, the bright green of his own glow standing out in sharp contrast to the orange glow suffusing Godzillo. Togata brought a fist back and smashed it into Godzillo's head.

There was a strange, quiet moment. Togata seemed to hang in the air for a moment, before crashing down to the ground in a three-point landing. Godzillo teetered on his feet then fell back, hitting the ground with a mighty thud.

"He did it!" Isamu cheered, relief flooding into him for what seemed like the first time since the insanity had broken out. "He did it!"

"Stay sharp, kid," Tokuda said. "I don't think this is over."

Slowly, as though fighting against the green glow, an orange glow was beginning to spread over Togata's body.

Rei's knives flashed through the air, narrowly missing slicing open the smaller of the Russians. He dodged out of the way with surprising agility, coming up ready to fight. He said something in Russian again and it sounded to her like an insult or a taunt. Compress would probably have understood it. Of course, until today, she hadn't known that Compress could speak Russian.

Then again, to be fair, she hadn't asked before today either.

He made a gesture with his hand and a flaming sword appeared in it. He swung it through the air a few times, as though daring her to come closer. Rei had never backed down from a dare. If she'd gone to school, she could have been the queen of the school yard double-dog dares.

"Playing it hot?" she asked, spinning her knives in her hands. "I like it!"

Next to her, Compress was engaging with the larger one, and having a harder time of it. He had a strength Quirk and while he was encumbered by the sack over his shoulder, she was limited in what she could do to him, especially as she had no wish to harm his cargo. Her Compaction Quirk did not work on organic matter, so she was forced to dodge, occasionally striking with her cane. When she did apply her Quirk, it was on the ground, disrupting his ability to stand by compacting sections of it into tight cubes. Quickly, she ducked under another blow and scooped up some of the tiny cubes, then hurtled them at the giant. In the air, they uncrushed themselves into powerful concrete missiles, which slowed, but did not stop, the big man.

With a yell, Rei struck out again at the smaller man, dodging out of the way of his flaming sword. He swung again and again, keeping her on the defensive. He was very well trained, maybe military. She'd learned everything she knew about fighting from her mom, who absolutely was one of the deadliest people on the planet with knives, thank you. She ducked under a strike, feeling the heat of his sword on her scalp, and came up swinging her own blades.

This time, she struck home, only to find that her knife didn't piece his suit! She pushed back, going into a backflip to give herself some distance. What the hell were they giving criminals in Russia these days?

The man laughed again and waved his sword through the air, leaving a flaming trail behind it. She spared a quick glance to where Miss Compress was struggling just to keep the giant guy from getting close enough to get his hands on her, let alone doing any damage to him.

"Hey, Compress!" she shouted. "Question for you!"

Compress dodged out of the way of another blow. "Now, dahling?"

Rei flipped over the sword guy. "You wanna switch?"

"What do you… Ah, yes, good thought!"

Rei jumped again, flipping over the big guy. As she did, she struck out with her knives, slashing as his exposed neck. He let out a cry of pain, recognizable in any language, and dropped the sack he was carrying. It hit the ground with a thump and Rei winced. She should have expected that. Stupid mistake.

But she could see blood on her knives when she landed and could even see blood already staining the collar of the man's suit. Perfect.

"Burn," she mouthed, activating her Quirk. Instantly, with his blood exposed to air, the man's head ignited, the flames spreading quickly as he screamed.

Compress, meanwhile, dodged out of the way of a strike of the flaming sword and then employed her own Quirk. Not on the sword wielder himself, but instead on his clothes. The Compaction field worked inward, and as they compacted into a cube, his clothes simply crushed the body within.

As for the big guy, the flames had brought him to his knees. Her knives did the rest.

"Well," Compress said, "that was quite the diversion. I do hope it was worth it, dahling. Chernabog doesn't take not getting what he wants lying down."

There was a strange sound to Compress's voice, as though speaking from personal experience. But Rei pushed it aside as she opened the sack and found herself looking into the eyes of a young girl, maybe four years old.

"Did… did you save me?" she asked, eyes wide. "Are you Heroes?"

Rei fought down the urge to laugh. "Oh yeah," she said. "Big time Heroes. But we're, ah, secret Heroes. So don't tell anybody, okay."

The girl nodded rapidly.

"What's your name, sweetie?" Rei asked.

"Hinata Otake," she said. "My daddy's a scientist!"

"Doctor Otake," Compress said. "One of the leading researchers of Quirks and Quirk Factors in the world. Easy enough to weaponized, in the wrong hands. Kidnapping as leverage for the research, I'd wager. Fairly typical scheme. And not one where the reciprocation is often followed through."

"So you're saying we did the right thing?" Rei asked.

Compress made a noise of exasperation. "Yes, dahling. I think we did." She patted her coat pocket. "Especially considering we've already absconded with his research. Still… I think it best we get far from here, before we garner too much attention. We've been rather exposed as it is."

Rei was well aware of what she was. And she'd killed a lot of people, police and others among them. But there were things you didn't do. Stuff like this was one of them. She couldn't speak for all of the League, but she'd never personally killed a kid. Even if she'd known some who really deserved it. Teenagers, well, that was more of a grey area.

There was the sound of air being displaced as Overdrive finally arrived with their escape boat, materializing from the warp-zone she used to travel. "Don't worry, kid," Rei said. "Somebody'll find you sooner." She hoped. "We gotta go. Our ride's here."

"You better tell them you're going to be late!" a voice said. Rei spun and saw a blonde woman dressed all in black rising up out of the ground.

Miss Compress let out a growl of frustration. "Oh, really now! All I want to do is leave this stupid island! Is that too much to ask?"

"Over there!"

Toshi looked to where Sora was pointing. There were so many downed Heroes and civilians, many of them still glowing, Godzillo among them. If knocking people out didn't stop whatever this was… then what did? They had so little information. How could they help, how could anyone really help, if they couldn't even really tell what was going on?

Fortunately, flying Quirks were still relatively rare. It had made it easy to avoid most of the chaos. Tensei had been able to carry Sero and with his gravity down, Sora could carry both Dave and him. He really wished Dave had stayed where it was safe… or at least safer. There were safer areas, but with how quickly whatever this orange glow was could spread, he didn't know for how long.

But Dave had refused. He'd figured he was as safe with them as anywhere right now and didn't want to be separated at any rate.

His eyes scanned the ground. There, in red and blue, was Haimawari. Good! He'd been worried about him. He looked shaken but standing. His friend might have had confidence issues, but between training and the exams, Toshi knew he was reliable in a crisis. And that looked like Taneo Tokuda. What was he doing here? And there was Tamaki…

Tamaki was standing near the downed Godzillo, a green glow covering most of his body. But breaking through the green were patches of orange…

Oh… Oh no…

"Put us down!" he said. This wasn't good, wasn't good at all. If Tamaki went out of control…

"It looks clear," Tensei said. "No sign of anyone glowing other than Togata. We should be safe for a few moments at least."

"You just said he was glowing!" Sero said. "Doesn't he have some super-density Quirk? That could be bad if he goes crazy!"

"You… you have no idea," Dave replied. He was thinking of it too, Toshi knew. All the ways in which this could go very, very badly, very, very quickly, both for Tamaki and everyone around him.

In fact, it meant he probably shouldn't wait. Toshi leapt from Sora's grip, despite her protests, before she and Tensei could land. He bounced slightly when he hit the ground and instantly focused his attention on Tamaki. The others went to work checking on the downed Heroes.

The two glows were still fighting each other, Tamaki's expression shifting between grim determination and madness. His fists were clenched so tightly that Toshi feared his bones would break.

"Midroiya," Haimawari said, running up to his side. "Is he okay? He's not going crazy like everybody else."

Toshi shook his head, trying to find the words. There was no way he could explain what he was afraid of here, not without spilling a lot of secrets that weren't his to tell. Dammit.

All the while, Tamaki merely stood there, every muscle on his body twitching as he fought against the orange glow. His green glow was pushing it back now, with bright red sparks defining the edge between them. Even from this distance, Toshi could see his mouth moving, as though in conversation with someone. Over and over, he could see Tamaki's mouth make the word "One."

"Haimawari," he said. The other boy jumped and Toshi realized he'd said his name more intently than he'd meant to. "Listen to me," he said. "You and Sero are the only ones of us with a long range attack, and we don't know if his Tape would count as touching him. If that orange glow spreads all the way, you have to hit him with your biggest blast. Everything you've got. Everything. Do you understand?"

"I… you want me to… just shoot him?" Haimawari asked, nervously. He looked at Toshi as though he'd lost his mind. "He… he said the same thing. I've been blasting people, just enough to knock them out… LikeIngeniumpleasedon'ttellthetwins."

That was definitely a point they were going to have to circle back to, but now wasn't the time. With the power he had, Tamaki running out of control would be one of the worst possible things that could happen.

"ARGGGHHHH!" Tamaki let out a pained scream, green and red and orange now dancing all around his body. He clenched his hands again, arms out, screaming skyward, until he erupted into a pillar of green light. Toshi was forced to close his eyes tightly against the glare.

And just as suddenly as it had started, the light stopped. Toshi opened his eyes and blinked away the glare.

"It's okay," Tamaki said, approaching them. "I was able to beat it. Wasn't easy, but…." He glanced at Toshi and nodded.

Toshi returned the nod. He'd wondered if it might be possible, but hadn't dared hope. They'd gotten lucky, he knew.

"How did you…?" Haimawari asked. Surprise was written all over his face. "That's one hell of a lot of willpower!"

Tamaki looked over at Toshi again, a moment of worry slipping over his face. "No time for that now," he said quickly. He looked over to where Sero, Sora, Tensei, and Dave were approaching. The sounds of screams and Quirks being used still carried through the air. And there was another sound beyond it, something mechanical, like dozens of engines. "We need to get a handle on this.

"But now I've got a plan."