"She's not moving."

Less a question and more an observation of the psycho villain's current scheme, Rumi hopped twice as she landed on the building directly across from Couturier's location. The villain was buried underneath rubble, office furniture and computers. A lesser criminal would be unconscious after getting kicked in the neck and smashed head-first into a building. Or even killed. But something told her couturier was not only alive, but unharmed. It was the only reason she hadn't immediately hopped back onto the offensive. Or made a beeline straight for the villain before she did something horrendous. Her tongue dragged along cracked lips as white hair gently bellowed around her face. Her ears twitched in the silence as her eyes attempted to pierce the thick veil of smoke rising from the building.

Something about Couturier reminded her of that hooded fighter from way back in Osaka in the worst possible way.

"HEY!"

Perched on the edge of the roof, hands propped on her hips and announcing herself loud enough for someone on the streets to hear her overwhelming confidence, Rumi made sure her voice came across loud and clear, "YOU PLAN ON HIDING ALL NIGHT OR WHAT!?" She couldn't care less about what Couturier was hiding underneath that ugly dress or disturbing smile. She planned on getting answers to everything – the name of her little league's boss, the villains she was working with and demanding, in the gentlest possible words, why she'd murdered Professor Matoi and who gave her the orders to do so.

"I AIN'T GONNA REPEAT MYSELF!"

The corners of her lips quirked into an overconfident smirk, "COME OUT AND SURRENDER BEFORE I –"

Something moved in the periphery of her vision.

As soon as the blonde blur appeared in the furthest corner of her eye, she leaned forward and sprinted down the length of the building. Gravity pulled her downwards but it was only her momentum which carried her forth. Her muscles twitched with each step. Her jaw clenched. Her senses expanded until her mind couldn't process any more information. Maroon eyes narrowed never wavered from the figure attempting to retreat into the darkness. Arms trailed behind her streamlined body as every purposeful stride kicked up clouds of smoke and dust while cracking the glass and steel façade going from vertical to horizontal in the blink of an eye. Pavement and abandoned cars grew closer. She passed signs, billboards and advertisements.

Three-quarters of the way to the ground, close enough to count the number of cell phones left behind in the wake of Couturier's appearance, Rumi stomped her foot into the building and pivoted. She snaked fingers blanched lighter shades of brown into concrete and steel. The tips of her gloves wore down until barely a thin layer of fabric separated her fingertips from painfully eroding. And with one final stride, the sole of her foot pushed off the building and she flew towards the cowardly villain.

"YOU THINK I'LL LET YOU GET AWAY!?"

Her foot smashed into Couturier's ribs with a bone-shattered crack.

KABOOM!

Four blocks away from the battle, near a recently constructed perimeter manned by average heroes and ordinary police officers, something unexpected smashed into the asphalt.

"Huh?"

"What the hell was that?"

"Is that a…hero?"

"No! It's a villain!"

"Does anyone have a restraining Quirk?"

"I do! But I have to get closer!"

"Go! We'll cover you!"

With nearly surgical precision, Couturier extracted herself from the pavement. Her fingernails dragged against the road, tearing thin trails without so much as a scratch. Steadily and purposely, breathing slowly through her nose, she shambled onto her feet, an eerie silence accompanying every subtle twitch and movement.

"That was seriously uncalled for."

Heroes were moving towards her location. Quirks were being activated. Footsteps. The crinkling of fabrics and threading on costumes. She heard everything. She could feel every last type of fabric. She could see them in the periphery of her vision. That was how she knew, without granting the heroes so much as a modicum of her attention more than they actually deserved, the number of fools eager and willing to sacrifice themselves on the foolish mantle of 'stopping her.' It was pathetic, not that she cared. The only reason Couturier decided to actually look at the approaching nobodies was because one of them was attempting to disrupt her sense of balance.

It didn't take her long to single out the guilty party.

A woman, mid-twenties, pinkish-purple hair, green eyes, form-fitting costume predominantly dark blue with purple trimming and covering everything below her neck. The particular choice of costume and support gear wasn't half-bad. But when she raised her hand and gently clenched her fingers, such thoughts and observations were relegated to the trash. She didn't need to wait long. As always, the process took less than two seconds. Maybe three on a bad day. The woman coughed. Then choked. Then struggled to breath before collapsing as every bone and organ in her body were violently crushed.

"Hmm…"

The heroes panicked.

They screamed and shouted, wondering what happened and how their friend died.

Then another four perished the same way.

Couturier lowered her arm, fingers relaxing and lips curled into a subtle yet satisfied smile. As she'd expected, the false confidence instilled into the heroes disappeared, replaced by nervousness and terror. Some of them were shouting for assistance. Others wanted to know what happened to their friend. Most of them, at least. Some refused to retreat, standing their ground on legs made of jelly despite knowing they couldn't beat her. Or perhaps they honestly believed they could beat her. The thought made her titter. As insulting as knowing that was, she honestly appreciated their bravery. It made what she was about to do all the more fun.

"…let's see…"

The heroes backpedaled when she turned aside and smiled, "…you ~all~ want to die? Strange, but if you insist – "

An axe kick to the face interrupted her ultimatum.

She flew.

That was only thing Couturier could say, simply that she flew before smashing through the front of an expensive French restaurant.

"Merde."

The foreign curse escaped into the darkness as she staggered to her feet, brushed down her dress, cracked her neck, first to the right and then the left and smiled. Unharmed, utterly unblemished and unimaginably infuriated by the last several minutes, Couturier raised a foot, stepped forward and promptly froze when something warm dribbled down the contours of her face. She blinked, blue eyes crossing. Out of curiosity, she reached up, touched her forehead, smudging whatever was dripping from the ceiling and stared at her coated fingers with something less benevolent than childish fascination coursing through her veins. It was blood. Her blood. Dripping down her face. Dripping onto her dress. Dripping from an ugly cut over her eyebrow.

And it wasn't healing.

"This is getting dangerous," there wasn't any humor in her voice. No amusement or mockery. Just pure indignation, "She might actually beat me," the unholy confession disappeared into the darkness, "Guess there's no other option. I was saving it for Ryuko, but she's left me no choice."

She could only use this technique once.

And wouldn't be able to use it again for a long time.

One step.

"That's why…"

Two steps.

"…I ~really~ hate her!"

Three steps.

On the fourth and final step, something launched itself out of the restaurant and back onto the illuminated streets of Corusco Ward. Bloodied and utterly infuriated at being reduced to such a state by a nameless hero, Couturier made a beeline straight for Rumi and, as she'd expected met the annoying rabbit-eared hero before shed taken a single breath of fresh air. They met mid-movement, red glaring at blue, svelte costumes a clash of white and pink. Toned muscles against lithe limbs. Hero against villain. While an inch or so taller than the older hero, the formerly masked villain found herself on the defensive before their battle renewed. The rabbit hero was faster and stronger. And for some reason, capable of following her movements before she even moved. Every time she attempted to grab the hero's costume and pull, the annoying woman had already moved somewhere out of reach.

"Gosh, do you know ~how~ much I hate you right now?"

She dodged an axe-kick by the skin of her teeth.

"If you're annoyed, then that means I'm doing something right!" Rumi bragged from high above, her voice shifting back and forth in the space of a single sentence.

"I've been playing around, you know. Not taking anything seriously. Because there's no reason to take anything seriously," on the ground, unable to track the hero's movements, Couturier sneered, "But I have to take ~you~ seriously. And I hate you for making me do that!"

"Oh, boo hoo!"

Rumi couldn't contain how little she gave a shit about that. Schemers, punks, villains, criminals and even vigilantes if you got them drunk enough to talk. Every half-assed idiot with a Quirk bragged about 'holding back' and 'finally taking a fight seriously.' She'd heard every variation of that annoying rant at least a dozen times in the last year, "You think I give two shits about your feelings?" kicking off an advertisement for water or some strange energy drink, she bounded several times, each hop bringing her closer and closer to the street. Her already noticeable smirk widened. And right when Couturier's eyes snapped towards her exact location, she flipped forward and smashed both feet into the villain's stomach.

There was an underwhelming oomph.

A quiet whump.

Yet Couturier nevertheless managed to snap her arm towards the rabbit hero.

Rumi felt her instincts scream.

And without considering why she did it, she flung off her glove.

Her heart nearly skipped a beat. Time slowed to a crawl as she watched, eyes wide and breath bated, her glove tear itself apart. And not simply tear itself apart, but shrink to the size of a small marble. Fingers dragging along pavement, leaning sideways with lips pulled back into a frustrated snarl, Rumi jumped straight up, grabbed the edge of an otherwise ordinary window overlooking the street, held still long enough to get a bearing on her surroundings and resumed bounding back and forth. Her feet kicked off concrete and steel, scaring more than a few civilians hunkered inside their offices. A pipe shattered as she kicked off the corner of another building, spilling water – or what Rumi hoped was water and not something she'd be blamed for in the morning. Spiderwebs erupted on floor-length windows. Billboards and signs advertising Revocs products and other luxury goods rained onto the ground in bursts of glass and plastic.

And at the center of everything, hair falling onto her face, Couturier tittered.

"You can't keep this up ~forever~" the blonde's singsong voice pierced the darkness, "It's only a matter of time until I catch you."

Rumi didn't listen.

"I DON'T HAVE TO KEEP IT UP FOREVER!"

The public safety commission was going to have a lot of questions for her, but with an infuriated grin bordering on determination to succeed at any cost, Rumi kicked backwards and smashed the side of an office. The impact reverberated up her leg. She felt her teeth chatter. Adrenaline flushed her veins. Her ears rang. And as the first chunk of reinforced concrete and steel rebar twisted into inch-thick pretzels erupted in slow motion around her face, followed by everything else, she spun around and axe-kicked the largest piece – one weighing more than five times her body weight – toward Couturier at speeds approaching that of a bullet train. Followed by another.

And then another.

"I JUST HAVE TO OUTLAST YOU!"

A sly smile graced the corners of Couturier's lips as she darted around the approaching debris, lithe limbs betraying inhuman prowess effortless avoiding the lethal barrage of concrete and assorted material. She moved only as much as necessary. Her feet skated across the surface of the road as asphalt and pavement exploded upwards in thick columns accompanied by deafening bursts of near-sonic booms. It took her a second to notice when the barrage finally ended. Another second to realize she'd been corralled back the way she'd originally came. And a third to permanently sear into her thoughts a familiar thigh-high boot descending towards her face.

KABOOM!

"Oh, darn."

A measure of resignation clung to Couturier's voice as she laid half-buried into the pavement, "Looks like you beat me."

Panting wildly as sweat pouring down her face mixed with dirt, dust and whatever grime she'd picked up over the last ten minutes, Rumi kept her foot pressed firmly against Couturier's throat, "It's over," silhouetted against the crescent moon hanging over Corusco, sirens and various other noises signaling every hero in a twenty-kilometer radius finally arrived to act as backup, she grinned a mouthful of eager teeth, "Use your fancy Quirk and I'll pound your ugly face inside-out!"

Couturier didn't answer.

She merely smiled as the color faded from her costume and skin, leaving her white as the moon and slowly unraveling into something vaguely resembling cotton.

"Mon-Mignon Prêt-à-Porter!" Couturier smiled, "Did you have fun playing with my cute little doppelganger?" she laughed. And laughed proudly, "For the number five hero, I expected you to figure it out, but I guess you're nothing more than a dumb animal," most of her body was gone, "I replaced myself when you were busy consoling those heroes! And you didn't even notice!" she tittered, "Oh, well, since you're not busy, can you tell Ryuko I'm sorry. I honestly didn't expect her to pull something so bizarre. It took me off-guard and I ~might~ have overreacted just a tiny bit."

Rumi smashed her foot into the villain only to hit nothing but a few colorless strands of lingering fabric.

"Shit!"

She cursed.

At herself.

At the villain.

And, after sitting next to Ryuko's bed at Corusco General Hospital, at not being able to save the five heroes struck down by Couturier.