Chapter 141 - Silencing Imperfection

|Siege Engine Collision - 01:25:25|

"Hey, I just heard from topside!" Yuki beamed, removing her hand from her temple as her eyes curved blissfully. "That infusion of Dren and Vosik's down, they got him!"

"Really!?" Izuku gasped in surprise, smiling too as Kyoka smirked, removing her jacks as they came to an intersection. "Then we've got a better chance, ever since Rayla's team destroyed the Control Core."

|While true | Kovik will not relent | He may have a back up plan| Siva alerted them back to reality as Katsuki rounded the corner only to raise his hands momentarily.

"Woah, heya guys!" To their surprise, they came face-to-face with the bubbly bluette renowned as one of the Big Three, Nejire, her hair cut shorter since the battle of Jaku City. She hovered down to the ground again. "That was a really quick reflex."

"Tch, you shouldn't have turned off your tracker then!" Katsuki grumbled, and true to his word, Yuki noted the devices on her and the woman behind her, the ninja Jin, were all offline. They must've been trying to lay low this whole time.

"This is where the team breaks off," Endeavor got right to the point.

"Shame, we'll miss having out scout," Hawks shrugged, then tossed an extra katana for Kyoka to grab. "Think you'll need that."

"Thanks," The purplette bowed her head quickly.

"Agreed," Jin nodded, looking to the West hall while Endeavor stood at the North. "Earphone Jack, with us,"

"On it," Kyoka turned to Yuki and Izuku, offering them a quick smile, fist bumping them both. "You two take that bastard down for us, we'll try to slow this place down."

"Be safe," The pair chimed while Kyoka gave a curt wave to Katsuki who nodded once with his arms crossed.

"Let's move while there's no immediate threat," Endeavor quickly shot off down the hall, the others quickly pursuing him, leaving Kyoka to follow behind Jin and Nejire. There wasn't a time to mull over the divide in their team nor how to proceed. Time was everything, and they had a simple goal with a massive weight of responsibility placed on them.

Destroy the engines.

Kyoka tightened the strap of the katana around her chest, feeling it clank against her back with her dash. She wouldn't let them down.

With the death of all those NARA Fallen copies, the insides of the dreadnaught had gotten quieter. Well, aside from the explosions and rumbles of combat all over, but it was far less intense. Jin had an unmatched sense for where to go, leading her small team of three through the smaller halls and air ducts to avoid the Fallen that remained. Her ability to mask her presence, combined with Kyoka's newest sound spell, Silence, masking their footsteps, not to mention Nejire's ability to glide over the heads of the Splicers to flank those that did spot them made their progress swift and silent.

"The engine room is near," Jin murmured, holding her hand out as they pressed themselves against the hallway's wall before it turned through a doorway toward a flight of stairs leading down. "Something is amiss."

"I know right? Weird how little guards there are," Nejire blinked, looking around curiously.

"I heard rifle shots but..." Kyoka bit her bottom lip at what she last heard. It sounded off, very off. "It's like they were fighting each other?"

This drew a long silence between them, so Jin motioned for the girls to follow closely, heading down the staircase lit by white strips of light overhead. The halls were vacant, say for one thing that startled them all, the sight making Kyoka feel sick to her stomach. Devil Splicers, several lay with holes straight through their chests or their bodies slumped against the walls, headless as the lingering spray of fluid and blood ran up the walls, burned into the metal. Two heroes were much the same, laying in a puddle of their own blood.

~I seeeee you...~ A voice broke through the private channel the three were using, halting them in their tracks.

"Drevis..." Kyoka grunted.

~I hoped you'd come, Hearing Hero, Martial Arts Hero~ Drevis growled the title as Jin tapped Kyoka's arm to snap her from her trace, pointing to the large airlock ahead, Nejire floating down to mess with the console. ~Come closer, I want to see that look on your face when you choke on your blood~

"Keep her talking," Jin murmured, so Kyoka reluctantly nodded, tapping her earpiece with a jack.

"You're awfully talkative for a would-be assassin," Kyoka snarked, watching the shadows for the slightest distortion that cloaking tech was known for.

That distinct clicking the Fallen did echoed. ~Killed your HPSC, silenced their old dog, hunted many heroes... you will be next, then the brat with the mark of a Nightmare, then your parents~ Hearing her threaten Kyoka's parents and Akio made Kyoka's eyes burn hatefully as the doorway hissed open into a small observation room, the windows facing down at an angle toward the red glow and humming of machines beyond. Drevis laughed. ~I know where they are, I'll pick them off, display your corpse to them, hahaha...~

"This is between us, you overgrown insect!" Kyoka growled, eyes narrowed beyond the glass. "You touch any of them, I fucking dare you!"

~Hahaha... yes, exactly, hate me as I hate you, human filth~ Drevis ridiculed.

"Hey, it'll be okay," Nejire offered a small smile, but her eyes were no less furious with the Baroness' threats. "She won't escape this time, promise."

"Right..." Kyoka murmured but didn't believe it herself. If Drevis was good at one thing, it was stealth, not even Izuku could take her down which was concerning.

"It appears she wanted us to find her here," Jin pointed out. Beyond the line of consoles and desks, the glass overlooked the pair of large turbines glowing a faint vermillion, they were the generators for the engines, powered by NARA. All they had to do was destroy them, but Drevis wouldn't let them off that easily, which begged the question. Where was the Baroness? "Stay sharp, she is close."

"No kidding..." Kyoka trailed off, her right jack twitching when she heard something clank beyond the glass and up at the catwalk that spanned near the ceiling of the engine room. "Hold on, I think she's up there,"

~I'll mount your head for all to see~ Drevis continued as something flashed and scuttled across the roof of the observation room. Jin, without even thinking, ran and put herself between the glass and Nejire, shoving the bluette off to the side as several long lines dug through the glass in front of them, smashing an invisible fist through the pane while a glow of red encompassed the left side of the transparent form.

"Get down!" Kyoka swung out her jacks, yanking the girls by their ankles as she threw herself behind a desk in time to evade the streak of red arc energy that ripped a sizable line through the ground beside Kyoka. Drevis stepped inside, swinging her arms to draw her rifle toward Kyoka's head as the muzzle glowed brightly.

Suddenly, a katana blade swept over Drevis' shoulders, cleaving her head off as her body turned a reddish pigment and crumbled into hardlight particles and cubes. "A decoy!" Jin huffed, twisting her head back in time as a long cut from another wire rifle bolt slit across her right cheek, straight through the fabric. "Into the engine room!" She rallied, heading out through the shattered window.

Nejire helped Kyoka up as she glided into the chamber, dropping Kyoka off behind a pillar. The area was wide and circular with two entries to the west and south. Several pillars roughly ten meters high held up a walkway above Kyoka's head, stretching round to meet with the turbines. Several platforms protruded from the walls and pillars. catwalks curved beneath the walkways at either side, leading to the upper floor.

Drevis the Wolf Baroness, landed on a center platform attached between the two turbines, howling loudly as she summoned a haze of nanites. Her body shifted into afterimages of herself, the nano swarms floating away to form several copies of herself at various points of the room. Nejire fired two spiral waves at the center Drevis, only to pout angrily as it crumbled into data, Drevis had already moved positions.

~I am the Baroness of the House of Wolves~ Her voice echoed across the walls, Jin deflecting bolts from the copies with her sword while Kyoka hid behind the pillars, using Sonic Leap to shatter the paper-thin duplicates that kept replacing themselves. ~For the pride of Skolas, Kell of Kells. And his successor, Kovik, Kell of Kells, I shall sever your heads from your corpses as trophies!~

"God, do you ever stop talking!?" Kyoka had to say it as something shifted behind her. The purplette gasped, throwing herself around as her back slammed into the ground, pinned by two claws that dug into her shoulders. Drevis was bigger and stronger than Kyoka, aiming her shock pistol for the girl's head. With her arms pinned under her, Kyoka swung her jacks loose from her wrist gauntlets, two small glyphs surrounding them. "Sonic Screech!"

Drevis screamed as the lesser variant of the spell tore into her chest, flinging her off Kyoka, but the Baroness fired her pistol, drawing her rifle to fire a stray shot behind her back at Nejire who narrowly avoided the bolt. Then, with her free two hands, Drevis slashed her cutlasses at Jin who stood in front of Kyoka as the teen picked herself up, watching the Pro and Baron strike at one another with their blades.

Nejire fell from the sky, bringing her right leg across, imbued with her spiralling energy as it slammed into the wire rifle held vertically while locking blades into a cross against Jin's katana, "I can see you, ghost," She sneered, indicating what Jin believed to be the case, her quirk no longer hid her from Drevis' sight.

"Earphone Jack!" Jin called, pushing Drevis back as she swiped Nejire with her rifle, firing three bolts to pelt the bluette who gasped from the burns peppering her torso as her back smacked off the nearest pillar. Jin threshed her hand forward, three picks deflected by the Fallen's cutlasses as another two grey seals appeared in the air behind Drevis, blasting the air with Sonic Leap, but Drevis merely disintegrated into pixels again, the real one emerging from hiding behind Kyoka, drawing her swords forward. "No!" Jin threw her hand toward Kyoka who narrowly avoided behind impaled by dropping to her stomach.

The blade tips skewered the ground beside Kyoka's head, so she plugged her jacks into her wrists and fired two sonic knuckles straight into Drevis' gut, launching the Fallen into the underside of the walkways above. All she did was crawl up and over, escaping another two Heartbeat punches. The trio ran out and stopped Drevis, summoning three more copies that aimed from multiple directions at the group, Drevis chuckled mockingly, pointing both her rifle with her upper left and pistol from the right.

*BLAM!*

It was only a heartbeat later did the threat of execution crumble away at Drevis's scream as her left arm was torn from the shoulder by a single, purple streak. A bullet curved, taking the heads of the copies with it before arcing its trajectory to tear off Drevis' arm that rose to shield her head from the attack. Drevis scampered back on all fives, snarling at the person standing up from their perch on one of the ledges. Faintly, Kyoka smirked at their aid who blew a few navy-pink locks from her cold eyes.

"Hmph, you dodged that? Figures," The woman didn't even sound impressed in the slightest.

"You...!" Drevis growled.

It was during their day off did Izuku sit down with Yuki in the staff lounge with All Might again after lunch. They had another video call set up, with All Might passing them with a pat on their shoulders, giving them time to speak with the other caller alone. Izuku looked genuinely worried as he waited for the call to answer. Seeing this, Yuki cupped his hand in hers, smiling reassuringly as it broke the sorrowful look on his face, he squeeze her hand back, and the screen came to life.

~Ah, hello again, Izuku Midoriya, or shall I call you Deku?~ The woman on the other line was none other than the woman sent to detain Izuku during his solo act with All Might. The former assassin for the HPSC, and resident in Tartarus, Lady Nagant, AKA, Kaina Tsutsumi. She was still bandaged up from her near-fatal injury thanks to Drevis, but even from a hospital bed, her eyes looked far more lively than when Izuku fought her.

"E-either is fine, whatever's easier for you," Izuku replied quickly, and Kaina smiled.

~Deku it is then, since you were the one who... well, I suppose 'save' is the right word~ She thought about it, eyes to the ceiling momentarily, but then Izuku lowered his smile a little.

"But I couldn't stop Drevis from doing this to you," He paused as Kaina shook her head.

~I should've realized Kovik didn't trust me entirely, rather, he trusts no human, and Drevis was that fall back if I did switch sides, which I have no regrets on considering the outcome~ She motioned to her bandaged neck visible from her collar. ~In a strange way, I feel it was deserved for the things I've done~

That made Izuku sit up sharply, "But what you did, it wasn't you fault!" Briefly, Kaina's eyes widened slightly. "What the HPSC forced you, and so many others to do, you had no choice,"

"Izuku..." Yuki rubbed the back of his palm to soothe his worries.

To their surprise, Kaina laughed a little, coughing from the strain it put on her body for a time, ~You say the strangest of things, Deku, I know once this battle is over, I will be locked away again, but I accept that~ She raised her hand to keep him from speaking. ~The fact of the matter is, I took the lives of people, I should be held accountable as any other villain would~ Kaina then held a hopeful smile. ~Perhaps it won't be as high-maintenance as Tartarus, according to the investigator that spoke to me, but I can live knowing that no one else will be turned into a puppet for awful people claiming it's for 'the greater good', I can only imagine what Hawks has gone though as my replacement...~

Her expression was forlorn for a moment, hands cupped on her lap as they tensed. ~...the reason I asked to speak with you, I... if you can allow me one selfish request? If it is possible~ She knew it was a gamble, even under the watchful eye of security during her video call, she didn't care. Ever since her recovery had been going well she needed to speak with Izuku again, and with his partner here, it may help her request.

"Sure, what is it?" He didn't even question her motives? That made her relax in her bed again, the boy, despite what the world threw at him, stole from him, he was willing to help the woman made to target him.

He knew of what the HPSC did to her, forced her to commit murder for their sick sense of justice and peace until it swallowed her in a wave of depression and grief. Kaina snapped, and as a result, was forced behind bars to wallow in regret. Then, upon her freedom and subsequent role in another's scheme to murder innocent lives, she found two heroes that still held onto hope where she couldn't. For the first time in years, she felt it safe to hope again, if only just on them.

~I have no hopes this will be acceptable, but... if possible... please~ Kaina bowed her head, ignoring the dull throb in her stomach as she did. What she asked of them made their eyes nearly pop from their sockets. Her security also nearly did a double take, same for All Might who listened in behind the door. It was a difficult, and self-centred request of a woman who deserved no forgiveness. But for the sake of the young girl she once was, who aspired to make the world a better place. She'd do anything to make her path right again.

~Allow me to fight alongside you, and defeat that monster Drevis~

Lady Nagant summoned her rifle made of flesh and bone once more from her elbow, loading another round of bullets from her hair. She smirked down at Drevis' glowering eyes in the dark, "You look quite ugly from up here," Nagant sneered as two clones appeared to her left and right. She dove off the platform as it was destroyed by both throwing Shock Mines beneath Nagant's feet. As she fell, her body swivelled around, aiming her rifle at an angle before firing a bullet that struck the wall, splitting into two fragments that ricocheted and struck both copies in the head.

The force of her shot brought her to the ground with a solid landing on her armoured legs, twisting on her heels to land another shot on Drevis who cloaked herself, grunting when a bullet found its mark, knocking the Baroness to her knees, spewing a swarm of nanites to spawn several clones to distract the heroes. "Traitor! Corpse! Human Rat!" Drevis snarled in hiding as Nagant huffed, bringing her rifle back into her elbow before expanding it backward, striking Drevis in the jaw with its barrel, swinging around to smack the real Fallen across the side with her left leg.

"Heartbeat Surround!" Using both wrist amps in the air, a wave of sound shook the air, causing the hardlight copies to distort and ripple while Drevis merely shook of the sound, clearing having upgraded her helmet to cover her ears better as she fired a three-round burst from her rifle toward the girl. Nejire helped Kyoka off the ground, levitating them toward the upper walkway while Jin appeared from hiding while Drevis was distracted, tossing down a smoke bomb when the Baroness swung round only to miss the stealthy woman, pain erupting from her side as another of Nagant's bullets tore a large chunk from her stomach, then another buried itself in Drevis's neck, but not quiet severing it.

Kyoka analysed from above as Nejire covered her, whipping her spiral blasts wide to strike the newly summoned copies. "She's plugged her ears so bursting her eardrums will be harder, not to mention NARA's already repaired the damage Lady Nagant and Jin have made, what's the chick's weakness?" Izuku was better at this than Kyoka, but she knew a thing or two from his notebooks she used to write her music lessons for the class. She had to turn the strengths against Drevis. "She can create copies, use cloak tech, shock mines to slow us down, and uses short and long ranged weaponry almost simultaneously,"

That's when Kyoka gasped, eyes wide. "That's it...!" She pulled something from her belt, something she was given to use in emergencies from Yuki, now seemed like an emergency. "Nejire, get me close!"

The girl spun around, seeing what Kyoka held as she nodded and cleared the path of two more clones of Drevis, grabbing Kyoka's arm to help her down to the ground again. Drevis lunged at Jin, locking blades with her as she kicked the woman's foot out from under her, but Jin slid on her knee, slashing across Drevis' hip while another bullet tore into the monster's chest, missing where the Core lies. "You'll never defeat me, you inferior assassin," Drevis mocked as Nagant dipped her body backward, avoiding two bolts from the rafters, more clones had appeared.

"Sounds like you're getting frustrated to me," Nagant added, bending her arm backward to fire two shots high as they arced, cleaving the two hardlight copies' heads off. She gasped, feeling pain erupt where her still tender injury was as Drevis threw Nagant high with a punch before slashing Nagant's right shoulder open, bringing her down into the dirt. "Grah!" Not wanting to pass out from the pain, Nagant twisted her body around, sweeping Drevis' legs as one of her shock mines fell from her grasp.

Jin slid under it, slicing the mine in two before it detonated, continuing her slide, she amputated Drevis' right arms but felt a hot blade cut across the side of her neck, tearing her bandana from her face as Jin rolled, throwing three knives to bury into Drevis' neck and head. But like an undead, she roared and slammed the ground with her cutlasses, grazing the two women who backed away, clutching their injuries.

"A fool trying to redeem herself, hands stained in blood," Drevis leered at Nagant, seeing the discouragement in her eyes. "And one so weak her power is rendered useless, for pride no less!" Jin narrowed her eyes, rubbing the cut on her neck. "You fight for others? No, only yourselves, to be better than others, to be revered, that is the law of nature!"

Jin held out a hand for Nagant, surprising the ex-pro who was given this chance to do right again. She accepted it, pulled to her feet with a grunt. Jin swung her katana once, eyeing her topaz eyes in its blurry reflection. "Perhaps you're right, to you, we are fighting for no cause but our own," Nagant eyed Jin out of the corner of her eye, feeling a tingling sensation in her elbow again while watching Drevis. "But in truth, we wish to be seen for who we are, not what our quirks or past define us to be, but you could never understand that, you remained trapped in your past, refusing to leave it, and instead, corrode everything else around you," Jin's eyes held not a shred of sympathy for the copied memories of the Baroness before her. "You're a shell of what you once were,"

*Boosh!*

"GRAAAA!" Drevis screamed in agony as Kyoka used her Silence to sneak forward and ram the blue SIVA cluster into Drevis' back. She swung her arm, smacking the girl away as her hardlight copies crumbled around the engine room. Drevis howled and groaned as her body became infected with a strand of NARA and SIVA, the same she saw Izuku use to infiltrate the Barons' strongholds. It didn't destroy her Core, but it was ripping parts of her body to shreds from the inside. "W-w-what d-d-d-did y-you do-o-o!?"

She vomited purplish-black liquid from between her respirator until it fell off, revealing the lips lined with jagged teeth and reptilian features. The eyes of her mismatched mask glowing brightly with fury. Nagant answered, raising her rifle toward the Baroness. "A virus Deku's partner helped improve, only had a few with what little of NARA they gathered, it won't kill you but you'll certainly lose a few tricks," Her eyes hardened. "Give up and die, Drevis."

Give up? She was forced to give up?

That made something utterly dissolve in Drevis' mind. Her copied memories becoming a blurry distortion as she released an ear-splitting cry the likes no one anticipated. Her body became surrounded by a NARA density that ripped up the ground around her, the nanomachines took form around her arms, injuries dripping molten red slag as she swung four wire rifles in their directions. "Evade!" Jin yelled, pulling Nagant back as Kyoka created a Heartbeat Wall for her and Nejire.

Four powerful trace rounds pierced the air, one narrowly missing Kyoka and Nejire as the sound wall was utterly useless, the other two shots strayed between Nagant and Jin, melting a line through the ground and across the walls as the chamber groaned and rumbled from the attack, setting a few spots on fire. When they stood up, Drevis was like a corpse dripping with magma, dragging her four rifles in the directions of the heroes. "I'll kill... every last one of you!" She gargled, blood dripping between her fangs.

Jin charged forward, deflecting the much stronger shots from reaching Nagant who steadied her arm to tear more of Drevis away, but NARA bled from every wound in her body, healing the damage immediately while small bolts from deflected strikes left a few open cuts on Jin's body. Nejire tried using her energy output above eighty percent but even then her attacks couldn't pierce the veil of NARA Density shrouding the monster. And she couldn't use this level of output for very long either.

Kyoka stood there, rubbing her lips dry after avoiding being struck herself, her face marred with terror the likes she hadn't felt since Akio showed her the memories of Harrow and the horrible things he nearly committed had time not been rewound. Even in that memory, it made her stomach hollow and her limbs stiff. "You knew what you were getting into, Kyoka. I almost didn't see her attack, even my goosebumps are delayed detecting her malice. Izuku, Yuki, this is what you've been dealing with personally this whole time..."

Even with her knowledge prior to the collapse of their country, her own experiences with Nightmares, the pinnacle of darkness incarnate, nothing like this feeling could match those memories. It was awful, she could only imagine what Akio, Shoto, and the others must've felt fighting Dabi and Infernal.

"You're shaking... rodent," Drevis' gnarled voice and blood-red eyes landed on Kyoka after twisting her head at an impossible angle, using shock mines to ward Jin away, completely ignoring Nagant's sniper fire while erecting a barrier to hold off Nejire's strikes, firing at the gliding girl who was grazed by the wire rifles. "Do not be so delusional... you're... not even a part of this battle, of any of what's going on!"

"Did rubbing shoulders with extraordinary people make you believe..." Drevis drew two rifles forward, firing the first that tore through Kyoka's Heartbeat Wall as she leapt away only to be forced into the sightlines of the second shot that followed closely behind the other, the streak of red lightning splitting through the sky and melting a hole through the upper level and observation room floors behind Kyoka. "...you were special enough to consider facing my Kell!?"

In a single shot, Kyoka's face cringed in agony as blood flew from her left ear as the jack and amp were torn from her ear with several strands of hair. The heatwave of the unstable blast ripping apart her leather jacket, leaving three gashes through her shoulder as she teared up from the burning sensation in her skull. For a moment, Kyoka saw her whole life flash before her eyes, and... of what she expected of her future, it was a rush like no other, it was terrifying and yet invigorating. Was this what people meant when your body searched for ways to survive? If so, Kyoka found her voice amongst the pain in her ear.

"All you do is talk about... who's weak... who's strong... who's special... who's deserving or not..." Blood ran down her face as that heat rushed through her whole body, raising her right arm with a bright radiant glyph, stained a golden-white with new markings among the rings. "Well I don't give a crap... about any of that nonsense!" Her amethyst eyes overshadowed that of Drevis' haunting gaze. "ALL I KNOW IS THAT YOU MADE MY FRIENDS CRY!"

A light grey seal surrounded the new one, burning a ring around Kyoka's arm as she bit back on that sensation. She remembered what Akio warned her of when he taught her this spell, that only fuelled her desire further.

"Woah, you okay, dude!?" Kyoka ran to Akio's aid as he fell to one knee, seeing the burns across his skin as a result of the spell. The grounded was untouched, but the target he struck, a piece of Velk's ice that was infused with Nightmare magic, was now non-existent. Her hands grabbed his shoulders, staring down at his wrists.

"Ow, Ow everywhere... T-that's the issue, since I still have a bit of Nightmare DNA in me, it'll hurt a whole lot more, b-but you shouldn't have that problem, but..." He pursed his lips, thinking of how to tell her this as she waited with worried eyes. "You'll suffer recoil too, not fatal but... you'll be scarred if you used it, I can recover but even with a healing spell and Recovery Girl's quirk I don't know if they'll fade,"

"Branding from magic attacks this potent isn't easy to heal," Velk reinforced, watching the musician carefully. "Are you certain about learning this spell?"

"...yeah," Kyoka hesitated, gripping Akio's shoulders tightly while peeling her eyes away from his burns to his eyes. "I'm scared, sure, but if it'll save lives, what's a few scars compared to that?"

"Kyoka, are you absolutely sure?" Akio didn't want to teach her this, but he knew her well enough to know how stubborn she could be. Once her mind's set on something even he couldn't persuade her. "I don't want to hurt you."

"You're not, don't ever think that," She snapped back, then smiled as she pecked his cheek. "I know you'd never mean to do that, what happens with this spell is all on me, okay?" She cupped his cheeks, seeing him relax into her palms as one hand reached to cup her right hand.

"Okay... okay... I'll teach you," Akio sighed but his heartrate returned to normal.

With her soundwave amplified by Sonic Leap which in turn, was infused with her newest spell. Divine Radiance, Kyoka swung her arm plugged with her remaining jack forward, "DIVINE HEARTBEAT WALL - LEGATO!" A white cyclone of soundwaves collided with Drevis' form, seeping her into the blast that she dug her claws into the ground to contest, but her whole body felt like it was burning up on an atomic level.

"What is this!? My body's burning up!" She couldn't break free, watching the NARA Density breaking apart under the radiant soundwave as it ripped layers off her body. "Y-y-your motivation... Spirit... and Ability..." It was like pushing back against a jet engine, but a single wire rifle took form in the blast that continuously pumped out of Kyoka's fist, even as her skin started to burn and peel around her wrist and down to her fist. "...will result... IN NOTHING!"

*Blam!*

From the side, a single, sharp hollow-point round shattered the ruined wire rifle in Drevis' hand, Nagant smirking as blood dripped down over one eye and off her chin, her rifle collapsing back into her arm as she fell to her knees. That last strike gave Kyoka her opening. Kyoka, with the last ounce of strength she had, screamed from the depths of her heart, "JIN, NEJIRE!"

"Nejire Flood!" Nejire applied her quirk with Kyoka's strike, Nejire charged her Wave Motion to its maximum output. Then, with a twist of her hands into a spiral formation, she released a massive blast of energy concentrated in both hands down on Drevis' location in the Divine Legato like a waterfall.

The blast rippled and conjoined to the sonic current as a singe blade ripped through the circumference of Kyoka's blast, Jin's eyes locked to Drevis. Overtime, they chipped away at NARA, wearing down Drevis into the mangled creature she was now. NARA did have a weakness, it was a gamble that with Kyoka's divine spell pulled back the veil to reveal the truth. NARA was infused with something Dark and corrupt. She couldn't move because the spell was attacking that darkness.

"We may not be worthy in your eyes to face Kovik, instead, we shall dedicate our wills to lessening that burden on our allies. That is why we're standing here!" Jin hollered, dragging her katana through the current as she felt her bones vibrate from the frequency. "High Frequency - Wind Cutting Blade!"

The attack dispelled in the strike as the vibrating sword shattered upon cleaving a clean line through Drevis' chest and through her NARA Core, the particles of which were dissolved in the lingering divine line. The rest of the blast struck the turbines, causing many smaller parts of the large machinery to explode or crumble in on itself. Since most was run by NARA, the spell ate away at the metal like an acid, bringing the whole Siege Engine to a slower pace than before, the shift making them stumble as a result.

Kyoka was lying on the ground, coughing as she stared at her right arm, burns across her hand up to where the glyphs lined up halfway up her forearm. But it was all numb to her, same for the ringing in her left ear at the loss of her jack now a few feet away. Drawing her eyes forward, Drevis was still standing, stumbling toward Kyoka as her body began to crumble away, eyes flickering.

"It isn't over yet..." Her synthetic voice was starting to die, resulting in an eerie pitch that held everyone still as statues. "I won't let it end... until my Kell is... victorious..." Drevis fell onto her stomach, the impact reducing her to dust and dead clusters like all the others, her claw landing near Kyoka who stared at it with heavy breaths.

"No, it is over, Drevis, it won't be long until the others take down every last one of you, everything you've done to our world will be over for good," Kyoka knew Drevis was long gone now, but she felt like it needed to be said, if Kovik was watching, he'll know. With that, Kyoka felt her vision blur before a hand caught her shoulder to keep her steady, belonging to Nejire. "Thanks..."

"You were awesome there, but... I'm sorry you lost your jack," She glanced over to the lost limb as Kyoka shook her head with a weak smile to force back the pain, and the idea that now she had only one of her precious jacks left.

"We're alive, think that's good enough for al ours sakes..." Kyoka sat back to gather her strength.

"Here," Jin turned after discarding her broken sword, seeing Nagant hold out a spare for her. "Your precision with a blade's impressive.

"Same to your sharpshooting," Jin complimented, the two women exchanging a small fist bump for a job well done. "Rest up, reinforcements may gather shortly, and we must regroup with the others," With that, she tapped her earpiece. "Jin reporting in. Drevis has been defeated, I repeat Drevis is dead thanks to Earphone Jack," The rocker looked completely bewildered by that, only earning a quick wink from Jin.

The last of Kovik's Barons had finally been slain. The ghost of the House of Wolves vanishing from the world.

To Be Continued...

I loved this fight, especially for Kyoka and Lady Nagant, always wanted to write more about her after her battle with Izuku. In all this time, the slippery Wolf Baroness has been slain, as for that last comment about the House of Wolves, that's more a jab at the ones against humanity being removed from the world, Tekres was a good Splicer out of all of them as we've seen.

Moving on, another fight I've been itching to write, time for another awaited confrontation. I hope you enjoyed, I appreciate the support as always; seeya in the next chapter, Heroes!

Next Chapter Intermission: Double Dragons Perfected

Valstrax's team meets with Endeavor's, from there, she directs them on a new path to the Incubator as her path and another's converge once more...