The flames died down. Running might be the best idea now. Whoever had been sent to flank him
from the left, they couldn't be as scary as Hawks and Dabi could they? "Got Moonfish!" a woman's voice called.
No. No, that was just unacceptable. A clatter of metal and ominous mumble of "flesh?" came around the corner. "Kill. Eat."
Dabi cackled. "That's right, Moonfish. You remember us don't you?" There was an ominous rumble.
The mad villain would likely be disoriented. He certainly sounded as if he weren't all there yet. Izuku had a few seconds to act before he had three S rank or above villains out for his blood. Moonfish was perhaps the most dangerous of them because he could not be reasoned with.
Alright. He would cross the intersection and run down the corridor to the right, guarding himself with gunfire as he went. He would aim for the most dangerous enemy.
The greenette sprang sideways across the hallway. Even as he emerged from his cover he squeezed the trigger. Moonfish--standing between him and the other villains--turned towards him like a groggy, rabid tiger, metal teeth just beginning to extend like gleaming butcher knives, tearing through the laminate on the floor--and a bullet caught him in the jaw, ricocheting off the teeth with a harsh, shattering clang. The shot that followed an instant later was better aimed and cut straight between the villain's eyes. The entrance wound didn't look so bad. The exit wound would be a gory, red flower though.
Moonfish toppled backwards like a butcher shop collapsing in an earthquake. There was a strangled, furious shout from one of the League and another fireball streaked towards Fossa as the greenette dived into the right hand corridor, white hot agony cutting across his shoulder and neck. The student rolled as he hit the ground, smothering the flames on his sleeve and hair. The wound
throbbed as if the fire would burn forever. Fossa still managed to stumble to his feet and set off at a sprint before Dabi even had the chance to roar, "that little bastard!"
Another long ratcheting roar of weapon fire echoed through the corridors. Fossa couldn't tell which direction it came from, though, not in this maze. He listened for the hot roar of flames, the whiz of feathers, or the pound of feet behind him. Nothing yet. His pursuers were taking their time. Was Hawks even trying? Was the former hero disoriented, too, or not interested in trying to kill Izuku? Double agent, triple agent--irrelevant. Fossa passed a handful of cells, two occupied. The prisoners had their ears pressed up against the walls, expressions stormy and tinted with excitement.
The greenette reached the end of the corridor--the crinkle of an ice quirk carried around the corner. Damn. Flanked. Pressing himself against the wall, Fossa chanced a look backwards. Nobody pursued him, not yet anyway. Two guards suddenly appeared in the four way intersection before promptly throwing themselves against the wall where Fossa had taken cover so recently, crouching down beside their fallen comrade. A fireball barely missed them.
"You!" snarled a short man in an oversized parka as he burst around the corner, a cascade of deadly ice shards rising up about him. Fossa leveled his weapon--the enemy thought better of the attack and retreated around the corner, the greenette sending a half dozen bullets into the enemy's icy creation, shattering it into a million pieces. That probably wouldn't help him much--there were still plenty of sharp pieces for his attacker to work with.
"You don't seem to have a meta ability at all, do you?" the young man mused from around the corner, collecting his ice shards and summoning them back to him with a soft hum. "Or if you do it must be pathetic, of no use to you in the fight, or perhaps poorly developed. You have no purpose in the new world order."
"New world order?" Fossa asked. Monologuing enemies were distracted enemies.
"In the new world the strength of one's meta ability alone determines one's worth. The creation of this world was the work of Destro and the Meta Liberation Army, and now we complete it as the Paranormal Liberation Front. It is my pleasure to eliminate defects such as you from our creation." The man peeked around the corner--fool--and Fossa very nearly put a hole through his head before shattering the ice formation the enemy had left behind to attack, shards once again splintering through the air like diamond dust then sojourning back towards their master. The man was bleeding heavily from one arm, wasn't he? That would explain the red droplets on the floor; Fossa really had hit him earlier.
The sounds of combat behind him grew louder. Fossa chanced a glance down the hall and caught sight of Eraserhead for an instant before his teacher vanished from sight into the perpendicular hallway where Dabi and Hawks had been. Excellent. The greenette was much less likely to be attacked from behind now.
"Too long has society forced the strong to bow before the weak. It is time for another revolution. We will succeed this time," the ice wielder continued.
Idiots like this were insufferable. This fool knew nothing. The monologuing was convenient in some ways but inconvenient in that it began to taint Fossa's combat serenity with rabid fury. "You absolute moron!" Fossa roared at him. "Destro would be ashamed of you! One of his best generals was quirkless and plenty of his other friends as well and he did not care because he was a decent person! Unlike you! Your war is for nothing. You are a martyr for no one! Your heroes are nothing more than warped fantasy!"
"You know nothing of what you speak. You think you know more of the Meta--"
"I was there!" Fossa roared, stepping around the corner low to the ground and putting a dozen bullets into an ice shield, shattering layer after protective layer so that his opponent was forced to throw himself to the blood-spattered floor in defense.
Fossa ducked back into cover as deadly icicles converged upon him, but his opponent was losing strength, and not just from bleeding. Unlike Todoroki, this man couldn't just produce ice out of thin air, could he? His supply of water must be running low. Perhaps every time the greenette smashed up the ice sculptures, some of those tiny shards melted and evaporated, no longer available for manipulation.
Izuku waited, pressed to the wall, chancing another glance down the hallway towards the four way intersection and seeing nothing. Running feet... had his opponent decided to flee? Was the entire group retreating? Fossa dared not turn the corner to follow. He could be nearly out of ammunition if the magazine were of small size. Even if he had plenty of rounds left, if he set out into that hallway he could find himself without cover and facing enemies on both sides. Getting himself killed wouldn't help anyone... Making his way back to the four way intersection where he had faced Dabi earlier, and from there back to All For One's cage, was likely the best course of action. It was about as likely to get him killed as holing up at this corner for the foreseeable future and he might be able to lend useful aid to heroes or guards.
Fossa kept his steps fast and nearly silent--not that it likely mattered given how the sounds of combat permeated the echoing halls--as he approached the intersection. He pressed close to the left wall, peeking furtively around the corner.
There was a kink in the hallway that made it impossible to see into the elevator lobby from the intersection, but he caught sight of one Tartarus guard--presumably not an impostor--crouched beside Tsukauchi. The detective had a borrowed sidearm in hand. The two made use of the kink in the corrridor for cover. Was All For One's cell secure then? Had the fight moved all the way to the lobby as the infiltrators tried to escape? Should he join the detective?
At the end of the day, if All For One escaped they were all doomed, so returning to the villain's cell seemed like the proper course of action, but if Fossa failed to support his allies and they were overrun at the elevator lobby then All For One's cell wouldn't stay secure regardless of whether it were secure now. What to do? This was why a good commanding officer and good communications were worth half an army.
Fortunately, Tsukauchi happened to glance back down the hallway. "Midoriya get down here!" he shouted like a grizzly bear, which was shocking given his typical, soft-spoken demeanor.
Fossa did as he was told, abandoning stealth and sprinting for his allies. He jumped over the Moonfish's prone body, careful not to slip in the blood.
His two allies were doing as Fossa had done previously, ducking out of cover momentarily to attack. Izuku slid to a stop, bumping into the wall forcefully due to a misjudgment of the floor's coefficient of friction.
"You alright?" Tsukauchi asked him.
"I wish you hadn't asked that," Fossa muttered. The moment he stopped to consider it his shoulder
started killing him.
There was a horrific, squealing screech, a scream of pain and then a metal hiss followed by a tremendous crash. "They're in the elevator shaft!" a low voice roared. "Get everyone ready on the upper levels--they're probably going to try to go straight through the ceiling!"
"Communication's still shot!" a woman replied. "I can't warn them!" "You gotta be kidding me!" another voice howled.
"All clear out here, unfortunately," Aizawa sighed.
Not taking anything at face value, Tsukauchi furtively glanced around the corner. "It looks alright," the detective said, stepping out from cover. The Tartarus guard followed, weapon still at the ready. Fossa mirrored them nervously.
The elevator lobby was a disaster. Pieces of the ceiling, including several lights, stood in masonry- dusted heaps. The door to the elevator shaft lay in twisted, red-hot tatters, the darkness beyond yawning hungrily. Half burned or tattered red feathers, shards of ice, shell casings, and blood decorated the display like sprinkles on a serial killer's cake. One person in a Tartarus guard uniform lay dead against a wall, face down in a crimson puddle. Fossa couldn't say whether it was ice, a bullet, or some quirk that had ended that person's life, nor whether that was an actual Tartarus guard or an impostor... probably an impostor given the minimal attention the others paid the corpse. Someone in a neighboring corridor cried out in pain.
"We've got to get up there," Aizawa snarled, shaking some of the dust out of hair. He didn't have his capture weapon--wasn't allowed it in this place--and without that, it would take even Fossa's agile teacher hours to climb the shaft, presuming it was possible at all. If the shaft were perfectly smooth metal--and it probably was--it might be out of the question. Presumably the League or Paranormal Liberation Front or whatever the hell they were calling themselves now that they'd recruited a bunch of neo-MLA idiots had made use of Hawks' feathers to escape.
"Wait," the guard who had been with Tsukauchi held up a hand. "Nedzu managed to jerry-rig the communication system, got it working for now, but it's too late. They attempted pursuit above ground, but the group teleported almost as soon as they got out of the Tartarus anti-transport quirk barriers... and compromised half the minsecurity floor first, among other things. There are multiple riots in progress."
Aizawa growled, threw his head back, and roared, "god damn it!" Fossa jumped and nearly returned to cowering against a wall. That was right. Before this all started he'd been terrified because of the secrets All For One had dumped into the open--
"Tsuge and Shintani are dead," a guard began to report in a tone lacking all emotion as the warden from All For One's chamber stepped into the elevator lobby. "Sugihara and Sawa need immediate medical attention."
Another guard reported in, "Esumi is missing. They only released two prisoners from maximum security, Hawks and Moonfish. Moonfish is dead. I suspect Tsuge shot him."
The warden nodded. "Nedzu and I are coordinating to get an emergency medical team down here."
"Who's this guy?" asked Aizawa, gingerly turning over the deceased infiltrator in a Tartarus corrections uniform. He--or maybe she--had been shot several times in the face, the clear, protective visor shattering beneath the barrage.
Fossa looked pointedly away from the gory remains. "Ugh. We'll have to wait on DNA results," Tsukauchi said as he, too, looked pointedly away. Was that his kill perhaps?
Fossa made himself scarce as the others performed triage and damage control. He sat stiffly against the wall, biting his lip against the throbbing in his shoulder and neck. Adrenaline was a wonderful
drug but it only lasted so long. He didn't try to keep track of the orders the warden, Mizutani apparently, handed out as she got the situation under control, not until she addressed him. He blinked his eyes open blearily as he heard his name.
"Midoriya, you were with Tsuge," Mizutani asked him, pressing "record" on a handheld tape. Sometimes it paid not to trust digital media. "Can you tell us what happened?"
"There was a group of six," Fossa began to report. "They were outside Hawks' cell. Several were in civilian clothes, others were dressed as Tartarus guards, one wore a warden's uniform. Tsuge," so that was his dead companion's name, "immediately demanded they identify themselves. Instead
one of them put a knife of ice through his throat." Blood had leaked out in spurts, soaking the front of the guard's shirt before he heaved his last breath. "I dragged Tsuge back around the corner. He died almost instantly, though." There was nothing Izuku could have done for him. He hadn't even thought to try, but it wouldn't have mattered if he had. Any deeper and the ice would have decapitated Tsuge. There was no fixing that. "I took his weapon from him," a weapon Tsuge had likely served with for years, "and shot around the corner several times. One of those shots hit an individual with an ice quirk. The infiltrators, I think they call themselves the Paranormal
Liberation Front now, said they were sending someone around the left corridor to flank me," and he could have been dead if they'd been a bit faster, "but I think that they actually sent him around the right corridor..." or maybe they were bluffing. Fossa still didn't know the layout of this floor. Did the PLF know the layout? They must, right? But who knows what they actually meant to do... Murder him. Murder everyone and then break All For One out of his cell so he could murder even more people--the fear of death becomes you--"One of Hawks' feathers nearly missed me and I realized they had succeeded in freeing him. I stepped around the corner intending to empty the magazine in a last ditch attempt to defend myself," dying had not been something to fear then, merely a natural consequence of bad luck, "but discovered Hawks and a League of Villains member, the fire wielder Dabi..." how was he supposed to report on this professionally, "snogging each other like they were in some kind of heist movie," that was professional enough given the content.
Aizawa, who was speaking to another guard and Nedzu, turned towards them, shook his head in disbelief, and asked, "really, Midoriya?"
"That was about what I said," Fossa complained. "They stopped trying to kill me to release Moonfish. I decided to flee along the hallway to the right to get away from them since I still didn't have any allies in sight." All alone. All alone to fight and die in the face of impossible odds. He'd known that feeling well. "I could hear the sound of fighting elsewhere by that point. I shot Moonfish as I crossed the intersection."
Mizutani nodded. "You killed Moonfish? Not Tsuge?"
"It was me," Fossa replied. "There didn't seem to be any alternative." He hadn't even thought about it had he? It had not been something repulsive, merely another natural consequence of an unlucky role of the dice.
"Fully justified," Mizutani replied succinctly, neither condemnation nor approval in her voice. "What then?"
"I continued along the hallway to the right. When I reached the intersection, the ice wielder--he wore civilian clothes, a blue parka over his head--was there. We exchanged fire and insulted each other." Any misstep there would have been just as fatal as slipping when Fossa dived clear of Dabi's flames. "Every word he said was ridiculous neo-MLA propaganda about the new world order and superiority of strong meta abilities." Mizutani raised a fluffy, white eyebrow; she must
have some sort of subtle mammalian mutation quirk to have eyebrows that fluffy. They almost looked like moth antennae. "I told my enemy he didn't know what he was talking about." The idiot really didn't know anything. Nobody had ever taught him how to think for himself. He might have died never learning to think had his ice shields shattered a hair more quickly. "I don't know his name. It never came up. He fled after I nearly shot him again." He very nearly killed two supervillains that day. "I think that was a coincidence, though. I presume he was called back to join the others for their final escape at that point," the point at which they had given up on freeing All For One and decided to take Hawks and run.
Mizutani nodded. "Thank you, Midoriya. That was very helpful. You are injured, I see. When did that happen?"
Right. "The burn is from Dabi, right after I shot Moonfish."
Mizutani inspected Izuku's shoulder, gingerly moving charred fabric as necessary. "Second degree. Recovery Girl will be able to take care of it for you. With prompt treatment the scar may not be very noticeable and you won't need skin grafts."
Fossa nodded. "Is there any word about how long it will take us to get out--" as he said this, an open platform rolled into view in the elevator shaft, the self-powered, minimalist car completely covered in EMTs, medical equipment and stretchers.
"Those without serious injuries will be on the third or fourth trip up," Mizutani replied, stepping away to attend to the new forces of chaos arriving on the floor.
Nedzu made his way to Fossa, taking a seat beside him with a sigh. "Well, at least they did not manage to release All For One," the principal said after some time in the same tone that someone who had just been evicted would say, "well, at least it's not raining," as they inspected all of their worldly possessions strewn across the sidewalk.
"Yup."
"And at least they didn't get to take Moonfish," the principal continued, fixing beady eyes on the greenette. "I would thank you for that, but you would hate me for it later."
"I would?" Fossa asked.
"You have never taken a life before, Midoriya. Praise for the deed is the last thing you will want when the stress of combat fades." Hadn't that already faded?
"I've killed before, sort of," Fossa admitted.
"No," the principal replied, "the recollection of an act is not the same as the act itself. Tripswitch killed many people, but they are not your kills."
"I don't feel anything, though," Fossa replied. He didn't, did he? "I didn't feel anything at the time. I still don't." Was there something wrong with him?
Nedzu gave him a stare that implied the mammal was reading his thoughts off his face as if he had written them out on a piece of paper and stapled them there. "Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps the experiences you have relived are so vivid that this is routine to you. That is not wrong, not as such. What would be wrong is if you were to take lives without serious and proper deliberation, without full comprehension of the gravity of your actions. In situations such as life or death prison breaks, "serious and proper" deliberation is often the matter of a split second. In other circumstances I would expect a student of UA to spend minutes to hours attempting to find a workable solution
which did not involve taking a life." Nedzu regarded him gravely, arms crossed. "You understand?"
"Very well, Nedzu," Fossa replied.
"Hm. I believe you do," the principal agreed. There was a long silence. "You did not know about the quirk ghost phenomenon, nor did you know about the quirk you had been given until quite recently. This I understand, but did you know that you had memories from the Meta Liberation Army war?"
Should he lie? No, he'd already spent too much time thinking about whether he should lie. Nedzu would not buy anything but the truth after a pause like that. "Yes," Izuku said. "I knew."
"You've been hiding that for a very long time," Nedzu said, fixing him with a beady eyed stare. "Many of our past conversations make more sense in this context."
Many? Which conversations would those be? "I don't think I need to explain to you why I didn't want to talk about it," the greenette whispered, bowing his head.
"Hm. Fear is a powerful motivator. What would your teachers think? What would I think?" Nedzu cocked his head. "There was also the issue of having no explanation for any of it and perhaps not being sure if it were real at all." Nedzu hummed. "All fair points." It was completely unclear whether the principal intended to hold this against Izuku. "I now wish to apologize."
"Huh? Why?"
"Because you are a student and it was very much not your job to defend a maximum security prison, unarmed and unarmored, with only your wits and a hastily acquired weapon whose mechanics you were unfamiliar with. Keeping this floor secure was our job and the job of Tartarus security. The fact that you were forced to kill an inmate to save your own life is a grievous failure on all of our parts." Oh. Fossa hadn't thought of it like that.
"Beyond that," the principal continued even more seriously--yes, apparently it was possible for him to sound more serious--"were you any other student of your year you would almost certainly be dead now and it would be a consequence of my decisions, a grave blunder for which I would never forgive myself."
There was no need to say it so bluntly, besides, "Bakugou or Todoroki would have been just fine, so would plenty of others."
Nedzu shook his head. "Do you think Todoroki would have been able or willing to kill Moonfish with only seconds to decide to do so? Do you think Bakugou would have had the patience to resist closing to melee range with the original six infiltrators? He certainly would not have won that fight in close quarters." Izuku grimaced. Nedzu probably had a point. "For this I apologize again. Sending you back to the elevator while we had our... discussion seemed perfectly reasonable at the time. This should have... if this was..." Nedzu struggled for words and the greenette struggled to understand what it might mean for the world at large that Nedzu struggled for words, "nowhere is safe now," the principle eventually concluded. "I need to buy more office supplies," the mammal muttered, pinching the fur between his eyes as an upset human might pinch the bridge of one's nose.
"Office supplies? What does that..." have to do with security?
"Some office supplies supply more dangerous offices than others," Nedzu waved him off.
Izuku would wager that "office supplies" was Nedzu's euphemism for defensive weaponry.