Izuku stared out over the water, considering the facts further, when Mineta piped in, in a very hysterical tone.
"Fight!? Are you insane? These guys might be strong enough to kill All Might and you want to Fight then!? That's a contradiction in terms! There is no way we can win that! Our only hope to survive is to Hide somewhere until the Yuei Heroes come to rescue us!"
"They won't be coming though, will they? If all communication is cut, they have no way of knowing there is anything wrong. You're right. We have to deal with this one ourselves~"
He seemed mightily pleased by that prospect, but Izuku considered that too.
The goal was to kill All Might… But they had cut communications somehow. Meaning it wouldn't matter if their foe actually succeeded or not in killing them.
Yes, the more she considered that the more she became certain that the pyjama guy was NOT the true brain behind this operation. It was far too well planned out, while this guy… He had no ability to improvise. The smart thing would have been to retreat completely.
The possibility of a true surprise attack had been completely lost, but throwing your men into a meat grinder where they might be killed, crippled, or captured if they lost, wouldn't change that fact.
There was a greater intelligence behind them, one which might not even be on the field today.
She then considered the foes at hand.
"Mineta… Those guys down there… They're clearly suited for Aquatic combat, right?"
"Stop ignoring my points!"
Tsuyu figured it out though.
"So the ringleaders must have recruited their team knowing about the U.S.J's different environments."
"Exactly! Their info is solid, and they placed their teams accordingly. But with that in mind, there is a very obvious flaw with their plan here."
Well, another one, beyond the fact they were fighting at all.
"They sapped Asui… err… Tsuyu-San here, the single most aquatically capable member of the class, along with me, who has the capacity to fight underwater if I have to… They put both of us here, in the flood zone."
Izuku just let the words hang in the air, without further explanation.
Her companions though, didn't get it, and so a moment of awkward silence ensued, as the two of them just stared at her.
"Take your time."
"What's your point, already?"
"Oh right… Um… My point is that they clearly don't know anything about our powers."
Tsuyu nodded, clearly understanding her point finally.
"If they had known about my Frog Quirk, they would have just teleported me to the Fire Zone instead."
"Exactly! The reason they don't know those details is the reason why they separated us into isolated pockets, so they could overwhelm us with numbers."
She turned back towards the lakes and began to really notice how not a single one of them seemed to be interested in trying to get onto the boat.
All were instead seemingly content to just let them make the first move.
"That means that the best way to continue is to take advantage of the fact none of them know our Quirks."
Even with that in mind, Izuku could tell that, unlike their boss, these guys weren't like their boss. They weren't panicking at a complication in their plans the way he was.
They were instead content to sit and wait until they got into the water again… Which meant that rather than try to board, and expose themselves, they would probably just make a hole in it at some point and sink it, forcing them off.
"Huddle time."
Tsuyu said in her standard stoic tone.
Izuku looked at her confused but joined her as they squatted beside each other, which in turn put them on eye level with Mineta.
"My quirk is Frog. I can jump really high… And stick to walls… And my tongue can stretch to a maximum of 20 meters… Also, I can spit up my stomach to clean it… And I can secrete a poisonous fluid… Well, I say "poisonous", but it really just stings a little."
Mineta blushed, and for once his panicked expression went away and was replaced with a mystified one.
"S-secrete..?"
"Those last two are pretty useless though. Just forget about them."
"That's… Pretty good powers Tsuyu. Pretty strong, and versatile."
She didn't exactly see an easy way to use any of those powers for a quick victory but they were a strong set of powers, as she'd proven just getting them here.
"I… I have massive amounts of superhuman strength, speed, and durability that runs on my blood. I also have the ability to destroy anything non-alive in the explosion that surrounds me when I transform. I also can use the metal part around my neck to breathe underwater."
It was very, very clear that she was the great powerhouse of the group… But even so, Izuku still couldn't see any way to easily end it.
Mineta reached up to one of the big, purple spheres that composed his hair, and plucked it out from his scalp, then pushed it up against the boat's deck wall where it remained stuck, even after removing his hand.
As he began speaking, he touched it, the thing making "Boing", "Boing", "Boing" sounds as the squishy, purple material went in and out with his motions.
"It's really sticky. If I'm feeling good, it'll stick there all day. A new one will grow in the old one's place, but if I take too many, I'll start bleeding. They'll bounce off of my own body without sticking to me. Also, they're surprisingly durable."
It was the completely monotone, deadpan way he spoke as he explained that really sold it, as Izuku, Fuku, and Tsuyu all stared at him with serious, but blank faces, not saying a word.
All three waited for him to continue, only for absolutely nothing to follow.
The boy actually began crying in frustration as they didn't say a thing.
"As I said, we have to wait for help! My quirk fucking sucks for fighting multiple opponents! I'm absolutely worthless here!"
"That's not true!" Izuku interjected.
It was true this might just be the lamest power she had ever seen… But it did have one, obvious method of attack. Mayhaps not a method a Hero should engage in, but still a method.
"Think of what would happen if it got on someone's face. It would definitely suffocate them to death."
The dwarf suddenly had a horrified look of realization come to his face.
"Oh my God! During fights, I just throw out a ton of them!"
"So basically pure luck he hasn't killed anyone yet?"
Any further comments on the subject, however, were tabled, as a giant wave of sharp water cleaved the boat jaggedly in twain.
All three Teenagers immediately braced themselves against the boat as it jerked and bobbed violently in the water, taking on water down below.
"Damn! He broke it half in one blow!"
That was some serious firepower there.
Also, more importantly, their ability to wait this out was suddenly drastically reduced.
Mineta, unsurprisingly, panicked and began throwing his sticky, purple balls into the water.
"Why are you doing that!? It won't help! Not to mention they'll learn what your quirk is now!"
The dwarf froze, then screamed like he had just realized what he had just done.
The men in the water, though, deliberately avoided the floating balls, being clearly vary of them.
"Won't matter what you kiddos do now… In a minute or two the boat will sink… And then you'll be chow."
Izuku glared at him… Then froze.
It came to her then in a flash of inspiration.
Yes… There was one way to solve this quickly, and simply… and hopefully without sacrificing too much blood.
Mineta, not too surprisingly, was not calm whatsoever.
"AHHH, HE'S RIGHT!"
Tsuyu, seemingly non-worried about the sinking boat, turned her head and cocked it as she looked at the screaming boy.
"Mineta-Kun, did you really join Yuei to become a Hero?"
It was a blunt question, and Mineta gave an honest if rather pathetic answer.
"Shaddup! You're the ones who are crazy for not being scared! We were freaking Middle School kids just a couple of months ago! I never thought we'd be thrown into a life-or-death battle THIS SOON! Oh god! I wish I could at least have gotten to grope Yaoyorozu's boobs before I died!"
"Holy shit this guy is the most pathetic THING I have ever SEEN! He's like that Spadam guy from that One Piece series… Only somehow he's on our side."
Izuku, in any other situation, would probably have felt an incredible sense of disgust at the boy for that outburst… But in that moment she was far, far more focused on what was ahead.
And to be fair… She knew what he was feeling. Well… The early battle part, not so much the… Groping shit.
She had been through her own first battle.
And it had terrified her too. She'd run away, with fear in her heart.
What did she say then?
For a moment she was about to quote something All Might had once said… But she stopped. Instead, a phrase her dad had once told her came bubbling to the surface. One that fit the situation surprisingly well.
"It's only when you fall, that you learn whether or not you can fly."
"What?"
"It's something my dad told me once. A year ago… I went through my first battle… I was terrified… Scared… Just like you… And I got a hole through my torso. But I survived that… And WE are all going to survive this too."
She grabbed the edge of her glove and pulled it up again.
"Tsuyu-San, can you reach the shore in one jump?"
"Probably not. But I can get close. Why?"
"I'm going to do something. It's going to cause a massive pull in the water through the lake, towards that direction."
She pointed in one specifically chosen direction.
"Also the total amount of water in the lake is going to reduce drastically, though I have no idea how quickly."
"I'll handle it. You go do what you plan to do."
"Wait… What are you-
"Good. Fuku, don't heal the wound I'm About to make."
"Oh, we're going to power up now?"
"In a sense."
She bit down. HARD.
Then she jumped up and over the railings soaring over the group of attackers by quite a margin.
She saw as some of them turned to follow after her.
Doubtless, they thought she was either fleeing or serving as a distraction.
She crashed into the water, suddenly being engulfed.
Then, she began swimming downwards, though she didn't go too far down. Just enough that she was pointed right down.
She undid the transformation.
Then reactivated it.
She had never transformed underwater before, but she had an inkling of how it would go, and sure enough a huge section of the lake's water just ceased to exist.
That created a vacuum.
And the lake immediately flowed in a tsunami to fill it.
Waves crashed into her, but she grit her teeth, and once she was completely submerged again she repeated the process.
When the water flowed in again, she saw the other attackers around her forced in, and battered around by the sheer force of hydrophysics.
She repeated the process again, and again and again.
Her only worry with this plan, beyond accidentally catching Tsuyu and Mineta in it, was that this kind of rapid transformation would drain her blood quickly.
That as it turned out was an unwarranted fear.
It only took one, minuscule drop of blood to transform after all.
Finally, though the water in the lake suddenly was almost gone where they were.
They were in the middle of the lake, and yet, they were now knee-high in water.
And she was the only one there not completely disoriented by it all.
After all… She was built for outer space.
There was no way a few, puny waves would disorient her as she was now.
I
Shortly afterwards, she found herself jogging up to where Tsuyu and Mineta were, way further up the now clearly bowl shape that was the artificial lakebed.
She reached them near the top, where both of them stared down at her handiwork and the villains she had just crushed with ease after she had a solid foothold to work with.
Tsuyu with her usual, stoic, emotionless expression, and Mineta with a dropped jaw.
"Impressive."
"Impressive!? That was amazing!"
He sounded as gobsmacked as he looked.
"Well, he's not wrong… But man Izuku, we really need to find opponents of a greater caliber than this! There is no glory in beating such weaklings.
"How did you manage not to get swept away?"
"We avoided the first big pull by still being in the air as I jumped. As for the second, I stuck myself to the ground, and held Mineta close."
Simple and made sense.
"What do we do now?"
"We go help Aizawa-Sensei, that's what. Come on! After that, we have to go help all the others!"
It was a short sprint, but as they closed in, they saw that it seemed to go relatively well.
Stupidly well actually.
Mei's gas attack had seemingly done its work well, as pretty much the entire group of villains were coughing, and harking as Aizawa was… Well, he was beating the shit out of them, to put it bluntly.
Out of the entire group of Villains here, only two seemed fine.
One was the leader in the Pyjamas, and the other was… Some huge huge guy with black skin overlaid with red scar-like markings, a huge, birdlike beak with shark teeth, and probably most disturbing of all… An exposed brian.
She shuddered just looking at it.
It was as she shuddered that things happened in immediate succession.
The first was the pajama guy, with bizarre speed, shot forward to attack Aizawa.
The man countered with an elbow blow, aimed at his face, which the boss guy caught… And the entire area he touched began to disintegrate, exposing the muscle beneath the skin before Two red eyes immediately halted the destruction.
Aisawa socked him in the face with the other hands, then swirled to counter a staggering attack from one of the other villains, redirecting his attack into another one who also tried to attack.
The damage was still done, as the damaged arms suddenly lost a lot of the strength and energy that had defined it in Aizawa's assault.
"You specialize in Sneak Attacks Eraserhead… You shut down power and then swoop in to strike' like you're Batman… But you're no good in long, drawn-out group fights… Oh… And by the way… I'm not the boss here."
Then the big, black, brain guy moved with speed Izuku had not seen since All Might.
In one second, he was just standing there.
In the next, he was behind Aizawa.
Then he grabbed his good arm and BROKE it like a twig.
Then he slammed him into the ground.
It was so brutal that it took a moment for Izuku, the only one there with the reflexes, to actually see it happen in full to take it in.
The rest were taken completely by surprise as in one moment Aizawa was winning then in the next he was down.
"Very, very cool Eraserhead… Jumping right into the fight to try to save the kids up by the entrance… Try to make them feel safe? All for nothing. Meet the bioengineered Anti-Symbol of Peace… Nomu…"
Then he seemingly only now realized that Izuku and her two friends were there.
"Oh… Someone who made it out despite my separation plans… Let's start with those."
Once again he surged forward with that incredible, seemingly out-of-nowhere speed.
It was fast. Damnably fast.
So fast that when Mineta and Tsuyu were done blinking, he would have been there, right in front of them.
Isuku's closed fist hit him straight in the hand-covered face with a counter, using his own speed against him.
Amazingly enough, his hand managed to go up and in the short moment before impact, it closed around Izuku's arm.
Nothing happened.
The fist colliding with his face on the other hand, made many things happen.
It broke his nose, and it sent him flying straight into a fountain that was in the middle of the Plaza.
Izuku stepped forward ready to face a counterattack, or the Nomu guy surging forward.
It didn't. It just stood there looking at what had happened.
Then it was upon him.
It was a short series of blows, but Izuku IMMEDIATELY felt the sheer difference in power between them.
Nomu was WAY stronger than her.
As for her own blows, they seemed to lose all their force the moment they landed.
The end result was that this short dance ended with her being sent flying straight into the staircase up from the Plaza with enough Force to LEVEL it.
"Ughhh…"
"Unnghh…"
Both her and Pyjamas got up at almost the exact same time.
Then he lunged again towards Mineta and Tsuyu.
Despite the pain suddenly through her body, she was there behind him, and a meter before his hand reached Tsuyu, a gloved hand closed around his ankle.
She swung him up, and over her shoulder and slammed him into the ground like a ragdoll, then did it again and was about to donate a third time, when Nomu collided with both of them smashing them into the fountain.
"Now THIS is more like it! A REAL FOE!"
"Good… For you…"
Then she kicked off and soared through the air.
She landed on the ground, almost stumbling over but she caught herself.
Then she got into what passed for her battle stance.
Her brain once again tried to figure out a plan forward.
She couldn't keep tanking these blows.
Every single time she took damage, she would use up parts of her own blood. Finally healing her hand down in the water basin below had taken more blood out of her than half a hundred transformations.
The blows she took from Nomu were far worse than that.
She had to come up with a plan.
And she had to come up with a plan now because suddenly, a third formidable foe entered the plaza.
The mist guy.
For a second, she tried to figure out why he had come now? What had changed?
Then she realized she didn't even know why he had been gone before now.
"I am here Shigaraki Tomura."
Pajamas, now christened as Shigaraki, were in bad shape… But the fact he was standing up at all after the beating Izuku gave him, spoke of a stupidly high durability.
Blood poured out of a broken nose, but as he put a hand that had fallen off his face as Izuku hit him, he seemed to ignore that.
It had to be a durable hand too, given it had been between Izuku's fist and Shigaraki's face just now, and it didn't look too damaged.
"...You're a power-type aren't you? Too bad for you… Nomu here has a Quirk called Shock Absorption."
Behind her, she heard Tsuyu move what she presumed was Aizawa.
"Shock Absorption?"
"Yes… We scoured far and wide for it… And this Nomu was the only one who could handle the Quirk."
She froze.
"Other Nomu?"
There were more? And these guys could… Wear… Steal people's quirks? Or copy them? And… Give them to these… Nomu guys?
"Oh… Right… I wasn't supposed to say that… Whatever… You're gonna be dead soon enough kid. Kurogiri… Is 13. dead?"
"No. But she is incapacitated."
"Good… You'll help us kill this one and then we can-"
Several things happened then, in rapid succession.
The first was that with a series of "BOOMS" Katsuki Bakugou made his appearance, blasting both Nomu and Shigaraki with powerful explosions, before using the force of two more explosions to get away from Nomu's gripping hand as he tried to grab him midair.
The second was that Nomu suddenly found himself half frozen, along with a big chunk of the area.
"So… I heard you wanted to kill All Might."
The cavalry had apparently arrived.
Nomu Quickly ripped himself out of the ice, losing several body parts in the process… Which he immediately regrew, as muscles almost immediately reknit.
"Ugghhh…"
Shigaraki groaned loudly, as he once again found himself on the floor of the suddenly frozen-over fountain.
"Fucking cold…"
The entire thing, along with the ice, suddenly began to crumble.
At that point, surrounded by Izuku on one side, Todoroki on the other, and Bakugo on the third who quickly found himself flanked by Kirishima who also joined him, and then suddenly and without warning, Melissa Shield suddenly slammed down at the final direction, there was, for a brief, brief moment, a silence in the air as a standoff ensued.
"I… Am… Done…"
"Shigaraki Tomura?"
"Ughhh… Fine… Kurogiri… Go get Nui."
The way he said that was more… A groan of absolute frustration, more than any of the previous groans of pain.
Izuku had expected the mist guy, who she now knew as Kurogiri, would warp away for his new errand.
He didn't. Instead, he simply created another portal, like the ones he'd used to start all this, only much, much smaller.
And out of that portal… Strolled a whistling young lady, in a pink minidress, with flowing, strawberry blonde locks that hid a huge burnscar where one of her eyes had been. She was holding a sheathed Katana, with a pink and gold hilt, and a pink and gold sheath.
Izuku just… Stopped doing anything.
She just stood there, staring as her mind went absolutely blank.
Her thoughts, which had been absolutely filled with worry, and attempts at plans for how to get out of here, completely froze at the sight of her.
She recognized the girl immediately.
How could she not?
This blonde girl had done more damage to Izuku than anyone else ever had.
In her mind there was fire. Flames licking the walls. Dark corridors of wood, and somewhere, the fall of rain.
And in the center of that memory… A dying man she loved with his guts on the floor… and a girl in a pink dress, with long strawberry hair, holding a pink katana.
She had worn two huge, massive twin-tails the last Izuku had seen her… But there was no mistaking her.
Or the sword.
The same sword that killed her dad.
There was… Someone talking. Something was happening but… She wasn't there.
She was back there on that day. That terrible terrible day.
I
Toshinori, had finally, after a far too long time managed to get away from the principal to actually go do his job.
Which at the moment was teaching his students.
Nedzu was far too worried about him… But he was right in one thing. He really did need to learn to budget how long he spent in the commune using his might to solve problems on his way to school.
But he couldn't help it.
He was All Might, he had to give it his all.
If he didn't, he wouldn't be All Might.
He soared the three kilometers from the school to the U.S.J in two jumps.
Once he'd managed to take in one, and been there in half the time.
That age was past though.
Limitations were his new life.
As he landed at the doors of the U.S.J, he took a brief moment to put himself together physically and mentally.
Then he opened the door and with a huge smile, he walked in the door.
He was greeted by three things.
The first was screams of pain and despair.
The second was the long, long familiar smell of blood that he had come to know so well.
And the third was his colleague 13. Lying on the ground surrounded by several of their shared students, the entire back of her costume ripped open and a hundred smaller wounds covered her bloody back.
The sonic boom as he moved from the entrance to the top of what had once been the stairs down to the plaza, made his appearance known immediately and to all.
He scanned the entire room as he saw it.
Dozens of fallen people who could not be anything but villains littered the plaza, but some were still standing.
The main villains were clear enough.
A man in the center where the foundation had once stood, wearing pajamas and a dozen disembodied hands around his upper body, was clearly the man in charge.
The way the others had positioned themselves around him made that abundantly clear.
The second was a man with a head made of mists, who was currently lying on the ground from some injury.
The third was a hulking brute of a man, with an exposed brain.
And the fourth was a girl in pink, who was currently standing over his student Kataukiz with a sword through his guts.
Three of his students had gotten stabbed so far, including Todoroki and… Melissa.
She was lying on the ground cradling her stomach, where her jacket had been coiled around to try to stop the blood.
Todoroki had used his own ice to stop his bleeding wound, but he was also on the ground.
There were some other, clearly lesser villains standing around here and there and his own students were around the plaza or up here where he was currently standing.
Midoriya Izuku in particular was clearly having some sort of mental breakdown just standing there in the center of the whole thing, shaking, with wide eyes that did not see.
Behind her, two of his students were holding, and trying to move a heavily wounded Aizawa, who seemed barely conscious.
There were few things in his life that had brought out the rage in him, as the sight below did then.
"FEAR NOT… I AM HERE!"
"Darling, Look! It's All Might!"
What happened next took place over a stupidly short time.
In one moment he was standing there on the top crumbled staircase.
In the next, he had brought every single one of the ones on his side back up again.
Every single one of his precious wounded students and Aizawa.
Now to deal with the Villain scum.
"Wow he is fast isn't he?"
The only one of them he had actually tried to hit on the first one, was the same one who spoke now. The girl with the pink dress.
She'd dodged. And not with difficulty either… But she had left Bakugo free from her, and that was what was important.
The boy was now sprawled over on the ground behind him, in very very bad shape.
Once more, he was down there, and he saw the moment of fear in the hearts of the villains as he took out every single small fry with one blow… Then he turned on the big ones.
He nailed the big brute with a full-on headshot, but though he didn't manage to react before All Might moved on to his fellows he could tell the blow, for whatever reason, had not truly hit home.
He tried to take out the boss next… Only to find himself stopped dead in his tracks by the pink girls who had blocked the blow with a kick.
Then her fist hit him straight in the face, and sent him flying.
He was absolutely shocked by the insane strength behind it.
The pajama man, who was actually heavily wounded, cocked his head at him as before him the girl stood with a cheerful grin like a beaming shield.
"Throwing punches to save people… Now that's our state-sponsored Violence right there… You're fast… But not as fast as we thought you'd be… If Nui can dance circles around you… You really have become weaker."
So he knew that did he?
"Oh don't worry about it, darling! Little Nui will take care of him and then we can go home and have some fun~"
"ALL MIGHT! WATCH OUT FOR THE GIRL! SHE'S GOT SOME CRAZY CARTOON POWERS ON TOP OF HER STRENGTH AND SPEED! AND THE BRAIN GUY, HE CAN NULLIFY PHYSICAL BLOWS!"
He felt a sense of pride. Even heavily injured she still went up and beyond to aid him.
"THANK YOU, MELISSA!"
One of the other students, a smaller ladd named Mineta, also piped in.
"WATCH OUT FOR THE PYJAMAS GUY TOO! H-HE GOT CRAZY SPEED AND CAN DISINTEGRATE WHATEVER HIS HANDS TOUCHES!"
So they all had hidden powers then, did they?
The mist guy on the ground did not seem to be much of a danger at the moment, but if all the rest had the kind of powers that could instantly end a fight…
Yes, he could see it.
The big guy that he could not easily take out, who would lock him in place…
The crazy fast and strong lass with the strange cartoon powers, who would distract him, and the Pyjamas guy, with the ability to kill him in a touch.
It was not hard at all to see how they wanted to operate to finish him off.
The fight didn't start immediately though.
The Ringleader still seemed like he wanted to talk.
"Lots of support you got there… From kids who don't know any better."
"OH THEY KNOW ALL THEY NEED TO VILLAIN… THEIR OWN FREE CHOICES IN LIFE HAS BROUGHT THEM HERE!"
"What they know is what they've been raised to think… Namely that violence in the name of 'Saving others" is admirable. And you know what All Might?"
He spread his hands to the sides, signifying something big.
"That pisses me off! Both Heroes and Villains thrive on Violence, but we're still categorized. "You're Good!" "You're Evil!" That's how it is! Symbol of Peace? Hah! In the end, you're just a tool for Violence! Made to keep us down! And violence only breeds more violence. I'll show the world that by killing you!"
It was not a particularly good speech. It didn't have good articulation, any true conviction behind it, nor did it have a proper structure.
The way the wretched girl acted though, you'd think it was the greatest speech in history, as she clapped enthusiastically, and gave an approving whistle. Her praise was genuine though. As opposed to his words.
"WHAT A LOAD OF HOOEY. IDEALISTIC CRIMINALS HAVE A DIFFERENT SORT OF FIRE IN THEIR EYES. YOU'RE JUST ENJOYING YOURSELF, YOU BIG FAT LIAR."
The man didn't deny it.
"You got me… Saw right through…"
The time for talk was over.
He shot forward like an artillery shell… Straight at the girl.
She literally flipped through the air spinning like a 2-D Cardboard piece, as he was about to hit her, his blow just barely avoiding hitting her as she suddenly spun through the air and out of the way.
That was fine. For a brief, brief moment, she was out of the way.
That was all he would need.
He planted a punch in the face of the ringleader that knocked him right down and out… Then he grabbed the big guy as he tried to swing at him by the arm, and threw him into the lake.
That wouldn't stop him for long, but hopefully, he'd have enough time to deal with the blonde girl with the immense strength.
He did not have much time left now.
He had to end this quickly.
The girl finally landed and flipped around in a bow as she hit the ground, flipping back to normal as if nothing had ever happened.
Then she froze, as she saw the man on the ground.
She zoomed past him, and over to the man's side, like a cutaway between two scenes as a character zoomed off the frame at massive speed and then popped up at another.
That was the only way to describe it.
In one moment she was there in front of him, in the next she had bypassed him without even moving around him.
He snapped around, readying himself for a counterattack as suddenly the woman kicked the downed man with the mist head, whose misty parts suddenly burst alive, creating a portal she promptly dumped the white-haired man into, and which took the mist head guy with him as it closed.
So that was… Something she could do. Kicking people like a machine that wasn't functioning properly and it would suddenly work.
Frankly speaking, that was a terrifying power in it's right… The ludicrous strength on top of it just made it overkill.
The girl didn't say anything, and as she turned on her heel to face him, the smile was still there, but… There was something new in her remaining eye. Something very, very dangerous.
"Nomu! Don't interrupt~ I wanna handle this myself."
"YOU'RE GOING TO TAKE ME ONE ON ONE?
"I was thinking of doing this more free for all actually~ After I kill you, I'm going to send the rest of your students to Heaven after you after all. Aren't I nice?"
"ABOUT AS NICE AS A PLAGUE"
In that moment, he gathered his power inside of him, bolts of energy danced around him as the full might of One For All was gathered anew.
He had to finish this quickly. NOW.
He shot forward again, and this time he hit her with everything he had…
The shockwave as they hit, threw every single unconscious person still there on the Plaza about like ragdolls. The trees planted all around swayed as if they had been hit by a tornado.
There was not a follow-up wind.
Because the girl had, admittingly not without clear effort and difficulty, stopped his punch with one, open hand, and had now dug into his flesh with her fingers through sheer brute force.
She grinned.
"1. Master told me that he did the numbers, and compared to you in your prime, my full, brute, physical strength is roughly 83% of what yours was."
With a sideways kick, she planted her foot into his bad side with the kind of blow he had not taken since his final battle with All For One.
The force ripped nearby trees off their roots, and sent absolutely everything still nearby, bodies, stone, and rubble, flying from the sheer shock of it.
The math… Wherever it came from was probably about right. This girl was nowhere near as strong as he had been in his prime… But she was far stronger than he was now.
Not that All Might was in any position to consider the finer details of that. The only thing he knew through the pain was that it was far, far stronger than the one he'd just delivered trying to take her down.
He felt himself go limp from the sheer, horrible pain, as the old injury was practically wrenched open and became as raw as it had been when All For One had gutted him the first time.
"2. I'm not sure how much you've gone down but I'd say a lot more than that."
As All Might crumbled to his knees, she leaned down close and still wearing the cutest grin imaginable, said in a very loud voice that most certainly carried far and wide.
"And 3… My Darling is Shimura Nana's grandson~"
The sheer absurdity of that was so out of left field, that despite feeling he was about to come apart at the seams all All Might could say was:
"What?"
"He is the son of your master's child. Shimura Nana's only son. The one you sent into adoption to keep him away from master's grand machinations... Only for that to end up killing him and his entire family except Darling~ My Master took my Darling in, when he was but a cute little boy, and raised him to be the embodiment of glorious Evil!"
Despite the pain, the horrible implications of what would happen if he failed here and died to this girl, All felt… His entire sense of self began to crumble.
"... "You're lying."
The girl laughed a silly laugh.
"Don't be silly Toshinori! This is how master does things you know? You know that. With Master's guidance, he will usher in a new great age of darkness and together, we will rule the world~!"
Memories of his master, the lessons she had taught him, lessons he, himself had been planning to pass down to Melissa…
It all crumbled inside of his mind as he realized that in the end… All For One would triumph.
Maybe he would not get to enjoy the victory himself… But it would be him who had the last laugh.
All Might didn't see the blade, so quickly was it pulled.
He felt it though as it stabbed deeply into the old wound, and then went out to the side, cleaving open his artificial guts to the world.
The girl raised herself up again to her full height and looked down at him, still, no change in that grin that did not in any way match the true monster beneath.
"What's the matter, All Might?"
She closed her eyes and letting go of his hand, which crumpled down, with one of her index fingers on one side, and the tip of her katana's hilt on the other, she lifted the sides of her mouth into a cutesy, propped up smile, in the same manner that Shimura Nana had always done when she wanted to be cheeky.
"Where's that winning smile of yours?"
A fist hit Nui's face so, so hard that it caved it in, and sent her flying across the plaza, into and through the walls of the fire zone, and slamming into the outer wall with such force that the entire outer dome shook to its very foundations.
It took him a moment before he recognized the person who had thrown it.
It was Midoriya Izuku.
The girl's nervous eyes had become beacons of green energy, to such a degree no pupils were left to spot, only green lights burning like emerald Hellfire. Her face had twisted into a death mask of pure, seething anger.
As she took, quick, frantic, angry breaths, what looked like green, glowing smoke left her mouth with every take of air, as if she had become a dragon.
Similar energy poured off from her back and elbows, from the necklace part of her costume, and lights danced like fires from the insides of a skull.
Then she was gone.
The distant sound of a faraway impact far away told that she had followed Nui.
Izuku slammed into the wall above Nui, and then she held herself onto it, through sheer strength.
She stared down without blinking, at the figure amongst the rubble there, lit up by flames.
Down below, beneath a crater in the wall, lying rather crumpled, Nui's hand raised and went in into her caved-in face and grabbed where the nose should have, and with a sound like someone pulling on a rubbery substance, she literally pulled her face back out again, let go so it sprung back down, where it eventually snapped back into place.
Then she looked up at the figure above who was staring down at her like a demon from Hell.
The bolts of green around her clashed with the glow of red from a thousand flames, two orbs of green, of energy, and might that should have been left alone searing down upon her.
"I'MGOING~TORIP_YOU\YOU-LIMB×FROM=LIMB!"
As she spoke her words repeated themselves over and over all around her, from everywhere, and every single word echoed and bounced off from structures around that did not exist.
They were interwoven, overlapping and repeating, to such a point that if one had not heard the sentence the first time, it would have been impossible to make out what had actually been said.
"My~ Aren't you scary~"