AN: So... Here I am! Not dead! I started grad school and that has eaten up all of my time. Plus I got a new and better job, so even more time loss. But I found time recently to sit down and work on the 2.3k word portion of this chapter that I already had, turning it into what you see here. This has been in the works for a while, and I was and still am really excited for what happens after this. One would think that would push me forward to finishing it, but time has other plans. Anyways! Enjoy the chapter!

I have a discord server now! Come join it, we're trying to make it a great community!/GETMQWHQmZ

Love y'all, and see you next time!

Onga chuckled loudly as drops of rain had begun to fall and the sky grew dark. "We have an audience." He said loudly. There was a gravel of sorts in his voice that hadn't been there from the video. He was excited, almost giddy. It unnerved Izuku. He tensed unconsciously. "It's a great thing that we're performers. Boys, let's give these people a performance." At that, three members of the Infernal Orchestra dashed forward. One of them, dressed simply in a sleeveless shirt and torn up jeans ran at Shouto, punching his own palm three times as he went past. Eijirou immediately ran to intercept. The other two, both in robes – one white with blue trim and the other white with gold trim – ran towards the grouping of Kyouka, Hitoshi, and Mei.

Izuku made lunges at the assailants as they passed, but each of them sidestepped his attempted attacks. The group of two both smirked at Izuku as they passed him, stopping Izuku in his tracks.

"Oooh, now that has got to eat at you." Izuku heard Onga say as the man slowly approached him. "They're all under strict orders. You and I. Our performance is a duet. I hope you know your part." He unstrapped his trumpet, and Izuku immediately took up a fighting stance again. "Looks like you know what this can do." Onga said, looking down at the instrument. "I expected as much." Onga took a deep breath and blew into the trumpet. Flames began to plume from the bell of the trumpet as a samba began to play. Izuku dodged out of the way as the fire came barrelling at him.

Rolling to his feet, Izuku activated Analysis and began to think. "His quirk is what the band/hero group is named after: Infernal Orchestra. The music he plays from his instruments will have effects on the world and people around him. He likes to use his trumpet for fire, but there's more that he can use from it. The size of the instrument affects the area of effect and the number of people he can affect."

The next wave of fire shot out at him. Another tuck and roll, this one at an angle towards the leader of his current enemies. Picking himself up off the ground, he dashed at the man. The song switched to a brisk jazz piece. Out of the corner of his eye, the man that was exchanging punches with Eijirou began to speed up. His fists collided with Eijirou's gauntlets at a blinding speed. "Shit!" Izuku thought. "That's Katsu Chikara. His quirk, 4/4, powers up every 4th punch and massively powers up every 16th punch. With speeds like that, Eijirou is going to be hurting very soon. I need to get to him!" Izuku moved to disengage from the man, but once again the melody shifted, this time to a slow tempo lullaby. Izuku felt himself growing drowsy quickly. His movements felt sluggish, and as much as he wanted to get to his new teammate, he just couldn't do it. He fell to the ground.

"This was a surprise to me, Snake Eyes." Onga said, taking the trumpet off of his mouth. Izuku immediately felt his mind and muscles clear up. "Aren't you a bit more subtle in your methods than this? Challenging us to a battle in a public place like this? So not your MO." The man approached him and put his foot on Izuku's head. "Something's going on, and you don't know what it is. But I do. You're off your game. You think you're in control, but you're not. We are."

Izuku struggled against the man, but his foot wouldn't budge. "You're not going to win here." He said. The rain began to speed up, dripping onto his mask.

"Aren't I? You're the leader of this group, and I have you beneath my foot. If that isn't a victory, then I don't know what is." Onga laughed. Izuku activated Luck and scanned for anything he could change. He found it. "Loses Balance: 15%". As he continued to struggle and the rain picked up, he could move the likelihood further and further upward. Finally, Onga's foot slipped off of Izuku's mask. He tumbled out of the way and dashed towards Onga. The slow tempo song began to play again, but Izuku activated Analysis, hoping to speed up his own thoughts to counteract the music's effects. It worked to a degree, and the punch that he threw had power behind it. Unfortunately – still while playing music somehow – his punch was blocked by the musician. Izuku's muscle memory took over, and he pushed forward with a side kick. He knocked Onga off guard with the fast response time and follow-up, then followed up again with a leg sweep. Izuku capitalized on this, putting his own foot on Onga's face, kneeling down onto Onga's hand to prevent him from holding onto his trumpet.

"And where are we at now?" Izuku asked. "You're beneath my foot now."

"I may be here beneath you, but where are your comrades?" Onga asked with a grunt as Izuku's foot dug into his cheek.

Izuku took a moment to look around again, breathing hard. He realized that the other members of the Infernal Orchestra had moved from their positions at the edge of the woods, now engaging his team. His comrades. His friends. Someone was fighting Shouto with what seemed to be a copy of Shouto's quirk. Eijirou was still battling the same guy as before. Mei and two Hitoshis were supporting Kyouka in her fight with three different people, all seemingly using sound against her. A loud blast of sound followed by a piercing scream echoed through the park. Izuku's blood ran cold.

"And now…" Onga said with a sickening smile. "The curtain… rises…"

Eijirou knew what he needed to do as soon as one of them began to run towards his friend. He pushed Shouto out of the way right as the punch was thrown, activating Hardening and his gauntlets in the process. He knelt down to one knee from the force of the impact, and he was pushed back a few feet. Groaning, he stood back up. That punch was definitely not as bad as dealing with Bakugo's 'Howitzer Impact' during training sessions. "That's a strong punch." Eijirou said. "I've taken stronger ones."

"Oh, I'm just warming up." The man, who Eijirou recognized from their study session of the Infernal Orchestra as the pro hero Metronome. Both men charged at each other, punching each other's punches. Every now and then, the pain that Eijirou felt would spike, but it was manageable. That was, until one punch, a hammer punch from above, caught him off guard with the power it held. He was knocked to the ground face first, even with his Hardening active. "And how was that one? Strong enough now?"

Eijirou picked himself up from the ground, a slight crack on his forehead. "I'm still good to go." More blows between the two of them. Block, parry, dodge, brace. Eijirou remembered the brief discussion of this guy's quirk and tried to avoid every 16th attack, but sometimes that was harder than others.

The crackling of ice broke Eijirou's flow as a chunk of ice speared in front of him right before the 16th punch. The hit connected with the ice and shattered it immediately. "There it is, Echo. Your new quirk!" Metronome yelled behind him. Immediately, another big iceberg cut Shouto off from Eijirou.

Flames lit the dusk-shrouded park. Raindrops sizzled against the flames of both Shouto and the newest challenger. "Now this is something good…" The hero, Echo, said. "Let's see how this works." Another plume of flame shot out of Shouto, dwarfing the one that Echo had conjured himself. The vents on his costume really made it look like he had the wings of a dragon, each of them evaporating the rain nearby before the drops even touched the flames. The vents had another effect, too. As the fire barreled out of the holes at his back, they roared. It was probably something that Mei had made on purpose to be like that. Damn crazy engineer.

He shook his head, redoubling his focus on Metronome in front of him. He had also been a bit distracted by the show of power that Shouto had displayed, but once he realized that Eijirou was getting ready to go again.

Eijirou heard a fast jazz track begin to play in the background, and suddenly Metronome had picked up the tempo in his attacks. Eijirou was quickly put on the defensive, more so than he had ever been before. All he could do was block the blitzkrieg of attacks coming at him. And then the music stopped. The movements slowed down. There was a lull, and Eijirou took advantage of it immediately, responding to his attacker with strikes of his own. He switched his left gauntlet into its claw form as he fought. Cross, cross, claw hook. All of them blocked, but the last one had left its mark, slicing through some of the man's arm as the strike was blocked. Metronome cried out in pain before beating away Eijirou's hands again. A single punch to the gut pushed Eijirou away again, knocking the wind out of his lungs. That damn 16th punch…

Eijirou gasped as the air returned to his lungs. He raised his fists in preparation for another flurry of attacks. He wasn't broken now, and he wouldn't break to someone like this. He was unbreakable. He pushed off of the ground and charged at his attacker, but as he got closer, something took his complete attention, and it seemed like the same could be said for Metronome. As a horrific scream filled the air of the park, Eijirou shot a glance in the direction that it came from.

The blood… So much blood… His mind thought back to the images that had been shown in the debrief of the Yakuza raid. Bubble Girl and Rock Lock… Most of the blood that was there had dried by the time that the pictures were taken, but he could tell there had been a lot there… And it felt like a knife in his gut, unhardened by his quirk. Looking at the girl in front of him now, he felt that same knife, twisting its way deeper. He tried his hardest to not throw up. His fists clenched as he raised a battle cry against Metronome once more. Taken by surprise, a single hardened punch to the face knocked the man out, or at least disabled him for enough time for Eijirou to run towards the scene of the tragedy.

Setsuna was straight up not having a good time. Her combat skills had gotten better through her time at UA, but these were professional heroes. Since she and the others decided that she would assist in the role of scout with Kyouka and Mei, she didn't really think much of combat. And now here she was, fighting – again – professional heroes. She was here because of solidarity, of course, but there was something that she felt she couldn't do, and that was to stand toe to toe with someone like these people.

That's why she split herself up into about 50 pieces as soon as people began to charge. Her goal would be to disrupt people as much as possible. As the rain began to fall harder, she did feel herself grin. The limited visibility would make it harder for them to see her. Support and disruption. She could do that.

Different pieces of herself swarmed over the battlefield, each one impacting one of their assailants at just the right time to throw them off balance every once and again. Anything to give her new teammates a leg up. She had saved Eijirou from a particularly nasty punch. She helped Izuku get out from Onga's foot. She was just enough of a distraction on that Echo guy to help Shouto launch a blast of fire. If part of her just so happened to be right next to the man's leg so that he tripped into the fire blast, then that was just more help she could provide. Content with the help that she had provided to this side of the skirmish, she turned her attention to where four of her team were fighting. Kyouka, Mei, and two Hitoshis. She looked around for a brief second, trying to locate Fumikage, but a loud roar quickly revealed where he was. Somehow he had started doing battle with some members of the Orchestra in the tree line? They did say that his quirk was stronger in the dark, and the rain clouds were helping with that a lot.

Whatever. He could handle himself. She had distracted herself watching Dark Shadow tear through some of the treeline long enough. Back to support. Right. The group of four people. Her head rotated on an invisible axis, turning to face the group of combatants only to witness splashes of crimson liquid fly through the air as a gut-wrenching scream tore through her.

She fought the urge to barf as one of her comrades fell to the ground. She quickly condensed every part of herself together around the girl. The parts she had separated from herself formed a writhing and swirling barrier, keeping out most of the rain and anyone else that dared get close.

"What do you need?" Setsuna asked, her voice wavering. She was apparently not great under this kind of pressure. Something to deal with later. She had to help her teammate now.

The girl's voice was quiet. Weak. "I-Izu…" Her voice trailed off, and the body went limp. In anger, Setsuna pushed out all of herself in one big shrapnel explosion. The members of the Orchestra nearby were pushed back off of their feet, sent flying by the force. The other members of her team quickly took up positions around their downed friend. It was then that Setsuna heard another yell. This time, it was not of pain, but of pure fury. She braced herself, not knowing what sort of hell that their opponents had unleashed upon themselves.

This battle is going decently well, Kyouka thought to herself as she dodged out of the way of a sound blast. Mei shot out a few adhesive rounds as supportive cover. Hitoshi darted forward quickly with a pair of daggers, slashing at the three people that he, Mei, Himiko, and Kyouka herself had taken on. One of them could redirect sounds, another could turn sound into physical items, and one of them could change ambient noise into different forms. Kyouka remembered them from the dossiers that they had obtained on these people. Of course these people would be who she's up against. She rolled her eyes as a new barrage of pellets of condensed sound were flung at her at high speeds. She dodged out of the way of most of them, but a few were too fast for her, and she was nicked on the arms and legs, small cuts appearing where the contact was made.

She hissed as she pushed herself to her knee. She appreciated Mei's cover fire, but those shots are what made each of those pellets. She couldn't keep this up, and she knew her opponents knew that. She grit her teeth and stood up, taking a fighting stance. Hitoshi and another Hitoshi leapt from behind her and began to quickly slash away at the three of them. The one that could solidify sound into objects created a massive hammer and, after a few cuts to his arms and legs from the two, swatted them away with enough force to send them rolling across the ground. One of the Hitoshis coughed up blood as he slowly and shakily got up to his feet.

Damnit! Kyouka thought to herself as she watched her friends struggle. She saw Izuku break free from underneath Onga's foot and reverse the roles so that Onga was on the ground underneath Izuku's boot.

I have to end this now. We can turn the tides right now if these guys are taken out now. This is our chance to gain the upper hand. It's now or never! She thought, bracing herself as she dodged another wave of physical sound pellets. As she saw a final shot ring out from Mei's rifle, she stepped forward and let her quirk loose. She unleashed a torrent of sound that sloughed the grass off of the dirt as it barreled towards her enemies.

The person that could change ambient noise took the brunt of the hit, and he was knocked away; however, before anyone else could face her power, the path of the sound, made visible by the grass or lack thereof, was stopped in place. Her eyes went wide as she saw the other two smiling wildly at her.

In a split second, the wall of sound changed its format, instead turning into poles or staves, each side ending in a sharp point.

She watched in slow motion as each of these many spears shot through the air towards her. She almost didn't feel the pain as she was impaled over and over again. The shock and nerve damage happened so quickly that she almost lost consciousness right away. That would have been a mercy.

Instead, she began to feel cold. Her vision began to fade, but as it started to, stinging pain from the rain flushing into the new wounds brought her back to reality. Over and over again as the shock tried to take her. Then she stopped feeling the rain on her skin as swirling… things surrounded her. She couldn't quite tell what they were.

She could hear a muffled voice reach out to her. She couldn't quite hear what the voice said, but she wanted desperately for it to be Izuku who was next to her. She felt his name start to leave her lips as her vision went dark.

The plume of blood that Izuku saw burst out of Kyouka's now still body colored his own vision red. He heard a deep booming laugh from beneath him. "Looks like your luck ran out, kid."

Izuku let out a scream of rage, kicking Onga's head and knocking him out.

Something in his head snapped.

He figured out just what it was when he looked at the men that did this to Kyouka.

"Combustion: 5%"

"Aneurysm: 5%"

"Lightning Strike: 10%"

He stopped holding himself back.