They come up with a nifty plan,—that ends up having several revisions—and it takes until the villains attack the ship and nearly make them sink for them to actually enact it.

It goes like this:

Hitoshi is launched by Asui (Call me Tsu-chan, she says) towards the villains, screams hard enough his ears ring and creates a goddamn whirpool that starts sucking villains in, meanwhile Asui jumps over the ledge with Midoriya in her tongue and takes him away from the shipwreck, then comes for him before he can be sucked into the whirpool he created.

Simple, right?

Yeah, well, he's sure it raised his blood pressure exponentially.

From there they manage to get to the plaza and observe Eraserhead fighting, and… he's doing good actually.

He's doing good, all until…

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

WHO is this freak with hands on his face!?

Hitoshi watches as Eraserhead's elbow skin crumbles away and feels sick. It reminds him of Skinning, a quirk one of the kids at the Kou Kiken Inu had before he took his life. Speaking of similarities it's just as effective at rendering sensei's arm near-useless, probably from pain.

Eraserhead fights a little more, and Hitoshi sees… something approach. It's black, its skull is peeled back to expose the brain, and it has some sort of greyish writing on its neck.

And it's coming straight at Eraserhead who doesn't seem to notice it.

Hitoshi pulls himself onto land in one swift motion before he can fully process what he's doing and screams out, attacking the beast.

Eraserhead and the hand-freak turn towards him but the beast…

The beast doesn't move, doesn't fall, isn't pushed away. Nothing. It's like the sound attack had no effect on it. Hitoshi curses. What is it?

Eraserhead opens his mouth to speak, so does the hand-freak, but before either of them can say anything, Hitoshi opens his pouch. The action seems to make them confused. Good. He takes out his noise-cancellation headphones.

"Scatter!" he yells (at normal volume) and barely hears himself.

Eraserhead doesn't need it be told twice to him, he sees Midoriya and Asui plunging deeper into the water from the corner of his eyes, but the hand-freak stays in his place. Good.

Hitoshi releases a few short but more powerful than before attacks at the beast, and sees it being pushed away little by little. So he amps it up. The beast yells out, showing rows of sharp, sharp, sharp teeth that remind him of piranhas, and Hitoshi pushes on.

The sound is a destructive force, that's what Kusunoki-san has taught him. But he feels like nothing but a force that destructive can handle that beast. So he screams and screams and screams, and doesn't let the force behind his screams be even a little unfocused, least he hurts Eraserhead.

The hand-freak yells something, and all Hitoshi can read from his lips is 'kill Eraserhead'.

Hitoshi wonders for the briefest of moments how the beast—Nomu—was meant to attack when it's attacked itself, but then it moves, and it moves so fast that Hitoshi barely notices the movement and is so startled he momentarily loses control over his voice. Not enough to hurt anyone, but enough that it disperses to the sides, making the hand-freak cover his ears in pain.

The hand-freak screams again, pointing at him, and Hitoshi feels a dribble of cold sweat run down his back. Fuck.

He just signed his own death sentence, didn't he?

The thought doesn't take up much of his brain though, because the beast moved for a reason and that reason was to— to kill Eraserhead, right. Fuck.

It feels like Hitoshi is moving underwater, so he doesn't see the first of many hits that the Nomu lies down on Eraserhead. He still has his headphones on, so he doesn't hear the horrifying crunches as his bones break. But he knows, instinctively, that Eraserhead won't get back up from that one.

They're alone with the villains now.

Fuck.

Izuku can't hold his breath anymore so he peaks his head out of water and the first thing he hears is this:

"Nomu!" the white-haired villain calls out, voice scratchy and distressed. "Kill Eraserhead! Now!" Izuku feels terrified out of his mind, but there's no time to even voice it as he sees the villain point at Shinsou, saying "And then kill that kid!"

And then it happens. He hears dull thuds and crunches, and then sees the monster push Eraserhead's head into the concrete several times, forcefully.

He's frozen in place, completely utterly frozen, unable to do anything, not even breath frozen.

The monster turns towards Shinsou— But before it can do anything the warp gate that scattered them materialises itself next to the white-haired villain.

"Shigaraki Tomura," he greets.

"Kurogiri. Did you kill Thirteen?" Kill…? No…!

"I put Thirteen out of commission, but there were students I was unable to disperse, and one of them ran away." Oh! Thank Kami. That means help is on the way. The just need to hold off. They just need to—

"Huh?" The white-haired villain—Shigaraki Tomura—turns to the mist villain—Kurogiri—and then exhales. He starts scratching his neck, with one hand, with two hands, faster, more fiercely… "Kurogiri… you… If you weren't our warp gate I'd have crushed you to pieces…!" He stops scratching. Looks like he stopped breathing too. Everything stops, no one dares to move, awaiting what Shigaraki is going to say, what his decision will be. Will he follow through with his order to kill Shinsou? He's noticed them already, will he kill them too? Will he maim Eraserhead even more?

The only thing moving in the entire parimeter is Kurogiri's mist. It's moving all the time. Izuku doesn't want to even think about all the things that could happen while they wait, so he focuses on him. The warp gate must have limits, otherwise whoever escaped would have been instantly teleported back. Are the in-portals sight-based? The out-portals can't be, otherwise they wouldn't be able to teleport into USJ from as far away as they did. What's his range? Metres? No, USJ is too big for that. Probably counts in kilometres. If they escape now, which is improbable, no one would be able to find them easily. A few jumps with the warp gate and they could be cities away.

"We can't win against dozens of pros," Shigaraki says, and Izuku instantly gives him his undivided attention. "It's game over." Huh? "Man, it's game over this time." Wait, he doesn't mean— "Let's go home." THEY'RE LEAVING. YES. YES. But…

"I have a bad feeling about this, Midoriya-chan," Tsu-chan whispers, barely hearable.

"Yes… for them to give up, after doing all that…" Don't they want to kill All Might? If they leave right now, UA will just beef up their security, and they won't be able to get in again. Not like this.

"Oh yeah…" Shigaraki says, like an afterthought. "Before we leave…" He turns to look at Shinsou. No. No. "…let's smash some of his pride as a Symbol of Peace!" He moves fast, faster than Izuku can follow with his eyes…

When Izuku finally turns his head towards Shinsou, he immediately whips it back, because Shigaraki is being thrown away by a powerful shockwave that's loud enough he hears a loud prolonged ringing in his ears after it passes. But. The shockwave. It carried sound.

It carried a sound of pain.

Rigidly, almost forcing himself to do it, Izuku turns towards Shinsou again, and sees his cheek bleeding, corroded. No. Nonononono—

"NOMU!" Shigaraki screams, but before he can say anything else, Shinsou screams again, and again, this time way more directed than the previous attack. It is still however loud enough that Izuku and Tsu-chan have to cover their ears.

It doesn't help much.

Every sound is a desperate plea, in Izuku's ears. For other pros to come. For All Might to come.

And then, miraculously that plea is answered.

Hitoshi's at his wit's end.

He knows he has three, maybe five more minutes of this attack, before his throat says a resolute no and stops working. He's already feeling the tell-tale signs of that, mostly the scratchiness of it, the ache, the fact that he can't amp up the volume any more…

Asui is a close-quarter fighter, Midoriya can create shockwaves but he'll break his bones if he tries, Eraserhead is out of commission. Hitoshi is the only distance fighter they have currently.

Once those three minutes are up, he's fucked. They're all fucked.

Well, it wouldn't be so bad if he could take a break and drink something, but with how things are going, the moment he stops attacking, Shigaraki is going to give the thing—the Nomu—an order.

And judging by what it did to Eraserhead that would mean he's dead.

At least the mist guy seems thoroughly affected by Hitoshi's attacks. That's good. He tries to make portals but they are all dissolved with sound waves.

He has no time to further analyse what's happening because there's a loud thump, loud enough he hears it through his headphones, and he stops in dread, expecting the worst. More villains, maybe more things like the Nomu… But when he isn't immediately dead, Shigaraki not having said the command, or anything for that matter, he forces himself to turn around and see what the noise was.

There's a big cloud of smoke, right at the entrance, for the longest while nothing happens, everything is frozen, until the smoke disperses and he sees All Might himself.

He gets a feeling he's saying something, maybe even his catchphrase, but he prioritises being able to fight at a moment's notice, rather than hearing.

He watches out of the corner of his eye as Shigaraki says something, and he prepares. Should the guy move, he's ready to scream. He won't repeat his mistake of being too slow.

Speaking of that his cheek still stings, hurts, aches. It's a burning sensation that tells him that more than the first layer of skin is missing. It feels exactly like Skinning did though.

Ugh, brings out the old memories.

Shigaraki says something more, and the nomu moves, suddenly, blocking his way. He screams again— until he doesn't. Because now, up close… he can see the writing on the Nomu's skin.

It's a scar, a brand, he realises belatedly, and he takes off his headphones slowly to clutch them in his hands as a grounding mechanism.

He has the same scar.

Low on his back, how did it get to the front of nomu's body? It makes no sense, they always placed it low on person's back. Low on their property's back.

"Oh? Did you run out of air, little hero?" Shigaraki taunts, but he cannot focus on it even though a part of his brain screams that his survival depends on this.

Another part of his brain is still very much hung up about the placement of the brand. It just makes no sense in his head. The 'Property of Kou Kiken Inu' scar sitting right over his tailbone is exactly where they placed it for everyone. No matter who or what they branded.

Suddenly his peripheral is all blurred, and bam he's standing in a totally different place than he was before.

Huh.

He looks up at All Might, who moved him, Asui, Midoriya, and most importantly Eraserhead, and wonders for half a second how he could do it that instantaneously.

Oh well.

"Shinsou-shounen, are you alright?" he asks, and Hitoshi contemplates it before nodding slowly. It's apparently not enough to convince All Might, because he looks behind him, and says: "Take him and Eraserhead to safety. Hurry, he's in shock, and he's unconscious."

He supposes this is true.

He idly looks at the nomu, at the brand on its neck. The implications here are… terrifying.

He is aware people are talking around him, All Might says something that sounds vaguely optimistic, Shigaraki rambles to himself too, smiling creepily…

But right, the implications. The main one is… "This thing used to be human," he says to no one in particular.

He thinks that people have a reaction to that, he doesn't know, his ears are filled with static, his vision is pretty tunnelled… He tries to take a deep breath and chokes on it.

Oh, he thinks, or maybe says, he doesn't know, I'm having a panic attack.

Izuku's… lost.

The past few minutes feel like they're covered in smoke screen. Maybe because of all the smoke coming out of All Might.

He left Shinsou and Eraserhead with Tsu-chan, and went back to the plaza, he watched as Todoroki, Bakugou and Kirishima helped All Might fight the Nomu ('It used to be human' Shinsou said. The implication that it no longer was, was horrifying), and then the Nomu was punted into the sky, and…

And now All Might is stalling until the other pros arrive.

Unsuccessfully stalling, might Izuku add.

Kurogiri is… Kurogiri has successfully talked Shigaraki into staying and fighting, and Izuku knows, be it instinct or One For All, that All Might is not going to survive it if they attack.

He sees Shigaraki start running and makes up his mind in an instant. Kurogiri warps himself near All Might and Izuku…

He jumps. His legs break. It hurts. It hurts so much, but he was mentally prepared. Now he just needs to punch with all his might into the exposed part of Kurogiri's body and—

No. NO! Shigaraki's outstretched hand goes through Kurogiri's portal right at his face and—

There's a shot, the hand never lands on his face. He lands on the floor painfully, but hears Shigaraki wailing in pain too… And then he hears Present Mic yell out a powerful 'YEAH'.

Oh. Oh Kami. The pros have arrived.