Chapter 14

Chapter Text

Izuku was frantic. He hadn't been able to do a thing as his classmates were sucked into swirling portals. Something urged him back toward the front door. At first he resisted, troubled at the idea of running away—especially since he wouldn't be seen and couldn't be hurt in his ghostly form—but then he realized the vestiges were probably trying to tell him something.

He easily passed through the locked door and then turned back to try and find an explanation for whatever it was they wanted him to do. He found the big red panic button but without an actual body he had no way to break the glass or depress the button.

That was until a black tendril shot from his ghostly hand, wrapping around his wrist and whipping toward the glass case. It took a couple of tries and a whole lot of concentration but Midoriya whooped with joy when the glass shattered and the button's light starting flashing red.

Three seconds later an awful-sounding siren started to screech.

It was the best noise Midoriya had heard in a long while.

~*~

Everyone flinched when an urgent whooping sound filled the air.

The alarm. Thank fuck. The other UA teachers would be here soon.

"Stay behind me," Shota yelled to his class, his quirk already activated and capture scarf at the ready. Thankfully with his quirk erased, the mist man was revealed to have an actual human-shaped body underneath. Shota quickly pinned him down and fastened the cuffs around his wrists.

The mist man breathed a sigh that sounded suspiciously like relief.

"Get to the front door," Shota yelled. "Take Thirteen with you. The teachers from UA should be here soon."

Most of the students nodded, some shakily, but none overwhelmed with fear. That would come later. Shota was just grateful that what remained of his class were all kids with solid potential. He really didn't want to think about how Mineta or Iida would have reacted under the stress. Shota kept one eye on the advancing villains and one on his class. Uraraka quickly made Thirteen weightless and Tsuyu wrapped her tongue around the hero's arm to keep her from floating away.

Somehow he was both not surprised and fucking startled to find Hitoshi ignored him and Bakugo did as he was told. Todoroki seemed to hesitate but eventually followed after a few growled words from Bakugo. Hopefully Bakugo had reminded Todoroki that they were the two strongest fighters in the class and needed to protect the other students.

Shota quickly glanced at Hitoshi. "Arguing right now could get us both killed," he said to his son, trying to treat him like the hero he would one day be. At least he had more training than the other kids in his class. "So I'll take the lead. You are strictly back up. You hear me, kid?"

"Watch your back," Hitoshi said, deliberately skewing the meaning of his words. "I'll find the leader."

Shota desperately wanted to tell his son to be careful and that he loved him but he needed to concentrate on protecting the entire class, not saying things Hitoshi already knew.

He leapt into the fray and prayed that his husband and colleagues would burst through the doors any moment.

~*~

"Hitoshi!" Izuku screamed as a villain crept up behind him, his razor-sharp fingers poised to slash down the kid's back. Eraserhead's son didn't hear him, of course, but black-whip responded to Izuku's distress, lashing out at the villain and knocking him back. Izuku used black whip again to throw the startled villain further away before turning to Hitoshi's next attacker and doing the same.

He'd been keeping an eye on the big…er monster-looking guy with an exposed brain, but even he didn't see when it moved. The sound of breaking bones should not have been loud enough to hear over the siren and the fighting, but Izuku heard it nevertheless.

"Eraser," Toshi called, startled and clearly worried for his dad, but instead of running to him he kept his calm and turned to the guy with pale-blue hair and a persistent itch.

"So that makes you the leader then, huh?"

"It d—"

"Tell it to release Eraserhead."

"Nomu," the villain said in the strange monotone that Hitoshi's quirk seemed to cause, "release Eraserhead."

The giant villain, apparently named Nomu, barely reacted to the command, staring blank-eyed at the man who seemed to be in charge.

"Shit," Hitoshi whispered under his breath. "Tell Nomu to return to your side."

"Nomu, return."

Hitoshi winced—Izuku did too—as Nomu dropped a severely injured Eraserhead and lumbered back to stand at the leader's side.

Thankfully Tsuyu and Uraraka—who'd apparently joined the fight while Izuku was busy tossing villains around with black-whip—quickly moved to evacuate Eraserhead from the battlefield. A moment later Bakugo and Todoroki took their places, moving to flank Hitoshi as he held the leader with his quirk.

Most of the villains were down, either knocked out or smart enough to pretend to be, so it was mostly just making sure that no one snuck up on them while they waited for back up to arrive.

"He's fine," Bakugo said in a low voice to Hitoshi. "Nothing Recovery Girl can't fix."

Hitoshi nodded but held his position.

"What is your name," he asked the leader.

"Shigaraki Tomura."

"And what is your quirk?"

"Disintegration."

"Shit," Bakugo whispered softly.

"How does it activate?"

"Five point activation," Shigaraki said, flexing his fingers as if to demonstrate.

"Double shit," Todoroki added. "If I freeze him will it knock him out of your control?"

Hitoshi shrugged. The answer was 'yes' from what Izuku had observed over the past week or so, but it was wise not to say so in front of the villain. Some people retained their higher brain functions even under Hitoshi's quirk. It didn't help them break out of it, but it did mean they remembered everything that was said while they were under.

"Be ready," Hitoshi said to Todoroki. "Just in case."

Todoroki nodded, shifting his stance slightly when Bakugo blasted himself toward a villain moving toward them, using his momentum to kick the guy back to the ground. "Stay down," he growled. "I don't want to kill you."

The villain, who was probably just a petty criminal judging by his tattered street clothes and knitted face mask, apparently decided Bakugo wasn't bluffing and did as he was told. It was a few more tense moments before the teachers of UA finally burst through the door, some staying behind to evacuate the class and render first aid to Eraserhead and the rest to control the villains who remained a threat.

It took only a moment for everything to go to hell.