A/N: Okay, so for those of you who don't know, there is currently a contest going on between me and my wife as to who drew a better gender bend of Kurai. You can see the images to which I am referring toward the end of the previous chapter's video on our YouTube channel. Why should you do this? We kinda need a deciding vote, which is where you guys come in- there's a poll for it on my page on this website. We look forward to seeing what you guys vote in!

This week's cover art is done by yours' truly, and can also be found on my Instagram.

With all that out of the way, let's get back into it!

Jaws of the Forest

Kurai was in a state of hysterics after the defeat of Moonfish, crying and sweating in agony, his classmates all close to panic, unsure of how to deal with such a grievous wound. They had some basic first aid training, but none of them really knew what to do in the case of someone's arm getting cut off. The limb was unsalvageable- several of Moonfish's incisors had torn it apart in the half-second before Kurai had managed to blast him. Even Bakugo, who could normally bluster his way through just about anything, seemed too rattled to know what they should do. In all reality, they realized that Kurai just might die in front of them that night.

After a few moments of rapid thought, however, it was Blake that came up with an idea. "Todoroki, you need to cauterize the wound," she had said as she grabbed the heterochromic boy by the shoulder to get his attention.

"I can't," he had said as he backed away slightly, touching the burn scar on his face as he did so. "I can't use my fire like this… The pain alone could cause his heart to give out."

"He's gonna die from blood loss if you don't!" the girl insisted. "We don't have the equipment to make him a proper tourniquet, plus there's no telling what kind of diseases that psycho might've had in his teeth. If you don't do this, Hikari has no chance of making it!"

Todoroki had frozen, different voices warring in his head over control of his next actions. On the one hand, he might kill his friend even faster than the blood loss would. On the other, he could potentially save his life, but the burn scars might make it impossible for his nerves to be connected to any potential mechanical replacement.

"Do… it."

The group turned in surprise to see that it was Kurai who had spoken, rocking himself back forth as he clutched desperately at the stump where his limb used to be. "I can live… without my arm," he groaned. "Todoroki… Please! Get it over with! I need…you… to be the hero right now!" He retched from the pain again, but his stomach was out of contents to eject. "Please!" he gasped out.

Todoroki groaned to himself before he ripped off one of his sleeves and knelt in front of his friend. "Bite on this," he ordered as he placed his left hand on Kurai's wound. The boy obediently allowed the fabric to be placed in his teeth, and he bit down on it firmly as he gazed at his friend with a fierce, agonized determination.

When Todoroki hesitated again, Kurai nodded hurriedly, his face continuing to drain of color as his blood pumped out of the wound with every beat of his panicking heart. Todoroki closed his eyes and murmured, "I'm sorry, Hikari."

There was a burst of light, a muffled scream, and the smell of burning flesh and bone.

"Whoa, Ashido!" Kirishima yelped as his classmate doubled over, clutching at her stomach and mouth. "What's going on?"

"Something's wrong," she groaned softly, her eyes unfocused as he tried to get her to look up at him. "Kirishima, something's happened to Kurai."

"What's going on?" Vlad King asked gruffly as he started over to look down at the girl. "Is she sick?" Aizawa had run out of the room and left him in charge of protecting them and any of the other students that made it back to the base camp while he tried to rendezvous with the other Pussy Cats.

"No, I don't think-"

FWOOOOSH!

The door blasted down behind Vlad to admit a wall of scorching blue flames that were hot enough to take everyone's breath away as they dove away from the entrance. In response, Vlad unleashed crystalized blood to protect the students behind him. Mina and Kirishima were a little further back in the room, so they were out of the direct line of fire, but they also were more of a target for whoever had attacked them.

Said person didn't take long to come through the door, and he looked like something out of a nightmare. It would have been easier to count the parts of his skin that weren't horribly disfigured by burn tissue, not to mention that he seemed to have grafted the burnt flesh to what remained of the healthy skin with multiple body piercings, and he had dark, spiky hair that barely veiled burning blue eyes that matched his flames. A Cheshire grin stretched his face as he levelled a palm at Mina and Kirishima before he said in a voice drier than sandpaper, "Poor little wannabes. If only there was a real hero around to protect you."

He sent a roaring pillar of fire from his hand that would surely reduce them to ash, even with Vlad charging at him from the side. Mina went to counter the attack with her acid, hoping to snuff out the fire, but Kirishima beat her to the punch. "I got your real hero right here!" he shouted as he hardened himself as much as he possibly could while spreading his body out to keep Mina from being touched by the vicious flames. For just a second, Mina thought that the heatwave was playing tricks on her already-blurred eyes, but it certainly looked as though her old friend had taken on the appearance of a living rock- one that weathered the fireball and came out a little singed, but with nothing in the way of a permanent injury.

Before either of them could move to counterattack, Vlad had grabbed the villain and slammed him against the wall while trapping him in another barrier of crystalized blood.

"You okay?" Kirishima asked Mina, who nodded in a bit of a daze.

"Yeah," she mumbled. "You?" Behind them, Vlad was beginning to interrogate the villain, so they assumed that he would have everything handled on that end.

"Better than I expected, actually," he laughed as he scratched at his now-frizzy hair. "Dumb villains made a mistake thinkin' they could just walk in and take us down."

"Yeah, maybe," Mina said as she suppressed another shudder of bone-chilling nausea. "Maybe…"

"What happened?!"

"We should be asking you that."

Midoriya had just arrived on the scene, having been drawn toward the sounds of combat earlier. He had been stunned to see Kurai unconscious and minus an arm while Todoroki had turned his outer shirt into a rough bandage to protect the now-burnt flesh and staunch the blood flow that had persisted due to the severity of the original injury. Now he stood among them with one arm broken by Muscular's attack and the other by his own quirk, looking in a right state that made some of his friends wonder why on earth he had come out after them.

"I went to rescue Kota and ended up fighting a villain," the boy now said, sounding out of breath. "Xiao Long helped me out, and she was injured, but I was able to meet up with Mister Aizawa and pass Kota on to him while I came out to look for Kacchan."

"Wait, you saw Yang?" Blake asked as she stumbled to her feet unsteadily. "Is she okay?!"

"We were both hurt fighting a villain, but she dealt him a finishing blow," he answered her. "She decided to stay behind because of a hit she took so that it would be easier for the pros to find her later. Mister Aizawa was going to bring her back as soon as he made sure that Kota was safe, but she seemed relatively okay when I left her." With barely a moment to pause, he asked, "I take it that the villains already came after Kacchan?"

"They haven't gotten to him yet," Shoji said as he looked at the blond student, who grit his teeth angrily.

"Stop worrying about me, dammit!" he snarled. "Saiyaman's the one who needs help!"

"Seriously, how did he end up like this?!" Midoriya panted.

"We'll explain on the way," Todoroki said before another exchange could get started. He moved to pick up the unconscious class B student as he added, "Bakugo is right, Hikari needs urgent medical treatment as soon as possible. He's not bleeding out anymore, but he's lost plenty to begin with, not to mention what the shock of this has to be doing to his body. Shoji, can you carry him with your hand like it is?"

"Of course," the larger boy said as he moved to scoop up the insensate teenager. "You can rely on me."

"We should cut back through the woods," Midoriya said, his mind having successfully switched to analytical mode in spite- or perhaps because- of the situation. "The Pussy Cats might still be fighting the villains at the gathering point for the test, and it's longer of a route. We should cut straight through."

"What if we run into another villain like the one who did this?" Blake asked with a shudder as she actively tried not to look at where Kurai's arm had gone to rest among the roots of a tree.

"We blast 'em to hell," Bakugo snarled as his palm sparked ominously.

"We have Kacchan and Todoroki, plus Tokoyami's Dark Shadow," Midoriya pointed out. "He's more powerful in the dark anyway, right?"

"Yes, but he's nearly impossible to control without a source of light," the bird-headed student replied with a shake of his head. "Hikari brought me under control earlier, but that's obviously not going to happen a second time."

"Will my flames suffice?" Todoroki asked as he stepped away from Kurai and Shoji.

"…Probably."

"Then we move out and we move fast," Midoriya asserted. "We gotta get Kacchan away from the villains and Hikari to a hospital. The best way to do both those things is to go back to base as fast as possible. Hopefully we run into some of the others along the way and add them to our numbers so we can protect them."

"I don't need-!" Bakugo started to shout, but then his voice faltered and he looked at the grass behind him, which had been stained red. Before anyone could ask him what he was talking about, he growled, "Let's go. Saiyaman's not gonna get any better with us just standing around and making plans."

"Hiyah!" Ruby shouted as she delivered a high-speed side kick to the head of the masked, knife-wielding girl who had swiftly emerged from the woods to slash at Ochaco. The swift blow sent her tumbling down the path, away from the two of them and giving the younger girl a chance to formulate an idea.

"Hey, Uraraka?!" the American called over without taking her eyes off their enemy, who was already staggering to her feet, in spite of the hit she had just taken. "Can you make one of these trees float without affecting the ground underneath it?"

"I should be able to, why?" the other girl panted as she grabbed at her arm.

"I have an idea, just pick a good-sized one and let me know when it's done!" Ruby replied as she blurred into a storm of rose petals that surrounded their attacker.

"Okay!"

"Ooh…" the girl within the storm giggled as her golden eyes widened at the sight around her. "It's the same color as blood… Red like roses and blood is so pretty, isn't it?" Tilting her head upwards, she then said, "I know Ochaco's name, but I don't know who you are. What's your name, huh? I'm Himiko Toga, by the way."

"Nice to know the poster girl of crazyville's name!" Ruby called out sarcastically as she focused on maintaining a dispersed form, having seen Toga's arsenal of knives and needles on her outfit. If she starts throwing those, it's gonna be tough to keep myself from getting hit somewhere or other, she thought tiredly.

"Rose, I've got it!" Ochaco suddenly called out, and Ruby reacted by heading toward her friend's voice, dissipating the cyclone of wind and petals as she reformed next to the injured girl, who had placed her fingers on the bark of a middling-sized tree and was now looking confused. "Now what? The roots are still buried, so it's not like I can use it as a weapon."

"Not with that attitude," Ruby said with a grin as she took a running stance. "Normally I do this with my scythe, but your quirk will make it a hundred times easier."

"Do what?" Ochaco asked as she eyed Toga, who was now making a swift approach with a large needle and knife in each hand.

"This!" With another violent burst of wind, Ruby shoulder-checked the tree and ripped it out of the ground, roots and all, before she used her speed to fashion a funnel of wind that hurled the tree at Toga, who had stopped in place with a look of alarm on her face. The American girl then shot out of her own wind funnel and got behind Toga just long enough to kick her square in the back and put her in the path of the slipstream that was bringing the tree to crash right into her less than a second later.

When the wind stopped and the dust had settled, there was a perplexed-looking Toga underneath a tree trunk positioned just so that it wouldn't kill her from the crushing weight, but it wasn't going to allow her to move around without a lot of help, either. "This is a first," the blond villainess said blankly. "Normally I'm the one who leads with this when I wanna get to know someone."

"Yeah?" Ruby panted, the extensive use of her quirk over the course of the day having caught up with her again. "How's that… worked out for you so far?"

"Well, I can't say that I've had a lot of friends," Toga giggled. "But the ones I did have, I know really, really well." Something about the way she included the past tense made the two students feel as though they didn't want to learn any more about this villain than they absolutely needed to.

"Should we knock her out?" Uraraka asked as she move closer to her classmate, still impressed by how quickly she had taken down their assailant. She had released her gravi-kinetic hold on the tree the second that she had seen that Toga was trapped, so she felt somewhat safer for the moment.

"I'm starting to wonder if she has some kind of resiliency quirk, cos I totally thought that she would've been KO'd by the tree," Ruby admitted. "Either way, I'm thinking a big rock would be nice right about now."

"I don't see one of those," Uraraka shrugged helplessly. "Can't you just use your quirk to hit her real fast?"

"I would, but I'm honestly too tired to try anything for another minute- I don't wanna kill her on accident," Ruby replied, giving both of the other girls pause. Seeing this, she explained, "My quirk is super hard to control, so if I'm tired, and I slip up, I could end up putting a crater in the forest from the impact, not to mention that miss crazy-pants and I would probably end up in pieces everywhere."

"Can't you just move one part of your body super-fast to avoid that?" Ochaco asked, stunned by that amount of power that Ruby apparently possessed.

The younger girl immediately shook her head in the negative as she said, "My quirk affects my whole body at once, so I can't just use it on one part or another like that. It's part of why it's so hard to get a hang of, you know?"

"That's so nice for you to share everything like that!" Toga giggled before Ochaco was tackled to the ground and a large needle was jammed into her leg. It happened so quickly that even Ruby was confused as to what just happened, but somehow Toga was now straddling the other girl and siphoning her blood into a metal container that rested on her back. Seeing the look of shock on Ruby's face, she smiled eerily and said, "Don't worry your pretty head, Rosy. You'll get your chance to know me soon enough."

"R-Rosy?!" Ruby sputtered as she took an unarmed combat stance. "You know what, get off my friend!"

"Can't do that," Toga giggled. "And you can't make me, not without risking a mess of blood, right? Ooh, that would be so pretty…"

This chick looks like she gets off just talking about blood! Ruby thought as her tired mind raced, trying to figure out a way to get Toga off of her classmate without causing major injury to Uraraka.

Toga's smile widened as she leaned closer to her captive's head and whispered, "You know, you smell like I do… You've got a crush on someone, don't you?"

Eh? Both Ochaco and Ruby froze, utterly boggled at how Toga's mind could possibly be making a connection between bleeding someone out and having a crush.

"I know the look," Toga went on, apparently unaware of her targets' reactions. "You start to admire someone, and then you start wanting to be like them, you know? But after a while, you start to realize that isn't enough. You start wanting to actually become them… Right, Ochaco?"

"Get off of her!"

A familiar voice echoed out of the darkness of the trees right before a long leg shot out and sent Toga tumbling away from her prey, followed by the owner calling out, "Ruby, you okay?!"

"Blake!" the younger girl cried out in relief as her teammate interposed herself between them and their enemy, with several of the other students coming up behind her.

"Who is that girl?" Todoroki grunted as he slid to a stop alongside Blake, the air around him dropping several degrees as he readied his ice.

To their surprise, Toga made a sulking face and said, "Too many people, now… I don't feel like getting killed tonight." With a small shrugging motion, she sheathed her blades and started to walk away with the farewell word, "Toodles." She did pause for a just a second as she looked over her shoulder with what looked like a blush before she vanished into the dark of the trees with another disturbing giggle.

As soon as she was gone, Ruby ran over to her friend with the words, "Thank goodness! We heard the announcement and then that crazy chick showed u-!" Her mouth paused, hanging open as she saw the state that Midoriya and Kurai were in, and Uraraka didn't do much better.

"Deku!" she cried out as she started to limp toward them, her leg having been freed of the needle, though a small puncture wound continued to trickle blood while she moved. "What happened to you?! And- god, Hikari!"

"We don't have time to waste on lengthy explanations," Todoroki said grimly as he beckoned for Uraraka to come to Kurai and the other unconscious student. "Make these two float with your quirk so we can move faster. The sooner he gets medical attention, the better."

"O-Of course!" she said, though she still looked nauseated by the sight of his missing arm and pale body. Shifting her look toward the others, she asked, "What're you all doing out here? I thought we were all in separate groups."

"Hikari and I decided to try and find others like us in the forest once we heard Miss Mandalay's voice," Blake answered a little tonelessly. "We met up with these guys and decided to stick together to protect Bakugo and Hikari after he was seriously wounded. We're all headed for the base camp."

"Uh, Blake?" Ruby asked as she looked at Uraraka, who had just used Zero Gravity on Hikari, making it easier for Shoji to carry him. "If you guys are protecting Bakugo, shouldn't he be somewhere you can protect him? You know, like, close by?"

"Wha?" Midoriya chuckled awkwardly as he turned around. "He's right… here…" A thrill of alarm went through everyone as they realized that Bakugo was indeed nowhere to be seen.

"Where did he go?!" Blake demanded of no one in particular.

"Terribly sorry about that," a new voice called from the treetops, drawing their gazes upward and toward a masked man with a feathered top hat. "With the history of being a performer, my flair for the dramatic should hardly come as a surprise to those who know me. However, since you do not, I shall introduce myself as Compress, master magician and escape artist." With a click of his fingers, half of a tree disappeared, and a small marble appeared in the palm of his hand. "I used a touch of magic to gather up Bakugo as so we may have a discussion about his future in a more relaxed environment than a burning forest."

Tokoyami reacted first out of the group. "Todoroki, get ready," he snarled as his eyes gleamed in the darkness that began to come alive around him. "Dark Shadow!" The writhing beast roared as it was granted release from its master's body and shot forward, rushing for what would possibly be a killing blow against Compress.

Before it could make the connection, however, a blast of fire drove it back in time for the villain to begin making his escape. Seeing this, everyone turned to Todoroki while Tokoyami shouted urgently, "No, not yet!"

"It wasn't me!" the heterochromic boy protested.

"I'd stay right where you are, if I were all of you," another new voice said as slender shadow began to emerge from the tree line. "If you value the life of your wounded comrade as much as a hero should, you'll do well to allow Mister Compress to escape."

"Wounded comrade?" Tokoyami repeated as his shadow withdrew into his body. "What is she-?"

"Guys, where's Hikari?!" Shoji asked as he looked down at his empty hands. "He was just right here!"

"Eh?!"

"Oh, children?" the shadowy figure said as they came to stand in the moonlight. She turned out to be a young woman, probably in her early twenties, with long black hair that veiled most of her face, allowing only a single amber eye to look at them with a strange intensity. As she stepped into plain view, she held up a black-gloved hand to display a small marble, identical to the ones that Compress had been showing off earlier. "I believe this is what you're looking for."

"Dammit!" Todoroki swore as he and the others prepared for combat, knowing that if they didn't resolve this quickly, they would lose any chances at rescuing Bakugo from the other villain.

"Ah-ah," the woman said with a slow shake of her head before she waved her free hand and engulfed an adjacent tree in flames. By the time the young heroes realized that she was the one who had driven back Dark Shadow, the tree had been reduced to a pile of embers that their new enemy then extinguished. "I promise not to do the same to your friend if you stay where you are and behave. Move to attack me, and you'll lose both of your friends."

"Why should we believe that?!" Ruby demanded hotly. "You're just gonna kill him, no matter what we do!"

"Perhaps, perhaps not," the woman said, her tone and mannerisms completely unhurried, as if she were having a leisurely chat with a stranger about the weather. "Not everyone in Shigaraki's group thinks as I do, but there are a few of us who fight for more than destruction for destruction's sake."

"What the hell does that mean?!" Midoriya shouted at her, obviously aching to chase after his comrade, but being unable to do so for fear of Kurai's life. The villains obviously wanted Bakugo alive, so his life was in no immediate danger, but their crippled friend was another matter altogether. Now that it was clear that it was the League pulling the strings for this assault, they all knew that the crazed leader of the gang would dearly love to see Kurai killed for his hand in their defeat at the USJ. They had no doubt that whatever this woman was saying, she wouldn't hesitate to terminate their friend if it suited her.

"There are some in the underworld, myself included, who believe in the ideologies of the Hero Killer," she said now, causing Midoriya and Todoroki to exchange a worried look. "Before a field can been sowed, the soil must be torn up and reshaped, yes? The hero world has become mired in stagnation and hypocrites who become public champions for the acclaim it gives them, and no other reason- something I'm sure you can understand, yes, little Todoroki?"

The heterochromic boy's eyes narrowed before he said in a voice as sharp as an icicle, "Leave my father out of this. He has nothing to do with you holding my friend hostage."

"Hmm," the woman smiled ominously as she bounced the marble in the palm of her hand. "In any case, it has become apparent to those of us in the shadows who sympathize with Stain that the time has come for the current status quo to be torn up and remade into a field ready to receive a new era."

"What is she talking about?" Ochaco asked nervously. "Who is this woman?"

"Ah, pardon my rudeness," the woman said with a mocking inclination of her head. "I am Cinder Fall, member of the League of Villains, and follower of the Hero Killer."

"So these are the kind of people that lunatic stirred up, huh?" Todoroki muttered angrily.

"Are not revolutions started by those that the current society perceives to be madmen?" Cinder smirked. "I intend to make good use of Bakugo's power and temperament. Honestly, who among you thought that he could actually be a hero? He'll be a menace no matter what path he chooses in life. At least with us, he'll have a chance to be a useful menace."

She looked as though she was about to add more, but then her head suddenly exploded into a mud-like substance as Blake's fist emerged from behind her, and her shadow image vanished from next to Tokoyami. The rest of her body was quick to dissolve before the startled students' eyes, leaving behind the pale blue marble that contained their wounded peer.

"What was that?" the bird-headed boy asked as he bent down and retrieved the marble. "I thought she had a fire quirk." He thought that he could just make out something like a reflection of their friend inside the warm little ball, but with the waning moonlight, he couldn't be sure. He just hoped it meant that Kurai really was in there, and that they might be able to get him out.

"We'll have to figure it out later," Midoriya said hurriedly. "Obviously they were stalling to let the other guy get away! We gotta catch up if we're gonna get to Kacchan in time!"

"I'm going on ahead!" Ruby declared, only to be stopped by Blake, leading her to ask, "What?!"

"Going alone would be worse than stupid," the older girl said tightly. "Can you take me with you?"

"Yeah, but it'll be a rough landing."

"I don't care, we gotta get that guy before he gets away with whoever else is out here," Blake told her. "Without him, who knows how we're gonna get Hikari out of the marble?"

"Guys, go!" Midoriya begged them. "We'll catch up as soon as we can!"

"Right!" Ruby said as she grabbed Blake around her waist while putting herself under the other girl's left arm. "See you guys soon!"

With that, they were gone in a rush of wind and rose petals, leaving the others to try and formulate a plan that would allow them to provide backup in time to prevent the villains' escape.

"Twice, Dabi, Compress, do you read me?"

The villains being addressed paused as they stood amid the darkening woods while the taller of the two reached up and tapped the com piece lodged in his ear. "We copy, Cinder," he said. "What's going on?"

"My clone was defeated, and two of the hero kids are closing in on Compress," the woman answered. "Last I checked, they were close to where you are."

"Those kids are pretty persistent," Twice muttered. He then perked up and yelled out, "Aw, are ya kidding?! I expected Compress to get carried away with his showboating, but how'd you let a bunch a kids get the drop on you?!"

"Save it, we need to be at the extraction point in the next few minutes, or else-"

Dabi was suddenly cut off by the sound of howling winds, snapping branches, and a high-pitched girl's voice shouting, "Give us back our friends, or I'M GONNA LOSE IT!" The next thing Dabi knew, he was tasting dirt and blood in his mouth.

Ruby and Blake had caught sight of the villain calling himself 'Compress' easily enough, as the orange in his suit clashed with color of the blue flames illuminating the forest as he leaped from tree to tree. The younger heroine had then cut the brakes on her quirk, substituting the amazing control that allowed her to use her quirk so effectively for raw power that sent her and her friend on a brutal collision course with the man, knocking him out of the air and sending him plummeting to the ground.

As it just so happened, this was the spot where Dabi and Twice were stopped, putting them right in the line of fire when Ruby body-slammed Compress, and Blake wound up getting tangled with the villain dressed in the black-and-gray bodysuit. "Ow!" the man cried as he stumbled to his feet. "What's the big idea, lady?!" As soon as he was steady, he narrowed his eyes at Blake and muttered, "These are two of the students who weren't in UA last semester… They're more capable than we gave them credit for."

Meanwhile, Dabi was more or less out of the fight due to the blow he had suffered to the head, and Ruby was now punching Compress in the stomach, repeatedly. "Give them back, give them back, give them back!" she kept shouting as the man tried in vain to throw her off- apparently Ruby was stronger than her small frame would suggest.

"You-! scoundrel-! of a-! girl!" he coughed out in between her strikes. He was also trying to use his quirk on her, but he couldn't gather his thoughts well enough to make use of his powers.

"Hey, get off Compress!" Twice shouted as he tried to make a dive at Ruby, only to have Blake strike him in the head. He tried to get back at her by using some kind of flexible metal that came from his wrists and was shown to be razor-sharp when it sliced through some tree branches without any physical hesitation. The only reason Blake wasn't dead the second that it connected with her stomach was because she managed to substitute an afterimage to take the hit for her.

Just as she was about to deliver a knockout punch to Twice's jaw, a blast of blue fire drove her back, and drew her attention to Dabi, who was now back on his feet. Evidently, he was quick to recover, even from a hit like Ruby's. "Stand down, heroes," the scarred young man said flatly as he aimed a palm at the younger girl, who froze in place. "Or I'll turn you both into ashes."

Blake cursed inwardly- she was just as tired as Ruby, and it was getting hard for her to produce the shadow clones and mirages that helped her to confuse her opponents. Now they were outnumbered, and she had no idea when reinforcements would arrive. If only I had my gun!

Fortunately, help arrived sooner than expected. With a collective yell, Todoroki, Shoji, Tokoyami, and Midoriya crashed into Dabi in a similar manner to how Ruby had done only moments prior, and this time, it seemed as though he wouldn't be getting up for a while. Using Uraraka's Zero Gravity and Todoroki's fire, the group had managed to follow the American girls and could now provide relief.

Todoroki immediately sent a barrage of ice at Twice, putting a defensive wall between him and Blake in the time that it takes a person to blink. "Are you okay?!" he called over.

"I'm fine, but don't let that guy get in close!" she warned him. "He has some kind of tape blades in his wrists!"

"Is that his quirk?"

"I don't think so, it seems like a support item!"

While this was happening, the others had decided to focus on getting what they wanted from the man who had trapped their friends. "Give… Kacchan… back!" Midoriya yelled as he glared at Compress, who now looked very frightened, especially for someone wearing a full-face mask.

"Give him back?" the beaten man laughed nervously. "What an odd thing to say. Bakugo doesn't belong to anyone- he's his own perso- oof!" He was cut off as Ruby slugged him in the stomach again.

Tokoyami then moved in closer and glared down at the man with contempt as he said, "What happens next is your choice, fiend. Either you release our comrades willingly from their prisons, or I let Dark Shadow out to use you as a plaything."

If it were possible to sweat through ceramics, Compress was doing it now. "Let's… not do anything hasty," he started to say, only to have Tokoyami's beak twist into a scowl. "Alright, alright!" He flicked a marble from his sleeve and caught it between his fingers. Before Ruby could grab it, however, he threw it away from himself as hard as he could, causing the students to all shout in alarm and charge in the direction of the discarded marble. With a snap of his fingers, Compress released his hold on the two marbles, with one spitting out Kurai onto the ground behind Shoji, who immediately moved to stand over him in a protective manner. The other marble, however, released a large chunk of Todoroki's ice, leaving the lot of them bewildered at what had just happened.

"First trick of a magician's trade is sleight of hand," Compress coughed as he got to his feet. "I had the thought that you might prove a bit much for me to handle, so I took the time to prepare a couple of decoys." As he spoke, Dabi walked out from behind Todoroki's ice wave- and stood over another Dabi, the one that the boys had knocked unconscious during their entrance.

"Uh… what?!" Ruby demanded.

"Nice trick, ain't it?!" Twice called down from atop the ice. "No matter how many of you there are, I can outnumber you in seconds."

"Stop bragging, Twice," the conscious Dabi ordered. "We've got our hands full, and I'm not as durable as my original."

"My apologies," the other villain said, followed by the words, "Up yours, pyro! You should be bowing down and worshipping me as your god! You wouldn't even exist without me!"

"What is with this guy?" Shoji muttered as they eyed him warily.

"I don't know, but my guess is that he has something to do with the duplicate villain," Midoriya answered, cringing as his arms flared angrily in pain.

"It doesn't matter," Todoroki reminded them. "We still have to retrieve Bakugo, and now we gotta deal with these other guys."

"Don't forget me," a familiar voice said, accompanied by Cinder's appearance from behind the ice wall.

"And me!" chirped Toga as she skipped out from behind some trees.

"The good news just keeps coming," Blake grumbled.

"Kill 'em all," Dabi ordered the others. "Go for the injured kid, first."

The following fight was short, but furiously intense. Wounds were dealt to both sides, with no clear winner emerging by the end of it. The students had a slight number's advantage, but they were all exhausted from the day's training, and Midoriya was already badly injured, not to mention that they had to protect Kurai, who was still unconscious and slowly losing blood, even in spite of the bandages and burned tissue. The blood-crazy girl, Toga, seemed disturbingly fixated on the wounded boy, though Izuku also held her attention for a few moments.

Things finally came to a head when the portal villain, Kurogiri, appeared in order to spirit away his colleagues, who still had Bakugo in their possession. Compress was about to step through a warp gate, but a sparkling laser shot at him out of a nearby clump of bushes and struck him across the face, destroying the mask and nearly knocking him down in the process. At first everyone thought that Kurai must have recovered enough to get in a surprise attack, but it turned out to be Aoyama, who had been hiding nearby with an unconscious Jiro and Hagakure, waiting for the right moment to strike.

His gambit nearly worked, but the arrival of a Nomu served to drive the young heroes back long enough for Compress to release Bakugo from the marble so that Dabi could grab him by the throat and drag him through the portal to God-only-knew-where. As the villains began to make their escape, Toga told the heroes that Kurai could expect to meet her again- properly, next time, she assured them. Izuku screamed his desperation as he tried to reach out for his friend, but in the end, Bakugo told him to stay away. Then the portals closed, and the teenagers were left with aching wounds and the agony of defeat.

As Midoriya cried in pain and sorrow, Todoroki could only stare down at Kurai's bloodied stump with the thought, He sacrificed so much for someone who hates him… and it was for nothing.

The hero students had mostly congregated back at the cabin and were talking among themselves in lowered, worried tones, wondering what had become of their missing friends when the medical teams began to arrive, which consisted of a handful of ambulances and a helicopter. Several kids who had been poisoned were taken in the ambulances while the others with lighter wounds were treated by the EMT's on-site.

Kirishima was given some treatment for superficial burns that he had sustained during the flame villain's attack, but he was a lot better off than some of the others, such as Yaoyorozu, who had been brought in by Awase of class B with a severe head injury. Mina was with him to keep him company when they heard shouts of surprise coming from closer to the trees.

Fearing another villain attack, and without a clear line of sight, the students braced themselves for another fight, but Aizawa waved them all back as he ran across the open area. "What's going on?!" Kirishima called out.

"Everyone, calm down!" Iida shouted to be heard above the noise as EMT personnel followed the Erasure Hero. "It's just the other students returning! There's no danger!" This filled them all with a measure of relief, Mina in particular, whose shoulders sagged as she released a breath that she didn't realize that she had been holding.

"Well, that's good," Kirishima laughed as he sat back down on the steps that they had been occupying. Turning to his friend, he added, "Told ya there's nothing to worry about. Hikari's gonna be here as soon as the med teams finish examining him."

"Yeah," she said heavily with a wobbly smile. "Thank God."

Just as she had said this, however, there was a shout of alarm from one of the medics, and the people who had been remaining on standby at the helicopter surged forward, shouting for everyone to clear the way. Seeing this, Kirishima frowned and turned to ask Kaminari what was happening, since he had slightly better view of proceedings than they did.

"Not totally sure, but it looks like Midoriya busted himself up pretty bad," the electric boy cringed. "They might be airlifting him."

"Do you see Kurai?" Mina asked worriedly.

"No- Wait, yeah," the blond boy nodded. "Uh… They're putting him on stretcher, and it looks like there's blood on his shirt."

Just like that, Mina's stomach dropped again, and she clambered to her feet as she asked, "How bad is it?"

"I can't tell from this distance, but it looks like the EMT's are freaking out," Kaminari said as he paled a few shades. "Yeah, a few of them look pretty worried."

"I've gotta get over there," Mina said as she started forward, only to be blocked by another medic.

"Sorry, kid," she said with a shake of her head. "We gotta let them do their job without interference."

"Please, ma'am, that's my boyfriend!" Mina begged. "I won't get in the way, I just wanna know what's going on!"

The woman hesitated before she pulled up her radio and asked, "Aiko, what's the status of the wounded on your end? My hands are free if you need assistance."

"Yes, please," said the other person, sounding rushed. "We're airlifting a student in critical condition, and we need help with the others who have been wounded."

The woman held up a hand to forestall any movements from Mina while saying, "Can you please verify the ID of the student in critical condition? I've got family concerned about the status of…?" She looked at the students pointedly, prompting Kirishima to speak quickly.

"Kurai Hikari, ma'am."

"…a student named Hikari."

There was pause before Aiko said, "Yes, it's Hikari. Tell the family that we'll be airlifting him to Hosu General, no passengers."

"I'm on my way," the woman nodded as she started to move. Over her shoulder, she said, "You heard him, no passengers. Sorry, but that's all I can do for you. You need to stay put."

"But-!"

"Ashido, you heard her," Kirishima said as he and Kaminari moved to prevent the pink girl from chasing after the woman. Even in spite of the worry on his face, the redhead gave her a smile and said, "He's tough. Whatever's happened, I'm sure he'll pull through."

"Dude's tougher than any of us," Kaminari agreed.

"Ashido?" a familiar voice called from up ahead, causing the three of them to turn around. "Is Ashido around here?"

"Todoroki?!" Kirishima called out. "Is that you, man? Ashido's over here!" There was a bustling of movement that ended when a familiar mop of red-and-white hair shoved his way through the throng of students. He looked tired and dirty, but there were no visible injuries, which is probably why he was able to slip past the EMT's so quickly, Kirishima thought. "Hey man, what's going on? The medics were saying that-"

"What happened to Kurai?" Mina interrupted as she stepped closer to the heterochromic boy. "They said he's in critical condition!" Her eyes were wide, and she was clearly close to panic.

Todoroki looked at her with defeated eyes before he said, "Kaminari, Kirishima, can you give us a minute?" Once they had moved to do as he asked, as well as turn away any of the other students who had wanted to know what was going on from the boy, he stepped a little closer to Mina and said, "I'm sorry, Ashido. Hikari is alive, but we couldn't protect him. He's…" The young man faltered, an uncharacteristic catch in his throat as he looked into Mina's watering eyes.

"What happened, Todoroki? Why is Kurai being taken away so fast that I can't even go check on him?" Her voice was quavering, and he could see just how close she was to a breakdown- how much she had been worrying about him this whole time.

And now, this? he thought despondently. Even so, he knew that she needed to hear what had happened, no matter how much it hurt to admit just how badly they had been defeated. So he drew in a breath and said, "We encountered a violent villain in the forest. We tried to defeat him together, but he was too persistent, and in the end, only Hikari had the strength to take him down before he killed Bakugo, but it cost him. It all happened so fast, that I… He…" Todoroki hesitated one last time before he made himself tell the truth. "The villain cut off most of his right arm. He lost a lot of blood before I-" His eyes wandered down to his left hand as he shuddered, and he was barely able to say, "We slowed the bleeding down, but that was all I could do… I'm sorry, Ashido." He looked ready to cry, which was shocking enough on its own, but Mina hardly even noticed that.

All she could see at the end of her tunnel vision was Kurai, having finally been given a clear line of sight as they loaded him into the helicopter, covered in blood and pale enough to resemble a corpse. Her leg muscles tensed up in preparation to run after him, forget what any of the medical professionals had told her. She needed to get to him, to-

"Ashido." She felt a familiar presence beside her, one that had often been accompanied by a restraining scarf over the last few days, but not this time. All Aizawa did was lay a firm hand on her shoulder and say, "There's nothing you can do for him, and I can't have you causing a scene now, of all times. I'm sorry."

"But… I-"

"I'll make sure that you're one of the first people to see him at the hospital, even if I have to drive you myself," the scruffy man said to cut her off. "I'm sure that seeing you will do him some good- and he's going to need all the good he can get in the days to come. For now, I'll ask that you be patient, just like everyone else." When he was sure that she wasn't about to run after the boy, who was now in a helicopter with whirring blades, Aizawa moved away to speak with Vlad and Mandalay, the latter of whom looked incredibly worried.

As the aerial vehicle began to take off, buffeting those nearby with the gusts of wind, Mina nearly fell over, her body having stopped responding to her commands, only to be caught up by someone much taller than she. "Iida?" she asked dumbly, still feeling as though her limbs were weighted with lead. She noticed with only the barest of interest that the class rep was crying freely as he helped her to sit down.

"Can't have you injuring yourself," he said in a shaky voice. "Kurai would never forgive me if you got hurt while I was around."

At long last, Mina began to weep and groan out her grief, and as she did, Iida joined her in her misery and fear as they both hoped and prayed that their dear friend would live. He has to live, she thought as she held on to Iida with an unreasoning desperation. I can't imagine this world without Kurai in it!

Chargebolt: Damn! Wasn't expecting that!

Red Riot: Isn't that pretty much how it went in the original storyline?

Mataras: Technically, yes. We had Tokoyami able to help the people in the forest this time, but because of Dabi and Cinder, he really wouldn't have been able to do much, even in the nighttime. Plus Kurai got taken hostage after being wounded, so there goes the biggest gun that would have been able to put things more in your friends' favor.

Red Riot: What about Rose and Belladonna?! They were there, too!

Mataras: True, but they were worn out, and Twice was a little more trigger happy when it came to making clones once he realized that they were outnumbered.

Chargebolt: Man, we can't catch a break! I totally thought that you were gonna bring Bakugo home, especially after what Hikari went through to keep him safe!

Mataras: That's kinda the point, you know? Getting people's hopes up, only to dash them back into the dirt? Any good writer knows how to do it.

Red Riot: Tooting your own horn and treating your characters bad isn't very manly, dude.

Mataras: It's my job to make characters like you more manly, mate. can't do that without some serious trial by fire.

Chargebolt: Ha! Trial by fire. Like the fire you got roasted with, Kirishima.

Mataras: Oh, yeah, Ha!

Red Riot: Okay, I see your point, but I have a question.

Mataras: Shoot.

Red Riot: Why are we doing the segment all of a sudden? Isn't this Midoriya and Hikari's thing?

Mataras: They're each taking a sick day today, so I figured you guys would like the chance to provide some commentary.

Chargebolt: You're not wrong, but I kinda feel like that makes us B-list understudies or something...

Mataras: ...Moving on.

Red Riot: Hey!

Mataras: Next time- Because of This

Chargebolt: Go Beyond!

Red Riot: Plus Ultra!

Next time on Your Hero Academia: Survival...

"Dear?" Moka Hogo-sha widened her eyes in alarm as her husband stood up from where he had been sitting by their younger son's bedside, pale and jaw locked as his hands shook while he pocketed his phone. "What's wrong?" The last time he had looked like this, he had been on the receiving end of the news that his brother had died in the line of duty.

"That was Eraserhead," he answered numbly. "The camp was attacked by the League of Villains."

"What?!" Despite the alarm clutching deep at her gut, she kept her voice down, not wanting to wake Akarui after he had fallen into a peaceful slumber. "Is Kurai okay? A-And the other students?"

Her husband was silent for a few seconds before he slowly shook his head in the negative, and Moka felt her stomach drop into a yawning chasm. "It's bad, Moka," he said grimly. "One of the students was kidnapped by the League, but it seems they want him alive, so we might be able to get him back. I have to get to the office to get the manhunt started- the League is now being recognized as an official terrorist organization instead of just a local gang. It's a national-level threat, now."

"Kurai," Moka said stubbornly, having noticed that he was avoiding the subject of their child. "What happened to him? Where is our son?"

"On his way to here to the hospital," he answered flatly, appearing drained of nearly all his vitality. "A villain got him in the forest. Eraser didn't have time to get me all the details, but from what I understand, Kurai put himself between a classmate and a villain, and now he's injured seriously enough that they're flying him out."

"How seriously?"

"…I need to make a call."