AN: Enjoy!

Chapter 10 - Mirko, the Rabbit Hero

His survival instincts kicked in in that life and death moment and his body no longer held back any of its strength. With adrenaline coursing through his veins, his claws stabbed into Nomu's forearm, directly severing his arm in half!

Naruto's normal, human-like blue eyes transformed into the red and slit eyes of a fox and a third tail burst from his lower back through the already tattered fabric of his top. An animalistic growl came from his throat as he threw himself at the nightmarish creature in front of him. It was the hysterical assault of a cornered beast. Obscene amounts of blood splattered everywhere as whole chunks of flesh and muscle were gouged out and ripped off by his deadly claws. It was as if he had become a beast too.

Guided by his killing instincts, Naruto stabbed his clawed right hand straight into Nomu's chest, piercing its heart and even ripping through its spinal cord, piercing out through the back. That vicious attack would have killed any other being... ...except for Nomu. The creature's chest muscles suddenly contracted and Naruto's arm was trapped within its body.

Although he was not fully conscious, instinctually, sensing his impending doom, he started stabbing the creature with his other hand desperately. But it was too late to salvage the situation. When the bioengineered creature grabbed him by his immobilized arm, even through his hysteria-induced haze, Naruto understood at that moment: it was game over for him. With a savage roar, Nomu pulled out Naruto's arm from its chest and then, holding him by the forearm, the creature smashed him brutally into the ground.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Even with the increased durability of his second awakening, by the time Nomu finally let go of him, the blond felt as though every single bone in his body had been broken. His muscles weren't listening to him, it was as if he had been paralyzed. He could only slightly move his head and look up at the creature that was slowly walking towards him with heavy steps.

Before going berserk, Naruto had put Nomu on the backfoot in their fight only because of his exceptional martial arts prowess and mastery of weapons. In particular, the ingenious way in which he had used his metallic wires and kunai like a spiderweb to bounce around unpredictably, like a pinball, had allowed him to even almost kill the creature.

However, letting himself be led by his feral instincts had been his downfall. Even with his second awakening, between the two of them, Nomu was still physically superior and far more durable. Nomu had been created specifically to counter All Might, the Number 1 Hero. Taking Naruto's martial arts, weapons skills, and fight IQ out of the equation had reduced him to a frenzied beast not much different than Nomu - a mindless beast. In a battle between two mindless beasts, when no skill and technique were involved, it was only natural for the stronger and more durable beast to win - in this case, Nomu.

As adrenaline left his system and agonizing pain flooded his senses, Naruto regained his lucidity.

Awakening one's quirk was already an extremely rare occurrence. Awakening twice and in quick succession no less? - that was unheard of, it was a miracle. But even miracles had their limits. His body's reserves of energy and stamina had been completely depleted. A third awakening was impossible, Naruto was innately aware of that. He was no longer a jinchuuriki like in his past life when he could pull a win out of his ass by letting the demon inside him fight for him either. There was nothing else that he could do anymore.

'Mom. Dad.'

As his eyesight started to get blurry, his mind went to his family.

'I wish I could see them one more time.'

In his past life, he had been an orphan. For the majority of his admittedly short life, most people hated and shunned him. He had not known the warmth of a mother's hug, the bliss that came with being loved, the joy of having a loving and caring father or the happiness of belonging to a family.

In his current life, he had not appreciated his blessings, not until he had regained the memories. But after his eyes were opened, he had done everything in his power to show his mother and father how much he loved them. Nonetheless, only one year had passed since his memories had been awakened.

'I wish I had had more time with them...'

One year was far from enough.

'I don't want to die.'

The thought of never seeing his parents again made him tear up. But even in that tragic moment, Naruto did not think twice about using his chains. He would rather die than cause his parents to become fugitives or to be killed.

Finally arriving at his prone form, Nomu grabbed him by the collar of his ruined shirt and lifted him up. One of his arms and more than half of his ribs were broken and he was in so much pain that he could not even stand on his feet. But he could still move his head; with the last of his strength, Naruto sank his fox-like fangs into Nomu's fingers.

The creature shrieked as the boy's strong jaws tore half of its hand apart, forcing it to drop him to the ground.

Until the very last moment, Naruto refused to give up. Until he drew his last breath, he would struggle. His entire body was broken, battered, bruised, and he was covered in blood from head to toes. He looked miserable, at death's door. Even so, he would fight to survive with everything he had, like a cockroach.

⁂

When she smashed open the large doors of the immense training facility, Mirko had not known what to expect... ...but she had definitely not expected to see over two dozen villains lying on the ground unconscious or moaning in pain from their injuries.

Her attention quickly shifted towards the only standing people she could see. A silver-haired young man with severed human hands grabbing onto his body and a huge and muscular purple-skinned humanoid that was soaked with blood.

'I won't make it in time!' she thought urgently when she saw the huge creature grabbing a boy from the ground and lifting him up in the air.

The boy was also covered in blood from head to toes and a bone was sticking out of his right arm. He appeared unresponsive, almost as if he was dead. But, suddenly, the creature let out a shriek as the seemingly dead boy sank his teeth into its hand, crushing and ripping apart the fingers clenched around his shirt.

Mirko's eye widened when she saw the way the creature regenerated its torn fingers out of nothing. It only took Nomu two seconds to regrow its fingers. But those two seconds of delay were all that she needed to close in the distance and come to the boy's rescue.

"Aa~aah!" Shigaraki screamed in irritation. "Pro Heroes are already here, and one of the top 10 too. Argh, this pisses me off! Where is All Might? He was supposed to be here! After all the preparations we've made!"

Scratching his neck with his nails until he almost got bloodied, Shigaraki let out another deranged scream. But then, his mood abruptly changed, becoming calm. "It's over for us. If one hero has arrived, more are bound to arrive soon. We can't win against a dozen pro Heroes. Oh well. It doesn't matter anymore. We'll get another chance. Kurogiri, let's leave."

A vortex of dark purple light appeared next to him as the villain in question manifested at his side.

"Wait. Before we leave, Nomu, kill that boy. We couldn't get All Might today but it wasn't all for nought. A boy like him... ...we ought to eliminate him before it's too-"

Shigaraki couldn't finish his words before someone's shin smashed into his face. A human-shaped indentation appeared into the outer wall of the training facility as Mirko's kick sent Shigaraki flying for over a dozen metres until he crashed painfully into the wall.

"Shigaraki Tomura!" Kurogiri yelled in panic as he teleported himself to the location where Shigraki had been blasted off.

"You've got some guts talking about killing people while I am here!" she said.

But she could not pursue the two of them because the hulking monstrosity rushed at the prone form of the boy on the ground, faithfully following its master's orders, to finish him off.

Nomu cocked back its fist, about to smash the boy into a bloody paste when Mirko's kick landed on the side of its face, from the back, and made it stumble.

The rabbit hero narrowed her eyes when she saw that Nomu was largely unaffected by her kick. The strength of her legs was great enough to easily shatter even reinforced concrete!

'Fast!' she thought startled when Nomu changed its target and suddenly lunged at her.

She successfully dodged the beast's wild swing by ducking down but its punch had been carrying so much power that the wind pressure accompanying it had still taken Mirko off her feet and flung her into the distance.

The Rabbit Hero was still in mid-air when Nomu appeared above her and bringing its two fists together, it smashed them down into its enemy like a hammer. Blood and spittle burst from Mirko's mouth as Nomu's hammer fists smashed into her stomach and a deafening explosion boomed as her body crashed painfully into the ground, smashing the concrete floor into a crater.

'S-Such power!'

The dark-skinned woman let out a groan and threw up another mouthful of blood as she crawled out of the crater and tried to stand up on her feet. Thanks to her Quirk, she could tolerate the insane amount of pain but that didn't change the fact that her body was in a terrible condition.

'It was just one hit!'

She threw up blood again. None of her bones had been broken but the impact had caused her grievous internal damage. The sleeve of her sweatshirt became stained with red as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

"I'm not done yet," she said and laughed. "I'm only getting warmed up!" she yelled.

The strong muscles of her thighs bulged and the ground beneath her feet cracked as she threw herself at Nomu. The creature met her charge with a shriek and punched explosively, the wind pressure carried by its punch raising clouds of dust and debris in the air.

But when Nomu's fist crashed against Rumi's body, it lost its equilibrium and stumbled. Its punch went right through her body! Or, better said, what Nomu had hit was an afterimage.

"Luna Ring!" she yelled as her roundhouse kick smashed into Nomu's head and actually lifted the creature off its feet, sending it tumbling through the air like a ragdoll.

Mirko did not even wait for Nomu to crash into the ground before she launched herself at it once more.

"Luna Spear!" she yelled and the creature had yet to land when her foot smashed into its spine, sending it flying once more.

As Nomu was kicked upwards, with a mighty jump, the Rabbit Hero appeared above the creature and, lifting her foot above her head, she yelled as she smashed her heel into Nomu's brain like an axe:

"Luna Arc!"

Nomu's body made another massive crater into the ground from the vicious axe kick that had smashed it down. The crater became even deeper and a powerful shockwave blasted outwards when Mirko let herself fall from the air and panted both of her feet into the Nomu's head, just as it was about to get up. It was one of her most powerful finishing moves - "Luna Fall".

By now, the floor of the training facility looked as if it had been carpet-bombed from above, that's how devastated it was.

"Bastard!" the rabbit girl involuntarily let out a cruse when she saw Nomu walking out of the crater.

She could not believe that the creature was still standing! That succession of kicks was one of her most powerful combos, one that she rarely ever got to use on villains; it was so strong that it would have killed anyone else. She had given her all!

What Rumi did not know, however, was that Nomu was, in fact, greatly weakened. Naruto had gouged out and slashed at his flesh more than 200 times using his kunai and metallic wires and he had even obliterated the creature's heart after his second awakening had made him go berserk. Nomu had lost so much blood that the ground all around was painted red. The creature had regenerated so many times from its deadly wounds that it had run out of stamina. If Nomu had been at its 100%, Mirko would have had an even more terrible time against it.

"Rabbit-san," she heard a weak and raspy voice calling to her.

Turning her head towards the voice, Mirko was surprised to see that the one who was calling her was the same fox boy that had torn apart Nomu's hand by biting on it.

"He-... he has a shock absorption quirk," Naruto spoke with difficulty.

His lungs must've been injured by his broken ribs because he was gasping for air as if he was suffocating.

"There is-... one kunai. In my pouch, left thigh. Take it. Cut him down. Kill-"

He coughed and gasped loudly.

"Kill the bastard!" he said with the last of his strength. Finally, devoid of all energy, he lost consciousness.

Due to the large amount of trauma it had suffered and because of how much stamina it had lost, Nomu took a longer time to regenerate its wounds this time around - Mirko had used her entire strength when she had axe-kicked it in the brain. That heel kick to the brain had almost finished off the creature.

And Mirko took advantage of that brief respite to rush at the boy and do as he had asked her.

'How did he even fight against this creature and damage it so terribly before I arrived?' she absent-mindedly asked herself when she finally took notice of the huge amount of blood staining the ground in all the places devoid of craters.

But she did not waste her time thinking about that. Moving one of the boy's three fox tails away, Mirko opened the pouch strapped to his left thigh and grabbed the last kunai remaining. She was about to get up when she noticed that he also had a smoke grenade hanging from his belt. It looked dented and its pin was bent from when Nomu had repeated smashed Naruto into the ground but, miraculously, it had not gone off.

'This could be useful!' she thought as she grabbed the smoke grenade from his belt too.

Turning around, she noticed that Nomu had just about finished regenerating all of its wounds. She hurriedly pulled out the bent pin of the smoke grenade and tossed it at the feet of the creature. A dense cloud of black smoke burst from the grenade, obscuring the creature's sight.

Having dealt with Naruto using the same tactic only a few minutes before, Nomu reacted right away and smashed its palms together into a clap with such strength that the shockwave it generated blasted apart the smoke like a tornado.

However, clapping its hands had left Nomu wide-open to her attack. As an experienced hand-to-hand combat specialist, Mirko was not one to miss capitalizing on such an opportunity. In a burst of speed that made her invisible to the naked eye, Mirko appeared behind Nomu's back like a ghost and threw herself at its head. But, this time around, she did not smash the beast with her explosive kicks. Instead, she jumped with her knees on Nomu's shoulders and her exceptionally strong thighs suddenly gripped its head tightly. Letting a battle cry of exertion, Mirko suddenly twisted her body and snapped Nomu's head to the back!

Suspecting that even having its neck twisted would not be enough to put down the beast for good, Mirko also grabbed the handle of the kunai with both hands and stabbed downwards with her entire strength, straight into the creature's exposed brain, to the hilt.

The bestial screams of agony coming from the creature's throat had almost made Mirko go deaf but she did not back down. She continued to bury the kunai's blade into Nomu's brain relentlessly, mercilessly. Blood burst out like a geyser and splattered her clothes, face, hair, and ears every time she stabbed the creature's brain. At that moment, she looked like a deranged psychopath.

Eventually, Nomu's screams died down and its violently shaking and quivering body came to a stop. At last, the creature was dead.

Right as Nomu's lifeless body collapsed, a large group of Pro Heroes that responded to the emergency summons arrived. Mirko finally allowed herself to relax and blew out a sigh of relief.

The Rabbit Hero was the kind of strong-willed woman that never backed down from a fight, especially when innocent people's lives were on the line. That had been the case in the present as well, she had put her own life at risk and fought with everything she had against the creature. But she could not deny how exhausted and wounded her body was. Nomu had been the strongest villain she had ever fought against, this had been the toughest fight of her entire life. She was relieved that other heroes have arrived at the scene to rescue the rest of the students.

"Ah, I'm beat," she said.

However, before she could rest, she yelled to the heroes that had just arrived:

"Hey! You there! We need an ambulance asap. One of the students is grievously injured!"

Getting a verbal acknowledgement from them, she finally climbed down from the creature's corpse. As she walked away, she felt as though she had lead in her feet. Coming to the unconscious blond boy on the ground, she plopped herself down next to him and leaned back on her hands, letting her long legs stretch.

Although she knew that the fox boy could not hear her, Mirko said: "Thanks for the help, kid. I couldn't have done it without you."

Then, that fierce and confident smile on her face, the wide grin that she had become known for softened when she looked at the grievous wounds he had suffered, particularly at the broken bone sticking out of his right arm.

"What a tough kid. Didn't give up until the very end," she murmured when she recalled how the boy had used his teeth to tear off Nomu's hand and how he had struggled to tell her to use his knife despite that he could not even breathe well, ultimately driving himself unconscious.

"Don't you dare die on me, boy," Mirko said and patted him once on the head. "You have to live. You're gonna be one hell of a Pro Hero once you graduate. Don't give up. Live!"