Melissa Shield is staring at her.
That much, Suzume knows.
She has been ever since she joined up with the group of girls who had come with Yaomomo, while the boys did silly competitions and Bakugou threatened everyone in sight.
Suzume is.
Not unused to being stared at these days. Or ever, really, although the reasoning for the staring has been changing more and more over the last few months. She doesn't always get recognized outside of her school uniform. Black hair and black eyes in Japan are about the most common combination there is, and while she knows there's a little bit of French in her now too her mother's always looked mostly Japanese, and with her children there's no way to tell they're anything but.
Even before being someone who stirred up TV she was also someone who stirred up trouble wherever she went, constantly getting into fights and gaining a reputation at her schools not only for being trouble, but also for being quirkless.
And Suzanna Hemmings was a dramatic ass bitch.
So no.
Suzume is not unused to being stared at, but the way Melissa looks at her is nervous. A furrow in her brow and worry in her bright blue eyes.
Suzume does her best to ignore it.
If Melissa has something to say, she'll say it.
So Suzume ignores her attention, and when they come across something that looks like advanced laser tag she goes and signs up with the boys, and leaves Melissa to watch with Yaomomo, Jiro, and Ururaka while Suzume, Bakugou, Kirishima, Iida, Midoriya, and Shouto all suit up in vests and wrist bands and holsters.
It's a veritable massacre.
It takes Suzume all of five minutes to shoot down everyone else in the room, and she's hasn't even taken a 'scratch' from it.
"Maybe I should get a gun," she muses, looking down at the laser pistol in her hands. She could, japan has pretty strict laws but heroes are technically a type of law enforcement and if she takes certain classes and gets a license she's eligible to carry one.
Snipe holds them every fall, he'd put up posters for a sign up before they broke for summer, and she's sure at least a few other students will show up. But she could do very well in that class. She's good with a gun.
As long as it's not a fake one.
(She misses the way Kirishima blanches at the idea and Bakugou down a very snappy about-face to avoid looking at the girl. She's scary enough without a firearm, thank you. )
Suzume reluctantly hands back the laser pistol to the employee, who cheerfully gives her a coupon for a free sunday as a prize for winning today. She's a little disappointed. She'd been eying the little Gatomon key chain hanging on the prize wall. Digimon are still around, and that scrappy cat was her favorite.
Nevertheless Suzume accepts it and tucks it away, where it won't get lost, before she joins up with the others.
"I think it's about time for us to head back to the hotel and get changed," she figures, hooking her arm with Kirishima's and her other with Shinsou, who had decided he'd rather play a basketball game than laser tag with the rest of them. .
"Oh yeah? We'll meet with you later then, around seven right?" Yaomomo asks, looking up from a little guide book she found somewhere.
"Sounds like a plan. Don't forget to give Kaminari those extra tickets. He's going to freak," she jokes, her mouth curved in a crooked smile.
"We won't. Try not to get lost along the way, won't you?"
Suzume sniffs. "I've never been lost once in my life."
Yaomomo smiles indulgently at her, and she tugs the boys away with her. Along the way Bakugou falls into step with them, his hands stuffed in his pockets. He looks oddly shifty for a boy who's such a bizarre mix between straight laced, never-skipped-class-in-his-life and temperamental asshole.
The four of them make their way back to the hotel, passing massive hologram shows that are slowly fading as they reach the end of preview day. The musicians are playing slow songs, their uniforms are unkempt and sweaty from a hard days work. Food vendors are packing up and restaurants are making last calls. High above them the sun is dipped so low she can't see it over the high metal walls, and violet and deep indigo creeps across the sky from the east.
It drags with it a blanket of stars and cool ocean air.
The night is starting to quiet, but her pulse still beats loud.
There's a chance that she's remembering things wrong. Her memories are fuzzy at best and people are fickle and change all the time.
But.
She hasn't been wrong yet.
So she climbs the steps like a woman walking into a fight, and rides the elevator quietly, sandwiched between the three.
Or maybe not sandwiched.
Taco'd? Gyro'd? Hot Dogged?
No, that last one sounds like a sex thing.
Suzume shakes her head and the all step out together and go to their room, where the AC buzzes in the corner and cheery ice cream parlor colors on the walls greet them. The boys trudge off to get out of their hero costumes and cleaned up.
Bakugou takes the liberty of flopping on the bed, and Suzume has to resist the urge to be petty and go flop on top of his stomach. With his arms behind his head and his eyes closed, he looks open to attack and she is nothing if not a little sister.
"Are you going to sleep through the party?" she teases instead.
He scoffs at her. "Why would I want to go some stupid party? It's just gonna be a bunch of old fucks giving dusty speeches. Besides, I didn't bring anything fancy to wear."
Kirishima pokes his head in, still dressed in his Red Riot uniform.
"Then its a good thing I brought some for you!"
"You what?" Bakugou opens his eyes to scowl at him, while Suzume and Kirishima look victorious.
"We figured you'd try to come up with an excuse to ditch the party," Suzume says with a crooked little smile. "So Kirishima packed a suit for you."
"You're gotta be kidding me!" He sits bolt upright to yell at Kirishima, who just laughs at him and tosses the clothes his way.
"Hurry up! We don't want to let the others make their grand entrance without us."
"Yeah," Suzume agrees. "I'd hate to see you get shown up by Midoriya or Shouto."
Bakugou's cheek twitches at the mention of his little rivals.
"Fine! Get the hell out and I'll put on your stupid suit!"
Suzume and Kirishima duck out in time to hear him swearing about 'creepy fucks know my size!' and she shuts the door in time to hear something soft hit it. His shirt probably.
"That boy…" Suzume shakes her head at him. Kirishima snickers.
"He's not that bad now that we've mellowed him out."
Shinsou comes out of the bathroom in a nice suit. His long sleeved shirt is a deep shade of eggplant and his vest is pale white. He has a little white bowtie snug around his neck.
He looks cute, all and all, with his cloud of wild violet hair and his eternally sleepy look.
Like a tuxedo cat.
Kirishima goes into the bathroom after him, his own clothes and towel draped over one arm, and Shinsou is stuck snapping his cuffs together while the shower runs.
Suzume waits her turn patiently, texting Spinner and Dusty as she does. They want to meet up when she gets back, before she goes off to summer camp, but she's fairly certain she won't have time for that. Sad but true, she likes those boys.
Nothing will ever compare the barely restrained shock on Shigaraki Tomura's face when she showed up and announced herself to be the person he'd been gaming with for months.
She hadn't acknowledge the fact that he'd once tried to kill her and she had broken uh. Several bones of his in the process. He had his face covered when they first met, so she could just pretend she had no idea that she knew who he was until his patience eventually snapped and he confronted her about it.
That didn't happen though.
Instead he put up with her scrappy self and didn't ruin the day for Spinner, who despite someone being an asshole, had seemed to have a ball.
He was cute, her excited lizard pal.
She definitely was hanging out with him more often.
Eventually.
If she could.
She tagged out with Kirishima and got dressed.
The weird bullet proof spanx that she pulled on were the same shade as her skin, and unless someone looked close they wouldn't realize she was wearing them. They pushed her chest up flatteringly, but that was covered completely by the top half of her dress. The mulberry crop top is covered in elegant gold leaves that surround a royal patterned spear tip that points down and two others that curve in from either side. The leave-lace patterning wraps around the neckline like a necklace that drips down over her collarbone, and trails down her spine to gather once more at her lower back.
The same pattern decorated the inside of the backdropped skirt that she tugs on after, pulling the zipper up. The skirt is wide enough that she can move, and it swirls around her knees and the back of her ankles when she spins.
Suzume braids her bangs back and sweeps her hair into a tight ballet bun that tames her spikes admirably. Through the bun she spears a black lacquered hair stick with a small gold butterfly hanging from the end by the chain.
The thin seal where the two halves meet is hidden by her hair, concealing it from anyone who might recognize that there's a knife hidden inside.
Around her wrist she wraps a long gold coated steel cord several times, giving it the look of flippy bangles. And, because she can, she dabs a dusting of amber eye shadow on.
Then she pulls on a pair of small black gloves with little bows on the back and wedge heeled dress boots.
Suzume walks out, feeling odd and out of place, but almost pretty.
It turns out crop tops suit her, in a strange way.
She stops when she realizes that the three boys are staring at her.
Her heel clicks on the tiled floor when she steps back, from their intent gazes, a purse to her lips.
"What?" she demands. She knows she doesn't normally dress like this, but they're all in suits too!
"Nothing," Kirishima hurriedly assures her. Bakugou is stuck tying his tie, apparently, his eyes fixes on the gold lace around her neck. "You just uh. You look nice?"
"Oh." Suzume can feel warmth crawl up her cheeks and under her ribs.
"...thanks? You do too. I like the suit."
All three of them looked nice, actually. Damn pretty boys.
"Yeah, thanks," Kirishima rubs the back of his neck awkwardly.
"Let's go already!" Bakugou, apparently done with his tie, makes for the door. He clearly expects the other three too follow him and… well, who are they to disagree?
"He's always this loud?" Shinsou asks, staring at Bakugou's back.
"Oh, he's been pretty tame today," Suzume argued.
Shinsou looks mildly horrifed.
They make their way to the towers where the party is. There are three massive spires that rise out of the ground towards the sky and glitter with metal and lights, and in the middle is another, larger circular building that reaches even higher into the night. The four buildings connect here and there with bridges from one to the other.
They enter in a slow line, letting the security system register them as guests for the party.
Suzume mentally looks at the camera's, the scanners, and the little wandering robots and on old instinct starts going over all the ways she could get past the intense security around them and escape the building with whatever it is she's looking for.
Not that she's looking for anything, but Suzanna Hemmings was her mothers daughter.
The reception hall is in the center tower on the second floor. The directions are easy.
But.
Kirishima is leading them, and somehow they end up completely lost.
"We're lost," Shinsou announces.
"We better not be! Where are you leading us?" Bakugou demands, kicking at Kirishima, who just ribs the back of his neck sheepishly.
"I thought this was the right way, okay?"
Suzume gives him a funny look.
"We're not even on the right floor."
"How can you tell what floor we're on? All the hallways look the same," Shinsou points out.
"The airpressure is different here than it is on the ground floor," she says simply.
They stop at a door that swings open to reveal a wide stretch of greenery. A garden.
"See? We're on the 80th floor."
"How the hell did we end up up here?!"
Suzume and Shinsou wander into the garden, a little ways away. It's rich with oxygen and the air is heavy with moisture. Fake sunlight shines down from the ceiling, feeding the plants around them.
"My brother would love this place," Suzume muses.
"The farmer?"
"Yeah, Satomi," she nods at Shinsou. Kirishima and Bakugou wander a little ways away from them, when the elevator dings and opens.
Two men, one short and squat and the other tall and lanky, wander out of it. They're dressed in combat clothes. And Suzume isn't sure if she's relieved or disappointed to be right.
"Hey!" shouts the taller one, "We see you, stupid kids."
Suzume scowls, but it's Bakugou who bristles.
"What'd you say you bastard?"
Kirishima loops his arm around Bakugou shoulder, pull him close. Suzume can barely hear him say, "Hey c'mon man, don't be like that."
The squat man looks the four of them over.
"You kids aren't supposed to be here. What are you doing up here?"
Bakugou ignores Kirishima. "Ha, thats' what I wanna know!"
" Hey man, just let me handle this. Um, we kinda got lost looking for the party? Can you point us in the right direction?"
Kirishima tries to placate them, but it does no good. The tall man's glove splits open to reveal a funnel instead of a normal hand.
"Don't lie to me!" he snarls, and flings his arm at Kirishima. Compressed air roars at him.
"Hey-"
"Shit-"
"What the fuck?!"
A huge wall of ice erupts before them, shielding Kirishima from the blast. Their classmates come tumbling out of the bushes nearby and Suzume runs towards them, her boots beating on the ground, with Shinsou at her heels.
"Suzume," Shouto looks at her, relief in his mis-matched eyes. "We were looking for you guys earlier. Hurry, get going," he orders.
Before anyone can object he freezes a huge patch of ice beneath her, Shinsou, and the others and they shoot up towards the sky.
"Shit, hey!" She leans over the side, watching the ground vanish with dizzying swiftness. "Be careful!"
"We'll be fine. We'll catch up later," he promises, before they sweep up to the highest scaffolds there are.
Suzume listens with half an ear as Midoriya quickly catches Shinsou up to speed. Someone broke in to steal something and took Melissa's dad hostage to do it, and they've taken up the whole tower.
Without needing to be told, Suzume breaks into a run towards the nearest door.
She only stops long enough to grab the metal bar and leans out to shout down at the fighting boys.
"Shouto! Kirishima! Bakugou! Be careful!"
Bakugou throws her a scowl.
"Fucking move it, wasp girl. And I told you to stop calling me that!"
She blinks, startled, before she breaks into a small smile.
"Hurry the fuck up, Katsuki!"
Melissa has absolutely no idea how Yusada Suzume does it, but she manages to slip through the vents, climb the outside of the building nearly 100 stories in the air, and open a maintenance hatch for the rest of them to climb up in.
"What were you even holding on to?" Kaminari asks as he hands her back the boots she's left with him for safe keeping.
Yusada tugs them back on, and looks up at him.
"There are grooves in the metal where the plates are welded together. I held on to those. Haven't you seen me climb walls before?"
"Well, yeah, but that was crazy!"
Yusada just shrugs, like its no big deal and Melissa's heart twists tight in her chest.
Suzume looks at her, black eyes intense and brightly intelligent, and Melissa has to look away, caught staring again.
"It should be this way," she says, gesturing to the hallway.
The others fall in behind her as they enter a long hall. There are small gaps in the walls where security walls would deploy, but up this high they haven't been released yet.
They race up higher and higher, up dozens of floors before the floor shakes beneath them. Iida is in the lead, then. A few stories down she can hear explosions as the other three boys start to catch up.
Hope wells in her chest.
They will save her father. They will. But it'll be a lot easier with those three heavy hitters in their back pocket. Izuku was good, but his quirk was unwieldy, and Kaminari was strong but he couldn't direct his current. Iida was fast, but he didn't have long range attacks and-
It would just make her feel better to have more help, okay? More skills to balance out what they already had.
They're nearly to the top when-
Shit!" Jiro swears, and the walls buck and lights flash.
The walls seal themselves faster than anyone can react to block them.
Melissa turns in time to see Kirishima, Bakugou, and Todoroki appear at the top of a ladder they had just climbed out of.
And the walls close in. And robots surround them, pointing guns at all four of them.
One of them has a camera, and a loudspeaker.
"Get on your knees," it orders.
Reluctantly, her stomach so tight Melissa thinks she might throw up, she kneels. Yusada kneels beside her, and Shinsou on her other side, and Ururaka glares as she drops on Melissa's left. The camera points towards them, and Melissa relizes that there are other robots showing their friends what's happening.
They've been taken hostage.
"Give up, or we kill these four," the robot intones in a horrible, cold, unfeeling voice.
Silence in front of and behind them.
No one is fighting.
The robots point their guns at the four, and a door opens to reveal a man in combat gear carrying a machine gun in his arms.
"Alright you four. This way."
He gestures with his gun and Melissa bites her lip to keep from swearing.
They were so close. Her father…
Shinsou eyes the man.
"Who are you supposed to be?" he asks.
The man scoffs. "That's non of your business-"
He stops. His eyes go glassy and far off and Melissa suddenly remembers Shinsou's quirk.
Brainwashing.
"Put the gun down."
The man does.
"Good. Now-"
One of the bigger robots shoots.
Shinsou shouts and grabs his arm in pain.
"Shinsou!" Yusada shouts, horrified. The man breaks out of Shinsou's spell and swears viciously.
"You'll regret that!" He snarls, and swings his gun back up to smash it into Shinsou's head.
Suzume lunged for him, and he smacks her across the face. One of the robots barrels into her side and knocks her to the ground, keeping her there at gun point while the man goes over and rips a bandana off his arm to tie it tightly around Shinsou's mouth, gagging him. He produces thin ties for each of their wrists, his face twisted into an ugly snear. The bindings bite into Melissa's wrists viciously. She can see Yusada tense her muscles under the cuffs.
"We're not doing that again, you little shit. If the rest of you girls know what's good for you, get moving!" he barks.
Yusada, vengeance in her eyes, slowly stands and walks where he tells them.
The four of them are escorted to a small supply closet.
The four of them. Two girls without quirks, one boy with a mental quirk, and a girl with zero gravity.
The others are captured now too.
She can see them each being lead to different rooms by packs of robots and guards.
All of them caught because of the four of them.
The door shuts soundly behind them, and in the darkness Melissa's hope wans.
It was a hail mary to begin with, and now here they are captured just as surely as the heroes downstairs.
They've lost.
Then, Yusasa rolls her wrists and the cuffs fall off.
It takes her no time to undo Ururaka's and Melissa's, and Ururaka goes to take care of poor Shinsou while Yusada starts exploring. Melissa has never been in the storage rooms up on this floor, she has no reason too, but it looks like its set aside for catering companies. The board of directors meeting room is around here somewhere, where the windows are high enough to see the entire island beneath them.
She's shaking, Melissa realizes.
She's shaking, and Ururaka and Yusada are working. She can't tell what Yusada is doing, but Ururaka is tending to Shinsou, her jaw set and stubborn.
They're amazing.
Not fearless, no, but they don't hesitate.
"Where are we?" Shinsou asks once the gag is on the ground. His mouth is red where it bit into the tender flesh on either side of his lips.
Melissa looks around them. At the spice racks and the pickle jars and the counter. Yusada goes for the pickle jars and a rolling pin and pounds at the counter top, breaking little pieces of it with the metal utensil and beating them into a rough pile of tiny gravel.
"It's a… kitchen storage, I think? For the catering company."
Yusada grabs foil and baking soda next, and mixes everything together like the worlds weirdest hobo pocket.
"Here we go," Suzume folds something into aluminum foil and grabs a bottle of water. She pours it into a martini shaker of all things.
"What are you doing?" Ururaka asks, looking at her.
Yusada says casually, "Building a bomb."
Melissa stares at her.
"What?"
"What?" Yusada glances at her, "He asked, and that's what I'm working on. Luckily they put in a room with marble counters, baking soda, and tin foil."
"Right," Shinsou drawls, staring at her, "so are we gonna bake our way out?"
Yusada rolls her eyes.
Melissa realizes belatedly that Yusada has been mixing chemicals.
"Don't be ridiculous. I just need water and... we're ready!" Yusada pops the lid off a water bottle and pours it slowly into the martini shaker with the tin foil.
It's a crude, unmeasured chemical composition.
"Marble mixed with baking soda gives you sodium carbonate," Yusada tells them, "mixed with left over calcium hydroxide from the pickling lime gives you lye, and lye mixed with aluminum gives you sodium. And if you mix sodium with water it gives you a coulomb explosion."
Shinsou stares at her.
"…you just built a bomb out of aluminum foil, baking soda, and pickle juice?"
Yusada folds up another pouch of aluminum foil and tucks that into her skirt, along with a ketchup packet of all things.
"Yeah pretty much."
Melissa hurries to push over a shelf and give them some cover while Suzume pushes the bomb in front of the door.
"If we had a microwave or a camera I would have made an EMP gun, but this will work. Once we're out we need to move fast, okay?"
The three of them nod.
"This is going to make a lot of smoke. Try not to breath much of it in. We'll use that to take them by surprise."
Another nod.
The explosion takes the door clean off its hinges and singes Melissa's hair.
The three heroes bust out, with Melissa hot on their heels.
She just barely sees Yusada leap and tackle a man from behind her, her gold bracelet wrapped around his neck like a noose. It chokes him quickly, cutting his air off while Ururaka flips another guard over and breaks his arm behind him. Shinsou takes down another one and Melissa rushes to override the door locks and free their companions.
The door slides open and Izuku comes barelling out, ready for a fight.
He's not the only one.
Todoroki breaks out and freezes every robot in the hallway in one smooth move that leaves Melissa feeling dazzled.
"Melissa!" Izuku looks her over quickly. "Are you okay? What happened? What was that explosion?"
Melissa gestures to the other three, who are soundly trouncing their attackers now.
"Yusada build a bomb."
He blinks at her.
Bakugou snorts.
"Stealing my moves, wasp girl?"
Yusada flips him a cheerful bird.
"Some of us do things the old fashioned way, you yuppie."
He wrinkles his nose while Melissa, who is apparently the only other person who knows what that means, laughs.
They climb again. And, slowly, they start to get separated. More and more villains appear and force them to leave their friends behind, splitting up again over and over until only Melissa and Yusada are left to slip into the highest part of the tower.
Where her father is.
"Melissa, where's the control room?"
"In front of the central elevator. I can get us in," she nods at the other girl. The other quirkless girl, who nods back grimly.
They slip inside, and hear voices.
"Someone's here…Papa?" she can see him around the corner, where he and Sam, sweet Sam, are working on a computer while the villains leader watches them. Relief nearly knocks her over. Thank god
"Why is he on the top floor? Did the villain take him here to force him doing something?"
"Whatever it is, we have to save him," Yusada says quietly. .
Melissa nods sharply. "Yes."
Yusada creeps forwards, something in her hands. Paper clips, tin foil, and a battery from one of the robots it looks like.
"What are you doing?" Melissa hisses.
Yusada shushes her and slips just inside the room, where there three mens backs are turned, and starts poking at one of the locks. There walls are covered with them, each one containing a dangerous invention that was locked up for a reason. Were the villains after one of them? Was that why they had her father?
Except it was just her father and Sam.
One of the locks on the wall opens and Sam goes to retrieve what was inside of it. Melissa can't help it. She draws closer, ignoring the hiss of Yusada.
"Everything is here," Sam announces with a smile.
"Yes, I have finally gotten it back," her father says with a sigh of relief of all things. It doesn't make sense. "This device and research data are the only things I would never give to anyone. I'll never give it up."
"Everything's going according to plan, isn't it?" He asks Sam, and Melissa heart sinks at the implication. No.
Sam smiles. "Yes, it looks like the villains are doing well, too."
"Thank you. It was all because you arranged everything for me, Sam."
"Papa…" the words slips, horrified and breathless out of her mouth. Out of the corner of her eyes she sees Yusada crouch above a suitcase like the one in Sam's hands, though her skirt obscures most of it.
David Shield freezes. "M-Melissa? No, why are you here?"
"Miss, what are you doing here?" Sam asks, worried.
"What do you mean "arranged"?" she demands, her heart breaking even as her voice raises. "Papa, don't tell me you're the one behind this incident?"
"In order to get that device… Is that true, Papa?!"
He has the decency to look ashamed.
"It is."
"What? Why?" she demands, fury and betrayal surging to evaporate her confusion.
Sam tries to placate her.
"The professor is only trying to get back what was stolen from him. The ground breaking invention that mechanically amplifies Quirks."
"Mechanically amplifies Quirks?"
Yes, it is still in testing, but with this device, unlike with drugs, quirks can be amplified
without affecting the body. However, the sponsors confiscated this invention and research data. The research itself was also frozen."
"If this was made known to the world,then the structure of superhuman society would change drastically. Fearing that, governments from different nations put pressure on him. That's why the professor came to me for help, and I devised this plot…"
Melissa can barely hear over the pounding in her ears.
All she can hear is a gun shot and Shinsou shouting. She tastes ash and ozone from Kaminari overusing his quirk to help them.
Her feet throb where the delicate soles have broken under hard work of the day.
No.
No this can't be right.
Please no.
"Tell me this is a lie," she begs, but her father shakes his head.
"It is not a lie."
"It doesn't make sense! The Papa I know would never do anything like that!
Why? Why?
"It's for All Might," he says at last. "You two probably don't know that his Quirk is disappearing. But, with this device, I can give him back like it was. It can even give him more abilities than he started with. The number one hero… The Symbol of Peace… can get his light back again. And save many people once more!"
"Please, please let me hand this device over to All Might. There's no time to remake it. After he gets it, I don't care what kind of punishment I receive. I've prepared myself-"
She doesn't recognize the man talking to her.
"They risked their lives," she hisses, " What do you think Deku and his classmates went through to save the hostages?"
Her father actually looks confused. "What do you mean? The villains were fake. It should've all been an act."
He looks at Sam, who nods.
"Of course it was an act."
"An act pretending to be fake villains!"
Melissa spins to see a man in a mask standing at the door way, a sick grin on his face.
He looks them over cooly.
"You'd be smart not to resist. Sam, where's the device?"
Before their very eyes, Sam snatches the suitcase from her father and rushes to the villains side.
"Here."
"Sam? Don't tell me from the beginning you're planning on giving the device to the villains all along?"
It's a day full of betrayal.
"You're the one who tricked me!" Sam cries. "I served you for so long, but you let your research be frozen so easily. And the honor and renown we were supposed to get all went away. If I didn't get at least some money, then it was a waste of my time."
Melissa can only watch her father run down the steps, towards the villain and their betrayer.
He raises a gun-
And Yusada throws the tin foil packet she's been carrying since the storage room.
Smoke explodes and swamps the room and all Melissa can see is the shadow of Yusada moving. There are five gunshots that pierce into the walls. Something goes spinning under desks in the corner and metal bars groan around them and shift under a quirk influence. They whip around, clearing smoke.
Yusada is revealed, standing with a thin knife in one hand and the suitcase in another. The villain has a deep cut on his cheek and his teeth are bared harshly.
Yusada has dodged all of the bullets.
The villain points the gun at David Shield.
Yusada moves, flinging herself in front of him and dropping the case. The villains henchman snatches it up at the same time that the villain himself pulls the trigger.
The gunshot goes off and Melissa can't even hear her own scream and Yusada stumbles back, a hand to her chest. She sinks to her knees, and falls slowly to the ground face first. . Her hand falls in front of her, outstretched in a mockery of supplication.
Her fingers and palm are stained thick, bright red.