Hey, been awhile huh? Im very sorry for the delay, but I hope this big friggin chapter makes up for it somewhat. I'll spill more of my thoughts in the end notes, so be sure to check it out after you're finished reading this chapter! I hope you guys like this chapter!

Jayluf stared in slight disbelief alongside the other students. It just seemed completely incomprehensible what he was seeing. He stared at the villains emerging from the shadowy fog, still not able to believe what was happening. How could villains be here? The very idea was inconceivable to him. This is a hero school, not a villain school. Villains can't be here. It is impossible. And although as much as he denied the idea of villains invading their school, here they stood, right in the middle of a U.A facility. It didn't matter what Jayluf thought was possible, this was real. Jaylufs eyes scanned over the swarm. There were so many villains to the point of him beginning to lose count due to how many were stepping out of the shadowy liquid like fog. It was a seemingly endless supply.

Although Jayluf felt no fear, he was still very alert, his cells all shuddering uneasily. However, the other students were very visibly disturbed and frightened, with several stepping backwards. The students had shock, disbelief, and terror on their faces.

"W-What?!" Kirishima stuttered out in an obvious attempt to regain his cool, his eyes wide and mouth open. "Villains? There's... There's no way they could have gotten into U.A… it's… it's the biggest hero school in Japan!"

Kaminari shuddered. "A-And yet… here they are."

"Sensei," Yaoyorozu said from behind, approaching Thirteen, her temperament surprisingly cool and level headed. Her face didn't betray a single ounce of panic or fear. "What about the trespasser sensors we have around the school? Shouldn't those be going off?"

Although most of their attention was focused on the villains standing in the middle of the facility, Thirteen briefly risked glancing behind their shoulder to consider Yaoyorozu's question. "Well.. we do have them but…" they trailed off, as if not sure their answer would satisfy.

But some students did not care to let the teacher finish the answer. "The real question is," began the red and white haired boy that Jayluf still did not know the name of. "Did the villains all appear here in a single concentrated area in the USJ? Or, could they possibly have appeared around the entire school campus?" He glanced around, a calm but determined look in his eyes. "Either way, the sensors are seemingly not responding anymore, meaning that there is a high possibility of them having a villain who's quirk is specifically made to suppress or even outright disable these motion sensors." His eyes eventually settled back on the huge group of villains. "They chose this isolated part of U.A for a reason. Yes, they are indeed fools for attacking the number one hero school, but they're not dumb either. This attack was obviously very clearly planned, crafted with an objective in mind."

Judging from the lack of objections from any of the other students, it seemed that his observation was very likely to be correct. Other students were now even more anxious at the idea of being completely cut off from the rest of the world while being surrounded by villains, beginning to nervously glance and chatter amongst one another as they tried to piece together what they'd do next.

"W-What objective, th-though?!" Mineta sputtered, terrified at the possible implications.

Even as the students seemed to begin panicking, Aizawa managed to have a surprisingly calm attitude about being possibly trapped with villains. "Thirteen." He began, starting to simply walk forwards and heading directly towards the villains below. "Start the evacuation. Try calling the school, too. I have a feeling that they have someone with some kind of quirk that can counteract the sensors with some sort of radio wave quirk, so you all need to get out of this building, now." He momentarily halted his march, his eyes settling on a certain yellow haired student. "Kaminari, try contacting anyone you can with your earpiece. Maybe it has a stronger signal and a better chance of reaching help. Doesn't matter who you reach, just let people know what's going on here."

"R-Right! Got it, sir!" Kaminari stuttered out anxiously, beginning to fiddle with the earpiece nervously in order to presumably switch it on.

Satisfied by Kaminari's cooperation, Aizawa continued walking towards the seemingly endless swarm of villains before them, seemingly not bothered by their numbers in the slightest.

Izuku, who was watching from the side, reached out in protest upon seeing his teacher walking towards the threat. "B-But, S-Sensei!" He squeaked out nervously, "Y-You can't possibly b-be thinking of taking on all th-those villains down there y-yourself! A-Aren't you at a m-massive disadvantage? Because your quirk is erasure, then using y-your binding wraps to subdue your targets one at a time! I-It's not made for huge g-groups!"

Despite the worried rambling behind him, Aizawa did not appear nervous or uncertain in the slightest. He threw a glance behind him. "Kid, one thing you're gonna need to learn in this line of work, is that becoming a hero means that being a one trick pony ain't gonna cut it. Trust me." His eyes landed on the other teacher. "Thirteen?"

"Eraser?"

"I leave the rest to you."

And without saying another word, Aizawa threw himself forwards, leaping off of the top of the staircase in the most spectacular manner, his robes flowing in the wind, and immediately charged the villains without fear.

Surprisingly, the villains appeared to almost have been expecting Aizawa to charge them, as a handful of them immediately lined up side by side. They grinned cockily as they lifted their arms and hair in what Jayluf presumed was them preparing whatever offensive quirks they had to use against the Pro Hero. But when they all moved to attack, nothing had happened. The cocky expressions on the villains from before quickly vanished in favor of complete shock and befuddlement, as they all began to blubber out questions of why their quirks suddenly did not work. They did not get very long to ponder over their quirks ceasing to function, for while they'd been distracted with questioning their performance issues, Aizawa had already closed the distance between them and himself.

The closest villain barely had time to even react or manage to get a glimpse of the black blur heading straight for him before a boot had slammed into his head, knocking him out cold.

The second villain nearest to the pro hero quickly attempted to bark out a warning before she was suddenly encased in tape and was thrown unceremoniously towards the third villain.

All of the other villains began shouting and attempted to charge Aizawa, which ended with them getting punched or kicked. This process repeated several times in an extremely short timespan with Eraser making very quick work of the uncoordinated villains who were obviously over dependent on their quirks. He used his wrapping binds to throw the smaller villains towards the more heavier ones as makeshift projectiles.

Jayluf stood beside Midoriya as they both watched their teacher continue to thrash the villains. It was a fascinating thing to watch how Aizawa almost seemed to flow in combat, it looked so natural.

Unfortunately he did not get to watch long, because of the second teacher still with the group. "Jayluf, Midoriya, come on! We have to evacuate now!"

Jayluf instinctively obeyed, turning around and beginning to head back to regroup with the other students. "Affirmative."

"R-Right!" Midoriya chimed in, also beginning to run towards the group.

As they fled, Jayluf couldn't help but glance behind his shoulder. Aizawa was alone out there. Would it be okay to leave him? Was it the right thing to do? Thirteen seemed to think so, they certainly had no protest to the baggy eyed teacher going off on his own. WhenJayluf neared the exit door with the other students, their escape was abruptly halted due to a bizarre giant shadow on the ground seemingly materializing out of thin air, sprouting off the floor, twisting, morphing, and swelling into a giant barrier of darkness that effectively prevented any escape from the facility. Before anyone could question what was happening, a deep, booming voice that Jayluf had never heard before began to speak.

"Apologies," said the mysterious deep new voice. "But I'm afraid we have made the choice to allow ourselves into your school facility."

The shadow twisted itself into what Jayluf could assume was a face. It had glowing yellow slit eyes. Well, it looked like eyes.

"We are the League of Villains, and today we have made the choice to attack your school with one single unified goal in mind. What is that goal? Well, it is to stomp out and eliminate the shining beacon of light that is the Number One Hero, All Might!"

Immediately several students flinched back in horror upon hearing the announcement from the villain. They were going to WHAT? Kill… All Might? That was not possible, surely All Might was invincible, was he not? Some of the kids began to mutter in fear, unsure of what to do next.

Thirteen was quick as they flicked open one of the caps on their fingers to presumably use their Black Hole quirk on this strange shadow villain, but unfortunately two students had been quicker. Kirishima and Bakugo had leapt forwards, both with sharp toothed aggressive grins on their faces as they both lunged to attack with their quirks fully on display. Kirishima swung as hard as he could with his hardening quirk activated, whilst Bakugo threw out his palm while letting out a huge explosion directed at the villain's main body structure.

Both students had even bigger smiles now, convinced that they already won the fight. "Had you ever considered the possibility that you'd lose to us first?!" Kirishima chuckled cockily, watching as the villain appeared to dissipate from sight.

Unfortunately for the two students, their victory was only momentary, because not even five seconds later did the shadowy villain suddenly reform his shape as if he hadn't been attacked several moments ago. "Oh my…" he began, his tone almost mocking. "You all are certainly golden eggs compared to the rest. Even if you're just mere children in costumes, you still are the number one hero class in all of Japan. However, it matters not, unfortunately for you I intend to complete my task. What is the task? Well, it is quite simple. My job here is to scatter each and every one of you, and torture you all until your deaths!"

Without delay, the villain seemed to almost throw his strange shadowy mists directly towards the students, the quirk flowing in a strange inhuman fashion as it flew at the alarmed students so quickly, that no one had the time to respond or fight back in any shape or form before it reached them. When it finally made contact, many of the teens yelled or screamed in alarm, some not hesitating to huddle together, as if numbers would somehow cancel out whatever ability the shadowy winds had.

Jayluf however, did not know what to do. He didn't have any orders to follow. What was he supposed to do to counteract these shadows? Run? Attack? Perhaps join the huddle in the middle? Whatever move he wanted to make did not matter sadly. He suddenly saw several stay dark strands snake over towards him and under his feet, causing him to suddenly be sucked into them. His vision was engulfed in complete and utter darkness.

He was falling. He did not know where he was falling. He did not know how he was falling. He definitely did not understand why he was suddenly falling, all that he knew was that he was… well, falling.

As he plummeted downwards towards an unknown destination, the shadows around his vision suddenly vanished, and his eyes strained to quickly adjust to the second abrupt change in lighting. Blinking while his vision adjusted, Jayluf looked around to see what appeared to be the top of the USJ dome, at least, the ceiling of the dome, which meant he was still inside the USJ. He was aware of two new things. So the villain's quirk was some sort of quirk that could instantly transport anyone somewhere else to presumably whatever location the villain wanted. He was still inside the USJ.

The last one meant he was falling towards the ground, though.

Twisting his body in an awkward attempt to regain his bearings, Jayluf's limbs flung and wiggled around as he desperately tried to turn and avoid landing on his spine, but unfortunately gravity was pulling him downwards much faster than he'd been anticipating, and after several seconds of nothing, he slammed on something that wasn't the ground, in fact it felt very hard and metallic. And he began rolling. The fact that he was rolling to one side meant that he had landed on something not flat, and was perhaps a slope, or rounded dome not unlike the dome of the USJ itself.

During his descent down towards wherever the slope led, he managed to catch very VERY brief glimpses of several colors being blurred together. There was red, orange, yellow, green, and finally brown. His body in its entirety was very upset with the strange feeling of plummet downwards at very high speeds, his cells were protesting the entire time while his world spun around and around.

He tried to get control of the situation by activating Cellular Command and instructed his rattling microscopic comrades to numb the pain receptors as much as they could. Since the first "landing" had caused a decent amount of pain, he figured when he was done rolling off whatever he landed on, the second impact would probably hurt even more.

And when he finally stopped rolling and began falling for a few short moments, his theory was proven correct. Slamming into the ground, his entire form had a rush of pain as his body slammed into cheap dirt, his cells working overtime to keep him from feeling what was probably excruciating agony from the impact.

Dazed, he lay on his back, staring up once again at the ceiling, which was somewhat blurry due to his sluggish state. It took what felt like several long minutes for his vision to readjust itself. Slowly trying to move himself, the throbbing pain told him that without his numbing ability, he would probably be in a lot more pain than what he currently was now.

Blinking as his vision slowly returned, he forced himself to begin to sit upwards, dirt staining the back of his entire costume, the mittens included. Pushing himself to his feet, he dizzily stumbled, taking a moment to regain his balance. As his dazed state began wearing off, he remembered just what the current situation was, and his dizziness was quickly replaced by a feeling of alertness. Taking a moment to regain his bearings, he began to mentally go over the situation with himself. The current situation was that he was confused, lost, and his friends and teachers were separated from him. Worst of all, they were currently under a surprise attack from some sort of villain group. What had the shadow villain claimed the name of their group was? The League of Villains?

Now that the situation was figured out, the thing he had to do was find out where he was, and decide what to do from there. It seemed a good idea to first begin with finding out how far the entrance door was from here. Looking to his right, he saw that very far away, he could faintly make out the entrance to the USJ. Well, he assumed it was, the staircase certainly looked familiar. And also the fact that he could see a blurry image of a man dressed in black fighting against several villains was also a giveaway. He was definitely some distance away from the entrance now, thanks to the shadowy villain. It would definitely be a lengthy walk to get back.

The second thing he needed to know was to see whatever he'd landed on. That had been a rather big fall earlier, and he wanted to see just what kind of structure caused such a tumble. Glancing behind him, his eyes settled on what appeared to be a domed structure. A domed building inside a domed building. Was that a normal thing? He'd seen a brief glimpse of this structure when he'd first entered the USJ with his classmates, but hadn't gotten much of a look before they'd been attacked, so it had been just a weird half circle building with some colors blotches on it.

Now that he was seeing it up close, one of the first things he quickly noticed about it was the warm air. It felt as if heat was somehow coming from inside of this strange dome, like it was being produced in there, which meant that inside that building was likely much hotter than it was out where he was standing. His assumption was proven correct when he took several steps closer, and felt the sensation of warm air brushing against his face.

Not only that, but along with the hot air constantly being pushed outwards, there was a brand new scent accompanying it. It was one that Jayluf had never seen before in his life, yet at the same time it felt familiar. It was a smell of scalding heat, bitter chemical reactions, decay, and… burning. It was smoke he smelled. Fire. Something was burning in there.

How did I know it was smoke?

Slowly looking upwards, he managed to get a good look at the colors on the top of the dome. Now that he was getting a much closer look, he could see that this was no ordinary design for a building. Instead of pleasant colors lined up neat lines or patterns, this was the complete opposite.

The top of the dome was a bright red decorated with strange yellow and dark red patterns. Well, they were less of patterns, and more like random blotches that had no real discernible consistent shape to them. It almost looked like a blob that was spreading to consume the brighter red under it entirely.

Jayluf swallowed. Something felt off. What exactly was the purpose of this dome? This was a place to simulate rescue, was it not? He remembered the teachers mentioning simulation. Why was this building put in here along with the other structures? Was it made to simulate a place that was hot and smoking? A place that was on fire? It made more sense now. The red on top was representing fire, there was definitely no doubt about it. So was it for heroes in training like himself and his friends to simulate rescuing people from burning places?

My classmates… Jayluf thought.

That's when he remembered. His classmates. When the villain had used the strange shadow warping ability, Jayluf had seen it also swallow up some of his classmates, just like it had to him. If they had been engulfed by the shadows as well, it was likely they were also dropped in a completely random location in the USJ like he had been.

The possibility hasn't come up until now, but did that mean that maybe some of his classmates were in need of help? Maybe the shadow villain had dropped some of them near the fire dome? Or maybe even inside the dome? Maybe the students were now trapped?

Jayluf had no way to be sure, but maybe, just maybe, he could tread further inside to check? Taking a few steps forward, he began to approach the giant dome. Surely it wouldn't hurt, right?

But as he drew closer, the sensations from before almost tripled. When the full combination of the heat, the smoke, and the image of the red angry streaks that represented flames hit him all at once, his body reacted violently. He barely had time to keep his balance as he suddenly stumbled backwards quickly as he felt what was possibly the largest spike of anxiety in his life. For when he'd taken a single inhale when he was closer, he could feel the awful sensation of rancid smoke and each and every individual cinder rushing down his throat and burning into his lungs. The smell was disgusting, a hot bitter scent that assaulted anything that came into contact with it. It almost felt like his nostrils sizzled from the heat. The image of fire embedded itself into his mind, and he couldn't get it out no matter how hard he tried.

The smells and sensations combined with each other, it all just screamed "wrong". Jayluf realized that even his own body was rebelling against the idea of going in, for he realized that even his own cells were rattling in complete protest. They were almost screaming at him to back away from the dome and run, run as far as he could in the opposite direction as if the dome's very existence was a danger to him. Looking down, the boy realized that his arms and legs were trembling violently, as if the ground under him was shaking. His lungs felt insufferably hot as if they were being burned with every breath he took near the dome, forcing him to resist the instinctual urge to cough. If he did, he feared he might hack up his lungs. His heart thudded against his chest, every individual beat striking his ribcage like a hammer, causing him to lift one of his hands to his chest to try and calm himself as his heart pounded over and over again.

Fire. Smoke. Burning. Bad. Very bad. All of these are bad.

That dome wasn't good. Something about it was just so horribly wrong. He couldn't go inside the dome. He just… couldn't. He needed to get away from this thing now. Clenching his fists, he turned and began to walk in the opposite direction, hoping that no students were trapped inside. He could only hope that no one was trapped inside, if they were then-

"Ah, well well well!" Called a new voice Jayluf had never heard before, cutting off his line of thought as he turned in the direction of the person speaking. The voice was definitely within his vicinity, and sounded very close.

His eyes eventually settled on what appeared to be an adult woman with light brown hair with pigtails, slightly tanned skin, and brown eyes. Her outfit was definitely…it showed her arms, legs, and belly. Her clothes were made of a dark pinkish flexible latex, clinging to her form rather tightly. Near her wrists were extremely large gauntlets that served an unknown purpose.

Who was this woman? Jayluf had never seen her before. This stranger had seemingly just appeared after he and his friends had been attacked by villains. Was this one of them?

"Looks like a straggler got separated from the flock, huh?" continued the woman. "Here I was, thinking that I was gonna be cooped up with the other villains to attack the teachers up front, but I decided that maybe I'd give a hand in hunting down any stragglers that the weird portal dude was dropping off. I figured I'd check around, and I barely had to look before I found you, a willing lamb to the slaughter! Lucky me!"

Jayluf blinked, his expression still blank as ever, now that he'd recovered from… whatever that was a minute ago. "You were not with the teachers." He pondered on her words, and suddenly realized that she'd claimed that she'd been with "other villains". Other villains. That could only mean one thing. He stared at her. "Who are you? You are a villain, correct?"

The woman let out a short, barking laugh. "Wow, we got a genius over here, was it that obvious? Yeah I'm a villain, you dumbass kid." She rolled her eyes. "Points for observation. Since you're about to die, I suppose I can tell you that my name is Martial Hair. Pleased to kill you."

Jayluf simply looked at her for long moments, before he remembered the words from the shadow villain from earlier before they'd been scattered. "So… if you are with the other villains, I suspect your intention here is to harm me, and possibly my classmates."

Squinting her eyes, the woman looked at him, as if confused by his eerily calm attitude. "Was it that damn obvious? Is your entire shtick just saying the dumbest shit with a resting bitch face? Yeah, I'm here to kill you, idiot." She began grinning. "Rest assured though, it ain't personal. I'm just a gal doing her job. And also the fact that I also love the idea of impaling some higher class snot nosed brat. You people always thought you were all that because you were on top of the class." Her hair drills suddenly began spinning so quickly that it became a blur, they were more like drills now, which meant they were definitely dangerous. "Sorry, kid. It's as I said before, it ain't personal."

Jayluf's reflexes barely had any time to react to the threat as he realized that the drills were spinning and extending and growing forwards at an incredible rate, and were now aiming right at him as a projectile. Time almost seemed to slow down as he narrowly attempted to twist his body away from where the hair drills had been aimed towards. He managed to mostly save himself from any bodily harm, save a single cut on his right shoulder, courtesy of the drill tip grazing him at the very last second. The incision stung greatly, but Jayluf couldn't command his cells to numb the pain receptors due to him being focused on staying alive via dodging the attacks from the homicidal villain still standing in front of him.

Martial Hair grit her teeth, seemingly displeased at her attacks being dodged by the boy. "Little shit…" she snarled. "Hold still would you?"

As another drill attack was launched directly towards him, Jayluf had a brief moment of realization, a moment of clarity, even. This… This was really happening. This woman truly was a villain. He was fighting a true villain who wanted to kill him. This was no test of any sort. This wasn't some overly extreme class activity. This wasn't some sparring section with a fellow classmate. No. This was a matter of life and death in a fight between Jayluf and this villain. In order to survive, he needed to fight to live as hard as he could.

He narrowly ducked to avoid another attack from the drills, feeling the wind as the drills sliced through the air. This process repeated itself several times, Martial Hair launching both drills, and Jayluf dodging in return. It seemed to be working. That was, until the villain decided to play a trick, launching only one drill, then while Jayluf had been busy twisting out of the way to dodge the first one, the second one lunged forward, aiming directly at him. He didn't have any time to dodge, even though he'd seen it coming straight for him and had already registered it as an incoming threat.

It felt like time slowed down as Jayluf felt the tip of the hair drill stab into the side of his torso, piercing through his costume and going directly into his abdomen. He barely had any time to recover, the blow sending him backwards and tumbling to the ground. His entire stomach area seemed to scream in pain, forcing him to frantically activate Cellular Command to try and dampen the strength of his pain receptors to numb the injured area currently erupting in fiery agony, so that he could focus on the threat. It hadn't hurt as much as his leg injury during the entrance exam, nothing would probably be able to top that, but it still hurt quite a lot. In fact, it had hurt enough to the point where he instinctively opened his mouth to vocalize his pain via a yell. Struggling to his fours then eventually back to his feet, he clutched at the stomach wound while he hissed in pain, the blood soaking into the material of his clothing.

His reaction seemed to greatly please Martial Hair, who let out a sharp laugh while watching Jayluf writhe in pain. "Aww, poor little weasel. A simple cut to your tummy and you're already whining?" Martial Hair taunted, her eyes glued on him while she had a manic glint in her eye along with a crazed smile. "Maybe you're finally beginning to realize that this ain't school practice no more kid. This is real life, and unfortunately, real life is cruel. And the reality is that you're gonna die here. Along with your friends."

Staring at her as he clutched his wound, Jayluf realized that the villain was completely correct. This was no practice test, no fake fight where the teacher could intervene at any given time, or where the combatants would possibly hold back with no real harm being done. This was real life. A matter of life, and death. These villains here wanted to kill everyone. Slaughter innocent people. Jayluf knew at that very moment that he couldn't let that happen. It wouldn't happen. "Yes…" he began slowly, "you are correct. This is no simple test. This is real."

Martial Hair seemed mildly amused, grinning psychotically while tilting her head. "Well, at least you have the brains to realize that you're about to be six feet under."

Ignoring her attempts to provoke him, Jayluf gingerly brought his hands together, and carefully pulled off both of his mittens, allowing them to flop down to the ground. He couldn't take any chances. Not anymore. There was just too much at stake here. "Because this is no test, I'm afraid I have to incapacitate you in order to prevent you from possibly causing any harm to my fellow classmates and friends."

The statement did not seem to phase the villain. Martial Hair simply let out a bemused snort. "Whoaaa there kid," she mocked, waving her hands side to side. "You're taking off the kiddie gloves? I'm shaking in my boots over here."

Jayluf blinked at her, not knowing what to make of her blatant mocking of his actions. But she was right. "That is correct, I am taking them off."

Her eyebrows raised incredulously. "Wait… you're serious? You actually are gonna try that? What do you think is gonna happen? You're gonna suddenly power up because of friendship or some shit to wipe the floor with the evil bad guys?" She rolled her eyes. "This is real life, kid. This ain't a TV show. And you are definitely not the main character. You're not saving anyone, and you are certainly not stopping me."

Jayluf glanced down at the wound in his abdomen. He was now very well aware of what Martial Hair's quirk was, and what it was capable of, especially against living things. A precision focused quirk like that could do a large amount of harm to him if he wasn't more careful. If his friends were also hit by that sort of attack…He shook the thought away as he stared at her. "Not exactly," he replied. Although he didn't have a clue what Martial Hair was babbling about in regards to this mysterious "power of friendship" or how it was used to presumably clean flooring.

He was more focused on the fact that he was facing death, and his only chance to survive this attacker was him going all out. It was time. As he forced his breathing to slow, he became more aware of physicals sensations, such as his heart beating, or the feeling of muscles twitching. Raising his hands, he directed all of his focus inwards as he activated Cellular Command. Immediately he felt his cells responding to his call. In fact, they were already on high alert. He'd been so focused on the villain, he hadn't even noticed that his cells were screaming about the danger, and the wound to his stomach had them out in overdrive to clot the wound.

High danger! His cells had cried out. He was well aware of the danger now obviously, he just needed to adapt to the current threat. Jayluf took a deep breath in, and gave one simple instruction to the billions of microscopic organisms inside him.

Initiate Bio-Form. Claws out.

The response was immediate. Bringing claws.

Jayluf began to feel the familiar sensation of his cells moving and readjusting themselves at an accelerated rate as they began to aggressively vibrate themselves. An extremely vast amount of heat was produced as cells duplicated themselves, stretching and twisting themselves in order to alter the genetic structure of Jayluf's hands. His normally pale skin on his hands abruptly changed to a pinkish color, then began to turn darker into a sickly blood red as his skin began to move. His hands started to seemingly swell as the veins were bulging, almost moving like a liquid. His hand muscles quadrupled their normal size, the sudden increase making the skin strain as it attempted to stretch itself in order to keep his insides from becoming out. Although its attempt to adjust to the muscle growth failed soon after, the muscle swelling became too much for the skin to handle, and finally…

The skin gave way, unable to strain itself anymore.

Normal human hands exploded into a messy show of raw flesh, blood, and bone. Blood spurred everywhere, sloughing and dripping to the ground in dark red piles. In the place of his hands were meaty flesh muscle hands, with bone sticking out the back of the hand, whilst black razor sharp were now sticking out of the tips of his fingers, still dripping blood. Now prepared for combat, Jayluf readjusted his passive casual stance into a much more aggressive and combat ready one, prepared to take the fight to the villain head on. His expression did not change in the slightest, his emotions still nonexistent as usual.

The eruption of gore had seemed to stun Martial Hair, who stopped and stared in shock, hesitating for several seconds as her eyes widened in a mix of surprise and horror. She almost seemed to gawk at the way Jayluf's ragged flesh that hung from his forearm was limply hanging like the remains of a popped balloon. "The fuck?!" Martial Hair shouted loudly.

Jayluf calmly stared at the villian with a blank expression, intently watching her every move in case she lashed out.

Martial Hair seemed occupied with staring at the grisly sight that was once a pair of normal human hands, her nose crinkled up in disgust at the extremely pungent stench that was raw flesh. "Goddamn…" she uttered, managing to snap herself back into a combat stance of her own. But this time, it was a much more defensive one. She seemed apprehensive. "The hell kind of a quirk is that? That's a damn villain's quirk if I've ever seen one."

The statement seemed to confuse Jayluf for a moment, causing him to tilt his head while he blinked indifferently. "That is very flawed logic. I am a hero. You are a villain. I am a hero. Therefore, my quirk cannot be one belonging to a villain."

Martial Hair's facial expression fell for a single moment before readjusting into one of disgust. "True. I've seen thousands of body morphing quirks in my time. All of them are weird and gross in their own special way. But yours? Disgusting doesn't even begin to describe it. That is not normal." She gestured towards the blood on the ground. "Your quirk is straight up abnormal. Whatever the hell it is, it's horribly WRONG. Something in my gut is telling me that you don't belong. Your quirk doesn't belong."

Jayluf actually considered her words for the briefest of seconds, giving him pause as he stewed on what the woman was saying. After thinking about it, he eventually settled to ignore whatever she was talking about, shaking his head and preparing to attack. Even if he was slightly intrigued on what the villain meant by his quirk being "not normal", he needed to focus. This was a life and death situation. "It does not matter if I am abnormal or wrong. Whether I belong or not, I will stop you. "

"Tch," Martial hissed as she began revving up her hair drills once more. "I suppose you're right about that, kid . Mutating freak hands or not, you're still gonna die today. Nothing will change that, I promise you."

Without delay, Both of Martial Hair's drills suddenly lashed out as they curved and homed directly on Jayluf in a surprise effort to catch him off guard.

But this time, Jayluf had been expecting this attack. And he wasn't going to dodge this time, either. He simply had to wait until the drills were close enough to him.

Closer…

The drills screeched as they cut through the air between them.

Almost…

NOW!

Putting as much force into his arms as he could, Jayluf swung his clawed hands outwards in a motion not unlike someone swimming. In a blur, his claws slammed against the hair drills as the tips of each offensive weapon made contact with the other at just the right moment. The energy from the insane amount of friction kicked up sparks while the opposing sides clashed in an attempt to overpower the other in order to be granted a possible chance to strike. In the end both sides eventually canceled the other out, sending both parties stumbling back slightly from Jayluf's successful parry.

Regaining her footing and balance, Martial Hair growled in irritation as she began spinning her hair drills up once more. "Tch. Not bad," she hissed as she glared with wide eyes. "But this is a real fight. You may have those claws, but clumsily smacking away my drills isn't going to be enough to beat me." Her hair drills reared upwards as they reached their maximum spinning speed. "My quirk doesn't take much energy from me, meanwhile you're putting your entire body into each and every swing. You're gonna get exhausted eventually."

Jayluf paused. He knew the woman was correct, even if exhaustion would take much longer to kick in due to his ability to numb the pain of exhaustion with Cellular Command. But that meant he'd have to choose between his limb muscles, lungs, or the gut wound that still stung somewhat now. Defensive play wasn't going to cut it. No. This time, he would have to go on the offensive while simultaneously fending off any drill attack sent his way. It obviously was an extremely risky move, but there wasn't a choice anymore. Before he could begin advancing towards his target, Jayluf was forced to lean back at an awkward angle to prevent himself from being sawed in half, courtesy of a surprise attack from Martial Hair's left drill performing a nasty undercut.

He responded in kind by swinging his right claw towards the extended drills as hard as he could, sending it backwards and forcing Martial Hair to regain her balance.

Snarling, Marital Hair launched both drills in a similar manner as the first, but immediately angled their trajectory downwards towards Jayluf's legs, catching him off guard. His reflexes kicked in just fast enough that he managed to hop backwards, his legs going outwards and avoiding a cheap blow being done, and the drills only pierced the soil where he'd stood just mere moments before.

Scoffing at the failed surprise attack, Martial Hair refrained from making any comment, instead she lunged forward silently, reeling back her drills and launching from both sides in a pincher form attack. Just like before, Jayluf fended off both drills via swiping his claws at them, once more causing her to stumble slightly before she got her balance back. This time, Jayluf went on the offensive, forcing the villain to fend off the swipes of his claws.

For several minutes, they continued this loop. It was a delicate yet deadly dance of constant attacking, blocking, dodging, and counter attacking. It was a violent stalemate where each side didn't seem to have any real advantage as they searched for an opening in their opponent's defenses. It was impossible to tell who would come out on top.

But as both sides clashed, Jayluf very swiftly realized that a stalemate wasn't something he could afford, not in this situation. At this very moment while he fought the villain, his friends were at the entrance or possibly scattered around the entire USJ, and under attack by who knows how many villains. Every moment he spent here put them in more danger than before. But that meant he needed to end the fight as quickly as he could.

But how?

He didn't know yet. The current situation was not working in his favor, excluding that he was still alive. Blinking, Jayluf tried to force his brain to focus. The problem was both of them were only able to use close ranged melee, with his claws against Martial Hair's drills. Although he could swipe them away, she could also fend his claws off, and each time they collided it sent them stumbling backwards.

How could he stop that from happening?

Looking down at his claws, it dawned on Jayluf that his claws, although mutated and deformed an ungodly amount, were still his hands.

Hands meant he could grab things. One example being the hair drills when they were inevitably thrusted out towards him. His mutated hands were able to cut through metal, surely they could take the punishment of grabbing a hair drill and possibly getting cut up. If he grabbed her hair, it was possible he could force Martial Hair to come closer by pulling on the hair drills.

It was a risky play to do, Jayluf knew his claws were definitely not as articulate or dexterous as his normal hands, since they're mainly used to just cut through things. But they had to be somewhat able to grab something, right?

It seemed to be worth a try.

Cautiously advancing towards Martial Hair in order to close the distance between each other while simultaneously fending off more of the attempts on his life, Jayluf patiently awaited for the opportunity to present Martial Hair had finished lashing out with another attack that used only a single hair drill, she finally launched both of her hair drills, in a pincer attack to impale him from both the right and the left.

It was now, or never.

Quickly bracing his legs to prevent too much pushback from impact, Jayluf waited a single moment longer than he usually would have, before he threw his arms out and placing his hands directly in the path of the drills.

When his hands had made contact with the drills, there was an immediate painful burning sensation in Jayluf's hands as Martial Hair's quirk immediately penetrated the softer flesh on the outside, tearing through it like butter. Jayluf ordered his cells to dull as much as he could. But as the drills cut into the muscle, it did not take very long for the drills to reach the deeper parts of his mutated hands. Layer after layer the flesh became thicker and thicker until there was no muscle, where thick bonelike structuring that was composed of both his normal finger bones, and the hard metallic black organic material that were Jayluf's claws.

When Martial Hair's drills had reached the material that had been used to parry them all this time, Jayluf curled his "fingers" as much as possible, forcing the stiff digits to flex and bend, curling them around the thick organic weapons. Almost as soon as he had successfully grabbed the drills, he felt them quickly jam up inside his hands due to the bone obstruction.

Well… it was now or never. Putting as much strength as he could into his arms, Jayluf braced and pulled as hard as he physically could on the drills.

Abruptly Martial Hair's head was jerked forwards from the sudden force, causing the villain to widen her eyes in surprise and yell out in pain from the sudden violent pull on her hair. She clumsily stumbled forwards, instinctively awkwardly swinging her arms forward and throwing her legs out to attempt to balance herself and to also prevent herself from falling flat on her face. Shockingly, she managed to prevent herself from succumbing to gravity, but by the time that she had recovered from what had just happened, it was too late for her to react. Even if she realized what had happened, there was no time.

Jayluf had already released the woman's now limp and inert hair drills, and had taken just a few steps, which was all it took for him to successfully close the distance between them, due to him pulling her towards himself. Rearing back his left arm, he angled his claws, and swung upwards as hard as he could, aiming his battered limb directly towards Martial Hair's face.

Time almost seemed to slow for Jayluf when his claws had reached their intended target, the sound around him becoming muted. For some odd reason, the boy suddenly became extremely hyper aware of everything around him. He could feel the way the wind felt against his body as it seemed to tickle his flesh while his claws sliced through the air, cutting through any resistance with impeccable speed. Minutes seemed to pass by as the claws made their way towards the intended target. After what felt like forever, they reached their destination. When he made contact with the target, Jayluf could feel the way Martial Hair's skin was pressing up against his claws for the briefest of moments, a microsecond at best. Then the flesh finally gave way to the greater pressure, the seams of skin breaking apart as boney claws pierced through, and began tearing through skin as if it was made of wet paper. The inertia from his original swing was strong enough that his claws continued cutting into Martial Hair's face, even as the claws went upwards. Reaching one side of her face, Jayluf's claws finally finished the full swing, and he reeled his arm back.

Time seemed to return to normal, and Jayluf noticed that he could now begin to hear things normally again as well. Well, it wasn't normal exactly, since he could hear some sort of a very loud monotone sound that went on continuously for several seconds. What was that sound? Focusing on the sound as best he could, Jayluf realized that it almost sounded like a person's voice. Martial Hair's voice?

Jayluf calmly realized that the sound was simply someone screaming. Martial Hair was screaming, well it certainly sounded like she was screaming. There was also the fact that there was absolutely no one else around, and since Jayluf knew he wasn't the one screaming, it had to be her. As she screamed, she began desperately backing up, almost tripping over herself in an effort to put distance between herself and Jayluf.

Something unexpected happened. Watching the woman's pathetic attempt to flee, it triggered an odd sensation in Jayluf, one that he'd never felt before. For some unknown reason, he felt like allowing Martial Hair to continue backing away was a bad idea. He couldn't just allow her to get took over Jayluf's actions. He had to stop her.

He couldn't allow his prey to escape.

He lunged forward, and reared his right arm to swing at Martial Hair, this time aiming a bit lower in order to slash at her neck. It might take her head off, but Jayluf was willing to take that before he was even halfway finished with his swing, his attack was unintentionally blocked by Martial Hair, who by some dumb luck had instinctively brought her hands to clutch at her face in pain. Along with her hands were the thick metal gauntlets that were clamped to her arms, which created an accidental makeshift barrier between her neck and Jayluf's claws.

It did not protect the villain from any damage however, due to the force Jayluf had put into his swing, the swipe immediately shattered both gauntlets, and Martial Hair was thrown several feet away, and landed in a pathetic pile before she quickly recovered and sat up to grab at her face yet again.

If he'd had been wrong about her screaming earlier, she was definitely screaming now.

Approaching her, Jayluf could see that the villain was not unconscious, instead sitting upwards on the ground, hinting that the pain was too great for her to even stand. Her face now sported what looked like for angry red diagonal incisions, which had been courtesy of the claw attack moments before. The cuts were continuously gushing out a semi thick crimson fluid that rolled down her face and neck, soaking into her clothes and spilling down and splattering on the ground they stood on, the cheap dirt being stained. Miraculously, despite the damage done to her face, the woman's eyes were somehow intact.

Martial Hair howled in agony. "AAAAAARGH! FUCKIN- FUUCK!" She clutched at her wound with her right hand, her left hand being used to balance herself from collapsing onto her back due to her leaning backwards. "Y-YOU FUCKING…. YOU AAAAAAGH!" She let out several quick gasps in rapid succession, hyperventilating as the adrenaline seemed to wear off while another wave of pain assaulted her. "OH FUCK! HOLY FUCKING SHIT MY F-FUCKING FACE IT…" Her pained howls and hate fueld rambling quickly diminished, being replaced by muffled whimpers and quiet gasps of agonized crying. "Oh God, oh f-fucking God oh shit it h-hurts so fucking m-much… it h-hurts so damn much…"

Jayluf stared in complete silence. He had no idea what to make of this whole thing. He'd wounded her, yes, but anyone could see that she was still very much awake and aware. Still active.

Still alive.

Active and alive meant only one thing: She was still a possible threat.

He needed to eliminate the potential threat once and for all, right? A second wind from her while his back was turned was definitely a possibility. He couldn't take the risk of her recovering, not when his friends' lives were at stake.

Slowly bringing his foot up in front of the other, and then the other, he began to move himself towards Martial Hair. He walked towards her with purpose, his legs moving faster and faster each step, his claws still dripping a combination of her blood and his own to the ground.

In her pain induced delirium, Martial Hair somehow managed to notice the aggressor making his way towards her. She began awkwardly crawling backwards frantically in an attempt to escape.

It wasn't until he was close enough to raise his claws did Martial Hair eventually realize how close the boy was to her, and what he was about to do. Her eyes went wide in horror and terror.

Holding up her free hand she was using to drag herself backwards, she desperately tried to keep Jayluf from finishing the job. "WAIT! W-waitwaitwait-" she sobbed out as tears ran down her wounded cheeks, mixing with the blood that rolled down her face. "P-Please… I s-s-surrender! I g-give up! You w-win! I'll do w-whatever you want!" She cried, hiccuping and gasping.

Jayluf braced himself to bring the claw down on her head, his muscles primed to swing downwards.
"I'M SORRY!" She screamed. "I DON'T WANT TO DIE!"

He halted his movements for a brief moment.

"I-I'm s-sorry! P-Please don't kill me… I-I don't w-wanna die… I'm s-sorry…" She clutched at her wound in agony as she cried.

Jayluf didn't understand. Why was he hesitating? He had the villain at his mercy. She was no different than the robots that had attacked him. He had every right to finish the job and assure that she would not harm any of his friends. Yet for some odd reason, it felt like something inside him was pushing to spare her. But… why? Staring at the villain, he saw her continuing to curse from the pain and beg for mercy. He saw the way she stared at him in complete and utter terror, tears, mucus, and blood running down her round face. He saw her chest frantically moving from her panicked gasps. He did not feel good…

But… why?

Shouldn't he not feel bad? This was a villain. A villain! A villain who had been intending on attacking and killing him, and all of his friends for no reason. He was in the right here, not her.

And yet… it felt like something was eating away at his heart. Had he made some sort of error that he'd missed? He was victorious! He'd won! He'd survived!

Yet… something was leaking through the fog in his brain, slithering down and gripping his heart. It was barely noticeable and easily ignored with how muffled it was, but now that Jayluf noticed it…

He needed to…

Needed to…

Needed to do what?

Shaking his head, Jayluf lowered his claws. Something inside him was telling him to not kill the villain. But he defended himself, so why did it dislike the fact he clawed her face in?

He wouldn't kill her.

But the other negative feeling about injuring her… he decided to ignore it, since this villain had allied with other villains bent on murdering teenagers. He was in the right here, whether his heart agreed or not. He defended himself, and in turn defended his friends from this woman.

Turning, he walked past the villain who was still gasping in agony as she clutched at her face. Seeing some sort of commotion near the water area, he decided to head there.

Hopefully, he'd be able to find some of his friends soon.

His claws dripped with blood, soaking the man-made soil underneath his boots. Whose blood it was, he did not know.

It didn't matter.

He had friends to save.

At 9000 words, I can only say this: I AM EXHAUSTED. I was never happy with this chapter, and I kept changing stuff after taking a very very very very long break from writing, so the only thing I can do is post it, and hope for the best. I want to say that I am SO sorry. I'm sure some people might not like this chapter, and I won't blame you. I did laze off for awhile, but I was too scared to post it before, given its importance to the MHA plot. I wanted it to be the best it could, and scenes/chapters like this take SO LONG. But I'm hoping to get chapters out now that I'm finally back in business. If you liked this, please comment! I'd love to see if anyone else is still reading this story after several months of inactivity, but for those who left, I won't blame ya!

Writing this I realize I am in a vicious cycle of not liking my chapters when I post them, but my brain is so burnt out that I just want to post it to get it over with. I'm trying my best with this chapter, and I'm sure there are issues that you noticed, so I hope they're not too bad, whether its bad grammar or spelling, etc. But whether you're a newcomer or a returning reader, please let me know what you liked about this chapter, I poured everything I had into it, both the text and the art part! COMMENTS GIVE ME LIFE. :3 OH AND REMEMBER TO CHECK MY TUMBLR pixienohken FOR THE ART OF THIS CHAPTER!

As always any comments/favorites/follows are appreciated! Welcome back!