Chapter One Hundred and Three
This night was one of the worst Midoriya had ever experienced, at least since he'd been accepted by his mentor.
Before, he'd spent nights alone, trying not to cry, feeling useless, like a true Deku, and like no matter what he did, it'd never be enough.
He'd wanted to be a Hero, to save people in need, to stop Villains, to be, like All Might, someone that could stand up, and bring people comfort when he declared, 'I am here!'
And, with a Quirk of his own, he now could!
But you couldn't comfort the dead.
He had woken up, along with Hagakure, Awase, and Shiozaki, found the note the Pussycats had left them, but it was not Pixie-Bob's Monsters they'd found, but human ones. The Villains had tried to attack the four, one teleporting behind Midoriya with a sword, telling him, "Nothing persona-"
Which is when, having trained under Mirko, Midoriya's reflexes kicked in, literally. Deku had turned and sunk a Full-Cowling empowered roundhouse into the man's side, sending him flying into a tree with the loud snap of breaking bones, a noise he'd gotten used to during his internship, moving as another Villain leapt for Hagakure, only for the woman to yell in pain as her face momentarily lit up with light, allowing him to hit the attacker in the back of the neck, just like All Might had taught him, knocking her out too.
Meanwhile, another three had gone after the 1-B students, but they'd barely gotten close when Shiozaki had trapped them with her vines, one guy who could summon a flaming sword trying to burn through them, Awase, after a moment's hesitation, running forward, grabbing the man's sleeve and 'welding' his arm to a tree, making the Villain need to stop using his Quirk, or set the oak on fire, and then himself.
With Midoriya's help, the other Villains were also welded to trees, and then they'd got some answers. Well, they'd gotten threats, and insults, and a lot of things, really, but most importantly they got answers.
That Villains had attacked.
That they'd killed the Pros on guard.
That there were hundreds of them.
And that they were here to kill everyone, except for two people, who they were supposed to capture.
Kaminari, and Midoriya.
But most of all, that they worked for Inugami, the Villain Deku had fought in Hosu, who, in turn, worked for All-for-One.
And the others had read from Izuku's expression that he knew who that was, so, after they'd left the Villains stuck to their trees, Deku had given them a quick explanation, of what happened in Hosu, of Nomus, and of how this was related to the USJ incident.
From there, they'd followed the sounds of fighting, but every time they came across Villains, it was too late.
Midoriya had never seen a dead body before. He knew sometimes, when Villains went really bad, they killed people, but even watching Hero Fights, searching them out, he'd never seen one. Injured people, yeah, of course, but never a corpse, anyone who'd lost their lives out of sight, only hearing about them after the fact.
He'd seen more then he ever wanted to tonight.
The only consolation was that most of them were Villains.
Sometimes they were alone.
Sometimes in groups.
Sometimes there were masses of them, like when they'd found Icicle, the Frigid Hero. The woman was dead, impaled through the chest by a scorpion Heteromorph who was still partially buried in the ground, clearly having burst up and out from it, but there were over two dozen Villains surrounding the two, all of them dead, themselves impaled with hundreds of ice spikes, all of those slowly melting.
It was clear that, at some point, Midoriya and the others had gotten turned around, running across more and more dead Pros, some of them the only dead bodies they found, in ones and twos, but many having taken out an attacker or two or three. Most seemed to have been taken out quickly, with minimal signs of struggle, and, for once, Midoriya's love of Heroes didn't seem so great, as he was able to put names to the faces, or in some cases bodies, of the Pros they found.
Lightstar, Professor Generous, Mask-ara, The Bronze Bat, Super Striker Hurricane Fist, Aki, and more.
But all of the Pros they found were dead.
The Villains, not so much.
Twenty-eight. That was how many Villains they'd captured, welded to trees, and each other, before moving on. Awase had suggested they kill them, since the Villains had already killed the Pros, and were trying to kill the students, but Izuku had disagreed, as had Shiozaki. Shiozaki had because the Villains had been rendered harmless, and it was not their place to 'deliver judgement', while Izuku had been insistent that Heroes didn't kill. When Awase had asked if that meant that the Pros they'd found 'weren't heroes', Midoriya had amended that to, 'If they didn't have to', and, with them able to tie these people down, they didn't have to.
And so they moved on, finding more and more dead bodies, a small, dark part of Midoriya's mind suggesting that he was only getting there too late because he had to slow down and move at everyone else's pace. It was the reason that Mirko worked alone, after all. He knew Shiozaki could move faster, but they didn't have the Support Item Kaminari had made for her to do so, and, while he wanted to say they would've been fine without him, three different Villain groups would've overwhelmed the others if not for Midoriya, because, as he'd learned tonight, One-For-All wasn't just physically strong.
No, it gave him resistances to all sorts of things, like slowed time, poisons, transformations, and more. The higher his percentage of OfA, the stronger that resistance became, but the stronger his opponents Quirk was, the harder it was to resist. Honestly, if he hadn't been fighting such a range of opponents, Izuku probably wouldn't've noticed, the Villains going all the way from just above 'street hoodlums', up to 'serious threat to upper-tier pros', like the guy who made invisible cutting wires.
But Midoriya took them down all the same.
But the others wouldn't've.
So, his situation wasn't 'If you stay with them, others might die', it was, 'Will you abandon these three to maybe save someone else.'
And, as All Might had said, Heroes didn't abandon their comrades.
So that was that.
They continued on, and, sniffing, Midoriya was getting used to another aspect of his powers, one that he'd, kind of embarrassingly, overlooked, despite All Might having mentioned it thirty-four times during his career, but Izuku had thought when the man had talked about "smelling trouble" he'd been speaking metaphorically.
Nope!
One-for-All made everything better.
Including his nose.
Holding a hand up, the others stilled, Hagakure only visible by her feet, Shiozaki holding the rest of the girl's clothes. Really, out of the three of them, the vine-haired girl was the only one he could really trust in a fight. That wasn't to say the others were bad, as without Awase they'd have to have tied up and knocked out the Villains, hoping for the best, but the 1-B student needed to get really close, without any way of defending himself, and while Hagakure had figured out her 'lightstream' move, she wasn't that tough either.
If he'd been paired with someone like Bakugo, he could've trusted his ex-friend to watch over them.
Then again, if he'd been paired with Bakugo specifically, the boy would've already blasted off into the forest leaving Midoriya to 'babysit the extras' or something.
Closing, there was no sound of movement, no breathing, just the same stillness of the forest, everything around them silent except for the sounds of distant fighting.
Taking a moment, Midoriya prepared himself for what he'd find, and moved forward past the current set of trees only to discover one thing:
He was not prepared.
Because there, dead, was Aoyama, the boy's stomach split open, his hands covered in blood and more. The sight told a story, Midoriya's experience with All Might and Mirko letting him understand it all too well. A lethal injury inflicted, at the point his Quirk emanated, but not a quickly killing one, the Villains either letting him live or Aoyama getting away from them. The boy had tried to hold his intestines in, hold himself together, the tear tracks showing Aoyama knew he couldn't. His classmate had hoped help would come, but also knew it wouldn't. It spoke of terror, and desperation, and despair, and pain, and-
Midoriya turned and vomited, his mind superimposing his memories of his classmate over the corpse, traitorously showing him how the half-French boy's last moments likely played out. He'd known of the other Pros, seen them in action, in person or on tv, but he's known Yuga Aoyama, spent months with him, and now he'd never see him again.
"Midoriya?" Hagakure asked, concerned.
"Stay back," he replied, stopping as his stomach cramped again, the boy doubling over once more, until there was nothing left.
"Wha-Aoyama!" his classmate cried out, having snuck up on them, no, on him, as the blond boy was… was gone.
Spitting out the last of the sick, leaving a sour taste in his mouth, Midoriya nodded, telling her, "That's why I said to stay back. Didn't want you to see."
Beside him, Hagakure hesitated, then shook her head, by the sound of her hair swishing in the air. "N-No. This. I, if I'm gonna be a Hero, I'm gonna see stuff like this. And, and I need to know this is serious."
Izuku, well, he could respect that, and nodded, reaching out to pat her on the shoulder, missing, and hitting something soft instead, freezing as he did so. "I, uh, what?"
However, instead of getting mad, Hagakure chuckled, though it was strained. "Yeah, Deku, that was my boob. I… if you and Uraraka weren't a thing, maybe I'd give it a shot, but… but I just want to go home right now," she admitted, her voice lost, and despairing.
Sighing, Midoriya, with a better idea of where she was, successfully patted her on the shoulder, telling the invisible girl, "Me too. So, so let's make sure we all get there, okay?"
While he couldn't see her face, the Hero in training could hear her smile as she replied, "O-Okay. Now let's , let's get going. The more Villains we stop, the less of them are out there to hurt others. Right?"
Izuku blinked, as she turned and walked away, not having thought of it that way, but, looking at the situation from that perspective, he wasn't just keeping his team safe, he was doing his part to keep all of the teams safe by taking out the Villains, like a Hero would, even if he didn't really feel like one right now. Nodding to himself, he followed her, giving one last look back at their fallen comrade, and resolving to do his best to make sure they didn't lose anyone else.
MHA
This job… wasn't going well.
Jou Bojin was a normal person, with a normal Quirk. Specifically, his Quirk was literally Normal, which made everything he did seem… normal. Up to a point. And that point had gotten him in trouble. The more he did, the more active he was, the more he could be noticed, and he'd learned that the hard way on a job. Even though they couldn't prove he'd used his Quirk, when he'd ambled out of that jewelry store, because it was always active, it'd been enough to brand him a Villain, and he'd done his time, leaving, only to find out that prison was just the beginning, since no one wanted to hire a 'Villain', which really left him with one option.
But before, when he'd been doing some thievery here and there to help make up for the fact that jobs kept firing him for 'Not showing up to work' despite him being right there when he was supposed to be, now he had to do it full time, and, with his record, he had to go work for a Villain Group, which meant he didn't get to pick his jobs.
Like this one.
And Villain Groups did exist, all over the country, despite what most people thought. None of them did anything big, not with All Might able to pop in at any moment and ruin everything by saving their targets, like a reverse-Godzilla, but there were a lot of kinds of crime, and people that were already doing something shady were usually even more scared of Heroes than 'Villains' like him were. So he'd joined a group of 'Friends of All looking out for One', people interested in helping themselves, but willing to work together to do so.
And it'd given him a lot of work, mostly just hanging out and watching places, and people, reporting what he saw, his Quirk letting him blend in pretty much everywhere, and they'd even had a few people show him how to fight, if it ever came down to it.
The knife in his hand felt heavy, and Jou realized now that it was not an if, but a when that he'd been expected to use that training, and the lessons on sneaking, and so on, hadn't been for self-defense, but to turn him into an assassin.
But… he didn't really mind, because, if he pulled this off, the pay would be amazing, and, really, did he care? People already treated him like he was scum, when they saw him at all, so, what were they gonna do?
Notice him and treat him worse?
The problem was, this was way harder than he thought it'd be.
He and the others, and there'd been a lot of others, had gathered in the warehouse in Tokyo, hundreds of them. He'd always known the 'Friends' were a big group, but never how big, and, if what some of the others said was true, this was a tiny fraction of their full strength. They'd been given the job, and it'd been a bit much, but it came down from someone way above him, and, while he was here for a job, some of the others had been way into hearing that 'Number One' had requested they do this.
Like, religious nutjob levels of 'into it'.
But the pay for going at all was descent, the pay for killing a Pro, something that Jou had always wanted to do, given the number of times he'd been harassed by the asshats after he'd gotten out because 'He had to be doing something' and for his 'Public Quirk Use'.
Like, if he'd been 'using his Quirk' they wouldn't've noticed him.
That was how his Quirk worked.
So, sticking a knife in one of them?
And getting paid to do it?
Sign him up!
He'd never actually hurt anyone, before, at least on purpose, but, for three million yen per kill, he was willing to take a stab at it.
Then the dark swirly portals had opened, all around the warehouse, and they'd grouped up, heading out, everyone with a compass that led back to the gathering point. They had a few hours to get in, get this done, and get out, or else their ride would leave without them, stranding them in the Japanese countryside, but, over an hour in, things hadn't gone to plan.
First of all, Pros were way tougher than they looked, or least the ones he'd met. He'd tagged along with a group of five others, their lead given the location of a pair of Heroes that were on guard duty. One was a dude who could make wind-birds that hit and blew people around, and the other was a girl that could kick really well.
Simple, right?
Well, they'd jumped the girl, and the guy who could spit explosives took her out, only for the wind hero to turn, throw a bird into that guy's mouth, and make him explode from the inside out. The others had rushed the Pro, and stabbed him to death, while Jou had just watched, not sure what to do. They'd apparently known the spitter, and were mad, saying it should've been Jou that died, but thought he'd 'run', despite the man standing right there, the others promising to kill him if they ever saw him again.
Which is when the big guy had shown up, seemingly lost, demanded direction, and, when the others told him to get fucked, the huge dude, covered in exposed muscle, and with a cyborg eye, had killed them all, then stomped off into the forest, leaving Jou standing there, ignored.
Needless to say, Mr. Bojin had gone in the opposite direction, eventually stumbling across a different group of five, who, hearing that one of the Villains had gone rogue, had said it was fine if he came along with, as they'd taken out their assigned Pros too, and were now hunting for students, who, for each one they took out, would net them ten million each. Well, there were also the two captures, that'd net them a hundred million if they pulled it off, but that seemed like a sucker bet, a task for someone with a way stronger power than any of them had.
The toughest one in this group, Kiru, could cut apart anything he touched, but that wasn't a really 'capture' kind of power. They hadn't gotten any student kills so far, but, as soon as they found some, it'd be over in an instant, and they'd wandered for a good half an hour without success.
Then rat woman froze, ears perking up, the Heteromorph warning them, "I hear someone! But they're… fast. And… and he's coming!" she yelled, turning to point into the forest, a flash of light seen as she jumped to the side, a sharp Crack sounding, something missing them, but a tree behind them exploding.
"Fuck!" Kiru swore, running to the side, while the other two, a guy with spiked skin and a guy with snakes-coming off his back like tentacles, both got ready, Jou moving behind a tree and trying to stay as still as possible, gripping the knife, not sure what to do with it.
A moment later, a shape hurled itself from the trees, arms and legs jagged and glowing, and slammed into the spikey guy, grabbing him with oversized, clawed hands that were impaled on the boney thorns that covered the other man seemingly without any problem, the force of his hit enough to shove them both over, their attacker flipping in a somersault to land on his feet, turn, and hurl the spiked man at snake-dude, hands completely fine.
From Snakey's scream, and the blood that spurted out on impact, the spikes were as sharp as they looked, their attacker had just seemingly ignored them.
From behind the electric guy, Kiru darted forward, reaching out to grab what Jou realized was Kaminari, one of the two capture targets, and, holy shit he understood why this kid was worth so much.
Bojin wanted to say something to warn the other guy, but just watched, as, in an instant, Kaminari twisted about on flickering legs, not taking a single step, and grabbed Kiru, lifting him up in the air, the Villain grinning and telling their target, "Get fucked, kid," before slamming his hands onto the electric arm, only for nothing to happen.
"…Was that supposed to do something?" the kid asked, his voice echoing through the space, lifting his other hand, as Kiru started slamming his palms over and over onto Kaminari's electrical arms, the student's clawed hand shifting to a blade made of lightning.
Wait, does Kiru have to touch someone's skin? Jou thought, having seen the man split a tree to show off, but if the student's limbs weren't really real, but energy, then-
With one swift cut, the Villain was beheaded, Kaminari discarding the body, turning, and throwing out his blade arm into the forest, limb extending outwards over two dozen feet, a nasal female scream resulting, and, pulling it back, he'd impaled the Heteromorph, reeling her in. Letting her go, she landed on the ground in front of him, falling on her hands and feet, struggling to rise, but another swipe of his blade arm cut her in half.
Kaminari turned, and, from his clawed hand, a faint pink glow shone. Then the limb split apart like a tuning fork, which he turned towards the two last men. A single jump moved the student, so that the spike-guy was between Kaminari and Snake-dude, before, with a flash and a Crack, spike-guy exploded, sending bits of bone slamming in every direction, snake guy torn apart, one off-white thorn thudding into the tree a few inches away from Jou's hand.
But he didn't move, couldn't move if he wanted to live.
Because, in less than fifteen seconds, this kid had killed his entire group.
Slowly, as Jou held his breath, waiting for the murderer to leave, the electrical attacker slowly turned, and stared right at him.
How? the Villain thought, wanting to run, but, maybe, maybe the other guy was just getting a sense that something was off? That was how Bojin had been caught before, but it would just be a feeling, so now he just needed to-
In a single, smooth movement Kaminari leapt, coming right for him, but Jou stayed still, sure that if he didn't move, then he'd be saf-
A large clawed hand wrapped around him, small electrical shocks stinging Jou, as he was lifted into the air.
"Thought so. I have questions. You will provide me answers," the kid, no, the man intoned, staring Jou in the eye, a hardness there that had no place on the face of someone so young.
And the Villain blabbed, telling the man, who seemed more like Inugami, the upper-level Friend who was managing this entire thing, then any of the other Villains Jou had met, everything he wanted. Giving over the compass he had, planning on taking one from Kiru after the electric threat had passed, and doing everything he could to comply. Kaminari, on hearing the name of their group, gripped Bojin so tight he couldn't breathe, muscles locking up from the electrical shocks, but the man in a teen's body had loosened his grip, and kept asking questions, until he had no more.
"So, you're, you're gonna let me go, right?" Jou asked, hopeful, still not understanding why his Quirk was useless against this, this monster. "I told you everything I know!"
For a long moment Kaminari stared at him, then asked, darkly amused, "When did I say I would let you live?"
The Villain only had a single moment of panic, before, suddenly, he was flying through the air, only, only he couldn't move his arms or legs, as he hit the ground and rolled, stopping, staring at the man as the 'Student' threw a headless body, Jou's body, away.
As everything started to go dark, started to slip away, the electrical threat looked at the compass in his hands, mused with a smile, "And now, I have a Target," before, crackling with lightning, the monster in human skin leapt off into the forest, and out of sight.
And then Jou Bojin, overlooked by almost all, knew no more.
MHA
Perhaps Mother was correct to be concerned.
Being able to see the future meant that one also could see one's own death, an occurrence that happened more than one might think, but was still certainly rare, and easy enough to avoid.
Tonight, Bradley was seeing more deaths than survivable moments.
It was an odd thing, like threading a maze through passages the size of a needle's eye, having to pick which one would not just take him through this moment, but the moments that followed, pressed to the edge of his ability, a single mistake meaning the end of everything he'd ever known.
And Ikari Bradley was having a wonderful time.
Their method of conveyance to their starting position had been unusual, but his grandfather and granduncle had been clear that to be a Hero was to deal with the unexpected, and to adapt to it on the fly, so such a thing wasn't outside the realm of possibility, only probability. Navigating the forest, using the lessons imparted onto them by their instructors, had been a simple enough task, walking along with Tokoyami, the raven-headed boy; Tetsutetsu, the teen as stubborn as his metallic Quirk; and Kurioro, whose obsession with 'darkness', like Tokoyami's, fit his Quirk to a T, but while the bird-headed heteromorph walked beside his own personal incarnation of shadow, the monochrome teen became one with it.
They had expected to run into resistance, but, when Bradley's Foresight Quirk had activated, his covered eye forcing it to only view himself, the Business class student knew something was off. A single step to the left let the bullet pass by him harmlessly, the wind of its passage rustling his close-cropped hair. Turning, there had been a woman, a rifle barrel emerging from her the top of her forearm, who frowned, readjusted, and fired three more shots. The precognitive had seen his death, if he stayed still, or dodged left or right, so had instead merely flexed his knees, dropping down enough to avoid them, leaning forward to shift his center of gravity, and charged.
Another attack from the side, one that would've cut him in half, was avoided by taking three half steps instead full ones, the idea of reaching out to grab the blade coming at him showing he'd merely lose fingers in the process, seeing, a fraction of a second later, as it passed in front of him, that it was made of a crescent of blue crystal and only then understanding why.
That attack was then gone, the next bullet dodged, and then he was on the woman, one hand on her wrist to divert her next shot, and, as her other arm reached for him, a second barrel deploying, he grasped her second wrist as well, leaping upwards, pulling down, so he started to flip backwards, bringing her in to his knee hard enough that he could feel her jaw break, and her shoulders dislocate, lifting his other leg to kick off of her, turning as a third villain came for him, a large fellow with flaming arms, shooting out a fireball that was easy enough to lean out of the way of, the heat offsetting the slight chill in the air, unseasonable for- oh, there was a giant iceberg nearby, likely the result of Endeavor's boy.
A quick glance to the side showed the other three students engaged with an equal number of opponents, the man with the crystal crescents, a woman with talons dripping what was likely poison, and a man covered in armor made of shadows. Bradley was not entirely sure if the third attacker's Quirk would be particularly effective, or useless, against the other two dark-aligned teens, but he was too busy with his own contest to bear it much thought.
Slipping off his eyepatch, the world dopplered, futures overlaying the present in fractal-like patterns, but having dealt with the influx of information, enough to drown in, over and over this past week, Ikari was able to isolate the parts that truly mattered, and focus on them alone, blocking out the nearby fight unless it neared him.
More fireballs were sent the teen's way, the Villain clapping his hands together, sending out a compressed stream, Bradley taking off through the trees, able to see how the fire would splash about and around the columns of lumber between them, the substance more cohesive than normal fire should be. This allowed the Precog to take cover behind an oak, grabbing a branch and hauling himself up, using his view of the future to see which steps would let him go unnoticed, and which would be answered with a torrent of flame, closing on the man in seconds and dropping down, feet first, body coiled, lashing out at the last moment and striking the Villain with not both heels, but only one, his other foot going wide as his opponent, still flaming, tried to reflexively counter with a blast of incandence, only to have his burning arm deflected, setting a nearby tree alight instead.
Landing, his opponent was down, but not out, a howl of pain coming from the other fight, Kurioro's, if Ikari had to guess, which caught the flame Villain's attention, the man already up on one knee, giving Bradley an opening to dart forward, and, with a precise kick to the temple, put his opponent down.
Looking to the side, things with the others were… not going as swimmingly.
Tetsutetsu had the poisonous woman in a hold, which was smart of him, his metal flesh unable to be punctured, however, the crystal crescent man had disarmed Kurioro.
At the shoulder.
The monochrome boy was on the ground, screaming in agony, holding the stump of flesh that was all that remained of his left arm, and something his grandfather had mentioned, about shapeshifting Villains he had dealt with, rose to the top of the Business student's mind.
"Kuriro!" Ikari barked out, voice commanding, "Merge with the darkness! Make it your body until you can receive medical attention, and head for Camp! We can handle this!"
To his credit, the black-skinned boy was able to reach beyond the pain and utilize his Quirk, seeming to drop through the grass and into the shadows that covered the ground, the darkness-armored man stabbing Tokoyami in the stomach with a blade of darkness, twisting it in the boy's gut as he taunted, "That boy's not going to make it. He's going to die, just like all of you are. All because you're. Too. Weak."
Which Bradley, having heard the boy's struggles with his Quirk every time they trained, did not need his Foresight to know was the wrong thing to say.
"NOOOOOOO̷̪̲̐O̸̫̞͆Ơ̷̆ͅ O̵̡̠͗̓̈̕O̶̧̘̞̪̲͓̮̫͗̈́̿̉͜͜Ȏ̴̧̪̬̺̺͓̗̠̤̾͌̌͆̾̈́̔̿̈́!" the raven-headed boy screamed, in rage and despair, his Quirk, which had already halfway covered him, surging upwards into a titanic creature of darkness, a large, glowing red eye visible, jaw stretched wide as teeth the size of stalactites were bared, and, with a sudden motion, Dark Shadow snapped forward, and down, on the black-clad Villain who barely had time to scream before the noise was cut off and replaced with a wet, tearing crunch, as the Quirk expression chewed on the remains of the Villain, and swallowed.
"Ŗ̴̼̰̫͖͙͓̤͙͌̒̂̅̏͂̐́̍͌͘͠͝ͅA̷̤̳̩̯̳͍̳̬̖̫̖͐A̵̛̺̙̱̹̩̠̲̱͈̳̔́̇̆͐̀̀̔̒́͗͆̒͠͝A̶̛͇̬̮̺͚̬͂́͗̎̓͆͊̉̽͌̚͝͝ͅẢ̸̖̤̝̭̳̝͍̱̽̓̈Ą̶̨̳͕͍̺̒̑́͌̽̅͊̂͝͠A̵̛̱̮͕̋͊̀̉̀͊́̐̄̋͆̓̎̆̚͝A̷̢͉͔̖̰̳͙͖̳͙̎̐̀͑̿̏̔̌̃̈́̑͘͜A̵̧̞̮͕̰͒͑A̴̧̡̢̢̡̛̯̺̺̯͔̮̝̣̙̦̅̾̃̉͂̆̈̆̑̚͘͝G̵̛̛̙̯̣̹̦̘̹̖̫̫̓̏͛́̔͜͝ͅH̸̢̨̢̛͚͓̭̻͈̦̜̖͓͔̖̲̠̓!̴̜̘̳̻̗̙̓̓͛̐́̚" it then screamed, turning on Tetsutetsu, slamming down with clawed hands made of shining purple shadows the size of cars, striking both him and the villain, the woman killed instantly, but the steel boy held out, even as, with blow after blow, the student was driven deeper into the ground.
Bradley knew he could likely escape, but the metallic teen had his limits, and would likely reach them before Tokoyami wrenched control back from his rogue Quirk.
"Well, you wanted to be a hero," Ikari smiled to himself, re-donning his eyepatch, taking a few steps to the side and grabbing a still-burning tree branch, breaking it off, and hurling it at the shadow-beast.
It roared in surprise, and pain, one enormous hand lashing out and crushing the light-source. Then the berserking beast turned its hateful gaze the precognative's way. With its focus on him, Bradley gave the prideful manifestation of Tokoyami's subconscious a mocking bow, further enraging it, and, as it charged the student, Ikari dodged to the side, moving in just the right way to avoid being caught and torn to shreds.
Which led to his current situation, riding the edge of disaster, playing cat and mouse with a being overwhelmed with rage, pain, and hate, likely for himself as much as any other. Ikari knew that leaving his vision unlimited might have been a boon, but in this match it was endurance that mattered, and, lungs burning, muscles straining, it was a coin toss as to whether it would be enough.
Hearing the beast's screams, Bradley rolled, silently grabbing a stick, the monster's immediately lethal response to any mistake helping to guide his actions, and the precog tossed it to the side, leaving it to break upon a trunk a dozen feet away, diverting Dark Shadow's attention as it hunted for him, giving Ikari time to shift course, gaining more distance, not sure if he'd driven it far enough away from Tetsutetsu to slip away himself. However, at the edge of his mind, something niggled at Bradley, a feeling he couldn't put into words, but one that he felt he should follow, so did, changing course again, stepping on a twig that snapped, dragging the beast's attention to him, but with enough space to survive the mistake, if it was one.
With another Ṛ̶̠̂̔O̷̬͖̊A̶̧͓̎R̴̡̠͒͘, it took off after him, but, ahead of him was something else, a large shape, and Ikari felt another source of death coming from it, yet, at the same time, that odd feeling was pushing him forward.
"Huh?" the thing, a muscular mountain of a man, called, turning, looking at him with both eyes, one natural, the other artificial.
Ah. Good. Exactly what I needed.
Bait.
"If you don't mind," Bradley noted, the man lashing out with a fist, muscular tissue emerging from his arms, layering over the skin to add extra bulk, as the Precog dropped down into a slide, barely avoiding it, "but I think you should have this dance."
"What?" the Villain asked, confused, turning, just in time for an enormous purple fist to slam into the hulking man, and send him through several trees.
Springing to his feet, Ikari didn't hesitate, continuing to run, as, behind him, Dark Shadow screamed in rage, even as the man laughed, surging to his feet.
"HA! YES! THIS IS WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR!" the now muscle covered Villain shouted, launching himself like a fleshy cannonball at the towering shadow-monster, completely capturing its attention.
With the possibilities of death quickly diminishing, the precog put distance between himself and the pair, hoping that dealing with that powerful-looking Villain would give Tokoyami time to get ahold of himself. There was the possibility that the teen would be killed, but, from the titanic clash resounding through the forest, there wasn't much that he could do to help, one way or another.
Unbidden, a grin spread across Ikari Bradley's features, feeling more alive than ever, as he started to circle back towards Tetsutetsu, very glad he'd decided to come to this summertime training excursion!
AN: The Hero Course attracts all sorts. And, yes, this Arc has wrapped up on and Subscribestar.