Izuku landed on the corner of a rooftop beside Tsukuyomi. The two waited for a moment so that Mineta could catch up, Izuku frowning at the annoyance written all over his teammate's face. Izuku shook his head at Tsukuyomi, which did nothing to change his attitude, but Izuku had to at least try. Mineta bounced up to the rooftop and leaned over, trying to catch his breath. Looking at him now, whatever training he'd done hadn't been enough. Izuku didn't want to be mean, but Mineta seemed to have difficulty keeping up and not collapsing. Izuku knew that he was among the fastest in the class nowadays, but Tsukuyomi had kept up fine, and Dark Shadow didn't exactly give him any natural advantages in speed. Mineta's Quirk seemed to be extremely well suited for manoeuvrability, but it was clear that the training he'd undergone either hadn't been overseen by anyone else, or would never have been enough to put him on par with Hero course kids. It felt like a sad reality that if he wanted to be a Hero, Mineta would have had to get in on the first try. Even if he got into the course now, he'd be almost eternally behind everyone else. It seemed like that was the way it was designed.

Looking back out across the intersection the three now faced, Izuku saw a blinking light in the exact middle. It was Ms. Appear and her light refraction power, he knew it was, so why was there this feeling in his gut that was telling Izuku to be careful? It could've been Danger Sense, but this feeling was different. It wasn't the sharp sensation in his mind that Danger Sense brought that was making Izuku hesitate, it was like he was being physically kept in place. He looked a bit closer at the blinking light, but couldn't see anything that would make him feel this way. Maybe it was the lack of seeing anything that was the problem, with Ms. Appear's power over light often inflicting the uncanny valley on Izuku when he spoke with her while she was invisible.

"What do you want to do about her?" Tsukuyomi asked.

"What do you mean, 'her'? Is that someone's Quirk?" Mineta asked in reply.

Izuku had forgotten that Mineta had no clue what most of the Quirks in class were. He knelt down, gesturing for Tsukuyomi to do the same, so that the three of them could speak in quieter tones. It wouldn't do them any good to get heard because they were talking in a silent intersection.

"Ms. Appear can warp light, giving her invisibility and the power to create a sort of flashbang effect. So far, though, she can only warp light that comes into contact with her, so we know that she's standing out there in the street," Izuku explained.

"I doubt that she's alone," Tsukuyomi put forward.

"Yeah. If I had Ms. Appear on my team, I'd send her in to get enemies' attention and gather intel, only to disappear and relay everything to me. If she were to get caught, that would be okay, since she can light up a beacon to where our enemies are. It makes sense, then, to act as though there are more of them nearby," Izuku said.

"Who do you suppose they'd team her up with? She's best as a visual distraction, but she does nothing for our louder enemies," Tsukuyomi said.

"My thoughts exactly. Gren-Aid, Hypnos and Earphone Jack, whose Quirks make and rely on sound, are bad teammates for Ms. Appear. Personally, I'd put her with Uravity and Red Riot, maybe. They're both close range fighters, so they'd need that distraction to get the drop on somebody with precognition like myself, and Uravity can silently float through the air, so that really works for her. Basically any of the hand-to-hand fighters benefit from a team up with Ms. Appear, so we should be on guard," Izuku thought out loud.

Izuku took a moment to think about it some more, but was drawn out of his analysis by Mineta groaning. He looked over to the shorter boy to see him looking at Tsukuyomi expectantly. Izuku wondered what this was about, but let it play out while he thought of a plan in the background of his mind.

"What are we sitting around for? We should go and take her out so we can get a point!" Mineta asked, staring at the blinking light in the middle of the intersection.

"We don't know who she's with, and it's better to have a plan than to go in blindly and get ourselves eliminated before we can do anything. Rushing in like a fool is how you lose," Tsukuyomi retorted.

"That's dumb. What, you do whatever this guy says? Who even put him in charge anyway?" Mineta asked, turning to address Izuku.

Izuku simply looked at Mineta with as neutral a face he could muster and kept silent. He knew what he wanted to try now, and this wasn't getting anything done. Izuku stood up suddenly, causing Mineta to flinch away from him. He wondered if that meant anything, but didn't dwell on it too long as Tsukuyomi rose to meet him. They shared a look, which Tsukuyomi, by his widened eyes and summoning of Dark Shadow, understood to mean 'prepare'. Izuku began to walk along the rooftop, far enough away from the ledge that Ms. Appear wouldn't be able to see him.

"Tsukuyomi, have Dark Shadow check if Ms. Appear is still blinking," Izuku said, whispering through the comms as he gestured for his teammates to stay there.

Dark Shadow extended from Tsukuyomi's torso in order to peer over the ledge of the roof. He stayed that way for a moment, his eyes trained on the same spot in the street, until he retracted into Tsukuyomi's chest and the avian boy turned to his leader once more.

"She's still there and blinking. What are you planning?" he asked, giving Izuku a strange look.

"I was thinking that we try our hand at distraction as well. I want you two to go down there, making yourselves as obvious as possible. While she and whoever is with her are looking at you two, I'll be making my way around on the rooftops so that I can get behind her. I'll use Float so that the air displacement my Super Strength causes doesn't give me away. When I'm in position, I'll grab her with Blackwhip and take her out as quick as I can to bypass whatever trap is clearly waiting when they expect us to go for the takedown on her. Sounds good?" Izuku ran through his plan quickly.

Tsukuyomi gave him a thumbs up, to which Izuku smiled. Mineta grumbled something about him being stupid, but gave his assent anyway. Izuku nodded back to the two and turned to keep going, but that same feeling in his gut from before made Izuku feel like going that way was bad.

It was really starting to become confusing with whether or not this was Danger Sense, as Izuku was leaning that way the more this feeling popped up. Maybe Danger Sense was evolving to give him stomachaches instead of migraines. It'd make sense that the first real development with One for All in months would just be a new way to hurt Izuku, honestly, and he wouldn't be surprised if that was the case. Izuku did change which direction he was moving in, listening to the feeling that was making his stomach squirm.

As Izuku distanced himself from his teammates, they dropped down. He waited for a few moments, before hearing a faint conversation on the comms. It sounded like Tsukuyomi talking, but he couldn't hear anything as he focused on putting one foot in front of the other throughout the inconsistent levelling of the rooftops as he ran. Lucky that he had trained so much with this type of terrain during his internship, and then working so much in Ground Gamma. Izuku knew how to get through a mess of piping like it was nothing, so this was easy enough for him to manage. He did have to concentrate, however, which took his focus away from the conversation happening in his ear.

Eventually, Izuku came to a point where he figured that he wouldn't be seen crossing over to the rooftops on the other side of the street. There, he paused to check in with his teammates only to hear Tsukuyomi speaking to someone.

" What's your game, Ms. Appear? Trying to bait us into coming closer? " Tsukuyomi asked.

Izuku tapped his earpiece and spoke slowly and quietly so that he didn't make Tsukuyomi visibly react in any way. If Ms. Appear and her teammates knew that they were up to something, it could all fall apart.

"Is she distracted?" Izuku whispered.

"Yeah, but something weird's going on here. Better hurry up with that plan of yours," Mineta reported, sounding as if he was trying to make his mouth move as little as possible, which was understandable.

Having the confirmation he needed, Izuku backed up as far as he could on the single rooftop. He then began to hype himself up, flexing his calves and thighs to warm up. This was going to need a proper run-up, even with Float carrying him almost all the way. After a moment of warming up, Izuku decided that he was ready and took off, pushing against the concrete roof and building up speed. He stayed in that state for a few seconds, getting faster and faster, until Izuku was moving as fast as he could without One for All, or at least close to it. He reached the ledge and leapt up so that he could get his foot under himself and pushed down on the slightly higher block that made up the edge of the building.

That push turned all of Izuku's forward momentum into height, and he soared into the air with a light woosh of air behind him. Float kept him steady as he rode out his momentum and kept gliding through the air. Izuku felt bad that Float wasn't a power that could be built upon outside of decreasing the activation time. He'd had theories about explicit flight back when he'd first got it, but those hadn't panned out. Over the months he'd had Float, Izuku had tried to find a way to alter some aspect of it with One for All's power stockpile, like how he was able to reinforce Blackwhip's physical nature to form his Blackwhip Shields. With Danger Sense, Izuku was able to hone his senses to block out every little thing the Quirk picked up and focus on just himself and select teammates, but there wasn't anything to do with Float. He just had it, and that felt unsatisfying to Izuku's ever-improving sense of self.

He came down on his chosen rooftop without a sound other than the light tap of his shoes against the concrete. Izuku looked back in the direction he came from, ready to run back to his teammates and enemies. Izuku repeated the running jump and Float manoeuvre that he had used to cross the first gap so that he could cross the second street and get to a spot that was behind Ms. Appear and whoever was with her.

That was the first part of his plan, now it was time for the most crucial part; sneaking up on a primarily stealth-based fighter. Izuku took off into a light jog so as to not make too much noise, and began to get closer to the corner where he knew everyone was, or was around. He still didn't know who was with Ms. Appear, how many there were and what their whole plan was, but Izuku was confident that he and his own team could come out on top if they gave it their all. Dark Shadow had a fraction of his true power when covered in light, but that was to say that a gun was less lethal in the hands of a police officer. Technically true, but that officer could do untold damages given the chance. Dark Shadow was the gun, and Tsukuyomi was the man with the will to take the safety off whenever he wanted. This was no holds barred, after all, so he could simply destroy most of the other team. Izuku had a plan for that, actually, but that could wait until he saw how his current idea worked out.

Izuku, having arrived at his destination, examined the space Ms. Appear occupied. He could see Tsukuyomi and Mineta standing on the sidewalk in the corner they'd all started from, with Mineta saying something. Izuku tuned back into his comms to hear Tsukuyomi calling to him under his breath.

"Sorry, Tsukuyomi. What is it?" Izuku asked, kneeling in his spot on the roof.

"Ms. Appear hasn't said a word. We haven't heard anything other than ourselves out here. Do you wish to proceed with the plan?" Tsukuyomi asked back.

It wasn't like Toru Hagakure to be completely silent. Something else was going on, Izuku could feel it. He stood back up and saw the light still blinking in the middle of the intersection. Something about the placement had been bugging Izuku, so he took another close look at it. Izuku couldn't really pinpoint what it was, until he realized that the light was at the exact middle of the intersection. It was too perfectly placed in the center to be natural. It looked as though a computer had been asked to place it in the middle, and it's absolutely logical, mathematical programming had calculated it so that it was in the perfect center. Ms. Appear wasn't that kind of smart, so something was weird about that.

"Stay there. I'm gonna try something," Izuku said.

"Alright. Do you need anything from us?" Tsukuyomi copied.

"Just … be on guard. Also, be ready to call for backup. I have a weird feeling about this," Izuku explained.

Izuku looked at the blinking light, and steeled his nerves. He aimed both hands at the light, already feeling a glob of Blackwhip filling them. Izuku filled his arm from the elbow down with ten percent of One for All, hoping that it would be enough to do the trick. Izuku had figured out this technique a few weeks ago, and had taken a liking to it whenever he needed to be precise with Blackwhip. The different strands, being at least partially solid, did have to obey the laws of physics, meaning gravity still pulled them down toward the ground. That meant that he had to put power into flinging them at his target if they were a decent distance away, as was the case here. Izuku had learned to condense the power the One for All gave him into his hand, and then sandwich Blackwhip between his middle finger and thumb. When he was ready, Izuku would then flick his finger at his target, causing the strength in his hands to shoot the Blackwhip out at incredible speeds. He called this move the Dark Sniper, but that probably needed work.

Izuku fired off Dark Sniper with both hands, causing two tendrils of Blackwhip to be shot out at Ms. Appear. Blackwhip reached her within a moment, but passed through the light as it blinked and ricocheted off the ground slightly. Izuku gasped lightly as Blackwhip went limp on the ground, before quickly retracting it back into himself. He stared at the spot that his Blackwhip had passed through uselessly, the light still blinking at a steady rate.

That was also something that felt weird to Izuku; the perfect pace at which the light was blinking. Ms. Appear was good, but not to the millisecond. Izuku stayed for a moment, counting in his head, and it was always exactly the same, without fail. This was really starting to get to Izuku, so he let go of One for All and sighed some of his frustration out. He looked back at his teammates, who seemed to be going through a similar crisis. What the hell was happening?

Deciding that he'd had enough of this, Izuku took a step forward. He dropped off the roof and into the air, letting himself fall toward the ground for a few moments. The protrusions of his cowl fluttered in the wind, and the way the air beat against his body felt like a momentary reprieve from this exam. Izuku savored that while he could, but had to give it up as the ground rushed up to meet him. As he approached the end of his jump, Izuku used Float to slow his descent, coming to a safe landing on the pavement as opposed to the other way to land.

Izuku stood on the corner opposite to his teammates, the three of them looking toward each other through the blinking light that they'd thought was Ms. Appear. Izuku didn't know how they'd done this, as they had nobody else who could do that, but if anybody could find a way, it'd be Ms. Maker. Izuku, honestly, had been worried that he'd split everyone up for no reason, and that it would be easiest to simply steamroll everyone with the full might of the ten of them. This was kind of validating to that thought, as he couldn't figure out how Ms. Maker's team had done this.

"Nexus, what's our next move?" Tsukuyomi asked, choosing to yell over the silence instead of using comms for whatever reason. He looked spooked from what Izuku could see, so it made sense that he was unnerved and wanted direct communication.

"Don't shout; you'll give away our location," Izuku said, trying to be sympathetic to his friend

As soon as he spoke, Izuku felt something change. His whole body felt numb, and his hand dropped down to a limp hang. There was a fog in his mind that told him exactly what he needed to know. This was Hypnos's Brainwashing in effect. He hadn't involuntarily been under the Quirk's control since the Sports Festival, so it took a moment to figure out exactly what it was, but he was sure that it was Brainwashing. Izuku often let Hypnos control him in order to try pushing the boundaries of that control, but it was a whole different experience being snagged without warning. It was like there was a switch that was flipped that disconnected his body from his mind, and Izuku had found that he didn't like it very much.

Izuku's head hadn't moved, so he could see Tsukuyomi react to something. It was probably Hypnos behind him. Danger Sense was screaming at Izuku to move, but he just couldn't. It was even more intense now that Izuku was kind of sharing that space in his brain that Danger Sense occupied, and it made him wonder if the vestiges could feel whenever Danger Sense went off. Just then, a deafening wall of something ripped through Izuku's body. It was excruciating, like a thousand tiny knives were slicing through every part of him at once, and he had no way to stop it. A sharp ringing in Izuku's ears made it so that he couldn't hear if he made any noises of pain, but he knew that this would jostle him out of Hypnos's control. It would hurt something good, though. Izuku was thrown into the air by the blast, he flailed through the air, trying to get a strong enough hold on himself to use Float, but Izuku was still too disoriented to do anything. His head felt like it was going to split open, and he couldn't hear anything, and his body felt as if he was being torn apart atom by atom. Eventually, he landed on the ground, but that too felt like it was a punch in the back from All Might himself.

All he could see was the sky. He couldn't hear a single thing. His head felt like it was mush, and his muscles were even worse; it was like someone had taken a scalpel and severed all of his tendons. Izuku couldn't move a single muscle in his body, and it felt as though he was a puppet who'd had his strings cut. Only, this wasn't a fairy tale where he'd suddenly come alive. No, this was reality, where uncontrolled puppets were now piles of wood waiting to be kindling. This was the kind of thing he'd felt all that time ago when he was Quirkless, and being reminded of that feeling brought a small tear to Izuku's eye as he stared at the clouds that passed by.

It was oddly peaceful, but just for a moment, because nothing like that seemed to last. Small shockwaves began to make the ground under Izuku shake slightly. The slight movements made Izuku's whole body ache like they'd never ached before. It wasn't exactly the most intense pain he'd even been in; no, One for All had been responsible for that . No, it was more like this was a kind of pain he'd just never been subject to before. The pure overwhelming force that had slammed into him and ripped him from both Brainwashing's control and the ground.

Suddenly, Hypnos came into view. He stepped into Izuku's line of sight, looking down at his friend with a mirth in his eyes that reminded him of All for One telling Izuku how he'd be killed and One for All would be taken. It honestly kind of scared Izuku. Hypnos looked down at Izuku, helpless and hurt, and laughed . Izuku knew that this was all kind of a game, but it still hurt just a little bit.

"Well, I'd say that worked like a charm. Good work, Earphone Jack, Ms. Appear," Hypnos said, looking back to where he came and out into the intersection and nodding.

Izuku managed to shift his head to the side so that he could check on Tsukuyomi and Mineta. What he saw was Gren-Aid standing over Mineta, staring him down with a feral grin on his face. Tsukuyomi backed away, clearly wary of the explosions coming from Gren-Aid's hands, which he was holding over Mineta threateningly. Izuku knew that Tsukuyomi had a type disadvantage with Gren-Aid, Dark Shadow being weak to bursts of light and Gren-Aid's Quirk producing just that. This was bad. They needed backup. Izuku could take down Hypnos, Earphone Jack, Ms. Appear and maybe Gren-Aid separately, but he couldn't take them all at once. That was a recipe for disaster, and he was in the middle of them with spaghetti for limbs.

"Oh, don't worry about them. This is about us," Hypnos said, using his foot to make Izuku look at him.

"How?" Izuku managed to spit out, immediately devolving into a fit of coughing from the strain on his lungs.

"Well, you know what a certain someone said, right? Everyone has secrets. It's how we level the playing field," Hypnos answered, chuckling lightly at the memory.

Tsu had said that about a month ago. Izuku remembered it as well, but Hypnos had clearly taken that sentiment to heart and done something that allowed them to pull this plan off. Izuku still didn't get how it worked, and what they'd done to make it work that way, but he was impressed with Hypnos's approach to this. He seemed to be the leader of at least Earphone Jack and Ms. Appear, which meant that Ms. Maker had indeed split her own team up into groups with roles similar to Izuku.

Slowly, Izuku felt his strength returning. That blast had likely been from Earphone Jack, so it had been a large sound wave that had shaken him up like this. It made sense then, that he was reacting this way. Izuku had never really been on the receiving end of one of her larger blasts, so his body wasn't used to it. He'd be back to full strength if he just waited it out, so he wasn't done fighting yet. He was able to move his neck at least, now, with him flinching away from the loud explosions that were currently ringing out from the battle between Gren-Aid and whoever was left standing, probably Tsukuyomi.

"Just fucking die, already!" Gren-Aid roared, his voice coming from high in the air.

"Are you okay, Gren-Aid?" Hypnos asked into his own comms.

"Fuck this! Dominoes, fall!" Gren-Aid screamed, his voice getting closer to the ground as he spoke.

Izuku looked over to see Gren-Aid landing, staring down Tsukuyomi, who looked like he'd taken a few hits but was otherwise fine. He also saw three other people dropping down from the sky. Red Riot was the first to land, using his Hardening to come in like a meteor and crack the pavement where he landed next to Gren-Aid. The second was Uravity, who gently soared down to the street-level and came to a stop on the other side of Gren-Aid with a soft click of her heels. The last one to land was Tail Flail, using the streetlights and other fixtures to redirect his trajectory so that he didn't splat on the ground. He landed next to Uravity, slightly out of breath from the ordeal he had to go through that the others didn't.

Feeling vindicated in the thought that they'd split up into teams, Izuku wondered what 'Dominoes' meant in this context. He saw Hypnos admiring the team of fighters, and consequently not paying attention to Izuku. He looked over to see that Earphone Jack was hanging back in the storefront she'd fired her blast from, and Ms. Appear was still invisible. He saw his chance to warn his team and took it in a heartbeat.

"Everyone, come in! Team Two has begun an assault on my group and we need backup now! Disregard your previous orders and group up on me!" Izuku yelled into his comms, making Hypnos look down at him in shock.

"Shit," Hypnos growled, picking his foot up off the ground and raising it above Izuku's head.

Everything then played out in slow-motion, almost. Izuku called on One for All, and felt the energy fill his body as green lightning began to arc around him. He stared Hypnos right in the eyes and, with his newfound strength, caught his boot as it came down toward his head. The look in Hypnos's eyes was once smug, amused, but now it was one of fear. He knew that letting Izuku get to this point again would be bad, but he'd let it happen right under his nose. Izuku would have to apologize later, but this was war, where sympathy was liable to make you lose.

Izuku shot right up to ten percent with One for All and flung Hypnos away, sending him high into the air. Hypnos rose a few stories high, but eventually began to slow down and stagnate in the air. Izuku heard a few shouts, mostly of Hypnos's name, but tuned them out as he placed his hands and feet against the ground, ready to push off of it. He saw as Hypnos flicked his binding cloth out and snagged one of the railings on top of the buildings to stop himself from falling. He then let physics take him, swinging down toward a window and crashing through it, breaking the glass and making someone hiss at the scrapes that he must have endured in that.

"How are we supposed to group up? Do you have a way to let us know where you are?" Izuku heard Tsu ask through the comms as everyone around him began to box him in.

"Follow the North Star!" Izuku joked, hoping it would relieve the nerves that were catching up to him in this situation.

Operation: Floaty Boat had been a success at the Sports Festival, so why not here as well? It would let him escape this situation and get a better look at what he was up against, and he could act as a beacon to the other groups; it was perfect! Last time, Izuku hadn't had the strength of One for All, so he'd used his teammates to boost him up. But, this time all of Izuku's Quirks were on his side, and he could leap to the best of his ability. Izuku shot up to his feet and put his hands out as if he was going to attack. Everyone flinched away, but that gave Izuku the split second of peace he needed to crouch down and hype himself up for the amount of power he was about to use.

"Oh, no you don't!" Gren-Aid yelled, beginning to charge at Izuku with crackling palms.

Izuku looked over at his childhood bully turned estranged acquaintance. Gren-Aid had figured out the power of flight before Izuku, but Izuku was improving at a rate that Gren-Aid could only ever hope to achieve. He'd been thinking about their dynamic a lot lately, and Izuku finally realized that part of the legacy of One for All was to be chased after. All for One chased after it for over a hundred years so that he could have it. Endeavor had chased after it for over two decades so that he could best it. All Might had chased Nana down when they'd first met so that he could use it to better the world. This was a power that everyone wanted, in one way or another. Now, that same cycle was repeating itself with himself and Gren-Aid. They'd been improving quickly all semester, but now was the time to prove which one of them was better. If he had to play into that cycle for a few minutes, then so be it.

"Come get me!" Izuku said, before launching himself into the air with One for All and Float combined, soaring into the air without the anchor of gravity holding him down.

He could hear distant booms following him, but Izuku didn't care. Gren-Aid could come and try him if he wanted, but Izuku would show him what he could do now. He wasn't a powerless four year old kid anymore. He was Nexus, and he was gonna kick Gren-Aid's ass if he thought that he'd give up without a fight.