The morning of April second greeted the heroes with a bright, if cloudy sky above the streets of Musutafu. The perimeter around the Shie Hassaikai compound — a seemingly ordinary gated residence that might have belonged to any civilian family of affluence — had been evacuated in advance of the heroes' arrival. The police had then held the line around the block that the closed off property belonging to the Shie Hassaikai was on while the heroes had arrived and begun assembling. All was going according to Sir Nighteye's plans — Ryukyu and Nejire Chan were keeping watch on the Hassaikai from the air while the frontal assault team congregated at the gate that led to the front door, if Sir Nighteye's Quirk had given him the right information, which it never had before. According to Nighteye, he'd stalked a suspected Hassaikai member who'd gone out of his way to buy toys marketed toward little girls, and used his Foresight Quirk on him to learn that the man was a caretaker for the girl at the heart of the Hassaikai's operations, Eri. They now had a route through the compound that would take them directly to Eri so that they could save her in as little time as possible. They were ready. It was time.
Izuku stood with the frontal assault team. The team was Sir Nighteye himself, Lemillion, Aizawa, Rock Lock, and the UA interns. The exact makeup of the strike team was decided by Sir with careful consideration of their Quirks and skills, and he had come to the conclusion that the nine of them had the strength necessary to overcome the Eight Bullets and Kai Chisaki himself if it came to that. As well, a unit of police officers in riot gear were to accompany them and arrest any of the Hassaikai members they happened to defeat on their way to Eri. This was all for her sake. Mere minutes before the operation was set to begin, Izuku was standing off to the side as Sir Nighteye gave some last minute orders to the police. He read through the packet the heroes had shared concerning the Eight Bullets — Kai Chisaki's personal bodyguards, most devoted servants, and most powerful fighters. They were the entourage that Izuku had kept seeing in his initial investigations into Chisaki and the Children's meetings. The documents inside detailed what the police knew of their Quirks and appearances to help the heroes strategise. Izuku stared at the entries regarding Kendo Rappa and Hekiji Tengai, the two that he and Hitoshi hadn't managed to defeat at the warehouse, the two that had sent them further down the rabbit hole by blowing up that warehouse. Izuku wondered if his new mastery of twenty-five percent of One For All would be enough to overcome Rappa's incredible punching ability, or if he'd be able to shatter Tengai's barriers. Only time would tell. He spotted another of the Eight Bullets that poked at something in his brain, and hummed in thought.
"Hey, Hypnos," Izuku said, waving Hitoshi over, who pulled his Persona Chords mask down from over his face and sent Izuku a questioning look. "Have you seen this?"
"Which one?" Hitoshi asked.
"Shin Nemoto," Izuku clarified. Hitoshi looked down at the entry that Izuku pointed to with narrow eyes and a deep frown on his face. "His Quirk kinda sounds like your mom's, right?"
"Confession," Hitoshi read aloud. "Forces his victims to answer with the truth whenever he asks them a question." He stared down at the page for a moment, his eyes scanning the sentence a few times before he shrugged. It looked forced, like his body was holding more tension than he wanted to give away. "Yeah, sounds like it. So?"
"I wonder if you can take advantage of that. If he can make you talk, then he'll basically brainwash himself," Izuku said.
Hitoshi said nothing, just stared at Shin Nemoto's entry. He was about to speak, but it was then that Sir Nighteye called out to the assembled heroes. "Attention, everyone. We are about to begin. Please carry out your assigned duties with the utmost effort and skill that you can. A little girl's life is on the line."
Izuku and Hitoshi jogged over to the frontal assault team. Ochako and Tsu were striking up a conversation with Rock Lock, who had turned out to be friendly and supportive after his initial opposition to them being involved with the case. As it turned out, he had a kid of his own at home and had just been concerned for their safety. He'd gotten along with the students swimmingly after that misunderstanding had been cleared up. Izuku and Hitoshi stopped short of interrupting their discussion, which gave Aizawa the chance to approach and give them each passive glances.
"Are you two ready for this?" he asked. "It means that the choice to make concerning your futures at UA is closer than ever."
"Why the hell would we care about that right now?" Hitoshi said grimly.
"If we do end up getting expelled, it'll be worth it if our actions led to Eri getting home to her family," Izuku said just as seriously.
Aizawa raised his eyebrows and nodded slightly. "That's what I like to hear."
"Let's just go already!" Katsuki half-shouted, half-whispered. He'd been told by Aizawa too many times to not give their presence away before they had to, so he'd resorted to that blend of fury and caution. "It's bad enough that you wake me up so early. Now you're making me wait around when I could be killing this Overhaul guy?"
Izuku laughed quietly at his old friend's antics. It was a shame that Best Jeanist had had to answer a call out in Fukuoka suddenly, but he'd given Katsuki permission to remain and participate in the raid. It was Izuku's belief that Katsuki had been saddened by his mentor having to leave, but he hadn't said anything. He'd just pouted the way he did when he said he absolutely wasn't pouting. Izuku thought that Best Jeanist might have been the one person other than All Might that Katuski had legitimately begun to respect. That was a strange thought. Putting that out of his mind, Izuku focused up when Sir Nighteye parted ways with the head of the police unit that was to accompany the frontal assault team into the compound. Other heroes crowded around the central strike team, ready to swarm the Shie Hassaikai if it was necessary. Midnight came up behind Izuku and Hitoshi and put a hand on a shoulder each, giving them a comforting smile and a vote of confidence in a wink. Hitoshi pulled his Persona Chords mask up over his lower face and Izuku donned his cowl, the rabbit ears flapping in the early-spring wind. At last, it was time to go.
"Nexus, Gren-Aid — do you mind knocking?" Sir Nighteye asked with a humourless tone, though the warmth in his eyes told a different story. Izuku had gotten better at recognising that sort of thing the more time he spent around Sir.
"My pleasure. Let's do this thing, Deku!" Katsuki cackled.
"Remember, Kacchan," Izuku said under his breath as they both walked up to the towering gate blocking the way onto the property. "Use my hero name when we're in costume."
"You first, nerd," Katsuki huffed.
Katsuki reached out and knocked hard enough to rattle the lock. The moment following that was dead silent, with neither the heroes nor any Hassaikai members on the other side of the door saying a word. Sir Nighteye broke that silence and called out, "Members of the yakuza group called the Shie Hassaikai, we have a warrant for the arrest of one Kai Chisaki and for the search of your facility. Open up!" When nothing happened after that, Sir gave a look to both Izuku and Katsuki, the final nail in the coffin for the Hassaikai. "You were warned. As of this moment, you are obstructing justice. Brace yourselves."
One For All flared within Izuku to twenty-five percent within a fraction of a second, the halo of green sparks flashing around him with intensity that he'd never experienced before. It made all his hair stand up on end inside his cowl, and he'd been told that his eyes glowed whenever he used Full Cowling style now. He put on a smile, and Katsuki did the same as little crackling pops sparked in the palm of his left hand. Izuku clenched his right hand into a fist, and pulled it back to wind up for a massive punch. Twenty-five percent would be more than enough to force this gate open, but they weren't going for just enough. It was like Katsuki always said. The heroes weren't settling for anything but a total victory. That meant going above and beyond. Katsuki threw his hand back as the palm glowed hot with a building explosion. The two of them let off their attacks at the same time, utterly obliterating the gate and digging a deep gouge in the yard where it dug into the grass and dirt upon landing. When the smoke and wind pressure from the opening moves died down, the two young heroes realised that there were maybe three or four dozen Hassaikai thugs out in the front yard, all of them staring down the two kids who just broke down their front gate.
"What's up, you gangster scumbags?" Katsuki said, flying forward with a cry of, "Burst Speed Turbo!"
The fighting began, and the roar of battle quickly filled Izuku's ears. The heroes rushed into the yard from the street to engage with the yakuza thugs. Danger Sense buzzed in the back of Izuku's head, not a series of distinct warnings but a consistent humming in the back of his mind. He knew where every single Hassaikai goon was, their distance and desire to harm him known in his heart without him having to look around and confirm. Izuku focused on that extrasensory information, and honed his mind into Pinpoint Focus. Everything slowed down around him, sounds vanishing and colour becoming less vivid as his mind sped up far beyond its ordinary capacity. He had only ever pulled this move off once, in training with Lemillion, so he knew what he needed to do but not if he could do them in such a chaotic battle. In the time that Pinpoint Focus had afforded him, Izuku gave himself and his automatic reactions to Danger Sense to perform a technique he'd come to call Perfect Dodge.
When time sped back up, it became apparent to Izuku that it had worked. His reflexes had been supplemented entirely with Danger Sense, as opposed to the mere warning it functioned as normally. His body was no longer completely his own, as if he was a puppet on strings. Izuku dodged, ducked, wove, and leapt around, under, and between Hassaikai thugs as they tried and failed miserably to attack him. Izuku couldn't maintain Pinpoint Focus for long, since it risked overwhelming his brain if he kept it up for more than a few seconds at a time, but it was as if his body was still in that hyper-accelerated state where every other person was moving at a snail's the time only a few seconds had passed he had run right through the crowd and come to a stop at the front door to the compound proper. He kept Full Cowling running, but brought himself down from the trance-like state of Perfect Dodge, since he needed to be in control of himself for the coming fight. Katsuki landed next to him with another explosion to cushion his fall, and a moment after that, the frontal assault team converged on the front door. Ochako landed with the clicking of her heels absorbing the impact, Tsu kicked off a Hassaikai guy and forced him into the dirt in order to launch themself over the crowd, and Hitoshi used a smoke bomb to avoid getting into a fight with a guy twice his size with jagged horns on his head, and reappeared next to the others silently. Sir Nighteye, Rock Lock, and Aizawa slipped through the crowd easily enough as well, and it was made much easier when Midnight began to put whole clusters of Hassaikai thugs to sleep with her Quirk. Lemillion rose out of the ground with a laugh when he startled Ochako, Tsu and Katsuki, who weren't as familiar with his Quirk as Izuku and Hitoshi.
"Go!" Midnight said. She used one of her fans to blow a puff of her Quirk's pink gas toward another thug. "We'll follow you when we can! These guys are definitely on Trigger, so it might take a while!"
"Got it," Sir said. "Let's get inside, heroes."
Sir Nighteye led the heroes through the front door into a normal-looking house, if a bit fancier than the residences that Izuku typically saw the inside of. The group ran, along with their police escorts, down a series of hallways that seemed random unless one knew that Sir Nighteye was constantly looking over his shoulder and keeping his head on a swivel to ensure that they were going the right way. They eventually came to a spot in one of the halls where the walls were empty. Sir Nighteye carefully pressed his fingers against the wall, painted a dull off-white, and nodded to himself with a determined glint in his eyes. He pushed upward on the wall, and the surface slid up alongside his motion to reveal that it had been a diversion. Izuku shared a look with his friends at discovering that false walls were actually a real thing, and they all seemed to be just as shocked and excited as he was. The cool metal door behind the false wall bore a digital lock, which Sir bypassed easily by punching in the exact series of numbers necessary to open it without even glancing at the keypad. The door hissed as it opened, and the heroes advanced further into the compound.
The hallway the false wall had led to brought them down into an underground part of the facility. It got colder the further they plunged into the labyrinth, the warmth of the sun never having touched these subterranean chambers. Before they could run into any people, however, the building itself seemed to come alive and attempt to attack them. It took half a second for any of the heroes to realise that the floor beneath them had vanished entirely, and that a deep shaft had opened up in its place. Sir Nighteye, Rock Lock, Lemillion, Aizawa and Hitoshi immediately fell and disappeared into the darkness below with sounds of surprise.
"No!" Izuku said, staring down at that pit underneath the ones who'd remained up above, that being Ochako and Katsuki, who'd joined him in flying, and Tsu, who'd clung to the wall. "Do we follow?"
"Obviously!" Katsuki said, putting a stop to the continuous, minor explosions that kept him afloat. He instantly dropped into the darkness. "Come on, let's go see if those idiots are alright!" His voice shrank and echoed as he fell further and further.
"You heard him," Tsu croaked before letting go and joining the others.
Izuku and Ochako shared a hesitant look.
"Ready?" she asked.
"I've never been more ready for anything in my life," he replied.
They took the plunge together, hand in hand.
Hitoshi landed on his back after being tackled out of the air by Lemillion. He scrambled to one knee and nodded up to Lemillion in thanks for breaking his fall. Looking around, Hitoshi took stock of their situation. He, Lemillion, Ochako, Tsu, Aizawa, and Rock Lock had ended up in a chamber staring down a handful of villains. Izuku, Sir Nighteye, and Bakugo had to have ended up in a different chamber, considering that Hitoshi could hear the sounds of explosions and smashes through the walls. They could handle themselves. Hitoshi honed his focus on the figures before them, and realised that they were some of the Eight Bullets. Yu Hojo, a bulky bald man with crystals for eyes, Rikiya Katsukame, a behemoth of a man with a cowl that continued into a plague mask, Toya Setsuno, a lithe man also wearing a beak mask, they all stood before the heroes present in battle-ready stances. Aizawa cursed under his breath and turned.
"Lemillion, find the others," Aizawa said as he tangled his hands in his binding cloth.
"Got it!" Lemillion said, before sprinting at a wall and phasing through it.
That's when the fighting started, as Katsukame roared in agitation about Lemillion escaping and used that frustration to charge. Aizawa's hair stood on end, and Katsukame towered over him and threw a punch, which Aizawa easily dodged and used as an opening to get a kick in on the raging hulk's knee. The counterattack didn't move him whatsoever, so Aizawa then backed away while Tsu leapt up and kicked Katsukame in the face, which did cause him to take a step back.
"What the …?" Katsukame bellowed. "My Quirk's not working!"
"It's him," Hojo said, sprinting at Aizawa. "Eraserhead's power is to blame!"
Ochako used her Quirk and fell sideways through the air toward Hojo, meeting him halfway through his charge with a smack from her gauntlet aimed at his head. He simply powered through it, sprouting crystals from his arms and taking the hit with a cross guard. Ochako's left gauntlet shattered, both from the force of her own momentum and Hojo's jagged defences cutting into it. Rock Lock then appeared at Ochako's side, pushing the taller man away from her and pressing his hands flat against the crystal panels that had formed to armour his chest.
"Deadbolt!" Rock Lock said, and the crystals glowed red for a moment before Hojo froze entirely. "Those gems ain't natural, are they?"
Hojo screamed out his anger as Setsuno twisted his hand in the air. His Quirk, Larceny, pulled on Ochako's one remaining gauntlet and she slid toward him, before she used her Quirk on herself and added more gravity to stay grounded. She then reversed that effect and went flying through the air faster than Hitoshi could track. Ochako collided with Setsuno, who'd added his minor telekinesis to the force and gotten himself thrown back across the ground in a tumbling tangle of limbs. Across the room, Aizawa and Tsu worked to put Katsukame down, but only Tsu had offensive abilities and simply cancelling his Quirk wasn't enough to level the playing field. Hitoshi decided that they were the ones he'd back up, but something stopped him. He didn't know how he hadn't spotted him before, but there was another person standing in a corner avoiding the fight entirely by staying completely still. The entirely black outfit, the wide-brimmed hat, the plague mask, it all looked exactly like his picture in the packet Hitoshi had read earlier. Shin Nemoto was there, and he was aiming a gun at Aizawa.
Hitoshi leapt into action and sent his binding cloth at Nemoto, which he spotted at the last second and dodged. He tilted his head, as if curious, while taking in Hitoshi's costume. "What a resemblance you bear to the legendary Eraserhead! A son, or perhaps a younger brother?"
"No, we're not related," Hitoshi said entirely against his will. He paused to let that sink in. It was similar to his mother's Quirk. It was physically impossible to evade telling them the truth. That didn't mean anything good regarding the idea that had been forming in his head for the last ten minutes.
"Hmm, a shame. I don't have the power to humble two thorns in Master Overhaul's side," Nemoto said. Hitoshi cursed himself for allowing himself to become distracted. He hadn't used his Quirk, so Nemoto was still free to do as he pleased.
"What, because Eraser has the same power you want all for yourselves?" Hitoshi asked as he ran at Nemoto and attempted to ensnare him in the binding cloth once again, only for him to dodge once more.
Hitoshi's Quirk reached out to Nemoto's mind and tried to latch on, but Nemoto gave no answer. He'd never really elaborated upon the way his Quirk worked. Sure, he'd discovered new ways to use it and told his friends about those applications, but the core nature of Brainwashing had remained hidden. When Hitoshi spoke and willed his Quirk to activate, his power halfway formed a connection between his own mind and the mind of the person he wanted to brainwash. Verbally responding to the words he'd uttered to begin forming that connection then completed the circuit, and that person's mind then became totally open to suggestion as long as the order came from Hitoshi. The doctors had explained that there was a subsonic tone in his voice that bypassed human hearing but still registered in the brains of those he controlled, and that's why only he could command his targets the way he did. He didn't know how true any of that was, that was more Izuku's thing, but he knew it worked. However, if the target didn't respond to him, the circuit naturally diminished over a period of about ten to fifteen seconds, after which a response from the target wouldn't form any connection whatsoever and they'd be free to talk back to him all they liked until he tried again. Nemoto hadn't spoken, so accounting for Hitoshi's pause to wait and see, he had about ten seconds left to talk before Hitoshi would have to try again. It also didn't serve him to just start talking, since that would give away the activation requirement for his Quirk, and that was his biggest weapon. He had to waste Nemoto's time if he couldn't defeat him without using his Quirk.
The binding cloth snaked around his hands as Hitoshi manipulated it with all the skill he had. He lashed out with it in a series of swipes and jabs that almost but never quite managed to curl around Nemoto and keep him still. Hitoshi eventually decided that Nemoto was too agile to get with the capture weapon and pulled out his two stun batons. He rushed into close quarters with Nemoto and went for a few swipes at his forearms to get him to drop the gun, but Nemoto was just as quick at dodging hand-to-hand attacks as he was at range. The time ran out on his attempt at brainwashing Nemoto, and Hitoshi growled in anger. He threw one of his stun batons at Nemoto, which forced him to duck down low to avoid getting struck in the head with the electric end, and pulled one of the gadgets Mei Hatsume had made for him. He pressed the button and threw the circular little bomb at Nemoto's feet, and it landed perfectly. The tiny bomb then detonated, and a bust of condensed foam expanded in an instant to cover Nemoto's legs from the ankles down. That foam then hardened when exposed to the air, trapping Nemoto where he stood and forcing him to sit down hard when he couldn't stop his backward momentum. Hitoshi then kicked Nemoto in the head, which crumpled the plague mask covering his face and shattered the glass eye lenses. Nemoto collapsed onto his back, unconscious, his breathing heavy and inconsistent. His nose was probably broken. It was less than that yakuza bastard deserved.
Retrieving his stun baton and returning them both to his belt, Hitoshi ran off to help Aizawa and Tsu deal with Katsukame. Nobody saw it, but he was grinning like a madman under his Persona Chords mask. He'd just defeated a villain by himself without using his Quirk. Every middle school bully that had ever teased Hitoshi about being a bad guy because he could brainwash people could go to hell. He was a hero, and even getting expelled from UA when this was all over would never be able to take that from him.
Debris flew everywhere as Izuku and Rappa wrestled each other around the chamber that had been thoroughly ruined by their brawl. The brutal speeds of his opponent's punches had taken a while to get used to, but Izuku had found that he was a match for Rappa, if not a bit more powerful than him, thanks to his progress since their first fight. Izuku sent SMASH after SMASH at Rappa, and Rappa did the same back at Izuku. They were engaged in a stalemate that was tipping ever so slightly to Izuku's favour the longer the fight went on, as Izuku managed to avoid the most powerful of Rappa's attacks with Danger Sense but Rappa had no such method of dodging Izuku's own dangerous blows. Over on the other side of the chamber, Katsuki and Tengai were engaged in a similar exchange of attacks, with Katsuki using his strongest explosions to crack, and in some cases shatter completely, Tengai's barriers only for the subdued man to erect another. Somewhere, Danger Sense told Izuku that Sir Nighteye and what had looked like Soramitsu Tabe were duelling, with Tabe eating whatever gimmick office stamp projectiles that Sir sent his way, and Lemillion was struggling to overcome Deidoro Sakaki's power to induce nausea on a person but was still putting up a fight. Izuku hoped that the others weren't having as hard a time as they were.
"Oklahoma Smash!" Izuku said, leaping and spinning around in the air when he realised that Rappa had occupied both his hands in a grapple. The force of Izuku's spinning loosened Rappa's grip, and Izuku hovered over the bulkier man for a moment before reaching out with Blackwhip to pull him closer to himself. That spinning momentum transferred into an axe kick that landed right in the middle of Rappa's chest, though he put up his arms to block it at the last second. "Manchester Smash!"
Rappa hit the ground hard, which kicked up chunks of debris. Izuku stayed in the air for a moment to survey the other battles going on. Katsuki put himself right above Tengai, who enclosed himself in a barrier, and screamed, "AP MACHINE GUN! JUST DIE ALREADY!" He then fired off a flurry of explosions that shook the chamber and shattered Tengai's barrier. The remaining shots that made it through the shield tore up the ground and immediately knocked Tengai out in a hail of fire. Katsuki landed on the ground huffing and puffing, and grinned at Izuku. "How's that for plus ultra, eh?"
!
Izuku turned just in time to block a sneak attack from Rappa, who'd leapt up and unleashed an extended burst of high-velocity punches. Blackwhip emerged from the tunnels on his gloves and flared out to cushion most of the impact of the blows, but Izuku's whole body still rattled from the force of Rappa's Quirk. Izuku pushed himself up and away from Rappa with Blackwhip and recalled it back to him as he landed against a wall. He then pushed off the wall and spun around while speeding through the air toward Rappa, who was still vulnerable in the air. Izuku used that momentum to deliver a feint to Rappa's chest, which he brought his arms up to defend against as predicted. "Stutter Step!" Izuku used Float to halt the downward curve of his windup, and effectively pulled off everything that every child who'd ever played a platformer game had always wanted to do — he double-jumped. He spun one more time and transferred all the velocity of his delayed attack into a roundhouse kick to the space between Rappa's shoulder blades. "St. Louis Smash!"
Rappa went flying across the chamber and formed a crater in the ground that he didn't have the strength to climb out from. That was two down, which meant there were still two of the Eight Bullets present and fighting. Izuku landed on the ground and slid as his momentum dug gouges into the floor. He hopped casually over to Katsuki, who was holding onto Tengai's plague beak like a muzzle and making tiny explosions in his free hand to intimidate the man into surrendering. Katsuki then gave him one last punch that sent him back to unconsciousness.
"Good job with Tengai," Izuku said, looking over to Sir Nighteye and Lemillion's efforts against Soramitsu Tabe and Deidoro Sakaki — it looked like they'd switched opponents and mitigated their disadvantages.
"I know," Katsuki said, but it lacked his normal heat. That last AP Machine Gun must have taken real effort.
Over on the other side of the chamber, Sir Nighteye easily defeated Sakaki, since he was too drunk to dodge Sir's lightning quick ranged attacks. Lemillion similarly managed to take out Tabe in one attack, rising up from below the floor below Tabe and sinking a punch into his gut despite all he did to defend. That meant they were four for four. Lemillion only had time to cheer at their victory before the chamber began to shift. A roar of animal hate rang out from somewhere above, and then what felt like the entire building lurched.
!
The ping came from above. Izuku looked up and, between the fluctuations of the seemingly liquid cement, a man could be seen. He wasn't one of the Eight Bullets, but he'd been present in the packet as a person of interest — the general manager of the Shie Hassaikai, the second in command to the head of the clan Kai Chisaki, Joi Irinaka, also known by his alias, Mimic. His Quirk was something they'd been warned about beforehand, but this was nuts! He was only supposed to be able to control a mass the same general size as a refrigerator. The entire underground labyrinth was definitely outside of his normal range. Izuku remembered, however, what Midnight had said outside. "These guys are definitely on Trigger," she'd said. That must have been how Mimic had managed to control such a large area. The yakuza coordinator didn't give him much time to process that. The walls sprouted rough, primitive appendages that tried to swat Izuku and Katsuki out of the air as they flew to avoid the attacks. Sir Nighteye also tagged along in their effort to dodge and weave through and around the wild, frenzied attempts to kill them.
"You'll pay for ruining the boss's plans!" Mimic screamed from up above, his face visible for a fraction of a moment between waves of the ceiling washed over him.
"And you'll pay for sitting around happy as can be while your boss hurts that little girl!" Lemillion yelled as he shot up out of the ground like a blur of colour.
Lemillion was able to phase right through all of Mimic's attempts to defend against the incoming attack. All the walls and segments of the ceiling that Mimic put in Lemillion's way didn't do anything to stop what was about to happen. The hero only gained more momentum as he dashed through the debris that Mimic used against him, using his Quirk with such precise timing that it was as if he was flying. Lemillion vanished through the ceiling, and for a few seconds all was silent. The chamber stopped writhing in anger, and Izuku, Katsuki and Nighteye could stand on the ground in peace. A few moments later, the ceiling exploded, and Lemillion fell from the sky with the human form of Joi Irinaka in tow.
"Catch him!" Sir ordered, and Izuku nodded.
Blackwhip surged forth as Izuku leapt upward, and he brought Mimic into his arms to stop him from dying on impact with the ground. Izuku landed with a heavy thud, and promptly laid Mimic on his back. The man had a nasty welt forming on his face, and Izuku figured that Lemillion had hit him at the same time as he'd unphased, therefore causing the matter repulsion that occurred whenever his body inhabited space that was already occupied by other solid matter. That must have been what had caused the ceiling to explode.
"Well done, heroes. Now, Lemillion, do you remember which way you came?" Sir asked.
"Yes. Follow me," Lemillion said, wasting no time by sprinting right toward and through the nearest wall.
Izuku and Katsuki shared a look. They both ran at the wall with smiles on their faces, ready to repeat the trick they'd pulled with the gate. They were winning, and they were going to make sure it stayed that way.