[INITIATION]

Snow continued to fall upon the sanctified landscape. What was once a bustling and loud stretch of land was now hushed into a tranquil, almost endless silence. Particulates from each snowflake, hewn from the environment to which pollution once hailed freely were now slowly being cleared from the air as the skies were undergoing a reformation.

Surrounding trees that still survived, while lacking their leaves due to the weather swayed briefly as their crooked branches seemingly pointed towards the center of the plain. Animals, small and mediumly sized scatter and burrow into the ground, their instincts at high alert as their feeble, simple minds flare in alarm in an explosive manner.

The area where these feelings extend, prompting instinct to flare in such a wild way was once a city. A city teeming with life, with activity, and hope was now a snowy, occupied land fashioned in a demented sort of irony that the locals would have been horrified at. What were once tall buildings were now dilapidated structures, either collapsed onto themselves or were now hollowed grounds that allowed the sound of the air in winter to echo into its bowels. Properties that were once homes stood pale and empty while streets, those that were still intact, were filled with abandoned vehicles. Many showed evidence of panic, of fear, of pain as blackened splotches of liquid were scattered everywhere. Poles, those that used to carry electricity and other necessities lay swaying from the wind as the snow started to pile up on their arms.

The aura of the increasing snow amidst the broken, sanctified landscape gave off an eerie, unsettling appearance that dug deep into the subconscious of every living thing near it.

It was the aftermath of a sudden, horrifying event that took place just four hours ago.

Four hours and the population of nearly two hundred and sixty-thousand people, possibly more were nearly snuffed out in an instant. The remnants of those who once dwelled in this domain were now but stains or less so in the quivering, almost frosty chill in the air.

The climate was like the hastened aftermath of a Nuclear Explosion hitting a city. With Nuclear Winter occurring just by the metric of a few hours instead of days or months after.

But what was radiation, being the main killer, it was instead vaguely artificial (to human eyes), but still alien structures that were embedded into the ground by the thousands.

Spires.

Tall, immensely sized spires that dotted the majority of the husk of a city. They ranged from ten to sixty meters in height, jutting from the ground, the streets and the buildings would be mistaken for towers given their vicinity to each other. Their colors bathed in gold, with either their topmost, or bottommost portions having two straight arms, giving them the appearance, at least in part, as crosses or large halberds. Their individual lengths varied amongst the spine of the spires but all of them shared a detail that made them all grim in terms of presence.

They appeared like crosses, those that were used as primitive torture devices for criminals to waste away as some religious beliefs cast them as 'sinners'. They also appeared like stakes, but of celestial origin, like those that a ruler in Wallachia once frequented in using against their enemies.

Lastly, they radiated a dark, golden color, emanating in a frequency that made them alive in the sense that their glows were closer to the intervals of a heartbeat.

Within those four hours, since first contact, the snow only increased, as if the weather was being manipulated at a scale that was too immense and colossal to comprehend. The snowflakes, eerily in the same shapes as the spires themselves, continued to fall from the heavens. Their crash into the ground was not as gentle as earthly snow was…

It mirrored the way the spires themselves were deployed. Anything hit by it would feel pinpricks against their skin, instead of softness from natural snow.

For high above, the culprit lurked.

From high above amongst the clouds, an existence far from humanity loomed.

From high above the clouds this entity watched over the world as it started its initialization of further expansion in the domain it was chosen to appear on.

From high above the clouds… this entity watched as a human child, one of the few survivors started to crawl from their hiding spot, hoping to find food.

Xiu. That was the boy's name.

He scurries from the tunnels of the dark, broken buildings he waded into. Collapsed sewers and now buried roadways offered random, albeit horrific, maze-like pathways that allowed the boy to crawl into with some haste. Crooked, broken pipelines or rebar loom around him as the passages went from tight enough that only children his size could feasibly crawl out of to wide enough spaces that through what little light entered his vision, he could still not see the height of the ceiling.

Fear was evident in his actions and fear overtook his mind for the most part.

Memories of what occurred just hours ago still prevailed over most of his conscious thought.

The boy had only woken barely an hour ago after the building that he and his mother lived in was caved in near the center as one of the Spires hit it. The sudden visceral horror of having it all transpire in just that short amount of time before blacking out had not yet fully sunk in due to the adrenaline that was coursing in his veins. Doubly so, when the boy's claustrophobia had pushed him into a level of panic that forced him to scramble, trying desperately to escape the dark confines of the world that his eyes now opened into.

Adding to the horror and panic through his still feeble and vulnerable mind was the horror of seeing something that the boy only thought he would see in films or the media that he and his mother consumed.

Xiu froze as a chill of pure and utter fear ran down his back while he felt the tremors in the uneven ground he was crawling on vibrate into his exposed, slightly marred skin. His quirk, registered as merely a weaker version of calcified, armored skin due to his parents, was sensitive enough to feel some of the more subtle vibrations proliferate into his flesh. He started looking around the dimly lit tunnels he was in, where some cars, those that were intact obscured his view of the surroundings. What little light was slowly being covered by the snowflakes above ground as the nearest Spire to him seemed to remind him of a gnarly sight before, just seconds after his awakening.

Sweat trickled down the side of his face as he kept glancing around in various directions around him, even to the point that it was audible as he scurried in place, helpless without his mother. Eventually, the tremors he felt subsided as the muted silence once again returned.

The boy's breathing slowed down a bit. A sense of relief washed over him as he tried to dial his fear down by quite a bit, even if it was pointless as he was thrust into a situation that by all means, he shouldn't be in. Some of the adrenaline from before had subsided, giving him back his rational mind from the instinctual urge of both claustrophobia and fear that made him run. With said rationality, or at least what much there was within an innocent mind such as Xiu's, was a curse of having the reality of the situation slowly, but surely settle in.

He began looking at his own small hands. Hands that he always looked at due to the gnarly nature of its mutation, a detail that he was constantly teased by his friends due to his appearance. A detail that his mom, his beloved mom made him accept with grace and pride as they were as beautiful as hers.

This memory was now marred with something else. Something horrific.

Just seconds after he awakened, the very moment he opened his eyes, he saw hands.

Xiu shivered in place as he tried to cover both his ears, hoping in vain that the memory would go away. His mind kept switching between memories of his own mother's smiling face and hands as they both touched and into the present…

…where…

'Just close your eyes sweetie, and the monsters will all go away…' his mother said as he woke up from a nightmare. Xiu smiled back as his mom dried his tears.

…where there was nothing but disembodied hands waking him back into the world.

Familiar-looking, disembodied, violently torn off hands.

Xiu tried to filter the memories away as he closed his eyes tightly, concentrating, in fact begging, with effort, to make all of it go away. How those disembodied digits, ripped from the forearm up with semi-dried blood flaked across the skin, tried to scramble at touching his face as he screamed in pure terror. It was the genesis of how he began crawling away in haste.

He didn't want that to be the last memory of his mom.

Yet at the same time, there was nothing left of his mother within the rubble, just the gnarly shock of seeing half an arm and a hand move toward his face, as if suffocating him.

Xiu started moaning in sadness amidst the darkness and a faint sliver of light on his position. The sole light source acts like an impromptu spotlight shining down on him as if emphasizing the tragedy of his current status, which only troubles the still innocent, hyper-imaginative mind of Xiu.

A mind that was now making his world seem darker, more frightening than it already was currently, or perhaps more accurately, there was no exaggeration about the real danger and terror that was the current world around him.

Xiu suddenly froze in place as another tremor through his skin was felt. Immediately he shut up, almost to the point where he nearly bit off his tongue and lips, that an iron taste started to fill his mouth. The tremor felt like movement, not from the Spires, but from someone who had enough weight to conjure footsteps.

And those footsteps were very near his proximity.

Those tremors shifted in intervals that made it feel like whoever or whatever was making them was scurrying around, almost mirroring the same panic that Xiu felt as the boy crawled away into a small corner, a wheel of a car that was covered mostly by debris in the dark. The sole light source that he crawled away from was something his eyes focused on heavily as the tremors that he felt increased in number again, until eventually…

There was a silhouette in the faint light source.

Xiu recalled the many times he would cover his own eyes when watching horror films with his mom. It was something they both enjoyed, even though Xiu was often scared of said films, but the comfort and feeling of joy and love with his mom was what made him feel very emotionally attached to it. Now that he had none of that, he could only gasp in a slow, ebbing rise of fear as through the light source he could see something that was enough to make him scream.

Pale skin, either enhanced or warped by the light source could be seen as a human face, bereft of a jaw, or literally most of what a human's face would have nose down was missing. Through the darkness that obscured it, Xiu's own imagination could see strips of flesh dangling from the missing structures below the nose.

It was like something that Xiu had only seen in horror films. What the films didn't prepare him for, however, was how terrifyingly human those eyes that he saw were. They trickled with so much emotion that even a naïve boy like Xiu could feel them similarly, desperately, looking at him with wretched pain, begging, and horror that it almost felt like a mirror of sorts to Xiu's own headspace.

The degree of depth in those eyes actually amplified the horror more instead of the suggestion of a gnarly, gory sight as suddenly the terrifying silhouette lunged.

Xiu screamed in terror as he turned away and crawled at speeds that were equal to his panic while adrenaline again coursed his veins. Even as he felt himself being scraped against uneven surfaces of cement, rebars, and objects, Xiu continued crawling away in haste and in terror even as the darkness grew. Even as his claustrophobia screamed at him to stop.

Then, due to the darkness, he trips.

A ledge downwards appears suddenly, almost like lightning in its suddenness as Xiu tumbles down through slope before feeling his back crash against a solid object. All air was ejected from his body as the adrenaline masked the immediate pain. He was still conscious, but his eyes became blurry. The tremors were gone just a few minutes after Xiu bolted away. He could have stopped and lost whatever it was that he saw, but instinct flared at him to run, and run he did.

However, just as his eyes started to slowly recoup from their initial blurry state, he started to notice that there was more light coming down on top of his form. Some of it seeped into his eyes making him blind partially from the glare until his mind and body were able to finally return feeling to his skin and muscles again…

Only to feel something oddly squishy and wet against the hard object that broke his fall.

Xiu, despite the confirmation of something broken in his body, tried to get himself back to a seating position to crawl or move away but the feeling of the pinpricks from the mutated snow, and the subtle sensation of something else got him to quickly get back his bearings.

Drip.

He felt it again. The subtle sensation of liquid hitting his scalp.

Drip.

Xiu subconsciously raised his still functioning hand, as if reaching towards the light as his eyes started to clear. The small pin pricks of the mutated snowflakes touching his skin made him feel a bit ticklish before his eyes widened as another droplet hurled downwards to his position.

Drip.

The liquid splashed just centimeters away from his face as a smell entered his nose. Its stench only amplified the budding, almost sudden rise of fear in the injured boy as bits of the droplets that entered his tongue and lips gave off the taste of iron.

Drip.

For up there, in the collapsed new skylight from the building that he fell into, amidst the snow-laden skies and two dark and golden spires standing at a colossal height on both edges of his vision…

Drip.

Was a face. A face attached to a body, mouthing 'help me'. A body that was dangling from the edge of the sky light, attached by just its failing spinal cord as bodily fluids from said body trickled down to the boy. The entire ground around him was dark red and sticky, as Xiu's mouth opened in horror when he let out an incomprehensible scream. The face, once more filled with so much pain like the silhouette he had seen before, was rife with emotion, and conscious thought.

It was like… it was like they were still alive…

Drip.

Xiu screamed, he wanted to crawl or run away in his state but as he tried to sit up, he slipped due to the sticky puddle he was currently in while the tremors around him, movement from other sources started to rattle his senses again until his eyes refocused back to the face up in the sky…

The face, belonging to that of a woman had her mouth move as if begging as pain wracked her features until something ripped. Movement caused by the body belonging to the face finally made the final connections snap. Its call for help that Xiu could not hear caused it to fall, landing right next to Xiu as the tremors of cracks and such were felt by his entire body.

Now, there was a mangled thing beside him.

Xiu crawled away even amidst his pain as the tremors around him grew in number, even the Spires themselves vibrating in a frequency that had his heart thumping…

The boy wished for this all to be just a nightmare, and that his mom would hopefully wake him up soon. But as his prayers doubled he could only feel his inevitable doom bear down on him.

Until…

He felt arms pick him up as Xiu's eyes opened wide. A man and a woman had picked him up. Strangers cradled him in their arms as they ran out of the collapsed building. Silhouettes that were almost similar to the ones he saw were thwarted or pushed away by the two as everything after became a blur of activity in correspondence to the panic almost in the same beat as the frequency of the Spires. Like the madness of the situation itself came from them.

Eventually, the two finally stopped. They ran across destroyed streets, abandoned, still intact vehicles and the looming colossal Spires before exhaustion finally caught up to them. The frequency of the vibrations, even through the body of his saviors still rung through Xiu.

Even as the man gently placed him into the side of the small clearing, the underside of what was once a freeway, he saw the two's mouths move and twitch with the same emotion and terror of everything he had seen thus far. The man bearing down on the woman or as best as Xiu could comprehend, him trying to calm her down, to make her see reason as the woman's panic was as visible as each twitch and open of her mouth.

It never occurred to Xiu why he couldn't hear them.

They were actively talking to each other. Shouting even as the woman started pounding her fists on the man as they briefly pointed to glanced at his direction. Their argument almost nearing a level of terror and emotion that the boy only saw when his parents once argued with each other before his father was never seen again.

Xiu turned his head briefly, his skin sensing the tremors again in the ground as a rumble was felt. Tremors spread across the ground. Many from the smallest, slightest movements of beings, perhaps people, those monsters like the undead that he was afraid of from the movies he and his mom watched. The intensity of events happening around him winding up, just in conjunction with the inherent, unnatural thrum of the Spires.

Xiu, however, began asking why… why did the monsters, those undead look alive and in pain just as he was at the current moment?

Why did his mother's hands try to choke him when he woke up into this nightmare?

Why did the city turn into this husk of a corpse when hours ago everything was normal?

Why did the man and woman that saved him were now shouting at each other?

And why can't he hear them? Their lips, animated with life and intensity had him staring at them helplessly while the hum of the Spires increased. In fact, he just now noticed that ever since he had woken up, the only senses that had guided him thus far, were his eyes, his quirk, and the odd instinct deep within his soul that was now currently screaming at him to do something.

Something that Xiu, in his young, naïve mind, could not comprehend.

He then returned his eyes to the closest Spire in the distance. Like a crucifix of old, it loomed over him as the thrum quickened, the tremors around him becoming more frantic, more pronounced as the quarreling couple that saved Xiu had the woman suddenly scream in the man's face.

Its intensity, even if the boy hadn't heard it, was so much that both were suddenly frozen for a second in a trance. Like a symphony reaching the highest musical note…

Xiu's eyes widened as the woman slapped the man with enough force, that it bruised and bloodied his lips. The man backed away in shock at the sudden action while the thrum of the Spires, their subtle increase in glow acted like the prelude to a great crescendo.

Then, the man suddenly punched the woman with all his strength and she landed forcefully onto the nearest wall. Blood, desperation, and fury encapsulated both their faces as the man, looming over the woman then tried to choke her as the woman angrily clawed at his face with an equal level of hate and intensity.

It devolved into a violent exchange between his would-be saviors, who, at this moment had almost forgotten he had existed somehow. They were rolling on the floor now, doing their best to hurt each other as the thrum of the looming Spires continued to reverberate.

Xiu once again tried crawling away, the snowy, ominous sky overhead where the opening to back to the ruined roads showed, but the pain was too much. He collapsed, the pain overbearing as he finally lay motionless on the road. The tremors being the only sensory organ he had left as his damaged ears, his broken bones, and the depth of pain he had been feeling since he woke up finally caught up to him.

Yet, before he could close his eyes as the madness around him continued, he suddenly focused his glance on something just a few meters away from him.

Two bodies, both of them at a stage that would be lethal for both of them were huddled together in terror and sorrow. Two mangled bodies, just like many he had seen that were miraculously walking, survivors of the initial bombardment with wounds that would prove fatal were huddling together, embracing against the terror.

A father and a daughter.

These were not undead, nor were they like monsters in horror films.

These were people.

They were survivors. Pain wracking every inch of their existence, much like Xiu's own now as the entity that loomed above the snowy clouds did not give them the privilege that was the sweet release of death. They were made to suffer.

They were made to howl like the sounds and frequencies produced by the planetary body Saturn when satellites first picked up its signals. Xiu was deaf during the initial bombardment when the entity released its ungodly Spires onto the city. If he had, he would hear the never-ending howls of screams from both souls and still-existing corporeal forms emanating across the husk of what was once a city on the Russian-Chinese border.

Like in the legends of yore, the entity, the champion of the lifeforms of Saturn loomed over the city it had conquered, slowly expanding when it arrived after being initialized and released a bounded field upon the world whenever its Spires are deployed.

It disallowed death within its reach. For those that still lived had uses, energy or not, corporeal forms or not, they were vessels for the sovereign of Saturn to lure its prey.

What made it unique amongst the celestial bodies beyond the Asteroid Belt was that its beauty, its many royal rings of matter and ice, were worlds unrealized from the primordial soup. Whether its own moons, comets, or terrestrial worlds that would have been like Earth, Saturn cannibalized and jealously lured these entities into its own, creating beauty out of their skeletal remains.

In fact, there was a violent arms race between Saturn and Jupiter due to the former's ravenous ways. The result of this cataclysmic cosmic event was what is now the Asteroid Belt, a natural barrier between the terrestrial planets and that of the Gas Giants. A compromise to elicit both planet's domains and territory.

Now that a representative was called from all planets in the Solar System, the sovereign of Saturn was given enough freedom to be as ravenous as its celestial home.

It happens now, even…

For as much as Xiu, the boy who was made deaf from circumstances that happened earlier, thought that this was just an isolated event; this wasn't the case.

For the frequency of the howls, the madness induced by the Spires lured in an army, a coalition even, of military forces and quirked enforcers to try and respond to the attack was now amassing close by, just shy of half a mile. The bait was effective, they would arrive near the growing perimeter of Saturn soon, and like those in the city, they would also sing songs that would lure in more people.

The TYPE from Saturn was powerful, yes, able to break cities and enormous landmasses within a blink of an eye with its bombardment of its horrible Spires, but it's a very patient entity, nonetheless. Time was on its side, for its brethren, the other entities scouring Earth would have their objectives completed soon.

To the sovereign of Saturn, an intelligent, colossal entity that resembled a large, dark and golden cross, hidden above the clouds, an emotion known as sadism in human concept can be attributed to it. Or it's the closest applicable description in human terms that could be given for its behavior. However, calling it simply sadism is quite poor, for its mannerisms and mentality were beyond human comprehension in terms of complexity.

And to Xiu, who was writhing in pain as the two people behind him had gored themselves into the madness induced by the frequency of the Spires, he could only feel cold and in despair at the realization…

That the disembodied hands that woke him up were of his mom…

'Just close your eyes sweetie, and the monsters will all go away…'

…trying to comfort him in vain with what was left of her corporeal form.

20:36 PM

Beast's Forest, Nagano Prefecture

'So cute…' Arcueid thought as she looked at the comfortable, peaceful expression on Kota-kun's face. He was tucked in after she told him another story before bedtime. One of her adventures through the ages, most of it were things that Kota probably considered fiction given how much he smiled and questioned her about them.

And that's one of the reasons why she liked him. He was a perceptive boy.

A very smart boy that was too mature for his own good. Likely honed from the terrible event that shaped him to be the boy today. In the same essence, he was almost the same as Shiki in that aspect. However, her beloved had a more complicated past, one that was deeply rooted in things that those today would not even understand without proper context.

The world may have developed past the need for mystics nowadays, but the laws of the world still remain. She still remained. But to what extent?

Arcueid sighed as she tried brushing those thoughts away. The prime directive that the world itself would give her was still absent and has been absent for quite some time now.

Oh well. She had Kota to spoil and take care of. She was content at the moment.

Content to enjoy the presence of a little boy that she had come to care for and love with all her heart. Many would probably question why she chose to associate herself with a nobody like Kota but Arcueid knew that her heart was in the right place. Just like Shiki once was.

Arcueid smiles as she brushes her fingers on Kota's hair, tucking his bangs to the side as he flinches subtly at the feeling of her touch but remains asleep. Despite his maturity, Kota was still very much a child. A child that still had an entire future ahead of him, possibly, but with a drive that was different, very different from the society that he lived in.

Different, or unique enough in the case of Arcueid's opinion that defined itself well against the rather boring landscape of the concepts and ideals that current-day society entrenched itself in.

Kota was adamantly against it. Both sides of the current divide that is.

Arcueid may have found enjoyment in the idea of a magical girl and everything that it stood for, but she was horribly bored and both literally and figuratively disinterested in the idea of heroics. Such human concepts were by and large just a new spin into the idea of law enforcement.

It's just that to Arcueid's point of view, the idea itself wasn't bad, it was exciting even…

But as its popularity spiked, its numbers increased to levels that it was now a staple of everyday life; it became a common thing. It became a centerpiece of human culture that it no longer remained to be a novel, unique concept. It was now just a dime and a dozen jobs that humans added to their day-to-day lives. Dangerous and perhaps hard for them, but it was just a never-ending cycle of chapters in a story that would continue to go on until it was time that everyone got bored about it due to repetition, or a sense of aimlessness.

Oh, of course, the concept of a hero was as old as humans were.

But to Arcueid, and even to little Kota, they just didn't prefer the world as it currently was. Arcueid didn't hate this little fad that humanity had latched onto because it would just be as forgotten as everything else that was lost in human history too. Kota, well, he was the opposite, he harbored hate for the idea of heroes and villains alike due to what happened to his parents.

Her presence and his family managed to remedy some of that, but his thoughts on them were very much negative still to this day. In fact, Arcueid would bet that the idea would only adapt, evolve, or change through time as he matures through age if he ever survived that far, but it would prove to be a significant facet of his personality moving forward. Whether it was a positive or negative trait, Arcueid was not sure, but she hoped that those experiences would shape him into something that she would still recognize since the very moment they first became friends.

Arcueid smiled again as he thought about the things she and Kota had done together these past few months. Even with the muddied waters of his soul due to the loss of his parents, he was still a child through and through. He was still a child that latched onto figures, heroes that he wanted to believe would do him right. Even in the stories she would tell him of her many encounters with individuals through the ages, he would always feel happy and in awe towards those that humans would consider heroic, even if in the traditional sense, most of them weren't.

Perhaps that showed a contradiction, an irony to his beliefs against heroes, but Arcueid didn't see it as that. To her, Kota wanted to desperately fill the hole that his parents had left in the wake of their deaths. He wanted confidence, love, and a pillar to lean on after their abrupt absence and that pillar was currently her. It was why they became friends so fast. It was why he was so happy that there was someone and something that he could believe in that came into the picture once more.

There was innocence there, in the pain that Kota to this day carried.

There was innocence and love there that Arcueid managed to reintroduce to his sorrowful soul, and she did not regret staying with the boy one bit after seeing that.

Tomorrow, she had plans for both of them that they would love, she just had to ask permission from Shino-san to let them out of the camp grounds for a bit. Arcueid was tempted to just convince Shino-san to accept without question, but given how much Kota cutely told her to not do that, she relented with the small compensation of-

"…" Arcueid's eyes tightened. The pupils of her eyes transformed into something inhuman-like as she cast her gaze towards the east, seeing even through the walls and overcoming any sort of enhanced senses or disruption that any Quirked person possessed. The moderately strong rumble in the earth that had her stopping in place had its source just two doors away in the camp.

Focused, like a predator that was about to trample, she gently walked towards the balcony, sliding the glass doors gently back as another tremble in the ground was felt. Her eyes filled with intensity as she quickly saw the source of the commotion. Particularly who it was that started it.

Their smell was very close to the scent trails that Kota's parents had. Particularly the cap that the boy always wore. It was his father's, and the traces of blood from both their killer and themselves were on it, even if minute. It meant that the killer of Kota-kun's parents was here.

But how did they get here? How did they suddenly appear in the middle of the camp grounds when the only individual she kept track of was the weird girl that was running around the bushes watching them with perverted eyes.

How did they-

RaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargghhh!

Arcueid hummed. Four or more elongated rods of material that resembled human teeth and artificial steel rained above her at sudden speeds that would overwhelm any human.

But not her.

"Aaacckk!" the thing gagged as Arcueid's hands grabbed onto its teeth while its drool-

"Ew… that's disgusting." Arcueid reacted in disgust as she crushed the bundle of teeth with her bare hands and used her second hand to add more leverage for her to slam the fool forward into the ground.

THRWOUSH!

"Arck!" the sound of the thing said as a puff of dirt, ground, and concrete was thrown moderately into the air as a small crater formed around its wake. Arcueid was surprised to see the thing, no, the disgusting human, survive enough of that force through its main body without breaking anything important. It looked dazed despite its horrible-looking form.

She tried thinking of what he resembled like… a mummy? No…

"Arckkh…" the human said as it tried standing up, the mutated teeth coagulating to something solid once more as more of it started to grow out of his mouth.

…ah! She finally knew why his whole getup was so familiar. He looked like a mental patient! A crazy human, by definition.

Raaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrgghh!

The loud, incomprehensible roar of the crazy human made her frown as her playful attitude subsided. His entire appearance irked her. Even dead apostles, the most common filth of their form, looked way better than this.

It once again shot its mutated teeth at her like tentacles that wished to stab her in multiple places but she readied her right arm…

THRWACKSH!

…and backhanded the extending mutated teeth with enough force that pieces of it shot forward in all directions. Some of the glass windows in the house she was in were also shattered. But she angled it with enough discretion that nobody she knew and cared about wouldn't be harmed by its effects.

Speaking of…

"Shiki-san!" Tomoko, or Ragdoll said as she just now arrived from the commotion in the center of the campgrounds. The woman was about to tell her to run away to safety or perhaps something else, but Arcueid gave her a glance that wouldn't procure any sort of argument.

"Get Kota-kun out, now!" She said with a loud, firm voice, Tomoko, while surprised, immediately nodded in confirmation as she ran inside the home to get Kota.

"Shiki-san?" Kota's voice behind her said, just in time for Tomoko to arrive and scoop him into her arms as Arcueid glanced in their direction. Kota reached out to her as if in fear.

"Get him out. I'll cover your retreat." She said with finality as she leaped into the air, just as Kota's cry echoed towards her to not go.

Gracefully, she landed below, the ground slightly cracking despite how smooth her landing was, as she faced down her opponent, who was similarly shocked at her action of dismantling his own teeth earlier, but his ire eventually returned. His ire burned with fury as he once again roared disgustingly. Drool flicked out as his teeth regrew.

He was predictable already.

Arrrrggacckkkkk!

He shot up towards her, the straight jacket he wore buckling with each movement of his muscles as he almost lunged at her in place as his razor-sharp metal teeth extended towards her at speeds that would rival bullets.

But Arcueid was still faster. Far faster in fact still in her base form as she grasped all eight or more teeth shot towards her and pulled.

AarrrrraaaaaaackkK!

With enough force to bring down two, three-story buildings or more, Arcueid violently dragged the disgusting man towards her as their eyes briefly met, before she suddenly pulled again, and the sound of cracking bones and the gnarly sick sound of flesh being ripped off was heard.

Arcueid then kicked the now-dead fool's body away and it shot forward, smashing into the wall of the building in front of her. Her hand still grasped the shocked, befuddled, now permanent face of her deceased attacker. She raised it in front of her in morbid curiosity before being disgusted again as the man's drool still flowed through his dangling, elongated metal teeth.

She threw the head away after crumpling the artificial metal in her hands. It even bounced like a rock skipping against the surface of the water a few times before Arcueid heard the perverted girl's voice near where the head finally stopped bouncing.

"Ohhh… I thought you were already cute before, but now you got my attention~."

Arcueid stared at the blonde pervert. Her eyes gleamed for a moment, focused as doubt entered her senses over this little pervert's questionable existence. It reminded her of something, something more primal, but at the same time not…

"And here I thought you were a hero like them… looks like I was wrong." The pervert said as Arcueid quickly determined that she wasn't like them. There were similarities, some more considerable than others, but she dismissed them quickly as there were more important things to think about, especially how these people suddenly appeared out of nowhere, instantly.

"Care to tell me your name, sister? You know… for politeness sake." The girl said with an innocent tone that grated Arcueid's ears. She continued to dismiss her presence entirely by ignoring it as she began looking around, hoping to spot the sight of the displacement that put these people here as the pervert continued to talk.

"Oh~ I can't wait for us to share time together. I wonder what you'd taste." The pervert said as she took out two syringe-like devices into her hands that were connected behind a contraption on her back. Arcueid continued to look around her, broadening the reach of her senses again as another tremor shook the campgrounds, probably from the brute that had killed Kota-kun's parents.

Then, that quick, but significant energy signature manifested behind her, two individuals coming out of it in quick succession as the first one that came out had his hands increase in temperature rapidly.

Arcueid didn't mind, she now found the source of the spatial distortion that dropped these people off. She raised her hand towards the direction of the one producing rapid temperatures just in time as a large fireball was hurled her way.

BRWOOUUUSHHH!

It exploded like a napalm. Debris and pieces of dirt enveloped Arcueid's location as smoke covered her in a small radius around her.

"Shiki-san!" She heard Tomoko shout out in panic as she and Kota screamed in worry for her.

"Hey! You didn't need to do that you know? She was perfectly willing to listen to me!" the pervert said as the smoke cleared, and before the pervert's two new allies could reply back or look in shock that she was unscathed, Arcueid rushed forward.

The ground behind her feet broke audibly as she bull-rushed forward.

"What the he-

SPLARSH!

The one who manifested the flames had their head explode into a burst of gore, but before the body could hit the ground, the body, gore included, splattered into a mud-like substance. Even Arcueid was surprised a bit, she briefly stared at her extended fist before looking at the fire-user companion beside her. The black spandex-wearing man looked 'villainous' in terms of how humans would describe his attire, but his mannerisms left much to be desired.

Especially when he backed away from her almost like a cat in surprise. Even his jerkiness in terms of movement almost felt comedic to her in some fashion.

"Holy f-…. Uh, lady, I didn't tell him to do that, I swear to God."

Arcueid dismissed him just like the pervert as she looked at the muddy material in her extended hand. Its scent matched the person cartoonish-moving person beside her.

Ah. So that's how it worked. Arcueid mused.

"Twice! Did you see that? She's so cool! I was about to scream at you guys to stop and listen for a moment, but she went, bwoosh-

The pervert continued to rattle in her excitement as she turned to the man once more. Her eyes narrowed at him as he flinched from her crimson gaze. "You…"

"Me?" the man said in fear.

Arcueid took a step forward as she could hear the man's heart beat a good bit faster. "What is your business here? You and the rest?"

"Uh… well-

"Hey, cutie! Don't scare Twice like that, you know. He's got a few screws loose in that head of his, but he's a good guy. Well, good as can be that is." The pervert interrupted as Arcueid suddenly grabbed the man's suit by his chest and pulled him towards her. Her mystic eyes activated to a point of precision that allowed her to parse info about their little plan as he froze and spoke loud enough for her to hear. His eyes were completely absent inside the mask as she felt the pervert skip closer while another tremor from the battle Shino and the others were taking part in was felt.

"Hey… Twice might be weak to some cute girls, but he's not that easy you know?"

Arcueid once again ignored her as the puzzle pieces of what she was dealing with started to make sense as her eyes returned to normal. Or as normal as those predatory red eyes could be.

"W-What the hell was that?" Twice said as surprisingly some of his sanity, many of his mental issues were able to clear up a bit as he gazed into the blonde girl's face.

"Thanks." She said with some measure of appreciation, but the voice that came out was almost heartless, especially with what happened next.

BRRSSZHTH…

Time seemed to slow down. At least from Twice's perspective, but for a moment he had clarity. Clarity of the likes that he had never felt in ages as if whatever the girl did to him through her eyes had eased off some of the painful, traumatic burdens that made him into the odd man that he was of late, and in another moment…

"JIN!" he heard Toga's voice shout in pure, utter shock and fear as the atmosphere of the fight or operation they were in, changed.

…unbridled pain entered his chest as a fist burst through him cleanly. Blood seeped quickly into his tongue and lips as he looked at the blonde girl once again. Her face was still in that dismissive, neutral expression with the bright red, predatory eyes. She pulled her fist out from his body and flicked the blood away with the same degree of callousness she expressed when he killed Dabi's clone.

"JIIINNN! WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?!" he heard Toga scream as she ran towards the blonde girl, syringe, and knife in hand as tears started coming out of her eyes. Desperation reeked out of her form, behind it rage, but she was far too slow to stop him from dropping to the ground as his life flashed before his eyes. His arm reaching towards Himiko, probably for one last time, as his clear mind, moments before death, had made him finally appreciate, even the little moments of their relationship… and how much she cared for him, even just seeing her like this…

At the very least someone cared enough.

At the very least… someone would remember him.

Darkness overtook Jin Bubaigawara. He didn't expect nor imagine this was how he died in the grand scheme of things. Though, with his mind being the maze of madness that it was, perhaps peacefully passing away was-

"WHAT DID YOU DO!?" he faintly heard Toga, no… Himiko, screamed again as she managed to close the distance towards the girl before Kurogiri opened two new warp gates near his position and all hell broke loose.

But Jin Bubaigawara, the small-time villain infamously known as Twice, breathed his last.

…

A giant steel sword was about to crash down on Arcueid as a reptilian-looking mutated human bore down on her, but she was able to intercept it with her bare hands. The steel buckled against her skin, breaking instantly as cracks started forming before it shattered into numerous pieces. The reptilian man looked shocked as Arcueid felt the now despairing pervert about to attack her with her weapons.

"WHY DID YOU KILL HIM? WHY DID YOU- Ack!" she was lightly kicked away by Arcueid, not wanting to hear her prattle any second longer as she flew into the nearest shack, the wood breaking against her back, creating a hole in the process. Himiko groaned as she felt multiple ribs being fractured from that one attack on her person.

The reptilian man, carrying multiple weapons pulled out two katanas. Their blades glinted slightly against the full moon as he looked over at his opponent who broke his biggest weapon without issue. Arcueid, on the other hand, merely stared as the light of the full moon shined over her, giving her an ethereal appearance as the real fire user started to gather flames in his hands again.

"Spinner, get clear!" the ghoulish-looking man said as the reptilian man started to jump away, but Arcueid grabbed his foot.

"Get your hands off of me, hero!" Spinner said as he made a bisecting strike with both his katanas, hoping to get the girl to disengage, but once again they broke against her skin as she let them fly. The blades directly hit her face on both sides in a scissor-like fashion, only to break. The blades did not even cut a strand of hair on her face before she pulled him upward…

"Oh." Spinner intoned.

BRWOUASH!

…as Arcueid smashed him into the ground in front of her. The ground broke hard as Spinner felt his breath leave his lungs. His body was injured in so many places his body couldn't catch up yet on which parts it would flare pain as he felt her dragging him through the dirt. All the while, a wounded Himiko and a disturbed Dabi watched in horror at a distance as she dragged him towards her, and she raised her foot towards his face.

"No, not Spinner too!? STOP IT!" Himiko began screaming in desperation and sorrow as the man known as Spinner, Shuichi Iguchi, a believer of Stain's ideology thought at first that joining the League, a group that once housed Stain himself would have him gloriously die in the fires of what he believed in.

But not like this…

"SPINNER! YOU BITCH, JUST STOP! STOP!" Himiko screamed as tears flowed freely down her eyes, shocking even Spinner in the process. But before another thought crossed his mind, there was a loud sound of bone and gray matter crunching against each other was heard, and then nothing.

"NOOOO!" Arcueid heard the pervert scream. In truth, Himiko was only overly devastated by Twice's death, but the subsequent deaths of the others in quick succession drove her already broken psyche to the edge as Arcueid raised her bloodied foot while adrenaline and hate-fueled the blood-addicted girl as she gazed into the Moon Princess.

"I'LL KILL YOU! I SWEAR TO GOD, I'LL KILL YOU!" she screamed again as she tried to run at Arcueid, but her bruised and broken form proved too painful for her to move forward as she tripped just three steps into her haze.

"Screw this…" Dabi cursed as he pushed the limits of his quirk, even if it stung and burned his forearms as he readied a blaze, enough to fulfill a distraction, as whatever Arcueid was, already told him that he would die just as quickly as the others were if he didn't go all out.

And even then, he knew this wouldn't do much, seeing as his time with his old man taught him enough to know when and where to choose your battles, especially with freaks of nature like All Might… and this girl.

Seeing his intent, Arcueid then readied to lunge again, the distance enough for her close the distance to once again do what she did to the man's clone earlier, but he was quicker on the draw this time. A blast of near-massive proportions erupted from Dabi's arms. It was enough to cremate even the sturdiest of brute-like Quirk users in one go, and by temperature alone would rival or even surpass his father's Prominence Burn by a small bit.

FWROUUUUSHHH!

The blast of blue fire almost looked like a laser from afar, as it pushed forward on a straight line. Concentrated fire and incinerating temperatures completely destroyed Kota's home and everything in it, as well as those behind it as several meters worth of forest was burned down in an instant. The intensity of the flames was so great that Himiko who was almost ecstatic at Arcueid's possible destruction, felt the heat lick the edges of her already bruised and bloodied forearms as she tanked the first and second-degree burns occurring there through her haze of adrenaline and hate.

Alas, it was not to be, for even at the height of the flames that he produced, both Himiko and Dabi watched in horror as the moon high above almost twinkled in light the very moment they saw the brief silhouette of Arcueid amidst the middle of the flames.

"KUROGIRI! GET ME THE FUC-

Almost as instantly as the flames vanished half a second later, Arcuied appeared no worse for wear just less than a meter away from him as her arm reached out in a grabbing motion towards him, like a claw about to maul his jugular and everything surrounding it into a bloody mess.

Narrowly, however, Dabi was blessed with the intervention of Kurogiri, just in time as a Warp Gate appeared right behind him for him to fall in...

"FUCK!" he screamed as Arcueid's claws ripped through parts of his jacket on his chest, as well as pieces of his shirt. Her nails even grazed bits of his skin before he was thankfully whisked away.

Leaving Arcueid once again disappointed as she was sure she made herself fast enough to intercept the one who was creating the warp gates and even disrupt it from functioning properly. Sadly, she did not, and she was left with nothing but a burned-out part of the camp, where Kota-kun's house once stood, and a crying, deluded pervert.

"RAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!" said pervert running at her with an already broken knife, her clothes torn or burnt to pieces, but she still pushed on with vengeance, hate, and sorrow. Arcueid stared at her as the knife she carried shattered against her skin as she continued to cry, slobber, and scream insults at her.

"Why did you do that!? He did nothing wrong! We did nothing wrong… we're just-

Himiko's eyes turned feral. Either due to overexertion from her haze of anger and sorrow or due to the heat of Dabi's flames dehydrating most of the recent blood intake that she took. Whatever the case, she barreled down on Arcueid, in what would most consider a humiliating, inhumane way of dismissing her as she continued to stare blankly at the mourning pervert.

"Who gives you the right? Huh? Who gives you all the right… to… to… consider us as monsters?! Who gives you the right to call us villains? Who… FUCK!" Himiko aimlessly said in her mania as she started pounding her fists on Arcueid's sweater, dirtying it as all her frustrations, her pain, and her sadness were all laid bare.

"I HATE YOU! I hate you… I hate you… I…-

Her voice started breaking, her tone becoming much more hoarse as she struggled to wipe away her tears and drool. "I hate you… I hate you all!"

Arcueid didn't respond. She found curiosity, even the instinct to kill her just like every other monster that she had killed in the past, but this was just sad. Exerting effort on an annoyance like her was useless. She started to walk away, feeling the tremors of Kota-kun's killer about to win the fight against Shino-san and her team, but she stopped when Himiko screamed again and tried biting down on her arm, her canines shattering on contact.

The action brought a very instinctive response from Arcueid, and she fluidly grabbed the pervert's neck and hoisted her up in the air as she gagged but continued to remain defiant. She didn't overall care, however, as she didn't pose a threat, even some of the dumber Dead Apostles that she had encountered in her day were more dangerous than her at the current moment.

Hate was all Himiko could convey through her rabid eyes as Arcueid could observe.

She tried scratching at her arm, hoping in vain to do anything, something, to hurt her, but she knew that this pathetic human's death by her hands would just put her in a decidedly bad mood. Mostly due to the realization that she was not worth the effort.

With a huff, she threw the helpless fool to the ground who looked ready to pounce on her still despite all her broken bones, bruised limbs, and dehydrated quirk.

"W-What makes you so special?" Himiko weakly said in confusion, anger, and sorrow. "What makes you so s-special that a killer like you, w-who's no different than me gets to live a better life?"

Arcueid didn't respond.

"What's the d-difference between you and me? W-Why… why was I considered a monster? A f-freak? W-why did they let y-you be part of everyone else but not me… not… us?" Himiko said as she finally let her sadness overtake her. The latter half of her words included Jin, and basically most of the outcasts of their society, even if for the most part, Himiko was more drawn to her own pain above everything else.

Arcueid mused that it's probably why it devastated her so much. The misunderstanding broke her entire worldview in a sense as Himiko's tears turned into disdain.

"H-Hypocrites… that's all you do-gooders are." She said before she glared at Arcueid. "Damn it, s-say something! Kill me! Fucking let me join the rest that you people call t-tras-

"Shut up." Arcueid interrupted her, and before the pathetic excuse of a human could say one more word, she decided to leave her one last gift to make her rethink everything she knew.

"You and your comrades barged in expecting to be monsters about to fight your enemies. The only difference is, you actually met a monster, not a hero, and you all paid dearly for it."

Himiko paused at her words as Arcueid narrowed her eyes at her one last time.

"And as for your question, we are different, foolish human. I am real, and you? You're just a lowly pretender, not even worth the mercy of death."

Arcueid began walking away as Himiko Toga stared at her form, bathed in moonlight, as if the world itself resetting her back to pristine condition as none of the blood, dirt, and other evidence of her violent but efficient tussles existed.

She jumped away in a loud crack as the ground beneath her shattered on launch.

Leaving Himiko suddenly realizing, with fear and understanding that Arcueid's proclamation of being inhuman, was genuine.

…

"COME ON YOU STUPID CATS! GIVE ME A REAL FIGHT!" the bare, skinless, muscled fiend bellowed as he launched a devastating punch towards a defending Tiger…

BRWOUSH!

…whose Pliabody was not enough to absorb most of the impact, sending him flying into the campground's visit center hard. Glass, steel, and rock were eventually enough to stop his trajectory that would have him flying into the deeper parts of the forest, but it destroyed the building almost entirely in the process.

"IS THAT ALL YOU CAN DO? HAHAHHA!" he laughed in a jolly, sadistic manner as Pixie-Bob pressed both her hands on the ground a distance away after knocking out the kid with the gas quirk and conjured two large monstrous fists from the ground and grabbed the villain's arms.

"AHAHHAHHAHA! COME ON!" the villain continued to joyously laugh as Pixie Bob honed her years' worth of experience with her quirk and brought out two and then four and six simultaneous earthen monstrosities as they kicked, punched, and attacked the villain all at once.

BRWOUGH!

"AHHHAHAAHAHA! KEEP IT COMING!"

BRWOUGH! BRWOUGH! BRWOUGH! BRWOUGH!

"WEAK! IS THIS ALL YOU CAN COME UP WITH, YOU DAMN CATS? IS THIS-

The earthen arms keeping him in place were starting to crack, but one of the numerous constructs was able to punch him in the face as Pixie Bob started to feel some of her control slipping slightly. Exhaustion and exertion taxed her, physically and mentally but she kept her focus up.

All of it was in the hope of overwhelming him fast enough so that he could be worn down and hopefully captured. Mandalay, on the other hand, just a few meters away from the carnage watched as the villain that had been focusing on her and Tiger had been beaten relentlessly by Pixie Bob's constructs.

"Keep it up, Ryuko! Backups coming in just a few minutes, we just need to stall!"

"How the hell are you so sure?!" her blonde friend said with exertion in her voice.

In truth, Shino didn't know herself, but the missive from the small device that Nezu and collaboration with other support companies did in short order, was a beacon of sorts that would help connect law enforcement bodies and hero agencies together in the midst of the network blackouts. It was to be used as an SOS of sorts between them all using a form of connectivity that Shino herself didn't understand, but it had been abetted by many support companies and UA itself since the blackouts, and she had turned it on six minutes ago the very moment the muscled brute burst into the scene along with a few others.

"Don't forget me!" a jolly, similarly sadistic voice said as the one with the Magnetism Quirk almost made her off-balance as she was reeled in while his giant contraption that they carried into their hands was primed to hit her square in the face.

BRAPH!

"Not a chance!" Shino shouted as she ducked under their swing, before delivering a devastating kick into the side of their face that they were too slow to dodge. It knocked the villain's glasses clean off, the side of their face suffering a bruise as blood was spewed from their lips.

"Agh!" They were forced away but the villain, seeing what had happened to themselves, glared at Shino as he extended his hand forward, pulling various metal objects at such rapidly to her position. Her senses flared in alarm as she was forced to somersault and dodge every object away as the villain pressed in attack towards her.

Their stylized mailbox and signpost almost hit Mandalay in the face as she ducked just in time. But this distraction proved to be enough as Magne swept her magnet into the side of Shino's body in a definite crack.

BRAK!

Some air was forced out of her and while she was glad that none of her ribs were broken, it stung as she skidded away, only for her to gracefully correct herself in the air, landing on her feet a second later, proving her name and moniker as a feline-based hero with the stunt.

But Magne pushed forward, she used her quirk to get Mandalay close enough again, hoping to trap her, outbalance her, or take advantage of a momentary lapse in her defense as she went on hard with her offensive. Swiping her magnet in strokes that would make even the best kendo master to smile, she still couldn't hit the nimble Mandalay.

"Stand still!" she said in frustration as she initiated an upward swing…

TRUOSH!

...her magnet slamming into the ground hard, as it embedded itself into the earth, but Mandalay was able to jump up in time and then hopped onto the embedded magnet to launch herself in the air again. She then trapped both of her thighs into either side of Magne's head and used all of her body's strength to flip her opponent into the ground, slamming them behind her.

She nearly botched the landing as she panted, but she was able to find her balance in time, smirking slightly as she regained her breath, thinking what the infamous Rabbit hero would think of her stunt.

But now was not the time to celebrate yet, as she could feel her teammate's exhaustion keeping the brute away, which was the largest threat out of all of them, as she relentlessly made her constructs attack him in place.

Her thoughts then brought her back to the small meeting she had with the Ryukyu and Nighteye a few days before. Of heroes and students from various areas and schools being abducted by a terrifying group of coordinated villains. She heard that even the son of Endeavor was captured, UA being breached again after the USJ incident in a more surgical fashion as a few teachers went missing, and civilians alongside that too.

With the discord caused by the network blackout, a conspiracy arose amongst the law enforcers and heroes. One grand scheme amidst the disarray of society on the brink of this devastating infrastructure attack, and the villains becoming terrifyingly coordinated and smart that they were able to take advantage of this event to the utmost extent.

It was the reason why Nezu and the Support companies tried their damnest to make those beacons. It was the very reason why every hero and hero school was on lockdown until further notice as more and more disappearances were reported amidst the painfully uncoordinated heroes.

And it seemed like those same villains were now hitting them, the Pussycats hard.

Shino just inwardly hoped that they were good enough to stall them before help arrived. If it even did in the first place…

She heard Magne groan as she started to get up again, ready to fight as Shino readied herself.

But she smiled when just as Magne stood up, an elongated arm appeared on her shoulder and she was pulled back into Tiger, who had managed to recover from being punched earlier as they looked at each other face to face.

Yawara then headbutted the magnetic quirk user so hard they were knocked out, finally.

Sighing as the tremors of Ryuko's attacks continued to proliferate, Shino looked at Yawara who was equally exhausted already. Despite the info that the team had gotten from Nighteye and Detective Sansa, the group was not that coordinated, but their combination of quirks was deadly to the point that she could quickly understand why so many had disappeared since the blackouts occurred. Even the brute alone was proving to be a tough time for most of the heroes in the Top Ten, except All Might that is.

"We can't keep this up, Shino," Yawara stated as they both looked at the carnage that Ryuko was doing to the man while holding him down for dear life. "Can you at least detect with your quirk if a convoy is on the main road to us?"

"Guys." Ryuko's voice said, but overwhelmed by the sound of all the punches and earth being slammed together against the villain.

Shino frowned at Yawara's words, they had quickly managed to get Tomoko away to get Shiki and Kota out and she could still feel her in the range of her quirk, but the backup was nowhere in sight.

"We have to if only to buy Tomoko more time." She stressed as an understanding flowed between them. One that her dear friend nodded to with determination. The Pussycats had proven their mettle across the years, it was time they prove it again by making sure they would all hold the line.

"GUYS!" Ryuko shouted out as the two finally noticed that the villain under the carnage of earthen constructs had finally laughed again in sadistic glee. Then, they saw his fist rise into the air in between Ryuko's monsters, before the villain slammed it into the ground.

BRWOUSHH!

A massive shockwave exploded into being. All of Ryuko's constructs broke into a hundred, maybe a thousand pieces or more in all directions as it was enough to break the surrounding buildings around them. It sent Ryuko, passed out, into the air as Yawara caught her by the last second while he and Shino managed to find their footing as the shockwave passed.

"Better… but it's not enough." The villain said as he loomed over them in the distance. More muscle fibers started curling and appearing around his form making him grow twice in size already compared to when he first started as he stepped further. His sadistic smile almost looked perverted as his muscles bulged in excitement at them.

"So… is that it, you dumb cats?" the brute, the villain calling himself Muscular said as he took another step forward as Shino and Yawara readied themselves. Both already not liking their chances as everything they had thrown at the man had all failed. They weren't sure what more they could do other than run away and stall for help to arrive.

Muscular snickered, his voice almost making the three Pussycats sweat as he smiled. "Ah… now I know why you look familiar…" he started as he looked at Mandalay. His gaze made her flinch. "…you're… Mandalay, right?"

"What is it to you?" Shino defiantly said, not letting the fear get to her.

"… you related to a water-throwing rescue hero?"

Mandalay suddenly felt herself go stiff. It was true that her cousin's killer wasn't identified. But a chill ran down her spine as her momentary lapse only made the villain smile further.

"…ah, so it's true then. Well ain't this a surprise, lady?"

If he was right, then Shino found herself both fearful and angry at the realization that she was now facing Kinoki's killer. Her dear cousin, who was one of the kindest, most hardworking people she had ever met, was dead because of the hands of this villain.

"Shino…" Yawara spoke as the villain's smile increased, the toothy grin becoming more feral as the confirmation seemed to only please the villain further.

"Quite the reunion then… d'you wish to join her?" the villain taunted as Shino looked at him, emotions filled with turmoil as she basically froze in place.

"Shino! We have to run!" Yawara told her.

"Run? But there's nowhere to run…" the villain said as Shino and her comrades suddenly realized that the other villains had recovered. Magne standing by their right with a bruised but readied expression and Mr. Compress whom Yawara had quickly knocked out at the start of the fight were now ready to jump them, and the odds were not in their favor.

CRACK!

The villain smiled as he cracked his knuckles. "Come on… it'll be fun, I'm sure-

BRAP!

Muscular felt something hit him in the back of the head before said object bounced and landed dead on his feet. Silence reigned between all of them, even the villains as horror slowly dawned on Shino's face.

"What the hell?" Muscular said in surprise as blood trickled down his face. The blood did not belong to him, but to the ripped upper torso of Mustard, the young villain with the gas quirk. The kid's face had his particular gasmask similarly ripped open as a horrified expression, probably Mustard's last was revealed.

Then, a thundercrack was heard a second later as a large boulder was violently thrown in Magne's direction at speeds that she was not able to react to. Crushing her that she couldn't feel her legs anymore as she tried reaching for her magnet.

She screamed in pain much to Shino's shock as footsteps were heard.

And the villains, suddenly yelling out in exertion and surprise as chains suddenly rooted them into the ground like animals. Muscular in particular was now screaming as to what was happening while Mr. Compress only felt terror as they and Shino watched Arcueid come into the scene with an almost nonchalant, neutral expression.

"Shiki-san!" Shino shouted out, hoping for her to be careful, but before she could get out any more words, the loving, friendly, and sisterly friend of Kota's, almost family to her and the Pussycats…

"Argh!" Magne groaned as the rock on top of her seemed to become heavier as more of her bones and organs got crushed into mush.

…suddenly stepped onto the villain's head, splattering it into the earth like she crushed an egg. The action was so sudden and unforeseen for all of them that watched, that even Muscular, was rendered silent.

"Shiki… san?" Shino whispered, almost in fear as Arcueid, not even caring to look in her direction walked calmly in Muscular's direction. The chains tightened further into the villain's physique as he suddenly roared in anger.

"THE HELL IS THIS BLONDIE!? NONE OF THESE CHAINS CAN STOP ME FROM KILLING YO-

BRWASH!

Arcueid punched his face, the impact being so powerful that it caved in almost everything into the center. There was the sound of air being sucked still, and a groan from the broken facial bones, muscles, and the brain being barely functional from the damage, but Arcueid simply reached out and almost lazily tore out what remained of Muscular's head in a very audible, sickening fashion.

Just like that.

"That was for Kota-kun's parents," Arcueid said as she threw the head to the ground. Slamming it with her foot as the chains on the body disappeared and it lay motionless.

Just like that, the villain that had threatened the lives of everyone in the camp had died in a near instant. He wasn't even able to fight back.

Ironic, considering he relished for someone strong enough to sate his blood frenzy.

Now, for the last of them.

Arcueid turned her head to Mr. Compress who had already urinated in his pants from the entire sequence of events in fear, but before she could close the distance and end their existence.

"SHIKI-SAN! STOP!" Mandalay suddenly said with both fear but also concern and worry as she stood in front of Arcueid's way.

Arcueid stopped in her tracks, surprised to see her being brave enough despite what she had seen earlier as she stood in front of her.

"It's over! I-It's over…" Shino repeated, almost not believing it herself but it broke her after seeing her like this. It broke her that the girl they had trusted almost like family for months now, had resorted to this level of violence, even if deserved for some of them.

Arcueid on the other hand, didn't seem to understand why at first until she saw Kota-kun, standing far away behind Mandalay, being held tightly by Ragdoll/Tomoko.

His face shared the same sense of fear when he cried all those nights ago after she disappeared to get him a gift. She didn't even react when Shino suddenly claimed her into a hug as she teared up at her expense.

"It's over."

Arcueid just focused on Kota-kun, who suddenly jumped out of Tomoko's arms and almost leaped into Arcueid's who thankfully, was able to catch her in time. He was crying. His emotions went haywire with worry, fear, and sadness as she clung to both Shino and her tightly.

The princess of the moon can only guess what he was thinking right now.

But for Kota, despite everything that happened, he was thankful Arcueid and his aunt, even the rest of the Pussycats came out of it alive.

Yet at the same time, the way his 'Shiki-san' had ruthlessly and violently killed the villains attacking them left and right with little to no care had left him scarred again.

Almost to the same level as the loss of his parents. However, at the same time, it was a scar that was much more complex in how Kota would live on with his life moving forward.

"It's over. We're safe." Shino whispered to all three of them as the rest of the Pussycats, still unsure of what just transpired came near them, just as the sounds of sirens came into the camp.

Nejire Hado blinked as she looked at the peculiar scene of 'Shiki-san' huddling close with Mandalay's nephew. Her mentor Ryukyu along with a few more heroes, some even from her school, UA, discuss with each other after the recent attack on the Pussycat's campgrounds.

The adults were conversing heavily in the background as first responders, those that were available to come by at least had done their best to cordon off and clean the crime scene with all of the bodies everywhere. Nejire was quite surprised that there were that many.

Despite what other people thought of her, she understood deeply the harder parts of the life of a hero. Especially when in her first internship under her current mentor, they looked into a lot of murders, each with different contexts, and different means. She could be serious when she needed to, and while she kept her positivity everywhere she went, she wouldn't use it to disrespect the gravity of survivors or civilians on the scene.

Especially now, when she saw Mandalay's nephew clinging onto the blonde girl almost as if his life depended on it.

Nejire was confident that she could give a welcoming and supportive atmosphere for both of them, just as she always did in the field. Although, the air of fear and sadness was still thick between them, and even among the Pussycats, she decided to keep herself at bay at the moment.

Even the two surviving villains from the League were too traumatized for her to actually be helpful. Though… less on the magician man, and more on the heavily injured, silent girl.

They were villains alright, but Nejire did her best to at least alleviate the still sobbing girl, who clung to her hand tightly, as if it was the only real thing that she could latch onto at the moment. Ryukyu had been following the case of this particular girl for a while, and she assured Nejire that the proper authorities would see her better adjusted, even if she was sent to a detainment facility.

Nejire remembered the girl, possibly listening to their conversation, tightly squeezing her hand after her mentor mentioned that, but Ryukyu, her ever-loving teacher, assured the girl that it would be alright. She promised the girl that Tartarus for her sake wasn't an option, and she would honor that promise as best she could, that much Nejire knew.

Now, as the medical crews and police started to take the bodies into body bags (or for the large villain into a containment unit), she watched the two sitting on a barely intact bench hugging each other as the blonde girl patted Mandalay's nephew.

In some manner, they acted like siblings and Nejire couldn't be happier to see-

"He belongs to me." Arcueid suddenly said, as if hearing Nejire's thoughts.

Nejire stared back at the girl, who was now locking eyes with her, with an expression resembling that of a matriarch carnivore, protecting her cub against everything she deemed a threat.

Nejire tried smiling back, hoping to diffuse the tension.

But she was only met with a flat stare of hidden wrath.

Anan Kurose woke to the sensation of needles entering her forearm.

Pain wracked her mind as nerves started to react, almost as if electricity had surged within them. However, much as she could shout, scream, or even pry her arms away from the pain, most of her body was numb, it felt as if she had no control at all.

Only her eyes, animatedly rolling as she could see the telltale signs of being inside a lab, filled with apparatuses and tools that she did not understand in functionality, and pods.

Another surge of pain occurred again as her eyes started to tear up.

She was a hero, and she was trained to be as resilient as possible even as a rescue hero primarily, but even her tolerance was being ripped open as if it didn't exist in the first place. Terror started to enter her mind as she could not even writhe or move to react to the pain until her eyes suddenly stopped when she saw one of the open pods.

Momo Yaoyorozu. Part of Class 1-A, one of her students in rescue training in UA was either sedated or… Anan shivered metaphorically, she hoped, no… prayed that the girl was alive. She had to do something. She had to find a way to get them out of there.

But, where was here exactly?

And why can't she remember anything that possibly led them to be imprisoned here?

"Subject with Black Hole quirk is conscious, Ms. Aozaki." A male voice said as the sound of rubber gloves being pulled and worn by someone's hands was heard. Anan blanched at the implications as to why she was here. She knew that her quirk was powerful, devastatingly so, but-

"Really? I thought Garaki was able to prep her for the procedure right now."

"I believe the dosage was too low on Ms. Kurose's behalf." The male voice said.

"Oh well, it's not that she can do anything. We can have her finished by the hour."

Finished? Finished for what?! Anan thought, even if not just for fear of her own well-being, but of her student.

"Why the sudden interest in this particular specimen, Ms. Aozaki? Her applications for her quirk are, in my opinion, wasted on a rescue hero. Even the limit of being on her fingertips seems wasteful." the male voice asked.

"Oh, that's not what I'm focused on. I'm interested in the Quirk Factor, that very part of her soul can actually replicate and fine-tune the effects of an actual singularity, without the need for it to be centralized through her fingers is possible." The voice of the woman said with so much emotion that it gleamed with excitement.

Oh God. Anan thought as tears started to pool in the edges of her eyes.

"Think of the possibilities. Think for a moment, in the future, when we can harness this- excuse me, I can harness this on my own by just pointing at a space like that wall, and have a singularity erase it into existence. Not even the best Astromancers can hope to attain such a thing, and by research, only Divine Spirits can replicate such an effect and she is squandering it like a toddler who thinks they can use a gun by just pressing a trigger."

Please… someone, come and save us. Anan begged.

"Indeed. Quite the amazing effect, Ms. Aozaki."

"Of course… and once we've gathered all we can here. My little trap for that mutated abomination calling this place home will be nothing but a tool at the end of the week."

"Aw… I thought you appreciated our time together, Miss Aozaki. Do you wish to quickly get rid of me so soon?"

"Shut up. I gave you an interesting personality, but that doesn't mean you can be a smartass. You were always disposable, but you've been the most successful one thus far, so you still have uses."

Anan felt one of her tears escape her eyes. It was then that a face, the beautiful face of a red-haired woman came into her vision. She smiled at her, almost in a motherly, supportive way as her hair shuffled a bit, possibly due to her patting her head.

"Oh… don't you worry dear. You'll be alright, that much I can promise."

TO BE CONTINUED…

AN: I feel giddy to write the next few chapters, especially with all the reveals hahahahaha. Hope you all enjoyed!