49 Chapter 48 – USJ (part 4)

I was seeing red, I was seriously angered, an aura of anger and danger started to spread around me, just looking at me would cause people to feel fear and weaker willed ones to simply faint.

The students instinctively took a step back, feeling the air of danger I was emitting, but I didn't care. My anger wasn't directed at them, they had nothing to fear.

A couple of villains that were still barely conscious around me took the brunt of it and simply passed out, but I didn't care anymore about them.

The only thing on my mind was the Nomu.

Just to test it, I created a gigantic bone spike that completely pierced the Nomu's chest, but the creature simply broke it and regenerated in moments.

I didn't let myself be controlled by rage, I would have to be intelligent to beat this and make it so nobody would be harmed.

So I continued to run toward it, and started to ponder how I would beat this thing.

I needed to tread this fight carefully, the Nomu was incredibly powerful, but I knew that I could defeat it without revealing the fact that I was Knockout.

First, I used Quirk Vision the know its quirk, my strategy would revolve around his strengths and weaknesses.

Shock Absorption (5210): Allows user to absorb impacts

Super Regeneration (12310): Gives user a strong regeneration factor

Enhanced Strength (7230): Gives user immense raw strength and speed

Wow, I know why they said this thing could defeat All Might, but it wasn't the only one with Shock Absorption, and other overpowered quirks.

Also, it had a strong regeneration factor, but I suspected that if I exploded the head, it would be dealt with. I could also just immobilize the Nomu and it would be fine.

The beginning of a plan started to form in my head…

.

First, I needed to get the Nomu's attention off Aizawa and make it focus on me, so I changed to slightly changed course and instead directed myself toward Shigaraki, who was very close to me and high-kicked him in the head while he was watching his Nomu with glee.

I had struck him with just enough strength to make him dizzy, in pain, but not unconscious.

"ARGH! NOMU, KILL HIM!" Shigaraki shouted, absolutely furious and clutching his head in pain. I think I had broken one of the severed hand that was grasping his head.

Good, the beats stopped paying attention to Aizawa and turned his head toward me, expressionless, as always. I

Step 1, done.

The next moment, it was in front of me and punched me, but I thanked my inane reflexes once again and dodged the punch, causing it to strike the ground, creating a crater and a huge dust cloud.

Perfect, people wouldn't be able to see what would happen in the cloud of dust, I was free to do pretty whatever I wanted.

Step 2, done.

At the moment the Nomu attempted to punch me, a sprouted an arm from Shigaraki himself and punched him with it, trying to know him out.

His lack of experience showed itself once again, he couldn't react at all and he was easily knocked out.

It was really important that Shigaraki was knocked out, so he couldn't order his Nomu around and now that the Nomu had been given the order to kill me, it would only do that, even if Shigaraki was unconscious. Also it would be good it he doesn't see exactly how his Nomu his destroyed, it would keep him mostly in the dark about my powers.

Step 3, done.

Still in the dust cloud, heavily obscured from everyone, I blinked behind the Nomu to test its reflexes and kicked him in the head to hard that it exploded.

The head regrew in a matter of seconds.

Destroying its head did not stop the Nomu.

Step 4, failure.

Now, I simply had to destroy the thing made to kill All Might… That was near unkillable.

I could explode it from the inside, that would maybe do the job, but it would be extremely suspicious.

So I had to find another way to neutralize an unkillable killing machine.

Easy, right?

.

I detonated a few fingers I had stealthily detached from my hands earlier and created another, but bigger dust could, making it seem like the Nomu and simply punched again, but stronger.

Now it was nearly impossible to see what was going on inside the dust cloud from the outside, but with all my vision quirks, I was unhindered.

I dodged another punch from the Nomu, using some of my stockpiled strength to boost my legs, thus my speed and created quite a big bone spike from the ground which pierced the Nomu's arm, but didn't do any damage.

Not even a second later, it's regeneration already healed the small wound.

I had done that to see of the Nomu was resistant to piercing attacks. It was not.

Seeing that I kept dodging it's attacks, the Nomu changed tactics and grappled me before slamming me down, creating yet another crater.

I had purposely let it grapple me as I wanted to know how strong it was, and I was not disappointed.

My shock absorption quirk absorbed the immense majority of the impact and a very quick activation for Titanium Body took care of the rest, but the Nomu's strength was nothing to scoff at, it could easily throw me a hundred meters back with one of his strikes had I not all of my defensive quirks.

Now I had finished messing around, as I had clear knowledge of the Nomu's abilities. It was very strong, yes, but it was clear that it was made with the intent to kill All Might, thus it had quite clear strengths and weaknesses.

The Nomu realized that I wasn't harmed at all by his slam, and got back to his original strategy, punching me until I couldn't take it. Intelligence clearly wasn't its strong point.

I knew that his powerful punches would quickly destroy the dust could I had created, and I didn't want that so, suddenly I grew another ten arms, five from my left side and five from my right side, and completely caught the Nomu's two fists.

I now asked myself, once again, who was the real monster here, I didn't look human anymore, no human has a total of twelve arms. And I had more quirks than the Nomu...

My plan was now to simply delay and stall for time until the heroes arrive, it shouldn't take very long since Iida was very fast and escaped quite long ago.

Right?

Still, I had other things to worry about right now like… The Nomu.

We started a strength contest, trying to push the other, make him fall and take the advantage, but I never said I played fairly so I spouted bone spikes from each of my palms, skewering the Nomu multiple times over.

I'd say it totally nailed the porcupine look, it made it look sharper.

I then detached the bone spikes from me, laving them stuck inside of it, but the Nomu took this opportunity to kick me, and since he was way taller than me, it would hit me in the face.

I was now in a bind, the dust cloud had dispersed and the students could pretty clearly see me, especially since Momo had created binoculars for most of the class. So if I tanked that kick without backlash, which I easily could, it would appear very suspicious, I didn't want that. But I also couldn't really dodge it without teleporting of blinking, which would be even more suspicious.

So I took a split second decision and, the moment the kick hit me, I propelled myself backward using a good amount of stockpiled strength. My timing was absolutely perfect, it just looked like I had been normally hit, and I cut my face very quickly to add blood on my face, for realism's sake.

Damn, now I was out of the dust cloud, but it was fine, I could continue like this and stall for time until All Might and the other heroes arrived.

With that in mind, we continued like this for a good while, under the anxious gazes of the students.

The same scene played many times in a row; I would dodge for a bit, until it got to fast for me (for Raiko) and then be struck by it getting blown back by a lot while the monstrosity followed me. And repeat.

Although I sometimes hit the Nomu with bone spikes or other weapons I picked up on the ground, but it didn't have a lot of effect, the Nomu's regeneration took care of everything.

For added realism, I often broke some of my extra arms when they were stuck, using Emotionnal Manipulation to make myself ignore the pain as much as I could, but it still hurt, a lot. That was one of the downsides of this quirk, I felt everything my extra limbs felt. Everything, especially the pain.

Except after a couple of minutes of this circus, my shock absorption quirk started to get tired, and my arms started to nearly break for real, I was really wondering what in the world was taking Iida so long to get back to school and call All Might.

And just when I thought things were bad, Shigaraki stirred up and managed to order the Nomu again.

"Kill the students first…. And kill All Might when he'll show up," Shigaraki tried to shout, but ended up choking instead.

Still, the order had been given and the Nomu immediately used his considerable speed to dash toward the students, raising its fist.

Fuck.

I need to stop treating this lightly. The students were in real danger now, the Nomu wasn���t after me.

I pushed Limb Infestation to the maximum I could and sprouted hundreds of arms all around the Nomu in a split second, each arm grappling it and doing their best to stop it.

I worked, but I could tell it would not hold it long, it was already starting to get out, so I stopped caring about the consumption of my Life Energy stockpile and started duplicating the arms and creating new ones over and over and over again…

Soon, you couldn't see the Nomu anymore, only a mountain of arms legs and other various limbs. But I continued to create even more limbs, and even more. There were soon thousands of them and I decided that it was enough.

It was the most I had even pushed Limb Infestation, it drained my stockpile like crazy, but it didn't matter right now. Still it was starting to take a toll on me, I was overusing my quirk by a large margin.

While I did this, I was channelling such amount of Life Energy through my body that it overstimulated my cells, my hair started growing uncontrollably, then falling to the ground, then restarted growing. The same was happening with my nails and all the hair on my body.

My skin also started quickly wrinkling, before becoming soft and smooth like a newborn's, before quickly wrinkling again, it was as if I was aging extremely rapidly, the becoming young again.

I knew this would happen, this was a natural occurrence when the Life Energy/Cell ratio was too high in my body and purposefully didn't stop it, as I could if I really wanted to. It would help me with "lies" later and didn't have any consequences except that I would badly need a haircut.

I could feel the Nomu struggle less and less, getting overwhelmed. It couldn't easily punch its way through my limbs as they all had Shock Absorption as well.

It was horrifying, but I wasn't finished.

Now that it was nearly immobilized, I needed to get rid of him.

I channelled a large amount of life energy through me, and, at once, created hundreds of bone spikes from the limbs that were holding the Nomu, skewering the beast over and over.

Yes, the Nomu had a regeneration factor, but it couldn't regenerate if the bone spike was still stuck inside of him, and I wanted to do that.

Blood probably gushed, but I didn't get to see any of it as there were simply too many limbs, you couldn't even get a glimpse of the Nomu from the outside..

At that point, I was pretty certain that the Nomu wouldn't be getting up anytime soon, but I needed to be sure, so I used a finger-eye to see it.

What I managed to see between the sea of limbs wasn't pretty. The Nomu was still alive, but couldn't move a muscle, it was just stuck there. There were also blood and mysterious organs scattered a bit everywhere.

Relieved, I let out a sight, the Nomu was taken care of, the students were safe.

The adrenaline that was fuelling my body started to wear off and I realized just how exhausted I was, but I needed to stay awake just a little bit more for the students, until the heroes arrive.

Just as I thought this, I faintly heard a distinctive "Fear not as I am here!" shout, before allowing myself to fall unconscious.