Chapter 13

Izuku breathed a sigh of relief; it hadn't been easy, but he'd managed to lose the villains he'd pulled off of Mr. Aizawa by hiding in what appeared to be a ruined office building with a three-story parking garage attached. He hadn't even needed to use One for All—a good thing, considering he still hadn't mastered it.

But I did feel a little faster than normal a couple of times back there, Izuku thought. It definitely wasn't normal; maybe it was instinctual? My legs aren't broken, but there's some soreness to them...

He shook his head. This was not the time for analysis; he could worry about that later. Casey and Bakugo were waiting for him to get back to them. All I to do is sit here for a little bit and rest—

A sudden, inhuman roar alerted him to a threat immediately behind the wall he was leaning against; he leapt clear just in time to see a black and monstrous shape crash through it, staring right at him. That's the big bird-like villain! I've got to get out of here!

With the speed that only fear and adrenaline could grant, Izuku ran for the nearest exit, the hulking abomination a hair's breadth behind him. As he fled, he noticed that the monstrous villain didn't even stop for walls in its path, even ones that seemed load-bearing—and a plan quickly came to mind.

The parking garage! This guy seems to be pretty invulnerable; he'd have to be if he really is intended to be a weapon against All-Might. In that case, about the only thing that would stop him would be to drop the roof on him. He clearly doesn't have much intelligence; if I could just get him to crash through a few pillars in the garage...

An idea that was easier said than done, considering how closely the villain was chasing him. He would have to play it carefully, making sure that the last pillar was close enough to the exit that he could get out from under the garage in time to avoid being crushed along with the villain.

If he survived that long...

I had been standing watch as Bakugo alternated between setting off a couple of small explosions on the emergency exit door to loosen it up and trying to force the doors open. It was slow going, but progress was clearly being made. I couldn't see Mr. Aizawa anymore—the battle between him and Shigaraki must have moved out of my line of sight—but at least that meant that the latter couldn't see us and try to stop us.

"How's the door coming?"

"Shut up and keep watch," Bakugo grumbled back; "I can't do a damn thing if you two weaklings keep distracting me."

'You two'? Did he seriously tune out the part where Izuku left? Asshole...

Suddenly, a distant rumbling alerted me to something going on in a building within my line of sight; a cold feeling came over me, and somehow I knew that Izuku was there. But what could have done that much damage—Oh no. Oh God, no...

There was only one answer I could think of: Nomu. Izuku had somehow gotten that monster's attention, and was fighting for his life; there was no way I could stand there and let my brother die. For a moment, I looked back at Bakugo, thinking to alert him to the problem... only for my voice to catch in my throat.

No. He doesn't care; he didn't even know Izuku left. He's still working on that door while my brother might be dying. I ground my teeth a bit. Fuck him, let him do what he wants and figure out what happened later; I'll save Izuku without his help.

Without a second thought, I turned and charged in the direction of the battle, praying that I wouldn't be too late. As I got closer to the sounds of battle, I noticed that they were coming from a parking garage—or, at least, a simulation of one. Knowing I couldn't waste any time, I punched my fists together to activate the vibro-rig for a quick extra boost of kinetic energy before using the same trick I used in the assessment test; using a little bit of energy to increase the force with which one foot pushed off the ground, then absorbing the energy from the next step hitting the ground, gaining speed and force with each stride. The closer I got to the parking garage, the greater my worry for Izuku; as I began to close in on the building, I spied two shapes—one gigantic, the other small—chasing each other around, the former smashing through pillars in an attempt to grab and crush the latter. With every step, the shapes became clearer until I could clearly see their identities, confirming my worst fears: Izuku was desperately trying to escape from Nomu, who was never more than a couple of feet from him. It's a miracle he's lasted this long against that beast, I thought; Why isn't Izuku leaving that building—

I quickly realized what my brother's strategy was: he was going to drop a parking garage on Nomu's head. Considering the amount of punishment Nomu took from All-Might in canon, I doubted that would seriously injure the freak of nature, but it's not like there was much of a better plan than that. As I closed in further, my heart leapt into my throat; Izuku had managed to get the creature to break one more pillar—just enough to cause the telltale rumbling of a building about to collapse—but a large bit of falling rubble forced him to dive, and Nomu took the opportunity to close in for the kill.

Pushing my quirk as hard as I could, I reached Izuku just in time to grab him and pull him out of the monster's way, then leapt back with all the kinetic energy I had built up just as three stories' worth of concrete collapsed on Nomu's head.

Izuku lay there on the ground for a few seconds, catching our breath; it was Izuku who broke the silence. "Brother... are you... okay...?"

"Am I okay?! You nearly died, Izuku!" Anger born of worry quickly faded into worry mixed with relief. "Bro... don't ever scare me like that again."

Izuku responded with a weary smile and a chuckle. "Don't worry, I'll be more careful from now on. Come on, we need to get back to Kacchan—"

Our relief turned to horror as Nomu erupted from the massive pile of rubble with a terrifying roar; horror intensified into damn near pants-wetting terror as we realized that it was virtually unharmed, save for a tiny crack at the edge of the exposed brain.

Three stories of concrete, right on top of its head, all that weight focused on that one point, and all it did was make a tiny little crack. But more importantly, it was clearly pissed. And we were both far too exhausted to move an inch.

Before the hulking thing could move to kill us both, a distant boom rang out, immediately followed by something red slamming into Nomu's side.

"BANZAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIII!"

Kirishima shouted in glee as he collided like a human cannonball right into Nomu before landing back on his feet somehow, floating strangely for a second before he dropped; looking in the direction of the boom, I saw Momo and Uraraka standing next to a person-sized cannon.

Holy crap... that's brilliant. Uraraka used her quirk to lighten Kirishima, then loaded him into the cannon Momo must have created, then fired him at Nomu with his hardening quirk activated; that's not just a fastball special, that's a freaking RAILGUN!

Our glorious red-headed friend pumped his fist and grinned in victory. "Yeah! How'd you like that, you monster?"

Unfortunately, the only thing the attack did was distract it, and now Nomu turned its attention onto Kirishima. Still unable to move, we watched as Kirishima tried to dodge its blow, only missing it by a hair... and then more welcome intervention came as the beast was suddenly encased from head to toe in ice.

"Hmph. This was your big plan? This pitiful thing was meant to kill All-Might?"

Izuku and I managed to scramble unsteadily to our feet as Kirishima smiled at the icy-hot emo. "Todoroki! Talk about a manly entrance!"

"I managed to defeat the villain who was jamming our communications," Todoroki said in his usual matter-of-fact tone. "With him out of the way, the alarms should alert the faculty; they ought to be here soon."

"Not soon enough, kiddies... heheheh..."

Bakugo growled in frustration as the door continued to resist his attempts to open it.

"DAMN IT! Open up, you stupid door!"

With an angry kick, Bakugo turned to look at the fake brothers, intending to yell at them for not helping... only to see that they had run off while his back was turned.

Those losers! First they make me run away from a fight, then they tell me to waste my time with this damn door, then they leave me here to do their dirty work?!

As he looked around, his eyes landed on a sight that infuriated him even more: the fake brothers were now in a standoff with the giant villain and that hand guy. The former was frozen from head to toe, and the latter had... something in his grip, but Bakugo didn't care enough to wonder about it. Only one thing mattered to him.

"THOSE FUCKING LOSERS!"

They had left him to do the work of a coward and weakling while they ran off to do the fighting and take the glory. His rage boiled over, and before he knew it he was blasting off toward the beast.

A chill ran down my spine as we all turned to see Shigaraki holding none other than Mr. Aizawa by the neck, both hands around his throat save for his index fingers. Eraserhead looked beyond horrifying, and my stomach nearly turned at the sight; his right eye was a rotting, crumbling hole, and his left arm from the elbow down was crumbling into bloody dust. And still he was somehow awake.

Shigaraki let out an insane giggle. "Heehee~! You've all had your fun, but playtime is over; with my quirk, anything I touch with all five fingers decays into nothing. Surrender now, or your precious teacher dies!"

"D-don't... listen to him... if you... surrender, he'll... k-kill all of us... anyway." Aizawa was clearly struggling just to talk at all. "F-forget about... me... j-just... run..."

Kirishima turned to Shigaraki in rage. "Like hell we'll run! We took down your buddy, we'll take you down too—"

The shattering of ice interrupted Kirishima as Nomu broke one arm free and snatched him up into a one-armed bear hug.

"You were saying~? Looks to me like you have even less of a choice now!"

"DEKU YOU BASTAAAAAARD!"

We whipped around to see Bakugo flying through the air like a cannonball, straight at Nomu's head; before anyone could react, he landed on its back, pressed his hand against its skull, and shouted in rage.

"DIIIIIIIIE!"

With a loud bang, Nomu's head shattered into a million pieces, along with the rest of his body; Kirishima was caught in the blast as well, and was sent flying several feet before landing in a heap, unconscious but alive. Shock poured over all of us, but not before we heard a snarl of pure rage from Shigaraki.

"Nomu... my Nomu... you broke him! You broke Nomu! YOU BROKE MY NOMU!"

Before anyone could stop him, he pressed his index fingers against Mr. Aizawa's neck... and with a sickening sight that none of us would ever forget, our teacher was dead.

"You broke my Nomu... I broke your teacher... NOW I'LL BREAK YOU!"

Bang! Bang!

Two shots rang out, piercing Shigaraki through both shoulders; our eyes temporarily averted from the sight of our teacher's broken body, we saw the rest of the teaching staff plus All-Might standing at the entrance, looking down at us.

"No... nonononono. Game over! Game over! KUROGIRI!"

"Tomura Shigaraki. Time to leave."

I averted my eyes from the sight of the teleporting villain, and by the time I looked back, both were gone.

As the shock and grief poured over us I failed to notice Bakugo looking from his hands to Kirishima to Mr. Aizawa's corpse and back again with more shock than any of us.

The day was won. But the loss seemed so much greater than the victory.