NO. 36 - The Raid

[General POV]

"You good for nothings better not have left anything important. Or I swear to god I'll tear all your worthless heads off!" Kobashigawa said as he settled into his armored limousine. Sitting in front of him with her legs crossed was Shimmer, while his assistant Kobeni sat to his right.

"W-we have everything packed, Kobashigawa-sama!" Kobeni said quickly. Kobashigawa grunted and then motioned for his driver to begin moving.

Just as Kobashigawa and his several other vehicles were about to depart, everything around them abruptly shook with incredible force.

"Maximum Output: Glacial Wall."

Rising from the ground around the western-styled mansion was a tall wall of solid, freezing ice. The wall of ice continued to grow until there was no escape for anyone within the mansion.

Jumping out of his limousine, Kobashigawa looked up in shock. His eyes scrutinized the vast wall of pure ice that was impeding his escape. With a growl, the crime lord turned to the right to find the source of all his problems, standing on top of the ice wall.

"Sukuna…"

Kobashigawa glared at the King of Curses; beside him were two other individuals staring down at them behind their masked visages. Jumping back into his limousine, Kobashigawa turned to his driver. "Go! Get us back inside!"

"Yes, sir!"

The driver behind the wheel slammed his foot on the gas; he then spun his head back to guide the limousine back into the mansion's garage.

Shimmer was about to exit the vehicle to confront Sukuna, but Kobashigawa grabbed her arm and stopped her.

"Not yet. Let my men tire him out." Kobashigawa said as all of his remaining men ran out to confront Sukuna and his two cohorts using whatever quirks or weapons they had available. "Once he's on his last legs, you'll end his pathetic life."

Shimmer frowned but nodded nonetheless. Her eyes locked onto Sukuna's form.

"Alright."

x x x

[General POV]

"Stay close to each other. Take out-down the stragglers."

Sukuna said as he jumped down the wall of ice with little issue. Himiko and Jin nodded as they followed after him, albeit more slowly.

As Himiko and Jin landed, they watched as Sukuna seemingly glitched out of existence before appearing and reappearing all over the mansion's front courtyard, taking down dozens of Kobashigawa's men with ease using his three-section staff.

"Dang, Sukuna-kun."

"Remind me not to get on his bad side. Nah! We can do twice-no! Three times better!"

Deciding it was time for them to contribute to the cause, Himiko and Jin dashed forward with their respective weapons ready.

"Who the hell are these two?! I thought the Demon God worked alone?!"

"Who fuckin cares! Kill 'em!"

Dodging to the side, Himiko avoided a wide left swing from a large man covered in spikes. Glaring at him from under her mask, she gripped her blunted sword and swung.

"Remember, Himiko. This may look like a short, blunt sword that can't cut anything. But this blade is so much more than that. Within this blunted blade is an imbued technique that can land a critical strike if you can land a hit on the seven-to-three ratio point on your target… I'm going to show you how to find that point."

Remembering all of Sukuna's training and teachings, Himiko's eyes scanned the spiked man's body and settled on a single point directly below his hip.

'There!' Himiko slashed her blunted weapon directly at her target.

Before her very eyes, a flash of black and a long line with ten lines appeared before her. At the seven to three ratio point of that line, Himiko saw a red dot explode a brilliant red.

"Gah!"

The man covered in spikes yelled in agony as his body was suddenly flung back with a violent spin. With a loud thud, the man landed on the ground. Himiko stared at him for a few seconds and sighed in relief as she saw him breathe. 'Okay, at least now I know how much force to use.' She thought before looking down at her weapon with a twinkle in her eye.

Seeing that, several of Kobashigawa's men paused and looked at Himiko with caution.

"Wow…" Beneath her mask, a wide, confident grin grew on Himiko's face. "This is going to be fun."

Off several feet away, Jin leaped over two rushing men as they tried to tackle him onto the ground. Grabbing his measuring tape, Jin held it out in front of him to stop a downward slice from a katana held by a woman with dark orange hair and horns on her forehead.

Twisting his tape around the woman's sword, Jin yanked the blade down, bringing the woman down with her weapon. With her upper body leaning down, she was unprepared for the flying knee strike that impacted her nose, knocking her out.

'Souta is taking down the ones with the more lethal and powerful quirks.' Jin thought as he looked around at the knocked out or dead henchmen. Thanks to all his years as a criminal and thief, Jin was capable of distinguishing the strong from the really strong. "How thoughtful!"

Flying in and out of several henchmen was Jello. The once small, now large, Shikigami stabbed its sharp tendrils into all those it passed, inflicting them all with a lethal dose of poison that took them all down within a few minutes. Due to the fact no one besides its Master and his two companions could see it, the Shikigami had zero issues taking down all of its Master's enemies.

"Watch out, Twice!"

Jumping back, Jin watched as a large Bull-like man charged through where he once stood. Looking over to Himiko, Jin gave her a thumbs up as she landed beside him.

"Thanks for the heads up, Mystique!"

"Ugh, I still don't like that name…"

They turned to the large bull-man as he snarled in anger. His large hooves dug the ground below him.

"You two will die a slow and painful death for disrespecting Kobashigawa-sama!" The bull-man, or as many know him as Horn-Rush, roared. "I'll take you two down, and then I'll put an end to Sukuna!"

"Like hell you will, ugly," Himiko said as she pointed her blade at the man.

Jin nodded and scanned their surroundings. Besides Horn-Rush, there were around fifteen more henchmen staring them down. Reaching up, Jin grabbed his twin katanas and pulled them out of their sheaths.

"Hmm, I'm still not too sure about using these yet. Nah! We're practically pros!" Jin said as he and Himiko sprang to the side to avoid another charge from Horn-Rush.

Sliding to a stop, Jin swiped his sword up to parry a metal bat that tried to bash his head in. With a spinning back kick, Jin knocked back the bat-wielding woman whose body was covered in blue fur. Spinning in place, Jin landed a thin cut on the chest of a man who tried to stab his long, sharp fingers into his stomach.

"What a cheap move! Attacking a man when his back is turned like a pussy!"

Several feet away, Himiko was performing a series of backflips to avoid an upward swipe of Horn-Rush's horns. Spinning in mid-air, Himiko pulled out one of her extra knives and drove it down into the shoulder of a man with grey skin that was directly below her.

The man's singular eye grew wide as he yelled in agony before Himiko slammed her blunt sword into the side of his head, knocking him out.

Standing up, Himiko watched as Jin wrapped his measuring tape around Horn-Rush's head as he rode on his back.

"Yee-hah! Ride 'em, cowboy!"

"Get off me, you bastard!"

From behind, four of Kobashigawa's men tried to rush Himiko's while she was seemingly distracted. Noticing their approach, she reached inside her knife holster's small side compartment to take out a small red pill.

Unfortunately for the men who thought they would take down Himiko with her back turned, she was trained by one of the most skilled hand-to-hand fighters on the planet to be hyper-aware of her surroundings.

"Nice try!"

Himiko yelled as she popped the pill into her mouth. Biting into it, Himiko felt a swell of strength fill her as she ingested Sukuna's blood.

Blood Doping.

It was a new method for Himiko to quickly gain the physical traits of the person whose blood she ingested using her Quik. Boosting her strength and speed without having to transform fully.

While this method of activating her Quirk resulted in her Quirk's true potential being dulled down, it still granted her a short burst of some much-needed power, which came in handy in a pinch.

"Gah!"

"Ah!"

"Fuck!"

Himiko slid to a stop as she landed four perfectly executed strikes with her blunted blade onto her four would-be attackers with quick speed. Each of her strikes activating the blades imbued technique of Ratio into her targets.

One by one, they all landed from being launched back from her attacks in a heap of mangled or bruised limbs.

Breathing in exertion, Himiko looked over to the large hole leading into the mansion.

"Sukuna-kun. Good luck."

x x x

[Shimizu Souta POV]

"A-around this corner! He's behind that wall!"

Stepping around the corner of the long hallway, the terrified young woman who was crying the whole time pointed at a massive wall made up of what I could only assume was heavily fortified steel. Several pillars and expensive-looking furniture sat all around the wall.

Stepping beside the woman, she squealed in fear at me but remained in place.

She then pointed at the wall with a trembling finger, her expression seeming to be on the verge of throwing up.

"T-there…" The woman, Kobeni, whispered. "Please don't k-kill me. I never wanted to do any of this! My parents made me get a-"

"Shut it. I didn't ask for your life story." I muttered before heading towards the wall where Kobashigawa was hiding behind. "Now get out of my sight."

[+10 SP]

"Y-yes! Thank you, Sukuna-sama!" Kobeni said as she quickly ran away through the halls where several unconscious or dead, bloodied bodies lay.

That woman seemed familiar…

With Playful Cloud in my hands, I walked towards the wall before sensing the air in front of me shoot up with heat; this caused me to immediately dodge to the side as a high-speed beam of energy shot through the wall to my right like a hot knife through butter.

[+5 SP]

"Sukuna." A woman with violet hair dressed in a hero costume said as she walked around one of the room's pillars. "The King of Curses. From the way everyone talks about you, I thought you were this huge four-armed monster with an extra set of eyes. But seeing you know, I'm a little disappointed."

That's a terrifying close guess.

"The pro hero… Shimmer." I said while examining the woman.

I remembered Shimmer from one of Izuku and Keiko's long conversations over some of Japan's rising heroes during one of their breaks.

From what I could recall, Shimmer was capable of shooting high-powered blasts of energy from her hands and mouth. The latter being something she didn't do too often. Her Quirk needed a constant supply of external power to work, but seeing as how several arcs of electricity sparked around her, she was fully charged.

Glancing at the burning holes in the several walls her attack caused, I couldn't risk getting hit by any of her blasts. That meant getting in close to her was my best move.

I couldn't give her the breathing room to launch any more of her energy blasts at me.

[+5 SP]

"Oh? The great old Demon God knows about little old me? I'm flattered." Shimmer said as she placed a hand over her chest with a mocking smile. "I'm impressed you made it this far. Kobashigawa-san had some rather powerful grunts stationed all along his mansion leading here. Even I would have had some problems getting here unscathed. But here you are! Looking pristine! How impressive you are... but is that some sweat I'm seeing on your body?"

Shimmer then held out a hand towards me; sparks and arcs of energy ran up her body before coalescing into a concentrated ball in front of her palm. "However, this is as far as you go. Now, then, could you do me a favor and die?"

In a flash, a powerful beam of energy was sent careening towards me.