Izuku Has Cursed Speech: Chapter 11: Power Surging (Patreon)

From the rooftop, Sero crouched low, one knee down, tape canisters twitching at his elbows. He kept peeking over the ledge and then pulling back like the sight itself might bite him. Todoroki stood beside him, straight-backed, eyes calm, taking everything in without rushing. He watched patterns, not faces. Where the villains clustered. Where they hesitated. Where the mist opened and closed.

Sero swallowed. “Man… this is bad. This is really bad.”

Todoroki did not look at him. “We can handle the ones below.”

Sero blinked. “Huh?”

“The regular ones,” Todoroki said. “The ones charging in groups. They are disorganized. No formation. No coordination.”

Sero glanced again. “You mean the punks?”

“Yes.”

“But what about the mist guy?” Sero whispered. “And that bird thing. And the blue-haired dude. That guy feels… off.”

Todoroki nodded slightly. “Those three are central. The rest look hired. Or recruited. Foot soldiers.”

Sero rubbed his arms. “I have never fought real people before. I mean, robots are one thing. This is… different.”

“We do not need to fight them,” Todoroki said.

Sero turned. “Then what do we do?”

Before Todoroki could answer, a voice echoed across the zone.

“Die!”

A blast roared.

Fire and smoke burst upward from below. Concrete shattered. A villain screamed and went flying.

Sero’s mouth fell open. “Was that…?”

Another explosion.

Bakugou’s voice followed, loud and furious.

Sero’s face drained of color. “Did Bakugou just kill someone?”

Todoroki replied flatly. “I hope not.”

Below them, Bakugou charged through a cluster of villains, explosions cracking from his palms. He moved fast. Too fast. His attacks were not clean. They were brutal. Villains flew back, slammed into walls, rolled across the ground and did not get up right away.

Todoroki looked away for a moment.

“Anyway,” he said, forcing focus back into his voice, “we can immobilize them. No direct combat. You restrain them with tape. I freeze the ground and their legs. Keep distance.”

Sero nodded quickly. “Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.”

Todoroki turned slightly. “Midoriya.”

Izuku stood a few steps back from the edge, hands clasped tight at her chest. Her eyes were fixed on Bakugou below. Every blast made her shoulders flinch.

Todoroki waited.

She shook her head slowly.

Todoroki accepted it without comment. “Alright. Stay back.”

She exhaled, shaky. “Salmon,”

Todoroki did not understand the words, but he understood the tone.

He stepped forward and slammed his foot down.

Ice exploded outward from the rooftop, forming a smooth slide that rushed down toward the ground. Cold mist rolled up from it.

“Let’s go,” he said.

Sero swallowed and followed.

They slid down fast, boots skimming over ice, landing hard at the bottom. Villains turned, surprised.

“Now,” Todoroki said.

Sero fired tape. It shot out, sticky and fast, wrapping around legs and arms. Villains stumbled. Some fell. Others tried to tear free.

Ice followed.

Todoroki spread his hand and froze the ground beneath them. Feet locked in place. Knees stiffened. Movement stopped.

It worked.

From above, Izuku watched. Her nails dug into her palms.

Below, Bakugou blasted another villain into a wall. The man slid down and did not move.

Izuku’s breath caught.

She remembered a small park. A boy on the ground. Blue skin turning pale. Doctors shouting. Machines beeping.

She stepped back from the edge.

“Bonito Flakes,” she whispered again.

Around the zone, more students began to move.

Kirishima hardened his skin and charged in with a shout. Ojiro swept legs and knocked enemies down. Yaoyorozu created binding tools and shouted instructions. Even Asui leapt in, using her tongue to pull villains off their feet and restrain them.

Kaminari stood frozen, electricity crackling uselessly. Mineta hid behind debris, eyes wide, muttering.

“Students, get back!” Aizawa yelled from across the battlefield.

His scarf snapped out again, slamming a villain into the ground as he turned his head sharply. “This is not your fight!”

But the students were already moving.

Shigaraki watched it all from a distance.

He sighed.

“So noisy,” he muttered.

He scratched at his neck again, skin reddening. “Since the kids joined in, All Might should show up soon.”

His eyes drifted toward the chaos.

He smiled faintly.

And waited.

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Aizawa’s vision blurred for half a second, not from fear, but from exhaustion. Blood slid down the side of his face, warm and sticky, soaking into his hair and dripping off his jaw. He wiped it away with the back of his hand and forced his eyes open wider. He could not afford to blink. Not even once.

Around him, bodies littered the ground. Villains groaned, struggled, or lay still, tangled in capture cloth or pinned awkwardly by debris. His scarf snapped through the air again, wrapping around a man’s arm and yanking him forward. Aizawa pivoted, used the momentum, and slammed the villain into the concrete hard enough to knock the breath out of him.

Another rushed from the side.

Aizawa twisted, eyes locked, quirk active. The man’s flame sputtered out mid-attack. Thirteen stepped in at that exact moment, gloved hands raised. A low hum filled the air, sharp and precise, and the ground beneath the villain vanished into a controlled vacuum pull. He screamed once before being knocked unconscious against a padded containment barrier.

Thirteen moved with focus now, fanfare long gone. She had taken hits. Scratches marred her suit, scorch marks crawling up one sleeve, but she stood firm, directing controlled bursts that neutralized threats without harming the structure or the students scattered across the zones.

Aizawa landed from another jump, knees buckling slightly as pain flared through his ribs. Something was cracked. He knew it. He ignored it.

One more.

Just one more.

He dropped his stance low, scarf whipping out again, snaring two villains at once and smashing their heads together. They collapsed in a heap. Aizawa straightened, breathing heavy, shoulders rising and falling.

For a brief moment, it almost felt manageable.

Then a sound cut through everything.

A low, irritated groan.

Shigaraki dragged his fingers down his face, nails scraping skin. “Where the hell is All Might?”

His eyes flicked across the battlefield, unimpressed. “And all these expendable idiots… ugh. Such a pain.”

He turned slightly. “Nomu.”

The word landed heavy.

The bird-faced man stepped forward.

Up close, the thing was wrong in a way that set the teeth on edge. Blue skin stretched tight over bulging muscle. Its beak-like face showed no emotion. Its eyes were empty, fixed forward, unblinking. Tubes pulsed along its neck and arms, carrying something thick and dark.

Aizawa felt it before the attack even came. Instinct screamed.

The Nomu lunged.

Aizawa activated his quirk instantly, eyes burning.

Nothing happened.

His stomach dropped.

The Nomu’s fist came down like a wrecking ball.

Aizawa barely rolled out of the way. The punch smashed into the floor where his head had been a moment before. Concrete exploded upward, shards flying like shrapnel. The ground cracked outward in a spiderweb pattern.

Aizawa skidded across the floor, caught himself on one knee, and sprang back up.

“What…?” he muttered.

No quirk shutdown. No hesitation. No slowdown.

The Nomu moved again, faster than it had any right to. Aizawa leapt, flipping backward as fingers the size of steel rods closed where his torso had been. The air pressure alone knocked him sideways.

He landed hard, rolled, and threw his scarf in one smooth motion. It spiraled through the air, wrapping around the Nomu’s arm and neck.

Aizawa yanked with everything he had.

The Nomu barely noticed. Its hand closed around the scarf and tore it apart like wet paper.

Aizawa’s eyes widened just a fraction. He did not freeze. He rushed in.

His fist slammed into the Nomu’s side. It felt like hitting reinforced steel. Pain shot up his arm. He grit his teeth and followed with another strike, then another, aiming for joints, neck, eyes. None of it mattered.

The Nomu swung backhanded.

Aizawa ducked, felt the wind of it pass over his head, then rolled again as the creature stomped down. The floor cratered.

Aizawa scrambled, spotted a discarded handgun near an unconscious villain. He grabbed it without thinking, turned, and fired.

The bullets hit the Nomu’s chest and bounced off.

Not even a scratch.

“What kind of physical quirk is this?” Aizawa thought, heart pounding. “Strength, speed, durability… stacked. There has to be a drawback. There has to be something.”

The Nomu charged again.

Aizawa jumped, kicked off a broken wall, flipped over its head, and landed behind it. He grabbed a length of broken pipe and swung it like a bat.

It shattered on impact.

The Nomu turned slowly.

Shigaraki laughed. “Looking for flaws?”

“There is none,” he said, voice echoing across the ruined space. “No drawback. Nomu is made to kill All Might. A footling like you can do no damage to him.”

He leaned forward slightly, eyes wild. “Where is All Might?”

Aizawa breathed hard, chest burning. He wiped blood from his mouth and raised his hands again. He planted his feet.

Not backing down.

The Nomu rushed him.

Aizawa moved first, darting sideways, using every ounce of training and experience to stay alive. He slid under a punch, jumped over a sweep, rolled past a grab that would have crushed his ribs to dust.

His body screamed.

His vision swam.

Still, he stayed upright.

Across the battlefield, Thirteen shouted something he could not hear. Students yelled. Explosions rang out. Ice cracked. Tape snapped. Chaos layered on chaos.

Then a blast thundered near the main doors.

Shigaraki’s head snapped toward the sound.

Smoke billowed. Metal screeched.

Through the haze, two small figures sprinted, silhouettes framed by a jagged hole torn through the massive metallic door of the USJ.

Students. Running. Shigaraki stared. Then he smiled. “Kurogiri,” he said calmly. “Let them go.”

The purple mist shifted, pulling back instead of closing in.

“They’ll bring All Might,” Shigaraki continued, eyes gleaming. “Meanwhile…”

He looked back at Aizawa, who stood bloodied, breathing hard, still refusing to fall.

“…let Nomu flex his muscles a bit with this insomniac.”

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Nomu did not rush Aizawa.

That was the worst part.

It stepped forward with a slow, deliberate pace, each footfall cracking the already ruined floor. Dust puffed up around its ankles. Its blank eyes never left Aizawa, not even when debris fell from the ceiling or distant explosions echoed through the facility.

Aizawa stood his ground anyway.

His legs trembled. His capture weapon was gone. One arm hung at an odd angle, useless. Blood soaked into his scarf remnants and shirt, warm against cooling air. He kept his eyes open, forced them wider than felt natural, pain stabbing behind his skull.

The Nomu stopped an arm’s length away.

Then it hit him.

The first punch landed square in Aizawa’s ribs. The sound was wrong. Too deep. Too solid. His body lifted off the ground and slammed backward into a broken pillar. The concrete shattered behind him as he slid down, coughing, something wet filling his throat.

Before he could even draw breath, the Nomu grabbed him by the collar and yanked him up.

Another punch.

His head snapped to the side. The world spun. His vision fractured into light and shadow, but he refused to let his eyes close. If he blinked, more people would die. That thought alone kept him conscious.

The Nomu did not roar or shout. It simply worked.

Punch. Slam. Throw.

Aizawa hit the ground again, rolled, tried to push himself up.

The Nomu stomped down on his shoulder.

Aizawa screamed.

Somewhere above, ice exploded outward.

A wall of frost slammed into Nomu’s side, encasing its torso and legs in jagged white layers. The temperature dropped sharply, mist rolling across the ground.

Shoto Todoroki stood on a collapsed platform, arm extended, breath steady but eyes sharp.

“Move him,” Shoto said, voice tight.

Before the ice could fully settle, an explosion detonated against Nomu’s head.

Bakugou came flying in from the side, palms blazing, teeth bared. “Get away from him!”

The blast knocked Nomu backward several meters. Ice cracked. Smoke filled the air. The creature skidded across the floor and slammed into a wrecked support beam.

For the first time, it stayed down.

Just for a moment.

“Now!” Shoto shouted.

Satou and Shoji were already moving. Shoji’s extra arms extended, scooping Aizawa up with surprising gentleness despite the chaos. Satou grabbed Aizawa’s other side, muscles straining as they pulled him away from the center of the battlefield.

Aizawa’s head lolled. His breathing was shallow.

“Sensei, stay with us,” Shoji said, voice low and urgent.

They had taken maybe five steps. The ice behind them cracked. Slowly.

A deep, grinding sound rolled across the USJ like distant thunder.

Nomu’s head lifted.

Ice slid off its shoulders and chest, breaking apart into chunks that shattered on the floor. Steam rolled from its body, skin unmarked, eyes still empty.

Bakugou froze mid-breath.

“…You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he muttered.

Nomu straightened.

Its gaze shifted, locking onto the retreating students.

Tokoyami moved without waiting for orders. “Dark Shadow!”

The living shadow burst forward, claws outstretched, slamming into Nomu’s torso with enough force to dent steel. Dark Shadow wrapped around its arms and neck, pulling, snarling, trying to restrain it.

For half a second, it worked.

Then Nomu grabbed Dark Shadow with one massive hand and swung.

Tokoyami felt the world flip.

He flew through the air, body spinning, before crashing into the water zone with a splash loud enough to echo. The lake rippled violently as he disappeared beneath the surface.

“Tokoyami!” someone yelled.

Shigaraki sighed loudly, scratching at his neck until red lines appeared. “Alright. I had enough.”

He stepped forward, irritation dripping from every word. “What a waste of time.”

His eyes flicked over the students, the injured pro hero, the scattered villains groaning on the ground.

“Nomu,” he said calmly. “Kill everyone.”

The air changed. Nomu bent its knees.

Bakugou felt it before he saw it. The pressure. The weight of what was about to happen.

It was going to jump. If it did, they were done.

“Oi, Icy Hot,” Bakugou said, breath quick but voice sharp. “Wanna fry some bird?”

Shoto did not hesitate. “Alright.”

They attacked together.

Bakugou launched first, explosions chaining one after another, propelling him forward like a missile. Shoto followed, ice surging from the ground in jagged spears, fire roaring along his other side, heat and cold colliding violently.

The battlefield lit up.

Ice slammed into Nomu’s legs, pinning them for a split second. Bakugou detonated point-blank, blast washing over Nomu’s face and chest. Flames licked across its shoulders, steam exploding outward as temperatures clashed.

Sero’s tape wrapped around Nomu’s arm. Kaminari, shaking but determined, sent a crackling bolt of electricity into the mass of muscle. Kirishima charged, hardened skin gleaming as he slammed into Nomu’s side with a shout.

It was chaos. Noise, light, motion, desperation.

And it did nothing.

Nomu stepped forward.

It tore through the ice like it was thin glass. Fire rolled off its skin without leaving a mark. Tape snapped. Electricity fizzled out uselessly.

It shrugged. Actually shrugged.

Bakugou skidded backward, boots scraping. Shoto’s breath caught in his throat as Nomu walked through everything they threw at it.

“Kill them already!” Shigaraki screamed, voice cracking with rage.

Nomu raised its arm. It turned toward Shoto. Its fist pulled back. And then every single person there felt it. 

A pressure in the air. A shift like Something arriving.

The world seemed to hold its breath.

And somewhere, far too close for comfort, power surged.

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