MHA Chaos' Whims Chapter 54: A Monster (Patreon)

Strength swelling with my body as I took a deep breath, the railing beneath me bent as I shot straight past the falling Kurogiri, the stone of the building’s walkways below cracking when I landed. I curled and bit into my bottom limp, blood further strengthening me.

Despite taking a blow that would’ve left most reeling, Kurogiri’s fog covered form began to distort and twist, a portal beginning to form along the path of his fall. I was quicker, bursting off the ground, cutting through his wispy form, and sending him crashing into stone via a hit to his brace.

I was on the move before he could gather himself back up.

“Be cautious not to overestimate yourself, child.” Kurogiri warned. “Countless pros have perished that way.”

A scare tactic at best.

Portals formed between us meant to send me elsewhere. Attempts to create portals right on himself to get away or reposition. Just as many formed on the paths he expected me to take. As I dashed around him, his yellow eyes struggling to follow, it became increasingly obvious that he couldn’t do much against me, every attempt he made to use portals shut down.

Shigaraki had made a bad move sending him forward on his own. He and that steel brace might be resilient, but Kurogiri wasn’t built for a direct fight like this.

“He’s making it hard them to use their quirks.” Over the distance and all the fighting between, I could still pick out his scratchy voice, Shigaraki muttering to himself or that Nomu beside him. “The worse part about dealing with pros is when they live up to all their hype. How annoying, All Might was supposed to be the only boss level enemy here.” And it sounded like he hadn’t picked up on the mistake yet, too busy watching the beat down Aizawa was giving all the other villains he brought.

Either way, this wasn’t a fight I could afford to drag out.

“You don’t feel bad about this?” I questioned, low jumps, side steps, and kicks off nearby trees and walls used to avoid any attempts to catch me in a portal while hits kept him from maintaining or fully forming any big ones. “What’s there to get out of attacking a bunch of kids?”

“Feelings do not factor into such matters, for I have a role to play.” Kurogiri said, either hoping talk would be enough to catch me off guard or dramatic enough to go along. Feet hitting the side of a tree once more, I lowered myself further prepared to launch off it. “As do you. And yours require you to perish!” Alongside his declaration, his shadows surged, concealing his golden gaze. At the same time a gathering of portals, all small, formed around me as the bark beneath my feet splintered.

The main drawback of Thunder Breathing and its form was how overtly telegraphed and direct it was. The stance was easily to spot after the first and the path of the dashes were straight, a landing needed before I could change direction.

But trying to predict and prepare for it, the only real thing someone slower than me could do, would never work.

I didn’t burst forward, only kicking hard off the tree and bending my body at unnatural angles, jumping clean past the portals and punching Kurogiri away from the one he’d formed to flee through.

With my reflexes I could still stay ahead of him even if I let him act first.

“Over there!”

“It’s one of the students! Get him!”

“Don’t think you’ll be getting out of this alive just because you’re a kid!”

Some villains, abandoning the fight against the still surrounded Aizawa, were rushing down the walkway leading over to us, different quirks primed and ready.

“A role…” I muttered to myself. Those words made things easier for me.

I lowered myself further, another deep breath swelling within my chest.

He might talk with something of a personality.

I loosened the clench of my right hand, doing away with a fist and straightening out my palm, fingers brought tightly together.

He might be smart enough to be able to act and adjust to a situation on his own.

Enflamed burned to life, not a single ember appearing around me. Flesh, bone, muscle; from the tips of my fingers, all the way up to my shoulder, the entirety of my right arm felt as though it’d been submerged into a raging inferno, flames running wild just beneath my skin.

But Kurogiri wasn’t human. He was just a hijacked corpse being piloted by the experimentations of some of the worst people in the world. Best case scenario I was setting free whatever remnants of mister Aizawa’s friend was still in there but that didn’t matter.

My body tightened then loosened, Removal pushed as far as I could manage before its effects started to show.

I was killing a monster, plain and simple.

That had been the plan anyways.

The temperature plummeted, a rush of cold flying past both of us and-

“Bastard!” Kurogiri, completely focused on me, hadn’t been doing much to hide his brace, a few explosions from above further dispersing some of his shadowy form and wrapping him in thick smoke. When it cleared, using a series of small explosions to force Kurogiri deeper into the ground, Bakugo was kneeling over him, glare jumping up to me. “Who do you think you were telling to run away?!”

He and Todoroki, the latter slowing and outright stopping many of the approaching villains with a wave of ice behind me, weren’t the only ones to throw themselves headfirst into frying pan, others dropping down around me.

Dammit. I shouldn’t have wasted any time talking to that thing.

XOXO

High above, soaring ahead of all but the fastest of them, a crow, feathers blacker than any other and eyes a strange crimson for its species, headed towards the distant USJ building.

A letter attached to it making claims about an attack by villains. All Might’s call about a similar encounter. Both topped off by their inability to get into contact with Thirteen, Aizawa, or the building’s surveillance system.

Nezu narrowed his eyes, already connecting dots.

That break in had been the sign heralding this attack. The attack itself was centered on and taking place during the exact time of day All Might should’ve been there. This was the first time the school had ever been attacked at all.

All signs pointed towards All Might, or in the worst possible scenario, Midoriya should his identity have been exposed somehow, being the targets. There were very few he could think that would have both the motivations and means to pull something like this, the top candidate one killed by All Might himself.

Unnatural powerful winds blew through his fur, a distant figure speeding towards the attack.

Whatever the case, he could only hope everyone, the students above all else, came out of this unharmed, villains bold enough to do something like this bound to be made up of the worst of the worst.

XOXO

“Try anything and I’ll blow your ass to pieces.” Bakugo threatened Kurogiri, more miniscule explosions set off around his palm.

“Whoa, not sounding very heroic there, Bakugo.” Kirishima said, grinning as he raised his hardened arms.

“You alright?” Himiko asked. Between her raised hood and her new face mask, its red tinted lens covering her eyes, it wasn’t obvious, but the few strands of black hair hanging at the corner of her face, gave away that she was already using my blood.

Himiko, Kirishima, and Midoriya stood around me, Todoroki using waves of ice to fend off the approaching villains while Bakugo kept a hand on Kurogiri. Things would be a lot more convenient if they weren’t here but there wasn’t any time to be arguing over that right now.

“Bakugo, keep that one pinned down. Midoriya, you stay with him.” I ordered. Midoriya, sparking with green energy, might’ve used One For All to get down here alongside the others but I could tell that he was still struggling to restrain that energy. Better it wasn’t directed at people.

“Who do you think you’re ordering-“ While Bakugo began to yell, Mirdoriya nodded quickly despite his nervous sweat.

“Himiko, Kirishima, you guys are with me.” I said, ignoring Bakugo and heading up beside Todoroki, the two falling in beside me. Half his body covered in what looked ice as part of his costume and cold breaths already leaving him, Todoroki wasn’t holding back much. “If you can, separate them into groups and let them come to us in waves. We can’t let them use their numbers against us.”

He glanced at me. “Understood.” He said, easing up on the cold he was producing, melting some of the ice ahead of us with one foot and allowing villains to rush ahead, only to send a curving gather of ice forward that split up the group as he stepped back, some partially frozen in the process.

Himiko, Kirishima and I held the front line together.

Direct punches to the gut. A dislocated limb or two. Sending them crashing into the ice Todoroki was making. Compared to going up against Kurogiri, his portals at least demanding consideration, taking down these guys, no matter what quirk they came at us with, was easy.

Kirishima and Himiko were doing well too. The former’s heartrate was a mess, but he was taking villains down while tanking some weaker attacks despite the pressure he was under. Himiko was as calm as can be, heartrate barely picking up as she dropped villains and left bones completely broken, little to no mercy given.

Her reflexes were still almost as fast as mine.

Todoroki’s measured use of his ice allowed more villains to push at us while cutting them off from each other, many forced to climb the rigid spikes or waste time rounding the icy obstacles.

If this held, the pros would be here to wrap things up.

But I was tempted to follow in Himiko’s lead. No, I couldn’t help but think of far worse than maintaining this defensive fight.

Kurogiri was a monster but how much ground did a bunch of people willing to turn their quirks on kids have to stand on? Maybe some were pressured into this, I wouldn’t put that past a group of villains put together by All For One, but with the way some of these people talked and moved, that wasn’t the case for all of them.

They wouldn’t think twice about killing me if I slipped up. If Himiko did.

I stopped my fist short, barely tapping the Ratio marked spot that appeared on the villain’s face before me, yet they were still sent flying into some of their allies.  A move like that would’ve killed them if I’d followed through.

With a breath, I refocused myself.

Now wasn’t the time to be caught up in thoughts like that, I needed to-

“-really? Kurogiri got caught by a bunch of kids?” Shigraki’s voice, closer now, reached me, the villains smart enough to pass along what was going on in this isolated part of the building. “Even if they are U.A. students, that doesn’t make any sense. Things are no fun if the difficulty scaling isn’t right. Nomu-”

Shit!

“Todoroki! Throw up as much ice as you can!” I ordered, crouching down and preparing myself.

“-free Kurogiri then kill those annoying brats.”

Ensuring the others were out of its path, I shot towards Bakugo, moving so quickly the stone beneath me broke. That silent lumbering mass of twisted muscle that’d been hovering beside Shigaraki from the very beginning, a putrid scent oozing from it, shot forward at the same time, its own people bulldozed through in its rapid approach and all the ice Todoroki had been creating shattered in an instant.

That damn thing was fast.

Tackling Bakugo, I rolled us to a crouch only for him to be sent rolling back further by whipping winds while I reached for the vial of Tsu’s blood, digging my feet into the ground.

Towering over all of us, its dark fist extended towards the now warped wall of steel and shattered lights that’d just been behind Bakugo, the Nomu took a step back as Kurogiri silently sunk into the dark portal he’d opened beneath him. That single blow had uprooted trees and sent the others tumbling or stumbling back.

Dammit, this was the worse case scenario. No, no, All Might was less than a minute away. If I couldn’t pierce or cut through it, all I needed to do was keep it distracted until then.

Head dropped like a puppet with its string cut, its dead eyes rolled to the one closest to it.

(A/N: Katsu has the body and instincts for it, aka the Kure trait, but he just doesn’t have the mind of someone who’d kill instantly. Bro went searching for some justification and/or something to support his conclusion straight from the would be victim, found it and doubled down though. Kurogiri better not get caught slipping again before this USJ incident is over.

Not that he’s really the main concern anymore.

Big Nomu has entered the scene with some violent orders. Changing things doesn’t always make things easier lol.

On a side note, Bakugo’s definitely going to be a bitch later abut what just happened. At least, even with his problems, throughout the whole anime and manga Todoroki is traditionally pretty reasonable. He won’t ignore the smart thing in a crazy situation. At least that’s how I see him.)