Midoriya looked directly at Dark Shadow. The massive creature filled the space between them, its eyes burning with dense red, and Tokoyami stood behind it pressing both palms to his head like someone holding something that wanted to escape.
"Tokoyami." Midoriya's voice was quiet and precise. "Stop fighting Dark Shadow. Let go. Give it to him completely."
Tokoyami raised his exhausted face. "Midoriya, you don't understand what..."
"I understand." Midoriya didn't raise his voice. "The darkness here is too thick and it keeps growing because you're resisting. The forest is feeding it and you're giving it the friction it needs. Release your grip."
Shoji paused, looking between them. Then he turned to Tokoyami. "Trust him."
Tokoyami closed his eyes slowly. His hands slid from the sides of his head and fell to his knees.
In the same instant Dark Shadow exploded outward to its full size. The surrounding trees bent backward under the pressure and the air thickened with a presence that had its own weight. But this time there was no collision between two wills. There was one creature with nothing standing in its way.
"Draw it toward the light." Midoriya said to Shoji. "I'll go ahead."
He was gone with Full Cowl fully activated before anyone answered.
Some distance away in the forest, Bakugo and Todoroki were retreating step by step. The student from Class 1-B was on Todoroki's back and his weight burdened every movement. Moonfish in front of them hadn't stopped, his blades extending and retracting in the air with a dead and unpredictable rhythm.
"The gas is behind us, we can't use fire or explosions." Todoroki covered with ice and his tone stayed measured. "Bakugo. The path on the right is open."
"I saw that two minutes ago." Bakugo moved on Todoroki's left, his fist hitting an extending blade and sending it into the ice Todoroki raised at the last second. "And the path isn't fully open."
Moonfish jumped.
Todoroki had no time to raise anything. Bakugo closed his eyes bracing for the hit.
Then a sound came from above.
"Kacchan."
A precise kick landed in Moonfish's back and sent him to the ground with a force that pulled a muffled sound from his chest. He hit the dirt and didn't move for seconds.
Midoriya landed between them and his ankles still faintly glowed with the green of Full Cowl.
"You're late." Bakugo looked at Moonfish on the ground then at Midoriya. Anger. But something else under the anger.
"Tokoyami needs light now." Midoriya didn't slow down. "Fire, Todoroki. Explosions, Bakugo. As much as you can."
Todoroki raised his left hand. Bakugo looked forward for one second, then raised his palms.
Fire and explosions filled the forest with sudden violent light.
Shoji came from between the trees and Dark Shadow followed like a wave. When the light hit it the creature stopped suddenly and began to shrink, but not before it saw Moonfish trying to rise on his knees. It lunged with what remained of its size and gripped him hard until the sound of breaking blades filled the clearing. It drove him against the nearest tree trunk and Moonfish hit the ground and didn't move after that.
When the light faded almost entirely, everyone found Tokoyami on his knees in the dirt, his head down, breathing with obvious difficulty.
Shoji sat beside him. He said nothing at first, just placed his hand on his shoulder.
"Don't talk." Shoji's voice was too quiet to reach anyone else. "Rest. What you want to say can wait."
In another part of the forest, the pink gas wrapped everything in a thick cloud that moved in a strange, non-random way. Tetsutetsu and Kendo were walking through it with protective masks, their voices barely carrying.
"This gas isn't behaving naturally." Kendo stopped and looked around. "If it were spreading normally it would have expanded much further by now. But it stays in the same area."
"What does that mean?" Tetsutetsu listened and kept pace.
"Look." She pointed ahead. "The gas is denser here than it was at our previous position. And it's rotating, slowly, but it's rotating."
"Kendo." His tone was direct. "I don't follow the analysis. Give me the conclusion."
"Someone at the center is producing the gas and controlling it."
Tetsutetsu looked at her with wide eyes. Then his face shifted from surprise to something simpler and faster.
"Kendo you're incredible." Said with complete sincerity. Then he turned. "So we head toward the densest point and hit it."
He was moving before she finished her sentence.
"Yes that's right." She ran after him. "But you need to..." Then she let the sentence go because he was only hearing what he wanted to hear. She thought quietly: his mind really does work in one direction.
Tetsutetsu ran with his body fully converted, steel gleaming across his skin. "Shiozaki and the others are suffering because of this gas. Things like this make me angry." He didn't slow. "Let's give everything we have, Kendo."
Kendo increased her pace: "Yes."
Mustard heard them before he saw them. His hands moved inside his suit. "Coming straight at me." A smile behind the mask. "As expected from a prestigious school's students. But no matter how impressive the Quirk is..." He found what he was looking for. "They're still human."
Tetsutetsu burst from the thick gas and his shout reached every corner of the forest. "Found you."
Mustard fired.
The sound traveled to distant places.
Midoriya heard it first. His head turned in the direction. "A gunshot?"
"Close to the gas area." Shoji was standing and listening. "Not far."
Tokoyami looked up with a head that was still heavy. "We're in an exposed position."
"Zoro." Midoriya said it quieter than he meant for anyone to hear, but they all heard it. "He went into the forest alone before me. I don't know where he is or what he's facing right now."
A short silence.
"The villains are targeting Zoro and Bakugo." He continued. "That's what he told me before he disappeared."
"Do they want to kill them?" Tokoyami's voice was calm and exhausted.
"The moss-head went into the forest alone." Bakugo was looking in the direction the sound came from. "Who does he think he is, that idiot."
"Zoro already took one of them down." Midoriya said what he knew. "But he went in after that. Aizawa gave him a role but I don't know the details." He paused. "What matters right now is Bakugo. We need to stay with him and reach the building."
Bakugo looked at Midoriya with narrow eyes. "Heh. You're going to protect me, Deku." Something in his tone wasn't quite a question. "I didn't need anyone. It was that filthy gas that was holding me back."
"We go through the courage test area." Midoriya set the route. "Mandalay and Tiger are there and the villains were restrained. It's the safest path."
Todoroki nodded. Shoji and Tokoyami followed.
Then Bakugo stopped. He looked at the gas around them and his eyebrows rose slightly. The gas was dissolving quickly, visibly, as if something somewhere else had stopped working.
"It disappeared." He said it to himself first. Then louder: "The gas just disappeared. Why didn't it disappear when we were in that brutal fight with that idiot?"
Nobody answered because everyone was already walking.
"Kacchan." Midoriya stopped for one second. "Walk in the middle. We'll be around you."
"I don't care, you people just bother me." But he didn't argue about the position.
On the other side of the forest, Mustard was lying in the dirt unconscious. His mask had shattered into scattered pieces. When Tetsutetsu approached and looked at him with narrowed eyes, he noticed something he hadn't expected.
"He's younger than us."
Kendo stood beside him. A child. Too young to be a high school student. She exhaled quietly. "Even so."
In a deeper part of the forest the only sound was metal meeting metal.
Zoro was still fighting.
The wound in his side opened slightly with every wide movement, but the Nomu in front of him didn't stop. Not like the one he'd faced before. This one was faster. And something was different in the way it moved, as if it was learning while fighting.
And from a distance, in the area where the blue flames burned and painted the surrounding trees with a cold strange light, Dabi stood with Twice behind him.
Dabi didn't speak for a stretch of time. Watching. Calculating. Finally, slowly, he said: "Let's see what the swordsman does."
.
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For Advanced Chapters:
Chapter 84 is Available now
The Swordsman Chooses What to Cut
They thought the chains would break him…
In the Nomu factory, a single strike was enough to change everything… without a drop of blood.
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