Level Zero - Villain!Bakugou Rehabilitation

23 || Rebellious Rage

Toru sighed in relief, her shoulders lightening somewhat.

"Ground Zero, your objective is to cause as much destruction to the city around you as possible while restraining the rest of your class. You are not to intentionally cause any lasting harm or major injuries. Everyone else, you're aiming to minimise the damage and capture Zero. Understood? Good. There are only four minutes left on the clock until you can engage, so I suggest coming up with a plan or at least a rough outline of your aim."

Toru watched as the natural leaders hidden in amongst her peers showed their colours; taking charge and ironing out the creases of a plan.

"Hagakure-san!" Yaoyorozu called from where she stood with some of the said class figureheads, to which Toru tapped her shoulder. "Oh, there you are." She said with a smile.

"Do you think that you'd be able to set off as a scout as soon as the bell goes? The chances that Ground Zero will hang back for a little while in order to monitor us and how we work together as a group are high, so we're going to protect our long-range fighters here to distract him while you sneak back and try to pinpoint his location."

"Uh..." Toru began in a troubled tone of voice, struggling to process the rambled information. How could they have come up with all that in such a short time? It was almost like Yaoyorozu had been planning before the rules were explained.

"What do you expect me to do if I find him?" Toru asked, pushing her thoughts to the back of her head. "I'm not exactly as apt at combat as I know Ground Zero is, it's uh, not really my forté."

"Oh, that's where this comes in!" Yaoyorozu said as she produced a thin wire bracelet that almost disappeared in the direct sunlight. "It's not quite invisible, but it's the best I could do with such short notice. It's a tracking beacon, so if you find him you just press it twice and I'll see your location-"

"Twenty," Nezu's amplified voice interrupted. "Nineteen, eighteen..." He continued the count down at a steady pace as Toru hurriedly snatched the bracket and secured it around her wrist.

"I'm sorry, I just want to make sure I end up coming back for the right pace later on." Toru said as Yaoyorozu began to turn towards where Iida was stiffly telling others what the plan was. "You think that Zero will wait until later to strike, so you'll stay here as a group and protect the long-distance fighters?"

"Yes," Yaoyorozu said with a smile. "It should only take me another few minutes to make some large weapon to measure up with his Quirk, so we're going to try and stall while we make it seem like we're waiting for him to make the first move."

"Okay!" Toru said.

"Six, five..." Nezu said as the invisible girl made her way to the back of the street where Tokoyami, Aoyama, Sero, Todoroki, Ashido, and Asui were standing huddled together, just as Yaoyorozu had promised.

"Three, two, one. Begin!"

There was a second of silence as Class 1-A prepared themselves, and Toru glanced over her shoulder towards the group who worked best at long distance fighting. Just as she passed by, her eyes caught on something flying through the air directly opposite to them all. Or rather, someone.

A startled cry left Toru's mouth as her friends turned around to be affronted by a huge wall of billowing smoke as an entire building collapsed. A rumbling boom echoed through the confined space as a fiery tunnel of scorching air, hot flames and flying debris came together in the form of an explosion.

It all happened so fast, Toru barely had the time to register what was going on before the world began to spin as she flew through the air. Another downfall of having to fight naked was that Toru possessed little to no protection or padding, so that while she made an excellent stealth operative she took on damage easily and with minimal recovery.

She staggered upwards with ringing ears, realising that the forceful blow had thrown her backwards into the wall of a building. Shouts sounded out all around Toru as her classmates panicked, joining in the cacophony of noise. Turning her watering eyes towards the source of the commotion, Toru gasped as she realised that the figure standing over Aoyama's comatose body was Ground Zero.

And then a fresh wave of fear rose through the adrenaline as she realised that he was indeed taking all nineteen of them on at the same time. Which meant that Toru had been right the first time around; Ground Zero was far stronger than anyone had expected.

—  —  —

The response this gained from her classmates may have been far from orderly, with people scattered all around and at various points of regaining their footing, but it was immediate. Unfortunately, their opposition was just as quick.

Ground Zero jumped off the outcropping ledge where he'd perched himself in a seemingly random direction, landing in between where Todoroki and Tokoyami stood together and the rest of the class.

Toru blinked in surprise. No matter which way the Villain went he'd have his back exposed to people attacking him, and was completely surrounded. Something was wrong here; Toru knew that Ground Zero would never make such an amateur move.

But there was no time for hesitation here, and she wasn't the only one who knew it. As she ran towards them, Toru's eyes tracked the three boys while they fought. Her pace began to waver as she saw the speed and precision that Todoroki, Tokoyami and Zero traded blows, but she didn't stop moving.

Ground Zero was igniting his hands, using the light to drive off Dark Shadow as he weaved through Tokoyami's attacks. Finally coming into his own range, Zero aimed a solid punch at Tokoyami's beak and sent him stumbling backwards while Dark Shadow frantically tried to protect his counterpart.

Unbeknownst to the demon, he accidentally blocked Todoroki's shot at the Villain, and the dual-haired boy's face morphed angrily before once more assuming a look of negligent concentration. Using an explosion bright enough to have Toru blinking away, Ground Zero sent the reeling bird-boy right back to the ground as Todoroki dashed to the other side. Thankfully, before he could re-engage Zero was forced to jump aside as Todoroki aimed an arching kick towards his head.

Toru caught movement in the corner of her eye and found herself neck-and-neck with her other classmate Asui. Keeping in mind that the others could only see one person rushing in to give aid from this direction, Toru branched off to the side, still monitoring every move the three made.

Tokoyami raised himself back into a crouch, rubbing at his eyes furiously while his other half cowered at the sight of Todoroki and Ground Zero trading a flurry of savage hits nearby. Todoroki was becoming visibly frustrated now, a rare sight for Toru to behold, and he finally slipped up.

Shifting his footing a second too soon, Todoroki lunged forwards with a vicious punch that even Toru could see coming. Ground Zero must have also noticed the change in style as he stepped aside, re-directing the fist aimed at his chest and grabbing tightly onto Todoroki's leading wrist.

Almost in slow motion, Toru watched as Ground Zero spun around and slammed his elbow into Todoroki's back right between the shoulder blades, and she stared in fear as her friend's body began to crumple after the impact.

But then to Toru's shock Todoroki managed to twist his torso in mid-air, brushing the fingers of his right hand along the floor only a few feet away. Toru's eyes widened in understanding as she skidded to a stop, bringing an arm up to cover her face as the temperature dropped to below freezing.

When she looked back up, Toru saw a monstrous mountain of jagged ice completely filling in the gap from one side of the street to another, even going so far as to have broken the roofing on some of the nearby buildings. She stared around in shock at the display of raw power, realising that Todoroki must have caught Ground Zero right in the middle of the blast. But then she saw a pile of debris nearby shift, and dread weighed her down so that all she could do was watch as a grinning Villain stood triumphantly on a fallen piece of cement.

"You missed, Half n' Half."

And then Toru realised what he had done. Ground Zero had set a trap with himself as the bait, and now they were all completely sealed off from the rest of the class. There was nobody to come help them. They were on their own.