Ochako stood staring at the pile of ash that had once been Sasakura. She hadn't really known him very well, but she had liked him. Looking around at the state of the gym and the crack in the ground and wall, she also found herself gaining newfound respect for him. Retired or not, he had been a hero and had ultimately died a hero's death. Like so many others before him, the war had claimed the lives of more heroes.
Nezu suddenly stirred and walked to the pile of ash, looking down at it he clasped his hands behind his back.
"Miss Uraraka, go support the team at Mount Kiso," he said, evenly.
Surprised she asked, "Are you sure you don't need-"
"I GAVE YOU AN ORDER!" Nezu yelled suddenly.
Taken aback she saw Nezu start shaking all over after his outburst. She took a step back and began to float in the air.
"Yes sir," she said, then zipped out of the gym through the crack in the wall.
There was silence in the gym, and Nezu breathed deeply, trying to get himself under control. He hadn't lost control like that in a very long time, he continued to stare at the pile of ash that had once been his oldest friend. Old hate boiled up inside him, mixed now with righteous fury.
"Humans..." he thought spitefully. His tiny claws came out of their sheaths by sheer instinct and dug into the flesh of his paws which were still behind his back.
He closed his eyes and took a deep shuddering breath, his claws slowly retracted and his shaking started to subside. When he opened his eyes again he was surprised to find tears in them. He hadn't shed a tear in decades, and he quickly wiped his eyes. While he had reigned in his emotions, he still felt that hate and burning anger churning inside him.
He turned to leave the gym and check the rest of the school and get a better picture of their situation. As he had done in the past in school days, he took his anger and hatred and channeled them into the task at hand. There was still a city to secure, civilians to rescue, and more. He would have to content himself with the knowledge that Ochako would ensure Zeus's downfall.
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Ochako flew out of the gym and into the sky and looked down at the school grounds. Not much had changed since she first entered, but she saw a group of people heading toward the main school building and sped toward them. She slammed into the concrete in front of the group, her gravity shielding up and excepting a fight when she recognized Aizawa leading a group of students.
"Aizawa!" she cried, relieved but also alarmed to see him being supported by a student.
"Uraraka, thank god, is the school secure?" Aizawa asked.
"Yes, Cementoss is held up on the third fourth floor, left side. Nezu is at Gamma Gym but I imagine he will run into you eventually. So far as I can tell, there are no more attackers on the grounds but they might be lurking somewhere." She said.
"Good, so long as we can get to the main building we can figure something out from there," he said, continuing to make his way toward the school.
"I can't stay, Nezu ordered me to help the others," she said.
Aizawa paused. "The city?" he asked.
"I've taken care of the cause of the earthquake and things seem to be stabilizing but the city took as much damage as it did during the League's invasion," she said bitterly.
Aizawa closed his eyes and took a deep breath and nodded. "Go if you think the city will be fine. We'll manage on our own I'm sure." He said.
Ochako looked toward the direction of the city, then around at the ground then back at Aizawa, his wounded appearance and the haggard students with him. A part of her wanted to stay and help, but Aizawa and Nezu were right. If the plan to eliminate Zeus failed, then this wouldn't end with Musustafu.
"Stay safe," she said.
"I will, but you make sure you make it back along with everyone else," he said.
She nodded and launched herself into the air once more. She flew over the school walls and into the city. There was still fighting off and on but the conflict had largely subsided by this point. She turned her gaze past the city and to the direction of Mount Kiso itself. She had studied the maps and knew where to go. She built up more gravity and went even faster, the ground below her started to blur and before long she had passed into the ruined sector.
As she sped over the abandoned and ruined portion of the city she couldn't help but flash back for a moment to the day the League attacked. Just like had happened today, the city had been ravaged. A large swath was wiped out and more decimated and left desolate afterward. The people survived that catastrophe and it would survive this one. The only question was what would be left in its wake. The parallels merely served to strengthen her resolve to end all of this.
Then she was clear and now just roads and rail lines stretched out below her. She saw the lights of stationary vehicles and a stopped train outside of the city. After a while, she passed the roads and was over the top of the countryside approaching the mountains ahead of her. Still, a long way to go.
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She wasn't sure how long the trip took, the suits HUD didn't have a clock and until now it hadn't really bothered her. For a split second her HUD pinged a point ahead of her, before winking out. She changed her trajectory toward the quick blip and as she closed in on the upper reach of the mountain ahead of her the ping flashed again and while it winked out, it came back. A faint signal, but a signal nonetheless. She was so intent on the one spot that she jumped when a giant bolt of lightning arc from the sky to a tree a bit further up the mountain. The flash startled her and then there was another flash as a second bolt struck another tree.
"Is Zeus's power so great that even within the mountain lightning is drawn to him?" she thought.
It was a sobering thought and despite having the power of OFA she a seed of doubt took root within her. She'd expended a lot of power ensuring Yo Shindo was put down and AFO eradicated. She hoped she hadn't gone overboard and that what she had left would be sufficient.
She landed on the ground, and now that she was so close the signal was strong enough to identify the ping as belonging to Bakugo's FOF signature. She placed a hand on the ground and sent a pulse through it. It took time to penetrate the layers upon layers of earth separating her from the tag but eventually she felt it stop and then spread outward. As it spread outward from that spot she felt it go over a sharp corner and she knew she was located above a room. She stopped the pulse and then like a giant excavator she started to tear chunks out of the earth, ripping chunks out of the mountain and throwing them behind her. Entire trees and their roots were flung down the mountain. rocks and giant earth clumps followed until she reached the final layer separating her from Bakugo.
She dug her hands into the final layer and ripped open a hole in the room. She stepped to the edge of the huge hole and saw she was a couple of meters above the floor. She'd gone a bit overboard in the excavating apparently as the hole was much wider than she initially realized. Then her eyes fell on the single figure at the far end of the room with giant support pillars running the length between them.
"Well it's about fucking time!" she heard Bakguo yell from below her.
She looked down and saw Bakugo, a smirk on his face. Then her eyes went to the figure next to him geared in a black mesh-like suit.
"Where is everyone else?" she asked worriedly. There should have been a lot more people present for this fight.
"Tunnel collapse, I got pushed in here and wasn't left much choice. But Deku came prepared, he embedded lightning rods all over the room." Bakugo said, turning his attention back to Zeus.
The name Deku rang a bell with Ochako, but she couldn't remember where she had heard it before. She assumed him to be with the QSU since he obviously wasn't wearing a hero suit. Ochako dropped down to the floor and made her way over to the two, with all three now facing Zeus.
To her satisfaction, Zeus's eyes had gone wide and he seemed genuinely surprised. Then his expression darkened and his eyes narrowed.
"If you're here, then I assume Yo Shindo failed along with the rest of my men," he said.
"So you're the one responsible," she said, her fury rising. She had actually assumed Yo Shindo to have been acting alone, but in hindsight, it had been obvious that Zeus was responsible.
"I hadn't counted on fighting you so soon, but I hadn't eliminated the possibility either..." he said trailing off, as he reached into his mouth for a moment before withdrawing his hand and biting down on something hard. They actually heard an audible crack as whatever he had in his mouth broke and he swallowed whatever it was.
"I always make sure to have a backup plan." He said grinning maniacally as his body suddenly exploded with lighting.
The lightning arced from rod to rod and they heard Zeus scream as even more lighting poured out from him. Ochako had to rip pieces up part of the floor to create a barrier for Bakugo and the other figure. The entire room had become a spider web of lightning with arcs traveling between rods. She watched as Zeus started glowing blue-white, and the lightning started to die down but the glow remained and rings of lightning arced across his body except for his left thigh which she now saw had a knife hilt sticking out of it.
"My own refined version of Ideo-Trigger, lodged in a fake tooth just in case things got out of control. " He said grinning broadly.
Then he turned into a blue-white blur and shot across the room.
Ochako felt something slam into her chest and she was sent flying backward into what little of the wall remained behind her, creating a small crater and a burst of electricity. She wasted no time, she shot out of the crater and saw Zeus send the other two flying with similar strikes.
Zeus turned toward her, deflecting her fist away from him with the back of his hand, and slammed a fist into the side of her helmet and sending her careening sideways down the room. As she started rolling across the floor she blasted herself into the air, avoiding the follow-up strike by Zeus which she saw out of the corner of her eye as he zipped past below her. She righted herself in the air and turned to face him properly, feeling her helmet had several large cracks in it from the impact.
Zeus spun round and raised a hand at her, sending a giant bolt toward her. Despite the multiple lightning rods now between them, they only managed to siphon off half of its power. Ochako focused on her gravity armor and the lighting washed over and past her, splitting apart as it passed more lightning rods. Then she shot herself at Zeus, who sidestepped as she slammed into the ground. Zeus went for a kick to her face, but she used her gravity to turn herself parallel to the strike causing it to fly past her, mere centimeters away. Then she launched herself sideways into him. As she collided with him she turned into him and grabbed him as he sent an elbow into her side. The blow nearly dislodged her, but she clung on and while holding on to his right arm with her left hand reared back and slammed a fist into his chest.
Her grip already weakened from the elbow strike was broken as she sent him flying backward and impacting one of the pillars. She landed on the ground and curled into her side as the pain from his strike finally registered.
"Fuck, that fractured a few ribs," she swore inwardly before getting to her feet.
As she got to her feet she saw Zeus clamber upright as well. She also noticed the pillar start to glow and she heard an explosion of noise outside through the tunnel she had ripped into the earth. Zeus stepped away from the pillar and she saw lightning arcing from the pillar to his back. She threw herself sideways with as much gravity as she could manage but the giant wave of lightning that rushed out of Zeus down across the room still hit her. She curled into a ball and put the strongest gravity barrier around herself as she could manage as it crashed into her.
It was like being back at the shelter massacre all over again. The smell of ozone, the noise that deafened her, the blinding light. Instead of a residual static feeling she got from being far enough away from the shelter when the bolt struck, she felt the lightning force its way through her gravity and arc into her and her suit. She hit the floor and started experiencing a seizure as the lightning burned her. Then instead of the shelter massacre, she was in the hotel her parents had died in, trapped underneath a burning pillar that was slowly crushing her. She felt the burning pain and she lost all sense of reality.
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Bakugo looked on in shock from the floor as Zeus sent a room-encompassing wave of lightning down the room. Ochako never had a chance to avoid it, and he knew it probably would have killed him outright had he been there as well.
Along with the horror, shock, and now hints of fear came the ever-present anger. He would NOT die here, and neither would Ochako. He reached down to a spot just under his left knee and removed an elongated capsule that had been affixed there. He hadn't told anyone he had this, illegal as it was. Though he was sure Nezu probably knew, he seemed to know everything. He cracked open the case with a careful explosion, revealing the thin syringe. He brought the syringe to a point at his neck where several capsules didn't quite line up right and injected the Trigger into his body. Like Zeus had said, it always paid to have a backup plan.
It hurt more than he expected. The syringe clattered to the floor and he started to feel feverish and a burning pain raced through his body with his blood. He let out a groan through clenched teeth as he felt his quirk react to the boost. It was like he had small explosions happening inside him, and he felt a rush of energy.
He stood up and yelled, "HEY BASTARD! COME GET SOME!" and proceeded to blast himself toward Zeus faster than he had ever managed before with his quirk. He hadn't even needed to channel it through his hands, he just knew that he could detonate from any part of his body now.
Zeus turned toward him, and Bakugo saw the surprise as Bakugo was already in front of him. Bakugo detonated his entire front toward Zeus, and the resulting red explosion from mixed in blood blew the entire pillar Zeus was next to apart. Zeus himself was sent flying across the room and into the far wall. Bakugo didn't give him a second of respite. He started firing off a massive continuous salvo of explosions. Lightning shot out of the smoke and intercepted his shots and it turned into a giant game of explosive tug-o-war.
Bakugo fired off more and more explosions but the fight remained stagnant, and as time wore on Bakugo saw lighting arc from nearby pillars to join Zeus's continuous stream of lightning. The difference between Bakugo and Zeus was that Bakugo's quirk was based solely on his body, and as he poured more sweat and blood into what was essentially an explosive laser, he felt his body starting to give out. He fell to one knee but he kept up the pressure matching Zeus's power with his own. But as he weakened further, the lightning started to push closer and closer toward him.
Bakugo grit his teeth and he could taste blood, he knew it wouldn't be long and he braced himself for the worst when Izuku ran past him. He was obscured by the rapidly expanding smoke cloud and light from the lightning but shortly after he saw Zeus's continuous stream suddenly waver and his attack start to collapse. With one massive push, he roared in defiance of his failing body and sent one last salvo at Zeus, pushing through the lightning and hitting its mark.
Bakugo collapsed to the floor and the darkness took him.
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Ochako slowly came back to reality and with shuddering breaths, she managed to open her eyes. She was laying on the floor and half of the room was filled with a smoke cloud that slowly flowed out of the hole in the room. She seemed to dimly recall Bakugo's explosion but not much else. She pushed herself to her feet with a groan and took a really good look at the area around her. It was then that she noticed the fight happening not too far away from her.
The Deku person in his black mesh suit was fighting Zeus, she blinked unsure if she was seeing right. But it was no hallucination, Deku was weaving around Zeus who was moving sluggishly but every blow he tried to hit Deku with shot lightning out across the room and she realized that most of the lightning rods had either turned into slag or been blown apart into shards. She started to run at the pair, watching as Deku sliced all around Zeus with a glass blade. Then she blasted herself toward with her gravity but not before Zeus seemed to collect himself and did a triple feint, landing a palm strike on Deku's chest.
She watched as Deku went flying toward her and she caught him, she stopped in the air and looked down and actually fell out of the air, stumbling on the ground while holding him. The entire front of the suit had been blown apart and Izuku could be seen within, eyes closed and limp in her arms.