The wall of blue fire shot toward us like a tsunami from hell. The heat was so intense that the air around it seemed to warp, and the trees at the forest's edge instantly burned to charcoal. Behind me, I could hear the shocked cries of Midoriya and Todoroki. There was no time to dodge. There was nowhere to run. In the face of such destructive power, my only option was to become the rock that withstood the storm.
I planted my feet into the cracked earth, feeling my leg guards grip the concrete firmly. I crossed both my Incursio-armored arms in front of my chest, covering the pulsating red gem at its center. I emptied my mind of everything but one goal: survive. I felt the dragon within me respond, not with rage, but with a cold, primal survival instinct. The armor all over my body hardened, its unseen black scales seeming to lock into one another.
Then, the fire hit me.
It didn't feel like Todoroki's fire, which I could 'drink'. This was different. This was a fire filled with hatred and pure killing intent. It felt like being swallowed by the sun. I felt the Incursio armor scream under the immense pressure. The bio-organic metal hissed and glowed, turning cherry-red from the extreme heat. My heat absorption ability was working at its limit, but this was too much, too fast. It was like trying to swallow an entire river at once. I could feel the forcibly absorbed energy flooding my system, a painful overload.
From behind me, Midoriya and Todoroki could only watch in horror. All they saw was the figure of their valiant black knight being completely engulfed by the raging sea of blue flames. For a few seconds that felt like an eternity, my silhouette vanished, leaving only the roaring inferno. They were sure I had turned to ash.
The fire finally subsided. The villains had disappeared into their warp gate. The forest before us was now a smoldering, smoking patch of scorched earth. And in the middle of it all, I was still standing. The Incursio armor all over my body was no longer black; it glowed a molten red, with orange cracks like lava running across its surface. I had survived. But just barely.
At the League of Villains' hideout, Shigaraki's hoarse laughter filled the grimy bar as Mr. Compress grandly produced a blue marble from his pocket. "One precious package, as ordered," he said with a bow.
"Good work, Compress," Shigaraki said, taking the marble carefully. "You've played your part perfectly."
Dabi leaned against the wall, looking unimpressed. "The fight was more troublesome than expected," he said in a bored tone. "Those U.A. kids are tougher than we thought." He paused for a moment, his blue eyes staring into space. "There was another strange one. That black armor. He took my fire head-on. I don't know what it is, but it's no ordinary Quirk."
Shigaraki stopped scratching his neck. "Oh?" he said, a new interest sparked. "A hidden character not in my data? Interesting. We'll look into that next time." He looked at the marble in his hand, a vicious smile forming behind 'Father'. "For now, we have our trophy." Their victory felt absolute.
In the forest, as the last of the adrenaline left me, my entire world collapsed. The pain from withstanding Dabi's attack hit me with full force. But that wasn't the worst pain. The worst was the side effect of absorbing so much energy. Incursio, overloaded, couldn't recede normally. Instead, it shattered. With a painful cracking sound, the armor all over my body broke into thousands of black and red shards of light, leaving me staggering in my scorched and tattered gym uniform.
The shockwave from the forced release sent me to my knees, coughing violently. I felt the remnants of the dragon's energy raging inside me, trying to heal the burns and internal damage simultaneously, a process that felt like my organs were being boiled from the inside.
"Tatsumi-kun!" Midoriya yelled, hobbling toward me with Todoroki and Shoji.
They reached my side just as my consciousness began to fade. I saw their faces, filled with panic and concern. And then, I saw the arrival of Aizawa-sensei, his usually emotionless face now filled with horror and rage as he saw our condition. He saw Midoriya's shattered arms, he saw me, unconscious and gravely injured, and he knew... he knew that we had failed.
High above, from her hidden perch, Akame witnessed it all. She saw Tatsumi withstand the wall of fire. She saw the armor shatter and the boy fall. She saw the other heroes arrive, too late. She clenched her fist. 'You idiot,' she thought, a thought filled with a strange mixture of frustration and admiration. 'Just like him.' She had seen enough. She saw Tatsumi choose to protect his friends above all else. His test was complete. She turned and melted into the darkness of the night, her mission in Hosu now over.
That night was a long one at Hosu General Hospital. All the injured students were taken there. The atmosphere in the waiting room was as heavy as a tombstone. No one spoke. The sound of quiet sobs from a few Class 1-B students occasionally broke the silence. They were all survivors, but no one felt like a winner. They had fought, they had survived, but they had failed in their most important mission: to protect each other. Bakugo had been kidnapped. Midoriya was in critical condition. And I... I was in the intensive care unit.
Ryukyu arrived like a silent storm. Her face was a mask of cold composure, but her golden eyes blazed with anger and guilt. She got the full report from Nejire, Uraraka, and Tsuyu. She heard how I had disobeyed orders. She heard how I had plunged into the battlefield. And she heard how I had stood as the final shield. Her frustration with me warred with a mentor's concern. She had trusted me, and that trust had led me to a hospital bed and resulted in the loss of a student. The weight of it was clear on her shoulders.
A doctor finally came out to speak with Aizawa and the waiting students. "Izuku Midoriya is in stable condition, but both of his arms have suffered extremely severe muscle and bone damage. He will require extensive surgery and a long rehabilitation," he said in a serious tone. "As for Tatsumi... his condition is strange. He suffered severe burns and extreme systemic fatigue, but his body is healing itself at a rate we cannot explain. He's still unconscious, but his vitals are stable."
The news brought a small measure of relief, but it didn't erase the sense of loss that enveloped them. Bakugo was still missing.
In a corner of the waiting room, Momo Yaoyorozu sat silently, staring at her own hands. She felt utterly useless. She could create anything from her body—cannons, shields, medical equipment. But at the most critical moment, she could only make gas masks and a stretcher. She couldn't prevent her friend from being kidnapped. She couldn't prevent her friends from being severely injured. She looked at the sad faces around her, at the void left by Bakugo, and felt a cold, hard resolve form in her heart. She was tired of feeling helpless. She was tired of being just an item factory.
"I will not," she whispered to herself, a silent vow in the midst of the sorrow. "I will not... feel helpless again."
That night, there were no victories to celebrate. There were only painful lessons. Lessons about the limits of power, about the price of failure, and about the cruel reality of the world they had chosen to protect. And across Japan, the news of the League of Villains' attack and the kidnapping of a U.A. student began to spread like wildfire, shaking public trust in heroes to its very core. The real war had just begun.