Aizawa's goggles were already in place.
"Thirteen," he said calmly, but his voice carried like a blade. "Evacuate the students. Now."
"But—" she started, glancing at the growing number of villains pouring in through the warping mist.
"I'll hold them off."
He launched forward without another word.
The students watched in stunned silence as their homeroom teacher — the same man who dragged them through capture tape training just yesterday — threw himself into real combat.
His scarf snapped outward like a whip, ensnaring two villains before either could blink. The moment they raised their hands to activate Quirks, nothing happened.
"He's… stopping their Quirks," Iida whispered, eyes wide.
"He's using his Erasure," Momo said, voice tight with both awe and rising panic. "But there are too many of them—"
Uraraka grabbed Momo's arm. "What do we do? What do we do?!"
"We listen to him," Momo snapped, pulling herself together. "We move!"
But just then, the air shimmered again—darker, thicker.
Kurogiri shifted toward them.
He didn't walk. He glided.
"Forgive my intrusion," he said, voice like fog rolling over broken glass, "but we cannot allow you to flee. The lesson has only just begun."
Before anyone could react, the mist exploded outward, like a sea of darkness crashing over the plaza.
Izuku had already felt it coming.
He could feel the warp, not just spatial but magical — like the laws of reality bent inward for half a second. His hands were raised instinctively, sparks flickering like embers across his knuckles.
"GET BACK!" he shouted.
But it was too late.
The black mist surged around them.
He reached for Momo, but his hand passed through fog.
Uraraka's scream was cut off mid-breath.
And then—
Light.
The world twisted.
A noise like thunder cracked through his ears, and he felt his feet leave the ground—
Then slam back down.
Izuku tumbled hard, rolling into something wet and metal.
The water zone.
The shipwreck section.
He gasped, coughing, flailing against the incline of the tilted boat. His ears rang. His hands burned. Sparks flared with every breath, every surge of adrenaline.
"Midoriya!"
He turned—Momo had landed a few meters away, her hair soaked, hands braced against the floor of the ship's deck.
They were alone.
No Iida. No Uraraka. No Aizawa.
Only the low, echoing groan of twisted metal and the faint, sloshing sound of footsteps on water.
Then voices.
Rough. Smirking.
"Two students, huh?" a villain muttered from the mist. "This'll be easy. They look fancy, but that one's shaking."
They emerged in groups—three, no, four of them—wading toward the ship from the artificial water below, like predators drawn to scent.
Izuku's hands trembled, but not from fear.
The Nomu's presence was still in the air—far away, yes, but still lingering, like a heavy pressure behind his eyes.
He hadn't even seen it clearly.
But the magic clinging to that thing was still echoing inside him, and his fingers sparked again, violently this time, one small rune half-forming before he forced it back down.
Not yet.
Not in front of them.
Not without control.
"Yaoyorozu," he said, low but steady, "can you make anything?"
She swallowed, breath visible in the cool damp air. Her skin was flushed from the teleport, but she nodded.
"I'll need time."
"I can buy us some."
"Midoriya—"
He stepped forward.
He wasn't like Aizawa. He couldn't erase Quirks. He couldn't fight four grown villains with nothing but tape and tenacity.
But he could feel the threads of magic in the air. He could see their weak points — like strands of color woven through smoke.
He just had to be careful.
The first villain lunged, Quirk active — some kind of geyser-pressure burst in his palms.
Izuku dodged low. A flicker of wind magic surged under his foot and launched him sideways across the deck, narrowly avoiding the blast.
His fingers danced in the air—he let a rune half-form in his palm and slammed it down with his fist.
BOOM — a shockwave of kinetic force burst out in a cone, knocking two of the villains off balance.
Momo stared in awe.
He turned his head slightly. "Now, Yaoyorozu!"
"I—I'm on it!"
She pulled a small collapsible shield from her skin — no time for complex gadgets — and began shaping a stun baton in the other hand, breath quickening.
The fight had begun.
Not just in the water zone.
Not just in the USJ.
But in them.
Their instincts.
Their magic.
Their courage.
POV Aizawa
Blood was already in his mouth.
Aizawa spat it to the side and kept moving.
Three villains down. Five more closing in.
His scarf whipped around him like a living thing, catching one by the throat and flinging him into another.
His eyes stung. His heartbeat pounded in his ears.
But he didn't blink.
Didn't flinch.
Didn't stop.
From the corner of his vision, he saw a young villain with clawed hands attempt a sneak attack from above. He dove, rolled, used the momentum to trip the attacker and disable his Quirk mid-air. The boy hit the ground with a grunt of pain, his claws retracting with a confused blink.
"You're reckless," Aizawa muttered, advancing.
He was panting now. His elbow had been dislocated—he'd felt the pop two minutes ago—but adrenaline kept him upright.
He had no illusions.
They were stalling.
Whoever organized this had more than thugs.
They had a plan.
A horrible, intelligent plan.
The portal user—the mist being—wasn't attacking directly. That meant something was coming.
And then—he felt it.
A shadow. A presence.
The air grew heavier behind him.
A shape descended onto the battlefield like a stone falling through fog.
Massive. Hunched. Breathing like a furnace.
The students on the other side of the plaza screamed.
Aizawa turned.
The creature's skin was gray-black and stretched too tightly over a frame that was too muscular to be human. Its exposed brain pulsed visibly, like a thing half-finished.
And yet—
Its eyes were empty.
Not dull.
Empty.
The Nomu.
And it wasn't just powerful.
It was waiting.
Trained. Programmed.
And as Aizawa stared at it, his bloodied scarf dragging behind him, the realization struck him like a hammer:
This thing was made to kill All Might.
But for now—it would kill him instead.
Scene Shift
Back in the water zone, the first villain hit the floor with a crack of bone and a wheeze of air.
Izuku pulled his hand back, breath hitching.
The burst of kinetic rune energy had taken more out of him than expected. His fingers were shaking now—not just from magic, but from the pain behind it. The threads of energy still clung to his fingertips, red and green, like flickers of fire and moss.
He turned toward Momo just as another villain emerged from the mist, this one carrying a serrated weapon that gleamed even in the artificial twilight.
"I can't make anything sharp yet!" Momo cried. "Too risky. I'm still forming the baton—"
"It's okay!" Izuku called, stepping in front of her.
The villain lunged—
—and Izuku moved, not with brute strength, but instinct, guiding a burst of air around his legs and twisting his body mid-slide.
The weapon slashed through empty space.
A rune sparked in his left palm, not cast, but born from emotion—a flicker of fire, not yet real flame.
He nearly gave into it.
Nearly let it grow.
But instead, he redirected, slamming his shoulder into the villain and sending them tumbling into the ship's railing.
Another crash.
More water spilled up from the edge.
Momo, steady now, pulled the fully-formed baton from her arm with a grunt and surged forward, jabbing it into the next villain's thigh.
The man screamed, twitched, and fell.
Two down.
Two more wading closer.
Their confidence was gone.
They were starting to realize something:
These weren't ordinary students.