Chapter 17: The Mountain, The Shock, and The Monster
The sensation of vertigo ended abruptly.
Kuma hit the ground hard. His heavy metal boots crunched onto jagged rock, stabilizing him instantly.
He looked around. He was standing on a steep, rocky cliffside. The wind was howling here. This was the Mountain Zone.
"Ouch..."
A few meters away, Yaoyorozu Momo landed ungracefully on a flat rock, creating a small net to break her fall. Beside her, Jiro Kyoka stumbled, holding her earphone jacks.
"Is everyone uninjured?" Kuma asked, walking toward them.
"I-I'm fine," Yaoyorozu said, dusting off her costume. "Just a bit shaken. Where are we?"
"Mountain Zone," Jiro said, looking around nervously. "And... we're not alone."
Shadows emerged from behind the crags and boulders.
One, two, ten... twenty.
They were surrounded. Roughly thirty villains, armed with pipes, knives, and bats, circled them. They looked like street thugs, rough and eager for violence.
"Well, well," a villain with a rock-like skin sneered, tapping a metal bat against his palm. "Look what we have here. Two cute high school girls and... what is that? A giant bear mascot?"
The villains laughed. "Big target. Probably slow. Let's carve him up first!"
Yaoyorozu's face paled. She immediately began creating a metal staff from her arm. "Jiro-san, stay close! There are too many of them!"
Jiro plugged her jacks into her boots, ready to amplify her heartbeat. "I'm ready. But this looks bad..."
The villains tightened the circle, sensing fear.
Kuma stepped forward.
His large shadow stretched over the girls, shielding them from the sun and the enemies.
"Yaoyorozu-san. Jiro-san," Kuma said calmly, his voice steady as a mountain. "Please stay behind me. Do not leave my shadow."
"Kuma-san?" Yaoyorozu hesitated. "You can't fight thirty people alone!"
Kuma didn't answer. He reached up and slowly removed his glasses. He pulled a small cloth from his pocket, wiped the lenses methodically, and placed them back on his face.
The villains charged.
"KILL HIM!"
They rushed from all sides—a wave of violence and quirks.
Kuma stood perfectly still. He raised both hands to chest level, palms facing each other, about ten centimeters apart.
The air around the mountain began to scream.
Whoosh...
Wind was sucked in from every direction toward the space between his hands. The air pressure dropped so rapidly that Jiro's ears popped.
Between Kuma's paw pads, a small, translucent bubble of air formed. It was tiny—no larger than a marble. But the air swirling around it was condensing at a terrifying rate.
The lead villain, now only five meters away, paused, confused. "What is he doing? Playing with bubbles?"
Kuma looked at the mob rushing toward him.
"Air," Kuma whispered, "is a hammer."
He closed his hands over the tiny bubble.
"Ursus Shock." (Miniature Output)
He released the bubble.
It floated forward for a fraction of a second, expanding rapidly as the compressed air sought to return to its natural state.
BOOOOOOOM!
It wasn't an explosion of fire. It was a detonation of pure kinetic force.
A shockwave erupted outward in a 360-degree radius.
The ground shook. The rocks shattered.
The thirty villains were lifted off their feet simultaneously. Their weapons—bats, knives, guns—were blown out of their hands as if slapped by a giant invisible god.
They flew backward, slamming into the cliff walls, tumbling down the slopes, or simply being knocked unconscious mid-air by the sheer concussion.
Dust and debris clouded the entire area.
Then, silence.
Jiro and Yaoyorozu, who were standing directly behind Kuma in his "shadow," felt only a strong breeze ruffling their hair. The shockwave had been perfectly calculated to blast everything except what was directly behind him.
The dust settled.
The rocky terrain was littered with the groaning bodies of thirty villains. Not a single one was standing.
"My ears..." Jiro whispered, wide-eyed, staring at the devastation. "He took them all out... in one move?"
Yaoyorozu lowered her staff, her mouth slightly open. She looked at Kuma's broad back.
That control... compressing that much air volume into a tiny space and releasing it as a concussion bomb... Yaoyorozu realized with a shiver. That isn't the level of a student. That is Professional Hero level.
Kuma adjusted his beanie. He didn't look tired. He didn't look proud. He simply opened his "Bible/Atlas" and checked the page he had bookmarked.
"The path is clear," Kuma stated. "We should regroup with the others."
The View from Above
They were high up on the mountain zone, giving them a vantage point over the entire USJ.
Kuma walked to the edge of the cliff and looked down at the Central Plaza.
His enhanced vision zoomed in.
He saw Aizawa.
The teacher was fighting valiantly, but he was losing. A massive, bird-brained creature with exposed brains and purple skin—the Nomu—was pinning him down.
Kuma watched as the monster broke Aizawa's arm like a twig. He saw the teacher's head being smashed into the concrete.
Jiro looked down and gasped. "Sensei! He's... oh god, look at all that blood!"
"We have to help him!" Yaoyorozu cried, though her voice shook with fear of that monster.
Kuma closed his book with a sharp thud.
The reflection of the plaza shone on his glasses, hiding his eyes, but the line of his jaw was set in stone.
"Sensei requires assistance," Kuma said, his voice dropping an octave, becoming colder and more dangerous than the villains had ever been.
He bent his knees slightly.
"Hold on to me," Kuma ordered the girls. "We are going down."
.
.