She was about to jump up and make her way through said hole to follow when she was stopped in her tracks by screams.
Not one, but several.
...
One quick look around the battlefield, and- She froze.
Mina's avoidance of the spike thrown at her had been perfect, and she'd correctly assumed Izuku would be able to dodge it.
However, she had also assumed that the adults would do a similar job avoiding them, not even having considered the alternative.
As it turned out, that was not the case.
3 of the adult heroes had taken spikes.
One to her leg, another through a lung, and… and… The sight that made her freeze, was the final one. One that had taken a spike through the throat.
The few civilians that hadn't made their way out before the battle began, screamed, as they began moving WAY faster as they ran.
Mina didn't look at that though. Instead, she just stared at the blood, the way he jerked as his hand went up, and he tried to rip out the spike as he… he…
A spike soared past her, just a few inches from her face.
She snapped around to face the red one. Stupid, stupid, STUPID!
Freezing while having enemies at your back? What was wrong with her?
Hadn't her mom drilled that into her skull enough times? Don't freeze in a fight.
As it turned out, what had saved her was her choice to throw the flying one.
He'd slammed into the red one, who had been prepared to launch more spikes.
They had seemingly become entangled, as he was impaled on the spikes on her body.
She'd eventually solved the problem by simply firing the spikes through him, which made the guy scream, his newly regenerated head being replaced by a bunch of holes in his body.
The added weight had thrown off her aim though.
Mina moved before she could fire another set.
She did not notice that her web-shooters disintegrated as she proceeded to turn the red one to literal mincemeat with acid-coated leg sweeps and chops with her hands.
She didn't even think as she did it. The only thing going through her mind was to stop the red one from launching another set. From hurting more people.
Her instincts, long, long drilled into her over the course of years saved her, as her arm instinctually went up in a guard position to block a punch from the now newly regenerated winged one, as he launched himself at her from the side.
It still sent her flying, her stance being as off as it was.
She SLAMMED into the wall of one of the buildings. PAIN blossomed in her arm, and her side, though thankfully she didn't truly hurt her head. That was good.
She barely managed to land on her feet, and despite the pain still ringing in her arm and side, she snapped sideways into a stance.
She expected an attack to follow. It was how any thinking enemy would go. Land a smaller blow, then follow up with a lethal one.
That didn't happen though.
Instead, she saw two things.
The first was the pile of still regenerating flesh, growing new body parts from the upper torso.
Around it, all its four limbs were lying about. Meanwhile the head… the head was just GONE.
Storms had… Had she done that?
The second thing, which in turn knocked her out of the horrible implications of that sight, was that the winged one, rather than attacking her as any competent, thinking fighter would have done, had instead turned his attention on one of the wounded heroes, who was closer.
Mina didn't even think.
She moved.
This time, she bisected the winged one in two with a sweeping kick, coated with acid.
"CRAAASSHHH!"
Mina spun around at the sight, seeing that one of the monster guys, a big, black one, had slammed his giant, fist straight down on the hero with a spike in the leg.
Shit. Shit shit shit.
Two heroes dead. No, 3, the black guy had killed another one over there, lying under his own cloak, drenched in blood.
Behind her, the hero with the spike through one of her lungs swore.
"Fuck… Run kid… Just… Run…"
Mina panicked.
She couldn't do anything for the woman with the spiked lung. What had her mom said about that kind of injury?
They get something shoved through a lung, they're damned likely to die. But it's not guaranteed. IF they have one functioning lung left, and IF they don't drown in their own blood.
She couldn't do anything for her, Mina realized with more panic. All she could do was fight these guys and prevent them from doing more damage to her, and pray to whatever god might listen that she didn't bleed out, or drown her own blood.
Then, she remembered that Izuku had been sent flying through the building, and was fighting the big one with an exposed spine, all on his own.
That had somehow just… Slipped her mind amidst all the shit happening here. That was a distinctly bad sign.
As the big, black one barreled forward, the flying one was thankfully intercepted by the big lion guy.
She met the big, black one, muscles against Acid.
Acid won.
Unlike the red one though, the black one didn't just heal himself. He healed himself instantly.
She would cleave him in half. He recovered on the spot. She'd cleave a limb off, and it grew back immediately.
It did not take long before the ground became littered by dozens of severed body parts. Heads, arms, legs, and torsos.
And it did not take long before she once more came under fire from the red one, and had to dance from the rain of red metal spikes, her current opponent pretty much ignoring said rain as it passed through him, and instantly healed from the damage.
As she danced, doing her best to inflict as much damage as humanly possible on the black one, all the while she avoided the rain of red steel, several thoughts ran through her shell-shocked head.
The first was that she owed Setsuna Tokage quite a bit. As shocked and horrified as she was by what went on around her here, she was at the very least dealing with this part much, much better than she had been during the tournament.
If this had been her introduction to this kind of fighting against a regenerating foe, she would never have had the presence of mind to not only fight like this but also dodge and weave around the rain of red steel.
The fact that she was actually getting used to this in some way, horrified her… But at the moment, staying alive took first, and total priority.
The second thing going through her mind was that she hoped that Izuku was doing fine on the other side of the buildings.
He could handle himself. He had beaten Uraraka, Todoroki, and the Rhino.
He could beat the spine guy.
She refused to even consider the alternative.
As she danced, the building that the aforementioned spine guy had sent Izuku through, got a second hole, as with a massive "CRRRAAASSHHH!", said guy found himself flying through it at massive speed and slammed into, and bounced off of the building opposite to it, smashing into the ground as a massive pile of broken bones, muscles, and skin.
Neither Mina nor her foes stopped their dance of muscles, acid and red steel in reaction to it, however.
Not until two lines of black, with something white and sharp, slammed into her foes from above.
The red rain immediately stopped, and Mina grabbed the opportunity as the spike thing was still lodged in the big guy's head.
That brought him to pause, far, far more effective than her acid had, as the regeneration tried to take hold, but the spike lodged inside made that difficult, while still affecting it's motor functions.
She knocked his legs out from under him with a sideways sweep, and then immediately turned on her heel, to attack the spiny guy. He was far and away the biggest danger right now. If all 3 of them managed to attack together…
As she moved, she still turned her head and saw him as he was in the air, the two lines still connected to his terrifyingly strong arms as they had made a downward motion.
Despite the… Numbness that had set in with the brutally deteriorating situation, the blood, the gore, and the dead people around her, Mina still felt a pang of pure, positive joy at seeing Izuku Midoriya alive, fine, and well.
Strong, powerful, and more impressively, collected and in control. Just like he had been at during their fight with Rhino and Shocker, and the single-brain guy.
God, she wished she could feel in control like that right now.
...
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