The sound of destruction carved through the facility like the death throes of a dying beast.
Each footstep sent jolts of agony through Ryuu's skull, the aftermath of quirk burnout leaving him feeling hollow, carved out from the inside.
His Resonance was gone...not dormant, not resting, but *absent*, like a limb that had been severed and left only phantom pain in its wake.
Mina's weight against his shoulder was both comfort and reminder of how close they'd all come to dying in that room.
Her skin still carried an unnatural pale tone from the chemical warfare she'd waged against her own biology.
Each breath she took was measured, careful, as if her lungs were still recovering from processing compounds that should have killed her.
Behind them, Momo clutched a simple metal rod with white knuckles.
The pathetic weapon was all her exhausted creation quirk could manifest....a far cry from the complex mechanisms she'd been producing mere minutes ago.
Her dark hair hung limp with sweat, and shadows carved deep hollows beneath her eyes.
They were walking wounded, barely functional, stumbling toward sounds that promised even greater violence.
"This way," Ryuu said, following the cacophony of combat.
Green light strobed through the corridors ahead like lightning trapped in a bottle, and each flash was accompanied by impacts that made the reinforced concrete groan in protest.
The building itself seemed to be screaming.
They rounded a corner and found hell....
The main research hall had been transformed into something from a war zone.
Equipment worth millions lay scattered like broken toys, display cases reduced to glittering fragments that crunched underfoot.
Emergency lighting bathed everything in the color of arterial blood, and the air itself seemed to vibrate with barely contained violence.
At the center of it all, two figures moved in a dance that was equal parts beautiful and terrifying.
Midoriya, wreathed in green lightning that made reality itself seem unstable around his form.
And across from him, a villain who looked like he'd crawled out of humanity's darkest nightmares.
The man was a monument to brutality....eight feet of muscle and malice, with arms thick as ancient tree trunks and skin that seemed to drink in light and offer nothing back.
His quirk manifested as dark tendrils that moved like living things, reaching for Midoriya with the patience of a predator that knew its prey was already cornered.
The darkness wasn't just absence of light. It was 'hungry'.
"ONE FOR ALL: FULL COWL—FORTY-FIVE PERCENT!"
Midoriya's voice cracked through the air like a whip, power bleeding from every syllable.
He moved faster than human perception should have allowed, each step leaving spider-web cracks in the reinforced floor, each dodge generating wind pressure that scattered debris like leaves in a hurricane.
But he wasn't alone in this madness.
Bakugo danced around the villain's flank, explosions crackling from his palms with precision.
His movements were sharp, each blast calculated to maximum effect without catching his reluctant partner in the crossfire.
"DAMN NERD, STOP HOGGING ALL THE GOOD SHOTS!" The blonde's voice carried its usual venom, but underneath was something else—focus. Deadly, absolute focus. "AP SHOT: AUTO-CANNON!"
The barrage that followed was a thing of terrible beauty.
Concentrated explosions struck the villain's side in rapid succession, each one placed with precision.
The villain staggered, darkness flickering around him like a guttering candle, and Midoriya moved to capitalize on the opening with inhuman speed.
"DELAWARE—"
The punch never landed.
Dark tendrils erupted from the floor itself, wrapping around Midoriya's legs with the inexorability of death.
The villain's quirk wasn't just projection....it was environmental domination, turning the very ground into an extension of his will.
Reality seemed to slow as Midoriya hit the concrete, green lightning sputtering like a broken circuit. The sound of his impact was too sharp....
"DEKU!"
For the first time in Ryuu's memory, Bakugo's voice carried genuine fear. The blonde spun toward his childhood rival, and in that moment of distraction—
Dark energy slammed into Bakugo's chest like the fist of an angry god.
He flew across the hall in a graceless arc, his body striking a support pillar with a crack that Ryuu felt in his bones.
The explosive student crumpled to the ground and went still, too still, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
"Kacchan!" Midoriya's anguish was a living thing, green power flaring desperately around his trapped form.
But the more he struggled, the tighter the dark tendrils constricted, until Ryuu could see them cutting into his skin.
The villain's laughter was like the sound of rocks grinding together. "Hahaha....The famous One For All," he said, voice carrying the weight of absolute certainty. "I was told you were impressive, boy. But you're just a child playing with power beyond your comprehension."
His hand rose, and darkness coalesced into something that promised ending.
The energy blade that formed was less weapon than concept....the idea of cutting made manifest, sharp enough to part atoms.
"The boss wants the amplifier alive," the villain continued conversationally, as if discussing the weather rather than murder. "You, however, are expendable."
The blade began its descent toward Midoriya's exposed throat.
"Like hell."
Ryuu was moving before thought could interfere, sprinting across the broken hall despite his quirk burnout, despite having no power, no plan, nothing but desperate determination and the absolute refusal to watch another person die.
His body screamed protest with every step, but he ran anyway.
But he wasn't alone.
Ochaco materialized from behind a fallen display case like an avenging angel, her palm slapping against the blood-slick concrete.
Zero Gravity activated with a sound like reality hiccupping, and suddenly the massive villain was floating, his deadly attack thrown off course as gravity abandoned him entirely.
Tsuyu's tongue lashed out from the shadows, wrapping around Midoriya's torso and yanking him clear of the constricting tendrils just as they tried to tighten into a noose.
Jiro emerged from concealment, earphone jacks stabbing into the floor.
Her heartbeat amplification activated, sending destructive sound waves through the concrete that shattered the villain's environmental control like glass.
They'd been fighting too...hidden in the chaos, biding their time, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
Patience from students who shouldn't have possessed such tactical awareness.
"Everyone together!" Ryuu shouted, even as the fundamental flaw in coordination became apparent. "I can't amplify anyone....my quirk's burned out!"
The admission tasted like ash in his mouth. Useless. When his friends needed him most, he was useless...
"Then we do this the old-fashioned way," Mina said, acid already forming in her palms despite the exhaustion that painted her face in shades of grey. "We do it together."
The villain roared in frustration, dark energy exploding outward like a dying star.
But floating in zero gravity, he couldn't establish proper leverage for his attacks. The darkness lashed out randomly, without focus or direction.
"Ochaco!" Ryuu's voice cut through the chaos. "Can you hold him?"
"Maybe thirty seconds!" she called back, sweat already beading on her forehead from the effort. The villain's mass was enormous, and her quirk had limits that were rapidly approaching.
"Tsuyu, get Bakugo to safety!"
Her tongue was already moving, wrapping around the unconscious blonde carefully, pulling him behind cover where he couldn't be used as leverage.
"Jiro, keep disrupting his control!"
Sound waves pulsed through the floor in controlled bursts, making it impossible for the villain to manifest new tendrils from the concrete.
"Mina, Momo—"
"We understand," Momo said, her creation quirk sparking back to life despite the exhaustion that made her hands shake.
Metal began forming in her grasp....not a weapon this time, but a framework, precise and delicate.
Mina moved to her side with fluid grace, understanding blooming between them without need for words.
Acid began dissolving specific connection points in the framework, creating exactly the weak points they needed.
"Midoriya!" Ryuu turned to the green-haired student, who was struggling to his feet with green lightning still crackling around him like caged lightning. "How much power can you put into a single attack?"
"I—" Midoriya's voice was hoarse, strained. "Forty-five percent is already past safe parameters. Without your amplification to help manage the strai—"
"Forget the amplification," Ryuu cut him off, words sharp as breaking glass. "Can you go higher? Just once?"
Understanding dawned in Midoriya's eyes, followed immediately by the kind of determination that had made him a hero. "One hundred percent would destroy my arms. Possibly both of them completely."
"But would it end this?"
A heartbeat of hesitation. Then resolve, pure and absolute. "Yes."
"Then do it. We'll create the opening you need."
The villain was fighting against Ochaco's Zero Gravity with increasing success, dark energy flaring around him as he sought purchase in the weightless environment.
His power was vast, oceanic, and Ryuu could see the strain beginning to tell on her face.
Twenty seconds. Maybe less.
"Now!" he commanded.
Momo's weakened framework launched like a missile, striking the floating villain and shattering exactly as designed.
Metal fragments scattered around him in a perfect sphere, each piece positioned with mathematical precision.
Mina's acid followed in the same heartbeat, coating every fragment with compounds that made them chemically unstable, reactive, waiting for the right trigger.
Jiro shifted her attack pattern, earphone jacks sending a specific frequency through the air.
The sound waves struck the acid-coated fragments and triggered a chain reaction that lit up the hall like a newborn star.
The explosion was catastrophic. Beautiful and terrible, a symphony of destruction that left the villain stunned and defenseless, floating helpless in the aftermath of controlled chaos.
"MIDORIYA, NOW!"
Green lightning erupted around the student like the birth of a universe. His eyes blazed with power that should have torn him apart, One For All surging through his body at levels that defied human limitation. The air around him didn't just vibrate—it *screamed*.
"ONE FOR ALL: FULL COWL—ONE HUNDRED PERCENT!"
His fist connected with the villain's center mass.
The impact rewrote the laws of physics in the immediate area.
The sound alone shattered every piece of glass in a three-building radius.
The shockwave propagated outward like the wrath of god, throwing everyone to the ground even behind cover.
The villain didn't just fly...he was erased from his position, crashing through three reinforced concrete walls as if they were paper before finally coming to rest in a crater of his own making.
Then Midoriya collapsed.
The green lightning died as if it had never existed.
The student hit the ground like a marionette with severed strings, and the sound of his landing was wrong in ways that made Ryuu's stomach clench.
He was moving before conscious thought could interfere, reaching Midoriya just as the boy's body finished its descent into unconsciousness.
Both arms hung at angles that violated anatomy, bones clearly shattered beyond any hope of natural healing.
Blood ran from his nose and mouth in steady streams, and his breathing was shallow.
But his eyes were open. Barely, but open.
"Did..." the word came out as barely a whisper, forced through lips that were already swelling. "Did we win?"
Ryuu looked across the devastated hall.
The villain lay motionless in the rubble, dark energy finally extinguished.
Bakugo was stirring, groaning as consciousness returned. The girls were all standing, exhausted and battered but alive.
"Yeah," Ryuu said, his own voice rough with relief. "We won."
"Urrghhh," Ochaco released her Zero Gravity and immediately staggered as the backlash hit her nervous system.
Tsuyu moved to support her.
Jiro pulled her earphone jacks from the cracked concrete, wincing as feedback echoed through her skull.
"Is he—?" Mina gestured toward the distant crater where their enemy lay.
"Unconscious," Momo confirmed, her analytical mind already processing the aftermath. "Alive, but requiring immediate medical attention. That impact should have killed a normal person."
"Good thing villains aren't normal people," Bakugo muttered, leveraging himself upright with obvious effort. His gaze lingered on Midoriya with an expression that was difficult to parse. "That was... that was some serious power, Deku."
"Kacchan..." Midoriya tried to sit up and immediately gasped, pain lancing through his shattered limbs. "Are you—?"
"Fine," Bakugo cut him off, but the usual venom was absent from his voice. "Just... how long have you been able to do that?"
Beep!! Beep!! Beep!!
Before Midoriya could formulate an answer, new alarms began blaring.
With different patterns.
"Security breach contained. Medical teams to Sector C immediately. All students report to evacuation zones."
"That would be us," Tsuyu observed with her characteristic practicality. "Ribbit. We should seek medical attention."
"Can you walk?" Ryuu asked Midoriya gently.
"I... probably not."
"I'll carry him," Bakugo said, and the words hung in the air like a challenge to reality itself. The blonde's face was flushed, but his expression carried absolute determination. "He just saved all our asses. Least I can do is return the favor."
As they made their way toward the evacuation zone....a procession of the walking wounded supporting each other through corridors that reeked of destruction....Ryuu found his mind turning over what had just occurred.
They had faced professional villains with years of experience and murderous intent. And they had won.
Not through overwhelming individual power or perfect tactical planning, but through something more fundamental.
Through trust.
Through the willingness to put their lives in each other's hands without hesitation.
The connections he'd felt during the battle...not the artificial enhancement of his Resonance, but the natural synchronization that came from shared purpose....had been nearly as strong as his quirk at full power.
"Ryuu," Ochaco said quietly as they navigated the damaged corridors, "back there, when you were coordinating everyone... it felt like you were amplifying us even without your quirk active."
"I noticed the same thing," Tsuyu added thoughtfully. "Ribbit. Like we were sharing thoughts, moving as extensions of the same will."
"Perhaps that's what Resonance truly represents," Momo mused, her analytical mind already working through implications. "Not merely quirk amplification, but connection amplification. Making people function as a unified entity rather than separate individuals."
Ryuu considered that as they reached the evacuation zone, where pro heroes and medical teams were already establishing triage.
As Recovery Girl fussed over Midoriya's catastrophic injuries and the others received treatment for their various wounds, he contemplated the bonds that had been forged in the crucible of shared danger.
How fighting together had created understanding deeper than weeks of normal interaction might have achieved.
How, even without his quirk, they had moved like a single organism with multiple bodies.
Maybe Momo was correct. Maybe Resonance wasn't fundamentally about power enhancement.
Maybe it was about connection itself.
As he watched his best friends....because that's what they had become in the space of a single desperate battle....receive medical care, Ryuu realized that something fundamental had shifted today.
Not just in their combat capabilities or interpersonal relationships, but in their essential nature as people.
They had faced genuine lethality and emerged victorious. Together.
The thought should have been reassuring. Instead, something in the depths of his mind whispered warnings.
Today's attack hadn't been random...
Someone had known exactly which students would be on the field trip.
Someone had known their quirks, their fighting styles, their psychological profiles well enough to deploy counters.
Someone had wanted Ryuu specifically, alive and conscious, badly enough to orchestrate this elaborate trap.
Which meant this wasn't over. This was just the beginning.
The villains they'd fought weren't the masterminds...they were tools, expendable assets deployed to test capabilities and gather data.
Somewhere out there, the real enemy was analyzing their performance, cataloguing their strengths and weaknesses, preparing the next phase of whatever game they were playing.
And next time, they would be better prepared.
But those were concerns for tomorrow. Tonight, his friends were alive.
The immediate threat had been neutralized. They had proven that together, they could face the impossible and prevail.
For now, that would have to be enough.
The taste of victory was bittersweet when it came with the knowledge that it was merely the first move in a much longer, more dangerous game.