Jack ran between the trees, lungs burning, heart pounding so fast it felt like it wanted to burst out of his mouth. His breath came in short, hysterical gasps.
He had started his villain career three weeks ago. Three.
And he already had bodies on his record, small robberies, intimidation — the basics to get attention. His quirk helped with that: turning his arms into long, hard, razor-sharp blades strong enough to slice concrete like butter.
He wanted fame. Recognition. Feared becoming just another failure.
So when the League of Villains offered him a spot in an attack that would change the world, he didn't think twice.
"Take down the Symbol of Peace."
"Face students from the hero course."
"Gain instant notoriety."
It all sounded simple and perfect.
Now, stuck in the middle of the USJ's forest zone…
…he was about to piss himself.
"W-Where is everyone…?" he whispered, looking around, his trembling blade replacing his right arm.
Behind him, a muffled scream echoed.
Jack turned just in time to see one of his partners being hurled through three trees like a ragdoll before hitting the ground unconscious.
"No! No, no, NO!" Jack stumbled back, looking frantically between the trees. "That's not a student! That's not some kid! That's a MON—"
His declaration, spoken with a voice trying desperately to remain firm, died the moment a hand — or rather, a fist — slammed into his jaw.
The impact tore him off the ground and flung him onto the foliage. The world spun, the blade on his arm reverting back to flesh in a delayed reflex, and Jack blacked out with the sinking feeling that all his effort had been for nothing.
Meanwhile—
Ryo was the storm tearing through the forest, tasked with "cleaning up" — unceremoniously — every villain present in the area.
FWOOOM — FWIP — WHACK — CRACK
(A/N: I recommend listening to L'aube d'Afrique #1 while reading the entire scene below. I wrote this whole part while listening to this banger.)
Ryo Tanaka moved faster than the sound trailing behind him.
Black hair whipped backward with the force of sonic speed as he dashed through the woods at over 1,735 km/h, leaving curved neon-green trails between the trees.
The villains — mostly brutes, mutants, and raiders with all kinds of grotesque mutations — had no time to react. Ryo hit one point, sent an enemy spinning through the air, then was already somewhere else clearing another threat with the same hand.
His hands were blurs that grabbed, pushed, twisted and hurled enemies against trunks, rocks, and against each other. The wind generated by his passing swept branches, leaves, and the sound of screams away as if someone were smothering a fire with a cloth.
His eyes were wide open, locked in a state of hyper-focus, aware of everything around him — where the highest concentration of threats was, which target posed the greatest risk, which group might still regroup.
He moved along invisible paths between the trees, crossed a clearing as quickly as he would walk down a hallway, and without any theatrical gesture, punched a four-armed green villain in the stomach with a blow that detonated the air on impact.
The hit sent the man crashing through three trees before collapsing, motionless. Splintered wood rained behind him.
In another sequence, he intercepted an attacker with metal blades. Ryo grabbed the wrist holding the blade and twisted with enough force to snap the weapon's momentum mid-strike.
The aggressor was flung sideways, slamming into a tree trunk and dropping dazed.
Ryo's movements were not just a display of strength — they were perfect efficiency. Every strike minimized extra risk; every shift prevented a counterattack.
When a duo tried to flank him from behind, he was already between them and a third target, channeling all his muscle power into a single blow that made all three crumple.
The impression he left wasn't of someone fighting a large group — but of someone sweeping the floor with them.
The time it took him to eliminate the fifty-seven hostile presences in that section of the forest added up to eleven seconds, just long enough for the delayed reactions of the villains to manifest as shocked expressions before collapsing. In eleven seconds, Ryo's trail became a sequence of fallen bodies, scarred trees, drifting leaves and the silence that follows a storm.
Ryo skidded along the ground as he braked, letting out a short sigh through his nose, muscles only slightly tense.
"This was exhausting…"
He slowly turned his head, assessing the path — the bodies, the marks, the utter lack of movement. The row of fallen enemies had turned the clearing into a map of extinguished points.
He ran a hand over his forehead, wiping the sweat threatening to drip.
"Fifty-seven in total…"
A faint green aura still flickered around his hands before fading as he lowered the energy stored within them.
Then he straightened and looked toward the dark stretch of forest ahead.
"Now…"
His eyes narrowed, glowing faintly.
"…time to find the others."
Without another word, Ryo shot forward again, the ground exploding under his feet as the green flash — the momentary terror of fifty-seven villains — sprinted at full speed toward the next zone.
----------------------------------------
Midoriya fell from the black rift without even having time to understand what was happening.
SPLASH!
The icy water swallowed him whole. The shock knocked the air out of his lungs completely, and he sank for a few seconds before managing to open his eyes in the murky depths.
"W–Where am I?!"
"That mist guy… did he teleport me?"
"They… they really want to kill All Might? This… this can't…"
His thoughts shattered when a massive shadow appeared right in front of him, rushing toward him as the filtered light from the surface revealed huge teeth and lifeless eyes.
It was a shark-faced villain, his jaws opening like a trap.
Midoriya's eyes widened, his heart pounding faster than his lungs could draw breath.
"No… no, no, no—!"
The villain's jaw stretched and opened unnaturally as he muttered, bubbles spilling from his twisted mouth:
"Nothing personal, kid… food is food."
He opened his mouth to swallow Midoriya whole—
THWACK!
A perfect dropkick struck the villain's face, sending him flying backward in a burst of bubbles.
A long, pink tongue immediately wrapped around Midoriya's waist.
"Come here, Midoriya!" said Tsuyu, her voice muffled by the water.
She pulled him with high speed, and both of them burst through the surface, Midoriya gasping desperately as he finally recovered the air he'd been starving for. Tsuyu, already on the deck of an abandoned yacht, laid him on his stomach and gave light pats on his back.
"C–cough… cough! Thanks, Asui!"
"You can call me Tsuyu, ribbit. Are you okay?"
Midoriya tried to answer, but another voice cut through — cold and firm:
"So… that villain really separated us."
Todoroki was leaning against the yacht's railing, watching the water around them with a heavy expression, as if analyzing every detail from the moment he landed there.
Midoriya lifted his head, surprised to see him there with them.
"T–Todoroki! You got thrown here too?!"
"Yes."
"Looks like we fell into the flood zone, ribbit."
From the yacht's deck, Midoriya and Tsu looked toward the edge of the massive artificial lake. Several villains watched them from there — motionless… except for their predatory grins.
Some had wide mouths, others held spears or harpoons; all of them stared at the yacht with a morbid anticipation, like a pack of starving animals waiting for food to fall into the water.
"They don't seem eager to come in," Tsuyu noted, narrowing her eyes. "Maybe that's the limit of their quirks."
Midoriya swallowed hard.
"I–If they stay there… how are we supposed to get out?"
Todoroki didn't answer right away. He stared at the villains for a few seconds — they weren't even trying to hide their mocking amusement. Some laughed, waving tauntingly, confident in their territorial advantage.
Then he let out a long sigh.
"I don't have time for these games."
He grabbed the yacht's metal railing with his right hand. Ice began to form where his skin touched the metal, crystals blooming upward, fragments rising like frost flakes. They grew into jagged edges, and soon a thin sheet spread from the railing and slowly crept downward toward the surface of the water.
Around them, the villains frowned.
"Look at that, he's making a little ice…"
"That'll take a year, kid!"
At first it looked just decorative — a shimmering thread coating the edge — but the moment the ice touched the water, it spread in an unstoppable surge.
FWOOOOSH!
First a ring beneath the yacht, then entire waves solidified, and the once-churning flood zone transformed into a smooth field of ice stretching as far as the eye could see. The villains waiting on the shore were frozen mid-expression, their bodies trapped in the same water that had given them the advantage.
Midoriya gaped. Tsuyu only blinked, stunned.
The surface, once a deep and dangerous lake, had become a solid carpet of thick ice that cracked under the weight of Todoroki's power.
The boy pulled his partially frozen hand from the railing, releasing a small white breath. He flexed his fingers, breaking the remaining ice clinging to them.
"Done."
He looked back at the others, speaking with the same calm, frosty tone as always.
"We can leave without trouble now."
----------------------------------------
The landslide zone was a mess of mud, loose rocks, and uprooted logs — terrain that spat out danger at every step.
For any normal person, it would've been a deadly maze; for Dash Parr, it was just another childish obstacle. He moved like a sharp line cutting through uneven ground, a yellow-and-red streak zigzagging down the slope.
The villains there didn't even have time to react.
Dash shot through them like a flash — a disarming strike here, a hand yanking an enemy by the waist to use him as momentum against a rock, and in a second, several of them were rolling limp down the incline.
But strangely, Dash wasn't celebrating his victories like usual — no triumphant shouts, no dramatic jumps. His eyes were focused and alert, wearing a serious expression that didn't seem to match his face.
"Where is everyone? Are they okay…?" he murmured, dodging an improvised projectile without even looking back.
The last villain charged at him, brandishing an iron bar. Dash simply twisted his body, grabbed the metal, and pulled, using the enemy's own momentum to slam him face-first into the ground, knocking him out instantly.
Dash took a deep breath, brows furrowed. The adrenaline wouldn't go down.
"I think it's time to look for the others…"
He wanted to find his classmates, to confirm that Rito was alive — that everyone was still intact.
"That was awesome!"
Dash jolted from head to toe. The English praise came out of nowhere, too loud and way too close. He jumped so high he even left a blurred trail in the air before snapping back into place.
"A-Ah!" He spun around in every direction, tense. "W-Was that… Hagakure?!"
Dash immediately recognized the voice — one of the few classmates who could speak English, even if the invisible girl only knew a little.
"Sorry, sorry!" the invisible girl's voice rushed closer, clearly flustered. "I didn't mean to scare you! It's just that you were… wow, you were going so fast! I even thought you were gonna crash into me!"
Dash ran a hand through his hair, still trying to calm his racing heart.
"How did I not hit you…? I was running like a maniac."
"Oh, I stayed suuuper still in my little corner," she replied in a playful tone. "You were zigzagging, so all I had to do was not move a single finger."
Dash let out a breath, relaxing only a little.
"Okay… fine." He looked around, still on edge. "We need to find the others. I have no idea where that guy with the black smoke tossed them."
The invisible girl stepped closer — he could hear the soft sound of her feet on the dirt.
"I'm with you, Dash! Let's find everyone!"
And for the first time since he'd been teleported, the blond boy didn't feel so alone in the middle of all that chaos.
----------------------------------------
The central plaza was a chaos of dust, screams, and villains scattering like rodents crawling out of the sewer. At the center of it all, Aizawa pushed forward, taking enemies down with clean, precise movements, his expression completely neutral—until his eyes locked onto the thin, unsettling figure with hands hanging around his neck.
"Are you the boss?" Aizawa asked as he sent his capture cloth flying toward the villain.
Shigaraki didn't answer. He simply advanced, tilting his body like a tired predator. He grabbed the cloth with a hand covered in corpse-like fingers, but before he could pull, Aizawa closed the distance and struck with his elbow straight at his stomach.
Or rather… he tried.
Shigaraki caught the elbow with one hand, and the edges of cloth and skin began to crumble and peel away.
"It's hard to tell when you're looking at me or not…" he muttered, voice scratchy, almost childlike. "But sometimes I notice when your hair falls over your eyes. Whenever that happens… the duration gets shorter, and shorter…"
Aizawa yanked his arm back with a dry snap before the damage became complete, then punched the villain and jumped back immediately. The hit didn't knock Shigaraki down, but it pushed him back—far enough for Aizawa to deal with two other villains trying to flank him. One kick, an armlock, a spin. He was sweating, his eyes tired.
Shigaraki got up slowly, brushing the dust off his clothes with an irritating calm.
"Your Quirk was never meant for prolonged battles… much less against large groups. You're the sneaky type, ambusher." He opened an unsettling smile beneath the hand covering his face. "Even so, you didn't hesitate for a second to jump in here to make the kids safer. Nice, nice…"
Aizawa kicked another villain away and landed on the ground, only then feeling… it. A massive pressure behind him.
"Oh, and just for the record… I'm not the boss here."
The Nomu appeared with a guttural roar, the monstrous shadow swallowing Aizawa whole. Its black muscular arm rose to smash him—
And then something cut through the air.
A figure, body horizontal mid-flight, performing a perfect dropkick aimed at the villain's face.
"I never miss twice!"
The blow struck so hard that it echoed like thunder.
The Nomu was ripped off the ground, flying backward at absurd speed until it vanished among the rubble of the collapse zone.
Shigaraki froze in place.
"…Eh?"
Ryo landed beside Aizawa, his boots sliding on the destroyed ground, already bringing up his guard to cover the teacher's flank.
Aizawa recovered quickly—despite the faintly surprised expression.
"What are you doing here!?" he asked while taking down two more enemies coming at him from behind.
"Came to help," Ryo replied, dodging an attack and countering with a spinning kick. "We all got separated by that mist guy."
Aizawa grabbed his shoulder firmly.
"Go find the others! And get out of here now!"
Ryo frowned.
"And you…?"
Aizawa was about to answer when the Nomu's shadow fell over both of them like a death sentence.
He reacted at the last second, pushing Ryo to one side as he jumped the other way. The monster's fist crushed the ground with enough force to lift a wave of dust and debris that swallowed everything in an opaque veil.
Ryo tumbled across the floor and stood up coughing, trying to push the dust away with his arm.
"Sensei?!" He could barely see a hand in front of him.
The answer came as a violent displacement of air that cleared the veil in an instant.
The Nomu appeared behind him in the blink of an eye.
Ryo turned instinctively, raising his arm to block the impact—the blow catching his side with brutal force, knocking the air out of his lungs.
He was thrown like a ragdoll, hitting the ground and rolling for several meters before finally stopping near the edge of the flood zone, the surface frozen—right before he crashed into it hard enough to crack everything beneath him.
The ice gave way in a muffled explosion, and a column of white dust rose along with splashes of freezing water.
Ryo slid halfway beneath the broken layer, cold water rising to his waist. He stayed there for a second, dazed, before supporting himself on the fractured ice and standing up with a low groan.
"Tsk… that one hurt…" he muttered, running a hand through his wet hair and the side of his head.
Water dripped from his uniform, and the cold bit at his skin, but the worst discomfort came when he tried moving his left arm. Pain radiated through it as if something had snapped. Even so, he tried to hide it.
"Takeda!" Midoriya's voice came almost panicked.
Ryo lifted his head. Midoriya was running toward him across the ice's edge, with Tsuyu and Todoroki close behind, all of them staring with wide eyes.
"Are you okay?!" Midoriya insisted, leaning forward.
"I—I'm fine," Ryo replied, though his expression tightened as a sharp pain shot through his side. He clenched his teeth, pressing his right hand over the injured area.
The side of his left arm was completely purple.
Tsuyu shrank back, hugging herself, her breath leaving in short puffs because of the cold lingering from Todoroki.
"That's… ribbit… that's not good at all."
Todoroki stepped forward, eyes narrowing as he looked at the enormous bruise.
"What managed to throw you all the way here?" he asked seriously. "And leave you in this condition?"
Ryo opened his mouth to respond, still trying to regain balance on the ice.
But he didn't even have time.
A torn scream ripped through the air.
The four of them turned instinctively toward the central plaza.
The sight made Midoriya's stomach drop.
Aizawa was on the ground, his face pressed against the concrete, while the Nomu crushed his right arm—completely twisted and broken. The monster growled silently, its monstrous strength pinning the teacher down as if he were nothing more than an insect.
Ryo felt his blood freeze—not from the water's cold, but from facing head-on the brutality of the villains that pro heroes risk their lives fighting every day.