….
Nine steadied, fingers brushing his mask as his breathing turned uneven, and when his gaze returned to her, certainty had already given way to cold recalculation.
"Slice." he said. "Cover me."
The response was instantaneous.
Slice's hair fanned out, flooding the hallway, thousands of silver-white strands wove into a high-tension lattice, sealing the corridor wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling in a web of razor-sharp filaments.
'Fuck, long ranger fighters.' Rumi cursed, as she pulled back toward Eri, already bleeding from multiple places from her previous cuts.
Nine withdrew to the living room, one indicator on his collar still dark, his breathing strained, yet both hands rose again as a purple glow gathered in his palms behind the shifting curtain of hair.
He seemed more aggressive in his strategy, now that she had shown him what closing the distance cost him.
On the other hand, Rumi ran the options in the space of a single breath.
'Closing the distance might leave Eri exposed.'
But at the same time, holding position meant getting worn down by lasers and those annoying [Air Walls], and taking out Slice requires throwing herself in the razor strom.
So she did the only thing left: held her ground, standing in front of her daughter and taking the hits.
Taking the opportunity, a [Finger Laser] seared across her shoulder; an [Air Wall] crashed into her already-bruised ribs; the razor-hair traced lines across her ears, collarbone, and hands.
For four minutes, she calculated through the haze of pain.
The seismic sensors on this side of the U.A. campus would have tripped by now.
I just have to last four minutes.
Behind her, Eri had her eyes squeezed shut, her small hands balled into white-knuckled fists.
She refused to look, but the sounds painted a horrific picture: the wet thwip of hair cutting skin, the sizzle of lasers hitting flesh, the heavy, bone-deep thuds of her mama's body being driven into the walls.
Every impact vibrated through the floorboards and into Eri's bones.
This is my fault.
The thought surfaced from the deep place, the Overhaul place, the room with no windows where she had learned what she was and what her quirk did to people.
They are here because of me.
This is all my fault.
That was what he had told her - what she was meant to be: a curse in the shape of a little girl, the reason everything went wrong for the people who loved her and Papa got hurt because of her.
And now Mama is hurt, all because I am…. Cursed.
A [Bullet Laser] punched through the wall above her head.
?Ek! the impact made her flinch hard, curling tighter, pressing her face into her knees until she could feel her own heartbeat against them.
The sounds of fights and crashes kept increasing, and increasing–
Maybe if I wasn't here….
–then it faded, not silence, but an abrupt stillness.
"Eri."
The voice reached her - warm, familiar, and dripping with a maternal softness that made Eri's heart ache.
It was the voice of safety.
"Eri, it's over now, you can open your eyes."
Eri opened her eyes, the world was a blur of dust and shadowed red, but there, crouched directly in front of her, was the woman she accepted as her mother.
The woman had the same fierce crimson eyes, the same shock of snow-white hair, and a face marked by the soot and blood of the struggle.
Yet, as she looked at Eri, her features melted into that specific, softening smile - the one that promised the monsters were gone and the burrow was safe again.
"Come here, baby. It's alright now."
Eri didn't hesitate, she lunged forward, throwing her small arms around her mother's neck and burying her face into the crook of her shoulder.
She was still trembling, but Mama was here and it was over and-
'…something feels wrong.' Eri wondered as she broke the hug.
"ERI! GET AWAY FROM HER! THAT'S NOT ME!"
The real Rumi's voice tore through the hallway from ten feet away, raw with a terror that Eri had never heard before.
Meanwhile, the hand that already held Eri locked in place as the arms around her tightened.
Rumi stood ten feet away behind a wall of Slice's hair that choked the corridor, blood running from a dozen cuts, burns along her calf and shoulder, balanced on one good leg as she screamed.
Himiko Toga's quirk - [Transform] - worked through ingested blood, even a trace enough to trigger it, but duration scaled with volume.
A few drops gathered from the floor in the chaos, pressed to her lips while Slice's hair obscured Rumi's view, would only buy a brief window, ninety seconds at best, likely less and that was all she needed.
The setup had been in motion from the moment the fight began.
Slice's hair functioned as more than a weapon or barrier, its shifting lattice carving deliberate blind spots- a brief, controlled pockets where Rumi couldn't see through.
Her focus stayed fixed on shielding Eri, tracking every threat aimed at the girl - bandages, claws, strands of hair - while Toga moved elsewhere.
During Chimera's final charge, the one that sent him through the bathroom door, Toga managed to collect a single fresh drop of blood that spilled across the room, and brought them to her lips.
The transformation followed within seconds, hidden behind the shifting screen as her body reshaped - frame lengthening, skin darkening, white hair spilling free, muscle forming where there had been none.
Then the lattice shifted again, opening space on Eri's far side, beyond Rumi's view as she faced the incoming threats.
Toga stepped around the corner wearing Rumi - same face, eyes, and voice, as she crouched in front of the terrified girl in the dark.
Trying to slip past Rumi to reach Eri would have failed, Rumi would have sensed it instantly, catching her in a heartbeat.
But Toga didn't need to get past Rumi, instead she needed Eri to come to her, and a four-year-old girl, scared out of her mind in the dark, hearing her mama's voice say it was over - of course she ran.
"LET GO OF HER!" Rumi threw herself at the hair screen.
Toga's transformation began to come apart, as her body shrank, skin paled, blonde hair spilled down past her shoulders, and the face looking down at Eri became a stranger's - Golden eyes and a small, apologetic smile.
"Sorry about the trick, little one." Toga whispered, her voice was her own now, light, girlish. "But hey. You were really brave back there and I mean it."
Eri screamed looking up and saw the wrong face.
Toga crouched down next to Eri, one hand still on the girl's shoulder.
She tilted her head and looked at the child with genuine, unnerving warmth - the fascination of someone who thought fear was cute the same way kittens were cute.
"Hey, sweetie." Toga's voice was sing-song, gentle. "You're really adorable up close, you know that? Look at those little red eyes… aww, they're kinda like your mama's! Well, almost."
She scrunched her nose. "Anyway. I am not gonna hurt you, 'kay? So just sit still for me. Be a good girl." The smile widened a fraction. "And nobody has to get cut."
Rumi took a step forward, her voice was vibrating. "Get your hands off my daughter."
"Or what?" Toga looked up at her.
The smile didn't waver but she wasn't exactly mocking, she sounded like she was actually asking. "I mean, yeah, you're crazy fast… I saw the whole fight, it was amazing, seriously… but..."
Her golden eyes flicked to the wall of Slice's hair still hanging between them, a lattice of razor strands that caught the light. "That's a lotta edges between here and there, Mama."
Rumi's body was coiled to launch.
Every nerve, every muscle, every predatory instinct her quirk had built into her was screaming the same thing - kill them, kill all of them, get to her NOW.
But Slice's hair filled the corridor, and that knife was on Toga's knee, inches from Eri, and if she moved wrong–
"I wouldn't." Nine said from behind her.
"Your daughter's quirk." His flat eyes studied Rumi with a detached interest. "Rewind - The ability to reverse a living being's biological state to any prior point. Cellular regression that shouldn't be possible within any known quirk framework." The regulators in his mask hissed. "Do you have any idea how many people would kill for that ability?"
He raised one hand. Somewhere above the building, the sky groaned.
"I would kill for less." His voice didn't change. "But I don't need to, all I want is to take it."
He stepped toward her.
Meanwhile, Eri opened her eyes for the first time.
Now she saw.
Rumi, her mama, standing between her and the man with the mask.
Battered, bleeding from a dozen cuts, one eye swelling shut, her fist covered in blood and the burned furrow on her calf where the laser had hit.
The deeper cuts on her forearms from shredding through Slice's hair with her bare hands.
Red blood everywhere - on the walls, floor, running down her mama's face and dripping off her chin.
All of it for her, every wound and drop because they came for her.
'Mama is getting hurt because of me.'
Behind her, Toga tugged gently on her shoulder.
"Come on, sweetie! Change of plans… we're gonna go on a little picnic instead! Just you and me! It will be super fu–"
She stopped, because Eri's horn was growing.
It had been a nub of a thumbnail size.
But now it was lengthening, thickening, curving upward, and it was glowing: a soft golden light at first, barely visible in the dark hallway.
Toga took a step back, the smile was still on her face but her eyes had gone sharp.
"Whoa, hey…." She held up both hands. "Hey, easy, easy… you gotta calm down, okay? Take a deep breath for me. Can you do that? Just…."
Eri looked up at her with red eyes flooded with gold, tears ran down her cheeks, and the expression on her face wasn't fear anymore.
Every other time this power had surged inside her - every time the golden light had risen and the horn had grown and the world started to undo itself around her - Eri had fought it.
Pulled back, resisted with everything she had.
She concluded to fear it and that the golden light was a curse to be caged, contained, controlled and never released.
But tonight her home was rubble.
Tonight strangers had broken through the walls and put knives next to her skin.
Her mother - the woman who had taught her she was not a weapon, a curse, or something to be used - was bleeding and broken because Eri had been too scared to move.
She was done being scared, for the first time in her life, Eri did not resist, but she let go.
….
The shockwave was silent.
No explosion, roar or sound at all.
Just a pulse - a sphere of golden light expanding outward from Eri's body in a perfect, soundless wave, washing over everything it touched.
The radius wasn't large, it reached Toga, who was closest, maybe four feet away and stopped just past her.
Toga was hit first and hardest.
She staggered, releasing Eri's shoulder.
The knife clattered to the ground, her hands went to her own body - her face, arms, and stomach - as something inside her began to move.
To reverse.
"What… what's…." Her voice hitched as her hands were shrinking.
She held them up in front of her face and watched her fingers getting shorter, her palms getting smaller, the calluses from years of knife work smoothing over and disappearing.
"No… what is this…! What's happening to–!"
Her face was changing, the sharp angles of her jaw softened, cheekbones receding, frame contracting, clothes loosening, and pooling around a body that was getting smaller by the second.
The years were coming off her like layers being stripped away.
"Stop! STOP! I can't… NINE! NINE, HELP–"
Her voice climbed in pitch and her equipment clattered to the floor around her as the oversized clothes collapsed around a form that was diminishing, shrinking, rewinding.
Eighteen - Her combat instincts are gone and her hands were too small to hold a knife.
Fifteen - The predatory sharpness draining from her eyes.
Twelve - She tripped over her own clothes and fell.
Eight - She was crying.
Four.
The golden light pulsed once more, blinding, and then began to fade.
Where Himiko Toga had stood, a small blonde girl sat in a heap of clothing far too large for her.
She was four years old.
Her golden eyes were wide, glassy, unfocused, she looked around the ruined apartment with the helpless confusion of any child who has woken up somewhere they don't recognize.
She didn't know who she was or where she was.
She was just a child.
.
….
[To be continued…]
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