Chapter 10: Sudden Attack — Part 1
The ride to the USJ training facility promised to be a long one, and the new Class 1-A representative, Tenya Iida, approached the logistics with his trademark, ironclad seriousness. Even on the platform, he was relentless, blowing his whistle and gesturing wildly.
"Class 1-A students! Line up in two rows according to your seat numbers! This will allow us to board in an orderly fashion!" he shouted, though hardly anyone was listening.
When the doors finally slid open, it turned out that the bus interior was arranged like a subway train, with long benches running along the walls. Iida's perfect scheme collapsed in an instant, leaving him to sink into a state of mild depression.
By now, the entire class had grown accustomed to the fact that Midoriya attended the academy alongside his brothers, Grimm and Shade, and his sister, Myla. They were all the same age, yet their bond was so deep that no one doubted they were true siblings. The trio of "gods" knew perfectly well that in this life, Izuku had been born Quirkless. That was precisely why their protective instincts were always dialed to the maximum: in a world where everyone possessed superhuman abilities, their Quirkless brother put his life on the line every day, striving to become a hero through nothing but his own wit.
As soon as Izuku sat on the bench, Shade and Grimm fell into their usual synchronized rhythm, taking seats on either side of him, while Myla settled slightly opposite, swinging her feet cheerfully.
"Deku-kun, you were thinking so hard you actually bit your tongue," Uraraka said with a warm smile, sitting down next to Myla.
"Ah? No, I'm alright, Uraraka-san! It's just... this is our first field exercise in rescue training, and I'm a bit nervous," Izuku muttered, scratching the back of his neck while clutching his trusty hero analysis notebook.
Grimm gave Izuku a gentle but firm slap on the shoulder, forcing him to straighten up, and offered an encouraging grin. "Less worrying, Izuku. Your brain is more powerful than half the Quirks in this academy. And if anything goes wrong—we're right here. We've always got your back," the Nightmare King declared confidently. Shade didn't say a word, only adjusting his hood, but Izuku felt a wave of reliable, soothing cold radiating from his brother.
"I always say exactly what's on my mind, Midoriya-kun," Tsuyu Asui suddenly piped up, tilting her head to the side. "You're amazing. Your siblings have such powerful, unique abilities, yet you entered the hero course completely Quirkless. It earns my respect, but it also makes us worry about you."
The bus went quiet for a second. Izuku felt a flicker of embarrassment and looked down at his notebook. He knew Asui meant no harm, but the topic of being Quirkless still stung a little.
Shade slowly lifted his head. The white pupils beneath his hood flashed for a brief moment, locking onto Asui. That short, heavy gaze was enough to make the frog-girl fall silent instantly, realizing she had touched a sensitive nerve. Shade made his stance perfectly clear: they would protect Izuku at any cost, and they wouldn't allow anyone to doubt him.
Grimm immediately stepped in, diffusing the tension with a laugh. "Our Izuku doesn't need a Quirk to be a hero. His analytical skills are a superpower in their own right. Just look at Kacchan: explosive Quirk, but a temper like a powder keg," he teased, drawing laughter from the class and shifting the attention to the blonde, who was already starting to growl loudly.
Izuku exhaled a breath of quiet gratitude, glancing at his family. His brothers and sister were, once again, his reliable shield.
When the bus finally stopped in front of the massive dome, the students stepped out into the fresh air. The interior of the USJ facility was breathtaking. They were greeted by the Space Hero, Thirteen, who began a lecture on safety. That was, until the air near the central fountain suddenly began to crackle, signaling the start of a scenario that was definitely not part of the school curriculum...
As Class 1-A, along with Thirteen and Aizawa, moved further into the facility, a view of majestic, artificial landscapes opened before them. Izuku stood at the front, his notebook open, his eyes burning with genuine excitement. He had already mentally mapped out several tactical schemes for how a Quirkless student could prove himself during a rescue operation, utilizing the terrain to his advantage. Grimm, Myla, and Shade stood slightly behind him, their hands tucked into their coat pockets, watching their brother calmly. To them, this day was supposed to be a light walk in the park.
But suddenly, the air in the very center of the plaza, right by the large fountain, shuddered.
The water spraying upward cut off abruptly, and thick, heavy coils of inky-violet mist began to crawl from the ground. Space trembled, as if it were fabric being mercilessly torn from the other side. Sparks of dark magic scattered in every direction.
"Thirteen! Protect the students and begin the evacuation!" Shota Aizawa reacted instantly. His eyes flashed with a fierce red light, and the long, white binding cloth around his neck rose into the air like living snakes. "Don't move! These are real villains."
Izuku froze, his heart skipping a beat. From the distorted violet portal, figures began to emerge one by one. There were many of them—a whole army, armed with chains, knives, and bizarre Quirks. But a true chill ran down Izuku's spine when he spotted two figures at the center of the rabble.
A thin, pale, and hunched-over man, his face and body adorned with dry, severed human hands, walked slowly and confidently. His fingers, which he scratched against his neck in a convulsive motion, radiated a pure aura of destruction. Beside him, towering like a monolithic mountain, was a gigantic, grotesque blue-black creature with an exposed brain, a bird-like beak, and massive eyes devoid of anything living or intelligent. The creature let out only a low, bone-chilling hiss.
"Where is All Might?" the hunched man in the hands rasped, sounding disappointed as he looked around. His voice was dry and repulsive. "We gathered such a fine team, and the Symbol of Peace isn't here... I wonder, if we kill these little kids, will he come running?"
Izuku gripped his notebook tightly. Being Quirkless among this crowd of murderers, he felt a sticky, cold fear paralyzing his legs. The gaze of that monstrous creature with its brain exposed radiated such power that the air in the plaza felt as heavy as lead.
In that same moment, the school-day masks fell from the trio of "gods" in perfect unison. Grimm stopped smiling; his face turned to stone, and deep within his eyes, the first crimson sparks began to swirl. Myla narrowed her eyes, and the nearby villains suddenly felt an strange, piercing heat radiating from the amber-eyed girl.
Shade didn't say a word. Instead of speaking, he took one short, heavy step forward. His black figure rose like a monolithic wall directly in front of Izuku, shielding his brother completely from the villain leader's gaze. A sense of ironclad, unshakable confidence radiated from Shade's hood, and Izuku, standing behind him, instantly felt perfectly safe. His brother was here—and that meant no one would be able to touch him.
These wretches had come here, threatened death, and made Izuku tremble in fear. Deep inside the trio, a dull, iron-hard rage flared up, which they struggled to contain, remembering the control they had practiced in their nightly training.
Aizawa had already leapt down into the swarm of villains, swinging his binding cloth and erasing the enemies' Quirks on the fly. The class bolted toward the exit, but before they could make more than a few steps, the violet mist surged upward right in front of them, blocking the only evacuation route.
From that thick darkness, a strange, grotesque figure began to form. The villain had no normal human body—it consisted entirely of swirling, inky mist that constantly shifted shape like living smoke. He wore a neat suit with a metal neck-brace that held the gaseous mass together. Amidst the formless black face, two long, slanted yellow eyes glowed with a cold, piercing light as they examined the students.
"Nice to meet you. We are the League of Villains," the mist-creature spoke in a polite, respectful, yet utterly dead and hollow voice, as his smoky body began to expand rapidly, turning into a massive, impenetrable wall. "Our goal is All Might. And since he is not here, it is my duty to separate you and entertain my comrades throughout the complex until you breathe your last."
Bakugo and Kirishima lunged forward with shouts, attempting to blast the mist with physical force, but the explosion simply passed through the smoke, causing the entity no harm. In the next moment, the living mist spread its dark tendrils several meters around, forming a solid cloud of darkness that engulfed Class 1-A.
"Scatter," the voice echoed beneath the dome.
Spatial vortices opened directly beneath the students' feet. Izuku cried out as the ground beneath him vanished, and he began to fall into the violet abyss of the portal. Grimm and Myla lunged toward him at the same time, trying to grab his hands, but the mist-villain's magic was too fast—they were dragged into separate whirlwinds, mercilessly breaking their family circle and scattering them to different corners of the USJ.
The Nightmare King was tossed exactly into the center of the Fire Zone. It was a living hell: old buildings groaned under the heat, roofs were collapsing, sending billions of glowing embers into the air, and the thick smoke made it hard to breathe. From behind a wall of fire, about fifteen low-ranking villains, armed with chains and knives, lunged at him.
"Look, a kid!" the gang leader, a burly man with a Quirk that grew stone spikes on his arms, sneered with a repulsive grin. "Hey, brat, lost your way? Don't worry, we'll give you a 'warm' welcome! You aren't leaving this place alive, you're going straight to the grave!"
Grimm stood calmly in the midst of the chaos—the fire around him was his home. Yet, inside, a cold, dangerous rage was roiling: these wretches dared to separate him from Izuku. He clearly remembered their nightly training, where the three of them had pushed themselves to the brink to master fine, surgical control. Grimm would act like a surgeon—meticulous, precise, and clean.
The first villain swung a heavy chain, but Grimm didn't even flinch. A light, fluid pirouette to the side—the chain whistled through empty air. The Nightmare King instantly closed the distance to the attacker's face. A short, barely audible snap of his fingers right by the villain's chest. A small, concentrated cluster of crimson fire, the size of a tennis ball, struck the solar plexus. The enemy was instantly thrown back by a kinetic shockwave; he gasped for air and collapsed into unconsciousness. No severe burns, no unnecessary collateral damage—just a clean, precise strike.
"What the hell?! Flank him, he's going to burn our whole operation down!" someone from the crowd screamed.
Grimm moved like a world-class dancer on a stage. He gracefully dodged their clumsy strikes, twirling between burning beams and using micro-bursts of flame to knock out enemy after enemy. One strike—one unconscious villain. In a few minutes, the entire gang lay on the ground. Grimm, not even breathless, brushed the ash from his shoulder and strode toward the zone's exit, scanning the area for Izuku.
Meanwhile, in the Landslide Zone, the situation was entirely different. A solid wall of cold water poured from artificial clouds, turning the ground into a swamp. Visibility was near zero due to the dense mist and storm. Myla had been thrown there alongside Tokoyami and Jiro onto slippery metal catwalks. Awaiting them was an ambush of villains whose Quirks were perfectly suited for the weather.
"Oh, look, the little heroes walked right into our trap!" a malicious voice rang out—the group's leader, brandishing electric knuckles. "Well, kiddos, ready for the storm? We'll give you a cold shower! We promise it'll be a clean job, so don't even bother struggling—you won't make it out of here dry!"
Myla stepped forward, shielding her classmates. Cold water ran down her face; her amber eyes flashed sternly in the dim light. She was furious about being separated from Izuku, but she held herself back with every ounce of willpower, remembering their promise to maintain a balance of power and not reveal the true might of a Goddess of Light without necessity.
"You guys, close your eyes and cover them tight with your hands. Now," she commanded sharply.
Jiro and Tokoyami, sensing an unusual, crushing power in her voice, obeyed instantly. As the bandits lunged at her with wild cries, Myla slowly raised her right hand, palm open toward the mob. She focused on her internal control, gathering Light energy at a single point. Instead of a massive explosion, she released an incredibly dense, focused beam of pure white radiance. It acted like a high-powered military spotlight.
The gloomy, rainy darkness of the zone was torn apart by a blinding, cutting flash. The villains instantly clutched their faces, letting out wild screams—Myla's beam had literally burned their retinas for the next few hours, completely blinding them. They tumbled helplessly backward into the mud, tripping over the railings.
"Dark Shadow, clear the rest," Myla commanded calmly.
Tokoyami quickly released his shadow, which easily scattered the blinded foes. Myla, not even looking back at them, was the first to bolt toward the exit, wiping the rain from her face.
Back at the Central Plaza, events were unfolding in a way the villains least expected. When the mist-creature covered the Class 1-A group with its purple smoke, preparing to scatter them, it suddenly froze. The teleport-villain's two long, yellow eyes widened in shock and confusion within his formless, smoky face.
He clearly felt that his spatial magic simply... could not find a foothold. The thick, heavy Void within Shade was so monolithic and so utterly alien to this universe that the teleportation vortex passed through him as if he were an empty space. Shade walked forward with calm, absolute indifference, emerging from the purple smoke to stand firmly in the center of the plaza. His tall, powerful frame, no less imposing than Grimm's, made the mist-villain hiss in baffled frustration.
Down below, near the large central fountain, Shota Aizawa was already fighting a grueling battle against thirty thugs on his own. Shade headed down the stairs in silence. Arriving in the heart of the chaos, the tall figure of the Lord of Shadows stood back-to-back with Aizawa without a word.
It was a battle of two masters. Aizawa erased the attackers' Quirks with his fierce gaze, while Shade, utilizing his honed control of the Void, extended tendrils from the darkness, turning them into sturdy, flexible whips. One lightning-fast strike of a shadow-whip intercepted a villain with a machete who tried a cowardly sneak attack on the teacher's back. The Void coiled around the attacker's leg, and Shade slammed him into the stone tiles of the plaza, knocking him out with a single strike. They moved in perfect synchronization, covering each other's blind spots.
"Why didn't you evacuate?! Get back! This isn't a game!" Aizawa panted, glancing in surprise at his student. Shade didn't answer, continuing to hold the line in silence.
But the sheer number of enemies was taking its toll. From behind a large stone boulder, a massive villain suddenly lunged forward; his Quirk allowed him to enlarge his fists to the size of car tires, covering them in iron armor. Aizawa was busy fending off others and couldn't turn his head in time.
The giant iron hand whistled through the air, aimed straight at Shade's head. The bandit shouted ferociously:
"Catch this, kid! I'm gonna beat the nonsense out of you!"
The Lord of Shadows managed to block the brunt of the force with his body, but the villain's iron hand clipped him, striking his face squarely.
A dull, sharp, cracking sound tore through the noise of the battle—the white mask-helmet Shade had been wearing, provided by the support course, shattered in half and fell to the ground with a dry thud. The villain who dealt the blow grinned triumphantly, expecting to see the face of an ordinary teenager... but his victory cry instantly died in his throat.
Shade reacted instantly. To avoid revealing his true face to the enemies and to completely crush their morale, he immediately unleashed the power of his Quirk. Thick, black Void instantly coated his head beneath the hood, completely hiding his human features. The bandit faltered mid-word, his massive fist trembling convulsively, and his face was slowly contorted by a deathly, animalistic terror. Looking at him from beneath the deep hood now was impenetrable darkness, roiling and literally absorbing the sunlight. And amidst this artificially summoned dead blackness, two pure-white pupils burned with a cold light. They did not blink.
The entire Central Plaza suddenly grew unnaturally, abnormally cold. Vapor began to rise from the villains' mouths. The tall, powerful figure, his face hidden by a swirling abyss, weighed on their minds with his sinister presence. The bandits began to drop their weapons in a panic, retreating toward the fountain.
"What is this hell?! Does he even have a face?!" one of the villains screamed, falling to his knees and trying to scramble away. Aizawa swallowed hard, keeping his bewildered gaze fixed on his student. He had seen hundreds of the weirdest mutations and grotesque Quirks in his life, but the effect Shade was creating, combined with this sudden abnormal chill, cut right to the bone.
At that exact moment, Izuku, along with Asui and Mineta, finally rushed onto the plaza from the Shipwreck Zone. They had just survived a harrowing trial by water, where aquatic villains—including a shark-mutant with a harpoon—had been lying in wait. However, thanks to Izuku's analysis, they had managed to sink a ship, trap the fish-men, and sprint to their teacher's aid.
The villain leader, Shigaraki, irritably scratched his neck until it bled, staring at the imposing Shade and then at Izuku.
"What a boring, unpredictable, and annoying character under that hood... He's breaking my entire game. And here's that Quirkless boy. Nomu, kill him. Let's see how this black monster dances when his toy gets broken."
The gigantic blue-black carcass with the exposed brain surged forward with such speed that the air exploded with a sonic boom. Shade lunged instantly to intercept, throwing long whips of Void forward, but the Nomu was too fast.
From the opposite sides of the plaza, Grimm and Myla burst onto the scene at the same time. They froze, and for the entire trio, time seemed to stand still.
The Quirkless Izuku didn't even have time to react before a massive, heavy, clawed hand of the blue monster wrapped around his thin body with a dull, terrifying thud. The Nomu lifted the boy completely off the ground, crushing his ribcage in an iron vise.
Izuku wheezed helplessly, his face twisted in pain; the air was instantly forced from his lungs, and his green eyes widened in shock and sharp agony. His trusty hero analysis notebook slipped from his fingers and fell onto the cold stone tiles of the plaza, right into the dust, with a quiet rustle of pages.
At that very same moment, Grimm, Myla, and Shade watched the grotesque monster choke their only, Quirkless brother, who had no way to defend himself.