The sound was deafening.
It was the explosion of a tree weighing many tons, expanding from a marble to its full size, impacting the wall of debris with the force of an artillery shell.
The ground shook so violently that Izuku was thrown against the inner wall.
"AAAAH!!"
A sharp scream tore from his throat, distorted by the respirator. The pain from his broken ankle, which he had been managing, skyrocketed until it became unbearable. Momo's splint cracked under the new pressure.
"The wall! The wall has fallen!" Ochako's voice was a cry of pure panic from outside the fortress. "They're getting in!"
A shower of rocks, dirt, and wood splinters rained down on them. The dust was so thick it was choking, and for a second, all was silent, except for the ringing in Izuku's ears.
"Shit..." Izuku's voice was a grunt choked by pain and dust. "Report... status report!"
"I'm fine!" Kirishima yelled, his voice already hardened. "Momo, behind me now!"
Momo coughed, dust swirling around her.
"Tch! They finally stopped playing around!" Bakugo's voice sounded almost cheerful, a low, expectant growl.
Silhouettes emerged from the dust cloud in the newly opened breach.
Dabi entered first. Hands in his pockets, coat fluttering, a lazy smile on his burned face. He didn't even look like he was in a fight.
Behind him, Mr. Compress adjusted his hat with theatrical elegance, as if he had just arrived at an opera. "What a... dramatic entrance. Though I do prefer the main door."
Spinner was third, raising his grotesque sword made of knives, his reptile eyes glowing with fanatic fervor. "For Stain's cause! Your false refuge has fallen!"
And then, behind them, chaos.
"ATTACK!" "NO, WAIT!" "WE'RE GONNA DIE!" "WE'RE GONNA KILL THEM!"
A swarm of Twice clones, identical, gray, and loud, surged from the forest, flooding the breach like a tide of madness. They stumbled over each other, shouting contradictory orders.
"They're coming from everywhere!" Kirishima yelled, planting himself in front of Momo, his arms already turned to jagged rock.
"Bakugo, artillery! Clear the entrance! Don't let them get set!" Izuku's voice cut through the panic. He had to give orders; the pain was secondary. "Todoroki! The main breach! Seal it! Now!"
Todoroki, already moving, slammed his right foot on the ground. "You don't have to tell me, Midoriya!"
A massive, monstrous wall of jagged ice erupted from the ground. It was an explosion of glacial spikes that shot toward the sky, sealing the ten meter breach Dabi and Compress had just entered.
The ice slammed into the first Twice clones, freezing them on the spot.
Dabi, who had entered just in time, looked at the ice wall without moving. He clicked his tongue. "Pathetic."
"Pathetic?" Todoroki's voice was cold. "It's effective. Now you're trapped in here."
"Trapped?" Dabi let out a dry, humorless laugh. "Kid. You're just delaying the inevitable."
"Ah, but you forgot the back door!" yelled one of Twice's voices from the other side of the clearing.
"Shit!" Izuku's head snapped around. "They're flanking us! The other side!"
A second group of clones, this one led by the real Spinner, had ignored the main breach. They had scaled Inko's three meter debris walls and were now jumping into the broken fortress.
"Mom! Containment! Don't let them get to Momo!"
Inko didn't answer. She was already moving. A nearby tree was ripped from the ground like a weed and slammed into the jumping group, sweeping away half the Twice clones.
But Spinner was faster. He dodged the trunk and landed in the center of the clearing, just meters from Kirishima and Ragdoll.
"Kirishima, Ragdoll! Protect Momo at all costs!" Izuku ordered, his voice tight with pain.
"On it!" Kirishima roared, slamming his hardened fists together. "Hey, lizard face! Your fight is with me!"
"You won't get past!" Ragdoll growled, crouching in a feline stance, her metal claws gleaming.
Spinner raised his sword. "I've come to purge the false heroes! And you, the red haired one, are the worst! A man who only cares about being 'manly'!"
"What?!" Kirishima looked genuinely offended. "Being manly means protecting your friends! And you're the villain!"
"Stain's conviction is true justice! Yours is vanity!" Spinner lunged, his sword a whirlwind of rusty, sharp blades.
Kirishima intercepted him. The sound of metal screeching against his hardened skin was a high pitched shriek that made his teeth ache.
"Your knives are weak!" Kirishima pushed, gaining ground.
"My will is stronger!" Spinner yelled, backing off and attacking again.
"Don't let him talk, Kiri!" Ragdoll yelled and dodged a sideways cut to attack Spinner's flank, her claws seeking an opening in his improvised armor of knives. "His movements are erratic, but he's fast! Keep pressing!"
"Got it!" Kirishima charged again. "I don't care about Stain! You're hurting people, and I'm going to stop you!"
While the battle on the flank turned into a duel of wills, the center of the clearing became a personal hell for Katsuki Bakugo.
He was surrounded. Completely.
"HAHAHAHA! I'M EVERYWHERE!" a dozen Twice clones screamed in unison.
"We got you!" "No, I got you!" "You're dead, hero!" "I surrender!"
Bakugo looked around, his red eyes bloodshot. A slow, savage smile spread across his face.
"SHUT UP!"
Bakugo exploded. Literally.
He created an omnidirectional detonation, a "Stun Grenade." The blast of light and heat was blinding. The closest clones vaporized instantly, their gray bodies turning to mud.
"HA! IS THAT ALL YOU'VE GOT!" Bakugo panted, smoke rising from his palms.
"Wrong!" yelled a new clone, jumping from the top of Todoroki's ice wall.
"We're over here!" yelled another, emerging from behind a tree.
"We'll never leave!"
More. There were always more.
"MORE!" Bakugo roared, his face twisted into a mask of pure sadistic joy. "BRING IT ON! I NEED ALL OF YOU! MORE CANNON FODDER!"
He lunged into the swarm, his hands becoming a blur of controlled explosions.
"'AP SHOT'!"
A concentrated shot blasted through a clone's chest.
"TOO SLOW!"
BOOM. A point blank explosion sent another one flying.
"WEAKER!"
BOOM.
"MORE BORING!"
BOOM.
"I'LL BLAST YOU ALL 'TIL THERE'S NOT EVEN DUST LEFT!"
"You're crazy!" screamed a clone, just before being obliterated.
"I love it!" screamed another.
"SHUT UP AND DIE!"
At the main breach, the battle of titans had resumed. Dabi stared at Todoroki's imposing ice wall with almost insulting boredom.
"Ice. How boring," Dabi repeated, his voice lazy. "Just like your father. You got anything else? No fire?"
Todoroki ignored him, his eyes fixed on the villain. He sent another wave of ice, this time along the ground, trying to freeze Dabi's feet.
"I don't need fire to stop you."
"Really?" Dabi didn't even move. The heat radiating from his body melted the ice a meter away. "Because I think you do."
Dabi raised a hand.
A torrent of blue flames, so intense they glowed almost white, slammed into Todoroki's ice wall.
In an instant, the five meter thick ice wall became an explosion of boiling steam. A blinding cloud covered the clearing, obscuring everyone's vision.
"Mom, watch out!" Izuku yelled, trying to see through the hot fog. "He'll use the steam for cover!"
Too late. Dabi moved quickly through the fog he himself had created. He completely ignored Todoroki.
He appeared directly in front of Inko.
"You seem strong, mommy," Dabi mocked, his burned face inches from hers. "Prove it."
He launched a point blank blast of fire.
Inko created a shield of rock and earth, torn from the ground at her feet, which rose in a fraction of a second, intercepting the blue fire.
The rock glowed red hot. The flames engulfed it. But it held.
"Stay away from my son," Inko's voice was a low growl, her green eyes shining with power.
"How touching!" Dabi smiled. "But what will you do when your son is already dead?"
"I told you to fight me!"
Todoroki attacked from the flank, taking advantage of Dabi's distraction. A huge wave of ice surged, seeking to trap him.
"Don't order me around, pretty boy!" Dabi leaped back with surprising agility, melting the ice before it touched him. He landed ten meters away, with Inko and Todoroki in front of him.
"You two are a pain!" Dabi growled. "You're ruining the fun."
"It's not fun, it's a battle!" Todoroki prepared another ice wave.
"Really?" Dabi tilted his head. "No. For me, this is just work. But for you..." His smile widened. "For you it's personal, isn't it, Shoto?"
Todoroki froze for a fraction of a second.
"How do you know my...?"
"Your name? I know lots of things," Dabi said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "I know all about Endeavor. I know what he did to you. And I know you're terrified to use his fire."
"Shut up." Todoroki's voice was barely a whisper.
"You're using your mother's ice to fight, but you've got your father's fire boiling inside! How poetic! How tragic!"
"I SAID SHUT UP!" Todoroki roared, losing his composure. An avalanche of ice, much larger and wilder than the previous ones, rushed toward Dabi.
Dabi simply melted it with a wave of blue fire. "There it is! That's the rage I was looking for! Use it, Shoto! Show me your father's fire!"
Izuku watched everything, his mind clouded by pain.
"Bakugo is contained by the clones. It's a stalemate, but they're wearing him down."
"Todoroki and Mom are at a standstill with Dabi. But Dabi is provoking him. He's playing with him."
"Spinner is being held back by Kirishima and Ragdoll. Good. They're holding."
"Ochako is covering the outer ground with gravity traps. Good."
His brain processed the information. And found a gap.
"Where...?"
He turned his head, searching frantically.
"Where is Compress?"
"Ochako!" he yelled. "Do you see Compress?!"
"Negative!" Ochako's voice sounded distant. "He hasn't come out! I don't see him!"
"No... no..." Izuku whispered. "He didn't come out. He's here. He's... in the smoke! In the...!"
"Were you looking for someone, little leader?"
The theatrical voice came from his right.
Izuku snapped his head around so fast his neck cracked.
Mr. Compress was there. Only five meters away. He had used Dabi's fight, the steam, Bakugo's chaos, to sneak past.
He had completely ignored the main fights. Ignored the fighters. Ignored Izuku.
His eyes, visible behind the holes in his mask, were fixed on the most valuable target. The team's weapon factory.
He appeared, with a theatrical gesture, right in front of Momo.
Momo cried out, a sound choked by surprise. Instinctively, she tried to create a metal shield on her arm.
"A marvelous performance, mademoiselle," Compress said, bowing theatrically in the middle of the battle. "What an energetic defense. But, as they say... it is time to lower the curtain."
His gloved hand moved with an elegant, precise speed, straight toward Momo's forehead.
Momo was paralyzed. He was too fast. He was too close.
"MOMO!" Ochako screamed from the other side of the clearing, but she was too far to help.
"BASTARD!" Kirishima roared, but Spinner had him locked down.
Izuku saw it. Time stopped.
Pain. The gas still burned in his lungs. The broken ankle.
He couldn't jump. He couldn't run. He couldn't intercept.
He was useless. He was injured. He was a leader who couldn't protect his team.
Momo was about to be captured. Their weapon factory, their support strategist, their friend. They were going to lose.
No.
Despair turned into an icy clarity.
I can't run. I can't jump.
But I can move.
"MOMO!"
Izuku's scream was so loud everyone turned.
Momo, in her second of panic, looked at Izuku.
"Izuku, no...!"
"A STAFF!" Izuku yelled, his voice distorted by the respirator. "NOW! CREATE A REINFORCED METAL STAFF! THROW IT TO ME!"
Momo didn't understand. Why a staff? Why now?
"What...? Izuku, he's right here!"
"TRUST ME!! THROW IT!!"
Momo's mind, trained to follow tactical orders under pressure, reacted. Her right arm glowed. A reinforced metal staff, a meter and a half long, appeared in her hand.
"NOW!"
She threw it with all her strength, a desperate, poorly aimed sideways throw, in Izuku's direction.
At the same time.
"MOM!"
Inko turned in the middle of her battle with Dabi.
"IZUKU?!"
Dabi tried to use the distraction. "Not so fast, old woman! Your fight is with me...!"
"FORGET HIM! MOM, THROW ME! NOW!"
Inko didn't hesitate. She saw the staff flying through the air. She saw Mr. Compress, his hand inches from Momo. She saw her son, injured but defiant.
She understood the impossible plan.
"HOLD ON!"
Dabi looked confused. "Throw you...?"
A vector of pure green power, visible and undeniable, wrapped around Izuku.
Inko launched her son across the battlefield.
Izuku became a human projectile.
The air whistled in his ears. The respirator felt tight against his face from the sheer G force. The world became a tunnel of blurred vision.
He saw the staff.
He reached out, his trained agility reacting instinctively in mid air. His fingers closed around the cold metal.
He saw Mr. Compress.
The villain was turning, his elegance broken by surprise. "What a...!"
Izuku twisted in mid air, using the unstoppable force of his mother's launch to add devastating torque. He put all his weight, all his pain, all his rage into that strike.
"TAKE THIS!!"
It connected.
The reinforced metal staff, loaded with all the force of Inko's vector and Izuku's desperate spin, slammed directly into Mr. Compress's face.
The sound was a dull, wet, disgusting 'CRACK'.
The villain's white, theatrical mask split in two, revealing a face underneath that no one had seen. Mr. Compress's eyes rolled back. He flew backward, hitting the fortress wall with a dull thud and collapsing to the ground, motionless, stunned or dead.
And then, Izuku landed.
The launch had been the tactic. The landing was the consequence.
The compression splint Momo had created disintegrated from the G force of the launch and the impact. He landed with all his weight, and the force of an object thrown at high speed, on his already broken ankle.
A sound of bone breaking echoed up his own leg.
The pain was so sharp it blinded him for an instant. It erased Dabi. It erased Spinner. It erased his team.
He fell to his knees, but instinct kept him from collapsing completely.
He clung to the metal staff, which was now stained with blood and pieces of the mask. He jammed it into the earth with a growl.
The clearing fell deathly silent.
The battle stopped.
Dabi, in the middle of a flare, stopped it. His lazy smile vanished.
Spinner, about to drive his sword into Kirishima, froze.
Kirishima and Ragdoll lowered their guard, staring in horror.
Bakugo, hand raised for another explosion, let the last Twice clone dissolve into mud.
All eyes, villain and hero, were fixed on the center of the clearing.
They saw Mr. Compress on the ground, stunned, his mask broken, bleeding.
And they saw Izuku.
He was on his knees, gasping in irregular spasms that shook his whole body. Blood dripped from his forehead. Cold sweat ran down his face, mixing with the dirt. The pain in his ankle was a torment shooting up his leg.
But he wasn't finished.
"Get up..." he whispered, his voice a rasp. "Get up... get up..."
Using the staff as a third point of support, he forced himself to move. His legs were shaking so violently they barely held him. The sweat stung his eyes.
With a guttural groan, he stood up.
He staggered, his weight almost overcoming him, but he stayed upright. Leaning on the staff, trembling from head to toe, defiant.
The first to react was Dabi.
A slow, cruel smile, a new smile, spread across his burned face. He began to clap. Slowly, sarcastically.
"Well, well. The little leader decided to join the party. And what a dramatic entrance."
Dabi started walking toward him, ignoring Todoroki and Inko. "That was stupid. It was reckless. It was a suicidal move. And it was absolutely impressive."
Izuku raised his head. The pain was blinding, but the adrenaline from the synergy with his mother, from protecting his team, kept him conscious.
He looked at Mr. Compress, who was groaning on the ground. Then he looked at Dabi.
"My... team..." Izuku panted, his voice barely a whisper distorted by the respirator.
Dabi stopped. "What?"
Izuku took a deep, shuddering breath. "My team!" he yelled, his voice a roar of pain and defiance.
"Nobody... touches... my team!"
Ochako ran first. She landed at his side, her knuckles white. "We're with you, Deku kun."
Momo ran to his other side, her tears dry, her face hardened with determination. She created a metal shield on her arm. "We won't fall."
Kirishima and Ragdoll moved, forming a defensive semicircle around Izuku and Momo.
"To the end, man," Kirishima slammed his fists together.
Todoroki and Inko moved to flank them, reforming the line. Inko stood directly beside her son, her green eyes fixed on Dabi, her power swirling around her.
The fortress was broken. The team was not.
Dabi looked at the line of broken and bloodied students, and the furious mother, all surrounding their injured leader.
"Great," Dabi said, his smile vanishing, replaced by a cold irritation. "One last round. And this time... I won't play so nice."