The sky south of the I-Island had transformed into a battlefield.
Green explosions tore through the darkness like lightning, followed by rumbles that reverberated across the ocean. Columns of steam rose from the water whenever glowing wreckage plunged into the surface.
Amidst the explosions, metallic silhouettes crossed the sky in coordinated pursuit.
But what truly dominated the field of vision was a green blur.
A green trail that changed direction abruptly, breaking impossible vectors, ascending, descending, inverting, disappearing and reappearing before the Sentinels' sensors could lock on.
Ryo sliced through two Sentinels in sequence, the first being split in half by an elbow strike that crushed its thoracic structure, the second receiving a direct impact that opened a perfectly spherical hole in its chest. Both exploded behind him before their systems could even recalibrate.
They couldn't keep up with the speed at which the target was moving.
Ryo appeared next to another Sentinel, grabbed it by the metallic arm, and pulled with enough force to dislocate the shoulder joint. The robot tried to stabilize its thrusters—
Too late.
Ryo spun his body.
And used the Sentinel itself as a bat.
The impact against the next robot was brutal. Metal against metal reverberated through the sky like the sound of one anvil colliding with another. Plates flew. Structures were crushed. The metallic "bat" began to deform with each strike.
"They're actually quite decent if used as *weapons*."
He kept spinning, hitting another, then another, each collision crushing and shattering structures. Husks were thrown far away, plummeting into the ocean like artificial meteors.
When the Sentinel in his hand was nothing more than the upper half of a torso, with its internals exposed, Ryo hurled it in a violent spin toward another coming on an intercept course.
The collision generated an explosion in the air.
Ryo shot upward immediately.
A Sentinel tried to block his trajectory.
It received a direct punch to its metallic face.
The frontal structure shattered instantly, fragments breaking away from the frame in slow motion and scattering through the air.
Ryo extended an open hand.
—Gamma Blast
A massive explosion engulfed the robot and disintegrated it completely before it could fall.
Without slowing down, Ryo switched to Gamma Rays and went after the others.
Green beams crossed the sky in straight lines, striking Sentinels from a distance and melting their husks almost instantly. Metal dripped like wax before fragmenting and falling.
"Looks like they can't keep up with my speed."
He analyzed while moving.
"If I keep this up… I can clear out all the ones here in a few milliseconds."
He glanced around quickly.
No new signs emerging on the horizon.
"Seems like they've stopped coming… good."
That's when something crossed his field of vision.
A blur.
Too fast.
The impact came before the thought finished.
A metallic fist collided with his face.
The blow sent him flying backward in a straight line, tearing through the air until he hit the ocean surface at a shallow angle. The water exploded beneath his feet as he forced stabilization, being dragged dozens of meters before halting the motion with a reverse blast that lifted a liquid wall behind him.
He looked up.
The Sentinel that had hit him hovered above.
With no visible active thrusters.
Ryo frowned slightly.
"This one's different…"
The robot vanished in the same instant.
It reappeared in front of Ryo with another straight punch.
Ryo raised his arm and blocked easily, the impact exploding into a shockwave that lifted a column of water right below them, soaking them completely.
"Pretty fast... But the strength is the same as the others."
Before he could react, other Sentinels seized the moment.
Now that he wasn't in extreme acceleration, they began advancing together.
One grabbed his shoulder.
Another locked onto his leg.
Two more latched onto his back.
Ryo raised an eyebrow.
"Seriously?"
They piled onto him like ants on prey, metallic limbs interlocking and locking, trying to immobilize him.
Ryo shot upward with a violent blast from his feet, taking them all along. The entire group ascended like an inverted meteor.
But the Sentinels kept clinging on.
Until, seen from afar, they looked like a compact metallic sphere enveloping his body.
For a second, they just hung there silently in the air.
Then green lights began to emerge from between the metallic joints.
Energy Release: Gamma Rebuke
And a massive bright sun-like explosion came from within the sphere of bodies.
A huge gamma energy release that expanded in all directions, tearing the Sentinels from his body and instantly vaporizing parts of them. Molten fragments spun through the sky before plummeting into the ocean below.
Ryo emerged with his arms extended to the sides and legs together, the green aura seeming more intense as he adopted this human-cross position.
He watched the bodies fall.
And then—
A heat beam struck him from behind.
He shifted his body by centimeters, taking no damage from it, but another beam came.
And another.
And another.
In seconds, eight continuous beams were concentrated on him, fired by a group of Sentinels positioned strategically around him.
The air vibrated under the thermal pressure.
Ryo clenched his teeth, receiving the attacks head-on while his hand, raised in front of his face, pushed one of the beams sideways.
"I can do that too…"
The pressure increased, slowly pushing him backward through the air.
But his eyes began to glow an intense green.
"…only better."
A beam was fired from his eyes.
It wasn't just a beam—it was a concentrated stream of gamma energy, dense and powerful. It overwhelmed one of the Sentinel's beams, pushing it back in a straight line until it struck the emitter.
The robot was completely pierced through by the beam.
Split vertically in half.
But Ryo didn't stop there.
He spun his body on its axis, keeping the beam active.
The green line swept across the sky like a circular blade, striking and cutting through the other Sentinels horizontally before they could stop their fire and regroup.
The metallic halves began to fall like incandescent rain.
Ryo ceased his energy beam, eyes still glowing.
Turning slowly toward the last Sentinel, the one that flew without thrusters.
"It's just only me and you now..."
----------------------------------------
Kirishima and Midoriya rushed across the lobby, carrying Daigo's unconscious body between them on their shoulders. The main elevator stood imposingly before them, its metal doors closed like one of their last options for reaching the top.
Carefully, they lifted Daigo up to the recognition panel. A beam of blue light scanned the unconscious man's face.
[ID confirmed. Access authorized.]
The beep sounded like music to their ears.
"It worked!" Kirishima exclaimed, almost losing his grip on the weight in his arms.
"Yes!" Midoriya added, his eyes shining before he turned to the rest of the class. "Come on! Everything's good!"
The group ran towards the elevator. Melissa was following close behind, but her steps slowed until she stopped halfway. Her head was lowered, shoulders trembling slightly.
Dash, who was helping guide the others along with Iida, noticed.
"Hey, Melissa…" he called out, taking a few steps back. "Come on, we have to go. We need you."
She lifted her face.
Her blue eyes were welling up, and her usually round, gentle expression now seemed fragile.
"Do you… are you really sure that Rito-kun will be okay?"
Seeing Melissa like that caught Dash off guard.
For a moment, he didn't answer.
Melissa hugged her own arms, as if trying to hold herself together.
"I haven't known him as long as you have… but that doesn't stop me from worrying about him."
She took a deep breath, her eyelashes trembling.
"He was the first person I ever saved. The first one who called me a hero... But seeing things now… it feels like that didn't mean anything. I couldn't help him when he really needed it. Maybe… maybe I was right all the time. A quirkless girl like me doesn't have much to do."
Dash stood still for a few seconds. Then, a small smile curved his lips.
"He'll be okay."
The conviction in his voice was simple and straightforward.
"I've seen Takeda go through way worse than this." He crossed his arms, relaxed despite his damaged suit. "And to be honest? I've never felt this confident in him before. The look he gave me back there seemed… stronger. More determined."
His gaze drifted for a moment, remembering the instant the Sentinels dragged Ryo away.
The determined look in his friend's eyes.
"I don't know what happened to him… but whatever it was, he came back better than ever. And that makes it easier for me to believe in him."
Melissa watched him in silence. The wind from the ventilation system gently stirred the blonde strands over her shoulders.
After a few seconds, she raised her hand and wiped away tears that hadn't even fallen.
"I understand. Thank you."
She took a deep breath, recomposing the gentle smile that seemed so much a part of her.
"You two seem to have a good friendship. I feel a little jealous."
Dash let out a low laugh.
"It's nothing special. It's just the trust between bros!"
Melissa laughed along with Dash, until the blonde felt a firm touch on his shoulder.
He turned just his head, confused.
Pony was there.
Her smile was sweet, but her eyes had a firm, slightly threatening gleam.
"We need to go. Now."
Dash swallowed hard.
"O-Okay…"
With that, he joined the others in the elevator under the girl's watchful gaze, as the metal doors began to close, isolating them from the chaos outside.
In the control room, Senju No. 2's gaze alternated between two windows: one showing the percentage of the copy process of all the Tower's information, which was at 35%, and another with the footage of the group in the elevator.
"Boss."
He tried to call Wolfram, but he was busy arguing with Mirage.
"You just sent all the merchandise and heavy weaponry to capture a single kid?!" he snarled.
Mirage crossed her arms, cold.
"Capturing him is worth more than everything in this operation." She rolled her eyes. "Typical of mercenaries… they can only see figures, never the real gain. No wonder they're called rats."
Wolfram frowned, irritated.
"What did you just say, you doppelganger?"
Senju No. 2 let out a quiet sigh.
"Seems like it's just me…"
He spun in his chair, fingers flying across the keyboard.
His eyes gleamed as he looked at the tower map showing the elevator going up.
"We'll stop you on the 130th floor… and see how far you can get with a few traps."
He typed quick commands, locking the main system and activating the security protocols for floors 131 through 150.
In the elevator, the number climbed… 126… 127… 128…
CLANK
The elevator shuddered violently and stopped.
The lights flickered.
"What was that?!" Kaminari's eyes widened.
The digital display froze on the 130th floor.
"Why did we stop?" Sero asked, looking at the ceiling as if expecting the answer to be there.
Melissa was already at the internal panel, her agile fingers typing beneath it.
"They froze the elevator…" she said, opening a side cover and starting to fiddle with the exposed wires of the circuit board. "Looks like we'll have to get out here."
The doors opened as soon as Melissa made a direct connection between the wires.
The hallway of the 130th floor revealed itself just ahead, the group quickly exiting to look for the emergency stairs to continue their ascent.
Dash brought up the rear, alert to their surroundings. Pony kept four horns floating around the group, ready to react.
They went down the hallway until they reached a large room with automatic doors that slid open before them.
The sign above indicated:
Central Laboratory – 130th Floor
As soon as they entered, they were met with hundreds of red gleams lighting up in the darkness.
Security robots rose from their charging stations, metal structures creaking as they moved.
"There are so many…" Kaminari gulped. "So? What do we—"
"Out of the way, idiot!"
Bakugo shot past him like a human projectile.
Thrusting his hand forward and unleashing a powerful explosion that created a deafening roar.
The shockwave swept through the first row of robots, knocking dozens down at once.
"HAH! Is that all you've got?!"
Midoriya advanced right behind him.
25% — DETROIT SMASH!
He punched one of the robots, the impact spreading to the others behind it due to the air pressure that dispersed in a violent arc, hurling one robot into five others behind it. The floor cracked beneath his feet.
His arm tingled, and a sharp pain shot through his muscles.
"Three uses left…" he thought, clenching his teeth. "This pain is nothing; someone out there is going through worse than me right now, so this is no time to be sulking!"
But the thought was interrupted by an explosion right next to him.
"DEKU! Get out of my way!"
Bakugo appeared, sweat exploding from his palms, detonating an entire group behind Midoriya. The smoke engulfed them both for a moment.
Midoriya stood still, staring at Bakugo through the haze.
The explosive blonde waved the smoke away with an irritated flick of his arm.
"What are you doing, standing still in the middle of the battlefield?! Keep fighting these clankers!"
More robots advanced.
But before another explosion or punch could be launched—
A sudden cold swept through the area.
Todoroki walked forward, the right side of his body wreathed in cold vapor.
"We're wasting time."
Ice spread like a white wave across the laboratory, freezing and creating ice crystals that spread like roots beneath the machines, trapping them. Midoriya and Bakugo were avoided with pinpoint precision, the ice curving around their feet.
"Nice work, man!" Kirishima praised.
Bakugo spun around abruptly.
"Hey! I don't remember asking for help, Half-and-Half! I could have blown up all these clankers in an instant!"
Todoroki walked past him without even changing his expression.
"Yeah. Yeah." he replied, emotionless. "You can do that next time. We're wasting precious time now."
He kept walking towards the lab's exit.
"We have more urgent matters."
The group began to follow him.
Bakugo gritted his teeth, smoke escaping his clenched hands.
"You damn bastard..."
Before he could protest further, Kirishima appeared from behind, placing his hands on his friend's shoulders and pushing him.
"Let's go, let's go! We gotta move!"
Bakugo slipped on the ice involuntarily, sliding a few meters.
"HEY! STOP PUSHING ME, YOU HARDHEAD!"
"Relax! You'll still get a chance to blow up plenty of stuff!"
As the two argued, the rest of the class was already advancing towards the next exit, leaving behind the laboratory filled with machines trapped in ice — and time ticking against them.
----------------------------------------
The night sky was a blur of stars and tattered clouds as Ryo tried to keep up with the metallic figure ahead of him.
The Sentinel vanished and reappeared in short bursts of acceleration, the air exploding behind it as it broke the sound barrier. Ryo dodged by instinct, tilting his body, adjusting his center of gravity, propelling himself with his own Individuality — but the difference was clear.
"He's not necessarily faster than me…" Ryo analyzed, his eyes tracking the luminous trail. "It's just that his initial acceleration is absurd."
The Sentinel appeared to his left.
A punch hit him in the face, compressing the air around him and sending him flying dozens of meters backward. The world spun, the wind tearing at his ears.
Another blow.
And another.
Metallic fists struck his torso, his ribs, his shoulder. Each impact produced a dry thunderclap in the air.
It almost seemed like Ryo was getting beaten up.
But none of it was really doing anything.
Ryo's body absorbed the blows as if they were hammer strikes against tempered steel. There was force there, but not enough to actually hurt him.
Not when he was using Inner Transition at 5%.
Still, that wasn't what he was focused on.
There was something around the Sentinel.
Something he could feel.
Invisible ripples distorting the air, vibrating like heat haze over asphalt. But it wasn't thermal energy.
"It's… a field."
The Sentinel appeared above him and came down like a missile.
BOOM.
The punch sent him hurtling backward again.
Ryo narrowed his eyes for an instant, trying to organize his thoughts as he stabilized his body in the air.
"I've heard of this before…"
Another impact to the abdomen.
The blow sent him skyward, tearing through the clouds as the sky spun beneath him.
"What was the name again…?"
A flash crossed his memory.
Melissa's voice, excited, explaining something with that curious sparkle in her turquoise-blue eyes.
Before he'd left her lab, she had given him a few more tips.
"You know, you can also interact with electromagnetism thanks to the electroweak force, right?"
Electromagnetism.
Ryo's eyes opened slightly as he felt the waves become easier to sense.
But now he wasn't just sensing them.
His eyes widened.
He was seeing them.
Rings.
Translucent rings spun around the Sentinel's body, expanding and contracting in rhythmic pulses. They weren't visible in the ordinary sense — it was as if his perception had shifted.
As if he had tuned into something.
The Sentinel's head split open like a shell and fired a heat beam, tearing through the night sky.
Ryo was hit dead-on and launched like an incandescent projectile, tearing through the air until he crashed into the ocean.
The water's surface exploded, sending up a column of water.
Ryo was greeted by the deep dark blue as he sank on his back, staring at the sky distorted by the liquid layer above him. The water around his body boiled, bubbling violently from the residual heat of the beam. Small columns of vapor rose to the surface.
He was unharmed so far.
Bubbles escaped his lips as his mind worked.
"Rings… waves… a field…"
Magnetism.
The rings weren't decorative.
They were coils.
He remembered the pavilion.
Him, Melissa, and Midoriya walking among the technological attractions on I-Island. Midoriya in awe. Melissa explaining every detail with enthusiasm.
He remembered one of the few informational pamphlets he'd read while there.
The one about the electromagnetic cannon.
Or Gauss Cannon, as it said on the paper.
Consisting of a series of electromagnetic coils that are activated sequentially. When the projectile (which must be ferromagnetic or conductive) passes through a coil, it's energized, attracting it. At the exact moment it reaches the center, the coil is deactivated (or reversed), preventing it from being "pulled back." The process repeats with each coil, progressively accelerating the projectile.
Accelerating.
Accelerating.
Accelerating.
Ryo's eyes focused again on the rings he could still perceive above the surface, spinning around the Sentinel hovering in the sky.
"He's not just flying."
He's launching himself. Repeatedly.
Like a projectile trapped in an infinite cycle of electromagnetic acceleration.
The rings were the coils.
His body itself was the projectile.
And the field Ryo felt… was the invisible rail.
The water boiled around him, but his mind was racing.
"If it's magnetism… then…"
He should be able to do that too.
Ryo closed his eyes for a moment, managing to feel a field around his own body.
Lines.
Invisible lines crossing through space.
He opened his eyes again, a smile forming even while submerged.
"Looks like I'm going to have to test this hypothesis, Melissa."
Submerged, with the ocean boiling around his very body, Ryo closed his eyes and tried to replicate the pattern he had observed.
He concentrated the electromagnetic force around himself — tried to form a "coil," tried to create a pulse.
Nothing.
The energy dispersed like vapor in the water.
He tried again, compressing the field around his torso.
It failed.
On the third attempt, something clicked inside him.
The darkness around him vanished.
It was replaced by a vast, endless white.
An infinite space, empty and illuminated by a brightness with no apparent source. Puzzle pieces floated everywhere, countless, all white, spinning slowly like fragments of something greater that had never been assembled.
Ryo blinked.
"This place again…"
He walked through the void, his steps making no sound. The pieces moved around him like dust in zero gravity, but none touched his body.
Until one caught his attention.
A single blue piece amidst the white ocean.
It pulsed softly.
Ryo picked it up.
Next to it, another piece began to gain a green color, as if it were being filled by invisible ink. He held it too.
A third piece floated before his face. White for an instant.
Then, slowly, it tinged itself red.
Ryo observed the connectors on the three. He didn't need to think much; his fingers already knew what to do. He brought them together, testing the edges.
Click x3
A small, three-piece puzzle formed in his hands.
The moment the connectors aligned perfectly, the set began to glow. The light intensified until it was almost blinding, then the small block floated upwards, slipping from his fingers and ascending slowly into the white void.
Ryo looked up.
"What is this place… really?"
What he didn't know, or perhaps did know... but would never fully accept — was that this space was his own mind.
A subconscious domain.
An intermediary between intention and reality.
There, people, matter, forces, and even abstract concepts didn't present themselves as indecipherable equations or impossible systems to calculate. They manifested as pieces. Complete patterns.
Instead of dealing with trillions of complex variables, flux densities, atomic manipulation, vectors, and dynamic fields, his consciousness merely fitted pieces together.
Meanwhile, in the deeper layers, his subconscious operated like a supercomputer reading, interpreting, and executing these processes on a fundamental scale.
Feeding already-solved equations to the conscious part.
Acting as a translator and filter agent.
Thus, while Ryo believed he was merely "understanding" something, his subconscious was actually building deep logical relationships and converting physical absurdities into intuitive actions.
The white dissolved.
The pressure of the water returned.
Ryo's eyes opened and the ocean around him vibrated violently.
Rings began to form around his body — not visible to ordinary eyes, but clear to him. Compressed magnetic pulses, aligned, sequential.
The sea surface exploded behind him as he emerged like a living projectile, leaving a column of vapor in his wake as he shot full-speed towards the Sentinel.
The robot reacted instantly, retreating and accelerating, its own rings spinning around its metallic body.
The machine flew at high velocity, accelerating as much as it could until reaching its peak of Mach 57.
The air behind the machine turned to plasma from friction.
But despite all that, Ryo passed the Sentinel like a green flash.
Going Mach 107.5.
Ryo pierced through the robot's structural center with a clean cut of pure kinetic energy and magnetic acceleration. The Sentinel split in two, the halves separating in silence before exploding into sparks and debris.
Fragments began to fall toward the ocean.
Ryo abruptly decelerated.
The rings around his body reversed polarity, creating an instantaneous brake. The air rippled around him as he hovered in the night sky, the sea far below reflecting the stars.
He looked at his own hands.
Then at his legs.
"So this is how it is…"
The rings spun around his body, smooth and obedient.
"I guess I won't need those explosions anymore."
He flexed his fingers, adjusting the number of rings. Two disappeared. Four emerged. The generation rate increased. Then decreased. He reversed one of them, feeling the immediate response in his body's balance.
"I feel like this is much more energy-efficient too…"
He turned his face back.
Down below, the Sentinel's wreckage sank slowly into the dark waters, swallowed by the ocean.
"Thanks for the gift, pal. I'm gonna put this to good use..."