CHAPTER 9: The Siege of the USJ
The air in the Central Plaza didn't just feel cold—it felt heavy, as if the oxygen itself had been replaced by a suffocating dread.
Sherlock watched from the top of the stairs as Shota Aizawa leaped into the fray. His teacher was a whirlwind of black fabric and glowing eyes, erasing Quirks with a glance before neutralizing villains with his capture scarf.
Sherlock's eyes darted with mechanical precision, tracking Aizawa's movements. Efficiency: 94%. Conservation of energy: Optimal. He noted how Aizawa kept his chin tucked, protecting his throat while his goggles obscured his line of sight, making it impossible for the mob to know whose Quirk was currently being nullified. It was a masterclass in tactical disadvantage turned into a weapon.
"Thirteen! Get the students out of here!"
Aizawa shouted, his voice a commanding rasp.
"We have to move!" Iida urged, waving the class toward the exit.
Sherlock, however, didn't move. His crimson eyes were fixed on the swirling purple mist at the gate. The displacement of light at the exit is too symmetrical, he calculated. The atmospheric pressure in that specific radius is dropping by 0.2 percent every second. He didn't just appear; he's anchoring the exit. He felt the weight of the cards in his sleeves, his fingers twitching. He wanted to throw, but the target was nebulous—a gas, not a solid.
Suddenly, the mist materialized in front of them, forming a tall, elegant silhouette with glowing yellow eyes. Kurogiri.
"I'm afraid I cannot allow that," the villain's voice was smooth, like velvet over broken glass. "We are the League of Villains. We have invited ourselves into this bastion of heroism to see the Symbol of Peace take his final breath. I was told he would be here... and yet, he is absent. Perhaps a few dead students will draw him out?"
Bakugo and Kirishima didn't wait for a plan. They lunged at the mist with an explosion and a hardened punch. "Get out of the way!" Bakugo roared.
The explosion tore through the mist, but Kurogiri simply chuckled. "Oh, dear. You students truly are golden eggs. But it is time for you to be scattered and tortured!"
● The Void: Between Dimensions
As the purple mist swallowed him, Sherlock felt a sensation that logic couldn't immediately categorize. It wasn't just darkness; it was a total sensory deprivation.
His internal clock, usually precise to the millisecond, began to stutter. Atmospheric pressure: Fluctuating. Gravity: Inconsistent. He tried to reach for a card to anchor himself, but his hand felt as if it were moving through thick syrup.
The space felt non-Euclidean, a terrifying breach of the geometry he lived by.
Spatial coordinates are being rewritten, he realized, his mind racing to find a constant. If X equals the gate and Y equals the destination, the variable is the density of the fog itself. For a technician who thrived on predictable variables, this was the ultimate violation of order. It felt as if his very molecules were being unzipped and re-stitched in a different zip code.
● The Great Separation
The League's strategy was clear: Divide and Conquer. By warping the students into the various environmental zones, they forced the inexperienced heroes into terrains that favored the villains' specific Quirks.
The Landslide Zone: Cold Efficiency
Todoroki Shoto slammed into the rocky terrain, immediately surrounded by dozens of armed thugs. He didn't even break a sweat. He looked at the villains not as threats, but as obstacles in a physics equation.
"Specialize in close-quarters combat, do you?" Todoroki said, his voice as cold as the ice encasing his enemies.
In a single flash, the entire zone was frozen solid. The moisture in the air crystallized instantly, the sound of cracking stone echoing through the artificial mountain. "It's pathetic. To think you thought you could kill All Might with this level of incompetence."
The Mountain Zone: Explosive Synergy
Bakugo and Kirishima landed amidst a jagged cliffside. The air here was thin, smelling of sulfur and ozone as Bakugo immediately went on the offensive.
"DIE! DIE! DIE!" Bakugo screamed, his explosions lighting up the rocky terrain as he blasted through a group of gunmen. Each blast sent a tremor through the cliffside.
"Keep it together, Bakugo!" Kirishima shouted, his skin like hardened rock, deflecting a flurry of knives. "We need to find the others! This is a coordinated ambush, not a street fight!"
The Fire Zone: Tactical Defense
Momo Yaoyorozu, Jiro, and Kaminari were trapped in a burning warehouse. The heat was a physical barrier, shimmering in waves that distorted their vision.
"Kaminari! Use your lightning!" Jiro yelled, covering her ears as a villain with a sonic Quirk shrieked.
"I can't! I'll hit you guys! My precision isn't high enough!"
Momo didn't hesitate. Her mind raced through molecular structures. Polyester? No. Rubber? Too slow. Silicone-based aramid fiber. She used her Quirk to create a massive insulated sheet, the lipid cost leaving her slightly pale. "Kaminari-san, under here! Now! Discharge!"
A massive surge of electricity fried every villain in the vicinity, the white-blue light turning the warehouse into a blinding strobe.
● The Flood Zone: Psychological Warfare
Splash!
Sherlock hit the water hard. His black coat billowed around him like a shroud as he sank into the dark blue depths. His first instinct wasn't panic; it was a molecular check. Water temperature: 20°C. Depth: 15 meters. Salinity: 0.5% (simulated freshwater). He reached into his holster, pulling out a handful of cards. Even underwater, the Molecular Glaze held; the water beaded off the surface, allowing the cards to maintain their rigid, razor-sharp edges. He watched a villain with gills circling him like a predator. Sherlock didn't swim away; he calculated the drag coefficient. He flicked a card—not to hit, but to create a cavitation bubble. The distraction worked, giving him enough time to kick toward the surface.
He spotted two other figures nearby. Midoriya was flailing, and Tsuyu was already swimming toward him with incredible speed. Mineta was bobbing like a cork, weeping into the water, his purple spheres bouncing uselessly against the waves.
Tsuyu hauled them toward a large cargo ship anchored in the middle of the 'Flood Zone.'
"Look," Sherlock said as they scrambled onto the deck, his voice steady despite his dripping hair. He began wringing out his coat, his eyes scanning the horizon. Surrounding the ship were dozens of villains. One villain with a shark-like jaw laughed, splashing the side of the hull, his teeth serrated and yellow.
"Come on down, little heroes! The water is fine!" the villain taunted. "We'll wait for you to tire out, then we'll see if paper floats or sinks!"
Mineta almost jumped overboard in a sheer panic-induced frenzy.
"They're gonna eat us! I'm too young to be a snack! I haven't even had a girlfriend yet!"
Sherlock grabbed him by the back of his vest, pinning him to the deck. "Panic reduces your cognitive processing speed by 40%, Mineta," Sherlock snapped. "The cortisol spike in your system is currently clouding your judgment.
Look at the hull. Archimedes' Principle states that the upward buoyant force exerted on a body immersed in a fluid is equal to the weight of the fluid that the body displaces.
This ship displaces approximately 4,000 tons of water. There are thirty-two villains in the water. Even if they all possessed strength-enhancing Quirks, the structural integrity of this steel plating far exceeds their combined kinetic output. We are on the most stable platform in the zone. If you jump, you aren't just a snack; you're a mathematical anomaly that chose death over structural safety."
He pointed a gloved finger at the villains circling below. "They are staying in the water because they have the aquatic advantage. They aren't boarding the ship because they're afraid of being cornered in a confined space. They're trying to provoke a mistake. We are not making one. Midoriya, your output is high. Tsu, your mobility is peak. I'll provide the transition. We use a vortex to gather them, and I'll use my cards as a temporary bridge to clear the gap."
Midoriya nodded, his face hardening. He looked at his hand, then at the swirling water. "Right! If we can change the environment to suit us... we win! Let's do it!"
Midoriya leaped from the deck, his body glowing with the green sparks of One For All. "DELAWARE SMASH!" He flicked his fingers, sending a massive shockwave into the water. The surface erupted into a giant whirlpool, a liquid tornado that sucked the villains toward the center.
Tsuyu grabbed Sherlock and Midoriya, her powerful legs launching them high into the air.
As they soared, Sherlock flicked his cards with a snap of his wrist. "Scattered Path!" The cards aligned in mid-air, clicking together like magnets, creating a momentary, rigid bridge across the gap.
Sherlock's feet hit the cards, his weight supported by the high-frequency tension he had calculated perfectly. He felt the wind whip past his face, the sheer improbability of the maneuver making his heart hammer against his ribs—not with fear, but with the thrill of a solved equation.
● The Downpour Zone: A Glimpse of Rain
Far across the dome, in the Downpour Zone, the sky was a constant, heavy grey. The sound of rain was a relentless static.
Tokoyami and Koda were pinned down by villains who used the rain to hide their movements, their forms flickering like ghosts in the deluge.
I'm glad I'm not over there, Sherlock thought as he landed back on the plaza's edge. My cards are waterproof, but my body isn't built for a marathon in a storm. My core temperature would drop too quickly. The sheer diversity of the USJ was now a weapon against them, and the exhaustion was starting to cloud his vision, small black dots dancing at the edges of his sight.
● Observations of a Dying Teacher
As they reached the edge of the bushes, Sherlock froze. The air here felt different—metallic, like blood and hot iron. Aizawa-sensei was at the center of the plaza, but he wasn't winning. He was being systematically dismantled by a grotesque creature—the Nomu.
Sherlock watched, his mind cataloging Aizawa's movements even now, despite the horror. Sensei is moving in a 360-degree defensive arc, minimizing blind spots... but the Nomu's speed exceeds the human optic nerve's tracking capacity. It isn't just fast; it's instantaneous. The sound of cracking bone reached Sherlock's ears. It was a sickening, wet crunch. Ulna and radius snapped.
Possible humeral fracture. It was the sound of logic failing against brute force. Sherlock felt a glitch in his own mental processing. He had always believed that any problem could be solved if one were smart enough, but this... this was a variable that couldn't be factored out.
"You're amazing, Eraserhead," Shigaraki Tomura rasped, scratching his neck until it bled, the skin raw and red. "But against my Nomu, you're just a quirkless man. You're a glass cannon, and the glass is breaking. It's over."
Sherlock felt a visceral, cold dread. Shigaraki turned his head, his gaze sweeping over the bushes where they were hiding. The Killing Intent was a physical weight—a malice so thick it made Sherlock's "biological survival instinct" scream at him to run. His legs felt heavy, like lead. He looked at his cards, then at the Nomu. Damage potential of a card: 0.01%. Probability of survival in direct engagement: 0.0003%.
We're done for, Sherlock thought, his knees trembling. Intelligence is useless when the enemy is a god of destruction. The numbers don't add up. There is no solution.
Suddenly, the massive doors at the entrance of the USJ were blown off their hinges. The sound was like a thunderclap, echoing through the dome and silencing the screams of the villains.
"I had a bad feeling... so I tore myself away from my duties to check," a voice boomed, deeper and more dangerous than any of them had ever heard. The air pressure in the room surged, a literal shockwave of presence.
All Might stepped forward. He wasn't smiling. For the first time, the Symbol of Peace looked like a god of war. His tie was torn, his shirt straining against his muscles, his presence filling every inch of the massive facility.
"Have no fear, students! Why? BECAUSE I AM HERE!"