The jets touched down in staggered formation, engines screaming before cutting to a low, rumbling idle. Dust and debris scattered across the cracked pavement of what had once been a highway rest settlement, now repurposed into an emergency staging zone. Temporary floodlights cast harsh white cones into the foggy air, illuminating tents, mobile labs, and rows of armored vehicles pulled back as far as command dared.
Stars and Stripes descended last.
She landed lightly at the front of the formation, boots cracking against asphalt that still bore scorch marks from earlier evacuations. Her presence changed the atmosphere immediately. Conversations quieted. People straightened. Even fear seemed to hesitate around her.
Behind her, her teammates touched down one by one. Some stayed close. Others remained near the jets, hands never far from controls, ready to lift off at a moment's notice if the mist surged again.
Ahead of them, the mist loomed.
It was not rushing. Not spreading visibly. It simply existed, a towering wall of white swallowing the city beyond it. Buildings vanished into it after only a few dozen feet. Sound felt wrong near it, muffled and distant, as if the air itself refused to carry echoes inside.
Stars and Stripes took a slow step forward.
"Star."
A man in a lab coat hurried toward her, clutching a tablet so tightly his knuckles were white. His hair was disheveled, glasses slightly crooked, eyes bloodshot from exhaustion rather than panic.
"I'm Dr. Hoshino," he said quickly. "Lead researcher on site."
"What's the status," she said.
He swallowed and nodded. "We've been observing the mist since initial deployment. We've tried dispersal through wind quirks, turbines, controlled explosions, even thermal manipulation."
He gestured behind him, where scorched equipment lay abandoned.
"It always returns," he continued. "You can push it back temporarily, but the volume remains constant. It reoccupies the cleared space within minutes unless actively suppressed."
"So it behaves less like gas," Stars said, eyes fixed on the mist, "and more like territory."
"Yes," Hoshino replied immediately. "That is the closest model we have."
Star nodded, "I heard they sent another hero before me."
Dr. Hoshino nodded, pointing towards a man near the tent.
He stepped forward then, pulling off his helmet. His face was pale, jaw tight.
"Name's Cloudline. My quirk lets me manipulate and condense vapor. Natural, artificial, doesn't matter."
"How did that go?" Stars asked.
He looked away briefly. "It doesn't respond. It can't be controlled."
Stars nodded once. "I'm not surprised."
Cloudline hesitated. "Star, with respect, whoever or whatever made this mist... created something uncontrollable."
"We will see," she said.
She began walking toward the edge.
Two of her teammates followed immediately. Another stopped, glancing back at the jets before staying put.
"Hey Star" one called. "Protocol says we don't approach without—"
"I know the protocol," Stars replied, not slowing.
Dr. Hoshino hurried after her, breath quickening. "It fine, we believe the erasure effect begins once a subject is fully engulfed," he said. "Partial contact causes disorientation, nausea, auditory hallucinations. But full immersion is when... erasure occurs."
Stars stopped at the boundary.
The mist was close enough now that she could feel it on her skin, cool, damp and gross. It did not move toward her.
She held out one hand.
"So it's safe to touch," she asked, "just like this?"
Hoshino adjusted his glasses with trembling fingers. "Based on observation alone, yes. So long as you do not step fully inside."
"Record this," she repeated.
"Yes, ma'am."
She placed her palm against the mist.
It felt wrong.
There was resistance, not physical but conceptual. Like pressing against the idea of distance rather than substance. Her skin prickled, nerves buzzing as if the air itself were humming.
Stars inhaled once, deeply.
"Mist," she said.
The word carried weight.
"The mist will clear."
Reality obeyed.
The white wall recoiled outward, peeling back in a perfect semicircle centered on her position. Concrete, twisted metal, and the broken remains of vehicles were revealed beneath, frozen in the state they had been swallowed. The air rushed in, filling the vacuum left behind.
Gasps erupted behind her.
"It worked," someone whispered.
Stars and Stripes did not relax.
She stepped forward into the cleared space, boots crunching on debris. The mist strained at the boundary, pressing inward like water against glass.
Her brow furrowed.
She felt it pushing against her order, not breaking it, but pushing against it.
"I couldn't disperse it," she said quietly. "I only contained a small region"
Hoshino stared at the boundary in awe and terror. "You're holding it back."
"Yes," she replied. "But only here."
The cleared region was but she could feel the strain building, the constant demand of maintaining the rule.
"I could sustain this," she continued, more to herself than to him. "I could hold this area indefinitely if I dedicate my quirk to it."
She clenched her hand into a fist.
"But it doesn't solve the problem."
The mist did not retreat further.
Stars turned her gaze upward, toward the skyline hidden beyond the white. Somewhere inside that erased city, that oversized fish was still rampant.
She released the order.
The mist surged back instantly, reclaiming the space as if it had never been cleared.
Her teammates tensed. The jets roared to life briefly before settling again.
Stars and Stripes stepped back, expression hard.
No one spoke.
She stared into the mist, jaw tightening.
"We're going to have to confront source."