MHA: Lust Quirk

The mist came fast.

One second Kurogiri was in the plaza below and the next his black vapor was everywhere, swallowing the platform, wrapping around the class from every side at once. Ryo felt Ochaco's hand rip away from his sleeve. Someone shouted. Bakugo's explosion went off to the right and lit the mist orange for a half-second before the dark closed back in. Kirishima's hardened arm swung through the spot where Kurogiri's collar plates had been and hit nothing.

Then the ground dropped out.

Not falling. Worse. The mist was the portal. It was inside his mouth and his lungs and his eyes, thick and wet and cold, and his body went through it sideways with no direction and no sense of which way was up. Like drowning in ink. The darkness was total. His stomach lurched and his inner ear screamed and he tried to grab something, anything, but there was nothing to grab because there was no space, just the transit between where he'd been and wherever Kurogiri decided to put him.

It lasted a few seconds.

Then water.

Cold. Dark. He was underwater, deep enough that the light from the surface was dim and greenish. His costume was heavy, the armored vest pulling him down. His boots found nothing. The water tasted like chlorine and something organic, like a swimming pool that had been stocked with things that weren't supposed to be in swimming pools.

He kicked toward the surface. The vest fought him. The boots were anchors. He should have asked for a lighter costume. Should have thought about water. He hadn't thought about water because the shadowboxing had been in a dry apartment and the foreknowledge had been about punching, not swimming.

He opened his eyes and looked up. Through the water he could see the hull of a ship, dark and curving, listing to one side.

Shipwreck Zone. He'd been right. Mineta's seat got Mineta's assignment.

Something moved below him. A shape in the darker water, big, fast, heading upward with its mouth open.

Shark villain. Rows of teeth. Moving too fast for Ryo to dodge in water where his combat boots were dragging him down like rocks.

A green blur hit the shark from the side. A foot connected with its jaw and the shark-thing spiraled sideways and down, disappearing into the murk. In the same motion, something long and pink and wet wrapped around Ryo's torso, under his arms, and yanked him upward so hard his neck snapped back.

He broke the surface gasping. Went up, kept going up, past the waterline and over the railing of the listing ship, and landed on the deck hard enough that his knee hit the metal grating and he felt it through the armor padding. His lungs burned. He coughed water.

Next to him, Midoriya landed in a heap, equally wet, equally coughing. Tsuyu's tongue had carried them both.

Tsuyu crouched on the railing above them like she'd been there all along. Green wetsuit, beige gloves, knee-high flippers. Her tongue retracted into her mouth with a wet sound. Her enormous dark-green eyes blinked once, slow, the full-eyelid frog blink.

"Call me Tsu," she said. Same flat voice she used for everything.

Ryo pushed himself to his knees. The ship was listing hard to one side. Water lapped at the lower railing. The deck was metal grating that let him see through to the lower compartments, half-flooded. The whole thing creaked.

"Tsu," he said. "Thanks for the save."

"You're welcome, ribbit."

Midoriya was already on his feet, hunched over the railing, looking down at the water. His notebook was gone, probably at the bottom. His eyes were moving fast, tracking the water, the railing, the shapes below.

"There's about ten of them down there," he said. "Aquatic types. They were waiting in the water before we even landed. Kurogiri must have coordinated with them."

Ryo leaned over the railing. He could see them. Dark shapes circling the ship like fish around bait. Fins. Tentacles. One that looked like a hammerhead with arms. They were staying in the water, which meant the water was their territory and the ship was the high ground.

"They don't know what our Quirks are," Midoriya continued. He was thinking out loud, the muttering thing he did, fast and layered. "They were scattered randomly by Kurogiri. These guys expected generic students, not specific matchups. That means they're not prepared for anything we can do."

"Good." Ryo stood up. The deck swayed under him. Water sloshed below. "So what can you do?"

Midoriya looked at his right hand. Flexed the fingers. His jaw was set and his eyes were on nothing but his own knuckles.

"I can make a really big wave."

"How big?"

"Big enough to push all of them away from the ship. But I'll break my finger."

"One finger?"

"One finger."

"Do it."

A villain broke the surface at the starboard railing. Scaled, grinning, hands like paddles. It grabbed the railing and started pulling itself up.

Ryo kicked it in the face.

The boot connected with the thing's jaw and it went back over the railing and into the water with a splash and a sound that was mostly teeth. Another one appeared on the port side, faster, already half over the railing. Ryo crossed the tilted deck in three steps and punched it. Knuckle plates on the forearm guards did what they were designed for. The villain's nose broke with a crunch he could feel through the padding. It fell backward and didn't come back up right away.

A third came over the bow. This one was bigger, armored, something like a crocodile's hide on the upper body. It got both hands on the deck and hauled itself up and Ryo grabbed the nearest thing, which was a length of broken pipe from the ship's superstructure, and swung it into the side of the croc-villain's head.

The pipe bent. The villain went sideways. It slid back into the water, leaving a streak of blood on the grating.

"That's annoying," Ryo said to nobody.

"Hayami-chan," Tsuyu said from the railing. Her voice hadn't changed pitch. "Two more coming from the stern."

He turned. Two of them, climbing the stern like they were scaling a cliff. One had webbed fingers. The other had something glowing in its mouth.

"Tsu, left one."

Her tongue was already moving. It wrapped around the webbed-hands villain and flung it overboard on the opposite side. Ryo took the glowing-mouth one. Three steps and a knee to its ribs before it cleared the railing. It folded over the metal edge and he shoved it back into the water. The ship rocked.

"Midoriya, any time now."

"I need to get to the water's edge." Midoriya was crouched at the port railing, his hand extended over the water, index finger cocked back against his thumb.

"NOW!" Midoriya yelled, and flicked.

The sound was wrong for a finger. It was the sound of the ocean being shoved aside, a deep bass whump that Ryo felt in his ribs more than heard. The water in front of Midoriya's hand erupted outward in a dome, a shockwave that expanded across the entire pool, lifting the ship, scattering the circling villains like leaves in a gutter flood. The surface went white with foam. The ship lurched sideways and metal screamed.

Midoriya's right index finger was purple and bent at an angle fingers didn't bend at. He was clenching his jaw so hard Ryo could see the tendons in his neck.

"Time to go," Ryo said.

"I can carry both of you, ribbit." Tsuyu was already next to them. "Hold on."

Her tongue wrapped around Ryo's waist. Her arms went around Midoriya's torso. She crouched low on the railing, knees bending deep, the frog crouch, all the power loading into her legs.

She jumped.

Fifteen meters. Maybe more. The three of them arced over the water, over the scattered and groaning villains, over the foam and debris, and landed on the concrete bank at the edge of the Shipwreck Zone with a thud that rattled Ryo's knees and made his jaw click.

Solid ground.

He stood up. Wet, breathing hard, the armored vest heavy with water, his knuckles stinging from where he'd punched the croc-villain. One of them had gotten a tooth into his forearm guard and left a scratch across the knuckle plate. His left boot was making a squelching sound when he stepped. His right hand was shaking slightly, the same post-adrenaline twitch he'd had after Kaminari's discharge.

Tsuyu was already standing. Her hair was wet but still tied at the bottom. Her breathing was even. Her wetsuit was dark with water and her hands, the big frog hands with the wide pads, were relaxed at her sides.

Midoriya was cradling his finger. It was swelling fast.

Ryo grinned. The post-fight one. Ugly.

"You didn't hesitate, ribbit," Tsuyu said. She was looking at him. Her head tilted.

"Neither did you."

She blinked. The slow one.

From the central plaza, the sounds of combat. Concrete breaking. Aizawa's capture scarf snapping. Underneath that, a heavier impact. Meat on stone.

Ryo walked to the edge of the zone where the concrete met the central plaza's stairs. From here he could see down into it. Aizawa was on the ground. His capture scarf was torn. His goggles were cracked. Two villains were unconscious at his feet but he was surrounded by more and his left arm was hanging at an angle that arms didn't hang at.

And standing over him, massive, brain exposed, blank-eyed, was the Nomu.

The grin dropped off Ryo's face.

"We need to get over there," he said.

Tsuyu was beside him. She looked at the plaza. At Aizawa. At the thing standing over him.

"Yes," she said. "We do."

Midoriya was already moving.