54 Phantoms Dance: Ch 5
-Rain of Sins-
-Phantoms Dance: Ch 5-
Six first year students stared down the hallway at some of the most wanted Villains in Japan. Momo, Bakugo, Ochako, Setsuna, Ibara, Shoto watched wide eyed as Muscular and Moonfish climbed through the hole in the wall, followed by other League of Villain members.
"Alright, ignore what I just said." Aizawa said softly to avoid catching the Villain's attention as long as possible. "We're going with Ms Yaoyorozu's plan. Bakugo Shiozaki and Todoroki, you three are the fastest, run and find help. The rest of you play support. I can only use my quirk on one person at a time, so distract whoever it is I'm not on. Play it cautious- no scratch that, play it OVERLY cautious! If any of you so much as get a scratch, you'll have detentions for the rest of your life, got it?"
""Yes sir!"" The students chirped.
"Good." Eraserhead smirked. "Now GO!" He shouted as he used his scarf to fling himself forward.
Muscular only had a few seconds to wonder why his muscles were withdrawing into his body, before a grumpy teacher landed a flying kick into head.
The students weren't far behind, with Momo, Ochako, and Setsuna forming a shield around the escape team- following the lessons they had learned on how to breach a hostile line and get noncombatants through to the other side.
Light shimmered through the edges of Momo's cloak as she activated her quirk and pulled out a full sheet metal riot shield that she used to ram through the confused Villains who were still pointing and shouting at Eraserhead.
A spear of hardened enamel stabbed down from above, denting her shield as it punched into it. The impact forced Momo to stop, and the metal started groaning as the tooth pressed harder against it.
Ochako jumped onto the tooth and used it as a springboard to leap into the air. Moontooth took the bait, using his teeth as stilts to rise up into the air. Five teeth shot from his mouth, growing in jagged lines as they chased after her, each as sharp as a knife.
A month ago Ochako would have been terrified, now though, she couldn't help but giggle as she used her list of secret quirks to effortlessly spin out of the way like a ballerina.
"I SAID CAUTIOUS OCHAKO!" Aizawa's voice shouted from behind them.
The escape team hadn't stopped running, continuing down the hallway, and once they were clear of everyone else, they took off. Shoto used his ice to propel himself into a continuous slide, Ibara used her vines to pull herself forward, and Bakugo used his explosions to turn himself into a missile.
But as good of a job the distraction team was doing, they were still only students, and Bakugo's explosions were big attention grabbers.
He caught sight of a tooth spear shooting after him from the corner of his eye. The speed was absurd, almost like a bullet! He could tell immediately that it would hit him before he could reposition his arms to dodge
With a lack of time to think of anything better, he prepared to spin himself around and do something phenomenally stupid, like try to catch it, but something slammed into his side and knocked him off course.
He hit the ground awkwardly and bounce-rolled down the hallway a few feet. The tooth slammed into the floor beside him, cutting through it like butter.
"I gotcha!"
He glanced up to see a head and a hand floating like something out of a cheap haunted house.
The head belonged to a girl, with seaweed colored hair, dark green eyes, and a face so smug it bordered on offensive.
He stared at her blankly for a few seconds as his brain worked to catch up to what he was looking at.
"Setsuna!" He snapped his fingers after a few seconds too many. "Thanks for the save."
She was a recommendation student who had been in class B before the merge, and even since then he'd never had any interactions with her. Hadn't sparred with her in class, or ever been on the same team for exercises.
She had been invited to represent UA's first years at the coronation after performing well with Ochako in a skirmish, so she and him had been in the same room for that, but that was honestly about it.
"Ha! Don't thank me yet!" Setsuna laughed. "When we get out of here, you owe me a soda, Baku-boy!"
"Fuck off!" Katsuki spat out automatically, as his face heated up in embarrassment at the condescending nickname.
"Fuck you to!" She smiled a shark-like grin with pointed teeth and flipped him off with her hand, before flying back to the rest of her body.
He watched her go as he pulled himself to his feet, and sent a middle finger in her direction.
…Maybe he should take Momo's advice and get to know more of his classmates. That interaction hadn't been as bad as he was anticipating.
But first he needed to catch up with the frost flower duo.
-Rain of Sins-
The outside premises were absolute Chaos, where the majority of the low level Villains were stuck, unable to force their way inside. It was a no man's land of fighting, where the strongest Heroes stood in bubbles surrounded by Villains, where HPSC gunmen ran out of bullets before they ran out of things to shoot at.
Dabi stepped lazily over the burnt body of a fallen Hero, and stuck to the shadows, away from the action and out of the sight of snipers.
"How barbaric." Mgane made a disgusted sound as they followed after him.
"Yeah, me, I'm the barbaric one. Not our lunatic boss who launched this attack, not Muscular who brags about popping heads like grapes." Dabi scoffed. "You're a terrorist now, you lost any right to say anything the moment you signed on."
"I joined the league to tear down a corrupt society."
"Still a terrorist."
"Listen you-"
But Dabi didn't listen, no one did, because the building shook as something exploded nearby, and Mustard came sprinting out of an emergency exit like a bat out of Hell, as the exit collapsed behind him.
"Sulfur, you okay man?" Dabi asked as he jogged over.
"No, not at all!" Mustard said between deep gasps for breath.
He was visibly ragged, his right sleeve soaked with blood, his helmet dented, and he was missing three of the five duffle bags he'd been lugging around on his back.
"We've gotta get out of here dude! There's fucking- There's Heroes everywhere! Like actual Heroes, UA teachers, the top ten, you name it!"
"Yeah, we know that." Magne huffed. "It was in the job description."
"No! No you fucking don't know that!" Mustard hissed as he shoved her back. "This is a giant fucking trap! Tomura, Kurogiri, Muscular, Moonfish, You, Me ! They're not just looking for the Sovereign of Sin, any Villain above C rank they're gunning for, and unless you straight up surrender, they're not fucking taking prisoners, man! Snipe was down there, and he was- he- he was-"
"Oh, for fucks sake, SNAP OUT OF IT!" Dabi grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. "We're villains man, you signed up for this! Get your head in the game, or you're gonna slip up, and then we both die! Come on, say it with me, you're a Villain."
"I'm a Villain. I'm a Villain."
"Deep breaths. You're a Villain who survived the attack on the Festival and got away from Mirko. You're a badass."
"I'm a badass." Mustard said as he took deep breaths and began to calm down.
"Are you good?"
"No." Mustard shook his head. "But I'm better."
"Good, remember, you work things out after a job, not during it."
"Yeah… Yeah, I'll just freak out later." Mustard said in a slightly higher voice, as he licked his dry lips beneath his mask. "That's how it works. I'll do that."
Dabi patted him on the shoulder before stepping back next to an unimpressed Magne. "Tomura's order to split up was a terrible one, we're sticking together, we're gonna let the fodder distract the Heroes, we're gonna sneak by all the chaos, we're gonna kill Endeavor, and then get the Hell out of here. Understand?"
"Got it." Magne said as they crossed their arms.
"Got it." Mustard nodded as he pulled off his gloves and wiped off his sweaty hands.
"Got it~!" A girly voice from above chipped with a happy confirmation.
"Good, now we need to-" Dabi paused as his brain registered what his ears had told him. "Hold on, who jus-."
Sulfur tackled him to the side, and out of the way of a knife that embedded itself to the hilt in the wall behind where he'd been standing.
"Aww, they dodged it." The voice pouted.
"Yeah, because you blew our cover!"
Two figures jumped from the roof of a nearby building, landing gracefully a fair distance away from them.
They both wore slim black combat gear, with thin red metal plates on their shoulders, chest, and outer thighs. Each had a belt with dozens of different blades hanging off it, from different types of knives and daggers to a short sword for a backup weapon. But it was the deep crimson scarves that hung from their necks that gave away their allegiance.
"Hellooo~! You must be the League's Vanguard Action Squad!" Toga smiled as she skipped forward, spinning two serrated knives that were just too short to be called swords. "We're the Blood Guard, and we're here to have a guard-off with you!"
"Your blood will be spilt to water the seeds for a new Japan!" Spinner preached as his chainsword revved to life. "Surrender to the righteous blades of Stain, and your rot will be pruned as painlessly as possible!"
"Save your holier-than-thou bullshit for someone who actually cares." Dabi sneered as sapphire flames enveloped his form. "No one's righteous in this hellhole of a country, not the Heroes, not the Villains, and sure as Hell not some blood crazed fanatics who worship a serial killer."
"HOW DARE YOU SULLY HIS NAME!?! I'LL HAVE YOUR HEAD FOR THAT!!"
" You'll have our heads?" Mustard snorted, having mostly calmed down, and leveled his rifle. "You brought a knife to a gunfight, have you not heard about the American revolution? Gun beats knife."
…A beat of silence fell over the two groups as they looked at him.
"What? The British had knives, and the Americans had guns, that's how they won and why they're obsessed with them. I read about it on 8 chan, it's where the saying comes from."
Having said his peace, Mustard squeezed the trigger, and chaos broke loose.
-Rain of Sins-
Stain felt like he was flying as he blurred through the corridors of the building.
He had always been fast, it was the one thing that kept him alive when fighting Heroes with better quirks and more experience than him. When an ambush failed to knock them out in the first strike, it was down to speed whether he could cut them and put his paralysis work before they overpowered him.
Speed had always been his friend, but with the donations he'd received from Prometheus' lab, he was on another level.
A red blur was all that was visible as Villains and Heroes alike fell to the floor dead, or paralyzed. He was on a hunt, he had to find Endevor before the League's Vanguard squad did or else the message would be tainted, and the fake Heroes wouldn't be able to protect Japan from the fallou-
A metal fist caught him in the jaw, and Stain was sent crashing through a wall, into a large empty room.
As soon as he landed he was back on his feet, drawing his sword and pointing it from where he'd been hit from.
From the dust emerged a large figure, encased from head to toe in a hulking black metal samurai armor with gold highlights. Much to Stain's displeasure, every inch of skin was covered, except for a pale nose and a long white beard.
"Hero Killer." Yoroi Musha addressed Stain, as he drew a long katana from its sheath on his side. "Your reign of terror, like every other Villain who has faced me here, ends today."
The blade was a masterpiece, and perfectly clean, however the leather handle, and the hand that held it, were both practically stained with blood.
"I've killed dozens of fakes before, you're just the next on the list." Stain snarled as he quickly glanced around the room looking for an exit.
"You have slain novices and newcomers who hadn't grown a single gray hair, and you did so with ambushes and underhanded tricks. Not even one did you fight in honorable combat, and not one has been over a C rank." The old samurai slowly but methodically walked forward, never overextending, and always blocking off the exit. "I am the 9th best Hero in Japan, and the longest serving by several decades. You will find that I am no fresh graduate you can take advantage of for being overconfident and underprepared."
"I fought Night Eye!"
"You lost to Night Eye, a Hero who specializes in information gathering, and coordinated strikes with his entire agency."
"I have a few new gadgets since then."
"I fear not the worst swordsmen with the best blade, but instead the best swordsman with the worst blade. Skill makes the man, not his gear."
"Maybe in your time." The Hero Killer smirked and clicked the button in his sword's hilt.
His armor was similar to the ones that Toga and Spinner were wearing, built for stealth and speed, rather than heavy protection, but his armor had a noticeable extra bulk that ran along the outside of his arms, legs, and back.
The experimental mechanical exoskeleton whirred to life, the first support equipment scheduled to be released by Mei in a month or two, strapped to the back of Japan's most notorious killer.
He was fast before, but now he was a blur, a red mirage as he streaked towards his opponent.
A katana came down, a katana swung up to meet it.
The impact was fierce, like a metal gunshot that pounded in their ears as it echoed over and over in the room. The force from it was unexpected, and pushed them both back from each other.
The two locked eyes, boiling rage meeting firm determination.
Like a signal the noise echoed back again, hammering their ears, and they lunged at each other.
Stain was a whirlwind of blades, throwing knives, daggers, and his katana coming from all angles, and clawing at the weak points of Yoroi's armor.
Sparks flew constantly, groves wearing into the ancient black metal. A strike to the side, a vut across the hip, one to the leg, a glancing blow against this helmet.
Stain struck again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again .
But Yoroi did not bleed. He was a wall of black metal, slowly stepping forward in an unstoppable march. Experience oozed off his fighting style in waves, his blade moved as little as possible, catching one strike with the flat of his blade then jerking it left by an inch to knock another off course.
He hardly even looked concerned, like he had seen this all before. He knew at a glance which attacks were dangerous, and which he could safely ignore to let bounce harmlessly off his armor plates.
Step by step he pushed Stain back. Eventually there would be no more room, and his foe would make a mistake in panic.
Yoroi tilted his blade and raised it to block an overhead strike, but was unprepared for Stain to kick out with his leg. The butcher grinned as a hidden blade shot out of the tip of the boot, and stabbed into the weak ankle joint of the armor.
Only for the poisoned blade to shatter on impact.
"WHAT!?" He shouted in disbelief, as he stared at his broken blade. But distraction in any fast paced battle was deadly, and his inattention cost him.
Yoroi mercilessly seized the opening he had been patiently waiting for. His sword, which had exclusively been on the defensive, surged forward along the length of Stain's blade until it jumped off at the last second before hitting the hand guard, and was safely past Stain's guard.
The old samurai flicked his wrist, and Stain's sword clattered to the floor, with a bloody hand still gripping its hilt.
Red hot pain flared in Stain's mind, and even as he threw himself backwards, he didn't totally escape a second swing that cut him from shoulder to hip across his right side.
"My name is Yoroi Musha." The Hero grunted as he stalked forward, eagerly taking all the ground Stain had given up. "I am the Equipped Hero. I have served my country longer than you have ever been alive. My quirk, like so many from my generation, pales in comparison to what you ungrateful younglings run around with today. The longer I am in contact with a piece of metal, the harder it strengthens. After a year it maxes out at double its original hardness."
His armored foot came down with a sense of finality as he loomed over Stain, who had been pushed against the wall.
"But remember what I said before, skill and experience is what defines the man, not his equipment. I fear not the worst swordsmen with the best blade, but instead the best swordsman with the worst blade ." He quoted as he leveled his sword at Stain. "And I fear not the overconfident assassin who confronts a knight head on."
"You should." The Hero killer sneered at him, before pulling something from his belt and crushing it in his hand.
Smoke erupted into the room, engulfing Yoroi and Stain.
Without mercy the Hero stabbed down, but he felt his blade only knick flesh before spearing down into the concrete. But while his vision was obscured his other senses were not. He heard the Villain clambering around him, running toward the direction where-
Yoroi spun and shot out his hand, grabbing the katana right as it speared through the fog, mere inches from his unarmored mouth.
He grit his teeth and pulled the sword, yanking it from Stain's grip as hard as he could. He heard the Villain curse and impact the floor, and immediately his armored foot stomped down, crushing the tiled floor into powder.
He missed, obviously, by the fact he didn't feel anything pop or crush under his foot, and that could hear Stain cursing as he scrambled away.
Yoroi spun the stolen blade around, now holding one sword in each hand, and marched after the Villain. But when he emerged from the smoke, the butcher was gone.
"Run Villain." Yoroi muttered his mentor's words under his breath as he followed the trail of blood spots leading down the hallway. "You can only run from judgment, but you can never escape it."
-Rain of Sins-
Ochako danced- the word wasn't exact, but it was honestly the best way to describe what she was doing.
Moonfish snarled, frothing at the mouth in outrage that his prey just WOULDN'T. SIT. STILL! Dozens more teeth shot from his mouth and speared downwards, ready to rip flesh and sinue from bone.
Ochako couldn't help the happy laugh that spilled from her mouth, as she twirled harmlessly between the white spears of death. She spun and hopped, dancing between death without so much as a scratch, almost as if she were a fae of some sort.
Using one of the teeth as a gym bar she spun herself into a zero gravity somersault that took her up and over the Villains head. (and right between any of his attacks of course)
She tapped her hands together, and let gravity pull her down and add its weight behind an overhead kick to Moonfish's head.
Teeth shot up to skewer her, but before they even got halfway back up, she had already kicked off and was sailing across the room with a wide grin.
This feeling in her chest… It made her feel light, not in a weightless sense, but in a way that felt like she was soaring among the clouds! These were some of the League of Villains best troops, and here she was helping on the front line, being useful!
She was never letting go of this feeling!
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She landed on the roof, grabbing a handhold to anchor herself and perching upside down above the fight, to see if anyone needed her help.
Eraserhead was busy with Muscular, just as head been since the beginning. He'd mentioned his quirk didn't do much good against mutants, for obvious reasons, and Muscular's transformation quirk must have had some of that in his family. Eraser was keeping him from bloating up to an absurd mass with muscles, but the ones he'd had already summoned were withering away at a very slow rate. Her teacher had the upper hand and was obviously wearing the Villain down, but it was clearly going to take time.
Meanwhile Setsuna and Momo had been taking care of the group of small Villains, which were now almost all dealt with.
Momo specifically seemed to have the larger body count.
Ochako watched as the girl bashed her way through the thugs, twirling a dark gray staff that had sparks shooting off both ends, and downed Villains like a scythe in a wheatfield.
She saw two Villains slowly sneak up behind Momo, trying to get the drop on her.
Ochako decided she didn't like that and launched herself at them like a rocket.
She hadn't needed to, Momo spun around and a metal capture net shot out from under her cloak, wrapping around the two goons and immobilizing them. But Ochako couldn't exactly stop herself, so she slammed feet first into them in a powerful kick that knocked both of them to the ground.
"Hey Momo!"
"Ochako! It's good to see-" Momo smiled at her for a moment before her eyes went wide. "Oh my God, are you okay!?"
"Better than ever!" She chirped and snapped a two finger salute. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"Y-Your face!"
Confused, Ochako lifted her hand to her face to find something wet, when she pulled it away and it was red.
Blood poured from her nose and dribbled slightly from the corners of her mouth.
"I'm fine." She snapped defensively, taking a step back, and holding a hand up to hide the bottom of her face. "I didn't get hit, I must have just bit my tongue or something."
"But your nose-"
"Is a zero gravity thing!" Ochako cut her off. " It pops up when I rapidly apply and unapply my quirk on myself. Since I've gotten better control of my quirk, it happens more often."
Momo frowned at her, obviously not happy with the answer, but aware they weren't exactly in a situation where she could push the issue.
"If you say so…" She sighed and rubbed her head. "Whatever, we'll talk about this later. I need your help with something. You know that tooth villain? You've been able to avoid all his attack, right?"
"Easily." Ochako nodded.
"Do you think you could get close enough to get a hit in?"
"I already have, I just don't have the strength to knock him out in one go…" Uraraka trailed off in thought. 'That might be something to look into later. I wonder…'
"I'll take care of that. I can make a weapon to incapacitate him, but I can't get close enough to him to use it… or actually pick it up for that matter."
Ochako gave her a weird look, and Momo decided it would be easier just to show her than try to explain.
Multicolored light shone through the edges of Momo's cloak as she used her quirk. A second passed, then two, then ten. Sweat began to trail from her forehead, and Ochako could almost swear she could see the gild getting thinner.
Whatever she was making was big.
But as abruptly as it started, it was over. A metal rod fell from Momo's stomach and buried itself a foot into the concrete floor, through weight alone.
Ochako blinked at it in bewilderment.
"Uh, Is that like your staff?"
"No, what I'm holding is a staff of pure graphene, with some electrical weapons on the end. Incredibly light and incredibly strong. That is a stick of the densest metal I can make, as compressed as I can make it, wrapped in a protective casing."
Ochako reached down and tugged on it without her quirk, trying to get a sense of it.
It didn't so much as twitch.
As she realized what Momo had done, a cruel smirk crept across her face. This was going to be good.
Thinking he had an opportunity while the two were distracted, the last of the "common" Villains let out a warcry as he charged at them
Ochako gripped the staff firmly, activated her quirk, and pulled it weightlessly from the ground like it was the sword in the stone.
Force is equal to an object's mass multiplied by its acceleration. Mass, determined by an object's density and volume, is not affected at all by gravity.
So when Ochako swung a staff made out of pure osmium, the densest element on Earth, compressed to an absurd degree, and wrapped in a protective layer of titanium plate, as hard as she possibly could, while it weighed exactly 0.00 pounds, the Villain fucking died.
Erm, well, that is to say, it hit very hard.
The hulking mutant Villain's jaw broke, his teeth shattered, and he was sent careening face first into a nearby wall.
Momo winced at the brutality, but didn't feel sorry, not with the blood that had been staining the Villain's shirt.
Ochako didn't spare a second glance at the Villain, instead staring down at her new weapon in awe.
This… THIS was what it meant to be useful.
She grinned wildly and turned it around in her hands as she began jogging towards Moonfish, slowly picking up speed.
"Setsuna!" Oachako shouted. "Platforms!"
The lizard-ish girl didn't ask any questions, and immediately split herself up into several large pieces that began orbiting around Moonfish. The two of them had planned and used this same thing before in team exercises.
Oachako jumped, spinning in air to avoid a white spear, and landed on a floating hand which allowed her to change direction, and pushed her off the same time she jumped for extra speed.
"Do it." Poisonous words echoed in her ear over a connection she wasn't even aware of. "Strike him down."
Adrenaline pumped in her ears as she flew through a storm of jagged white lances.
"Show the world what you're capable of!"
She twisted, weaving through the storm with unnatural grace, leaping off of Setsuna's platforms,
"Prove that you deserve your new quirks!"
She bent her knees and launched herself off as fast as she could directly at the Villain.
She was untouchable! Unbeatable!
"Prove your worth to me!"
She swung her staff, like a bat, at the pathetic wall Moonfish had put up as a last ditch defense, shattering the teeth like glass.
" Prove to everyone that you're strong, that you're not USELESS! "
"RAAAAAAAAHHHH!"
Ochako screamed as she spun like a top, building up speed, and bringing down her weapon with everything she had.
Moonfish's teeth shattered, all of them, as the staff slammed into his skull, and he shot straight into the ground with enough force to rock the building..
Ochako huffed in exhaustion as she dropped to the ground, letting her quirk go from herself but not the staff- not her new strength.
Her arms were straining from how much of herself she had put into that last attack, her legs ached from all the jumping, and her body stung lightly from all the twisting she's done mid air, but she had a wide smile as she looked back at her friends with a sense of accomplishment
…And slowly realized the pool of blood and gore she was standing in.
-Chapter End-
I know that the way I'm explaining Ochako's quirk doesn't really work, because weight is only one of the things you have to overcome to move an object. Gravity pulls objects towards Earth, but even in space you still have to apply enough force to move the mass of the object as well, so while Ochako can make things way easier to move, she still would have to have the physical strength to exert the energy to move the object's base mass.
Unfortunately for science we see her swing around a giant concrete pillar like it was a balloon in season one, which shouldn't be possible unless she's the Hulk.
Sooooo, yeah.
On the discord we've discussed all sorts of things to try to make it work, from density alteration, to mass reduction, to acceleration manipulation, but nothing fits perfectly.
But who cares, I can just have Izuku get his hands on the quirk and have a mental breakdown in my place.
