Bab 20: USJ (4)
BOOM!
A black blur that had been plummeting down crashed into the ground, causing a large shockwave that shook the entire USJ facility, as well as a cloud of dust and debris to shoot up into the air.
"Careful. The dust is obscuring my vision." Aizawa cautioned.
But that was not an issue for the Psychokinesis user as Yasuo immediately waved his hand which subsequently blew away the cloud of dust covering the Nomu.
What came in to their sight was the black beast laying face up in the middle of a large crater. It's chest was still caved in, and blood was leaking out of its mouth.
"…Did we get it?" Yasuo muttered, not daring to turn his attention away from the crazily strong creature. As far as he could see, the beast was laying motionlessly. If he weren't so cautious that it might counterattack, he would have been worried it might be dead.
"Don't get careless- KUAGH!!" Aizawa began but in the middle of his sentence suddenly screamed out in pain.
Shocked, Yasuo immediately turned to his teacher, only to see a hand emerging out of black mist that was grabbing on to the side of Aizawa's face which looked to be disintegrating.
Something snapped in Yasuo's mind and a Psychic force was instantly summoned around the offending appendage… before Yasuo crushed it.
The hand was squashed into a crumpled mess of blood and bones, with fingers that no longer resembled fingers and a palm that was more like a bunch of rolled up red Twizzlers instead.
A scream of pain emerged from the ground below him and the hand was withdrawn into the portal. But Yasuo ignored that. The only thing he was focused on was Aizawa's face, parts of which was now missing its skin while his facial muscles were exposed to the world. The remaining skin on his face was cracking, as though they were peeling paint flaking away.
"Sensei! Are you okay!?" Yasuo asked in concern.
"I'm fine, just surprised. Don't keep your eyes off the villains." Aizawa replied with surprising calm, even despite maybe forty percent of his face peeled and bleeding. Just the short two seconds Tomura had his hand on Aizawa was enough for the Decay quirk to disintegrate that much skin and even some muscle on his face.
Thankfully, his goggles were able to protect his eyes, which Aizawa considered his strongest weapon. But his face now was still a bloody mess, though not as blood nor gory as what remained of Tomura's hand.
"KUAGH! K-Kurogiri, m-my h-hand, my hand!! It hurts!" Tomura clenched the wrist of his mangled hand, screaming in pain.
"Don't worry Shigaraki, we just needed Eraserhead to look away for a moment so that the Nomu's Hyper-regeneration quirk could activate." Kurogiri responded soothingly.
"T-that kid, he crushed my hand! Is it game over even before All Might arrives!? No, I can't let this end here! He has to die now!" Shigaraki cried out, glaring furiously at the pair flying high up in the air before turning in the direction of their fallen secret weapon, "NOMU! KILL THEM!"
The few seconds Tomura's sacrifice bought them was sufficient, as when Yasuo turned his gaze back to the monster he now realized was called Nomu, the dent he had left on the monster's chest was nowhere to be seen. The creature was already picking himself back up and staring back at them with a blankness that simultaneously conveyed killing intent.
Yasuo widened his eyes at the sight. 'A self-healing quirk, damage negation quirk and enhanced strength on the level of All Might!? How is that possible!? Or does that all fall under the umbrella of a single quirk like mine?'
Aizawa, while holding in the pain from his new injury, was similarly shocked. He recalled the villain having mentioned that the black beast, nomu, was something designed to kill All Might. After seeing what he just saw, he was starting to believe what that man said.
Nomu bent its legs, before launching itself up in the air. Seeing that, Yasuo unleashed the Psychic Energy he had been gathering, aiming it towards the Nomu that was jumping towards him.
However, before the Psychic Energy could reach the monster, it entered a black mist portal that appeared suddenly in mid-air.
It took all of Yasuo's instincts and a sudden intuition to put up a dozen layers of barriers around him and Aizawa.
CRACK!
The Nomu had reappeared out of a portal next to them and slammed its fist into the barriers Yasuo hastily put up. Similar to the scene before, spiderweb-like cracks emerged from the point of impact that only he could see.
Thankfully, the Nomu had no flying quirk as it immediately began plummeting down after landing the single fist which gave Yasuo time to repair the damaged barriers.
However, the Nomu that was falling was again brought into a dark fog portal before reappearing a few metres above them and landing another immensely powerful fist on the barrier.
Aizawa couldn't believe it. The first attack might have been a surprise, but he definitely erased the creature's quirk the second time. But it seemingly had no effect on the creature's monstrous strength. 'Which means… its base strength is on the same level as All Might!?'
'This… can't continue!' Yasuo thought to himself. His Psychic Energy was not unlimited, and he could not continuously levitate both himself and Aizawa while simultaneously layering and repairing more and more barriers indefinitely. Something had to change.
"Sensei, take care of those two on the ground! The dark fog guy is too annoying! I will restrain the monster somehow!" Yasuo suggested, although the tone was leaning more towards a command than a suggestion. At times like these, Yasuo could not afford to be polite.
Aizawa paused for a moment. Without his Erasure quirk, how was Yasuo going to deal with the creature? But he also understood where his student was coming from. As long as the warp portal villain was around, the disintegration quirk villain would be a source of a potentially deadly sneak attacks and not to mention the support he was giving to the monster.
He nodded and Yasuo sent Aizawa out of the barrier before launching him at the villains on the ground, covered by a layer of protective Psychic Energy of course. Aizawa immediately turned his eyes towards the two villains, erasing their quirks and stopping Kurogiri from using his warping abilities any further.
With the dark fog no longer transporting the Nomu, Yasuo could once again grab the creature in mid-air and suspend its movement.
"You're mine now…!" Yasuo hissed out, anger and frustration seeping into his voice as the repeated attempts to take down the monster before him failed again and again.
'Regeneration plus some sort of damage negation… perhaps kinetic energy negation? And no to mention, even with sensei's Erasure, this 'Nomu's' strength is still terrifying to behold. What kind of an abomination is this thing…?'
He thought about just leaving it restrained in the air while turning his attention to help Aizawa with his foes, but on second thought, decided that he couldn't leave such a dangerous enemy unattended. At any time, a surprise attack from this creature could pulverize bones and destroy organs. It was too dangerous to turn away from it.
'Then is the best choice… disabling it?'
With a thought, the Nomu's arm froze before slowly being rotated. It's dense musculature and innate strength resisted against Yasuo's Psychokinetic force, however, without any sort of leverage, it could not muster the same strength as it did when punching.
Yasuo realized that even if the creature could somehow absorb or negate kinetic energy, what he was doing wasn't applying kinetic impact on the creature. It was torque! Rotating its arm about an axis, which was its shoulder, had no kinetic shock to be negated or absorbed.
With a sickening crack, the Nomu's arm was dislocated from it's shoulder and would have hung limply by its torso if not for Yasuo's Psychic Force holding it up.
But, as expected, the dislocated arm immediately repaired itself and snapped back into place like nothing ever happened.
'I bet it won't be able to regenerate if I tear off its head…' Yasuo shook the stray thought from his head. Such viciousness was unbecoming of a student training to be a hero.
As long as Aizawa could deal with those two on the ground, Yasuo would be doing his job well enough just by restraining the villains' trump card. Of course that would only be the case if Yasuo was satisfied with just doing his job.
Thinking back to his biology lessons, Yasuo located the joints of the human body, "Fingers, wrist, elbow, shoulder, feet, knee, hip, neck and spine. Taking away the more fatal options, that leaves…"
Yasuo willed it, and so it happened. After several more sickening cracks and pops, the abovementioned joints save a few all twisted and cracked, turning in the wrong direction. Even with its dense musculature, the limbs of the creature now looked like limp, twisted sacks of flesh and blood… that immediately snapped back into place, regaining its firmness once more.
Frustrating, was the sole thought on Yasuo's mind. Unless he resorted to more lethal methods, this creature looked like it would just indefinitely regenerate any damage done to it. Perhaps indefinitely was incorrect, as it was impossible for the creature to have endless vitality. But that was how it seemed to Yasuo at least.
If he could force it to use up its vitality by continuously doing damage… 'But wouldn't that basically be torture?' Yasuo thought, abandoning that idea. Even towards a villain, who had yet to deal commit any murders or cause any serious harm, it was wrong.
Back on the ground, Aizawa was forced in to a tough fight. It wasn't difficult because the two villains were particular adept at hand-to-hand combat or anything. It was that they were familiar with how his quirk worked, as well as its limitations. Those two were constantly trying to manoeuvre themselves into a position where he was sandwiched between them, and thus forced to only look at one of them.
So between the two of them, Aizawa had to focus on the most dangerous one. Not in terms of lethality, but the one who posed the greatest danger – the teleportation quirk holder; due to his ability to warp themselves out of danger as well as transporting the dangerous creature his student was currently restraining.
The numerous unconscious villains littered across the ground as a result of Yasuo's initial salvo were only a consolation prize once they were captured. The true prize were the obvious masterminds behind this attack – the two he was currently trying to capture.
In his eyes, there had to be a larger organization behind this, the group they called the 'League of Villains'. A positively childish and immature name, as befitting the childish and immature man with a hand for a mask.
As such, capturing these two would be the key to their investigations after this entire incident was over. Yet, because of the warp portal villain's quirk, they could at any moment escape. Which meant his first target for capture was the black fog fellow.
However, the other villain was constantly disturbing his efforts by trying to grab ahold of his body. Since Aizawa was focusing his Erasure quirk on the black mist, he was forced to constantly evade the other villain whenever he came up to attack him from behind.
Furthermore, his previous injuries were starting to slow him down. There was a knife stuck in his arm that was currently staunching the bloodflow that would undoubtedly and profusely flow once it was removed, and his battered and bruised body was aching in protest the more he moved.
A long, drawn out fight was truly not his forte, Aizawa mentally remarked before his thoughts were interrupted as his evasion was suddenly stopped short as he lost his footing.
Resisting the urge to look down and to continue keeping his gaze on the enemy, Aizawa tried to move his foot which he could feel had seemingly stepped into a hole on the ground.
"Surprise!" Tomura cheerily yelled as he dashed towards Eraserhead. The whole time while Aizawa was trying to evade him, Tomura had actually secretly been weakening the cement floor while attacking. Because Eraserhead was forced to keep his eyes on Kurogiri, Tomura was able to lay a few traps by disintegrating several spots with his quirk.
All for this one moment when Eraserhead would falter and give him an opportunity to close his fingers on the man's neck. One of his hands was mangled beyond recognition, but the other was still functional, and that was the appendage he would use in killing Eraserhead.
'This is bad!' Aizawa internally exclaimed. He had two options, continue looking at Kurogiri and fend off Tomura blind, which might risk him being injured or even killed by that man's Disintegrating quirk, or turn to Tomura and capture him first which would result in the other villain escaping with his quirk.
As much as he was willing to die to protect his students, Aizawa also knew that if Tomura caught him with his quirk, he would still die only without being able to protect anyone. Therefore, the only rational option would be…
Aizawa's scarf flew towards Tomura, wrapping around his extended arm.
"YASUO!" The only thing he could do at least, was give a heads up to his student.
At that moment, Yasuo had just finished twisting all of Nomu's joints, and just as expected, Kurogiri's blackmist appeared to take Nomu away from Yasuo's grasp.
'Dammit sensei, you had one job!'
Yasuo tried to attack Kurogiri's main body which had appeared along with the black mist that took the monstrous humanoid away, but he was too slow to react. Right in front of him, the Nomu disappeared into the dark fog and was transported away.
The Nomu, now free of Yasuo's Psychokinetic hold on him, went to his master's rescue. Tomura, who had been facing Aizawa alone, was quickly dispatched and brought under Eraserhead's heel, with his scarf binding his one good hand to his torso.
The monster moved, leaving a black blur in its wake, an indication of its extreme speed, and was about to tackle Aizawa which would undoubtedly have crushed the man's comparatively fragile body. However, it was once more Psychokinetically restrained by Yasuo from afar.
He then took it one step further by twisting the Nomu's joints – this time, not just to dislocate them but to tear out its arms and legs entirely. Once he saw Aizawa in danger, thoughts of holding back were no longer present. After all, holding back was a privilege he could only afford if he had the situation under control.
Under the current circumstances, he could hardly say that he had things under control.
The meaty arms and legs of the Nomu were psychokinetically torn off by Yasuo, and great spouts of blood burst out of the dismembered monster.
Aizawa was shocked at the sudden and intense brutality, before being reminded of the creature's ability to regenerate. And as he had turned to look at the incoming danger, Tomura who was under his heel could quickly disintegrate the scarf that was restraining him.
Additionally, Kurogiri who saw Nomu's arms and legs being torn off no longer had any illusion that this plan of theirs would succeed. Too much had gone wrong and he could not fail his master by risking his successor.
So the moment he saw Aizawa being distracted by the Nomu, he warped himself to Tomura and then proceeded to teleport both of them out of USJ.
Yasuo actually saw this happening, but at that moment, he had been too distracted by the searing migraine from tearing off Nomu's limbs to react properly.
Because he had seen Aizawa in danger, he instinctively used a lot more energy that was necessary to tear off Nomu's arms and legs. So much so that not only was Nomu's limbs torn off, but they were also launched across the building and smashed against the walls of USJ, creating four large holes at each point of impact.
Sensing that the two were no longer within the radius of his Psychic Sense, Yasuo shakily descended from the air, casually wiping away the blood from his nose that had leaked when he overexerted himself at the last moment.
"Are you okay, sensei?" Yasuo asked when he arrived next to Aizawa.
Eraserhead did not tear his eyes away from the dismembered Nomu to look at Yasuo, fearing that the moment he did, the creature would start regenerating again and rampage.
"I should be asking you that, Yasuo." He replied.
"I'm fine." Yasuo took in Aizawa's haggard appearance, as well as his still bleeding face and forearm, "What should we do with this… thing?"
They both knew that letting the creature regenerate was a bad idea. As long as Aizawa kept looking at it, even if he blinked once in a while, the creature would not be able to repair its body. Yet, letting it bleed out was also basically killing the thing. They were two people stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Just as Aizawa was contemplating and about to reply, a loud boom erupted from the entrance of USJ.
Yasuo turned to see just what other trouble had arrived, using his Psychic Sense to 'see' what he couldn't, but breathed a sigh of relief. The cavalry had arrived. Perhaps, slightly too late.
"I AM HERE!"
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A/N: As we near the end of the USJ arc and approach the Sports Festival arc, I would like to ask you guys for some suggestions for Yasuo's hero name. I'm not good at naming things, so I am opening it up to your creativity! If you find a suggestion you like, give it a like! I'll be asking this for the next few chapters and will collate the ones everyone likes most - then a few chapters before the hero name chapter I will open up a poll for you to vote! So head on over to the comment section and hand over your intellectual property, dear readers!
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
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