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MHA Paragon 2.0 Chapter 22: USJ Incident Pt. 4
🕑 Added 2025-01-06 03:18:27 +0000 UTC"More students!?" Shigaraki snarled, his voice strained and reedy as if he had been screaming, "I thought you said they were being handled!?"
Kurogirik's yellow eyes narrowed, and I could feel his gaze linger on me, "I fear I may have overestimated the abilities of the mercenaries we employed. However, I did advise that hiring professionals was needed considering that Class 1-A consisted of the strongest prospects in the school."
"It wouldn't have mattered if All Might was here!" Shigaraki screamed as he reached up and started to scratch at his neck violently, nearly scraping his skin raw, "Nothing is going according to plan! I can't fail...I won't!"
'This guy is insane,' I thought to myself, trying to calm my racing heart, but my conscious control over my body was slipping away each second I stared into the glowing red eyes of the creature standing behind the two villains.
I didn't know what it was about the monster, but it was causing my quirk to react. I could practically feel the flux in my veins vibrating in anticipation. Feeling the weight of my gaze, the creature turned its head, and the moment our eyes met, sparks flew in the air.
The monster bared its razor-sharp teeth as a deep guttural hiss reverberated through the air, catching its masters off guard.
"Quiet!" Shigaraki snapped at the creature, who immediately fell silent, "Damn the Doctor and his experiments! I don't know why Master is so invested in his work!"
"Kenji, what are we supposed to do?" Midorya asked me in a hushed whisper, with panic creeping into his voice near the end.
"You need to get Aizawa out of here," I replied as my racing heart shifted gears and the last vestige of control I possessed over my actions began to slip away.
"But he's pinned down!" Midorya exclaimed.
"Not for long," I muttered as my conscious thoughts vanished, replaced with an overwhelming hunger.
I inhaled reflexively as power surged through my body, a rippling current of frigid electricity that tore through my veins and muscles. My pupils shrunk to pinpoints, and the whites of my eyes turned pitch black as the blood vessels in my sclera burst, flooding my eyes with flux.
But my eyes weren't the only part of my body to strain under my quirk. All across my skin, my blackened veins split, bleeding flux that, instead of running down my skin, levitated into the air in small, thin streams.
Simultaneously, every muscle in my body flexed, standing out against my pale skin. I could feel the freezing current burning a pattern into my muscles, and if I had the peace of mind to look carefully, I would have noticed my weight suddenly increasing as new muscle groups appeared across my body. But all I could focus on was the creature and my overwhelming desire to claim its life and power.
With an unholy roar, I launched myself at the monster trailing behind countless ribbon-thin trails of flux like streamers. My sudden approach caught the two villains off guard, but Kurogirik was the first to react, expanding his body to protect Shigaraki as I closed the distance in the blink of an eye.
Even with the living wall of shadow in front of me, I didn't slow down in the slightest, plunging my flux-encased hands into the abyss and grabbing onto nothingness itself. With another roar, I wrenched my arms apart, tearing a hole through Kurogirik's body, and I watched his floating yellow eyes widen in pain.
Fortunately for him, I only had eyes for one entity. I pounced on the monster, catching it in a flying tackle and taking it to the ground in a wild scramble. The aberration let out an eldritch screech, and I felt its razor-sharp talons try and claw at my stomach as we rolled across the ground.
Moving on sheer instinct alone, I shifted my weight, somehow managing to stand upright, and with the remaining momentum, I threw the chimera into the air.
The creature scrambled, trying to orient itself, but found nothing solid to grab onto. My eyes were locked onto the chimera, tracing its trajectory as I dashed forward, gliding across the ground.
Plummeting out of the air, the monster fell like a stone, but the moment before it could hit the ground, I appeared in front of it, planting my foot as my right fist shot out and landed squarely on the creature's ribs.
After a delay, a loud bang ripped through the air along with a powerful shockwave as my punch sent the monster flying once more, though I knew the fight was far from over.
Twisting its body around the chimera, it managed to hit the ground feet first, burying its talons into the plaza floor and slicing through the bricks like butter, leaving behind deep furrows as the monster caught itself.
After a second, the monster rose to its full height, its fangs bared and a menacing growl echoing from its chest, but it wasn't unscathed. On its right side, the scales over its ribcage had shattered and now steadily dripped dark purple blood onto the ground.
Looking down at my fist, I stared at the same purple staining my hands. Before I realized it, I raised my hand into the air and opened my mouth, letting the blood drip down and splash against my tongue.
I doubled over, my body seizing as the single drop of blood sent a savage current spreading through my body. The high only lasted for a split second, but even in my rage-addled mind, I realized that my reserves had grown. Not by a functional amount, but if only a single drop had caused a visceral reaction...
Before I could finish my thought, I was forced to jerk my head to the side as the chimera's spike tail pierced through the air. With wide eyes, I felt a line of fire trail across my scalp as I watched the chimera's tail snap back, each joint popping back into place and returning the appendage to its original length.
More than twenty feet separated us, and the fact that the monster could distend its tail to close the distance at such speed was a dangerous proposition, forcing me to consider what other abilities it might be hiding.
I felt something warm and wet dripping down the side of my face, and before I could wipe it away, a drop landed in my eyes, staining my vision red and making me flinch.
The moment my concentration wavered, the creature let out a hiss and dashed at me, becoming little more than a dark blur as it tore across the ground.
Closing my blood-tinted eye, I glided back on my flux, trying to avoid the chimera, but it closed the distance before I could make a clear getaway.
I raised my forearm just in time to catch the creature's talons, and while I managed to absorb the physical blow, my eyes widened as I felt the chimera's razor-sharp talons start to slice through.
I kicked at the monster's underbelly, making full contact with the creature's scales, but the attack only served to push the beast away, giving me space to dash back. Glancing down at my arm, I watched as my flux liquified and easily repaired the damage, but I had just discovered another fatal flaw in my design.
My face contorted into a manic grin as I glanced back at the creature just in time to watch its serpentine tail snap like a whip, sending the spike on the very end flying through the air like an arrow.
But no arrow fired from a bow had ever traveled so fast, and it arrived in front of my face in the blink of an eye. Fortunately, my flux reacted quicker than that as I changed directions, dashing to the right, letting the spike sail right past me. But before I could take a moment of rest, another spike was sent flying my way, and I was forced to evade yet again and again as the creature unleashed an unending hail of projectiles.
Moving across the ground in a memorizing zigzag pattern, I managed to stay a hairsbreadth ahead of the spines as I tried to close the distance between me and the monster.
Despite my blistering speed, I watched the chimera's glowing red eyes track me back and forth as I dashed across the ground. I didn't realize what it was doing until suddenly, the steady rhythm of its firing pattern skipped a beat as I zipped to the right, putting myself directly in the path of the spine the chimera had fired a second after.
The creature hadn't been mindlessly trying to hit me; it had been watching, observing, and recognizing my movement until it was confident enough to predict my movements. It's patience had paid off, and as I stared at the impossibly sharp point aimed to pierce through my skull.
Without thinking, I thrust out my hand, coating it in flux as I tried to block the spine at the very last moment. Like when I had blocked its talons, I managed to absorb the kinetic energy, but the razor-sharp edge sliced through my flux.
There was a brief delay before my hand blossomed in pain, and my blood flew through the air.
