ShuraZero
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Chapter 88: Seven Minutes in Hell
🕑 Added 2025-07-22 13:28:19 +0000 UTCThe air in the alley wasn't just cold. It was charged with a killing intent so dense it was a physical pressure, a weight that made it hard to even breathe. The stench of damp trash and rust mingled with the metallic smell of blood that Stain seemed to exude. Izuku still held Yu, whose heart was beating with a wild force against his palm. At his side, Toru was paralyzed, an invisible statue of fear.
Stain. The Hero Killer. The one who defeated Ingenium. The one who maimed Iida's brother.
Izuku's mind was racing.
Yu can't transform here, the collateral damage would be catastrophic. We'd crush Toru and half the neighborhood. Toru is agile, but she's not a front-line fighter against someone like him. I… my skills are evasive and analytical. We can't trade blows. We can't even block. Only dodge. We're two students and a hero without her main weapon. Impossible.
Panic was an icy tide threatening to drown him.
We can't win. The girls are…
He glanced discreetly at his phone's screen. Momo's tracker was blinking, getting closer.
Seven minutes. If we survive for seven minutes, they'll get here. Seven minutes in hell. We won't last. Unless…
Stain took a step, his notched sword ready. The bloodlust emanating from him was a physical pressure that made Izuku tremble, but his Empathic Acuity, a lingering remnant of Nemuri's manual, helped him analyze it, not just fall victim to it.
"Wait!" Izuku's voice was surprisingly firm, a pillar in the storm.
Stain stopped, his head tilting with the curiosity of a predator observing a strange prey.
"Before you kill us… at least tell us why," Izuku continued, pushing the words out of his tight throat. "What has she done to deserve this? Being famous? Appearing on the news? That's not a crime!"
Stain's gaze fell on Izuku for the first time, loaded with absolute disdain.
"Get out of here, kid. My purge isn't for your kind. I don't kill children playing hero, only those who tarnish the name. My target is the imposter."
He doesn't want to talk to me. He only cares about her. The key is his philosophy. His twisted, fanatical conviction. I need her to talk. I need him to listen to her.
Izuku deliberately squeezed Yu's chest, where he still held his hand. It was a pragmatic, shocking, and intimate act in the midst of terror. Yu let out a choked gasp and looked at him, her eyes screaming, "What the hell are you doing at a time like this?"
"Buy us time," Izuku whispered, so low only she could hear. "Reason with him. Talk about your philosophy. Yours against his. We need seven minutes."
Yu understood instantly. Her expression shifted from shock to a steely resolve. She gently freed herself from Izuku's grip and stepped forward, placing herself between Stain and the students. Her fear was palpable, but her stance was that of a professional hero refusing to back down.
"So I'm an imposter, huh?" her voice, though trembling, was laced with a challenge that surprised Stain. "Because I smile for the cameras? Because people know my name?"
"You use the title of 'hero' as a costume for vanity," Stain replied, his voice a harsh hiss. "You're a billboard, not a beacon. Heroism is sacrifice, not self-promotion. It's selflessness, not sponsorship deals to sell burgers."
"And you think I don't sacrifice? You think these scars are from photoshoots?" Yu pointed to a thin white line on her arm, almost invisible in the darkness. "Or that risking my life against a hundred-ton monster is just for the next day's headline? Being a symbol matters! Giving people someone to believe in, someone to make them smile in the worst of times, THAT is being a hero! You only bring fear and death!"
Stain let out a dry laugh, a joyless sound that bounced off the brick walls.
"The hope you sell is a lie if the hero offering it is false and rotten to the core! A house of cards built on a foundation of greed! True hope is born from the purge, from pulling out the weeds so something real can grow. I am the surgeon who removes the cancer that fakes like you represent!"
Five minutes.
"The talk is over, phony."
Stain moved. It was a lethal blur of speed aimed directly at Yu. There was no warning. Izuku, thanks to his Empathic Acuity, reacted on pure instinct.
"YU!"
He didn't try to block. He yelled her name and shoved her hard, making her tumble to the dirty ground. Stain's katana sliced through the air where her head had been an instant before, striking sparks from the brick wall with a metallic shriek.
"I warned you, kid! Get lost!" Stain growled, his fury rising. "This false hero isn't worth you dying for!"
"He's right, Izuku! Go!" Yu yelled from the ground, her voice an urgent whisper. "Take Toru with you! That's an order!"
Izuku looked at Toru, who was trembling but holding her ground, her fists clenched. He looked at Yu, without her Quirk but ready to fight to the death.
"Leave? And what will you do?"
"Fight. Even if I know I'm going to lose. It's what we do."
Izuku smirked, a defiant, half-broken smile. He turned back to Stain.
"You're wrong. I may have only known her for a short time, but I've seen beyond her facade. She was the reason I wanted to be a hero!"
Well… her thighs were the reason, but he doesn't need to know that.
"She inspires people! Whether you like it or not! A smile can be a more powerful weapon than any sword!"
Stain snorted in contempt.
"Someone like her is incapable of inspiring anything true! She only inspires decay!"
He ignored Izuku and lunged at Yu again. She rolled across the ground with surprising agility, dodging the first thrust. She got to her feet in a hand-to-hand combat stance, her bare hands ready.
"I don't need to get huge to kick your ass, psycho."
Stain laughed.
"Your gym training is useless against me."
Yu lunged, a palm strike aimed at Stain's chest. He dodged it with a fluid twist of his torso, his body contorting like a snake's. He countered with a low slash. Yu jumped back, her heels grazing the blade.
"Izuku, to your left! Use the dumpster!" she shouted, her voice now that of a strategist reading the battle from the outside while fighting for her life. "Don't let him corner me, his attack pattern is in an arc!"
Izuku obeyed. He used his agility to slide toward the dumpster and shoved it with all his might. The heavy metal container scraped across the wet ground, forcing Stain to change his trajectory.
Suddenly, a trash can lid flew from the darkness and slammed into the wall next to Stain's head with a metallic clang.
"Don't underestimate us, you monster!" Toru's voice, though shaky, was full of defiance.
Stain was forced to divide his attention. He was still overwhelmingly superior, but the combination of the evasive decoy (Izuku), the veteran strategist (Yu), and the invisible saboteur (Toru) kept him from ending the fight instantly. The battle turned into a deadly choreography.
"Pesky insects!" Stain growled, dodging a glass bottle Toru threw at him.
"Watch the wet ground, Izuku! You'll slip!" Yu warned, blocking a slash with her forearms, the impact rattling her bones.
Izuku skated on a puddle, using the momentum to slide under a low swing from Stain and gain a few precious inches of distance. Their synergy was imperfect, desperate, but it was working. It was keeping them alive.
Two minutes.
"Enough games!" Stain, frustrated by their resistance, changed tactics. He ignored Yu and lunged directly for the source of the distractions, toward Toru's voice.
"You, the invisible one, you're the most annoying!"
He threw one of his serrated daggers, not at where Toru was, but at the last spot he heard her voice from. Yu saw the trajectory; Toru, disoriented by fear, wouldn't be able to dodge in time.
"NO!"
Yu lunged and tackled Toru, pushing her out of the way. The dagger sank deep into Yu's calf muscle. She screamed, a choked sound of pain as blood gushed out, staining her stylish civilian clothes.
Stain smiled under his mask. With incredible speed, he lunged at her, ripped the dagger from the wound, and licked the blood from the blade.
"Thanks for the gift."
Yu's body froze instantly. She fell to the ground, paralyzed, her eyes wide with horror.
"Now for the purge!" Stain raised his katana over the helpless Yu.
No time. I can't block it. His strength is too much. I can't stop the blade. I can only… redirect it.
Just as the sword came down, Izuku threw himself forward. Instead of attempting an impossible parry, he got in the way. He twisted his body and took the thrust in his left shoulder. The sharp blade tore through skin, muscle, and bone with blinding pain. The tip of the katana jutted out from his back, having missed Yu by inches.
"Insect!" Stain grunted, surprised by the stupidity of the act.
His sword, impaling Izuku, held him pinned in place. In that instant of forced proximity, Izuku, with a cry of agony, bit down on Stain's neck with all his might. At the same time, Toru, having recovered from the tackle, surged forward, grabbed one of the daggers Stain had dropped in the struggle, and stabbed it into his thigh.
The combined pain made Stain roar with fury.
Enraged, he let go of the katana's hilt, grabbed Toru by the neck, and hurled her brutally against a wall of dumpsters. The sound of her body hitting the metal was a sickening thud. He then turned, grabbed Izuku, and ripped the katana from his shoulder in a single, violent motion. Izuku's blood coated the blade. Without hesitation, he licked it.
Toru, barely conscious, activated her last defense.
"Warp Refraction!"
A blinding flash flooded the alley. The flash made Stain take a step back, but only for a second. When his vision cleared, Izuku was already collapsing. The effect of Bloodcurdle was spreading through his body, a cold paralysis originating from his wounded shoulder.
"No… not yet…" he gasped, fighting the poison in his veins, his body refusing to surrender.
He managed to stay on his knees, shaking violently, his vision blurring. The cold spread through his limbs.
Stain approached slowly, his fury an icy aura. The demented gleam in his eyes was the only light in the darkness.
"You've been a real nuisance, kid. Your will is… admirable. But useless."
He stood before a nearly incapacitated Izuku.
"First, I'll finish you. Then, the phony."
From the ground, Yu's eyes flew open, filled with helpless terror.
"IZUKU, NO!"
A few feet away, Toru, bruised and bleeding, struggled to get up, a choked cry of despair trapped in her throat.
Stain raised his bloodied katana. The blade, reflecting the light of distant fires, descended slowly, aiming directly for the kneeling young hero's heart.
For them, time had run out.
