The villains are staring at the teenager. They are skittish, not sure if they should attack. The teenager holds too much over them. They are the marionettes to his puppet show. He is the puppeteer, pulling the strings by using the contracts against them. They could only watch as the warp gate is surrounding the students of U.A. They know that this is not the best idea, especially if Raven is here. No, if Ryuu finds out that they attacked his son—well that will mean being burned alive. The leader does not know just what is going to happen if word gets out to him. Just how suicidal is this guy?

  The U.A. students are mingling, trying not too get close to the warp who is blocking the entrance. He hasn't been given the word just yet and the heroes aren't doing anything. Aizawa is glancing between the cowering villains and the smirking teenager. He flashes back to the night he captured the kid and bring him for questioning. The villain that had sold Midoriya out, dropped to the ground and started screaming and writhing in pain. "Technically, you didn't violate your contract so it won't kill you, but it hurts, doesn't it?" So, he can cause pain through the contract and he can kill people. He will hate to see what else he can do. "Thirteen—"

  "Don't," intervenes Izuku, looking at him. "Not yet. Let me handle what I can, one of you try to contact the main campus."

  Aizawa gives him a harsh look, shaking his head. "You cannot talk your way out of this. How can I trust you with this? You're little friends—"

  Those sharp, acidic eyes rip into him. The fury in them, the clenched fist that is trembling at his side. It cuts him off, especially seeing the paleness of his face. He is in pain, that much he can see. "Just trust me please. I can't do anything other than that. Not right now, so if I can talk long enough, it may at least let one person get away to get through." He doesn't get an answer as he walks forward. Pushing his sleeves further up, he clenches his fists tightly as he takes a deep breath and gathering his anger. "Shigaraki Tomura, call your damn pet off!"

  "Midoriya Izuku!" shouts, who Aizawa thinks is, Shigaraki Tomura with giddiness in his voice, clapping his hands. "It's been a while! I do must ask, what are you doing here? I didn't think you even cared about heroes!"

  Izuku scowls, a deep growl coming from his throat. He steps another forward, making some of the villains flinch and take a step back. They are restless, not wanting to go against Shigaraki but also do not want to fight against Ryuu's son. If one thing or another happens, they die. "These people are under my protection, Tomura! If you harm them, I'll have your pathetic little army turn against you—just how many people do you think is under my influence?"

  "Come on, Izu! I thought we were friends!" Tomura laughs as he takes a step forward, some of the villains parting like the Red Sea parted for Moses. Some are jittery in seeing Raven and others just don't like Tomura, knowing what his quirk can do. "At least let us have fun! We all came so far to kill All Might! Just give him to us!"

  "No."

  Shigaraki falters in his path. He does a double take, almost like he seems to not have heard him correctly. "No? Honestly, Izuku, I really did hope we were actual friends! I thought we had a special bond!" His voice grows deadly as he asks sharply, "Why are you getting in my way?"

  "No because you're only my pawn until I don't need you." The chilling smile takes his face. "And I don't need you anymore." He steps forward again, his voice growing colder and his eyes getting deadier with each step he takes again. "You are not killing All Might, you are not going to hurt anyone. What you are going to do is leave and hope that I never see you ever again! So let me tell you again, call your damn pet off. Or else."

  "You're quirkless, what are you gonna do?" Though, he does know. They had worked together once and the things he saw the kid do painted him impressed and interested in having him become a villain, but that never happened. He is too deadset letting both sides and whatever is in between rip at each other and let them destroy the world.

  "If you honestly believe that people are actually loyal to you, you've got another thing coming. I told you, how many people do you think are under my influence? Not to mention, last year's, uh, incident? That was fun, want me to show them by using you as a demonstration?"

  As they continue talking, Aizawa is glancing at Kaminari. He shakes his head, worriedly glancing at his teachers and at the guy his age talking to the villain and possibly pissing him off. "Someone's quirk must be blocking my signal."

  He grunts and glances around. He decides to try erasing the warp's quirk for a second to get at least someone past. It's worth a shot since the villain is too busy staring at the interaction between the two males. Aizawa is so going to have to speak with him about this later when his students are safe. "Iida," he says sternly in a low voice. "When you see a chance, run. I do not care what you have to say, just do it."

  Iida glances at the warp then at the horde of villains before nodding.

  Izuku glances at the heroes-in-training then at Kurogiri with a sigh. He walks forward again, closer to the edge to where he can fall over. "Honestly, Shigaraki, you never change. You villains, if you harm them, you will face repercussions and I promise you that you do not want that. After all most of you know what I mean." He gives them that sickly sweet smile, the smile of a predator looking at their prey. Many of the villains backed off, intending to try and get behind the leader while others advanced. Izuku sighs and looks at one of the students. "Make me a staff. And, if you can, a kunai."

  Yaoyorozu pauses, her hand resting on her chest for a split second. In another, she pulls a staff out of her side and hands it over to him along with the one kunai.

  He takes them with a small thank you. He hides the kunai and makes his way forward once more. He hops down, lifting his head and glaring with intense fury. "You all are irritating me." The closet villain is surprised when the quirkless kid lunges at them.

  Aizawa is staring at the kid. His fighting style is different. Unknowingly to him, Izuku is combining gymnastics with two different types of martial arts. He blinks and turns to the villain who isn't doing anything just yet. Now. He uses his quirk on him and in that moment, his student runs. The only one who gets past. The rest are in shock. Then Bakugou has to make the mistake and attacks the warp gate. "Thirteen keep them safe. I'll be back."

  Thirteen doesn't get a say and watches as he heads into battle with Nedzu's personal student. That kid is reckless as they come, but the good thing is, he's protecting the students. He is a worrisome child, but if Nedzu has faith in him, then who are they to say different? "No!" they shout at seeing the students be caught up in the warp's portals. They hope that the students are okay.

  Once he is far enough, he let's the sigils show so that the villains know to back off or else. And like a puppeteer, Izuku is controlling a few of the villains that have attacked him via contract by maneuvering his fingers inconspicuously against his staff and having them get in the way of a few of the quirks. Whoever said that quirkless people can't fight against people with quirks can meet the end of my staff. I'll be willing to give them a few bruises.

  "You're so unfair, Izu!" cries Tomura as he glares at the younger teen, watching his movements. He knows exactly what he is doing, he's seen it happen many times when they worked together. For that, he is not letting him beat them. "Nomu! Attack him!"

  The big, disgusting monster whose brain is exposed heads straight towards Izuku.

* * *

All Might is staring at the phone, talking to Nedzu about his student. The man is explaining to him as he showed the principal the message before taking it back. The two just don't know whether to check on Aizawa or not and see how they're doing. Midoriya is a trustable person, especially because of the contract. There is no reason for him to lie about this. ". . . we get word of upcoming attacks before they happen. I mean, I trust him with this. If he knows about All For One, then we have to trust him enough about this."

  Nedzu nods. "I know, Toshinori. I trust him, even if you have doubts. We should really just keep our gu—"

  The door bursts open and in comes Present Mic telling them that they need to get to the USJ. "There's a villain attack," he says in all seriousness as he keeps his voice down so that no one else can hear it and send them into panic.

  Toshinori gets to his feet, passing Midoriya's phone to Nedzu so that he can call the police and paramedics in case of injury. "I'll go. You stay here and act like nothing's wrong. Have you alerted some of the other teachers?"

  "Yes a few, you should meet them up now outside."

  "Okay, thank you, Mic."

  Meanwhile in the USJ, Midoriya is panting harshly and swaying on his feet as he uses his staff to stand. He was just thrown across the floor and had the air knocked out of him with a giant hideous creature looming over him. It's not attacking anymore since Shigaraki is standing beside it. He quickly had recovered and was on his feet once again, scowling and spitting out blood. He isn't sure whether from a busted lip or from internal bleeding, but he figures it's the former. The two are staring at each other, not once speaking as a battle rages around them. Where the hell is Eraserhead? Or the other fucking, good for nothing heroes? I swear, I'm going to chew them out later.

   "You're making a mistake," Shigaraki states, reaching forward to grab the quirkless kid and wanting to harm him. Izuku is swings the staff, hitting the back of his hand and hoping backwards to keep out of his reach. "Honestly, your resilience is fucking annoying. You can be so, so much more than this Izu. I don't understand why you are protecting these brats!"

  "You shouldn't say such childish things to me. Your grudge is against All Might, not these students, Tomu," he reasons. He spits out more blood, wanting to just get on with life and have nothing to do with these heroes and villains and whatever there is in between the two groups. "I may not be able to stand heroes, but I have a contract to uphold."

  Shigaraki sighs and shakes his head. "Fine. I wish we could've met again differently. I'm sorry Midoriya." Bullshit. "Should've saved yourself when you had the chance."

  Midoriya doesn't get enough time to defend himself. By the time he can feel anything, he is on the ground with pain erupting in his abdomen. He coughs up blood and bile, choking on the two substances that are burning his throat. The edges of his vision is darkening as his eyelids flutter, trying so hard to stay conscious and stop the tears from falling. He really wishes he never met that villain in the first place, all he did was get him into so much trouble that Midoriya does not even know if anything he can do can get himself out of this. The heroes already know about him and it is not going to go well is he leaves. He doesn't scream. His throat clogged with stomach acid and blood. He gets hit in the face and more blood fills his mouth. He faintly hears someone saying his name, someone is coming close, he can feel the vibrations.

  "Not so resilient now, are you Izu?" Shigaraki taunts as he looks up at Eraserhead. "Eraserhead! Ah, your fighting skills are so amazing!" A grin crosses his face behind the mask as he watches the hero's mouth twitches into a silent horrified expression at seeing the informant being beaten up. "Nomu has a new plaything! Nomu kill him!" The monster turns towards the underground hero. This gives Midoriya a moment to recover. Weakly, he pushes himself up enough to stop choking by throwing up. Shigaraki whistles as he grabs Midoriya by the collar of his shirt. "Izuku, Izuku, Izuku. Look at yourself," he whispers.

  Midoriya glares and attempts to use the kunai against Shigaraki. In that split second, all five fingers are wrapped around Izuku's wrist. His cry of pain is followed by him being slammed against the floor. I really regret ever meeting these people. Midoriya forces himself up, grabbing the staff he was given by that girl and leaning on it. He is trying to figure out how to get out of this situation but between the feeling like being stomped on by multiple rhinos and the black spots trying to overtake his vision, it's difficult to come up with a plan, much less focus. In a moment of stupidity, he throws the kunai and instead of hitting its intended target, a portal opens up and the blade goes through and appears behind him, stabbing him. He gasps, stumbling forward. In pain. Blinding, white hot agony, blooms throughout him. Izuku spits out more blood, taking a breath to steady himself and regain some composure. With a raspy voice, he growls, "I'm tired of your games, Tomura."

  "Well, at least try to fight me."

  Midoriya doesn't rise to the bait. He takes out the blade and lunges forward, stabbing the villain in the leg before he yanks it out and runs, heading towards the Nomu that's attacking the underground hero. He uses the staff to hit it in the exposed brain. He's glad that he didn't drop the kunai and stabbed it, ripping one side of the organ. The creature screams and stumbles back dropping. "Oh, look, it's brain dead now," he says—mentally cursing himself at the idiotic saying. He helps Aizawa up and turns to the villain.

  The villain is staring at Midoriya who is swaying on his feet. A red spot his blooming on the back of his white shirt and on the front from where he's still spitting up blood. "Just because you did that doesn't mean anything. Nomu! Kill them both."

  Horrifyingly and amazingly, the creature stands right back up, and heads forward. Midoriya is the first victim, Aizawa is able to hop back but Tomura grabs his face. The hero grunts in pain, elbowing him. He never felt more glad about hearing that annoying phrase from the overly happy hero. He grabs both Eraserhead and Raven. From not knowing  how terrible the injuries the kid had sustained, he grabs him roughly. Aizawa and Midoriya are both in pain, and it's not difficult to see who's hurt worse.

  Izuku is on his back, staring up at the ceiling and finding someone standing over him. He can't hear anything. Who's over him? He is already feeling the blood loss starting to get to him.

  His vision is blurry, he hears his beating heart over whatever is being said. Blinking, he feels tired. He shouldn't—"Agh!" he screams, his senses coming right back long enough for him to be aware of that hurt. His eyes roll up into his head and finally, the sweet release of darkness comes over him.