Kazue, for once in his life, was at a loss. What the absolute fuck was he suposed to do in a situation like this? The last time so many villains had banded together for a single goal had been before he'd even been born.

And now nineteen hero hopefuls and two pros were in grievous danger while he was hovering fifteen meters in the air, eyes wide as they scanned the surrounding area desperately. Looking for a flash of skin as dark as night crossed with reddened scars. Anything, anything at all that would tell him where Decay's mutant pet had vanished to.

It didn't have a teleportation or invisibility Quirk, so where the hell did it go?

But even if it did disappear from view, the villain in charge still had a major obstacle in front of him that had yet to be taken care of.

Eraser Head.

Kazue acted without thinking upon seeing Decay's lips move underneath the hand covering his face, fumbling at his flight gear to land with an uneven thump right behind the hero. Just in time to have the mutant speed forward out of nowhere at a velocity one would only think was possible for All Might and raise a hand menacingly.

The brunet braced himself for the inevitable contact, having made peace with the fact that he was likely to get severely injured. He didn't want to die so soon, but he'd rather risk his own life than see someone else's get taken away without doing a thing to try and prevent it. Kazue readied his Quirk in the span of a millisecond, ready to pulse as soon as the blow came. He didn't know what would happen if his other half still refused to listen, but forced himself to ignore the possibility.

He squeezed his eyes shut, only to wish he hadn't a second later. A human hand was roughly grabbing his shoulder and throwing his body to the side, catching him off-guard instantly.

Kazue scrambled to his feet at the undeniable sound of bones snapping, not even bothering to brush away the hair covering his eyes to get a better line of sight.

No amount of training could have prepared him for the sight only a few meters away.

Aizawa Shōta had been the one to grab the teen and throw him aside, just in time to get slammed into the dirt by the hand of the mutant.

His knees threatened to give out the longer he stood and stared, taking in one sight at a time. The broken, red-stained goggles. The crimson liquid pooling around the man's face. The arm bent at an unnatural angle in the mutant's grip as it crouched over the fallen hero.

No.

No.

Stay calm. Use your head to think, not feel, right now.

Kazue closed his eyes for a long, agonizingly long second as he turned his body to face the blue-haired villain. A deep breath exhaled from his lips as he formulated a plan, then numerous back-up plans in case one were to go south.

And he laughed like he didn't have a care in the world, spreading his arms even as a guttural cry of pain escaped Eraser Head's lips and droplets of the hero's blood splattered across the back of his costume.

"What's so funny, hero?" Decay asked, tone one of childish anger. "Your dear Sensei is being tortured by Nōmu, and you're next."

The brunet forced himself to snicker. To seem undisturbed by the sight behind him, the one he could just barely see in his peripheral vision. "Oh, nothing, it's just that... you're pathetic, is all," he replied in a singsong tone, deliberately not elaborating.

Decay's visible eye narrowed between the fingers of the hand. "NPCs are pathetic," he retorted, only further increasing Kazue's deduction that he was nothing more than a child in a man's body. Good. Then there was a chance, however small it might be, to defeat the villain without even having to deal with his pet.

Kazue snapped his fingers. "Exactly! In this situation, you're the NPC. You're doing absolutely nothing by standing there and watching. Your henchmen did all the real work, even if they're terribly weak and don't stand a chance, and now all you've done is disintegrate a sleeve and the skin of an elbow. And now here we are, yet again watching your pet do the dirty work for you," he summarized, voice positively dripping with mockery. "I'm almost starting to think... that you're not even that strong! That even I, a first year on the fourth day of my heroics education, could beat you. What do you think, hm?"

Come on. Take the bait.

The villain snarled angrily, hands flying up to his neck and scratching away at the skin like it'd personally offended him. "You, beat me? A lowly brat like you could never-"

"Prove it," Kazue cut him off, smiling like a maniac. It was time to throw all his cards on the table. "Come on. Don't you want to prove to your dear master that you won't be taken down by a mere weakling like me the second you're alone?"

Decay's hands froze instantly, lifting away from his reddened skin. "Sensei..." he murmured. "You know about Sensei... How? Wait. It doesn't matter... if I kill you!"

The green-eyed teenager shifted his feet and melted into an open-palmed fighting stance, just in time for the man to charge. He mentally appraised the villain in the two seconds it took to sprint down the steps of the fountain's base and a little ways across the dirt, noting how careless his movements were. Decay had appeared to know enough close combat in order to disintegrate Eraser Head's elbow, but was no longer showing any of the same dexterity he may have possessed.

Kazue pivoted on the ball of his right foot as soon as the villain lunged forward with his hand outstretched, grabbing the man's wrist and harshly yanking it forward. Before he could add more force by shoving at his back, the younger was forced to hurriedly retract his grip and take a boost jump backwards to narrowly avoid getting grabbed.

Focus. Concentrate. Remember to breathe.

He reset his stance.

The villain charged, closing the distance in an instant.

And Kazue danced.

He ducked smoothly under the swings of hands clawing at the air and slipped out of every attempted hold, knowing that if he stopped moving for an instant it was all over. The only things keeping him alive were his father's relentless training and the time it took for a single thought to cross his mind.

Don't let all five fingers come in contact. He hasn't progressed past that yet.

Keep slipping just out of his reach.

It'll make him angrier.

Angrier means more mistakes.

Now it was all just a matter of who would run out of energy first. Kazue wasn't quite sure who had the advantage. Himself, who had practically been trained since he could walk in martial arts, or someone who was older and likely had even more informal experience.

Unfortunately for him, it just so happened to be the latter.

Kazue messed up.

No.

His Quirk messed up.

The blanket of drowsiness that had been plaguing the boy ever since the exams washed over his mind like a wave without warning. He stumbled, only for a moment, but that was all it took. The villain's hand shot out and grabbed viscously onto his face, a gleeful laugh escaping his lips from beneath the hand.

And absolutely nothing happened.

Kazue opened the eyes he hadn't even realized he'd closed, blinking once at the sight of all five fingers being in contact with his face, yet...

"Well, it's about goddamn time," he stated flatly, taking advantage of the man's confusion to grab his arm. He pivoted his hips, slamming the villain over his shoulder and into the dirt. Kazue wasted no time in pinning Decay's arms down with his knees, drawing back a fist.

Only for his good luck to finally run out. Kazue's blood ran cold at the sudden pressure encasing his arm. His head slowly turned, heart beating out of his chest as his jaw clenched in one final attempt to stay in control of his own fear.

The mutant that Decay had called Nōmu was standing right behind him, opening its beak to let out a blood-curdling screech that Kazue could only describe as the creature proclaiming victory.

Right before it clenched his fist, a strangely crimson liquid dribbling out between its fingers and spattering across the dirt.

Kazue's mind felt like it was floating high, high in the sky.

Where...where was he?

He... he was at the USJ, where Class 1-A was supposed to be doing rescue exercises. Then why were there unconscious villains scattered all over the ground, and where were all the students?

The only ones he could see were Mineta, Asui, and Midoriya, but none of them looked like they were doing any training. Rather, they looked...terrified? Was that the right word? Yes, they were terrified, eyes wide with horror as they stared at something below Kazue's floating consciousness.

He looked down out of curiosity, furrowing his eyebrows in confusion at the sight below. There was Aizawa, blood pooling around his head into the cracked earth. One of his sleeves was gone, the elbow looking like it'd been partially disintegrated. Both of his arms were mangled beyond recognition, a gleaming white bone jutting out of the hero's left forearm.

And then there was the second confusing sight. A man with hands covering his body—Decay, he remembered—was getting to his feet, brushing the dust off of his black v-neck as his chest shook with laughter. By his feet was the crumpled body of someone who looked oddly familiar, his arm pulled back at an unnatural angle in the grip of a giant mutated bird creature.

For whatever reason, the longer Kazue's gaze remained on the brunet boy, the foggier his mind felt and the stronger the pulsing feeling in his right arm grew until dark spots danced across his vision.

He found himself unable to look away as the creature released the mangled limb from its grip and instead grasped the fallen hero student's skull. An itch manifested itself on the back of Kazue's head at the sight, almost as if he were watching himself.

The last thing he saw before his vision faded completely was the mutation slamming the brunet's face into the dirt and the Warp Gate swirling into existence beside Decay.

That was when a single fleeting thought crossed his mind: The person getting beat half to death was him.

Posting on a weekday because it's a snow day and I'm bored af 😃👍

Imagine I had Kazue beat up Shiggy on their first meeting...

Also: There was a clue in this chapter as the the nature of Kazue's actual Quirk. Well, more of a really obvious plot point, but whatever.

Questions/comments?