An uncomfortable silence settled over the room where the children had been gathered in their own little corners.
The words Kirishima had thrown at them, when they were all trying their best to look for even the slightest chance, landed like a heavy war hammer.
But no one could say he was wrong.
By the time you’re fifteen or sixteen, you start to realize that reality is not a fairy tale.
You might think you’re different, but that’s just human nature regardless of age, so once you set that aside, it was about the time they began to understand the world in a more realistic way.
"Maybe Kirishima’s right. It was a little painful to hear, but I was definitely trying to look only at the brightest possible future. It’s true that reality isn’t that soft. Still, I think there’s a chance."
Midoriya spoke with a calmer face, as if he had stepped out of his dream.
Yaoyorozu questioned his words.
"Even if we avoid every fight, there will still be Villains on the top floor."
"That’s true. But if we can somehow restore the system, the hostages and All Might will be freed! If that happens, the situation could turn around all at once."
"First, fix that optimism of yours."
Kirishima cut in on purpose right in the middle of Midoriya’s sentence.
From a general point of view, it wasn’t wrong, but someone who knew exactly what condition All Might was in should not be saying such carefree things.
All Might was certainly their strongest asset, but when it came to simply buying time, there were more people capable of it than one might expect.
Kirishima could say that with confidence, because if he didn’t care what methods he used, he was one of those people too.
"All Might is definitely our strongest card, but he’s not some magic hammer that can solve everything with a bang. Like I said before, we don’t know anything about the Villains’ strength. Do you still want to go save them?"
At Kirishima’s question, Midoriya’s expression hardened again, but this time he did not fall silent.
He steeled himself as a warrior.
"Yeah. Maybe, like Kirishima said, freeing All Might won’t solve everything by itself. But I still think it’s the best chance we have. If that’s the case, then I’m moving."
Kirishima said nothing more.
He simply held out his hand, and Midoriya took it.
That was when Uraraka stepped forward and placed her hand over Midoriya’s.
"Let’s go, Deku!"
"Uraraka!"
"If there’s something we can do, then I hate the idea of just standing around and doing nothing. I think that’s a matter of whether you’re a Hero or not, before anything else. No matter how much resolve it takes."
"Yeah! Let’s save the people who are in trouble! Let’s do what people are supposed to do!"
"Right!"
Kirishima honestly wanted the children to back out here.
But at the same time, a part of him wanted them to join the fight.
After all, countless storms would come for these kids in the future.
When the harsh wind tore at their flesh and cold rain soaked through their bodies, Kirishima would not always be able to stand beside them.
He would do everything he could to protect them, but these children were future warriors too.
The day would come when they had to step into a battlefield of their own, one where he was not there.
If that was the case, maybe it would be better for them to experience real combat while he was still nearby.
But the fact that he did not know the enemy’s strength also made him want to stop them.
So he could not voice any clear opinion.
As he looked at the two of them with lowered eyes, a pink hand came down on top of his.
Warmth spread through his thick hand, a hand that could tear through steel and pierce through space.
"Okay! I’m going too!"
"Mina? You’re taking this too easi—"
"I’m not taking it lightly! I’ve been trained mercilessly by Edge Shot, so I know exactly how hard it is to become a Hero. And after getting attacked at USJ, I learned how terrifying it is to fight while under assault."
"Then you can stay out of it."
"No! If I run away here, Pinky will never be able to fight again. That’s how it feels to me. More than anything, I have a reason to fight!"
Kirishima did not bother asking what that reason was.
He simply felt, once again, how quickly the child had grown.
The little girl who had once been hurt by her Quirk at age three and cried with a miserable face had already become someone who could walk according to her own beliefs.
Kirishima realized that he had still been thinking of Ashido as that child, the one who had looked up at him with tearful eyes back then.
And, regrettably, it was time to stop thinking of her as a child and instead bless Ashido’s new beginning.
"Yeah. Let’s go together."
"Kirishima, I’m going too."
"Me too."
"If I decide it’s impossible, I’ll turn back. If that condition is fine, then I’m going too!"
"If that’s the case, so will I!"
"Ribbit, I’ll join too if I can make a calm judgment."
"All right, me too!"
The children all declared that they were joining in.
Midoriya watched them with emotion, then walked over to Melissa.
"Please wait here, Melissa."
"Even if you back out, Melissa has to come with us."
"Huh? But Melissa doesn’t have a Quirk..."
"Of all people, you shouldn’t be saying that."
Midoriya was shocked by Kirishima’s words.
He was right.
How long had it been since Quirks appeared, and yet he had been treating the Quirkless as if they could do nothing?
While Midoriya stayed silent, Melissa backed up Kirishima’s words.
"Is there anyone here who can configure or change the security system?"
"Ah..."
"I’m a student at the academy, so I think I can be useful. I might be in the way until we reach the top floor, but... let me protect everyone too! Please!"
After a brief silence, Midoriya nodded.
"Understood. Let’s go, to save everyone!"
"Yeah!"
In the end, not a single person stayed behind.
While Midoriya briefly returned to the party hall and came back, Kirishima deployed his panels.
The skirt that had been rustling for a moment scattered into pieces and slipped through the gaps in the building.
Before long, he could feel the panels taking position in a dome shape above the reception hall.
When he closed his eyes and focused his consciousness on the controller on his head, information poured in from each panel like a levee bursting under a flood.
His head began to throb, so he quickly shut off most of the sensing functions and left only the closed communication network active.
"So I really can’t use this properly yet. I’ll need to train separately."
If he could create a proper sensing field with the panels, it would effectively extend his air superiority, and he regretted not being able to do that.
But this was an emergency. He had no room to complain about what he lacked.
He distributed the five panels he had left behind to the children.
"What is this? It looks like scales at first glance."
"Think of it as a kind of communication device. It has a few other functions, but the only thing I can use right now is a closed communication network that can connect through any interference. The phrase ‘closed communication network’ sounds a little ridiculous, but that’s the creator’s opinion, so just accept it for what it is."
Kirishima gave Todoroki a simple explanation in response to his question.
Then Tsuyu asked how to use it.
"Ribbit. So how do we use it?"
"Just hold it and talk. Then I’ll hear you. And you’ll hear my voice through the panel too."
"That’s simpler than I expected."
Just then Midoriya returned, and the children set off toward the top floor.
Their climb up the emergency stairs was relentless at first, but they gradually began to tire.
They were all aspiring Heroes, so none of them had poor stamina, but not all of them had Kirishima’s monstrous endurance.
They were only a little above student level, after all, and signs of exhaustion began showing up one after another.
When Midoriya saw the number 30 written on the wall, he turned back and asked, "This is floor 30. Melissa, how many floors is the top floor?"
Still panting as she climbed, Melissa caught her breath and answered, "Two hundred."
"Seriously? We have to go that far up?"
"It’s better than meeting the Villains."
At Kaminari’s exhausted question and Yaoyorozu’s answer, Kirishima clicked his tongue.
He walked over to Melissa, dropped to one knee, and turned his back to her.
"Get on."
"Huh? B-but..."
"At this point, if I can help only one person, it’s you, Melissa. Carrying you won’t make any difference in my speed anyway. In a situation where we need to get to the top as fast as possible, the slowest person should not be the one with the most room to spare. So get on."
After a moment of hesitation, she hardened her expression and obediently climbed onto Kirishima’s back.
After that brief commotion, the children started climbing the stairs again, only for their rush to be blocked at the 80th floor.
A steel shutter had completely sealed off the corridor.
"A shutter..."
"What do we do? Break it?"
At Todoroki’s suggestion, Melissa slipped down from Kirishima’s back and stopped him.
"If you do that, the security system will react and the Villains will notice."
"Then how about this?"
Before anyone could stop him, Kaminari opened the handle of the door beside them.
The children tried to stop him, but by then it was already too late.
Kirishima steadied the startled group.
"If there’s no other route, then stealth is already out the window. From here on, we just go up as fast as possible. Every operation turns into useless trash the moment it starts anyway. Don’t panic. Take the shortest route."
With his timely advice, the children regained their composure and ran through the side door.
The moment they sprinted down the hallway, they were immediately spotted by the people monitoring the upper floors.
The boss who had taken over the party hall received the report and issued an order.
"Lower every partition wall on the 80th floor. Don’t let the brats get away."
"Roger."
"The 80th floor... that’s where that old man is, isn’t it? Hard to say whether that’s lucky or not. I don’t exactly want to rely on that half-baked old geezer."
All Might watched the man muttering to himself and prayed for the children’s safety in his heart.
At the same time, Iida, who was still running through the corridor, asked Melissa about another route.
"Is there another way up?"
"There’s an identical emergency stairwell on the opposite side."
"Let’s hurry!"
Just then, iron doors above and below were locking together, sealing off the passage.
Kirishima kicked off the ground with a sharp glint in his eyes.
Stepping into the world of speed, he drove a front kick straight into the bottom of the iron door without hesitation.
With a thunderous blast, the section he kicked was torn away whole, enough to let two people pass through.
The children stared blankly at Kirishima, who lowered his leg at the end of a long streak of red light drawn across the air.
"What are you all standing there for? We’re out of time. Run!"
"O-okay!"
Iida, the first to recover, ignited his engines and kicked open the door beside them.
Kirishima smiled at the sight of him waving the others forward, not even caring that his pants were torn.
He was satisfied by how quickly Iida adapted to the situation, true to his normally composed personality.
"Let’s go through here."
Inside was a space filled with plants.
Kirishima led the way down the main path, but then a powerful sensation seared along his spine and he stopped dead, shouting, "Stop!"
Every cell in his body, sharpened by [Demon Form], sensed the danger and writhed.
He left the children, who had frozen with confused expressions, where they were and said in a low voice, "We’ve already been found. Come out. A sneak attack won’t work."
How long had it been since his quiet voice echoed through the space and spread outward?
With a round of applause, someone stepped out from behind a tree by the roadside.
"Excellent. You noticed even while running. I wonder who it is, though? Kirishima-kun? What are you doing here?"
The person who slowly emerged from the shadow was Johannes.
He drew his sword, recognized Kirishima, and asked the question.
Kirishima narrowed his eyes and asked back.
"That’s what I’d like to ask. Why are you coming out of the 80th floor of a building occupied by Villains? And with a sword, no less."
He looked briefly troubled, but soon answered.
"First of all, I’ve been in a complicated state of mind lately, so I don’t like crowded places. I also don’t want to be in the same space as those filthy bastards. But that’s not what you’re really curious about, is it? Why am I here? I don’t like admitting it, but right now I’m on the same side as the filthy bastards who took over this building."
With every word he spoke, his momentum rose higher and higher.
When he had first been clapping and talking, he had seemed like a relaxed old man next door, but by the time he finished speaking, he looked like a wolf baring its fangs and growling.
It was not the kind of killing intent you’d get from a brat throwing a tantrum because things weren’t going his way, or some alley thug acting tough. It was the real murderous aura of a veteran swordsman who had seen everything life could throw at him, and it soaked the space in a sticky, suffocating pressure.
Overwhelmed by a presence they had never truly experienced before, the children fell silent as Kirishima stepped in front of them, bared his sharp teeth, and smiled.
"That’s a shame. We were planning to grab those filthy bastards by the throat and make them regret everything, even what they ate yesterday. You don’t seem to like them much either, old man. How about joining us?"
"Oh, that’s a very fine proposal. But no. The bastards up there are certainly the kind of people I’d like to cut down and place on a silver platter right this instant, but I’ve got my own circumstances too. Why don’t you just turn back now? You all look young, so is there any reason to risk your lives over this? I’ll even pretend I didn’t see you."
Johannes answered with a shameless air, as if age and experience were still on his side.
Kirishima replied with lowered eyes.
"Being young doesn’t mean they aren’t warriors. They may look like inexperienced fledglings to you, old man, but who doesn’t have a time when they were a fledgling? At the very least, these kids are warriors who chose to fight of their own will. So don’t try anything funny."
Johannes, with his white brows, white beard, and silver-white sword, looked like a hermit at first glance.
That impression vanished the moment the beastlike killing intent rolled off his entire body.
Kirishima spoke quietly to the children.
"I’ll hold this old man here, so you go on ahead."
"Wait, Kirishima. Why don’t we just all go together?"
"Don’t be stupid and move. If you stay here, people will die. That old man is not someone I can beat while worrying about you at the same time. If I can buy you enough time to get away, then when I signal, just run."
At the weight of Kirishima’s voice, which rang heavily in their ears, everyone lost the words they wanted to say.
Whether the children answered or not, Kirishima slowly expanded his air superiority and stepped forward.
At that moment, both Kirishima and Johannes could feel it.
The clash of sensory fields they had experienced once earlier that day.
It was as if invisible hands were reaching for each other’s wrists, colliding and grinding against one another as their razor-sharp senses eroded each other.
The moment the line connecting them finally became visible, Kirishima’s body split through the space.
The blade began to dance, and the blood-soaked battle of fists and swords began.
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