Chapter 44: Ambush at Full Speed! Three Nomus, Five Heroes, and the Worst Radio Station in Japan

Snipe kicked the passenger door open before the van had fully stopped, both revolvers drawn as his eyes swept the highway ahead.

The figure planted in the middle of the road wasn't human, or at least it hadn't been for a long time, standing over two meters tall with exposed musculature, a mouth that didn't close properly, and rows of misaligned teeth jutting past its lips. Its eye sockets were smooth and completely sealed over, covered by pale stretched skin where eyes should have been, while a small radio unit was strapped to its throat with a reinforced cable.

Man... this is bringing back some bad memories of the USJ.

"All units, hold your positions!" Snipe shouted into the comm without lowering his weapons. "We've got an unidentified hostile blocking the main road, requesting immedia—"

"Save the request," Aizawa cut in, eyes locked on the creature. "By the time backup gets here, this'll be over one way or another."

"Eraser, that thing looks exactly like the one from the USJ attack," Kamui Woods said, stepping out from the back.

"I know what it looks like," Aizawa replied, jaw tightening as he studied the Nomu's posture, "but if they had two creatures with the same power as the one at the USJ, they would've sent both to kill All Might and made sure the job was done."

A desperate play, Aizawa thought, shifting his weight forward.

Nemuri stepped out through the van's rear door and swept the Nomu from head to toe before spotting the device on its throat.

That radio... is it receiving orders too?

She was already turning toward Snipe to call for the shot when a sharp whistle tore across the sky above their heads.

Something massive dropped from the sky, plummeting toward the convoy's second armored truck with wings fully spread and talons ready to strike.

"INCOMING FROM ABOVE, GET AWAY FROM THE TRUCK!" Yu screamed from inside the van, throwing herself against the door.

Snipe spun and fired twice in quick succession, aiming at the creature.

The bullets closed the distance in a split second, but a third figure materialized between the shots, revealing a bulky monster with four uneven eyes that tracked the incoming projectiles and swatted them aside with the back of its hand.

The deflected rounds sparked off the highway guardrail and vanished into the darkness.

"Forget regular shots. It's reading my moves before I even pull the trigger. Some kind of advanced reaction Quirk," Snipe called out, tightening his grip on both revolvers.

Kamui Woods pushed forward and immediately deployed a wall of interlocking branches between the heroes and the incoming threats, expanding the wood outward in a protective arc that shielded both Nemuri and Yu.

"Everyone behind the barrier, stay together!" Kamui ordered, the branches still growing as he widened the shield.

The radio on the eyeless Nomu's neck crackled to life and spat out a distorted voice:

"Target the escort vehicles first, then isolate the Erasure user."

The eyeless Nomu moved without warning, launching forward and closing the gap between the blockade and the nearest patrol car, slamming into it hard enough to send the vehicle spinning across the highway, while a second cruiser caught the spinning wreckage and flipped onto its side, siren wailing as it rolled twice before landing on its roof.

"It's tearing through the escort vehicles!" one of the officers screamed over the comm. "We need hero support, we can't hold this perimeter!"

The winged Nomu banked hard, blocking the helicopter searchlights as it dove toward Kamui Woods again with talons fully extended.

"You're not getting through," Kamui muttered, redirecting his branches upward to intercept.

The wooden extensions caught the winged Nomu in midair and wrapped around one leg, but the creature's momentum snapped two of the thickest limbs before the rest managed to slow it enough to force it back into the air.

"I can hold it, but not for long!" Kamui shouted, arms visibly straining from the effort. "Every pass it makes, it takes more of my wood with it!"

"Then you won't have to hold it alone," Yu said, planting both feet on the highway and activating her Quirk.

Her body expanded at a terrifying speed, shooting upward past the streetlights until she towered over the entire convoy at full gigantified height, bringing her right fist down on the eyeless Nomu just as it charged at another patrol car, slamming it face-first into the asphalt with enough force to crack the road surface into a crater that swallowed two whole lanes.

"How d'you like that, you eyeless freak?!" Yu roared, pressing the Nomu deeper into the cracked pavement with her palm.

"Mt. Lady, don't celebrate yet, keep it pinned!" Snipe yelled. "If you let that thing get up, it's going straight for the transport trucks!"

"I KNOW, I'm not stupid!" Yu shot back, pressing down harder.

The eyeless Nomu's hand closed around her wrist from inside the crater. Yu's eyes went wide as the creature yanked her arm down with a violent pull that made her stumble forward.

"Oh, come ON! How many times do I gotta smash you?!" Yu protested as she tried to wrench free. "It doesn't even look hurt! That's cheating and you know it!"

Snipe fired three rounds at the four-eyed Nomu in rapid succession; the creature's eyes tracked each bullet independently and its right hand shot up in a blink, catching two of the rounds and absorbing the impact before redirecting them straight at Nemuri.

"MIDNIGHT, DOWN!" Kamui roared, throwing up a wall of branches between her and the reflected shots.

The bullets embedded themselves in the wood and stopped, but the force of impact shattered the outer layer and sent splinters flying across the highway, forcing Nemuri to duck behind the remains of the wooden barrier.

"Well, that officially rules out Snipe shooting our way through this," she remarked, pulling a splinter from her shoulder. "Anyone got a plan that doesn't involve me getting killed by our own bullets?"

"Use your Somnambulist," Aizawa said without taking his eyes off the battlefield, capture scarf taut between his hands. "Can you reach the eyeless one from here?"

Nemuri leaned past the barrier's remains to gauge the distance and calculated the space between her position and the crater where Mt. Lady was still grappling with the Nomu's grip.

"No way. I need to be way closer, and right now that thing's fighting Mt. Lady inside a massive crater," she explained, adjusting her torn sleeve. "I'd have to cross an active combat zone between a giant monster and a giant heroine, and frankly, my odds of making it through without ending up as a smear on the pavement aren't looking great."

"Then don't go."

"How considerate of you."

"Stay behind Kamui Woods and wait for an opening," Aizawa continued, ignoring the comment entirely. "We're not wasting personnel on a low-probability attempt."

Nemuri's gaze drifted to the four-eyed Nomu, which had repositioned itself between the convoy and the heroes, its four uneven pupils scanning the battlefield in constant rotation.

"And what exactly is gonna be your brilliant contribution to all this?"

"I'm going to try to neutralize the one that deflects attacks."

His hair floated upward the instant he activated his Quirk, locking eyes with the Nomu. The beast's four uneven eyes snapped wide open as its advance stuttered for half a second, losing momentum before resuming its march at a reduced but still functional speed.

It's working, Aizawa thought, already feeling his eyes starting to dry out.

The radio crackled once more, and the distorted voice issued its next command:

"Woman, the Erasure user is exposed. Move now."

A shadow shifted at the edge of Aizawa's vision.

He turned his head just in time to see her emerge from the wrecked escort vehicles. She was already on top of them.

Unlike the other Nomus, her silhouette was smaller, with a more feminine and curvier frame, but the most disturbing features were the exposed brain atop her skull and the skin hanging from the nape of her neck like a grotesque fin. Her movements had an unsettling fluidity that contrasted sharply with the clumsy brutality of her counterparts. Aizawa understood it instantly: this was a different class of threat.

His eyes left the four-eyed Nomu and locked directly onto the female creature, activating Erasure the very instant she took her first step toward them. The effect was immediate: Woman's fluid movement was cut short, her body seized with a violent spasm, and her feet skidded against the asphalt, stopping her dead in her tracks.

I don't know what Quirks she has, but she just lost all of them, Aizawa thought as he whipped the capture scarf forward with a flick of both hands.

The carbon fiber strips fanned out and wrapped Woman's arms against her torso in under a second, cinching tight around her shoulders and elbows until she was completely immobilized. Aizawa pulled on the opposite end, drawing the fabric taut, and dragged her a meter closer to keep the distance under control.

Woman growled low, a sound unnervingly articulate for a Nomu. She strained against the bindings with her arm muscles flexed, but without her Quirks she didn't have enough strength to break the carbon fiber.

"Eraser, you've got her!" Snipe called, spinning to cover the four-eyed Nomu, which had started moving again the moment Aizawa looked away. "But the multi-eyed one's heading straight for the trucks!"

"I know, but this one's the priority," Aizawa answered without taking his eyes off Woman for a single second. "If I let her go, we'll have a much bigger problem than a bullet reflector."

Nemuri peered out from behind the remnants of Kamui Woods' barrier and took in the scene with a quick glance.

"How are you so sure she's more dangerous than the other two?"

"Because the other two act like animals," Aizawa explained, tightening the capture scarf to suppress Woman's movements, "while she went straight for me the second she heard the radio, using the covered flank in a completely rational approach to get out of my line of sight."

Nemuri's jaw clenched at that.

"So we're dealing with something that thinks."

Woman stopped struggling and went completely still inside the bindings, her head tilted downward and her eyes fixed on Aizawa's face with a hollow focus that contradicted the relaxed posture of her body.

She's waiting for something, Aizawa thought, feeling his eyes beginning to burn from the sustained effort of Erasure.

"Kamui, cover Snipe!" he ordered. "The four-eyed one's no longer blocked. I need someone to contain it while I keep her restrained!"

"On it!" Kamui Woods sent a wave of branches toward the four-eyed Nomu, which had begun advancing toward the armored van.

The branches reached it and coiled around its legs, slowing its advance. The creature turned its head and grabbed two of the wooden limbs with both hands, ripping them out at the root with a pull that cracked the plant structure from the base.

"It's strong, but not as strong as the eyeless one!" Kamui reported, generating more branches to replace the ones he'd lost. "I can keep it busy if Snipe covers me!"

Snipe was already firing. The bullets left in a curved trajectory designed to loop around the Nomu from behind, avoiding its frontal field of vision, but all four pupils rotated independently and tracked them instantly. The creature's right hand rose and batted two of the three rounds out of the air; the third struck its left shoulder and tore off a chunk of flesh that began regenerating before the casing finished bouncing off the pavement.

"It regenerates too!" Snipe cursed under his breath as he reloaded. "Eraser, we need a plan that doesn't involve shooting something that heals itself!"

"I'm a little busy right now, Snipe."

CRAAASH!

The crater where Mt. Lady had the eyeless Nomu pinned split open from the inside.

Yu felt the vibration travel up her arm before she saw the crack. The Nomu had been pushing against her palm for the past several seconds with a steady force that had been gradually increasing, and the pressure finally broke the asphalt around the crater's rim, creating enough space for the creature to get one arm free.

"Oh no you don't!" Yu smashed her free hand down on the Nomu's arm before it could grab her. "You stay down there where you can't bother anyone!"

The radio on the Nomu's neck crackled with the distorted voice.

"Focus on the escort vehicles. Ignore the giant."

The Nomu stopped pushing against Yu's palm. Instead of trying to free itself upward, its body contracted downward and rolled laterally inside the crater, slipping under Yu's hand and emerging from the opposite edge at a speed that shouldn't have been possible for something that size.

"Hey! Where do you think you're going?!" Yu whipped her gigantified body around to chase it, but her left foot caught the destroyed rim and she stumbled forward.

The eyeless Nomu was already sprinting toward the line of patrol cars protecting the transport trucks. The officers inside saw the wall of muscle barreling toward them and opened fire with everything they had, but the bullets bounced off the Nomu's skin and disappeared into the darkness.

Yu recovered her balance and charged after it. Her right hand came down and caught the Nomu around the waist just before it reached the first cruiser, hoisting it off the ground and hurling it back toward the center of the highway with a scream of effort that echoed off the surrounding buildings.

BOOM!

The Nomu bounced off the asphalt, leaving a drag mark that stretched for twenty meters before it dug its fingers into the pavement and brought itself to a stop. It stood up, shook its head once, and charged toward the patrol cars again.

"Don't you ever get tired?!" Yu protested, stepping back in front of the Nomu and the vehicles. "I've been hitting you for five minutes and you keep getting up like it's nothing!"

The creature rammed directly into her left shin. The impact shook Yu's leg and forced her back a step, the pain shooting from her ankle to her knee.

I'm starting to feel the hits, and this thing isn't showing a single sign of slowing down, Yu thought as she gritted her teeth and brought another punch down. If this fight drags on much longer, I'm not gonna be able to keep up.

"Kamui, Snipe, somebody!" she yelled. "I need someone to cover me 'cause this damn freak won't stay still and I can't contain it AND protect the trucks at the same time!"

"We're a little busy with the other two, Mt. Lady!" Kamui answered, his branches still locking down the four-eyed Nomu in an endless cycle of grapple and release.

"Great, so we each get our own personal monster! How fun!" Yu caught the eyeless Nomu again, this time with both hands, and slammed it onto its back against the asphalt.

KRAAACK!

The pavement caved in under the impact and the Nomu's body left a deep imprint in the road. Yu kept the pressure up with both palms, crushing it against the ground, but she could feel the creature already pushing back, its arm muscles swelling as the regeneration repaired the fractures the blow had caused.

Back by the van, Aizawa's eyes were burning.

He'd been holding Erasure without blinking for far too long, and the dryness was becoming unbearable, sending stabbing pains from his eyes into his skull. But if he blinked, even for half a second, Woman's Quirks would reactivate, and he had no idea what was going to happen when they did.

Woman remained motionless inside the bindings, staring at him with eyes wide open as her head tilted slightly to the left.

"Eraser, how long can you keep the block up?" Nemuri asked from behind the wooden barrier, eyes shifting between Aizawa and the chaos of the fight behind her.

"A few more minutes at most," Aizawa admitted.

"Then we need to end this before you hit that point."

"I'm gonna try to get close and use my Somnambulist," Nemuri said, readying herself to move. "If I can put this thing to sleep while you keep it blocked..."

"Do it fast."

Nemuri stepped out from behind the barrier and began advancing toward Aizawa's position, keeping her body low to avoid any stray projectiles from the fight between Kamui, Snipe, and the four-eyed Nomu.

Woman's eyes followed her.

And in the split second where Woman's attention divided between the two heroes, her shoulders tensed.

The radio crackled.

"Woman, the effective range of Erasure is visual. If you break line of sight, you recover your Quirks."

Woman's eyes snapped back to Aizawa, and the creature did something no Nomu from the USJ could have done: she moved out of his field of vision.

"No!" Aizawa yanked the scarf tight to lock down the restraint, but his reaction came a fraction of a second too late.

With her body hidden, Woman broke the visual line of Erasure. Her Quirks reactivated the exact instant Aizawa's gaze lost the target, and the creature's entire body came apart.

Everything turned into a viscous liquid that seeped through the capture scarf and slipped past it. The shapeless mass slithered across the asphalt, leaving the carbon fiber strips dangling empty in Aizawa's hands.

"NEMURI, GET BACK!" Aizawa roared, trying to reactivate Erasure as he searched for her with his eyes.

The puddle moved. Woman's liquid mass slid across the ground at a terrifying speed, circling around Aizawa from the left and advancing directly toward the spot where Nemuri had frozen halfway between the barrier and Eraser's position.

Woman's body reconstituted itself in under two seconds as the creature rose from the ground directly in front of Nemuri.

Nemuri stumbled back on instinct and activated her Somnambulist, releasing a cloud of sleep-inducing fragrance from the exposed skin on her arm. The purple gas expanded toward Woman, but the creature liquefied again at the waist, letting the cloud pass over her body without touching it, and reformed on the other side with her right hand already raised.

"It's not working!" Nemuri shouted, throwing herself to the ground to dodge the blow.

Woman's hand sailed over Nemuri's head and closed around the nearest streetlight post. The creature's fingers swelled from the shoulder all the way to the fingertips.

BOOM!

The metal shattered in a detonation that sent shrapnel flying in every direction, and the shockwave struck Nemuri and sent her tumbling across the asphalt until she slammed into the van's rear tire.

"Midnight!" Snipe spun to fire at Woman, but the four-eyed Nomu cut off his line of fire immediately, blocking the bullets with the back of its hand as it advanced to separate them even further.

Aizawa locked his gaze on Woman to activate Erasure again, but the creature reacted instantly, kicking up the shattered asphalt to throw a curtain of debris that blocked the line of sight just before it took effect.

She knows exactly how to neutralize my effective range using the environment, Aizawa thought, stepping sideways to recover his angle while the capture scarf went taut between his hands.

Woman stared at him from her new position, tilted her head, and charged.

Aizawa dodged the first strike with a lateral spin and lashed the capture scarf toward Woman's legs, wrapping them around her ankles to slow her advance. The bindings pulled tight and the creature stumbled forward, but instead of falling, her body liquefied from the knees down and her legs passed straight through the restraints.

Woman reformed in midair and her right hand shot straight toward Aizawa's face. He leaned back, feeling the wind of the blow graze his nose, and countered with a low sweep that connected against the creature's shin before she could liquefy again.

CRACK!

Woman lost her balance for an instant, an opening Aizawa exploited by wrapping the scarf around her torso and pulling with all the strength in his arms while activating Erasure during the two seconds the creature remained exposed, locking down her Quirks completely and solidifying her body inside the restraints.

"Nemuri! Now!" he shouted.

Nemuri pushed herself off the ground and rushed toward Woman, releasing a concentrated cloud of Somnambulist directly into the creature's face.

The purple gas engulfed Woman's head, but her Quirks returned. The creature liquefied again, slipping free of the scarf for a third time, but this time her movement was slower. The Somnambulist had managed to partially enter her system before she could escape, and when she reformed two meters away, her legs trembled slightly and her head swayed to the left.

It wasn't enough to knock her out, Aizawa thought, recovering the scarf as he calculated his next move. The regeneration must be counteracting the effect.

The moment Woman shook her head, the trembling disappeared from her legs and her stance stabilized completely.

"The regeneration neutralizes your Somnambulist, Nemuri," Aizawa said flatly. "We can't put her to sleep."

"That would've been great to know thirty seconds ago, before she almost took my head off," Nemuri shot back, wiping the blood away with the torn sleeve of her costume.

Woman watched the exchange between the two heroes without moving. The radio on her neck stayed silent for several seconds, and Aizawa realized the creature wasn't waiting for orders.

She was deciding on her own.

She advanced toward Aizawa as her right fist began to swell.

Aizawa sent the scarf flying one more time, ready to use his Quirk. This time Woman didn't try to dodge; she averted her gaze from Aizawa and let the fabric coil around her arm, and the instant it made contact, she detonated the bindings with her power.

The blast traveled the entire length of the fabric from the point of contact to Aizawa's hands. The scarf shattered into dozens of pieces and the shockwave hit his forearms with enough force to throw him backward.

Aizawa landed on his back against the van's hood. Before he could get up, Woman was already on top of him, left hand raised and fingers glowing, about to detonate.

"ERASER!" Nemuri screamed, lunging forward.

*******

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