Chapter 46: The Dumbest Plan in Hero History! Izuku's Big Mouth and the Awakening of the Purple Muse!

Izuku's shout was still hanging over the roar of the highway when Midnight closed her eyes.

The moment her fingers brushed the skin of her own arm, Nemuri felt the tingle of her Quirk waking up beneath her fingertips. Self-administration. The only key that unlocked Berserker Mode, and the very reason she'd never flipped it on alone, unprepared, in the middle of a broken street.

Izuku saw her go still, breathing slow, eyelids pressed tight, and he understood the problem that same instant.

She needs to concentrate... Damn it.

The eyeless Nomu lunged at Aizawa the second the teacher tried to cut off Woman's path, and in a heartbeat it dragged him into a brutal exchange of blows that forced him to drop his scarf and use both hands to keep from ending up face down on the pavement.

Woman walked right past the fight between Aizawa and the blind beast. She ignored it completely and moved straight for Midnight, with a calm that turned Izuku's blood to ice.

Izuku clenched his teeth. Nobody had to tell him. He saw his sensei defenseless, saw the Nomu closing in step by step, and made the call on his own.

Okay, think fast. That thing's faster than the other monsters, nothing like the one from USJ. She used the environment to block Aizawa-sensei's line of sight. That means one thing... that beast thinks.

He swallowed hard as the creature closed the distance to his teacher.

Shit. How do I distract something built in a lab to kill heroes?

The idea that crossed his mind was a stupidity the size of the whole highway, and even so, it was the only thing he could come up with to buy a few seconds. So he decided to do what he did best in life: act like a complete idiot when there was a girl involved. And to his enormous bad luck, the creature seemed to be, precisely, a girl.

He didn't give himself time to regret it.

"Hey, Miss Exposed Brain!" he yelled, stepping forward with his arms spread wide. "Some rack you've got! I mean... I get it, you're a robot, a villain, or some weird lab experiment, but check you out, villains these days have better taste than I thought."

The creature didn't stop or look at him. She kept going straight for Midnight, like he didn't even exist.

Now that I look at her, why are her boobs so huge...? Wait a second. Did I just think about a killer creature's tits while the killer creature is trying to murder my teacher? Perfect, let's add that to the list of reasons I need professional help when I get out of here. If I get out of here.

He ran a few steps to the side to get into her line of sight, waving his arms like a maniac.

"What if your creators made you ugly on purpose? I mean, with skin that pale and your brain flopping off the top of your head, it doesn't look like they put much effort into the design. I would've at least asked for a refund."

Woman's fist tightened mid step. Her fingers curled one by one, swelling slowly, ready to unload an explosion into the air.

A chill crawled up Izuku's back, and even so, he kept talking. Stopping now would be signing his own death warrant.

"It's funny, isn't it? Something built to kill getting offended because someone calls it ugly. Almost like you had... feelings."

Midnight opened her eyes. She understood at once what her student was doing: turning himself into a target to drag the creature's attention away from her.

"Izuku!" she snapped. "You idiot! What do you think you're doing?!"

"What I do best, Midnight-sensei!" he shot back, not taking his eyes off the beast. "Improvising!"

She gritted her teeth, closed her eyes again, and sank back into her own body, forcing herself to trust him.

Then a voice came out of the creature, hoarse and drawn out, with an unmistakably feminine tone that shouldn't have come from something with its brain exposed to the air.

"You... insolent..."

Izuku jumped out of his skin.

Oh for fuck's sake, the thing talks! I'm dead. Why didn't anyone have the decency to warn me this thing could TALK?!

He didn't get the time to finish panicking. One blink, and Woman was right in front of him, her arm bulging with pulsing lumps and headed straight for his face.

Izuku's pupils shrank. Enhanced Control fired through his legs on instinct and threw his body to the side at the last possible second.

BAM!

The explosion tore through the exact spot where his head had been, and Midnight's scream reached him through the smoke.

"IZUKU!"

The name slipped out before she could stop it, eyes still closed and hands clamped against her own arm, unable to move to help him.

The shockwave ripped him off the ground and slammed him into the dented door of a car. The metal folded under his shoulder with a dry crunch and blood ran hot down from his split brow.

Not even five seconds. New record for letting someone rearrange my face.

The dust hadn't even finished settling when Woman was already on top of him, one arm pulling back for a second helping, teeth bared in something like a grin.

The lumps swelled up again. He was one heartbeat away from painting the car with whatever was left of him.

"Midoriya! Get out of there!"

Across the chaos, tangled up with the eyeless Nomu, Aizawa managed to force one bloodshot eye open through the struggle and turned it toward the creature for a split second.

The swelling in Woman's arm cut off mid motion.

Izuku didn't waste the opening. He pushed off the wrecked door and drove his fist into her side with every bit of strength he could pack into one arm.

The punch bounced off the Nomu. His arm snapped back with the impact, and she didn't even grunt.

...Is this... for real?

"Aizawa, don't take your eyes off Ugly, I've got the big guy!" Mt. Lady's voice boomed from above as she drove her heel down onto the eyeless Nomu, crushing it into the ground before it could turn on the teacher. "And don't you dare blink! I didn't sign up for overtime tonight!"

"Then hold it there and quit talking," Aizawa replied, not moving his gaze off Woman for a second.

Izuku looked for a way out and didn't find one. Aizawa couldn't move to help him without releasing Woman, and doing that would mean Izuku's instant death; the eyeless Nomu writhing under Mt. Lady's foot kept everyone else at bay. That left one beat up kid, big mouth and empty pockets, standing between a Nomu without a Quirk and the woman waking a transformation inside her own body.

Great. Just me, Miss Quirkless, and this lovely rubble landscape.

With Aizawa's stare locked on her, Woman no longer regenerated or turned liquid to relocate, and her explosions had shut off. What was left of her was just as lethal. She was still fast, her combat instinct intact and her cold head ready to kill, and every one of her blows carried enough force to split a car in half.

Izuku threw himself all the way into the fight. The speed burst let him duck under her strikes, and the balance he'd gotten from Ochako kept him upright as he spun through the debris. Himiko's combat instinct worked on its own in the back of his head; he was guessing where the fist would go a fraction of a second before it came, and his body was already moving before he could give the order.

"Come on, come on, come on, damn it, this is getting ugly," he muttered through his teeth, yanking his head clear of a right hook that ripped the top off a light pole.

Woman roared and picked up even more speed. Izuku slipped between two swings, planted his feet, and threw another punch with everything he had left in his arm. The fist bounced off just like the last one, without leaving so much as a scratch, and the impact traveled shaking all the way up to his shoulder.

I can dodge her all night and it won't do a thing, I can't even scratch her. So forget about hurting her. Let her chase you. Keep that thing's attention on the annoying kid and not on Midnight-sensei. That's the whole job. Don't die and buy time.

And that's what he did. He led her circling around the flipped truck, drew her into a police car he'd already dodged, wore her down with short feints that left her punching empty air. She caught him twice, a backhand that sent him rolling and a knee that knocked the breath out of him in one hit, and both times he got up, coughing, teeth red, and never stopped moving.

"Hang in there, kid, you're doing amazing!" Kamui Woods shouted from the far end, forcing a fresh cage of branches around the four-eyed Nomu while Snipe kept it distracted. "Whatever you're buying us, buy it faster!"

"Working on it!" Izuku fired back, letting himself roll over a busted car as Woman's fist tore through the space he'd just left. He was gasping for air and the blood from his brow was clouding half his vision, but he didn't stop. "Ever tried negotiating with a client who only pays in punches?"

Woman didn't answer. She changed direction faster than he'd calculated and caught his shoulder with an open hand. The blow lifted him off the ground and slammed him back first into the bumper of the flipped truck, and for an instant the whole world shrank down to a high pitched whine and a white blur. Izuku spat blood to one side, grabbed the twisted metal, and forced himself to his feet before his legs could finish making the call for him.

"Still... got... one more... r-round in me," he panted, raising his hands again.

On the other side of the highway, Snipe rolled behind a police car as his own bullets ricocheted back off the metal.

"Kamui, we gotta hurry!" he yelled. "The kid can't hold out much longer!"

"I know! Moving! I just need an opening. The second I have it, I'll lock it down completely."

It took Izuku a while to realize the exact moment things shifted. Woman stopped throwing wild swings and started studying him, adjusting to his rhythm, guessing where he'd break away before he broke away. He was anticipating her, she was starting to anticipate him, and the ugly truth was that she'd get to him first, because he was the one running out of gas.

His next feint didn't work. Woman was already waiting on that side, and when Izuku pivoted to escape, the Nomu's hand closed on empty air an inch from his arm. He pulled his body clear by a hair, felt the wind of the punch brush his ear, and landed badly, tripping over a pile of loose concrete. Ochako's balance was the only thing that kept him on his feet.

If you don't wake up soon, sensei, this is gonna end badly for both of us.

He shot a glance toward the flipped car, and his heart sank. Midnight was still on her knees, both hands clamped against her arm, head bowed, trembling, and the transformation he'd been praying for the whole fight was nowhere to be seen.

Come on, sensei, come on. Now would be a perfect time. Preferably before this thing turns me into wall paint.

"She's in the open! It's now or never, Aizawa! Just go!" Mt. Lady shouted, driving the eyeless Nomu even deeper into the ground with both hands. "Get that kid out of there before they kill him!"

Aizawa broke into a run the moment he could, his scarf snapping out ahead of him. Across the rubble, Woman finished locking in to the rhythm Izuku had held the whole fight, timed the exact instant of his dodge, and swept his legs out from under him with a single blow.

He hit the ground and skidded until he slammed into a broken concrete slab, and before he could get his hands under him, she was on top of him. One of her hands crushed him against the cold stone while the other drew back above his head.

A fist that size, coming down at that speed, was going to split his head open with no way out.

So this is where the kid with the meddling Quirk runs out of luck. Sorry, mom. Sorry, Himiko. Sensei... I really believed I'd bought you enough time.

He gathered up the last of what he had and pushed against the ground with one arm, but Woman's hand had him pinned to the stone and he couldn't budge an inch. The fist above him was already coming down. All he managed was to close his eyes.

The fist came down, and a shadow stepped in between them.

CRACK!

Woman's blow stopped a short distance from Izuku's face. A hand out of nowhere had closed around the creature's fist, slim and pale, red painted nails sinking into the skin that not even Izuku's best hit had managed to scratch. Dark droplets welled up where the nails carved their way in.

"My, what nerve..." a husky, playful voice dropped from above. "Did you really think you were going to hurt one of my students right in front of me? I'm afraid that was a terrible decision."

Midnight was standing over him. Her eyes and skin glowed with a purple tint, and a slow, hungry smile was spreading across her lips.

She tilted her head and sized up the creature that was twice her size.

"Now then, little Frankenstein," she purred. Her fingers closed a little tighter, and Woman's reinforced skin started to give under her nails. "Let's play."

******

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