Tōya's right haymaker missed Nomura’s chin by less than a centimeter. Two more straights stopped short of making contact with the black haired boy’s torso. His left kick to the tie wearing boy's right knee harmlessly slid passed as if he had touched nothing but displaced air.

  Nomura weaved between each hit with the same jolly smile throughout the entire exchange.

  An instant crack sent a volley of blood-red stones that managed to hit Nomura in the side just as he was lunging forward. The teenager stumbled in genuine surprise, his shriek of pain loud on his otherwise jubilant exterior.

  Todoroki’s left foot shot out a stream of fire that lifted him off his feet and swung himself into a rotating heel kick that Nomura blocked against with his forearm, a loud crack ringing out.

  Without wasting the momentum, Tōya followed up with a nasty double downward hammerfist.

  The heavy impact shattered Nomura's guard and sent him to the ground. He wasn’t smiling anymore. Nomura’s now emotionless face, eyed the rest of the children as they struggled against his unknown quirk. Firing off whatever quirks they had in his general direction.

  Beams of light shot off against the ground and walls.

  Miwa was struggling to keep her eyes covered. Her quirk violently tore its way out from the slits between her fingers as the shining eye beams lanced across their direction. Distracting Nomura long enough for Tōya to land the fight’s second decisive hit.

  “I think it's time for you all to say nighty-night.”

  Nomura said in genuine anger, his face morphing into apt rage. As he looked at the sharply jagged rocks digging into his side, and the bruising on his arms.

  The children scampered back and fell prone as Nomura accelerated in the short span of four feet up and into Tōya’s guard. The quirk factor visibly shimmering off of his figure with intensity. This time, the teenager was mimicking Tōya’s earlier strikes.

  Tōya clued into the mimicry after blocking the third alternating straight.

  Nomura finished off with a series of jabs and retaliated with his own version of a casting punch as he enlarged his arm and fist, ready to land a finishing blow on the white haired boy.

  Todoroki braced himself as his chest erupted into azure flames that soon billowed outward. The heat darkened the skin on his chest with a purple hue. Sending ashes up into the sky as the front of Tōya’s shirt disintegrated. The blowback forced him backwards as the flames shot out in a focused, wide stream, bare feet skidding against the asphalt.

  Nomura’s large hand was engulfed and alight by the flames. The boy rolled onto the ground in an attempt to put the flames out as he cried out in agony.

  “I'm not playing games with you.” Tōya warned, as he took short glances in their direction, barely making out the unmoving forms of the kids behind him.

  I need to end this now, I don’t care if he’s being used like Shigaraki, or the other children. It’s him or me.

  Tōya’s eyes turned into slits, fist glowing blue as he calmly walked to the flailing boy on the ground, right arm outstretched, palm open.

  The quirk factor radiating off of Nomura crashed into Todoroki with frankly, a tremendous amount of intensity that it blurred his senses into blindness.

  Tōya’s flames went out involuntarily. His ears rang, and it took all he had to simply stay upright, let alone attack. The black haired teenager’s howls turned into malicious cries as he flipped and crashed against the wall behind him, surprising Todoroki.

  With less than a second to spare, Tōya parried the kick that Nomura threw his way, as he bounced off the ruined wall for leverage. A second and then a third kick pounded against Todoroki’s crossed arms in less time than Tōya could take a step back from the recoil.

  Sweat dripped from the white haired boy’s temple.

  How!? Did this kid have more than one quirk? His strength is insane!

  “Instant Six!”

  Nomura sped up with a shit eating grin, barely perceptible within the blur that was his figure. A right jab and then five more followed near instantly. Tōya’s bleeding arms became wracked with bruises, barely keeping up with the blows.

  Nomura’s afterimages could barely keep up as the final blow broke Todoroki’s guard.

  Tōya’s arms flew back from the recoil and to his sides as he took a moment to catch his breath, his rattled gasps coming out in quick bursts. Mind running a mile a minute, he could see the black haired teenager breath in and out, as steam rose up from his frame.

  The kid couldn't follow up? Why? He had him there…

  Tōya analyzed the move as he spat a bloody globule onto the melted asphalt.

  “You a fan of O’clock or something?” Tōya asked, remembering the speedster that he used to watch on the television with his sister and mother. “Not doing a good job of that if that's all you can manage,” he sneered.

  “—Swift Seven!”

  Tōya was ready, or so he thought, as the teenager flash stepped around his raised guard.

  Instead, Nomura circled him and jabbed the back of his leg, sending him onto one knee. The second strike hit him along the left side of his torso.

  Tōya whirled into an elbow but all he hit was the air. Nomura’s third smashed into his shoulder, sending him onto his ass. He raised his arm in time to block the following front kick and flipped back to his feet. Nomura came in swinging with a wild elbow. Tōya slipped past it but ended up lanced by a jab to his ribs. He slapped the next two jabs away.

  Tōya’s head snapped back from a sneaking blow to his temple, wrenching his upper body by the blow.

  He blinked at the cloudy night sky and the haze of the streaking lights as he reflexively sent out a wave of fire, buying himself precious few seconds to recover.

  This kid a proto-Shigaraki? Why wasn’t he a part of the League of Villains then? Something was definitely up…

  There must’ve been some glaring issue like the Nomu.

  Tōya ducked under a backhanded fist. “Did your dear old Sensei juice you up?”

  Nomura flipped into a blurry axe kick.

  Tōya’s eyes blinked as he leaned away from a whipping kick that nearly shattered his replaced jaw to pieces and grabbed the offending limb with his two hands. Arms straining against the power as he grit his teeth, but that second was all he needed to send his quirk factor up into the palm of his hands and singe the augmented appendage, bathing it in flames.

  “What’s it to you!” Nomura yelled through the pain as he ripped his burning leg free by flipping back into a roll.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “Did he tell you that you were going to become the number one or something? Hah, fat chance of that.” Tōya grinned. “If this is all you have, then you’re worse than a reject like me!”

  His breaths came out into raspy gasps, but Todoroki sprinted and closed the gap between them, feinting a double-leg tackle. Instead, he used the momentum to sprint into a back fist. Nomura’s spittle sprayed across his nape as his head snapped sideways.

  Tōya pressed the advantage, accelerated by the propulsion of the flames on his back, and slammed a knee into his unguarded stomach.

  Nomura bowled ever, resting his forehead against Tōya’s thigh, but he pushed through the black-haired teenager, smashing him into the storefront wall. Glass shattered and the window guards bent inward, yielding to Nomura’s body.

  Tōya wanted to preserve his dwindling energy, but it wasn’t looking like that would be feasible, not with how clumsy and weak his current body was feeling.

  He clicked his tongue as his dry lips twisted into a scowl, his blue flames dying out.

  Let's see how you’ll deal with this.

  Tōya rushed in as Nomura began to fall, shards of glass slowly raining down around them. Still propelling himself forward with his flames, and cocked his fist back.

  Fire roared to life around his fist, ghostly blue and hungry.

  The teenager’s face was full of panic, but that was all he could manage. Tōya smashed his head through the rest of the unbroken window, shattering it completely. Nomura's limp body toppled over and back into the shop. The force almost sent Tōya over in his direction, but he managed to stop himself by clinging to the wall.

  He rolled onto his stomach and didn’t move.

  C'mon lift your head up one more time, I’m waiting. It’d be easier than leaving you be. At least I can deprive the old man of whatever shitty experiments he’s got planned for you.

  Nomura’s head didn’t move, not a twitch. Not even when he sent excruciating heat through his burned leg to bait out a reaction once he climbed over the window frame.

  He dropped his raised fist and walked away, staring at his own reflection in a chunk of glass on the ruined floor of the storefront. His was one gigantic bruise. Dried blood traced his chin from a still-tender split lip. He couldn't figure out what he wanted from himself, he’d been doing a lot of stupid things since he woke up.

  This was just another strike on the chalkboard.

  Ripping up the straps of cloth from the kid’s shirt and the leftovers from his ruined sweatshirt into a makeshift rope wouldn't do much to stop Nomura, but it’d give Todoroki enough time to react if Nomura tried anything other than running away.

  “Damn it,” Tōya muttered as he hauled the kid up after gagging and blinding Nomura with the rest of the strips of cloth. “At this point, I’m collecting All For One’s leftovers,” he said to himself, as he dragged the teenager up to the other kids.

  They were still out cold, and while that wasn’t good, it was more bad than it was terrible.

  Tōya lightly kicked at some of them to wake them up. Their soft groans loosened the hold that his souring mood had on his face. Knowing All For One, he could have given Nomura a quirk to blend their brains into mush.

  It certainly felt like it, jury was still out on that idea.

  Tōya’s head perked up as the night sky lit up in an orange, dawny hue. He craned his neck in search of the sun, but the buildings weren't giving him much in terms of a view. He turned to look at his charges, and then jumped up to the ruined storefront’s wall. His feet found purchase as he melted the brick into indented grooves with his quirk and took wide steps up to the rim of the building. Tōya’s right hand pulled him up into flip as he righted himself onto the roof.

  The burned teenager sat alone as he took in the scene of the glowing Shinjuku city ward. Smoke was still billowing out into the sky. It looked like a hellscape, he couldn't make out the giant heteromorph that Sir Nighteye was fighting.

  Might Tower looked pretty damaged. As Tōya turned his gaze away from his prior destination before he was rudely interrupted by mini-me All For One.

  “Damn, I’m not taking responsibility for this shit…” Tōya whispered out in wonder, eyes taking in yet another explosion out in the distance. He recognized this area now, it was the Roppongi district of Minato. There were several helicopters in the air moving from one location to the next, looking like fireflies in the night sky.

  His eyes squinted as he made out two figures in the distance, who were leaping from one building rooftop to the next. They didn't notice Tōya and wouldn't if he kept himself silent.

  Not having any other choice, Todoroki cupped his mouth and let out a call for help.

  “Hey! Over here!”

  Body tense as he watched the two small figures make their way to his location. Would an Ignited Arrow to the skull be enough to put them down if he needed to resort to his f—to Endeavor’s signature ranged attack? He hadn't used it in forever, so he wasn't sure.

  By now, he could make out that they were a man and woman.

  They were heteromorphs, of two sides of the spectrum when it came to the scale of their mutations. The male, more like a man-shaped dog, with an elongated snout covered by a muzzle. His bulked up frame was enlarged further by the pseudo mane of brown fur that crisscrossed over his chest and fell over his shoulders.

  The second one was a young woman with white bunny ears that he could recognize anywhere, and pretty short to boot if that. Her suit looked different from what he remembered in that it sported a green jacket with several decals that went over her leotard, a few metal bits were missing, but overall the basic design was still there.

  Back then he had towered over her, but now— well she was still short, but the height difference wasn’t as crazy. Mirko the bunny hero or some such, vaulted over without heeding the advice of what he took to be her boss with a feral smile on her small face.

  If what Tōya could hear from the distance, the shouts went something like— “Mirko! Remember what I told you! Stop rushing ahead. Or the Safety Commission will stamp another mark onto your record.” The older mutant barked out in warning.

  In spite of what he told his younger charge, the man followed her example and rushed to her position. By now he could see the change in both heroes’ demeanors as they got closer, the feral smile on the girl’s face dropped a tad as she took in his frankly screwed up condition, while the man’s eyes sharpened with focus.

  Tōya gingerly touched the inflamed bruising on his face, his right eye had swollen up.

  Damn Nomura… and All For One too for added measure.

  “Hound Dog, and Mirko, young man. Are you Tōya?” The Dog hero pulled out a medical kit from the back of his mane, his voice noticeably gentler as he addressed Tōya.

  “Yeah, follow me, my uhh —friends and I escaped after Sir Nighteye drove off that giant villain.” Tōya spoke evenly as he walked back onto the edge of the building. Hound Dog jerked forward, thinking he was going to fall.

  Did he look that unsteady? All things considered, Tōya thought he looked worse than he actually felt.

  “But we ran into some older teenager with an emitter quirk that knocked them out, almost got me too. I tied him up downstairs by the front of the store, by the way. I don’t know how his quirk works, but he also has super speed and strength.” Tōya continued.

  Pointing down at their still-prone figures out in the middle of the street, Tōya looked back at the kids. “See? There they are.” Both heroes looked at each other, communicating without speaking to each other as they nodded.

  “Mirko, take the first aid kit and stabilize Tōya. You look like you took a nasty shiner there, any dizziness, blurry vision, or headaches?” The hero handed off the kit to his junior as he looked at the teenager in question and down to the gaggle of children sprawled out.

  “...Try a nasty two dozen, and nah, none of that.” he responded with a flat if tired voice.

  “Regardless, Mirko here will check for any other issues you might not have noticed, while I call this in.” Hound Dog nodded to the boy as he leaped off of the building and landed onto the ground on all fours. The man looked to be scanning his surroundings, not trusting the area nor the, in Tōya’s frank opinion, strange way this situation looked.

  Mirko opened the medical kit as Tōya sat on the rooftop’s edge, legs dangling. She appeared to scrunch her face up as she got closer to him.

  He probably smelled like crap.

  “I can do it myself, if you can’t stand the smell,” he said.

  She grinned at him and continued tending to his wounds as if she didn't hear him. All things considered, she wasn’t as rough as he expected a battle junkie like her to be. Even now, he could remember the force of the impact when she interrupted his spiel against Endeavor after his fight with Hood.

  “Was the fight any fun?” she asked instead, taking out a roll of bandages and a jar as her red irises looked up at him in question. She applied salve over his burns with surprising speed and efficiency after opening up the container. Mirko continued talking in spite of her earlier question, not giving him a moment to respond.

  “We got the notification that Sir Nighteye sent to the heroes in the area. You guys sorta took the long route though.” she commented offhandedly, tightening the bandage after looping it.

  It was funny how into it she was when it came to patching people up. He’d taken her for a whiny brat unless she was out beating down on some schmuck. “I'm surprised we got to you first, considering we just got done mopping the floor with some drugged up losers!”

  “Had to,” Tōya said. “Might Tower still seemed like the best choice, and I don’t recognize the area much anymore.” He flexed his freshly-bandaged arm. The pain was numbed but the itchiness started to die down thanks to the ointment.

  “Didn’t get that far though, I guess.”

  He muttered, after Mirko tied off the second bandage on his other arm. She was jumping from one injury to the next. Discarding whatever used up container or wrapping in a neat pile on the ground.

  His shoulders started to relax when he saw Hound Dog slinging on a few Iron Maiden straps over Nomura’s shoulders, after lifting the teenager gingerly for a better angle. The hero compressed the weighted body cuffs until they fit snuggly over the boy’s torso.

  For added measure, the two extras were used to bind his legs just in case they weren't enough.

  Tōya noted the way the dog hero sniffed at the area in apprehension, phone out, as he animatedly spoke to the dispatcher on the phone. He overheard the call for two helicopters and a patrol van from the police, among his spiel for any EMT vehicles that weren't already occupied.

  “Say, what’s going on out there? There was some big villain causing havoc that Sir Nighteye drove off, but this seems to be more than what a single guy can do.”

  As if on cue, another explosion lit up the night sky to accentuate Tōya’s question, farther away and in the opposite direction from the one he had noticed prior.

  Mirko shrugged. “Dunno, but they’re saying that a bunch of planet-shaped villains are tearing things up. They won't even speak, gurgling their words and shit. And that’s ignoring the fuck ton of looters that have come out of the woodwork, but that’s pretty standard as far as big villain attacks go. People really think the world’s ending or something!” She finished off her impromptu medical aid, and stood up to admire her handiwork. Facing Tōya as she pointed to herself with her thumb, looking proud.

  “But you don’t have fear because the Rabbit Hero: Mirko is here to protect you!”

  Tōya would’ve been at least mildly impressed… if her forehead wasn’t sporting a decent bruise. That, and she looked like a fresh-faced UA student, which didn’t exactly inspire confidence.

  Maybe he was being too harsh, but compared to the Mirko he knew… yikes.

  He raised an eyebrow. “What are you, like fourteen or something? Do you even have your provisional license.” Tōya was skeptical as his good eyebrow rose in question.

  “L-Listen here, you bozo!” The swarthy teenager spluttered. “I just finished my sidekick gig and have jumped through the hoops as a newly certified hero! Hound Dog is my mentor until the Safety Commission signs off on my agency application—w-wait, why am I justifying myself to you?!.” A tick sprouted on her forehead as her eye twitched.

  “Could’ve fooled me,” Tōya wrote off with a shrug. “You don't look that old.”

  “Yeah, well I’m nineteen, fresh out of the gate, kicking ass and taking names.” Mirko lifted her open palm hands up in the air as she closed her eyes. The tan hero then put her hands onto her hips as she looked down at him. “What about you, kid?”

  Tōya knew what she was fishing for and felt his unswollen eye twitch in irritation. “...I’m sixteen.”

  Tōya looked away just as her lips curved up into a devious grin, watching the helicopters in the horizon, clicking his tongue.