The air in the Downpour Zone didn't just feel cold anymore; it felt sharp. Thousands of raindrops, frozen into needle-thin shards of ice by Drizzle's Quirk, hung suspended in the air like a localized minefield. One wrong move—one flinch—and we would be shredded.
Tokoyami stood perfectly still, Dark Shadow coiling tightly around his torso like a protective, shivering shroud. Koda was trembling, his hands clamped over his mouth to keep from making a sound that might trigger the villain's attack.
"You're an interesting specimen, kid," Drizzle said, his burnt-paper skin crinkling as he tilted his head. "Most people panic. You? You're calculating. You're looking at the angles. But there are no angles in a sphere of ice."
I stared at him through the blur of the rain. My rubber body was already at its limit. The cold was seeping into my core, making my movements sluggish. If I didn't act now, the glass transition would set in, and I'd be as brittle as a windowpane.
"Tokoyami," I whispered, the movement of my lips barely visible. "On my signal, I want you to use Dark Shadow to create a dome. Not a shield—a dome. Put Koda in the center."
"And you?" Tokoyami's voice was a low rasp.
"I'm going to turn the thermostat up."
Drizzle's eyes narrowed. "Enough whispering. Die."
He flicked his wrist. The million frozen daggers surged forward with the speed of cross-bow bolts.
"OVERDRIVE: FULL BODY!" I roared.
I didn't just pump my legs this time. I used the friction-generation technique across every major muscle group in my body. I vibrated my torso, my arms, and my thighs simultaneously. It was a violent, internal grinding of rubberized fibers against one another.
The result was immediate and agonizing.
A wave of heat exploded from my skin. The freezing rain hitting my body didn't just melt; it flash-boiled. A massive plume of white steam erupted from my suit, expanding outward in a pressurized cloud.
HISS.
The ice needles entering the steam cloud didn't shatter; they evaporated or lost their structural integrity, turning back into harmless mist. The thermal shockwave I created pushed the daggers back, creating a three-foot "dead zone" of boiling air around me.
"Now!" I screamed.
Tokoyami didn't hesitate. "Dark Shadow! Black Ankh: Shelter!"
The shadow spirit expanded, wrapping Tokoyami and Koda in a dark, reinforced cocoon.
I didn't wait to see if they were safe. I launched myself into the steam, my skin a glowing, terrifying shade of crimson-pink. The "Heat" was so intense that my grey tracksuit began to char at the edges. I felt like I was being cooked from the inside out, my blood reaching temperatures that would have killed a human. But my rubber veins held. My rubber heart hammered.
"Gommu Gommu no... ROCKET!"
I grabbed two lamp posts on opposite sides of the street. I didn't just pull—I twisted. I spun my body five, ten, fifteen times, coiling my torso into a tight, pressurized screw.
Drizzle's face went pale. He tried to manifest a wall of ice, but the steam from my body was already melting his medium. The moisture in the air was working against him now.
"I'm not a save-file anomaly," I growled, the words coming out in a hiss of vapor. "I'm the snap-back!"
I released the lampposts.
The centrifugal force combined with the "Overdrive" heat turned me into a human drill. I tore through the air, the wind resistance creating a shrieking whistle as I unspooled.
"Gommu Gommu no... SPIRAL PISTOL!"
My fist connected with Drizzle's ice wall. It didn't just break; it shattered into steam and slush. My knuckles, reinforced by the vulcanized pads of my suit, slammed into his chest.
CRACK.
The impact was reinforced by the spinning torque. Drizzle was launched backward, his body skipping across the flooded street like a stone before slamming into a simulated apartment building. The concrete wall buckled, burying him in rubble.
I landed hard, my feet skidding on the wet pavement. I tried to stand, but my legs gave out. I collapsed onto my hands and knees, gasping for air that felt like liquid fire in my lungs.
"Sora!"
Tokoyami and Koda ran over as Dark Shadow retracted. The steam was still rolling off me in thick, heavy sheets.
"Don't... touch... me," I wheezed, my voice cracking. "I'm still... too hot. You'll get burned."
I looked at my arms. The pink glow was fading, but my skin looked raw. Small micro-tears were visible along my forearms where the "Spiral" tension had been too much for the rubber to handle while heated. I was leaking a clear, yellowish fluid—not blood, but a sort of cellular sap, the biological equivalent of melted polymer.
"That was... a reckless display of power," Tokoyami said, his voice filled with a rare note of awe. "The darkness in you burned bright."
"It's not... power," I said, forcing myself to sit up. Every movement was a symphony of pain. "It's physics. And I've... reached my limit."
I checked my internal "gauge." My elasticity was shot. I felt like a rubber band that had been stretched too many times and left in the sun. I was "Slack." If I tried to stretch now, I'd probably just stay stretched, unable to retract.
"Koda," I said, looking at the quiet boy. "Tell the birds... find out what's happening at the plaza."
Koda nodded, his face grim. He whistled, and a dozen rain-soaked crows descended from the rooftops. They chirped frantically, their black eyes darting. Koda's expression went from worried to terrified. He began to gesture wildly, pointing toward the center of the USJ.
"The teacher," Tokoyami translated, his own face hardening. "The crows say the teacher is falling. The monster with the exposed brain... it is breaking him."
I gritted my teeth, ignoring the stinging pain in my chest. Aizawa.
In the anime, the Nomu crushed Aizawa's skull. It snapped his arms like dry twigs. Even if I was "Slack," I couldn't just sit here.
"We have to go," I said, struggling to my feet. I used a nearby mailbox to haul myself up. "Now."
The trip from the Downpour Zone to the central Plaza felt like an eternity. We moved through the shadows, avoiding the straggling villains who were still wandering the outskirts. My body was slowly cooling down, but the "Slack" remained. My gait was uneven, my limbs feeling heavy and unresponsive.
We reached the top of the stairs overlooking the fountain.
The sight below was worse than any high-definition animation.
Aizawa Shota, our teacher, was pinned to the concrete. The Nomu—that purple mountain of bio-engineered muscle—had one hand wrapped around Aizawa's head. The other was holding Aizawa's arm, which was bent at an impossible, sickening angle.
Blood stained the white pavement.
Shigaraki Tomura was standing a few feet away, scratching his neck with a manic intensity. "You really are cool, Eraserhead," he hissed. "Even with your limbs broken, you're still trying to use your Quirk. But against the Nomu... you're just an ordinary human."
"Let him go!"
The shout came from the shipwreck zone. Midoriya, Tsuyu, and Mineta were watching from the water's edge. Midoriya looked like he was about to launch himself into a suicide mission.
"Nomu," Shigaraki said, his voice bored. "Kill the teacher. Let's see if that brings All Might any faster."
The Nomu raised its massive fist.
I can't use a Pistol, I thought, my heart hammering against my ribs. I can't stretch. I don't have the tension.
But I had something else.
I looked at the steep staircase we were standing on. I looked at my own weight.
"Tokoyami, Koda, stay back," I commanded.
"Sora, you cannot! You are injured!" Tokoyami grabbed my shoulder.
"I'm rubber," I said, a dark smile touching my lips. "I don't break. I just deform."
I didn't run down the stairs. I threw myself into a ball. I tucked my head into my chest, wrapped my arms around my shins, and inflated my lungs to their absolute maximum.
"Gommu Gommu no... BALLOON!"
I didn't stop at a normal size. I pushed the air in, stretching my skin until it was translucent, until the grey fabric of my suit was screaming. I became a six-foot sphere of highly pressurized organic rubber.
And then, I let gravity do the work.
I bounced.
The first bounce on the stairs sent me flying ten feet into the air. The second bounce, propelled by the kinetic energy of the fall and my own internal pressure, sent me twenty feet.
I was a kinetic boulder, gaining speed with every impact.
BOING. BOING. BOING.
I hit the plaza floor at forty miles per hour. I didn't slow down. I aimed myself straight for the Nomu's side.
"What is that?" Shigaraki yelped, jumping back.
I slammed into the Nomu's ribs.
The impact was deafening. The Nomu didn't move—it was too heavy—but the force of my collision was enough to knock its arm away from Aizawa's head. The creature staggered a single step, its black eyes blinking in confusion.
I bounced off the Nomu, hit a stone pillar, and ricocheted back, slamming into its chest again.
"Gommu Gommu no... PINBALL!"
I was a blur of grey and pink, bouncing off the environment and the monster. I wasn't doing damage—the Nomu had Shock Absorption—but I was a nuisance. I was a 300-pound pressurized ball of chaos that wouldn't stop moving.
"Nomu! Catch it!" Shigaraki screamed, his composure breaking.
The Nomu reached out with lightning speed. Its massive hand snatched me out of the air mid-bounce.
Crap.
The pressure was immediate. The Nomu's fingers dug into my inflated form, the strength of its grip enough to crush steel. I felt the air being squeezed out of my lungs.
"Found you," Shigaraki said, walking over. He reached out with his hand—the one that would turn me to dust. "A rubber ball. How childish. Let's see how you look when you're nothing but grey powder."
I looked at Shigaraki's hand. I looked at the Nomu.
I'm Slack. I'm empty. But I'm still alive.
"Hey... Hand-man," I wheezed, the air hissing out of my lips as the Nomu squeezed.
"What?"
"You forgot... the first rule of rubber."
"And what's that?"
"The harder you squeeze..."
I focused every last bit of my remaining "Heat" into my torso. I didn't try to stretch. I did the opposite. I contracted. I pulled every molecule of my body inward, fighting against the Nomu's grip, building a massive amount of internal pressure in a single point.
"...the bigger the pop!"
I released the "Balloon" all at once—not through my mouth, but through my skin. I forced the air and the "Heat" outward in a localized explosion of kinetic energy.
BOOM!
The sudden expansion was so violent it forced the Nomu's fingers open. I didn't fly away; I used the momentum to snap my limp, slack arm forward in a desperate, uncoordinated swing.
It wasn't a Pistol. It was just a heavy, rubbery slap. But it hit Shigaraki right across the face, knocking the "Father" hand off his features and sending him stumbling back.
"MY FACE!" Shigaraki shrieked, clutching his head. "You... you brat! Nomu! KILL HIM! TEAR HIM APART!"
The Nomu loomed over me, its beak opening to reveal a dark, wet throat. It raised both fists for a double-handed smash that would turn me into a pancake.
I closed my eyes. I did my job. I bought time.
And then, the doors at the top of the USJ didn't just open. They were deleted.
"I AM HERE!"
The voice wasn't a hero's catchphrase. It was a roar of pure, unadulterated fury.
All Might stood at the top of the stairs. He wasn't smiling. The shadow over his eyes was so dark it looked like he was wearing a mask of death. His tie was gone, his shirt was ripped, and the air around him was vibrating with the sheer scale of his presence.
In a blur that shattered the concrete, he was there.
He didn't hit the Nomu. He grabbed me and Aizawa, moving us twenty yards away in the span of a heartbeat.
"I AM SORRY, YOUNG SORA," All Might whispered, his voice shaking with rage. "YOU DID WELL. YOU HELD THE LINE. NOW... REST."
I slumped against the ground, my body finally giving up. I watched as All Might turned toward the Nomu. The air pressure in the plaza began to rise.
"Kota!" Midoriya and Tsuyu ran over, shielding me.
"Is he okay?" Tsuyu asked, her large eyes wet with tears.
"He's... he's steaming," Midoriya said, looking at my raked, raw skin. "He pushed his Quirk past the breaking point to save Sensei."
I looked up at the sky, the glass dome of the USJ blurred by my fading vision. I could hear the sounds of the greatest fight of the century beginning behind me. The thud of fists that could change the weather.
And then, the world went black.