The first attackers did not charge Rampart’s enemies.
They charged their exits.
Four figures sprinted towards the vehicles parked behind Red Team.
One struck the ground with both palms.
Thick black adhesive spread across the concrete, sealing tyres and boots to the dock.
Another swung an arm towards the gangway.
Ropes lifted like snakes and wrapped around the railings.
Containment first.
The front line followed.
Armoured fighters emerged from between the containers.
One woman’s skin hardened into overlapping ceramic plates.
A man beside her expanded his forearms into blunt, reinforced clubs.
Three more carried metal batons that glowed when their Quirks activated.
Aizawa erased Rampart.
The barriers disappeared.
The remaining fifty attackers retained their Quirks.
Hushline expanded her Quiet Field.
The dock fell silent.
No shouted orders.
No boot strikes.
No weapons cutting through air.
Red Team disappeared into the absence of sound.
The ceramic woman entered the field and hesitated.
Kuroda fired a capture round into her shoulder.
The expanding restraint line wrapped around her torso.
Aizawa’s cloth caught the club-armed man around the throat and redirected his momentum into a container wall.
Threadhound ducked beneath a glowing baton and dragged his fingertips across the attacker’s jacket.
“Warehouse dust,” he reported.
“Blue synthetic.
Not vessel crew.” Midnight catalogued the observation.
“Mark hostile twelve, low tracker probability.” The enemy’s ranged group attacked from beyond Hushline’s field.
Heat streaked from a warehouse roof.
A pressure wave struck the dock and rippled through the Quiet Field, distorting its edge.
Adhesive projectiles burst across the ground.
One officer’s boot became trapped.
Hushline seized his vest and pulled him clear before a metal chain slammed into the place where his head had been.
The dock-control group activated.
A crane rotated above them.
Its suspended container swung across the pier.
Aizawa saw the shadow.
“Down!” The container tore through a stack of empty pallets and struck the gangway.
Metal folded.
The boat lurched against its moorings.
Inside the cabin, Izuku’s bloodied shirt remained on the evidence sheet.
Aizawa looked towards it.
Rampart moved.
One step towards the boat.
Aizawa’s gaze snapped back to him.
The barriers remained erased.
Rampart smiled.
“There it is again.” Aizawa’s cloth wrapped around a front-line fighter and threw him into two others.
“Anger choosing your direction.” “Midnight,” Aizawa said.
“Tracker assessment.” She scanned the feeds.
“Seven possible sensory types.
Three likely decoys.
Narrow man beside blue container continues watching the river.” Threadhound moved towards that group.
Two fighters immediately crossed his path.
Protection.
“Control, reaction confirms interest.” “Do not overcommit,” Midnight said.
A ranged attacker released a burst of bright white light.
Aizawa shut one eye reflexively.
The other remained open.
Rampart’s Quirk flickered.
A partial barrier formed beside Threadhound and struck his shoulder.
He spun across the dock.
Hushline caught him within her field.
“Threadhound hit.” “I’m moving.” His voice came through clenched teeth.
Aizawa’s exposed eye watered violently.
The flash attacker released another burst.
Kuroda fired towards the roof.
The shooter ducked.
A second emitter launched a stream of stinging smoke.
Eye irritant.
Prepared specifically for Aizawa.
He pulled his goggles into place, but the smoke entered around the edges.
Every blink returned Rampart’s barriers.
Every second of Erasure exposed Aizawa to the rest of the organisation.
The machine was built around forcing a choice that had no correct answer.
Midnight watched the timer.
00:30:47 “Red Lead, retreat route east is still open.” Aizawa looked towards the narrow passage between containers.
The route appeared clear.
Too clear.
“Hushline?” “Sound void ahead.
Someone may be suppressing movement.” “Trap,” Aizawa said.
He redirected the team west.
A barrier appeared the instant he blinked, sealing the western route.
Rampart stood at the centre of the dock, watching.
He did not need to attack.
He shaped where everyone else could stand.
Aizawa erased him again.
The barrier disappeared.
Kuroda dragged the trapped officer through the opening.
Front-line fighters rushed to close it physically.
Hushline compressed her Quiet Field around Red Team, blocking the attackers’ shouted coordination.
Rampart’s people adapted with hand signals.
Prepared for that too.
A masked woman raised two fingers.
The ranged group shifted fire towards Hushline.
A sonic pulse struck her field.
Silence fractured with a thunderclap.
Hushline stumbled, blood appearing beneath one ear.
Her Quirk collapsed.
Sound returned all at once.
Shouts.
Gunfire.
Metal twisting.
The timer’s faint electronic beep.
Rampart’s voice.
“Thirty minutes.” Midnight’s hand went to the All Might figure.
Nezu caught the movement.
“Do not look at the clock.” “I have to.” “You must monitor it.
You do not have to live inside it.” “He is.” “Izuku needs your decisions, not your panic.” Midnight turned towards the feeds.
“Hushline, reduce field radius.
Protect the officers only.” “Understood.” “Threadhound, status?” “Shoulder damaged.
Functional.” “Do not chase the narrow man alone.” “He’s protected.” “Which is why you do not chase him alone.” Aizawa struck another fighter and advanced towards Rampart.
Midnight saw it.
“Shouta, stop.” Rampart retreated two measured steps.
Aizawa followed.
“Red Lead, tracker is north.
Rampart is pulling you south.” “I see him.” “You’re following him.” “He knows where Izuku is.” “So does the tracker.” Rampart heard only Aizawa’s side of the exchange.
It was enough.
“He is choosing between me and the boy,” he called to his organisation.
“Make certain he chooses poorly.” The defensive ring closed.
Four fighters moved between Aizawa and Rampart.
One emitted flexible bands from his palms.
Another carried mirrored shields designed to reflect Aizawa’s gaze.
A third released bursts of dust from pores along his arms.
Aizawa attacked anyway.
His capture weapon caught the first fighter’s ankle.
He pulled, vaulted over the collapsing body and kicked the mirrored shield aside.
The dust user fired.
Aizawa turned his face, losing sight of Rampart for half a second.
Three barriers appeared.
One beneath Aizawa’s feet.
One behind him.
One above.
They closed like the jaws of a trap.
Hushline extended her reduced field around him, muffling the snap of the barriers but unable to stop them.
Aizawa rolled between the narrowing planes before they sealed.
His shoulder struck the ground.
Rampart looked towards the timer.
00:28:52 “Every second you spend reaching for me belongs to the child.” Aizawa rose.
His eyes found Rampart again.
The barriers vanished.
Midnight’s voice hit his earpiece.
“Refocus.” “He is in front of me.” “Izuku isn’t.” The sentence stopped him.
Midnight gripped the microphone.
“I know what it feels like to keep reaching for the person hurting him while he disappears somewhere else.” Her voice broke.
“Do not repeat my mistake.” At U.A., Mitsuki looked at her.
Midnight did not look away from the feeds.
Aizawa turned towards the tracker screen.
The narrow man had moved.
He now stood among eight people wearing similar dark coats.
Clothing layers altered.
Masks exchanged.
Positions changing constantly.
Threadhound studied them from behind a forklift.
“They’re transferring something.” “What?” Midnight asked.
“Small metal tags.
Passing hand to hand.” Decoys.
Resonance markers.
Perhaps any person carrying one could pretend to sense the coffin.
Rampart had designed a shell game inside a battle.
Threadhound touched the ground.
Fibres.
Footwear traces.
Salt.
Fuel.
A sweet chemical scent.
He followed the pattern towards a shorter figure near the rear of the group.
That figure had not touched a tag.
The others made space around him without appearing to.
“Possible,” Threadhound whispered.
Two attackers moved towards his hiding place.
They had noticed his attention.
Midnight saw them.
“Threadhound, move.” He rolled aside as a blade cut through the forklift’s tyre.
Compressed air hissed.
The attacker followed.
Threadhound caught a sleeve between two fingers, twisted and sent the man over his hip.
The second struck his injured shoulder.
Pain flashed white.
Threadhound fell.
The short figure disappeared behind the container line.
“Lost visual,” Midnight said.
“Not lost.” Threadhound pushed himself upright.
“Grey wool fibre.
Marine salt.
Same residue as the boat’s cabin.” “On the possible tracker?” “Yes.” “Confidence?” “Forty per cent.” Not enough.
The oxygen clock fell through twenty-eight minutes.
Rampart’s organisation kept moving.
Front-line fighters pressed Kuroda’s officers towards the water.
The ranged group targeted Hushline.
Dock controllers lowered crane hooks into escape routes.
The tracker screen changed masks and coats.
Rampart remained almost untouched.
Red Team fought intelligently.
It did not matter.
Five people could not control sixty directions.
Kuroda arrested one fighter.
Two more replaced him.
Hushline concealed one retreat.
A barrier exposed another.
Threadhound identified one suspect.
Three decoys drew his attention.
Aizawa erased Rampart.
Every other Quirk became free to overwhelm them.
The body-camera feeds separated as barriers reappeared.
Aizawa saw Hushline vanish behind a translucent wall.
Kuroda and one officer disappeared behind another.
Threadhound’s camera struck the ground.
Midnight’s screen divided into isolated pockets.
Red Team had stopped being a team.
Rampart looked towards Aizawa across the broken dock.
The timer beside him displayed: 00:26:41 “You are running out of people,” Rampart said.
Aizawa’s eyes burned.
Rampart smiled.
“And he is running out of air.” At UA Midnight placed the oxygen timer on the largest monitor.
Not because she wanted to see it.
Because hiding it would not slow it.
00:26:33 Nezu divided the remaining screens into tasks.
Dock battle.
Harbour records.
Vessel routes.
Suspect faces.
Ocean currents.
All Might’s standby line.
“Eight objectives,” he said.
Midnight’s hands moved across the console.
“Tracker.
Vessel.
Route.
Distance.
Drift.
Reinforcements.
Red Team.
Rescue asset.” “Correct.” Mitsuki stared at the calculations growing across one screen.
“This is too slow.” Nezu did not look towards her.
“Then assist without interrupting.” Her face hardened.
“How?” “Masaru, take the harbour departure list.
Mark every vessel recorded leaving between the hospital abduction and Rampart’s appearance.
Mitsuki, compare company names against the shell-company documents from Chapter Seven’s investigation.” Mitsuki pulled the pages towards herself.
She did not thank him.
She began reading.
Masaru moved Katsuki’s chair away from the most violent body-camera feed.
Katsuki dragged it back towards Midnight.
“I’m staying.” “You don’t need to see this,” Masaru said.
“Deku does.” The answer stopped him.
Midnight glanced towards Katsuki.
He looked at the timer.
“What happens at zero?” She could have let Nezu answer again.
She chose not to.
“He will not have enough air to breathe.” “Then make more.” Her throat tightened.
“We need to find him first.” “Why can’t the water people make air?” “What water people?” “Heroes.” Midnight looked towards Nezu.
He was already calculating.
Katsuki’s childish demand stayed with her.
Make more air.
The impossible instruction became another reason not to stop.
Midnight returned to the enemy feeds.
“The tracker will be protected differently from the fighters.” Tsukauchi listened from Green Team’s moving vehicle while national investigators searched databases.
“Define differently.” “Not obviously.
Everyone knows we are looking.” She enlarged four suspects.
“The tracker may be kept away from heavy combat.
Someone else may carry their equipment.
Fighters may rotate around them without maintaining a fixed guard.” She marked the short figure Threadhound identified.
“Possible tracker avoids attacking.
Two people have taken hits while moving into his path.” A second suspect appeared near the water.
A woman with pale eyes who repeatedly turned towards the river even when attacks came from elsewhere.
A third remained aboard a hidden launch.
A fourth had attempted to leave during the first minute of the fight.
“Cross-reference these faces,” Midnight said.
Tsukauchi’s team worked.
The short figure matched no criminal record.
The pale-eyed woman was a former port surveyor named Minae Koseki.
Registered Quirk: Depth Chime, the ability to sense vibrations travelling through water.
Mitsuki pointed towards her image.
“That’s it.” Tsukauchi shook his head.
“Possibly.” “She senses through water.” “Rampart may have selected her because the registration makes her an obvious decoy.” Midnight studied Koseki’s movements.
The woman fought openly now, launching compressed pulses through puddles across the dock.
Combat Quirk.
Useful, but not necessarily the tracker.
“Mark her amber, not red,” Midnight said.
Katsuki looked towards the colour coding.
“Amber means maybe.” “Yes.” “Everything is maybe.” Midnight’s hand touched the All Might figure.
“Until it isn’t.” Tsukauchi identified the man attempting to leave.
Former sidekick.
Registered Quirk: Compass Bone, an internal sense of magnetic north.
Not enough to track a unique metal object.
The person aboard the launch had no registered Quirk.
That made him more suspicious, not less.
“Facial match uncertain,” Tsukauchi said.
“Possible missing dockworker.
Possible identity replacement.” Midnight marked him.
Nezu worked on the vessel route.
The boat used to transport the coffin had departed without navigation tracking, but disabling a system left evidence of its last transmission.
Tsukauchi’s maritime contact found the final automatic identification ping.
Seven minutes outside the harbour mouth.
After that, nothing.
Nezu drew a widening cone across the ocean map.
“Estimated speed between twelve and twenty-four knots.” “Why such a large range?” Mitsuki asked.
“Unknown vessel type, cargo weight and sea conditions.” Masaru looked up from the departure list.
“Three vessels left within the window without complete arrival records.” He passed the page to Nezu.
A fishing trawler.
A maintenance launch.
A private medical transport vessel.
Mitsuki found the medical vessel’s parent company.
“Legal filings handled by the same firm as Eastgate Civic Renewal.” Nezu circled it.
“Strong candidate.” “Route?” “No recorded destination.” Mitsuki struck the table.
“Of course.” Nezu calculated maximum distance.
The possible search zone expanded.
Twenty nautical miles.
Then thirty.
Currents widened it further.
A metal container would sink almost vertically at first, then shift depending upon depth, shape and seabed conditions.
Ordinary divers could not search it all.
Patrol boats could not reach each possible drop zone before the timer expired.
Midnight looked towards the numbers.
00:22:54 “We need the tracker.” “Yes,” Nezu said.
“And the fastest rescue asset.” “Yes.” She understood.
“All Might.” “Soon.” “Now.” “We need a target.” “We need him moving.” Nezu looked towards her.
“Once he begins, he cannot remain hidden.” “We are beyond hidden.” “Not until Rampart commits every force.” Midnight’s voice cracked.
“Izuku does not have time for your perfect moment.” Nezu’s expression did not change.
“I am not waiting for perfection.
I am ensuring All Might arrives where his strength changes the outcome rather than merely becoming another signal.” At the docks, Hushline’s camera spun.
A barrier struck her into a stack of pallets.
The feed vanished.
Midnight stopped breathing.
“Hushline?” No response.
The screen showed static.
“Hushline!” Nezu placed one paw on another monitor.
“Use Kuroda’s camera.” “I lost her.” “You lost the feed.” “Same thing.” “No.” His voice sharpened.
“Next camera.” Midnight’s hand hovered.
The timer fell.
She switched to Kuroda.
His camera showed Hushline moving weakly behind a broken pallet stack.
Alive.
Midnight’s shoulders collapsed for one second.
Then she opened the channel.
“Hushline alive.
Kuroda, pull her east.” “Copy.” Nezu looked towards her.
“The dark screen was not reality.” “I know.” “Say it.” Midnight swallowed.
“The dark screen was not reality.” “Again.” “I have work.” “Then work.” She did.
Green Team changed route towards the harbour.
Scentinel and Dr Kagawa transferred into a national maritime response vehicle.
Gold Team deployed Ectoplasm’s clones from two separate vans.
Blue Team’s estimated arrival dropped beneath four minutes.
Tsukauchi continued identifying suspects.
One man inside the tracker screen refused to fight.
Tall.
Nervous.
Protected by three people who kept changing jackets with him.
No official record.
No visible equipment.
Threadhound’s report had not mentioned him.
Midnight marked him red.
“The tracker may not possess a registered Quirk.” “Or may be legally dead,” Tsukauchi said.
He searched missing-person records.
A possible match appeared.
Taro Shima.
A former salvage diver missing for six years.
Registered Quirk: Ferric Echo.
The ability to sense iron-based objects previously marked by his own touch, even across significant distances.
Everyone in the control room went still.
Photograph quality was poor.
The missing man had been younger, heavier and without the scar now crossing the suspect’s face.
Similarity estimate: sixty-three per cent.
Midnight enlarged the dock feed.
The suspect stood behind two armoured fighters.
His hands remained gloved.
He had not attacked.
Several people kept him away from the water’s edge and away from Aizawa.
“Threadhound,” Midnight said.
“Possible tracker, western container lane.
Tall man, facial scar, gloves.
Do not approach directly.” Threadhound’s breathing sounded ragged.
“I see him.” “Confirm vessel residue if possible.” “I’ll try.” Nezu looked at the oxygen timer.
00:19:48 Ordinary rescue remained impossible without a confirmed location.
He took the secure telephone.
All Might answered before the first ring completed.
“Toshinori.
The contingency is active.” A pause.
“Location?” Nezu gave him the docks.
“Go.” The call ended.
U.A.’s isolated tracking receiver detected the emergency signal All Might carried for the operation.
The point began moving.
Fast.
Across central Musutafu.
Over buildings.
Towards the river.
Katsuki leaned towards the screen.
“All Might’s coming.” “Yes,” Midnight said.
“Then he’ll win.” Midnight watched Eraser Head surrounded by Rampart’s army.
She watched the timer.
She watched the possible tracker retreat between containers.
“All Might can win the fight,” she said.
Her hand closed around the small plastic figure.
“We still have to find Izuku.”